Hermione Granger studies harder than you. (her_my_nee) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-12-07 22:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, bellatrix black, harry potter, hermione granger, james kirk |
Who: Hermione, Bellatrix, Jim and Harry
When: Wednesday, noon
Where: Coffee Shop
What: Random Texter wants to meet Hermione
Rating: Low, ish?
Status: Complete!
Hermione was nervous. She told Jim to meet her at the coffee shop where she was going to meet with … whoever it was who was texting her. She didn’t know who it was, and was a little nervous, so she’d told Jim. He said he was coming. Hermione gave him the place and time, and decided to meet them both there between classes.
She pulled into the parking lot at the cafe, and climbed out of her car. She kept her eyes peeled on the way in, looking for Jim, or anyone else she may have recognised from her dreams.
Jim had arrived a little bit early. He had found a nice corner seat where he could view things. He gave Hermoine a discreet little wave and look, and winked at her, before sipping at his coffee. He was being incognito!
Bellatrix wore her custom leather skirt, and the corset that Lulu had designed for her, with her..assets..in mind. She thought it might throw the girl off some, which was always a little fun, but it might also make her a little less scared. She wondered if she remembered.
She wondered if she was single. Because delicious irony was delicious. She stepped out of a black sports car, and made her way towards the coffee shop. She moved with all the motivation of someone who didn't really give a shit, and wasn't pretending to.
Hermione saw Jim in the cafe and nodded once as her eyes passed over him. She understood what he meant by his wave and look, and his wink. Surprisingly, it didn’t make her blush. She got in line for a coffee, and wondered idly if Harry was on the way. She pulled out her phone and glanced at the time. She was precisely on time for this meeting.
Harry arrived precisely not on time for this meeting, and was in fact a couple of minutes behind the others. He had, had things to do, and knowing Jim was going to be here at least gave him a bit of a sense of security for Hermione’s sake. Still, who knew what this creeper intended and any sort of back up could come in handy. So as Harry arrived, he stepped out of his car, and began to make his way inside, slipping through the door and spotted Hermione, giving her only the slightest of smiles himself.
Best not to scare her potential friend off with so many faces there, so Harry instead made his way directly for Jim. Obviously the two knew each other--you don’t date Harry’s best mate without Harry knowing you. Just look at the situation they were in. Also didn’t hurt that meeting Jim would allow Harry to tell Ron to calm the hell down at times. So, recognizing the male, he moved towards him and grabbed his seat across from him. Offering a nod, before clearing his throat, “You don’t think this is a bit crazy of her? You know meeting a complete stranger based on those damn dreams?”
Dreams Harry wasn’t entirely... sure if he believed or not.
"It's Hermione." Jim replied, by way of explanation, as he picked up an iced coffee to sip at it. "When she sets her mind on something, you just have to sit back and enjoy the ride." He could almost have been talking about himself. He put the cup down, and added, "I've done it, met strangers based on the dreams. Usually I have an idea just who they're supposed to be, first. Do you think it's some enemy from your dreams? This 'you know who' guy she can't tell me the name of?"
The door opened again, and Bellatrix entered the shop, looking around with a lazy smile on her face. She sauntered towards the counter. She recognized the rat's nest that was Hermione's hair almost immediately. The whole lot of them she knew by heart, by now. Haunting her dreams. Or perhaps she was the one doing the haunting to them. Her smile faded and her lips thinned, a struggle raging in her head, between who Bellatrix had been, who she was now, and who she was in her dreams.
There was only one person ahead of Hermione in line at the register, ordering coffee. Hermione was looking up at the menu board now, listening to the sounds of the cafe around her. Her heart was thundering with nerves. She knew Jim was in the corner booth, watching over her, and that made her feel a little more at ease. But who could this person be? She was starting to hope now. Perhaps it would be someone she knew from school? Or one of her teachers? Now she was wishing that she’d had more of these dreams, so she could know more about the world and who was in it.
She turned around to glance behind her at Jim and saw Harry at the table. That made her feel even more safe, but also a little awkward. What if this turned out to be nothing? But then she saw the dark-haird, very well endowed woman come into the shop and Hermione swallowed.
“I think you wanted to see me?” She said aloud to the woman. A dark feeling crept through her gut.
He grinned at Jim, and nodded in agreement with the other male, “Yea, sounds like Hermione alright. Still, I don’t like the feeling, and meeting people based on dreams is a bit absurd. I mean, no offense to you or to Hermione, but that seems a little off center to me.”
Harry hadn’t been having any of the dreams yet, so ironically he was there to protect Hermione against something he knew nothing about; as far as he was concerned, this whole dream thing was some sort of cultural phenomena. He was pretty convinced it wasn’t nearly the thing that ‘Mione, Ron, and now Jim all seemed to think it was. Then again, maybe there was more to it than met the eye, it wasn’t like he was a closed minded person after all. He just found it a bit off. Still, he shrugged, “Hermione told me this or that about her dreams, and about … whatever his face is. I don’t know, sounds a bit weird to me. I don’t think this applies at all to that, I think these dreams just feel so real that she’s starting to believe they actually are. Though, a lot of people are seemingly falling down that path.”
Jim laughed lightly, not loud enough to draw any attention to them. "No offense taken. I'd think it was crazy if I didn't have my own dreams, and hadn't met people from them. I think they are real. I've seen too much evidence." He was glad for the weight of the phaser in his belt, right now.
"Oh yes, Lovey," Bellatrix was saying sauntering even closer. She was just inside Hermione's personal space, but not so close as to be touching. Just a little impolite. Her eyes darted across the younger woman's face and body, and her smile was predatory.
She held out her hand. She was palming a wand, the point facing inward along her wrist. It was like a secret handshake, and she'd positioned the wand so there was no way most witches would be able to use it right off. It wouldn't stop wandless magic, of course.
"I'm Bellatrix. I suppose you don't really remember me yet. That's probably less of a pity than usual. I'm not a very good person in our dreams."
Hermione wanted to glance over at Jim and Harry, but she forced herself not to. She stared up into Bellatrix’s heavily lidded eyes and did her best not to feel awkward or uneasy. It was strange that this woman sought her out to tell her she wasn’t a good person. The first thing that jumped into Hermione’s Mind was You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters. She’d read about them, and in one of her first dreams she, Ron and Harry were fleeing them.
“Hello.” She said, quietly, looking down at the outstretched hand. Was she supposed to shake? She could see the wand in her palm, and didn’t want to touch it. Her own wand was burning a hole in her pocket.
Harry frowned when he took a moment to look over his shoulder and spotted Hermione and her guest, not too pleased with how close the woman was getting to ‘Mione. He clenched his hand into a fist, but nothing sinister seemed to be happening, and so he looked over to Jim; who likely had a better angle on the entire thing anyway. To give himself one, Harry pushed to lean back against the wall seemingly casually, but this allowed him to look to Jim, while also looking out over towards this woman and Hermione.
“Well, if they are real, then I don’t really see how I fit into them. I don’t even live in England, never have. And Hermione’s been my friend for forever now, never saw an evil wizard try to kill her since being here, so I don’t know how it’s possible to live two lives without actually remembering it. But yea, there is a lot of evidence to support it, just wish I could understand it is all. And if there is some evil magic guy after her? Why would she want to meet people at random?”
Jim was a little tense. He moved in his chair, seemingly getting comfortable, but also making it easier to get up quickly if he had to. With one eye on the woman in the corset, and the other on Harry, Jim said, "Ever see anything spontaneously appear?"
As for Harry's question, Jim could only shrug. If he ever knew that Nero might be around, he might want to meet him. "Maybe he's different here, Harry. Maybe this life gave him a chance to be a normal person. To be good."
It was probably the only reason he'd give Nero five seconds to talk before punching him.
Bellatrix rolled her eyes, flipping the wand out, dropping it down the front of her top, and then holding her hand out again. "Better? I just want to talk. Before you get the wrong impression about me. Or perhaps the right one, but I'm rather working on that."
Hermione nodded, then reached her hand forward to shake Bellatrix’s. She’d flinched just slightly when the older woman had flipped her wand around. This was bizarre. “I’d like to hear you out,” Hermione said. “If you know me, and I have yet to remember you, perhaps you can shed a little light on our shared alternate dimension?”
Harry nodded at Jim’s words and shrugged, “Yea, I guess, second chances and all of that. Still, I keep thinking about what Hermione has managed to tell me, and, look, I don’t know if I like the idea of these dreams being real. Wizards and magic and evil? Sounds like something we don’t want to have to put up with, or could anyone even really handle it all if it’s true?”
Harry wasn’t trying to naysay, in fact he kind of felt like maybe he was doing some wishful thinking rather than actual logistical thinking on all of this. Still, the worry began to dissipate and instead his mind focused entirely on Bellatrix and Hermione. Letting his own words trail off, as the woman dropped what looked like a... wand? Down her top, and Harry looked over towards Jim, “Woman’s not half bad though, hopefully this turns out to be a good friendship.”
He laughed of course, joking, before looking back. Hermione didn’t seem too worried, and he trusted her to make the right calls, so he did his best to relax; though it didn’t help much.
"Magic and owls and Hogwarts?" Bellatrix replied, laughing lightly. "And a war lovey. A war for the Wizarding world." She didn't speak very loud, and her tone was low, and flippant. As though all of this was silly and beneath her. That Hermione was in some ways beneath her. A mudblood the dream woman wailed. Bellatrix felt a surge of distaste that she swallowed and ignored. Mudblood or not, she'd done terrible things to this girl and her friends. She laughed again, her conflict turning her smile into a sneer. "I...she hated you. A sniveling brat from a mudblood family."
Jim nodded his head. He understood that frame of thought. Who would want to watch a world of billions destroyed, who would want that to be real? "Just like real life you have to take the bad with the good..."
He tilted his head at the boob drop, and snorted. "This just got all kinds of interesting. Maybe she's a secret admirer? Hey, if she wants to experiment, I'm okay with that." He grinned.
Hermione knew that word. ‘Mudblood.’ It was what Draco Malfoy had called her, when Ron had flipped out. It was a filthy, horrible curse word, that was only a little less insulting to Hermione than to Ron because she was born and raised in a muggle family. At the sound of the word and the sight of the sneer, Hermione took a half step backward. Her heart was thundering again and she did her best not to react.
“Right. Well, I’m not sure what you expect me to do about all of that. It’s not as if I can change anything,” Hermione said, frowning deeply at the other woman.
It was the motion to step back that had Harry shifting in his seat. He sat up a bit, staring at the exchange between the two, not even bothering to look into Jim’s direction this time; his entire focus on Hermione and the woman next to her. He clicked his tongue in anticipation, but didn’t move anymore than that, figuring he didn’t want to overreact or anything to the situation at hand.
Just seeing Hermione’s slight bit of fear though, put him on edge and he began to wonder just what the woman was saying to her, catching the bit of a sneer on her face only causing him to frown a bit more, “Not liking this at all.”
Stating the obvious, knowing full well that Jim would have no problem jumping in and didn’t need Harry telling him, but still, it helped break the silence.
There were other people in the shop. Jim didn't think anything would happen with so many witnesses, but he was prepared to act if he had to. For Hermione's sake and the sake of all the bystanders. "She shocked her, or something." His voice sounded tense. Dream related things were unpredictable at best.
"I'm..." Bellatrix started to say. It was like she was trying to spit out nails. "I'm sorry. For what I did to you."
There, the bloody girl better appreciate that. It had been a tremendous effort for the proud woman to say even that much. In fact, she was quite pleased with herself.
Both of Hermione’s eyebrows raised to try and join her bushy hair. She really didn’t know what to do with that. It was obvious that the woman found it difficult to apologize for whatever it was she was apologizing for. So, Hermione’s heartbeat slowed just a little. The woman wouldn’t apologize right before attacking, or anything.
Hermione’s body visibly relaxed a little as she looked up into the other woman’s face. She cleared her throat a little. “Well, it wasn’t exactly you, was it?” She said, finding her accent leaking through a bit more now in a moment of tension than it came through normally. “...so...” She really had no idea. Was she supposed to accept the apology?
“Thank you?” Hermione said. It was more of a question than a statement.
He blinked when Hermione seemed to relax, and this finally allowed him to do so. He leaned back, letting out a quick breath, before looking to Jim. He stared at him a moment, and figured now was as good a time as any, right? Hermione wouldn’t be too mad if Harry used this moment to interrogate the guy, right? Right.
“Alright, so while we have a moment. I assume you’re keeping your eyes on them both, of course,” he cleared his throat, “Where the hell did you go? And what exactly is your plan with Hermione? You just toying around with her, while vanishing for god knows how long, to god knows where? Because, if that’s the case, you have another thing coming. I expect full and complete commitment to her, she’s as close to a sister as I’ve got, after all.”
He stared at the other male, offering only a quick glance to the other two women to make sure nothing was going on over there.
"I don't really know, lovey. Sometimes she seems to be me. Other times she isn't. She didn't even have my shitty childhood to blame it on." Bellatrix shrugged a shoulder, making no excuses. "Just a crazy bitch in love." She waved a hand, like it was no big deal.
Well, Jim had been expecting that at some point, just not right now. But he went with the flow. He settled on the truth. "I went into space. On my spaceship the one from my dreams. It was sort of an unexpected trip. I took her up to it when I got back." Jim noticeably fell a bit silent at the last part, before he responded. "I don't really know where it's going with her. I'm kind of taking it day by day. I care about her a great deal, and I'm willing to see it through."
Hermione’s eyebrows were still raised as she stared up at Bellatrix. Of course, she had no idea what Bellatrix was referring to, so she wasn’t sure how to respond. In love with whom? With You-Know-Who?
“What was it that you did in the dream?” Hermione asked, finding a little bit of strength now. If Bellatrix had to apologise, Hermione wanted to know why. “What should I be forgiving you for?”
He watched the girls again, for a moment, before nodding at Jim’s words. He looked at him, “Alright. Sure, space in a spaceship. Forgive me while I find that hard to believe, but at the same time if that’s what you told Hermione and she believes you, then sure. I’ll take your word for it. But just promise me something, if you ever get the sense that this isn’t going anywhere? Then you end it, and don’t just drag her along to break her heart in the future, got it?”
He stared at him. Harry cared a great deal about Hermione, and he wasn’t about to let her get hurt if he could help it at all. He’d met Jim a time before, obviously, considering the shared friendship. But obviously no real heart to heart; still, he wanted to be friends with the guy if he was going to be dating his best friend. Which meant he had to make sure he understood Jim’s intentions. Even if Ron would be pissed that Harry was even contemplating friendship.
"Just a little thing," Bellatrix said, holding up her forfinger and thumb with almost no space between them. "Nothing big at all."
Except it was a very big thing. It was pain, and torment and screaming, and there weren't any words that Bellatrix felt were appropriate.
"You'd rather I break her heart sooner, rather than later?" Jim asked, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair. He couldn't really prove anything about the Enterprise, except perhaps to beam Harry up when he least expected it. He might have to do that. Jim Kirk could be a bit of a troll at times. "I don't want to break her heart at all, Harry. I've screwed up too many relationships in the past, I don't want to repeat that."
He blamed himself for Bela leaving, and Janice. For Gillian and Carol Marcus. Those were the ones that had mattered to him, before Hermione. Maybe he wasn't the sort of man who could settle down, but part of him kept trying.
"Just torture." Bellatrix finally finished, as if it were nothing, nothing at all. But something flashed in her eyes. Because it was certainly something.
“Ohhh.” Hermione said weakly, a gush of air leaving her on the word. She gave a gentle whimper on it, too, though she tried her darndest not to. So, this woman caught and tortured her. She must have been a Death Eater. Like the ones that Hermione, Ron and Harry were running from when Ron got splinched.
“Is that all?” She asked, somewhat sarcastically. It escaped her before she had a moment to consider it.
“I know you don’t... and I don’t want you to break it at all either, but I’d rather you not prolong it if you know it’s not going anywhere. I’m not saying, “If you don’t know, don’t date her” I’m saying if it ever gets to the point that you realize it’s just going to be this forever? Don’t string her along until she has to end it, okay? I know it’s asking a lot, but, besides Ron she’s one of the most important people in my life.”
He shrugged, “Just, you know, don’t hurt her or else. We’ll leave it at that.” He held his hand across the table towards him, “Otherwise, I’d actually like to get to know you more. You seem ten times better than most goofballs she dates, and if you have a fake spaceship, then I’m all for that.”
"Well, I tried to kill you and your friends a few times. Got Potter angry enough to try a Crucio on me," she added casually. Her voice changed, deepening, her teeth gritting, "But you have to really want to hurt someone to use that spell. You have to have that in your heart, tainting your soul, Granger."
For the first time, she knew she could be that person. She knew it was as simple as a twist of fate. Her face softened and her shoulders sagged. She shook her head. "I'm on the brink. There's a razor edge and I could fall over. I guess I just wanted to warn you, while my conscience was still strong enough to let me."
Jim was silent for a moment, his eyes on the woman and her posture. She seemed to switch wildly between flippant and nonchalant, to intense and dark. And now it looked like she had given up. He wished he knew what she was saying.
"I'll take you up to my ship sometime, Harry. How's Saturday sound?" In a more serious tone, he said, "And you have my word. I'll break it off, so she doesn't have to, if it comes to that."
Jim Kirk could be the bad guy.
Hermione’s eyes betrayed her at the sound of her best friend’s name. They flicked ever so briefly over to Harry sitting with Jim in the booth over Bellatrix’s shoulder. Hermione had read about the unforgivable curses, though she hadn’t yet seen them in Moody’s class.
She paused, looking into Bellatrix’s eyes, and gave a curt nod. “Thank you for the warning.” Beat. “I certainly hope that you fall onto the right side of the razor, I suppose.” Beat. “Is there... anything I can do?”
He nodded, thankful for that. Then blinked, staring at him, “Saturday? Alright, fine, I’ll go with you on Saturday. I’d like to see it, if I could. Might help me accept this whole dream thing a bit more.” Not that he really believed it would happen Saturday, but he’d call his bluff on it nonetheless.
Then he turned his head around to view the women again, noting Jim’s worry in the way he watched them. He blinked a few times, staring before sighing, “I still don’t like this. This isn’t exactly a friendly meeting I’m seeing. Or doesn’t seem that way.”
Bellatrix followed Hermione's glance, then tilted her head back and guffawed. Of course Potter would be here. "You two are practically attached at the hip! I've always suspected something. Now that's a pity, you could do so much better with a woman, pet. Open your eyes."
She laughed again, and pointed directly at Harry, then waggled her fingers at him and blew him a kiss. Turning back to Hermione, she said offhandedly. "We're all probably very lucky that you know who." She snorted at that, "Is locked away for the rest of his wretched life, far away from here."
"I think the jig is up," Jim quipped.
Hermione blinked at Bellatrix when she said “You Know Who,” shocked at the affirmation of her suspicions. She shook her head, defiantly. “Harry is my best friend. I...” But that was a very strange thought. A woman? She cleared her throat and turned to look at Harry and Jim, a silent plea for help in her eyes.
He noticed the look in Hermione’s eyes, then glanced towards Jim and immediately hopped up off of the seat. Noting Bellatrix pointing at him, he glared and didn’t seem to really get it. He just shrugged and moved towards the duo, figuring the plea for help from Hermione was a plea for them to come over--or so he hoped at least.
Stepping next to Hermione, he raised a brow, “Can I be of assistance? I don’t mean to interrupt your guys’ meeting, or anything.”
"Oh, I was just leaving, I've delivered my message." Bellatrix replied, eyeing Harry up and down, and then eyeing Jim as he stepped up to the other side of Hermione. She raised an eyebrow. "Well I feel positively special, rating not one but two men to defend helpless little Granger."
Jim put his arm around Hermione, squeezing slightly as he did so. "Well you never know with the internet. There's all kind of crazies on there."
Hermione was incredibly relieved when Harry appeared beside her. Even though he was just the Harry of this world, and not the Harry from her dreams, he still made her feel safe. And then Jim’s arm was around her and she was deflating slightly, leaning in against her boyfriend.
“I can’t help it that my boys want to protect me.” She said, giving Bellatrix a smile. “Thank you for your message. I think we’re done here.”
He nodded to Bellatrix and just held his hand out towards her, “Well it was a pleasure to meet you Miss...?” He waited to see if she’d introduce herself, before looking towards Hermione and then back to Bellatrix.
“I hope the meeting was beneficial. To both of you, whatever the message was.”
"Ms. Black," she replied, shaking Harry's hand. She'd never married here, and she had no intention of ever doing so now, after the dreams. She let go, and waggled her fingers. There was the sound like the pop of a champagne bottle as she seemed to swirl to a point and disappear.
Jim poked his hand in the air where she'd been, and raised an eyebrow. Had she beamed away? "Huh."
“Wow.” Hermione said. “Apparition. I haven’t ever seen it up close,” she paused, watching the place where Bellatrix had been. “I mean, not in my waking life, anyway. We apparated in the dreams once, Harry, but remember... I splinched Ron? I wouldn’t dare try it now. And you can’t apparate in or out of Hogwarts,” her heart was thundering now, the adrenalin from the conversation she’d just had with Bellatrix catching up with her, “because of the protective spells and enchantments they put on the school and grounds to protect the students.” She would have gone on, but she needed to take a breath.
Harry just watched Hermione as she went off about the apparating, and continued to look into the spot where Bellatrix had been standing. Rubbing at his head, he shook his head, “Really? I … I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around this. How the hell did she do that?” He looked to ‘Mione, considering she seemed to know so much about it, and frowned.
It was really hard to ignore all these things happening, suggesting the dreams were real; still, Harry was trying to adjust to it as well. They kept telling him he had something to do with it too, and he certainly didn’t feel like it. Had he even... well had a dream yet? No. Why not? He shook his head, shrugging, “Yea, you splinched Ron or something. I don’t really know what that means, I mean you explained it, but it kind of went over my head a bit.”
"I just beam up," Jim commented quietly. Really, the whole magic thing seemed to just flow past him like it wasn't bothering him. Why should it? He was a space man. "Splinched? Sounds bad. We have transporter malfunctions sometimes. I hope Ron was okay."
“I can explain the theory behind it, but I’m pretty sure that the magic is beyond me at this point. Perhaps after I have a few more dreams, I can show you, Harry.” Hermione said, gently. It was probably time for her to show Harry some of the other things that she could do. She had her wand, and she and Ron had been practicing some charms. Now Ginny had her wand, too. It was like an epidemic.
“Yeah, Splinched basically means parts are left behind.” Hermione said, going a little pale at that memory. “Not like, “whoops, there goes my foot” but “oh my god I’m covered in blood and in a world of pain”... it’s really terrible.” She swallowed. “But Ron was all right eventually. Probably scarred for life, though.”
“I can’t imagine why the hell you’d want to do this whole ‘apparating’ thing if it means you might leave body parts behind, sounds kind remarkably bad if I were honest,” he shuddered at the idea, but then shrugged it off. Just the idea of popping out of existence was a bit beyond him, even if he’d just seen it happen. He watched the two of them and rubbed at the back of his head.
“So what exactly did she say to you Hermione? Anything bad? Didn’t look like the friendliest of conversations. Was everything okay? Did you get her number, too? She had quite the uh, proportions about her.”
Jim remembered some transporter accidents. Blood, fused body parts, shapeless blobs. Gruesome. With any sort of teleporting there were always dangers, he reasoned. "Means you get from point A to point B. It's probably no more or less dangerous than driving a car, and we still do that."
He elbowed Harry. "Good question, did you get her number? Can we watch?"
Hermione shook her head, breaking into a grin. She couldn’t help it. Jim and Harry there made her feel at ease--far more than when Bellatrix was standing in front of her. The weak grin helped her to feel a little better, though the nerves that had bubbled within her when Bellatrix had leaned in so very close were still lingering.
“She said she was sorry for what she did to me in the dream world. And that she wasn’t the same as her counterpart, but that she could be. And that she didn’t want to be.” Hermione frowned. She decided not to tell the guys about being tortured. “No, I didn’t get her number.” She shook her head. “She may be beautiful, but she makes me feel...” She shuddered.
“What did she do to you in the dream world that she needed to creepily meet with you, in private, to apologize to you?” He was foregoing understanding the dream world and just going with what he did understand, which was that she might have been threatened, or at the very least apologized to about something horrific. At which point, knowing Harry, apology probably didn’t mean a lot.
“And shucks, looked a bit like she was into you, and I can’t say that you’d be into her, but you could have put a good word in otherwise,” he was kidding of course, and just reached out to poke her, “But seriously, if she threatened you or made you feel uncomfortable, make sure you don’t spend anymore time around her, got it?”
"That's a good question," Jim replied, but put his hand on Hermione's arm. "But you don't have to answer that until you're ready. You should, though." He smiled at her, even if his shoulders were tense and his eyes intense.
He agreed with Harry about that, though. "Harry's right, it's probably best to avoid her. She looks dangerous."
Hermione nodded. If she really was a woman who tortured people in the dream world, Hermione wasn’t sure she wanted to have anything to do with her. “Got it,” she responded to Harry, ignoring the question about what Bellatrix did. She brought her hand over to rest against Jim’s on her arm. “I don’t think I’ll be seeing her again anytime soon.”
He nodded, then looked to the both of them before smirking, “Alright, well obviously I think you two probably want some time alone. Take it, I have some studying to do for finals anyway, as well as some studying to do for the bowl game, on the off chance I actually get to play. Anyway, glad everything’s okay, and good to see you back Jim.”
He leaned in and gave his friend a kiss on her cheek, before then patting Jim on the shoulder, “Don’t forget what we talked about either.”
He then made his way around them, heading for the exit so he could give them their privacy. The downside to your friends finally finding someone to spend their time with? Meant you didn’t get as much time with them; still, he had things to do anyway. Plus, Ron was likely bored out of his mind as well.
"Good. If you do see her around, let us know. Either of us. Got it?" Jim didn't want to risk a stalker situation, which this could turn into easily, if they let it. If the woman could teleport almost anywhere, that made her dangerous. He nodded at Harry as he left. He would remember.
And he would be beaming the other man up to the Enterprise, for sure.
“I got it,”Hermione responded to Jim this time. She gave Harry a grin to the kiss on her cheek, then raised her hand and waved him off. When he was out of the cafe, Hermione turned her full attention to Jim, trying to think about anything other than the scary lady who decided to apologise for torturing her.
“What did you and Harry talk about that he doesn’t want you to forget?”
"How he'll turn me into a newt if I don't treat you right," Jim replied, grinning at her. "He cares a lot about you. He wants you to be happy."
Hermione chuckled. “Well, I want him to be happy, too,” she said, softly. “It’s sweet for him to watch out for me.” She added, then looped her arm around Jim’s waist. She wanted to be close to him, after that strange encounter, physical contact made her feel grounded and safe. “Though, I don’t think he’s got the transfiguration skills to turn you into a newt.”
"Oh, that's good to know. I have to show him my spaceship. Do you mind if I show him my spaceship?" Jim turned to face her, then grinned, and waggled his eyebrows. "Do you want to christen the captain's chair?"
“You’re just going to show him your space ship, and not show him your space ship, right?” Hermione said, teasing. She lifted her hand to pull her phone from her pocket, and glanced at it. “I’ve got a couple of hours before my afternoon class.” She said, then gave him a grin. “Beam me up, Scotty.”
"Someday, I'll have to beam you up, and then never let you leave," Jim commented ruefully, as the transporter took them away.