Ballad for the Lost Romantics

BALLAD FOR THE LOST ROMANTICS

CHAPTER 11

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March, the first month of spring (the season of love) is upon us, Dear Friends, which can only mean one thing: love is in the air!

This Author can see love (old and new) blossoming all around her. Indeed, if one were to confess their love to the one they had once thought unattainable, now would be the time to do so...Believe me, I would know...

In fact, springtime is all about living the day and seizing the moment, but instead of writing about doing so, I believe I will.

Lady Rowena's Ballad for the Lost Romantics

~*~

"Oliver?"

"Mm?" came a slightly distracted voice.

"Oliver? I-uh, I need to talk to you," I trailed off, leaning slightly forward in an attempt to catch his gaze.

Nothing that can really be considered as a response was heard.

"Oliver? It's, well, it's kind of important..." I let the statement hang in the air.

"Sure, go ahead, Hermione, I'm here," he unconvincingly assured me.

Well, I had had just about enough of that. If small talk leading in to what was no doubt going to be a very serious discussion wouldn't work, I'd just have to cut straight to the point.

"Oliver, do you love Lady Rowena?"

I could tell that got his attention by the way he immediately held himself carefully still. "Why do you ask that?" he inquired, finally turning his head to catch my eyes, blinking very slowly like a lazy cat in the summer sun (but it was only spring, remember).

Bravely I tilted my head back, answering, "Because I want to know if I'm some sort of consolation prize."

Oliver continued to look at me from his vantage point across our picnic blanket. "Hermione," he slowly began, careful to keep his posture perfectly still, "I could never think of you as such. Is that how I make you feel?"

Suddenly I felt foolish, sitting there on a light, spring day with Oliver, and then ruining it all with my insecurities.

Guiltily I looked down at the picnic basket Oliver had thrown together for our first real date. "Well, no...and yes," I amended under his scrutinizing eye. Honestly, it was quite impossible to lie to him.

The shame and guilt that immediately made Oliver come to my side of the blanket to wrap a securing arm around me instantly made me feel terrible for even bringing it up.

"Hermione, I care for you more than words can express," he began earnestly.

Pst, right, why don't you even try then? a nasty little voice sneered in the back of my mind. Here, I'll even help you, why not start by trying 'I love you'.

"Well, I don't know, Oliver," I anxiously wrung out my hands, snubbing the voice. "I mean, how do you know-?"

"Well, how do you know you love me?" he cut me off.

I abruptly closed my mouth, frowning slightly as I cocked my head to the side to ponder his question. "Well, it's hard to explain really," I admitted.

"Try," he responded.

"Well, one day, you just looked at me, and I knew. It was almost as if I had been hit in the gut by a bludger, but in a very good way" I muttered quickly, blushing to the tips of my ears.

Oliver grinned. "Remember when we were out on the field, after our first lesson?"

Not trusting my voice, I nodded.

"When you were so worried about me falling for someone I didn't even know, and your concern, I don't know if you know, but it just shown through your eyes. And it was just the most amazing thing to me, that a young, smart, and beautiful witch could be so concerned on my behalf..." here, he tucked a stray strand of my unruly hair behind my ear with a strange half smile, allowing his hand to caress my cheek, "and then you told me, ever so indirectly, that you were in love at the Yule Ball, and the only thing I could think of was how I was going to kill the guy who had captured your heart, and then assume his identity. That's something no one, not even Lady Rowena, has ever made me feel, Hermione."

God, now I felt like a creep for even doubting him, but still, I had to know... "Oliver, with Malfoy's bet you might be able to find out who she is..."

"It doesn't matter," was his firm reply.

"But you can-"

"No, Hermione, I can't. I can't because I love you and not her."

My breath caught before I whispered, "Then why didn't you say that when I told you first?"

Oliver's hand, which I belatedly noticed was still upon my cheek, gently fell away, the loss of contact making me feel oddly cold. "What?"

Averting my eyes I explained, "Last week, when I told you I loved you, you said 'good'. You didn't say it back."

"Hermione, how can you even doubt that I love you?"

"Well, I just noticed that you didn't say it back, and I was just thinking-"

"-If you're thinking then I'm not doing my job well enough," he cut me off, yet again, "now you listen to me, Hermione, and listen good. I am passionately, deeply, sweetly, indecently in love with you, and only you, and there's nothing or no one that can change that."

"What if you find out who Lady Rowena is?"

Oliver gave me a kiss on the nose. "It doesn't matter. I don't give a fig about Lady Rowena."

Inwardly, I gave a mental sigh a relief. Boy was that good to know. So, by theory, I would have been able to tell Oliver right then and there that I was Lady Rowena and, by his very own words, he wouldn't have cared.

Alright, I know that's not exactly what he meant when he said that he wouldn't care, but really, a Gryffindor could dream...

"I am most relieved to hear that," I announced.

Oliver grinned, "Well, good, that means I'm doing my job right."

And for the next few weeks, I am happy to report that Oliver did his job most splendidly. I never went wanting in any area of our relationship, and I had been turned into one of those grinning idiots that I had once loathed.

But, there was one downside to me and Oliver being together, and that was Ginny.

Or, more so, Ginny's 'I told you so' speech.

"I told you so," the grinning redhead professed, leaning smartly against my bed post.

I narrowed my eyes at her in a glare. "I thought I asked you not to tell me that."

Ginny lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "Just because you ask, doesn't mean you'll receive..."

And here, Ginny proceeded to lecture, pace, laugh, and preach about her virtues as a best friend and why I should have just listened to her in the first place, and blah, blah, blah. Really, I stopped listening after 'Hermione, listen to me, and listen well'.

By the time Ginny's rant had concluded, and I had filled her in on the details, I was finally allowed to breech a new topic.

"So, how are you and Harry?" I queried, giving Ginny a suggestive look with a raised brow.

Ginny frowned, much to my surprise. "I don't know, really."

"How can you not know?" I asked in clouded disbelief.

"Well, he's just sort have been acting strange lately. Ron, too, do you know what's going on?" Ginny turned to me, clearly hoping that I had the answers.

"Err, no; sorry, Gin," I truthfully replied.

Giving a sigh, the younger girl gave a little shrug, not quite dismissing the matter, but seemingly accepting the fact that I did not know anything on the subject. "Well, I'm out, Herms. I've got a quiz in Charms to study for. I'll see you in the morning."

And the next morning (when I did in fact see Ginny at breakfast, in case any of you were wondering) three things became achingly clear to me: 1.) Ron had somehow managed to convince himself that Ginny was Lady Rowena, 2.) The daft git had assumed that the man she had been writing about was not his best friend, Harry Potter, and 3.) Somehow, he had also managed to convince Harry of this.

In fact, that next morning at breakfast was quite the little eye opener for me, and I noticed quite a few things that I had neglected to before. For instance, I noticed that Parvati and Lavender had stopped talking to one another during and in between classes or meals. I noted that Draco Malfoy's entourage had split itself into two different factions: Goyle, Blaise, and Millicent at one end of the table, and then Malfoy, Pansy, and Crabbe at the other.

But I didn't think too much of it, really, because I had my Oliver, a big plate full of hotcakes, and a nice tall glass of pumpkin juice; so what could possibly be wrong within the walls of Hogwarts as long as I had all of that?

But something wrong, there was, and unfortunately, I wouldn't really begin to grasp what it was until things got a little too big for Hermione Granger to handle.

That's why I had to go and get Lady Rowena involved...