Leveraging Hermione

Here you go! The next chapter. Read. Enjoy. REVIEW!

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Chapter Ten

            All of them turned to her including Harry. To say that they were stunned was an understatement. Pursing her lips, she gathered herself back together. She hadn’t meant to blurt that out, not in front of them and especially not in front of Harry. Merlin, why wouldn’t one of them just say something!

            Nate stepped over to her, offering up his flask. “Whiskey.”

            She took a sip of it, letting out a long breath before handing his booze back over to him. “Thanks. I needed that.”

            “I know the feeling,” he muttered, sipping from the flask. “So okay. You need to find a way to get to Dolohov, right?”

            “Correct,” she said.

            “And do so without getting tangled up with the Russians he’s surrounded by,” he murmured.

            When what he was saying hit home, Hermione turned on him. “No. Absolutely not! These men would know your face and they have very long memories.”

            “Oh I’m well aware of that,” he replied dryly. “We’re good at what we do. But I’m not going to help if we don’t get the whole story.”

            Turning to him, she knew he would have to do the talking. “Harry…”

            “Oh bugger it all,” he muttered. “I hate having to make this kind of decision.”

            “Magic is real.” The team turned to Eliot who had spoke the words. “She’s a witch. He’s a wizard.”

            “Bullshit!” Nate snapped, and opened his mouth to say something else about leprechauns being real too, but nothing came out of his mouth.

            Hermione slipped her wand out of her arm holster. “I just hit you with a silencing spell. You could try to speak for all it’s worth. But until I take the spell off of you, you’ll be as mute as you are now.”

            Nate kept trying to say something, but nothing came out.

            “Magic is real,” Harry said. “It’s a fact.”

            Parker snorted. “I could have told you that!”

            “How do you know?” Sophie asked her.

            “There are just some places you don’t break into or go through,” she told her. “Like there’s this place over in Scotland. It’s an old beat up castle in the middle of nowhere.” Parker shook her head. “Nope! No way! Never gonna happen. Why? Magic!”

            “Yeah, right,” Hardison said doubtfully.

            “The location you’re speaking of wouldn’t be in the highlands of Scotland next to a lake and a rather dark, dense forest, would it?” Hermione asked her.

            Parker’s face lit up. “Yeah!”

            Hermione and Harry looked at each other and said together, “Hogwarts.”

            “That’s the school we went to,” Harry clarified for them. “And for what it’s worth, you did well staying away from the forest, Parker. There are things in that place that still give me nightmares.” A shiver went through Harry. There would be no way that he’d go back there any time soon.

            Hermione rolled her eyes as she ended the spell and Nate’s voice rang out in the building.

            “Take this fucking spell off of me!” He blinked at all of them. Clearing his throat, saying, “So there might be something to what they’re claiming.”

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            “You never told your friend.”

            There was a part of her that had expected it to be Harry to confront her first. No, instead it was Eliot slipping up next to her as she looked out onto the city. The cool air was rich with the sea and hints of the winter to come brushed her hair and face. Even so it felt as if she had been trapped in a sauna for the past hour and she needed fresh air more than she needed just about anything else at that moment. She had left Harry there to do the explaining to them. Hermione knew their history, but in truth it was his story to tell.

            She had ended up back at their building, standing on the roof trying as she might to think of a way to explain the reasoning behind not telling her best friend about loosing the baby she had been carrying.

            “No,” she murmured. “I didn’t. I even told Ron not to do so.” She swallowed. “Harry blames himself for pretty much everything you can think of thanks to a god awful prophecy.” She looked over to him watching her. “The first damage happened at the Battle of The Department of Mysteries. I got hit with a curse that should have killed me, but all it did was rip me up and leave me unconscious and bleeding on the ground. It had been Harry convinced that his Godfather was in danger who dragged a bunch of us over there only to find out it was a trap. As a result, his Godfather was killed trying to save Harry.”

            Eliot reached over and combed her hair out of her face. “Did you try to talk him out of it?”

            “Of course I did,” she sighed. “We all did. But he was so adamant about it!” Taking a deep breath, she went on, “I was torn up, as I said, that included my uterus. They never told me how bad it was or even that I shouldn’t attempt to get pregnant as a result.” Pursing her lips she thought about what had happened. “We were chasing after a wizard named Rabastan LeStrange—Yes, that’s a real name.” She looked over to him. “I hadn’t been feeling well for about a week. A flu had been going around and I thought I had it, seeing as Ron had just gotten over it. I never knew that I was pregnant, not until afterwards.” Swallowing thickly, she said, “I was ambushed and beaten soundly. Harry and the others got there just as he stabbed me and left me there to die. They got me to the hospital in time to save me, but it was far too late for the baby.”

            Hermione was quiet for a time before she felt him envelope her into a hug and kissing her temple tenderly. Lifting her face towards his own, he breathed, “Hungry? I made dinner.”

            Her amber eyes lit up. “You cook?”

            Smiling slowly. “Yeah.”

            Grinning now as well, she said, “You look like Adonis and you cook? Add the ability to write poetry, and you’d be my dream man.”

            Eliot only gave her a brisk kiss on the mouth and walked with her downstairs to the flat in silence. There was enough time to tell her about his song writing later.

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That's another chapter in the wind. I hope you liked it. If you have any questions, comments, recipe ideas, or just need to tell me what you think about the weather, review. LOL! Have a glorious weekend!