I might be the a horribly sporadic updater, I plan to post something every week but then sometimes I can't help myself and just have to post when I finished a chapter. I was actually not in the mood for writing on this one, but a continuation of the Hermione/James/Sirius oneshot I have already posted (And I just can't look) but then that just ended up being scrambled and not at all like my muse have been bugging me to write it. So I decided to fix up this chapter, and ended up finishing it YAY! and it ended up being a much better chapter then I had thought it would be.
Thanks to AliceEnchanted and HazelEyedShadowHunter for the wonderful reviews, and everyone who has faved or started following, you are awesome! (Seriously 16 favs and 36 followers? *Blushes* you non muggles are the best)
Noddy
She woke up in her bed, groggy and hurting. She couldn't remember anything, but by the rumbling of her stomach she had been asleep for a long while.
"Mistress is awake!" she heard Noddy squeak of pleasure and the pop that signaled his arrival.
She groaned, and put the pillow over her head, the light, the noise everything was just too much for her right now.
When she curled up to hide deeper under her covers, she felt the pain in her stomach. Her stomach lurched from the sudden movement, and she barely managed to scramble to the edge of the bed to throw up on the floor. What little was in her stomach was quickly emptied, and she was dry heaving and gasping for air between convulsions by the time she heard footsteps approaching.
The door slammed open with a powerful bang while she tried to straighten herself up, but only succeeded in falling back against the pillows.
"What were you thinking?!" Voldemort screamed at her.
She groaned "Too much noise."
"Running off like that, there was a reason I gave you a bodyguard!" who knew her father's voice could go that high? That was not the manly voice of a Dark Lord, that was the sound of a man in desperate need of an anger management course, and possibly one to deal with stress.
"I'm sorry I almost lost you your golden ticket." She mumbled in annoyance. Couldn't he just leave her alone? It wasn't like she had the strength to do anything to annoy him at the moment, she could barely get the strength to fix her pillows let alone try another stunt.
"Have you no regard for your own safety?!" he was pacing, and huffing, had she not been in so much pain the sight might have amused her.
"I don't have to! You make sure that there is nothing in this world that can ever get near enough to hurt me!" the screaming tore at her throat, she desperately needed some water, but was afraid she'd just throw it straight up again.
"BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS TRY TO GET YOURSELF HURT!"
"I'm just trying to live my LIFE dad, or did you forget I am actually A HUMAN BEING! I'm not just the golden egg that you keep locked up for its protection!"
"Well there is an idea!" he smiled cruelly at her "From now on you will stay here, no leaving the house, and then at the end of the summer we will see if maybe I will let you go back to Hogwarts."
She gaped at him "You can't!"
"Watch me missy."
"I won't tolerate it, I will owl mom and tell her about this and then you won't get any more of her money!"
Voldemort stormed up to her, pointing his finger in her face. "Don't threaten ME! I AM THE DARK LORD!"
"What else can you do to me? I'M NOT AFRAID OF YOU!" she glared back at him, and for a moment, all that could be heard was the puffing of breath coming from both of them as they dared the other to look away and lose. The air crackled around them with angry magic as the moment continued, then her father broke it.
He gave her a half smile, a smirk worthy of a Malfoy "Just for that, I am banning you from the library as well, no books." His voice was eerily calm, and very frightening, sending shivers down Hermione's spine. "One of the elves will be along to collect whatever books you have in your room."
"No please don't-" he put up a hand to silence her.
"It is already done." He straightened up, and moved towards the door. Right before he passed out into the hallway he turned "I am going away for business, when I get back we will discuss the possibility of getting your books back."
"Dad!" but he had already shut the door tightly, leaving Hermione to angrily wipe away the tears that had spilled down her cheeks.
She was left with no one for company but Noddy.
It was her own fault, she knew that, but that didn't mean she was pleased with it.
Voldemort had put up special wards that would knock her unconscious if she tried entering the library, or even thought about taking down the wards separating her from her beloved books.
Noddy couldn't help her.
When she was a kid she had managed to free the little house-elf too many times. She had given him clothes to make him look cute, or play dress up, or because she thought he looked cold, and thereby freed him. Voldemort then had to figure out a way to bind Noddy to them again, apparently binding a house elf was not as easy as people believed. Everyone had lost count by the time Voldemort finally had enough and found a way to bound the little creature only to him. This also meant that the creature could only follow Hermione's orders when they correlated with the Dark Lord's orders.
So she was stuck with a friend who had been told not to engage with her other than for food, and a house empty of people, and the library locked away from her.
She had been furious with her dad before the start of Summer, but now she was downright vindictive.
It took a while of potions and bandages and healers before she was allowed to leave the bed, and even then she had to take it careful until the wounds settled.
The first few days after she was better, she had held out, vowing to not let her father get the best of her.
The week after, she had taken to destroying everything in the house she could get her hands on. Noddy just fixed everything after she had done so. Sometimes she hadn't even been able to finish destroying a room before it was put back together again.
Then she had tried every possible way of contacting her father too make things right, and be allowed to touch her books, or go outside. She had even gone as far as harassing her poor house elf to get her just one book, or just one day outside.
When none of that worked, she moped around for a few days, not bothering to eat, and sleeping way too much.
Finally she was sick of it all, and figured if she couldn't read, she would just have to find another way of distracting herself.
With careful planning she had managed to convince Noddy that she was fine and didn't need looking after.
Maybe it was wrong of her to lull the thing into a false sense of security, but she knew Noddy was not the one that was going to be taking the brunt of her dad's anger in the end. No the little thing was protected against that, something about the way he had bonded the house elf only to him, also meant he could not do it harm.
That didn't stop Noddy from punishing himself, quite to opposite.
After she waited a couple of days, making sure the House elf had been convinced of her angelic tendencies, she started to plan.
She had spent hours pouring over parchments with her quill, figuring out where to put everything, and how she should go about it. Overall it didn't take as long as she suspected, now setting everything up to coincide with how her Dad would move about the house, that had taken a great deal of time.
The grand entrance to the house was something inspired by the way Egyptians used to open doors back in the day, with quite a different end result.
Once inside the grand entrance, she had planned something that would have him boiling in rage enough to make anyone stupid enough to come back with him, disappear in a flash. Which she needed for the next part of her plan.
He would of course move up the stairs to get to her, and she had set up a ward that would react only to him, something that could be ruined if someone were to come with him. She wondered how long it would take him to take it down, and if he had enough brain power underneath all his rage to think of a way around it instead.
The second set of wards keyed to him would only come when he would think she was done with him, and it would set him on a completely different path than the direct route he had planned.
There she had a Slytherin surprise that was very much inspired by her Ravenclaw dorm, something that could take a minute, or hours to get around.
Of course all of this could be avoided if he decided to take down the wards keeping Hermione from the library, they were keyed to fall if that one did.
After all her careful planning, and ages spent setting it up whilst bypassing Noddy, all she had to do was wait.