Chapter 9
It didn't take long for the rumour of my daughter to spread through the town. Many people speculated that Joseph Morelli was the father despite my claim. I was beyond pissed off. There was no doubt in my mind that my mother, Helen, was spreading vile lies.
Hermione and I attended midnight mass at the church in Newark, New Jersey. Neither of us wanted to spend the service in Trenton with the gossiping Burg wenches. I noticed an attractive family sitting in the pew beside us. The mother, a Cuban or Mexican woman, sat beside her handsome husband and gorgeous daughter. Two more women sat at the mother's right, and an attractive male sat beside the father.
They spoke in Spanish to prevent other people from hearing their conversation. I thought of the language charm and silently cast it to eavesdrop. Hermione smiled as she nudged my ribs with her boney elbow. The mother complained about their oldest boy, Ric, getting deployed a week before Christmas. He wasn't supposed to return for several months. When she said that he should meet an attractive woman like me, I reversed the charm. I didn't need to hear their thoughts about me.
Maria Manoso, as she had introduced herself, asked if I was new to the parish. "It's my first time here. I usually attend the church in Trenton, but the women are too judgemental. They don't accept that I had a child out of wedlock," I said without filtering my thoughts.
"Are you not married?" Maria asked.
"No. I'm not sure I want to get married. My job has crazy hours. It's not uncommon for me to work eighty-hour weeks. Not many men would be understanding," I confessed.
"You're just like my son, Ric. He's always working. Too busy to settle down and make a family," she stated.
"Mama, Ric has a daughter. He got married and divorced," the gorgeous woman added.
"Rachel was the wrong woman for my Ric," Maria said, dismissing her daughter's comment. "I can see you're like him." She leaned in to whisper, "You have the magic."
I quietly asked, "Are you a witch?"
"No. Only my Ric has the magic," she replied. "You visit us for New Years." Maria handed me a card with her name and phone number. I nodded without committing to the plan.
Hermione waited until we got into the car and got onto the highway before saying, "Mrs. Manoso seems like a nice woman."
I laughed sardonically. "What is with mothers setting me up with their sons?" I asked.
"Does that happen a lot?" Hermione asked. She tapped her finger against her lips as she filtered through her brilliant mind for evidence.
"More than I care to admit," I replied.
When we got home, Wilma was in our living room. "Mistress asked me to deliver gifts and a tree," Wilma stated. "She asked me to stay." I knew she would wait to see if I had anything for her to deliver.
"Thank you." I gave her some parcels to take home. "Please take these home," I said. Wilma nodded as she accepted the gifts. With a snap, she disappeared.
"Was that Wilma?" Hermione asked.
"Yes. Wilma works for grandpa William," I replied. "Wilma is a house-elf. She gets paid a fair wage, so don't try to find a way to liberate her."
Hermione grimaced. She fought for the underdog, underprivileged and misunderstood people or creatures. It wasn't too difficult for me to see her plan. "I've never seen her before," Hermione confessed.
"It's the mark of a good house-elf. They are to work without detection," I explained. Hogwarts had a sizeable number of house-elves in Britain within its castle. I refrained from sharing the news with Hermione. She'd find out soon enough.
We enjoyed our quiet Christmas Day together. Hermione visited with Carl and his family while I worked on locating the traitor working at E E Martin. I suspected it was the CEO himself. He had not displayed any magical skills. "Maybe he's concealing them," I thought.
I fell asleep at my dining room table. In my dreams, I fought alongside an attractive Cuban-American man. His features reminded me of Maria and Ricardo Manoso, the attractive couple from Christmas Eve mass. The man's wand got made from Redwood, a tree with shallow roots that grow out instead of down. I sensed the core was a Thunderbird tail feather. It was a rare core for wands and known to cause a spell to get cast if there was a magical threat to the owner.
Mine, a Hawthorn wood with a Thunderbird tail feather core, was slightly shorter than his twelve-inch wand. It was easy for me to teach it new spells and worked well with transfiguration. In my dream, we fought evil men outside the Hogwarts castle. I wasn't sure if it was a premonition or fantasy. It felt too real not to be a premonition.
"Who are you?" I asked the figure at the end of my bed.
"Carlos Manoso, but everyone calls me Ranger," he answered.
"Why are you here?"
"To protect you." He moved to the side of my bed and sat beside me. I didn't need protection.
"I fell asleep at the table. How did I get here?" I wondered. I wanted to know how he got into my apartment. Wizards and witches aren't supposed to pop into each other's homes. It was rude.
"You cast a charm to carry yourself to bed," he answered, pushing a lock of hair behind my ear. His touch sent an electrical pulse throughout my body. "You summoned me."
I don't recall summoning anyone to my home. How was that possible? Carlos wasn't familiar to me. To conjure or summon a person, you had to know something about them. I knew nothing about the man.
"Babe, my wand," he said as an explanation.
"What about your wand? Did I break it?" I asked.
"No, babe. You summoned my wand. It brought me to you," he explained. "I felt your soul call to me."
"Redwood with thunderbird tail feather," I said, recalling it from my dream. He nodded. "My name is Stephanie Granger."
"I know. You feel… familiar," he whispered. "Like coming home." His warm lips pressed against my mouth. I found myself giving in to the kiss, gasping when his tongue touched my bottom lip. My lips parted, giving him access to my mouth. Our tongues duelled for control. I felt myself get lost in the passion.
Before I could stop the kiss, our clothes had disappeared, and he entered me. My body was on fire. We gave ourselves to each other. An unspoken vow got exchanged. I felt our souls connect in a way I had never experienced before. Carlos entwined our fingers and stared into my eyes. I could hear the words in his mind as though spoken aloud. "You are my life, my home and my love. To you, I give all of me."
I repeated the words in my mind, forcing them into his head. When he said, "Will you accept our pledge to each other as our wedding vows?" I found myself saying yes. "In the eyes of the ministry of magic, we are married."
"Husband and wife," I whispered, too caught up in the moment to realize what I said.
"Together as one," he whispered. I felt something burn into my skin, above my heart, as we climaxed.
"Carlos," I moaned. He grunted my name. Carlos rested his forehead against mine. He rolled onto his back, pulling me with him. I straddled him as he hardened within me. "What did we do?" I asked, running my finger over the brand on his chest.
"Our souls merged. If one of us dies, the other will follow. I had only read about this phenomenon," Ranger replied. "You are a part of me as I am a part of you. We are two halves of a whole." He stroked the matching brand on my chest.
After our second round of passionate, earth-shattering sex, we lay in my bed naked. "I have a daughter with Carl Costanza," I said.
"I have a daughter with Rachel Martine. She's a nomag," he informed me.
"Hermione is a witch," I added. I looked at my nightstand clock. "We should get dressed. Hermione should be home in a few minutes."
We took a quick shower and dressed. "May I borrow your wand?" I asked. While we showered, I had a thought. What if our wands cast the charm to join us together?
"Sure, babe." He passed me the wand and watched as I checked the previous spells it had cast. As I suspected, his wand acted of its own accord to bind us together. Ranger took my wand, asking it to regurgitate the spells cast today. Both of our wands simultaneously cast the spells.
I used the drying spell to expel the water from my hair. Carlos had done the same. "I've never seen wands behave in that manner before," I confessed. "Where did you get your wand?"
"Ilvermorny's headmaster took me to Ollivander's wand shop in Diagon Alley when I was eleven," Ranger confessed.
"That's strange. I thought Redwood wands with Thunderbird tail feathers were made in the states," I mumbled.
"Ollivander said he made the wand. He found the tail feathers during a trip to the states. Two wands got made from the feathers of the same bird. My redwood wand and a hawthorn wand," he said, pointing to our wands.
"We were fated to be together," I gasped.
"And I couldn't be happier."
Hermione came home as we exited my bedroom. She raised an eyebrow as she stared at our joined hands. "Mom?"
"Carlos, I'd like you to meet my daughter, Hermione." Her face flushed pink when Carlos kissed the back of her hand.
"N n nice to meet you, Carlos," Hermione stuttered.
"Sweetheart, we have some news. I apologize for the lack of warning, but it happened too fast. Carlos and I are married," I said, showing her the mark on my chest.
I thought she would get mad, but she surprised me by throwing her arms around my neck. "I'm so happy for you, mom. You deserve to have someone to love," she whispered.
Carlos had to leave for a few days but promised to return on New Year's Eve. He gave me an address in Newark, where his family lived. "Spend New Year's Eve with my family and me," he asked.
"We'll be there," I promised. Carlos kissed my lips and Hermione's forehead before he disapperated. "I have a feeling our lives are about to get crazy."
"More than usual?" Hermione asked.
"Definitely," I replied.
Chipper tapped on the window a few days later. I opened it wide to let him fly into my bedroom. He held out his left leg. I untied the notes from both legs before stroking his feathers. Chipper flew into the kitchen, where I left him a dish of granola and water.
I unrolled the first note that contained my name. "I hope this letter finds you. When you had not called regarding New Year's Eve, I felt the urgent desire to send you an invitation. I found myself without the means to communicate when the beautiful owl arrived. My son, Ric, promised to be home," Maria wrote, providing her address below her signature.
"Hermione, I have a note for you," I called. She ran into the room to grab her letter from Harry. I laughed when she opened it and squealed.
"Oh, no," Hermione gasped. "Harry and Ron almost got caught in the restricted section of the library." Hermione grabbed a spare piece of parchment, quickly replying to her friends. With her tiny writing, they'd need a magnifying glass or a charm to enlarge the script. She mumbled, "They haven't found Nicolas Flamel."
I stopped myself from telling her that Nicolas Flamel was an alchemist. Why ruin the mystery? "Hmmm," I said, reading the address that Maria Manoso included in her correspondence. "Herm, does this address look familiar?" I could swear it was the same one that Carlos gave me.
Hermione took the offered parchment to read the information. "It's the address we got from Carlos," she replied.
"That's what I thought. I checked the name in Newark. There were over fifty families with the same last name. What are the chances that we met Carlos' family at Christmas?" I asked.
"Mom, given your history, I would say the chances were ninety-nine percent in favour of meeting his family at Christmas," Hermione answered, all joking aside. "Grandma Jean said the seer had seen you get pregnant, move away from your family, then move back home to find your destiny. I think she meant Carlos."
I rubbed the mark on my chest. "As I trained, I kept seeing a figure in the shadows. When I moved here, the image got sharper. For a few days, it got fuzzy before it cleared again," I explained.
"Why did it get fuzzy? Was that when your friend came over?" Hermione asked. I blushed at the memory.
"Yes. We decided to remain friends," I replied. It was about scratching an itch and clearing out the cobwebs from my vagina. I felt a bit slutty sleeping with two men within a week. Carlos knows about my hookup with Big Dog. He said it was fine as long as it never happened again. I had assured him that it would never get repeated. Carlos is the only man for me.