Summary: Ever wonder what Hermione's home life was like? Ask yourself these questions: Why were Ron and Harry her first friends?
Why did she bury herself in her studies?
Why did she prefer going to the burrow over going home for the holidays?
Read For the Love of a Daughter to answer these questions.
This song is based off of Demi Lovato's For the Love of a Daughter. I do not own Harry Potter and I do not own the lyrics used in this story.
Four years old with my back to the door
All I could hear was the family war
"Stupid Bitch! I wish we just got the abortion! We would have been better off!"
"Henry! Don't say tha-"SLAP! I could hear my father's hand hitting my mother's face all the way from my room in the attic.
"Don't yell at me like that! You and I both know we would have been better off if we never had that wast of space.
Because of her we had to give up your dream of dancing, and my dream of going to medical school."
"That is not true. We both know-AH!"
"SHUT UP!"
"Henry please-"
"I thought I told you to be quiet." I could hear the glass breaking as my father threw my mother against the glass table. No doubt I'd be blamed for that as well. After a half an hour I could hear mother sobbing and my father storming upstairs. I counted the amount of steps he took to be sure he was in his room.
One. Only thirteen more to go.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Thirteen. One more to go.
Fourteen. Did he stop? I rushed to the door to listen for anymore steps.
Fifteen. He's coming upstairs. I panicked, looking for a hiding spot. I ran behind her full length mirror.
Sixteen. Seven more steps and he'll be in front of my bedroom door.
Seventeen.
Eighteen.
Nineteen.
Twenty.
Twenty-one.
Twenty-two.
Twenty-three. BAM! The door knob hit the wall, creating a hole. I'd be blamed for that too.
Your selfish hands always expecting more
Am I your child or just a charity ward
"Where are you, you piece of shit? Come out now, or you'll get hit three times as worse."
I let out a quiet cry at the thought of getting beat for the eighteenth time today.
At the mere age of four you gave me a broken arm, three cracked ribs, four sprained ankles and countless cuts, bruises, scars and beatings.
It's been five years since we've spoken last
Five years today, he left. A lot has happened in those five years. I made friends. I was attacked by and saved from a troll. I faced the world's deadliest wizard! I was petrified by a basilisk. I turned into a cat. I faced a hundred or so dementors. I traveled back in time. I helped save Sirius Black, a man falsely accused of killing a wizard and thirteen muggles with one spell. I slept under water for an hour and a half. I wrote in my own blood. I faced one of the most psychotic wizards to ever walk the planet. If I could do all that, I could face him, couldn't I?
I sat in the dark re-reading the letter my mother had written me, which informed me, she had taken him back, because even though it had been five years since he had walked out on mom (how could he walk out on me if he had never truly been there for me in the first place?), she still loved him:
Dear Hermione,
How is school going? I hope it is good. Work is great. I had this one patient who came in on the thirteenth of April and start crying hysterically before Dr. Randy's tools could even touch him. Normally I wouldn't laugh, but I simply HAD to, here was a grown man crying before anything had come ANYWHERE near his mouth.
I had started laughing at this piece of information. But one thing I couldn't understand was why tear stains were all over the paper. After all, it was mid May, so it couldn't be the rain.
I have some good news and some bad news for you.
What could be the bad news? Did Aunt Jane have a miscarriage? I hope not, I hate being the only grandchild, it can be so lonely.
The good news is that Auntie Jane had the baby. She named him Robert, after our father. He's beautiful, I can't wait for you to meet your new cousins. Yeah, I said cousins. She had TWINS! I can't believe after the two false alarms she had and the eight doctor visits they had managed to miss the little girl sitting next to her big brother. So now, you have two cousins, Robert Alexander Meraz and Rosalie Alexandra Meraz. They were born April twenty-third, at 12:01 AM and 12:04 AM. Both perfectly healthy.
Three minuted apart. How was that possible? I'm glad the Rosalie is healthy. When I read that they had missed her in the sonograms I had worried she may be too small to survive. But thank God she is fine. But, what is the bad news? If the baby's are healthy did Aunt Jane die in child birth? Surely the world isn't THAT cruel to leave two newly born children parent-less.
Now onto the "bad" news, which, depending on you perspective may not really be bad news at all.
What could possibly be the "bad" news?
Your father is back. He tells me he is completely sober, and I believe him. I have not seen one ounce of alcohol or marijuana pass his lips since he moved back in. He hasn't even threatened to hit me once. Hopefully when you come back from school we can go on a family vacation to France, at least for two week before you go back to the Weasley's.
I always stop reading right there. I can't stand to read my mother's false hopes about us becoming the family we never were.
How could we be an actual family if you don't even know the meaning of family?
What is the meaning of family to you?
Is it, a man his wife and their children? That's the definition given by a dictionary. But a family, a true family, loves each other and never purposefully harms one another.
And you can't take back
What we never had
After five years you finally came back, you're trying to get back the relationship we never had. You're trying to become the father everyone thought you were, but you have never been a father to me. What father would willingly hurt their own daughter? What father would abuse their child the way you abused me?
Oh, I can be manipulated
Only so many times,
Every time you hurt mother you'd apologize that night, then you'd come to my room and kneel beside my bed crying an apologizing. But all the apologizing you did never erased the pain you inflicted upon me. Just because you apologize doesn't mean you made everything better, in a way, you made it worse, because I knew none of your apologies ever meant anything.
Before even "I love you"
Starts to sound like a lie
After years of you saying you'd sober up because you loved us, I had had enough. I wanted you gone. So one day when mother was at work and while you were at home, supposedly watching me, I yelled at you to get out.
flashback
I looked at the clock, it read 12:00 PM, mother would be home in another hour and a half. I knew that if I were truly going to do this, it needed to be done now. I started to feel guilty at the thought of telling you to leave your own home, but I remembered that this needed to be done, for mother's and my own safety.
I stood up and stalked to the door, making sure to slam it on my way out, I knew how much you hated doors getting slammed if you weren't the one doing it.
"Who the fuck do you think you are? Slamming doors?" You screamed at me once I reached the living room. I remember you being surprised by my response.
"I think I am Hermione Jean Granger I also think that you need to get out of this house." Your eyes had widened in shock at my outburst because I usually apologized everytime you yelled at me. But that didn't last for long.
You sarcastically laughed in my face then grabbed me and shoved me to the floor. You sat on my legs and used your right hand to pin my arms above my head. You used your left hand to begin undoing the buttons on my blouse.
"Get off of me!" You slapped your left hand over my mouth
"Listen, you little bitch, I am going to show you who is boss around here. You are going to shut the fuck up and you are going to stop struggling or else I am going to kill you understand?"
My body went limp in response, and you thought I was done fighting against you, but even at the age of ten I would rather die then get raped by a man who was supposed to protect me.
When you took off my blouse and was reaching for you belt buckle, I started struggling to get out from the death grip you had on me.
"I thought I made it clear what would happen if you kept fighting this!" As soon as you finished I felt a sharp pain on my stomach and in my vagina. Tears started pouring out at the pain I felt when I realized you stabbed me and raped me, at the same time. I blacked out after five minutes of you on top of me.
I woke up three days later in the hospital. Mother was sitting beside me crying with her head on my bed and Auntie Jane was on the other side of me holding my hands and crying into them. Mother told me you carved words onto my stomach, and left before she got home, taking all your things with you. She vowed to never take you back, but I knew she would eventually go back on that promise.
end flashback
You have a hollowed out heart
But it's heavy in your chest
I try so hard to fight it but it's hopeless
Hopeless, you're hopeless
Where is the love you once had for me? Where when mother and I came home from day care and work you'd greet us with the biggest smile on your face. I remember you'd pick take me out of mother's arms and tell me how much you loved me, then you'd give mother a kiss and tell her you loved her, then you two would laugh at the disgusted face I made after you two kissed again. I'm trying so hard to find the love you once had for me, but with every minute it seems useless and hopeless.
Don't you remember I'm your baby girl?
How could you push me out of your world,
How could you do this to your little girl? How could you purposefully hurt her? Why would you want to hurt her? Did you hate me that much? Was I really that much of a burden? What did I do to deserve this? I was always a good girl. I made sure to get the best grades in my class. I made sure to never get into any trouble. That was why I never had any friends. If I didn't have friends, my mind couldn't be poisoned, nobody could pressure me into doing something bad. So what was your reasoning to hurt me?
Lied to your flesh and your blood,
Put your hands on the ones that you swore you loved?
You told everyone of your friends how much you loved mom and me, but if you truly loved us, why did you hurt us? Why did you make it your personal goal to remind me that you should've had an abortion? If you truly loved us, why did you constantly hurt us over things we could not control? It's not like we knew you would loose your job. It's not like we purposefully got you so mad you'd drive to that bar, only to get into a minor car accident. It's not like we told you to spend every single one of your checks on alcohol and drugs instead of on food and the bills.
Don't you remember I'm your baby girl?
How could you throw me right out of your world?
Everyday I look in the mirror and see the presents you so graciously left on my stomach. The words you carved and the scars you made are perfectly visible. Bitch and Useless are still perfectly visible on my stomach. It's because of you I can never wear anything shorter then bermuda shorts and quarter length sleeved t-shirts. I can't even wear a bathing suit in the summer time. I have to wear a wetsuit!
So young when the pain had begun
I remember the first time you ever laid a hand on me. I was three years old, and we were short on rent. You blamed it on me because I needed to go to daycare instead of staying home alone. I didn't know you were angry at me, so foolishly I ran up to you to give you a hug, I thought I might've been able to make it all better, but instead of picking me up and hugging me, you turned me around tore off your worn out belt and struck me thirty five times, one for each dollar we were short on rent. Mom tried to stop you when you hit number seventeen, saying you were going over board. You yelled at her to shut up, but she didn't listen. She tried pulling me away from you but you shoved her down and continued to hitting me with the belt. Once you were done you went to her and beat her, telling her to never again put her hands on you while you "disciplined" me. Tell me again, what did I do to deserve to be disciplined?
Now forever afraid of being in love
Just the thought of ever attempting a relationship with George causes me to flinch and silently cry for well over two hours. Ginny must think I'm mental but I can't bring myself to care. I can't explain it to her because she'll make me leave mother behind and who else would protect her from my father?
There is also the fact that Ginny constantly tells me how cute a couple Ron and I would make. But Ron and I, fight to much, just like a brother and sister, which is what we are to each other. I made that perfectly clear to him in third year while he sat in the hospital. He was relieved that we felt the same about each other. Now he is my protector. It is because of him I can stand up to my father. It is because of him I can face my father. It is because of him my father can no longer hurt me.
Oh, father, please, father
I'd love to leave you alone
But I can't let you go
Oh, father, please, father
Why can't my father understand that I wish I could dissappear from his life. It would make my life so much easier but if I did that I'd be leaving my mom alone with him, and I can't do that. I can't turn my back on her because even though she brought him back in our lives, it's not her fault, you can't tell your heart who to love. I wish I could turn my back on my father but Voldemort does not understand that my father absolutely despises me, and I wouldn't wish that fate on anyone. If I were to leave my parents for good, they would become an easy target for the death eaters. Why couldn't I have a simple life, one where if I were to run away I wouldn't have to worry about my enemies cruelly murdering my parents?
Oh, father, please, father
Put the bottle down
For the love of a daughter
For the love of a daughter
Why couldn't you ever put the alcohol or marijuana down for a hug from your daughter?