Finished Thoughts

Finished Thoughts

She stared out the window briefly, clutching her bags to her like a modernised bag lady. The orange lights bright among the dark sky flashed past her glazed view. She sighed. Life is depressing. This was not the first time that she had felt like this, felt like sighing. "Tired," she muttered to herself without breathing the sound. But she knew that that wasn't the truth, knew the real reason for her recent depression. Her parents. She loved them, its not as if she didn't, love them that is, and what's more unlike some families of her acquaintance, she also happened to like them. It was just that... well.

One of her plastic bags with all its recently purchased second hand books slid from her clutching hands. She thought later that it must have been this that drew her attention to The Girl. As the bag slipped off the shaking seats, she turned from her glassy contemplation to the train, and more importantly The Girl, who was just in front of her eyes as she picked up the bag to return it to its place beside her. There were more people than she would have expected at this time of night, filling up most of the seats all the way up the compartment. They were all very determinedly placid in their random taking in of the world. She felt out of place, it was times like these that she honestly did not feel like a Muggle. That was part of her problem with her parents, that they were Muggles. It wasn't that she cared at all what the Slytherins in general, and Malfoy with his lurking compatriots Crabbe and Goyle specifically, said about Muggles. They used words like "Mudbloods' and 'Muggle lovers' as if they were insulting although she had always known that they were just statements of fact, well not the 'Mudbloods' but 'Muggle' lovers that was true. She wasn't ashamed of that, she didn't care about it. She wasn't that kind of girl.

There was A Girl sitting on the seat directly opposite her. Hermione didn't know why her face caught her eye. Out of all the faces that she had been perusing absentmindedly after dropping the bag of books onto the floor, this one stood out. She didn't know why her face caught her eye. But it did. For a second she couldn't think and she didn't even know why... it was not the face or the body or even the clothes in their separateness, but as a whole she was arresting to say the least. There was just an indefinable 'something' about her. Hermione stared at This Girl trying desperately to work out what it was about This Girl that made her mind stop and start in strange ways. And as she stared, the other Girl turned her head towards her, and looked at her for a second before Hermione dropped her gaze and pretended to be looking at the chewing gum that had been ground black into the floor of the swaying carriage. She didn't know whether The Girl looked at her because of random train viewage, or because she felt Hermione's gaze on her, or... there had to be some other reason. And right now her mind wasn't letting her think of it. Unusually she did not know the answer.

She didn't like it; it made her feel out of control. Which was exactly how her parents were making her feel. Out of her control and into theirs. Whenever she was at home for the holidays it would seem that no matter how old she was she was being pushed down further and further onto the kiddie table, set aside from the adult talk. Even the clothes her parents bought for her reflected her lack of choice in this life. She loved them, but sometimes she wished that she didn't spend so much time with them.

The train swayed to a stop and her eyes yet again rose to visit That Girl's face and body and tried to remember every detail. She didn't know why she was doing this, but it felt somehow right. The Girl was just looking ahead now. And even though she was staring at the front of the carriage just like everyone else, her personality, or as much as could be determined through her clothes and body and facial expressions did not seem to be as plastic as everyone else. Hermione had a strange feeling, a feeling that if she reached out and tried to touch, physically, anyone else on the train, there would be a glassy sheen around their bodies, but this girl would feel as soft as the inside of her own arm. That everyone else in the train was the mysterious, everybody, somebody and nobody, whereas she had a her own personality, she was The Girl, That Girl, This Girl, a real person, with a real identity.

To describe her with words would hardly do her justice, as it hardly does anyone justice. If she gave a divers schedule of This Girl's clothing and body, with extra details for the over-inquisitive, like Olivia did in 'Twelfth Night' there would seem to be nothing for attraction. She wore: dark blue jeans, a light brown shirt almost completely covered by a light blue corduroy jacket with the collar turned up (Just kissing her throat... why am I thinking this?) And her face; one overlarge mouth, two blue eyes like a lake reflecting a cloudy day, one medium overlarge nose, a pale whiteness for a face with pinked cheeks. And on her raven dark hair that stranded messily across her face, above all that plainness, was perched a peaked cap. A blue peaked cap, like the ones your grandfather used to wear in the 1940's when he was young and handsome, to a degree, and thought that the whole world was ahead of him. The Girl was looking over at her again. Not a full on look, but sideways out of the corner of her eyes, the visual equivalent of a tongue in the corner of her mouth. A brief smile touched her lips. "Look down! Look down!" said Hermione to herself. It wasn't just nervousness, a shyness after a reaction, possible reaction, maybe she as just hoping too much and it wasn't a reaction at all, it wasn't a nervousness but rather an unexpected thought. She didn't know what she would do, if, if this reaction was real. She didn't know why she was looking let alone what she would do if the other Girl started looking at her for real. It was a confusion, bewilderment, this was not usual. "This is not like me to be this uncertain, I always know everything."

She stared back out the train window and tried to look impassive, as everyone else who filed on and off the train seemed to accomplish very easily. People who had their own problems and thoughts but were too polite to even discuss it with their eyes.

Her mind turned back again to her depressed state before That Girl had distracted her. She was almost annoyed with her for destroying her carefully constructed angsty feeling. At least with this depression she knew the reasons why she was depressed, and they weren't just her parents who didn't understand her magical ability, or rather who tried to, in good old politically correct fashion, but only succeeded in trying to coddle her more than ever when she was actually around. Her parents didn't seem to realise that she was an adult legally, and had indeed been mature long before then, half because of her naturally studious personality, which in itself discouraged childish escapades, and half because of the magical encounters she had been involved in, mostly due to Harry. And that was a problem as well. Harry and Ron seemed far too busy with important work to do stuff together, they wouldn't even ask her for help like they had always done, and this is what niggled at her the most. That they would not even ask her for advice, would not work together, the three of them, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, on this potentially life threatening assignment, dangerous but necessary. Work that they wouldn't even involve her in at all, or tell her about, because they didn't want her involved in the dangers. "They seem to have a secret conspiracy with my parents," she thought mutinously. "It isn't fair!" They should know her better than that. Her parents, well she could understand them being concerned and worried and trying to childify her. They didn't really know what the magical world was like and they didn't know half of what she had done and been involved in. She hadn't told them those because it was too embarrassing, just plain illegal or because she wanted to protect her parents from the kind of dreams that woke her up at night and were more memories than dreams. So maybe her parents treatment was her own fault. She understood that. She thought wryly, I have been complaining to myself, earlier, about how they had pushed me down into a personality that had no choice but theirs, when in a sense she was doing the same thing to them. Just because it was her own fault didn't make it easier to live with. But some of those dreams, made her almost happy to be confined into their image of a twelve year old.

She shifted uneasily at the thought of some of those memories that triggered the dreams, nearly unbalancing her two plastic bags, brown umbrella, one backpack and a takeaway bag.

That Girl again, in the corner of her eye. Was it rather the girl who was looking at her? She thought not. I mean just look at me, over the past two years she had gained a lot of weight, not that she had ever been rake thin, but now she was growing pudgy as she spent more time than ever poring over the books. There had never been a time when she didn't pore over the books, but now, well it was done almost exclusively. Why do I keep on having to look at her? "I'm not a lesbian..." she almost said out loud as she thought wistfully of her last boyfriend Seamus, whose Irish brogue had got her going in more ways than one. But just saying the word got her thinking about it, lesbian, sometimes said so it sounded worse than 'Mudblood' or 'Muggle lover' as the Slytherin's spat the words out. As if it was a bad thing, and it wasn't. "Not that it's a bad thing to be a lesbian, but I am attracted to guys..." she thought firmly. That stopped the mental argument for a second, she seemed satisfied for a second, until it got her thinking, by association as to why she found This Girl so fascinating, a now unanswerable puzzle. A secret part of her, that she had never noticed was there seemed to remind her that men weren't the only gender she was attracted to.

"Shut up! It isn't as if I don't have other things to think about than this!" To think about Harry and Ron who knew how smart she was, how brave, how much she loved the both of them and who knew all this and then would still cut her out of whatever plans they had for "You-know-who". As if she couldn't help. As if she wasn't involved at all with this struggle with "You-know-who" everyone in the whole world nearly was in a battle with him, unconsciously or consciously. She was a conscious part of this fight, she knew it existed, he existed and the power and darkness that he brought with him. If they failed if the light failed, well then she, one of their hated 'Mudbloods' would be the first to go. It had never been part of her nature to just to be able to sit back and let others do the work and then bask in the reflected glory, or in this case the ability to keep living. She hadn't done that any other time, not when she was afraid or knew that it was breaking the law or rule, so why did they think that this time she was fragile. It had always been the three of them, and when it wasn't all of them had felt wrong as if something was slightly out of place, and jagged to boot. Why? Why? Why? "I can't just sit here, I can help them, they need me."

Fiery kisses on soft lips. She stopped that thought quickly. The same with the thought of resting her head in languorous almost slumber cushioned against That Girls chest. "Stop it Hermione! For Gods sake you are a grown woman and can control your own imagination!" ("Of course you could, if you actually wanted to," reminded the secret part of her head. "Do you really want to feel sick with self pity for the rest of your life? Just because others are letting you down and pushing you down doesn't mean that you should push away who you want even if it is only in your mind.") She smiled finally, the first through that long tiring journey, and decided to look at This Girl, this woman in her fashionable clothes and perfectness whom she might never ever see again. Decided to drink her in. Search every feature for cues to aid her memory in times to come. Soon, soon the train will come to a stop, and she will be on her way to the Burrows to visit Ron and Harry and the whole Weasley family. But right now all that mattered is this anonymous Girl on a train who may also be looking at her.

She knew that she shouldn't be disappointed to be going to see Harry and Ron, she knew that they loved her but sometimes they just showed it in the wrong ways. She wondered whether all along that what had hurt her more, not the fact that she was not working with them to defeat "You-know-who", but rather the fact that her pride was hurt because they hadn't asked her for her professional expertise. She was so used to being the intelligent one at Hogwarts, the one most students went to for answers, and help, even the occasional Slytherin and a surprising number of older students. And now to be out of the intelligence loop was slightly deflating. To not know something was almost physically painful, someone throwing away the chips of knowledge onto the ground, the half full packet emptied and nothing more can be consumed from it, except the barest lick of chicken salt on the cardboard itself. That's how she felt right now, as if she had been hungry and just watched someone throw away food, or kept it away from her rather, holding it above her head and the holders greedily still eating from packet even after they were full to bulging. Hogwarts, she was finished, graduated, with the highest honours the school had known, it was actually a record the amount of OWLS and NEWTS that she had taken. But now what did that mean. Soon she would be going into the magical world, and it was indeed wonderful to get a score like that but she wasn't going to be special anymore. Most people didn't even care about these marks in the real world. Except for jobs and sometimes not even then. All those years of studying and she still didn't know enough. Right now even Harry and Ron knew more than she did. Why did it hurt so much?

The Girl shifted in her seat, her arms half stretching in front of her, before going back to her former position, with her hands resting lightly curled on her lap. One of her collars, the nearest to Hermione was drooping slightly, and Hermione had a sudden irresistible urge to lift it back up to its former upstanding glory. But she held herself back, looking up instead as the train yet again slowed down, and as the countryside outside became a recognisable blur, she perused it looking for the place name. Wrong place. Next one was her stop.

Why did it matter so much about Harry and Ron and their mysterious plan? Was it really for reasons of pride as she had thought before briefly, before she had turned her attention back to That Girl? She searched herself honestly for evidence of this within herself. Was that her true self, just a list of academic achievements? No it couldn't be, and wasn't. She felt hurt because it should be the three of them, they were a team, how could they work as well as they always had without her, and also she was afraid, afraid that if she wasn't there to look after them, they would do something stupid, or they wouldn't know a spell. And that she would know forever afterwards that it was her fault, her fault for not being there, when they needed her, even thought they didn't ask for her help, and actively discouraged it, that it would be her fault because she could have found out if she wanted to, if she had not been so concerned that they were slighting her academic ability.

That Girl was all she could really think of, was disturbing her, making her realise the stupidity of her earlier thoughts. If she could be so easily distracted then they were not worth worrying about. Just wondering about her, attributing a past to her, a name even, superseded all others. All names, all possible backgrounds, seemed somehow wrong, she was the mysterious the unusual, the exotic other. Unguessable. But also real. The eternal Eve with a mysterious half hidden Mona Lisa smile.

The stentorian voice of the conductor or some pre-recorded voice announced in loud static tones that this train was approaching Little Middleton. Her stop. She was half disappointed that she couldn't stay longer, sit longer, and stare in avid determination at her face. She had a camera in her bag, and wanted to capture that face, but polite convention told her that this action would brand her as socially unacceptable. That she would be too embarrassed to ask her, to have some imperfectness appear that would fault the perfect Girl, her voice would be wrong, or something would be out of place. Well not a perfect Girl, but a Girl of dreams Girl, because nobody really wants perfection. It would sully the imperfect person, that they have touched perfection, and by the touching destroyed the perfection.

Hermione gathered her bags to her, threading her hands through numerous handles, and standing up to retrieve her suitcase and backpack from the brackets above her head, hooking her umbrella over one crooked elbow. Walking with no look behind for the Girl, she could not have faced the polite indifference. Others were also getting ready to leave, doing the same walk to the door at either end of the carriage. She wavered in her walk as the train slowed down. She reached the end of the carriage and leaned against the wall as the train came shuddering to a halt. Some person standing in front of her burdened only with a blue backpack swung the heavy metal door open. There were people standing around in clumps, very clearly separate and waiting to welcome some particular person home. She saw the happy families ahead of her collecting up their miscellaneous relatives or friends and helping to carry their numerous bags. She couldn't keep up with their normal walking steps, she slowly stumbled along to the train exit lugging her suitcase and half dragging the bags through the heavy air.

Panting she cursed the fact that she had said to Harry and Ron that she didn't need help getting to the Burrows indeed that she would be perfectly fine without them. They had just had a fight and that's why she had refused, had almost considered not going at all just to punish them, but then her parents were so nigglingly unbearable that she had to leave just for a change. Or so she thought at the time, she just wanted to be able to make her own choices about things.

She needed to get outside the barrier and along the road to an area where no one could see her and then she could fly on her broomstick which was concealed as an umbrella to their home. She had not stopped thinking about the Girl, it was just other problems had temporarily fogged over those thoughts and without her immediate presence, her face like most peoples were beginning to fade from Hermione's memory. She couldn't help it; she just had trouble remembering people's faces unless they were just in front of her.

The train that had stood stationary for all her stumbling walk shuddered out. She would never see her again. She felt bleak. Everyone else it seemed had left also, leaving in chattering light filled cars to go home. Home suddenly seemed so appealing. It would be nice to walk into her home and find Dad cooking tea and Mum sitting knitting, watching the television, next to a roaring fire. Of course it was nice to be at the Weasley's it was just well, not quite home, close but not quite, it didn't have her mother or father. She was considering just then getting on her broomstick and flying from here, as there was no one else around.

Suddenly just before she reached the barrier she felt a light tap on her arm. She turned quickly reaching for her wand, which was attached to an arm clasp, when she realised it was The Girl. They stood too closely together, almost invading each other's personal space, she had turned too quickly and the Girl had been right behind her. They stood face to face with slightly parted mouths. But neither moved to step back as anyone else would have in an awkward panic. It felt right to be standing here, close enough to touch but not touching. Just feel each other's body heat emanating, connecting in the dark air between them. Hermione put down her bags carefully, they had been dragging on her arms, she wanted to stand in this moment forever. An anticipation before someone broke it and they would have to go back to the normal, the humdrum.

Then naturally as anything, their heads moved closer, and they both closed their eyes. Their warmth breath caressed each other's lips first, hot air that conveyed with it the smell of baking bread in the morning. And then their lips touched. For the first time in god knows how long Hermione felt a rush of moist heat between her legs. A sexual heat between them. She was throbbing with the world. She wanted this girl, she didn't know anything about her, not even her name, all she did know was how she felt in her arms. For once she wasn't going for the safe, the usual, the everyday, the secure. She had always looked for that before. She always wanted to feel totally safe to know everything that that person was capable of, so that she could always be able to protect herself. She didn't care anymore. All those troubles with Harry and Ron and her parents meant nothing. Those problems were just distractions, and now there were worse problems like how to stay with this girl forever and a day, amen, in this moment, because for the first time in ages she felt like she was finally awake to the world. That categorisations didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was Them. She was finally happy.

A sudden shake in the train as it rounded a corner woke Hermione up; she didn't know how long she had been asleep. That dream, it was so real. That Girl had been so real, she couldn't have imagined her. She turned her head, and saw sitting opposite her, The Girl. At least she wasn't a dream, even if everything else was.

The stentorian voice of the conductor or some pre-recorded voice announced in loud static tones that this train was approaching Little Middleton. Her stop. She began doing exactly as she had in the dream, gathering all her bags to her, threading her hands through the numerous handles, and standing up to retrieve her suitcase and backpack from the brackets above her head, hooking her umbrella over one crooked elbow. She walked away without looking at the Girl, she could remember so vividly standing on the station in her arms and was afraid that she would blush as she looked at her. Just the memory of that dream made her feel unexpectedly desirable. Others were also getting ready to leave, doing the same walk to the door at either end of the carriage. She wavered in her walk as the train slowed down. She reached the end of the carriage and leaned against the wall as the train came shuddering to a halt. But this time the person in front of her who opened the heavy metal door was not wearing a blue backpack, but was rather a young mother wrestling a pram down the steps with a man pulling it with him as he walked backwards, helping to lift it out. She was half relieved and half devastated to know that her dream could not be real. At least this way she would not be disappointed further on. There were people standing around in clumps, very clearly separate and waiting to welcome some particular person home. She saw the happy families ahead of her collecting up their miscellaneous relatives or friends and helping to carry their numerous bags. She couldn't keep up with their normal walking steps, she slowly stumbled along to the train exit lugging her suitcase and half dragging the bags through the heavy air.

Panting she yet again cursed the fact that she had said to Harry and Ron that she didn't need help getting to the Burrows, the bags if nothing else were exactly the same as she had remembered them. There were too many people around; she couldn't fly away from here with them around like this. She needed to get outside the barrier and along the road to an area where no one could see her and then she could fly from there. She thought she remembered a small clump of trees a little further on which would do perfectly. She only hoped that she could see them in this darkness. She nearly laughed at her imagining of the Girl, it seemed ridiculous to imagine how easy it had been. The train that had stood stationary for all her stumbling walk shuddered out. She no longer laughed; she would never see her again. She felt bleak. Everyone else it seemed had left also, jumping into cars, and leaving in chattering light to go home. Home suddenly seemed so appealing. Any home would do, especially the nice homely Burrows, which wasn't as good as home but was close. She was considering just then getting on her broomstick and flying from here, as there was no one else around. Suddenly just before she reached the barrier she felt a light tap on her arm. She felt odd, a sense of déjà vu as she turned around, even though she wasn't clutching for her wand this time. It was The Girl.