Hermione Granger; A Vampire Chapter 12
When Hermione woke up at 10 o'clock in the morning, she had forgotten all about not being able to keep down the animal blood. It wasn't until Hermione saw the plastic bottle sitting on the cabinet next to one of the sinks did she remember last nights (or earlier this mornings) events. She hurriedly stuffed the bottle in her bag, and went downstairs to eat breakfast. She wondered why the other girls in her dormitory hadn't complained about the bottle of blood in the bathroom, as most of them were really squeamish.
Once in the dining hall, she plonked herself in-between Neville and Ginny. She served herself some toast and marmalade and joined in the conversation.
"No, wait how come Mclaggen gets all the girls?" Ron asked with his mouth full.
Ginny snorted and continued to break her bagel in little pieces with her fingers. "What- you think you stand a chance against him?"
"I'm just saying, he should leave a few girls for us lot!" Ron snapped back at his sister.
Harry laughed, and Hermione dissolved into giggles.
"Oh hey Hermione! Didn't see you come in." Harry grinned at her, and Ginny put her arm over Hermione's shoulders.
"She's a vampire Harry! NO ONE sees her come in!" Hermione giggled again.
"So Hermione…you going to ditch us again for creepy Katerina again?" Ron asked. He continued to shovel food in his mouth as if he hadn't eaten in a week. Hermione pulled a face.
"I'm not DITCHING you, but yeah I need her help for…some stuff."
"Why don't you need OUR help? We know just as much as her about this stuff…we read up everything about vampire's when you turned." Harry feigned being upset.
"Okay then." Hermione decided to test them. "I'm having trouble keeping down animal blood… I keep choking and gagging when I try to swallow. Do YOU know why that is?" She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. Ron shrugged his shoulders, and Harry looked over at Ginny smirking.
"What're looking at me for? I don't know!" Ginny crossed her arms to and clenched her jaw.
"Okay Gin! Don't go nuts!" Harry chuckled. "Okay Hermione we don't know…but watch yourself around Katherine. She seems dangerous."
"She can't hurt me Harry." Hermione said.
"I know…I meant she seems like she hurts people emotionally, not physically. Like its her favourite game or something."
Hermione understood what he was saying, but didn't comment. She hadn't told them about her trip with Katherine to Hogsmead, she didn't want them to know she had almost killed someone.
She carried on eating, occasionally commenting on something her friends said about Quidditch, when suddenly all eyes turned towards the entrance of the dining hall. Hermione noticed this and looked up too, to see Katherine looking stunning, in an emerald green dress, her dark curls bouncing around her shoulders. Her eyes swept the room and landed on Hermione. She winked and sashayed over and sat right next to her, causing Neville to slide over down the bench.
"Good morning Hermione." Katherine said, her voice like honey.
"Hello Katherine." Hermione said through gritted teeth.
"Ah, I see these must be your friends! Pleasure to meet you all, I'm sure you've heard of me. I'm Katherine." She smiled at the the puzzled faces of Hermione's friends.
Everyone at the table except for Ginny and Hermione, mumbled a hello, or good morning.
"It's a beautiful day outside isn't it? Thank goodness, I've got my daylight ring now, so I can enjoy the sunshine." Katherine flashed her hand to reveal a beautiful blue stone encrusted in a silver set.
"What stone is that?" Hermione asked curiously.
"Lapis lazuli. It's a magical gemstone." She answered admiring her ring from every angle.
"Lapis lazuli? I've never heard of that before." Ginny frowned.
"Well you have now." Katherine retorted. "Now, I just popped over to say hello, I simply must leave. I wish to explore the castle a little more." She waved and swept away, turning the heads of every male student as she passed.
Harry, Ron and Hermione exhaled loudly and raised their eyebrows at each other.
Ginny was the first one to speak. "Doesn't she speak differently? Like she's from another time…oh." Ginny realised before she finished her sentence.
"Yeah." Was all Hermione could say.
"She's a bit full of herself isn't she?" Harry said.
"Who wouldn't be, if they looked like THAT?" Ginny said sourly.
Hermione hurriedly finished her breakfast, and decided to go straight to potions down in the dungeons. She didn't want to give Snape any reason to tell her off, more than necessary.
Down in the dungeons, she noticed the change in temperature. It seemed to drop a few degrees. She crossed her arms and adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder. A loud crash, caused her to spin around in alarm. She sighed when she saw it was just her bag, which had split and all of her things had fallen out, including her ink bottle which had shattered into a hundred pieces. She knew she should've got a new bag, during the last Hogsmead trip but she couldn't bring herself to spend her last six galleons on a bag, when she could buy some new books. She bent down and began to gather her things, which had rolled all over the place. When she thought she had everything she closed her bag, and began to walk back down to he classroom, when she noticed her plastic bottle on the floor, through an ajar door.
She swiftly walked over, and pushed open the door. It was heavy and wooden, and it creaked loudly. She glanced around the room, seeing a king size bed covered with Egyptian cotton sheets, two armchairs near a fireplace, and lots of bookshelves. She spotted, a handsome man, with dark hair and eyes sitting on the edge of the bed, reading a green hardback book. She recognised him, as Stefan, the vampire who had turned her. She tried to stifle the creaking of the door, but vampire ears could pick up anything, from the creak of a door, to a mouse squeaking a mile away.
Stefan's head snapped up, but when he spotted Hermione, he relaxed. "Come in." He murmured.
"I'm sorry, I just dropped my bottle."
"Yes, I heard it. Try to be less clumsy in future."
Hermione flushed in embarrassment. "I'm not clumsy, my bag ripped." She snapped.
Stefan looked up at her curiously. He closed his book with a snap and stood up. He was wearing a green sweater, black jeans, and black boots. He studied her face curiously.
"Can I ask you something?" Hermione blurted out. She had a bad habit, something her parents had tried to get her out of, of asking if she could ask a question. It was something she had done for years, and hadn't managed to stop yet.
"You just did…but I do not think that was what you wished to tell me." He grinned at her, and motioned for her to sit down. She went over to the armchair near the fire, and perched on the edge of the seat uncomfortably.
"How old are you?" She asked before she could stop herself. She hadn't meant to ask that, but it just came out.
Stefan smiled at her, and sat down in the armchair opposite. He rested his elbows on his knees. "I was turned in 1864." He replied.
Hermione remembered Katherine mentioning that yesterday. She blushed again and ducked her head.
"I was seventeen when I turned." He continued, gazing at her thoughtfully.
"Oh" Hermione muttered.
They sat in silence for a minute or two. Eventually, Stefan cleared his throat and she took the hint to ask her question.
"I've…er, been having some…trouble drinking animal blood recently…I can't keep it down." Hermione said, screwing up her face, when she said 'blood'.
Stefan frowned for a moment, before answering. "Have you drank any human blood recently?"
It was Hermione's turn to frown. "I hardly think that's important." She stuck out her chin.
"Actually…it is. If you have, and judging by your expression, I'm sure you have done, then thats why. After drinking human blood, and then suddenly switching to animal blood, your body doesn't want to accept the animal blood. You're a vampire, and vampires are a predatory species. We enjoy the kill, and relish in it. Your body is trying to tell you that it doesn't want the animal blood anymore." Stefan stoked his chin and frowned again.
Hermione's heart was thudding. Her body didn't want the animal blood anymore? What was she going to do? She couldn't keep drinking human blood, it made her a monster.
"What can I do?" Hermione tried to speak normally, but there was no masking the panic in her voice.
"What you can do is…drink human blood." He finished simply.
"Wha-! No! I…I can't! I'll kill! I'll become a monster!" Hermione started to panic.
"Now now, what's all this talk about monsters and killings?" Katherine walked into the room, and closed the door behind her.
Hermione's heart sank. Now Katherine was going to get involved and that was the last thing she wanted.
"She can't keep down animal blood and she doesn't want to drink human blood." Stefan walked over to Katherine and circled his arms around her tiny waste. Katherine giggled as Stefan kissed her cheek.
"Ugh" Hermione thought. She turned her head away and pretended to examine the bookshelf, while Katherine giggled.
"Ah, Hermione…you say you can't keep animal blood down?" Katherine finally managed to stop giggling and paid attention to Hermione.
"Er…yeah." Hermione cursed herself for telling Stefan in the first place.
"Hmm…" Katherine untangled herself from Stefan and sat beside Hermione. "We'll need to sort that out. Why don't we go somewhere were we can teach you control?" She saw the look of panic fleet across Hermione's face and carried on. "It won't get out of hand like last time I promise. Stefan darling, where do you think we can go were there will be lots of people?"
It was clear that Katherine hadn't been around for one hundred and forty years as she didn't seem to realise that it was Halloween tomorrow and there would be plenty of parties to go to.
Stefan pretended to think for a moment before answering. "It is very noticeable that you've been locked in a tomb for one hundred and forty years because its nearly Halloween."
Katherine looked puzzled for a moment. "I know but that doesn't change much."
Hermione snorted, and Stefan grinned. "It changes EVERYTHING! It means there will be loads of parties, especially at college campuses and stuff…hey! We should go to a campus, pretend to be shallow teens and attend one of their halloween parties! I mean, we won't have to wipe our mouths after feeding, it'll look like part of our costume!"
"Costume?" Katherine looked puzzled still.
"On Halloween, everyone dresses up as a scary being." Hermione explained.
"Hmm…yes a Halloween party sounds like the perfect place to do this!" Katherine looked excited and began to rummage around in her drawers. She pulled out a slinky black top and black jeans, and held them up for Hermione to see.
"Why are you holding that up?" Hermione asked.
"Well, your going to wear it of course! We'll have to stop of to buy some other things to make you look a little scarier." Katherine frowned as she thought and bit her thumbnail.
"Wait what? We're really going to do this?" Hermione felt her voice go high again.
"Well of course! Now hurry up and get dressed. You need to blend in with these shallow teenagers at…campus was it? I've been reading a lot of fashion magazines lately…It's simply fascinating that how they can capture life and put it into books…you need to look…sexy…" She continued to mutter to herself as she pulls out some black ankle boots with stiletto heels.
"I'm not wearing those!" Hermione shrieked. She hardly ever wore heels and never ones as high as those.
"YES! You. Are." She carried on pulling things out of her closet.
"Well we have a much more important question to answer." Stefan said, leaning against the door.
"And what is that?" Katherine stopped searching through her closet and put her hands on her hips.
Stefan exhaled loudly, and smirked. "Are we going as killers…or victims?"