*This is originally J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, I just changed it to fit another character.
CHAPTER TWO
THE VANISHING GLASS
Nearly ten years had passed since that strange day when owls flew during the day and funnily dressed people crowded the streets, but Charlesprey Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number 12 on the Granger's front door; it crept into their living, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Granger had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of Hermione talking and walking - but Hermione was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed her riding her first bicycle, reading the dictionary, and the encyclopedia, twice, and Hermione at her birthday celebrations. The room held no sign at all that a dog lived in the house, too. Yet Red was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. Mrs. Granger was awake and it was her yawn that made the first noise of the day.
"Yaaaaaaahhhhhhhh"
Hermione awoke to the sound of the frying pan. She rolled onto her back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a castle in it. He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before.
Her mother was outside the door.
"Are you up yet?" she inquired.
"Nearly", said Hermione.
"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you burn it. I want everything to be perfect on your father's birthday."
Hermione groaned.
"What did you say?" her mother snapped through the door.
"Nothing, nothing . . ."
Her father's birthday- how could she have forgotten? Hermione got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. She found a pair in her drawer and pulled them on.
When she was dressed he went downstairs into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath a rather large birthday present for her father. It looked as though Mr. Granger had gotten the new lawn mower he wanted. Exactly why Mr. Granger wanted a lawn mower was a mystery to Hermione, as Mrs. Granger's lawn was very well kept by the city.
Perhaps it had something to do with living in a house with two dentists, but Hermione had always been small and skinny for her age. She looked even smaller and skinnier than she really was because her hair was so frizzy that it stuck out from her head. Hermione had a thin face, knobby knees, brown hair, and hazel eyes. The only thing Hermione liked about her own appearance was her very small delicate looking nose.
Mr. Granger entered the kitchen as Hermione was turning over the bacon.
"Straighten your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting.
About once a week, Mr. Granger looked over the top of his newspaper and said that Hermione needed a new hair product. Hermione must have gone through more different kinds of hair products than the rest of the girls in her class put together, but it made no difference, her hair simply frizzed.
Hermione was frying eggs by the time her family sat down to breakfast. Her parents both looked very similar with plain features and thin brown hair.
Hermione put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Mr. Granger, meanwhile, was opening his present. His face lit up.
"G-36!" he said looking up at his wife and daughter. "That's the latest model!"
"Only the best for you darling, I knew you'd like it. The instruction manual is in the box. Have fun putting that together!"
"All right, I will then" said Mr. Granger going very red in the face. "Shall we go to the zoo today? I heard there was a new exhibit of a polar bear!"
"That sounds like great fun sweetie. We could go to commemorate your birthday."
At that moment the telephone rang and Mrs. Granger went to answer it while Hermione watched her father attempting to make sense of the instruction manual. He had just finished decoding the first page when Mrs. Granger came back looking annoyed.
"Someone had the wrong number again. It was some Mrs. Figg or something calling about a broken leg."
"Ah, I see"
"Well shall we go to the zoo then?" Mr. Granger rose from the table and carried his plate to the sink. Mrs. Granger consented and as soon as all the dishes had been scrubbed they were out the door.
On the way to the zoo, Mr. and Mrs. Granger had a very long, very boring, conversation about dentistry. During this conversation Mr. Granger paused once to speak to Hermione.
"Now Hermione dear, we're going to the zoo. No one there will be like you. Please try to restrain from any funny business."
"I won't do anything, honestly dad."
But Mr. Granger had his doubts. He always did.
The problem was, strange things often happened around Hermione and it was just no good telling her parents she didn't make them happen.
Once, Mrs. Granger, tired of seeing Hermione coming back from the barbers looking as frizzy as ever, had taken a straightener and straightened for hours. Hermione spent a sleepless night lying on her quite burnt hair, imagining the taunts from other children when they saw her blackened hair. Next morning, however, she had gotten up to find her hair exactly as it had been before it was straightened. When she tried to explain that she couldn't explain how it had frizzed out so quickly, her mother just sighed and shook her head.
Another time, when Hermione got mad, her parents were in a heated debate about the pros and cons of root canals and were ignoring her, all the lights went out at once. Her parents decided it must have been an electrical problem and Hermione wasn't sighed at.
On the other hand, she'd gotten in terrible trouble for being found stuck to the ceiling. She had been playing hide and seek, when as much to Hermione's surprise as anyone else's, there she was standing on the ceiling. The Grangers had a very angry conversation with their daughter. But all she'd tried to do as she explained to her parents during this conversation was jump behind a wall. Hermione supposed a very powerful updraft must have caught her in mid-jump.
But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with her parents to be spending a day somewhere that wasn't school, her room, or her father's dentist's office.
While he drove, Mr. Granger commented on certain aspects of life. This morning, it was castles.
". . . so majestic, rising up from the horizon," he said.
"I had a dream about a castle," said Hermione, remembering suddenly. "It was very beautiful."
"That's nice dear," her father said absentmindedly. Then he resumed his dental conversation.
Hermione wished she hadn't said anything. If there was anything she hated about her parents, it was that whenever they talked about anything having to do with teeth, they completely tuned her out.
It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Grangers bought Hermione a cheap lemon ice pop at the entrance. It wasn't bad, either, Hermione thought licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head.
Hermione had the best morning she'd had in a long time. She was careful to walk a little way apart from her parents, who were back to talking about teeth. They ate in the zoo restaurant. Hermione was allowed to split a Knickerbocker glory with her parents.
After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit up windows all along the wall. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Hermione wanted to see the lizards. She quickly found the smallest one in the place. It could probably fit on her pinky nail. But at the moment it didn't look in the mood. Hermione watched for a few more minutes waiting for it to do something. But then moved on to another exhibit which was located right next a habitat for the largest snake in the place.
She watched as a small boy with black hair appeared to talk to the snake. The boy was then shoved out of the way by a large blond boy who was suddenly clamoring to see the snake. The glass of the habitat then vanished and the blond boy jumped away. The snake slithered out and started sliding its way down the hall. People everywhere were screaming and running about. The zoo keeper could only stand there and splutter.
Soon after that fiasco, the Grangers left the zoo for home. Of course, when they got home Hermione was sighed at and sent to her room for making the glass disappear, but as far as she knew she had done nothing. She lay on her bed much later, thinking about the glass. There was no logical way for it to have disappeared, so she presumed the boy must have been like her. Strange things happened around both of them and they were always blamed for it. She wondered what his parents had done to him. She hoped they hadn't been too harsh on him.