Chapter Twenty One:

When the members of Enuma Gremory's Peerage returned to Hogwarts, it was in the middle of the night. While the Underworld wasn't a place on Earth and was rather ambiguous in regards to its time zone, Hermione Granger knew that she and the others had been there celebrating Yule with Enuma's family for a few hours before they decided to return to Hogwarts, even if Enuma seemed reluctant to leave and would have preferred to stay and spent the night at home in her own bed. Shalltear didn't really seem to mind either option.

It was because of the fact that the three Devils had arrived way past the curfew inside Enuma and Shalltear's room that they decided to essentially have a sleepover. Pulling out one of the many inflatable futons that the King of the Peerage had brought with her but never had a reason to use. The minor problem that Enuma didn't realize until after she had inflated the futon was that the one she had brought out was one of the bigger ones, easily fitting more than one person on it. In fact, all three of them could fit on it, once Shalltear had shape-shifted into her eleven year old form, with more than enough room left for their Familiars to join in and snuggle with their owners as well. When Shalltear suggested that all three of them simply went to sleep on the futon in a small pile, the hexagon eyed girl was a bit hesitant about it at first before changing her mind due to her coming to realize that it could be used as a way to build trust between herself and her King, who didn't seem to be against the idea.

Based on what the Demon-Ship had been told and seen, her King had issues, especially in regards to being touched and trusting people. Enuma's trust and the right to touch her was something that was earned. When Hermione asked Shalltear how she could win Enuma's trust, the Queen of the Peerage told her bluntly that there wasn't an easy way to gain their King's trust. The main reason why the Vampire had managed to become a confidant to Enuma was because she had made the effort to not only gain her King's respect and trust, but also prove herself to her King that she could trust her by sharing her tale in its entirety, both the things she was proud of and the things she wasn't, trusting her King to keep her lips sealed and not share what she knew without permission, unless it was absolutely necessary for others to know. As a sign of trust that Shalltear wouldn't talk unless absolutely necessary or had been given her permission, Enuma shared her own tale to her Queen. While she couldn't help but feel a little annoyed by the answer, Hermione's annoyance was quenched by Shalltear stating that a good start towards earning their King's trust was simply being honest and letting Enuma know that she could trust her. Another thing that the Vampire said could help trust to be forged between the Demon-Ship and her King would be finding common ground, which was (surprisingly) in the case of the Bloody Valkyrie stand up comedy that revolved around multiple people or characters making jabs at each other until one of them ran out of jabs and/or comebacks. One of Enuma's favorites was a ventriloquist and his dummies, which included a grumpy old man and… the skeleton of a very incompetent suicide bomber.

Once the three members were laying on the futon, two of the three were out like a light in seconds, namely Hermione and Enuma, unintentionally making a rather adorable scene with the redhead unconsciously snuggling up against her Knight in her sleep, which Shalltear was quick to snap on her phone… before promptly dropping it when she lost her grip of her mortal enemy. The Vampire went to sleep beside the other two with a sigh of frustration as the phone slid in under her bed when she tried to grab it.