Happy belated holiday!
IMPORTANT NOTE AT THE BOTTOM!
Chapter 17 - Time at ZSL
July 5th, 1992 (Sunday)
Location: ZSL London Zoo (Zoological Society of London)
Meissa peers through the glass with a giddy childish grin, humming softly as she studies the many colorful fishes swimming through the tank. She's particularly fond of the tiger shark she sees every once awhile.
It doesn't even look remotely close to the tigers she saw earlier.
Daphne has a grasp on her hand - Meissa had ran off one too many times in everyone's opinion - but it's in a loose hold. Just enough to make sure she doesn't get separated from the group yet loose to keep her from freaking out from the prolonged contact.
Yet, of the two of them, Meissa has the tightest grasp.
"Can we have a pet shark?" the raven haired girl whispers, tracking the shark with her eyes.
"No," Daphne shakes her head, pondering, for the upmost time, the childish lilt in her friend's voice.
It's been present almost since their arrival at the zoo and it's a stark reminder of the day they left Hogwarts. Unlike that day, however, Meissa seems to know who Hermione and Daphne are. There was an indication that she did not recognize Henry and Jean but the second Hermione acknowledged her parents as such the tension in the raven haired girl all but evaporated.
"Aw," the other girl pouts but doesn't protest too much as Daphne encourages her into moving on.
She gets captivated easily by the sea dragons at the next tank. Daphne has to admit defeat and simply stands back to keep an eye on her best friend. She makes a game to distract the other girl - how many sea dragons she can find by one strand of kelp.
While Meissa is counting the sea dragons Hermione joins them, burdened with drinks and soft pretzels for the trio. Her dad had gone with her to get the snacks and, upon returning, went to join Jean at a seat while they waited for the girls to finish enjoying the aquarium.
"Sea dragons," Hermione observes, noting that Meissa is completely captivated by the countless little sea dragons floating around their kelps.
She hands out a pretzel to Daphne as they keep an eye on Meissa. The other girl had elected to go from one tank to another, exclaiming excitedly at the various aquatic animals available for viewing.
Daphne's not entirely sure when they let go of each other's hands.
"What do you think so far?" Hermione asks lightly, passing over the large cup.
"It's amazing. But she's having more fun than us," Daphne remarks with an amused grin.
"What are you interested in then?"
"Mm, there's the theater. Every year the theater puts on the story of Merlin."
"He's from the story of King Arthur, right?"
"Daphne!" they hear just before the other girl bounds back towards them, throwing her arms around the other girl. "Can we go see more fishes?"
"How about we go see the reptiles? We've been in the aquarium for almost thirty minutes," the blond suggests.
"Oh! A snake!"
Not for the first time, Daphne wonders about this side of her friend.
~MJB~
A low groan escapes Meissa's throat as she comes around - a slight pounding in the back of her head as she tries to take stock of herself and her surroundings.
She's in the car.
Daphne's head is resting on her shoulder.
The sun is setting.
Wait.
"What?" she mutters, leaning forward as she looks around.
There's music playing.
Henry is driving - wasn't Jean the one driving earlier?
"Meissa? Are you okay?"
She looks at the Gryffindor to find her lowering a book, her eyebrows furrowed in concern.
She sees a colorful bag on the floor of the car - it has an image of an animal decorating the surface of it and she can see the tip of a cap poking out of the bag.
They've gone somewhere.
Except… she couldn't remember anything.
"I… where did we go?"
Jean turns to look at her.
"We just left the zoo, sweetie," Jean answers, her voice dropping a pitch. "You haven't been sleeping for long."
"A zoo?" Meissa mutters, racking her mind for anything. She turns and shakes Daphne as the edge of panic starts to grip her while Hermione peers at her.
She couldn't remember anything beyond the conversation about the pureblood's selectiveness. That had been several hours before midday. Now it's getting close to twilight.
"Meissa… is this like what happened with Pansy?" Hermione asks as Daphne rubs her eyes, slow to waking. Hermione didn't ask if it's like that time before the train left. Their previous conversations had indicated that Meissa had noticed nothing amiss in between packing for the trip home to arriving at the platform.
"Hey…" Daphne mutters, tangling her fingers with Meissa's. Ensnaring the panicking girl's attention and causing her to calm just a little. "Breathe," she whispers even further. Meissa shudders before lowering her head onto Daphne's shoulder, allowing the blond to run her fingers through her hair.
"What did I hear about Pansy?" Daphne asks after the shakes in Meissa's shoulders has ebbed away.
Hermione frowns as she glances at her mother. She was still keeping an eye on them but for the most part she has turned to face the road again. Still, it doesn't mean that this will be a private conversation.
"She doesn't remember the zoo," Hermione whispers.
"That explains a few things."
This has Meissa pulling away from Daphne in confusion. "What?" She grips the blonde's hand tightly as she searches her eyes. "How was I -?"
"Shh… in a bit, okay?" Daphne mutters before the other girl could work herself into a frenzy.
With an irritated scowl Meissa glances over the interior of the car, registering the interested gaze of the elder Grangers. Wordlessly she nods to accept the pause in the conversation grounding herself and shoving the anxieties and frustrations aside into the pools. Instead she decides to ask them about their day.
After five minutes she starts to turn red from the secondhand embarrassment.
Although, she wished she has memories of seeing the sharks - they sound awesome.
~MJB~
The second they got back to the house they disappeared into the attic before Jean or Henry could call them back. The attic is an entirely large space lined with shelves which, in turn, is burdened with books. Big and small, thick and thin - just about every imaginable book a person could conceive of is on these shelves. Despite the setting sun it's clear that the library has plenty of natural lights with lamps here and there for a little bit of night reading. It's easy to imagine that Hermione would pull an all-nighter, curled up with a book in her lap.
It's a book nerd ideal world.
It suits Hermione perfectly.
In one corner of the attic they find comfortable seats near the large bay windows. There, Daphne and Hermione settled on the window seats while Meissa paces back and forth.
"Tell me everything," Meissa growls, her hair twisting beneath her hands.
"Meissa… how long have you been getting black outs?" Hermione asks instead.
"I don't know. Since… I was eight?"
"How often."
She makes a frustrated noise as she threw up her hands. "I don't know!"
"Meissa." Daphne goes to her, bracing her hands on the other girl's shoulders.
The taller girl lets a frustrated noise escape her before she forces herself to, once again, shove all of that into a pool.
"I don't know," she repeats softly. "Sometimes… hours pass. Or I'm in another room… Sometimes, the room I was in is trashed - that one happened a lot after I turned nine." She pulls away from the blonde with a shudder, crossing her arms defensively. "I was… always angry. I still am," she mutters the last bit to herself, stubbornly ignoring the itch on her shoulder as she tries to forget.
Tries to keep from thinking about that time.
"Do you ever remember trashing the rooms?" Hermione's voice is soft and gentle. The voice of someone who doesn't want to provoke a beast.
"Sometimes." She looks out a window, at the darkening skies. "Only some of it. I once broke a few things and… I guess I exhausted myself at some point 'cause everything was broken when I came to. Aunt Cissy looked so worried…
"Why does this matter," she turns to Hermione as she shakes away the memory of one of her worse rampages.
Screams. Crying. Magic flying everywhere. Narcissa's stern voice cutting through it all.
Then nothing.
"You weren't yourself," Daphne answers softly, "at the zoo I mean. It was like… all the worries you ever had in your life was gone."
"I find that hard to believe."
"It's true," Hermione injects. "In the entire year I've known you, not once have I ever seen you so carefree."
"I can be carefree!"
"Not like that. You didn't make one snide comment, one sarcastic remark about the sounds -," Hermione pauses as something came to her. "Wait… you didn't have a migraine."
"What?"
Daphne looks at Hermione, just as confused as Meissa, as the Gryffindor presses a hand to her forehead. "What are you going on about?"
"Think about it - Meissa should've had a sensory overload from all the smells, the sounds," Hermione gestured before she grimaces. The zoo was the worse place they could've taken the Slytherin to with her tendency for migraines, "Why didn't I think of that before we went?"
Meissa grimaces as she gets the impression that she probably should avoid the place in the future. It sounds an awful lot like the magical menagerie. She can still remember the migraine she had gotten while at the menagerie just before her aunt had given her the potion for the migraine. But it does beg the question - why did she not develop one of her usual headaches.
"Meissa…" Daphne frowns as she looks at the stunned raven-haired girl, "Hermione has a point."
She nods her head in silent agreement, crossing her arms as she considers this. She has had migraines for as long as she could remember - too much sounds, stress, extreme anger, all were the usual triggers for her migraines.
The fact that the zoo hadn't triggered one is nerve wrecking.
~MJB~
Hi again.
I want to apologize for the long period without updates. Around the time of the previous update (October 19 ish ) I caught wind of a hack that was going around on ffn. I'm still unsure if it's still happening or if things are better now. So, the most part I have been updating on Ao3 (Archive of our Own) but I didn't want any of ya'll to think I've abandoned the story here.
That's nowhere near the truth.
So, I'll be for sure posting on Ao3 and keeping an eye on how things progress on ffn. If any of ya'll know anything about the hack (profile/account hack) lemme know. If you have an account on Ao3 you can follow the series there (same titles for the stories) and find me under the name of Xandiki. If you don't have an account, I think it's fairly simple to start a new one - there is a minor waiting period but I think it's worth it imo.
As usual, don't forget to leave a review! Have a great day/night.