"Back to my underwear with you." The snake curled more tightly around her arm, and Hermione smiled. "Yes, I knew you'd like that. I'll bring some breakfast up for you." She held out her arm to her open suitcase, and the snake uncoiled to slide gracefully onto her clothing. Hermione stroked its head affectionately before leaving the room.
The snake watched her go, then sequestered itself in the safety of her clothing.
Roselyn Granger was a Muggle and certainly not afraid to admit it. Her daughter was a witch, and she wasn't afraid to admit that either, as long as it wasn't to other Muggles.
But she didn't like it. She didn't like the news she heard about a magical war that her only daughter was involved in. And though Hermione assured her that the Ministry was a perfectly safe place to be working, Roselyn Granger had come to hate the wizarding world as well.
Her daughter, in a war! As much as she would have liked to support Hermione, it was too difficult. No, she wanted Hermione back home, out of the wizarding world, and settled with a nice, normal boy. Why, already she was falling back into the old habits even though her daughter was very much an adult now.
But.... just to have her little girl back for a week... Hermione wouldn't mind too terribly.
She listened at the top of the stairs and heard Hermione speaking to Roger. Laughter. Yes, Hermione could be happy here with them; no need to go back. Footsteps mere whispers, she went to the door of Hermione's room and opened it. Just cleaning it up a bit; doing a little something for her daughter.
Not that it needed it. The room was immaculate, as Hermione has always kept it. The suitcase though... It was open, but clothes were still tucked in it. That wouldn't do, not for the entire week.
Lips pursed in motherly dissatisfaction, Roselyn Granger began to relocate her daughter's clothing from the suitcase to the dresser, one article at a time. Not aloud, but in her mind she appraised each piece. Very adult, very... un-Hermione as far as she was concerned. Never would she have imagined her daughter in clothes like these.
Slowly the suitcase emptied out and the dresser filled. This was something Roselyn was used to, very... domestic. Motherly. She missed doing motherly things.
She lifted a black, silken shirt and stifled a scream. Beneath the shirt, at the very bottom of the suitcase, was a pair of the most scandalous underwear she had ever seen. And curled atop, around, and through that pair of... of... loose woman's underwear was a giant black snake.
Even as she stared in horror, the head of the monster emerged--and she just could NOT believe where it had been tucked--and looked at her with those hideous black orbs. Its tongue flickered once, and afraid it might strike at her, she took a step back.
Strike it did not. It simply retreated back into...
"HERMIONE PORTIA GRANGER!"
Downstairs, Hermione winced. "Severus, what did you do?" she mumbled quietly as her father looked at her strangely.
Hermione hurried up the stairs and froze in the doorway to her room. She covered her mouth with her hand, but it was not in horror. Desperately she tried to stifle her giggles.
Her mother was standing there, one of her dull brown shoes in her hand, with a stunned look on her face.
At the other end of the shoe-in-hand was Severus, looking very sour indeed. The shoe was resting against his head. As her underwear was also on his head, she could just imagine what had happened, and finally gave up trying to hold back her laughter.
TBC