Mi Nem Iz Hurmyoni

Mi Nem Iz Hurmyoni-

There's a condition that muggles have, a condition that sometimes goes undiagnosed in the wizard world. It has baffled generations of healers who were too proud to let themselves stoop so low as to consult muggle medical practices for help on this problem. It was grossly misunderstood, and the children who were unlucky enough to be the victims of this condition were often shunned, hidden away, plain ignored, because they were believed to be cursed.

Some said that a pregnant woman should never venture out of the house on the nights of the full moon, lest she hears a werewolf howl and end up bearing such a child. Others claim that it is the direct result of illicit liaisons, the consummation of forbidden passions of a woman who is promised to one of her kind but cavorts with those of another, with the forbidden half-breeds, incubating something that is forever doomed to live without really knowing life.

Superstitions, all of them, really.

Before the time when muggle-borns and wizards worked side by side, when the word 'mudblood' was not as scarce as it is today, no one understood why parents came rushing to St. Mungo's with their young children, some only three, others of a greater age, and all of them frightened out of their wits and clutching little scraps of paper. Each paper was a testament, a piece of evidence against its writer.

There was the one girl who wrote her sentences from right to left instead of the way it was supposed to be, the one whose parents had tried unsuccessfully to cure by burning her hands until the flesh was permanently scarred.

The little boy with blond hair and big blue eyes whose writing resembled mere lines on paper until he stood with it in front of a mirror and the mirror said the words back at him. The backs of his legs are patterned over grotesquely, welts that could only have been inflicted by a thick pole covering the pale skin because his aunt had said that the curse could only be broken by breaking the little body, symbolically defeating it.

But that was a long time ago.

It's surprising, though, how many people still believe in these superstitions.

I guess I'm lucky, then, that I was born to a non-wizarding family, to a family that knew what was wrong with me but never let me feel that I had any problems. I wonder what might have happened if I had magical parents, or if no one had ever thought that maybe wizards could turn to the muggles for help. I might not have been able to make it this far. Of course, no one, save my parents, know about it, no one else. Not even my friends at Hogwarts. I suspect that maybe Dumbledore knows, because he has that knack of just knowing about everything and what he doesn't know, he finds out. But for now, I think that no one, in this world, at least, knows about me, or my little secret. And I don't think anyone could guess, either. They could never guess because they just don't know how much I'm hiding.

Right now, I think that I should be thankful for what I have. I know that maybe I come across as a bossy know-it-all; I've heard Ron say it himself quite a number of times. Even now, when he thinks I'm not listening, I can hear him saying it softly, 'I guess I'm just not comfortable with her because she knows everything. It's not normal.'

I'm sure he doesn't realize how correct he is. I am not normal. I am very far from normal, come to think of it, even by wizarding standards.

Especially by wizarding standards, actually.

Then again, Ron doesn't realize that I'm one of those dreaded children who manifest their strangeness in letters on paper. I'm very careful not to get caught, very careful. Who knows what would happen if I am? I know that people know of this stuff now, that I'm not going to be considered as much of a freak as I would have been, say, ten years ago. But I'd rather not that they know.

I'd just rather not.

*

Being muggle-born, I was actually diagnosed as a child. I can remember my mother holding up one of those crayon scribbles that every child does, and her forehead creasing with worry because I had spelt my name as 'inoymruh'.

But every child misspells their name, right?

Not if that child happens to be seven years old.

School was my private hell. I understood every word the teacher spoke, knew exactly what she was talking about. I had a wonderful memory and could quote, word for word, from a book, after just one reading. But that didn't matter, it didn't matter at all. By grade three, all the children could spell their names, all the children wrote their words the right way around, starting with what should be the first letter and ending with what should be the last.

I always ended up misspelling even the most simple of words, and on really bad days, when I had tried and tried to get something right but only found myself getting even more confused, I often ended up reversing the order of the letters. Or whatever resembled letters, because more often than not, they just looked like random lines on paper. It only started in the third grade, and I think that's why it was so hard for my parents to accept that maybe their perfect little girl wasn't as perfect as they thought she was. If she had a problem, why didn't it manifest itself from the beginning? Why did it just spring up at the worst of times? But that's what it's like, because you never know when it'll start, and until then, you think you're normal.

It's only when I started messing up my letters that everyone knew there was something wrong with me.

I was learning disabled. Retarded. Yes, I wore that label on the school playground, along with my tears and tangled hair. Retard.

Spell it for us, Retard Granger.

R-E-T-A-R-D.

*

When you're seven years old and you have no friends because no one wants to hang out with a 'retard', life's about as bad as it can get. Add curly, unmanageable hair and big front teeth, and then you've got the perfect target for bullies, the worst ever possible combination of undesirable traits.

I won't say that I actually got special attention for my... problem. I never did. There was no special school for the mentally handicapped, no special teacher, no adult who noticed I was beautiful and different and tried to help me. I don't have that kind of story.

My parents never had that kind of money.

Instead, I had a kitchen table, and sandpaper, and an old pen without a nib. And my mother, sitting there after coming home, standing behind me, her hand over mine as she made me trace miles and miles of the letter 'H' into the sandpaper. My fingers would shake, and I'd plead for her to stop, for me to just go on being my retarded self and suffer in silence. And she'd just shake her head, her curls wild like mine, and smile.

'Hermione, you're a very clever girl. And I bet that you can show all of those people who doubt you that you're the best. The best. You have a wonderful gift, and that's your memory... well, I'm teaching your hand to remember, just like your mind does.'

Hours and hours, writing the same letters on sandpaper, getting used to the movements of each individual stroke. The single letters became a sequence, the sequence a word, the word a phrase.

And my hand remembered. My hand remembered the feeling of moving from the upper left to the bottom right, the two smooth vertical strokes and the rung of a ladder between them, the window without a side. I learnt to write my letters long after I learnt to read them, I learnt to write them in order. The movements burned into my brain, my hand moving automatically to form the letter as soon as I heard it spoken.

*

When you're seven, the most important thing is to finish first, even if you didn't finish properly. I'd see the children all finish their worksheets, all of them, getting up one by one and leaving the classroom and going to play outside. I'd remain in the classroom, alone, the teacher looking at me and then longingly towards the door, but never leaving until I did.

'Take your time, Hermione,' she used to coax. And I did. I took my time, and I discovered that if I put all my attention to working at whatever was in front of me, I could do it perfectly. Even if I was a little slow. Even if I was a little sloppy. I could give in my paper last and go trudging outside to that corner of the playground where no one went, knowing that when the marks came back I would have the big smiley face and the golden star.

So the most important thing wasn't really finishing first, afterall, was it?

*

Where I wasn't good, I made up. I couldn't forget the kitchen table and the sandpaper, the teacher sitting waiting for me finish the worksheet. I had to remember, had to work hard, harder than the rest, had to rise to the challenge. Had to use my memory, had to remember, had to reach higher, always higher, to the top.

They say, when you learn something through a challenge, you never forget. I haven't forgotten. That's why I sit here, surrounded by stacks of books. I know that here at Hogwarts, no one knows, and I don't have to prove anything to anyone, but that would be a lie. I do have something to prove to someone... to myself. Everything else is irrelevant... I have to show that I can make it. That I can be the best. The best.

In the modern wizarding world, people are getting accustomed to the idea of those who are born with special abilities, to the idea of those who are born to struggle. The beatings a child like me would have received are things that are recorded in books but aren't done anymore. In fact, these children are usually looked upon as special, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time until someone comes up with a potion or a charm or something that will help them draw level with their counterparts, if not ahead.

But there's always something about a challenge, isn't there? Something that forces you to put your all into a task, whether it's studying for an OWL or just some potions homework. Put your all into it. Even if it's as simple as writing your own name.

H-E-R-M-I-O-N-E.

Hello, my name is Hermione Granger, and I have dyslexia.