The Darkest of Wishes

Chapter 13

Back to School

Hermione was sitting on the bottom stair with a blank look on her face. She was trying very hard to not think of the boggart that she had defeated only a few hours before, but it seemed to be the only thing she could think of.

"Tea time, miss."

Hermione looked up to see Kreacher bowing before her. She sighed and followed him into the kitchen. He poured her a cup of the hot tea.

"Thank you," she sighed.

"The frog in Miss Hermione's throat is gone?" Kreacher asked.

"Yes." Hermione nodded. She took a sip of the tea, just to be polite, and tried again to not let her thoughts wander. However, what Kreacher had said seemed to turn on a lightbulb.

The "frog" in her throat was indeed gone, but it was definitely no ordinary vocal loss. Hermione, as she sipped her tea and caught snippets of Kreacher's tirade about Pureblood wizards, tried to remember any sort of enchantment that could silence someone, but none came to mind.

As soon as she finished tea, Hermione hurried into the den to search the bookshelves. There were plenty of books on hexes and curses, but the only silencing enchantment in all of the books was a potion. Hermione came to the conclusion that she couldn't have injested that particular potion, since the only way to get the victim under the effects was to have them eat a piece of fruit after the potion had settled within it. It reminded Hermione of the Muggle Snow White fairy tale, but Hermione knew that she had not eaten any fruit lately.

Just as Hermione was putting up the books, Mother Delilah entered the den and brought Hermione into another one of her weak hugs.

"How are you dear?" she asked as she removed her gloves. Mother Delilah smiled at Hermione, then sat down in a plush chair. "Have a nice day?"

"Lovely," Hermione lied. "You?"

Delilah Black waved her hand in the air, and suddenly seemed to be in a state of shock. "Dreadful! Terribly dreadful. I could not find one single thing to buy! It seems that we already have all of the things worth buying."

Hermione said nothing, but sat on a futon in the corner of the room. It seemed, however, that Delilah didn't care that Hermione had spoken at all.

"Has Albert returned?" Delilah suddenly stood up, completely recovered from her shocking day.

"No," Hermione said. Her thoughts were on something else. A certain bunch of papers...

"The clown," Mother Delilah said, as her voice raised an octave. "He just leaves you to fend for yourself all day long! I knew that I should have just killed him before I left. Bloody awful, moronic bufoon! Perhaps I should chop his head off and mount it where all of the house elves heads-"

"Mother?" Hermione tried to interrupt.

"-are. That would show him, don't you think? Or perhaps I could throw him off a cliff after I break his wand. That way I don't have to hide the body."

"Mother!" Hermione tried again.

"The body's are always trouble, dear. I'm sure you know that, but-"

"Mum!" Hermione took in a deep breath as Delilah turned quickly to face her.

"My love, what is the matter?"

"Er... I was wondering... just wondering... about my adoption." The look on Mother Delilah's face was unreadable, so Hermione continued. "You see, I don't think you ever told me about it, and I'm just curious. And it's not that I'm ungrateful that you are my mother, but I'm just wondering about the process and... such." Hermione gave a half-smile.

Mother Delilah, now, had an odd sort of look on her face. A look that Hermione didn't like very much.

"Dear," Delilah composed herself, "I do not think that you should worry yourself about such matters. You are a Black now."

"But I don't share the surname."

"Is that what this is all about?" Delilah looked at Hermione as if she were foreign. "You are as much a Black as anyone on the family tree! Just because we decided to let you keep your own surname... well... we only wanted you to have a sense of where you did come from, and how you have it better now."

"We?" Hermione had cornered her.

"Er..."

It was the first time that Hermione had seen the composed Delilah Black falter. She seemed to be searching for something and Hermione knew that she wasn't going to tell the truth.

"You and Albert?" Hermione continued, with a sigh.

"Oh, er... yes, dear." Delilah was indeed flustered. "Now let's rap up this matter and go have some tea."

"I already had tea," Hermione said forcefully. "What aren't you telling me?"

Then something happened that Hermione had never thought could have happened. Delicate Mother Delilah turned on Hermione and grabbed her wrist forcefully. She stared into Hermione's eyes with an intense dislike, and perhaps even a bit of fear. Hermione was so taken aback at the sudden bit of strength that she couldn't even cry out in surprise.

"Just because you are a Death Eater does not mean that I cannot hurt you, dear." Mother Delilah dug her nails into Hermione's skin as she whispered the threat. Hermione didn't give her the satisfaction of a wince. "You belong to me and if you don't like it, you can take it up with the Dark Lord."

With that, Delilah let go and turned to leave the room. She turned back around, her face flushed, "Insubordination is frowned upon, my love. You will not be present at dinner this evening. Now, go straight to your room and do not come down until breakfast tomorrow."

x x x x x

The next morning, Mother Delilah was waiting for Hermione at the bottom of the stairs. Hermione walked straight past her and into the kitchen. She took a piece of toast and a glass of orange juice and hurried back up to her room.

When she had reached the top, she decided that she was going to go ahead and leave for Hogwarts. (She would just Apparate right outside the gates of school.) After finishing her menial breakfast alone in her room, she packed up her things and hurried down the stairs.

Mother Delilah was not to be found, but Hermione made sure to tell Kreacher goodbye. She also told him to tell Mother Delilah that she was going back to school. Kreacher tried to kiss her feet as she left, all the while Hermione tried to stop him from doing so. Finally when Hermione was outside she thought about her destination and Disapparated.

x x x x x

Had Hermione known that it was raining at Hogwarts, she would have taken the train. However, she trudged her way to the castle, and by the time she had reached the castle she was cold, wet, and ornery. She performed a warming charm and then a drying charm... feeling better almost immediately. Hermione wanted to kick herself for not thinking of them sooner.

When Hermione entered the Slytherin common room, she noticed that a lot of students had returned early. Graham nearly had a conniption when she saw Hermione.

"You're early!" Graham pulled Hermione into a huge hug, which Hermione appreciated. "We never got to exchange gifts before Christmas." And then with a huge flourish, Graham flicked her wand and a package zoomed into the room. "Just for you."

Hermione, too impressed by Graham's enthusiasm, decided not to use magic, and rummaged through her things. She pulled out a smaller package, but knew that Graham would like it no matter what the size. Graham ripped the paper and opened the black velvet box.

"It's a bewitched charm necklace. I put the enchantment on it myself." Hermione smiled at Graham, who quickly put on the jewelry. Graham hurried to a mirror and stared at the necklace, suddenly the jewels turned the exact shade of blue of Graham's shirt.

"I love it!" she squealed in delight. "You're turn!"

Hermione tore the paper away and saw a book. She smiled fondly at the leather cover and flipped it on it's right side.

"The Greenwich Witches. It's my favorite book and since you've been on a reading splurge, I figured that you might like it too." Graham shrugged.

"Oh, I love it," Hermione smiled and hugged Graham. "It looks familiar, what's it about?"

"Three sisters who... well, read it and find out. I don't want to ruin it for you." Graham blushed. "It's really good though and, like I said, I thought you might actually like some fun reading, for a change."

Hermione laughed and wished, again, that she had asked Graham instead of Pansy over for Christmas holiday.

x x x x x

The next day, Graham and Hermione woke up early to have a quiet breakfast for a change. They talked about what happened over Christmas holiday (Hermione made sure to leave out the boggart.). After that they both decided to go to the library and crack open The Greenwich Witches just for fun. Hermione was really glad that Pansy hadn't come back yet, especially since she would have ridiculed the two of them going to the library together.

As the two girls were on their way back to the common room, Hermione saw Mandy in the hallway and decided to introduce the two girls. They were civil to each other, but Hermione hoped that Graham and Mandy would at least learn to like each other down the road. Hermione was starting to hate the interhouse rivalries... especially now that she was a Slytherin.

"Next Thursday is still on, right Hermione?" Mandy asked, trying to juggle a few books.

"Yes," said Hermione. "Great."

Mandy hurriedly went in the other direction, while the two Slytherin girls continued on their way to the common room.

"What was that all about?" Graham asked, turning around to watch Mandy turn a corner. "Tutoring lessons?"

"Sort of," Hermione shrugged. "She's really smart and I'll definitely learn some things from her."

Graham nodded, "You know, I don't know what happened to you, but I like you like this."

"Like what?" Hermione tried to act stupid, it was the only way she got around things nowadays.

"You're a lot more... civil. I don't think you've ever went out of your way to harass anyone lately. It's a nice change, you not being so hot-headed." Graham laughed suddenly, "Sorry. I talk too much."

"Well, yes," Hermione agreed, but then she laughed, too. "I just don't have time to harass people anymore. Besides, I was just being a ridiculous teenager full of raging hormones."

"Did you ever hear what Pansy would say about your hormones?" Graham asked suddenly. It threw Hermione off, but she wanted to know what exactly Pansy use to say about her.

"No. What?"

"One day after one of your... er... nightly strolls with Professor Lupin... she made this joke. It really wasn't all that funny, but she said that you put the whore in hormones." Graham didn't laugh, but shrugged. "I thought Milly told you before, but she usually forgets to do a lot of things."

Hermione snorted, "That was the best Pansy could come up with?"

"Er... well... yes."

"She's losing her touch, she is."

The two girls continued down to the dungeons and right when they entered the hallway that lead to the common room, they heard a maniacle laugh and a high-pitched scream. When they got close enough to see what was happening, Hermione could barely contain her laughter.

Peeves was holding a bit of dark fabric in his hands as he flew around the hallway laughing like a mad man. Pansy was drenched, in what looked like red mud, and wailing in the corner. When Hermione took a closer look, she noticed that the fabric that Peeves was holding was Pansy's skirt and that Pansy had on a pair of lacy black underwear. All of the boys were pointing, staring, and/or laughing... while most of the girls were either trying to get Pansy's skirt back from Peeves or laughing with the boys.

"PARKINSON'S KNICKERS! WEE!" Peeves cackled in an odd sing-song voice, making Pansy cry even harder. "I'VE UNMASKED THE MYSTERY!"

x x x chapter end x x x

Author's Note : Well, according to the almost non-existant reviews for the last chapter (and even a few chapters before that), I guess the writing must have been pretty bad. LoL. Heh. However, I would like to thank those who did review (all three of you - heh). Hopefully this chapter is a bit more what (you!) the readers are used to... (shrugs)... who knows? Heh.

It's funny, because I had like three different names for this chapter. "Back to School", "Mystery Unmasked", and something dealing with a book (but it gave too much away, heh). And, just for fun, I also had two names thought out for Chapter 14, too. Ever since Chapter 1, it was called 'Slytherin New Year,' but the most important part of the chapter is "the green-eyed monster"... so... I changed it just recently. I have a thing for chapter titles and I like them to sound mysterious (thus I was really planning on changing this chapter to 'Mystery Unmasked' just for a laugh) and yet once you read them, you're like, "Oh, yeah!"

Enough of my tirade. Read and review, please. I'll love you forever! I WILL!

Chapter 14 Entitled:

The Green-Eyed Monster