Learning to Breathe

Learning to Breathe

i. A Sense of Time

Kind of lose your sense of time

`Cause the days don´t matter no more

All the feelings that you hide

Gonna tear you up inside

You hope she knows you tried

Follows you around all day

And then you wake up soaking wet

`Cause between this world and eternity

There is a face you hope to see.

--Lene Marlin, `Unforgivable Sinner´

Term had started, and the days passed and leaves fell without her knowledge; her friends said that she only thought of the calendar in conjunction with the submission of Major Papers and with the dawning of exams, and probable Pop Quizzes. (She had learned to detect when these would arrive; Pop quizzes, as a tacit Hogwarts trend, were given usually two days after a new lesson was learned. Or, when the professors thought it was learned.)

This was quite untrue. Hermione Granger thought of the calendar in terms of other things as well--like a certain class, taught by a certain professor who hated certain students with a fiery passion, falling on certain days in the week.

This was one of those days. Sometimes she looked forward to these classes, fairly bouncing at the thought of learning how to make a new Potion... And that, perhaps, there was a chance that today would be better than the other days--which it seldom was, but it didn´t seem to bother her when she was in the right mood. Most of the time, however, she simply dreaded Potions, finding no consolation in the faces and appetites of her fellow Gryffindors--who dreaded them as well--and in the prospect of seeing his face twist ever so slightly in oily pleasure when Draco Malfoy seemed to have done something right in his potion.

Today Hermione was somewhere in between anticipating and dreading it; there was no particular cause to be afraid, as it was the first class of the day and he wasn´t going to be in a bad mood because of botched potions from earlier classes; there was no reason to particularly look forward to it either. She settled for not thinking about it at all, choosing, instead, to concentrate on the pursuits of the world´s first consulting detective and his biographer. Hermione picked at her breakfast, wincing when a food particle from Ron Weasley´s open, jabbering mouth fell on the page of her book, which, as usual, rested on her milk jug.

`Oops, sorry, Hermione. So, anyway, Percy opens his window, and there his cauldron bottom reports are, flying about folded in paper planes--´

She pointedly lifted The Hound of the Baskervilles from its position, carefully picked away the bit of greasy egg, and resisted the urge to charm the book clean. Books, whether magical or otherwise, did not respond very well to such minor spells, because they had an intrinsic magic in themselves that was much stronger.

Harry, who seemed to her to be particularly quiet today, silently handed her a napkin, and she smiled gratefully at him, dabbing at the book and praying that the grease wouldn´t stain the adjacent pages. Her edition was a hardcover, and thus very important to her.

He returned her smile, although there was still a hint of his recent reserve in it, and asked her what she was reading.

As she always did when confronted with this question, she paused. Hermione never knew what she wanted them to answer--just the title, the author? Or perhaps what the book was about? But few people wanted that latter answer from her, and most of the time they regretted asking the question because Hermione would break into a glorious smile and tell them enthusiastically what exactly the book was about, how it went, the good, gory details. Sometimes she even showed them excerpts in the hope that she could interest them in it, and most of the time they were interested, only that interest would go away once they heard the next bit of gossip, or when the new Quidditch Monthly arrived, or when they simply realised that they simply did not like to read--reading was for people like little bluestocking Hermione Granger...

`Hermione?´ he said timidly. She jerked back to reality and cautiously showed him the cover. On it was, of course, a dark English moor, the silhouette of a dog, and the tall, dark and hook-nosed frame of Sherlock Holmes in his deerstalker and pipe ensemble.

`I saw it on the BBC once,´ Harry said, and glanced sideways at Ron, who was distracted enough, regaling Seamus and Dean with stories of home. `The new kitchen TV had just come in at the Dursleys, and I was washing the dishes while Dudley was eating his after-lunch, before-tea snack. Only I don´t think it was a good version. When Holmes was supposed to be in disguise, you immediately knew it was him--and the sets looked really cheap.´

Hermione knew enough to follow hidden clues; a contribution as long as the one he had made showed that he wanted her to go into a tirade. That was the way things had been for the past few months; sometimes Harry buzzed with energy, and other times they walked around the lake together, with Hermione chatting in a bright, brittle way about inconsequential things that Harry would never be interested in, but which comforted him, in its own soothing, incomprehensible way. She suspected it was because he himself didn´t have to talk.

She obliged him, telling him more about how Sherlock Holmes was the most filmed fictional character in history, and how there were more bad film versions than good ones. She gestured; she made impersonations; she made him laugh one or two times. Hermione was also grateful to him; it was rare that anyone let her go on like this, and although she knew that he didn´t particularly care, she was thankful for the chance to let go, to talk and not be dismissed as a walking eccentricity.

(He, if he were in the right mood, would probably listen to her, and even have something to say--sarcastically, and with a raised eyebrow--about the controversial discussions regarding Holmes´ sexuality. And he would steeple his fingers together and look at her penetratingly from under those dark eyebrows--)

Underneath the table she gripped one of Harry´s hands in her own; neither of them were eating very much anyway.

`--So Ginny and Charlie told him that no, they didn´t know where it was, and maybe he should check in the pantry--´

Towards the end of a breakfast that was all too short, the post arrived. There was nothing about it to signify that anything wrong was to happen at all: Hermione got her Daily Prophet, Seamus his Quidditch Weekly, Lavender her Witch Weekly, Draco Malfoy his usual parcels from his ominous eagle owl, and the others a few packages or two. Ron tried (and failed) to eye Harry´s letter from Sirius only discreetly; he was, like Harry and Hermione, extremely fond of Sirius Black, but less apt than the two of them at ostensibly having no relation or acquaintance to him at all.

Harry pocketed it without reading it. Hermione knew that he would, later, take it to his dorm room to peruse alone, with the curtains closed, and that he would lie awake for hours on end afterwards, trying and failing not to think about what he was missing. She shot him a smile, and looked for comfort at the Head table.

It was odd that the Headmaster was there that morning; he didn´t usually breakfast at the Hall. She heard tell that he slept until ten, and padded around in his striped Gryffindor socks and faded lounge jacket upstairs, about corridors, talking with the portraits until Professor McGonagall found him and scolded him into Headmasterish activity.

Dumbledore´s eyes did not, as was usual, meet hers; he was looking up, as though he expected the ceiling to bring something. Hermione was not sure what, until it arrived in the form of a dark, intimidating raven that, she saw when she squinted, held a small roll of parchment in one of its talons. It headed straight for the Headmaster, and left Dumbledore to catch the letter before it landed on his cereal. Idly Hermione thought he would have made a good seeker perhaps a century ago.

The raven completed its dive and flew smoothly and swiftly to the windows, but not before Hermione noticed a small green ribbon tied around its neck.

`He was almost fired for that one. Mum gave Fred and George hell for it for two straight weeks--´

Dumbledore was reading the message; Dumbledore was frowning; Dumbledore was definitely upset, and there was no more twinkle left in those eyes.

That was her first inkling that hardly anything was going to go right today. Unconsciously she tightened her grip on Harry´s hand, and he shot her an alarmed look. But before he could ask her and before she could tell him dismissively that it was nothing, the scraping of the Headmaster´s chair was heard, and all conversation stopped.

And suddenly it wasn´t `nothing´ at all--she did not want to be there. She wanted to be in his class and to listen to his voice and to watch his hands, and even to listen to him disparaging her eagerness to raise her hand. She wanted to be anywhere but there.

`I would like to make an announcement,´ the Headmaster began, and, without preamble, went on. `Third- and sixth-years, I regret to inform you that there will be no Potions class today, and you are to spend those periods in the library; also, the seventh-years are to collect the copies of their theses from Professor Snape´s desk. Professor Snape,´ he said--and Hermione did not know whether the pause was for effect or because of a constriction in Dumbledore´s throat--`will not be here today. I am afraid that he is not going to return at all--but this does not mean...´

She knew that he was still talking; Dumbledore´s mouth was moving, and the students´ unabashed exclamations of relief over the cancellation of Potions classes were swiftly turned into groans of disappointment, presumably because of another announcement. Still, her brain refused to process anything the Headmaster said past `He is not going to return at all.´

He is not going to return at all.

The words were burned white on the insides of her eyelids.

`That´s too bad... damn it, I knew Dumbledore was going to find a way to rain in on the parade--but anyway, we thought it was dead and Ginny was even crying, but then Fred poked it in the chest and it--´

She told herself that it was nothing; it was extremely likely that he had just got suddenly tired of teaching--or, being a revered Potions Master, got a job that paid much more than teaching at Hogwarts did. She managed to tell herself--even though it was hard, even though it was painful--to return to her food, to hunch over her book, to turn a page, to chew, to breathe.

He is not going to return at all.

`--So I told him where he could shove those stupid papers of his--´

Later she stood up when the others did, and lost herself in the sea of students and black hats, the roof of her mouth gone dry and her jaw clamped to control the prickle in her eyes.

Nobody had noticed that the knuckles holding the edge of The Hound of the Baskervilles on the table were white, and that there was a new splotch on the page. One that wasn´t from Ron Weasley´s mouth.