One Bite ✔️ (#Wattys2017)

Chapter 7 | Part Two

"Is she going to be okay, Blaise (Apollo)?" Hermione could hear the faint sound of her cousin, Lily.

"She is going to be fine," Blaise's voice was much closer to her than Lily (Athena).

"Why would her mother do this to her?" the quiet weeping of her other cousin Astoria (Artemis), was enough to crack her eyes open.

"Look, her eyes are opening," Lily said much closer than she was before, "Hermione, can you hear me?"

"Yea," her voice sounded weird and her eyebrows burrowed in confusion.

"It's okay, Hermione," she could see the dark skinned god come into her vision, "I had to force some ambrosia and nectar down your throat in order to heal your wound. So your throat will be a little rough."

"I wasn't dreaming then was I," she said.

"No you were not," Blaise said and Hermione saw him glance between the other goddesses.

"What is it, Blaise?" she said as she slowly moved to sit up. Lily and Astoria rushed forward and helped her and she was glad since she was feeling light headed.

"You are not going to like this, Hermione," Blaise said.

"Harry has...," Astoria trailed off as she had found a sudden interest in her bare feet.

"What has Harry done, Astoria?" Hermione asked more forcefully.

"Harry has proclaimed war upon Draco," Lily said, "The cause is your kidnap."

"But he returned me," Hermione said, "And-and-and he didn't even do anything. As I have said before he-," Astoria placed a finger on her mouth, silencing her.

"We know, Hermione," Astoria smiled.

"I need to speak with Harry," Hermione said as she rose off the bed.    

"Are you sure, Hermione?" Lily said, more motherly like than her own mother at the moment.

"I am fine," she said and she turned to face her friends, "Please leave, I need to get dressed," and her friends smiled as they left.

She sighed and that was when the tears flowed down her cheeks. She fell back on her bed and she cradled her head in her hands. Why was she feeling like this? No one had ever affected her this way... it felt like her heart was being torn apart. Draco... Draco... Draco... Draco, Draco, Draco, Draco, Draco, Draco... that name no longer was painful to say. She gasped and she looked up at the mirror in front of her. She was in love... was it even possible to fall in love in a day? She sighed and tried to calm herself down... she needed to talk to Harry. She stood up and walked over to the pile of cloth on the foot of her bed. She picked up the cloth and looked at it. She sighed as she saw the white fabric. Why did everything have to be white for her? Oh, that's right, she said, she was a virgin.

She pulled her chlamys off and put the new one on, pinning the two ends of the fabric with gold pins up at her shoulders. She used her fingers to pull the knots apart in her hair and then she worked thin strands of gold into her hair. She picked up the dusty black stick from off the silver box Astoria gave her and coated the line of skin above her eyelashes in deep black. She then looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. She was ready. She walked out of her one roomed house that Ron (Hephaestus) had made for all of them and walked along the path that led up to the first house, Harry's. As she walked there she thought about what she was going to say to him. She knew that Harry would not agree to this without persuasion or some gift to give him, but what would she give him? She finally came to the very large one room house that belonged to her uncle.