Chapter 2
House Guest
Hermione stabbed at her meat with her fork and pretended it was Mrs. Foster’s face. It was a horrible thing to think about someone, she knew, but Hermione couldn’t help it.
“Hermione, stop mutilating the chicken!” Hermione’s mother stared critically at her daughter’s somewhat violent dinner habits. Not really trusting herself to hold the fork without causing anymore damage to the poultry, Hermione set it down and picked up her milk instead.
To say Hermione was in trouble was putting the situation lightly. In the past, her parents had made allowances for some of her more risky pastimes (snorkeling, rock climbing, and other such things) because ‘it’s just what Aussie children do’ and chalked it up to a culture thing. But as it turns out, climbing out of one’s bedroom window and onto the roof was considered dangerous in all cultures, and therefore resulted in a month of being grounded, which also included calling Mrs. Foster’s house once every hour to make sure she was actually there.
Tonight the table was unusually quiet. Legally, her parents couldn’t talk about work too deeply, for fear of being sued, so most of their table conversation revolved around what Hermione had done on any given day. For obvious reasons, though, no one was talking about Hermione and what she had done this afternoon. It would only start yet another fight.
Hermione’s father sat at the far end of the table, but her mother took the seat right beside her to make sure Hermione wouldn’t do anything else that could be considered untrustworthy with her supper (although she wasn’t quite sure what that could possibly be).
Like her father, Hermione’s mother was far older than the mothers of many of her friends. She wore thick-rimmed glasses for her worsening eyesight. Her hair was cut short and considerably bushy taking into account that she didn’t devote an hour and a half of styling it in the morning. The corners of her eyes and mouth were finely decorated with a fair amount of worry lines, which Hermione’s dad liked to joke had only just appeared in the past ten years.
Suddenly, a welcomed interruption to the disturbing silence came in the form of the doorbell ringing.
“I got it!” Hermione shouted, jumping to her feet before her parents would say otherwise. Answering the door would be as close to going outdoors as she would be getting for a while.
Throwing herself around the corner of the doorframe, Hermione bolted towards the front door in her bare feet. Maybe, if she was lucky, it would be a ding-ding-ditch prank and she could actually go stand out on the front step ‘looking’ for whoever had been there. But when she opened the door, she didn’t find an empty doorstep, but it was quite possibly the next best thing.
It was her! The bushy-haired woman she had seen earlier that had gotten her into so much trouble in the first place!
“Hello,” she said softly, in a voice that oddly reminded her of her mother’s, as though she were afraid of being overheard. “You’re Hermione, right? We spoke briefly this afternoon. I hope I didn’t get you into too much trouble.”
But Hermione was far past the point of caring about some petty little incident that had gotten her grounded. Not when she had just been given the opportunity to prove she had been right after all.
“Inside!” she ordered, grabbing the woman’s hand and pulling her through the door. “Come inside, right now!”
Hermione walked backwards, dragging the stumbling woman along with her with every bit of strength she had in her ten-year-old body. It wasn’t easy, though, seeing as the woman, in turn, seemed to be doing everything she could to keep from following her. Eventually, Hermione came up with an easier solution.
“Mum, Dad!” Hermione shouted, just short of the doorframe leading to the kitchen. “Come here, quick!”
Upon hearing the scraping chairs and what could have been a glass shattering against the floor, Hermione considered the fact that she could have made her shrieking sound a little less urgent. Hearing her scream, a person might have thought they had just been delivered a box full of scorpions. When they got to the entryway, the both of them were breathing hard, eyes sweeping like a pair of gazelles on the savannah.
“This is her!” Hermione told them, showing off the visitor with a grand, sweeping gesture. “This is the lady I saw this afternoon.”
Both of Hermione’s parents appeared sincerely shocked, but something about their expressions led Hermione to believe it wasn’t completely about the fact that their daughter had been right.
“Hermione Granger!” Hermione’s mother spoke first, adjusting her glasses on her nose as though she didn’t quite trust what she was seeing. “Hermione Granger, is that you?”
The woman in Hermione’s grip shrugged, becoming somewhat more relaxed upon seeing Hermione’s parents. “It’s actually Hermione Weasley now.”
“I told you she was real!” Hermione shouted, reminding them of the point she had wanted to make in the first place.
But from the looks on her parents’ faces, Hermione knew that last phrase was probably not necessary. Chances were her parents knew this woman existed even before Hermione did.
“What on earth brings you back to Australia?”
The woman, Hermione Weasley, sat on a loveseat that would have had room for other people, but she sat there alone. Hermione took the couch standing at a right angle to them, while little Hermione took her seat on a woven rug with her elbows balanced atop the coffee table, her head in her hands. As an only child, Hermione was used to sitting quietly while her parent conversed with their friends about things she didn’t care about. But seeing as this involved her as well, she made a point to pay attention for a change.
Apparently, this older Hermione had come to Australia as a student just before Hermione was born and her parents had barely been living in Wonthaggi for a year. They were all originally from Britain, on their own in a new country, and they had bonded over that fact. Hermione Weasley had worked as their receptionist when they’d just started their dental practice, and was apparently the only reason the office didn’t burn down while they were scraping the teeth of strangers. For a moment, Hermione wondered to herself what it would be like if Hermione Weasley were still working for her parents instead of Mrs. Simms, who constantly smelled of old butterscotch and ran straight to Hermione’s parents every time she saw something moving inside the girl’s backpack.
“Nostalgia, mostly,” she answered, stirring her tea. “There are a lot of good memories of this place. You both made sure of that.”
“Well, I’m glad to have you back,” Hermione’s mum told her, stirring her tea, even though she hadn’t added anything to it. “You left so suddenly the last time you were here. I don’t feel we ever got to have a proper good-bye.”
“You left so soon last time, you didn’t even get the chance to hold little Hermione,” her dad said, sadly at first, then in a more joking manner. “I’m sorry to say that she’s too big to hold now.”
Hermione felt the blood rush to her cheeks as she became thoroughly embarrassed. This was something else that was common for her as an only child, but still something she had yet to get used to. And her friends informed her that she never would.
“I’m going to go check on the ice cream,” she said, pushing herself to her feet and excusing herself from the conversation. “It should be soft now.”
By the time Hermione had made it to the kitchen, her face felt so hot, it actually took restraint not to shove her face directly into the ice cream box set out on the counter, but she had a feeling it would be somewhat rude to present the company with a dish of strawberry-vanilla that had a nose imprint in it. So instead, she collected the bowls and spoons and began scooping out large servings. The ice cream box was a bright red box, laced with frost and the words ‘Sugar Free’ written in large, blaring letters for the whole world to see. The Wilkins house had never had any food product made from real, processed sugar pass through the front door. To be honest, it was a bit embarrassing to have all these foods without sugar in her home. As though Hermione couldn’t be trusted to brush her teeth after a serving of cake!
Balancing all four bowls across her arms like a circus performer, Hermione made her wobbly way back out to the living room. When she made it to the coffee table without dropping anything, her mother’s face went into a thin, worried line, but her father offered a few claps for the show and laughed when her mother’s expression turned on him. “What? Nothing was broken!”
Hermione’s mother humphed under her breath, but her father laughed again and went back to the previous conversation with the older Hermione. “What kind of work are you doing?”
Hermione Weasley stirred her tea thoughtfully, in much the same way Hermione had seen her own mother do it just moments before. “I’m actually a barrister now.”
“Oh, I knew you were going on to bigger and better things!” Hermione’s mother exchanged. “Think you’ll ever end up running for Parliament?”
The older Hermione appeared overwhelmed by the very notion. “No! No, I don’t think so.”
“That’s right! You’ve embarked on an entirely different adventure now,” Hermione’s father said after swallowing a large helping of his ice cream. “Married life! Tell me, what’s his name? Are you planning on any children?”
The older Hermione’s face held an almost dreamy sort of look as she used her spoon to play with her own dessert. “His name’s Ron. He’s a wonderful man. He’s a…detective. And, we actually already have two children.”
“You do not!” Hermione’s mother exclaimed, shocked. “Pictures! You have to show us!”
This was a sort of parent code Hermione had come to observe over the years. Her own parents must have had a dozen pictures of her each that they carried around in their wallets. And whenever they would encounter a new parent, there would always be a photo exchange. Unless they had the actual child to show off instead. And apparently, as the older Hermione reached into her purse, extracting something from her wallet, she was no different.
“Here they are,” she said. “Rose and Hugo.”
While Hermione’s parents were fawning over the photo, the girl pushed herself up off the floor and peeked over her parents’ shoulders so she could have a look as well. There was a little girl, probably two, cuddling with her young baby brother. Even though the boy barely had any hair yet, it was clear that the siblings were both going to have the same bright orange species of redhead, their faces speckled with freckles. The older Hermione was a very ordinary looking woman with brown hair and brown eyes, so it was fairly obvious what her husband looked like.
“Oh, they’re adorable!” Hermione’s mother cooed over the pair. “The little girl has your smile!”
“Look at the ears on that boy!” Hermione’s dad exclaimed. “I don’t mean any offence, but this boy is going to have absolutely no luck with girls.”
Hermione Weasley smiled, a slight laugh in her tone. “Knowing his father, I had a feeling that was going to be a possibility anyway,” she admitted. “I’m still not quite sure how he got me to marry him.”
Hermione’s mother laughed and shook her head, as though she knew exactly what she was talking about. “Hermione, could you check to see if there are any teabags left?”
Hermione turned to go to the kitchen, but from behind, she heard older Hermione as well. “Alright, where are they?”
“No, I meant Hermione our daughter.”
Still, this did not seem to do very much to ease Hermione Weasley’s confusion. She still remained in her odd half-standing, half-sitting position.
Hermione’s mother formed into a thin line once again at the confusion in the room. “Hermione, go to bed.”
This time, Hermione did not budge. It was barely past eight, and she was on summer vacation! She was most certainly not going to bed. But older Hermione did rise to her feet as though she were going to make her way to the staircase. As though she actually believed she had to obey Hermione’s parents.
Hermione’s dad laughed again, this time in a nervous sort of way. “Well, this is certainly going to get confusing!”
Hermione shrugged her shoulders. “You guys could start calling me Minnie,” she suggested. Granted, the older Hermione would not be here for very long, but that was no reason not to finally train her parents to use her more well-known nickname.
It was hardly an outrageous idea. Almost everyone called her Minnie; certainly everyone under the age of fifty. Her parents were the only others who had refused to accept the concept, that Hermione had been considered ‘Minnie’ by most everyone since kindergarten.
“If we wanted to call you Minnie, we would have put it on your birth certificate,” her mother argued. “I swear, you and your little friends can and will use any excuse to give someone a nickname; even that girl, Jane Keller.”
Hermione hardly saw how what people called Ja-Ja had anything to do with this exact situation. She didn’t have to share her name with someone she had known for exactly two hours.
“Alright,” Hermione said in a fake relenting tone. “So is there just going to be Hermione One and Hermione Two for this visit?”
Hermione’s mother didn’t have an answer for that. She couldn’t argue with what she had seen for herself. Hermione’s dad raised his coffee cup to answer for her. “Minnie, it is! Your mum has always been in love with the name Hermione, so she’s just having a hard time accepting it. Even though she’s had years to do it!”
Hermione’s dad laughed, and eventually, so did her mother; but it was a nervous sort of laugher, as though the topic and the company together made it all uncomfortable.
The older”and now only”Hermione stood up and began collecting the empty ice cream dishes. “I’ll clear the table.”
“No, no,” Hermione’s mum insisted, pulling the collected plates out of older Hermione’s hands. “Guests in this house are not allowed to do housework.”
Taking up the coffee cups as well, she then turned to her daughter.
“If you want to help, though, Minnie, you can take Hermione’s suitcase and show her where to the guest room.”
Hermione, newly christened Minnie, happily took up the suitcase, which was far heavier than she imagined it would be, as though it were filled with bricks. Walking backwards up the steps, she maneuvered it one step at a time, grasping the handle with both hands. She was sure she knocked it against the stairs at least of few times, and noted the worried expression on Hermione’s face every time she did. It wasn’t as though it ever crashed very hard, and if there really were bricks in the suitcase, she couldn’t exactly hurt them.
Although it seemed to take an eternity, Minnie eventually reached the top of the staircase, thankful that the guestroom was the door closest to her. It didn’t really matter in the end. Hermione took up the suitcase the moment she reached the second floor, much more easily than Minnie had, from being older and likely expecting the heaviness of it.
But she did wait for Minnie to open the door for her.
“Here it is,” Minnie said, gesturing around the room with both hands. “The bathroom is the second door on the right. My parents wake up early, so I hope you’re not a light sleeper.”
“I’ll be fine,” Hermione told her, dropping her suitcase onto the bed, where it bounced and then sank deeply. For the moment, she left the case along and wandered around the room without purpose, almost like an animal exploring a new cage. In a way, it was like she was trying to ignore Minnie, but also almost like she was afraid of her. Her shoulders had gone a lot stiffer now that it was just the two of them, and her breath seemed to become more rapid, as though Minnie were a poisonous spider.
“So…” Minnie went on, not sure of what else she could say, “I’ll see you later.”
Still, the older Hermione didn’t turn around, but Minnie could make out the vaguest of nods. She didn’t look down to make eye contact with her small host. It was clear that Minnie no longer had any way of being useful, so she began moving backwards, pulling the door closed, but still peaking as the crack grew smaller.
“Whoa,” she breathed, slowly making her way back to the attic door. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something about this woman was off. And she couldn’t really tell if it was in a good way or a bad way.
Barefoot and fresh out of the shower, Minnie passed by the guestroom once again later that night. In her room, picking out her pajamas, drying off her hair, she could not quit thinking about that woman, Hermione Weasley. How could that woman possibly be afraid of Minnie? She didn’t even know her. And Minnie was hardly what anyone would consider intimidating, not like Patty Murphy, who was supposedly only ten, yet nearly five and a half feet tall and more muscle than anything else.
When she finally did reach the guestroom, Minnie didn’t make so much as a peep. The door was open, just a crack, and she couldn’t really see anything. So she began tapping at it with her toes, again and again until the door was completely open. All by herself, Hermione appeared to be much more at ease than she had been before. She was even humming to herself as she packed pieces of clothing into the nearby dresser.
“Hi!” Minnie said suddenly.
Hermione jumped and spun around as though she were being ambushed. But even after she saw it was only Minnie, she did little in the way of calming down. “What? What is it?”
“Well, I thought we could talk now,” Minnie explained. “You’ve had time to rest and all.”
The older woman stared at Minnie as though she were insane. As though the idea of actually having a conversation with one of her hosts was on par with running through the streets in a chicken suit.
“Alright then,” Hermione agreed finally, but she went back to her suitcase as though Minnie had already left.
But Minnie wasn’t about to be deterred by a cool attitude. As an only child, she had a lot of practice in getting attention from adults. “What are you up to?”
“I’m just unpacking,” Hermione said, not looking up from her suitcase. She did make eye contact with Minnie once she realized the girl was not leaving, making herself quite comfortable on the guestroom bed.
“Do you need any help?” Minnie offered, peering over into the suitcase.
Hermione moved to block her view. “No, I don’t have very much to unpack.”
“Is there anything else you need?” Minnie tried again. “I could make you some chamomile tea or even find some books you could borrow.”
“No, I’m fine.”
The woman wasn’t even trying to make conversation. Granted, Minnie knew of very few adults in the world that would find a conversation with a fifth grader entertaining.
“Do you like animals?” Minnie asked, still trying to make nice with her family’s new houseguest. “I have a rabbit.”
Hermione didn’t seem very interested. She continued to unpack various pieces of clothing into the small bureau. It looks as though she were settling in for a long stay.
Minnie tried again. “And a lizard, and two lovebirds, and an aquarium.”
“Aspiring naturalist, are you?”
Minnie shrugged her shoulders. “I guess.” She wasn’t exactly sure what a naturalist was.
She allowed Hermione a few moments of quiet to unpack, and this time, she didn’t seem as concerned about Minnie seeing into her suitcase. At once, Minnie spotted something that really caught her eye. It was a wooden rod of some sort; dark and beautifully polished. It had an intricately carved handle, as though it were something meant for some sort of use, not just decoration.
“Wicked!” Minnie breathed, reaching in to take hold of the handle herself. “What’s this for?”
“No, don’t touch that!” Hermione jumped and grabbed at the top of the suitcase, as though she were going to snap it down over Minnie’s hand to keep her from touching the artifact.
“Okay, okay! Sorry!” Minnie cradled her hand against her, though it hadn’t actually been hurt. Although it didn’t do anything to stop her from reaching for the suitcase when she saw yet another shiny object tucked beneath a blouse. “Do have anything else cool in here?”
This time, the top of the suitcase did come crashing down, thankfully before Minnie’s fingers were anywhere near it.
“Don’t you know better than to go through other people’s things?” she snapped.
Minnie couldn’t believe it. Deep down, she knew it wasn’t polite to peek through a stranger’s suitcase like that, but Hermione was completely over-reacting. It wasn’t as though Minnie had actually touched any of her things, and while the rod in her suitcase was beautiful, it was hardly an uncut ruby.
“You should go to bed,” Hermione told her, still remaining quite guarded of her closed suitcase. “It’s getting late.”
“It’s eight thirty!” Minnie argued.
“Alright, then,” Hermione replied shortly. “How about you just leave?”
Minnie pushed herself off the bed, and backed towards the door. That was fine by her! For all Minnie knew, if she stayed any longer, this strange woman would try and throw a lamp at her!
“You might see Chunga, the lizard, running around the house every now and again while you’re here,” she warned. “Don’t let him scare you.”
Minnie shut the door behind her, feeling slightly more smug than she ever had before. Now Hermione could be nervous and on edge whenever Minnie was nowhere in sight.
Minnie’s parents always told her that the second she became a teenager, sleeping late would become her new favorite pastime. Minnie still had yet to become a teenager, so yet again, she was awake when there was still dew lacing the rooftops. That morning, she still rose at the early dentist’s hours that she had her whole life. Of course, with a room full of animals wanting their breakfast, it was likely that she would never even be allowed to sleep very late. Most of the animals were easy enough to feed: Spot-Spot got his pellets, Bidgie and Bickie got their birdseed, and the fish all got their freeze-dried fish flakes. The last of Minnie’s menagerie, however, was a bit more challenging, even though it involved no real work on her part.
“‘Morning, Chunga!” she greeted the lizard, removing him gently from his cage. “Do you want your breakfast?”
Chunga had never shown any signs of understanding human language, and she didn’t know why he would start now. Minnie settled the reptile against her shoulder and carried him down the staircase from the attic, and then down to the first floor. Minnie had never seen Chunga eat in all the years she had owned him, but taking him downstairs every morning before everyone left became the routine and Chunga had yet to stave to death.
“Alright,” she said, setting the reptile on the floor. “Go get your breakfast!”
His feet barely on the floor, Chunga took off like a shot underneath the couch, as though he already knew exactly where to find his mysterious food source. Minnie had checked under the couch at least a dozen times, though, and had never found anything besides dust and the occasional loose change.
In the back of her mind, Minnie hoped that whatever it was that Chunga liked to eat crawled its way into Hermione’s hair. That would be a lovely way to start the day. But Minnie was sure to wipe any expression from her face that would hint at these thoughts as she made her way into the kitchen.
“‘Morning, Mum! ‘Morning, Dad!” she greeted them as she did every morning.
Minnie’s mum wasn’t there, but the sound of the hair dryer buzzing down the hall let her know exactly where she was. Her dad, however, was at the table with his coffee and the paper. Minnie’s dad never actually read any of the stories in the morning; he said the only use in that was when you wanted to start the day off on a depressing note. He did make a point to do all the puzzles the paper had to offer: the crossword, sudoku, and the code phrase. It was a good thing Minnie’s mother didn’t care for puzzles, because she was certain that her father would fight her for them. Now that would be a way to start the day on the wrong foot.
Cereal and milk were already on the table, so Minnie collected a bowl and helped herself.
“They say this stuff causes cancer, you know?” Minnie said as she spooned several scoops of artificial sweeteners over her corn flakes. “We should start buying the real stuff.”
“Oh, really?” her dad replied. “And who are ‘they’ exactly?”
Minnie should have known she would be called on this. “Real doctors?”
Minnie’s dad went back to his morning coffee and puzzles without another word. What could he really say to that? Deep down, Minnie knew that term was a bit of a low blow, but she didn’t know of any other way to describe the kind of doctor you went to for the flu as opposed to a tooth ache.
While Minnie was in the middle of slurping her cereal, Hermione wandered into the kitchen, wrapped in a robe and her hair still wild. She wasn’t sure if they were still angry with each other over what had occurred last night. But that was hard to tell anyway. Hermione didn’t make eye contact and wandered through the kitchen as though Minnie wasn’t even there.
“Hermione!” Minnie’s dad exclaimed. “Good morning! Did you sleep well last night?”
Hermione offered Minnie’s dad a soft smile. “Very nice, thank you.”
“Help yourself to some breakfast.” Minnie’s father pointed out the coffee, cereal, and fresh fruit that had been laid out. Hermione took a fresh cup of coffee and took a seat at the breakfast table, still managing to ignore Minnie, even though she was only one seat away.
“So, Hermione, what do you plan on doing today?” Minnie’s dad asked their guest. “Will you just be relaxing around the house today? Monica and I can share a ride if there’s somewhere you need to go and you need a car.”
“Actually, rest sounds lovely,” Hermione admitted, stretching her arms into the air and bending her back backwards against the back of the chair. “It was a terribly long flight, and I don’t think I’m quite used to the time change.”
At that point, Minnie’s mum came out of the bathroom, fussing through her hair with her fingers, and adjusting her glasses on her nose.
“And, Her”Minnie,” her mum corrected herself, “I’m walking you over to Mrs. Foster’s. I’m not a hundred percent certain you can be trusted to make it there on your own.”
The last thing she wanted was to be ushered over the old neighbor’s house just so she could stare at the ceiling for eight hours. Not when she could do the exact same thing here at home. She hadn’t even changed out of her pajamas yet.
“I’m ten years old, Mum! I’m too old to need a baby-sitter!”
But neither her mum nor her dad appeared very convinced of this statement. With no children before her, her parents had no idea what kids did at what age. Oh, the woes of being an only child!
“You’re grounded, Minnie, remember?” her mum reminded her as she poured herself a cup of coffee.
“And Hermione is here!” Minnie argued. “I won’t really be home alone!”
“And I think you’re missing the whole point of a punishment,” her mother reminded her. “You’re not supposed to enjoy it.”
Oh, there were so many possible ways to answer that statement. “If I’m locked in my room all day, I won’t enjoy myself anyway,” she said, before thinking of something else to help her case. “And Mrs. Foster doesn’t have any real food in her house! Yesterday, all I had to eat was a pack of Oreos!”
That would most certainly cause her parents to have second thoughts. Not only was Minnie being starved, but the only food she did have access to was pure sugar.
Finally, Minnie’s mum came to her decision. “Minnie really is just supposed to stay in her room all day,” she told Hermione. “You wouldn’t even know that she’s here.”
Hermione nodded, as though she agreed, but she still acted as though Minnie wasn’t even in the room. From the tone of the conversation, Minnie could have been a parrot or a cat.
“Oh, Hermione! The bathroom is free now,” Minnie’s mum said, as though suddenly remembering. Hermione pushed herself away from the table, placing her coffee cup beside the sink as she walked past on her way to the bathroom. She still didn’t look at Minnie, even as she left.
Minnie turned to her dad, stirring her bowl of fake-sugary milk. “Hermione’s not really friendly, is she?”
Her father shrugged his shoulders, as though he did not think of it as such a big deal. “She’s British. It’s a culture thing.”
Minnie wasn’t quite sure she agreed with this explanation. “You and Mum are British too.”
“Yes, well, we had eleven years to assimilate.”
Minnie stared down into her bowl, debating whether or not to tell her parents about the interaction the two of them had shared last night. But her parents really seemed to like Hermione, and she was close to them. Besides, there was always a chance this could be turned around so that it was Minnie’s fault, and already being grounded, she wasn’t about to do anything that could get her into worse trouble.
From down the hall, through a series of walls, the Wilkins’ heard a loud, sharp scream over the sound of running water.
“She met Chunga,” Minnie remarked with a slight smirk on her lips, enjoying her newfound smugness once again.
No television, no computer, no leaving the house; she had to do something for entertainment.
Hermione’s finding Chunga looking down at her from the shower head did not give a very lasting sense of joy. Now she was locked up in her bedroom and Chunga had been banished to his cage. Minnie’s dad promised to bring her mice and every kind of feeder insect the pet store had during his lunch break so the lizard wouldn’t starve. Although Minnie wasn’t even sure if any of those were right. Even more so when lunchtime came and went, and Chunga had not touched any of the pet store food.
Then, while Minnie was laying on the bedroom floor with Spot-Spot balanced on her belly (she was fairly certain that there was no way she could get in trouble if Hermione stumbled upon a fuzzy bunny in the house), she heard a voice through the floorboards. Her mother and father were both miles away, scraping the teeth of the town’s citizens, so it couldn’t have been either of them. It could only be Hermione Weasley.
“Are you hearing this too?” she asked Spot-Spot.
Like with Chunga, Spot-Spot did not understand human words, but his ears did go straight up, showing he was definitely alert of something that was going on.
Just at the side of her bed, there was an air vent. With her rabbit still settled in her lap, Minnie slid across the floor and over to the vent. All she could hear were murmurs, but it was obvious that Hermione was in the guestroom. She listened harder, to see if she could pick even one recognizable word. But she still didn’t hear a thing.
“It doesn’t even sound like English.” Minnie grabbed Spot-Spot and held one of his long ears down to the vent. “What about you? Can you hear anything?”
But still, Spot-Spot did nothing to make Minnie think he could actually understand what was going on. Then, a dull light glowed from the bottom of the air vent. Minnie certainly didn’t need a rabbit to help her with that.
“No way!” Minnie breathed, picking up Spot-Spot and holding him off to the side so she could get a better look.
Suddenly a loud crack that made the floorboards vibrate caused Spot-Spot to leap out of her hands and race to the other end of the room. Even Minnie felt her heart jump with the floorboards. Like a scared animal herself, Minnie scrambled to her feet and rushed down the stairs while the animals were all making noise above her. Without stopping to consider her actions, Minnie poked her head through the open door and leaned out into the hallway, suddenly remembering she wasn’t allowed to leave her room.
“Nice catch,” she heard an increasingly familiar British accent say to her. And when Minnie turned her head, there she was, standing just outside the guestroom door, as though she had just been waiting for the girl to disobey her parents’ orders.
“What are you doing, Minnie?” she asked in that condescending tone of hers, showing just how much she was enjoying this new power she held over her little enemy. “You’re parents said you weren’t to leave your room.”
Minnie pointed down to her feet, which were still firmly planted on the bottom step. “The stairs are still technically part of my room.”
Hermione nodded. “Fair enough. All the same, get back up the stairs.
But when Minnie didn’t move, neither did Hermione. “Well?” the woman asked her.
Minnie was not about to play games, though. “So we’re both just going to pretend we didn’t hear that explosion just now?”
“What explosion?” Hermione asked.
“Don’t be cute! I heard it; the floor shook! It made the animals crazy!”
“Alright, there was an explosion.” As soon as she finished saying this, though, Hermione turned back to continue her way to the guestroom, as though she believed the conversation had come to an end. Granted, it technically had if she refused to talk.
“That’s not admitting it!” Minnie shouted down the hallway, leaning out of the doorframe. “You’re just saying that because you’re trying to get me to shut up!”
Hermione walked into the guest room and shut the door behind her, knowing that Minnie wouldn’t be able to follow her and press with more questions.
Unable to do anything else, Minnie let loose an intangible scream and kicked at the doorframe, which she regretted a few moments later as she sunk to the steps, nursing her injured toes.
Late at night, just after five, Minnie was still sitting in her room, tapping on Chunga’s tank. He still hadn’t eaten any of the things her dad had brought home at noon. The bugs hadn’t interested him at all (not surprising, given he was such a large lizard), and the frozen mice were remaining ignored in the corner.
“Hi, Minnie,” her dad said, surprising her that he was doing so well in remembering to use her not-so-new nickname. “How was your day?”
Continuing to stare into the tank, Minnie said. “Chunga’s not eating.”
“Here,” her dad said, holding up a squeaking box toward his daughter. “Maybe some live prey will perk his appetite.”
“Can’t I just let him out of his cage?” Minnie pleaded. “He can find what he likes to eat on his own.”
Minnie’s dad shook his head. “Not if Chunga spends his days sneaking up on the houseguests.”
“I’m not sure I like Hermione,” Minnie said suddenly, though she kept staring into the tank making it seem almost as though she were saying this more to Chunga than to her father.
Minnie’s dad took a seat beside her. “Really? Why is that?”
It was probably better to keep her reasoning a bit vague for now. “She’s rude. She orders me around like she thinks she actually can. And she acts like I have some infectious disease, the way she always tries to stay away from me!”
Minnie’s dad put a sympathetic hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “I’ll admit it, Hermione can be a bit abrasive when you first meet her. It actually took your mother and I quite a while to get used to her when she first came here. But she really is a very lovely person. And I know you’d like her, and that she will like you. You just have to give her some time.”
“Can’t I let Chunga out?” Minnie tried once again, but her dad was shaking his head before she even finished the question.
“I promise to watch Chunga every second he’s out,” she tried to convince her father still. “And once I find out what it is that he eats, I’ll keep him in the cage again.”
“Minnie, just try the live mice,” he begged, pushing the box into her hand. “I promise you, if Chunga is hungry enough, he will eat.”
And with that, Minnie’s father made his way down the stairs, leaving her in the same state of isolation she had spent the whole day in.
Five little white mice scrambled over one another, beady red eyes surveying the scene around them. It was hard to decide which one would be the one to go first. After she picked the first victim, she wondered if the other mice would notice he was gone, and then if she could just hide the box under her bed and tell her dad that Chunga hadn’t wanted them. Then, she reminded herself of the food chain, and that in nature, animals ate other animals for survival all the time. She had yet to give up eating meat herself, so she could hardly ask Chunga to go without it.
“Sorry, mousie,” she said to the rodent squirming in her hands, “but you might be a staple of Chunga’s diet.” She opened the tank and stuck her hand and the mouse inside.
Holding the little albino creature by its tail, Minnie dangled it in front of Chunga’s face, occasionally bumping it into his nose, hoping that he would be somewhat more desperate for food than he had been earlier that afternoon.
After fifteen minutes of effort, Minnie quit worrying if her fingers were going to get bitten off, and she glanced over her shoulder and down the staircase. She couldn’t help but feel a bit of resentment towards the new houseguest because of this slight. She had been grounded because of her, Chunga couldn’t leave his tank because of her, and as though that wasn’t bad enough, this woman was taking every opportunity to taunt Hermione, like a little kid poking a caged animal with a stick.
It was almost enough to make Hermione wish for school to start just so she could spend at least part of her day away from Hermione Weasley.
But not quite.
Hermione by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: Hermione's oppurtunity to prove she was not lying literally show up on her front step, she learns that this Hermione Weasley is actually an old friend of her parents. Too bad she doesn't seem terribly interested in making friends with young Hermione, now called Minnie.
Thanks to my Riham! And I must also thank Lydia for helping me make my dialogue more Australian!