A/N: Harry Potter belongs to JKR. The first and last lines are quotes from Peter Pan, which belongs to J.M Barrie. This begins with the moment Hermione finds her parents in Australia.
Enjoy! :)
Written for the Quidditch League competition (season 2, round 4)
Team/Position: Holyhead Harpies - Beater 2
Start and end with the same adverb: Never
Bonus prompts: Confused (word), Frog (word), "Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore, and that's what parents were created for." Ogden Nash (quote)
...
Quotes For All Occasions comp: Forgiveness - "When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future." - Bernard Meltzer
Spells comp: Gemino - someone realising their mistakes
Birthday comp: August/Zodiac - reflective, observation
Lioness
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"Never is an awfully long time…"
Wendell Wilkins' thoughts turn fuzzy when the young woman points a stick-like object at him and his wife, Monica. He starts hallucinating; his mind becomes filled with vivid images of a man who looks just like him. Except this man has a daughter who bears an uncanny resemblance to that young woman…
"Never is an awfully long time…"
The man stops reading and sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as he does so. The young bushy-haired girl sits up in her bed and frowns at her father.
"Dad, why did you stop? Are you tired? Do you want me to take over?"
The man looks at the pleading eyes of his little girl and laughs humourlessly. No, he isn't tired, but she is too young to understand why he can't bring himself to read another fantastical fiction book filled with nonsense about pixie dust and flying children to her.
"No sweetie," he says. "It's getting late. You have school tomorrow."
The girl pouts and chews her lip to stop herself from protesting. The man's laugh is real this time. He kisses the top of his daughter's mane of hair and rises from his chair before heading towards the door, leaving Peter Pan on the beside table as he passes it. He takes one sweeping look at his daughter's room; overrun with books bar a large plastic tub that is gathering dust in the corner, full of unopened board games and never-played-with dolls and toys.
"Night Dad," she smiles.
"Night my little lioness," the man smiles back before flicking the light switch and closing the door behind him.
Outside, his wife is standing with her hands on her hips and a stern glare on her face.
"Harold!" she scolds in a whisper. "You can't keep doing this."
Harold puts a finger to his lips and leads the way downstairs, where their conversation won't be overheard. His wife rolls her eyes impatiently and follows him into the living room. He holds the door open for her and closes it once she enters.
"Hermione is your daughter; you can't keep cutting her bedtime stories short just because you don't agree with the content," she speaks in her normal pitch now.
"I know Emily, but those infernal books are what have made Hermione so… so… isolated," Harold scrunches up his face in anguish.
"Harold we've been through this," Emily says gently, sitting down on the sofa and pulling her husband down by the hand with her.
"Hermione isn't like most other children, I get it," Harold says in an unsteady voice. "She chooses to read a book in the playground instead of playing with the kids in her class. She chooses to stay at home instead of attending birthday parties, but she gets teased because her head is so full of these fantasy worlds that don't exist-."
"Honey, calm down," Emily keeps hold of Harold's hand and eventually he relaxes into the touch. "You're over-exaggerating."
"Am I?" Harold challenges. "So it was just my imagination that Hermione came home crying one day because that Verity girl in her class started teasing her for wondering if Santa's elves get paid or not?"
"That was one time, Harold!" Emily argues. "Our daughter is not an outcast. She may not always join in games at playtime but she does have friends at school."
"Friends she has never once invited over."
"Harold!"
He holds his hands up. "Just an observation..."
"Hermione is happy with who she is, so I think it's time that you are too."
Harold sighs, outwardly admitting defeat. But on the inside he wants to keep protesting. Hermione is getting to the age where her parents can't physically keep her entertained all day every day; so Harold and Emily had been buying her toys frequently to keep her occupied and happy. But Hermione ignores the toys they give her and chooses to shut herself in her room and immerse herself in books for entertainment. It makes Harold feel as though he is failing as a parent; it's his job to make sure his daughter has things to do and things to play with.
But she is happy; Harold can't deny that.
Emily smiles sadly at him as if she knows what he is thinking. "You know, there is such a thing as being too sceptical. If you keep trying to wean her of those fiction books by cutting out bedtime stories you'll just end up regretting it."
'Confused' is an understatement to how Harold feels when a strange woman tells him that Hermione possesses magical abilities and will be receiving an acceptance letter from a magic school called Hogwarts at some point during the summer.
At first he is under the impression that his wife has set him up in a practical joke, but then he recalls that over the last few years, Hermione has claimed to do some strange things.
At age eight she went on for days about how a book flew off her shelf and into her hands at its own accord, and at age nine she claimed to have made her pen snap in half without touching it when she was stressing too much about a test at school. On both occasions, Harold had been all too keen to tell his wife "I told you so", and that Hermione's books were making her lose her grasp on reality.
But now? Now it all makes sense. Emily is right; Hermione is too sensible to make stuff like that up. Suddenly Harold is hit with a guilty epiphany; maybe the reason why Hermione, now aged ten, is still so attached to those fiction books is because sub-consciously she feels an affinity with them, which subsequently explains why she doesn't connect with the children in her school as much as he wants her to. She isn't like them.
Harold makes a hasty exit from the room, leaving his bemused wife to finish the conversation with the woman who works at the magic school on her own. He knocks on Hermione's door.
"Come in," she calls.
Harold enters and walks over to his daughter, who is sat on her bed doing her homework. He scoops her up into a hug, from which Hermione tries to escape out of embarrassment and surprise.
He glances at the pile of non-fiction books at the foot of Hermione's bed. He had bought those for her in an ill-fated yet good-natured attempt to change her, and only now does he see how wrong that was of him. The sight of the non-fiction books is enough to make Harold tell his daughter what he should have told her all those years ago when he refused to read Peter Pan to her.
He knew the words wouldn't change the past, just as Hermione's forgiveness would not, but they opened the doors for a happier future for them both.
"I'm sorry."
Hermione runs through the door, weighed down by her abundance of supplies for her first year at Hogwarts. Harold makes an effort to be enthusiastic for her; she practically hit the roof with excitement when she was told that she was a witch a few days ago.
"More books I see," Emily chuckles when Hermione heaves several large tomes from one of the bags.
"I know, it's brilliant," Hermione squeals. "I can't wait to start reading about the school," she gestures to the largest book of them all: Hogwarts: A History with adoration in her eyes - the same expression Harold gets when he passes by a sweet shop. (Just because he's a dentist doesn't mean that he isn't partial to a sneaking a chocolate biscuit from the tin every once in a while when his wife isn't looking.)
"So these are all er, non-fiction books about the wizarding world then?" Harold pulls up a chair and collapses into it from the irony of the whole thing. Emily shoots him a wry smile across the table.
"Mm-hmm," Hermione nods. "I think it might be a good idea to get a head start on learning a few spells before term starts. Just the basics so I'm not completely behind. I mean, most of the other children will have magic families so-."
"Hold on," Harold says. "Spells?"
"Yes, spells." Hermione replies as if it's the most normal thing in the world. She pulls out a small rectangular box next. "See, I have my own wand."
"A wa…" Harold's voice trails off. Only now was it hitting him how absurd this whole thing sounds. His daughter, top of all of her classes, is going to go to a completely new school with completely new subjects in a completely new world.
"Harold." Emily says warningly. "Hermione dear, why don't you take all of your new things up to your room?"
"Okay Mum," Hermione smiles before scooping everything up and skipping – or at least, trying to – up the stairs.
"I don't know what the problem is now," Emily says to her husband. "You've got what you wanted; Hermione's getting into non-fiction, and she's going to go to a boarding school where she'll be sharing a dormitory with people her own age so she can't lock herself away."
"But… a magic school. Non-fiction books about magic…" is all Harold can say. "Surely those terms are contradictory?"
Emily rolls her eyes. "Harold, you've been so supportive of her over this last month, despite being possibly the biggest and most stubborn sceptic I know. It's done wonders on your relationship with her! Don't give up now; Hermione's set her heart on going to this school."
"I know," Harold sighs. "I'm just scared that she isn't going to make friends. She hasn't exactly had a lot of practice at socialising."
"And you'd be feeling exactly the same if she was transferred to another 'Muggle' school," Emily smiles.
Harold says nothing; the woman does have a point.
Hermione emerges from a solid-looking brick wall arm-in-arm with two boys; one with bright red hair, and another with messy black hair and round glasses. Emily gasps and grips Harold's arm, whilst he just grins widely at their daughter.
She had had friends in her old school, but upon reflection Harold realises that none of them ever made her smile and laugh like she was doing now. Only Harold and his wife could bring that out in her. They had seen Hermione at Christmas, of course, but her friends were staying at school, so this did little to ease their nerves.
Hermione spots them and runs over.
"Mum! Dad!" she greets them with a big hug each.
"Oh, we missed you so much, little lioness" Emily says with tears in her eyes. That name is especially apt now, since Hermione's Hogwarts house's symbol is a lion and she has the mane of hair to match.
"Who are your new friends?" Harold asks.
"That's Ron with the red hair, and the other one is Harry," Hermione turns and points to each of them. "Oh Dad, I have something for you," she digs around in her pocket and gives Harold a pentagonal box.
He shrugs, and half wonders if this is some kind of test since Hermione didn't bring Emily anything. Eventually he bites the bullet and opens it. The live chocolate frog that jumps out of the box is completely unexpected. At first he shouts in surprise, but then he bursts out laughing. He catches the frog and takes a bite, ruffling Hermione's hair.
Looking down into the box again, he sees a card with a picture of an old woman printed onto it: Bathilda Bagshot, according to the caption.
"Well this is pretty cool," Harold says, taking the holographic card out and showing Emily. As soon as he does, the woman in the picture vanishes. Harold blinks at it in confusion before laughing again. He feels like a small child, finding every detail about this magical sweet very amusing.
"Who've you got?" Hermione tiptoes to see the card. "Ooh Bathilda Bagshot. She wrote one of our textbooks: The History of Magic," she pauses. "Actually I don't think Ron has this one in his collection yet. Can I take it for him?"
"Of course you can," Harold says, giving her the card and watching as Hermione runs to her friends again.
"Well you've certainly changed your tune," Emily arches an eyebrow and smiles.
"Yeah, magic isn't really that bad is it?" Harold replies. After a year of waiting in a kind of limbo with only a few letters home to reassure them that Hermione was doing okay, seeing her transformed from a quiet, introverted girl who always shut herself away with only books for company to the bubbly girl who stands giggling with her friends before him now is a form of magic in itself.
All conscious thought lost, pieces of a puzzle begin to slot together in Wendell's head in the form of an ethereal disembodied whisper. He soon realises that these images are not hallucinations, but memories. His memories.
He is not Wendell Wilkins, but Harold Granger. His wife is Emily, not Monica, and together they have a daughter: Hermione.
Flashes of her childhood come and go in what feels like a second, and all of a sudden his head clears, and Hermione is standing before him, her face covered in very faint bruises and cuts. Suddenly he realises that he has no idea where she got them.
Hermione is looking at Harold and Emily as though she's waiting for something, but for what neither of them knows.
"Mione?" Emily says, blinking rapidly and rubbing her head. "What's the matter? What happened to you?"
The mention of her name brings their daughter from her apprehensive daze, and she breaks down into tears.
"You – you remember me?" she asks.
"What do you mean? Hermione, what did you do to us?" Emily's voice is stern, yet scared.
"I-," Hermione chews her lip. "I did what was necessary. Dad, you haven't forgotten me, have you?"
Harold looks at his daughter steadily and smiles broadly. The memories remind him that his relationship with Hermione was always happy, but rocky throughout her childhood because of his determination to change her, only for him to be proven wrong despite his best intentions when she met them on the platform after her first school year. In turn, they made him reflect and observe the situation so clearly, even though they passed so fleetingly.
Although Harold isn't aware that he had temporarily lost Hermione, he will do soon, and he will realise just how much of a brave lioness his Hermione is. But in that moment he knows he'd never forgive himself should he lose her for good one of these days without providing some closure on the subject. Harold knows that the past is still haunting him judging by those memories, regardless of the fact that his relationship with Hermione has improved considerably since she forgave him all those years ago.
The past can never be changed by forgiveness like the future can, but the least Harold can do is make sure the past itself can't change the future any longer.
"Dad?" Hermione's voice is a defeated whisper.
It's time to put the past to sleep, and Harold does so with a bedtime story. Or rather, a quote from Hermione's favourite bedtime story, Peter Pan.
"Me – forget? Never."
A/N: Written for my Dad [uploaded late but for Father's Day]. We never had the best relationship in my childhood but we're getting there now :)
I know in canon we know Hermione's parents have always supported her, and in this instance her father's reaction to her Hogwarts acceptance is based on the association he has between magic and her fiction books, which he pinpoints as the cause of the way she shuts herself off from people at school and has few friends, not the fact that he's against her personally because she's a witch. Just wanted to clear that up :)
Thank you for reading, R&R would be lovely!
W/C: 2,558