In light of our first reviews, David and I wish to celebrate with the uploading of our second chapter, which may enlighten you into a deeper understanding of the title character of this chapter.
Also, we get to reveal what we think Hermione's parents are like. We would like to dedicate this chapter to our first reviewers, Nabiko and MoonPrincess. (Thanks a lot, both of you. David is soooooooo happy right now, you wouldn't believe it!)
Disclaimer: David and I only own ourselves. We do not own Harry Potter, but we do own Aeolus and the nice version of *blank*.
Thank you!
Chapter 2: Hermione Granger
"Galis!" screamed a woman with bushy black hair. A man beside her held his ears tightly, begging silently that his wife, who she apparently was, to be quiet. He had sort of medium brown hair. Between them was a girl Sarah and I had only seen in the first two Harry Potter movies.
"David and Angel Galis!" called the woman again, whom I suppose was Hermione's mother. I knew she was a dentist, as well as her husband, but she didn't look it, really. More like an out-of-control over-grown punk star or something. It was a wonder where Hermione had gotten her adult-sounding voice.
Her father was more submissive than his wife was. Unlike her, he had thick glasses and definitely a small nose and short, neat hair. It was a wonder how they'd ever married in the first place.
"That's us!" Sarah cried beside me, racing toward the wild-looking woman and docile man and the obviously embarrassed Hermione.
"Why'd she call you Angel?" I asked.
"Probably something to do with Aeolus," she answered offhandedly. "Come on, Hermione's mom doesn't look like she's gonna wait forever."
I silently agreed. Mrs. Granger didn't seem to be the patient type.
"Good morning!" crowed the woman.
"Hello," said the man and Hermione timidly.
"Come, come, mustn't dally," and Mrs. Granger grabbed my arm, pulling me almost directly into a new-looking car.
"So," said Sarah; No, I need to start calling her Angel, I suppose, "Where do you live? We didn't really get much information from Professor Dumbledore."
"Oh?" said Mrs. Granger. "Strange, we got an awful lot from your Kansas School of Wizards and Whatnot. I must say, Miss Angel, for such a far place to be from home, you aren't very nervous. Our Hermione's been worried sick for weeks and look at her, hasn't made a peep yet, poor child."
Mrs. Granger couldn't possibly know how far away from home we were. Glancing at Hermione, though, I could tell she was embarrassed from what her mother said. The three of us kids were stuffed into the back, me on one side, Angel on the other.
"Your mum's pretty cool," I whispered to her.
"I wish," she muttered, blushing. "Your name's David, right?"
"Yeah," I answered. "And your Hermione, am I mistaken?"
"No, you're not. I'm glad we found one person who could pronounce it right," Hermione laughed a little. I blushed and nodded, smiling.
"So when are we going to Hogwarts?" I asked.
"Next week," she answered. "And I still haven't gotten my books yet! I wanted so to read them before we headed there. Now I'll probably have to read them on the train."
"No, no, dear," interrupted her mother, overhearing us. "We're going to buy your things today, no need to worry. Must keep up your grades, true?"
"True," Hermione repeated with a sigh.
"A representative from Hogwarts will be meeting us so we can go and buy them," Mrs. Granger said. "Someone named 'McGonagall', or something like that."
"Professor McGonagall!" Angel breathed beside Hermione.
"You know her?"
"Well...I read up on her from a book," Angel said, not totally lying, either. I silently applauded her brilliance. She had always been good at that sort of thing, being smart, I mean. She was the smartest person in our family, when it came to diversity. No one else knew more about culture, writing, reading, and drawing. She could almost do math as well as my dad, who is an electrical supervisor.
It was then, studying her, that I noticed something else about my sister. Before those robots had scanned us, she had been on the chubby side. Not necessarily fat (okay, she weighed two-hundred pounds, but she didn't look it), really.
Now, however, I noticed that she looked extremely skinny. She was well-built, as she had always been (she had once beaten a group of boys at arm-wrestling), but the stomach that she had once had was gone. Her upper chest area (I averted my eyes then), had also disappeared.
I noticed with some satisfaction that I, too had gained some muscles to flex. Wondering briefly how strong I was, I didn't realize we had arrived at the broken-down pub famous throughout my world.
"David!" Angel came through the window and shook my shoulder. "Wake up, kid, we're here." She leaned in closer and whispered, "We're at the Leaky Cauldron! Can you believe it?!"
It took about a minute for that to sink in, to the point that Angel tugged me out of the car in a sort of daze. Hermione cocked an eyebrow at me and asked my sister if I did this all the time.
"No," Angel answered. "He's probably repenting about what he said earlier."
"What'd he say?"
"Oh, nothing that would interest you, I'm sure," Angel said evasively. Hermione accepted it at that and I was very grateful for Angel's subtle way with words.
The first stop was Gringotts bank; I stared at the tall, stone structure and felt humbled. So large was the place that I feared getting lost, forgetting that the goblins never allowed people to tread the halls beyond alone.
However, we did not go much farther than the entrance. A woman with reddish-brown graying hair (she reminded me subtlety of my own mother, with legs) wrapped in a tight bun and with small round glasses met us at the door.
"Good morning," she said. "I expect you're Angel and David Galis? And Hermione Granger?"
She looked at each of us, and I felt as though she were reading our minds. Angel answered boldly anyway.
"Yes, ma'am, I'm Angel, and this is my brother, David."
"Then come along. Miss Granger, if you wish to stay with your parents-"
"No, that's all right," Hermione interrupted quickly. "I'll go with you." She suddenly looked very excited.
"Very well, come along."
"We'll be waiting for you three at the Leaky Cauldron!" Mr. and Mrs. Granger called after us.
"When Albus told me about the two of you, I immediately wanted to assist you," McGonagall said, heading toward Ollivanders, the closest store. The one store I dreaded entering, a close first to Flourish and Blotts with Hermione with us.
"About them being American transfer students in England, you mean?" Hermione asked.
"Er...yes, yes, precisely, Miss Granger," I noticed the pause in McGonagall's voice, but apparently Hermione had not.
We entered the shop, three eleven-year-old new Hogwarts students and a Hogwarts teacher. The eerie silence of the place sent chills down my spine, even as I expected the wild-looking white-haired man to appear from behind the shelves of wands in their boxes.
"Professor McGonagall," said the man as he appeared, smiling pleasantly. "Wonderful to see you."
"And you, Mr. Ollivander. If you would be so kind, we are in a bit of a hurry."
"A new Muggle-born, I see," said the man. "And two more, it appears."
"Oh, yes," Professor McGonagall looked at the two of us sternly, as though telling us through her eyes. Yes, you are Muggle-born. You must keep up that story, too. I stored it away in my memory carefully, one file that would not be shredded in my mind.
"Hold out your wand hand," said Ollivander, and I panicked for a moment. Which hand was that? My writing hand? Or my weaker hand? Ah! I'd forgotten!
Angel, however, hadn't. She held out her writing hand as quickly as possible. I followed her example.
Ollivander handed us each a wand and we began the waving festival of trying to find the right wand for the right owner. I tried dozens of wands and they piled high on Ollivander's table at the front of the shop.
Finally, I found the first wand. It blew up wind around me and I felt as though angels were singing just for me. I smiled and studied the wand for a moment before handing it to Ollivander to place into a box.
He smiled, but didn't say anything.
I watched, puzzled, as he headed to the back of the shop and handed a wand to my sister, who took it out of curiosity. He handed another one to Hermione.
All were surprised when both wands caused the same reaction between the two girls.
"Curious, I must say," said Ollivander, quoting himself. "Very curious."
"Excuse me," Angel quoted Harry. "But what's curious?"
"It is curious that the three of you should be destined to have wands that all have the same core and the same wood, which is Magnolia," he smiled. "It is also very curious that these are very special wands, with a double core. A single unicorn hair from the same unicorn and a single phoenix feather given by the same phoenix which resides in Dumbledore's office at this very moment."
I did see that this was reason to be astounded, but Angel gasped very loudly and went tremblingly pale. She remained that way, thoughtful and silent as we paid for the wands and left Ollivander's shop with a wand each. McGonagall asked her if she was all right, but she did not answer.
"Let me talk to her a second, we'll catch up," I said, stopping. I tugged Angel to a stop, and she obeyed in a sort of daze.
"Sis, what's the matter?" I whispered to her.
"Fawkes' feathers are in our wands," she whispered, eyes wide. She looked on the verge of tears.
"So? What does that mean that you suddenly look-"
"Harry's wand has a core made of another feather from Fawkes," she whispered again, looking at me with her green eyes.
"Angel, I know it's a weird coincidence, but-"
"It's no coincidence."
"What do you mean? Angel-"
"Fawkes gave another feather," she whispered. "'Just one other', he said. No, he gave five feathers now."
"Angel-"
"Voldemort has the other one."
That stopped me short.
"Angel, please, try and act normal. Come on, we'll discuss it later, when we have time, maybe with Hermione, too. Just please, act casual."
She gulped hard and nodded and followed me to the robes shop, where McGonagall and Hermione were waiting.
"What was wrong?"
"Nothing, I just realized that I left my disk at home, and then I remembered that there weren't any computers at Hogwarts," Angel smiled sheepishly. They nodded and we went in. I'm glad Angel has such a way with words.
When we had finished gathering everything else, we headed to the last place I wanted to go with Hermione Granger and Angel Galis; the book store.
"Flourish and Blotts," Angel said outside of the store. "Do we have much left over, Professor?"
"Yes, your parents sent plenty of spending money. Much more than needed for your first year."
"I know why," I told our soon-to-be teacher as Hermione and Angel jumped up and down in glee. "They're both book-a-holics."
"You do not enjoy reading?"
"I didn't learn how until recently, and my sister helped me greatly," it was true. Angel had been trying to teach me to read ever since the start of her sophomore year at high school. That was when she had started reading the Harry Potter books to me.
"Perhaps we can find you something of better standard to your taste, per say," McGonagall gave a small half-smile. "After we have purchased your schoolbooks, of course."
The girls were still rampaging around the store with their money, collaborating on books to buy and such and promising each other full reign to read each book. They were getting along very well. For a moment, I wished I had Angel's feverish want to read, read, read, but slapped myself mentally.
"Girls, be sure to meet us at the ice cream parlor across the street as soon as you are finished," McGonagall told them sharply.
"Okay, Professor!"
"Come along."
Since the girls were left to their own devices, I was glad to find that McGonagall led me to the one place I hadn't really expected; a pet store.
"We'll get you a pet. After all, you're allowed one."
"I want an owl," I said promptly.
"An owl, mate?" asked the woman at the counter with a distinctly Australian voice. "You look like the snowy kind of guy."
"Nah," I shook my head. I didn't want my owl to stick out if I was going to send messages.
"How about this beauty?" I knew nothing about owls, but this one was beautiful. "She was just hatched three months ago. A hybrid between snowy and Great Horned. All the personality of a tamed snowy." The golden feathers and blue eyes of the owl made her even more beautiful to me.
"I'd love her," I smiled at the lady.
"Only three Galleons."
That was how I bought owl. I called her Keiko.
Needless to say, we were quite a sight on the way to Hermione's house. Angel and Hermione were reading their new books, saying aloud things that sounded interesting.
I was petting Keiko.
"It says here that Hogwarts' Great Hall ceiling is bewitched to look like the night sky!" Hermione squealed excitedly. I already knew that, but everyone exclaimed about it promptly.
The Grangers' house was large, a three-story house made of brick. It was painted white and had blue trim. The inside was wonderful. Everything was warm colors and had huge furniture. It also smelled wonderful. Apparently, Mrs. Granger had been preparing a big meal.
While she was putting the finishing touches on that, we went upstairs, where Hermione showed us two guest rooms that had been prepared just for us. A pale blue room and a dark blue room.
Of course, I got the dark blue.
Hermione and Angel continued exclaiming more things about the books that they had been reading. Hermione had obviously been reading Hogwarts, A History, but Angel had decisively been reviewing the Potions book we had been assigned.
"And did you know that the stairs like to change? All on their own!" Hermione said again. "And it's got a list of what they do usually, unless they change their minds.
We sat down to a traditional dinner from Georgia. Mrs. Granger had somehow found out we had lived there. She made mashed potatoes and gravy, collard greens, fried chicken, and apples for dessert. I had almost forgotten they were dentists until they reminded us to brush our teeth.
Hermione and Angel had finally finished their wild explanations of potions and Hogwarts, but neither girl stopped chattering. Angel started in on her life in the U.S., which Hermione found fascinating, especially how many things Angel had gone through. (One time she was attacked by a shark!)
Finally, at nine-thirty, the girls yawned and we were ushered off to bed. It had been a wonderful day, and I hoped it would be a wonderful seven years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
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So, what'd you guys think of Sam and Ken? All his idea! *points madly at David*
D-Sam was my idea, yup. But it was Angel's to keep Ken like that.
A-Hope you guys enjoy the story further, we've already got ten chapters done.