A/N – Hey there, sorry it took so long to post this chapter. I've been really busy and barely had time to breathe the last few days. Oh well, I survived! I promise to update as soon as I can! Thanks for reading. Enjoy!
Chapter 3- Bedtime Reflections
All was quiet in the small room at the far left of the hallway on the second floor of the Leaky Cauldron Inn. An old trunk lay at the foot of the lumpy bed and on the dresser that sat in front of it rested a few picture frames of groups of people, mostly red-headed, smiling and waving. The window signalled the sunset and the room reflected a warm orange in response to it.
Suddenly, the room door burst open and an exhausted Ron Weasley let himself collapse onto the bed. What a day! That old git had worked him harder than a mule… over wands! It had been the longest six hours of his life … and he knew long. He had gotten many detentions with Hogwarts caretaker, Mr. Filch, courtesy of Professor Snape, as always. Ron tried focusing on something else but Ollivander's raspy voice kept ringing in his ears…
"How many times do I have to tell you? Cherry wood wands go in the boxes with the red ribbons! NOT blue!"
"Sorry," mumbled Ron. He made sure to remember: Cherry wood, cherry red. He took a different wand and put it in a box with a green ribbon.
"That wand is also made of cherry wood, Donald!" Ron held his breath and counted to ten before replying in the most polite voice he could manage.
"Mister Ollivander, my name is Ronald, not Donald, and I would prefer it if you didn't shout so much at my mistakes."
"Don't you start being cheeky, boy; I didn't have to give you a job. Now do you want to work or not?" Ron stared at the floor and barely nodded. "Good. Now, for the last time, the Cherry wood wands go in the boxes with the red ribbons. I don't know why it's taking you so long to understand that, it's not that hard…" Ron then figured it was safe to begin tuning him out, at least until he put another oak wood wand in the dark brown box instead of the auburn one. He spent the remainder of the day managing to put every wand in the wrong box at least twice before finding the right one. Now, here he was, laying on his slab of mould for a mattress, still wondering why the hell he had wanted to leave the Burrow. He reminded himself that he should have done this a while ago and that he had to start somewhere, even if it was in a certain fiery pit of hell called 'Ollivander's Wand Shop'.
He was tired. He slowly got changed and climbed into bed. He fell asleep wondering what Hermione was doing at that very moment…
It had been a long day for someone else in London. Sitting comfortably in her armchair, Hermione Granger gazed out her window overlooking the city. Crookshanks purred happily as she petted him. She wondered for a moment how her parents were doing, if they were still touring Australia. She had spent a good portion of a year trying to find Wendell and Monica Wilkins, with no luck. She remembered how hard it had been to cast the spell. She had spent all that night crying. She felt a small burning in her nose and a tightening in her throat, which indicated that she was about to cry. She quickly thought of something else before any tears escaped.
Ron.
She wondered how he was. What he was doing. Surely still at his mum's house, she thought, but then regretted it. She had had a bad day, but it wasn't fair to take it out on Ron; even if he was a selfish, lazy prick who could only think of himself… Hmm. Hermione gave up trying to read the book that had been patiently been waiting to be explore for the last half hour and got up to make herself a cup of tea, to help her unwind.
She walked into the small kitchen of her flat and put the kettle on. She came back into the living room to a standing Crookshanks. He had been suspicious of her ever since she had left him with her parents. Now, every time she left the room, he was uneasy until she came back, or he would simply follow her to make sure she wouldn't abandon him again. She admired his intelligence and loyalty. He had somehow found his way back home to where she was. She often tried to make sense of how he had managed to cross over the ocean to the UK, unsuccessfully. Crookshanks swished his tail happily and pounced onto a nearby coffee table, looking his mistress straight in the eyes. He liked to do this, for some odd reason Hermione hadn't figured out yet. She had read in a book somewhere that a witch or wizard's familiar would do this to communicate with them, but Crookshanks didn't communicate…he just stared.
"Come on, Shanks, cut it out, that's creepy." She gently shooed him off the table and re-immersed herself in the day's reflections. She had started off on a bad foot, it seemed, with her new employer. She needed some extra money, so she applied for a job as an archivist at the London Public Library for Wizarding Folk.
Mrs. Morella James.
That was the name of the insufferable bookkeeper at the library. Hermione couldn't believe there was actually a man in this world that was willing to spend his life with a wretched old witch like her. She decided that he must be paralyzed or insane, therefore incapable of saving himself from her evil clutches. As soon as Hermione had set foot in the place, the woman was breathing down her neck.
"Granger, is it?" Morella inquired, looking down at Hermione through her spectacles.
"Yes, Hermione Granger, if you don't mind, ma'am." She responded curtly. She felt a little uneasy as Mrs. James proceeded in circling around her, frowning. Hermione felt the woman's cold eyes scan her, head to toe, and felt them freeze at her feet. "Is there something wrong with my shoes, Mrs. James?" She felt terribly self-conscious now.
"Is that what you call those? In that case, yes. You are never to wear those horrid … shoes… in this library again or people will think we're hiring the homeless. And we certainly don't want that, Granger." Hermione was at a loss for words. She had spent a great deal of money on those shoes! She admitted they weren't the fanciest pair of shoes ever made, but they were unbelievably comfortable. It was the deciding factor when she had bought them. She had assumed they would be appropriate for work at the library since they were conservative and comfortable. What else was she supposed to wear?
"From now on, you are to wear no other shoes but black heels," announced Mrs. James, her icy eyes daring her new recruit to protest, "and your hair must be kept in a tight bun at all times, no exceptions." Hermione received a last warning glare and nodded, visibly frustrated with the situation. She desperately wanted to punch that old hag.
"Is that all, ma'am?" She asked politely.
"No." When was this going to end? Any more and she was going to tell her to change her eye color! "As of now, you will also be wearing these." Morella shoved the ugliest pair of glasses Hermione had ever seen into her hands. Well, she had been close. She thought of mentioning to her superior that her vision was 20/20 and that she didn't need glasses, but found it better to stay quiet. She watched her employer walk away as she carelessly added: "That will be all, Granger. You'll find a pile of books waiting to be put back on the shelves in the back table." Hermione gritted her teeth as she made her way to the back of the library where a mountain of open books lay scattered across the table. This vexed her further and she muttered to herself as she piled them up into a neater pile, occasionally looking over her shoulder to make sure no one overheard.
Who did she think she was, anyway? What right did she think she had to criticise her appearance like that, when she wasn't much to look at herself? Mrs. Morella James was a tall, skinny woman who looked like she had been dead for ages, before resurrecting. Her skin was stretched over her high cheekbones, making her look much like a skeleton. To top it all off, she was about as tall as the bookshelves, which made Hermione think of a twig. One that she'd very much like to snap, she thought with a devilish grin. Her eyes, a piercing blue, seemed to invade the privacy of Hermione's thoughts; her deepest fears and secrets. She hated those eyes along with their owner. She eventually remembered that she had been hired to put books back on their shelves, not to start a hate club against Mrs. James, even though that rotting corpse deserved it. She sighed deeply before pulling her hair into a painfully tight bun and put on the glasses that she had been handed.
She noticed immediately that these were no ordinary glasses; no, not because they were uglier than who they came from, but because they had quite the magical property to them. The book she had in her hand began to glow a soft blue and she figured that somewhere in the library, there would be an empty space on a shelf that would be glowing the same colour. Her logic proved her right when she found, three rows down, the glowing space between two books. She admitted that this was helpful in putting many books back in their individual spots, but did the glasses have to be so chunky? She felt like an old man. Oh well, she thought, at least it will speed things up a bit. With these, I should have that pile put away in no time…
Or not.
When she had placed the last few books in their respective shelves, she went back to the table to find a bigger, messier pile of books waiting for her. Hermione shot a glare at the bookkeeper calmly reading a book at the front desk, hopefully on skin rejuvenation, and wanted to curse her skinny little arse off…
Hermione decided she had enough of getting angry all over again over the day's events. She wouldn't give Morella that satisfaction. She firmly got up and stalked off into her room and went to bed, deciding that she was going to have a good night's sleep; and God forbid she has a dream about that old goose!