In the Mood

Chapter Nine


He grabbed her as she was turning away, pulling her to himself. He was crying as he kissed her face, begging her to forgive him. That he didn’t want to lose her for anything.

Quietly, Hermione took him over to the bathroom and washed his face with a warm cloth. When she finished, she saw him watching her intensely.


“I’ll give you some sober up potion…”


“Do you hate me?” he asked weakly.


“If I did, the love I held for you in the first place would have been a pitiful amount,” she answered softly, reaching out and cupping his face. “I want what I cannot have.”


“What’s that?”


“Us together without fear that one day I’ll vanish and go back to a future without you,” she breathed, tears dripping down her cheeks. “I know nothing is assured us, but if that one thing…if just that one thing wasn’t hanging over our heads…” She wrapped her arms around him. “I love you, Alastor Moody. Nothing will change that, sir, not age, time, or place. So for Merlin sake stop making me spring leaks like an old, rusted bucket!”


Chuckling he did for her as she had done for him, washing her face off. He took the sober up potion quietly and the two of them went to bed. Alastor’s arms were wrapped tightly around her waist, his face pressed to her breast. He slipped into sleep easily. This was not so for her. She couldn’t stop thinking. How could she make this work? Was there a way at all for them to be together? She kept thinking over and over again of plan after plan—pushing aside each as she saw the failures in it. But she kept coming back to one idea, over and over again—The Philosophers Stone.


When the next morning came, Alastor found himself alone in bed. Getting up, he went over to the study and found her at his desk writing.


“What are you up to?” he asked, going around the desk. “Have you slept at all?” He tilted her head up towards his own and found the dark shadows under her eyes troublesome. “Well?”


“No, I haven’t, but this needed to get done,” she told him, going back to what she was doing. “Okay, letter to Albus, done. I need to send this out to him with any luck he’ll send out the other with a letter of introduction to Mr. Flamel.” She stood up, kissing him. “Breakfast?” She rushed off to make it even as he was frowning, looking down at the papers in front of him.


Saying nothing he followed her over to the kitchen. She was making a full English. Hermione was up to something, he thought, and went right back to the study to see what it was.


Alastor read every single word she had wrote out. Setting them back onto the desk, he heard the front door. He went over and saw Hermione greeting Albus. She must have flooed him, he thought absently as he watched the two walking over to the sitting room.


“I didn’t expect you to come over,” she said to him. “Lovely though it may be, it leaves me to wondering why.”


Albus’s face became serious. “I came here to ask you to reconsider your plan.”


“You mean he won’t…”


“Oh, yes, he would,” he interrupted her. “If I asked him to do so, I think he would. But my question is should he?”


Taking a deep breath, she told him, “I’ve always done what was supposed to be done. I did it because I was a good witch that followed the rules. I followed them even when it made my best friends angry enough to stop talking to me. I did it because it was not only expected, but because it was right.” She took a deep breath and sighed it out. “I was so young and full of moral platitudes.” She smiled weakly. “I was such a pill at times. But this time, this one time isn’t about what could happen or if it is the right thing.”


“But, Hermione, this plan of yours…its so…bold. There is no way of knowing that he will go through with it.”


She nodded. “Alastor will do as he wants, but I’m giving him a choice. This is an option that we may not have had otherwise. I’m not forcing anyone’s hand. But if there was a way, if there could be one single way for us to be together, this might be it.”


“And if it gets into the wrong hands? It could spell disaster.”


Again she nodded, saying dryly, “I know. But I will have one of the best people I know watching out for it. You, sir, will be that man.” She swallowed thickly. “Please?”


“You know I will,” he murmured. “But…”


“Enough with speculations,” she said standing up. “Have you eaten? Alastor…Oh! There you are. Breakfast is ready if you wish to eat.”


“No thank you,” he said. “But I would like to speak to Albus alone if I may?”


“Of course,” she murmured, looking over to Albus. “If you want to stay for breakfast, there is more than enough.” She went back to the kitchen, leaving the two wizards alone in the sitting room.


He watched as she left the room, turning to look to his friend. “She hasn’t said a word to me about this plan. I read her notes and listened to the two of you. Is she mad? She wants to use the Philosopher’s Stone?”


“What she is, my friend, is in love and desperate,” Albus said quietly. “She told me when she flooed that she has a feeling that she will be going back any minute now. That added with the prospect of being without you…” He sighed. “She loves you. So Hermione wants to give you an option. Who is to say that it would work? No one, but it is there for you to think about.”


“Wait for her or I may lose her forever? And what if I don’t live? Did she think of that?” he bristled. “She’s behaving like a selfish idiot!”


The crashing sound of two coffee mugs hitting the ground had them both swinging around to see Hermione running away from the doorway. Once she was in the basement, she changed into the clothing she had come there in and threw on the time turner in haste. Tucking her wand away, she was trying to force herself into leaving. It hurt to think of doing so. How could it be that she could feel like this for a man that she hadn’t known for all that long?


“Where are you going?” he demanded. “If you have a problem with me, stay and fight it out! Don’t run away like a ninny!”


“How do I do that?” she asked softly. “How do I fight it out where there is no logic to be had? I’ve never been in love before. I find it to be very disconcerting. I’ve done things I never thought I would. I broke oaths to myself. I told you things I never should have and for what? But my question to you is if I am the one being a selfish idiot, what does all this make you?”


“Reasonable!”


“Bullshit! I fully admit that what I’ve done isn’t ethical, but it makes me utterly human. But I do not deserve, nor do I except you calling me names when what I have been trying to do is to ensure what we as a couple have will endure. And that makes you an unreasonable, sanctimonious prig!”


“No, it makes me a realist!” he snapped, as she was walking away from him.


She stopped and without looking to him whispered, “So be it.”


***


Hermione had walked around never noticing where she was or even caring that it had began to snow. All she wanted was to go back over to Alastor. Tell him that she was sorry for what she called him. She thought for a time that he may have been following her, but she had been wrong. It had been a stray dog, looking worse than she felt. So when she got something to eat, she fed him as well. It was when she was walking away from the black dog that it occurred to her that Sirius’s animagus had been a black dog. And forms such as his ran strong in families. Hermione spun around just in time to see the dog morph into a tall striking man with shaggy black hair and hate filled eyes, wand at the ready and pointing straight at her.


Before she could even think of pulling her wand she was being hit by the killing curse. The last thing she heard was Alastor screaming and everything went black.


***

A/N-I know this is growing tiresome, but really, please read and review!!