Into the night of the heart
Your name drops slowly
And moves in silence and falls
And breaks and spreads its water.
Something wishes for its slight harm
And its infinite and short esteem,
Like the step of a lost one
Suddenly heard.
Suddenly, suddenly listened to
And spread in the heart
With sad insistence and increase
Like a cold autumnal dream.
The thick wheel of the earth,
Its tire moist with oblivion,
Spins, cutting time
Into inaccessible halves.
Its hard goblets cover your heart
Split upon the cold earth
With its poor blue sparks
Flying in the voice of the rain.
"Slow Lament" Pablo Neruda
CHAPTER SEVEN: Further Down the Spiral
I would gladly die for a kiss like this, Harry Potter mused amongst the chaos of his mind.
His lips crushed brutally against hers as they molded into a feverish embrace. For a brief and tantalizing moment, he was able to lose himself in her. The taste of her lips was indescribable, a mix of something completely forbidden and unfathomable. Rationality and reason were gone now, replaced by the overwhelming sensation of her skin underneath his fingertips. He was going mad, his hands- no, her hands- were causing emotions that were so completely foreign to him to rise up.
This-
"Hermione," he murmured against her lips, quietly moaning as her fingertips began to trace a seductive and frenzied pattern underneath his shirt.
"Harry, we're-"
His lips lowered and pressed against the side of her neck. He was becoming intoxicated by the sweet and warm sent that was Hermione. All the sensations in his body were on fire.
"I-"
"We need to-" She hissed as his fingers danced further up her crumpled shirt.
"-Need to stop," he managed to finish as she crushed her lips against his once more.
This thing between them was dangerous, no, explosive. Instead of being granted some sort of release, any release, the tension between them continued to build up. He couldn't get enough of her. He didn't want to get enough of her.
"You're right," she murmured, tugging his bottom lip between her teeth. "You're right."
"I-" He could not speak, lost in her erotic whispering.
Love is a powerful emotion, Dumbledore's voice mocked as his fingers stilled against her skin. His body began to burn as the soft lace of her bra teased his fingertips. He struggled to focus.
And Miss Granger is capable of extraordinary things.
His head fell against her shoulder, exhaustion overwhelming him and temporarily sating his desperate need to-
She will be the one to help you, Harry, the old man's voice continued to whisper in the back of his mind. He sighed, the remains of his conversation with Dumbledore escaping from the recesses of his mind and returning to haunt him full force. He sought comfort in her embrace, trembling under the full force of her presence.
Tell her the truth.
"I'm sorry," he breathed into her neck.
"For what?" She whispered in response. A part of him was secretly pleased that she made no attempt to remove herself from his embrace.
"For everything, anything- I don't know."
She laughed softly and he couldn't help but smile himself. It felt good to smile. To really smile.
"We're a mess, huh?
He sighed and looked up, suddenly enchanted by her eyes. They were subtly memorizing, dark coffee brown with flecks of gold scattered about. He was frozen it seemed, the fierceness of her emotions nearly unbearable.
"We're a mess," he agreed.
Harry straightened up, his eyes never leaving her daunting gaze. It had finally dawned on him that this- everything that he had consciously and unconsciously tried to prevent- this was really happening. Things were changing, some good, and others indescribable. Nevertheless, both he and Hermione were slowly leaving their self-inflicted purgatory.
Unless, he couldn't bring himself to tell her the truth about everything.
Truth was such an intimidating concept. For something that was so virtuously rationalized, truth was always relentlessly vicious when it came to emotions. He had no desire to hurt Hermione, but he was afraid that the damaged had already been done.
"This scares me," he whispered. "And yet, at the same time I know I need this. A-am I crazy?"
Hermione was silent for a moment, casting her gaze downwards. A few stray curls feel over her eyes and he couldn't stop his fingers from gently tucking them behind her ear.
"No," she murmured finally, leaning into his touch. "You're not crazy. We're just lost. Terribly lost."
"Then what do we do n-"
The sound of hollow clapping echoed loudly in the empty Astronomy Tower. Harry turned and grasped Hermione's hand, the unwelcome sight of Ron leaning against the wall greeting them like a terrible omen.
"Well, well. If it isn't the golden couple that could… Out past curfew I might add."
Something raw and very dangerous began to claw inside of him and Harry found himself clutching Hermione's hand as a lifeline to his sanity. A foreboding sensation began to creep inside of him, embracing him with maddening ease. He swallowed, begging himself to exert at least some control.
At least for Hermione's sake.
"Ron," he responded evenly. "Isn't this slightly out the way of where you make your rounds?"
"Well see here's the thing," the other boy answered, moving closer. "Parkinson decided to so graciously inform me that Hermione, my Gryffindor counterpart, had decided to a double round next week without telling me. So Parkinson decided to ditch me and I went off in search of Hermione."
"Is there a point to this?" Hermione asked quietly from his side, her own grip on his hand tightening. From the shadows in Ron's eyes, Harry wondered vaguely he had been standing there all along.
"I'm glad you asked."
Harry's eyes narrowed as Ron pulled out a letter from under his robes. He tensed. It was the very same letter that Hermione had been avoiding talking to him about. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see that she had paled considerably. She was trembling now, his grasp on her hand tightened and he pulled her close. Alarmed, she hissed in pain.
"Don't be stupid, Ron," he murmured, stuck between expressing his growing concern for Hermione and smashing his fist in Ron's face.
"Ah, but don't you want to hear? It seems as if our darling Hermione's been keeping secrets from us. Now why would she do that? Doesn't she trust us?"
He would be lying if he said that Ron's words weren't getting to him. Truth and trust go hand in hand, he mused morosely. They had a lot of ground to cover. More than he had ever thought.
"Trust isn't a word I tend to throw around lightly, Ron," Hermione spoke through gritted teeth. His eyes widened in surprise as she leaned further into his embrace, as she seemed to be struggling to stand.
"But you trust Harry," Ron replied, speaking his name as if it were a dirty word. For a moment, Harry began to wonder what had happened to them. Had this war-the war that was stuck between starting and not really starting-torn them apart this badly?
"I do."
The simple, honest words that left her lips struck a cord with him. He hadn't realized how important it was to him to have her trust in him. Some would call it blind faith, but it was much more than that. Hermione's trust thrilled him. It was his balance.
Ron let out a defeated sigh, the letter falling from his fingertips. "There's obviously nothing I can do to change your mind."
The ambiguous statement aroused a feeling of suspicion in Harry. But his feelings of suspicion were suddenly pushed away as Hermione latched onto his shirt with a death grip, her knees buckling from underneath her.
"Hermione!"
He pulled her closer to his body, lowering the two of them down to the ground. His hands were shaking and his breathing was frantic.
"Hermione, what's wrong?"
She was shaking violently, one hand clutching his shirt and the other on her shoulder. She was whispering hollow words of comfort to herself that much his panic-stricken mind could tell.
Her head was buried in his chest, her stifled moans of anguishing pain clawed at the last remains of his sanity. His lips began to move and beg a frozen Ron to help- to do something but Ron never moved.
"Make… make it stop," Hermione gasped. "It-it hurts so badly…"
"I can't- I don't know what to do! Please," he whimpered helplessly as Hermione's grip began to loosen. "Tell me what to do."
Harry was uncertain about what really happened next. Whether it had anything to do with Ron slumping uselessly to the ground or the violent tremors that took over Hermione's body-but he snapped.
Carefully placing Hermione on the ground using his cloak as a headrest, he whispered a temporary sleeping spell. He then directed his gaze towards a trembling Ron. He's the source of all of this, the mocking voice in his head hissed. He sewed his eyes shut because he is afraid to see…He's nothing but a coward.
"Get up," he hissed. "Get up, you coward."
Ron snapped out of trace and angrily replied, "Sod off, Potter! This is your fault! If you had stayed away from her, she wouldn't be going through this."
"She's fine," he murmured, advancing towards the other boy. "The sleeping spell I cast will distract her from the pain."
"You think you're good enough for her," Ron inched closer. They were face to face now. "You'll have her killed!"
Harry lunged for Ron and the two boys fell to the cold, hard ground in a tangle of limbs. The other boy used his height as an advantage, grabbing Harry's arm and snapping it behind his back with a sickening twist. He had him pinned to the ground and his knee pressed into his back painfully.
"What's the matter, Harry?" Ron taunted. "At a slight disadvantage here?"
He growled dangerously. "Accio wand!"
In an uncharacteristic display of wandless magic, Harry's wand flew out of his sack of books and into his hand. With renewed strength, Harry grabbed his wand and broke free from Ron's grasp. Ron's wand fell from his robes, forcing him to dive for it.
But Harry was faster and as soon as Ron's wand was within the grip of his hand, he uttered, "Expelliarmus!"
He smirked. "At a slight disadvantage here?"
"Fuck you," Ron cursed, clenching his fists.
Harry shrugged carelessly. "Really don't swing that way. Sorry. However, you and I need to come to some sort of agreement."
He stopped and kneeled, grabbing Ron's shirt with his fist. Somewhere inside of him, his heart perhaps, made a lonely plea for him to stop this madness. This was Ron. Ron, the very same boy who had been the first person he had met in the wizarding world. This was Ron, his friend. But a much darker feeling from within him soon silenced the voice.
A violation had been made, returned the voice. He must pay. She is yours and you must defend that claim. Defend the claim and it will be well…
He raised his wand.
"Expelliarmus," came the whisper of a chilling, detached voice.
Soon, Harry found himself watching a distraught Hannah Abbott and Ginny Weasley running to Hermione's unmoving form and Professor Snape standing with his wand in his hand.
"Have to hand it to you, Potter. Didn't know you had it in you…Sixty points each from Gryffindor and do tell me the spell that you've placed Miss Granger under," Snape murmured.
"The bewitched sleep…She's in pain," he responded, his eyes never leaving Ron's furious gaze. "I don't know why…"
Snape nodded. "Miss Weasley please escort your brother to the Headmaster's office, I do believe he is waiting for the two of you. And Miss Abbott, I am sure you can handle a simple levitating spell and bring the injured Miss Granger to the Hospital Wing. I will deal with Mr. Potter."
Hannah nodded and followed Snape's instructions, not before whispering words of comfort to a clearly distressed Ginny. Ginny, in turn, grabbed the arm of her brother with a withering look, leaving him with no one but Snape.
"Now Mr. Potter, although I don't think killing Mr. Weasley would leave the world at a disadvantage…Detention for the next two weeks in the Potions Lab."
Harry nodded, but said nothing in response. The rage in his mind was beginning to calm down.
The older man began to study him. Vaguely, Harry began to feel the prodding of Snape's Legilimency skills, making no effort to fight him. He had nothing to hide and he had an idea to what Snape might be looking for.
As quickly as he invaded his mind, Snape left Harry's mind with a satisfied smirk causing Harry to wonder what exactly the older man had found.
"You're quite predictable, Potter. Not that I was ever under the impression that you were anything other than."
Harry growled, gathering his books along with Hermione's and the culprit letter. "Are we done? I'd like to get to the hospital wing to see Hermione."
He was surprised when Snape's expression took on a different light. He was pensive and there was regret laced in the dark shadows of his eyes. And very quietly, the older man began to speak, his voice filled with an abundance of sorrow.
"Salvation is closer than you think, Potter. Letting it go would be most unwise."
Defensive, Harry responded, "Are you telling me that I should use Hermione to my advantage, Professor?"
Snape smirked, returning to his normal bastard attitude. "No, Potter," he murmured, slowly making his way to the exit of the Astronomy Tower and pausing to make sure Harry was ready to follow. "I am telling you to be cautious. Do not make the same mistakes your father did. And do not underestimate the manipulative power of Albus Dumbledore."
Then Snape was gone, leaving Harry to his thoughts and dissipating anger.
Salvation…
TBC
A/N: So the good news is that I've finally come to a decisive decision regarding the length and the inevitable end of Magnolias. The bad news, for me at least, is that I haven't really reached mid-point yet. Close, but not close enough where I can say I'm definitely there. The really good news is that this is staying firmly in the direction it's supposed to be.
Oh and a special thank you to Chaosblades for beta reading. *gushes* He's adorable. And I'm going to keep telling him that.
*smirks*
As I've stressed before, there's going to be a progression into some really dark and depression and intense characterization. Just `cause that's the way I am. It will most-likely be in two or three chapters where the rating will jump to an R. So look out for that, those of you who shouldn't be reading that stuff.
Anyhow, I've decided to get a live journal and actually use it. I will be posting an assorted amount of *stuff* including snippets from Magnolias when I feel terrible for prolonged posting.
Here's the link to my live journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/fated_addiction
Go crazy, folks. I do appreciate the feedback. And I'm always happy to make a new friend.
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