Ramblings of Rita & a Decision

The next morning New Rome was alight with movement, the scene of countless people setting down getting their fill of breakfast reminded her a lot of her Hogwart days.

Hermione had to admit, the Romans knew how to fry eggs and bacon. The toast was excellent too, but the toaster took much of the credit. She stole a glance up at Percy. He took a bite off his toast and was reaching for the cup of water he poured for himself.

"Nothing like hydration for hangovers." He had said giving her a quiet smile.

During this fragile and awkward silence, Hermione thought over the events of last night and reached a conclusion that she, at the least, owed him some courage. She was too drunk to even remember ever exiting the pub those weeks ago, but she didn't see that night in a bad light... It was just something that happened and she didn't need the complication rightnow. But she owed him a conversation. And bloody hell, she was a Gryffindor, seriously, for Merlin's sake! She ought to be braver than others.

"Umm..." She managed to begin, but she could not meet Percy's eyes. She was a bit nervous, like any other would be if they were in her place in the situation. To her relief, she heard Percy chuckle.

"Um, how much of that night do you remember?" Percy couldn't help panic a little he thought about how drunk they both were. If she didn't remember hardly anything... Maybe that is why she seems to not want this... gods..." internally he was spiraling but he didn't let it show at all. He kept his Hades may care smile on his face and powered through the conversation.

Hermione hesitated. How much should she reveal? Yes, sure, they had talked that night for hours and got to know each other pretty well. But with all the technicalities, they were still very much still strangers to each other. After all, they had only met a few weeks ago for the first time. She remembered questioning herself before she sat down with Percy, and she also remembered how she responded to her own questions. This was only going to be a casual "one night stand." That was what she had told herself, and now she thought back to it, it was sort of embarrassing to mention. So she chose her next words very carefully, without any details as such.

"We were… at the pub. I remember talking a lot with you. Then we were… walking down the street? When we reached my place, I… kissed you."

At this point, Hermione could feel her face heating, the blush physically obvious even to herself. She had her head down and played with her fork, waiting for Percy to respond. She peeked at him for a second and saw him scratching his head, a bit shy and a bit flustered? She could not be sure.

"Do you, wow, this isn't easy, do you remember anything… after that?"

Hermione and Percy looked up together, and their eyes met, not as intense as the night before, but still in a steady gaze. Then snippets from the chunk of blacked-out memory began to return again to Hermione.

There were bare skins, of course, and they were bare for a long time. She remembered the warm touch of his lips that trailed up and down her body. She remembered grasping his shoulders and her own moaning into his collarbone. She remembered her legs becoming entangled with his. And then there was that ache in her lower stomach... She squirmed a bit at the memory.

Percy witnessed the blush creeping in, from her shoulders to her face. She must have begun to remember what happened after the kiss that night. She was becoming red. He had to keep himself from blushing after witnessing the marks he made on her last night, that were redder than her blush and was very apparent. He helplessly let his own blush surface, as the marks reminded him more clearly of what kind of positions he was in with Hermione.

"I, uh, we… um, did some… very adult things…?" Hermione spoke again.

Percy let out a small laughter. Adult things, she phrased it. Hermione was looking at him almost incredulously, and it was becoming quite troubling how everything she did and said was just so lovely to him now. To console the deeply disturbed woman before him, Percy answered truthfully.

"Yes, we did some adult things. Very adult things. And… what do you think about it now?"

Hermione bit her lips. She could not risk another relationship. If it became something greater from here, it was sure to go downhill just like all her previous relationship. Percy's eyes made it hard to make a sharp cut, however. In the daylight that shone through the window, his eyes were pools of undefiled ocean, so deep and so clear. She had to tell him that it was all a mistake, but looking into those eyes only made her realize why she came to kiss him that night... all throughout that night truthfully.

"I... I needed more time to think." She told him the blush still apparent on her cheeks. I'd like to wash up is there a loo somewhere?"

Hermione did her best to offer her best reassuring smile. Percy seemed a bit startled by her sudden change of the topic, but as kind as he had been so far, he did not push it and only nodded.

"Thanks."

Only after Hermione had gone into the bathroom and the sound from the shower head began to echo through the room, Hermione realized what she might have done... But she could not afford to even think that way. Was she in love with Percy Jackson?

'I'm only trying to be kind to him as he had been to me. Nothing ulterior behind this! Absolutely innocent!'

After that thought, there was a loud tapping on the window, which scared her so much she couldn't even scream. She nearly panicked and slipped in the shower. She turned around and found a grey owl perched on the small window frame above the sink. It was Harry's new owl. Hannelore was the name, she thought. She opened the window and sighed in relief that she found her in the shower and not outside with Percy. Hannelore carried a ribboned paper package held in its small beak, the site of the small grey owl brought a pang of longing for her old owl Pigwidgeon. Hannelore clearly held a copy of a newspaper, most likely a Daily Prophet for today, and the other small one was a card with 'Hermione' written in Harry usual penmanship.

Hermione pulled out the card drying off so that she wouldn't get it wet. The content was short, and the writing inside was drastically troubled looking, the letters merely whipped into the parchment.

Hermione,

You must read today's Daily Prophet.

Rita Skeeter's crewmen did it again.

-Harry.

Hermione, panicked by Harry's urgency, dropped the card and hurriedly picked up the Daily Prophet. When she spread the paper, she was stilled by the appalling display on the front page.

The headline was: THE WAR HEROINE'S SECRET ROMANCE. Below it, there were two photos, both equally big and placed vertically by Rita Skeeter's article. The photos showed two figures in motion: Hermione and Percy. One photo showed them walking hand in hand down the street, looking into each other's faces with smiles. The other photo, to Hermione's greatest dismay, showed Hermione pulling Percy into a kiss in front of her flat. The motion shot of this particular photo ended only after Percy himself pulled Hermione into a passionate kiss.

Struck by an utter surprise, Hermione stared at the photos. She gave herself a second to recover, but was struck again by the rubbish written by Skeeter.

Perhaps the most well known witch in the recent wizarding history, Hermione Granger was spotted two weeks ago in a loving moment with her secret bonbon, a mystery man with dark hair, wearing muggle clothes.

So far, Hermione Granger had been known now more as a member of the magical law enforcement crew, and, before as an admired participant in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, than as a witch of feminine qualities. A few years ago this witch was on the high rise she was even rumored to be on the next council of magical law enforcement, but all of this was abandoned in one night after a very public argument with her ex-fiance' in public break up. It had been rumored that she had no interest in romance whatsoever afterwards and even moved to the states, but it seems the general public has been incorrect about that aspect all along.

From the fact that the man was wearing extremely plain muggle clothes, it is most assumable that Granger's love interest is a muggle. Whether this is why Granger kept it a secret affair or not is a debatable subject, but…

It was infuriating, to say the least. First of all, why did Hermione even have to share her private life with everyone? Why would it matter if she had a boyfriend or two, or if he or they were muggles? And the way Skeeter wrote her down as if she was incapable of emotions! Why was this even a front page material? And why after so long of being out of the spotlight did this even matter to me?

Thinking she quickly got dressed and pulled out a little bit of floo powder she had been keeping in her purse. Sprinkling some in a hearth that is used for food sacrifices to the gods she stuck her head into it and called out Harry's name. After a few moments she was in Harry's and Ginny's setting room looking at a messy headed boy rubbing his eyes a red headed woman talking. The time in London was four hours a head so she was somewhat surprised to see them both at home.

"How did this happen Harry?" Hermione called from her disembodied place in the fireplace.

Startled Harry nearly spit out his drink before realizing I was the one speaking, after a beat he spoke "You know what happened. Rita Skeeter happened. I know you don't really read Daily Prophet so you probably didn't know, but she did something similar to me before. She hired a cameraman to camp out near my house and take pictures of the most private moments of my life."

Hermione actually remembered that time. It was only a few months ago, but Harry was on the front page, not because of his political activities but because of his son.

"But I thought it's banned to that any more?"

Harry sighed. "Not on foreign soil, although that hasn't stopped her before. This was just a convenient loop hole."

"She managed to escape the accusation that time because she only had one photo of me. She said she only coincidentally took a picture, that there was no stalking or spying involved."

Hermione sighed with Harry. Rita Skeeter was a headache all times. Dismissing the conversation for the moment she met eyes with Harry and decided to speak to him about the dream last night.

"That woman… The one chained inside the cavern with Voldermort..." She winced at his startled look Ugh, why did I have to broach the subject like this?

"You seen that? How?"

"I don't know I was having a dream about the christmas party in seventh year then it was likeI'd been drawn to the dream. It was odd to say the least, Voldermort noticed you but didn't me... and I think Percy." She said feeling a little confused on why she believed him to be there. Damn she almost wished she could go back to talking about her 'romance'... Almost.

Hermione grumbled in disgust.

"Well, what do you know about this woman? Who is she, Hermione?"

"I have't confirmed this with the 'Roman's' yet but I believe she is the goddess 'Hecate'"

"A.. a goddess?" Harry murmured and like lightening shot through his eyes he stood up. "What have you not told me, Hermione?"

"A lot." She relied

Last night although there had been a large discussion about what had been going on with her and the prophecy but the Roman's had conveniently left out the 'gods' part of the conversation out.

There was shout behind Harry's voice, from Ginny, When she spotted my head she screamed something like Yeah, who is he?! Hermione bit her lips. In all honesty, she didn't want to talk about this again.

"It's, uh, complicated. I'll tell you when I know what's really going on…"

"What! Did I just hear Hermione Granger say she doesn't know what's going on? Is the world about to end again?"

"Ginny!" She just kept rambling and didn't seem to realize I wasn't replying back.

"Ginny, please!"

Hermione felt her blush reappearing. She had enough to deal with already, and Ginny was not helping for sure.

Just then, there was a startled gasp from behind me, and the sound of someone falling to the ground. She guessed Percy had entered the room thinking she was done with the shower. By Merlin's sake, Hermione was lost of what to do. Hermione glanced down at the at her remaining floo powder then up at the Harry again. "I got to go, Percy is here". She ducked her head out of the hearth quickly seeing Percy's bewildered expression.

"Is everything okay?" She heard him say worried.

"No, I was just talking to my friend, and I—" He looked concerned but nodded his head.

With that, Percy returned to the her room and closed the door behind him. Hermione stared at the door.

Hermione sighed. "What am I going to do..."

Percy

Percy had been waiting a while for Hermione to finish her shower but as time moved on it seemed like she would never exit the room. After about forty five minutes he noticed that as sound of the water had stopped for a while, he decided not to hesitate any more. Opening the door he found a girl wrapped in a robe her slim yet toned body caught Percy eyes, making him blush even worse, and he started to averted his gaze, only to stumble a moment later when he realized she had her head stuck in a sacrificial fire hearth.

"WA!" Was all he managed to get out before stumbling to the ground. Hermione held up her had motioning him to hold on a moment like she was on the telephone.

He managed to say something he thought was similar to "Ok, you have fun." Then he turned and all but lept out of the room. After a few minutes she showed up at the door motioning him to enter with her.

Apparently her talk with her friend in the fire had gave her whatever she needed to think about… them. He was a bit afraid to enter the door now. Either she wanted to see him more or she did not. For Percy who knew he was in love the moment he felt how lovely Hermione was throughout all his senses, the latter conclusion, of her not wanting to see him again, was frightening.

Still, because Hermione had gathered her courage to speak to him about her feelings, Percy appreciated her efforts, so he walked through the door. And there she was, dressed in a fuzzy sweater and sweat pants, looking up at him with those limpid eyes. He could not help but smile.

"Did the talk go alright?"

He began.

Hermione nodded.

"I'd like to answer your question from before."

Percy traced back to their earlier conversation. Ah, yes, he had asked her what she thought about the 'adult things' they had done together.

His smiled a bit. "Yes?"

"I'm sorry I tried to escape answering that question, but I needed time to think it through more carefully."

"I understand."

"So, I thought about it, and as you've heard, consulted my friends about it. And I reached a conclusion."

Percy waited. In silence, he prepared himself for the worst. After all, to her, he was just an American she met two weeks before. However much they felt close to each other after their conversation and the 'adult' activity, Hermione had every right to feel bad about it all and reject him just there and then. Hermione inhaled deeply and exhaled through her mouth. Percy's sight fell on her lips, and by gods! He wanted to kiss her again.

When she finally spoke, her voice a bit trembling, still nervous, Percy stared at her lips, but this time, to read them, to comprehend once again what she had just told him. For he could not believe it the first time he heard it.