The entire latter half of this chapter was supposed to be for Halloween but I ended up writing 'A Black Halloween' instead, so yeah, not really topical now that its November third but hey, you want new chapters and I have no desire to rewrite this, so enjoy and Review!
PS-I consider the lime from last chapter as an experiment, one that I largely failed at, so no worries no more of that, anyhow enjoy!
Lillith and Hermione sat in silence in the back of the Granger's Mercedes as Dan meandered through the late afternoon traffic, both young women lost in thought, eventually Hermione cast a privacy charm then broke the silence which caused her lover to grimace. "So...that oath..." Rolling her eyes Lilly kept her gaze on the passing traffic,
"Not that big of a deal, it was worded in such a way that I'd only go after threats to you, plus the lovely loophole of the fact you cannot make magical oaths to muggles helps as well." Pausing Hermione looked confused before she violently whispered,
"You played my parents?!" Glancing over to the bushy haired brunette Lilly kept her gaze a few moments before sighing, "Can I honestly say anything right now that wouldn't make matters worse, seriously?" Hermione was chagrined to admit she had to bite off making a 'Sirius' joke there before responding,
"Why would you find it necessary to lie to my parents straight out of the gate?" Lilly resisted the urge to roll her eyes again as she responded,
"Because your dad practically screamed over protective even when I was only running my passive legilmency on the room, not to mention both your parents are dentists who I inherently distrust, anyone who gets their jollys drilling into peoples heads automatically earns my ire." Hermione was about to snap back before she paused and sighed,
"You're having one on me right now aren't you?" Grinning Lilly waggled her brows in response, huffing Hermione eventually just asked her original question, "You played them right?" Lilly remained quiet before sighing again,
"Yes and no, I meant the oath but it isn't binding, remember what I told you earlier this month, my Founders magic makes me inclined to manipulate people, its just second nature to me at this point. As for it being binding, Hermione, I'm fifteen, you're sixteen, we literally have our entire lives ahead of us, do you honestly think I'd blindly bind my magic to an agreement I made before I even got out of school? Your parents think you're safer now, they're not going to be hounding us the entire hols to be safe or other contrite crap especially after they got a crash course on how bloody dangerous that school is; enjoy the fact that my duplicity has given us a modicum of freedom and leave it at that ok?"
As much as Hermione wanted to be enraged she couldn't manage it, Lilly hadn't out and out lied and the more she reviewed the situation the more annoyed with herself she got over not catching the details, eventually holding her forehead she sighed deeply,
"You didn't use a wand, silent wandless lumos?" Snorting Lilly's lips curled into a smirk and simply replied with "Of course," shaking her head Hermione turned her eyes out the window again as she thought up her response, eventually she just sighed in exasperation and removed her seat belt sidling closer to Lilly to wrap the young woman in a hug. "All right...I get why you did it you probably bypassed two weeks of fretting, just try to reel it in love ok?" Smirking Lilly gave her a quick peck on the cheek before responding,
"Honey, its my nature to manipulate, while I still have my 'saving people thing' as you put it the sorting hat did try to place me in Slytherin first, I will make a tentative promise to you though, I'll never try to consciously manipulate you or anyone you tell me to trust. No witches oath or any of that, just a promise from your girlfriend, ok?" Hermione frowned as she worried her lower lip but eventually she nodded, resting her head on Lilly's shoulder lost in thought the emerald eyed young lady watched the blue flecked gaze of her lover with wry affection, before they'd been, *ahem* bonded the brunette would never have given in that quickly. Huzzah for a satisfied sex drive bypassing hours of needless bickering!
As the car came to a stop Lilly recognized the venue as a higher end French style restaurant, the Granger's were obviously better off then expected but they were both doctor's of a sort so she shouldn't have been surprised. As they exited the vehicle there was a brief hoot as a snowy white owl landed on the cars boot, Hedwig gave Lilly an indignant glare before offering up her foot with a large envelope attached to it. Snorting Lilly took the parcel then placed the miffed owl on her shoulder while casting a disillusionment on her,
"Sorry girl didn't mean to leave you at home like that, come on I'll sneak you in so you can confuse the muggles by ganking their food," Hedwig let out an amused bark at this so Lilly walked towards the entrance while Hermione pushed her befuddled parents forward. Pulling up to Lilly's side she quietly muttered,
"Do you have to roll your hips like that? Its...distracting..." Lilly snorted while Hedwig clacked her beak in amusement, locking gazes with her girlfriends familiar Hermione eventually shook her head in faux disapproval. "You are really going to let your sentient magic owl friend terrorize a restaurant full of stuck up snobs for a free meal aren't you?" Grinning with a mischievous glint in her eyes (which she'd placed a glamour on to keep down the glowing, no need to freak out the normals) Lilly quipped what was fast becoming her personal mantra,
"I solemnly swear I am up to no good," trying to look disaproving but failing miserably Hermione just followed the group into the restraunt and took her seat; Lilly then managed to stun Dan and Emma by fluently speaking French to the waiter requesting a bottle of wine and hors d'oeuvres. Grinning once again with a mischievously lit Lilly shooed Hedwig to go cause chaos as she cracked open the owls delivered envelope, groaning she slid her chair closer to Hermione so she could read the letter. Her parents looked on in polite interest as she let out an annoyed sigh,
"Another board meeting? I thought you subcontracted the goblins specifically to avoid this sort of thing," grunting Lilly kept her eyes on the sheaf of parchment as she continued reading,
"Yeah I did but the little guys aren't allowed to enact major purchases and transfers without my direct consent, glad the Slytherin vault wasn't set up like the Potter's, the amount of interest I earned from their investments makes up 37% of my net worth. Christ this is annoying, I hope Moony gets back from whatever errand he's running in Russia soon I hired him to take care of this for a reason," Hermione huffed and took a sip of her wine, looking back at the documents she then asked,
"What's he doing in Russia anyway?" At that Lilly twirled a manicured finger in the air,
"Who knows this is Uncle Remus we're talking about here, he could be enriching some capitalist proletariats buying up cold war era weapons, scoring a key of Colombian white, or getting some really good borscht, all I know is I need his furry butt here so I can get back to being a lazy boarding school student." Dan snorted at this,
"Interesting company you keep young lady," glancing above the papers meeting her girlfriends fathers eyes Lilly blinked then nodded,
"Dad, you have no idea, as it stands I'm going to have to go to Gringotts tomorrow, which while not earth shattering it is annoying, sometimes being filthy rich is very irritating." The adults exchanged a glance while Hermione let out an amused snort,
"Yes love when you were dirt poor far fewer people were interested in your portfolio," before anything else could be said waiter returned and took all their orders, eventually a comfortable silence overtook the table as Hermione's parents observed the two young women leafing through the stack of legal documents. Eventually their meals arrived which caused Lilly to let out a pleased predators growl when her gigot d'agneau pleureur was placed before her. She took a sip of her red wine with every bite of lamb savoring the flavor, Hermione for her part had gone with a bowl of bouillabaisse as Fluer had once suggested but she drank her white wine less enthusiastically then her iron livered girlfriend.
As the pleasant dinner conversation wound down Emma finally asked what was on her mind, "Lilly I don't mean to pry but exactly how well off are you? I know its a bit faux pas but you've really piqued my curiosity." Smiling widely Lilly shook her hand unoffended,
"Oh don't worry about it, not trying to be mysterious or anything just annoyed, the Slytherin vaults I acquired through conquest and the Potter through inheritance, technically the Black vaults will be mine as well but I'm honestly hoping Papa Padfoot finds a ladytype that'll pop out a few cousin's for me to dote on." Looking to Hermione she than asked, "What's my net worth right now my lovely Goldkeeper? Not counting Pad's stuff?" Hermione flipped out a small notepad and leafed through its pages, eventually she replied,
"As of two days ago your liquid assets were 5.4 billion pounds sterling, or 54 million galleons, net worth including properties and annual interests is on the upper end of 13 billion pounds sterling or 130 million galleons, I don't have any info on the Black accounts on me though." Nodding Lilly turned back to her meal as the Granger couple stared at the teen girls in shock, it took a few minutes for Lilly to notice their vacant looks before she sputtered out,
"Wha-what's wrong?" Dan coughed lightly then asked,
"Are you trying to tell me you are a multi-billionaire?" Nodding slowly as she took another dainty sip of wine Lilly smiled meekly in reply,
"Err, yeah, kinda, I honestly grew up dirt poor and have no real concept of money as something other then a war resource, so I don't mean to be blase about my wealth it just doesn't really mean much to me other then being a means to end. And well...that end involves my enemies being dead, the magical world being brought to 20th century standards and my loved ones taken care of for life." Smirking at her brunette better half she eventually snarked,
"Although I have the strangest feeling someone is going to be demanding a personal library at some point so its a damn good thing I have the means for it," the Granger's laughed as Hermione blushed while chiding her for swearing again, all was good with the world. Eventually an incredibly pleased Hedwig landed on the table with a porter house steak in her talons, the group watched in near mystification as the snowy white owl devoured the slab of bloody meat in less then a minute. Proving that she wasn't a proper lady Lilly's familiar belched then landed on her shoulder, before long she passed out occasionally hooting in contentment.
Stroking the hyper sated owls head in amusement Lilly turned back to the Granger's, "Here's the thing, I literally fell into most of this, I'm just a normal person with a rather jaded outlook on life, Hermione keeps me honest and I love her for that on top of everything else she does for me." At that Lilly snorted a bit while rolling her eyes, "Not like she needs me to spoil her now that she claimed her birthright anyhow," silence fell around the table as the adults both looked at Hermione questioningly.
Shrinking in on herself the young lady in question let out a small "eep" under the scrutiny, holding her face in both hands Lilly groaned into her palms before continuing, "You didn't tell them?" Hermione shook her head in the negative and took a few moments to gather her courage, finally she said,
"Mum, Dad, I am now the Lady Granger-Ravenclaw, it ends up that somewhere on mum's side a none magical born to the Ravenclaw line joined the muggle world and eventually led to me, technically speaking we're British Magical Nobility." That opened the floodgates, Lilly lost track of the scary intelligent families conversation so she simply pet her owl and finished her lovely dinner, some sort of consensus was met so the family eventually paid for their meal and left. The next day the Granger's drove them to Diagon Alley despite the girls insistence that they could apparate the lot of them there in an instant, a wasted few hours later the quartet entered the goblin bank of Gringotts.
It was as she expected, completely boring and largely unnecessary for her to be there other then to sign her name, damn did she hate blood quills. The one plus side to this little little lark was she finally got around to withdrawing both the Slytherin and Potter family grimoirs, alot of the spells in her recently acquired summoning book cross refrenced with them so it was for the best.
She and Hermione poured through the books over the next couple days, most of the spells were terrifyingly complex and required quite a bit of power to get off the ground, be it through sex, blood, or sacrificial magic. Some of the truly terrifying rites found in the appendix couldn't even be viewed without spilling blood on the pages, so those stayed happily unread, it wasn't until the following evening that things well and truly got wierd for the Lady of Slytherin.
Lilly was in a dreamscape, of this she was certain of since her last conscious thoughts had her head laying on her lovely Hermione's lap as they discussed what they they were going to buy the Granger's for Christmas. Not being religious in the bloody slightest the gift giving thing meant next to nothing to her aside from her desire to make those she loved happy, Hermione was doing her best to fix that problem and failing horribly.
Really it wasn't the bushy haired beauties fault, when you had been abused your entire childhood and constantly denied even the most basic attempts of care the holidays quite simply didn't mean a damn thing to you. It really wasn't like she thought that there wasn't something greater out their persay, her grimoir's kinda hint at that with the whole "Summoning Daemons and Angels" thing. Her personal belief just happened to be that their was something more out there, it just didn't particularly care about peoples happiness. Thanking God by buying a bunch of worthless shite and shoving it under a dead tree didn't really flush with that mindset, that being said, dreamscape.
As things stood now Lilly was wearing a pair of bicycle shorts and a tank top standing alone in a beautiful pine forest next to a bubbly river, she had no shoes on but she sincerely doubted that mattered, from what she read nothing here was real anyhow so things such as physical discomfort weren't an issue. Following the river she began muttering to herself in annoyance,
"Stupid bloody powers that be dragging me through their bullshit power trips...I guarantee this is supposed to teach me some sort of asinine lesson I won't grasp until well after its pertinent." Eventually finding her way at a bend in the river Lilly noticed that the now roaring waters were clearly dyed a bloody red, eyes shifting up to the shadowed treetops she observed dozens of ravens staring down at her, all in eerie silence.
"O...k... not creepy," moving past Poe's buddies she cleared the tree's and spotted an old women on her knees near the near the stony shore, she was cleaning laundry while singing to herself in ancient Gaelic. Approaching the crone Lilly tried to get her attention,
"'Ello old mum, do you need a hand?" The crone ignored her as she tried to work a blood stain out of the emerald green bodice she held in the water, shrugging Lilly grabbed a grayish blue robe and squatted next to the hag and tried her best to remove similar stains from the garment. After a time the the old woman spoke in English,
"You came to us as a riddle little one, we do not know where to place you, are you a follower of the light, a disciple of the dark, or something in between? You insist you live in the shadows but you protect those you love with a mother bears ferocity yet treat your enemies like chaff, you are...interesting." Smirking Lilly found both garments to be oddly familiar but chose to ignore it in favor of responding,
"I get that a lot, I blame poor upbringing, strong personal morals, and a penchant for getting into trouble, I admit life's become significantly more interesting lately since my...change." Brows knitting together Lilly was finally able to piece together what was going on, and it honestly didn't bode well for her. Sighing in apprehension she asked, "So out of curiosity what did I do to garner the attention of the Morrígan of the Tuatha Dé Danann?" Pausing the old crone began cackling, standing up abruptly she shifted to a small girl with ankle length red hair, reminded Lilly of a pint size Ginny really.
"You are quick, it usually takes mortals much longer to realize that this isn't a simple dream," snorting Lilly stood and tossed aside the bloody robes that she now recognized as Hermione's.
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor she respectfully stated, "When you're dating the smartest witch of the generation who has a compulsion to study everything before her you tend to absorb a bit, plus I've been reading through my family grimoire lately..." with that she trailed off as the little girl shifted into a sultry woman in her late twenties. Sauntering up to Lilly she gently grabbed her by the chin and stared into her eyes, the Morrígan's pupils glowed a faint red as she scanned the girl before her.
Releasing her the venue suddenly changed to a ravaged battlefield scattered with dead bodies and broken weapons, Lilly absently wondered if it was odd the blood and gore caked ground didn't remotely phase her. "That's why you are here actually, you are a generally paranoid woman, I'm sure you didn't think you found your families book of summoning and binding in all that trash by accident." Smirking Lilly nodded in return,
"Yeah kinda figured, once heard dad say 'Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you', my life is proof of fact of that." Changing back into the crone who sat next to an abandoned camp fire she jammed her walking stick into the ground and warily rested her hands and chin on its end,
"Well, as you can guess I may have had something to do with that, you are in the unique position of having no reason to believe in anything and having the power to do much, to put it bluntly you are an unaffiliated summoner and you have no idea how rare those are."
Lilly raised her hands palms out at this, "Hey I only just started reading the thing a month ago, I found some really interesting spells that I can get away with casting since they're classified as family magic and little else. I admit I took a look at some of the summoning rites but the really intriguing ones require a blood sacrifice to just read the damn things," Eyes glowing the crone shifted back to the girl and glared up at the ravenette.
"Do not interrupt me again mortal," wisely snapping her mouth shut and saying nothing else the kid giggled out, "Hehehe, you are smart, you learn quickly, wish there had been more like you in the last thousand years." 'Note to self, terrifying pagan goddess of war is creepy in child form,' seemingly hearing the thought the Morrígan laughed again, "As for not reading further in fear of the blood price, this just further proves your worth to me by showing you are not a fool." Shifting back to the hottie they suddenly appeared before the remains of her parent's home at Godric's Hallow,
"Your mother followed the old ways, not obsessively mind you, but she had her private ceremonies on the solstices as is proper, much of the ancient magics can only be performed by a woman, such as summoning. You unlike you're mother follow no faith, and in doing so you are free to...pick and choose what you can call from the ether, so your lack of affiliation makes you a...desirable ally."
Lilly let out an incredibly intelligent, "Huh, brilliant," which had the Morrígan nod with a succinct "Indeed." Motioning to her mouth to see if it was ok to speak at length she began asking questions,
"So what do I get out of this, what do you get out of this, and why did you bother contacting me of all people? I'm not that special I just have a really weird habit of not dying when I really should." Shifting to the little girl she began skipping around the wreckage of the blown apart house,
"You will get personal training from me on how to handle the magic found in that book while showing you how to not accidently sell your soul in the process, I get an ally who can summon me to the mortal plane at will, and you are special despite how much you insist against it." Smiling coyly she stared up into the night sky before continuing, "You are a child of prophecy, while you don't think it means anything trust me it does, despite how insane or utterly improbable a situation you find yourself in you always manage to not get killed. That dear is because you're bound to the Dark Lord, one of you has to die at the others hand, too bad he's a raging sociopath or you could have made a nice arrangement for free immortality."
Tapping her chin thoughtfully Lilly nodded in agreement, "Yeah was just considering that...bummer, well...ok I suppose I can work this out as long as I'm able to run any contract with you through a solicitor, no offense but I don't trust deals that sound too good to be true," Turning back into the crone she gave out a terrifying cackle in return.
"I knew I liked you, when you come to you'll find the documents at your side, the ceremony necessary to bring me to the mortal plane takes place on the winter solstice so do be quick about it, now off you go!"
When Lillith awoke she groggily looked up into Hermione's angelic face...slowly drooling as her head hung to one side, stifling the chuckle threatening to escape she gently sat up letting the napping woman catch some sleep. 'Well, that was honestly one of the stranger dreams I've had, note to self find out if Mrs. Granger typically spikes the cookies with extra herbs,' with that amusing thought she glanced down at the coffee table and saw a stack of aged documents all written in olde english with a raven in flight at the header. Sighing she scooped up the parchments and readied herself for another trip to Gringotts,
"Finally get proof of a god and she's the embodiment death and war, ugh...think I need to hang out with Bella after this..."