Her Father's Voice

Her Father's Voice

She hadn't been right all summer. He'd noticed it when they'd gone to pick her up from the train, that stormy day so late in June when he and his wife were forced to trek across the humid capital just for the honour of seeing their only child. It was worth it every time. But if he really thought about it, he should have noticed the difference way before: the stream of various owl breeds that would deposit letters in their breakfast bowls had been seriously depleted in the past few months, and her absences from Christmas and Easter hadn't spoken volumes as to the state of her mind. But by taking one look at her pale, drawn out face, he knew. Something wasn't quite right with his daughter.

Their connecting train had been fifteen minutes late, and naturally the wife had been fretting. He wasn't in such a good mood himself, worrying about his stranded daughter in the middle of a busy London station. That was a simple, sobering thought in itself. His wife had been twisting her hands together all the way across on the tube, the stations of the capital passing in an unrecognisable blur. Green Park and Oxford Circus, Warren Street and Euston. By the time they'd emerged form the maze of the underground station that inter-linked King's Cross and St Pancras, they were both more than a little bit anxious. They needn't have been of course. They knew better than that. It was just that at times they knew that their Hermione could be vulnerable.

She was sitting on her trunk when they found her. She'd sensibly lugged her luggage across from platform nine and three quarters and was sitting calmly and quietly under the arrivals board. She wasn't even flinching at the noise and rattles above her head as the latest trains flashed up and were announced. For once there was no book in her hand. Instead her elbows were leaning lightly on her knees, chin supported on her hands and her eyes watching the people go by. An empty glass jar stood at her feet, ignored. Even before they approached her, Mr Granger was slightly puzzled. He never thought it was possible for his daughter to wear that statement, almost passive, weary. Every year they'd been waiting at the station and she'd literally come bouncing through the barrier, wittering a load of nonsense about some adventure or another. But this year when they called out her name and she stood and smiled to greet them, she only had one thing to say as her father pulled her in to an embrace.

'Dad,' she whispered. 'Can we go home now?'

Mr Granger had given his daughter a reassuring squeeze. 'We're going straight home,' he replied.

And she didn't utter a word all the way back.

***

Mr Granger was fully aware of the effort his daughter put into schoolwork: That was a trait she'd inherited from her mother. He would fondly recall the college days when he'd had to physically drag the woman he loved away from the books to save them both from insanity. Somehow he felt that Hermione had inherited the best of both worlds: Her mother's hard working nature and his own drive to succeed. Then at other times he felt that they'd given her the biggest burden.

'How's it going?' he said to Hermione one morning over an early breakfast whilst she had her head back firmly in a book. Instead of answering, she merely held up a single finger for pause: she'd always do that when she'd reached an interesting part of the text, and if she was anything like her mother, to disturb that would be asking a death sentence.

'It's going fine,' Hermione finally replied, laying the book flat down on the table while she spread some butter on her toast. 'I'm just doing some extra reading around, for next year...'

'O.W.Ls,' he said uncertainly, trying to remember the terminology of a completely different world. 'Right?'

She smiled. 'Yeah, O.W.Ls.'

He smiled right back. 'Just don't work yourself too hard,' he said, standing and gathering up his jacket to depart for work. 'I want my daughter to be in one piece when I get back.'

She had nodded as he kissed her on the cheek and left a while later, but there was something in that solemn nod that seemed to unnerve Mr Granger. Hermione was earnest at the best of times, but this summer it had seemed almost morbid. As if she was dreading something, snuffing the spark he loved so much in his offspring out. And he hated that.

***

The summer continued. Owls were regularly making daytime trips to and from the Granger residence, the neighbours getting used to the animals and merely putting it down to birds with an inaccurate body clock. Probably something to do with El Nino. The Snowy was certainly a dignified creature, Mr Granger would notice as the bird swooped down through their kitchen window and settled on his daughter's shoulder. She would nip her ear quite affectionately and settle for a saucer of water before disappearing into the early morning light, holding her beak high up as if she had some loftier purpose in this world. The letters would be greeted with a look of utter relief, followed by a moment of deep concentration as she read them at length, pondering the words all day, or until the next letter arrived. The ones from the little grey owl that was worse than the Duracell bunny were just as eagerly received, and certainly smiled over. The Eastern Owls were ignored, and that tide soon came to a halt.

Mr Granger wouldn't ask about the letters. He'd made that mistake in the first summer she returned, and got in response some muffled answer about a flying Ford Anglia as she hurtled upstairs to punch out an instant reply. At the end of the day, he preferred the ignorance. It wasn't as if he lacked an interest in his daughter's world, far from - some of the tales she came out with made it sound as if she was having the time of her life. He'd kill to have a glimpse at one of these Quidditch games her friends Ron and Harry seemed obsessed about. Much more interesting than the F.A. Cup. But still, he felt detached. Her parents were seeing less and less of her each year, her stays at school in Christmas and Easter not taken personally, but still having impact. His only daughter had, in nearly all senses of the word, fled the nest. He couldn't feel the connection any more. And that upset him.

'She's changed,' he remarked one day to his wife, a lazy Sunday in late July when they'd fired up the barbeque and Hermione was in the garden, reading some musty volume. She seemed oblivious to anything going on around her, let alone the butterfly currently perched on the end of her toe.

'How so?' said his wife, taking a pause from the salad preparation to sit at her husband's side.

'She's growing up,' he said sadly, shaking his head. 'She's virtually a woman now. What happened to our little girl, eh?'

His wife looked all knowing for a minute. 'She got hormones. She flew on a Hippogriff. She's seen things that would have your hair curl...' she paused to pat her husband's balding head. 'If you had any, that is.'

He shot her an amused look back while she chuckled at her own inventive wit. He sighed. 'It just feels like I've got it in double doses. She's growing up, but in a world I can't be part of. I can't see what it is that's making her into the woman she's going to be.'

His wife frowned for a moment. 'Why should that bother you now?' she asked quietly, as Hermione finally tore her eyes away from the book to look at the butterfly that was now on her knee with quiet interest. 'We've talked about this. I thought we'd accepted that Hermione is always going to be that little bit more detached from us than most.'

'But that's the thing,' Mr Granger said in a slightly exasperated tone. 'She never was before, despite the magic. But she is now. She used to tell us everything, but she's barely spoken to us since King's Cross. She's different. Something's changed in her, something's happened and she's snapped. Call me paranoid, call me over protective, but I think there's more to his than hormones and Hippogriffs.' He shifted in his seat to look directly at his wife. 'Has she spoken to you about anything?'

'Not really.' Mrs Granger looked at her husband and sighed. 'If she wants to talk to us, she'll talk. At the end of the day, we probably won't want to know.'

'Yes, you're right,' he said, watching his only daughter watch the butterfly flitter away on the evening breeze before the literary world called her in again. 'We probably don't want to know.'

***

But at the end of the day, Hermione seemed unprepared to talk. It had been a reasonable summer by all accounts: Hermione opted to stay with her friend Ron while Mr Granger and his wife went camping as usual in France. They figured that Mrs Weasley would keep a good eye on her, and that honestly in the mood she'd been in that summer, she'd be better off with her friends for a while. Indeed she'd seemed a little brighter when she got home, as if reassured that things in the magical world were all right without her. She'd even gone out a few times with her old friends from before Hogwarts, any awkward questions about her exclusive school so far away dismissed and diverted in a way only Hermione could. They went shopping, took a trip or two to the cinema, she even laughed. They distracted her, and he was grateful for it. But it occurred to Mr Granger that Hermione could never forget. There was always that barrier. - Magical and Muggle - and they'd always sworn it would be invisible to them. But now, she'd be on the verge of letting him into her world and she'd stop, right on the edge for some undetermined reason. Perhaps his wife was right. Maybe she didn't want him to know. There was still a little voice in Mr Granger's head saying that perhaps it was safer for him not to.

It was the night before she started the fifth year that it finally all came out. Hermione had already been to Diagon Alley to pick up her books for school - her mother had given her a little extra money for some robes and such, although both women weren't prepared to go into specifics. There were certainly a lot of giggles though, and that was enough for him. That night the two of them had been packing all the new goodies into her trunk - a parting gift from a mysterious great aunt who had passed away before Hermione got the Hogwarts letter. Mr Granger had always wondered about Great Aunt Enid. His wife always said there was more to her than met the eye. They'd all gone to bed pretty early as tomorrow was always going to be a long day. Hermione had a long way to go, and her parents had to adjust to life without her again. Every time, it got a little easier. But this year, Mr Granger just felt things had been left undone.

It was almost three in the morning when he'd woken for the fifth and final time. He couldn't sleep - he never could on the day before Hermione returned to the wizarding world. He was about to let her daughter loose in a land he never seemed to understand. She may be nearly sixteen now, but she was still his daughter. He would still miss her. Instead of pleading pointlessly with the sandman, he got up and headed downstairs, hoping to find some solace in a glass of milk or other warming beverage. But any idea of that coxing him to sleep was rapidly removed by the sight laid before him in the kitchen.

The light was already on and illuminating the doorway when he walked down the stairs into the hall. It wasn't the strong, full beam fluorescent lights that streaked across the ceiling, just a reading lamp located on the side that cast an orange glow upon the scene. As Mr Granger's eyes became accustomed to the light, he saw her. Hermione was sitting with her back to him at the table, her bushy brown hair lying loosely in a plait down her back, currently clothed in her favourite lavender dressing gown. He could see she was hunched up in her seat, defensive, a tense aura hanging round her shoulders that he'd seen so often in his wife. Hermione was worried. Just as he thought, something wasn't right.

'Hermione, pet,' he whispered in the dark, so not to alarm her. If she knew he was there, she didn't show it. 'Are you OK?'

She looked down at the coffee cup she cradled in her hands, while he noted from the lingering smell she'd been drinking nothing but Hot Chocolate. 'It's nothing,' she didn't turn. 'I just couldn't sleep.'

'Well, then it must be something,' said Mr. Granger, leaning against the doorframe and studying his daughter, 'it normally takes charging bulls to get you moving in the morning, let alone at 3 am...'

'It's nothing, Dad.' Hermione said firmly again, lifting her eyes heavenward in the dark, 'I'm fine.'

Mr Granger sensed an argument lost and slipped away into the darkened hall. It was to be like every other conversation that summer. His daughter wasn't going to open up. He didn't want to push it. He felt like he'd lost her enough. But as he stood there for a moment, paused, and simply listened to his daughter's breaths, he could tell she was shaking. Something was wrong, and far more serious than either he or his wife had considered.

'I'm scared.'

The sound was barely a whisper, but Mr Granger heard it. He stepped back into the doorway. 'Scared? Of tomorrow?' she looked down into her lap and Mr Granger frowned. 'You've never been scared of going back to Hogwarts. You love that place.' He took another long step into the kitchen and sat beside his daughter at the table. 'What's changed?'

He could see that Hermione was angry with herself. Angry that she'd let her guard slip. Angry that she'd fallen victim to it in the first place. Angry that she'd have to explain, even though she knew deep down that she couldn't have avoided the inevitable. It was written all over her pale, drawn face - something that Mr Granger had learnt a long time ago to read like a book in order know his daughter. But yet as it stood, he remained silent. Mr Granger seemed to accept this, and stepped forward to place a well-worn hand on his only daughter's arm, squeezing it. The silence cracked.

'There are things, Dad,' she begun, 'that I really don't want you to know about. Teenage daughters have secrets, don't they? It's not against the law or anything, is it?'

Mr Granger would normally seize the opportunity for a wise crack at Hermione's awkward age, but restrained himself. Hermione was always a serious one, and he knew when she was talking in serious connotations.

'Normally it's stupid things,' she continued, 'Friends. Boys. Schoolwork. Normal stuff like that...'

'Is anything normal, Hermione?'

'No, and that's just it. I want to tell you these things because they're not normal. I want to protect you from them, but I don't think I can anymore. They are as far from normal as they possibly could be, and that just makes them dangerous.'

'Dangerous?' now Mr Granger's voice caught in his throat. 'What on earth could possibly be dangerous? Well, apart from that whole Petrified thing in your second year, dangerous hasn't come into it. What could have possibly changed?' he addressed his daughter with a sideways smile. 'Is there something I really should know about, even if I'm a measly Muggle?'

'Dad,' Hermione scorned, her eyes full of love and concern as she raised them from her lap to look at her father. 'You're far from a measly Muggle. You've got a magic of your own. That's the danger. That's the problem.'

Hermione sighed heavily and ran an absent hand through her tangled hair. He sat down sensing a lengthy explanation, and grasped his owns hands in front of him and looked earnestly at her daughter. 'Come on,' he said quietly, 'I need to know.'

She sighed again and raised her glassy brown eyes to meet his. He drew in a sharp breath and waited. She dropped her eyes again.

'It's started.'

'What has?'

Hermione coughed a little and seemed to drum herself up to the moment. 'Voldemort.' She visibly shook as she said the most cursed of names, and Mr Granger knew it. 'He's back. The Divination professor made a real prediction for once. The Dark Lord will rise again... greater and more terrible than ever before... That's what Harry told me she said. It's all coming true, and there's nothing we can do to stop it.'

Even though Mr Granger was still to adjust to the fear the uttering of that name normally held, he could sense his daughter's anxiety. He viewed it better to listen now and ask questions later.

'Last year was very, very different,' she said, starting her tale by addressing her hands upon the table. 'Different from anything else I've ever experienced. And it wasn't just the whole Triwizard tournament, or the lack of Quidditch, and it wasn't just Ron and I arguing at every opportunity and everything else I've already told you about. It's the fact that at the end of the day, it was all a game. Someone manipulated all the odds, Dad, and you know how much I hate that. I need to be logical, I need to see the sense. And the end of last year lacked it.'

'Why?'

'You-Know-Who engineered it. He made it easy for Harry to win the Triwizard Tournament. He needed to get Harry out alone so that his plans could be complete. And when people got in his way, they didn't matter,' she shuddered. 'They were just removed.'

'Removed?'

'It stared last summer. A Ministry witch was killed, out in Albania. Then there was an old Muggle gardener. Mr Crouch, Percy's Boss, he was killed on school grounds. Somebody posing as a teacher fixed the final task of the Tournament so that Harry could be taken to You-Know-Who - they used Harry to bring Him back from the dead. But someone else got into the way, the other Hogwarts champion, Cedric Diggory...' Hermione trailed off, shaking, she raised a single hand to her face at the horror she was trying to put across, and looked at her father. 'I don't feel safe anymore, Dad. This man, this thing, he's after us all, and he'll stop at nothing. And I'm in the middle of it because I just can't be anywhere else. I've got to look out for Harry and Ron. They're in the firing line. We all are. Even - ' she gasped a little it as the strain truly got to her. 'Even you.'

'Me?' Mr Granger leaned back in the chair, wondering what on earth they'd all been dragged into. 'What have I got to do with anything?'

'See, Dad? There's just no logic to it. You-Know-Who hates Muggle-borns just like Hitler hated the Jews. And I'm just as vulnerable as everybody else. You too - even more so. If they can get to you, they can get to me, and then they can get to me, they can get to Harry. And as much as I hate it for him, it's Harry who we need the most, and Harry who is going to be the target.' She looked at her father desperately like a little child lost in the world. 'So I'm scared. I'm scared that if I leave, they'll be no way of making sure you're safe. If I stay, then I can't help Harry or Ron - and they're my family too. I'm torn, and I don't know what to do. I need to know you'll be OK, because - '

' - You need to be at Hogwarts.' Mr Granger finished. Hermione looked down at the tabletop again, looking as if she was ashamed of her divided loyalties. Mr Granger could have scorned her on the spot. 'Your mother and I will be fine. We'll write to your headmaster, get some advice - we'll protect ourselves, don't you worry. Hermione, by all accounts, you are the cleverest witch in your year. In your school even. You should see the floods of owls we get at the end of every term. You need to be there, pet. You need to have a life too. Your life, as much as we like to pretend otherwise, is at Hogwarts.'

'But if anything happened to you, Dad,' Hermione muttered in a heartfelt whimper, 'I...'

'Shush now...' he said, moving round the table and pulling Hermione in for a long overdue hug, feeling his daughter begin to sob into his chest. 'Shush...'

'I'm so, so scared...'

'I know, pet, I know.'

And Mr Granger held his daughter as she cried.

***

September had come too quickly that year. Those last few hours before Hermione boarded the Hogwarts Express were a blur of activity for the Grangers, making sure their only daughter had everything packed, even though in reality she'd been ready for this for a week. If not in spirit, at least in mind. Hermione was eager to learn, and now she needed to experience. And after their conversation the previous night, Mr Granger was in two minds about letting her go.

He'd taken the day off to drive his daughter into London. Mrs Granger had to hold fort at the clinic so had already said her goodbyes. The departure from King's Cross was clearly his time. He would occasionally glance at his daughter in the seat next to him, all bright eyed and bushy haired, soothingly stroking the ginger Cat, Crookshanks, upon her knee. She seemed calm enough, but Mr Granger truly pondered what he was letting her run off into. A year of uncertainty, of death threats and danger? She had cried herself off to sleep in his arms last night, the last ounce of her innocence gone in the face of what she was going to have to cope with. But, Mr Granger reminded himself as they finally pulled up to the station and parked, she'd woken up that morning a stronger woman. She was his Hermione, his own little girl. As tough as old boots, one of his more elderly relatives had called her once. She was a fighter, and Mr Granger had enough faith in that to see him through her absence.

But that didn't mean he wasn't going to miss her.

'Dad,' she said very timidly as they collected a trolley for her heavy school trunk. 'I never actually thanked you.'

Mr Granger looked at his daughter puzzled. 'For what?'

'For everything,' she replied, setting Crookshanks down on top of her trunk where he curled up in a contented ball to sleep. 'For last night. For always understanding, always accepting me for what I am and who I am. Not many people could cope it all the baggage I seem to bring home with me every single summer.'

'Oh pet,' he said, throwing a single arm around her shoulder and giving it a squeeze. 'You're my daughter. The baggage is as light as a feather. Now what sort of a Father would I be if I didn't take you warts and all?'

She smiled genuinely, and even with the shrunken teeth - an issue his wife had taken care of, thank heavens - her face was lit up with a friendly glow. 'What is it with the witches and warts? We're not all toothless hags you know...'

'Believe me, pet, I know.' He kissed her lightly on the forehead. 'You're the most beautiful girl in the world.'

'Aww, you're only saying that because you're my Dad...'

'No I'm not,' he said, suddenly rather bemused. 'I'm saying it because it's true. Just look.'

Hermione looked, and laughed. Standing under the arrivals board where she'd sat so alone just two months ago, was Ron Weasley. Her other friend - Harry, if Mr Granger correctly recalled - was with him, along with the rest of the Weasley brood, but it was only Ron who'd taken notice of her arrival. He stared at her, eyes a little glazed, for a full minute before he noticed she was looking straight back. As he snapped to attention again and hollered her name across the station, she giggled. Mr Granger couldn't help but smile. He certainly had a few questions for his wife when he got home.

'Hermione!' the black haired boy, Harry, cried out, standing up from adjusting the cage that stored the beautiful Snowy Owl. 'How are you?'

Hermione left her father with the trolley and ran over to her two best friends, encircling both of them in a bear hug. 'Oh I'm fine, fine. How was your summer?'

Harry pulled a face. 'As good as it can get when you're staying with the Dursleys...'

'They had him cleaning windows!' Ron cried, as if this was a total and utter travesty.

'Not exactly the best of breaks...' Harry said with a shrug. He sighed a sigh that should have been emitted by a man twice his age. 'At least it's over now. The dream team back together again, right?'

Hermione nodded firmly. 'Right.'

Then she turned to say goodbye. It was written all over her face, so she didn't utter a word while she effortlessly drew her father in for one last hug. He knew he didn't have to worry about her. He knew he didn't have to feel as sad as he did, watching her go off into the brave new world again to not emerge 'til next summer. He knew he had to let her go. But after last night, it was a lot harder than it looked. But with one glance at her daughters' dearest friends, he knew she was in safe hands.

'Good luck, pet,' he said into her ear, squeezing her a little tighter than usual. 'Keep yourself out of trouble...'

She laughed again and drew back, nodding in the direction of her red headed friend's twin brothers. 'With those two in their final year?' she shook her head, 'No chance.'

He pulled back a little to look straight into his daughter's face. 'Don't forget to write. Don't get too stressed out about those exams. Don't forget your poor old Dad.'

'I couldn't even if I tried.' She hugged him tightly again. 'I love you.'

'I love you too.' He whispered back. Then he let her go.

The goodbyes for the Weasleys were a long-winded affair, Mrs Weasley fussing over every child with care, especially those that weren't her own. Mr Granger thought for a moment that poor old Harry was going to get the life squeezed out of him. But as the kids grabbed their trolleys to depart, Mr Granger felt that he had just one last thing to do. He walked slowly over to Ron and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder, leaning in the mutter a few words in the boy's ear.

'You take good care of her this year, son,' he said, patting Ron evenly on the shoulder. The poor redhead looked absolutely terrified as Mr Granger stood back to let him go.

'I will, Mr Granger,' he quickly replied, a glazed statement crossing his face as he glanced at Hermione again. The boy, suddenly seeming much older, addressed his best friend's father in earnest. He shared a sideways glance with Harry, and then drew himself up high. 'We both will.'

And Mr Granger couldn't help thinking as he watched the three of them disappear through the magical barrier, that his daughter was the luckiest girl in the world.

******~Fini~******