February 1, 1985
"Mummy, am I odd because of the name you gave me?"
The docile five-year-old looked up expectantly at her mother as the woman washed dishes. The girl's brown eyes were narrowed in curiosity, her tone mildly accusatory. Her curly hair lay messed and tangled on her shoulders, stubbornly refusing to be brushed by anyone whose name was not Hermione Jean Granger.
A glass shattered within her mother's tightened grasp.
"Honey, whatever makes you think you're odd in the first place?" Celia Granger asked softly, stemming the flow of a small cut she'd incurred. She brushed Hermione aside from beneath her feet, mopping up the beads of blood with a napkin.
"You know why," Hermione replied, her voice low and despondent. "Mum, the other kids in Mrs. Nickerson's class don't like me much."
"And, as I told you, Hermione, give them some time and be kind to them and they'll see you just as your father and I do."
She set the bloodied napkin aside, brushed the glass into the bin, and continued washing. Hermione reached and took the cloth from the countertop, folding it into smaller and smaller squares until it was no bigger than a postage stamp.
"So is it my name?" she persisted, sitting beside the sink, huddled by her mother's feet. "No one else has a name like mine. There are three girls named Jennifer in my class."
"Hermione, it has nothing to do with your name," her mother said breathlessly, scrubbing the crusted casserole dish more roughly. She and her husband had been discussing their daughter in hushed corners, quite unsure what to do with her. They'd been called in to conferences with her school teacher on several occasions, much more than the parents of a normal five-year-old girl. They weren't even normal behavioral issues, making it even more difficult to deal with.
"The children, quite frankly, are afraid of her," the teacher had said. "They insist she's bad luck, that she makes bad things happen to the children."
"But that can't be true," Celia had insisted. "She's a real sweetheart; we've never had problems at home. What sorts of 'bad things'?"
"Well," Mrs. Nickerson coughed quietly, her hands pressed together. "Supposedly she caused the monkey bars to ice over, the kickball to pop without going near it, and the stovetop in the toy kitchen to turn hot."
"That's absurd, surely you can't believe-"
"Exactly, Ms. Granger, exactly. I can't understand why the children are convinced your daughter is to blame, but I'm concerned about her social development. She's quite sensitive and seems unable to control her emotions without crying."
Celia tried her best to contain her displeasure. It did not seem to be her daughter's fault the other children were rejecting her. She was a perfectly kind, sweet, well-behaved child at home. It was nasty for the others to single her out like this, to be so cruel, to cut off a perfectly normal, albeit bright, little girl.
"I'm also concerned about what the isolation this friction between Hermione and the other children is causing. She's very intelligent, a very clever girl, and you do recall we discussed bumping her up a year, as her birthday is so close to the cut off in the first place. But I dare say that would be a hindrance in regards to her social skills. Many children who skip years have problems making friends and relating to the children in their new grade, emotionally and physically. She seems to enjoy being able to answer questions as readily as she does, and if it's the one thing that keeps her motivated to be in school, then I shan't be the one to take it from her."
Celia sighed heavily, bringing herself back to the moment, looking down at Hermione who was now unfolding the napkin she'd taken. She stood and set it on the counter, stark white against the grey granite, all traces of blood on it gone.
"Look, it's all clean," Hermione said brightly, turning and beaming at her mother who did not smile back, glaring instead at the creased piece of paper.
"Don't waste clean napkins, Hermione! They aren't toys!" Celia snapped, snatching a towel with ferocity and beginning to dry a plate.
The girl furrowed her brow, swiped the napkin again, crumpled it roughly, and stormed out of the room. The slam of her bedroom door echoed through the house. Celia set the plate on the counter, breathing a sigh as she leaned with her hands on the counter. She knew it hadn't been a clean napkin. She knew it had been her bloodied one, suddenly bleached clean as if by magic. This was the problem.
Her husband, Ambrose, had recently suggested a specialist, perhaps a psychologist or another therapist of some sort. But it was not just Hermione's mind she was worried about-it was her own. After her many meetings with Hermione's teacher, she had begun to notice odd occurrences in her daughter's presence as well. It wasn't just Hermione seeing the television change channels with no remote; it wasn't just Hermione seeing squirrels and other woodland creatures eat straight from her palm as if she were Snow White; it wasn't just Hermione seeing her glass of milk change into orange juice, generally forbidden in the house due to the acid and its poor effects on tooth enamel.
Celia breathed deeply, trying to fend off another migraine with mumbled self-assurances. There was a perfectly normal child sitting in the other room, fuming over her mother's lack of acknowledgment of a seemingly impossible act. This was normal five-year-old behavior.
'She must have swiped a clean napkin without me seeing,' she tried to convince herself, throwing the towel into a drawer, deciding to leave the dishes for later. Celia stepped lightly into the sitting room before turning down the main hallway and stopping in front of Hermione's door. She knocked once, softly, and entered.
Hermione was sniffing quietly, sitting on the edge of her bed with an open book in her hands. Tears were falling onto the pages.
"I didn't mean to snap at you," Celia said in a hushed voice, gliding across the room and sitting beside her daughter. "I wasn't thi-it was an accident."
"You-you think I'm s-strange too," Hermione said, shuddering, her small shoulders heaving. "You think I'm strange just like t-the kids in my c-class-"
"No, no, no," she replied, clutching Hermione's hand with her own, the book falling the floor, pulling her bushy head of hair towards her, resting it on her chest. "No, Hermione, honey, you're my special little girl, my smart, kind, pure-hearted little girl. I would never think of you that way."
Tears continued gushing and Celia felt the pain as if it were her own. It was terrible for her child to be so hurt at such a young age, for her little girl to be rejected. The pain washed anew over her and she could feel herself welling up with sympathy. As the girl's body shook against her, her own tears began to fall and she wished so badly she could make the other children see what they had done, see how they'd hurt her.
The little sobs died down to hiccups, and eventually Hermione had fallen asleep. Celia laid her down in bed, pulling off her shoes, tucking the blankets around her, and shutting off the lights. She shuffled down the hallway into the bathroom where she rummaged around for a bandage for her cut from earlier. When she went to put it on, however, she discovered the wound had vanished entirely.
