Chapter One: The Wish

Hermione is in the park with her cat, Crookshanks. She is acting out her scenes from her favourite story; 'Labyrinth'. The church clock strikes seven and she realizes she's late. She runs home, closely followed by Crookshanks, and a mysterious owl she has yet to notice.

"Where have you been?" her stepmother (Karen) asks. "You're over an hour late!"

"I'm sorry!" Hermione replies, not entirely sincer. Hermione didn't really like her stepmother, but she put up with her for the sake of her father.

"Look, me and your father rarely go out..."

"You out every week! And I'm stuck here babysitting! It's not fair!!" Hermione interrupts. She starts walking upstairs to her room when she spies her father carrying her younger step-brother, Toby, to bed. If there was one person Hermione disliked more than Karen it was Toby. Although he was barely 1 years old, she doesn't like the fact that he gets more of her fathers attention than she does. And Karen allows him to play with Hermiones stuffed toys.

From the hall, a loud bang is heard. "She treats me like a stepmother in a fairy tale no matter what I do," Karen tells her husband as he comes back downstairs.

#&#

Hermiones lying on her bed when she notices something missing from her shelves.

"My book! Someones been in here again! I hate it! I HATE IT!!" She storms into Toby's room. And on the floor by his crib is her book, 'Grimms Fairy Tales'.

It's raining very heavily, and a pissed off Hermione is about to return to her room, but she stops when she hears Toby starting to cry.

"What do you want? Do you want a story?" Hermione asks the screaming baby. "Fine!

"Once up on a time there was a beautiful young girl, whose stepmother always made her stay home with the baby. And the baby was a spoiled child who wanted everything for himself, and the young girlwas pratically his slave. But what no one knew was that the Goblin King had fallen in love with the girl and given her certain powers. So one night when the child and been particularly cruel to her, she called on the goblins for help."

By this point in her story a group of goblins had gathered to listen.

"'Say the right words,' the goblins said. 'And we'll take the child to the Goblin City and you will be free.'

"But the girl knew the Goblin King would keep the baby for ever and ever, and turn it into a goblin. So the girl suffered in silence. Until one night, when she was tired and angry, and she could no longer stand it."

Toby begins to cry so she picks him and tries to calm him. He won't stop.

"Stop it! I'll say it. I'll say the words." Hermione threatens the screaming infant. "I wish... I wish..."

The group of goblins are excitedly waiting for her to say the right words.

Toby continues crying and she snaps. "I can bear it no longer! Goblin King! Goblin King! Wherever you may be, take this child away from me!" Hermione shouts.

The goblins groan. She hasn't said the right thing. "Did she say it?" a stupid goblin from the back asks. They groan again and one hits him over the head.

"Toby, stop it!" Hermione says. "I wish I did know what to say to make the goblins take yo away."

One of the goblins mumbles, "'I wish the goblins would come and take you away right now.' Is it that hard?"

"I wish... I wish..." she stops. 'It won't work she tells herself and then I'll be disappointed at the fact it didn't'. She puts Toby back in the crib and walks off.

"I wish the goblins would come and take you away right now." she tells a screaming Toby as she leaves his room. She is walking away when she realizes the crying has stopped. 'No. It couldn't have worked it, was just a silly little story. Then again he wouldn't have just stopped crying. Or would he? The story could have scared him. He's only one! Like he understands what you're saying. I'd better go check on him'. She thinks.

She walks back into Toby's room and sees only an empty crib. "Toby! Toby! Where are you?" The panic stricken girl screams.

"In my castle. Just like you wishedm," a masculine voice replies.

She turns round and is greeted by smirking man. (Place all bets here if you think you know who it is). He has pale skin, with white blonde hair and steel grey eyes. He wore black jeans, and a green shirt with black gloves on his hands.

"You're... You're him, aren't you? You're the Goblin King."

"I am" he replies.

"I want my brother back, please." Hermione tried to sound brave but she was scared shitless.

"Go on Hermione. Go back to your room, read your books. Forget all about the baby," he tells her sweetly.

"I can't," she whispers. "Please, where is Toby?"

"He's in my castle," he replies bored with this conversation (well he has just told earlier). "The castle, beyond the Goblin City. That you have no hope of reaching."

As he tells her, he points out a big castle in the centre of a twisting, bleak maze. Hermione quickly looks at her surroundings. She notices it looks forbinding and deserted. She feels scared by the lack of people ('Do they even have people here? After all he is the GOBLIN King.' she thinks to herself), and the man standing behind. Though she won't let him know that.

"Doesn't look that bad," she tells him, uncertainly.

He rolls his eyes and smirks before telling, "You have 13 hours in which to solve my labyrinth, before your baby brother becomes one of us, forever!" And in burst of glitter he has disappeared.

"Bet he practices those flashy disappearances in the mirror," Hermione mummbles. Then a little louder, "Come on feet."

And with that, Hermione Granger starts her adventure in Draco(s), King of the Goblins, labyrinth...

TBC