August | Hermione Granger x OFC

Chapter 105

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

"I'm terribly sorry, Mr Ollivander. I was unexpectedly gone for two weeks, you must understand."

He offered a weak smile. "There is no problem, Robyn, dear – you are not the only one looking out for me, though I will admit that I missed our conversations."

She went to smile at his words, but then she processed his other words.

"I'm not the only one?" she frowned, wary. "Who else...?"

"Me."

She could've died from a heart attack there and then.

Whipping around so fast her neck cracked, she held her wand up at the intruder only for the intruder to slap her wrist down with a roll of his eyes.

"Lloyd!" she gasped. "What the bloody hell—"

"No, what the bloody hell you."

"That...doesn't make sense," she said breathlessly.

He rolled his eyes again. "Whatever. You need to be more careful. What if I had been Wormtail, or worse, the Dark Lord himself, and you'd been down here having a tea party with Mr Ollivander? What then?"

"I- I don't know, I just wanted to get away before Nagini started eating, er..." she cringed, "that woman. That's vile."

"It doesn't matter, you have to stay on alert at all times. I thought you were supposed to be good at remaining calm and stoic and everything – that's what Snape said."

"Supposedly..." she muttered, rather disbelieving, because she was definitely more emotional than she let on to others. "But wait," she smiled slightly, "Snape said that? Aw."

"Yes. Snape loves you, the Dark Lord loves you, Father loves you. You really are winning."

It was her turn to roll her eyes, tutting, "Don't be stupid."

"Even Mr Ollivander loves you – what, our conversations aren't good enough?" said Lloyd scathingly, and Robyn had a feeling he was joking, but he was difficult to read, sometimes.

"I rather enjoy conversations with the both of you," said Ollivander politely, probably not wanting to bite the hands that feed him.

"You should meet our sister, then. She's better than the both of us combined," said Robyn lightly.

"Oi," frowned Lloyd, crossing his arms.

Robyn said nothing but gave him a knowing look.

"...Yeah, all right," he conceded quickly. "Now shove off."

"What? Why?"

"Because, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Mr Ollivander wants to eat food that's been shoved down your polo shirt. Not very sanitary, is it?"

She frowned. "I don't have food shoved down my shirt."

"Then go away. You have no reason to be here. I, however, come bearing gifts." He opened his jacket to reveal a brown package. "One bacon roll for Mr Ollivander."

She heard Ollivander sigh in appreciation as Lloyd dropped the package in his lap. "Oh thank you, thank you..." he trailed off, eating the roll with a renewed sense of vigour.

"Right," she said simply.

"Oh, and," Lloyd smiled mischievously, then, "something came in the post for you."

She perked up at that. Had one of her friends finally written her? Hermione? "Something? What? A letter?"

"Obviously."