These Strange Familiar Things

Chapter 7

Brooding Solitary

...in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker...

Hermione woke in the blue light of early evening, disoriented. Her head throbbed as she sat up, though mercifully less than the night before. She reached and clicked on the bedside lamp, and the golden pool of light brightened the room, illuminating a rolled-up parchment lying on the nightstand. She blinked at it, picking it up with slow fingers and breaking the wax seal, unrolling it to see spidery writing covering the yellowed page.

Dear Hermione,

Arthur contacted me about your whereabouts when you left the Burrow. The Weasleys were quite concerned about your welfare.

When we found you, however, we realized that home is probably the best place for you to be right now, in order for you to grieve properly and without the pressure of others' presence. I know from experience that bereavement is a solitary trial, and often even the most well-meaning friends serve only to drain our scant emotional energy.

We are giving you some space--but do not think we have abandoned you. Aurors are posted at your house around the clock, not only to protect you but also to help with whatever you need, and the Order is only an owl away if you need us for anything at all.

I understand that you were too distraught to process what Arthur tried to tell you about the investigation. Quite understandable, of course. I appreciate your penchant for the facts, however, and I know you would not thank me for sugar-coating them.

Magical means of investigation revealed traces of two Killing Curses, along with numerous Cruciatus Curses, from a total of three wands. It is possible that more Death Eaters were present; that is unlikely, however, as Professor Snape tells me that Voldemort's squads are generally formed of three members.

The Aurors' Muggle contact at Scotland Yard, I believe it's called, was able to gather some evidence, most of which is useless to us, but there were some hairs and fibres which are being analyzed at the Ministry. I am confident they will yield some concrete results as to who was at your home that night.

I hope you are doing as well as can be expected. Know that many send their condolences and deepest regards. I am terribly sorry for your loss.

Yours sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

Headmaster, Hogwarts

Hermione sat in the golden glow of the lamp, parchment clutched between her fingers, unmoving. Relief flooded through her at the reprieve from company; God knew she didn't feel like seeing anyone ever again. Staring at the Headmaster's ancient handwriting, she realized with a sudden jolt that there was another letter left her that she had never opened. She shivered, grabbed the yellow blanket from the bed, and walked downstairs cocooned tightly in its soft folds.

The drawing room had been tidied after Hermione's rampage the night before. Her school satchel lay in a corner by the door. She knelt before it and undid the buckles with shaking fingers. The small folded note lay in the bottom of the bag, and she scrabbled around for a minute before her fingers touched it. Drawing out her arm, she stared at the square of paper clenched in her fist.

She suddenly had no desire to read the contents of the note.

She took a sobbing breath and resolutely unfolded it, seeing a sloppy, frantic version of her mother's usually pristine hand covering the blue-lined page.

Hermione darling,

My daughter. I don't know what to say. I know I probably will never see you again. Oh, Hermione, love. There are masked Dark wizards in the house, dangerous men in black robes. These must be the Death Eaters you hinted at last summer after Harry's godfather was killed. They did some sort of horrid curse on me, but I managed to get away somehow, and crawl up the stairs, although I think it took me hours. Right now I can hear your father screaming downstairs...dear God in heaven.

Hermione, I need to tell you something.

You are not without Wizarding roots, Hermione. My elder sister was a witch, and after my parents died I lived with her. But we had a terrible quarrel and the aftermath convinced me that I wanted nothing to do with the Magical world. Perhaps that was too hasty. I don't know. But I found a good life in the Muggle world. I fell in love, and then I had you, and fell in love again.

And then you got your Hogwarts letter, and I resigned myself to being drawn into that world again, to a lesser degree. I don't regret leaving, and you shouldn't feel pressured to stay either--especially after this. Oh I'm scared for you my love. There is nothing wrong with living as a Muggle. It's an honourable way to live...

Oh Hermione they're coming. I love you so much my darling. Look in the attic for more I haven't told you. Oh God, they've killed him. they've killed him. hermione I love you take care of yourself don't ever be ashamed we loved you so much

Hermione fell backwards on the hard floor, struggling to breathe. She gasped, trying to draw air into her lungs through the lump that seemed to be blocking her windpipe. So affected was she by seeing her mother's panicked writing scurrying over the page, that the content of the letter barely registered.

Come back, her mind screamed. Come back... Tears burned her eyes and dripped down her temples into her hair. She scrubbed at the wetness, feeling the damp curls there and feeling a sudden overpowering rage. She yanked at her hair, feeling its huge mass between her fingers, hair like her mother's and she hated it hated it hated it...

She jumped up and ran to the kitchen, opening drawers with sharp violent pulls, until she came to the one she sought. She pulled out the kitchen scissors and took brisk steps to the bathroom, flicking on the light. Her face was puffy in the mirror, her hair a huge brown cloud around her head and shoulders, making her shudder. If she squinted and turned her head just so, it was her mum staring back at her in the yellow light, and that caused a sharp pain to stab through her chest, almost bringing Hermione to her knees. She sobbed once and bent over, whipping her hair violently down to the tiles. Taking her hair in her left hand, she cut across it with the scissors in measured long snips, feeling the weight fall away from her throbbing head.

She flipped her hair up and rose, looking at her new reflection. The girl stared expressionlessly back at her, shaggy layers of brown hair framing her pale face, her father's amber brown eyes, his high cheekbones clearly visible. She had her mother's small mouth and high forehead. Hair too short to form her usual loose curls, it just stuck out in messy chunks. Her parents' features blended together in equal measure, and the pain was still great, but for the moment it was manageable.

The Hermione Granger in the glass was a familiar stranger, and fittingly, she no longer looked like the young innocent she had been. Nor did she want to.

She almost walked out before she realized there was a fuzzy pile of hair on the tile floor. She knelt and gathered it up, putting it in a plastic bag and stuffing that away in the back of a cupboard. Satisfied and empty, she went back to bed.

-:-:-:-:-

Time flowed by Hermione, and she lost one more piece of herself with every passing day.

Each day she went to bed before the sun went down, stayed under the blankets long after the sunlight had passed over her window. Nothing seemed worth getting up for. She lost track of when she had last bathed, stayed in her pyjamas all day and drank bottomless cups of tea, ignoring the rumblings of her neglected stomach. She spent endless hours staring out the window at the passing cars and the neighbourhood children, who spent every daylight hour they could scrape running through each other's yards and scampering around on the street.

It seemed like eternities ago that she herself had been one of those children, another life she had spent in another world, frolicking in the sunlight. Even before she had gotten her Hogwarts letter, she had started to drift from her schoolmates, throwing herself into her books to armour herself against the slight distance other kids always kept from her.

Once she found out she was a witch, she had covered her insecurities with furious studying and endless spouting of facts. All that devotion to "books and cleverness," as she had said to Harry in first year, had covered her desperate fear that even this new world, which she supposedly belonged in by virtue of her very essence, would reject her; and where would she be then? But it had accepted her, in most respects. There was always the faint stigma of being Muggle-born, often blatant but usually just the surprise at her talent when wizards found out she was of Muggle parentage, the veiled condescension or pity in their eyes, the slight shadow in their voices. Yet despite all that, she had made the Wizarding world her home.

Now she no longer felt a part of the world of her childhood. The Muggle world seemed to lack the vividness of reality; she saw only busy people scurrying around in small pursuits, oblivious to the war that was being fought on their behalf, the lives being lost. She had been through so much in the last six years, being proofed in the fires of challenges and sorrows. Except that this last blaze seemed to have immolated her essence, burned away who she was.

-:-:-:-:-

The shrill doorbell assaulted her ears. She opened the door to admit Albert Humgee, the Grangers' solicitor since Hermione's enrolment at Hogwarts. A squib well-versed in both Muggle and Magical law, he was shy but brilliant, and served their needs very well. The thick white envelope he carried tucked under one arm made Hermione's stomach roll unpleasantly.

Papers spread before her on the coffee table, she felt the terms of ownership and bequest blur into a dull headache. Humgee explained diffidently that since she hadn't yet reached her majority in the Muggle world, unless Hermione acquired a legal guardian within thirty days the Muggle portion of the Granger assets would be liquidated and appropriated by the state.

"What? They can't do that," protested Hermione.

"They can, and they will. You have no living relatives, Miss Granger. You are not entitled to hold property under the law until your eighteenth birthday."

"That's in under three months! Can't they give me a...a deferral or something?" she asked helplessly.

"I am afraid the law is very rigid in this matter," Humgee replied apologetically. "In the past people have clogged the court with these cases for months and even years in order to sidestep the law."

She sighed. "Well then, I suppose Professor Dumbledore, or the Weasleys..."

"Actually," he said hesitantly, "it must be someone in the Muggle world, with the proper records and documents."

Hermione nodded, feeling foolish. "Of course."

A flurry of owls ensued, culminating in the arrival of a cat-toting Mrs. Arabella Figg, who accompanied Hermione and Humgee to the London civil court.

Hermione was numb as she watched Mrs. Figg pen her flowery signature in the space labelled 'parent/legal guardian'. Her own name was rather unsteady on the smooth creamy paper.

-:-:-:-:-

Harry came to see her, flying over from the Burrow on his retrieved broom. He did not bring Ron with him, nor did he mention him during his visit. Hermione welcomed him with reluctant silence. He was shocked at her gaunt, wild appearance.

"Dumbledore said to give you space, Hermione, and we did, but you're destroying yourself," he said sharply. She looked at him sullenly and shrugged. He sighed deeply and dragged her into the bathroom, blocking the door from outside until she had taken a shower. When she emerged an hour later, shiny and pale, his eyes widened in shock behind his glasses. He reached out a hand and fingered her shorn head. The question in his eyes was too obvious to ignore. A shadow of a breath sighed past her lips.

"I'm not the same Hermione I used to be. I don't want to see her every time I look in the mirror."

She looked earnestly at him, thinking that Harry, out of anyone, might understand, he who had been thrust into so many changes over the years, and was in some ways still reeling from a few of them. And she saw in his face that he did; but the sadness in his bright green eyes made a sharp pain stab in the vicinity of her heart, which had been blissfully quiet in the last few weeks.

She broke eye contact with a feeling of panic rising in her. He pulled her close against his side then, guiding her downstairs without a word, and she had a strange feeling that he knew exactly who she was at that moment.

They sat together on the sofa, leaning their shoulders together in gentle camaraderie. He talked in low whispers about his own parents and Sirius, and she saw as from a far distance how alone he must have felt last year.

She certainly couldn't have borne the presence of anyone but Harry right now; their pity, which they didn't even bother to mask, and their stilted conversation when all she needed was blessed silence. It had been insufferable staying at the Weasleys', with their guilty looks at her when they thought she couldn't see, their awkward attempts at sympathy. Only Mrs. Weasley had been slightly bearable, having lost her entire family during the first Rise to Power; but her incessant clucking reminded Hermione sharply of her own mother, until she'd felt she might break if she didn't escape her kind eyes.

But Harry... Harry was alone in the world, just as she was; well provided for and surrounded by well-meaning friends, yet without any real family. Just the thought of the coming years, and having to lead life without the guiding hands of her mother and father, made her hastily slam a lid on her contemplations of the future altogether.

So when he held her tightly, sometimes even sniffling a bit, she wasn't sure who it was comforting whom, and that was fine with her. She realized now that Harry had needed much more in the past year than she and Ron had known how to give him. She also knew, somehow, that he forgave them for that.

Harry really was wise beyond his years; and though she didn't speak to him of it, she was grateful for his straightforward company.

-:-:-:-:-

A burst of flame appeared in the front hall, accompanied by the brief rushing sound of fire devouring oxygen. Hermione got up from her chair at the breakfast table and walked indifferently to the door. Albus Dumbledore stood in front of her, phoenix on his shoulder, a sad smile in his eyes behind the half-moon spectacles.

"Good morning, Hermione." He took in her dishevelled (though mercifully clean after Harry's visit yesterday) appearance, her drastically shortened hair, and the purple shadows around her eyes. Her cheekbones stood out sharply in her gaunt face. He frowned a bit. "You must eat, child. Starving yourself won't bring back your parents."

Hermione winced at his blunt words, but didn't otherwise respond. The Headmaster sighed. He took her arm and led her paternally into the drawing room, settling her on the sofa and taking the armchair at her elbow.

"I realize you are grieving, Hermione, and believe me, I am in no way patronizing you, for I myself have experienced debilitating losses; but you must pull yourself together, child. You may not want to go on, but you will regardless, for your time has not yet come. You are alive, and you must accept that."

He regarded her appraisingly over steepled fingers. She sat sullen, her profile turned towards him, silent and unresponsive. He tried again.

"It has been a month since you returned home. In that time you have cut yourself off from any source of succour or distraction from your grief. Human beings are not designed to live in solitude, Hermione--especially in times of great hardship. There is nothing wrong with taking help that is offered sincerely."

Hermione glowered at this, finally showing a hint of the old fire. "There is nothing that can distract or comfort me. Being around people doesn't help, it makes me feel worse. And just because someone is sincere doesn't mean they have a clue about what to say to a bereaved person. God, I don't even know, and I'm the sole bereaved party." She sagged, the spark going out, turning to ash and disintegrating as well. "I just want to be left alone to wallow for a bit."

He frowned at this and spoke sharply, "Do not squander the gift you have been given. If you had come home even an hour earlier, you would not be sitting here now. Instead of wallowing, pursue the degenerates who perpetrated this atrocity, the ones who ripped away your life. In fact, that's one of the reasons I came today. The results have come back from the Ministry labs." He took out a rolled parchment from the folds of his star-spangled robe and pressed it into Hermione's hands. "It seems they have found some clues to go on. I thought you might like to take a look."

Hermione felt her curiosity sputter, whine and roar to life. Except this time her drive to know went beyond inquisitiveness; she was out for blood now. The reprobates who did this. They will pay, God damn it. She imagined with detached malice how she would snap their necks like so many useless wands, hurl curses until pieces of them were scattered to the four corners of the earth. Her fist clenched around the roll of parchment, crushing it between her fingers without conscious thought, as she stared into the middle distance.

Dumbledore rose as she flattened the parchment and began to read, satisfied that he had accomplished what he had set out to do. He silently let himself out into the hall, and disappeared in a burst of Fawkes' flames.

Hermione sat with glazed eyes, oblivious of his departure.

She was planning.

-:-:-:-:-

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.