Hermione Orphans Herself
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Hermione Granger asks her parents to take her to a movie. They agree and she tells them she loves them, one last time.
The horror or the romantic comedy? They ask. A scary movie, so she would have an excuse to hold on, but she doesn't say that out loud.
She sits between them, up near the front so she can pull off the plan. Tears drip down her face the whole time in the darkened theatre.
She goes to the bathroom, or that is what she tells them. She pulls out her wand and wraps it in her sweater, and goes over the spell one more time. It is tricky to do right with all she had to do with it. Doing it here should throw off any magical tracking, it is a public space after all. She isn't the only witch or wizard that lives in this area.
She sits down next to them at the end of the row, but not too close and she raises her wand with a shaking hand and performs the spell that may just orphan her forever.
After the spell is completed she leaves and walks home and from across the street sitting on the bench watches her parents leave her, possibly forever.
They'll be about as safe as she is about to be not safe. If she lives, she hopes she can find them again. The city she planted in their minds to go to is big enough to hide in. She hopes she covered everything they could disappear and she would never find them.
She added a couple of failsafes, not enough to be sure, but once a year they'll go to a certain place and have lunch, they'll think of it as a romantic anniversary.
Another is 5 years out to another place in a different city, and she is terrified, 5 years is a long time. Would they even recognize her?
The Tsunami had hit the Indian Ocean over Christmas at about the same time she had come up with the plan in the first place, she had learned of it much later and it frightened her most of all. They could be killed in some completely other disaster. She had changed the city she had planned on sending them, but there was no real safe place.
So many things could go wrong and puts her face in her hands. She doesn't notice she is rocking back and forth.
"What's wrong dear?"
"Oh, um, nothing, nothing." she wipes the tears from her face. She recognizes Mrs. Smythe from across the street, who used to babysit her.
Mrs. Smythe gives her a look.
"I'm sorry, but my parents have to go to New Zealand, family emergency. I have to go back to school tomorrow. It's my last year and I can't miss any of it." She lies, so many lies.
Mrs. Smythe knows that Hermione is a studious girl, but this seems extreme even for her. "Why aren't you with them?"
"I was just getting in the way. I've said good bye and they are trying to hurry, the next flight is not very long from now."
"Are you going to be okay?"
"Yes, I should be. I can catch the train easily enough myself." Hermione tries to smile and sound confident.
Mrs. Smythe doesn't look convinced "Are you sure? I'm just next door if you need anything. You were always a good girl."
"I miss them." says Hermione as tears start again, The people who used to be her parents are getting in the car and driving off. They go the other way, she can't even wave goodbye, because they don't recognize her anymore.
"It's okay, it's okay." Hermione hears Mrs. Smythe say, as she finds herself crying on the shoulder of her old babysitter.
After pulling herself together, she unlocks the door and goes inside, locking the door behind her, she goes upstairs to her room and collapses on her bed, she isn't really an orphan, but it feels like she's lost them forever. Her heart aches and she mourns them, because to her parents she's never existed.
Did she just murder her own parents?
The bodies were the same, but who they were was completely different. She could restore them, remove the spell. She could hop on her broom and beat them to the airport and bring them home, but they wouldn't be safe.
She might tell Harry, he might know how she feels, he's an orphan too.
Was it the right thing to do?
Was she any different from the Deatheaters?
Why did she have to be a witch?
Why did she have to be a Gryffindor and brave?
Why did she love Ron?
Why did she have to be friends with Harry?
Why did it cost so much to have friends?
And the tears came again.
Author's Note:
Hermione did something amazing and I have seen hardly any comment on it. So her story needed to be told.
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