Searching For Blue

By : MissLinuxthePenguin

Chapter: Sorrow hates company.

Summary:

Hermione Granger had better places to be. She should have been out there, with his family. But instead she was up here, in her room ... They had opened up to her, welcoming her with open arms to be part of their big happy family and their world.

And this is how I repay them. ... She hated herself for not being brave enough to face reality. He always said I was brave. But he was wrong about that, like so many other things…

XxXxXxXxX

Hermione Granger had better places to be. She should have been out there, with his family. But instead she was up here, in her room. This place that had been her sanctuary for so many years. The place where she once ran to when she wanted to get away from it all. The irony of it was killing her, for now, all she wanted to do was to get away from here. But she was trapped here by her own thoughts. Her mind was keeping her away from them. This one time they actually needed her to be there for them, and she wasn't. Whenever she had needed them, they had always been there for her. They had opened up to her, welcoming her with open arms to be part of their big happy family and their world.

And this is how I repay them.

The words echoed in her mind, filling her dark brown eyes with tears of hate. She hated herself for not being able to go out there. She hated herself for not being brave enough to face reality.

He always said I was brave. But he was wrong about that, like so many other things…

Her thoughts were interrupted as a tiny glass lion hit the wall, smashing into a million tiny shards. In her own anger, she had had throw the small trinket. Immediately, she regretted her actions. It had been the first thing her hand found but it, like everything else, only made her think of him.

Remember, the day he bought that for you?

Tears washed down her face as she tried to fight back just another painful memory of him.

XxXxXxXxX

"Ron" She shouted, running to keep up with his long stride. "Slow down, will you?"

"BBUT MIIIOOOONNNEE." He whined, Hermione distastefully noticed he hadn't slowed down "We have so many places to go, so little time to get there."

"Ron, its only Hogsmead, we've been here a thousand times."

"Not a thousand, two hundred and fourteen if my calculations are correct."

"Thats rubbish. Its not humanly possible."

"Aha! But you forget about" He spoke softer now, and Hermione was happy to notice that he had slowed down "the MAP."

"But even with the map! " She protested.

"Hush . This is unnecessary distraction. We need every minute." She stared at him.

"You're mother wasn't kidding when she said you were serious about christmas shopping."

"Oh you don't know the half of it."

XxXxXxXxX

She sat there, completely alone. An eerie silence only broken by an occasional sob, had replaced the once plentiful sound of laughter and of joy…

She had struggled against the memory that had so easily taken her hostage. But alas, there was no escape. Her mind was a broken record, refusing to do anything but replay that one moment in time… over and over again. It was bad enough that she had to live through that once. But to be forced to watch him die over and over again, that was true torture.

She looked at her arms in despair. They were covered with small little red marks. Her mind had tried to find a logical conclusion to what had happened, and it, as minds usually do, it sunk into a fit of denial. Immediately assuming that she was dreaming. In effort to try to wake herself out of this dream, she had only caused herself more pain.

How she wished it was only a dream- or a nightmare. Whatever you could call this. But she knew better. Somewhere, in some deep part of her mind, she knew. She just knew. A part of her died as she watched his life slowly end.

A part of her that she could never regain.

She could never have him back.

He was gone. Forever.

Slowly, her own thoughts sunk in.

She tried to fight back. But she couldn't. She was immersed in a world of memories she didn't want. Memories she had left so long ago.

All her life she had felt that people who believed in an afterlife were ungrateful idiots who couldn't realize how much they had here, on earth. She had always found the scientific proof surrounding her to be enough.

But that didn't stop her tears at night.

She didn't want to face the fact that one day, she would cease existing.

That her soul, or whatever it was, would be gone.

That she would have to stop thinking.

That she would have to leave this world. This beautiful world.

And it scared her. She tried to think otherwise, but she couldn't. Because, she knew better.

She knew that it would happen.

It was the logical end.

People couldn't live forever, she kept telling herself.

And at the young age of eight, she had forced herself to deal with one of the harshest realities of the world. Something most adults would never be able to even think about. Which, in her mind, was the only reason religion was ever invented.

But, non the less, it still bothered her. For years.

But then, one faithful day, the letter had came. That one piece of parchment colored in green ink and stamped with a dark blood red seal. This one letter shook her out of her world of logic and reasoning. For surely, there was no scientific proof behind magic, yet there it was. Right in front of her.

Her previous philosophical thoughts were discarded in haste. If there was no logic in the world, then why should she upset herself over nothing? After all, why should an eleven year old worry about death? There was plenty of time for that later.

But now, they were back. Those awful thoughts of nonexistence and emptiness.

XxXxXxXxXx

A little girl sat upon a tall stool, swinging her legs as she licked the vinallia ice cream cone.

"Mommy?" She asked, looking up from the cone she held in her hand. Her mother turned from the stove, and looked at her daughter.

"Yes, dear?"

"Who is God?" She asked, her deep brown eyes filled with confusion. It was a rare sight, for those eyes usually held all the answers in the world.

"Why?"

"I heard these kids at school talking. They said God made everything. And that people were the first things on earth."

"Well, some people believe that."

"But why mommy? Don't they know about the dinosaurs?"

"Well." Her mother said as she bent down next to her daughter "Some.. people feel that something so wondrous as the earth, couldn't just come out of nowhere. So they .. believe that a all powerful person, or being, named God created everything."

"Oh." The small girl looked down at her ice cream. "But.. isn't that silly?"

"No." Her mother replied, standing up. "Not at all."

XxXxXxXxX

The wind howled outside, as it shook the branches of the oak tree that stood outside her window. Night had settled around the small home, and darkness filled her room. The small girl was shaking in fear, eyes huge and round as they store at the window and the outside world. It was on nights like these, when her mind wandered. She thought back to the day, and what had happened.

They had learned about Egyptians in class that day, and how the Egyptians worshipped many gods. In class a rude boy had blurted out; "Her Majesty doesn't worship any gods."

The class laughed with the rude boy, and she was left to blush in embarrassment. In first grade, her name and her smart-alec attitude had earned her the nickname, Her Majesty, and it, to her displeasure, stuck.

The teacher hushed the boy, telling him to respect others beliefs, but in a mostly religious school this was like asking a student to jump eight feet into the air.

The class soon quieted down, and the teacher continued on with her lesson. She was safe- for now.

As the bell rang, she gathered all her books and rushed out the door. She hoped that she left soon enough, but of course she hadn't. A group of boys were standing in front of her- sneering.

Within their group, she spotted the same rude boy from before. The others parted, and he walked forward.

"So, Her Majesty, if their isn't a God, then .. " he said lifting his hands up and gesturing to the surroundings "who made this?"

"No one." She said, in a quiet whisper. She wished that they would just leave her alone.

"What was that, Her Majesty?"

"I said.. no one."

"No one?" He said, lifting his eyebrow, he turned back to his group. "Did you hear that boys? No one." The group of boys snickered. The lead boy turned back to her, with both eyebrows raised.

"So... no one?" He repeated provoking her. "So, there is no God?"

"Yes." she said, staring at her shoes wishing that for once he would leave her be.

"So, there is no heaven?"

"Yes." She really wished he would go now, hadn't he already caused her enough pain?

"What happens when you die then? Do you just turn to dust or something?" The rude boy taunted her, waiting for her usually snappy and well-thought comeback. But, this time she had nothing.

"I... i .. i don't know." She said, looking at her feet in shame.

XxXxXxXxX

Something on the windowsill caught Hermione's eye. The soft blue hues sparkled in the sunlight, sending shimmering sparkles all around it.

Her eye followed it as flew from window sill to the bedpost. Its wings gently beating against the air.

The Butterfly sat on its new perch. Staring at her. It's shimmering blue wings triggered yet another memory and as it came flooding back to her mind, tears flooded down her face.

Tears soon clouded her eyes and the butterfly soon disappeared from sight. And in its place, she saw something of the same extraordinary blue.

XxXxXxXx

A/N: sniff angst is always so sad.PleseReview, Flames are Welcome. Its how I stay warm on cold nights like these.

-MissLinuxthePenguin