Chapter Five: After Hours
disclaimer: Anything you recongize isn't mine. Please don't sue me. I'm poor. Seriously, I work at a kid's pizza party place.
AN: I'm not very happy with this chapter. I wanted to make a picture&plot, but it turned into picture and plot. I don't know if that makes sense.
If you want to get the full picture of where this chapter came from. They're all on YouTube.
LISTEN TO
We Are Scientists - After Hours
Chairlift -Bruises
Franz Ferdinand - Luicd Dreams
By the way: A few people have asked if they could be my beta. Please send me your email if you're interested and I'll contact you. Thank you.
The scrubbed wooden table was strewn with black and white photographs, and papers detailing the everyday instances of their lives. Crumpled on the floor wedged beneath a chair was the file folder, having fallen off the table when the coffee was brought out.
Hermione glanced at the ticking clock; 2:33am. It had been a long night indeed. Gin's head was slumped on the table her hair glowing orange from the dieing overhead light in the kitchen.
"Well?" She directed her question to the top of Ginny's head.
"That's a deep subject" was the muffled reply. Hermione couldn't muster a laugh. The choice they were presented with was too great.
"We have to help." Hermione had decided.
Gin didn't lift her head. She shook it back and forth rocking her forehead across the tabel top. She felt oddly violated, he had been watching them the entire time. Photos from the folder were whirling chaocticlly in her mind. Black and white snap shots of of them at the diner, her fights, Hermiones dancing. Them just sitting in her apartment eating take out or them at the park feeding ducks.
Photos that were just days old.
"If he's researched his next course of acton as well as he researched us, we should have no problem." Hermione's voice floated over her.
Lifting her head from the table she looked at Hermione and knew that talking to her tonight would be a bad idea. The look in Hermione's eyes already told her what she wanted to do. The determination in them, Hermione could see them already; busting in on Voldemort wands blazing, savoirs of the magical world.
A world Ginny thought she'd left behind. A world she wanted to leave behind.
"I'm going on a run." Gin said turning away from the photos, the detailed notes, Hermione's determined face.
"What-now?" Hermione asked incredulous.
"Yes...I need to think." She turned and went towards the bedroom. She returned moments later running gear on Brooks trainers in her hands. She laced them up, avoiding Hermione's questioning look.
"When will you be back?" She asked, eyes on the back of Gin's grey hoodie.
"I don't know...in and hour or so." She answered doing the left shoe.
"Are we going to talk about this?" The was some silence. Ginny went to Hermione's side.
"Yes. We are. I just...need to think." She placed a feather light kiss on her forehead and left. H
ermione stared at the empty apartment. It was a mess. The greasy pizza box that still contain a quarter of their favorite pineapple, olive, and three cheese pizza sat on the counter next to the sink, along with about a weeks worth of dishes.
She started cleaning. It was natural for Ginny to want her space, her room to think. It was a lot to take in. She knew that Gin wouldn't like the idea of being followed, of someone trying to get into her head. Tom Riddles diary hadn't disappered with just the prink of a fang.
As far as Hermione was concearned they had to help. She couldn't live with being personally responsible for the the destruction of the entire world. She had to at least try. What if Gin didn't want to try...what if...they-
Hermione dropped the plate she was putting away.
Would she want to save the world if she had to live in it without Ginny?
No. The answer was a resounding No.
As Hermione came to this revelation. Ginny burst through the door. It had been barely twenty minuets. Hermione had make a small amount of progress on the kitchen; the pizza had been stored in the fridge in nifty glass containers; the clean dishes almost put away.
It's amazing what get's done when wandering minds are set forth to clean.
"You're back!" Hermione stared at Ginny, sweaty, red-faced, and still breathing hard.
"Why is there a plate on the floor?" The dish was, fortunately, not broken, ikea sure knew what they were doing.
"Oh that. Listen I just-" Hermione started. "
No, I've decided that we should do it. I mean, I don't want to, but I know that you have to help Harry and that I can't live without you, and it is, you know, the right thing to do. I just wish that we weren't constantly being dragged into war and death. I just -"
Her hurried words were cut off. "I feel the same way! We really should help Harry and the world at large, but if you won't do, I won't do it because-"
"I can't lose you."
The words were spoken simutanously but at different candences. Hermiones rushed and fervid; of worry.
Gin's of sorrow, of loss, and that bitter sweet moment when you realize that you're fighting from the same perspective.
"You know, we could still die, either of us." Gin whispered.
"Yes, but we will die anyway, if he's not stopped." She replied.
"Alright. We're in then." They met in the middle of the kitchen, in a peticularly awkward spot between a chair and the oven.
They kissed. The kiss was beautiful.
The next morning was a windy, overcast, yet not raining Sunday. And they did what they usually did on Sundays. They went to the massive public library. It was what Hermione called a mini-tradition, Hermione was a big fan of mini-traditons. She secreatly loved planning things and then them actually happening.
This led her to create many mini-traditions, including taco-tuesdays, movie night always being the second thursday of each month, and how they always had a dinner party on the first. The dinner party tonight was going to be quite interesting.
They were hosting at Ginny's and there were going to be a number of people. Some of Ginny's friends from work , Arnie and some of his pals, Jeanie, and perhaps Gin's neighbor, a fiesty tatooed barista named Lisa. Hermione was quite excited. But she wasn't going to break a mini-traditon now just becasue it would give her more time to work on her other mini-traditon.
In the library on the second floor non-fiction section, the boxing/marital arts section was, very conveintly, right across from the modern poetry section. This is where they spent much of their late Sunday mornings.
Slumped between shelves, their backs pressed agaisnt eachother's; each in their own worlds. The muted light fliter through the high windows, the only sounds were hushed whispers, the flipping of musty worn pages, the ocassional repressed cough.
Gin looked through the aikido books, carefully filing away techniques, like 教, nikyō a pronating wristlock that torques the arm and applies painful nerve pressure. Akikido: to control agression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace. Gin liked that, she wanted to be able to beat someone in a fight without giving them so much as a scratch. The joys of fighting without the scars.
Hermione's new obsession with modern poetry had prompted her to pull out several poetry books. They lay open on the ground in front of her, taunting her, making her guess and question their meaning, they were inspirational and sorrowful. She had pulled several books on ballet as well, she looked at the glossy pictures of gracefully contorted bodies. In her lap sat her notebook, her hand gliding across the page as she wrote a new routine; new ideas blooming forth from broken sentences and outdated photographs.
But as all things do, their time in the library came to an end. The bells of the church sounded, not far away, but that was their signal to pack up and leave. They went down the winding stair case out of the glass lobby and on to the sparkly glass side walk. Arms linked they walked down the block and to the left, to their favorite local grocery store.
The Kiva wasn't a typical store, it offered mostly locally grown and organic food, which Hermione and oddly Arnie were parital to. In one corner of the store their was a small book section as well, that Ginny would ocassionally get side tracked in while Hermione shopped.
This particular Sunday however Ginny pushed the cart while Hermione danced around picking different things off the shelves and put them in the cart. It was fun for Hermione to dance, and Gin found it amusing to watch.
After paying a ridiclous amount of money for food, Hermione went back to Gin's to cook while Gin went to train.
"And don't get home to late! You'll want to shower before people start arriving." Hermione chastised, in a darling michevious tone.
With a swift kiss. "Yes dear."
The dinner party was is half-swing. Arnie and his buds had been the first to arrive, Arnie bringing a strange vegetable salad saying "Why if you eat this every day you'll live to be as old as all of us put together!" Gesturing to the other old men at his side.
Tony, the bouncer from the club and dear friend of Hermione's had arrived. Italian in culture he brought and bottle of fancy wine from Italy. Then proceeded to ask when the beautiful "single" women would arrive, or would his "talents" be wasted this evening?
Abby a gorgeous, gothic, overly happy ballet dancer arrived with her adorably awkward and nerdy boyfriend Jeff. Their decandant chocolate dessert was placed in the refrigerator to keep cool until after dinner.
Draco showed up only slightly before Lisa and her boyfriend walked in.
Everyone was milling around when unexpected events arose. All because of Lisa's boyfriend.
"Hi, Hermione, Gin sorry we're late this is-" She gestured to the tall, black, dreadlocked man who had just shut the door behind him. But when they saw his face, there was a moment of double take.
"Lee!?!" Hermione shouted. Imediately silencing the room.
"Hermione! Ginny! What are you-" Lee's deep voice began.
"Doing here?" Ginny finished giving Lee Jordan, long lost friend, pratically a triplet to the twins, a hug.
"You know eachother?" Lisa asked realitively confused.
"Yeah, we used to go to school together." Hermione started.
"And I spent more than one summer and Ginny's house, best friends with her older brothers."
Abby's boyfriend spoke up then. "I know Lee too." Jeff said.
Lee whipped his head around.
"Jeff? Dude, why are you here?" Lee asked.
"Because of me! I'm friends with Hermione!" Abby's many metal bracelets clinked together with her enthusisum.
The rest of the party seemed very confused. "Jeff and I work together, we're computer programmers."
Hermione stood on a chair.
"Does anyone else someone how know someone and because of some bizzare twist of fate was brought here?"
Everyone laughed. Even Draco.
And the party continued. Outside the widow whirl of camera could be heared. Forever capturing the moment in black and white.
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