Butterfly Wings

    Tina Granger sat down in the small office next to her husband whose hand she was tightly gripping. The doctor before her was busily writing a few notes down but quickly put it to the side.

    She looked young with a childish face full of mirth and short black hair cropped and spiked. Her bright blue eyes usually sparkled whenever she saw the couple.

    Dr. Renee Phillips usually had good news to report to the Grangers on Hermione. 'She's such a healthy girl.' was the usual response.

    Today, Renee's eyes were dim and her face looked slightly older. Darrel looked downwards and to his wife. Her hand was trembling. The veins were visible making her hands look rough and gnarled.

    "Darrel, Tina. I'm not going to sugarcoat this and give you false hope. Hermione was severely injured. We had to replace most of her leg bones. Luckily, the ground she was in was muddy from that monsoon weather we just had. It saved her from further damage but not much."

    Tina closed her eyes forcing back tears. Somehow she knew what was coming next.

    "Hermione will never walk again."

    Tina let out a wretched sob covering her mouth with her free hand. Grief washed over her flooding her senses with pain. Pain for her darling baby who just went out to have a good time.

    Darrel reached over and brought his wife into his arms. Silent tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes down under the ridge of his golden glasses. They became lost in his greying beard. Renee watched feeling incredibly horrid as the couple wept.

    Tina turned her tearful gaze on Renee searching. "What about physical therapy? Or some sort of exercise?" Renee shook her head.

    "The bones in her leg are made out of metal. That's just to keep her leg intact. If it had been worse, We would have had to amputate. However, medical science has come a long way. I don't believe she'll ever walk again. Even if she tries, it would be very painful."

    Darrel nodded accepting it though it was hard. Tina would not be swayed.

    "But-"

    "Honey, Let's go back to the room. Thank you, Renee, for saving our daughter's life."

    ( 1 MONTH, 2 WEEKS LATER)

    Hermione sat in the wheelchair staring out her hospital window. She was dressed in a long skirt and a comfortable sweatshirt. Snow had begun to fall even though it was only September 13.

    She didn't want to go back. She didn't want to face Conrade again. The penetrating stares of her annoying and nosy neighbors. Anything but.

    "Hermione, leaving?" She didn't turn. She knew whom the voice belonged to. The nurse, Isabele, who had been with her through long and painful nights and days when her parents had not been.

    "Yes Isabele. At noon. My parents are taking my things down." Isabele smiled and walked into the room. She stood next to the wheelchair staring out at the soft snowflakes cascading over the trees and the parking lot.

    Numerous cars had pulled in and left. All were going home. All were walking.

    The elevator ride usually made her smile. Today it felt no different. Her face was molded into a constant mask of icy breezes. The cold brown eyes watched nothing as her father pushed the wheelchair out of the elevator into the lobby.

    "Stop." Hermione's voice was quiet at first. When her father kept pushing her She became angry and clenched her teeth.

    "Stop!" The wheels stopped turning. Darrel, in his tan leather jacket and dress pants, ran around the front.

    "Did you forget something Mione?" The name brought back horrible memories. Memories of the handsome Muggle boy with the drunken voice and the smell of alcohol.

    Her fingers, pale and gaunt, gripped the iron bar around the wheels. She glared at her father pushing back the empty tears straining to be released. She hadn't cried since Dr. Phillips and her parent's told her softly in a dim lit room she could never walk again. Could never run with Harry and Ron to Hagrid's Hut to speak. Could never head swiftly to the library through her secret tunnel. She hated them for it.

    "Get out of my way." The wheels pushed her forward. They were her legs now. So she pushed her arms forward and forward over and over again until she reached the door.

    Darrel watched his daughter angrily speed towards the door whereupon she went out to the Honda Civic. Tina watched with pity in her eyes as Hermione required her help to make it into the backseat. He looked odd standing in the hallway watching the site. People stared incredulously but none moved or asked what was the matter.

    She shouldn't look at her like that, He thought. Hermione will get angry and downright ornery, if Tina kept giving her this treatment and those looks. The looks like Hermione was dead and devoid.

    "I don't want to go back." Her strained voice rang out through the silent car. Tina looked to Darrel before reaching around to stare at her daughter. Hermione's cold eyes bore into her skull glaring at her.

    "What?"

    "I don't want to go back. To Hogwarts." Tina nodded and settled herself back into her seat. Darrel's gaze settled on his wife. He stared at her as if she had grown two more heads. With a vehement vengeance, Darrel slammed on the brakes sending his wife and daughter flying forward. The car manuevered to the side of the road aghast to the horns blowing in annoyance.

    Darrel turned in his seat watching his daughter's shocked and angry face. "Listen young lady. Just because your legs are dead doesn't mean you are. You're going back to Hogwarts if I have to drag you in by your hair. That's final."

    (2 WEEKS LATER)

    She glared at the suitcases piled by the door and the large trunk with Crookshanks and her new owl, Capri, set next to it. Her father had just started the car, which was heating. She hated him most of all for forcing her to do something she detested.

    Tina held out a cup of hot chocolate to Hermione but she just waved it away. A foul mood and hot chocolate just did not mix.

    She was wearing a long plated skirt that went down to her mary-jane feet. The short Uniform skirt wouldn't do. Her mangled, scarred, and stitched legs were not for public viewing. Never. The cloak was bundled for the extra warmth. She would desperately need it.

    In her thin hand, She clutched three letters. All from Harry. They were demanding asking why she never wrote him back. Did something happen? What was going on?     

    "Get ready, Hermione. I'm done packing your things." She looked to where her belongings had been. Sure enough. Her father usually always made quick work of things.

    "Fine." Wheeling over to the fireplace, which was raging in inferno, She threw the letters in watching the paper curl and turn a menacing black. The fire radiated in her eyes and her very soul comforting her, consoling her aching spirit.

    "I can't believe this. It's too soon."

    "Be quiet, Tina. DO you want her to stop living for Christ's sake? You're already pitying her enough. Now say goodbye." Tina glared at her husband as he bundled in his long trench coat.

    "I don't think you should force her into this."    

    "And what made you the perfect therapist all of a sudden. Now say your goddamn goodbyes, Tina. Her friends will help her more than we can. You know that and I know that."

    She watched her house disappear in the blizzard of snow. She missed the warmth by that fire, the smoke billowing out of the chimney.

    "It'll be a cold winter. Starting to snow in September already. So..Hermione, what classes d'ya got this year?" She refused to answer him. The man sentencing her to damnation.

    The rest of the trip was in silence. Soon, her fate lay before her in the form of the London Train Station.