Under the Rain

Under the Rain

Chapter Two: Into the Daylight

A woman clad in a black sweatshirt and loose-fitting jeans sat on the steps of 18 Bogs End St. London at about half past noon, smoking a cigarette and getting drenched by the rain in the process. Passers-by would put her age at her mid-thirties, and would have been shocked to hear that she was only in her twenties. Her face was still smooth, but lines had taken root at the corners of her eyes. Her hair, naturally brown, was streaked with gray and dull, as if the youth had been sucked away.

The woman matched the house well. Sagging was the word for it, as if it some unknown force was weighing it down. The bricks were faded and cracked, and none of the windows had glass in them. It looked as though it had been abandoned for most of the time it had stood.

Sighing, Hermione flicked her cigarette into the street and stood, entering the house - her house. A few whispered spells and the door righted itself, and the floor shook a bit, holes closing in. Dust swirled around her, and she shut her eyes tightly against it. This was her home, and she was determined to make it at least safe to stand in. After all, Abigail would be coming over in just a week's time to check up on her, and she'd rather have this project to work on than end up back in St. Mungo's, or worse, her mother's kitchen.

Swishing her wand and muttering under her breath, she walked around the house, patching what absolutely needed to be patched. The stairs, or what would have been a staircase at one point, were her major worry. Gathering bits of broken brick, stones, and some moldering furniture she transfigured a narrow wooden staircase, and made her way up it, sweat pouring off her.

By nightfall Hermione had made major improvements to the house, although the exterior remained in the same miserable condition. She'd charmed the windows to appear broken out despite the new glass in them, a precaution to discourage investigation of the house. Balanced on the window sill in her bedroom, she stared out at the back garden, a thought of Neville and a recent therapy session flitting through her mind, and a recent therapy session.

"It wont do them any good to dwell on them, dearie," Abigail had lectured her only a few days ago.

"I can't help myself - using Harry's galleons for this house just seems ... wrong, without him and Ron to move in with me, like we'd planned. It feels like they're following me around and sometimes..." she'd faltered, embarrassed.

Abigail had just stared at her, her gray eyes focusing, as it always felt, on the tip of Hermione's nose. She didn't pressure the younger woman to speak, just waited her out.

Finally, Hermione had managed "Sometimes I hear them, teasing me or telling me to put down my book and come out into the daylight... and I look around, and they aren't there."

That statement had taken nearly two years to come out, and she wished she could take it back the moment she said it. Her two best friends were dead, and Neville was dead, and Pavarti and Lavender and Seamus... every Gryfindor in her year was gone, except for her. Too smart to fight face to face Granger, who'd sat in an attic room for the duration of the war, making calculations which had cost every single one of her friends their lives.

She'd had little to no communication with any of them, just sealed secrets delivered by owl in the middle of the night; provided with food and supplies and books, she only saw others once every few months. She received letters telling her how well she was doing, but never once received anything that told her more about the war than she needed for the next calculation. Names were blacked out, until all that she knew of her friends was that they were fighting, and that those with specializations were locked up in secure locations just as she was. Hermione hadn't even known where she was.

She'd been released just after the battle which took the lives of both Voldemort and the Boy Who Didn't Live. She'd read the report - a Death Eater, seeing his Master fall, had come up behind Harry and, rather than hexing him, had stabbed him to death before taking his own life. Harry had been the last of her friends to die. She hadn't seen any of it in action, just the aftermath, just the bodies littering the hard dirt.

After the war she'd been offered jobs by the Ministry and private companies - she hadn't stayed at any of them for longer than a week, and it soon became word that to hire Hermione Granger was perhaps the stupidest and most dangerous thing possible. She talked to herself, she warded her office against everyone and everything, even owls - she'd even hexed one of her bosses, sending him to the hospital for a month.

She'd fled to her parent's house, and hid there for the past few years. Minerva had eventually asked Hermione, in a rare letter, to drop in on a friend - Abigail Maseten. Abigail had very quietly told Hermione, accompanied by her mother, that she was a therapist, and a Squib. She asked Hermione to come see her a few times a week, for a cuppa and a chat. Shocking everyone, Hermione had gone.

Abigail had saved her life - but Hermione wasn't sure it was worth saving. The isolation and guilt that riddled and haunted her from the war days had made her into an entirely different woman. She was secure in her abilities - but she didn't want to use them. She knew that her talents and intelligence set her apart, and she no longer cared.

With a low growl in her throat, Hermione shook her head and crawled into bed, downing a potion as she did. Sleep was necessary, whether she wanted it or not.