Disclaimer: I own nothing but my imagination... and my fingers.
~ Chapter One~
Hermione closed her eyes as she listened to the voice on the other end of the phone, she didn't know whether to be relieved or to cry. She had no idea what the reaction should be to the death of someone who abused you for so many years. Now that she was finally dead, should she see her mother as the woman she always wished she would be? Or should she continue seeing her as the woman who caused so much pain throughout her childhood?
She finally hung up, sighing, unsure whether to ask Ron if they could take a few days off work to go to the other side of the country to the scene of the crime. She knew they could probably help, just to see if magic was involved, but at the same time she knew she would never be able to look him in the eye ever again if he knew what growing up in the Granger household was actually like.
"Ron, I was wondering if you could come back home with me for a while." She paced back and forth, glancing at him every now and then. "My mother has been murdered, but that's not the strange thing.. six other people before her were murdered in exactly the same way and the muggle police force – remember, I told you they're sort of like the Ministry with enforcing laws – are unable to find any evidence, so I thought maybe magic is involved."
"Did you know all the victims?" Harry piped up from the other side of the room, looking at her when Hermione nodded a little, thinking about who the murderer could possibly by – someone she may have known, or maybe someone who moved into the area shortly after she left.
"Are you okay, my love?" Ron whispered softly, looking in concern at his wife, a frown forming on his face at the lack of emotion she was displaying. She nodded again, "My mother and I didn't get along.. you know that."
Ron – the man she had once described as having the emotional range of a teaspoon – had managed to discover exactly how his wife was feeling at all times. He could hear the hesitant tone in her voice, he could see the lack of emotion on her face and he wondered exactly what happened between her and her mother, suddenly finding it strange that in the ten years he had known her, she had not once mentioned her parents.
"Like any other daughter and their mother, I guess. She was deeply religious. I was not. She didn't like that." She shrugged it off, but Ron and Harry both knew there was something more, "Did she ever hurt you?" Ron bit his lip, not knowing where the question came from, it was just a gut feeling,
"What has that got to do with her dying? Are we going to go or not?" Ron nodded, surprised at the sudden change in mood that appeared in his usually calm wife, "Let's go see if there's anything wizard-like involved." He tried to smile at her, trying to shake off the feeling that there was more to his wife, and the girl he loved than he could ever know. He followed her out of his office, before heading off to the small town in which Hermione Granger had grown up.
~ .. ~
Nightmares.
Ron bit his lip with worry when he watched his wife groan in her sleep, her voice barely a mumble and he couldn't help but feel that this was something more than the war, of which they all still had nightmares about. "Should we wake her up?" Harry whispered, nodding when Ron shook his head – he wanted to object, but Ron was her husband and he knew what was best for the woman.
"No, let her sleep.. her mother just died, she's bound to have a nightmare about how it happened or something.." Ron was uncertain with his own words, keeping a close eye on her as she slept.
Hermione looked at herself in the mirror, grinning at her four year old self as she applied some of her mum's make-up to her pale cheeks. She ran downstairs gleefully, proud of what she had done, hoping her mum would feel the same once she saw her little girl.
"Mummy, don't I look pretty?" She said as she twirled around, looking at her mother when she stopped – confused by the anger on her face.
"What have you done? How dare you touch my stuff! I have told you about this before, Hermione Jean Granger." She grabbed a wet cloth, rubbing it harshly on the little girls cheeks, ignoring the tears that ran down her chocolate brown eyes. "I'm going to have to teach you a lesson." Hermione looked down at the floor, crying out when her mother grabbed her arm roughly and dragged her towards the broom cupboard.
"Now, you have to stay very still and quite in here, otherwise the rats and the spiders will eat you." Her mother grinned evilly at the four year old shaking before her, pushing her into the small, dark cupboard and slamming the door.
Hermione looked around, sitting down in the middle before crying. She sobbed as she felt that familiar trickle running down her legs; she had wet herself – again. It wasn't long until she became hysterical, banging on the door, screaming as loud as she could. Hot tears fell down her face, taking a large step back when she heard someone walk towards the door.
She smiled up at her mother when the door opened, lifting up her arms and waited for the hug she had seen all those other mothers give their little children. Instead, she received a swift slap across the face, sending her head to the side and more tears falling from her eyes.
"Shut up, devil child!" Hermione looked up at her, her large eyes filling will ear as she saw the door slam once more. She stood still for the rest of her time in the cupboard, staring at the door.
Finally, after eight hours, and exactly half an hour before their daddy got home from work, she was pulled out, wincing a little as the light found her eyes.
Hermione woke up suddenly, lurching forwards in shock at the nightmare she hadn't had since they had left Hogwarts, even before then. She knew that the little girl in her nightmare would soon get used to the feeling of being alone in that cupboard, she would soon give up on the screaming, she would soon realize not long after that first time that nobody cared, nobody would come.
"'Mione, are you okay?" Ron sat next to the shaking woman, noticing the fear and confusion in her eyes before she quickly masked it, and smiled at him. "Yeah, just a silly nightmare.. the usual.. you know. I'm fine." Ron nodded, wrapping his arms around her gently.
She turned the other way, away from her husband, leaving him confused as she always wanted his comfort after a nightmare about the war. She tried not to think about anything that had happened after that first punishment. She remembered all the times after, it carried on until she had announced she wasn't scared of the rats in the room anymore, and that she was able to make them all go away anyway, with magic. She wasn't scared of the dark anymore, because she could make a light appear when she was scared.
Her older brother – Jasper – told her it would work, that if their mum thought she was no longer scared, it would no longer be a punishment. It had worked, but there were always other ways.
Hermione smiled a little as she thought back to those times in the cupboard, all alone and scared but then Jasper would sneak down from his bedroom and talk to her until he was caught. They would talk about everything and anything, with only a year between the two, they used to be close until magic separated them. They were close because they weren't allowed any outside contact, they only had each other. She laughed a little at the memories, cursing herself when she realized her two best friends were staring at her.
"What's so funny?" Harry finally asked after a few moments of silence, Hermione shrugged as she wondered if she should tell them the real thing that made her giggle, or just make something up. She sighed, it couldn't do any harm.
"I was just thinking about how close me and my brother used to be." She smiled at them,
"I.. I didn't even know you had a brother." Ron stared at her, wondering how much he didn't know about his wife, wondering how much more she had hidden from him all this time.
"We were best friends, mum didn't let us go out much and we only really had each other," She laughed again, and looked at them, "When I was four, and he was five, we decided we were going to get married when we were older, and live in a big house all on our own and we would live happily ever after." She sighed, looking out the window, a small, sad smile creeping onto her face,
"What happened?" Harry whispered, frowning,
"We grew up and realized that was illegal." She laughed again, trying to lighten the tone for the three of them. The two just laughed – allbeit hesitantly – at her, and went back to their card game, trying to forget about the scream they had heard from her during her nightmare.