"AAAAAGGHHHHH!"
A woman yelled in pain. It was some of the worst pain she'd ever felt. She was lying in her bathtub, breathing quickly. She rested a hand on her expanded stomach and pushed again; this baby was coming out and she wasn't going to stop pushing. Her lover had brought her home and then went back to continue the fight.
It wasn't even her they were after, it was her unborn child, "AAAAAGGHHHHH!" She pushed again, and pretty soon, her baby was out; her new baby boy. She struggled for her wand and used Diffindo to cut the umbilical cord when she had it. She dropped her wand in the tub beside her and she began crying along with her son, she held him to her chest and tried to calm him, "Mommy's here, it's okay," she struggled to stand up, but finally did and wrapped her son up in a towel. She couldn't keep him, not with that group after him. Her lover, the boy's father, went to stall them to give her long enough to birth him and hopefully find a home for him.
She walked him to the kitchen, set him down on the table, and grabbed a pen and paper:
" To the person who reads this, the baby boy is named ," she looked over at him and quickly thought up a name, " Jake, his last name does not matter. The only thing I can ask of you is to please look after him and love him in the way I can't. There are men who would wish harm on him, as well as myself, so putting him with a different family is my only option. Please raise him as though he was yours? You're his only Hope. "
She dropped the pen and stuffed the paper in the towel he was bundled up in. Her tears kept flowing from her eyes as her baby continued to cry. She didn't have long to leave and find him somewhere he could live. She picked up her child and Apparated somewhere in a park. Since it was night time, there was no one around to see or hear her. She staggered around in the cold air and damp grass; her arms were cold and her feet were wet. It was the tail-end of March, Spring had already hit, but the weather was defiant, and maintained the winter feel in the post-winter season.
Her teeth chattered against her will and she found a home after ten minutes of walking. She got up to the porch and fell to her knees, scraping them against the wooden steps. She set her baby down on the porch, just in front of the door and knocked three times. She walked off the porch and before the door could open to reveal herself there, she disapparated back to her home.
Upon arrival, she was met with her lover, sitting against the wall, he was in bad shape. He had cuts and lacerations and gashes all over his face, arms, shoulders, and chest. His right foot was missing, but his Blue eyes still had some life in them, "Heh... they're waiting for you... it's an ambush... d-don't... don't go back..." he managed to get out.
"I have to... if I don't try and stop them here and now..." she trailed off, looking down at the floor, "Jake."
"What?"
"I named him Jake," she said with tears falling down her face.
"Jake... is he safe?" He asked her.
"Yes... he should be safe now, Tim..." she said to him.
"Good... Ch-Christina... y-you can't go b-back there..." he struggled to stand up, so she helped him. He was leaning against the wall, looking at her. Her Light Brown hair was always beautiful, even now, "I'm...I'm going back..."
"Tim, you can't-"
"No... you can't-"
"I have to..." she trailed off again.
"Then... let's do it together," he held out his hand for her and she grasped it. She nodded and they both Apparated back to the Meadow they had been attacked in. Sure enough, there was an ambush waiting on them, but Tim, her loyal and faithful lover and husband, immediately put up a Protego Diabolica around them to protect them, but mainly Christina.
"So, you've come back," a man's voice said, "I honestly didn't think you would."
"Go to hell," Christina said as calmly as she could manage.
"You first. Enjoy the ride," the man smirked from beyond the flames. "You were pregnant when you left here a while ago, where is your child!?" He demanded of her.
"Dead... stillbirth..." she tried to play it off as her son being dead.
"You lie. The prophecy is very clear, he would not simply die of a miscarriage," he didn't believe her.
"It's the truth," tears flowed from her eyes again, her anger was rising. She knew the Prophecy very well.
'The Brotherhood of Grim grows more powerful with each passing day... They appear unstoppable, but they do not know of the child that is not yet born of this world... The Child that will bring about their downfall as he grows into a man... The Brotherhood of Grim will be outmatched and their reign of terror will cease... The Boy, Merlin's True Heir, will bring about Prosperity and Salvation to us all...'
Those were the words she'd heard almost a month ago from Jade C. Primrose, a supposed Seer, which she hadn't believed, but when the Brotherhood of Grim caught wind of it, and began hunting the then Six Months Pregnant Christina, she and Tim had been on the run. "You'll never find him, Joseph Mills, you'll never find him!"
"My dear, we won't have to," the man said and they all aimed their wands at the two of them, "Now, I must ask that you die."
An untimed wave of Avada Kedavra was sent into the middle of the Protection Spell, some of them missing and killing their own, but Christina Ambrose and Tim Washington were both murdered that night. Joseph Mills and his Brotherhood approached the two dead bodies, "Pathetic," he said, and they all began to laugh, but he stopped when he noticed something peculiar. The body of Christina Ambrose was glowing dimly, and began to brighten, quickly. He knew exactly what was about to happen. He apparated away, just as her body exploded in a Magical Boom, killing all of his Brothers and Sisters he had in the Brotherhood. She was an Ambrose, after all, which was why they attacked her at her weakest; childbirth.
It took him far too long to get trustworthy people in his Brotherhood. Now he would have to do so again. One man couldn't try tracking down an infant. He cursed the name Ambrose as he went about his new task.
Christina's ethereal form showed up at her son's new home. Before she passed on, she had to see him one more time. She saw him with a woman, a young looking woman who was cradling Jake in her arms. Christina smiled and began to cry, knowing that she couldn't hold her baby one more time. She closed her eyes and dissipated from this world.
*******
"AAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHH!" Jake yelled out as he awoke in the middle of his first night back at Merlin's Tower. He had rolled out of his bed and hit the floor with a thud. He wasn't in a state of panic like last summer, though. He knew what had just happened. He remembered the whole dream, and remembered a detail he didn't know existed, "My father... he was the one to cast the Protection Spell... Protego Diabolica ..."
"Jake!" He heard in a muffled voice from beyond his room, "Jake, are you alright?"
Jake stood up from his floor and walked out of his room, "I'm fine, Merlin..."
"That horrible nightmare again?"
"Yes... but I deliberately let myself experience it... in the last third of my Fourth Year, I experienced something that didn't really make sense before... and it felt like it was something to do with the dream I'd been taking Sleeping Draughts to avoid... and I got my answer... I think..." Jake explained as best he could.
"What did you find out?" Merlin asked him.
"He's only in one book I've ever read about him, and it wasn't an easy book to find... but I remember everything I've read about him... I think my biological father was the son of Gellert Grindelwald..." Jake said, his face illuminated by the fireplace as he sat down in the chair near it.
"Grindelwald... hmm... the name sounds familiar..." Merlin said.
"Before Voldemort, Grindelwald was the most notorious Dark Wizard before Dumbledore stopped him in 1945. He's been in the topmost cell in Nurmengard Castle in Austria since. Grindelwald is the only known practitioner of the spell, Protego Diabolica ... in my dream... my father used it to protect my mother... I originally thought both of them used it, but seeing the dream clearly for the first time, it was only him... but they both still died..." Jake trailed off, but Merlin didn't say anything, knowing Jake had more to say, "Grindelwald was known to be a Seer as well... those things I'd been seeing, it was the future, but I didn't know it at the time, I dismissed Divination as nothing but trash... a worthless branch of magic... is it even worth practicing along with all of my other work? I aim to be an Alchemist, not a Seer..."
"If you do not think Divination is worth your time, then do not practice it, it's that simple. You've got a long life ahead of you, I'm sure of that, you'll be able to practice Divination later in life when you feel it necessary," Merlin gave him his insight.
Jake looked up at him, his portrait cast in shadow, "I think I'll do that..." Jake, satisfied with figuring out his dream, and his newfound connection to Gellert Grindelwald, stood up and decided to try something else, something he'd so far had trouble with. He walked up to the Alchemy Table, took one of the many Retort's on it, and placed it upon the empty table in front of his fireplace. He held his hand up and his wand came to him. He tapped the Retort and walked about five feet away. Merlin had no idea what he was doing, but he was shocked at the next thing Jake said. He turned around and pointed his wand at the Retort, " Avada Kedavra !" The green light traveled through the air, Jake braced his free arm, and the spell hit the Retort. He raised his hand when he saw the spell flying back at him, and he caught the Killing Curse in his left hand. He had braced for it, but as he closed his hand around the green spell, he flew backwards and collided with a bookcase, getting covered with books as he fell to the floor, unconscious.
*******
Hermione was sitting in her room in the middle of the night, staring at a bag at the end of her bed. After getting home that evening, she found that her father had moved his stuff out of the house, and it was just her and her mother. She didn't like that they were getting divorced, the finalization still hadn't gone through yet, but what could she do? She couldn't make them stay together.
She had gone out after getting home, telling her mother she had a bit of shopping to do. It wasn't a lie, but what she went to get she didn't tell her mother. She brought back a few things to not arouse suspicion, and she put her real purchase in her nightstand until her mother had gone to sleep.
Now, Hermione sat cross-legged, staring at the bag at the end of her bed. Jake's admittance of love to her had made this an impulse purchase, if she was honest with herself. She grabbed the bag, the phallic object in her grasp, as she put it right in front of her, and removed it from the bag. She wasn't of age that she could buy what she actually wanted to, so this would have to do. She had in her hand a cucumber, and her face heated up as her mind thought nothing but dirty thoughts.
"Jake... I want to be able to make you happy... in more ways than you can imagine..." Hermione had decided that practicing before her first time with him, in the event he was as big as she was preparing for, she'd not make a fool of herself during her first time with him.
She held the cucumber firmly in her right hand, raised her head up so that she was looking at her ceiling, opened her mouth, and slowly lowered the cucumber in and down her throat, gagging almost immediately. Tears had already formed in her eyes from the feeling; this was going to be a lot harder than she originally thought. She pressed on, however, for Jake. She looked at her ceiling again, and gave it another attempt.
*******
He struggled to get up. It felt like the world was weighing down on him, preventing him from getting to his feet. He heard a voice that sounded miles away. He soon found the strength to stand up, and the weight fell off of him. He opened his eye to see a pile of books at his feet. It was bright, brighter than he remembered. He saw a window open and sun rays bathing the spot where he stood. "Morning?"
"Jake!? Oh, thank the maker you're alright!" A familiar voice said. He looked and saw Merlin in a small picture on a table beside him.
"Merlin?"
"Jake, have you gone mad? What were you thinking?" Merlin asked him disapprovingly.
"What happened?" Jake asked, pushing his feet through the books. He stumbled over to the chair near the fireplace and fell into it.
"What happened?" Merlin asked, surprised, "you tapped your wand to that Retort, walked a little ways off, then turned and cast the Killing Curse at it!" Merlin had yelled, "I ask again, what were you thinking?"
Jake was breathing in and out slowly, "I knew... I knew it wouldn't kill me... if I grabbed the spell as it came towards me..."
"But why do it?"
"I need to see... if I can train my body... to resist the force... and impact... of the spell..." Jake looked up at Merlin, "I'm going to be practicing that until Hermione decides... if she wants to spend time here at the Tower... or not..."
"Hermione Granger?"
"The one and only... I confessed my feelings to her... but we aren't together... I asked if she wanted to wait until after Voldemort was dealt with... and we had nothing to worry about... and she said yes..." he smiled at Merlin.
"Really? You finally told her, and she felt the same?" Merlin asked him.
"I've known how she's felt since the end of our Third Year..." Jake said slowly.
"Why not ask her then?"
Jake closed his eye and rested his head in his hand as he leaned on the arm of the chair, "I was afraid... afraid I wouldn't be good enough... afraid I would hurt her the way my adoptive father did me..." he said in a despondent tone, "had Cedric not died, and Voldemort not be back, I wouldn't have asked her to wait... that's why I'm training my body to see if I can resist the Killing Curse to where I won't be rendered out of consciousness... I need to protect Hermione..."
Merlin wasn't quite sure how to respond, but then said, "Then I guess you had better get to work, hadn't you?"
Jake opened his eye and looked at Merlin appreciatively, "Thank you... I'm going to give it another go," Jake said. He stood up, waved his wand and put all the books back on the bookshelf, the order wasn't important, and he conjured up a mattress, binding it in place so that it wouldn't move when he hit it. He walked up to halfway between the mattress and Retort, and aimed his wand at the small glass bottle, " Avada Kedavra !"
*******
A week had passed since Hermione left Hogwarts for the Summer. She was busy writing a letter, her third one, addressed to Harry. She'd already written one for Jake and one for Ron, and now she was busy getting her third guy friend a letter written. She stopped writing suddenly at the thought, 'Three guys I'm friends with... one of them confessed his love to me, and I returned it fully... I'm not exactly friends with any girl in my year, or Gryffindor House for that matter... I have nothing against Parvati, Lavender kind of gets on my nerves, especially with how she feels about Jake, and I did go off on her for bad mouthing him...' She pushed the thought aside. And got back to writing her letter for Harry.
When she finished, she looked at Hedwig, who was standing on her desk, looking at her patiently.
"You don't mind carrying three letters, do you?" Hermione asked her, but Hedwig just stared at her. She held one leg out and Hermione tied all three letters independently, and she Charmed each letter so that only the one it was meant for could read it. No one but Jake was reading what she wrote to him. It wasn't anything scandalous, but she told him that she loved him at the end of it, and she honestly couldn't trust Harry or Ron to not be curious enough to read the entire letter.
Hedwig then took off out of her open window, which she stood up and walked over to, admiring the outdoors for a moment before closing her window back. She hoped they were doing well, especially Jake. She hadn't talked to him since they parted back in the Leaky Cauldron, and she wanted to desperately kiss those lips of his again.
She hadn't told either of her parents that he kissed her and told her he loved her, but she suspected her mother had to know; the look on her face as she left the Leaky Cauldron had to give something away, but her mother so far hadn't asked her about it, which she was thankful for. If her mother knew, would she let Hermione go and visit him at the Tower? Maybe if she lied and said she was going to stay at the Burrow, she'd let her go then, but how would she go about saying Merlin's Tower in front of her mother? She'd want to see her off.
There was a knock at her door. She looked around quickly as she sat on her bed, and saw nothing out of place, "Come in."
Her mother opened the door and walked in, "Hermione, you doing alright?"
"Of course, mum, why wouldn't I be?" She smiled at her mother.
"You've just been acting a little weird, even for you," Jane said cheekily.
"Thanks mum... thanks," Hermione said sarcastically.
"I'm sorry dear, a mother can't prod her daughter a bit? But you've been acting weird since you told Jake goodbye at that pub. What did you two talk about?" Jane asked.
'Oh no... I haven't thought this through...' Hermione's mind was trying desperately to think of anything.
"I know how you feel about him," Jane said suddenly.
Hermione's mind almost shut off, "You do?"
"I know how he feels about you, too."
"Y-You do...?" Hermione was starting to feel queasy in her stomach.
"Yes, and I'm thinking... you and him are together now?" Jane asked.
"W-Well... not exactly..." Hermione said with an awkward half-smile.
"What does that mean?" Jane gave her daughter an odd look.
"He asked if we could wait until after we graduated from Hogwarts," Hermione lied, "so that way we could both still focus on our school work without the added distraction of being in a relationship."
"I can see why he would suggest that, no reason to give either of you more to worry about. And nothing can go perfect," Jane said, "if you both ended up having a row, well that wouldn't be good for either of you while still at school, would it?"
"No, not at all," Hermione then got bold, "is it alright if I stay with him for a week or two over the summer before we go to the Burrow?"
Jane raised an eyebrow, "You're asking me to allow you to stay with him... by yourselves?"
"We won't do anything, mum," she said, "and even if we do, a snog isn't going to hurt anything... we snogged just before Christmas ended last year, and he snogged me just before he and I parted at the Leaky Cauldron..."
Jane eyed her daughter carefully, "You're still asking me to let two hormonal fifteen year olds stay together, alone..."
"Please, mum? You know I'll be safe there, and he knows to not try anything I'm not ready for, he's got more respect for me than that..." Hermione tried to appeal to her mother.
Jane was quiet for a moment, "Alright," Hermione's eyes lit up, "I know you both love each other greatly... if you do decide to do anything... just use protection, alright dear?"
"Mum!" Hermione felt her face flush with embarrassment.
"I'm just being honest, Hermione. I know you, and I know you wouldn't do anything to make life at Hogwarts harder than it needs to be," Jane said, and Hermione heard the voice in the back of her head saying if her mother only knew the half of what she and her friends do.
"So... what about the middle of next week, after I've gotten some time spent with dad?"
"That will be fine... I'm sorry you had to get a letter about your father and I divorcing... but we figured it was better you knew before we came to pick you up."
"I was mad and hurt at first... but I can't be mad at either of you... I'm old enough to understand love doesn't always last between two people... I'll always love you and dad, no matter what," Hermione said to her mother, who promptly got up, sat right next to Hermione, and embraced her.
"I love you, Hermione," Jane said.
"I love you too, mum," Hermione said, feeling her eyes start to tear up.
They let go after a minute, "So I take it Jake's gotten completely used to not having one of his eyes?"
"Yeah, it's not stopped him or slowed him down at all... and I've noticed that he's gotten faster at drawing his wand, whenever he feels the need to use it," she said, her cheeks burning.
Jane smiled, "Did he have to defend you at all last year?"
"Only once," she half-lied, "there was a giant Boulder that was about to crush a bunch of us, and he stopped it with ease."
"Why did a Boulder almost crush a bunch of you?" Jane asked, her eyes widened a bit.
"Oh... I forgot I never wrote to you about the Triwizard Tournament..." Hermione said, regretting what she said. She had so far not told her parents about the horrible things that happened each year after the Troll Incident.
"What was the Triwizard Tournament?" Jane asked with a cocked eyebrow.
"Well... it was an event that went from the moment each student from one of three schools on Halloween, all the way until the Twenty-fourth of June. Hogwarts hosted the event this year, and the other two schools, Beauxbatons Academy and Durmstrang Institute, a small entourage came with most of the students. Seventeen, which was the age restriction the Tournament had," Hermione explained anything that wouldn't give away the fact the Tournament ended with Cedric's death, Voldemort's return, or the fact this was the first time in over a century the Tournament had been held again. "And it was during the First Task when the Boulder almost impacted with the stands."
"A-And you said th-the First Task involved Dr-Dragons?" Jane asked in a shaky tone.
"Yeah, aside from the Hungarian Horntail flying and chasing the Champion," Hermione said, making sure Harry wasn't name-dropped at all, "the chain holding it in the ground pulled up a massive chunk of rock, and it flew towards us in the stands, but Jake stopped it..." Hermione said, and she smiled, "he looked so amazing... he always looks amazing, mum."
Jane couldn't help but smile as well, "We were definitely right to trust him to keep you safe. He cares a great deal about you, I have no qualms anymore about you staying with him, but remember, use protection if it comes to that," she said, a cheeky grin spreading across her face.
"Mum!"