Disclaimer: Oh, I own this. I own al- oh, wait. I own nothing! Nothing but a sucky slow computer and a half a brain. The half that came up with the situations and characters you don't recognize. No suing please.

A/N: -Hugs Reviewers- Haha! I've got 85 reviews! –Runs around like a maniac- Well, now that I've managed to make a fool of myself only two days after my 16th b-day I think I'll update. For fun. And because I'm a review junkie. So, here goes.

Chapter Ten: Phoenix Princess and Practicing Prince

She felt like someone had hit her over the head with a dozen bricks. Repeatedly. Sitting up, Princess Hermione attempted to regain her bearings, and figure out where she was. She slipped her hand across her head, feeling for the incriminating bump. There, just above her left ear. It throbbed hard beneath her fingers, and continued to do so with all the more fervor upon her leaving the sticky straw bedding she had been laying in.

It was a circular room made of stone. Small and shack-like, the walls were overrun by mildew and the tiny room obviously hadn't been cared for in years. It held two windows, both open all but for three rusted bars of metal making the room feel all the more imprisoning. A single door with a large brass handle loomed in front of the princess, the only thing standing between her and whatever it was that lie outside.

Lighting flashed blue across her face, in from the cell's windows. A sudden shiver ran up her back, and she realized how cold it was. Hermione's pale blue dress was the only protection from the chilly weather. She looked as terrible as she felt. Her brown hair was in disarray, her eyes wide and her stance stiff, waiting for something to come out at her from the shadows.

Where on earth was she? How had she gotten there, and who had taken her? Why? Questions assaulted her from every corner of her mind, thirsting for answers. Then the bitter memory of her father burst into the foreground of her mind. He was gone. She would never see him, never hear him again.

With lingering grief, the fear no longer seemed as prominent. Hermione launched herself into the pile of straw and sobbed. The cries wracked her body, causing shaking shoulders and a tremble or two from her.

As if things couldn't get any worse for the poor princess, the wooden door opened suddenly with a loud bang. The impending figure in front of her was that of a woman, with long black hair and a cruel face. She said nothing, simply shot out her arm towards Hermione in a swift movement, grabbing her by the wrist and yanking her out of the shack.

"Wh-who are you! Let… me…go!" The struggling did nothing, the woman's vice-like grip wouldn't loosen, and Hermione felt a fear greater than any fear she'd had before as a snake-like man slinked out into the room the black-haired woman had shoved her into.

"Ssso nice of you to join me." He hissed instead of spoke. "I sssusspect you know who I am already, correct?"

"I know who you are. You're a malignant, vile, evil creature which hasn't even the right to crawl across the mud from which the most revolting beasts come from." Hermione spat out, insulting him.

"That I am, dear girl, that I am. But you sssee, I'm a malignant, vile, evil creature with a problem."

"And what's that? How can I help you oh-great-and-powerful-one?" Hermione asked, sarcasm dripping in her false saccharine voice.

"You can help me by joining me."

"What do you mean 'joining you'? I'm already here."

"Ah yesss, but I want to rule. As David's only heir, however, it is you who isss the next queen. What do you sssay?"

Shock and disgust filled her every pore. She snorted, as if she held any confidence at all and wasn't in fact terrified of what was going to happen to her. "If you're implying what I think you are then the answer is no. Actually, make that a hell no. Oh, and add 'never in a million years."

"Very well then. As much as it will pain me to ruin sssuch a pretty face…" He trailed off with a sigh. The woman who had brought her to the room cackled as Hermione recoiled in fear, her back against the icy stone of the castle which was covered in a thick layer of slime. Her hair matted against the wall, and she had no where to turn- she was cornered.

Voldemort, the man- no, the creature- that had killed her mother, Harry's father, and now her own father extracted a wand from his heavy black robes. His pseudo-face curled into a frightening smirk as he pointed the wand directly at Hermione's chest.

"Flammafenice lunalacus mutatio!" He roared.

It hurt, to say the very least. Hermione's voice couldn't scream loud enough to convey the pain the spell had filled her with. Burning fire, flame. It all burst into her body, looking for a place to escape from. Smoke oozed out from every open crevice, and flashes of bright orange, red, and yellow flames swirled around her in a great twister-like inferno of flame.

As the circle of fire was completed, the pain subsided for a moment, and a rush of peace washed over her. But the peace wasn't long-lasting. Her body had reformed, muscles and bone were moving, churning and reconfiguring her into the form of another being. The crunching of the breaking bones stayed inside her head, resounding in her ears as the pain kept coming.

Hermione didn't take notice of her sudden shrunken view point as the inferno dissipated into misty smoldering ashes, but merely reveled in the cold broken tiles beneath her. She crouched down and laid her throbbing head against them, smiling at the cool presence.

The woman again erupted in maniacal laughter, enjoying Hermione's suffering and the degrading practice of resting her face against the dust covered floor. "How does it feel, Princess, to kneel at the feet of a woman who hasn't enough gold to buy a newspaper?" She asked, looking down at where she was crumpled on the floor.

Hermione tried to answer, but nothing but a strangled string of 'caws' and 'chirps' escaped her throat. The black haired woman rolled her eyes.

"Well, Bellatrix, will you at least allow her to ssspeak in her own tongue?" Voldemort asked, raising what might have been an eyebrow.

"Oro umano." The words came stuffily out of Bellatrix's mouth.

"Wh-what have you done to me?" She asked, her throat long since dried from the lack of water.

Silently, Voldemort slithered over, a mirror in hand. He held it down to the floor, and the Princess gasped at what she saw reflected in it. A bird. Not just a simple bird, but a bright red one, with golden yellow eyes and soft feathers. She had seen this bird before, in books, in cages, and in the office of a family friend. She was a phoenix.

"Y-you turned me into a bloody bird!" Hermione called out shrilly, erupting into a sound that sounded similar to a bird's shriek.

"Oh, come now Princess, I know you're sssmarter then that. A phoenix is ssso much more than a- how you put it, 'bloody bird' and you know it. Tell me…What is it that ssseparates the phoenix from other birds?"

"Phoenix's go through a cycle. They're born from ashes and burst into flame during death. Then they're reborn from the ashes."

"Ssspot on."

"S-so, I'm going to have to go through that again?"

"We'll see how long it takes to break down your resolve about my becoming king. But, yess, if you continue to resssist. And, you're lifecycle is quite different from that of an actual phoenix. Do you see that lake outssside?" He nodded to the window behind her, and she looked out upon the black murky waters of a moat. "When the light of the moon castss its rayss on the water of the lake, you'll become human again. But when the light of the moon is not present, you sshall become a bird of flames."

"But how is it that its night and yet I'm now a bird?"

"Ah, good question. But if you've noticed the ssstorm we're having, Princess, then you know there is no moonlight on the water. Bella, if you will?"

Bellatrix strolled over to where a still very scared and shaken up Hermione sat and grabbed her roughly off the floor, crushing her against her chest as if afraid she'd attempt to escape. 'Right, where have I got to go? It's not like I can just fly off into the storm and through the woods.' It then occurred to her that even if she did have the strength to try to run- or rather, fly, she didn't know where she was.

Bellatrix dropped her rudely into the thorny bushes outside the castle, but with the moat and the walls to keep her inside. Bellatrix paused, and looked down at the Princess with her cold brown eyes strangely. "Don't bother running anyway. The change to a bird will occur anywhere. But to be a human, you must be on the lake." Bellatrix gave her one last 'hmpf' and left, stomping back into the castle and out of the ever-pouring rain.

Checking to make sure Bellatrix was gone first; Hermione erupted in tears, great sobs wracking her body. She had no where to go, and no one to help her. Her father was gone, her mother was gone, and Merlin, she had no chance of marrying Harry if she was a bird. She was lucky she could even speak normally.

A gentle arm of feathers moved over her back, soothing her. She turned abruptly, looking at the newcomer with suspicion. It was an owl, snowy white with black speckles. The owl looked down at Hermione pityingly.

"Don't let that one get to yeh, dearie. She's more of an animal than I am!" All Hermione did for a moment was hiccup, wiping the tears away with a wing.

"I'm Hedwig, dear. If you need anything at all, come to me. And who might you be?"

"P-princess Hermione of Ravenclaw." Before Hedwig could bother to say anything back to her, a new voice interrupted.

"A princess, you say! WELL! It's good to finally have someone of my social standing around!" The voice came from a large, looming animal, not quite a dog but not quite a wolf. It had shaggy black fur that was finely groomed, even under such conditions. "I'm an archduke, you know. That's almost as good as a prince!"

"Terribly sorry about him, don't mind Sirius, he's just a bit crazy." Hermione, however, welcomed the new animal's jester-like qualities. It was quite a feat to get the Princess to laugh in such circumstances, but she was learning that one couldn't help but laugh when Sirius was around. "You look as if you've had a hard time of it. What's wrong then, dearie?"

Hedwig and Sirius settled in as Hermione leaned into the grass, softly whispering her tale to the other animals. As she did so, she couldn't help but wonder what her Prince was doing at that moment, and if she'd ever see him again.

"Where are you off to, Harry?" Queen Lily asked her son, who was rushing out the door and into the courtyard.

"I'm just going to practice for a bit, with Ron."

"Oh." Came Lily's terse reply. "I see. Will you be coming in for tea?"

"No, I'm going to skip today. Don't worry so much on it, I'll make up for it and eat twice as much for dinner. Merlin knows Ron will eat four times as much without missing anyway." Harry joked. He pecked her on her high cheekbone, and took off into the afternoon sunlight. She watched with a critical eye as he and Hermione's friend Ron took out their wands, muttering the correct spells to cause either red or blue sparks to come out, marking who they hit. They went over the rules, for the millionth time with the apothecary Snape, who supervised the ordeal and inspected the castle staff.

Lily had to hold in her giggles, the sight of Joe Shriman dressed in full bunny-wear was a sight to make anyone laugh. She shook her red hair, however, at the vigorous way her son attacked the pseudo-animals, each with a number marking the amount of points the animal was worth. Shriman was worth the ultimate two-hundred points.

It was all Harry ever did anymore, going on and on about a 'great animal' and practicing day and night for an apparent show-down with it. It was alright to grieve, Lily herself had been shaken up for weeks after the announcement had come through that the king was dead and poor, young Hermione lost into the mists of the rainy night. The boy, Ron, he still stared off into space, a small frown on his face sometimes. And poor Molly, she had been the closest thing to a mother to Hermione for all but one year of her life. She could be seen in the halls, sobbing into her apron. But Harry had taken it to an extreme.

Her son was victorious at the game. As always. Lily wondered what it would take to get him back down to earth. She thought of the days he sat planning, and thinking, and watching Hermione. She had taken up so much of his time during the summers; he barely had any time for hobbies. As if a lightbulb had gone on, the Queen's eyes lit up. She sat up straighter, and smiled.

A girl. That's what it would take. Her son needed to get married anyway, why not just help him find that perfect girl? It would certainly take Harry's mind off of Hermione, and ultimately off of the great animal. Lily walked down the hallways, a chipper air about her. She would tell him at supper, she decided, plans already formulating in her conniving head.

A/N: Oh goodness. My head is spinning simply from writing it. I'm tired. –Yawn- A bit shorter than last chappie, but it's more substance in this one. Plus if I write anymore I'll fall off my chair and throw up. Or faint. Or fall asleep. All I know for sure is that I don't really want to know which will happen, so I'm done for tonight. PLEASE send in more feedback. My new goal is to reach 100 reviews at least by the end of this fic.

Reviews: (As much as I wish I could do individual responses, I'm feeling under the weather suddenly, and there are just so many! Um…Not that I have a problem with that!) Thank you to these very special and wonderful and great reviewers: SilverHawk 27, Callista Miralni, Carolyn, DeLiRiOuS aka CAPTAIN obvious, the-power-of-love, Jessi-Black33, Silver-Silhouette6, Beth5572, rae1112, PrincessLuckyCML, wildkat, miligurl08, Jade-eye Halliwell, Aquarius Chik 101, coldxlight126, sally, Hermione Graner Potter, and Liz!

Oh, and if I forgot you, you have my permission to yell ;).