Year 5 (pt. 4)
Michael and Hermione started to the kitchen and when Hermione entered it she was pleasantly surprised by how it looked nothing like the rest of the house. If you didn’t know the rest of the house was a manor you would have thought this was any normal English house’s kitchen. In the corner was a breakfast nook and it was decorated with white wallpaper with small yellow flowers on it.
“Oh! So, you must be the Hermione that Michael is always talking about.” A lady said to Hermione. She nodded looking at the lady who must be Michael’s mom. She was tall, extremely built and was wearing a spring green apron as she was taking a roast out of the oven.
“Yes, I am.” Hermione said, “Can I help you with anything, Mrs. Butcher?”
“No need to be so formal. It's Veronica. I don’t want to hear any of that Mrs. Butcher.” Veronica laughed while waving her off.
She gave Michael a hug and nodded over to the breakfast nook where someone was sitting behind a copy of the Daily Prophet.
“Are you not going to give your old man a hug too?” Michael’s dad said with a smile as he put down the newspaper. He got up and gave Michael a hug that Hermione figured would kill any other person. His dad was just as buff as Michael was and if it was anyone else she would have been very intimate and probably scared of this small family.
“Hermione!” Michael’s dad called out. He had his arms out for a hug and despite her slight fear she walked into them. He was very gentle and didn’t come close to squashing her like she imagined. “You can call me Blodwic.” he said with a smile before motioning for her to sit down.
She sat down next to Michael and Veronica was putting plates and silverware in front of them all. She set out the roast and other side dishes and told everyone to dig in. Michael helped Hermione get some food as Blodwic grilled the two of them over Hogwarts drama and their grades while Veronica was more interested in getting to know Hermione and hear stories about Ginny and Luna. Towards the end of dinner Hermione mentioned that she had to use the bathroom and Michael gave her directions to the nearest bathroom from the kitchen.
As she followed his many instructions to get to the nearest bathroom, she happened to open the door on the right instead of the left and found herself in the dining room. To her surprise it was filled with tons of people and instead of staying to see who they were she just backed up and went into the left room to use the bathroom instead. She followed the instructions backwards to the kitchen where she sat down next to Michael again.
Veronica and Blodwic got up to prepare the dessert and Hermione whispered to Michael that there were a bunch of people in the dining room. He smiled realizing that would be kinda alarming to see given they weren’t eating there but he just explained that when they don’t have dinner parties they allow their servants to eat there. Hermione thought that was a very considerate thing to do. “The room would be barely used if we didn’t allow it. Rather it is used than collect dust.” Michael also added.
His parents set down Banoffee pie and they all ate as much as they could. “Ugh, I am stuffed.” Veronica said as Blodwic added, “I think I am going to burst.” He pushed his stomach out and Veronica gathered all the plates and shooed Hermione off when she offered to help again.
“I am sure you are both quite tired from the trip here today and I don’t want to hear all your fun adventures in one day so how about you guys head off to bed and we will see you in the morning.” Blodwic called out as Michael and Hermione were exiting the kitchen.
Michael said goodnight to his parents quickly and showed Hermione back to their rooms. As he said goodnight to her and entered his own bedroom, he decided that the next day he would show her the South wing.
~
The next morning Michael and Hermione had breakfast with Veronica and Blodwic. Once they had finished, Michael made it clear that there was still some stuff that he wanted to show Hermione so she followed him back up the main stairs. They turned to the right and motioned for her to follow.
“This is the South Wing. This is where the Butcher family history is. Also our trophy room.” Michael said, as he walked down the hallway. Hermione looked at the walls of the corridor, noticing tons of portraits. Each one had someone staring back at them in curiosity. A lot of them seemed eerily serious as if they were very important people.
At the end of the hallway Michael opened up a pair of double oak doors to reveal a large room filled from floor to ceiling with trophies. As Hermione looked around she realized how big the room was. It wasn’t just a large room but rather it took up the entire South Wing with a few small rooms off the main large room they were in.
Michael told Hermione to just walk around and look at what she wanted. As she walked around, Michael went to his trophies and decided to polish them. Hermione was looking at the various trophies thinking that it makes sense that Michael is such a proud person when she noticed a set of doors that stood out from the other doors in the house. As she walked through the doors, the first thing she noticed was how barron the room felt compared to the rest of the house. The only note-worthy thing about it was the giant painting on the wall with what looked to be the entire Butcher family tree.
“That right there was my great great great grandfather. The first Myasnik born in an English speaking country.” Hermione looked behind her to see Michael standing in the doorway. “Wait, what do you mean when you say Myasnik?” Hermione questioned. Michael motioned for her to sit down, “I’ll tell you the story of the Myasnik family, or as you know us, the Butchers.” Michael said, pulling out a giant book and flipping to the first page while clearing his throat.
“This story starts all the way back when there were still kings and queens ruling the land-” Michael was cut off by Hermione. “Michael, we still have kings and queens.” Michael rolled his eyes at her, “Ok, back when kings and queens were a lot more common. Anyways, there was a simple group of Butchers or Myasniks as they were called at the time, who lived peacefully and weren’t ones to poke around in others business. However, this changed one day when a decree from King Ivan the Third came to their village saying whoever could bring the biggest animal to him would be handsomely rewarded. Seeing this was a pretty good deal, the Myasnik family sent their strongest man out to the woods to find the legendary bear which today is believed to be a Kamchatka brown bear because of the size of the pelt he brought back.
Hermione interjected, “You’re telling me some medieval peasant went up against a bear and WON?” and without missing a beat, Michael said, “It's almost like I killed a dragon. ANYWAYS, back to Alik the slayer of the bear, he was rewarded by getting the title of Ivan’s royal hunter and that was the Myasniks first taste of royalty but it certainly wouldn't be the last.” Michael flipped a few pages of his book, scanning the pages for the next part he was going to talk about.
Hey whore what you want me to do where do they get the ring its in some dungeon right?
Once he found the page he continued, “Our next taste of higher class came at the beginning of the Russian war with the Mongrel empire. Alik asked the king if he could send his three sons Kazimir, Pyotr, and Dimitri to war, and after some convincing Ivan let them fight alongside their father. The three sons were a force to be reckoned with during the war and the Mongols often referred to them as ‘ükhel avchiragch’ or ‘bringers of death’”. Hermione stopped him, “Why were they the bringers of death?”
Michael flipped the page, “Because, Kazimir and Dimitiri were like me and liked using bigger swords whereas Pyotr preferred a mace or a normal sword. The three of them quickly helped turn the tide of the war and this helped Ivan the Third claim rulership over Russia. Because of this, the three of them were given royal titles of royal knights of the kingdom. These tiles were kept for many many years until we became werewolves hunters for the king and along with hunting a great many of the creatures, we were given royal titles that reflected the new task we were given by the king.” Hermione nodded, intently listening while Michael continued.
“Kazimir’s grandson, Anastasiy was the best at it. He was so good that he had werewolf pelts as armor along with a sword he called ‘wolfsbane’ which is still in our family to this day. I’ll point it out in the trophy room on the way out. However, Anastasiys time was cut short because he was by his own sister for she had fallen in love with a werewolf and love conquers all things even loyalty to your own brother. Emiliya stabbed her younger brother in the chest with a sword made by her new love Ulmer. Even as Anastasiy was bleeding out he still tried to fight back with wolfsbane in hand but eventually died from blood loss.”
Hermione gave a small gasp and Michael smiled because he was happy she was so interested in the story. “That's when their father found him with a note saying ‘It was those damn werewolf dogs and Emiliya that did it father I'm sorry i couldn't kill them’. It made Ignatiy furious that his own daughter killed her younger brother and he swore revenge against werewolves which began the first wizard war the Myasniks fought with all of their forces they had collected over the years.”
Michael scanned the page trying to find the next part to explain. “OH, there it is” he explained, and then continued. “It wasn’t originally a wizarding war, but it eventually became one because they called in every favor they could and collected an army 10,000 strong to fight the werewolves. Which, after many years of fighting the wizards decided to become involved in the conflict which made the bloodiest war the world has ever seen. We held our own against the wizards because what we lacked in magic we made up in manpower and strategic minds. For example, the greatest of them was Igor, the master of death. Igor was the grandson of Pyotr and like him-” Hermione cut him off.
“Wait, like THE Igor?” Michael looked at her and shrugged, “Yea.” Hermione looked bewildered but let him continue. “As I was saying, Igor was the grandson of Pyotr and like him, his skills with a mace were the thing of legends. No spell or shield could protect you from his wrath as he swung his mace, killing all in his way. We wouldn't have been able to gain an advantage in the war without Igor and when he and a few of his trusted soldiers killed Merlin. Yes, that Merlin. But, Igor later died from various wounds he had gotten while fighting and so a truce was called that stands to this day which says-,” Michael stood up and walked to the wall just left of the painting Hermione first looked at. There was a framed, old piece of parchment. Michael continued while looking at the parchment, “No wizard shall strike a Myasnik nor shall attack each other.”
Hermione stood next to Michael and stared at it as well. She was so confused but fascinated by the story he just told her. She had so many questions but there was just one that felt important enough to ask, “Why are you called Butcher then? What happened to the Myasnik family?”
Michael gave her a smile. “It never disappeared. However, when we came to English speaking countries, people weren’t too kind to those with Russian last names. Also we didn’t want to become a prominent family in the English Ministry of Magic given our name. So when we came over, we used the english translation of the word Myasnik, which happens to be Butcher.” Hermione nodded, satisfied with that answer.
~
Michael and Hermione looked at Anastasiy’s sword on the way out of the trophy room and then as they walked down the hallway to a sitting room, they heard a familiar laugh. Hermione looked at Michael with a questioning look and Michael said, “Yea, it's probably who you think it is.” They walked to Blodwic’s office, where the laugh came from and Hermione peered through door to find Bloodwic and Dumbledore laughing like crazy.
All of a sudden there is a loud thud as Dumbledore knocks into a chair while holding a large fishing bag in one hand and a fishing rod in the other. Bloodwic hushes him for being so loud and Dumbledore looks angrily back at Bloodwic before saying quietly, “Don't you shush me! You gave all the heavy stuff mister strong man” Bloodwic looked at Dumbledore and whispered “Oh grow up old man, the bag weighs 10 pounds at most and it's ALL your stuff!” Dumbledore sighed in defeat and they left the room.
~
After a while of hanging out, Hermione asked Michael how he felt about the people escaping from Azkaban. “What do you mean, what do I think?” Michael asked inquisitively. Hermione took a second to collect her thoughts before saying, “Do you think it is possible to defeat he who must not be named ourselves?” Michael looked at her in disbelief. He didn’t expect her of all people to suggest something like that.
“If you are talking about Voldemort, then yes. I think we could if we really tried hard enough to.” Michael responded and after a moment continued, “I have actually been looking into how we could do that.”
Hermione looked at Michael with interest and urged him to tell her what he knew.
“Well, after I read the Daily Prophet and heard about the break out I got curious about what Voldemort would do with all those people and how they were important to him. I started to wonder if I could defeat him myself and put an end to all this madness and then we could live in a peaceful world. So, I went to the only person who I’d assume would be willing to tell me about Voldemort and have some idea of how to defeat him, Snape.” Hermione nodded her head as Michael went on, “He told me about these things called horcruxes, and how we would have to destroy them all in order to have a chance at defeating him. I have a handful of things written down about it in a notebook upstairs that I will give to you. I have been searching through our family library for any information on horcruxes but I haven’t found anything of substance, just that they exist and what they contain.”
“What do they contain?” Hermione asked. Michael face palmed, forgetting to tell her the important parts of how horcruxes work. “Part of one’s soul is in an organism or object. Snape told me a few of the objects he thinks has part of Voldemort's soul. I have them written down so we can look at all of that later.”
Hermione smiled at Michael, proud that he did the research and notes to figure out all of this. She was a little sour that he didn't tell her sooner but figured she would let it go because at least they have a lead this time instead of being completely in the dark about where to begin like they are most of the time.
Once they got upstairs, Michael handed Hermione the notebook with everything he knows about horcruxes in it. After she read it she started, “Do we know where any of these are?” Michael nodded and pointed out different ones and said where he thinks they might be. Hermione nodded and added to his notes with idea and how they would go get them.
All of a sudden Michael remembered he already had the diadem. “Oh, Hermione, I have something.” He went into his trunk and pulled out Ravenclaw’s Diadem. Hermione gasped, “Where did you get this?!” Michael smiled, proud of himself, before explaining how he acquired the diadem.
They continued to plan and plot how they would be able to get and destroy all of the horcruxes and what are some possibilities for other ones that might exist. They planned out how they would travel, what spells would be useful, and when they should do this. It was decided that they would have to start as soon as possible. However, the idea of missing school was weighing HEAVILY on Hermione’s shoulders.