"What Child Is This?"
Disclaimer: The rights to Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling. I make no profit from the author's intellectual property.
Every action taken and each decision made leads to a point in time, a defining moment forever altering life as you know it. I make my choices, you make yours, and somehow we arrive here in the now demanding a resolution to a mess we all created. For once I don't know what to do to make things better. I don't know how to clean this mess up.
My husband and I are staring at the business end of a wand. A skinny little stick we purchased years ago for our little girl. It seems more like ages now.
I barely recognize my little girl any more. The physical features are there. She still has my mouth and unmanageable hair. Her father's brown eyes and stubborn chin complete the package marking her as the one and only offspring of Peter and Margaret Granger, but she is not ours. I see that now.
If I could turn back the hands of time and change past actions and decisions I would. I'd go back and burn that blasted Hogwart's letter and the owl it rode in on. Pete and I lost our daughter the day we sent her to that bloody boarding school. We let excitement and magic blind us to common sense.
Now our daughter comes to our home and tells us that we're in danger, but she won't say from what or from whom or even why.
"Hermione are you in some sort of trouble?" I ask but am almost too afraid to hear her answer. I clutch Pete's hand in my own.
"No uh—umm Mum it's complicated." Hermione says stumbling over her words. I can clearly see her struggling to pick and choose what to tell us. This must magic related.
"Well then please, Hermione Jane, uncomplicated the matter for us poor backward folk."
That was my husband and had I not been trying to present a unified front before our child I would have slapped him upside the head for his acerbic remark. Though I understand his source of aggravation I don't want Hermione to feel cornered and on the defensive.
A sad look enters those brown eyes I used to know so well. "Dad you know I can't do that."
Peter suddenly pushes me behind him.
"Pete!" I yell indignantly.
"Stay there Maggie." He commands.
"Like hell I will." I shout quite irate. I struggle vehemently to get away. That is until I see the wand pointed our way. A wand. Seemed like a cute little toy all those years ago. I didn't realize that I was arming my eleven year old with a weapon back then.
"Hermione." I utter from beside my husband. Tears well up in my eyes and my throat begins to close.
"Don't do this," Pete's voice wavers with emotion, "Don't be like them."
Hermione, now weeping, brings up her wand just a fraction higher. "I'm sorry. I have to. It's for the best."
"For who Hermione?" I cry, "For who?"
"OBLIVATE!"