"Oh, was that Wednesdays?" she asked innocently. "I must have forgotten."
"You know it's Wednesdays. Feigning ignorance was never your strong suit."
"Well, you wouldn't want to make me into a liar, would you?" she asked.
"I don't have to," her father said. "You already are one. Good for you," he said with an oddly cheery tone. "Go on and tell this Harry we'll be there. I take it you're going to be writing to him more often then?" he asked.
"Of course," she said, as if he had asked if the sky was blue.
"Then-," he said as he gestured nebulously with his hands as he did when searching for the right wording that would let him avoid getting smacked by perturbed Puckles. "-You might not want to use that quill that's on your desk then."
"Why? What's wrong with my favorite quill?" Hermione asked concerned.
"Oh, nothing - nothing," he reassured her quickly. "But that's not your favorite quill. That's a - hang on, I've got it here-," He rummaged through his pocket to produce a mangled package. "'Get in touch with your innermost feelings,'" the father read as a look of dread spread across his daughter's face, "'with the Heartseeker Quill- '"
Hermione snatched the folded packaging out of his hands to see for herself.
"You pranked me!" she asked, her voice starting an upward climb. "Where did you get this!"
"I got it at that nice Diagon Alley place," he said, his hands held out to ward off any incoming blows. "I thought it'd be a nice therapeutic tool but never could find a way to trick your mother into using it."
"You realize how badly this could have gone?" she asked, her bushy mane seeming to get bigger with each passing moment.
"I only wanted you to be yourself," he said quickly. "In my defense, you said it went well. The man said if you really wanted to hide something it wouldn't make you write it. It's just supposed to be a simple suggestion. Why, what did you say?"
"I told him we should have twenty kids and get started right away! I guess next summer I'll be having a little bundle to bring home with me," she said acidly.
The color drained from Dan Granger's face as he dropped his hands in defeat.
"Please tell me you're not serious."
"Of course I'm not serious!" Hermione said, smacking him in the chest. "Now you know how pranking feels."
"Ow," he complained, his hand rubbing his chest. "You can't do that to a parent, it's not playing fair."
"Mother taught me to win, not to play fair," she said shockingly assertively. "Maybe you should remember that I'm a little bit Puckle, even if I'm not a Little Puckle."
The wild beast that was his daughter stalked off back to her lair without a backwards glance.
'Not so much a wildebeest,' the man thought to himself after a moment as he made his way back to his chair. 'More like the lions that eat them. Definitely has the Puckle temper. Good thing she sees something positive about being one, and she's calling her mother her mother again. Maybe if we can get a bit of the Granger softer side to show itself we could get a nice blend going. ' He shrugged. 'Maybe that Harry will be good for her .'
"Congratulations," his wife said to him as he settled back into his chair.
"Pardon?" he asked.
"She's sullen, irritable, rebellious, she hates her parents, and there's a boy involved, unless I misinterpreted the squee from earlier," the good doctor fired off her check list without ever looking up from her reading, as if listing a patient's symptoms from their chart. "Your daughter's a teenager. You must be so happy."
"Happy? Ha!" the man cried as he kicked back and put his feet up with his recliner. "If one of those were true, I'd be happy. With all of them true - I'm ecstatic," he grinned.
She looked up from her reading.
"So you're not going to be the overprotective father and try to run the boy off before he can defile your daughter? That's very mature of you," she said neutrally, seeming to expose by accident the article she was reading about sexually transmitted diseases.
"I'm not going to let you get to me," he said, wagging his finger at her. "Today was a good day."
The dreaded Dr. Puckle smiled one of her rare half-smiles as her husband concentrated overly hard on reading an article about a mad horse-faced woman in Surrey claiming a horde of goblins and a rock star had stolen her washing machine.
.....
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