Chapter 10

Hermione didn't see the boys running after her. That didn't surprise her anymore. She only looked once, and it was enough to know. They weren't going to follow.

Her mind raced so much that it took closing the door to her room and landing on the bed to calm it. She tried to grapple with it: she was not wanted. They wouldn't let her in. They wouldn't talk around her. They wouldn't want her in their lives anymore. Maybe the same could be said of her parents? Who knew? Maybe they would come in, drag her out, and leave her on the street. Who could blame them?

She lay, sniffling, on the bed until her parents came home. She awaited the knock on the door, the soothing words, but they didn't come. Hesitantly, she left the room; she no longer was crying but the redness around her eyes betrayed it.

"Hermione, what's wrong?" her mother asked in slight alarm as she saw Hermione's face. She must have looked a mess.

Not entirely up to the task of talking, Hermione just shook her head. Maybe they didn't know.

"Dear, if somebody hurt you…" her mother started, thinking Hermione had been bullied again.

Looking up, Hermione shook her head again. In barely more than a whisper, she told her mother, "It's not that."

Looking more concerned, Ms. Granger walked over and sat down, beckoning Hermione to sit at their table.

"Do you want me?" Hermione asked.

The look on her mother's face relieved the considerable fear she had accumulated. "Why would you even ask that? Of course we want you!"

"Ok, good." She responded quietly, and walked away. Glad for the lock on the door, she set about thinking some more.

It was a peculiar feeling, this unidentifiable weight in her stomach. She knew there was something that she could not understand; yet it didn't seem to want to identify itself. She racked her memory for what could conjure it up, yet even reviewing how terrible she felt at having been abandoned didn't seem to come to any clues worth utilizing.

It was past her self-set bedtime when she had realized what was bothering her. It was a thought that was so antipodal to all the others in her head that she had not considered it. It was the dim memory of having people want her to stay, to talk. She connected it with the moment at Ron's oddly shaped house.

Had they wanted her? Perhaps they did want to talk. Yet they could just as much want to keep her there so they could wait for the authorities to come. It was too late now, she was certain of it. She felt an icy chill at the thought and wallowed in it, unable to sleep.

When the weight behind her eyelids finally bid her sleep, homework unfinished, it was a very short respite. She had wallowed in the grief all the way into the dream world, and farther. She heard the crack and her eyes shot open. Her windows were covered in tendrils of ice, cracking as it formed in the spring air. The room, the entire house no doubt, was chilly. She was frigid.

This was why she could not talk to them. She was a danger to them. She knew, no matter how much she wanted to ask them to forgive her, that she could not let her friends be hurt.

She remembered her homework, but suddenly it didn't seem as important anymore.

The next morning brought tired, shadowed eyes, concerned looks, and a lump in her stomach. She set about doing her homework with none of the usual vigour that she prided herself on. It felt unimportant now.

After all, what was she but some freak of nature? She would be studied, she knew, as part of a government program. She had seen enough television to know what kinds of strange projects went on. After all, though the Soviets were opening up their country, according to the papers, there still was the animosity.

She would turn herself in. It seemed like the thing to do, to scream out "Hey! I'm Hermione Granger and I'm a freak of nature!" Not in public of course, but all the same. It was better for everyone.

Except her. That was the empty feeling she had now. Everything that she had worked for: the grades, the community service, the A-level prep, it was all useless. What good was revision now?

She trudged to school even slower than usual. Her shadowed eyes, unkempt clothes, and unmanaged hair provided distance between her and others. She liked it; better to keep them safe.

Without waiting for class to begin, she entered her fifth year class and sat down. Ms. Riley looked over, smiling in the way that made you know she wasn't totally focused on you. "Oh, hello Hermione. Are you feeling alright?" Her focus had evidently shifted towards Hermione.

Hermione nodded, wishing she had remembered to at least make herself look presentable. It was not safe to attract the attention that she was. People asked questions. People got hurt. Looking down at her desk, Hermione cursed herself.

The goose pimples that crawled up the back of her neck heralded a change that only made her feel worse. Her bearing felt different. She had done something to herself, something both terrible and helpful at once. Like when the paper had been filled out.

When class started and Ms. Riley looked over again, she evidently decided it had been a trick of the light, because she smiled again with a little more effort. Hermione sat in her normal seat and waited for the inevitable awkwardness that would follow.

When Harry and Ron entered, she turned away from their seats. Harry attempted to attract their attention, yet she ignored him. Best to give them the cold shoulder.

Her performance that day was miserable by her standards. While Harry would have said "average" and Ron perhaps even "good", she knew it was miserable. The homework was not up to par, the participation nonexistent, and her arm itched to rise. She suppressed it.

She maintained this pattern for a week. Harry and Ron stopped attempting to confront her. She had been worried they might get the courage to corner her. She was terribly worried that she might hurt them. Another week passed, and while Hermione's grades normalized and her homework went back to its usual quality, she was reserved and quiet.

It was a rather silly thing to do, she considered, but she focused on revision. There wasn't really a purpose to this, but it was something to do while she built up the necessary courage to turn herself in. It also kept her distracted, kept the thoughts from coming.

By the end of April she had stopped wondering if she could have redeemed herself. Ron and Harry, while casting her occasional glances, no longer seemed to care. She was lost to them, like she wanted to be. Let them forget her so, when the school year ended, she could turn herself in. She had resolved to do it then.

She had no idea what made her so special as to have received this curse, but it did not matter, did it? Certainly they'd find out. Certainly there was no reason to really care.

When she was finally let out of school, she was glad to know that she had completed something. To leave her old life uncompleted would have nagged at her unendingly. She wondered absentmindedly what would have transpired if she had stayed and talked. Probably nothing. That fear on those eyes after…

It hit her. She had been halfway to the police station in town, walking home after her final, silent day of school, when it hit her. It was two things, in fact.

The first was a thing of the past. The thing that happened before. The thing that she had not considered, had actually perhaps even blocked out. The stick of wood and the picture frames. Floating. Falling.

The second thing that hit her was a car. She had stopped quite suddenly in the crosswalk of the only major road in town. The car, an ugly grey car which was of the variety that typically could be found in large, "cookie-cutter" neighbourhoods, screeched. She was floating. Floating. Floating longer than seemed possible. Falling. Falling.

End of Chapter 10

All right, so I apologize for how short this chapter is. I have my reasons, namely that Hermione's story up until the end of school is not terribly interesting. It's mostly sulking. As for the car, I admit it's a little cliché, but I think that it provides two things: 1) An injury, for reasons that will become clear later; 2) A way of getting her out of the way for the end-of-school plot. Well, I can't say I'm terribly happy with this chapter (it wasn't exactly the most interesting), but it's a necessary one. I promise the next one, which has Dudley, will be longer by necessity as well as more interesting.

Thanks to DukeByrmin, as always, for catching that slip up. As always, I appreciate any review, especially ones with constructive feedback.

Up Next: While on the surface Dudley may not seem as deep as his gullet, he's a feeling person too. His favourite feelings: Rage, Happiness, Victory, and Cake. Plus: How Harry immediately regretted feeling sorry for his cousin.