Corrupting the Innocents
Title: Corrupting the Innocents
Author name: Romulus Lupin
Author email: galigad@yahoo.com
Category: Romance
Sub Category: Angst
Keywords: H/Hr
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None.
Summary: A sequel of sorts to Dream Chasing. Why
did Erin say that Harry and Hermione are 'corrupting the innocents'? Who are the
'innocents'? And why are they being corrupted?
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: My brain must have been out on a binge with my muses when I posted the first chapter (actually, the Prologue) of this story yesterday. I completely forgot that the dedication should have been to the original "Corruptors of Innocence:" kaze, Mel (happy daze), and Trisha (simon's_flower), three of the most talented and lovely (physically and spiritually ;)) writers who sail the HMS Pumpkin Pie.
Thank you for all the corruption that you gave my innocent soul. :P
P.S. The song is 'It's A Heartache' sung by Bonnie Tyler.
Chapter 2.
He's doing it again.
I close my eyes the moment I saw his quill stop moving and take a deep, calming breath.
He's staring at her again.
I look up and saw that she had her head bent over Ca's essay, her eyes focused on the words written there, trying to decipher the chicken scratch that a hand unaccustomed to quill and parchment had made. Head bent, brown hair hiding her face, but his fascinated eyes were fastened there -- mouth slightly open, a corner of his lips tilted up just one tiny bit, the quill with which he'd been industriously hacking away at my essay forgotten in his hand.
I close my eyes and force myself to breath. A deep breath in, the same breath out - each lungful of air inhaled or exhaled a single, careful count that I had learned in an effort to keep track of time.
I wish he would look at me that way.
But he never would.
There was only one person - one girl - he would ever look at that way.
And it wasn't me.
I lean back in my chair, resting my head on its back, peeking at him from behind my lowered lashes ...
He was still staring at her hair.
I've been tempted to ask, so many times, if he knows how many hairs there are on the crown of her head. He's the youngest Seeker in a century and, despite his glasses - is he near- or far-sighted? Funny, we've known him for almost a year now but have never really asked him-
But anyway.
Her hair.
The way he stares at her, I am almost sure that he knows how many hairs there are on her head -- Merlin knows, he's stared at her long enough and often enough to have been able to count them! But I don't want to ... the truth is, no matter how observant he may be (he let me try to find the Snitch one time on the field and I got so dizzy with looking that I decided then and there I'd rather be a Beater than a Seeker!), they both live in the illusion that no one notices them.
Yeah, right.
She knows he's looking at her as she nonchalantly tucks a curl behind her ear - and I feel my smile growing wider as I notice the faintest tinge of pink touching its tip. She may be looking down at the parchment, but there must be something in those eyes that would make her heart beat faster, cause the blood vessels to tingle and blood to flow faster, making her skin flush and redden even as she tries to act still and unaware-
I wish I could feel what she feels - feel his eyes on my head as I bow down to my work, know - through some indecipherable means of magic - that his eyes are on me.
But wishes are all I have.
There is only one person in the room who could feel that way.
And that person isn't me.
I lean back again in my chair and sigh, softly, carefully, not wanting to disturb them. I wanted to look around the room, distract myself from the spectacle that was causing knives to cut into my heart but I did not want to do so.
I don't need to look around the Common Room to know that everyone in sight is doing one of five things: snickering, rolling their eyes, grinning, looking on wistfully -- or sighing. The Room has fallen silent and everyone is looking our way, everyone doing one or the other - oftentimes, going through all of those things in rapid succession.
I am sitting beside him, knowing what is going on around me as everyone watches them … and I find myself wishing that I didn't see them, that I didn't know what they were doing - that I hadn't been watching everyone around me often enough that I could see what the others in the Room were doing with my eyes closed.
But there it was - they were in a world of their own and we were on the outside looking in. We could only guess at what they are thinking ... what they are feeling ... what words pass through their minds as the seconds drift by.
All I know is I want to be in her place.
I feel a tingling on my nose and I turn away from him and her; I have to reach for something to cover my face, something to cover my nose before a sniffle or a sob breaks out. I feign that I am about to sneeze or cough but knowing I would not do it ... no one has ever thought to break the silent tableau before me with such an uncouth or ill-mannered gesture.
Doing so would break the magic that we could feel in the room as he continued to stare at her and she continued to look down.
And once again, I find myself wishing that-
I hear a soft, but happy sigh in the room -- as if a gentle breeze had passed - and I knew she had looked up from the parchment she'd been reading, and her cheeks would be blushing as she meets his eyes. I glance around the room and see people turning away - to read, to play chess or Exploding Snap, to resume writing their essays or assignments or letters or notes but I know that everyone in the room has a smile on their lips and - what was that Muggle saying that my best friend told me about - "a song in their hearts?"
I never knew what it meant until I saw them going through their routine - of Sir Harry staring at Miss Hermione while she was bent on some task or other, of Miss Hermione's cheeks slowly blushing as she felt his eyes on her. Of watching her slowly lift her head until their eyes meet and they would talk in a language that only they seemed to understand but which we all wanted to listen in on.
But I wondered if I was the only one hearing a different tune in my heart, a song that Carolyn had sung one time, not knowing that it would become a tune that will get stuck in my mind, cutting into me every time I see him looking at her:
"It's a heartache
Nothing but a heartache
Nothing but a fool's ache
Coming from the heart-"
I shake myself as I feel his eyes on me - full of concern, full of affection and I quietly touch the pumpkin-shaped badge that Carolyn and I had made, with the laughing assistance of Fred and George: "Potter-Granger Spawn."
I knew they looked at us that way. They saw us as siblings, as the younger sisters that chance had denied them but which a kind Divinity had set in their paths -
He looks at me in concern, and I smile back while shaking my head. He smiles at me in a way that should make my heart melt, but doesn't ... because he smiles at me with brotherly love, sibling affection, a fatherly concern.
It was all I had.
It was enough for me.
Until the next time he stops tutoring me to stare at her.