Hello all.
First off, yes, I know I have a few other works in progress that I should be focusing on. But I'm currently stuck in a state of bipolar mania and doing something that's different and still the same might help me navigate myself out of it. That being said, it may be a bit hard to follow, but I'll try my best to re-read it and make sure it follows some form of logic.
Secondly, this may be a bit harsh for a T rating. There's not going to be any graphic "special-hugs" but I'm planning to mention a teen pregnancy at one point (not saying who, but you'll probably be able to guess) and language and innuendo sometimes get out of control depending on my mood. I want to keep this at T, though, so if you notice that I could possibly be straying into M territory, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!
Last but not least, I don't own Harry Potter *sad face*. If I did, I'd be too busy living in a mansion and eating something besides Raman and peanut butter sandwiches to write crappy fanfiction.
So, on that note, welcome to your feature presentation.
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Hermione stood at the kitchen counter, making dinner the muggle way because it was therapeutic.
"Lily? You want to pass me the salt?" She said, peering over the island at the kitchen table, where her niece was doing her homework.
"Can you give me one second; I've got two sentences left." Lily requested. She quickly wrote the last of her assignment and grabbed the salt shaker. She walked it over to her aunt, even though she was old enough to legally levitate it there, then returned to the table and packed up her school stuff.
"What were you working on?"
"DADA essay. It's on Dad. Awwwkwaaard." Lily answered, using humour to disguise her discomfort at writing a paper on her own father. "Anything I can do?"
"Make a salad?"
"Kay." Lily got out some lettuce and started tearing it into bite sized pieces.
"So... how's school going? Do you like your classes?"
"They're O.K. History is soooo lame."
"Do they still have Professor Binns teaching it?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah." Lily answered shortly.
"Then I don't blame you for thinking it's boring." Hermione said, smiling. "Even I wanted to skip that class and read the textbook instead sometimes."
"No way!" Lily laughed. She couldn't imagine her aunt, who still went to adult seminar classes to "keep everything fresh in her mind", ever disliking a professor.
"I know, I know. But I never actually did it, and neither should you."
"Me? Skip a class? Never." Lily assured Hermione a bit too innocently for honesty. Hermione let it slide. She didn't approve, but she knew that not everyone had the never-ending thirst for knowledge she'd always possessed.
"Have you got many friends?" Hermione asked. She felt guilty for not knowing this about her own niece, but every time they were together it was with at least three other adults and five other children packed into a small beachside vacation home. They didn't get much time to chat. But Harry, Al, and James had been travelling the world together for the past month and wouldn't be back for at least another two. Hermione and Ron had agreed to watch after Lily since Lily had refused to stay at school, but Ron and Rose had gone to a "Daddy-Daughter Banquet" hosted by the scouts and Hugo decided to stay at school over Christmas for the first time "just to see what it was like". Hermione and Lily were on their own for dinner for the first time ever.
"Of course, Auntie Hermione!" Lily answered "I've got a group of friends that I hang out with a lot."
Hermione grinned. Of course Lily was popular. She had inherited the good looks of both her father and mother. As shallow as it was, that would buy her anything in a school environment.
"What about boys?" Hermione asked, winking.
Lily giggled—a clear sign that there was someone she was either dating or had a major crush on.
"Oooh, I know that sound. I used to make it whenever my mum asked the same question. So who is it?"
"No one." Lily shook her head.
"You're not fooling me, silly." She poked her niece in her side right where she was most ticklish. Lily squealed in surprise and the lettuce she was tearing went flying as she tried to elbow Hermione's hand away.
Hermione laughed. She and her mother used to have fun chats like this all the time. It was only after she and Ron were officially a couple that she'd given in and confessed the crush over cookies and milk.
"No. I swear." Lily protested. Hermione poked her again as she picked the lettuce back up from where it had landed on the stovetop and Lily squealed again. She still shook her head in denial, though, even as she frantically reached to cover her belly from her aunt's poke-attacks. But Hermione didn't give in.
"Tell me or I'll tickle you again!" She taunted, and somehow was able to do so to prove she wasn't bluffing.
"I'll never tell." Lily shrieked, trying to dance out of Hermione's reach.
"Why not? Is he ugly?" Hermione teased. Lily shook her head.
"Is he a nerd?" Lily shook her head again.
Hermione's voice dropped to a whisper. "Is he a Hufflepuff. I promise I won't tell anyone."
"Auntie Hermione!" Lily laughed. "That's so rude!... It's not their fault they look like bumblebees."
At this, Hermione cracked up. "I'll hand it to you. That was a good one."
It took them both a while to stop laughing and be capable of speech again.
"O.K, then. What house is he in?"
"Slytherin." Lily mumbled.
"Ooh, so you've got a thing for the bad boys, do you?" Hermione teased, still smiling. "Such a rebel, tsk tsk."
Lily was silent, but her face had gone red. It must be a ginger thing, because both Lily and Rose blushed really easily.
"Would I recognise the name."
Lily remained quiet, but Hermione, using her motherly instincts, was able to detect a slight apprehension. So... yes.
"Hmmm." She said, tapping her chin with her index finger. "I bet he's a Zabini. Blaise was always a heartthrob amongst the popular girls. Am I right."
Lily again said nothing, so Hermione used her mum-powers again.
"No, he's not a Zabini. Who else? Umm. Please tell me he's not Marcus Flint's son, because I'm not sure if that boy's completely human."
This time Lily spoke up. "I don't think he is, if his mannerisms are anything to go by."
"I'm not encouraging you to judge people on their physical appearance, hon, but you don't need his mannerisms to figure he's got at least a little bit of troll blood in him."
Lily tried to cover up a chuckle and ended up producing a very loud snort that sent both Hermione and Lily into fits of laughter.
"O.K, O.K. Let's see here. Those Nott twins aren't ugly, and Padma Patil has informed me that they have seven full vaults at the bank."
"Not Nott." Lily said because it was just too good an opportunity to pass up.
"O.K. Not Nott, not Flint, not Zabini. Let's see, who else. Pansy Parkinson never married or had kids. Millicent Bulstrode had that boy without being married, the skank (don't tell your dad I said that) but he's just wrong in the brain. The only one left I can think of is Malfoy, and we know that's not even in the spectrum of possibilities. If the spectrum of possibilities were to explode, he wouldn't hear the sou—." Hermione realised that Lily had stopped. There were no sounds of laughter being unsuccessfully retained, there was not sound of her shifting her weight from foot to foot. Hermione didn't even hear breathing.
"Is it Scorpius?" Hermione asked, with seriousness foreign to the conversation.
Lily nodded with a stubborn look on her face; an expression that so strongly resembled Ginny when she was set on something.
Hermione softened. "You look so much like your mother used to." She said, and pushed a tendril of her deep red hair behind her ear.
Lily's lip trembled slightly. Hermione pulled her into a hug and rocked back and forth for a while. Lily was the one to pull back from the embrace.
"Let's finish making dinner." She said. All the fun from her conversation with her aunt had disappeared with the mention of her mother. She did look so much like her mum did when her tenacious side started to show through. Her dad said so whenever it happened. It always made her feel really bad for whatever argument they were having when he brought it up. She knew it wasn't her fault, and that he knew it too, but Ginny's passing had only happened within the past two years and her absence was still hard on everyone.
It wasn't until the chicken was on the table and they were about to eat that Lily spoke again.
"You can't stop me." She said.
"Believe me; you'd do well to stay away from that boy."
"Why should I?"
"He'll break your heart, hon. Trust me."
"Trust you? You don't even know him and you distrust him."
"He's a Malfoy." Hermione said.
"On Rose's first day, Uncle Ron was telling Rose to beat him at every exam and you said—"
"I said that he shouldn't turn Rosie and Scorpius against each other. I still stand by what I said. Scorpius Malfoy may be a great person, but I don't trust him in a romantic relationship and neither should you."
"That makes no sense. I get that you, Uncle Ron, and my dad have a thing against the Malfoy name. I totally understand where you're coming from. What doesn't make sense is that you're fine with me being friends with a Malfoy, but not with me dating one."
"Listen to me. That boy's got to be such a womaniser, and I don't want you dating him.
"You don't know that for sure." Lily said, even though her aunt had a point. Scorpius did have a reputation.
"You should hear a story from my school days."
"If you're going to tell me about how Mr. Malfoy was mean to everyone, I don't need to hear it. Daddy dropped the name every time he used to scold my brothers against bullying." Lily said, sure she knew what Hermione was about to preach.
"Trust me, this isn't a story your father is likely to have told you, mostly because no one but myself knows it."
Lily was still set on Scorpius and no story her aunt told her was going to change her mind, but a secret... this was interesting. Auntie Hermione didn't believe in secrets. This had to be big. She cocked her head to the side a little bit, silently prompting her aunt to continue.
"Finish your dinner, Lily-Flower. I'll tell you after we clean up. It's a long story and would do best without interruptions."
After they both had finished their meals, had boxed up the leftovers and set a cooling charm on them for Uncle Ron's midnight snack later, and set the wishbone on the windowsill above the sink to dry out, Hermione was almost ready to tell her story for the first time.
"Why don't you get a fire started or something? I've got something in my room I'd like to show you before we get started and I need to go and get it." Hermione told Lily.
Lily nodded and walked over to the fireplace as Hermione hurriedly sprinted up the stairs and into the master bedroom. She paused for a moment as she entered the room. She always did. It'd been decorated like this for almost a year, but it never failed to amuse her.
Hermione had let Ron decorate two rooms in their new house, against her better judgement. One of her requirements was that the rooms he chose had to be private, so he'd chosen his basement man-cave (a must have for any healthy marriage, she knew) and the bedroom. The other requirement was NO "Chudley Cannons" brand orange. So what did her moron of a husband decide to do? Orange. Oh, he knew better than to use Chudley colours. He wasn't that stupid. He decided to paint their master bedroom the colour of the filling of a pumpkin pie. And it would have been fine, nice even, if he would have used the colour as an accent. But no, he made the entirety of all the walls orange. Hermione hated the idea of going back on her word, but there was no way she was going to live in an orange room. So she tried to magically change it.
Ron wasn't as thick as she'd thought. When she flicked her wand to change the colour to plain beige, it had instead turned bright orange with a huge Chudley Cannon's logo on the wall across from the bed and had stayed that way ever since.
She went into her closet and dug all the way back into a shoebox belonging to an old pair of heels that were too young-looking for her now. Buried beneath the tissue paper wrapping the shoes was a small, leather bound notebook with the monogram HG embossed on the front in gold. She opened it. The pages crackled a little bit, due to the journal not being properly preserved. But she couldn't keep this in a drawer or on a shelf. This book had to remain hidden.
She walked quickly on her return, not wanting to keep her niece waiting longer than she already had. She needed to hear this story.
When she got back to the den, she saw Lily sitting at the piano in the corner, seemingly about to begin playing. She'd apparently taken longer than she'd originally thought.
"I didn't know you played." Hermione said. Lily jumped slightly in her seat.
"Mom insisted on teaching me. I hated being forced to learn it, but now it seems to be a connection with her, you know?"
"I understand."
"I didn't know you played."
"I used to. It's more Rosie's thing now. She loves it."
Lily swivelled in the piano bench to face her aunt.
"Have a seat, honey." Hermione said, gesturing at the overstuffed armchair across from her as she sat down on the loveseat. Lily did, and wrapped in her favourite worn fleece jacket in preparation for what her aunt had promised to be a long story.
Once she'd stopped squirming to get comfortable, Hermione passed her the notebook.
"This is my diary from my first year." She explained.
"So why are you telling me the story if I can just read it."
"Because that book is not so accurate. I didn't even tell my own diary everything. I was in denial."
"Denial of what?"
"That's the story I'm about to tell."
"I'm listening."
"I dated Draco Malfoy once." Hermione began. "Well, sort of. There wasn't really a term as innocent as 'dating' for what we had, but that's the one I used."
"Oh my gosh. If this is going to be a story about you and Mr. Malfoy having sex, I'm out of here." Lily said, starting to stand.
"Lily Luna Potter, you keep your butt in that chair and listen." Hermione commanded.
Lily rolled her eyes, but remained seated. If it got to nasty, though, she wasn't going to stick around.
"Good." Hermione said, nodding once. "Now let me get on with my story."
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So, how do you like it so far? Are you intrigued? I hope so. If you like it, press the review button below and let me know. If you dislike it, press the review button below and let me know. Predictions? Suggestions? Questions? Comments? Concerns? I'd even love you pointing out spelling or grammar issues. I just love the reviews!