Thursday, March 8, 2012

Teaser: The Waiting Place Chapter 18

Hello, everyone!  I hope you're all having a great week, & if not, at least tomorrow's Friday! ;)

Anywho, here's a little excerpt from Chapter 18 (Chapter 19 counting the prologue) of The Waiting Place that I hope you'll enjoy.  Please keep in mind that the chapter isn't nearly complete, but I'm hoping to have it completed & posted within the next week:

She tucked her head down and picked up her pace while passing scattered handfuls of gossiping students dressed in casual weekend attire that littered the passageways—including one hot and heavy couple tucked into an alcove behind a suit of armor, hands invisible beneath each other’s clothing.

They paid Hermione no mind as she passed, which suited her just fine. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have hesitated to scold the couple and to exuberantly deduct house points, but she’d never felt less inclined: Her own intimate experiences were all too fresh on her mind, and she felt the heat rising in her cheeks as she became aware of the dull ache that still lingered between her legs despite the potions she’d been given at the hospital. The ache that she didn’t actually want to go away, because it was proof undeniable that it had all been real. That it had actually happened.

Her heart speeding up as she realized quite abruptly that she’d reached the closed double-doors to the infirmary, she took a calming breath, pulling the doors open just enough so that she could slip inside the semi-darkened hospital wing. Her heart seemed to stutter in her chest when she immediately caught sight of a small, all-too-familiar group of redheads, and the unmistakable head of black hair belonging to Harry, clustered around the single occupied bed.

A knot formed in the pit of her stomach as she caught a glimpse of his prone form in the gap between Fred and Ginny, and the only thing she could think was, It’s his birthday. He was poisoned on his birthday, and I wasn’t here.

Hermione made the decision then and there to trust her heart—to choose faith over logic and to trust that she’d somehow misinterpreted what she’d seen outside Trelawney’s classroom.

And she realized, quite suddenly, that she’d known it all along.

There was no going back after this moment.

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