Nobody's Home

Nobody's home

What's wrong, what's wrong now?
Too many, too many problems.
Don't know where she belongs, where she belongs.
She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
It's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.

===============

Orphans.

Hermione had nothing against orphans. She respected their strength to live in a world where adults weren't there to protect them. One of her best friends was an orphan.

Orphan.

What did that word mean? Did it mean you were now helpless without your parents? Did it mean you were a lower person, condemned to live in a world where you'd see kids laugh together with their parents, making you cry at night, wishing you had your progenitors with you as well? Did it mean that you were more vulnerable to the cruel world? That you were going to fail in everything? Did it mean, that because the adult presence was no longer influencing you, you were doomed to become a bad person, like a tramp, or a murderer?

One simple word.

Orphan.

It inspired pity. People tried to disguise the pity, but you could still see it. Whenever you told someone you had no parents, they had that look in their eyes.

Poor dear.

Must be awful not having anyone to take care of him. She's so brave, trying to struggle to live on her own.

Orphan.

Hermione had never thought of that word much before. She knew Harry was an orphan, but she had never seen him cry about it. She assumed he did cry, but she had never seen it. She considered Harry a strong person, able to live on his own, able to stand a family who did not want him around at all.

Orphan.

Hermione had never considered the word much. Until she became one herself.

It had been deep in the night of November 15^th when she had woken up with a start. Something was wrong. She could feel it, in her bones, deep in her bones, chilling her, making her want to cry with no apparent reason. Her gut told her something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. Not long after those thoughts, the door to the Girl's Dormitory was opened by Prof. McGonagall.

The light coming from the door awoke her other room mates, Parvati and Lavender. Behind her old professor, Hermione could see her two best friends, Harry and Ron -who must have been woken by the commotion, for they were both light sleepers.

It took no more than a sentence to destroy Hermione, to shatter her little heart. No more than a few words, combined together to make sense, were the few words that followed Hermione everywhere now.

Your parents are dead.

We tried everything we could.

Oh, Hermione, we're so sorry.

Hermione, are you alright?

She had screamed that night. She had shouted at all her friends. Her shouts awoke even the first years but she did not care. She didn't care anymore. About anything.

She was no longer her anymore. She no longer studied. No longer cared. She tried to be as strong as Harry, or as Luna -who had lost her mother at a fragile age - but she couldn't. She was never meant to be strong. She never understood why people called her brave. She wasn't brave. It took very little to tear her down. To brake her on the inside and on the outside.

Her friends tried to comfort her. Tried hard to make her feel better. But one by one they all left. Ginny became frustrated, trying to make her eat something, eventually she gave up. Deep inside her mind Hermione realised this, and she understood. Ginny was a teenager, she had better things to do than to take care of a girl who became catatonic after the death of her parents.

Ron tried to make her laugh, but gave up after a while, scared he would be driven crazy by her expressionless face. The Weasleys always whispered when they were near her. She could always hear them whisper. She might have been unresponsive, but she still heard people. And she could hear the Weasleys the strongest.

Poor girl. So sad, she was so young. It's like she's no longer alive. Like she's just been given the Dementor's Kiss.

It made Hermione cry. She wanted to cry. She yearned for the feel of her tears on her cheeks. She needed to unleash her worries, her anger, and her pain. But she couldn't bring herself to doing it, because she tried not to care. Tried not to cry. She was afraid. She was afraid that once she started crying, she would never stop again. She was afraid she'd die of hurt, and she was even more terrified knowing that at this speed, all her friends would leave her.

Harry was still there. He was an orphan just like her. The night she had been informed of her parents' decease, Harry had given her a look. A look she wished she would never have to receive from her friend. It was a look that spoke millions of words, but that meant a few.

Welcome, Hermione. Now you know how it's like to be an orphan.

Harry had lost his parents at a young age, when he wasn't aware of it. But Hermione, at 16 years, was very aware of the situation. Having had her parents for such a long time, now it broke her apart to know they were gone.

It would've been foolish to think that being what she was, having fought Voldemort so vehemently before, he would leave her parents alone. It would've been stupid thinking they would not be in danger. But it had been even more stupid, it had been unforgivable, the fact that she had not tried to protect them. That she had not asked for Dumbledore's help.

But she was no longer alive now. She breathed, and slept, and even ate, whenever Harry made her do so, but she was no longer the old Hermione. She could no longer tell you the 12 uses of dragon's blood. She no longer made people use her coloured schedules, no longer advertised studying. She no longer entertained ideas of House-Elves liberation.

And locked inside her little mind, barely hanging on a thread of life, she didn't hear them anymore.

She didn't know how everybody missed her. How the House-Elves missed her. How her friends cried at night, resentful, because they had left her so soon. She did not hear how much Harry blamed himself for what happened. Or how Ginny cried for not having the patience to make her eat, the reason why she was now only bones. She did not hear Ron's muffled sobs, she did not see his regret at not being able to help her anymore. She did not see or hear anyone. Not anymore.

She would just stay in her dormitory, fearing the day she'd have to go home again. She never once realised she wasn't at Hogwarts anymore, but in St. Mungo's. She didn't realise that Ginny wasn't Ginny at all, but a Mediwitch. Or that Ron wasn't Ron, but her ward mate. Nor did she know that Harry wasn't her Harry, but the Mediwizard who had her in his care. She didn't know her friends had all tried to redo their lives, and succeeded. She didn't know Voldemort was gone now. She didn't know her friends all had their own families, or that they visited her every Monday.

She still thought she was 16, but her body proved everybody she wasn't. They had managed to keep her alive, by putting her in St. Mungo's. They did not know they had lost her for good the day they left her there.

Hermione still lived, fearing the day when she would go back home from Hogwarts and no longer finding her parents there. She still dreaded the day she'd have to start a life without her.

She didn't realise she was now 35. She didn't realise she lived in a hospital. But every once in a while, she'd hear people talking, outside her room. She'd hear someone making questions.

Who is that? How is she today?

And she would hear answers that only confused her more.

That's Hermione Granger. She was driven mad by the death of her parents. She must have loved them very much. She's still the same as when she was brought here. Doesn't eat much, and keeps mumbling incoherent words.

Aside from hearing those words, Hermione's brain could only think one thing. How much she dreaded the day she'd return from Hogwarts and find her empty house and her parents' graves. She dreaded the day she'd arrive home. Why? Because nobody lived there anymore now.

"Nobody's home."

Nobody.

Fin