Daughter of Mine | Harry Potter

XXII.

"Dad, do you know if Regulus had a child or a Mahealani Black?" she suddenly decided to ask the man.

"Not that I know of. Regulus died at nineteen, but if he did have a child. Stay away from her. I doubt my brother's offspring would be anything, but a Death Eater," Sirius growled.

Lalia bit her lip. She sighed and nodded at her dad, deciding not to tell him about his very much alive and not evil brother.

Sirius pat Buckbeak good-bye. "I'll walk you to the edge of the village with you," said Sirius, "see if I can scrounge another paper."

He transformed into the great black dog before they left the cave, and they walked back down to the mountainside with him, across the boulder-strewn ground, and back to the stile. Here he allowed each of them to pat him on the head, before turning and setting off at a run around the outskirts of the village. The four made their way back into Hogsmeade and up towards Hogwarts.

"Wonder if Percy knows all that stuff about Crouch?" Ron said as they walked up the drive to the castle. "But maybe he doesn't care ... it'd probably just make him admire Crouch even more. Yeah, Percy loves rules. He'd just say Crouch was refusing to break them for his own son."

"Percy would never throw any of his family to the dementors," said Hermione severely.

"I don't know," said Ron. "If he thought we were standing in the way of his career ... Percy's really ambitious, you know ... ."

They walked up the stone steps into the entrance hall, where delicious smells of dinner wafted toward them from the Great Hall.

"Poor old Snuffles," said Ron, breathing deeply. "He must really like you, two ... . Imagine having to live off rats."

---

The following day, Lalia decided to spend time with Ginny rather than go with the trio to write to Percy and visit Dobby.

Lalia wanted to make up for missing a Hogmeade trip with her. She planned a day just for her. The two were cozy in the Ravenclaw common room in front of the fire with their Ravenclaw friends. While everyone around them was doing homework, Lalia braided Ginny's hair. She put a face mask on the girl and began giving her a back massage.

"You know you don't have to make up for hanging out with your friends," Ginny muttered, too comfortable to put effort into her speech.

"I know, I just wanted you to know I appreciate all your help with my random sicknesses this year."

Ginny got off the floor and tossed the mask in the trash. She sat next to Lalia on the couch and pulled the girl down with her so they laid, cuddled together on the couch.

"You two are so cute!" Morag screeched suddenly looking over at the girls.

"Gosh, a little loud," Lalia said, jumping at her friends voice.

"I'm sorry. But you guys are adorable," she said, gesturing to them when Ginny pushed Lalia's hair behind her ear.

"Ugh, I want a boyfriend!" Morag groaned.

"Are you, guys, girlfriends?" Maddie asked from the girls dormitory stairwell.

The group looked over at the girl. Lalia and Ginny glanced at each other and began blushing.

"Uh... no..." Ginny said. "We haven't really talked about it..."

"Yeah, what she said... C'mon guys were barely thirteen and fourteen. We're not really ready for that. We're just enjoying time with each other."

Lalia bit her lip nervously, worried what Ginny would think, but the redhead just smiled at her and nodded.

"Oh okay," Maddie said, leaving the common room.

"What's it matter to her?" Sue whispered.

"I know that was weird," Morag responded.

"Well, I thought she was just being curious," Luna said, still focused on her homework in her lap.

"So you guys really aren't dating?" Morag asked suddenly.

"We haven't even had our first kiss!" Lalia said exasperatedly. "C'mon, guys, we just like each other. It's all innocent crushes right now, promise."

"Agreed," Ginny said, squeezing Lalia's hand.

Their friends smiled and nodded at them before focusing back on their homework.

---

The next day Lalia sat with the trio during breakfast due to Hermione's urging.

When the post owls arrived, Hermione looked up eagerly; she seemed to be expecting something.

"Percy won't've had time to answer yet," said Ron. "We only sent Hedwig yesterday."

"No, it's not that," said Hermione. "I've taken out a subscription to the Daily Prophet. I'm getting sick of finding everything out from the Slytherins."

"Good thinking!" said Harry, also looking up at the owls. "Hey, Hermione, I think you're in luck -"

Lalia glance to the empty seat on her right, that was now being filled by Ginny. The two smiled at each other.

Lalia looked back to see a gray owl soaring down toward Hermione.

"It hasn't got a newspaper, though," she said, looking disappointed. "It's -"

But to her bewilderment, the gray owl landed in front of her plate, closely followed by four barn owls, all of whom were jostling close to her, trying to deliver their own letter first.

"What on earth -?" Hermione said, taking the letter from the gray owl, opening it, and starting to read. "Oh really!" she sputtered, going rather red.

"What's up?" said Ron.

"It's - oh how ridiculous -"

She shoved the letter to them. It was not handwritten, but composed from pasted letters that seemed to have been cut out of the Daily Prophet.

You are a WickEd giRl. HarRy PotTER desErVes BeTter. G0 back wherE you cAMe from muGgle.

"They're all like it!" said Hermione desperately, opening one letter after another. " 'Harry Potter can do much better than the likes of you ... .' 'You deserve to be boiled in frog spawn ... .' Ouch!"

She had opened the last envelope, and yellowish-green liquid smelling strongly of petrol gushed over her hands, which began to erupt in large yellow boils.

"Undiluted bubotuber pus!" said Ron, picking up the envelope gingerly and sniffing it.

"Ow!" Hermione said, tears starting in her eyes as she tried to rub the pus off her hands with a napkin, but her fingers were now so thickly covered in painful sores that it looked as though she were wearing a pair of thick, knobbly gloves.

"You'd better get up to the hospital wing," said Harry as the owls around Hermione took flight. "We'll tell Professor Sprout where you've gone ... ."

"I warned her!" said Ron as Hermione hurried out of the Great Hall, cradling her hands. "I warned her not to annoy Rita Skeeter! Look at this one ..." He read out one of the letters Hermione had left behind: " 'I read in Witch Weekly about how you are playing Harry Potter false and that boy has had enough hardship and I will be sending you a curse by next post as soon as I can find a big enough envelope.' Blimey, she'd better watch out for herself."

"No offense, Harry, but that's really stupid and annoying that all these people care about someone they never met's school drama," Lalia said, scrunching her nose in disgust at all the letters.