These Strange Familiar Things

Chapter 5

The Storm Inside

"O that this too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!"

The dinner table was oddly quiet, especially for the Weasleys'. Not much was said besides a polite murmuring now and then to pass this or move that, punctuating Arthur's grave report on national affairs. His days at the Ministry now were mostly spent waiting for news from deeply imbedded spies. Arthur's stilted account of Fudge's impotent raving soon withered away into awkward silence. Glancing around to see everyone but Hermione studiously chewing, he cleared his throat and looked over at her.

"Hermione, if you don't mind, there's something I'd like to discuss with you later on." She nodded and stared at her peas, wishing he hadn't brought it up during dinner, in front of everyone. She didn't raise her eyes for the rest of the meal, knowing she wouldn't be able to witness the expressions on their faces without screaming. She felt dangerously close to the edge as it was.

After the table had been cleared Molly ushered them out of the kitchen and they headed as one herd to the living room, including a reluctant Hermione, who had been flanked by Fred and George and coaxed with surprisingly gentle words to join them for a while. Ron and Harry made a place for her on the sofa and she sank down between them resignedly, looking neither in the eye, thus missing the misery of the one and the sympathy. Harry squeezed her arm silently. She could feel Ron on her right practically holding his breath, body rigid.

An owl swooped into to the room, startling its occupants, and dropped a rolled-up parchment on Molly's lap. She curiously opened it, and beamed in excitement. "It's a letter from Charlie!"

"Read it aloud, Mum," came a chorus of voices. She read his cryptic narration of his eventful trip to Russia, describing the rare breeds of dragons extensively, but saying only a few abrupt words about his difficult position (he was working for the Order) and the conditions of Magical Moscow, and even fewer about a girl he had met. It sounded serious, judging by how little he said; one could never be too careful around Molly Weasley. The woman could sniff out an opportunity for grandchildren years in the future and leagues away.

Soon the conversation was flowing again, subdued perhaps, but comfortable and easy nonetheless. Hermione felt, not for the first time, what a close-knit family they were, practically finishing each other's sentences and conveying entire paragraphs with one look. She had found it oh-so-touching on her previous visits. Now she was nauseous from the cloying domestic camaraderie, unable to breathe. She stood up suddenly, clutching her stomach. All conversation ceased.

Struggling to keep her voice smooth, she said, "Mr Weasley? What was it you wanted to tell me?"

The smile vanished from his kind eyes, and he stood and motioned her to a quiet corner, waving the rest of the family away. He looked at her sadly for a moment, and Hermione said impatiently, "Well?"

He swallowed and looked down, then said in a gentle tone, "I wanted to give you an update on the investigation. The Aurors have some new information..."

She laughed, sharp and bitter and loud, drawing nervous glances from the other occupants of the room. "New information, eh? My Muggle parents were tortured and murdered by Death Eaters, on orders from Lord Voldemort--" Arthur winced "--because I am the best friend of Harry bloody Potter and as such an excellent Mudblood to make an example of. What else is there to know, really?" her voice rose as she went on, until by the end of her tirade it was a trembling screech. Six redheads and one black-haired boy stared at her with shock and unbearable pity. Hermione shook her head violently, hair slapping against her face and mercifully obscuring her view. The ache of tears pressed in the back of her throat, and she felt a headache coming on. One of her stress-induced migraines; she hadn't had one for years now.

She backed away from the living room, away from Arthur moving his mouth anxiously, closing her eyes tightly. A ghostly hand seemed to clamp around her windpipe, suffocating her, as her mind crowded with echoing laughter and smiling redheaded faces.

Whirling, she flew up the stairs with thumping footsteps, burning eyes fixed on the advancing grey carpet. She ran to the guest room and closed the door behind her, jerking when it slammed, panting. She could still hear their voices, see their sympathetic looks, feel the warm discomfort of pitying gazes on her, even now.

Hermione opened her eyes from their narrowed wince and realized that the discomfort in question was actually caused by just one gaze--that of a tiny brown owl.

"Pigwidgeon!" she said in surprise. "What are you doing here?" Hermione had always been confident of animals' ability to understand humans, even before learning of her magical gifts. Pig hooted sweetly, and flew unsteadily toward her, aiming for her shoulder but falling a bit short and instead crashing into her arm. She caught him with a shaking hand before he could fall and injure himself, and placed him on his original target. He hooted softly again, and as if he sensed her upset, he burrowed his warm fluffy body into her neck.

She could feel his tiny heartbeat against her collarbone, and felt the tears finally release a little, moisture sliding down her pale cheeks. She hadn't realized how much her heart had been crying out for the warmth of unconditional affection. Pig had simply felt the pain of a fellow creature and put himself forth to ease it, expecting nothing in return, asking nothing of her.

She felt a sudden blinding pain in her temples, her nausea returning stronger than before, and she swayed. The migraine was starting in earnest now.

I want to go home, she thought and a sharp longing shot through her. Angrily wiping away her tears, she slammed the few belongings scattered around the room into her trunk and left the room, creeping silently down the hall into Ron's room. Apparition was out of the question for her right now.

The boys' belongings were spread out on every available surface. Hedwig was perched on the sill of an open window, looking out into the dreary sky, the curtains stirring in the faint breeze. She hooted a low greeting to the unexpected visitor, but otherwise did nothing.

Hermione picked her way over to the bed nearer to the snowy owl and soon spotted what she was looking for: Harry's broom. The Cumulous Ten Thousand, or whatever the dratted thing it was called. It was the fastest broom in the house, a fact which both pleased and terrified her. She didn't allow her thoughts to run any further and picked it up before she could reconsider, pushing away her guilt and telling herself she would return it before Harry even realized it was gone.

Walking back into the guest room, she looked from her trunk to the broom and back again, realizing there was no way the former was getting on the latter. She opened her trunk and took out a few essential belongings, leaving all her robes and school things and taking only personal items and Muggle clothing. And her wand, of course--she could sooner part with her right arm. Bundling it all into her satchel, she shouldered it and swung one leg over Harry's broom, trying to banish her fear by reciting over and over Madam Hooch's first lesson verbatim to herself.

A sudden unfocused anger plumed up inside her, at nothing and everything. She forgot her fear of heights, of flying, forgot the blooming pain in her skull and her clammy hands on the broomstick, and focused her entire magnificent brain on moving up and out through the large open window.

She shot out of the window with tremendous force. One minute her feet were on worn grey carpet, the next she was hurtling through the air about twenty feet from the ground, and rising very rapidly.

She felt as if she might wet her pants, or faint.

Maybe even both.

She made a conscious effort to calm her intense shaking and concentrate on slowing down. Soon she was coasting along at a less nerve-wracking pace, and felt inordinately proud of herself.

She looked down.

The broom teetered precariously. Definitely a mistake, that. She shut her eyes tight and took a long slow breath before she returned her attention to the landscape below.

The charming town of Ottery St. Catchpole spread out beneath her, made up of crooked cobblestone streets and picturesquely ugly houses in a hodgepodge of architectural styles, each dwelling resplendent with its own unique personality. It was early evening, about half an hour from sunset, and the streets were mostly deserted. She flew along them, searching for a house of orange and purple brick.

She caught sight of it on her second sweep of Plockney Street. It boasted five turrets of varying height, but instead of little pointy roofs, they were each topped with a different enormous hat. Hermione remembered from last summer's visit that Luna lived in the Beret Tower, as she called it.

She had barely knocked on the door before she was enveloped in the dreamy presence of the Lovegoods, both of whom possessed the same eccentric but charming air that floated around Luna. The interior of the house itself threatened with its total disregard for the natural order of things to further upset her already unbalanced state of mind, so she actively ignored it.

She looked from her now good friend to her parents, smiling haplessly. "Luna...Mr Lovegood, I don't know if you remember me, but my name is Hermione Granger. I visited last summer..."

"Oh, yes, and such a lovely tea that was. We had a very interesting talk about--Nifflers, if I recall." Hermione blinked at Luna's father. She had forgotten about that highly taxing conversation.

"Yes well, actually the reason I came--"

"Hermione dear, forgive me for saying so," Mr Lovegood broke in, "but you really do look terrible. Is anything the matter?"

Right. Well, the of them were notorious for their lack of tact. The pain in her head intensified into a herd of stampeding hippogriffs and her stomach rolled so dramatically that she had to close her eyes for a moment.

"You could say that, yes," she said faintly. "I really came to ask a favour, if it's not too much of an imposition...I'll be in your debt..."

"Nonsense, Hermione Granger," said Luna in a misty voice. "You are my compatriot, and one can never hike too far in someone else's skis." Hermione stared at her owlishly. "Anything you need, friend," she clarified with a starry gaze, her voice carrying a note of sympathy.

Hermione fought back tears as her mouth screwed up. "I...thank you," she rasped in a painful whisper. "I need to--an...emergency has arisen, and I need a fireplace to Floo home through. It's terribly important." Her voice cracked as she choked out the last bit and she looked at her shoes.

The air was practically humming with curiosity, especially around Mr Lovegood, Quibbler editor extraordinaire that he was, but they also recognized her distress and mercifully did not mention that she was less than five minutes from the Burrow, eith its perfectly viable Floo connection, and resembled nothing if not a runaway.

Luna stepped forward and silently took her hand, leading her to the fireplace and pointing out the bag of Floo powder on the canary yellow mantelpiece. Hermione reached up and grabbed a pinch. Suddenly she turned from the flames, dropping Harry's broom with a clatter, and hugged Luna with all her might. She bent down quickly then, retrieved the broom and following the green flare, yelled "The Leaky Cauldron!" and was gone without a trace.

Luna looked after her friend with a sad smile on her face.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

The Leaky Cauldron was smoky and crowded, and Hermione wasted no time in getting out through the Muggle side into London. She slipped into an empty alley, grateful for the now full dark, and mounted the broom, lifting off without letting herself think about it. Before she knew it she was almost home. Spying her neighbourhood, she smiled bitterly at the idyllic picture it presented. She came down hard on her driveway, noting with vague relief that the Dark Mark was long gone.

Fumbling for her key, Hermione let herself in and made it to the carpet in the drawing room before she collapsed in wrenching, heaving sobs so brutal she thought they must surely tear her apart. She curled up in a foetal position and gripped her knees, rolling on the floor in physical pain. She was blind, deaf, to anything but the storm inside her. Daddy...he had been her protector, her guide. He had dried her tears too many times on too many dark nights to count.

But she remembered them all. She remembered his beautiful smiling face, and then interposed on that picture the one of him staring, dead but with such an expression of horror in his cold eyes that she knew she would be dreaming about it forever.

And he would not be there in the small morning hours to chase away her nightmares, not ever again. She bit her knuckles as the tears slid down her temples and splashed on the carpet, bit hard and felt no pain.

And her mother. Oh, Mum. A shuddering, sobbing breath. Mum.

What does a girl do when she loses her mum? What possible avenue does she have to reconcile the loss of something so sweet and wondrous? How can she accept this leave-taking without going mad?

Hermione made high keening noises like that of a wounded animal. They got higher and louder until she was screaming herself hoarse and banging her fists against the patterned rug. Unsatisfied, she staggered up and looked wildly around the room for something to destroy. Her eye lit on the crystal brandy decanter and tumblers on the sideboard. She walked over and contemplated getting drunk, but the very thought of putting something in her mouth was beyond disgusting at this point.

She threw the tumblers with vicious force against the slate fireplace, relishing in this thoroughly clichéd but highly satisfying activity.

A crash. Then another. Another. And another!

And then the decanter, full of brown liquid that exploded on contact and spattered the room like blood.

"Fuck you, Voldemort! Fuck you and your soulless devil slaves!" she screamed in a voice gone hoarse with use and grief.

White spots danced in her vision. She gave a loud, despairing sob and buried her face in the crook of her arm, grabbing the arm of the sofa with her other hand as she swayed. The pain had been building steadily over the last half hour and now she felt it blindside her; she dropped to the ground, nerveless. Hermione felt the bile rise in truth this time, and with a Herculean effort she somehow found herself kneeling in front of the kitchen rubbish bin, vomiting her guts out.

In a fog, lungs and muscles burning, she found her prescription and dry-swallowed two fat pills, nearly gagging. Somehow she found herself in the guest room, wrapped in the pale yellow blankets, imagining she could smell her mother.