Genie In a Bottle

Disclaimer: I own NOTHING to do with any of JK Rowling’s works or any of her affiliates, and I make NO money out of writing any fics regarding the HP universe. This disclaimer applies to any other chapters that may be added to this fic.

Summary: D/Hr lots of magic and mayhem, combined with a little bit of mystery. Hermione gets turned into a Genie and Draco unintentionally becomes her Master. She now has to grant him one wish per day until he frees her. Will he ever grant her freedom? And will Hermione ever stop trying to outsmart him? You will have to read on to find out!

Genie in a Bottle

Chapter 1 (part 1)


Hermione ran through the cold, wet caverns of the mystical caves of Ventreena, deep within the Himalayan mountain range in Asia, searching desperately for where Ron had run off to when the Boggart had first made its appearance. They had only been traveling for an hour or so before the creature had shown up, so Hermione had known that to encounter any form of magical creature so soon through the journey would surely mean that there would be a lot more where they had came from, if not worse, she knew that she had to find Ron before he came across something even more dangerous than a Boggart and ran off blindly in yet another unknown direction, making them even more lost than they already were.

Hermione ran around a particularly large stalagmite as she cursed to herself about the idiocy of one Ronald Weasley, she had warned him of all of the magical creatures that they could encounter on this expedition, she had even given him her own original and autographed copy of Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them to give him a head start on his research and to learn how to defend himself properly against any such creatures, but no, the first sign of a Boggart and he runs off screaming for Mrs. Weasley to come and squish it with her broom, who coincidentally, was safe and sound and probably tucked up in bed right about now at the Burrow...located very far away, and most certainly not within hearing distance, in England!

Honestly, it was a Boggart, and a baby Boggart at that, and yes Hermione had known that a Boggart took on the image of the onlookers' worst fear, and yes she had known for a fact that Ron’s worst fear was an Acromantula; a monstrous, hairy legged, eight eyed spider that was classified as a known wizard killer by the Ministry of Magic, but it was a Boggart for Merlin’s sake, and a baby Boggart at that!

A simple cast of the Riddikulus spell and the Boggart had started dancing the Highland Jig in a pink tutu whilst singing the Macarena, but even the sight of that had had Ron in hysterics, and not the funny kind either, the one which had made him disappear in an instant.

Hermione would have suspected that he had apparated away if it wasn’t for the fact that it was damn near impossible to use any strong form of magic in the caves other than basic spells, and plus she had heard him run off screaming in the opposite direction for his mother and that god damn broom!

Hermione swore that if she was fortunate enough to get out of this situation alive, and get a hold of that broom herself, she was going to make sure that she used it to beat some sense into Ron, and also for pure pleasure of retribution for him getting them into this mess in the first place.

It was supposed to have been such a simple assignment; a nearby town had been cursed with a babbling curse which had left every inhabitant of the small village, except for the elder who had been out on a small sabbatical at the time, babbling incoherently to themselves.

It was unknown how the town had become afflicted with the curse in the first place, they could only make out that a stranger had cursed the village after becoming annoyed with them, but the villagers hadn’t made much sense at the time so Hermione and Bill could not discover the identity of the wizard or even why he would do such a thing, but an ingredient for the counter-potion to remedy the curse could only be found at such short notice within the nearby magical caves of Ventreena.

Both Hermione and Bill had decided that the best course of action was to leave Bill behind to aid the village in any way that he could whilst Hermione took Ron on the small and not-very-dangerous-if-you-are-prepared expedition to find the elusive ingredient to help cure the cursed villagers.

It was supposed to have been an easy task, nothing too drastic or dangerous and perfect for Ron to wet his appetite and receive some experience of what they do, and maybe give him some inspiration for a career goal.

Hermione sighed to herself; she should have known that this expedition just wouldn’t be that simple with Ronald Weasley around, he was worse than Longbottom at times.

After the war was over, and Voldemort had been defeated, Hermione had joined Bill Weasley, in his chosen career as a curse breaker. She had wanted a change from the normal scene and she also wanted to get away from the media which had plagued the Golden Trio, after the Dark Lord’s defeat.

Ron, on the other hand, had soaked up the media attention like a sponge in water; he had finally found his place in the world other than the side kick of Harry Potter. As a consequence, he had let all of the attention go to his head, as much beer as he could to his belly, not to mention the amount of women he had let go to other areas of his anatomy, it hadn’t taken long before Mrs. Weasley had put her foot down and said enough was enough, he either got his life together or she was washing her hands of him...for good!

Of course, Mrs. Weasley would never do such a thing, but Ron Weasley was too much of a mummy’s boy that he just couldn’t take the chance of defying her wishes. The thought of losing his mother was too much for his mind to handle. Who would wash, cook, and take care of him if his mother wasn’t around?

No, he just couldn’t take the risk, so Ron had decided that he would take up his brother, Bill’s offer, of joining him and Hermione, on one of their little expeditions around the world.

Ron and Harry hadn’t seen Hermione for well over a year, so he could catch up with her while he was there, then he would go home after a few weeks and confess to his mother that he had seen the error in his ways, beg for her forgiveness, he might even throw in a tear or two for good measure, then he would go out with his mates and go back to his old ways, he would just have to find a better way to hide it from his mother.

Hermione turned a corner and cried in dismay; she had reached a dead end. Just as she was about to turn back to go and find an alternative route through the caves, a small flash of light in the far corner of the small alcove caught her eye.

Hermione took a few steps towards the object and bent down carefully to reach for it, keeping all of her senses on alert for any signs of danger, as she picked the object up.

Upon closer inspection, Hermione discovered that the object was shaped like a bottle, which looked to be covered with some sort of hard decorating material, she couldn’t figure out the décor of the bottle because of the layers of dust and grime which had covered the vessel over time, but as Hermione rubbed the sleeve of her shirt against the side of the bottle, bit by bit, she started to see a variety of colours begin to shine through the grime.

After a few more minutes of hard rubbing, shapes began to stand out across the surface of the glass, she carefully traced one of her fingers around one of the hexagonal shapes, removing the thick layer of grime as she did so, what she saw made her gasp in surprise, it was an emerald. She frantically cleaned the rest of the bottle with a combination of spittle and the side of her shirt, and before long she discovered that the whole bottle was adorned in jewels of all kind, in all shapes and sizes.

Hermione analyzed the bottle closely to try and determine what type of vessel it was, but there were no identifiable features present on the surface of the jewels, or the opaque glass, the only feature which identified the bottle as being anything but normal was the dark oak wood of the cork.

It was common practice within the wizarding world to use oak wood to seal magic, or to use as a protective boundary; for a dwelling etc... So Hermione determined that whatever was in the bottle, if anything, was safer to be unleashed in the controlled environment of a lab, and not the cold, wet, and dangerous environment she was in now, where she could barely cast a simple spell, such as the Riddikulus spell, without draining all of her energy.

With that thought in mind, Hermione carefully wrapped the bottle up in a piece of cloth and placed her new found treasure in her back pack for safe keeping. She then prepared herself, to once again, go in search of her missing friend.

Before Hermione could resume her search, what she saw made her freeze in her place; a strange mist was hovering not two feet in front of her, blocking her exit from the alcove she had run into in her search for her idiotic friend.

She could not believe her eyes, it was no ordinary mist. The way that it clung to the air and wove its way through the invisible currents of the space around her was just not natural; there was only one explanation, it had to be magical.

Hermione’s mind kicked into gear, going over everything that she had ever read about the sort of entity which was slowly advancing upon her, but no matter how much she tried to deny it to herself, her mind kept jumping to the same conclusion...it was a Jinn.

Jinn were mythological spirits, which Hermione had only ever read about as folklore, in both the magical and muggle worlds. Jinn were described to be composed of a variety of races, intent upon protection, destruction, or just plain mischief.

From what Hermione could determine; in most instances, they were used in folklore to try and keep populations under control, using fear as the tool of choice by the story teller, but, Hermione had read that in rare cases, Jinn were described by travelers or troubled people as guardians, who had led them in the right direction, which is what Hermione had read were the origins of the muggle fairytale, Aladdin.

‘Of course’ thought Hermione ‘Aladdin and the Lamp, the bottle is the metaphorical Lamp.’ As she thought about the old fairytale of her childhood she remembered that if you rubbed the lamp three times the Genie appeared and you were granted three wishes.

Hermione had rubbed the lamp, a lot, it was near sparkling now.’ I wonder if I’ll get three wishes.’ She desperately hoped so because she really really did not like this expedition anymore, now she just wanted to quickly find Ron and the medicinal Algae and go home.

In any other circumstance, the scientific side of Hermione would be ecstatic to stumble across such a find, but the rational side of Hermione was panicking too much at this point to be happy of this miraculous discovery. The way that the day had progressed thus far, this new discovery just couldn’t end well.

She wasn’t going to be granted three wishes, and she just knew it!

Hermione was unsure of which race of Jinn was hovering in front of her, there were very few descriptions of Jinn in texts, other than that they can appear as any form, such as an animal, or in very rare cases human, but prefer to appear as a spirit of mist.

Apparently the lighter the colour of the mist then the better the intentions of the Jinn, so the fact that the mist appeared as an off-white colour appeased Hermione’s worries slightly, but that did not stop her from slowly reaching for her wand, just in case, and cursing quietly to herself when she remembered that magic was near useless in these caves, ‘except to non humans,’ thought Hermione with dread.

Hermione edged backwards slightly as the mist started to hover towards her, Hermione hoped to Merlin that the Jinn was a guardian and not one which was intent upon hurting her in any way.

She hoped Ron was OK too and that he hadn’t also encountered a Jinn just as she.

‘He probably wouldn’t know what it was’ thought Hermione, ‘he would just walk through it thinking it was mist.’ Hermione panicked, if there was one thing she remembered about Jinn it was that they did not like to be disrespected, and walking straight through them like they did not exist was a sure sign of disrespect if ever she knew one.

Hermione was backed up against the wall behind her now, with no means of escape, and just as she was about to scream for Ron, well Ron was better than no help right? The Jinn stopped its forward motion and began to spread out around her.

Hermione tried to find a way out, but it was useless, she was completely surrounded by the mist which was barely penetrable by the naked eye. She waited patiently for it to attack, and hopefully reveal a means of escape, but at least five minutes had gone by without any other movement.

Just as she had started to calm down a bit, thinking that the Jinn was probably just assessing her to see if she was a threat, which obviously she wasn’t, so it might just finish its perusal and leave her alone, right? The mist above her head began to swirl and an image of a human face appeared within the swirls of gas. Its image was an exact replica of her own face, complete with her own unruly hair.

It looked like Hermione was wrong about the Jinn leaving her be, which is a rare occurrence, but it did happen, sometimes. She gulped as the image of herself smiled down upon her, complete with pearly white straight teeth, courtesy of Draco Malfoy, gleaming at her in all of their glory.

Hermione gulped and tried with all her might to compose her features and smile back.

"Hello," said Hermione, not knowing what to else say, but figuring that a neutral greeting was a good start.

The image did not return the greeting, instead, it closed its mouth in response, and smiled down upon Hermione’s form in a way that sent Goosebumps breaking out all over Hermione’s skin.

‘OK,’ thought Hermione, ‘Maybe I should just make a wish, it might only respond after the first wish has been made?’

"I wish to find Ronald Weasley," Hermione tried to keep her voice composed in a mask of confidence, but she suspected that the little break in the tone of her voice at the end of her request, had given her away slightly.

Nothing, the image of Hermione said nothing in response, the only sign that the Jinn had actually heard Hermione’s wish, was the condescending eyebrow raise and the loss of the smile, which had previously adorned the Jinn’s face.

"Please?" spoke Hermione timidly, as she fought to control her body from curling in on itself and huddling in a corner, to escape from the madness which had surrounded herself that day.

The image of Hermione sneered at her, before finally speaking.

"You wish to find your friend?"

Hermione was not sure whether she felt relief or terrors at hearing the Jinn speak, which if Hermione wasn’t mistaken, was eerily similar to her own voice.

She spoke hurriedly, but nervously as she replied, all the while being careful to watch her tone of voice, so as to not offend the Jinn in any way, "Yes, yes...please."

The Jinn looked her over in deep contemplation for a few more moments, before speaking again in an acidic manner, which left Hermione’s knees threatening to give way beneath her.

"You have taken something that belongs to me."

Hermione was horrified, she had stolen from a Jinn, and not just any Jinn, but a Jinn which was blocking all routes of escape and could kill her at any moment.

Wait...what had she stolen?

"I’m sorry...if you could just tell me what I have taken from you...then...then I can give it back to you, and... andI’llbeonmyway...," Hermione forcibly smiled at the Jinn, but inwardly cringed at the sound of fear that she had heard within her own voice.

The Jinn seemed to look Hermione over for a moment. Assessing her in some way?

Shivers ran up and down Hermione’s spine at the furtive glance the Jinn shot her way, before she answered.

"You have stolen a butticula from me!"

‘Butticula,’ thought Hermione, ‘Butticula...it sounds like Medieval Latin, butticula...bott...bottle...oh the bottle... the bottle.’

"The bottle!" Hermione frantically exclaimed as she removed her backpack, and hurriedly searched its contents for the bottle she had found not too long ago. "I’m so very sorry...I didn’t mean to take it, I didn’t know that it belonged to anyone.".

Merlin, she was a thief to the Jinn. She had not only disrespected one Jinn but the whole god damn race!

She removed the bottle from the bag and desperately handed the bottle back to the Jinn, or she tried to anyway, all the waving and jumping in the world did not seem to make the Jinn want to take the bottle back.

After a few more moments of Hermione trying every way possible to give the bottle back to the Jinn, the image once again spoke.

"Open it!"

Oh, Hermione did not want to open the bottle, by now, she had figured out that it could contain something that she really, really did not want to encounter.

One Jinn was bad enough, but two? She did not want to even think about the consequences of her opening the bloody-stupid-bottle-which-she-really-really-wished-she-had-left-well-alone.

"Erm...what does it contain?" she meekly asked, already knowing the answer to her own question, but desperately trying to stall for time, she needed to think of a way out of there, and now!

"Open it!" the Jinn replied, this time with a bit more forcefulness in her voice.

"But..."

"NOW!"

Hermione did not think that her voice sounded very attractive at that point in time coming from the Jinn’s mouth, but thought it best not to argue the point with the Jinn.

She did make a mental note though, to not sound as bossy and demanding with people who aggravated her in the future. She really hoped that she didn’t sound like that when she was annoyed.

"Erm...ok...ok," Hermione tried to open the bottle without putting up much of an effort, but she did put on a good show of trying. Unfortunately, the Jinn didn’t look like she was buying Hermione’s act.

"I can’t open it," said Hermione, already knowing her words were futile.

"Try again!"

Hermione was growing annoyed with the situation. If the Jinn wanted the damn thing opened then why didn’t she open it herself? Hermione did not want to be the one responsible for releasing something harmful into the world, or on herself. Unless...?

"Why don’t you open it?" Hermione eyed the Jinn carefully.

The Jinn looked taken back for a moment, or as close as a Jinn would look to taken back if it wasn’t ready to attack at any second.

"It is not as if you can’t...is it?"

"..."

Hermione had finally found a loop-hole, she was right, she was rarely wrong after all; the Jinn couldn’t open the bottle herself. Hermione had a bargaining tool, she knew that at some point she would have to grant the Jinn’s request, but now she had a safe way out of this mess.

"What assurances do I have that if I open this bottle that I will remain safe from harm?"

"..."

Hermione sighed in exasperation, "Look, you want me to open the bottle, because you can’t do it on your own, and I want to find my friend and go home." Hermione desperately wanted to add Ron’s location to the deal too, but she thought it best not to push her luck at that time, at least if the Jinn let her go, then she would still have a chance to go and find him.

"So if I open the bottle...will you guarantee that I come to no harm?"

"Wish it."

"What?"

"Wish it, I can only grant a request, if I want to of course, if you wish it."

"OK...I wish to come to no harm if I open this bottle for you."

"Done!" The Jinn grinned knowingly at Hermione. "Now open the bottle."

And just like that, Hermione pulled the dark oak cork from the top of the bottle, and held her breath for the worst...but nothing happened!

Hermione scrunched up her eyebrows in confusion. "Is that it?...Can I go now?" she asked as she placed the bottle on the floor.

"No."

"But I wished...."

"You wished to be safe from harm, I do not remember you wishing to want to leave," the Jinn began to cackle.

Hermione also made a mental note, to not to try and cackle in the near future.

"And you will be very safe where you are going," the Jinn continued.

"Where am....," Hermione became speechless by the sight in front of her; it looked like the bottle was on fire, except there were no flames to be seen. A plume of black smoke began to escape and rise from the neck of the bottle, mingling with the image of Hermione, which had begun to disappear as the black smoke had arrived.

As the last of the smoke escaped from the vessel, it became apparent that both Jinn were familiar with each other. As the mist and smoke began to mingle, Hermione swore that she saw crackles of electricity light up the air.

Hermione did not stop to ask any other questions as she looked around and found a gap in the gaseous mixture swirling around her, she grabbed her backpack, and made a move to escape, but just as she was about to exit the alcove, she felt a tug at her navel.

The tug was small at first, but became stronger and stronger as the feeling persisted; Hermione thought that it felt a bit like traveling by a portkey, but...different somehow...stronger, more over powering.

Hermione screamed as she felt her form start to melt and change shape, she felt no pain, but panic overwhelmed her at what was happening.

The next thing she knew, she was sucked into the bottle the same way as the black smoke had departed, the last thing she heard being more cackling and a whisper of "Your wish is granted, you will be safe."

TBC...