Finally, I managed to update! I was starting to think I would have never had my computer back - apparently, the technician hadn't been clear on which Monday he would have handed it back, so I got it only seven days ago, right in time for school to begin. Anyway, between tons of History, Literature, Chemistry and Philosophy and an awful cold - how lucky am I, getting sick after only three days of school, huh? - I managed to write the new chapter - it's much longer than my standards, a little attempt to make amend for my epic delay in updating it. :D
We are coming close to the end of the story - I think three more chapters, and I'll be able to write the word The End at the bottom of the page. Anyway, sorry again for the delay, and enjoy the reading! :)
JJ
Chapter 14: Of Art Tests and Old Friends, Shouting Matches and Fading Memories
Hermione's POV:
"Wow, just another hour and we are out!" I sighed, adjusting my bag on my shoulder and walking out of our Trigonometry classroom.
Ron grinned, wrapping his right arm around my waist as we headed down the corridor towards the North Tower for the last Art class of the term – thanking God; I couldn't have stood Professor Trelawney more than that single hour without freaking out.
"Hey, my bad influence is starting to rub off on you! When have you ever been happy to stay away from school for two whole weeks?" he asked, a gleam in his eyes as he looked down at me.
I shoved him playfully, and he just held me tighter against his side, chuckling as we started to climb the tight spiral of the staircase to the tower.
"It's no bad influence," I said, smiling, as my hand reached up instinctively to touch the heart-shaped pendant hung at my neck; I hadn't taken it off once since he gave it to me, a month before. "I'm just happy to be free for a while. And besides, my friend Lavender will arrive tomorrow from Seattle; I haven't seen her since I left in November, and I'm really looking forward to spend some time with her."
"You know, I'm curious to meet her; you always talk about her a lot," Ron uttered as we slipped into the already full classroom, taking our usual seats in the very back of the room.
"She's been my best friend my whole life," I said with a small shrug. "It's almost like she's another sister or something like that."
Professor Trelawney cleared her throat pretty loudly in that very same moment, and the whole classroom looked up in surprise: she usually got on with her lectures – if they could even be considered like that – without caring about whether or not we paid attention to her; why did she suddenly want us to listen to her?
"As this is our last lesson before Easter, I thought it would have been nice to have a little test," she said dreamily; Harry, from the desk parallel to mine, widened his eyes and hissed A what? so loudly that Dean and Seamus, sitting in the front, sniggered.
"What kind of test are we supposed to do?" I whispered to Ron as he stared at the professor with a half-amused, half- incredulous look on his face. "Spray a canvas with paint and tell her that it represent our internal torment so that she's all warm and fuzzy with us?"
He chuckled , shaking his head as the Professor took a thick pile of drawings out of her bag and passed them around so that everyone of us had a different one in front.
"Now, I want you to look at the drawings focusing only with your Eye – and then tell me what you see in them. I want to understand whom, among you, are worthy of taking on the course for the last term."
"You guessed close," Ron muttered as he turned his drawing this way and that, cocking his head to the side. "I wonder what this is…A…cross? No, maybe it's a sword…I've never taken a more stupid test!"
I watched doubtfully as the Professor walked among the desks, stopping by each of us to talk.
"And yours, dear…what does it look like?" she asked after maybe half an hour of wandering, stopping by Harry's desk.
Harry seemed to think about it for a moment; then he answered lightly: "Surely the Grim, Professor."
I bit in my lip hard to restrain from laughing out loud: Professor Trelawney was obsessed with obscure presages, and she always predicted Harry's painful, imminent death; her favourite one was the Grim, some kind of ghost dog which haunted cemeteries, and Harry found the thing extremely amusing, shamelessly naming it anytime the Professor was around – and always getting top marks doing so.
Professor Trelawney nodded, tracing the black doodles on Harry's paper with her scrawny fingers.
"That's right, dear, that's right. Well, it seems that your Eye is still unfogged – I will be pleased to see you in my class at the end of the holidays."
I scoffed, and she turned, focusing her huge insect-like eyes on me.
"What about you, dear? What do you see in these lines?"
I looked down at the drawing on my desk: it was completely white, except for some large dark red dots in the centre. It just looked like someone had dropped red ink on it by mistake.
A waste of paper, I thought, looking up at the professor again; what was I supposed to see in it?
"Red dots on a white paper sheet," I said flatly, drumming my fingers on the desktop.
Professor Trelawney sighed deeply, shaking her head in a very dramatic way.
"My dear…You know, I noticed it on the very same day you walked in my class for the first time – your Eye is closed shut. Your mind is narrow, hopelessly Mundane; it isn't able to see behind appearance. I think you should maybe consider another course for the next term –"
I looked at her in shock: was she kicking me out?
No way!
"Fine!" I said, getting on my feet, stuffing the book back in my bag and throwing it over my shoulder. She wasn't kicking me out; it was me who was quitting that stupid, useless subject.
"Fine!" I repeated as I walked across the classroom, opened the door and walked out, closing it behind me without turning back. I stood there for a moment, my heart drumming in my chest as I thought about what I had just done: I had just quitted a course, and almost shouted to a teacher – the old Hermione Granger would have never done something like that back in Seattle, only six months before.
I smiled widely at the thought, and I sat down on the first step of the spiralling staircase, pulling out a book from my bag and waiting for the bell to ring.
Ron's POV:
I couldn't believe my eyes as I watched Hermione gather up her things and walk out, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright with anger at the Professor's words. What the hell did it mean, her mind was Mundane? It sounded like an insult – it made me think of shallow, giggling girls like Hadley, whose biggest worry was if the shade of lipstick they had put on went well with the colour of their uniforms.
"What a pity," Professor Trelawney said meanwhile. "A girl so young, with a heart shrivelled as the one of an old maid…Ah, dear, her soul is dry as the parchment of the pages of an old book…"
I fisted my hands at her words, feeling my ears go red with anger: she knew nothing of Hermione's soul – so kind and brave and beautiful, shimmering of every colour of the world – how could she talk like that about her?
"It's your turn, dear," the professor said, leaning over my shoulder and pointing at the drawing in front of me. "What do you see? Tell me…"
I scowled at her, looking down for only a fraction of second – I had made up my mind.
"I see something that resembles the pictures my sister used to draw when she was two years old," I said earnestly, grabbing my bag and walking out just as the bell rang, leaving that poor excuse for a teacher inside the classroom gawking at me.
She was sitting on the staircase, reading, and she hadn't seen me – knowing her, she was probably so absorbed in the pages she hadn't even heard the bell. I looked at her, taking in her tousled hair, falling partly over her shoulder in a mane of dark ringlets, the way she was sitting, with a hand supporting the book and the other twirling her hair absentmindedly, the look in her eyes, focused and almost raptured as they flew on the page.
I sat down beside her, and only then she looked up, smiling.
"How did your test go?" she asked me, placing a piece of paper in the book to mark the page before putting it back in her bag. It was a battered copy of Romeo and Juliet – I knew she loved Shakespeare, and, knowing her, she had probably already read it a dozen times.
I shrugged, taking her hand and placing a soft kiss on her skin.
"I didn't pass," I said, standing and pulling her up with me. "I told her that the drawing she gave me looked like one of the doodles Ginny used to make when she was a toddler."
She laughed, pressing her hand to her mouth to stifle it.
"What – you didn't! You made her kick you out, too!" she exclaimed, her eyes bright. I nodded, and we descended the stairs together, still holding hands.
"Oh, I did," I replied, grinning. "I couldn't stand another minute of that woman. And besides," I felt my ears go warm as I spoke, "The only interesting thing of Art disappeared in the moment you closed the classroom door behind you."
She blushed, and I felt my heart do several backflips when I saw that shy, beautiful smile I loved tilting her lips up. I stopped by the corner, pulled her close and kissed those lips, unable to resist; she closed her eyes for a moment and leaned into me, placing a hand on my chest.
"What was that for?" she asked in a whisper when we pulled apart a few seconds later.
Because I love you, I thought as I tucked a stray curl back into its place behind her ear. How I wished I could tell her so much…
"Because you are beautiful," I whispered instead, placing another light kiss on her lips. "And brilliant…And wonderful in everything you do," I said between kisses, as she blushed darker with every word I spoke.
She smiled, shaking her head with an amused look on her face, and pulled me close once more, standing on her tiptoes to kiss me full on the mouth, taking my breath away.
"What was that for?" I asked, bewildered, when we parted. She smirked, taking my right hand – my left arm was still in the plaster – and lacing her fingers with mine.
"Because you are yourself."
Hermione's POV:
The next morning we all woke up early, as though it was another school day; the atmosphere was different, though, and the happiness and expectation were so dense they were almost touchable.
"It's today, it's today!" Emma squealed every ten seconds, bouncing back and forth from her room to mine as she got dressed, a huge grin on her face. She had done nothing but talking about Tommy for two weeks, and she was overly cheerful at the thought of having her best friend at her house for ten whole days – which included her birthday, the following week.
"I know it's today," I told her, smiling, as I bent to smooth her frizzy hair down. Lavender and Tommy's flight would have arrived at noon at Heathrow Airport, and we were getting ready to go there and pick them up – I still couldn't believe Aunt Elspeth had volunteered to drive to London and back to get them, when Lavender's parents were more than willing to let their kids get to a town near Ottery St Catchpole with a train from King's Cross.
"They don't know London, and God knows where they could end up on their own!" she had said when she had talked on the phone with Mrs Brown the previous week, closing the argument.
So there we were, dressed in comfortable jeans and hoodies, having a quick breakfast with a cup of tea and a buttered toast, not even bothering to sit down at the kitchen table while we ate.
At eight o'clock we climbed in Aunt Elspeth's car, and we left, leaving the town behind in a matter of minutes. The first time we took that journey we were in the car with the crazy social assistant, Elizabeth, and at the time we were both way too scared from the speed at the girl was driving to enjoy the view; with Aunt Elspeth, instead, we had the possibility of looking around, and man, it was worth it.
Around us everything was colourful: both sides of the road were flanked by huge fields of bright red poppies, pale violet lavender and blue and yellow flowers which transformed the country in a giant rainbow, and the effect, adding the pale blue, cloudless sky above, was breath-taking.
It took us two hours and a half to get to the city, and before we reached the airport and found our way to gate seven, where the flight from Seattle was supposed to arrive, it was half past eleven, and Emma was looking more and more like one of those bobbing puppets people keeps on their cars' dashboards.
Aunt Elspeth sat down on a chair nearby, but I preferred to stay on my feet and follow Emma around as she paced restlessly – I didn't want to risk losing her in the crowd gathered around the gate's exit.
Time tickled by – quarter to noon, noon, quarter past twelve.
"How come they are not here yet?" Emma asked at twenty past twelve, grabbing my sleeve and looking up at me questioningly with her blue eyes.
"Maybe the flight is late," I said with a small shrug, caressing her ruffled head. "And remember that they have to get their luggage first."
Just then people started to walk through the gate doors, and I smiled instinctively, standing on my tiptoes to look over the crowd, looking for a tousled blondish head.
"Tommy!" Emma squealed suddenly, smiling widely and running forward, hugging tightly a little blonde boy with round glasses. Man, he had grown up a lot since I had last seen him!
His sister came right behind him, dragging a suitcase behind her, and we both squealed loudly when we saw each other, running forward and crashing in the middle, hugging and shrieking like mad, jumping up and down. People around us laughed, but I didn't care: I had missed her a lot!
"God, I can't believe that we are really here!" Lavender said, just at the same moment as I exclaimed: "God, I can't believe that you are really here!"
We exchanged an amused look and started laughing.
She hadn't changed the littlest bit – always an inch or so taller than me and slightly chubby, always wearing lots of bracelets on both wrists and colourful, eccentric hairbands to hold her tousled waist-length dirty blonde hair.
"Mione, your legs!" she cried suddenly, pressing a hand to her mouth, when she realized that I wasn't using crutches anymore.
"Yep, I'm me again!" I exclaimed, feeling wonderfully happy. I was pretty sure those moments were among the best ten of my life – which included Emma's birth, the Christmas Eve celebration at the Weasleys', my wonderful first date on January and the last St Valentine's day (and most of which, if I thought about it, I had lived since I came to England).
"You have to tell me so much! And your boyfriend – I want to know everything!" she squealed, hugging me again as I laughed at her exuberance.
"Come on," I told her as Emma and Tommy walked to us, talking quietly and quickly in a conspiracy tone. "I'll introduce you to my Aunt."
We ate some sandwiches sitting in front of a huge window which gave onto the runways, and then we walked back to our car – there was so much to talk about, so many things we hadn't been able to tell each other through the emails, that I suspected we would have talked non-stop until night.
It took lots of pushing and patience to stuff the suitcase and two backpacks in the luggage compartment, but eventually we did it, and we climbed inside, Emma and Tommy in the back while Lavender and I squeezed up in the long front seat.
We spent the whole time chatting – how things were in my old school in Seattle, how her parents were, what we were planning to do during those ten days, which, we already knew, would have passed way too quickly for our taste – and the return trip seemed much shorter than the previous one.
"Oh my God, you really live here?" Lavender asked, goggling at the old brick house as Aunt Elspeth parked in the lawn.
I grinned, helping her with her luggage, and led her inside and upstairs – Lavender would have slept on a camping mattress in my room, just like she used to do when we were kids and she spent the night at my house, and we were both happy at the idea of sharing the same bedroom once again.
"You room is wonderful! I'm going to talk Mom and Dad into renewing mine, I want something alike too!" she said, smiling, as we left her suitcase at the foot of my bed.
I grinned wider and linked my arm through hers, steering her back in the living room and then out in the yard, showing her the hills and huge spaces around.
"Cool! I thought places like this existed only in pictures, you know," she said with a chuckle.
I smiled, turning my head to look behind my shoulder: it was true, that day the old house, bathed in the warm spring sun and with the perfect blue sky and the gentle green slopes of the hills in the background, really looked like something just came out of an eighteenth century painting. The thing was, despite the reason why I had to go to England in the first place, I had never been happier before. That place really felt like home, much more than our old apartment in Seattle.
"I am happy here," I said softly, holding my hand out to include our surroundings in one gesture. "Have you ever felt a peace like this?" I asked her, as a gentle gust of cool wind ruffled my hair, blowing a few curls in front of my eyes.
Lavender shook her head, her eyes looking almost in awe at the breath-taking landscape around us.
"It is as though time flows differently here. There are no threats, no dangers; I can let Emma go to the park with her school friends without feeling worried, and I can walk home in the dark without being scared of something bad happening to me. For the first time in my life, I'm…free," I uttered, inhaling deeply before turning back and walking up the slope, towards the house.
Lavender followed me up, but said nothing the whole way up.
Ron's POV:
That day, when I woke up, the sun was already high in the sky, and everything around me – the golden light coming from outside, the smell of eggs and coffee coming from downstairs, the loud laughs and voices of my family downstairs – felt wonderfully like holiday.
I dressed up in no hurry, enjoying just having time to waste, and I went down in the kitchen, where my whole family was already sitting and having breakfast.
"Morning," I said, grinning and dropping in my usual chair beside Ginny.
"Good morning to you, sleepyhead," Ginny said, grinning back and pushing a plate of eggs and bacon towards me. "Your timing is perfect; I was just about to come upstairs and check on you to see if you were alive."
I bumped her with my shoulder and started to eat, smiling the whole way through it.
"Aww, is Ickle Ronniekins happy this morning?" Fred asked, elbowing George and smirking at me.
"Tell me, is by chance involved a pretty girl with bushy hair we all know well?"
I totally ignored their comments, along with the small smiles my mother and father exchanged at the Twins' words; bloody hell, did Fred and George really have to talk about it in front of our parents? They never teased Ginny, and she spent every free moment with Harry!
"I'm done," Ginny said in that moment, smiling and standing up, placing her plate in the sink on her way out. "I'm meeting with Harry and Luna at the Three Broomsticks – anyone wants to join?"
"I'm in," I said immediately, just as the Twins raised their hands up as well to volunteer. I had nothing to do – it was only a quarter past eleven, and I knew Hermione wouldn't have been home at least until four in the afternoon – so, between moping around the fields for hours (it was incredible, how I suddenly found myself without anything to do when she wasn't around; it was as though the centre of my world had shifted, and it now revolved around her) and spending the morning with the others, the choice was obvious.
We ate the rest of our breakfast quickly, grabbed our jackets and squeezed up in the Twin's old car, heading into town. When we got to the Three Broomsticks, though, we didn't find only Harry and Luna sitting at our usual table.
It was as though half the school had suddenly decided to meet there – Parvati Patil, Neville, Dean and Seamus, the Creevey brothers, and Angelina, Katie and Alicia from the football team, plus a quantity of other students from fifth year above, among whom I recognized Padma (Parvati's twin) and Cho Chang (who was in her last year like Fred and George) from Ravenclaw, and Ernie MacMillan and Hannah Abbott from Hufflepuff.
"Is there some kind of meeting I forgot about?" Ginny asked as she plopped down next to Harry; everyone squeezed a bit to make room for the rest of us, and we sat down as well around the four tables Madam Rosmerta had put together to fit the small crowd.
"Oh, we kind of met on our way here," Luna said, smiling and shrugging. "I came here with Neville, and we met Cho, Padma and Parvati walking around, and Hannah with her friends near Florian's, so they joined us."
"And I brought along the team, plus Colin and Dennis," Harry added lightly, grinning at me.
"Hey, only Hermione's missing," Parvati said, looking around with the air of a teacher counting the students' heads during a trip. "How come she's not here?" she then asked me – everyone knew that it wasn't easy to find us apart.
"She's in London," Ginny answered for me, leaning over Harry to look at the girl. "A friend of her is coming from America to stay at her place during the holidays, and she went to pick her up at the airport."
"Cool!" Padma joined in, grinning. "I'm curious to meet her; I think I heard Hermione talking about this girl a few weeks ago at lunch."
"Well, why don't we all drop by her house later then? We could say hi, and I bet she would be incredibly amused to see us all - I mean, how many of us are there? Twenty-something, right? She will have a good laugh seeing us all wandering around like some kind of large nomad tribe!" Neville said, grinning and leaning over on his elbows.
"I think it's a good idea," Hannah uttered with a smile – I knew she and Hermione got on pretty well; she had once told me that they always shared the same desk during Botanic.
"Who else is in?" Neville asked; my hand raised almost of its own accord, and others followed my lead, until we all had agreed unanimously.
"She should be back around four," I said, grinning and joining the plan more than happily. Neville was right, Hermione would have probably been surprised to see all of us – in a good way. "How about we all meet back here at four thirty and head to her house together? On bikes or foot, it's mandatory – cars won't be allowed in the march," I added, with great despair from the farthest end of the table, where Angelina, Katie, Alicia, Cho and my brothers – the only ones who were of age already – sat.
"It's set, then," Luna said, absentmindedly twirling her long necklace – hung at which was some odd sort of pendant shaped like a large orange radish.
We split up then, and soon only our closest group remained, and we spent the rest of the morning sitting there chatting about the upcoming afternoon, laughing and feeling free and careless.
We went back home for lunch, and after Ginny gave Mum some help with the dishes we engaged a two-against-two football match for practice – since I was out of game for the rest of the year Gryffindor was one player under, and while Dean took my place as keeper, Ginny entered the team to fill the gap in attack. And man, she was a fury when she played, to the point that she alone had scored five goals during the previous week's match against Hufflepuff. I was starting to think Harry would have kicked out someone the next year so that she could enter the team permanently.
At four o'clock we grabbed our jackets, said a hasty goodbye to our parents and headed into town; it was no big deal for me travelling around with my bicycle, even with only one functioning arm – I just had to go slow, and I had no problems, even carrying Ginny on the saddle behind me – and the Twins were way too happy to retrieve the old, battered tandem that passed from our parents, to Bill and Charlie, and finally to them, until they were old enough to drive.
When we got in front of the Three Broomsticks the road was already packed, and it seemed as though almost everyone had arrived, in a way or the other: Harry, Neville and many others on bikes, like us, Luna, who was sitting on what looked like a bicycle – but which had the front wheel twice the normal size, strings of small bells hanging from the handlebars, and glittery silver and gold stars applied all over its midnight blue frame – and the whole Hufflepuff lot on foot.
"Are we late?" I asked Harry, carefully hitting the brakes single-handed to stop. Ginny jumped down immediately – she was apparently frightened about how precarious my balance was with only half of my usual control on the bike – to climb on the bike behind him, and Harry smiled, shaking his head.
"We are still waiting for the Creeveys – no, wait, there they are!" he said, pointing at a dark spot shooting at crazy speed down the road.
"Are we the last ones? Sorry!" Colin said, the wheels of his bike squealing loudly as he came to a sudden stop, almost unsaddling his brother, who was sitting behind him on the parcel carrier.
"No need to worry; it's us who were early. It's only four thirty-five," Harry said, smiling. "Now come on, it's a bit of a journey to the Grangers' house from here."
We left in a tight group, the ones of us who were on bikes going slow so that the ones on foot didn't have to run to keep up, and we made our way through the town, under the amused and sometimes bewildered eyes of the adults – I had to admit, we were quite the show, being so many and strolling down the main road as though we were on parade.
"You go first," Harry told me when we reached the last turn before Hermione's house. "You go there as it is nothing, talk to her, and then we come out at your signal."
I rolled my eyes; he had a thing for planning everything.
"How theatrical you are," I muttered, mocking him and grinning, before pedalling forward and emerging into the Grangers' lawn.
Little Emma was playing in the yard with a little blond boy I had never seen before, and she smiled when she saw me, waving happily before running into the house and calling for her sister on top of her lungs.
Hermione poked her head outside, and she smiled when she saw me, shaking her head.
"You are going to break your other arm too, if you go on using the bike with only one hand!" she called, laughing, as she descended the three steps that separated the door from the lawn and joined me.
I grinned, bending my head to steal a kiss from her lips, and she blushed, but kissed me back for a moment before pulling away as a blond head poked from the door.
"Oh, hi! You must be Mystery Boy!" the unknown girl called, skipping down the steps to join us.
The first thing I thought when I saw her was, Loud: she was dressed in a shocking pink hoodie, which matched the wide hairband that pulled her blondish hair back, and she was wearing a lot of makeup on her eyes. Everything in her seemed to be screaming, Look at me!
I looked at Hermione by her side – wearing a pale blue sweater and no makeup, her dark, gorgeous hair let down as always – and I couldn't help thinking that they were complete opposites – thanking God. If I had to be honest, this girl – Lavender, was that her name? – reminded me a little too much of Hadley and her lot, and I wasn't exactly sure whether that first impression was positive or not.
"I'm Lavender; Hermione's best friend," she introduced herself, smiling and holding out her hand; I noticed she had several rings on her fingers, and that her fingernails were painted bright orange. I shook it briefly, stiffly; there was something slightly off with that girl, and I wasn't sure what it was.
"I'm Ron," I said simply, drawing Hermione close with my good arm; that simple gesture would have made any further explanation superfluous.
"You know, I was really curious about you – I mean, Hermione never had a boyfriend before, it was as though she didn't even notice boys existed – and then she comes here and, poof!, she starts talking about you!" the girl blabbered at top-speed, and I frowned as Hermione blushed scarlet and looked down; the comment didn't sound nice to me at all.
"So, what brings you here? I wasn't expecting your visit, and I'm pretty curious about what could be behind it," Hermione said, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, looking extremely embarrassed and trying to change the subject.
I smiled, knowing that the others would have been able to cheer her up a bit.
"Oh, just passing by," I lied, eyeing the turn of the road, where a few heads were starting to poke out in curiosity. "Actually, some of us met this morning, and we decided it would have been nice to pay you a visit, and know this American friend we heard so much about."
"Are the others here, too?" Hermione asked, smiling a little. I laughed, nodding, and waved at the tousled jet-black hair poking from the side of the road.
Harry showed me the thumbs-up, and I heard him yell: "C'mon, folks!"
Hermione started to laugh when she saw the small crowd entering the lawn; her eyes were wide and bright as she waved at them all.
"How – you brought half the school!" she said, grinning up at me.
"Well, what can I say, we are a bunch of nosy people, you know that," I said, quickly kissing the tip of her nose and grinning at Harry and Neville as they passed by.
"My name's Harry," the first said grinning at Lavender. "One of Hermione's best friends."
"And I'm Neville," the other said proudly, with a huge grin. "Housemate and affectionate friend."
One by one, they introduced themselves, some of them directly, others just yelling their names from behind.
"I'm Hannah!" "Justin!" "Padma and Parvati, twins!" "I'm Dean, pleased to meet you!" "Hello, I'm Seamus!"
The girl was staring at us open-mouthed, nodding automatically as names and greetings rained on her from every spot.
"Don't mind them, they are crazy!" Hermione told her, still laughing.
"Yes, but you love us anyway!" Ginny objected happily, as she and Luna linked their arms through hers.
At that, I saw something shift in Lavender's eyes – was it rage? I wasn't sure, but I didn't like it – at all.
"We're her second family; how couldn't she love us?" Neville said meanwhile, wrapping his arm around Luna's shoulders. "After all, she's a bit crazy too, if she fits with us!"
"C'mon, folks, you are going to scare her this way!" Hermione said amusedly, holding a hand out to Lavender.
The girl took it, but her smile didn't reach her eyes, and I couldn't help wondering if she really was that great friend Hermione thought she was.
Hermione's POV:
I had to admit, after that afternoon things didn't go exactly well with Lavender.
She was grumpy and moody, and I started to feel annoyed by her odd behaviour; I found myself much less happy that I thought I would have been, once the excitement of re-joining had worn off.
The following days were nothing different – she was overly bossy and impatient, and so loud she made my ears hurt. I was used to the Twins' jokes and exuberant behaviour, but while what they did was funny, Lavender was a pain. I had to ask the others not to visit me, because she would complain endlessly about how I was supposed to spend my time with her, and I missed them terribly – Ron and Ginny especially.
It went on like that for five whole, endless days, until one evening, at dinner, while we were talking – actually she was talking, while I pretended to listen – she said something that caught my attention – in the worst of ways.
"…you have to admit, though, that those kids who visited you are quite strange; I mean, that girl with pale blond hair and blue eyes, what was her name, have you seen the awful earrings and necklace she was wearing, with those funny pendants? Man, she really looked weird! And the other, the redhead, with her worn out clothes and ripped jeans – she looked like her family is utterly penniless, didn't she? Both weirdoes, trust me with that…"
My fork clattered on my plate and fell on the floor, but I didn't care; who did she think she was, talking about Luna and Ginny, two of my best friends, like that?
"They are not! Luna is eccentric, but kind and honest, and they Weasleys might not be rich, but they are the best people I have ever met! You have no right of talking about them like that!" I exclaimed, feeling my cheeks blush as anger rose. Lavender and I had never argued, as long as I remembered, but her words were too much.
"Oh, yeah, your best friends? Good influence they have on you; look at you! They got you brain-washed; I thought I was your best friend! Since when do you yell like that at me, and disagree with everything I do? You didn't used to be like that!" she replied, a mean look in her eyes I had never seen before – not with me, at least. That was the unkind side of her that usually emerged with other girls, but never when I was around; I used to step over it, but that night it just made me even angrier than I already was. "And what about that accent you have developed? Now you talk like a goody-two-shoes little English schoolgirl! You are not yourself anymore!"
"I am, instead, now more than I have ever been before! I am alive, and I finally know where I stand! I grew up!"
"You have changed!" Lavender shrieked; I saw Aunt Elspeth shooing the children upstairs and hurrying behind them, not wanting to stand in the way – or, more probably, to give keep her eardrums from exploding because of our high-pitched screams.
"And it is the best thing I could ever do! I am happy now, and free, and I have a life! I am not the bookworm only useful for homework anymore; people consider me outside the school, and they like me for what I am!" I replied hotly, feeling tears well up in my eyes. She should have been happy to see me like that, to see that I had found my place there, but she wasn't. She looked…jealous. Like she didn't want me to be happy without her.
"I don't think so!" Lavender shrilled stubbornly, red patches of anger colouring her pale cheeks.
"Well, I'm sorry for you, but things are like this now! And if you don't like them, then it's better if we are not friends anymore, because this is who I am, and I have no intentions of going back to my old self, always shy and unsure and scared of living my life, just because you need someone to follow you around like a faithful little puppy!"
I stood, put my plate in the sink on my way out and climbed the steps to my room two at a time, slamming my door behind me.
I swallowed the hard lump in my throat, fighting back tears, and grabbed my cell phone; I needed to get out of there, or I would have gone insane.
There was a message from Ron which I hadn't read – the numbers on the display told me it was delivered only five minutes before, when I was too busy fighting with Lavender to hear the chiming bells of the ringtone.
I miss u.
I closed my eyes for a moment, resting my back against the door; then typed a quick reply.
Do u think u can come and pick me up?
I had to wait less than a minute for his reply; knowing him, he was waiting with his phone in hand.
I'll be yr place in 10 min.
Despite everything, a small smile tilted my lips upwards; I missed him so much, after five days without being able to see him, or even call him – we communicated only by messages, or Lavender would have started again with her you don't want to be with me bore.
I slid my phone in the pocket of my jeans and stomped out in the corridor, almost knocking aunt Elspeth down in the process.
"You are going out?" she asked me, worry plain on her face.
I nodded, taking a deep breath to calm myself. One, two, three…
"I need to clear my head," I muttered, trying to smile a little. "Don't worry. I'll just go for a walk – and Ron will be with me, I won't be alone."
She nodded understandingly, and gently patted my arm.
"Maybe your friendship can now work only when the two of you are separated," she told me softly. "It happens, when you grow up: people change, and suddenly they don't get on with each other anymore, because they've become too different. It's life, honey."
I smiled a teary smile and almost ran downstairs, carefully avoiding the kitchen where, I knew, Lavender was still fuming.
I grabbed my jacket, wrapped my rainbow-striped scarf around my neck and walked out in the slightly chilly air, sitting down onto the cold stone steps.
It was almost dark, and the sky was of a deep blue-violet colour at the horizon, some puffy clouds gathered here and there; apparently, the sunny weather was not to last long.
It wasn't long before I heard the squeak of the old bike's wheels, and then he was there, with his hair ruffled from the wind and a smile on his face. Always ready to help me and protect me, no matter what.
He let the bike fall on the ground beside him, and I ran straight into his arms, tears prickling my eyes and threatening to overflow.
"Hey, what happened?" he asked softly, wiping the salty drops from my face with his good hand, looking worried. I shook my head, pointing at the living room window, where Lavender was standing glaring at us.
"Not here," I pleaded, sniffling quietly. I couldn't break down where she could see me; I wouldn't have given her that satisfaction.
He nodded, jumping back on his bike and making room for me behind him; I wasn't afraid to fall anymore, so I climbed on and wrapped my arms around his waist as we took off in the fields behind the house, sliding down the gentle slope of the hill until we were in the middle of nowhere, far from the view of my house.
"What happened?" he asked again, wrapping his arms around me as we sat down onto the ground.
"She – that viper – I couldn't just stay there and listen to her anymore. She didn't want me to spend time with you because she was jealous, and she was so bossy and annoying, always whining if we didn't do what she wanted…And tonight she started to say horrible things about Luna and Ginny and the others, and I – I couldn't just listen to her anymore," I whispered into his jacket as he held me tightly, caressing my hair.
"We fought – she said that I had changed, that – that you brain-washed me, and that she was supposed to be my best friend…She was angry at me because I was happy, Ron, even when she wasn't around. She used to be my only friend back in Seattle, the only one I talked to, and I always followed her around, knowing that if I didn't do it I would have been completely alone – I told her that I had grown up, that I had learned to live…It was awful. We were screaming at each other…She isn't who I thought she was."
"I'm sorry," Ron murmured in my hair, smoothing my hair down. "I'm sorry for everything she told you. She's just a bitch," I smiled as I heard that, "And she doesn't deserve a thousandth of your friendship, or of your pain."
"I should have understood earlier, I think, from when she had started to make those comments the day she arrived here – when she saw you, and she started blabbering about how…scarce she thought my life was back in my old school; I felt mortified then," I muttered darkly, remembering how embarrassed I had felt as she said that in front of Ron.
He rubbed my back gently, nuzzling my cheek and pressing a light kiss there.
"You don't have to be ashamed of anything with me, you know that," he murmured as I tightened my arms around his middle, breathing in his familiar scent – of clean laundry, wood from the Burrow and freshly mowed grass. I loved it – it made me feel incredibly safe, like a small child tucked in bed. Ron pulled me closer, and I sighed as the sadness and pain faded away; I rested my head on his shoulder, feeling warm and protected in the circle of his arms as he slowly caressed my hair with his good hand.
"I know," I murmured; I trusted him with all my heart – a thing I never allowed myself to do before I met him, for I had always been scared to rely on someone that way. But I had changed so much, and if there was something I had learned in those last months, was that loving someone even for one day was worth any pain that might follow – for any suffering would have meant that I had lived, and felt, and given as much as I could. I had spent way too much time trying to shield myself from the world to do it anymore.
During the last few days – the last few weeks, actually – I had started to realize that there was more into what I felt for Ron than I thought: I looked at him when he couldn't see me – during classes, when he thought I was paying attention to the teacher – and studied him, noticing all those small things about him that made me smile with affection, causing my heart rate to go crazy.
It was how he ruffled his hair whenever he was embarrassed, the way he always left the tie of his uniform loose, knowing that I would have reached out and fixed it as soon as I noticed, the pattern his freckles draw on the skin of his face and arms.
I could have spent a lifetime counting his freckles.
It was the sound of his laughter, the spark that always appeared in his eyes when he smiled my favourite crooked smile, the way light played in his hair during sunny days, bringing out the golden reflexes in it.
It was his bravery, the loyalty to his friends, the affection I saw in his eyes when he sat with me in the park and watched Emma playing around.
I loved all those things, and a thousand more – I loved him, for everything he was and did in every moment. I didn't know when I first really fell for him – maybe when I saw him rush in the corridor to save me from Malfoy weeks before, maybe the day he got injured during the match and told me that the reason why he could have never liked that Ravenclaw girl was that she wasn't me, maybe when he kissed me on the doorsteps of my house as snow fell on us, the night of our first date. Or maybe I had fallen in love with him again and again in each of those moments, more times than I could count.
God knew how much I wanted to tell him that – that I loved him so much being away from him was starting to become actually painful – but I knew it wasn't the right moment yet.
He gently lifted my face to kiss me, slow and sweet, and I closed my eyes, surrendering to his embrace.
Soon – soon the right moment would have come, I was sure. But for now, my heart had made its decision.
We stayed in the field for a long time, at first just sitting there, and then standing up to walk around in the tall grass, Ron's arm on my shoulders and mine around his waist; as much as I wished I could stay there forever, though, I had to go home, and we eventually got back to the bike.
When Ron stopped in front of my house it was somewhere around ten, and the windows were all dark except for Aunt Elspeth's. The light over the door was still on, and it cast a warm, yellowish glow on the otherwise dark footsteps – it made me think of a lighthouse, something made so that my way home wasn't dark when I got back. For some reason the thought made my eyes sting a little, and I shoved the sensation away as I slid off the bike, reluctantly loosening my arms from around Ron's waist.
He laughed softly as I humphed under my breath – having to deal with Lavender wasn't exactly on top of my Things I like doing list. To be honest, it was at the very, very bottom of it, probably somewhere in between 'dating Malfoy' and 'drowning kittens'.
Ugh.
"Remember: if she says or does anything – and I mean anything," Ron said as he reached out to lace his fingers with mine. "That she shouldn't, call me. Whatever you need me to do – throw her out of the house, tie her feet-first to the North Tower of the school, or knock her out – I'll be here in ten round minutes."
I smiled, shaking my head and tugging playfully at the collar of his jacket.
"You'll be the first to know," I assured him, trying to keep a straight face – the mental picture of Lavender dangling upside-down from the tallest tower of Hogwarts was incredibly amusing, and it was hard not to laugh at the thought.
"Will you drop by tomorrow?" I asked then in my best hopeful tone; I didn't care what Lavender did or said, she kept me from seeing Ron for five days, and I wanted to spend with him as much time as I could now.
"'Course I will, beautiful," he replied, smiling and causing a small dimple in the side of his nose appear.
I blushed at his words, looking down at the mud-spattered old black Converse I was wearing.
Beautiful.
He often called me that, a thing I wasn't used to – apart from my mother, no one had ever told me that I was beautiful, and mothers are made to believe their daughters are the prettiest things in the world, so that didn't even count. I had always felt like I was well within average, almost invisible with my bushy hair, too-skinny frame and pale skin – I was one of the palest kids in my old school in Seattle, and that was saying something, considering that we all lived in the same almost-sunless city. How many times I had wished I was like those girls I saw passing by in the corridors – all tanned skin, sleek, glossy hair and curvy hips, showing a confidence I only dreamed about…
Yet Ron managed to make me feel exactly like I was one of them – the way he looked at me didn't leave any doubt on it; it was more sincere than any word he could ever say.
Beauty in the eye of the beholder, Luna always said when she looked in amazement to something ordinary, like a small flower in the grass or a cloud in the sky, and we gave her funny looks. I knew she was right about that – she was right on many more things that people usually gave her credit for, even if I had doubts myself on the existence of Snockoracks and Nargles, whatever they were.
"Goodnight," he murmured then, bringing our still joined hands to his face to press a light kiss on my skin.
I smiled softly, feeling more blood flow in my cheeks. "Goodnight," I whispered as he released my hand; he straightened his bike and smiled at me one last time before he pedalled away, disappearing behind the turn in the dark road in a matter of seconds.
I stayed there rooted to the spot for a few seconds, the back of my hand still feeling hot where his lips had touched it; then a sharp gust of wind made me shiver, and I wrapped my scarf tighter around my neck as I turned, fumbling in my pocket to retrieve my keys before I opened the door and stepped in. I had to admit, I was incredibly relieved that Lavender was nowhere to be seen; I was still too angry to come to peaceful terms with her, especially after the things she had said.
I climbed upstairs quietly, gently tapping with my fingers on Aunt Elspeth's door to let her know that I was back before I cracked my door open and peeked inside. Lavender's camping mattress was empty – not that I was expecting otherwise, of course; instead, barely visible in the sliver of light filtering through the open door, there was a small, small figure curled up in the middle of my bed – a figure wearing a pink flowered nightgown and hugging a battered plush Eeyore to her chest.
"You still awake?" I asked under my breath as I stepped in, silently closing the door behind me.
"Mh-mm," Emma muttered, rolling on her other side to look at me. Even in the almost complete darkness, I could see that her big blue eyes were sad. "She is sleeping with Tommy in my room tonight," she said softly, tugging at her Eeyore's ears thoughtfully.
I nodded, sitting on the bed beside her.
"Why did she say those bad things about Ginny and the others?" she asked, scooting closer to me and resting her head on my lap. "It was very mean." I sighed, caressing her ruffled head and passing an arm around her.
"I don't know, honey," I said honestly, closing my eyes for a moment. "I really don't know."
"You were shouting pretty loudly," she got on quietly. "I could hear you from up here. She sounded very angry."
She stayed in silence for a few moments, staring at the duvet.
"It's not true that you sound like a goody-two-shoes English schoolgirl, you know," she said after a few seconds, her voice serious and low. It was incredible, how grown-up she could sound sometimes. "She said that just because she knew you would have been upset, but I don't think she really meant that. Tommy said she was afraid she was losing you, and I think that maybe she showed it to you the wrong way."
I smiled a little, closing my eyes for a moment. I wasn't sure whether I believed it or not – I needed to sleep on it and cool down before I could think reasonably about it.
"Maybe," I agreed, gently placing her head back on the bed and reaching for my pyjamas under the pillow – an oversized t-shirt and a pair of comfortable cotton trousers.
I changed into them quickly, kicking the shoes under my bed and throwing my discarded jeans and sweater on the chair – I would have put them back into place tomorrow; then I padded to the bathroom to brush my teeth and find a rubber band to pull my hair back with – I hated strands prickling my face as I slept.
When I got back Emma was still on my bed, with the difference that she had scooted to the side to make room for me – it was clear that she had no intention of sleeping in the camp bed. It had been a while since she last insisted to sleep close to me – a thing that made both sadness and affection swell in my chest. I curled up under the covers, and Emma immediately snuggled in my side; Crookshanks, who had been sleeping quietly on the cushion of the bow-window, joined us shortly, settling down on my feet in a warm, purring ball of orange fur.
"Mione, can I ask you something?" Emma murmured sleepily after a while, looking up at me through half-closed eyelids.
"Of course," I replied, playing absentmindedly with the heart-shaped locket hung at my neck; I wasn't sleepy at all, maybe because of everything that had just happened – I didn't react well to that kind of stress.
"Do you ever dream of them?" she asked softly, her voice so small my heart squeezed painfully. "Of Mum and Dad?"
I swallowed hard; I could feel a hard lump in my throat, and unwanted tears prickled my eyes. Of course I dreamed about them – almost every night. At first I had nightmares – I just kept seeing the scene of the accident again and again – but after a few weeks, as the searing pain subdued to a dull ache, the images had changed, becoming memories of happy days spent together, of birthdays and Christmases and family trips to the beach, or sometimes images of my parents walking together in a field of wildflowers, holding hands, shining with a pure, bright white light that didn't seem to belong to Earth. It probably was because that was how I wished them to be – happy and still together, in a beautiful place where pain and grief didn't exist.
"Yes," I said simply, fighting to keep my voice steady. "Yes, I dream of them."
"I do, too," she murmured, sounding terribly sad. "But it's becoming difficult to remember some things. The sound of Mum's voice when she sang , or what her perfume smelled like, or the feeling of Dad's bear hugs when he came back from work – it is starting to feel like one of those old black-and-white movies we sometimes watched with them on TV, or like one of Dad's old discs, the large black ones he used to listen to with that kind of gramophone. The images are confused and faded, and you can hear that crackling behind the voices, and – I don't want to forget it all, Hermione. I don't want to!"
She was sobbing quietly, and I pulled her close, pressing my face to her hair to hide that I was crying too. She was right – remembering was difficult, even for me. It was like trying to grab at smoke with bare hands – memories just slipped away, even if you tried to hold onto them with all your might. Someone once said that leaving was difficult, but that staying behind was worse – I was starting to understand what it meant: watching helplessly as memories of loved ones became blurry was almost as bad as losing those loved ones all over again.
"I know, honey," I said, sniffling and swallowing hard. "I don't want to forget, either. But – memories are like this. They fade, and we have to let them go at some point. But you won't forget completely – only small things. The best, the happiest moments – those don't go away, ever. They are always here," I murmured, touching the pendant I always wore. "In our hearts."
Forever, I added in my mind, thinking about that one single word written inside the locket.
But did such thing, forever, really exist?
So, what do you think? As always...Liked it? Hated it? Let me know! I'm sick with a bad cold, so I have nothing to do but sit in front of my laptop all day; besides, reviews - lots of reviews - are the best medicine, everyone knows, and I bet they would help me get better... ;)
Stay tuned for the next update during the weekend!