AN: Hello guys, thanks so much for the support you've given thus far, it's been overwhelming and I sincerely hope not to disappoint. I still have no Beta and am not the best proof reader so feel free to alert me of any mistakes and I'll endeavor to fix them right away. Sorry this chapter is kind of short, but I was really excited to give you a look into Harry's mind, so here it is!
Chapter 2: A Reluctant Future Hero
Her next letter to Harry came later then intended. Dolohov had been particularly grateful to see her the night of the revel, and between her continued duties and desolate living conditions, recovery had been tedious. That left little energy for writing, though she refused to let it show in her words.
Dear Harry,
It's been two weeks since I last wrote to you and I apologize for the wait, a lot has happened over the recent days and I just didn't have the time. I promise a weekly correspondence from now on! You wouldn't believe what happened the other day! We have this new Mudblood in the manor named Maxine. She's young, maybe seven, brash and opinionated. I bet she'd be a Gryffindor if we were allowed to attend Hogwarts! Anyway, that's not the bit you won't believe… she pulled a prank on Lucius Malfoy! Lucius is the lord of the manor and he is beyond intimidating, so Maxine must be truly fearless.
Her options were limited since we aren't permitted to have wands, but she stuck the hem of his robes into the fire in his office when he fell asleep at his desk. He woke up from the heat screaming bloody murder, and we dumped a vase of flowers on him to put it out. He was sopping wet with a daffodil on top of his head by the end of it, it was just about the funniest thing I've ever seen. The best part is he was to shocked to even punish us so he just screamed for us to get out. We ran out of that room like the very devil was on our heels, right down to the kitchens. Then Miss Donaldson, the head cook, gave us slices of leftover chocolate cake from the previous night's dinner. It was the best day I've had in years!
I hope you're doing well. Please don't feed Pip too much -that's my owl's name, as you've probably deduced- he's been pilfering meat fats from the kitchen and I keep telling him to cut back. His tummy is entirely too big for an owl his size, but he looks at me like I have three heads when I say a bird so small only needs to store so much fat for energy. I know he understands me though, the little git!
Love,
Hermione
Ps. I've decided to address these letters with love, because we all deserve a little friendly adoration in our lives
The look Pip gave her was mutinous when she tied the next letter to his leg, as if he knew just what she'd had written about him before she rolled up the parchment. This was impossible of course so she rolled her eyes and patted his head. "I know he didn't write back Pip, but let me have this, it makes me feel better."
Her stalwart little bird could never deny her happiness and flew off with no further protest as Hermione lay down to rest after yet another long day. To rest in preparation for tomorrows long day that would be just like the last and the one before, the agonizing monotony only broken by her letters.
~o~O~o~
She was crying when she wrote her latest letter. This wasn't an irregular thing to happen, she'd had thousands of things to cry about over the three years she'd been writing these letters now, though she tried not to let that show. There'd been many losses and many agonies over her three-year one-sided correspondence, trying to find a positive light in the tragedies of her life to write in her letters was one of the only things getting her through her days anymore. Her letters, Pip, and Miss Bea, and she didn't even have one of those things anymore.
Miss Bea, the oldest Mudblood that still served in the manor, had fallen victim to Dragon pox. Miss Bea had an undeniably grandmother-like type of energy and was in charge of the Malfoy library, she'd always helped Hermione smuggle out a book or two when she could and grinned at the young girl's veracious love of learning.
They had tried to keep Miss Bea's illness a secret as they nursed her with the limited resources they were afforded, taking turns fulfilling her responsibilities during what they hoped would be her fast recovery. In the end however, Miss Bea was discovered and executed to prevent further spread of the sometimes-deadly illness. An ailing old slave wasn't worth the resources needed to heal her, as the Malfoy's deemed it, and those who tried to protect her were sentenced to five minutes under the cruciatus in retaliation. Hermione had endured worse punishments but a young, sweet nine-year-old named Darla had gone insane under the onslaught, it being too much for her fragile young mind to handle. She wound up a victim to the sinister green light of the killing curse in the end as well.
Hermione refused to let her tears touch the parchment as she wrote.
Dear Harry,
I think my favorite color is yellow. I'm not one to generally pick favorites, but yellow makes me think of happier things. Like warm rays of sunlight on my cheeks, and buttercups springing to life across the grounds during the more temperate months. Miss Bea always called me her sunshine, perhaps that most of all is why yellow is my favorite. She said I was like personified happiness and light, the sun in human form. I don't believe that's quite right, she always made me so much happier than I could ever dream of making someone else. But still, the color yellow makes me think of the sun, and the sun makes me think of her, thus it is my favorite.
My mom used to sing this old song to me, You Are My Sunshine, before bed each night. I think it may be for that reason as well that yellow is my favorite, it's a way to carry her with me. I sing the children down in the Mudblood living corridors that same song all the time, in her honor. When they're crying over a scraped knee, or fretting over their fear of the dark, I sing. I wish the dark was the worst thing they'd ever have to fear…
I'm sorry, that was quite drab. Do you have a favorite color Harry? Is it scarlet or gold like the bold colors of the Gryffindor house your family hails from? A soft green like spring leaves under sunbeams? Or a rich green like precious emeralds? Maybe you love the sky blue of a bright day, or the vast dark blue of a fathomless ocean. Whatever color is your favorite Harry, I hope you get to appreciate the worlds beauty every day, and that you are leading a happy life filled with the earth's vibrancy. I hope you get to see the oceans and appreciate their many hues.
I wonder what it feels like to have sand between your toes Harry. Do you think it tickles or irritates the skin? I think it'd be worth it if it did, all the pictures of oceans I see in the books here are lovely. I could tolerate a little tickling if it meant I could rinse the sand off in the cool, tranquil waves. If you ever do go to the ocean try to appreciate the sand for me, okay? I'm sure it'll probably get everywhere just like the dirt in the manor with as fine as it is, but I read that it can be used to sculpt the most beautiful things. And I bet it's so warm and soft with the sun reflecting off it.
Everything holds its hidden beauties Harry. The night has the moon and its stars, death has the promise of an eternal life after, and pain makes us realize how blessed we are in its absence. So, appreciate the sand, Harry, please.
Love,
Hermione
She felt like a sentimental loon by the time she placed the quill down, but, while still forlorn with the thought of her loss and environment, she was relieved. She knew the letter writing would be an outlet, a therapeutic endeavor to get her through her harrowing years in servitude, but never had it been truer than in that moment. Sharing some of her memories of miss Bea in the written word made her realize how much she'd been loved, and how capable she was of loving. Tying those memories to her mother reminded her that the ones we love never truly leave us, they mark you with a permanent impression that brighten your heart on reflection. For that reason, she no longer felt so abandoned, so alone as she knotted her letter off and watched her beloved friend fly off into the night with her load.
~o~O~o~
He never wrote back. Every week for about three years like clockwork he got a letter from Hermione Granger every Wednesday night. With fifty-two weeks in a year that's one-hundred-and-fifty-six letters give or take a few. One-hundred-and-fifty-six letters that made his days, his weeks, his life because even though she has never seen him a day in his life Hermione Granger seemed to get him like no other. One-hundred-and-fifty-six letters that made his god-father laugh and call him a nutter because when they would meet professor Dumbledore on Black Island for dueling practice, he couldn't help but burry his toes in the sand and stare dazedly at the sunset while he wondered what she might look like. What her voice might sound like when she speaks the words in her letters instead of writing them in her swooping, delicate script with little hearts over the I's. He thought she might be just a little crazy for that, because who did that outside of early primary school years? But it was endearing all the same. And worrying as well, because he feared she may be too soft for the world he left behind. The world he'd never planned to go back too until he got her letters.
Her letters that started when he was eleven, with a simultaneously bright and depressing correspondence that promised him friendship alongside a plea that he'd leave well enough alone when it came to the wizarding world fighting its own battles. He had always planned to. His godfather was insistent on it after they heard of Voldemort's return, from the limited resources they had in their self-imposed seclusion. He claimed he didn't take Harry away from the wreckage of that awful Halloween massacre to let him become a martyr for a world whose division caused his beloved parents' demise in the first place. It wasn't worth it. She had said the same thing. In not those exact words she had called the wizarding populace a selfish and cowardice group not worth the risk rejoining it would cause to himself, not worth the war he was sure to helm upon his return. He'd always agreed with that sentiment.
He never asked for the responsibility or distinction being the "Boy Who Lived" foisted onto his shoulders. He'd always thought that one day someone strong and willing would take pity on the spineless magical beings of the British Isles and overthrow the psychopathic megalomaniac the government had been to scared to interfere with until too much damage had already been done. He always thought the wizarding world deserved to fester in the torment they created for themselves by doing nothing until that time came; deserved to suffer in the circumstance they created by being weak and subservient while they let the fair few brave enough to do something all eventually fall to Voldemort's growing numbers. He thought they deserved every ounce of the pain they felt every day, they earned it through their weakness. Their weakness that killed his parents and so many others who had actually fought for what's right.
He was so bitter and cut-off from the world that he couldn't've cared less if the whole place was blown to bits. Even knowing that there were children enslaved that had nothing to do with the negligence of their predecessors, he hadn't been able to muster much sympathy. He knew how cruel that made him sound, but still, solving the world's problems wasn't his responsibility and wasn't he also a slave to his status as well?
Nothing was worth leaving the shell of safety interspersed with little moments of happiness Sirius and Remus had created for him. They had done their part, suffered their losses and tried to do right only to be rewarded with pain. They didn't want anymore of that for Harry then he already dealt with, and no amount of coaxing from Dumbledore had them leaning towards otherwise. It wasn't their fight anymore and it would never be Harry's.
Except for it would. Because while the wizarding world wasn't worth him fighting for, Hermione was.
Hermione, who drew hearts over her I's and sang "You Are My Sunshine" to crying children. Hermione, who wrote to an orphan that the world thought was dead because she thought he may be alive and lonely somewhere. Hermione, who endeavored only to make him smile with her letters despite the agony he knew was hidden behind her words. Hermione, who had been through so much, who was going through so much, but never let it embitter her as it had done him. Hermione, who he could never write back to, even if he could find the words, because they couldn't risk the world knowing he was alive and semi-well. Hermione who proclaimed to have guessed this and wouldn't let it deter her alacrity in writing. Hermione, who asked for nothing but gave him everything.
Hermione was worth saving. Convincing Remus and Sirius of that fact had taken a while, but that didn't make it any less true. Hermione was his friend, even if she didn't know it yet, and she was worth saving. And Hermione didn't seem like the type to let him rescue her alone, so he supposed that meant he'd just have to save everyone.