Violet
I still don't own anything (T_T) makes me want to cry :p
"Have you ever been locked in a pitch black room without knowing where the exit was? You can feel your way across the floor with your feet and your arms floundering in front of you, searching for the closest wall or unseen obstacle, or you can just end up crawling around on your hands and knees because it seems easier to feel your way around than when walking upright and hitting your knees on the corner of a coffee or side table.
"Then, all of a sudden, there is a dim light ahead of you and you throw all caution to the wind and just run towards your freedom, the light, before it fades or disappears," Sirius explained his dark adventure of falling behind the Veil while rocking his Godson in his arms. "I just simply followed the light," he joked weakly, everyone listening to him in silence.
"It is great to have you back cousin," Narcissa wiped away her happy tears and leant over Harry to brush her cousin's cheek with a kiss. Sirius grinned at her and winked at Lucius.
"Still as beautiful as ever Cissy," he purred.
"As weak as he is he still finds the energy to flirt," Severus hissed under his breath.
"Snive-" Sirius began but was interrupted.
"As wonderful as this reunion is," Ambry politely interjected Sirius's intended insult with a with a soft voice, "I believe Jareth and me have to deal with this breach of security."
"What breach?" Harry asked, snapping to attention. "My Godfather is not a security risk and he is a member of the Order."
"Be that as it may," Jareth said lightly, not wanting to insult or alarm the young man, "Sirius Black has breached the highest level of security and protocol needs to be followed."
"But-" Harry started.
"I cannot make exceptions for your Godfather otherwise I would have to make exceptions for any other person who may breach the castle's security in the future, and they may or may not be a threat to us," Jareth respectfully explained.
"It's alright Harry," Sirius said while prying his Godson's arms from his person as gently as he could.
"Can the questioning wait?" Harry asked. "He needs rest and food," he pointed out.
"Healer Zete?" Jareth asked.
"I have given the patient a wizard's Restorative potion and an Invigoration Draught," the goblin healer said. "The patient should be fine for half an hour. I strongly suggest bed rest for at least three days and three meals a day until he regains a healthy amount of weight. For at least two days, I want him drinking broth for his meals, so as not to upset his stomach, and then I want him to eat porridge for at least three. After that, he can start on light meals, nothing too heavy, mind you, or else he will suffer very severe stomach cramps. If that happens he will need to be readmitted to the infirmary because his stomach will start bleeding internally so I suggest the patient strictly follows my instructions."
O.o.O.o
"It has officially started," Ambry said to her companion while looking over the Labyrinth from the tallest tower of her brother's castle. "I would ask how you knew I was here, but I am going to assume you followed me rather than having Seen me here." Her companion smirked.
"When do you suppose he will start feeling it?" Her companion asked.
"I can only guess," Ambry frowned. The other Seer sighed.
"We will have to keep a very close eye on him." He muttered under his breath after that statement, and Ambry had to strain her ears to hear. "You find the most relaxing places to organise your thoughts," he said after a few moments.
"Well we are soul mates," Ambry said with a smile while enjoying the view of the setting sun. "Have you Seen him?" She asked quietly. He smiled softly and she held her breath at the sight.
"I am just grateful he will not inherit that," he answered. Ambry looked up at her companion and moved closer to him. He took his turn in holding his breath.
"I like that feature the most," she said softly before pulling his head down. "He and my nephew-to-be are-"
"Practice?" He smirked. She smiled before pressing her lips softly against his.
"It will be much more than practice," Ambry pointed out. "Are you sure you want this? This is your last chance to back out," she said while biting her lower lip.
"Tease," he quietly groaned. "I want this," he reassured her. "More than anything."
O.o.O.o
A desktop covered in parchment made her want to go crazy with her organisational skills. She should have declined her position but her predecessor was adamant that she take over to delay what seemed to be inevitable, as long as she could. She quietly made inquiries, as quietly as she could keep it, into the activities of certain parties. That should have taken up a small corner of her desktop.
She smirked at the mess.
At least she had a 'solid' excuse for her setbacks in signing certain important documents. The complaints from citizens and higher employees were spilling over from her personal secretary's desk, onto hers, which 'postponed' those urgent documents because they were currently 'lost'.
...Actually, they were near the left side of her desk buried under a few high profile cases she had to sit in on…
She picked up a memo lying atop the atrocity she had let her desk become and had to remember to breathe as she continued to read the document. She stumbled across her office to the cheval mirror the goblins had gifted her upon her appointment to her position.
"Jareth," she called and waited. "Jareth!" She said vehemently.
"Minister Bones," the Fae king answered, his reflection showing in the mirror in place of her reflection. "I take it by the urgency in your tone this in an emergency," he stated.
"The Head of Defence has initiated a few strategies to capture you. They all include luring you out of the Underground, but the most important one is-"
"I am being called," Jareth interrupted.
"It's a trap!" The Amelia Bones shrieked before he could cut off their connection. Jareth paused then nodded and motioned for her to continue. "They mean to capture you by having a child or a few children wished away. However many they need to successfully apprehend you."
"Rest assured I shall not be detained easily," Jareth answered. "Is there anything else?"
"I have to sign an official declaration of war by Eleven pm in two days time," she answered.
"Thank you," he said before his reflection started fading. "Good day Minister," she heard and was then looking at her own reflection.
O.o.O.o
"What are you doing Jareth?" Hermione asked softly as she watched him pace in front of the fireplace in his study. He looked up with a frown.
"I am waiting on a report," he answered. "Two actually," he corrected himself.
"You look worried," she observed. He nodded.
"What is your opinion on marriage?" He asked after a few moments of silence, which Hermione used to contemplate on how to ask her own question. Hermione did a double take at his.
"Well I am not opposed against the institution," she answered, completely forgetting her previous train of thought. He chuckled.
"This is hard to say because our relationship is still new," he said more to himself than her. Hermione patiently waited for him to clarify his statement. "Please listen before becoming upset," he finally said.
"Alright," Hermione agreed.
"The reason my mother has come to visit is because of our situation," he said.
"Our situation," she said flatly. Jareth stopped pacing and took her hands in his.
"Please," he said quietly. Hermione took a deep breath and gave him a nod to continue. "I want to explain this to you because I know you will become upset when my mother tries to be diplomatic when she explains," he explained.
"I am going to give you everything flat out," Jareth said, and waited for Hermione's understanding. "Our situation goes against almost every tradition my family has held since the beginning of our reign," he said quietly.
"Please be more enlightening," Hermione said.
Jareth paused and answered, "I know you hold a more modern view of relationships and marriage. My traditions, my family and our kingdom's traditions, are more antiquated."
"Ah," Hermione said. "No sexual pursuits before conjugal relations. If a man takes a woman before then he must do the honourable thing and make her his wife."
"Yes," Jareth said. "There is also our child," he said quietly while looking at her stomach with awe. Hermione smiled softly at him.
"I understand," she answered.
"Do you?" He asked.
"It is like most pureblood relations," she said. "Except even their traditions are a little more relaxed."
"Just a bit," Jareth said. Hermione took a deep breath.
"I take it our child cannot be born out of wedlock?" She asked. "And the situation has to be rectified before I start showing?"
"Are you not upset?" He asked.
"I was when I read the book Ambry said was important I read," Hermione admitted. Jareth's eyebrow rose.
"What book was this my sweetling?" He asked. Hermione smiled at his endearment.
"The Kings Essential Vade Mecum to Courting Rituals and Matrimony," she answered. "It did take a while for me to accept that your traditions are more stringent than pureblood courting rituals."
"Is there anything you do not agree with?" Jareth inquired. Hermione gave him a rueful smile.
"I am muggle-born," Hermione stated. "Just about everything that you would have had to do by courting me-"
"Has not been in practise for decades," he finished. Hermione nodded.
"The fact that we had-"
"Have," Jareth interjected with a smirk. Hermione blushed at his heated gaze.
"Er, y-yes...what was I going to say?" She stuttered.
"The fact that we have intimate relations bespeaks that we must marry," he finished her sentence. "Is this all right with you?" He asked apprehensively. He dreaded her answer if it were to be negative. Everything he wanted with Sarah, but found with Hermione, depended on her reply. He found the witch to be more alluring than Sarah had ever been...more beautiful. They had easy conversations, thought-provoking debates...and he found he stood to lose more with this woman than he lost to Sarah.
"In my previous relationship," Hermione began quietly, "I found myself suffocating. Ronald wanted me to quit my job and become a mother all day, everyday. He would go home and expect a hot dinner to be waiting for him at the table, a hot breakfast in the mornings, for me to be there waiting on him hand and foot as his mother does for his father.
"I mean nothing against Arthur," she said quickly. "I love him like a father, but Molly can be quite overbearing. Even Arthur has become exasperated on occasions with her. Now that, that relationship has had a chance to cool down I find that I made myself believe that every little problem would be solved with marriage to him.
"What I am trying to say is that I have experienced lax courting rituals...if one can even call it courting," she said the last part under her breath. "That is what brought us together and I find that, although I am not fine with archaic courting rituals, I want you," she confessed. Jareth's breath hitched with her admission.
"I find our conversations stimulating, we both learn from each other and we have both changed our opinions on certain subjects with the other's forthcoming knowledge. I did not have that with Ronald and I have that with you. I don't have to sit around all day and wait on you, but I sometimes find myself wanting to though I am sure there is plenty to do around here that would require my knowledge and skills."
"There are never-ending tasks that would require your comprehension and expertise," Jareth smiled. "Not what colour you would like our chambers to be painted, but we would both be an equal deciding factor in everything that goes on in my kingdom...soon to be our kingdom I hope."
"Since we have gone about our relationship the modern way," Hermione laughed and got down on one knee.
"What are you doing?" Jareth asked, alarmed with her actions.
"Jareth, you are quickly becoming my world. You have given me the chance to have a family again, not a family made of friends, but a family of blood," she said with tears. "With you I can have the future I want with a man I think I love," she confessed. "Please Jareth, will you marry me?"
"Did you finish that book?" Jareth asked while gently pulling her to her feet.
"Yes," Hermione answered with a nod.
"Then you know my answer must be no," Jareth answered. Hermione shrugged.
"It was worth a try," she chuckled. "We did go about things the modern way, after all." Jareth smirked at that.
"Now," Jareth said, going down on one knee, "this is how it is to be done." Hermione rolled her eyes, but smiled all the same.
"Hermione," he began, "I have waited years for someone who would be ill suited for me to be my wife. What I took for a broken heart was disguised obsession. Then I met you and you sent my world spinning. You have shown me what I can have and I want it, not with anyone else but you, my sweetling. You say you think you love me, Hermione, but I already know I love you. I love our child that is growing inside you.
"I know if you were to refuse me I would die of that broken heart, my love. Once a Fae has given away his heart and their love is disregarded-"
"You die," Hermione breathed.
"Yes," Jareth confirmed. "You stole my heart, sweetling. I do not mind at all because I like the future you offer me Hermione. I beg of you my love, please allow us to be bonded for eternity, please say you will marry me and stay with me forever."
"Yes," Hermione answered, already pulling Jareth up to kiss his lips and Jareth pulling Hermione down to kiss hers.
O.o.
"It seems we have a wedding to arrange," Catalina said softly to a smiling Narcissa while making sure to close her son's study doors quietly.
"Hermione loves purple, a deep purple, almost black," Narcissa began on all things Hermione would like or dislike.
O.o.O.o
Arthur Weasley sat quietly in his sitting room thinking about where his life led him. He loved his family with all his heart. He loved that his children had grown up to become good standing citizens of the world they lived in.
He just did not know where he went wrong with his youngest son.
Why would his wife encourage their son to take the actions he did? Did he miss some change that was important in his marriage? He loved his wife very much, but what cue had he missed that changed her course in their relationship?
Sure, Molly could be domineering at times in their relationship, he was happy to release a few of his reins to her. It helped relieve his stressful days when he came home exhausted from a long day at work. But when had she become the main influence in Ron's life? Why had she taken it upon herself to turn Ron against everything a Weasley stood for?
Everything was upside down in his life.
He longed for the peaceful days before he sent his youngest son off to Hogwarts. Those were the happy times when his family was one. When they acted as one. Everything, everyone was scattered.
When had his family become scattered?
My apologies for the really really long time it took me to add the chapter I had finished ages ago plus the new chapter I finished writing yesterday...
Anyway, I had a really busy term and hopefully my life will settle down after the Holidays, which reminds me, to wish you all a Happy Christmas and New Year! And Happy Holidays to those who may not celebrate Christmas, but another holiday. Have fun and stay safe this holiday season!
...and please pardon any errors...I promise to fix any that catch my notice later...