A/N: It is a continuing sore point that Hermione, by far my favorite character in the HP books (McGonagall and Snape being close runners-up), is never shown as a person—the only one of the "Golden Trio" whose inner life we never see except as it affects Harry or Ron. To this day, 7 years after the final book, the only names JKR has granted Hermione's parents are their Australian aliases.

Thence, this unhallowed by-product of an unholy admixture:
Frustration at not having written in over 6 months +
20th re-watching of "The Wizard of Oz" +
10th reread of Mundungus42's incomparable "Alice" tributes =
Chloe's idea of how Eileen Prince might have affected Hermione's decisions in Books 6 and 7.

Acknowledgements below.

She left Harry and Ron bewildered outside the Great Hall, pelting for the gargoyle, gasping through every sweet she'd ever denied herself, squeezing past the instant it moved aside, running rather than riding the endless impossible spiral of ascent. Clutched tightly in her hand was a plea in black-and-white print and three scrawled words—'Hermione, come home.'

The shaky writing was frightening, her father's illegible signature even worse, but most terrifying was the copy of the hospital admission note above it. 'Myocardial infarction...prolonged ischemia...possible rupture...' Hermione would have been crying if there had been any room for tears in the stabbing thud of her pulse. Every beat was a reproach. Home. Home. Home.

She was hammering on the ancient oaken door as soon as she reached it, beyond any thought beside the Headmaster. He alone could get her to London—make a Portkey, Floo her to the Leaky—Something, something, please, anything...

The lancing pain in her side stuttered with her breath as the door to the Headmaster's office flew open to reveal the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

His face was set like stone; skin whiter, eyes blacker, than Hermione had ever seen. His lips were a grim slash, barely visible as he hissed, "Professor McGonagall is the unfortunate obliged to deal with your emotional excesses, Miss Granger. Report to her at once, and to Mr. Filch tomorrow evening for your detention." The door slammed in her face.

Everything in her stopped. It felt like being hit with a descending Jellyfy. Her mouth dropped open.

Then her arm dropped. Her fist opened, letting the dreadful papers spill across the landing. Last went her knees; she slumped to the stair like a rag doll.

She heard nothing but flaying self-recrimination, words echoing within and without, and so never quite knew whether she'd been muttering the litany, or whether he'd heard it some other way. My fault. My fault. If I hadn't forgotten to glamour the bandage—if I'd lied instead of trying to explain—if I hadn't threatened to leave yesterday when they wanted to take me out of Hogwarts—if I'd lied, if I'd just lied, come down off my high horse and just lied—if I'd protected them, protected them from me, from me being a witch...

She said I'd broken her heart. It's breaking—*she may be dying.

*It's all my fault. I'll never forgive myself. Never. Never. Never.

She did not know how long the blinding, deafening cyclone of self-hatred went on. It was long enough for her to UnJellyfy; she'd wrapped both arms around herself by the time a hand descended on her shoulder from behind. The hard clasp of that long-fingered hand stopped her slow, hopeless rocking. She turned.

The sight of her hook-nosed, greasy-haired professor bending over her shocked her back into function. He was holding her father's scrawled note, her mother's admission papers, in his other hand; she reached for them instinctively. Home.

He released her shoulder and straightened, stepping back into the Headmaster's doorway. "Rise, Miss Granger. London cannot be reached from this stair."

At the word 'London,' her eyes rose to his face. "London—the Headmaster...?"

"Is unavailable." Only after her DADA professor's features had once again gone white and hard did she realize they'd been softer. "Professor McGonagall and Auror Tonks will accompany you. You may await their arrival inside." He turned and walked back into the Headmaster's office. By the time Hermione moved he was half its length away, behind an armchair by the fire.

"Professor Snape...?" It was a bare, shaky breath—of wonder, of unutterable thanks—and she saw his knuckles whiten on the back of the chair even as he half-turned, offering her father's missive. All but his jutting nose invisible behind an oily curtain of black hair, he used the hospital papers to indicate the other chair, thumb covering the patient's name: Eileen Granger, DDS.

"Be seated, Miss Granger."

Acknowledgements:
*"She may be dying, and it's all my fault. I'll never forgive myself. Never, never, never." -Dorothy Gale, weeping for her Auntie Em before the Great Oz's doors after having been denied entry—just before the doorkeeper changes his mind and admits her.

And there you have it: Dumbledore as unreachable Oz, Snape as Emerald doorkeeper (sans tears), and Hermione as stricken Dorothy, trying to get home to save someone she loves.

Thanks to:
"The Wizard of Oz," for being the first magic I ever saw with my eyes rather than in my own head;
Mundungus42, for being magnificently gifted at prose, poesy, and whimsy;
LessWrong, for his "Methods of Rationality" saga, where I saw the generalized 'Jellyfy' (his Hermione uses "UnJellyfy" to mean 'undoing the Jellylegs curse'—he's informed me, just now, that this originated in "A Very Potter Musical.")