avis
Librarian
Joined: 18 Apr 2005
Posts: 802
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 Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 11:34 pm Post subject: |
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“Hermione!” Ron groused, his feet pounding loudly all the way up to the open door. He stopped in the doorway and stared at her. “C’mon,” he muttered, pausing a moment to stare curiously at her before heading back downstairs. Hermione was standing – just standing – in the middle of the room. Her right hand absently clutched at the ribs she injured the June before last in the Department of Mysteries, and her left was holding a photograph. It was a simple muggle-style photograph, perhaps four years old, of the three of them at the Hallowe’en feast at Hogwarts during their third year. Colin Creevey was still experimenting with his camera at that point, and made a muggle copy of the image. Hermione caught him with it one day, and asked to keep it. Harry and Hermione sat on one side of the table with Ron on the other, stuffing his face, all of them oblivious to Colin and his camera. They were smiling and chattering incessantly, but their excellent mood was cut short later that night by a visit from Sirius Black, whom at the time was still believed to be guilty by all. Now, a year and a half after his death, most still believed that he was either on the run or captured in secret somewhere.
Hermione was staring at the photograph for over twenty minutes before Ron came by, but she wasn’t really seeing it. She was looking through the glossy finish to their childhood, to their past. Back, back, before she even knew about magic, she recalled her loneliness in Juniors and her inability to make friends. She was never unhappy then, but neither did she have good memories; all she could remember from that time was drifting through the day, focusing only on her grades and books and trying not to feel the emptiness inside of her. Then she got her Hogwarts letter from an owl clutching onto the windowsill of the kitchen window, and everything changed. She started a new life with new people and after a few months became accepted for who she was, even if her friends didn’t always understand and weren’t always as interested in books as she was. She found something that year that she never had before: friendship, companionship, and love.
Looking back at the past, Hermione realized how much she truly depended on her friends to get her through the day. Even during the summer when they hardly ever wrote (because they were too lazy) she still thought of the two boys often. Each one of them was part of the greater Trio, and Hermione knew that she wasn’t the only one that could’ve been alone and friendless at the end of their first year if it hadn’t been for the connection they shared. Perhaps not in the literal sense – both Harry and Ron could have attracted, or been attracted to other friends eventually – but maybe they wouldn’t have been as happy with those other individuals as they were together as the Trio. Just thinking about the future without both Ron and Harry left her gasping for breath. She was reminded again of the scar across her ribs and stopped rubbing it when she realized that her fingernails were grazing over it again and again, causing the skin to heat up slightly.
The Department of Mysteries was a turning point in all of their lives, not just in Harry’s. True, Harry was the one who lost his godfather, but they all lost Sirius that night. When Harry left Headmaster Dumbledore’s office the morning after his death, a rift was formed between him and Ron and Hermione. It wasn’t large and it didn’t seem to affect any of them at first, but the more time passed, the larger it seemed to become. Harry was destined for greater things, and Ron and Hermione were ready to follow him to the end. Harry, though, was clearly preparing to take the fight even further if the need called for it. He had matured beyond the development of most seventeen-year-olds, and was now trying to engage himself in the fight for the entire Wizarding world. He was unintentionally leaving his two best friends behind.
Hermione knew that this day would come since their Hallowe’en feast in third year. She didn’t foresee the specifics, of course; no one could have known that Voldemort would rise from nothingness through the use of Horcruxes, building an army of Inferi to one day set loose on the Wizarding world unless they all bowed to him and called him ‘Master.’ Even the incompetent Sibyll Trelawney during one of her ‘prophesizing spells’ couldn’t have predicted that.
Still, Hermione imaged that one day she would find herself saying goodbye to her parents for possibly the last time, following Harry out into the field of battle with Ron – sweet, caring Ron – by her side, and facing off against evil in the fight that would determine the future of their world. It was definitely their world: she’d moved past her dreams of ever returning to the Muggle world indefinitely, and if she survived the final fight was planning to enter a career in the Ministry of Magic as a wizard/muggle liaison for political affairs or perhaps work with House-Elves and Centaurs towards boosting their creature status and peoples’ general treatment of these individuals. Either way, she was never going to become a dentist, or perhaps a history teacher or public librarian. Her choices were narrowed by the times they all lived in. If Voldemort was defeated, Death Eaters could still roam England, and it would be too high a risk to take up a muggle job. If they lost…well, she wouldn’t have to worry about finding a job, that’s for sure.
Hermione fixed her eyes on the moving image in her left hand again. What were they thinking about at the Hallowe’en feast that year? Oh that’s right, they were telling Harry about Hogsmeade since he hadn’t broken the rules to join them yet. Those days of rule breaking and sneaking around were simple, happy times for the Trio. Now, at the threshold of their journey to find the remaining Horcruxes, Hermione felt that the Trio’s lives were anything but simple and happy. Perhaps the time they did share together for those precious few years was enough, but Hermione felt their time together wasn’t enough for her, at least. Yet she wasn’t going to deny Harry his chance to fulfill the prophecy and release his life from Fate’s hands. Even though the possibility of her own death or the deaths of Ron and Harry at the hands of Voldemort or one of his followers was high, she wasn’t going to give up now. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t turn back the hands of time.
“Hermione?” a voice asked from barely a foot in front of her.
“Yes, Ron?” she replied to the tall, lean man whispering her name in concern.
“I’m sorry,” he swallowed and continued, “I’m sorry that it has to be this way. No one deserves this, not Harry, and not us. But we’ve got to go save the world now. C’mon. Harry’s waiting.” Harry was actually standing at the door. Wiping something hot and wet from her cheek, she dropped the photograph to the ground and grasped the hand dangling by her side. Hermione holding tightly to Ron, the Trio strode from the room.
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