Author's Note- Please Read
Thank you all for the positive feedback, especially to my one reviewer! Here, as promised is a second chapter, just know that I won't be getting things up as frequently as this. Again please comment for more chapters, I on,y need one to keep writing. Thank you guys, and enjoy!
/
"Hermione, dear get up, let's go to my office," prompted Professor McGonagall, lifting the girl up by the shoulders. She wondered why Hermione would choose such a place to hide, before she remembered that this was an ideal place, considering its isolation. While the damp floors and periodic wails may be a drawback, it was a wonderful place to find a decent amount of solitude. Still clutching Hermione's letter to her chest Minerva led the girl out of the bathroom and to the comfort of her office. They were lucky to meet only Peeves on their way. Minerva was fortunate to have had this period free, and after that were only her first years. Minerva guided Hermione through the rows of desks in the transfiguration classroom to the very back, where her office was.
"Sit down," commanded Minerva, gesturing to a plush armchair in front of her own mahogany desk. Hermione sat down gingerly, until Minerva took a seat herself.
"Have a biscuit," Minerva more or less suggested thrusting the tartan tin at her, Hermione taken aback reached out an unsure hand only to be polite. She nibbled on a ginger newt while Minerva gathered her thoughts. The crackling fire was the only sound other than that of McGonagall raping her fingers on her desk. Their uncomfortable silence was broken by a loud crash from the other room, followed by a great deal of cackling. Neither of them bothered to acknowledge the work of what they both correctly assumed was Peeves. Minerva took this break in silence to awkwardly begin.
"Ms. Granger, please tell me," Minerva started getting straight to the point, "if the content of this letter is consistent with that of previously received letters." Hermione nodded.
"Tell me about your grandmother,"
"She killed herself two years ago,"
"And your mother calls this act cowardly?" Another nod." She was brave for too long," concluded Minerva.
"She calls me a coward for," Hermione paused and simply gestured at her wrist. Minerva had forgotten about that. She silently reached into her desk draw and drew out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a roll of bandages. She cleaned Hermione's wounds without protest and wrapped them.
"What do you feel when you cut, what does it bring you?" she queried carlingly.
"It feels good I guess, like now I can feel something other than what I had been feeling before, you know". It was Minerva's turn to nod.
" Are there certain emotions that cause you to turn to this?"
"Well, just now I'd been angry, but I've done it when I've felt," Hermione paused, "I'm not really sure what emotion it is, but for periods of time, like weeks, I just feel numb. Like I can't feel anything else, but cutting." She looked up questioningly at her professor.
" I understand you," she replied. Knowing that feeling all too well.
"Professor, my mother, she doesn't understand what I'm dealing with. She doesn't get why I can't bring myself to leave my bedroom for days at a time. She has no idea what it's like to have to do this," blurted out Hermione, referring to the cuts.
"Yes, dear, there are people like that, blissfully ignorant if you ask me. Until they have had an experience they don't know what it is like." Minerva whispered, "Now, I need to ask you a very serious question, have you ever felt unsafe in your home with your parents?" Hermione gasped, but nodded.
" When I was younger, like five or six, they would disappear for days at a time, gambling and drinking. They would forget to leave me food, so when I went to school I would wait for the other kids to leave before I went into the trash cans to salvage a mushy banana or a half eaten corned beef sandwich. When they came home, they asked me what I had eaten, knowing fully well that they hadn't left me anything. I gave them the honest answer, and before I knew what had happened I was on the floor, the backs of my thighs stinging. They would tell me that I should have known better than to disgrace the name of Granger. Another time when I was about nine they came home really drunk and just started kicking things, evoking no response from the kitchen table they found me in the hall closet and beat me with beer bottles. I fell unconscious for the night," she paused to take a breath, " When I got my Hogwarts letter, things got even worse. They refused to let me see my friends, because they were afraid that my secret would get out. Three days before term, they dropped me off in London and left me with three pounds. I had been babysitting though, and doing odd jobs so I have over 175 pounds with me, enough for all I needed. I walked to King's Cross and then I was here. That summer though, after my first year started the worst attacks. I would wake up to them coming home at four in the morning and then having a go at me, every inch of me hurt, and every inch of me wanted to die." At this she stopped and looked up at her professor. This child, so broken down needed someone, someone to let her know that she was ok, that everything would be ok.
"Come with me," said Minerva, standing and bringing the girl to a door at the back of her office, "these are my private quarters. I must go teach a class, but after that is lunch when we can talk some more. You can stay in here." The room that they were standing in was decorated maroon and gold. There was a squashy couch in the middle of the room in front of a large fireplace. They could hear a flurry of movement in the classroom through the open door. Minerva left through the door, pulling it closed tightly behind her. She swept past her desk, and the open tin of ginger newts into her classroom, which was full of first years.
/
Hermione was still in shock. She couldn't believe what she had just revealed to her favorite professor. If her parents ever found out. Hermione spent the time while Minerva was teaching replaying what had just transpired over and over again in her head. She finally concluded that she was in big trouble when her parents found out. She could hear Minerva lecturing a first year on the fact that he was supposed to be turning his needle into a matchstick, not his best friend's arm.
/
After her class, Minerva returned to find a distraught Hermione sitting on the couch after having searched everywhere for a way to hurt herself. Minerva just did the most natural thing for her, she sat down next to Hermione and pulled her into her warm embrace, and Hermione just leaned into her. They stayed like that for several minutes, until her professor pulled her away and held her at an arm's length.
"We need to talk," Minerva decided, and Hermione nodded.