I still wake up in the middle of the night with the sound of everyone's screams ringing in my ears, and sometimes, though it's rare, I hear you.
I hear you and the way you plead for me to stop.
You haven't visited, I'm not sure why I have the urge to point this out, but I will.
You haven't visited and you haven't written, and you haven't called.
It was near midnight (it always feels like it's near midnight here), when I heard your voice. It was clear enough to make me get out of bed and look for you in the pitch darkness that is this place.
Of course though, you weren't there.
My lawyer, the idiot that he is, was almost ecstatic when I mentioned this occurrence. He said if I was lucky, I could plead insanity.
Insanity. Can you believe it Hermione?
Hermione.
As I write your name down, I resist the urge to forget about this moron of an idea to write to you, and instead fill the paper with your name.
Hermione. Hermione. Hermione Granger. Hermione Granger Riddle.
Hermione Riddle.
How lovely would that have sounded? You haven't visited, you haven't written, and you haven't answered my calls. I wonder how you are, how you feel, what you're thinking, if you're thinking about me, about us, about them.
Albus once said I was incapable of love, incapable of forming any kind of attachments to anyone or anything. He said that to my mother when I was eleven, and though I thought him an idiot, I never quite doubted his so called diagnosis.
Not until I met you.
When I talked to you, held you, kissed you, his words seemed silly.
Because Hermione, I adored you.
When I talked to you, I knew you weren't like the others. You had a Shakespearean name of a queen, and when I first heard it that day you came into my life, I think I actually laughed out loud.
"Do you have a brother named Hamlet or a sister named Cressida?" I had sneered at you. And though I didn't say much then, I can now admit I wanted your attention on me. I wanted you to notice me, even if it was with that small disappointed look on your face.
"Should I be impressed that you actually know a Shakespearean name other than Romeo and Juliet or should I say the routinely, 'You're just jealous I actually have a unique name'?" You didn't look too happy, but you took the empty seat beside me, the one everyone else had avoided.
"Jealous?" I was never jealous. Ever. But do make note of the past tense of that sentence. I was never jealous. That's only another thing you've changed.
It was a good point. A name so ordinary as Tom had been a curse.
The name Voldemort is credited to you Hermione. Of course it wasn't until much later that I came up with Voldemort, but it was your doing.
Everything was for you. Because of you.
Hermione I can't get you out of my head. The hours are long without your company, without your voice, without your words.
I wait your responses. Why won't you write back? We were inseparable. I had made sure of that.
You were as dependent of me as I was of you. Without each other what are we except a half waiting to be whole again?