Chapter 120: Crazed

The next morning proved that middle of the night moment a transient reprieve. Devoid of appetite, Hermione had inched her way through discomforted hours running on a fuel comprised solely of sweet ginger that only just worked to keep her stomach from revolting in a mighty coup – something, still sore from the previous afternoon, Hermione wanted to avoid at all costs. Part of it, she figured, was the tiredness. Pregnancy tiredness wasn't a nice, cosy, sleepy, enjoy-a-luxuriant-nap kind of tiredness. It was a dogged weariness that dragged down every move she made or thought she tried to process, existed despite the extra hours of sleep she'd gotten, and made her body feel unsettled, both heavy and uncomfortably floaty, in a way that went hand-in-hand with the nausea.

She did manage, to her own uncelebrated pride, however, to organise a Louise Daniels and baby "Johnathan" envoy to Mary MacClery when the watch reported the woman going for a stroll with Cathleen. The escort Tonks got was Lee, the one on watch, and the additional hidden guard of Remus and Fleur.

The MacClerys were a family that made them very glad they'd used the Imprint. Tonks had gone over her half hour, but only by about fifteen minutes, and it was because, as Tonks had predicted, Mary did need a friend, and did open up to her.

Mary, they were unsurprised to hear, didn't like living with her mother. She couldn't find a job that would pay enough for childcare. She hadn't spoken to any of her old friends for a while. And she had been considering taking up her cousin on the offer to stay with her in Australia for a while.

Not anymore, Mary had asserted. Ever since the night she'd spoken with "Louise and her husband", she was suddenly terrified of flying. She was staying right where she was, continuing to try to make the most of it, and was happy she'd made a new friend in the area.

'I feel so guilty!' Tonks moaned. 'She opened right up to me – and every second thing out of my mouth was a lie! Maybe… I won't bring Teddy next time,' she hurried on, 'but just… check in on her again. She really doesn't like living with her mother, so it's a good idea to keep in contact in case she does go somewhere else.'

Debating with herself the advisability of getting "one of those Muggle carry-about telephones" so Mary could have a number to ring her on, Tonks left not long after with Remus. Hermione gave in to her tiredness. Leaving Sirius to help the others through their reprised Spagyric study, she dragged herself up the stairs and conked out shortly after pulling up the bedsheets.

Though she missed the first half of the lesson, the nap had been the right choice. Hermione felt significantly more capable of being alive when she woke up. A nutritious lunch of stew went down against only some resistance, and the following hour, while spent feeling queasy, did not produce a revolt of her stomach.

Hermione was going to keep it that way. She had a taste, and that taste was one she knew, through both past experience and intuition, was exactly what would slip down past the wishy-washy queasiness and douse it to the point of proper relief.

'Sorry Hermione,' Ron called after her, 'was that "Co-lello" or "Cole-ello"?'

Hermione didn't answer. She was deep inside the pantry, digging and shoving her way through items with increasing frantic ferocity.

'Hermione?' Ron called, by way of repeating his annoying question.

Hermione couldn't care less about the correct pronunciation of the spell. It wasn't there! With great hope the jar would spontaneously appear, she stared at the shelves of the pantry.

He wouldn't have. He knew not to!

'SIRIUS! DID YOU FINISH THE PEANUT BUTTER?'

'Er…'

Hermione backed out of the pantry and spotted the grimace Sirius had pulled. It made her blood boil.

'Yes,' he admitted. 'Sorry, Hermione. There wasn't much lef–'

'How could you!' she shrieked. 'I ASKED YOU!' She'd trusted him! 'I ASKED YOU NOT TO!'

Sirius had gotten up. He padded cautiously towards her.

'You did?' he asked. 'When?'

'The other day!' Hermione wailed, her eyes misting over. 'Just a few d-days ago!'

'I'm sorry Hermione,' Sirius said, drawing slowly nearer, 'but I have no memory of that.'

He was hovering. Not touching her as Hermione almost wished he would just so she could slap away hands that had been so considerate just twelve hours before. Just hovering. Too close. Too like a chastised puppy. And too much like a wary carer trying to calm down the mental patient.

And he was, possibly, right. Hermione wasn't actually that sure, now, she had asked him to leave the peanut butter for her. Her memory, usually so wonderfully clear, was distressingly hazy on the point.

But he'd been showing her, every day, that he understood! It wasn't rocket science! This wasn't the first time it had been peanut butter that was the one thing that would help!

Feeling betrayed and condemned to the endless shitty queasiness, Hermione was huffing deep breaths between miserable and humiliating sobs. Why did she have to cry? She couldn't see or speak properly when she cried.

'I can go get some more,' Sirius offered. 'Take me twenty minutes, tops.'

'No!' Hermione cried, righteously furious with someone who refused to understand. 'Then I'll have to wait! And b-by the time you g-get back I'll probably w-want something else – s-so then I'll f-feel even w-worse because I've s-sent you out, and th-then w-wasn't grateful!' And it was his fault, Hermione added silently, though with venom. That would be his fault too – it was all his fault!

'W- okay…' Sirius frowned, then continued patiently. 'What about a substitute then? Is there anything else you feel like? Something to tide you over for a while? There are nuts…?'

Hermione stared at him, then stamped her foot.

'IT CAN'T BE FIXED, SIRIUS! S-stop trying to fix what c-can't be fixed! It d-doesn't work th-that way! Y-you d-don't understand!'

'I've had cravings before, Hermione,' Sirius said coolly.

'These aren't c-cravings!' she railed at that handsome, clever, oh-so-mature face. 'These are a-alien mind control! Craving are e-easy!'

That Sirius's eyebrows had shot a distance up his forehead just made Hermione even angrier at him. She opened her mouth to shout more –

'And I've been starving before, Hermione,' Sirius went on. His tone had slowed, quieted, and become more calmly deliberate. 'I do know what it's like to want to chew a door off its hinges just to get at a bacon butty.'

There was no rejoinder for that. Hermione was sure Sirius had seen far more of this world's hardships than she had, and that was how he was looking at her: like she was young, silly, and needed to calm down. It just made Hermione angrier, but becoming more aware of Harry, Ron, Neville, and Ginny, all there and all trying not to look at her, she was abruptly much more interested in getting out of the room, and, particularly, away from Sirius.

'I'm going,' she said, paying close attention to keeping any wobble or stutter out of her voice, 'to walk the stairs.'

It was a good idea, Hermione told herself, wiping her eyes and avoiding looking at anyone as she headed for the kitchen stairs. She'd planned her "walk" for the following day, but, depending on how she felt the following day, it may turn out a more difficult task to do then. Right now she had restless energy to drive her legs, even if her forcible upward momentum did nothing to make her feel less sick. In fact, it quickly started to make her feel lightheaded.

Seeing the front door as she passed it was its own challenge. The urge to simply stride out through it and go find a corner shop was immense. Tonks had taken Teddy out into potential "danger". How risky could it really be to go to a corner shop? Sirius went out whenever he felt like it!

Hermione denied the urge. Doing so had her fighting an internal two-sided argument all the way up each of the four staircases. She knew why she wasn't going outside – knew all the reasons that did make it riskier, not just for her, but for a teensy little life that could do nothing to save themselves. That, and storming out, on foot, to buy peanut butter from a corner shop was a tough thing to do with her head held high.

The contradictory opinion wasn't quite a new one, but it was one Hermione hadn't let herself devote mental time to. That opinion questioned whether Hermione was just creating excuses to validate an increasing agoraphobia. It was an opinion that seemed well-supported upon Hermione's return to the first floor. The urge to get peanut butter was still there, but her urge to leave the house… The front door, still in peeling black paint, looked weirdly large and ominous. There was a decent chance the longer Hermione stayed shut up in this house, scared to go out – especially to go out alone – the more she was damaging her own mental health.

Or, she reasoned, that could just be her crazed hankering for a certain spread talking. Like an addict talking themselves into "just passing by" the place where they could pick up their fix. Hermione wasn't imagining the potential risks. She wasn't inventing any of that.

To which the other side, on her second forceful climbing of four sets of stairs, argued that bad things always had some chance of happening and to use that as an excuse for never leaving her house was the hallmark of a burgeoning mental condition.

Yet she'd been in Diagon Alley less than a month previously without a fear of public spaces. She was fine. She was just avoiding doing anything stupid. Not even for a jar of peanut butter. Or… a peanut butter biscuit.

Of course, she'd been in Diagon Alley with the security of a group of other people, not on her own. On her own… she hadn't gone out for a long time.

For good reason, the other side argued.

Back and forth, and back and forth again, the internal argument growing quickly wearisome as Hermione's body started to tire and her determined climbing of stairs slowed to one where she was less aware of fuelling internal conflict, and much more aware of her pounding heartbeat, panting breaths, and the sickened light-headedness that did the nausea no good. Walking much more slowly through her allotted number of climbs and descends, the argument inside her head became little more than a soundtrack to keep her thoughts occupied as her body sought to give up the exercise. Both sides were probably right, to some extent at least, but there was nothing to do about it, so the debate just got boring.

Yet after those first couple times, Hermione avoided descending all the way down to the ground floor. Her temptation to leave had dimmed. It was the fear of that temptation, though, that kept her from looking too long at the front door.

And that, too, didn't seem healthy. None of it had been healthy. This exercise didn't seem healthy. The draining of what energy she'd had and a growing fear of increasing nausea made it seem like a stupid thing for her to have been recommended.

But Hermione kept her feet trooping through the motions, trying not to lose what momentum she had that was keeping her going. Because the alternative was going back down to the kitchen, and as the pointless internal argument started to fail to keep her mind occupied, she found reason to dread doing that.

Stupid, silly little girl had morphed into entitled, selfish brat. Sirius had let her know it, though he'd done it subtly. Hermione had gotten used to him just taking whatever she threw at him – she'd started to expect it. Supportive; considerate – just letting her become more and more self-absorbed. Likely because he felt pity for her. She'd let herself grow complacent in the idea he'd take things lying down. Think she was more important.

The thoughts started to spiral, growing louder and gaining force like the sudden descent of a gale threatening a hurricane. Hermione's anger had dwindled with her sapped energy. Now it was certainly doused. It left a void self-loathing and shame found easy to fill.

Sirius didn't take everything lying down. That he had been doing so… was probably because he was worried about her.

Hermione had gone off at him, over peanut butter – and did it in front of their friends.

And he felt awful when she cried! What, exactly, constituted emotional manipulation?

Halfway up the third staircase Hermione stopped, turned, and thunked down onto a step.

Was she the abusive one?

Hermione had answers to that question. Some which defended her, many which did not. The thoughts she tried to dwell on longest were those that offered bolstering decisions about how she'd be from now on.

Treating Sirius like that was unacceptable, Hermione could agree with herself on that. So, she directed her thoughts, she needed to change. That was all there was to it. Remorse… self-disgust – the sinking suspicion you were an awful person – that all had a point. The point was it made you recognise what you needed to do differently. So it was a helpful thing.

But directing her thoughts, while it seemed the sane and clever thing to do, didn't stop Hermione sinking head first into a funk that had her sobbing, once again, on the stairs. Three flights up from that door she wanted to run through now for the simple reason of just wanting to get out – run away – she just sat and cried.

What was wrong with her?

The only answer to that was everything, all at once.

And it wasn't like there was a mental health service she could call on that would be safe to attend on her own. It wasn't like there were potions or medications she could take right now. There was a lot of nothing Hermione could do about it. So sitting there, in a puddle of tears, worrying about how much she really was flirting with something that'd have her up to her neck in deep psychological waters… wasn't about to get her anywhere.

But it was probably good to get the tears out now before she saw Sirius again. Get them all out, so he wouldn't see any. Get the cry out, and then take advantage of the numb peace it'd leave in its wake. Then get up, go back down to the kitchen, and face the stupid mess she'd created.

She wasn't alone. Hermione felt like she was. She had a wishy-washy view of the stairwell around her. It was empty. It was quiet. No one was coming to find her. And she felt incredibly isolated. But she wasn't. For all her faults, she did have help. She just had to deal with those faults, and she'd be okay.

Talking herself down. That was probably the best description of it. Hermione talked herself down until the crying slowed, then stopped; then a bit longer, waiting a few minutes more in the hopes her face would recover to some extent.

It hadn't. One staircase down and she took a detour to the bathroom. Her face was puffy and pink. There was no hiding it. Hermione tried cold water splashed on it, but that, as ever, did a lot of nothing.

Alone in a bathroom at three in the afternoon was nowhere near as nice as alone in a pantry at midnight. The sight in the mirror looked hopeless. Fixing her face in the next few minutes was certainly a hopeless endeavour.

Hermione scowled at her reflection. It scowled back at her. Her face was ugly when she scowled. Ugly in general. Fed up with it, Hermione turned away from herself and went back to the damn stairs.

She talked herself down every one of them. Get enough momentum, she told herself, and walk straight on into the kitchen. Be mature. She passed the front door with a contemptuous one second glance at it.

Keep your head up and face it, Hermione told herself on the kitchen steps. And don't cry. Keep up the momentum.

It didn't work fully. She slowed on the last few steps. Irritated with herself, Hermione's return to the kitchen was nonetheless not a mature walk in. She got up only enough courage to peek in through the door.

'Who in their right mind,' Sirius, squatted just inside the pantry, was saying, 'would actually ea–'

Harry had coughed discretely, and Sirius had looked up. Spotting Hermione, he smiled kindly at her.

'Hey Mione,' he said, very gently. 'Have any interest in sauerkraut?' He held up the jar he'd been frowning over. 'I found some. It's still good to eat.'

A small, unrealised part of Hermione had been hoping he had gone out to get peanut butter… despite everything. That he hadn't was a disappointment she quashed immediately. That was perfectly unfair.

'Erm…' Hermione was on the brink of tears all over again. Ginny and Sirius were the only ones properly looking at her, though Harry had taken a quick glance and Neville had given her a brief smile. Ron was deliberately focused on his concocting, something that made Hermione feel guiltier.

'I've never tried it…' she managed. Sauerkraut probably tasted like pickles, only… softer, chewier, and more meaty than the brisk snap one expected with pickles. That was just Hermione's imagined understanding of sauerkraut, though, so whether it would get past the queasiness at the back of her throat… was up for debate. 'I… yes,' she decided, 'I'll try it. Thanks… Sirius.'

Her friends were once more silent as Hermione, unable to hold her head up, crossed the room to take the jar Sirius was holding out. Meeting his non-judgemental grey eyes, Hermione's lip wobbled.

'I'm sorry,' she moaned.

'It's okay,' he said.

'No it's not!' Hermione shook her head. 'I can't shout at you like that! That's a-awful!'

And now she was crying again. And it earned her a hug from Sirius that, while reassuring, did a lot to make Hermione feel rubbish.

'Will the sauerkraut help?' he asked lightly.

'I don't know,' Hermione mumbled into his top. 'Maybe… if it's like kimchi.'

'I've got no idea what kimchi is,' said Sirius. He rubbed her back. 'But if you want some, I can go get it.'

'… I don't know where to buy it.'

'Well I'll add it to the list all the same,' Sirius reassured her. 'Along with the peanut butter. Until then, there's always the sauerkraut. And pickles. And, I'd say I found peanuts, but they don't smell like peanuts, so I suggest you don't eat them. And I can go shopping now, if you want.'

So, right after Hermione had yelled at him, he'd gone looking through the pantry for something that could serve as a good peanut butter substitute. It was like that time, when Hermione had been a little girl, she'd become annoyed with her imprecise, fumbling fingers and asked her dad to finish laying the decals on the bird feeder she and him had made together. It had been late, so she had been cranky. Giving up in a loud, fulminating sort of way, she'd entreated her dad to place the stickers for her in the design she wanted them in, then was tucked into bed. Her dad had put time and effort, that evening after she'd fallen asleep, into doing the job for her, but instead of being thankful in the morning, Hermione had burst into tears and made a big fuss about how it wasn't as she'd wanted it.

It hadn't taken her much younger self long to feel awful about that. She'd even made an "I'm Sorry Dad" card. But, regardless, that memory of how nasty she'd been when her dad had just been being kind and helpful… still made her cringe to this day. She could still see how benign and loving her father's face had looked even while she yelled at him.

Hermione wanted Sirius to go get peanut butter. She wanted him to get quite a few things. But there was no way she could ask that of him now. She'd need at least an "I'm Sorry Sirius" card to feel all right with asking that, and making such a card with coloured pencils was a lot less of an acceptable thing to do when you weren't seven.

So she made herself shake her head, thanked him, apologised again, and, Sirius letting her go, took the jar of pickled cabbage over to the cabinet that held bowls. She had, at the very least, stopped the crying from becoming anything more than a few tears.

From there it was to the forks, then to the table. Neville was scribbling something in his Spagyric Journal that included a surfeit of question marks. Harry was tapping out the rhythm to the lengthy spell he was using on the rim of his glass dish, his wand tip the precise inch and a quarter distance away from the deep green sludge he was transforming inside it. He was doing well, Hermione noted. Harry's previous attempt with the concoction had produced a writhing purple blob Sirius had Vanished immediately. Ron was doing a little less well. Distracted, he glanced up at Hermione. The mixture in his dish was so dark it was nearly black.

Ginny, alone, found it easy to look at Hermione. She quirked an eyebrow, her concoction already bottled.

'So the cravings are bad, are they?' she asked. 'I'm wondering so I can help plan any future pregnancies. It sounds like a good idea to have your own house with your own pantry before then. I already get annoyed with Ron eating everything.'

It was a friendly attempt to make Hermione feel better, and, for the part of her that wasn't aware she didn't deserve an excuse, it worked. What worked a bit better was that it diverted Hermione's attention away from herself. Both Harry and Ron had looked up, the former a little warily, the latter indignantly.

'Don't worry,' Ron said, miffed, 'I'll move out soon. Don't know how dad stands it,' he added in an undertone. 'Between you and mum…'

Ginny opened her mouth to retort, but Neville got there first.

'For my gran it's eel snaps,' he said conversationally. 'She'll threaten you with disembowelment if you touch them. It's all right, though. She always makes sure there's enough shortbread so she can offer you that instead. Honestly,' he confided in them, 'that's how I make sure I can always have shortbread.'

'Eel snaps?' Ron asked, looking disgusted.

Neville nodded.

'If you're over at mine,' he advised Ron, 'and want shortbread, ask for eel snaps.'

'And there's no chance she would actually give me eel snaps?' Ron checked.

'None at all,' Neville confirmed.

It was the coward's way out, to let the conversation continue around her from there rather than break it to apologise to her friends. Sitting silently with her focus on considering whether pickled cabbage did make her feel better, Hermione took the coward's way out.