Life and Times
Rating: R
Ship: HHr (main emphasis)
The (unlovely) procedure: all rights go to JKR for previous plot and characters, Scholastic, Warner, and whoever else has their hands in HP.
Author Note: If there is one concept I want to leave as a mark for my lasting fiction it is this: that with whatever obstacle thrown at them, good, bad, or indifferent, Harry will forever love Hermione and Hermione will forever love Harry. I hope to have established this unequivocally.
***
Chapter Thirty-Three - Dance
***
My hands clasped the cool metal railing, re-emphasizing the stainless steel and reflective aluminum-look of the outside, I held on while simply gaping at the thousands below us. We were put above everyone else, which I didn't necessarily like seeing no reason why we couldn't enjoy ourselves with everyone else. Of course, there was that voice in the back of my head that told me it was probably best to be away for safety reasons, and it would definitely keep Harry from worrying. I leaned over a balcony to see our view. One could not directly distinguish body and floor. Heads, arms, frames swayed to a beat pulsating from thin air. The Muggle world would describe the beat as techno. Lights committing to the ravenous riffs and clashing of sound struck against sunburst-covered walls, reflecting onto the mass from its mirrored quality.
Harry stepped beside me, placing his hands on the railing, too. I felt his left hand, for he was on my right, lay over my knuckles. My thumb grazed the portion of him I felt and suddenly, in a wash of screams, we were spotted. Every breath turned towards us. The house jumped, and not for the music, but in synchronized cheers for their "Duo". I peeked over at Harry, not sure what to do, and he did the same. He cautiously raised his hand and waved at the crowd and another wash of tumultuous screams circulated and reverberated, bouncing off the walls in a cacophony of shrill.
I think I smiled through a wince for the noise got to my ears.
Harry shrewdly smiled, giving another guarded wave and letting on another multitude of screams for us.
"Captivating, isn't it?"
A familiar and horrendously squeaky voice gave way to a feared shudder. I hadn't noticed, the sway of bodies hypnotizing, but a certain cold someone had come on my left.
"And, pleasantly daft," The boorish woman, donned in a black number like the rest, peeked from above her spectacles. She stirred her drink with a smirk, bright red lipstick curving into a simply hellish grin. She made a laugh, my eyes widening at the sight of her standing before us like a visible disease. I covered my nose and mouth with my hand.
"Every last one of them," She concluded, eyeing those below.
"Hello there," She stuck her silk-gloved hand out to me, her starkly bleached blonde curls shifting heavily, pendulums, much like the silvery chains off her glasses. "Rita Skeeter if you've forgotten."
"Don't you dare touch me with those dirty hands…" I went to slap her hand away.
"No one's forgotten you!" Harry snapped, pulling me away from the snake before being bitten. He sized her up, switching spots with me, and she laughed again into her drink.
"You simply must accept our invitation, Potter," She sighed, twirling a tiny black straw in the clearest of liquids. "I swear, just having you on the cover of the Prophet, and me, its beloved writer, a tell-all of your hidden life after Him would help rake in a few galleons."
"Is that all you see? In galleons? Bodies for sport? Twist our actions, our words, for your liking? All for riches?"
Harry held me back, so all I could see was what I could beyond his shoulder, but I thought I saw Rita reach towards Harry. Harry sharply stepped away, and I heard Rita laughing.
"I spit on you! You're nothing but a worthless biddy if I've ever seen one! You're a-"
"Now, Harry," Rita cleared her throat, glancing to her drink and back at Harry. "You do realize the Quick Quill beside me? You wouldn't want those dearest words splattered all over tomorrow's page, would you? Rita Skeeter ravaged by brutal verbal assault by The Boy Who Lived?"
Harry got in her face with a finger pointed at her, his voice abnormally calm, collected, "You listen to me, and you listen to me well… If I ever see another slanderous print about me or my fiance, I will drag your pathetic carcass to court! Do you understand these words?"
Rita wafted her hand in front of her as if she were ridding flies, "Pish-posh, Potter. Settle, for I'll have you know that I also have friends in high places. It's old news you're in bed with the Minister, this "Order of the Phoenix," this "special interest" in your well being. But, I-I am Queen of this society. People love me. People would voluntarily lie in puddles for me and I would walk right over them."
Harry gritted his teeth, his nostrils flaring.
"Tell me I'm lying, love," She ended, smiling in the strobes of multicoloured lights.
"You disgust me!" I yelled, my own finger pointing at Rita and that nasty, terrible smirk of hers. "Wretched-!"
"A clever girl like you," Rita's eyes fell on me. "Should know how right I am."
"I own your…reputation," she spoke low, almost snarling, but smiled when she led her sight back on Harry. "I can turn the very people who love you against you with a turn of phrase."
Harry mimicked her, lowering his own, snarling too, "You are the filth under the filth that clutters the soles of my shoes. One day you will get your comeuppance, believe me. And, that Day of Judgment will hit you where it counts most."
Harry smiled most menacingly. "Have a pleasant evening."
Harry took me by the hand and led me away with him in haste. Not but a few steps from the balcony, meandering into other witches, warlocks, creatures considered very important, Rita called out, "You've given my niece autographs, Potters! Why not me?!"
She laughed a most unpleasantly fiendish laugh as we were sucked into the wandering crowd. Fortunately, it didn't take long for Rapture to envelop her, the pounding noise drowning all utterances. We were going down the winding flight of stairs we'd come up, but not withdrawing from the party. With varying levels of the section, when given entry we slipped onto another balcony.
"I'm not allowing her to destroy tonight," he said angrily, his eyes lit with fire sparkling off the blinking lights.
We slid up to a bar and Harry showed bartender two fingers, asking for, "Butterbeer." The goblin behind the counter nodded at Harry and reached for the brown bottles labeled with the vibrantly blue-and-white Orina stickers. The goblin pried the caps off with an instrument and slid the bottles our way. Harry caught them in the palms of his hands, giving the first to me and the other he put to his lips to sip.
"Don't let her." I exclaimed, watching the fire grow in Harry's eyes. He took my hand again and we went and sat down on one of the sleek, contemporary sofas positioned to see the dance floor and its entertainment. Speakers were positioned in key areas, surrounding us completely with the surging vibrations.
"Harry." I said when he sat starring off in the distance at nothing. I had to take his chin and lead his eyes to me for he didn't move a muscle at my call.
"She does that on purpose. You know this."
I stroked the underside of his chin.
"Tell me why I shouldn't go up there right now and rip her face off?" He sat with his legs spread, his elbows on each knee, his bottle of butterbeer swinging to the cadence of the room. I recognised the stance as aggressive for I'd seen Ronald sit like this and reel in the same sort of hatred.
"Because that's what she wants you to do. She knows your buttons-don't let her play you like a marionette, Love."
He watched me stern-faced.
I knew he was deep in thought, weighing the pros and cons of any future actions. All I could do was wait and see how he would react, and react to him if he chose to do something drastic.
He finally laid back against the sofa, his eyes still on me.
I sat side-saddle, legs crossed, my hands around the circumference of the bottle while it lay on the frills of my skirt. My knees faced his.
"What would I do without you?"
I smiled. "You'd probably march back up there and start swinging."
"With you around, I can barely hear that devil on my shoulder," He smirked, sitting up so we were at each other's height. He leaned in, lips in that curled grin.
I grinned, my eyes flicking to his lips and back to his jade green eyes darkened by the flittering black-to-bright pattern within the club.
He kissed me, and I kissed him, tasting the butterscotch flavour of butterbeer on his tongue.
He left me with an even greater smile, watching him as he lay back against the sofa. He had this air of smugness, and I rolled my eyes, seeing his ego doubled.
"Damn."
"Behave…"
He sat back up, closing in on me, face-to-face, "It's quite difficult, you know, to listen to that."
I placed my butterbeer down on the abstractly peanut-shaped black table in front of us, the glass making a knocking sound against the wood. I dragged my hand along the shirt beneath his dress coat, feeling of the muscle, his pectoral, until grasping the elastic strip of suspender holding to him.
"We're not leaving without a dance…"
"Who said we were leaving?" He smiled.
I lifted and pulled him with me by the suspender. He set his butterbeer down beside mine.
I kept my eyes on him, the side of my mouth upward in my smirk, "I'm laying down tonight's rules."
Twirling to walk ahead, my fingers still led him forward by his suspender, pulling out from his opened coat.
"Rules?" He sniggered aside my ear, whispering. "When did we establish rules?"
I peeked around furtively and chuckled, giving him a kiss to continue the instructions whilst leading him further onto the floor.
***
Sexuality oozed off us betwixt the stroboscopic light beams which would hit our bodies and the loud, throbbing swell of techno music. Epsilon's sultry voice would speak, intermixed in the syntax of up-beats, pumping our very blood to move.
Like him, Harry learned quick. He had his right arm wrapped around me, having ventured from holding my waist to looping the appendage. He had me loosely, for I wiggled inside the framework he created. His left arm, his fingers and their tips traveled the length of my body. He rocked into me from behind, our figures influencing the other's, bending effortlessly as one while our bodies moved back and forth.
I could feel his cheek against me, his face in my hair, beside my ear. I could feel his heated breath intertwining with the heated atmosphere of a thousand hearts. I could feel his shoulder equal with mine, his chest to me, his squeeze, the grip he'd hold when I'd rub along him. Epsilon's lyrics were repeated, strung out, provoked and rewound. The sounds slowed down and picked back up in pace. I was intent to follow them, and Harry was intent to follow me.
I could smell his pumpkin. I could smell my vanilla. I'd begun to sweat and I was sure he was, too. He kissed me, in the strands wanting to stick to the nape of my neck. The strands bunched, pushed northward by his face, nose, mouth where he caressed me while rocking hip-to-hip. I had my arm arched, about him, on his neck. He hugged me tight, circulating the motions I did.
Other couples, people in the darkness, were stimulated like us by the pulse. I could feel the beat in my feet, in my legs, my core, my head. I closed my eyes when I felt Harry take over, my body now following his. The scream of the crowd woke me from his trance. Eyes blinking from flashes of white light, I noticed Shade Epsilon at the ceiling, having come down and hung over the swaying crowd below on a platform. I would have paid more attention to her performance, but looked back at Harry who held that attention in its entirety.
I placed my hand in earnest to cradle his head, to lead him to me while we watched each other without so much as breathing. Our bodies moved, but the stare never wavered. I kissed him, my eyes shutting again, and he responded furiously. He clutched me like a vice, knees bending to rise and lower, hips shifting left and right, my hair in tangles about him.
***
Fact: I was having fun with or without Harry.
Fact: Harry found it more pleasurable to watch me dance than to actually dance. I guess I tired him out.
Fact: A lightweight, I'd become slightly inebriated just by the limited amount of alcohol in the butterbeer. I was on my third of the night.
Not by a foot or two away, Harry sat on the sofa with our drinks. He observed me doing my thing, letting loose, something I needed after spout after spout of looming negativity. It was like everywhere I went, or we went, something bad always had to happen. I'd cry out for something or someone to change this string of bad luck, but succumbed to the inevitable-or what I was to believe. So, with nights like these, I went with it.
Epsilon had retired after her performance, the techno music rushing into the club. The oscillating lights had me look as if I danced in slow motion. The floor below, for I stood aside the banister overlooking, mimicked as if several cameras captured one frame, and one frame, and one frame. With each pounding beat felt in my feet, I'd turn, twist, my arms bent above my head. Shaking my head, following the ascending, rippling rhythm, I laughed out loud but was greatly silence by a quaking base.
I flipped around on my feet, something I shouldn't have done, but still smiled while my world swirled even after I stopped. Dizzy, the light shone Harry staring through the numerous repeats. He grinned, my hips still rocking to and fro, my hands finding and gripping the solid, metal railing. The ends of my tassels shook, the beat never leaving the bob of my head.
Pirouetting over, I leapt on the sofa and crawled on over to Harry. With a butterbeer at his lips, he gradually took it down, eyes on me, before my arms wrapped around him. I yanked him to me in one strong pull and snogged him within my grasp.
"I love you…" Near each other that was heard albeit quietly by the deafly tones. If I were at the rail I'd surely be voiceless.
My hands unwinding from his hair, he glanced down at his watch and peered back up at me. "Should we go?" He asked.
"Should we?" It was apparent that others on our second tier balcony had left, empty spots where groups once stood, stragglers still musing about the floor.
"We've been here for nearly four hours. It's going on midnight."
"Like that's stopped us before."
He grinned, took his hand and held the back of my head to lead me to him. He kissed me, looking at me afterwards in close proximity. "We should go. I'd like to have you back all by myself."
"You don't have me by yourself now?"
"Not by my definition."
My lips curled into a grin. "Let's go."
***
"Harry, look right here please!"
"Hermione, right here!"
"Harry! Flash us a smile!"
I had hooked my arm around Harry to walk out, but we were met by a deluge of wizard paparazzi. That's when my arm was left for his hand where we hurriedly fled from them-or tried to-a body barricade and their cameras sniping with us in their crosshairs. I couldn't see, and didn't even attempt, having my hand over my eyes. Blindly, Harry pulled me.
"Could we get some bloody security out here?!" Harry hollered over questions upon questions.
"Harry! Is it true that you're being wed on Valentine's? At Hogwarts?!"
"Hermione! Is it true you're with child?!"
"Harry! Is it true Hermione gave you that blotched eye? Why haven't you left her?! Is it because she's pregnant?!"
"Why are they asking if I'm pregnant?" I whispered at Harry's ear.
"Prophet rubbish, I'm sure." Harry quickly replied.
Several men in suits finally came rushing to our rescue. If this were war we would have had hundreds of wounds and left for dead between the time of them arriving and now.
"Out of the way!" One of the security personnel yelled, prying hand-and-arm a route for us. "Out of the way, I said!"
"Bloody move it, now!" yelled another, taking and having to physically push a photographer.
"Crikey!" A third suited-man turned to us with a bunched brow. "You certainly bring down the lot!"
"And people wonder why we're not out often," responded Harry in some laughter. "Let's take a leisurely stroll, eh?"
"With all our friends!" I chimed in with thick sarcasm. "All seventeen thousand three-hundred and thirty four of them!"
The whole of us laughed, even the security from Rapture who took the full brunt of the flock. Thankfully, they were built and large, our own battering ram. We actually began to think this was funny, hilarious, chuckling at the paparazzi who questioned these ludicrous stories surrounding us. But, as with our luck, the amusement ended and ended quite abruptly.
One of the reporters came a little too close for Harry's liking, even so far as to lay a finger on my arm. Harry didn't think, reacting, grabbing the guy who had touched my arm and pushed him to the ground. Someone screamed out above the security detail that swarmed at my side. They yanked the man up who fell from the ground for their own set of questions, seeing them do this, only to turn my head around to see Harry from my peripherals push on another news reporter getting too close for comfort.
Testosterone, nerve, guts-the reporter had them all, becoming physical. He had the gall, pushing Harry and I stumbled. The security called for backup which came too late. The reporters and Harry exchanged words, and someone uttered the fatal nail in their coffin; a word so severely hated by Harry, and me, about me, that before I knew it Harry had lifted his fist to swing.
"-She's a filthy mudblood!!"
Harry's fist collided with the reporter's face, knocking him off clear from his feet.
The reporter didn't fight back, or couldn't, Harry having leapt on him. On the graveled pavement, he held the reporter down and continually pummeled him, grunting, cursing expletives and calling him and the rest what everyone knew they really were:
"Fucking Prophet trash!" The reporter's face slammed into the pavement by the force of his fist. "Vermin!"
Arm up, he brought his fist down to the fresh blood spewing from the reporter's face, "Lying rats! Lowlifes! We're human beings for Christ's sake!!"
"Harry!" I had my hands around the arm he brought up again. "Please!"
Other reporters, the Rapture security, were at him, trying to pull him from the flailing man beneath him. Cameras captured these images, quills hastily jotted these words. Flicking my head to the left and to the right, all I could see were the pressuring walls of bodies collapsing in around us.
***
When we returned to our holiday flat that night, I didn't speak a word. Harry might have, but my mind was abuzz. With so many thoughts, I couldn't single out an exact one. I tried to keep cool, keep collected, knowing if I let myself go… I don't think my heart could take it. I needed to do something, preoccupy myself. I thought of things, anything, each more dull than the next.
I had to walk around Harry who turned to look at me. Dropping any belongings on the counter, I made my way across the kitchen floor and to the cabinets. I heard Harry rummaging, his shoes being removed, a cough, his feet wandering up the staircase. I saw him in the corners of my eyes before he ascended, watching me in the kitchen flip the faucet on to fill a tea kettle in silence, deathly silence.
I felt the tension in my body rise to the muscles in my arms. My joints felt stiff, and it hurt when I reached, the tissue in my tendons not wanting to progress how I wanted them. My head started to throb and I breathed conflictingly calm, unlike my shaking hands. I had to hold its other around the one on the kettle's handle to steady.
I inhaled and strived to piece myself together, reaching up to get a tea bag from its container above the range. The bag's string caught on the box, and I hadn't the time. I huffed and jiggled the box. The string wouldn't work with me, and the harder I fought with it, the more I angrier I got until the box and all its contents fell over the heated stove.
I went to pick them up, my mind elsewhere, and my fingers touched the red-hot eye.
"Fuck!" Jerking my hand back I hit the kettle over. Water poured from the newly opened top, sizzling and smoking steam when it came into contact with the same eye I set my hand on.
Tears welled in my eyes, those burned fingers in and at my lips. I yelled another, "Fuck!" and with all my might another "Fuck!!" for good measure.
The final straw.
My body began to shake and I started to cry.
The massacre of today came back to me all at once.
My heart lay as splattered-looking as the pool of water against its cage.
Overwhelmed, I couldn't do any less than painfully wail through tears.
I heard echoing footsteps and saw an arm, a hand flick the switch to turn the stove off. Harry took me, carefully holding that injured hand in his, and had me walk with him over to the refrigerator. He opened the freezer, ice cubes being shuffled about, and brought one of the many out. He took my hand again, our bodies close, and cupped those singed fingers around the chill. He pressed the tips into the cube and glanced between the shakes of my hand and my puffy eyes.
Walking backwards, he led me to the sink and flipped the faucet on. He let the cold run over my hand in his. He leaned in and kissed me while he massaged those fingers softly beneath the water. He nudged the tip of his nose against mine and caressed me lightly again. He kissed my cheek, taking a cloth to dry my hand.
"Does it feel better?" He asked, watching me watch him dry.
"I made a mess, I-" I stuttered in breaths.
"I'll clean it up." He interjected, kissing me.
"But-"
He kissed me again to shush me.
"Come," He said, leading me from the kitchen by hand, tossing the cloth on the counter on the way out.
We stepped into the living quarters, and he had me stand in the centre of the room.
"Harry… What-?"
I blinked through what remained of my tears cluttering the lashes, following Harry who walked over to a stereo system. He turned on his heel back towards me, twisting a knob and music poured from the speakers softly.
Instantly, the song gave me chills, a shudder running the course of my spine.
The gradual increase in song halted any other words for I knew it.
I was taken back to a place in my past.
He was with me, with my hands, grasping them tenderly and bringing them towards his chest. He had me shift my weight, pulling delicately at my arms in a continuous loop. In my anguish, I was somewhat despondent with glimmers of hope when my lips would wriggle at their corners; mostly due to his dancing antics of overdramatic, nutty moves. He tried to rouse a bit of happiness out of me, I gathered. He swayed me, swaying as well, smiling. "Remember this?" he asked after a while.
I smiled, a tear trickling down my cheek.
I let out some pent-up laughter.
It was difficult not to smile whilst he did.
I nodded with whatever tears left falling away to the white carpeting.
It was the same song we danced to in the tent two years ago amidst the changing winds of Fate.
He twirled me, and I let out a laugh.
He was silly, and I loved it.
When I came back to him I had an arm about his neck clutching his shoulder. He had his hand in its free partner, figures together, as we slowly danced. Propping my head, my chin, on his shoulder, I breathed in, closed my eyes and let him move me gently.
Everything in the world felt better.
{Inspirations for the Chapter: O' Children - Nick Cave. Even though the music in the beginning addressed techno, I still had this song through to the end. As per the A/N of "Esoteric", here was my allusion to the wonderful dance in the Deathly Hallows film. I finally got here and it fit so very well. I'll be using this song again in future chapters-"Hey train, wait for me. Once was blind, but now I see. Have you left a seat for me? Is that such a stretch of the imagination?"}
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