Chapter Text
Slowly rising from the depths of oblivion, the feeling beginning to return to her fingers and toes. She grunted before rolling over and curling into herself more tightly - hugging her knees to her chest with her arms. Something about the atmosphere surrounding her didn't seem quite right. . . cautiously, she opened one of her eyes and quickly scanned the room she was in. She felt her heart rate begin to speed up as she realized that she was completely unfamiliar with her surroundings.
Awareness came to her in an instant, this was not within her comfort zone, this was strange and in many ways very frightening. What had happened - how had she gotten here - where was here - why was she. . .? Wait, who was she? So many thoughts scrambled to the surface of her mind in that moment, that a thin film of perspiration began to form on her brow. Fear was setting in and there was nothing she could do to stop it, no comforting words or thoughts, nothing reassuring came to mind. . . She had no idea what was going on anymore.
Saint Peters Home for Orphaned Children, she soon discovered, was the name of the place she had woken in several months ago. The building itself was nothing more than a decrepit grey little hovel that was clearly on it's last legs; it reeked of despair and desperation, it wafted from the facility in droves, seeming to do little more than aid in the melancholy experienced by all the inhabitants living there. The orphanage had been run by a convent of nuns — all handpicked by the monsignor himself — where each of them were charged with minding the orphans that resided there. And the fifteen stocky, severe looking nuns took great pleasure in running the care of the thirty-eight orphans living there. They ruled with an iron fist and the orphans were expected to abide by all the rules, and worship god for all he was worth, because god was supposedly "the father of all orphans," according to the words of Sister Eunice. Each of the children were expected to bend to their desires and be — for all intents and purposes — ideal residents. Which was how she found herself in this particular predicament.
It felt like it had been forever since they had returned home from the zoo, and she wondered just how long they intended to keep her here in this disgusting forgotten bedroom. When Sister Mary tossed her in here, her first thought had been, surely they didn't mean for a three year old to stay the night in this derelict unkempt bedroom. . . That had been about three nights ago. She thought they would let her out when it came time for supper in the very least, but she was mistaken. Her meal had been delivered to her that evening, by a sneering nun, that looked at her as if she were the devil himself - horns and all. She didn't understand what she had done to deserve the woman's ire, aside from the strange incident that had occurred that afternoon when they returned home from the zoo. She didn't understand what had happened, one moment Sister Eunice was hauling her up by her arm, trying to cart her off to the Mother Superior's office to tell her of what she had witnessed at the zoo.
Scared of being sent to the chapel room - a room that she'd heard about from one of her roommates, where the nuns forced the children to "pray". When she had first arrived, she had no idea what the other child meant, having never prayed to anything before in her life, as far as she could remember. But when one of the girls returned from a prayer session, bloody and limping with knees so raw and mangled she had begun to believe that the girl had been attacked by an animal. When she asked the girl what happened, she laughed in her face and told her to wait her turn to ask for the lord's forgiveness. Knowing what would be awaiting her in that office, she panicked and wished to be free of this situation; and the next thing she knew, Sister Eunice had fallen down the stairs and broken her ankle. Before she could process anything else, the injured woman had screamed for assistance and yelled to the first woman that came to her aid that she had somehow manage to knock her down the stairs by way of an invisible force.
Needless to say, she never made it to the Mother Superior's office. Instead, she had been tossed into this filthy decrepit room without another thought. She peered out the window and looked at the moon, it was full and in the next coming days it would begin to wane - decreasing in size until it appeared as nothing more than a small crescent in the sky. As she continued gazing out at the moon her mind wandered back to that snake at the zoo. It said that it knew her. . . The snake had spoken with her. Logically she knew it had to be impossible, yet it had felt entirely natural, almost as if she had done it before. Her mind quickly shifted gears as she heard the howl of the wind as it began to shake the glass in the window pane - forcing her to think about just how cold it was in this room. She could feel the chill of the spring night air as it bled through the glass of the uncovered window of the attic bedroom she was currently locked in. She longed for a comforter, a blanket, a sheet, anything to help mildly shield her from the cold in the room, but she doubted that she would be getting one anytime in the near future especially if the past two nights had been any indication. She unraveled her arms from around her body, and flexed her chilled fingers. Feeling the goose pimples immediately as they broke out across the surface of her bare arms.
Shivering, she stood from the thin mattress, hating that the nuns had placed it directly beneath the window as she began to walk towards the thick oak door on the opposite side of the room. She lent forward and lowered her head so that she could be eye level with the brass back plate of the aged brass mortice lock securing the door to the frame. She slowly peaked out through the tiny keyhole provided there and saw that the hall beyond the door was dark, just as she feared. Now she knew for certain that she was doomed to spend another evening here. Angrily, she stomped back over to the window, wondering what she had done to deserve being placed here. Sure this place was supposed to be for orphaned children, and she had apparently been abandoned here in the middle of the night, but she definitely couldn't have been so terrible that her parents would hate her enough to abandon her. Not for the first time, Hermione went to sleep with tears in her eyes, just wishing she could have the opportunity to turn the tables on those in charge of her. . .
Her second discovery, had been that she had arrived here without a first name. So she had been given a name her first week there, by one of the older nuns - Sister Helen - just before the woman passed away the following week. She'd settled on the name Hermione Jean, and as she grew, she began to wonder just why the woman had settled on that name? She wondered if the woman had been a fan of Greek mythology at some point in her life, and if she named her as such, simply because her name was Helen - the same as the ethereal wife of King Menelaus - and she venerated Greek mythology almost as much as she did the virgin Mary. She laughed quietly at her own private joke, wondering just how accurate she could be with her thoughts. Her name was unique though, which was something she could appreciate the late nun for. But as she grew older, she soon realized that it was more than just her name that made her different from the other children. It was as if, the more she grew the more she began to stand out. Not that she was bothered by that fact. . .
In fact, Hermione Jean Delird had always been immensely proud to showcase her differences, constantly looking for more and more ways to show off just what she could do. She was hyper intelligent for a child her age; though that was mainly due to her insatiable hunger for knowledge in combination with her eidetic memory. At only seven years old, Hermione had already managed to perfect her penmanship to the point of it being borderline calligraphy, and her intelligence had made her something of a prodigy in the school she was forced to attend. With her literacy skills far surpassing that of even the oldest of residents in the orphanage and her skill in mathematics was superior enough to put a few of her teachers to shame - even on her worst day. She was proud of herself and her mental capacity, especially being surrounded by such dunderheads all the time, though no one else seemed to really acknowledge her intellect aside from herself, due to their fear of her other extraordinary talents.
Ever since that day at the zoo, three months prior to her fourth birthday, she had begun to discover that she had developed newfound powers. Powers that enabled her to be able to make the impossible happen. Things like, knocking people down the stairs without ever laying a hand on them, the same way she had done Sister Eunice that very first day her powers began to show, or being able to make inanimate objects hover in the air and fly into her hands with nothing more than a mere glance. Though Hermione had to admit that the most impressive of her abilities however, were not the ones she had pertaining to her telekinesis, but the ones she had in regard to animals. She had the ability to control them. . . with just the slightest bit of focus and a little eye contact, Hermione had the ability to make them do what ever she wished, jump, dance, or even attack if the animal was frightening enough. But even better than that, in her opinion was her ability to talk to and understand snakes.
She could vividly recall the very first time she had ever held a conversation with a snake. It was a green anaconda she had come into contact with when the nuns decided to "treat" the children by taking them to the London Zoo on a trip to see god's many creations. She remembered being completely enthralled with the snake, staring at the beautiful markings lining it's smooth scales before moving over to read it's description card. The card said it was called "Spike" and that he was 8.8 meters long with a girth of nearly 30 centimeters and weighed approximately 227 kilograms, making it one of the heaviest snakes in recorded existence. She looked at the name one more time, thinking he didn't really look like much of a Spike, before turning around to face him once more. And then the most curious thing in the world had happened, the snake had slithered closer to the glass and reared up - looking her square in the eye.
For a moment, she could recall feeling as though she was being placed under an extraordinarily intense form of hypnosis, before it began to hiss at her through the glass and a sharp sudden pain began to fire off behind her left eye. She had fallen flat onto her arse, clutching the front of her head in pain at the sudden jolt to her mind. Unsurprisingly, no one had come to assist her, and she sat on the floor, nursing her achy head for a while before she could hear a soft almost inaudible voice whispering to her, asking her if she was okay. She looked around quickly, trying to ascertain where the voice had come from when she noticed that no one else seemed to be around her. Shakily, she stood to get a better look at her surroundings when she noticed that she was almost entirely alone - everyone from the orphanage was no longer in sight and there were about three other people looking around the exhibit.
"Are you alright?" she heard the voice whisper again and she whipped her head around swiftly, trying to catch where it had come from. When she saw no one, standing within her immediate vicinity, she became alarmed, wondering if there was perhaps a ghost haunting this exhibit. It was ridiculous, she knew, but she couldn't imagine how else it could have been possible.
"Hello?" she asked, whipping her head from side to side as she did so.
"Over here." the voice whispered again, this time coming from her left side where the green anaconda exhibit was located.
She turned her head slowly towards the exhibit, noting that the snake was now perched up against a log near the front of the glass, staring straight at her.
"Yes, over here," it whispered again. "Come here. . ."
She hesitated for a moment, but remembered that there was glass separating her from this massive snake, though she somehow inherently knew that it wouldn't hurt her. Hermione approached the glass, looking at the snake again before whispering back.
"S- Spike?" she had questioned, "Is that you talking to me right now?" she asked and the snake bobbed it's head from side to side, in what she assumed to be excitement?
"Spike," it scoffed, "My name is Fídi!" it exclaimed in a voice much louder than before as it slithered closer to the glass, "I just knew from your look, that you were her."
"Her?" She questioned, going closer to the glass. "Who exactly do you think I am?" she queried, but before the snake could respond, she felt a vice like grip on her arm. Her head snapped towards the offending extremity with disdain before looking up to see who owned it.
Sister Eunice.
"I knew there was always something wrong with you." she sneered down at her. "And now I have my proof."
"I have no idea what you are talking about," Hermione lied glibly, not wanting to be punished by this idiot of a woman.
Unimpressed with her lie, Sister Eunice roughly pulled her closer, staring her straight in the eye, "You look here, you little devil child. I saw what you were doing." She snapped, "I SAW you talking-
She was cut off by the sound of a loud THUNKING noise, and they both turned to find the anaconda ramming itself against the glass, in an obvious attempt to break it. All the while, Hermione could hear it going on in a fit of rage where she could only make out a few words and phrases. "How dare you!" She heard it hiss, as well as, "Muggle filth", "Mistress Maleficent," and "swore to protect Morgana."
As soon as a hairline fracture appeared on the surface of the glass, Sister Eunice yanked her away from the anaconda and out of the reptile exhibit. That had been the beginning of everything for her. The beginning of the manifestation of her abilities. The beginning of the harsh abuse she endured at the hands of the nuns running the orphanage. The beginning of her life as she currently knew it.
The event had marked the beginning of when the nuns and other children began to try to make her life as miserable as physically possible. The nuns seemed to find a sick kind of pleasure in the cruel punishments they conjured up, where they would force her to kneel before a horrendously grotesque looking crucifix on top of "blessed" rock salt, while they doused her in holy water and made her pray for hours on end for 'forgiveness', or caning her arse until it felt about as raw as a package of mince meat. But to be honest, Hermione actually preferred those archaic forms of discipline over the other punishment the nuns tended to favor, which was something she fondly referred to as "The Abyss". Which was the cold, dark, moldy smelling attic they would lock her in for days on end, where she would sometimes go without a single crumb of food or even a tiny sip of water, and nothing more than a thin mattress without a stitch of bedding, and a medium sized bucket delegated to her for her lavatory needs until the nuns deemed her repentant of her past actions. At least the other two forms of punishment, had the added benefit of being over the very same day, with the Abyss, she never knew just how long she would be locked in there.
Due to the nuns constantly punishing her, she had come to be considered something of a pariah among the rest of the orphans. Which as a result made her the recipient of much of their un-verbalized ire as well. She knew their vexation with her was derived from living in the undemonstrative, repressive environment of St Peters, but that didn't make her feel any better about being on the receiving end of it all. They wanted her to conform to the ideals of the orphanage, and the more she resisted, the more it seemed that they all hated her. Before she was able to grasp a full handle on her powers some of the children would try and steal her few humdrum belongings that she'd arrived with - which consisted of a rather luxurious looking black, green and silver cashmere throw blanket and a silk child sized nightdress. When that didn't work, the bigger, older children would then attempt to make her do their bidding, and the truly foolish ones would stupidly try to physically hurt her when she wouldn’t comply. That all changed though, once she gained more control over her abilities, because even though the children still considered her to be different, they now considered her to be dangerous as well. So instead of hating her and wanting to do her harm, the other children now feared her enough to want to avoid her and it was for good reason at that. She was different. But everyone else saw her as something far worse she was an aberration, a freak, and the child of Satan himself, if she was to believe the whispers of some of the sisters in charge of minding them.
For five long, long years Hermione had lived under the harsh reign of the nuns and for a little over four years of that time, she had spent it surviving their attempts to exorcise the devil from her. One of the worst times being when at age four - just a few months after her birthday - Sister Eunice caught her outside talking to a grass snake that she found out there when she was looking for alone time away from the other kids, or when the Mother Superior's habit had begun to suffocate her when her 'demon power' had caused the woman's habit to begin constricting around her, tightening and tightening until the woman finally released her as she began gasping for air. Both incidents ended with Hermione being thrown into the Abyss for two weeks straight, and the Mother Superior caning her so hard she was unable to sit down on her arse for well over a week in retribution for the latter.
Hermione had had to be clever, cunning, vindictive, and extraordinarily ruthless, in order to survive her daily life in the orphanage, but even that was not enough. Not after yesterday night as her knees started to bleed under the weight of her body, when she had been knelt before that crucifix for a well over five hours. It was there, that she finally decided that she was going to use her talent to get herself adopted. She started out by practicing more and more on the animals that wandered into the yard, making them do physical tasks like running back and forth or in laps around the yard. After that she moved up to controlling a few of the children in the orphanage every now and again. Making them do her chores, like cleaning the kitchen or making the beds. She didn't want to risk trying it on any of the nuns though, so she didn't know how effective it would be on an adult, but she was willing to give it a try nonetheless.
Hermione found herself staring at the shadow of the common lime tree from the yard out back, as it danced and swayed over the surface of the paint chipped walls in the bedroom she was currently locked in. Nothing but the thin mattress in the corner and a black leather bound bible - courtesy of Sister Eunice - to keep her company. She reluctantly had to admit that this room was at least better than the Abyss. The room had a bed that wasn't as thick as a sheet of paper, not to mention that it also had a sheet as well, no matter how thread bare it was. She was just happy to finally be free of the Abyss, though she knew it was only a matter of time before she found herself back in there. Which was the reason why Hermione decided to devote all of her time and energy into finding a way to get out of this god forsaken orphanage. She was going to get adopted out of here, if it was the last thing she did. She couldn't bear another day hulled up in that cold dank attic all because of these ridiculous religious zealots surrounding her. Hermione walked up to the sunlit window and looked out over the other children running around and playing. She couldn't lie about the fact that she was extremely envious of the freedom they had, the freedom to be themselves without fear of repercussion.
Angry, she turned on her heel abruptly, and marched away from the window, furious with them for their ability to run around and be children, while she had to be locked away in her room and shunned from society. She wasn't jealous of their childish meaningless games of tag or hide and seek though, what she truly envied was their ability to simply just be, without any fear of consequence or punishment. Though she did have to admit that if she did have the opportunity to truly be herself, it probably wouldn't be the nicest affair for all those involved. Hermione knew she had a darkness in her, one that made her relish in the fear that her power caused in those around her. Shaking her head, she tried to clear it of her previous thoughts, for they were certain to get her in trouble. After all, her thoughts were what got her locked up this latest time- when she had let them influence her actions, once again, only to be caught by Sister Eunice using her secret powers to punish the kids she hated the most. Monica Wilks and Kenneth Hindman, the only two children that still somehow refused to see her as the predator that she was.
The day in question had started normal enough. She had risen bright and early with the rest of the orphans, before eating her minuscule breakfast then set to work on the chores for the day. Quickly, she washed the breakfast dishes, before running upstairs to make the beds, after-which she went outside to spend some time relaxing in the garden - and hopefully come across her little friend Suge. She loved the garden for that one reason, it was filled with grass snakes, the only creature it seemed, that was willing to befriend her in any meaningful way. Just after she stepped outside and approached her favourite rose bush, Suge came slithering out from beneath the bush and began hissing at her in a familiar tone which she recognized immediately. Looking around to check for the presence of the nuns or any of the other orphans, Hermione turned back to the snake and began to respond.
"Hello there, little one." she hissed in a low whisper, "Come to find me again, have you?"
"Yes of courssssse," the snake hissed back, "I've been waiting for you to return."
"Oh have you now?" Hermione questioned, curious as to why the snake had been waiting for her.
"Oh yesssss mistress, Suge has been waiting a long time for you to come back outside and pay her a visit."
"I'm sorry you've been waiting for me for so long Suge." Hermione said, while bending down to run a hand fondly over the snake's back. "My ability to come outside, is somewhat out of my control, but I promise I'll try and make it my business to come out here and see you as often as I can."
"Suge would like that very much misstress," the snake hissed back.
"Suge, may I ask you a question?" Hermione queried as she lowered herself to sit down on top of the grass, right next to the snake, and continued to brush her fingertips delicately over it's smooth scales as she recalled the memory from four years ago, when she had attended that life changing trip to the zoo. That was the first time she had ever heard a snake refer to someone as 'Mistress'. The snake hissed out a yes and she decided to take advantage of it's complacency and ask the question that had recently begun to plague her. "Why is it that you call me mistress Suge? This isn't the first time that I've heard that, how shall I put this. . . term of endearment."
The snake chuckled, actually chuckled, in response before answering, "It's a term used by serpents when we're speaking with a parselmouth."
Parselmouth Hermione lifted a brow at the unfamiliar word, before delving even deeper.
"And what exactly is a parselmouth?" She wondered aloud to the snake.
"A parselmouth is a person like you. A person that can speak the language of snakes." it hissed as it slithered across the grass and into her lap.
"Are there many people out there in the world that can do what I do?" she hurriedly asked, eager to know if there were more people in the world like her
"Not these days, there are -
But before Suge could finish her sentence, Hermione heard the sound of someone clearing their throat. With an annoyed eye-roll, she looked up to meet the mocking eyes of Kenneth Hindman and his simpering sidekick Monica Wilks.
"Look who finally made a friend." the older boy said with a sneer.
Monica laughed before adding, "Now you know they're the only creatures willing to befriend a freak like her, Kenny."
"Sod off," she sneered in response to the bullying teens. "Can't you idiots see that I'm in the middle of something?"
"I'm in the middle of something," Kenneth mocked her, causing his air headed sidekick to laugh at his painfully unfunny joke. "What are you trying to do exactly Delird? Convince that snake to slither up your cunt like the fucking weirdo you are." he said with a smug smile, clearly pleased by his crude attempts at humor. The girl beside him released another shrill cackle in response, the sound drawing Hermione's attention to the girl for a moment before drawing her eyes back to the older boy.
"No Kenneth, I'm trying to convince this snake to slither up your cunt." Hermione said with a smirk, while keeping her eyes trained on the dumb blond boy. "Why don't you go on and bend over just a bit now Kenneth, I promise she'll be gentle."
"I ain't no damn poof, you stupid little bitch." he hissed, cheeks blushing at the insinuation.
"Doesn't look that way to me," she said with a shrug before looking back down at the snake and beginning to talk to her once more.
"You really are a weird little bitch, aren't you Delird?" Monica said viciously, "Just look at you, sitting outside and talking to snakes? What the bloody hell is wrong with you?"
Never taking her eyes away from the snake, Hermione fluidly switched from parseltongue to English and continued speaking, "Don't you have a broom closet you need to be off to, in order to perform your hourly services, Monica?" she said in a low tone, "I know your clients will be quite lonely without that big, lovely mouth of yours to keep them company."
"Services?" the girl nearly shrieked. "How dare you —
"How dare I, what, exactly?" Hermione questioned viciously. "All I'm doing is reminding you that your services aren't needed here Monica, especially seeing as how I haven't got a cock for you to fellate." she said before turning her head to look at the older boy, "And you, it's not exactly my fault your dad beat your mother to death before shooting himself in the face, so I don't see why you feel such a ridiculous desire to project your previous filial dysfunctions on me. Now run along before I make you regret your decision to approach me today."
She watched as the boys face flushed with anger, clearly upset with her for knowing so much of his family life before he'd arrived here in Saint Peters two years ago. He took a few angry steps toward her, mouth opening slightly to grit out the words, "Why don't you come and make us run along, you demon possessed little cunt!"
She held back the bubble of laughter that began making it's way up her throat at that comment, wondering whether or not he knew that she no longer found that shite to be offensive. In fact, she took the accusation as a compliment these days, no longer bothered by the fact that these people saw her as inherently evil. Though she had to admit, that they weren't entirely wrong with that assumption. She would gladly kill any of the inhabitants of the house, just so long as she could watch their suffering, and catalogue how long it took for them to die. The grass snake in her lap hissed in response, and even though it wasn't a venomous snake, she could see that it's hiss still had the desired affect when Kenny faltered in his steps.
"What you gonna do, Delird? You gonna try and sic your pet snake on us?" he questioned, seeming to find more confidence in himself as he looked over and assessed the snake, and took another step forward. "Well, newsflash little girl, your pathetic little snake isn't gonna do anything. Hell, the thing isn't even poisonous."
Before he could get a step closer, Hermione simply raised her hand in a well practiced manner and watched in poorly hidden glee as the older boy was tossed three meters across the yard and directly into the trunk of a large common lime tree. His head made a sickening sound as it cracked against the base of the tree and Hermione felt thoroughly pleased by the sound. It was always lovely to hear the sounds of the people she loathed, when she finally had them on the receiving end of her vengeance.
"What the hell did you do to him, you. . . you. . freak!" Monica screeched before running over to her fallen friend.
Hermione continued to watch the scene unfold with a satisfied smirk as the insolent girl dropped to her knees and began to fawn over the unconscious boy. She looked around the yard once more and saw a few of the other children standing off in a group, glancing over at the scene every few moments before turning back and talking with each other once more. With a sigh, Hermione knew that her time outside had come to an end, and wanting to avoid another round of discipline from the nuns, Hermione gently slid the snake from her lap and hissed for her to go beneath the bushes. Just as she went to stand, her arm was wrapped in the all too familiar grip of someone she knew far too well, so she wasn't surprised when she looked up to meet the cold hard eyes of Sister Eunice.
Hermione couldn't help the bitter sigh that escaped her mouth, as she reflected on the events of that day. She knew she had been careful, so very very careful, but Kenneth and Monica just couldn't keep their big fat noses out of her business. And Sister Eunice - the woman that had harbored a special dislike for her ever since that day at the zoo - was always there, trying to catch her slipping. Which was how she managed to catch her speaking with yet another one of her snake friends. An event that led her to spending two and a half weeks in the Abyss, with only the angry growls from her stomach to keep her company.
She hated this place, gods, how she hated every thing about it. She hated the stiff overly starched sky-blue uniforms that the nuns forced them to wear - how they stood out in sharp contrast to the dull lifelessness of the orphanage itself, giving off the image of false happiness. She hated how the teachers at the school that she was forced to attend, never seemed to challenge her enough and scorned her for the calibre of intelligence she held. She hated the endless hours of ridiculous praying, to the Sisters magic sky daddy, who didn't seem to care that he'd orphaned a bunch of children and doomed them to a life of pain and adversity, as if that weren't ludicrous enough on it's own. She hated the other children. But what she hated most of all were the nuns in charge of running the orphanage. She wanted nothing more than to see them all suffer, and longed for the day when she would finally be able to exact her revenge on them all.
Hermione heard the toll of the bell, the one that summoned the children when prospective parents came along to have a look around at them, looking for whichever one they deemed worthy enough to adopt. She took a deep shuddering breath, ready to put her powers to the test as she left her room and headed down the stairs. She tried to imagine how she would do this. . . hoping it would be as easy as it was when she used her powers on the few children she had practiced on here in the orphanage. She would simply make eye contact with them - as she had with the other children - and make them bend to her will. Just as she had with her practice dummies, she would slip into their subconscious and make them do exactly what she wanted, like performing her chores or purposefully getting themselves in trouble to take the attention off of herself every once in a while. But in this case, she would be using her ability to influence the mind of an adult - making them decide to do something they more or less weren't going to do. She didn't know how this first attempt would turn out, but she knew she had to try anyway. Manipulating these people was going to be the only way she was able to escape this horrendous hell hole. She knew it. Either she worked her arse off and accomplished this goal, or run away. Those seemed to be her only two options when it came down to freedom. She made it to the front hall with all the other "tender aged" children, as the Sisters called them. Sister Eunice shot her a withering look, as they waited for all the other children to arrive. Once the very last child stepped into formation, Sister Eunice brought out a rather plain looking couple, the woman was short and thin with plain brown hair that was as straight as a bone. And her face was shivering with trepidation. Next to her stood a regular looking man with hair that was thinning at the top, and on his face sat a pair of thick lensed glasses.
"Children," said sister Eunice, "These are the Grangers. They're looking to adopt one of you sweet young babies."
Hermione wanted to roll her eyes at the woman's words, but she kept still, staring at this Mrs. Granger with a concentration that would undoubtedly leave her nursing a migraine. But if it worked, it would be a migraine that was well worth the effort it took to get it. She stared at the woman until the woman noticed her, and once she had, Hermione lured her into a trance. Shouting in her mind as her eyes stayed locked on the older woman's eyes.
YOU'RE GOING TO ADOPT ME, she chanted in her mind. YOU'RE GOING TO ADOPT ME, she chanted again, and again. She kept chanting it until she saw the woman's eye's visibly glaze over. The woman's attention never left Hermione until her husband nudged her arm and leaned over to whisper in her ear. In that moment Hermione wished that her abilities included super human hearing, because she would LOVE to hear what they were saying to one another. It wasn't until Mrs. Granger lifted her hand and pointed in Hermione's direction, that she discovered that her power worked just as well on adults as it had on the children.
"I want her," she heard the woman say clearly.
"You, what?" Sister Eunice scoffed. "Are you sure you don't want to keep looking? This child is rather-
"No." the woman said firmly. "I'm going to adopt her." she said voice airy and dream-like, echoing Hermione's earlier chant.
"Oh. . . Okay." Sister Eunice said while guiding them back to the Mother Superior's office. "If you'll just follow me, I'll take you back to the office, where you can begin filling out the paperwork."
Hermione stood there perplexed for a moment before a big shit eating grin spread across her face. She'd done it. She'd actually done it. She couldn't believe it, but as she watched the Grangers disappear behind the door to the Mother Superior's office, she took off up the stairs to start packing her belongings. She was finally leaving this hell hole behind. She was finally going to have a better life, or at least she hoped she was.
It took a full two months for the adoption papers to be finalized, and then she was finally able to leave this shithole of an institution. Though not before Hermione could exact the revenge she'd longed for, the entirety of her stay at St. Peter's. On the day that she was finally able to leave with her adoptive parents, she managed to convince Sister Eunice to join her in the chapel room, for one final blessing. . . Upon entering the chapel room, Sister Eunice immediately knew that she had made a grave mistake. Hermione slipped into her mind with great ease, and forced her to kneel down on top of the rock salt Hermione had poured there earlier. The woman shivered with fear, and Hermione could physically see her trembling as she knelt before her.
Hermione crouched down in front of her and smiled wickedly at the woman that had caused her so much pain when she first got here.
"I wonder what's going through your head right now." Hermione said as she studied the woman's sweat drenched face. "Knowing that my face will be the last thing you will see before you die." as she spoke, she pulled a long kitchen knife from the sleeve of her jumper. Hermione ran the tip of the blade over the woman's cheek in mock affection before speaking again. "What are you thinking about right now Eunice? Are you thinking about your family? Perhaps your friends? Maybe you're thinking about all you did to make my life hell, while I lived here? Or," she said as she pulled the knife from the woman's face and began to trace it over her habit, "Could you be thinking about just how much you want to kill me?"
"Jesus Christ," the woman said fearfully as a tear left her eye and began to make it's way down her cheek. Hermione heard the unmistakable sound of someone wetting themselves and she looked down to see a yellow pool had formed around the woman's knees.
"Scared, are you?" Hermione said with a chuckle as she slowly stalked her way around the woman, leaving the woman's line of sight and stepping behind her, and pressing the edge of the blade to the soft tender skin of the nun's throat. "It's okay Eunice," she whispered soothingly, "I won't keep you long from your saviour."
"You won't get away with this," the woman said in a shaky tone, and Hermione could tell she was trying her hardest to sound brave.
"Oh?" She asked as she began to press the knife further into her flesh. "Why won't I?"
"You seriously think you can just kill me and walk away from here, no questions asked?" the woman stammered, "You'll be the first person they all suspect, once they find my body."
Hermione burst out laughing, unable to control the reaction she had to the woman's words.
"What?" the woman started, "What's so funny?"
"You." Hermione finally said once she calmed down, "You really think anyone else here is going to survive after all you've people done to me?" she leaned forward and pressed her lips against the fabric covering the woman's ear and quietly whispered, "Nobody is going to find you here Eunice, because there will be nothing left of any of you to find."
"Wha -" the woman started, before getting cut off by Hermione's sharp movement. She quickly drew the blade over the woman's neck, pressing it as deeply as she could as she went along the skin. She was surprised by how much blood began to pour from the woman's neck, as it flowed down her hands and coated them in the thick viscous fluid. Her heart sped up at the sound of the elder woman's gagging noises, and she moved from behind her, so she could get a better view of what was happening. As she moved around to the front of the woman, she could see the panic in her eyes as she clutched and grasped at her neck, trying to stem the flow of blood as it poured from the wound.
Her nose began to fill with the sweet, coppery scent of blood as she leaned in closely toward her, and pulled her hands away from the wound. She watched as the blood flowed more freely, down the front of the woman's habit and smiled. Hermione met the woman's eyes one final time, before giving her a wink and letting her hands go. Stepping away from the dying woman, she gave her a single wave and began to exit the room to finalize her farewell plans. And when the Grangers came to collect her an hour later, the dark, depressing building she'd called home for the past five years, had burned down to the ground, less than twenty minutes after their car had left the facility, leaving nothing behind of the building besides rubble and the remains of all of it's inhabitants.
3 July 1991
Hermione looked out the window and out into the night sky, wondering just why exactly she had believed adoption was the preferential choice a few years ago, when she'd manipulated the Grangers into adopting her - much the same as she had so many nights before this. She could hear the Grangers, as they talked about her from the other side of her paper thin bedroom door. They were louder than they had ever been before, and she knew her time here would be ending soon. She supposed that it was more than likely time for her to go after the past five years she'd spent with them, repeatedly charming them with her abilities to keep them believing that they had actually wanted to adopt her. She was filled with both a sense of relief and dread at these thoughts. She didn't know how much longer she could stay here, with Mr. Granger giving her those long awkward stares. She knew from some of the stories she'd eavesdropped on while back at the orphanage that some of the occupants weren't left there as a toddler, as she had been. Some of them had lived with relatives before coming there and their stories hadn't been pretty. Like the story of one Julia Greene, when she had told her friends about her uncle and how his long looks turned into touches and that was how she ended up at the orphanage, because she had run away. Luckily, she had never had to worry about those looks the first two years she'd spent living with the Grangers, but the last three years. . .she'd begun feeling as if she needed to watch out for Mr. Granger and his lingering eyes.
Hermione could still remember the rage fueled fear she had been reduced to a few months ago when she heard him fiddling with the doorknob to her bedroom, trying to come into her bedroom in the middle of the night when he believed her to be sleeping. She had been terrified that he would come in as she watched the doorknob while mentally pleading with the door to stay closed. And to her never ending amazement, the door had indeed remained closed, regardless of the fact that it did not have a lock to keep it secured. Hermione felt a shiver creep down her back at the memory. She wanted to kill him then, much the same way she had done with Sister Eunice, but she couldn't. So instead she decided that she would need to run away soon. That there was no other way. If she stayed, she knew something was bound to happen. She could feel it. It was either that, or compel Mrs. Granger into feeling the desire to add a bit of rat poisoning to her husband's evening tea. And though she wouldn't particularly mind seeing Mr. Granger six feet in the ground, she didn't want to draw anymore attention to herself and her abilities, especially after she had already burned down the orphanage.
Her mind wondered to thoughts of her biological parents and what her life would be like if she were with them. She wondered if they shared the same abilities as her, or if she would still be considered a freak to them? Had she been thrown away at the orphanage because of her abilities? Hermione didn't know much about her parents, having been left at St. Peters orphanage at the young age of two, and she didn't know if she could even believe what Sister Gertrude had told her about her arrival to the orphanage. She'd told her that she arrived late in the evening and was left there by a tall, thin old man, with a great lengthy beard, a long crooked nose, and light blue eyes, which he kept hidden behind a pair of half moon spectacles. She wondered who the man could have been, due to the description of him by Sister Gertrude, she doubted that the man was her father. Could he have been her grandfather? No, that couldn't be it. Why would her grandparent leave her in the care of an orphanage if he was clearly alive to care for her. And if this old man was the person to leave her at the orphanage, then where were her parents? Were they dead or did they simply not want her?
She was snapped from her train of thought as she began to hear words like freak and demon being thrown around on the other side of her bedroom door, by the two people that had adopted her five years ago.
Friday, she decided suddenly. She would run away this Friday and get away from this woman and her pervert of a husband.
She awoke the next morning, determined and already beginning to formulate a plan in her mind of how she would accomplish her grand departure. By the time that afternoon arrived she had already had a rough draft on what her plan would be. She would slip the Grangers some of Mrs. Granger's Ambien into their nightly tea in order to make sure that they were good and truly knackered for the evening, so she wouldn't be disturbed when she slipped into their bedroom to swipe some of their money before making her great escape. She knew it would be a long shot to make that happen but was determined to make it happen regardless, and she also knew that in order to do that, she would need to continue to plan.
And she would have run away that Friday had she not received a rather old looking letter addressed to her, with a wax seal on the back, looking like something out of a time machine when it landed in her lap as she lounged beneath a tree in the Granger's backyard. Curious, she thought, ready to throw the envelope out until her curiosity got the better of her. And when she broke the seal to open it, she couldn't help but to smile triumphantly at what she read on the first page.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,
Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Ms. Granger, We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. A professor from this institution will arrive at your home tomorrow afternoon in order to introduce you to the magical world, as well as help you and your parents with a tour of Diagon Alley. They will also be able to answer any and all questions that you or your guardian(s) may have.
Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress