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I suppose I should say that I write this sort of thing multiple times a day. I probably have close to three or four thousand of these 1,000- to 20,000-word files on my laptop. They're not necessarily affiliated with any of my stories in progress, but are ideas which suddenly apparate into my consciousness and refuse to leave until I have typed them in and saved them.
Most of them are, to be perfectly honest, complete and utter trash.
I have decided, however, that I am going to post some of the less putrid pieces so that people know I haven't died. It may also inspire someone to write. Quite frankly, I wish more of my favourite authors would publish their dredge files – those ideas that aren't worthy of the attention to bring them to full stories, but ideas that can potentially inspire yet more budding word smiths to write something with the courage to put it out onto the Internet for the vast, collective masses to read and comment as they will.
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This snippet I plan on turning into a full story. I have quite a bit of the backstory and a rough outline put together. This will be on hiatus until I finish some of my existing outstanding stories, however.
This was inspired by the book and cinematic adaptation of "Firestarter" by Stephen King. John Rainbird, who is played amazingly well by George C. Scott in the film, immediately demonstrated certain traits associated with paedophiles.
It bothered me how fixated Rainbird was on Charlie, played by Drew Berrymore in the film, and how he monitored, watched, and essentially stalked her even when she was entirely under his control. It was chilling to me. Uncle Brian, though he is only mentioned in passing in this story, is the John Rainbird analogue, is a "troubleshooter" for The Tea Shop who has too much freedom and allows his baser psychological tendencies to get the better of him.
Hermione has immensely powerful pyrokinetic abilities caused by a government programme which added supplements to early years foundation stage children and primary school children with certain personality/intellectual traits. This programme was run by The Tea Shop, a black operations, shadow government organisation answerable to none but the executive director of The Tea Shop, the active director of MI6. There are several layers of obfuscation between MI6 and The Tea Shop to allow the Director to maintain plausible deniability.
Unfortunately for all concerned, some of the intellectual and personality traits used to determine the participants in the programme have tended to select first generation magic children, commonly referred to as muggleborns.
Hermione's parents are quite horrified when Hermione first exhibits signs of pyrokinesis and accidental magic but know, as medical professionals, there is no doctor who can fix this sort of thing. Hermione's pyrokinetic outbursts as well as accidental magic come to the attention of The Tea Shop, but every time they do, the purveyors and troubleshooters underestimate her powers and essentially get obliterated (not obliviated) each and every time.
The relief her parents feel with the visit from Professor McGonagall is so great, they almost appear intoxicated or confounded. Minerva actually casts medical diagnostic tests on the two and discovers that no, they're actually that euphorically happy to finally discover a reason they can grasp with their entire beings to explain the reasons their otherwise perfect daughter can do the things she can do. They're more than happy to allow Hermione to go to Hogwarts, ecstatic she will be trained in how to properly use her abilities. Minerva accounts for Hermione's pyrokinetic abilities as just additional manifestations of accidental magic. Minerva is unaware that Hermione has begun training herself in her pyrokinetic abilities.
As with canon, Harry and Hermione meet on the train. At first, she doesn't realise Harry is the Harry Potter she has been reading about and just tries to start a normal conversation with him. She finds out some of the unpleasantness that is Harry's relatives and, in an effort to rein in her abilities, gives her hopefully new friend a bit of an overpowered hug, cracking two of his ribs. When Harry writhes in pain, she realises what she has done and the resulting emotional instability focused on the harm she has caused Harry and the desire to make him feel better causes an accidental magic response that not only heals his ribs, but dislodges the blocks on his magic which Dumbledore placed on Harry in an effort to help him blend in with the Dursleys better.
The dislodging of the blocks on Harry's magic have little effect in the first few weeks of first year. But on Halloween, when Hermione is upset in the girls' loo, having spent the entire afternoon and evening through dinner trying to hold back her powers and keep herself from damaging fragile things like Ron Weasley, Seamus Finnegan, Hogwarts, the country of Scotland, and other flammable objects, and the troll attacks her, Harry's blocks get utterly annihilated when he sees the troll destroying the loo he knows Hermione has chosen as the venue for her pity party.
Neither child is certain who carbonised the troll; the truth is they unconsciously or subconsciously synchronised their magic with Harry's magic directing and containing Hermione's pyrokinetic outburst to eliminating the immediate threat of the troll. Later the reader discovers Harry's magic shunted quite a bit of her outburst to cause a solar storm which caused a coronal mass ejection from the sun nine and a half days later (corresponding to the actual CME on 8-10 November 1991). This is not to say Hermione is supremely powerful yet – think "the butterfly effect".
In her first year, she still doesn't have a complete grasp on her pyrokinetic abilities and, as her irritation mounts as Ron and Seamus are trying to float their feathers and completely buggering the incantation, her abilities only mildly get away from her and their feathers incinerate rather explosively.
There are other, pre-Hogwarts, minor examples of her mistaking her pyrokinetic ability for magic – whenever she uses fire-related spells, she's actually controlling her pyrokinetic abilities – think Snape's robes catching fire at the Quidditch match.
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Story Working Title: When Conflagrations Converge
Chapter Working Title: Deus Ex Exardesco (Inardesco implies being burned versus Enardesco which implies causing something to be burned.)
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Fire.
It was primal. It captivated and terrorised. It created and destroyed. It purified and corrupted. It illuminated and blackened. It comforted and horrified. It was the source of all life and the cause of uncounted deaths.
The power to cause fire was within her. And now she knew this at a conscious level.
Though she shivered in the cold January air, the fire warmed her as it mesmerised her. Her eyes were transfixed on the flickering orange glow intermingled with bright yellow, white, and in some areas, blue flames; all of them consuming what had once been a modest, though well-appointed, manor home.
Her parents each had a hand on her shoulders; concern, exhaustion, numbness, and fear were all etched simultaneously on their soot-stained faces as they warily stood behind her.
"What happened this time, Pumpkin?" her mother asked her.
"Uncle Brian had wanted to play a new game he called 'Pirates and the Princess'", she explained. "He had some of his friends over but I was the only girl."
"He had me dress up in a princess outfit he had bought for me," she continued, which explained to her parents the reason that, under the blanket she had draped around her shoulders, she was dressed only in sheer, periwinkle blue pants which tied up the sides and a matching, sheer bikini top with padding at the wrists and ankles. The emergency services workers had already removed and collected the leather shackles and burned-through ropes, which had covered the padded areas, for evidence.
"He took me down to the basement and tied me down to the bed there. It was all a part of the game," she continued in a chillingly calm, innocent voice; her eyes still focused on the flames.
"I thought only Uncle Brian was going to play, but the other men all came to play, too. And I thought it would be fun because they were all giggling and laughing and smiling and looking at me," she said.
Both parents felt a sudden change in the temperature as their hands noticeably warmed.
"But then Uncle Brian said that in 'Pirates and the Princess' that the men would all get to kiss me and touch me because those were the rules," her gaze finally broke free of the fire and she looked up into her parents' concerned and horrified eyes.
"But I told him that you said only my Mum and Daddy are allowed to kiss me and that no one can touch me anywhere unless I want them to," she looked down into the fire again. Though the fire brigade had been fairly successful in managing the fire, it suddenly surged and billowed outwards. The cars in the manor's courtyard had been turned into burned, melted husks from the intensity of the fire already. The members of the brigade retreated from the now-uncontrolled inferno amongst shouts of panic and fear. The ancient oak tree in the centre of the courtyard exploded into flames.
Somehow the fire apparatus remained only warm to the touch. A large, burning branch of the enormous tree snapped and fell towards the fire crew, one of whom threw his arms over his head in a hopeless effort to save himself as the limb fell to crush him.
As if by some miracle, the inferno-shrouded branch rocketed away and landed amongst the conflagration that had been the manor and sent skyward an enormous plume of embers and flame.
Her parents could hear the anger and determination in her words now. "But he put a hand on me, right here," she said, putting her own hand halfway up her thigh, "and bent down to kiss me."
She looked imploringly into her mother's eyes. "I didn't mean to do it but he was going to kiss me, Mum! Please don't be angry!" she cried and turned around and buried her face in her mother's stomach.
"Mummy's not angry with you, Pumpkin. Uncle Brian wasn't the nice man we thought he was. It's just a good thing Auntie Margaret and Jennifer weren't home," her mother soothed as she rubbed comforting circles in her daughter's back.
"When I came over after school today, Uncle Brian said they were still in Manchester. They've been there all week," the girl said as once more she looked up into her parents' faces.
"Are you angry with me, Daddy?" she asked imploringly.
"No, Kitten. I've no reason to be angry with you. You did what you had to do," he replied. In return he got to experience his daughter's face pushing into his stomach.
She loved it when her daddy called her 'Kitten'. It made her all warm and snuggly inside; like when her mummy called her 'Pumpkin'.
Little eight-year-old Hermione Jean Granger had always known her parents were absolutely the best people on the whole planet, but it was times like this – when she had done something with her abilities they had asked her not to use but they weren't angry at her even when she had to use them – that she knew she was well and truly loved.
Richard and Jean Granger looked at one another. It was difficult to determine what had them more concerned: the extent of their daughter's abilities, or what could have happened to her had she not had them.
Their thoughts were interrupted by a senior constable clearing his throat. "Mr. and Mrs. Granger?" he asked and received slight affirmative nods from Richard and Jean. He then looked down at Hermione before he looked back up at them. He also received a slight nod to his unasked question.
He squatted down to be at eye level with Hermione out of physical reach. He knew children who had been victims or near-victims of molestation rarely wanted strange adults within proximity to be grabbed by them. "And you must be Hermione," he said brightly and received a distrustful glare from the young girl, which caused him to smile.
"Well, I am Senior Constable Brighton. This," he gestured to the young, pretty woman police constable he'd approached with, "is Anne. I would like it if Hermione went to Royal Surrey", meaning Royal Surrey County Hospital, the closest hospital, "to ensure everything is okay. I think it would be best if all of us went to see that Hermione is unharmed and to more fully discuss what happened here today," he explained while he remained squatted at Hermione's height.
He had already been informed by the other constables who had been first on the scene, as well as some of the emergency services personnel, that the girl was quite smart and should not be patronised. He actually looked to Hermione for an answer who, quite rightly, looked up at her parents even as she pushed herself more into her father's embrace.
"I think that would be a good idea," Jean said as her arms protectively encircled her daughter.
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The years went by and the Granger family never realised they were being closely scrutinized by a clandestine government agency.
Needless to say, on 19 September 1990 they and their anonymous watchers were both amazed and flabbergasted when a 1929 Bugatti Royale Type 41 entered the drive and parked in front of the entryway.
In the closest of three vehicles used by field agents from The Tea Shop, a conversation about the vehicle's arrival was being had.
"Isn't SX1314 the same number plate that Team November reported on a similar classic in Little Whinging?"
"I think so. I'll call it in."
"Get the description of the driver."
"Female, Caucasian, forty to fifty years of age, five foot, eight inches tall. Seven or eight stone. Plain, black blouse. Tartan pattern full-length skirt." He took several pictures of her.
Even though they were well hidden, the woman turned and looked directly at them. The agent with the camera had been using a telephoto lens and watched a disapproving mien cross the woman's face just before she looked away.
The agents took several dozen pictures, including pictures of the tread of all four tyres and detailed photographs of every square inch of the exterior of the vehicle. They received a response from their operator to maintain their surveillance on the Granger residence. Another four sets of three tactical, pursuit, and surveillance vehicles were in route to follow the Bugatti when it left.
They had already made four attempts in the past four months to follow this vehicle when it had driven through Little Whinging and each time they had quickly lost track of it. This time, they were determined to not lose it.
"I think she spotted us," the photographer stated.
"Not possible. We're not even visible from that side of the landscaping," the driver replied. "What makes you think that?"
"Just…", he said then hesitated, "…she gave me this look of disapproval or disappointment. I'm not certain which."
"Well, I imagine with four teams being sent that at least one of them is a SAG team," the driver stated with a tone of certainty; SAG being the spoken abbreviation for their special operations-trained Snatch And Grab teams, implying The Tea Shop would be having a conversation with the driver of the Bugatti.
After two hours, the driver of the Bugatti left the manor. The photographer had his camera ready and was certain that, yet again, the woman looked at him with a disapproving scowl. She shook her head before she entered the car.
"Bug Woman on the move," he called out over the radio, informing the nine teams that were now watching the Granger residence that the Bugatti had the same driver as had left the vehicle two hours prior and was now on the move; something all the teams knew, but it never hurt to over-communicate in their business.
The photographer thought something was odd with Jean Granger but he couldn't quite place what the anomaly was until he saw the developed pictures. Although Hermione Jean Granger was almost always smiling when she was with her parents, this was the first time he had ever seen the girl's mother smile, much less have, what would be classified as, an ear-to-ear smile on her face.
What was especially disconcerting for all the teams involved was that, the moment the Bugatti had been out of sight for what should have been just a fraction of a second, it had disappeared without a trace.
And in every photograph taken of the woman, she was not present; as if she was a ghost.
The Tea Shoppe was now most interested in speaking with her.
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