Consequentially Yours by Nyruserra

Chapter Eight - Further Out Than In

Consequentially Yours
Or
A Gentleman’s Duty

Chapter Eight ~ Further Back Than In

-..-


"Do you really have to go?"

While Oliver wished he could claim that her voice held a wistful note in it, or that the question had been motivated by anything other then polite interest, he still appreciated the attempt, and tried to ignore the prissy disapproval that Hermione was trying hard to conceal. She stood in the doorway, attempting to stay out of his path as he hunted out all his belongings from an astounding array of places. He was slightly amazed at how far spread they had become in the short weeks he’d been here. And he didnae even want to get started on how his socks ended up tangled with the books on the high shelves above the dresser.

"It's a good opportunity. The team in Luxemburg’s been expressing an interest in British players for a while now." His response sounded distracted as he inwardly grimaced at the lie. He continued to pack his not overly large bag with far more then it should reasonably hold without magic, a fact Oliver didn’t even really think about. Magic like this had always been a part of his world; he tended to only notice it when it was absent. The sturdy case of soft brown leather still looked good even after being bumped around the world, from Quidditch match to training camp, from Hogwarts to the Welsh mountains.

Hermione looked at him with open curiosity, the hints of her earlier disapproval momentarily forgotten as she pondered him, her teeth worrying her bottom lip slightly in a way he had come to recognise as Hermione at her softest, all mother-hen tendencies cast aside.

"What?" he asked, curiously.

She looked at him thoughtfully, as if trying to gauge how to say what she was thinking. Their relationship was hesitant and careful, and sometimes Oliver feared they’d always just be polite acquaintances, like someone you see on the Portkey route everyday on the way into work. She was worrying her lip again, and Oliver couldn’t help but notice how it started to swell ever so slightly, and wondered if it would look that shade of pink after she’d been thoroughly kissed.

As if sensing his guilty thoughts, she brought her arms up to cross her chest defensively as she leaned against the doorframe before speaking. "I just never thought I'd ever hear you consider playing anywhere but Britain, that's all. It's honestly a bit of a shock."

Oliver looked away, a bit uncomfortable with the deception, as well as the faintly accusing tone of her comment. His own strange thoughts this morning were making him edgy. "Yeah, well, I seem to recall someone no’ all that long ago telling me tha’ maybe it was time to grow up an’ use my talents for something useful."

His mouse looked at him with both shock and amusement, raising an eyebrow in mock reprimand as she reminded, "I seem to recall that we were discussing things other then Quidditch at the time."

Tension made Oliver’s reply sharp. "True, but maybe its wha’ I'm best at. After all, I'm going to have a family to support one of these days soon, now aren't I?"

The comment hung uncomfortably between them, and Oliver found he couldn't meet her eyes.

"Oliver, I -"

"Forget it, Hermione." He cut her off gently, feeling awkward at her obvious distress. "It's fine, really. An’ you never know, maybe nothing will come of it."

Hermione reached forward to capture his hand, and give it a quick squeeze. "Not if any of those recruitment agents have eyes at all. Please write me, and let me know how it goes, okay?"

To guilty to do anything else, Oliver nodded his agreement as he watched Hermione hurry from the room.

-..-

The cobbled street was crowded with late afternoon commuters trying to get home in the cold grey drizzle. Oliver quickly checked the folded map Percy had thrust at him along with his document packet, shielding it as much as possible with the bulk of his body, feeling his pack shift precariously as he did so.

A heavy hand pulled him under the dubious protection of a small storefront awning, and Oliver grunted his appreciation to Charlie without pausing his study of the mystifying squiggles that were supposed to be telling them where the best place to catch further transit would be. Not for the first time this trip Oliver found himself wanting to strangle a certain Under-Secretary; at least a little.

Muggles! Getting here had been a relatively easy matter of Floo-ing into a quietly Ministry-maintained residence just outside of Rotterdam, a bustling port town in the Netherlands. Moving around however, had proved to be a trial of patience and virtues. Oliver thought maybe Percy just enjoyed inflicting punishments on him.

It took them the better part of a day to finally find the correct sequence of buses and trains to bring them the rest of the way. In the end, Charlie had crumpled the map, and flagged a curious, bright-eyed seven year old child while her mother had been distracted by some kind of official, and asked her for directions. Only a child wouldn’t think to question why two seemingly grown men couldn’t manage to catch a bus, and had to ask to have the various metal coins the Muggles seemed to favour identified.

Once she had removed her fingers from her mouth, she had proven to be fairly comprehensible; more so then Percy’s scrawled directions. She had explained, with some authority, that the large metal coaches were actually imprisoned dragons being forced to serve, and that they actually ate the strange metal coins used to board them, but the evil wizards who controlled them rationed what they were allowed from each passenger.

Charlie and Oliver chuckled at her very serious explanations, laughing in a ‘what kids won’t think of’ kind of way, but Oliver had to suppress a grin when he caught Charlie rather surreptitiously adding extra coins to his fare when the driver wasn’t looking.

The resulting detour was colourful, but they now stood inside the bowels of a stern, fortress-like building, wearing little visitor passes arranged for by the Ministry that allowed them to fit into the unfamiliar surroundings.

The bright lights overhead made the polished chrome of the utilitarian tables gleam harshly, seeming to emphasise that clinical detachment was as much a part of the uniform for the white-coated Healer before him as the badge over his left breast pocket, proclaiming cheerfully for all the world that Arts Willem Schuyler would be only too happy to help them.

Irrationally, Oliver hated the inoffensive tag.

“As you can see, De Heer Wood, the body is in a most unusual condition…” Unfortunately, his gesture only brought Oliver’s attention back to the pathetic little corpse presented on the examination table, and his translation spell began to waver again as his concentration dissolved once more. She should have had a simple, joyful childhood ahead of her. Instead, Lummi was lying here in a cold examiner’s office while the overly bright lights robbed her face of its remaining youth and personality, and made her lifeless body the grey of week-old muck. He refused to think of her as ‘the victim’; refused to dismiss the spirit that has once brightened this small body so casually.

The doctor had continued his explanation of his findings during Oliver’s inner struggle, “…volledig afgevoerd van bloed wa—” Hard concentration brought the words swimming back into focus, “—en it was found,” though Oliver was sure the doctor was beginning to wonder about the strange Investigation Specialists who showed up and proved unable to follow a simple report to its end without asking for most of it to be repeated. It didn’t really matter anyway. This one was just like the others.

He didn’t dare look over at Charlie, knowing from the tenseness emanating from his corner of the room that the gentle man was close to ‘sharing’ his emotions with anyone in the vicinity right about now. He had to look, though. Merlin knew he wasn’t a Healing specialist of any sort, managing only the most basic of field dressings, and even those were, more often then not, pretty rough; Oliver being the sort to ignore injury as being rather irrelevant, more sort of a minor annoyance really, when there were more important things going – like a game.

Or an investigation into a small child’s death.

He had to look, take in every detail that he could of the last moments of this little girl’s struggle to live, knowing that Percy would have a team standing by to go through every memory he could squeeze into a Pensive. Someone was going to pay for this.

And Arts Schuyler droned on, with words that could never recreate the texture of the life they described with such technical precision.

-..-

Fred could honestly say he hadn’t enjoyed himself so much in years. Being back in Hogwarts brought out a surprising bit of nostalgia for he and George, and having Hermione there as a sort of ‘Den Mother’ (she was rather too old to be Head Girl, she felt, so instead took a rather un-official role in Gryffindor Tower) just made it all the better, especially now that they had grown into something very like friends. She still gave them disapproving looks whenever she caught sight of one of their products, still acted swotty and bossy when she suspected that she may have caught them discussing mischief (which was almost always), but now it was tempered with a laughing gleam, carefully hidden in front of the younger years; an appreciation for their own peculiar brilliance that may, they were honestly beginning to suspect, have always been there.

Besides, from here it was only a short jaunt down to the village to see Rosemerta; and her ale, of course.

All in all, it was good to be back.

Not so happy at this turn of events was a certain hulking Slytherin. He and George had taken every opportunity since Oliver had left to make Goyle’s life more interesting, and if they could manage to catch Malfoy with the same prank, so much the better.

It was a cold and windy March day, the kind of day that had always made him wonder why he had to get out from under his warm and inviting covers, the kind of day that shouldn’t be faced without warm, spiced pumpkin juice and a roaring fire, the late damp and chilly weather firmly locked outside. He and George would have to be getting back to their shop in Diagon Alley before long, but now they had a whole host of memories to chortle over during the slow season.

Ron and Harry had proven apt allies, with promising potential as future delinquents after their own hearts. Ron especially held a manic gleam of enthusiasm, born of years of torment now being paid back with interest. With their help, they had managed to pull off not one good prank, as promised to Oliver, but an entire week of them, each better then the last. Who would forget the Cabbage Queens? Or the Singing Slytherin they had unleashed one night in the Great Hall? Fred had thought that privately, McGonagall had liked that one, and had heard her giving Snape a hard time in the halls one evening over his student’s less-than-creative nature.

The crème de la crème though, the one he and George were bending all of their considerable talents towards this morning, would actually be preformed by one Hermione Jane Granger.

She just didn’t know it yet.

Hermione was a genius of historic proportions when it came to creative magic – and the fact that she only ever used this incredible talent for mischief when Ron and Harry were involved made the Weasley twins want to weep at wasted potential. They had jokingly discussed the problem on and off for years, finally deciding that one of them would have to marry her in order to hope to have any sort of bad influence over her at all.

Trouble was, they weren’t sure that she wouldn’t have a stronger influence on them, and that though always kept them away. It was almost a tease, having the perfect source of potential mischief just sitting there, reading Hogwarts, A History and as inaccessible to the pranksters as Snape’s undergarment drawer.

Nothing would please the boys more then to be able to recount the prank to Oliver when he finally came back from what every backyard-of-beyond place Percy had sent him this time. After all, they had promised to hand out a little payback to the gits, after all. But the look on Oliver’s face when they finally reveal that it was actually his darling fiancée who planned and executed whatever plot or other, would be something they could tease him over for years.

Not that they had ever doubted she had it in her, mind. Those kinds of under-estimations could get a bloke on the wrong end of a rather prissy wand in a real hurry, as Ron had discovered during his sixth year.

He still tended to flinch a bit whenever he caught sight of something yellow streaking through the air.

Fred paused on his way to the loo to savour the mental image of Marietta Edgecombe, Sneak written clear as day across her acne-ridden face.

Maybe it wouldn’t be too difficult after all.

With a spring in his step, Fred went off in search of his twin. Suddenly, he felt all warm and fuzzy inside, despite the grey drizzle outside the tower.

When he found George, he was enjoying breakfast in a nearly deserted Hall, and was already in deep discussions with their favourite Gryffindor witch.

“Greetings one and all,” Fred chirped with exaggerated cheeriness as he snagged a seat opposite his twin. Absently taking a warm sweet roll from the golden plate materializing in front of him, he regarded Hermione warmly as she sipped hot pumpkin juice from a mug clutched between her hands, warming them.

Hermione spoke without turning from her regard of George. “Whatever it is Fred, the answer is no.”

George grinned, leaning back to allow Fred to lead their assault. Winking at his twin, Fred leaned over to lay his head on Hermione’s shoulder, ostensibly to converse better with George. “You know, we’ve done a very thorough job this week of showing Mr. Goyle the error of his thinking, haven’t we George?”

George leaned in owlishly stroking his chin as he very seriously regarded his brother, completely ignoring Hermione. “Yes, I think we can safely categorize him as chastised.”

Fred’s voice took on the portentous quality of one lost in religious money-schemes. “As he should be, Brother George. But let us not forget, there is one other who deserves a little righteous punishment in their rather privileged life.”

“Sod off, Fred. I’m not getting involved –” Hermione’s protest was cut off by George’s voice.

“It will likely be a few months before Oliver can fly again. Wounds like that don’t heal properly for a long time. I imagine it must be killing Oliver, not being able to do something he loves so much.” George never even looked at Hermione when he spoke, and his tone was mild, fitting in with Fred’s game seamlessly.

George was the quieter twin, the one less given to wild gestures and wantonness – though compared to Fred, that wasn’t necessarily saying much - and despite her fondness for Fred, Hermione secretly suspected that George was the smarter of the two.

Hermione sat back slowly, gazing at the two brothers speculatively. She put down her paper very carefully, still with that far off gaze, and slowly got up from the table. Fred watched as she very deliberately pushed up her sleeves as she headed from the room.

Fred glanced over to his twin and grinned. Settling back in his chair with his hands cradling the back of his head, he relaxed. He knew they hadn’t really fooled Hermione – well, not really, but had rather gently reminded her of a reason worth breaking a few rules over.

His sixth year self would have fallen off his broom in shock.


-..-

As far as anyone was concerned, Oliver had spent the years following the war traipsing about the countryside, in pursuit of the game he loved most. In a way, he didn’t mind really, as his real purpose often did allow him time to consider how to best start up the leagues when the time was right, knowing that England needed something to be happy about again, and not really minding that he probably looked a right obsessive berk to the world at large for the persona he played for Percy’s plans.

That was, until now.

The subtle reminder that Hermione also shared that general impression had been a blow; far more difficult to swallow then even having to endure his mother’s, off-times clarion, haranguing on the subject.

Actually, in his document packet, shoved at him before as he’d hastily Floo-ed out of Percy’s office, had been a letter from the matriarch of the Wood family on the subject of his upcoming nuptials, and his general uselessness at the given time. His correspondence was always forwarded in this manner, allowing him to respond fairly normally, and helping to preserve the illusion that he was merely out of country on some nutter Quidditch errand.

Holding the rough-edged parchment absently in his hands, Oliver realized that soon, Hermione would be on the list of people he lied to on a regular basis; if she wasn’t there already, and he felt something inside him harden as that thought crossed his mind, causing him to glare at the letters he held in his hand, not liking the feeling that thought had given him at all, one thought humming away in the back of his mind, where he couldn’t examine it too closely.

How could he ever be worthy of someone like Hermione if he couldn’t even be honest with her?

Telling her anything could very easily put her in danger. He wasn’t too worried for his own sake; as his intended, Scottish Wizarding custom entitled her to his estate and a mourning period of a year and a day before, he was fairly sure, she could be forced into another one of these blasted Contracts, though even the thought of someone else attempting to claim her had his thoughts wandering dangerously close to Things He Tried Bloody Hard Not To Think About. Though, logically, he knew that Weasley would grow a pair and step up for her, if she really needed him to. No, he could easily accept the risks inherent in what he did, but he didn’t really think he had the right to give those same risks to Hermione to shoulder – he knew damn well that she would insist on helping if she knew what it was he was up to, and wasn’t fool enough to think she’d obey him out of any kind of marital authority, and stay out of it.

The owl his mum had sent had been blunt and to the point. She reminded him, ever so gently, that ‘…no son of hers was going to disgrace the family name by taking what wasn’t his to wed, no matter what law he hid behind’, and that he’d ‘…better make sure he had her father’s permission before he brought her home for the nuptials.’ The implications in that had caused the very tip of his ears to flame, a whole cloud of wriggly things making his stomach uncomfortable (but then, he knew he shouldn’t have let Charlie choose the pub they had supped in that night anyway, the roguish dragon-keeper having more then half his eye on the pretty bar maid, as opposed to the dubious quality of the establishment).

Almost as an afterthought, she included congratulations, and an admonishment that she expected grandchildren within the year.

Groaning in frustration, Oliver crumpled the family missive and chucked it into the fireplace on his way out the door.

The hotel they were staying in was a Muggle establishment; an attempt to keep out of sight in an overly cautious Wizarding world, and keep their movements clandestine. Oliver had already spent the first two days since leaving Britain putting in necessary appearances at the Bigonville Bombers’ pitch. He was supposedly attending a large conference being held in just outside of the city proper, his absence neatly concealed by the shear volume of witches and wizards who would be attending.

The dark blue carpeting running down the short hallway absorbed the soft lighting, causing the old-looking brass fixtures to gleam brightly at the contrast. Oliver found the idea of making their mod-ern eklec-tric lights that looked like candelabrum slightly puzzling, but accepted it as one more mysterious Muggle ritual that he would never understand. Stopping at room 409, Oliver knocked once, sharply in warning on the dark wood door before entering.

Charlie looked up from where he had been bent over the room’s small desk. His distinctive red hair was tousled and added to the paler-then-usual face staring back at him from cloudy and slightly unfocused eyes, and Oliver knew he was probably looking into a living mirror. “You took your time, now didn’t you?” Charlie remarked by way of greeting.

“Though’ I’d give yeh a moment to at least pick up yer dirty pants off’n the floor first. I had a few owls to look at anyway.”

Charlie grunted at the knowing accuracy of Oliver’s assessment of his previous activities, instead getting up to tack a make-shift map to the wall where it would be illuminated by the rather utilitarian floor lamp. Five dark circles highlighted locations they had visited in the last week. Images of the things he had seen would be fuel for a lifetime’s worth of nightmares, Oliver knew. Nightly hauntings in which he would struggle against a hill of sand, unable to find the answer or break free of the unstable footing in time to save them.

Dreams in which he would never be good enough.

Times like this he would pull out Hermione’s note, just to breath in the faint scent of cinnamon mixed with the earthy ink she favoured and know he had at least done that much for someone, though he tried very hard not to think about his reasons for being so comforted by that fact.

“Alright, Oliver; I’ve got it mapped out, got reams of parchment full of Muggle facts - now what does it all mean?”

The crude map Charlie had drawn was refusing to give him any answers under his heavy scrutiny. He felt so powerless – five children dead. Five little bodies left behind like empty sackcloth, no longer the receptacles of innocence and simple joy, but discarded, like the were simply used up. Oliver could feel his fists balling up at his sides, short fingernails digging into his palms. “We started in Wemperhardt.” He stated slowly, more trying to lead his scattered thoughts then imparting information that Charlie already knew.

“Northern Luxemburg. Right.” Charlie confirmed. He stretched out on the bed, wrong way round, allowing his head to hang over the foot slightly, and watched as Oliver began to pace upside-down across his field of vision. “You’re going to give me a headache if you don’t stop moving like that. Feels like I might be seasick –” Curling slightly, he caught the hard-edged notebook as it was thrown at him. He fumbled with it for only a moment before finding the scrawled notes he’d taken. “Small boy, about nine. Found in a play park on February 28th. Body already buried, but from pictures provided, from which I may never recover you know, we were able to identify puncture marks on the neck, victim’s left side, and a distinct lack of blood. The Muggle please-men were completely baffled.”

Oliver nodded absently, staring at the small cluster of black circles. “Then Liege - that was also in Luxemburg. Ten year old boy, same, what did they call it?”

“M.O.”

“Right. Died a few days later, March 3rd. Body found in the rubbish bins, behind a store. No bruises or marks teh indicate a fight of any kind. Two puncture wounds on the neck, no blood. Please tell me I’m no’ seeing what I think I’m seeing here.”

Charlie sighed, suddenly sounding much older then his boyish twenty seven years, and moved off the bed. “I’ll go flag down a maid or something; we’re going to need a hot pot of coffee.”

Oliver nodded, the leaden feeling that hadn’t left him since first seeing the photos of Michael Wessington’s remains intensifying.

Each body had been the same. Aachen, a city on the Western edge of Germany had been a small girl, eight years old; in Houffalize, Belgium, a boy of eleven, and now here, in Maaslricht, the Netherlands, another girl, ten. Lummi Vandervick had been killed two nights ago, on March 12th. Muggle authorities were at a loss to explain it.

Frustrated, Oliver started to pace again, kicking the bin on the way by. They had desperately tried everything they could think of to find some other explanation, anything to show that it was a bizarre Muggle grain-killer, or even some kind of unthinkable accident, but the more they had seen, the more they were being forced to accept some very unappetizing conclusions.

Vampires.

They were clannish, intelligent, and purely evil in Oliver’s opinion, bleeding hearts like Hermione be damned. Usually, the Ministry kept close tabs on any local clans, keeping strict control over their activities. The creatures were cunning, knowing full well that attacks that resulted in Muggle deaths would place the whole Wizarding World in jeopardy of exposure, and would guarantee a swift and brutal retaliation from the Ministry. This approach had worked well to ensure that while there were still attacks, the victims were left alive, and rarely had much of a memory of the event.

He heard Charlie come in, setting a garish orange thermos on the small table by the door, and moving to look at the map over his shoulder.

“Looks like the work of a rogue vamp,” Charlie observed lowly, putting into words something they had avoided speaking of almost by unconscious accord. “I don’t think there’s much more we can do here. Ministry’s going to have to send in a team, track it down. Not much we can do for the Muggles, I suppose.”

“The reports they’ve sent from the other three victims all show the same patterns,” Oliver admitted, subdued. He stared at the inked map, drawn on cheap paper that was all the testament eight Muggle children would have… all they were able to give them, now. Five black circles drifted out of focus until they looked more like bruises, and Oliver quietly mourned the passing of a world were all he had once had to worry about had been the next big play or the next goal. Suddenly, he didn’t think he could deal with seeing three more small, violated bodies, listen to the same lack of information. Still staring at the map, he spoke quietly, “I guess there’s really no point in going t’see them too, now is there?”

“I’ve got enough to donate to three Pensieves already, not too sure what a few more stops at Muggle charnel houses are going to add.” Charlie’s words were fairly neutral, but his eyes were distant and haunted. “We’ve got enough to give Percy, and speed’s of more importance right now, anyway.”

-..-

It was quiet for days following the breakfast conversation with Hermione, and Fred was beginning to get antsy. Adding to his agitation was the infuriating look Hermione would give them every time they even tried to get the conversation around to what she might be planning. He was beginning to worry that she wasn’t going to do it after all.

And as further proof of his nerves, he was sitting here, glaring at the back of her rather bushy haired head, instead of enjoying what was turning into a thorough trouncing of the Slytherin Quidditch team by Ravenclaw.

Obviously, it was beginning to affect his sense of priority.

“Oh look, I think that the Slytherin Chaser, McAlister, is being affected by Fluvian Gastrics. Fluvian Gastrics causes vagueness, and easy distraction in its first stages, but I suspect we’ll be seeing the characteristic red boils shortly –”

Even the strangely enlighteningly chatty observations of Looney Luna Lovegood was conspiring to distract him form what should have been a grand occasion of Serpent House Humiliation, but Fred was finding to his disgust that her commentary was like witnessing a train wreck; it was so morbidly fascinating you just couldn’t turn away.

“…really should get a cream for those. If they’ve already erupted on his bum it may explain his flying today…”

Of course, the apoplectic colours of McGonagall’s flush over several of her more innocent comments were a rare treat.

Sudden cheering erupted around him, and Fred realized with disgust that the snitch had been caught – and he’d missed the whole thing. Beside him, George was grinning and cheering madly, nodding at his fellow Gryffindors as they all went wild over their arch-rival’s defeat.

Prats. Fred thought irritably, and looked over to see if the source of his frustrations was also making a spectacle of herself.

But she was gone.

It took only an instant for the correct connections to be made in Fred’s mind. His scowl turned to a manic smirk of anticipation as he nudged his brother and indicated the vacated spot with a jerk of his chin. The players had begun leaving the pitch as they quietly slipped from the crowd, pushing they’re way through the stands to the enclosed stairs at the edge of the red and gold Gryffindor section.

Taking the stairs at a dead sprint, Fred had to squint against the bright sunlight as they burst onto the still empty field beyond the pitch. “How do we find her then?” George asked he held his hand over his eyes to scan for the rather distinctive figure that was, quite obviously, not there.

Fred slowly spun a circle, trying to figure where she may have gone. He could hear the rumble of other spectators beginning to make their way down from the stands behind them. “Well, I reckon we could go–” he never got any further when a wild yell came floating through the air.

Without even looking at each other, they both nodded. “That way,” they said, and took off.

Cresting the corner of the Ravenclaw section of the stands, George stopped dead, Fred right behind him. Looking over his twins’ shoulder, he could see that they had found Hermione Granger. They had also found the source of the noise they had heard.

She stood before the locked doors of the outbuilding quietly, wand at her side. The unmistakable sounds of pure, marauder-type mischief echoed resoundingly from the locked room beyond. The occasional high-pitched, girlish shriek had him wishing he was recording this – for posterity, and future humiliation.

The door was actually vibrating slightly.

“Oy, Hermione –”

“Shhh!” she hushed quickly, and Fred noticed how she stood, head cocked at an odd angle as if to allow the air to pass over the shell of her ear and better capture the different sounds of distress and chaos beyond; savouring them as an audiophile might savour a newly discovered Brahms.

“What did you do?” Fred asked quietly, trying to frame this moment in his mind forever.

She nodded towards a domed brass cage at her feet, door sprung wide. Confused, Fred looked back at her as George began to smile. “Hermione, you didn’t?” George whispered.

Irritated that his twin had obviously figured out the joke before him, Fred glanced back at the large-ish cage. A loud crash and fresh swearing erupted from against the door, and Fred almost winced in sympathy before catching himself. These were Slytherins, after all. More banging, punctuated by buzzing, like a swarm of hornets on a hot summer’s day…

Fred looked over at Hermione. “You did.” She just smiled primly at him, and then winked.

“Look out!” George yelled, grabbing them both and pulling them out of harm’s way as the door crashed open, and all pandemonium erupted from the room, spilling out in a blur of green uniforms, flesh, and trailing, buzzing blue comets trails.

It took only a moment for the herd to clear, players stumbling and careening in their haste to escape. Fred, George and Hermione looked at one another, as laughter bubbled up between them, leaving them gasping for breath as each one tried not to choke on their mirth. Grinning, he and George helped Hermione to her feet, doffing imaginary hats and making exaggerated courtly bows as they escorted her up to the castle.

The memory of Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini streaking from the Slytherin change rooms, shorts in hand, as a swarm of Cornish Pixies gave chase would be one he would cherish for a long time.

They took particular delight in the prospect of being able to warn Oliver what he had to look forward too if he ever managed to get on her wrong side.

-..-

It took only two days for Malfoy to corner her after her little prank.

“I have to hand it to you, Granger, I never would have expected it of you.”

“You don’t seem to have suffered too badly, more’s the pity.”

He continued to regard her with disquieting amusement. “Oh, I still owe you, Granger, make no mistake about that.”

Setting her chin against his arrogance, she sailed over the comment as beneath her. “I’m sure your housemates were very impressed with your performance in the duel. Tell me, weren’t you supposed to be helping Goyle?”

Draco raised a pale eyebrow, and gave her one of his trade-mark sardonic smirks. “I had a very uncomfortable time of it for a bit. That is, until I reminded them just who they were dealing with.”

“Translation: You got Goyle and Crabbe to knock a few heads.”

Malfoy ready did laugh this time, a sound of genuine mirth that startled her. “Is that what you think, Hermione? Really?” He watched her, with startling curiosity, traces of his usual hauteur pushed aside for a brief moment. A strange look passed over his face, too quick for Hermione to properly analyse it. Pained, perhaps. “And I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”

“Well, what am I supposed to think?” Hermione asked finally, unsettled and irritated at his odd behaviour. “I mean, they’ve been your body guards since first year.”

“Think about it for a moment, would you? I’m in Slytherin House. The House of cunning and ambition. Have you ever noticed – Mclaggen was a Gryffindor. Diggory was a Hufflepuff –“

“Why, I do believe you’re right, Malfoy. What an astonishing thing! I think I have noticed, now that you mention it.”

“Obviously not. The average Slytherin isn’t a bodybuilding troll, Greg and Vincent aside. They don’t rely on muscles and physical intimidation, as a rule – we leave that to the other houses. We respect intelligence, and guile far more them muscle bound bullying. If I had relied on those two bookends to secure my place in Slytherin House, I would have been stuffed into a toilet my first week.” Giving a very startled Hermione a cruel smirk and a wink, he left her there to ponder her rather shaken convictions.

-..-

Draco stalked down the damp corridor, head thrumming uncomfortably. He knew that Snape had assisted the overgrown Gryffindor, had coached him on how to beat not only Goyle, but also himself; what he didn’t know was why. Oh, he could guess. For the same reasons he hadn’t wanted to get involved when his father had commanded it- and even hearing that the Malfoy’s were involved wouldn’t’ve shifted Snape’s fears of their intentions.
They had probably rather intensified.
And while Lucius had promised to keep her under their protection had he won, he knew eventually they may have been forced to turn her over to Goyle again, and then were would they all be?
Probably all bowing down to that nose-less freak and his cronies his father had been forced to deal with for all those years.
But then, Lucius had a plan. He always had a plan, just sometimes Draco had to wonder if his plan wasn’t to get them all horribly killed.
Greeting the lieutenant at the door to the last dungeon on the left, he looked around meticulously before entering, knowing all too well that those annoying bloody Weasley’s knew more of the castle’s secrets then even the most proficient member of the serpent house. Pushing that irritation from his mind, he focused on the here and now, noting automatically the dark shapes collectively waiting in the room beyond. Moving leisurely to the middle of the assembled, Draco smiled lazily, preparing yet again to dazzle the ignorant with a load of hippogriff droppings.
“Good to see we’re all ready. Now that we have Goyle’s near fatal blunder under control again, we can begin to focus on what’s important. Really, Greg – next time you decide to help the cause, do us all a favour? Don’t.” Malfoy smirked at the ripple of sycophantic laughter, inwardly seething. Especially when you pre-empt my bloody plans, you great pillock.
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