In the Mood

Chapter Seven


Hermione watched as Albus made introductions to the grounds keeper and keeper of keys of the school. The old man had said that he had plenty of room and he needed an apprentice now that he was older. With a smile she walked over to where Alastor was sipping on his flask. She kissed his cheek, resting her head on his shoulder.


“What’s this about?” he asked her quietly.


“Nothing,” she replied. “I just wanted to be close to you for a time.” Hermione stepped away. “Can I have a sip of your fire whiskey?”


“I would, but this isn’t fire whiskey,” he murmured. “It’s pumpkin juice with a charm on it to keep the temperature cold.”


Albus joined them a moment later, saying, “I am so happy that you brought Rubius in from in front of the gate. I have spoken with the Headmaster and he is in total agreement about the situation. It’s for the best that he stays here, as it is clear that he has nothing and no one else in the world. Now let’s go to my office. We can speak once we get there.”


Hermione couldn’t help but to keep looking around the school. It was so familiar to her, like home. Once they got to Albus’s office, the professor went to his desk and began digging through his papers on his desk. He pulled out a paper with a look of triumph.


“Now let me see here…” He slid his glasses up a little further and read. “Yes, this is the letter from my good friend Nickolas Flamel. He said that there is a way to send you back to your own time, but that doing so would be very dangerous.” Albus looked at her, the twinkle from his eyes gone if only for that moment. “He does not use those words lightly.”


“What is it?” she asked. “At least let me know what I would be risking.”


“The only thing that might send you back is the one thing that got you here in the first place. The time turner must be hit while you are wearing it and the turner must be moved forward rather than backwards.” He took a breath. “The only spell powerful enough to get you this far back in time…”


“Is the killing curse,” she whispered. “I-I had a feeling that was it.” Absently she took Alastor’s hand into her own and squeezed it gently as she thought. “In other words, it may very well kill me if they cast it wrong?” She took a deep breath, looking like she was going to give her answer.


“No.” Her eyes snapped over to Alastor, whose jaw was set into a hard line. “No, I won’t allow it, Missy.”


“Allow?” It was clear that the word was not one that she liked especially coming from Alastor. She let go of his hand. “I am going to take a walk. Don’t follow me, don’t even think about talking to me, and if you think for one split second to reiterate the word ‘allow’ in reference to me again…” She let out a growl and stomped out of the office, slamming the door shut.


***


Hermione went straight over to the bathroom where she knew that Moaning Myrtle was haunting. She sat there for a time, just waiting. A moment later Myrtle burst out of the toilet screaming and moaning at the top of her lungs.


“Hello Myrtle,” she said so calmly that the ghost looked at her like she had lost her mind. Smiling Hermione went on to say, “It’s good to see you.”


“Do I know you?” she asked her.


“Not now, but you will,” she told the ghost. “I just needed to be alone for a time. I hope you don’t mind me using your restroom.”


Myrtle answered that it was fine, just as long as she didn’t make a mess. Hermione ended up staying in the bathroom for close to two hours before leaving. She ended up by the Black Lake, looking out at it as the sun went down. If she didn’t have someone cast the killing curse at her, chances were that she would never get to go back to her own time. Never being able to see or speak to her friends again. She was never going home again, she thought. Ever. As much as she cared for Alastor, she needed to go home.


“Where the bloody hell have you been?” Alastor roared.


She sighed heavily, looking over to him. “Over at the third floor girl’s restroom. I just came out here recently.”


Puzzled he asked, “Why?”


“I went there to calm down and to see a familiar face,” she told him, as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Did he have more to say?”


He tilted her head up to face him. “Hermione, do you want to leave me that badly?”


Her eyes flooded. “Not you, but I don’t belong here. My life is in tomorrow. I wish you could understand.” She went to her tiptoes and kissed his mouth with a desperate hunger that had him holding her all the tighter. "Never away from you. Please believe that.”


He ran his fingers into her chocolate curls, pulling them back away from her face. He kissed her tears away, hugging her tightly. She pressed her face into his neck. Alastor pulled back from her, clearing his throat but kept a hold of her hand.


“Let’s get back to the house,” he told her. “I would like for you to look over some papers and let me know what you think.”


She smiled slowly. “That would be fun.”


He rolled his eyes. “Woman, research isn’t meant to be fun!”


“I lived in the library when I attended Hogwarts.”


“I should have known, Missy,” he said with a slight twist of his hard mouth. “Didn’t you ever go out flying?”


She recalled those few flights she had taken and shuddered. “A few times and nothing I care to repeat, thank you very much.”


He looked at her in shock. “You don’t like flying?”


“No,” she answered honestly. “I don’t. I have to say that I hate it. It’s a hate that boarders somewhere between loathing and phobia.”


He lifted her hand to his mouth, kissing her knuckles. “Now I know you’re exaggerating.”


“My friend Harry said that my banshee like screams of terror nearly had him deaf for a year,” she told him. “And to think, that time was better than riding on a broom.”


He frowned. “Why is that?”


“We flew on a hippogriff,” she stated. “Beautiful creatures, but I hated flying on it.”


“But why…” She pressed a finger to his lips.


“I’ve already told you too much as it is,” she said, pulling back. “Tell me about your time at school as we walk…ouch!” she yelped as he nipped at her finger.


“There’s not much to tell,” he explained to her. “I came here, I was sorted into Slytherin, and managed to get kicked off the quidditch team for not cheating. They changed my house shortly there after to Gryffindor, where I was told I was too bold for changing a boy that had been teasing one of the first years into a gopher. I was resorted into Hufflepuff. Needless to say I wasn’t too well liked there either, but by this time they had already heard about me in Ravenclaw and had said that I couldn’t be resorted into that house. So there I stayed in Hufflepuff. Nice lot once you got past their need to prove they weren’t the school’s dunces.”


“I was told that I should have been in Ravenclaw,” she told him. “Personally, I don’t know if that would have been the best thing for me. Most of the Ravenclaw students I knew had, well, pardon me for saying so, a stick up their arses.”


This had him snorting with laughter as they reached the gates.


“I was bad enough as a child as it was. I can’t help but to think that I would have turned out to be a huge prig if I were sorted into that house,” she told him as she exited the school’s grounds with Alastor right behind.


Hermione turned to face him, taking his non-wand hand into her own. Kissing the back of it he pulled her into his arms and disapperated them to just outside of his wards.


Once they were inside the house, she went straight to the kitchen.


She turned to ask Alastor if he wanted something to eat, but then remembered that he wouldn’t eat anything that he didn’t make himself. Walking out of the kitchen, she went straight over to the sitting room. He was over there drinking a fire whiskey and looking contemplative.


She poured herself a fire whiskey and sat down on the sofa. Hermione took a few sips of her drink, trying to think of a reason not to tell him about her life. Chances were that she would never be in her own time period again. But if she told him…So many of the wizards that shaped her life were still attending school and becoming who they were when she was a child herself.


It was when she was thinking of that when it came to her about money being past down and just who would benefit from the Malfoy’s vaults. Tom Riddle was one of Abraxas’s good friends in school and was in fact one of the first Death Eaters. Of course he would benefit if his friend had his money. Tom Riddle went out into the world right about this time, but chances were that his good friend Abraxas was financing this little journey. There would be no way that they would be able to prove that Tom Riddle had anything to do with it. He already had way too many powerful supporters.


She let out a sigh, taking a sip of her drink. Hermione turned to ask Alastor something, but found him right on the lounge next to her. Smiling she moved over so that she was resting against him, putting her head on his shoulder.


He checked on her a moment later to find her sound asleep. He took the drink from her hand and set it aside with his own. Next he scooped her up and carried her straight over to his own bedroom, putting her to bed. A moment later he joined her. With a soft sigh, she sprawled out over him, tucking her head into the crook of his neck. He nearly laughed to himself when he realized that she managed to not lie on his wand arm. Closing his eyes, his wand arm free even as his other was wrapped like a steel band around his Hermione’s waist and fell asleep.


***

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