Thanks for your support everyone! 8 reviews in 24 hours was a lot better than I expected! I have a beta now, so hopefully the small knots have been ironed out. Please review this one too! Thanks :) Now, what's wrong with Hermione?
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Hermione walked down the deserted dirt road, lost in thought. 'What happened?' She thought for the thirty-second time- she'd been counting, caught herself, chastised herself for being so stupid, and did it again. It was another way to get her mind off of what was really bothering her. Harry. She had realized long ago that he was the person with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life, but she had no idea of knowing if he shared those feelings, and she was afraid of chasing him away by asking and getting the wrong reply. She had thought that she would be better off just keeping him as a friend, instead of jeopardizing even that platonic relationship. Unfortunately, she realized too late, she had gambled and lost. Not knowing one way or the other had eaten her up to the point where she couldn't even work anymore. She lost all desire to do anything, even the things she loved the most. She finally decided it would be best for everyone if she were to disappear for a little while until she was ready to finally confront her fear and ask him out. So she had run. She hated leaving both of them in the lurch like that, especially Harry, but she had had to. With a sigh, she started thinking about her excursions that morning.
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She woke up extra early and packed some clothes and things, gingerly avoiding anything that might remind her of Harry or school. She quickly wrote a letter explaining what she was doing, carefully avoiding any indication of where she was going. Then, putting the letter in a place Harry would find it when he got home, she went outside, took one long look at their house, as if trying to imprint it on her mind forever, and left. Catching a bus to London (she specifically avoided the Knight Bus, as too many people knew her there) she withdrew some money out of her Gringotts account and changed it into muggle money. She took another bus to Heathrow airport and claimed the round-trip ticket to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey that she had bought three weeks earlier. It had cost her a nice sum, but she had been saving up for a while. Now she took the ticket from the smiling women, nodded when she wished her a nice flight, and got onto her plane.
The flight itself was pretty uneventful, considering it was one of her first. The only time she had ever flown before was to France, and that was when she was still in school. Her family had decided to fly instead of drive since she'd never been on a plane before, and she'd loved it. This time, however, she wasn't exactly flying for a pleasure trip, so she decided to just use the time to sleep. She asked a flight attendant for a pillow, and was out in a minute.
Since she had gotten her sleep during the flight, she wasn't really tired when she disembarked. If she had been, she might not have noticed the paintings on the wall as she walked down the terminal. Even if she had, she wouldn't have noticed the slight glimmer on one of the portraits. As it was, she almost missed it. As soon as she noticed it she stepped on one of her sneaker's laces, pulling it loose. As she bent down to tie it, she examined the shimmering painting more closely. It didn't look like anything a muggle device could have done, even one of those projectors she always saw advertised, which meant there must be some sort of spell involved here. The question was, which one? She racked her brains trying to think of any spells that would produce this result, as well as the other question of 'What kind of spell would someone put on a picture frame in an airport?' It could be an Apparating Assist spell, but then why the glimmer? But at the same time, why would someone put a pan heating spell on a picture frame? The whole thing was just too confusing, and she wished now that she had thought to bring more of her books along with her. She hadn't exactly been planning to study, but maybe she'd have been able to connect the two. Smiling, she started to unzip her bag when she realized that her books were in her suitcase, and the only book in her carry-on was...
"Um, miss? Are you alright?"
She looked up to see one of the airport security guards standing there.
"You've been crouched like that for fifteen minutes. Are you planning on staying like that all night?"
Looking flustered, Hermione stood up quickly, smoothing out her skirt as she did, and said,
"Oh, I'm sorry. I was just tying my shoelace and must've drifted off. Uh, thank you, sir."
She walked off, conscious of the guard staring at her as she did and picked up her pace. As soon as she turned the corner she slowed down and once again started thinking about that picture in the galleries.
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She continued down the path, absorbed in her thoughts, now thinking about that picture. She still couldn't figure out what type of spell had been put on it. There were only a few possibilities, each as unlikely as the next. She wished that security guard hadn't come along, it would have been much easier if she could just examine it more closely without having to explain to anyone why. She berated herself for not trying to explain herself off as an art buff simply interested in the painting itself, but suddenly stopped herself as she realized she was defeating her own purpose. She had come here to relax and think, and that's just what she was going to do. She turned around and started heading towards the house she had rented.
'Upstate New York is great,' she thought, 'I should come here more often.' It was quiet, but not deserted. The occasional car drove by, but it wasn't a mad house like London was. Children played in the yards, but there were no booming stereo systems to be heard. It was the perfect atmosphere to contemplate, and contemplate she would. She resolved to get that strange painting out of her head, at least until this was all over.
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Well, now we know what's wrong with her, but what about that painting? Or did I just it in there for fun? Stay tuned...
Also, for those of you who read the original first chapter and not the revised one, my thing with updating is very touch-and-go. Some times it may take me a while, and I mean weeks (though that won't happen very often hopefully,) while sometimes I may update multiple times in one day. It all depends on my work load. Hopefully I'll find my first story interesting enough to work on often, but any support from you guys would be greatly appreciated. If you just want to give a quick comment (I know Portkey's against that) just throw me an e-mail at cleanfics@gmail.com (it'll automatically be forwarded to my regular address, so a quick reply is almost certain) and I'll count that as a review. Thanks!
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