Chapter 14, Parent Night
The next term began uneventfully. Near the end of February, Headmistress McGonagall announced a new addition to Hogwarts traditions in the form of a parent's night. It allowed the parents of all Hogwarts students to meet and mingle as well as to see how their children were doing in school. The first Parent Night was to be held on march eighteenth and invites were sent out to parents in late February. It was to be Parent Night instead of Parent Day because many parents worked during the day. With the function held at night, parents could dine with their children at Hogwarts and not have to miss work. Hydra and Loughness both thought it would be interesting to see how many parents were like their children, especially the annoying ones.
They already knew the parents of their friends, but it would be nice to see them, and being at school, it would present a novelty of sorts. "What are you going to do," Hydra asked Sortia. Their little group of five was sitting out beside the lake the evening of Headmistress McGonagall's announcement. "I mean what with your dad supposedly being dead and you supposedly being a Snape cousin and all."
Sortia shrugged. "Mum is coming. She won't like coming without Daddy, but she'll survive for a few hours." She grinned. "I'm sure she'll make up some excuse about why my dad couldn't make it. We've made up a name for him, he's Grym Snape." She giggled. "Isn't it perfect?"
Hydra nodded, watching in horrified fascination as James shoved three little tea cakes into his mouth at the same time just to impress Guillermo and Loughness.
"Hey if you were a girl that would be super hot," Guillermo said. I mean it means you can handle IT, you know?" Loughness guffawed gleefully and James splattered gobbets of cake all over Guillermo and Sortia, who happened to be in the line of fire.
"Disgusting," Sortia howled, dusting frantically at her Slytherin robes. "OOh now it's on my hands!"
"And it wasn't even a joke that you could appreciate," Hydra told her sympathetically. "That makes it even worse, because you didn't even get a bloody laugh out of it." She gestured to Sortia, performing a cleaning charm that took care of her robes as well as her hands.
Sortia let out a breath. "Thanks. I was so horrified that I didn't even think of reaching for my wand. Stupid of me." She shot James a dark glare.
"It's alright," Loughness said. "Elf magic cleans better than anything you could do anyway."
"Yeah," Guillermo said. "So would one of the half elves in the room kindly do the honors for this poor sticky lad?" He had his wand in his hand, but upon Loughness's words, hadn't bothered to use it.
Hydra sighed and gestured to him, working the cleaning charm once more. "I will in spite of the fact that we aren't in a room."
"Thanks," Guillermo told her warmly. "You're a peach."
"No, I'm an elf," Hydra bit out, then giggled at the idea of a half peach, half elf.
"What are your parents going to do at Parent Night," Sortia asked, glancing between Loughness and Hydra.
Loughness shrugged. "Probably just come together as always. It isn't odd to see them attached at the hip, after all. They won't have to say that Daddy Kreacher is our parent or anything. They'll probably just say that our fake Mum that we don't really have was busy or something." Hydra nodded her agreement, because that did sound like what the Daddies would do.
"And there you and I will be with our painfully normal parents," James said, grinning over at Guillermo who laughed.
"Yep. For sure, we'll never be as cool as those three."
"Okay I get Hydra and Loughness, but how is it cool that everyone believes my dad to be dead," Sortia wondered, shaking her head of long black hair in bafflement at James and Guillermo.
"Because it's cool," James said. "Like former Secret Agent man mysterious and all."
"He just didn't want to blow Albus's cover I think, and wanted to remain with him at Durmstrang," Sortia said with a shrug.
James grinned and began happily singing the old Muggle song, Secret Agent Man, that he'd quite likely heard from Severus's own record collection as the Potions Master was half Muggle. "So a half-elf and half-Muggle walk into a bar," Hydra drawled.
James stopped singing to regard her expectantly. "And," Guillermo asked when she didn't continue.
"I don't know," Hydra laughed. "I was hoping one of you had an idea.
"Is one a boy and one a girl," Loughness asked eagerly. The conversation deteriorated from there. The next few weeks passed without much thought given to Parents Night by the group of friends. When the event finally rolled around, Hydra wasn't prepared for her reaction to what happened at all. She wanted to arrive at the Great Hall a little early to see the set up, curious to see how it was all being arranged. Coming from the Ravenclaw common room, she walked with James and Guillermo.
The tables in the Great Hall were plenty large enough for the parents to sit with their children for the evening meal, and some already were. Hydra was shocked to see a slender pretty young woman with light brown hair that cascaded over her shoulders standing with her hand on Regulus's arm. The two waited near the Slytherin table. Both wore green, with Regulus in fine green and silver dress robes to show himself as a former Slytherin while the woman wore a slinky green evening dress and sharp stiletto heals with dark sunglasses to hide her round blue elf eyes. Daddy Kreacher had clearly opted to come as Echidna, the female persona he and Daddy Regulus once invented to play a joke on Severus and Mag.
They'd since adopted the guise for any time that Regulus needed to produce a wife. Apparently they considered tonight one of these times, Hydra thought, feeling the color draining from her face. She should've expected this, so why did it bother her so much? Well as they were both in green, standing at the Slytherin table, they'd likely sit with Loughness, so she may not even have to interact much. Hydra moved stiffly to her chair with James and Guillermo following. "I bet my parents will be late," James said. "They're always working late."
"Crap! Here mine come now," Guillermo said. "I'll be back. They'll want to drill me with twenty questions about everything to make sure I'm doing what I should and all that rubbish, so I am letting them get that out of their system before we start eating." He hurried away as James slid into his chair.
"What? Does he have strict Spanish parents or something," James wondered.
"His Mum is American," Hydra murmured back. "I don't think they're that strict." She was still staring in uncomfortable shock at her parents.
"What's happening," James hissed into her ear. "You look ill. Who's the hot woman with Regulus? And where's Kreacher? I had something to talk to him about." Hydra choked, then began to laugh. Upon starting, she found that she couldn't stop.
"Hydra! Do behave. People are staring." The breathy voice put Hydra vaguely in mind of a British Stevie Nicks, but it wasn't a British Stevie Nicks. It was Daddy Kreacher playing at being a woman because he and Daddy Regulus didn't want anyone to know about their half elf children. She turned, giving Echidna a dark glare.
"I was laughing, because James thinks you're hot," she snapped peevishly. Daddy Kreacher snickered.
"Sorry, Ma'am," James spluttered to Echidna before shooting a dark look at Hydra.
"Oh don't be," Hydra told him. "It's really quite funny. Later when I can explain why, you shall surely agree. Or perhaps not." She tittered again. It was all just too much in the worst, most upsetting of ways!
Echidna drew herself up and gave Hydra a hard look. It's effect was somewhat ruined by the dark sunglasses. "Hydra shall behave this instant," Echidna/Kreacher snapped.
"I knew she couldn't last," Hydra told James. "She can never speak normally, you see. It's always like an elf, because elves apparently raised her." Hydra rolled her eyes in open disgust. "At least it's the story they came up with to cover HER speech slip ups. This is Echidna Black, my mother."
James choked, staring at Kreacher in horror as the true implications of Hydra's words dawned on him. Hydra couldn't help smiling as she watched the horror blooming on James's face over saying that Kreacher was hot. Somehow this defused the moment, for Daddy Kreacher gave a chuckle as well as he slid into the seat on Hydra's other side.
"Regulus and I shall take turns sitting with you and Loughness," Kreacher/Echidna said carefully. Hydra could practically hear his struggle to remain in the proper tense. "We shall exchange places when the meal is half way over."
"Want to eat," Hydra asked. "The food is delicious and the Hogwarts elves are the best cooks ever. Far better than Daddy's silly elf Kreacher." Hurt then anger flickered over Kreacher's currently human, feminine face and Hydra felt satisfied. He'd hurt her by not acknowledging in any way, even by showing up as himself, that she was half elf, so a bit of turn about was only fair. Even though Kreacher could no longer eat, insults from anyone about his impeccable cooking would always get a reaction.
"Echidna already ate earlier," Echidna said. "The food here is not satisfactory. Indeed Dear Kreacher does cook far better. There is no accounting for Hydra's taste of late."
"Watch your tenses," James whispered, and Kreacher gave him a grateful if fleeting smile.
"James is a good boy... You are a good boy," Echidna corrected herself carefully.
"How'd you do that," James asked, face full of avid curiosity. He gestured to Echidna sitting in the chair, indicating the change from elf man to human woman.
Kreacher/Echidna smiled. "Transfiguration, of course. James should know that. He is a smart boy."
"Give up," Hydra told James before he could bother correcting Daddy Kreacher's tenses. "He'll try, then forget." Fortunately no other students were trying to interact with them. Their little group of friends tended to stick to themselves, so no one really bothered trying to mingle with them. Tonight that was definitely a blessing.
As Hydra and James ate, Echidna chatted with them, asking about their classes and such. As she did, her gaze traveled in open interest over the other parents. Her expression behind the sunglasses was speculative, and Hydra wondered if the Daddies were applying their vamp mind-reading skills to see which parents were likely to view the upcoming revolution with favor and which would not. "OOh I had an idea I wanted to share with you, Kr...Ur Miss Echidna," James said, leaning eagerly across Hydra to address Kreacher. "I thought of making study cookies to sell. You know, they'd be enhanced with charms for concentration and memory and perhaps mental expansion. Like a little nibble of Ravenclaw's Diadem or something. People love to snack when they study, so they can use my cookies to help them learn."
Echidna smiled, nodding. "That is a brilliant idea. James is... YOU are a very smart boy. Don't sell them cheap." The words were spoken carefully, as once again, Daddy Kreacher clearly considered each word as he spoke so that he may speak it correctly as a human would.
James's face broke into a proud grin, clearly overcome that Kreacher liked his idea. He'd adored Kreacher's cooking from the first time he'd come to visit Loughness and Hydra some years back over the holidays, and ever after he'd asked the elf questions about cooking. Kreacher, impressed with James's love of food and skill with charms, gladly answered, willingly sharing anything the boy wanted to learn. He approved of James's unique ideas when it came to combining food with enchantments. He called it art, and on that Hydra agreed. Just at present she was too angry and upset to appreciate the exchange.
"I'm not hungry," she said. "James, you can sit with my Mum. I... I can't." She didn't know what she'd planned to say, but tears were suddenly stinging at the back of her throat as she fled The Great Hall. She had to get out of there. That was all.