The Last Black (Hermione Granger x Male Reader) Vol.2

CHAPTER FOUR: The Birthday

Luckily for me my birthday landed on the full moon. I'd never really done anything special for my birthday. Mum and I would usually just do something stupid like flood our house with bubbles and have a foam fight or bake tonnes of cakes and eat them all in one sitting and be sick. Andromeda, Ted and Dora sometimes dropped by and they'd all sing Happy Birthday to me whilst we wore ridiculous hats and listened to Aunt Dromeda's records. But this year I just wanted it to be over and done with. Not only was it the full moon, but I was also going to have a meeting with Dumbledore. Apparently, he wanted to talk to me about my O.W.L grades. After he'd done that he'd probably tell me I couldn't return to school in September.

Mum woke me up at about half nine with a cup of tea, "happy birthday Sweetheart," she smiled, sitting on the edge of my bed and placing the teacup down on the bedside table.

"Thanks Mum," I yawned, sitting up and testing the tea to make sure it was cool enough to drink, which it was.

"Are you going to come downstairs?" She then asked, "everybody is waiting for you to come open your presents." This made me anxious. I didn't want to see everybody, especially not on the morning of the full moon. I had begun to feel irritable and ravenous the day before, and this had only gotten worse overnight. Mum must have noticed my discomfort at the prospect of seeing so many people at once, so she pulled out a small glass vial containing a transparent blue liquid. I knew what it was, it was a calming draught. We'd learnt how to brew it in our fourth year. "Made it last night, thought it might help with the nerves," Mum told me. I nodded my head, taking the vial from her and popping off the cork.

"You sure you brewed it correctly?" I asked her with a cheeky grin.

"Oh, I don't know, may be draught of living death," she winked, ruffling my hair, "we need to sort that hair out before you go back to school." I half-smiled. I was sort of getting used to it now.

The potion took immediate effect and began to calm my nerves, as well as settling my heart rate. It was sort of like taking a couple shots of Firewhiskey, except this didn't burn the back of your throat, or make you feel dizzy. I chugged down the cup of tea. "Is it actually everybody?" I asked her when she'd stood up off of my bed.

"Yes, everybody, now get dressed, breakfast is in half an hour, and everybody wants to watch you open your presents before we eat," she smiled. I nodded my head and once she had left the room I climbed out of my bed and got ready.

I hadn't spoken to anyone since the others arrived, apart from Mum, Remus and Sirius. I'd warmed up to Sirius a lot. He never spoke to me as though I was unwell, instead he talked to me like a proper human being. Remus wasn't too bad either of course, but everything he said was always difficult to fully understand.

I fiddled with my hair for a moment in the mirror, took a deep breath, and then exited my room. "Almost there (Y/N)," I told myself calmly as I descended the stairs into the basement. Mum had been right; everybody was sat around the kitchen table.

"Happy Birthday (Y/N)!" They all cheered once I entered the kitchen. Had I have not taken the calming draught then I would have probably fainted. Luckily, I had, and I could smile and thank everyone. I took the empty seat between Charlie and Remus, gazing at all the presents in the centre of the table. I'd never seen so many gifts in one place before. Each present was wrapped differently; there was neat ones, and messy ones, ones with bows wrapped around them, and some with string, some were green, some were orange, and some were even multicoloured. Mum passed around bottles of butterbeer for everyone; it had been our tradition to have butterbeer with breakfast on my birthday since I had turned thirteen.

For a couple moments I could do nothing but stare at Hermione. She wasn't looking at me though, she was picking at the label on her butterbeer bottle. She looked just as beautiful as ever, which made it difficult to sit so close to her. When I focused on my senses, I could smell her perfume from the other side of the table. Thankfully, Sirius drew my attention away from her.