Never Delivered
Chapter 1: Owl Post???
Hermione Granger woke with a sigh. Her damned next door neighbor always insisted on blasting acid rock at seven thirty in the morning. On a Saturday. Disgusted, she got out of bed and stretched, before heading into the kitchen where her mother was making pancakes. "Morning, Mum," she yawned before slumping down in her seat.
"Morning Hermione," replied her mother, not turning her back from her cooking, "sorry about Mr. Neilson. I keep telling him to turn the volume down, but he never listens."
"It's alright Mum, I'm used to it. After all, it's my alarm clock every bloody morning!"
Her mother just smiled, before piling three pancakes onto the place in front of her starving daughter. "Eat up. Your father and I are going to Aunt Hil's for lunch." At this, Ann Granger's face twisted in annoyance. "Make sure that you have some fun in between your homework and more homework," she added, grinning at her know-it-all daughter.
Hermione smirked. "Tell you what Mum. You have fun at Aunt Hil's, and I'll meet up with some bikers and 'have some fun.'"
Ann snorted and said "Very well. Study hard then!" And left the kitchen to get ready, leaving Hermione to her pancakes. Hermione shook her head. Her poor parents. She couldn't believe that they were being forced to go to Aunt Hil's. Aunt Hil was David Granger's sister, and she was a whinny, spoiled brat, and lunch at her house consisted of waiting on her hand and foot while she complained about her 'poor nerves.'
Finishing up her breakfast, Hermione put her plat in the sink and went to her room, closing the door behind her. Looking around, she smiled slightly. This had been her room ever since the Grangers had moved to New York City from England when Hermione was two.
Hermione hardly remembered her life in England, only that she had bare remnants of her old accent, and she called her mother 'Mum.' Hermione was happy in New York. She attended an Upper East Side private all girl's school, and spent most of her time doing homework.
"Bye Mione!" Yelled Ann from the front of the apartment, "I'll see you later!"
"By mum!" returned Hermione, before sitting at her desk with her chemistry book. She liked chemistry. Something about mixing different substances together just seemed natural to her. As if she was born to do it. Other classes, such as algebra, seemed pointless to her for some reason, but she still remained top of the class.
Getting distracted from her chemistry reading, Hermione gazed out of her window. She often felt lonely when she sat in her room. Something deep inside of her told her that this was not where she was meant to be -- that, somewhere, far away, was a place where she would fit in better.
It was not a question of having friends, because she certainly had friends. Her two best friends were Zoe and Sarah, and both in school and out, the girls were inseparable. Hermione was the bookworm, always in the library and eager for the next test. Sarah was more of the partying type, and liked nothing better than to just have a good time. She often goofed off, in class and out, playing pranks on everyone -- even the teachers. Zoe was athletic. It seemed to be in her blood. Any sport she tried she immediately mastered without much application.
Together, the three balanced each other out, and brought each other out from their 'areas of specialty' into unknown territory. Hermione made sure the other two kept their grades up, Zoe kept them in shape and able to -- when they wanted a break -- just go kick a soccer ball or take a run. And under the influence of Sarah, Hermione had gotten drunk. Twice.
Hermione barely batted an eyelash as she watched an owl fly by, a letter grasped in its claw. 'Poor thing,' Hermione thought to herself, 'this is horrible weather for an owl to be – WHAT THE FUCK? What is an owl doing flying during the day time? And why would it have a letter in its beak?' Hermione watched as it flew closer and closer, trying to keep its own path against the wind. However, a fierce gust of wind sent it flying towards Hermione, who opened her window just in time to let the little fur ball shoot in and land in her outstretched palms.
Looking up curiously at Hermione, the owl made as to leave, seeing as her bedroom hadn't been his destination. But before he could do anything to stop her, she had taken the piece of rather thick paper from him, and was looking curiously at the front of the letter. In bright purple ink, it simply said 'Mures Pinul.'
Hermione raised an eyebrow to herself. Mures Pinul was her strange downstairs neighbor, who, according to the kids in the building, was a witch. They were scared of him because he never let anyone into his apartment, and was hardly ever seen leaving it. It was also partly due to his habit of only wearing strange, shabby old cloaks.
Her chemistry forgotten, Hermione slowly stood up. Gently carrying the owl and the letter, she put her shoes on and headed towards the door. She assumed that the owl belonged to Mures, so she felt it would be best to bring him to his master. Hermione sighed. Her life was certainly a strange one. She knew no one would ever believe her if she told them that a 'delivery owl' had flown into her room that morning. But Hermione was used to not being able to tell people everything about herself.
From ever since she could remember, Hermione had been doing strange things. As she left the room, Hermione flicked her wrist and the lights turned off. She had first discovered that power when she was playing Matilda with Zoe and Sarah. She was Matilda, Zoe was Miss Honey, and Sarah was Ms. Trunchbull. Matilda was their favorite book when they were in third grade. And when Hermione had concentrated enough, she had actually managed to turn the light off. Sarah and Zoe had stared at her in shock, but no one had been more surprised than Hermione herself.
Even before that strange things had happened to her. In first grade, embarrassed that her teacher had accused her of showing off -- how was she supposed to know that a first grader wasn't supposed to understand long division? --, Hermione had glared at her teacher, only to find that the longer she glared, the pinker Mrs. Muller's hair seemed to turn.
Shaking her head slightly at the memory, Hermione knocked on Mures Pinul's door. A moment later, the door opened a crack to reveal the man's head. "What do you want?" he asked shortly when he saw who was at his door.
"Um…excuse me for intruding sir," Hermione said politely, "but… well… you see… I was doing my homework, when all of a sudden I saw an owl with a letter in his jaws" – was it possible that Mures' eyes had widened slightly at that?—"and when there was a sudden gust of wind, the owl was blown in my window." Here she held it out. "And I saw that it had your name on it, so I… err… decided to bring it to you." She finished, slightly out of breath.
"Thank you Miss Granger," He said politely, taking the owl from her and moving to close the door.
"Um-" Hermione said suddenly, "Mr. Pinul?"
"Yes?" was his short answer.
"I was just wondering-" she trailed off nervously before taking a deep breath and continuing "Do many people have owls as pets? And are they actually trainable? So that you can make them carry mail and such? Because owls are not supposed to be very agreeable birds. According to Birds of th-" She cut herself off, blushing slightly. She was beginning to go into, as Sarah called it, 'Know-it-all-I-memorized-the-dictionary-and-all-school-textbooks-and-i-now-feel-like-reciting-them-to-you-until-i-turn-blue-in-the-face-or-you-fall-asleep-of-bordom' mode.
Mr. Pinul just looked amused. "In some parts of the world, owls are used as the only sort of post. Muggles simply do not understand how to use that service. Good day Miss Granger." And with that obvious dismissal, Mr. Pinul gently shut the door in Hermione's face, leaving her to ponder what he had just said in confusion as she headed back up to her room.
Mr. Pinul was certainly a mystery - that was for sure. One that, for some reason, Hermione felt compelled to solve. Hearing the phone ring, Hermione pushed her thoughts to the side and focused instead on one of her daily conference calls with Sarah and Zoe.
While the three girls shared almost everything, after that accident of them seeing her magically turn out the light, Hermione had kept anything unnatural that happened to her a secret. She knew that, while the three girls were best friends and would trust each other about anything, if she told them some of the things she had done accidentally, they would be convinced that she was crazy.
So, listening to Sarah debate whether or not to go out on a date with her next 'OMG I love him so so so so much' fling, Hermione put her troubles aside, and focused on rolling her eyes and laughing at her friend.
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A/N: Ok, so I really don't know where I'm going with this, it's just sort of an idea that popped into my head. And I know that this chapter is like amazingly short, but whatever. Review anyway and tell me if you think it's a good idea or if I should abandon it altogether… but just so you know, I'm focusing on Hermione's Baby as my like main story at the moment. But please please please review!!! J