Disclaimer: I own nothing, nothing I say!
Ok, this is the rewritten chapter 1. There are no big changes, I think, but I'm more pleased with it. Probably a couple of spelling mistakes in it, but you'll have to forgive me for those, I not perfect :P
Chapter 1
Morning ritualsHermione woke to the sound of a banging door.
"Wake up you silly girl. Miss Parkinson needs help with her bath, and you haven't even finished with her breakfast yet!"
The brown haired girl sat up, moaned from the lack of sleep and rubbed her eyes. The last remnants of her dream quickly disappeared and it felt like someone had ripped it from her chest. The dream had been such a pleasant one, she had felt safe and… loved, and to wake up to the unpleasant reality was hard.
"I'm coming Mrs Cobb", Hermione answered after another loud bangs.
The old woman outside the room muttered something loud enough for her to hear about lazy girls with too much hair instead of brain, and walked away.
Hermione did as she had said. She rose and quickly got dressed, put her hair up in a tight bun and got ready for another day filled with hard work and unpleasantness. She looked around in the room where she lived, to see if she had forgotten anything.
It really wasn't much to see. A small wooden bed at the long side of the room, a small table on the short side to her left, and the thing that did the room one of her favourite places in the whole house; a small window. As often as she could, Hermione used to open the window and climb out on the flat roof outside. There she could look out over the other roofs of the town and on clear nights see at least a million stars. The window was slightly open and…
Hermione frowned.
"I'm sure that I closed it before I went to bed…"
But she heard the unmistakable sound of Mrs Cobb coming towards her room again, and that meant that if she weren't ready within that very moment- she would be in a lot of trouble.
She hurried over to the window, closed it, and hurried back to the door and opened it quickly before Mrs Cobb had the chance of banging on her door again.
And, very true, the short but very compact figure of Mrs Cobb greeted her outside. The middle aged woman had her grey her hair up in an extremely tight bun- Hermione suspected that she did her hair so; just to be able to pick on everyone else's- and her face was wrinkled in a deep frown.
"I have a hard time figuring out just what took you so long, girl! After all these years… and you still oversleep. And what's even worse is that you still don't know the right way to behave in front of people. Don't you think that I don't notice your rudeness; it's shocking that you still don't even bow to your superiors!"
Hermione sighed and nodded with her eyes on the floor. The issue of her "disrespect" was something that Mrs Cobb loved to bring up as often as possible.
"Yes, Mrs Cobb. I'll try to do my better best from now on."
Mrs Cobb frowned even deeper. She obviously didn't believe her. Hermione, though, had stopped caring about Mrs Cobb many years ago. She had lived here in the Parkinson Household for as long as she could remember. Her mother had started working here after Hermione's father had died, unable to live on her own with a child without any financial income. Hermione had only been two years at that time, and at nine she too had started working there. They had had another room back then; a bigger one with more furniture, but that changed when mother died and Mrs Cobb became head of the servants.
Mrs Parkinson was extremely snobbish, egoistic and self-centred. Mr Parkinson was even more arrogant than his wife, and sometimes down right scary. He had a certain way of sneaking up on servants if he suspected that they took a break from work. If he found them guilty he would very calmly, but forcefully, explain to the servant what he did to lazy servants that worked for him. Hermione knew from experience how scary that could be. Even as a little girl she had had to stand in front of Mr Parkinson. It had always ended up with her, crying her eyes out in her mother's warm embrace.
But her mother had died in fever when Hermione was twelve, so Hermione had had to stop crying a long time ago. Now she was sixteen and never cried.
"Hermione! You dumb girl, listen to me! Miss Parkinson is WAITING! You wouldn't want me to let you be without dinner again, would you?" Said Mrs Cobb angrily.
Hermione shook her head. "No, Mrs Cobb."
Hermione took to the left at the end of the corridor. There she took the stairs down to the third floor. She really didn't want another dinner to be taken away, as she still would have to complete her chores and working on an empty stomach made her dizzy and weak.
And one thing was for certain; whatever Mr or Mrs Parkinson or Mrs Cobb could come up with to make her life miserable, not even together could they be as cold, cruel and mean as Miss Pansy Parkinson. Hermione stopped in front of a big door. She knocked on the door and waited for an answer.
"Come in." A voice from the other side of the door spoke with calm, unhappy voice.
Shit.
Hermione took a deep breath and stepped in. She closed the door behind her and turned to the only person in the room; Pansy Parkinson, dressed in only a nightgown, looked at Hermione with cold eyes.
"You're late." She said with her shrill voice and smiled, showing all of her pearly white teeth. "Well that's a smile", Hermione thought wryly, "that could make the devil jealous."