CHAPTER II
BOOH!
Friday had now come and the whole of Hogwarts castle was buzzing with indolence. There was no one listening in classes for the sole reason that the Hogmeade trip was the very next day, though two specific Gryffindors weren’t thinking of the Hogmeade trip at this very point.
“Can’t wait to see Fleur!” Ron exclaimed when they sat in the Great Hall, lunch’s various selections on their plates.
“Yeah, it’s going to be great,” Harry chipped in.
“Yes, I’m just thrilled!” Hermione shrieked happily.
She didn’t convince them though.
“I will not tolerate such slovenliness in my late father’s house!” Voldemort barked. He looked viciously at each Death Eater in front of him. “It’s outrageous! It’s intolerable! It’s incomprehensible, unbelievable, erroneous, inexcusable!” Voldemort bellowed, secretly checking a dictionary behind his back for good words to say. Sobs were trying to escape his mouth but he was quite the little soldier and held them back. “It is highly improper for my nonentities!”
Now Voldemort couldn’t hold it back any longer. Tears of injustice trickled down his bony cheeks and he whimpered, “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry!”
Some minutes and a lot of Kleenex’s later, Voldemort resumed his fearless self and positioned himself in front of his servants, all of whom awaited his continuing scolding.
“As I said,” “ sniffle “ “I will not tolerate this,” Voldemort finished.
“Of course not, master,” Crabbe comforted him.
Voldemort eyed him maliciously, and Crabbe winced from mortification of speaking recklessly.
“My fetid nonentities,” Voldemort began, now looking away from Crabbe. “This was the last straw. The next time you do something this ruthless, there’ll be heck to pay! Did you hear me? The next time you go to a strip club without bringing me along, there’ll be heck to pay!”
“So, how’s she arriving?” Hermione asked, desperately trying to rid herself of the unbearable attention she had just dropped on herself.
“Erm, I don’t know exactly how,” Harry answered, “but she said we should meet her at Hogwarts’ main gate at five p.m.”
“Okay,” Hermione replied. “Aren’t you just so happy you’ve finished all your homework and have the whole weekend free?”
“Yes,” Harry and Ron answered reluctantly.
Hermione smiled knowingly and continued, “I do hope she behaves better than when we were in our fourth year.”
“She improved a lot,” Harry argued.
“Yes, after you saved her little sister,” Hermione pointed out. “But anyway, I think this might turn out to be a very educational experience. Did you know that Fleur Delacour means ‘Flower of the Court’?”
“No,” responded Ron. “So what?”
“I think it’s kind of snobbish if you ask me,” Hermione finished.
“Well, we didn’t ask you,” Harry spat.
“I mean,” Hermione continued, not hearing Harry at all, “she could just as well hang a big sign over her head, saying I’m a Veela, I’m a snob. Want to touch my silky and perfectly straight hair? Of course we don’t, Flower of the Court!”
Ron, who had both eyebrows raised, said, “Take a chill-pill, Herms!”
“So, now when that’s settled,” Voldemort began, “we’ll look at the matters at hand. We’ve got the potion. We’ve got the place. We’ve got the plan. Everyone knows what to do, is that not so?”
“Yes, master,” chorused the Death Eaters.
“Brilliant,” Voldemort smirked. “Tomorrow is the time of the kidnapping and no mistakes will be allowed! You all know what to do and I expect that you succeed. We will leave this house tomorrow at nine o’clock”when the minute hand points at ‘twelve’ and the hour hand points at ‘nine’”and you will receive final orders when we’ve reached our destination.”
The Death Eaters nodded their approbation.
“Very well, you may now take your leave,” Voldemort finished. “Be sure to be in our I’ve-got-vicious-plan meeting room at eight o’clock”when the minute hand points at ‘twel-”
“We understand, my lord,” Goyle intervened.
“DO NOT INTERRUPT ME!” Voldemort bellowed. “Ahem… when the minute hand points at ‘twelve’ and the hour hand points at ‘eight’”tomorrow morning.”
Voldemort gave Goyle one last evil glare and dismissed them.
“It’s ten to five,” Ron said, looking at his wrist watch, “we’d better get going.”
Harry and Hermione nodded, and the three of them went out into the chilly September night air and walked down the undulating plains of Hogwarts grounds. When they reached the main gate, they looked out but Fleur hadn’t arrived yet.
“It’s 5:02,” Ron whispered, “Where is she?” He looked up anxiously at Harry and Hermione.
“Geez!” Hermione breathed.
“I’m just worried that’s all,” Ron explained.
“Too worried, if you ask me!” Hermione spat.
“Once again today, I’m not!”
“No woman in their right mind would want such a whimpering and jumpy boyfriend, Ron, so lighten up!”
“I never said I wanted t-”
“Bonsoir, ‘Arry, Ron, ‘Ermione!”
The three Hogwarts students spun around and saw a dark figure standing on the other side of the gate. The person’s accent was of course recognizable, but the person’s silvery blond hair that appeared from under the black hood unveiled her as well.
“Welcome, mademoiselle Delacour,” Hermione smiled and gave Fleur her hand. The boys were awe-struck and had apparently lost their ability to talk, so Hermione had been forced to greet her first.
“Thank you, ‘Ermione,” Fleur beamed. “Please, call me Fleur.”
Hermione smiled weakly and then turned to the boys. “Oy! Harry! Ron!”
Harry and Ron awoke from their trances and extended their hands to Fleur, who just shooed them away and instead kissed them on the right cheek, then the left, then the right.
Two very red-cheeked boys, a beaming blond girl and a sulking frizzy-haired girl walked back up to the castle.
After dinner that night, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Fleur returned to Gryffindor tower. Dumbledore had given permission to give Fleur the password, and she was to stay in Hermione’s dormitory. When she had unpacked, she returned to the common room where Harry, Ron and Hermione were chatting, comfortably seated on the couch. Fleur walked over and seated herself between Harry and Ron, beaming endlessly.
“Hi, Fleur,” Harry smiled. “Unpacked already?”
“Oui,” she responded. “I ‘ave a wand, you know. So, why not use it?”
Giggle.
Hermione shuddered.
“So, ‘Arry…” Fleur began, stroking his arm with her fingers. “What do you want to do?”
“Erm…” Harry stammered, looking anxiously from her fingers to her eyes, which shone in the light from the fire.
“Maybe we could just talk. Catch up on old times,” Fleur suggested. “We ‘aven’t seen each uzzer for…” she trailed off, counting the years on her fingers, “Mon Dieu! Trois années!” she cried, then seeing Harry’s uncomprehending look, she explained, “Three years!”
“Yes,” Harry replied. “It’s been three years.”
“So,” Fleur continued, “You want to talk, ‘Arry?” She gave Ron and Hermione a very hinting look and bashed her eyelashes.
Hermione was very well aware of the fact that Fleur wanted her and Ron to leave the room, but she acted as if she didn’t take the hint. Ron on the other hand didn’t take the hint out of pure stupidity.
Fleur looked a bit irritated and sighed. She looked up and said, “Might I be alone wizz ‘Arry for a while?” she asked sweetly.
Hermione really didn’t want to go but Ron answered, “Erm, okay,” and soon they were both on their way up into their dormitories.
Voldemort walked into his bedroom and looked around his dimly lit room. He put on his pyjamas and popped into his bed, smiling at the prospect of his vicious plan. No way could this one go wrong. Surely the last couple of schemes had turned out quite nastily but that wasn’t a reason for this to turn out like that as well.
Voldemort snuggled under the covers and breathed in the lovely scent of vanilla from his newly washed sheets.
He closed his eyes and imagined Harry’s shocked face as he would surprise him and kidnap him the next day.
“Go me!” Voldemort whispered before slumbering off into a dreamless sleep.
Up in the boys’ dormitory Ron was mumbling rapidly, and Hermione didn’t catch any of it.
“Ron, are you okay?” she asked, looking at the shifting Ron, who sat on his four-poster bed.
“Yes,” he grumbled.
“Ron, tell me what’s wrong,” Hermione replied.
“It’s just…” he trailed off, fumbling with his hands. “It’s just that I know what Harry and Fleur are up to right now. And I think it’s unfair.”
Hermione gave him a weak, affectionate smile and nodded for him to continue.
“I’ll always be second choice,” Ron continued glumly. “I should have realized it when she wrote to Harry and not me. I’m not anyone special”I’m the guy everyone knows because I’m Harry’s best mate. This is just a perfect example of how my whole life’s going to be like. Behind Harry at all times. That’s me”Second Choice Ron. If not Eighty Third Choice Ron. That’s my life. The End.”
“Don’t worry, Ron,” Hermione assured him. “Somewhere there’s someone saying something to someone and somehow this someone’s supposed to be suited for you.”
“You do realize how annoying that sentence was, right?” Ron drawled.
“Yes,” Hermione smiled mischievously. “Muahahaha!”
It was Saturday morning. The sun shone lustreless through the tall windows of Gryffindor tower. It’s beams hit two youngsters, one of whom was looking extremely worried.
“Harry never returned to your dormitory?” Hermione repeated, boring her eyes questioningly into Ron’s.
“No,” he answered simply.
“Oh no, he might be in danger!” Hermione concluded anxiously.
“Of course not, Hermione,” Ron assured her, patting her lightly on one shoulder. “He’s probably off shagging Fleur in a deserted corridor.”
“Ron!” Hermione warned. “Besides “ Harry wouldn’t do something like that! I suggest we go to Mad-Eye Moody and make him search for Harry. I couldn’t live with myself if I just dropped the subject and it turned out that something actually had happened to… to him.”
“Okay, if we must,” Ron replied, and the two of them left through the portrait hole.
Meanwhile in a classroom on fifth floor, Harry and Fleur lay on a conjured mat. Fleur was giggling and bashing her eyelashes, and Harry lay beside her, smiling foolishly.
“So, ‘Arry,” “ giggle “ “We finally found a classroom all to ourselves.”
“Mmmh…” Harry responded and kissed her.
Giggle.
“Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?” Fleur asked, winking.
“Oui, oui,” Harry replied; which happened to be the only word he knew in French. But it also happened to be the right answer according to the seductive smile she gave him.
He was terribly grateful he knew that word now.
“Ms. Granger, Mr. Weasley, please enter.”
Hermione and Ron stood outside Mad-Eye Moody’s office and heard him from behind the closed door. Obviously he had seen them through the door, and Hermione opened it, walking in with Ron behind her.
“Good morning, professor,” Hermione smiled.
“Good morning to you, too,” Moody replied. He was stood leaning over his desk which was covered in different Defence Against the Dark Arts books. One of which looked extremely old and it’s large size made it absorb most of the mahogany desk. “What brings you here?”
“We were just wondering if you could locate Harry for us,” Hermione answered. “He didn’t return to his dormitory last night and well… I’m worried.”
“I see,” Moody replied, straightening up as much as his old body permitted. “I’ll just check then, shall I?” He looked up, his bright blue eye rapidly searching through the thick stone ceiling. Suddenly he jerked his head back to look at the others with an uncomfortable look on his face.
“Found Harry all right,” he croaked.
“You did?” Hermione exclaimed. “Where is he?”
“Erm, well…” Moody looked extremely uncomfortable. “Let’s just say he’s exploring the meaning of the phrase so well known as ‘the birds and bees’ and is “ I think I can say for sure “ in no necessity of your worries.”
Hermione flushed quickly but Ron just narrowed his eyebrows and asked, “Birds and bees? But we don’t have Herbology on weekends.”
“Shall I rephrase then?” Moody asked, a smile twitching on the edge of his screwed mouth.
“No need!” Hermione cut him off, putting a hand up in front of him to stop any continual references.
“Oh, but I don’t mind at all,” Moody responded, a mischievous smile forming on his lips. “Mr. Weasley, as to where Mr. Potter is located this very moment, I can tell you for sure that he is in the vicinity of Ms. Delacour “ a very close vicinity, I might add “ and is currently pouring vast emotions into her desert of desire. ‘Coy’ is not a word I would use for his actions as he willingly unfolds the burning fire within his pores and-”
“Ron, please tell me you get it now!” Hermione shrieked, holding her hands tightly together in front of her chest as if praying.
Ron still looked confused, and therefore Moody continued smugly, “…and a feeling, languished for seventeen years, has been unleashed and it just so happens that Ms. Delacour is-”
“Ah!” Ron exclaimed. “I get it now!”
His face turned instantly from triumph to utter humiliation which quickly turned again but now into a revolting feeling inside him.
“Told you he was shagging her!” Ron hissed at Hermione after getting the thought of Harry and Fleur into his head to understand, and then as quickly as possible out again. They were walking down the main stairs to the Great Hall, students starting to fill the corridors on their way to breakfast.
“He didn’t do it in a deserted corridor!” Hermione cried.
“So a deserted classroom is much better?!” Ron bellowed.
“Yes!”
They slumped down opposite each other at the breakfast table. Neither of them speaking a word, until they were joined by the duo.
“Hi, guys,” Harry smiled as he sat down next to Ron; Fleur next to Hermione on the other side.
“Hi, Harry, Fleur,” Hermione forced a smile and hurriedly turned her attention to her breakfast.
“So, Harry,” Ron began, “How was shag-”
“Ron!” Hermione shrieked. “I just remembered… erm, we have to…get our bags before we head off to Hogsmeade!”
Ron growled but followed her out of the Great Hall nonetheless.
Harry watched them go and then turned to look at Fleur and asked, “Ready to go to Hogsmeade?”
“Ready to go to Hogsmeade?” Voldemort asked, eyeing his Death Eaters with great enthusiasm.
“Yes, master,” they chorused.
“Good.”
Walking down the sloping hills of Hogwarts ground, Ron was in a particularly bad mood. Harry and Fleur were walking in front of him and Hermione, holding hands, and Fleur’s continuing giggling gave Ron an earache”he was sure he’d soon get some sort of inflammation.
Looking away from the nauseating duo at the lake, he saw Malfoy walking along the shore, looking intently at someone to Ron’s left. Ron looked around and saw that Hermione was returning the look.
Calm down, Ron, he told himself. Sure they snogged under a bench in Hyde Park this summer but that doesn’t mean they’re shagging.
Ron looked toward Malfoy again and saw him wink at Hermione, smirking.
Okay, definitely shagging.
“Why’s everyone shagging but me?!” Ron cried furiously.
Silence. Everyone looked at him with eyebrows raised.
“Did I say that out loud?”
“Has he come yet?” Peter Pettigrew asked from his hiding place behind a rose bush in a deserted area on the outskirts of Hogsmeade.
“No, Wormtail,” Voldemort snapped. “Be patient.”
The four students entered the village of Hogsmeade in a slightly more cheerful mood after Ron’s unconscious revelation. They walked down the main road, looking into the various shops and occasionally stepping into one.
“Has he come yet?”
“No, Wormtail!” Voldemort snapped.
Coming out of Honeydukes, Harry was chewing happily on a Liquorice Pipe, when Fleur suddenly exclaimed, “Mon Dieu! C’est impossible! ‘Ermione, come wizz me!”
She dragged Hermione into a small shop which, looking through the display glass, Harry assumed was a women clothing shop. Taking a step back, Harry looked up and saw the shop was called L’Amour d’Or, which explained Fleur’s shriek of joy.
“Let’s go down this way,” Ron suggested, and they started to walk down the side road Ron had indicated.
“Has he come yet?”
“NO!”
Harry and Ron came to the end of the road which didn’t end in a dead end but unfolded in an open path on which lay twenty or so rose bushes. Harry thought it looked strangely unrealistic the way they almost lay in a half-moon circle put he didn’t give it a second thought.
“Has he come yet?”
Harry looked strangely at one of the bushes for he had been sure it had just spoken. Pull yourself together, Harry, he scolded himself, bushes don’t talk.
He looked at Ron, who too was staring uncomprehendingly at the bush.
Or maybe they do…
Harry narrowed his eyes, fixing them more intently on the talking bush. Without the bush moving, something thin and pointy appeared through the leaves. Harry thought it looked unmistakably like a wand. Bushes don’t have wands, he reasoned.
“Stupify!”
Harry cracked his neck as he hurriedly looked to his right to find Ron motionless on the ground.
“What the…?”
“Expelliarmus!”
Harry’s wand flew out of his pocket before he even got hold of it. It flew up in the air and landed inches from the talking bush. Harry was now quite sure he wasn’t going to enjoy this little encounter any more than he would like to see Hagrid naked.
Suddenly something appeared from behind the bush on the talking bush’s right. A tall, slim body rose, it’s black cloak and hood hiding it’s identity. Harry felt the recognizable stinging in his scar and stumbled a frightened step back. The cloaked figure lifted it’s arms and drew back the hood.
“Booh!”
____
A/N: Here is a little reference from this chapter that I’d like to explain:
Voldemort snuggled under the covers and breathed in the lovely scent of vanilla from his newly washed sheets.
Why is it that the majority of fanfics I’ve read where a shampoo, or a girl’s perfume, or the scent of the bubbles in the bath tub always has a vanilla scent? Why is it always vanilla?!