Dianthus Stories
Chapter One - Confirmation
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you recognize belongs to someone else, namely, JK Rowling.
the HP universe, characters from same.
Sadly, I have no hope of publishing this story outside the fan fiction
characters I’ve created. Feel free to
give me critical feedback, including flames and harsh criticism.
personal embarrassment, but I do promise to read it and incorporate it if I
feel it improves the story.
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is Chapter One. Smut begins in Chapter Twenty
Six, so if you’re only looking for that, feel free to skip ahead.
of the stuff in those later chapters if you don’t stick it out.
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Chapter One –
Confirmation
In the largest
bedroom of a large farmhouse, a tiny girl sat, very still, in a chair facing a
large mirrored vanity. Only the swing of
her feet, which did not quite reach the floor, betrayed her impatience.
something that was not happening fast enough.
“Come on, now,” she muttered.
“I’m sorry, all right? I’m
sorry!” She waited another long moment,
to no avail. The little girl gazed into
the mirror through narrowed eyes, and pursed her lips.
Grandpa’s room, I suppose.” She rose
from her chair and had turned halfway toward the bedroom door before another
voice spoke.
“Dianthus,” said
the mirror, irritably. “Get back here!”
The little girl
bit her lower lip to keep herself from smiling as she turned back to face the
vanity. “Are you quite certain you
forgive me?” she asked, in her very sweetest voice.
“Just don’t call
me a bossy old biddy again, all right?” sighed the
mirror.
“Okay,” said
Dianthus at once, and she sat back down.
“Now, will you please tell me how to curl my hair?”
expectantly.
The mirror paused,
and seemed to consider the request.
Dianthus fidgeted in her chair as the silence lengthened, and then
looked around the room. Midland lace
curtains hung in the windows, and the bedspread was a fusion of tuberoses and
ruffles. Even the wallpaper had a tiny
floral pattern running through it. The
overall effect was soft and feminine, and the first time she had seen it, the
entire setup had made her ill. But now
that she was ten, and had been living with her grandfather for close to five
years, she felt she had gotten used to it.
Perhaps, too (although she’d never admit it), she had become just a
little bit more feminine herself.
“Are you going to
pay attention?” the mirror demanded, breaking Dianthus out of her reverie.
against my better judgment, mind – on how to curl your hair with your grandmother’s
wand. Now, if your grandfather catches
you, I had absolutely nothing to do
with it. We are agreed?”
“Yes, yes, we’re
agreed,” said Dianthus quickly. Her
grandfather never let her touch her grandmother’s wand – but Dianthus knew
where he kept it, just the same. Just
once she wanted to have the kind of curls she saw in the photos of her mother,
little ringlets that seemed to shimmer around her head.
was, to put it bluntly, a mess. She
seemed to have a lot of hair, but she couldn’t do much with it.
her shoulders, and prone to knots.
Worse, her grandfather only seemed to notice it when it was at its most
matted. At these times, to her horror,
he would summon her grandmother’s hairbrush and mercilessly tug and yank at her
head until the rats were gone – along with most of her hair, she often thought.
“Yes,” she said
again. “All you need to do is tell me
the words, and I can take it from there, I’m sure of it.”
that she had finally broken through its reluctance.
outright pleading to even make it this far.
Her grandfather’s mirror had absolutely refused her request, and the
only mirror in Dianthus’ room was not magic.
And Aster didn’t have a mirror in her room – she always was more of a
tomboy. Her grandmother’s mirror, then,
was her last chance. Once she had the
spell, she could practice it on her own.
Her grandfather would be furious if he found her with the wand, but when
she finally proved she could do something, anything,
with her grandmother’s wand, surely he would let her have it?
“Very well, then,
let us begin. The spell itself is quite
simple, but the wand movement is essential.
Oh, I remember very well the many, many times your grandmother curled
your mother’s hair, sitting right where you are now–”
“Come on, now, get
on with it!”
“Patience,
Dianthus, patience,” chided the mirror.
“Where was I?” Dianthus could
almost see the frown as the mirror collected its thoughts.
movement. It is not so much a
‘swish’ as a ‘dip’, if you understand my meaning.
self, this can be difficult to accomplish.
However, to misdirect the magic would be quite…catastrophic, for the
witch or wizard attempting the spell, as baldness can be easily the result,
rather than the intended effect.”
Dianthus
sighed. The mirror, which had been her
grandmother’s, came from a different era, when people had time to sit around
and talk all day about things like unintended results and misdirected
magic. And, she thought, this particular
mirror liked to hear itself talk much too much.
The mirror’s
droning was cut short, however, by a shout from the first floor.
calling her name so loudly – generally he was quite a reserved fellow.
from the chair. “We’ll finish this
later,” she whispered to the mirror.
“I’m not going
anywhere, Dianthus,” called the mirror, as Dianthus pelted from the room.
Dianthus ran down
the stairs and had to pull up short to avoid colliding with her grandfather,
who stood by the banister with one foot on the bottom step.
coming up after her. Dianthus noticed
that his face was slightly flushed, and her eyes widened.
hair, but currently he was hunched over as if in pain, and both of his hands
were clutched to his belly. His dark
blue eyes, which were exactly like her eyes, were stern and his face seemed
overly serious. She faltered.
“She’s fine.
orchids. I thought you might not want
her jumping around when I gave you this.”
He held out his hands. In them
was an envelope, made of heavy parchment and sealed with a dollop of red wax –
and addressed directly to her:
Dianthus
“
she felt as if she could not move. She
looked from the envelope into his face.
His eyes were no longer stern, but dancing with joy, and she stared back
down at the parchment in her hand. After
a moment he urged, “Open it, then, Dianthus, open it,” for she was still
staring at the letter as if turned to stone.
“Grandpa,” she
finally whispered, looking up at him.
“Is this…is it–”
“Yes!” he shouted.
Grinning, Dianthus
ripped open the seal open and hurriedly began to read the letter out loud.
inform you–”
At this her
grandfather let out a shout, startling her so that she almost dropped the
letter. “I knew it, I
you had it in you!” He gave another
whoop of laughter and pulled her into an embrace, twirling her around as he
hadn’t down since she was very s.
He released her
after three complete turns around the room, and she threw her arms over her
head and danced a jig. “I got in,
Grandpa! I got in!
told you!”
Her grandfather
pulled a handkerchief from the back pocket of his overalls, and mopped his
brow, panting slightly. “I know you did,
Di love, but we had to be sure, didn’t we?
After all, your mum and dad…” He
looked away for just a second, and then continued.
proud.” He pulled her again into a tight
embrace. “Not that she was ashamed of
your dad, and I was proud of him, too, but…”
He trailed off.
“I know, Grandpa,”
Dianthus said quickly. He was looking
unhappy, and she didn’t like that. “But
you know I’ve wanted it so bad, too!”
She was rewarded with a smile from him.
“I know.
dear, but I’m mighty glad you’ve turned out different.”
front door of the farmhouse. “I’ve got
to tend the ague weed, it seems like they’re not getting enough sun
again.” He looked over his shoulder at
her and said, “The letter has come a bit earlier than I thought it would.
soon. You can use your grandmother’s
wand for practice, but you’ll need your own when you get to school.”
Dianthus
letter up to the mirror with a flourish.
“And guess what Grandpa just told me I could do?”
relief. It was quite fond of the little
girl, and had allowed itself to be cajoled into this sneaky little plan, but it
knew full well that Peregrin Brandywine could be a bear when riled.
“So, the correct
wand movement, then, shall we?” it said.
Dianthus could practically hear it beaming at her.