Hermione Granger was sitting in her room doing her favorite thing: reading books. She had borrowed a few from her mother's library to pass the time while it came the time for her to go to her session with the psychologist. She didn't know why her parents still insisted on her going to talk to the barmy old man when he never did anything to help, instead he listened to everything she said and never commented. It could be so frustrating some times, especially when she related how she fared in school.
She was a brilliant child, her mother, father, and teachers had assured her, but like all other children that were more than normal, she was usually casted away by the rest... and she wasn't even taking in account when she was treated bad. However, she reasoned that things would get better with time, yet, she still longed to have friends, someone who understood her, someone who would really listen, and not think that she was mad, or worse.
The little girl sighed for the bazillion time that day. Maybe if she wished it bad enough something would happen? Looking around to make sure she was alone, since she didn't want her parents to think her barmy, she closed her eyes and wished, with all her might that something, someone would help her. That someone would show her that she wasn't crazy.
At that very moment, she heard the sound of something knocking on the window.
Hermione opened her eyes to look at the window in question and waited a few moments in case she was hearing things. But no, there was the knocking again, this time more insistent. The girl stood up and went to it and, to her utter amazement, there was an owl perched outside... and the bird was knocking on the window again...
Hermione closed her eyes and pinched herself in the arm hard enough to bruise it, before opening her eyes again... and finding the same bird outside her window... apparently waiting for her to open it.
Still thinking that she was somehow dreaming, she opened the window and the bird flew in, perched itself on top of her chair and offered its leg to her... a leg where a small package had been attached to.
"Strange, I've never heard of messenger owls... only doves". The bird looked at her in the eyes and hooted before offering her the package again. "Right, sorry." Hermione then untied the package from the bird and it jumped to her arm, hooting again. "Err... should I give you something... a bit of water, perhaps?" the bird bobbed it's head in apparent affirmation, something that Hermione found astounding; she hadn't known that birds could understand human speech... and yet again she had never seen an owl carrying a package or knocking on a window before. The bird hooted again and pinched her arm to catch her attention, before hooting again. "Right, water."
Placing the parcel on over her bed, she walked to the kitchen with the bird still perched on her arm, and greeted her parents at the door.
Dan and Emma, just stared at her "Erm, darling, isn't that...?" Emma pointed to the bird on her daughter's arm.
"An owl, I know. She was perched outside my window and knocking on it, begging me to take off some package from her... but now she seems to want water" Hermione looked up to her parents "What does an owl eat?"
Both parents stared at the bird, who stared right back at them, as if trying to decide whether they were intelligent at all.
Hermione stood waiting for her parents to answer the question, until she was rudely interrupted by another, angrier hoot. "Water, right." She then proceeded to the kitchen and filled a glass with water, offering it to the bird, which drank greedily while the adults stared.
"Emma, isn't that...?"
"An owl, yes. And it's-"
"Dinking from a glass that-"
"Our daughter gave it" the looked at each other for a moment before both of them fainted.
Hermione, however, was staring at the bird, which bobbed its head... looking almost as it was laughing at them...
Having woken her parents with a bit of water on the face, Hermione informed them that she would go back to their room to send the bird away; both adults saw no objection to it, so they let her be... which didn't mean that they weren't closely following their daughter and the bird that now appeared to be asleep on her arm. Once back in her room, Hermione expected it to fly away through the window, but instead it perched over a chair, ruffled its feathers a promptly fell asleep.
"What is it doing?" asked Dan looking at his wife, wondering just why an owl would perch on a chair and go to sleep, instead of flying away to freedom like most.
However it was her daughter that answered in a loud whisper, after retrieving the brown package from her bed "Well, I think that she was tired after flying all the way from France."
"France?" Emma asked, seating by her daughter and answering in a whisper as well.
"Says so in the envelope, here" the girl pointed at the address written over the paper "The White Unicorn; Selling only the best since 1893. Starlight Mall, Paris, France."
"Wait, so the bird flew all the way from Paris?" Dan asked only to be shushed by the women of the house for not whispering. The man frowned at the bird before moving to his daughter's bed and seating beside her. "It flew all the way from Paris?" he repeated, this time in a low voice.
"Apparently so" Emma answered "But I'm more intrigued about the package... and I've never heard of the Starlight Mall from my last trip, must be new."
"So, what's in the package?" he asked to Hermione, who, very carefully, unpacked the contents, only to stare at two brightly-colored, Christmas-wrapped presents. Her amazement, however was nothing compared to when she noticed the small note, written in a piece of parchment.
'Merry Christmas Hermione!
I know it must come as a surprise for me to do this since we've seen but once in a small bookstore in London – and that was months ago! – Where your assistance was more than appreciated.
Forgive if I act too familiar, but I can't shake the feeling that I already know you.
The two books inside are something I thought you might find useful in the future, just don't ask me how I know.
Anyway, I wish you and your family a most special Christmas.
Yours truly
HP'
"A bookstore in London?" Dan asked, thinking of all the bookstores they had visited in the past couple of months "It could be anywhere."
"H.P… Who could that be?" Emma wondered out loud.
However, Hermione was not as thrilled by the not itself as by the writing, she knew that calligraphy from somewhere, it was so familiar, yet she couldn't place it. Filing that information for later, she dropped the letter to pick up the bigger package and began tearing the wrapping apart.
The content inside made her gasp, and her parents' eyes bug out. It was a copy of 'Hogwarts: A History', she stared at the book, unbelieving, and flipping it to the first page, she found that the oddly familiar writing was back.
'I couldn't help but notice how there are a few key differences between this edition and the ones in the UK, apparently the English MoM is far more bigoted and meddling that what I once thought. Still, hope you like it. ;) HP.'
"Who's this English mum the guy speaks about?"
No matter what the questions her parents would have, Hermione knew, without a shade of doubt, that the HP character did somehow know her, and that it was him who she would have to seek to find the answers that had plagued her mind since her strange nightmares and dreams began.
Hermione Granger was a girl with a mission. She had to find this 'HP' character, whoever he was.