Friday 25th November 1988.
Hermione continued to sob heavily into her mother's shoulder. The images of her dream refused to clear, even as she felt the strong arms of her parents wrapped around her shaking form.
Every time her eyes closed, she could see them suspended in front of her, dangling upside down as their blood dripped from their hair into the expanding pool below. She was officially swearing off television forever. Books had never given her such a horrid nightmare, but the images they'd seen in the few moments while channel surfing that afternoon had left a deep mark. Why had the batteries in the remote chosen that moment to stop working?
The depraved laughter still echoed in her ears as the figures in the royal blue cloaks had taken their evil tools to her best friend, strapped to the floor, her parents' blood dripping on either side of him. She was no longer sure what was transference from the few moments they had seen and what was her powerful imagination taunting her with her greatest fears.
A soft pop sounded behind the ruined bed and she noticed Harry sticking his head around her mother's shoulder.
"Hermione?" He whispered, a look of fear on his face.
A new round of sobbing came from the small girl as she worried that her secret was uncovered. That Harry would not want to be friends with a freak who couldn't control her powers. She could have killed him tonight.
"Shhhh, it's ok sweetie. It was just a nightmare."
"I… they… oh, mummy."
Hermione wanted nothing more than to press her face into her mother's chest and lose herself in the comforting embrace, but that just brought back the images.
Her mother continued cooing and stroking her hair as the three Grangers rocked on the oddly angled bed.
"I'm s… sorry, Harry…" Hermione sobbed, looking once more at her concerned friend. "I should have… told you…"
Harry shuffled forward and placed a soft hand on her shoulder, looking into her eyes as he spoke. "Told me what?"
"I'm…"
More sobs prevented her from going on, but her father's voice continued for her.
"Hermione is telekinetic. Do you know what that means?"
"Telekinetic… she can move things, without touching them?" Harry asked, looking confused.
"Though she hasn't had an episode like this since she met you," Natalie added, smiling softly down at him.
"I was so scared. They had already…"
"No, sweetie… don't try and tell us. Just forget it." Her mother cooed, pressing her closer to her chest and increasing the gentle rocking. "Think of unicorns and fairies. Rainbows and the gentle sea. Let your mind drift into the calm waters. Just like we practised."
Hermione followed her mother's instructions. It had been years since she'd had more than a small episode with her ability and she had stopped doing her calming techniques before bed. She let her mind drift into the place she had created as a four-year-old terrified of her own shadow.
The meadow soon resolved in her mind's eye and the soft waving flowers and grass caressed her hands and her soul as she let herself slip fully into the calming mindscape. In moments the air was full of dancing fairies swirling about and singing gentle songs that soothed her ragged edges. They were soon joined by Caius, the silver-haired unicorn with the golden horn she had not seen in years.
He approached her ever so slowly, his powerful muscles rolling gently under the gleaming coat. While it appeared to be made of molten gold in near-constant flux, the horn felt like silk as it gently slid against her cheek, and she leant heavily into the touch.
Behind her, she could hear the soft rolling sound of waves sliding over the white sand beach that bordered her mental meadow, and she knew that if she were to turn there would be a giant bright double rainbow stretching up from its calm waters, despite the fact her brain knew such a thing could not exist in the bright cloudless sky of her mind.
Feeling the contentment of her happy place, Hermione opened her eyes and realised the tears had stopped.
She noticed that she was only wrapped in one of her mother's arms now and that Harry was tucked against Natalie's other side, looking straight at her, a look of deep concern still written over his features. She allowed a small grimace to show on her face and she could see him relax at the sight.
"I'm sorry, Harry," Natalie told him, running her hand through his messy hair. "It had been so long. And she has never had an incident when you're around. I hope you don't blame her. We thought it best if she kept it a secret."
"Blame her? I think it's brilliant." Harry replied, smiling broadly at his best friend.
Hermione felt the last remnants of her fear washed away by the soothing waters as her friend confirmed he wasn't terrified of her. Every other child who had witnessed her ability had run screaming. And if ever asked about it, they always acted like she was crazy, saying they had no idea what she was talking about and giving her strange looks.
It had only further ostracised her from her peers as she could never tell if they were serious or not. For a few minutes there she had been terrified that Harry would be the same. Despite years of friendship, she feared that more than the dream that had triggered everything.
Richard stood and shooed the trio off Harry's bed, shoving it firmly back onto the floor next to Hermione's. The room was still a chaotic mess, but apart from having a bed land on and pushed off it, Hermione's bed was still immaculate. He pulled back the covers and patted the mattress.
"In you hop, pumpkin. You too, Harry. We'll go get some hot chocolate to help you sleep."
Hermione was loath to leave her mother's embrace, but Harry wrapped his arms around her and helped guide her to the bed. They were just being tucked in once more when the front doorbell rang.
Her mother glanced at the clock on her bedside, but it must have been yanked from the wall in the fracas and showed only a blank screen.
"Who could be calling at this hour?" She still asked, as she and her father quickly headed for the door and down the stairs.
"Hermione… my parents." Hermione tensed noticeably at Harry's words. Had he just been pretending in front of her own parents? "They want to talk to you about what happened. I think they can help."
As he finished, he snuggled tighter to her allowing her to relax once more. No, not pretending. Not Harry. He'd never do that to her. It was only old fears cropping up after such a fright. She gently nodded and felt Harry's arms tighten and his smile against her forehead.
And with a soft pop, they vanished moments before several robed figures entered the now empty room.
ϟ
It took almost two hours for Hermione to tell the entire story to Harry's parents. They listened calmly as Harry held Hermione on his lap in the tall wingback chair and Mipsy kept a steady supply of steaming hot chocolate in her cup.
She told the Potters everything. The gritty details of her nightmare, the cloaked figures with their deformed silver animal masks. The vicious things they had done to her parents and her friend while she was chained up against the wall. How she had awoken to find Harry in her arms and, still in the befuddled half-dream state, had pushed hard with her power to make the people in the cloaks go away.
And even further back. She told them of all the times that she had summoned books and toys her parents had taken away. All the items that they'd needed to replace over the years, broken in a tantrum or moment of intense emotion. The incidents around other children where they had been knocked over or their things had shot to the other side of the room.
James couldn't suppress his chuckle as Hermione explained how the other children never seemed to acknowledge or even remember the events.
"Sorry, Hermione," he offered as she glared at him, "it's the Obliviators. It's their job to cover up accidental magic. The kids really don't remember. They wiped it from their memories."
"You mean that I made it worse by referring to it?"
"I'm afraid so, sweetie," Lily added. "Had you acted as if nothing had happened, they would have just ignored it as well."
"That is so unfair. They could have told me at least." Hermione sniffled. "No wonder they were so horrible to me. They think I'm crazy."
Harry squeezed the girl in his arms a little tighter before looking back up at the painting.
"So, you're sure?" Harry asked, watching his parents closely.
"I think it's pretty clear. You, Hermione, my dear girl, are a witch." Lily smiled.
"But, how?"
"No one knows. Muggleborns have been popping up for centuries. There are many theories, but no one has ever done any real research on it." James answered.
Lily scoffed. "Yeah, magicals doing proper research is like trying to get Sirius to behave like his name."
James couldn't help but laugh as well at the highly accurate statement. But he noticed both the children yawning and their eyes drooping quite heavily.
"Perhaps that is enough for now. Mipsy, take them both back to Hermione's. Tomorrow you can bring the Grangers over and we can explain everything to them as well. I'm sure Harry will relish the opportunity to show Hermione some of the things he's been forced to keep hidden until now."
Both children smiled softly at the Potters as Mipsy vanished the hot chocolate and took both their hands.
They quickly settled back into the bed as Mipsy checked on the Grangers and confirmed that they were both back asleep in their own room. After all the excitement and with bellies full of warm milk and chocolate, it took no time at all for the pair to drift back off to sleep. Neither noticed that the room had been set back to rights.
ϟ
Saturday 26th November 1988.
"She's a what now!?"
"HOW DARE YOU…"
Harry giggled slightly at the raised voices of the elder Grangers, which cut off as the door fully closed, as he led Hermione further down the hall to his second favourite room in the Manor.
When they had awoken that morning, the Grangers had both acted as though nothing odd had happened the evening before, and Harry just assumed that they were so used to Hermione's 'power' as they thought it, that they paid the incidents no mind after the fact. Even if they hadn't seemed to mind that the two had gone missing and had gone back to bed themselves.
After taking their hands and popping them both to the Manor however it had quickly become apparent that Obliviators had visited the Granger home while the children had been explaining things to the Potters, and it was only their absence that had saved their own memories. And kept Harry's presence there from coming to the attention of the Ministry.
Once his parents had calmed the Grangers down about the idea their minds had been messed with, likely multiple times in the past as well, they moved on to the real reason for the visit. They dismissed the kids to go and do their own thing while the adults chatted, and the last thing Harry heard as they left was James explaining their daughter was a witch.
"It's not funny Harry. What the Ministry does is wrong." Hermione chided as they walked.
"Hey, I agree. I get why they do it, the Statute is our world's highest law." He recited in an odd voice, as though repeating something he'd been told several times before. "But how they do it, stupid if you ask me. Some of the Obliviators are really lazy. They'll just modify the memory of anyone present and not even look into the incident properly. Must have been a pair of them that struck last night. Not even noticing that the only people in the house at the time were muggles." He shook his head at the idiocy of it all. "C'mon."
Silence fell between them once more as he directed her into a large room with a wide glass ceiling. Had it been on the ground floor, she'd have expected it to open out onto the yard as a sunroom, so surrounded was it by glass windows. The small balcony visible beyond the open French doors looked down over the densest part of the beautiful gardens.
There were a couple of wingback chairs about the room, which she knew to be Harry's preferred form of reading chair, all bracketed by a small side table with a set of glasses on one side and a rolling trolley like those used for returned books in a library to the other. Several with books stacked inside.
She could see why this was his second favourite room in the house. It was perfect for losing oneself in the sounds of nature outside and the contents of the book in your hand.
Looking back toward the doorway, the only solid wall in the room, she saw a pair of paintings on either side that, as with most she had seen in the house, were simple landscapes stretching over the blank white wall that would have been there in their absence.
"This is amazing, Harry."
"Yep." His grin was infectious as she stepped out onto the balcony and looked down into the garden, seeing numerous animals she couldn't identify from this distance flitting about the vibrant spring colours.
"So, I was wondering," Harry mumbled, "now that you know about magic, if you wanted to see some more?"
Hermione twirled on the spot so fast that her colourful dress swung wide catching the bright morning sunlight coating the balcony and sending her messy hair flying about.
"Really!?"
"Um, if you wanted, that is."
"Yes please!" Hermione shot back over, and the pair took a seat on the thick plush rug in the centre of the room. It was so soft it almost felt like sitting on a cloud, but without the wet bum.
Harry cast his eyes about the room looking for something he could use before his eyes settled on a stack of cards on one of the side tables. Snapping his fingers, the cards began to lift into the air one by one all following the same path. They weaved up and down, doing large circles in the air and rolling end over end, following the path directed by his hand.
Hermione was amazed, tracking the cards as they soared through the air. Sometimes, when she really focused, she could direct a single object to move in a single direction, but never had she accomplished something so complex.
She continued to sit wide-eyed as the cards began to settle on the floor in front of her, separating themselves out by suit until all the cards were stacked ace-high in front of her.
"That was amazing!" She whispered as if afraid too much noise might break the spell. "Can you teach me to do that?"
Harry just smiled at her and looked about again, searching for something else to show her. With another snap of his fingers, one of the wingback chairs began to trot about the room on its clawed wooden feet, making a clacking noise against the marble floor.
Hermione quickly got up from her spot and moved over to the ambulant chair before jumping onto the seat and giggling at Harry over the back.
Harry animated a second chair and the pair were soon racing them around the room, though Hermione quickly noticed that her chair seemed to win all the races. She gave Harry a judging look and he merely shrugged back at her.
Another snap had both their clothes constantly changing colour through the entire spectrum before Harry popped away momentarily, returning with a sleek-looking broom in hand.
"Teach me to do that as well?" Hermione asked forcefully as she dismounted her now inanimate chair.
"Sure, that's why I went to grab it."
"Not flying," Hermione responded, eyeing the broom as though it were responsible for the events of the previous night, "popping about like that. I want to be able to do that. Teach me, Harry."
The enthusiasm on the girl's face was intoxicating and Harry was unable to say no.
"OK, but you have to keep it a secret. It's a special type of magic."
Hermione nodded so fiercely that her face disappeared occasionally behind her wild locks. Harry looked about, noting that both paintings by the door were empty.
"Elfin, please." He said aloud, though clearly not directed at Hermione.
A small elf, about half Mipsy's age, popped into the room in front of the children and eyed Harry.
"Yes, young master?"
"How are you today?" He replied.
The elfin cocked its head to the side, appearing confused before answering.
"I is well, young master. How may I be serving you today?"
"I wanted to ask you for a favour. But this is not an order. You can say no. Do you agree?"
The elfin nodded vigorously as Hermione circled her, eyeing the younger elf closely. She was clearly still in whatever the elves called their adolescence. She was shorter and thinner than the others, though not sickly so. Her ears were shorter, and her nose would not have been long on a human adult. But her eyes were a vivid and shining violet.
"I need to hear you say it, please."
"I acknowledge this is not a command. I can says no."
Harry nodded to himself as he turned to look at Hermione.
"You see, Hermione, the reason I can pop is thanks to the accident I had just after we first met. Mipsy needed to heal me and the only way she could before moving me was to push her magic into my body. It nearly drained her, and I had to do the same to her once I woke up."
Hermione looked somewhat nervous now, worried that she might have to be injured in some way first.
"Don't worry, I'm sure it will work with you already healthy. In fact, I bet it will work faster and require less magic. Mipsy and I were both exhausted afterwards." Harry grinned, pulling over the nearest seat.
The elfin was now eyeing Hermione closely, watching the girl as though trying to read her.
"So, do you think you want to try?"
Hermione knelt before the wee elf on the thick rug and stared into her bulbous eyes. Harry remained silent as the pair sized one another up, yet no words passed between them. His excitement was radiating off of his body at the idea that Hermione would soon be just like him.
"Ready to try?"
Both Hermione and the elfin nodded together much less vigorously this time.
"Ok, place your hand on the other's chest." He paused, allowing both to do so. "Now on the count of three, you need to push gently with your magic into the other. Don't push too hard, you don't want to knock each other over. Just focus on letting it pass into the other."
They both nodded again, though Hermione still looked a little apprehensive.
"You don't have to do this Hermione. Most magicals learn to apparate when they graduate from Hogwarts."
"No, I want to do this." She replied sharply, tearing her eyes from the elfin to glare at Harry.
"Ok," he replied, holding up both hands, "three, two, one. Push."
The experience felt very different from what Harry could recall of his own experience. He could feel the static building in the air as both magicals in front of him began to expel magic outwards, though he could sense most of it was passing down their arms and into their partner. He closed his eyes and revelled in the feeling of foreign magic washing over him.
It felt like he was being held in Hermione's arms in one of her tight hugs, but there was something else there as well. Raw energy he'd not felt before and he realised it was the immature elf. The Potters still only had the three mature elves, Mipsy, Pops and Tybalt. But they had several younger elves, most were the descendants of former Potter elves who had been rescued from other horrible families throughout the centuries. Too young to bond with a family.
As Mipsy was already bonded with him after the incident, and that was the purpose she had been assigned as she finished her training while Lily was pregnant with him at that time, Harry felt uncomfortable with the idea of letting Mipsy bond again. He had no idea what a second bond like this might do to her, especially if he and Hermione were ever to give her conflicting commands. He doubted even giving her clothes could properly sever their connection now.
Tybalt was away again on whatever mission his father had sent him to complete. And he knew that his father's commands still superseded his own when it came to Tybalt and Pops. So, if the elf was doing something important, he wouldn't even respond to Harry's call. And Pops was old. He was so old that he had changed the nappies of Harry's great-great-grandfather as one of his first tasks as an official Potter elf.
And Harry worried about what the effect of sharing like this would be on him at his now very advanced age. It would not do to kill the only one in the house who keeps the Muggles from asking difficult questions about his parents, though they would cease coming from the Grangers now at least. Not that he would ever risk Pops's life even if there were others doing those tasks. He loved the old coot, just as much as Charlus or any of the other Potters he never actually got to meet in life.
"STOP!"
Harry's eyes shot open and the feeling of static in the air vanished, as did the warmth of Hermione's magic against his skin. His eyes quickly locked on the figure in the painting by the left of the door and he noted a foot disappearing out the side of the frame.
"What the devil do you think you are doing? Wasn't once enough, boy?" The figure chastised, looking ruddier than Santa.
Standing, Harry's eyes narrowed as he approached the painting, not glancing at the girls as he passed.
"Like you're one to talk, Sampson. I remember my family history well. I know what you used to do for fun, you bigoted murderer."
Hermione gasped from behind him as he confronted the figure.
While most acknowledged the Potters were generally kind and giving, not every member of a family followed the grain. Sampson Potter had joined up with some long-forgotten Dark Lord sometime in the mid-13th century and Harry hated that he still thought what he had done was the right thing. However, before any further words could be exchanged between them, a bunch more figures entered the wide landscape. The collected Potters looked down at the rug behind Harry and his parents immediately locked their gaze on him.
"What did you do?" Lily asked.
Harry refused to back down. "What Hermione wanted to do, and nothing more."
Sighing heavily, Lily ran her hand down her face before replying.
"I love you dearly, Harry James Potter, but sometimes I do not understand you. We still don't know the long-term effects of sharing magic like that. Yours was a special case."
"Well, Hermione is special to me. And if she wants elf magic then she can have it." Harry replied petulantly, crossing his arms and steadying his stance, preparing for another epic argument with his mother. They had not had many, but they had almost all related to Hermione in some way.
"Spilt milk, my dear," Dorea called, laying her hand on Lily's shoulder. "Look at the elfin. The process is complete."
"She's right, love. Whatever the consequences," James paused as he glared at his defiant son, "they all have to live with them now."
As James finished speaking, the Grangers both came running into the open doorway and took in the scene before them. Their daughter was still kneeling on the floor with her hand on the shoulder of one of those wee elf creatures, who appeared to be shivering slightly despite the warm day. Harry appeared to have squared off against a painting that was filled with the Potters they had been talking to until a distraught woman had shot into the frame and demanded that they follow.
"What is going on? What's wrong with Hermione?" Natalie demanded as she ran over and wrapped her arms around her daughter.
"Nothing, Mrs Granger. She just worked out how to use a few new abilities, that's all." Harry claimed, his broad smile once more settled on his face.
James scoffed behind him and Harry momentarily glared at his father over his shoulder.
"A few weeks. Merlin, give us the strength." Matilda Potter called from several rows back in the painting.
Harry ignored them as he knelt beside the quivering elfin. "You aren't in trouble. I asked you to. I take all the blame."
"What is going on?" Richard demanded, stepping behind his family and staring at the Potters.
"Hermione has shared her magic with one of the adolescent elves. It's what happened to Harry after he got hit by a car a fe…"
"My daughter was injured!?" Richard yelled, cutting the old Potter off.
"No, sir. They just shared their magic. There was no danger." Harry supplied, reaching out and squeezing Hermione's hand.
"You got hit by a car?" There were tears developing in her eyes as she stared at him.
"Little bit." He replied with a shrug, looking bashful. "I was in a hurry to get to school. Didn't look properly before crossing. Stupid really, having a school on such a busy road." Hermione launched herself at Harry and wrapped him tightly in her arms. "I wanted to see my best friend again. I hadn't seen you in two days. I was young and foolish."
"Most would say still are, young man." Lily chided from the painting.
Harry refused to take the bait and continued softly stroking Hermione's back until she pulled away. He smiled softly at her and turned to the young elf only to stop in shock. Before him was no longer a wee immature elfin. She now stood almost as tall as Mipsy, who was now posted behind her, one hand on the shaking elf's shoulder. And her eyes were no longer violet.
He glanced back at Hermione for confirmation. They were now the exact same shade of brown as hers. "Oh."
"Figured it out, did you, boy?"
"Shut it, Sampson," James growled.
"I didn't think…"
"Again, very clear, Harry."
Harry again ignored his father, turning to Hermione. "Guess you need to give her a name then."
Hermione looked at him quizzically. "What?"
"Apparently if you share your magic with an unbonded elf, or at least an elfin, they bond to you. Mipsy and I were already bonded as part of the Potter family so nothing changed there. She is now your elf."
"My elf?" Hermione mumbled, turning to gaze at the now taller and healthier-looking creature. "Is that what you want?"
The elfin nodded vigorously once more, gazing longingly at Hermione.
"What was your name before?"
"Elfins don't have names, Mistress. We don't get a name until we reach maturity." The elfin replied.
"Usually the name is chosen by our first master," Mipsy added. "In my case, young Master Harry was too young when I was assigned as his elf, so Pops chose my name at Master James's insistence."
"You have no name?" Hermione asked. The elfin shook her head, not letting her now deep brown eyes leave Hermione's. "Do you have a preference?"
The elfin finally broke the connection between them, looking to Mipsy as if asking permission. Mipsy nodded and the elfin vanished with a loud crack before reappearing a moment later with a thin book in hand. She held it out to Hermione who took it and inspected it. It had no title or markings on the thick leather cover but was clearly very heavily worn. The bindings of the book were nearly falling apart and when she allowed it to fall open, it became clear that it usually sat open on a very particular page.
In the centre of the page was an image of a man wrestling a mighty lion. The beast stood almost twice his height as he grappled it from behind with only his bare hands, not even using the club hanging from his belt. Hermione immediately recognised the image from her own readings. The man was Hercules and he was wrestling the Nemean Lion.
The elfin pointed at the lion and then to herself. Hermione pondered a moment. This was apparently the young elfin's favoured story.
"You want me to call you Nemea?"
The elfin nodded vigorously. "Yes. If it would please the Mistress."
"It pleases me a great deal, Nemea," Hermione stated, laying her hand on the elfin's shoulder as a short flash of light leapt between them and Nemea grew another few inches.
"Thank you, mistress." Nemea bowed.
"I think we need to talk about all of this, Harry," Hermione whispered, not taking her eyes off her elf.
Harry made to reply but was immediately cut off by Richard. "What you need, young lady, is to come home with us right now. We need to have a family talk about all this nonsense."
"Daddy…"
"None of that. Someone, take us home now."
Harry sighed before nodding to Mipsy, who grasped the three Grangers and vanished almost silently compared to the crack Nemea made earlier. He turned to the newly bonded elf, who looked confused.
"How about you go back to the quarters and have a rest? I'm sure you're feeling drained after all of that."
"Yes, young master," Nemea replied before popping away much quieter herself.
Standing once more, Harry ran his hand nervously through his hair before turning to face the painting.
"So…"