A Reason to Be.
* DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANY OF J K ROWLINGS CHARACTERS OR SETTINGS*
Hermione looked around the empty family home. The home she had grown in, laughed in, been loved in. The home her parents had built out here in the now hollow muggle world of her childhood, the world that had once meant everything to her and yet now, it was nothing but a collection of distant memories of a life she had once lived and the vague thoughts of a future she may have had.
She did not like the silence of this home.
She did not like the layer of dust coating the pictures of her and her parents.
She did not like knowing her parents had no recollection of the life they had lived with their only daughter, the girl whom they had held and loved, took care of and taught.
She did not like the way her life kept changing.
After that victorious summer following the demise of the worlds most dangerous enemy, to both the magic community and the muggles, her people, she felt broken. Ron Weasley, her once best friend had not proved to be what she needed. Yet she swore she loved him with a deep-felt intensity that spanned across the present separation, he could not understand why she needed to be alone, why she could not put him through the pain of rebuilding her life.
Ron was all that she had, but she had let him go, go to his family, to the ministry job that had begged for him, to the friendship with Harry which could now exist without the tension of Harry's fame and Ron's shortage of apparent skills or money. She let him go to have the fun and prestige he desired, that he had earned.
He did not understand.
She did not like that he did not understand.
She looked at one picture, lying on the table in the hallway. A table, she remembered, that she had frequently knocked against when she was younger resulting in bruises. Now she was older and had a different selection of bruises. The picture was in a wooden frame with a glass panel, a gift from a distant aunt of her mothers, she wiped the dust away and revealed a family portrait taken one day by the coast of east England, she had been eight years old, her hair explosive in the wind with a scattering of freckles from the sun, and her smile revealed two slightly large front teeth, "even they have changed" she thought…..
Her parents were standing either side of her, protective arms around her shoulders, smiling broadly at the camera, with the perfect smiles of dentists. The sea was visible at their sides and they stood on a smooth beach. "Perfect" she thought, "but now…" she sighed. Her previous life had been a cliché, she knew that, other than her exceptional intellectual abilities and her apparent lack a social skills. She had never been the most popular girl, but she had a family who loved her and took care of her. Now things were different.
The separation from everyone she loved was aching, but she had to move on before she could begin to live again, she knew that, but she wished Ron knew that too… She thought about going back to Hogwarts to finish her seventh year, a chance to focus herself and recover. Ron and Harry weren't returning, they had settled into their new jobs happily enough. She could feel her wand in her jeans pocket….
Without venturing through the rest of the house she locked the door, and replaced the enchantments she had placed to protect her last sanctuary from any intrusion. "Only until I'm ready…. I'll be back, and maybe I'll bring Ron…" She could always feel one solid thump in her chest whenever her thoughts turned back to him, and it was something they did frequently. Hogwarts, that was where she would go, she would find salvation in knowledge, knowledge gave her the sense of security she desired and ridded her of the fears of not knowing…..
"To Hogwarts then" she breathed in the town air, aware of the difference between that and the mountain air at Hogwarts. Suddenly tired she longed for the comfort of her dormitory and she felt a pull inside, it was calling her back, one last time now that she was certain.