She had been lying in the hospital wing for three days and she was bored out of her mind. Madam Whittaker wouldn't even let her go to the library and take out a few books. According to her reading would stress the mind and relaxing the mind, as well as the body was essential to her recovery. Once in a while students came down with minor accidents but no one stayed long enough. They gave her curious glances and sometimes she got a few hello's if the same students came back. She had only managed to strike up a conversation with a shy girl that stayed over one night. She had told her she was fourth year in Hufflepuff and her name was Maria. The girl wasn't very talkative but Hermione was so glad to have someone to talk to that she didn't mind doing most of the talking. She stared at the far end of the room and tried to read the labels of the various containers placed on the shelves.
"Morning Maya" Madam Whittaker said suddenly appearing with a chart. "Lets see your progress today" Hermione eagerly sat up hoping the woman would say she was well enough to leave the prison of boredom. She pointed her wand across various parts of her body and mumbled things to herself as she noted things down. "Well everything's healed" she said finally looking up. "But we still have to check on your leg" She vanished Hermione's bandage and the skin revealed was good as new.
"It's healed" Hermione squeaked happily.
"Not so fast" she said tapping her leg slightly with her wand. "I still have to check on the bones" Madam Whittaker moved her wand over her leg and a light illuminated her skin. "Well the bones have mended properly"
"So can I leave or at least go to the library"
"Am I that bad at taking care of my patients that you want to leave so soon" she said putting on a fake hurt expression.
"No it's not like that"
"Get up and give us a walk, then I'll declare if your fit to fly of" Hermione crept out of the bed and took a few shaky steps. After a while she found she could easily walk without any discomfort. "You are now officially ready to leave the nest" She felt so glad she was fully recovered. A house elf suddenly appeared and bowed down deeply in front of Madam Whittaker. With a snap of its fingers it made a large trunk appear.
"Miss for you" the elf said and vanished. A letter was stuck to the trunk with the name Maya Granger written on top.
"Maya it's for you" Hermione ripped open the letter and read it. Dippet had sent her clothes, school books and other necessary items. She would receive her uniform once she was sorted. The letter stated that Dippet had ordered a house elf to buy all the things a girl would essentially need. She could see by peering into her trunk that the house elf had overdone it. An assortment of gorgeous knickers and bra's were neatly folded at one corner. Three stunning dresses for special occasions and another handful of everyday wear dresses was piled in the middle. Two long cotton nightdress's and a hair brush was placed on the other side. She noticed a small pink container underneath the nightdress. She pulled the lid away to find it packed with cosmetics and jewellery.
"Look at that" Madam Whittaker said peering over her shoulder.
"I don't need this" Hermione rarely used make-up or jewellery and she couldn't help but think about the amount of Dippet's money that had been wasted on useless things.
"Don't be silly dear, every girl needs that to survive" She put the box away and dug her hands deep into the trunk trying to reach the books. She pulled out a hard object to find another box. She opened it to find bottles of shampoo and perfume inside it. "Merlin Maya, those are the latest perfumes" She stared at the coloured bottles for a while and put them away with a sigh. She decided to look for the books later. What she really wanted to do now was get out of her hospital gown and attempt to untangle her messy hair. "I think its best if you leave the trunk under your bed" Madam Whittaker said walking back towards her office.
"Is it okay if I go down to have a bath"
"You can wander around the castle just be back before lunchtime" she said shutting her office door. Hermione grabbed some fresh underclothes, a plain black dress, hairbrush and a bottle of shampoo. Hiding the trunk under her bed she walked down to the Gryffindor girl's bathroom. She knew she wasn't sorted yet but she didn't think Gryfinndor's would mind if they knew. She was glad it was empty. At first she spent a long time untangling her hair. Then she relaxed in a warm tub of bubbles and used her new bottle of shampoo. The smell of the shampoo was soothing and she glanced at the bottle reading the word Chamomile written on it. She washed out her hair and drying herself she got dressed.
She was so glad to feel clean after a long time but she wished she had a wand. Her hair was wet and she could have dried it with a spell. Gathering her things she went back to the hospital wing. She tried to towel dry her hair but it still stayed wet. It was really annoying and she decided to ask Madam Whittaker to dry it for her. She paused outside the office door and was about to knock but she changed her mind at the last minute. Madam Whittaker was probably brewing important potions and she didn't want to disturb her for something insignificant.
She decided to go down to the library. It was almost empty and she was thankful. She wasn't in the mood to be stared at or answer walked to the back of the library and into the defence against the dark arts section. She scanned the shelves uninterestedly. She had read most of the books before. A title suddenly caught her eye and she stared at it surprised. She had heard of the book but it had gone missing from the library in her time. The book was right in front of her. It was old and written entirely in Latin but Hermione could fluently read and understand Latin. It was titled, dark curses and how to avoid them. The good thing about the book was it included a section on how to do the dark curses first and then a section explained how to avoid them. Since it wasn't in the restricted section she could freely read it without suspicion.
She pulled the heavy book of the shelf and wiped of the layer of dust. From the looks of it not many students could read and understand Latin. She didn't feel like sitting at the tables and other students probably wouldn't bother coming down so further back. Hermione sat down crossed legged onto the floor and pulled the heavy book onto her lap. Apart from the few drops of water occasionally falling from her hair everything was going great. The book was really interesting. She was so deeply engrossed that she became completely unaware of the time. She was soon halfway through the book and an incantation to burn someone's skin was too small to read. Hermione leaned down closer trying to make out the writing and suddenly a huge droplet of water splattered right onto half of the incantation. She swore loudly as the words became completely unreadable. All she could make out was Ignis.
"Stupid wet hair, Ignis what" she said out aloud. "Ignis ob---Ignis co" she tried making out the next part but she wasn't sure if it was correct.
"Ignis derma" a voice suddenly said making her head snap up. She froze as she found Tom Riddle staring at her from a distance. She suddenly noticed that he was tapping his wand gently against his knee. He looked down at his wand and back up at her a few times as if he was considering something. Right now Hermione was very conscious of the fact that she didn't have a wand. He suddenly pointed the wand at her and started to walk closer making Hermione's heart rate increase dramatically. She closed her eyes tightly and any minute now she was expecting to hear him shout Avada Kedavra. Instead she felt a warm breeze blow through whole her hair. She snapped her eyes open to see the back of him as he quietly walked away. Hermione touched her hair with a shaky hand and found her hair completely dry.
She had been so convinced he was going to kill her but all he had done was used a drying spell on her hair. Hermione forced herself to get up. Shoving the book back onto the shelf she walked back to the hospital wing. She gulped down huge amounts of water and paced back and forth. Merlin knew how long he had been there staring at her and now he knew she was reading up on dark curses. He couldn't find out about her plan to kill him, that would have disastrous consequences. She sat on the bed. No she was just being paranoid, there was no way he could know. If she was reading a book on dark curses all it did was indicate she was interested in dark magic. It's not like that would really jeopardise her mission in any way. But she would have to be more careful next time, her mysterious appearance and lies had obviously raised a lot of questions in his mind.
"There you are" Madam Whittaker said bursting into the room. "Your 15 minutes late, where have you been" she said putting her hands on her hips. Madam Whittaker's actions reminded her so much of Mrs Weasly and she couldn't help it as tears stared to leak from her eyes. "Don't cry Maya" Madam Whittaker said with a softer voice. "I didn't mean to tell you off"
She put an arm around Hermione's shoulder. "I was just worried with you being new around here" She leaned into the woman's hug. It was comforting to be held in a motherly hug after so long. The memory of her mother ran through her mind and more tears leaked from her eyes. "Let me tell you something that will cheer you up" she said patting her on the back. "Headmaster's arranged for the wand maker to come and see you today" Hermione looked up and a smile automatically formed on her lips.
"That certainly lifted the clouds" Madam Whittaker said drawing back.
"When" she said excitedly.
"Sometime after 12, that's why I wanted you to come back before lunchtime" A small boy suddenly burst through the door and Hermione recognised him from last time. "Not again Ben" Madam Whittaker said looking at his hand. The boy nodded looking apologetic. "Your foods getting cold, I'll see you later" Hermione walked to her bed leaving Madam Whittaker to take care of the boy. She chewed her food down without even registering the way it tasted. She really felt incomplete and helpless without her magical powers. It had only been a few days but to her it felt like a long time and she couldn't wait to have a wand.
Three hours later Armando Dippet entered the room followed by Olivander the wandmaker. His hair was more well kept and his skin was less wrinkly but other than that he was still the same creepy Olivander. Four large boxes were carried into the room by house elves. The boxes were opened up to reveal wrapped wands inside.
"This is Olivander the wandmaker" Dippet introduced.
"Maya Granger" she said.
"Ah this is the girl you were telling me about" He gestured for her to come closer to one of the boxes. "Give one of the wands a wave until we find a suitable match for you"
For 30 minutes she waved wand after wand causing mild explosions, violent sparks or feelings of electric shock in her fingers. She had gone through two boxes and as she started on the third box she was starting to lose hope. After waving two more wands she couldn't be bothered to go on.
"None of them are matching" she said frustrated. "I doubt any in the box will"
"Not to worry, you aren't the first difficult customer" he suddenly laughed. "One boy spent an entire day trying out wands in my shop, only when we got to the last 5 remaining wands did we find a match for him" Hermione looked at him hoping to God he was joking but she realised he wasn't when he said she might have to go down to his store if none of the remaining ones matched. "Well these wands match up to most common witches or wizards but there are always exceptions" he said putting a hand in his pocket. "I wonder" he suddenly said in a high pitched voice and pulled out a box wrapped in sliver. "Why don't you try this one Miss Granger" he held out the box towards her. She removed the packaging to find a beautiful wand resting on red velvet. The way Olivander was staring at her gave her the shivers. With her hand shaking she picked up the smooth wand and gave it a wave. She was expecting another failure but to her amazement a soft white glow emitted from it and then it went out. She stood still staring at the wand in her hand. She couldn't believe it, she had found a match at last. "Congratulations Miss Granger" Olivander burst out.
"Great work Olivander" Dippet said. "How did you know it would match?"
"I didn't but I was curious to test it on her"
"Anything special about the wand"
"Not really but the boy that took all day to find his wand has the same core as Miss Granger's wand"
"Interesting that she matched with his brother wand"
"Interesting indeed Dippet and I think you should expect great things from Maya"
"Great things" Dippet said appearing puzzled.
"Well the boy possessing the brother wand is one of your most talented students" he said touching her wand with his finger tips. "I think we can assume that since Miss Granger has the power to wield the same wand, she may be capable of reaching the same level as him" he gave her a scary intense look and stepped back.
"Which boy Olivander, I have at least three to four boys that are the best in their year"
"Ah Dippet I'm sure this boy will stand out more than the others" he said rubbing his hands and stared at Hermione's wand once again. "Miss Granger's wand has the same core as Tom Riddle's wand" he said excitedly waving his hands about. Hermione dropped the wand onto the floor and stared at it in disbelief. It couldn't be. She had matched with Voldemort's brother wand and that also meant it was the same wand Harry Potter had. Fate was playing some sort of a sick game with her. It had pulled her into the past and given her Harry potter's wand to finish the job. Having Harry's wand turn up made her feel strange and she tried to think of it as a positive sign to go ahead with her plans. Olivander and Dippet looked at her concerned.
"Madam Whittaker" Dippet called.
"I'm fine" Hermione said quickly picking up her wand. "It just dropped accidentally"
"Headmaster" Madam Whittaker said bursting into the room.
"I think Maya's feeling faint, check on her will you" Although Hermione protested she was fine Madam Whittaker still made her lie down.
"I think its too much stress, she was in the library reading all morning" the woman poured a glass of water and added some powder from a bottle. "I see you've matched her a wand" she said eyeing Hermione's wand lying on the bed side table.
"Took long but we got there in the end" Dippet said smiling proudly.
"I advise you to use the wand a few times today just so it can get used to your magic" Olivander said packing up his boxes. Dippet summoned the house elves to carry away the boxes and then he left with Olivander after he told her to get well soon.
"Drink this" Madam Whittaker said holding the glass towards her.
"I'm okay, there's no need"
"Nonsense, now drink up" She gulped down the lemony tasting liquid and lay back down.
"I don't want you to exhaust yourself, no getting out of bed until tomorrow" Madam Whittaker said and disappeared into her office once again. She raised her hand towards her wand but changed her mind at the last minute. Olivander had told her to practice with it but she couldn't bring herself to use it yet. Hermione stared at her new wand feeling unsure.
Please please review. It dosen't have to be anything long, something like good chapter will do.