Fate of Awakening Love

Fate of Awakening Love

Chapter 6

Of Meetings and Heirs

Hermione woke in a dream-like state, wondering if what happened the night before really had. She sat up and grabbed her hair, pulling it in front of her face. It was hers, not Rowena's, and confusion quickly fell away to anger as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. She was going to take a walk - a long walk - and grabbed a dressing gown from the wardrobe and threw it on. She was infuriated - now were they not only stuck in the Middle Ages probably forever, they were stuck in their bodies! Where she would go from here, she didn't know, but a thought plagued her mind. Where are Rowena and Farieni if we're here. What if they were sent to another time when the switch back was made? How do we explain this? Draco caught up with her, coming from the Great Hall, and she whirled around to go back up the stairs.

"I need to go to the library," she said, spawning an idea. Draco didn't speak, and maybe it was a good thing since she was furious. Not really paying much attention to where she was going, suddenly crashed into a person, causing her to stumble back and almost fall. A strong, long-fingered hand elegantly wrapped around her upper arm, steadying her. She stared up at Draco's face.

"Er - thanks." She straightened and cleared her throat, opening her mouth to prepare an apology to the person she'd crashed into. Instead, she just stared open-mouthed at the woman in front of her. The woman's waist-lenght midnight-black hair glistened in the blazing braziers along the walls and her blue eyes stared back at Hermione with the same confusion laced in the azure irises.

"Rowena?" croaked Hermione. Farieni stepped out from behind his wife, who was dressed in one of Hermione's copper-red sweaters and jeans, Farieni wearing one of Draco's black button-down shirts and black pants. Both were almost exactly Hermione and Draco's size.

"So you're Hermione," said Rowena after a moment of silence, and suddenly the older woman embraced Hermione in a large hug.

"And you're Draco." Farieni bowed. "I am honored to make your aquiantance. I am sorry for wearing your clothes, I -"

"Oh, er, don't worry about it, we're sorry for wearing yours too, I mean -"

"We're even." Farieni grinned. Rowena finally released Hermione, though her hands remained on her shoulders.

"It's great to meet you finally." Spoke Rowena. She speaks sort of modern, Hermione noted, which is definitely a bit odd. "You, my dear, are my descendant. Something like my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, or something of the sort."

"Granddaughter?" Hermione whispered. But that still doesn't explain how I knew...well it's no matter, I'm just relieved to see them.

"Yes," laughed Rowena, "my daughter marries a Gryffindor, and their son marries a Gryffindor, and their daughter is a Ravenclaw, so on and so forth, and that's why you're in Gryffindor and not Ravenclaw while still having the brains for Ravenclaw. If it makes any sense, dear." Hermione numbly nodded, feeling stupid for not being able to do more than that.

"Well, enough talking," said Farieni, clapping Draco on the shoulder. "I think we should inform our time-travelling friends just what happened. Come, follow us."

***

Hermione soon found herself in the Room of Requirement. Bookshelves full to their top shelves with books lined the walls and candles lit up the room, and a table sat in the middle, four chairs around it. They all sat and Rowena and Farieni listened to Hermione and Draco's story of being back in the Middle Ages. Surprisingly they didn't ask why they'd come and why they had been thrust forward one thousand and two hundred years into the future. Then they started their tale.

When they were suddenly thrown into the year 1998 Rowena went straight to the Headmaster's office without wasting a second, demanded that she speak with the Headmaster "immediately, and no arguments" to the gargoyle, asking did it recognize her as the Ravenclaw founder. It hadn't budged, but Snape had been turning a corner and knew a switch had somehow been made. From then he lead Farieni and Rowena up to the Headmaster's office, and Dumbledore had taken it from there. They didn't go to any of their classes as a precaution and had stayed in Hogsmeade in the Golden Galleon, an inn at the end of High Street.

Then they started feeling weird, and ended up in their old bodies.

Hermione sighed, leaned her elbows on the table and rubbed her temples. "How? How could this happen? The potion -"

"The potion was only an experiment. It wasn't guaranteed to work, nobody had ever traveled back this far in time." Rowena said, placing a hand on Hermione's arm. "We have to prepare a Time-Turner for you to go back. I will give you the sword, though I believe you know where it is." Hermione nodded. "The Time-Turner will take a month to make, and you two must stay at the Golden Galleon in that time. I will have my house-elves fit you with clothing and I will fetch food that will last a month for you - the inn's food is not the best I've had."

"Will we be able to fight in any battles if there's any?" Draco asked from beside Hermione, and she looked over at him. His jaw was set and there was a fire in his eyes, but when he looked at Hermione something changed and he looked vulnerable, like he was going to cry. But no, not Draco Malfoy, not the Prince of Slytherin. He didn't cry.

Or did he?

"Yes. I hear Hermione is quite gifted in archery, so we will give you each a bow, as well as a sword. Hermione will be in charge of keeping Rowena's sword, as we have many enemies who will be able to find it if not, and it would be a waste to come this far for this long for the sword to be destroyed." Farieni spoke. It was one of the first times Hermione'd ever heard him talk.

"Thank you," said Hermione. "We really do owe -"

"You don't owe us a thing, my dear," Rowena smiled. "Just a safe keeping for the sword. Now, come, we've all been through a terribly exhausting ordeal, we'll go to the inn and bring your clothes in the morning."

Out in the stables, Hermione took a Friesian with a white star on its head and climbed on, Draco taking an Arabian beside her. They glanced at each other as Rowena and Farieni started to lead the way to Hogsmeade, and Draco reached out for her hand. She reluctantly took it, wondering why he'd even offered, but the look in his eyes was troubling, and she was eager to find out that nagging 'why'. He said nothing, however, and she didn't ask.

***

"The Yule Ball," spoke Draco a few nights after, as Hermione sat at the desk in their room, composing a letter. She wore a forest-green linen dress and her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck, he sporting a brown tunic and black hose, and he was lying on his back on the bed, his fingers laced beneath his head as he stared up at the ceiling.

"What?" she asked, pausing her writing and got up, splashing her face with cool water from the basin on the bedside table.

"Fourth year, the Yule Ball...that's when I started to have feelings for you." She continued drying her face, though her heart was pounding in her throat. She didn't say anything, but just looked at him before going behind a screen and started to change into a simple white sheath for bed. "I don't know why, whether it was your hair pulled back or those robes you wore, but that was, I believe, the first night I ever really noticed you were pretty.

"I didn't want to feel that way - imagine what my father would have said - but, I just figured it was just the way you looked that night. So, I waited. And the next morning at breakfast I couldn't stop looking at you, and I felt that same weight on my chest, or that twisting-sort of feeling in my stomach. God, this sounds cheesy, but it feels good to get it off my shoulders." Hermione let her hair out, walking over to the bed. She sat down beside him and he sat up, draping his arms loosely around his knees.

"Keep going." She said.

"Well, I waited...and waited. But the feeling never went away, and the only way I could hide it was to keep being my usual sarcastic, evil self to you, even though all I wanted to do was...well, kiss you." His cheeks flushed, and a single tear slid down her cheek, like a diamond glistening on an ivory wall.

"You meant it? All of it?"

"Do you really think I could lie about something like that?" he said thickly, his voice hoarse. "I'm not out to get you anymore, Hermione. I thought you knew that." He reached out and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

"I wanted to make sure this isn't a dream."

"It's far from a dream, Hermione." He leaned in and touched his lips to hers in a kiss more bittersweet and heartwrenching than their first, her hands sliding up through his hair, tears sliding down her cheeks more and more by the second, not even realizing he was leaning her back and the night was melting around them, the moon, their only witness, smiling in its orbit.