Animus: Quest for a Brave Heart

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling earns her credit. This is hers, scene manipulation is mine.

'The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise.' -- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.

...

5: Fanning the Flames

I am out in the light, and the light is black. I look up: an oracle sun, a juxtaposed solar eclipse of the moon and sun. It burns me, fuels me, my photosynthesis constant.

I am out in the light and the light shows a lake. Not the Black Lake, not the lake near my small, suburban home in Greater London, not the Burrow's shallow pools. It is deep and dark and foreign, and inside it is my mother and my father, and they are drowning. They have forgotten how to swim and all they do is thrash below the surface of the water, yelling for help. My help. I must save my parents, my loves.

But as I motion to move, I cannot. I look down: shackles on my feet, a deep, haunting black of hard and unforgiving iron. Frantically, I pull at it, my every thought to help my parents to quell my fear that they might die. But I am scared. It is my fright that holds me captive, not the ball and chain. My cowardice, my lack of bravery, erupts into voice-fright. I cry out to them: 'Oh, Mum! Oh, Dad! I'm so sorry I'm not brave!'

Then there is Oliver. Then there is a voice, and it is his voice, and he asks of me, 'How could I love a coward like you?'

I stare helplessly, crying, 'I'm sorry! I'm sorry!' to my parents as I cut into the skin of my ankle, pulling at the chain with all my might. My ankle loses all feeling and I bleed. He saves them while I watch, and they embrace him like a son, walking paradoxically dry along the shore. I pull more and more, trying to follow their bravery, fruitlessly, in vain, until I faint from the exertion and fall to the ground.

Darkness enshrouds me,

I open my eyes: black, then faint moonlight.

I am walking down a corridor. It is dark outside and darker inside. There is only one window that shows a thin crescent moon and cloud covered stars, and I have already passed it. My footfalls are eerily silent. I look down; I am wearing red socks. I do not own red socks. I own white, navy blue and black socks because regulation demands it, and why have socks only for the weekend? But suddenly I think to myself, why am I focusing on socks? I clench my fists in thought, only to find that I am carrying a candle in one hand and a box of matches in the other, and I look down at them in the heavy darkness, perplexed. The confusion terrifies me.

I feel my way up the sleeve of my muggle pyjamas with the matches clutched tight. The pockets of the pants are empty too. I do not have my wand and momentarily miss its reassuring presence. Where is my wand? Why am I in an unknown, very dark corridor without a wand? Still walking, only slower as my confusion deepens, I realise that I do not really need a wand: this is Hogwarts, safest place in Britain, safer than Gringotts and more protected than Azkaban, its Headmaster feared by the Minister of Magic, feared by Voldemort, protecting us from Umbridge and the Ministry. I should not be scared, I realise, but I strike the match and light the candle anyway. I am not afraid of the dark, but what could use darkness to its advantage. Be brave, be brave, I tell myself and try to find a clue by shining the light toward the portraits of wizards and knights that line the corridors. The frames are empty; the protective mages and knights are gone with nothing to replace them. Maybe this is not Hogwarts after all.

There are no doors adjoining to this corridor, not so far. I consciously speed up my walking, the weak light of my single candle bobbing along in front. What does this mean? Where is everyone? Where is reality?

The questions drape themselves around me. I want answers to questions that I am not even sure are the right ones. The right answers to the wrong questions, or the right questions to the wrong answers? Are they even supposed to be asked? I wish for a hand to hold mine because I feel so alone and confused in this darkness with a fast waning light. Loneliness is not something that abundance in knowledge, a reliable memory or a sharp tongue can cure or fix and it was never something I have been able to fight because being able at everything academically means failing at everything else spectacularly. Now, as a result, I do not know how to fight off something I cannot see and the remedy is not something that can be looked up in a textbook. I am sixteen and lost in something infinite. I am sixteen and a practical coward.

The elusive problem wants an elusive solution; where does it end? Is that the right question; a question of beginnings and their respective conclusions? Are questions an answer? If I am me, I am very confused. This is a situation I cannot analyse. I want to scream myself hoarse, for help, for Hogwarts, for anyone.

Suddenly, a noise echoes from behind me, a thrumming sound of ahhhhh! It is too soft, too far away, but it is getting louder and closer. I wave the candle around wildly, searching for the answers with its dancing shadows and flickering flame, flattening myself against an empty canvas in hope to imprint myself within and escape the repeating voice that is too jumbled for my frightened senses. It sounds of danger and that danger beats down upon me. Then it is silent.

There is nothing but the soft heat of the flame and the coolness of the painting against my back and the night air whispering across my skin. I cannot feel anything else but these and my warm, red pyjamas. I can feel nothing.

But I can feel something. It is on my other hand from behind, the one holding the matches, enclosed upon my wrist, like a thick bracelet or a snake. I jump, but they hold tight, they pull. Fingers: I look down in an unnatural slow motion to trail my eyes up from the bitten-down nails to the rather short fingers and large palm. The wrist is passed, the arm covered in a blue sleeve and the sleeve attached to the shoulder of a hooded jumper, and there is a moment where I am focusing on the neck, very aware that this person is distinctly male by the thoughts of quick passion that slither their way into my mind, where I am too hesitant to continue raising my eyes. But I must because time is slowly speeding up and my moments of exploration are running out and I remember that I was previously scared – alone – in the dark. I bypass the strong jaw and slightly red, slightly pink lips to take notice of a faintly inquisitive nose. It is only when I reach the deep, brown eyes – black tea with a dash of milk – and long, brown fringe falling into their wild depths that I realise I have always associated flight with Oliver Wood.

Time resumes and I am suddenly in the present with him. Oliver tugs at my wrist, his quiet and urgent voice snapping me out of a daze. 'Hermione,' he breaths, and I am glad I am me. 'Umbridge is coming. I stalled her so far but we've got to move, right now!'

'Where can we hide?' I whisper in reply, confused as to where the words are coming from. 'I don't know where I am.'

'I do. Come on, run!' Oliver pulls me along, taking my hand. It tingles and sends shivers up my arm. We rush forward into the impending darkness, the bobbing, wildly flickering and persistent candle revealing only a metre ahead before there is a brown door to the right of the never ending corridor. We hurtle through, falling into shelves and buckets on the floor and I crash into Oliver like a carriage to an engine in an explosive train wreck. He holds his hands on my shoulders and leans against the shelves, taking the brunt of the impact to his back. 'Okay?' he asks as we stand upright. I nod, feeling light-headed by how near he is and take a step back, but find I cannot backtrack more than that step.

'We're in a broom cupboard,' I say. I suddenly remember that I am in my pyjamas and my hair must look like brambles. I turn slightly to close the door and fold an arm across my chest and feel worse when I turn back to him. A nervous knot forms in my stomach as Oliver reaches over and takes the candle, a brush of fingers that sends shivers down my spine. He raises his eyebrows, locks his eyes with mine and his breath falls across my face, flying through the air as he blows the flame away. The darkness swallows the light.

Despite my bouts of bravery, despite me being very much aware of the fact that I am not alone, I begin to wring my hands and pant out quick breaths in a fear of not knowing what is around me. My senses work by a tenfold. I can hear his level breathing. I can feel my pounding heart. I cannot see him shift but I am aware that he has, of his own inhalation as he fumbles for my hands and brings them up to the back of his neck. Oliver steps forward, my body closer to his and his to mine so much that I can feel his deep breaths on my face and smell the sporty cologne that I always thought he would wear.

For some reason, I do not question these actions or whether Umbridge really is coming and this is just a ploy of seduction. Neither do I wonder if he has a wand to cast a disillusionment charm or hold a defence. It slips my mind to ask what he was doing in the corridor too. In this instance, I am content with not knowing the answers and realise that this, which should be too much, is not nearly enough.

I lean forward as well, taking a hand from the back of his neck and slowly find my way around his face. Throat, chin, jaw and mouth. Lips: my fingers trace their curve with feather light touches as his hand tracks up my arm to find my own and the other grips my hips and drags me closer. His fingers leave tingles, like the embers of fire, rushing across my shivering lips. The darkness makes this teasing exploration so alluring, bewitching and captivating that the foreplay seems to go on forever before we are an inch away. I lick my lips in anticipation.

Testing and trying, he brushes soft, slightly chapped lips against mine for less than a second before we meet. Hands are on my cheeks, soft fingers caressing my temples and winding their way into my hair. Suddenly we are seeking each other as my hands tangle into his short, thick hair and he pulls me flush against his stocky body. My blood is oil on fire, my head is reeling and I cannot think straight at all. I only briefly realise that a first, third, tenth kiss in the depths of the library, pressed hard against the shelves by Viktor Krum was nothing compared to this feeling of pure bliss and elation that consumes me. Viktor has nothing on the man with pure determination and focus that makes me moan and go weak at the knees.

Oliver sees me as something to centre his passion on now and I have no objections whatsoever to his devouring lust. He presses me against the wooden door rather than the shelves which would have dug into my back. His mouth leaves mine and returns at my neck, pushing my ruffled, bed-head of hair out of the way and I have lost myself completely. Moans and half escaped yelps as he bites my sensitive skin roughly are something that I never thought could slip out my throat. They seem too foreign, only made for romance novels, not non-fiction bookworms such as I. Oliver caresses my thigh and I arch my back and neck, bite swollen lips to keep from crying out.

My taste, touch and hearing are all on overdrive. My senses are on fire. I am addicted to his impossible, compelling and fierce emotional capacity that is driving me insane. Even if I were to open my heavy lidded eyes, it would be the same, because there would still be only he and I. If the light had survived, it would not matter. In the darkness, he lifts me up against the door and I taste his lips once more and wrap my legs around him and think about never letting go. Light has no place. Sight is not needed.

This is better than my constant fantasies. My hand travels under his jumper, my lips move with his. This is better than a dream.

'It's time to rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty!'

His cool skin and hot kisses instantly fall away and I consider murdering whoever has woken me up as I find I cannot fall with them. The bed hangings are drawn and a sharp wand-light floods onto my face.

'Leave now if you wish to live,' I threaten. The drumming pulse of my dream-self's desire is pooling in my legs, and all I want to do is attend to it before the images flood away. But the twins are relentless and they would tease me forever if they knew the dirty truth. I reluctantly let it slide, biting my lip and choking on a trailing groan.

I do not want to open my eyes so much that I loathe the thought of light and reality. Desperately, I throw my extra pillow in the direction of the voice. There is an absent thud. Damn, I curse, damn.

They whistle. 'Ooh. Someone's grumpy.'

Suddenly, I am very cold as my covers disappear and I curl up instantly, whining into my pillow, 'Go away, you prats.'

'Intelligent too.' I crack open an eye at their bright, blurry forms bent over my bed, eyes peering at me. Just as I catch sight of my comforter on the floor one of them starts to speak. 'Hermione, you promised you'd help us with our merchandise production. And you will help us, otherwise we'll yell very, very loudly.'

I consider this. Helping the twins, ultimately sacrificing no more than two hours of sleep, or letting them wake up the biggest gossipers in the castle, sacrificing a lifetime. Definitely a hard choice.

'Fine,' I grumble. 'Just put that light out. Do not wake up Lavender.' Lavender is, amazingly, still snoring and mumbling little cries. Maybe she dreams of a lover too.

They take the comforter out with them as they laugh quietly and I grab my wand from the top of my dresser. I think about sabotaging their pranks from here on as my shaky legs take me stumbling out the door. I shut it quietly behind me and take each step slowly with my eyes half shut. I try desperately to recall the dream. I still feel weak at the knees.

They are waiting at the bottom of the stairs for me. Everything is too bright and they are much too chirpy. I stop. 'What time is it?'

'Midnight.'

'Right,' I say, turning around, 'I am going back to bed.' But I do not make it back, not even close. One twin grabs me around the waist and spins me around and around until I am just about to scream before he drops me on the rug. I pause in shock and cry, 'Why? Why are you doing this to me? Why torture me so?'

'To wake you up. Seemed to have worked, didn't it George?'

Now I notice their jumpers are gold with blue letters this time, recently knitted, but I ignore them, walk past, and snatch the comforter out of their grasp, muttering, 'I'm not even going to ask how you got up there.' I wrap it around my shoulders and wrestle the door open, pad across the carpet of the common room and collapse on the lounge facing the fire. I briefly notice their products and an empty cauldron spread out on the coffee table.

They sit down to my left. 'But you want to know, don't you?'

'Yes,' I admit slowly, turning on my side and propping my head up on the arm.

'Another staircase to the left,' says Fred.

'Just before the door, behind the tapestry of the lioness,' clarifies George.

'The Marauder's Map?'

They beam ecstatically. 'Of course!'

'I thought so.!' I yawn, holding my hand, over my mouth, and clutch a pillow to my stomach. I shut my eyes: his desire hinted in his gaze, the candle he holds extinguished but not the one in my heart.

'Right, so, which "problem" first?' George unnecessarily asks. I know which problem they want to talk about. The two share a look that I do not like and Fred, sitting beside him, looks at me, grinning widely.

'So, what happened in the library? Anything juicy?'

I groan into the pillow.

'Oh it was that good was it?'

'I'm sure she was a bundle of nerves.' I raise my head in indignation. My retort has no place in this one sided conversation, and I settle for staring at them.

'Though, he didn't look too flash when he came back,' Fred continues. 'You did give him a book, didn't you?'

'Of course she did. Saw him carrying it, in fact, probably reading it right now. Hermione, we know you would never let him leave without one.' They grin.

'But of course those are traits that he likes about you,' Fred says.

'Focus,'

'Determination,'

'Passion,'

'And definitely logic.'

'Not to mention intelligence,'

'Defiance,'

'An unusual amount of good luck,'

'Beauty,'

'And who can forget your extreme magical talent?'

'Basically, he thinks you're fantastic. And we're going to help him tell that to you—'

'—and you to him—'

'—and in return you're going to help with this most troublesome antidote.' They clasp their hands together and lean forward eagerly.

I scoff. 'I'm sure he does not think that,' I stress and look around the room. Crookshanks appears out of nowhere and jumps onto my lap, purring contently. I scratch his ears and return their unblinking stares. 'Does he really?'

'Yes,' they chorus immediately. Now I am completely awake.

'We abducted him on his way back when we saw the book. Pushed all his buttons,' George explains. 'Cracked before we were through, too, started gushing about you.' Nodding slowly, I shift on the squashy lounge. 'The jealousy problem is solved now, too.' They reach forward and pat my knees. 'Hermione, darling, it just wouldn't work out.' I glower at them and their theatrics, and Crookshanks, who usually is quite affectionate toward the two, growls.

'Nice kitty,' Fred adds, holding his hands up in mock innocence.

George reaches over and pats the Kneazle's head tentatively, continuing, 'Your problem's confidence..'

I stare at them, blink – see the dream-figure branding me with his gaze – and say, 'All right, what have we got here?'

Fred and George roll their eyes at the deliberate change of subject. 'Down to business. Those,' Fred points to a pile of purple sweets, 'are Nosebleed Nougats.'

George picks one up and asks hopefully, 'Want a demonstration?' I glare at him and he tosses it back. 'Didn't think so. The aim's to find out an antidote to the Nougats, otherwise the consumer's gonna bleed to death. We really should have given one of these to Ron. Maybe we can slip one in his cereal tomorrow…'

'Not that I approve of that,' I scold, 'but I doubt Ron will be eating anything tomorrow. Do any Quidditch players eat before a game?'

Fred shakes his head, 'We're supposed to, but it's the nerves. Do you eat before an exam? Not really, huh? Bet you got that little piece of info from Oliver's Hogwarts days.'

I wriggle, falling deeper within the comforters embrace. 'I might have. Now, the antidote needs...'

I stay with the twins until well past two o'clock, locating charms and potions that might work and brainstorming with them while the fire started to die.

Smiling sleepily when we are done, I lean back against the lounge, just about ready to fall into Oliver's arms again, and murmur, 'Thanks Fred and George.' Fred and George for once do not look like they have never-ending bundles of energy. They actually seem tired, leaning against one another and staring off into space. Just as sleepily, they nod their own thanks. I get up, pushing the pile of heavy books to one side. 'If you two play admirably during tomorrow's game,' I propose, slowly folding the comforter around my shoulders to cover my blue pyjamas, 'I'll bend the rules a bit. We'll have a party like never before.' I call Crookshanks over. 'There may even be dancing.'

George raises his head from Fred's shoulder, who is asleep with his head lolling back against the lounge, and smiles warmly. In a hushed, almost surprised voice, George whispers, 'Dancing? Well then… it's a sure thing, innit?'

-x-x-x-

Comments are appreciated. Thank you for reading.

-AA-