Obsidian & Bronze {Fred Weasley}

43. Freeing Remus Lupin

My eyes burnt. A kind of dull sting you could just about bare, one that warps your vision just before it reaches the point of irritation. An exhausted kind of burn that you fought with the need to stay awake. Although it was becoming increasingly evident my body was fighting to shut down as the time neared 1:00am.

"I really don't know Hermione" I drunkenly slurred, despite being completely sober, fighting through a yawn as I lay width ways across her bed, my head lolling of the side as all the blood rushed to my brain, "It's your speech, it needs to be your words, your motives. It has to be you"

She groaned, rolling across the bed from lying on her stomach to lying on her back, staring aimlessly at the ceiling and twirling a pen between the tips of her fingers lazily.

"We've been at this speech for hours, why don't we try again tomorrow once we've got some rest" I whined, already halfway to sleep when Hermione slapped my thigh.

"No, Ardelle, we can't. We don't have anytime to waste"

She was right of course. The final election speeches were in a matter of days, and no amount of campaigning could amount to the importance of her final speech. Hermione needed this to win, and as much as I wanted to see Hermione succeed, truth be told I was here for one reason and one reason only. To watch Parkinson lose.

"Why don't you tell me what you would say, you are always so good at this stuff, and then maybe it will spark an idea in me?" Hermione suggested, scrambling to sit up, leaning against the headboard, her fuzzy sock covered feet prodding at my legs, "Dumbledore suggested it be both personal and informative. Revealing parts of yourselves, exposing vulnerability, makes you likable.

"I don't know Hermione. I'm tired" I grumbled, shifting myself down the bed slightly so my head could recover from the blood-rush and my thoughts could come back down to earth.

"Look I know you are tired, but please, why don't I ask you some of the template questions and you answer them how you would if you were running for Head Girl and maybe it will spark some of my own ideas?" Her eyes were wide and pleading, "Please?"

"Fine" I muttered, "Ask away"

"Okay, why do you think you would make a good leader?" She questioned, a pen poised between her fingertips, ready, hovering above a notebook incase idea began to strike.

"Why would I make a good leader?" I parrotted back after a few seconds of deliberation, "I've always been a leader I guess. My entire life. I feel like everything I've done, everything I've gone through, has been a test. A series of tasks to test my durability, like a toy in a factory, or some science experiment under a microscope. I never had a chance not to be a leader, a protector, in control. It's second nature because I've never known anything more. I'd be a good leader because for my entire life, all seventeen years of it, when the cracks start to show, when the pieces start to crumble and there doesn't seem to be enough hands to hold them. I kept it together. I did. Me. I did that. I learnt to save my own life when I wasn't even sure I wanted to be saved"

Hermione remained silent, so still I wasn't even sure she was awake, but as I glanced over, her eyes wide and tender, she simply smiled and whispered "Thank you", in a tone that made me sure it was okay to fall asleep.

And as my tired eyes drew shut, I caught a final glimpse of the expression adorning Hermione's features, and I couldn't help but think there was something more to it, like a sudden realisation had washed over her.

*****

"Ardelle?" A quivering and shallow voice whispered as a sturdy hand shook my shoulder, dragging me from the depths of unconsciousness.