Chapter Six: Understandings, Revelations, & the Luggage feels off-colour
The luggage was delighted. It had found the Mistress!
She had with her the tall dark one, who didn't make sudden movements or strange, squawking noises like the other creatures the luggage had encountered since it came to Hogwarts. The Mistress seemed to like him. The luggage thought a moment, then firmly lumped him into the same category as Crookshanks.
"You know, I'm starting to get the feeling that your luggage knows exactly what it's doing," Snape observed thoughfully.
"I know what you mean."
They had encountered the trunk not far from the hospital wing; in evident relief, it had scuttled behind Hermione, where it had stayed, bumping her on the back of the legs every time she stopped.
Argus Filch had come stalking along the corridor not long after the luggage. Curiously, tears were glistening in his usually hard eyes.
"Argus," greeted Snape.
"Severus." Then he noticed Hermione and her follower, and drew himself up in an indignant rage. "It's yours then, is it?"
"I'm sorry?"
"That bloody suitcase! It ate Mrs Norris." His glare was baleful. Both Hermione and Snape stared curiously at the luggage, which once again tried to hide behind its Mistress.
"Oh."
"It left just the poor darling's collar, and some little tufts of her fur. The cruel, cruel monster."
Hermione looked helplessly at him. "I don't think there's anything I can do, Mr Filch."
He muttered something that made Hermione's skin bristle and the luggage take a step forward from its hiding place. Deliberately, its lid swung open and displayed two rows of polished teeth and a large, mahogany tongue. Mr Filch remembered something he had forgotten to do in the dungeons and hurried off rapidly to do it.
Hermione laughed. "Thank you, luggage, you were wonderful." Closing its lid smugly, it glowed at the praise. If it could, it would be purring, she thought.
"No one can ever try and say that that thing isn't alive," commented Snape. "Of course, in the case of that trunk, one of the set characteristics known as 'life' is faithfulness, and another one is murderous intent."
The luggage held itself proudly. "It's flattered," the Mistress observed.
The luggage certainly was. No other item in the entire chronicle of travel accessories had quite such a history of mystery and grievous bodily harm. Its progress was always marked by debris, people who got nervous at the sound of hurrying little footsteps, and whole communities who were unusually polite to strangers. It thought 'faithful' and 'murderous' was a very good description of its purpose in life.
"I think your luggage rather enjoys the attention," remarked Snape, as they resumed walking, in the direction of the Great Hall.
"Yes, it probably does it good to get out and meet people," said Hermione.
But not cats, the trunk added silently. It had been feeling distinctly queasy ever since it swallowed the thing the nasty man called "Mrs Norris".
While this was going on, Headmaster Dumbledore settled his guests at the High Table and introduced them to lunch. This was a greatly varied spread, of food of many different types, shapes, sizes and descriptions, and even something of a mottled purple colour that wriggled when you looked at it.
Hagrid ate it with gusto. But then, as he was quick to point out, "There's no finer delicacy than trendleworms if yer can find 'em, and they're very hard ter find. Me Fang found a whole bunch in the Forest, though." Both Susan and Frank looked around for this Fang. Anything such a giant saw fit to term Fang sounded dangerous.
"When can we go home?" Susan murmured. Her husband shrugged, and his expression clearly said that he only wished he knew.
"This place gives me the creeps," he announced in a flat voice.
Dumbledore watched with no expression. "Really? Are we then all so vile and disgusting?"
Frank hesitated. The thought had crossed his mind, only very fast and looking nervously from side to side in case it got knocked over.
"N-no, of course n-not," he stammered.
"Flamin' liar," muttered Hagrid. "'Ermione's yer flippin' daughter, an' all yer can think about is 'how strange' she is. Yer ought ta be ashamed a yerselves, yer should!"
Dumbledore's eyebrows raised. "Now, Hagrid," he said firmly, and the half-giant subsided, falling silent to poke the funny purple things on his plate around a bit. He wasn't all that hungry any more, even if trendleworms were on the menu.
"I know this is a lot for you to take in," Dumbledore said, "but I'm not asking you to wholeheartedly embrace everything to do with magic. Just not to reject it out of hand."
"We've tried. For six whole years, we've tried."
"Is one more year so difficult then?"
You don't understand. The two dentists exchanged glances, nodded thoughtfully, turning away from their plates to meet the eyes of Hogwarts' headmaster.
Hermione's father sighed. "The whole time she's been going here, she's been growing away from us. The little girl we first sent here we lost long ago. She stopped coming home when a stranger arrived with tales of broomsticks, spells, people changing into animals and potions that could do anything from let you walk through flames, re-grow bones or turn you into a canary!"
Hagrid snorted. He couldn't help it.
A smile tugged at the ends of Dumbledore's mouth.
"It sounds to me as if you enjoy these stories, Mr Granger."
"If they were only stories, I would enjoy them. But the girl who took my little 'Mione's place insists they're real. And this place of yours is even more elaborate than anything she's made up. It's too hard for me to sit here and accept everything I think I'm seeing."
"But surely, you accepted everything your daughter has told you about magic for the entire time she's been a student at Hogwarts. Even if it was just by turning a blind eye, can't you continue to do it for a few more months? It won't even be an entire year before Hermione has graduated. Do you need to split your family up so abruptly?"
"She's not family. Our daughter is gone. That girl you're protecting is a stranger to us." Frank sat back and crossed his arms, looking decisive and determined for the first time since entering a world he didn't – wouldn't – understand.
"Huh! I don't claim to understand Muggles, but yer all a bunch of cowards, far as I ken see. What makes yer afraid of a little magic? Yer got lots a things in yer world I don't know abut, but that don't make me afraid a' them. What's wrong with yer?"
Hagrid got to his feet and leant across the table. He was a wild man not far from the tales of Jack and the Beanstalk. Hermione's parents starting looking around for the golden-egg laying goose.
Instead, they found a small figure outlined in the massive doorway.
Hermione choked back a startled sob.
"Thanks, Hagrid," she said wryly. "It's nice to know that someone still cares about me."
"Don' worry, 'Ermione. I'll look after yer."
"Oh, wonderful." Frank snorted loudly. "The little witch of the west and the big, not-so-friendly giant have teamed up. Not forgetting old Merlin at the table who wants us all to be one big happy family. Where's the rest of the collective? Looks like we're just missing Frankenstein. Where's he? Out getting his bolts polished?"
"Please, Dad. Can't we just talk sensibly?" Hermione's tone was conciliatory, placatory. Somehow, she always seemed to be pushed into the role of peacekeeper whenever her parents started to talk about magic. Magic was a red rag to often-bullish natures.
"'Please, Dad…'" he mocked, his face turning an unpleasant shade of red. "If I were your 'Dad', if you were really my daughter and not some goblin or gremlin changeling, we wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be having this conversation. You're no daughter of ours. You're a flaming impossibility."
"Then what are yer doin' 'ere? Yer oughta be leavin'!"
"Now, Hagrid," Dumbledore interjected in a conciliatory tone. "Mr Granger is just a little overwrought. He doesn't mean that." His blue eyes, raking over Mr Granger, suggested denial could be injurious to his health.
Either he was oblivious, or Frank was too worked up to care. "I do mean that!" he yelled.
The atmosphere in the Hall became frosty.
"I think we've put up with this nonsense far too long! You want her, you've got her! I don't even believe in this whole magic thing. It's stupid. And it's crazy, and no real daughter of mine would want anything to do with it…"
"Maybe I'm not any real daughter of yours, then. Maybe you can just go to hell. Both of you. I don't want to be related to anyone so close-minded, anyway. Goodbye, good riddance, and I hope you find your way out without getting eaten. I'd hate something to get indigestion because of you."
Frank sneered. But Hermione was accompanied by someone who had far greater practice in sneering than the normally mild-mannered dentist, and when he stepped into the light, the other man flinched and made an involuntary move backwards.
"Oh, do continue, Mr Granger," Snape purred silkily. "I was so interested in what you were saying…"
"Ummm…"
"I'm sorry. I didn't quite catch that." He walked towards him, radiating menace. Something in the careful considered pace, the way the long, black robes outlined the lean figure, gave Frank a desire to be very cautious indeed.
The dark eyes glinted with an expression usually reserved for Harry Potter. "Stupid, did you say? Crazy? How very…curious."
"I'm warning you!" Desperately, Hermione's father snatched a sharp knife from the table and held it, wavering, in front of him. "I'm armed! And I'm very dangerous! You'd better keep back if you don't want that fancy costume slit in ribbons!"
Snape laughed. The simple coldness of the sound made the dentist's hand shake more. "Frank…" Susan laid a placating hand on his arm, shooting wild glances at the figure that loomed before them like something out of Dracula.
"Not now, Susan," he said, and brought the knife up again. "Are you listening to me?"
"Oh, I'm listening," the wizard assured him. Behind him, the luggage took up a protective position in front of Hermione.
"Then you'll know that I mean what I say. Now begone!"
"Oh, very well." Snape waved a languid hand, holding a wand which seemed to have come from nowhere. "Expelliarmus." The knife slipped from his hand and slithered along the floor to Severus' feet. He stooped to pick it up, keeping his wand pointed at the muggles the whole time.
"Anything else that you wanted to say to me?"
Frank was starting to run out of words. "How…how…what…"
"That's magic, Dad." Hermione. "That's something I learnt to do in first year. It's usually used in duelling, of course-" and a sad tone crept into her voice "-but it's equally as useful when someone insists on doing something silly, like threatening an adult wizard. Do you have any idea of what he could have done to you?"
She laughed, softly. Tears glistened on her face. "Please, I want to you understand what my life is like. I don't want you to do something stupid and get turned into a bouncing ferret. You're still my parents, even if you don't want to acknowledge me." Snape's words from the infirmary floated back to her as she spoke, and she added, "Even if I don't understand you, I still love you."
Dad regarded her with a mixture of finality and sadness. "You're a stranger now, 'Mione," he said. The old nickname sounded strange, all of a sudden, coming out of his mouth.
"I don't know who you are. And it frightens me. And your mother. This place is the opposite of everything we've ever learnt. It shouldn't exist." He breathed in, heavily. "The people who live here shouldn't exist. Like old Gandalf over there, and Fi-fi-fo-fum, and Dracula! I don't want any part of this. If you're our daughter, then you'll come back with us today."
Hermione stared at him in anguish. "You know I can't do that, Dad," she said.
"Then don't. Don't ever come back."
She nodded. "Okay, I won't. Goodbye."
Swallowing the bile in her mouth, Hermione fled the room.
"Excuse me." Nodding to Dumbledore, Snape tossed the forgotten knife onto the table – narrowly missing Frank – and followed her. The luggage stayed long enough to snap its lid threateningly at the Grangers, before it too stalked indignantly out of the Hall.
"Even that hook-nosed, greasy git cares more about 'Ermione than yeh seem ter, yer cold-hearted goblins," Hagrid spat out angrily.
He got up. "Don' think I'm very 'ungry now, either, 'Eadmaster."
The doors slammed shut behind him and vibrated in their frame. Dumbledore asked quietly, "Are you sure about this?"
"Yes." They shared a glance that seemed to stiffen both their spines, without the help of the Skel-e-grow that Snape had felt like putting in their coffee. "If this is what she wants, then she's welcome to it, but we don't have to be a part of it."
"You do realise that you're making your daughter choose between her family and her friends? Between you and a way of life she loves?"
Another glance. This time Susan shifted on her feet. But "I think she made that choice a long time ago, Professor," was all she said.
Snape caught up with Hermione when she reached her room. The door swung violently on its hinges when she wrenched it upon, and ignoring the mirror's greeting, flung herself furiously on the bed.
And started to shake.
"Miss Granger?" Hermione frowned into her pillow as Snape came around the room to sit on the bed beside her. Seizing her shoulder, he gently pulled her face around to look at him. "Your parents don't deserve you," he said quietly. "You can't change them; they shouldn't have tried to change you. But it's over now. Let yourself grieve. Let it out. Don't keep it inside where it can scar you. That's giving their rejection power that it doesn't warrant. It can be a good thing. If you understand it, learn from it, it's possible to come out of such an experience, not unchanged, but changed for the better. Though heaven knows it's hard."
She sat up and took him by the arms, meaning to move him, but for some reason her hands tightened till that grip was the only thing holding her up. It was only then that she realised she was crying, sobbing into his robes like a child. What must he think of her? She opened her mouth to tell him she was alright, to apologise for breaking down, but what came out was, "But I don't understand! I don't-" She gritted her teeth to shut herself off.
"I know," he murmured, stroking her hair gently. "I know."
She wanted to stop, but the more he held her and whispered understanding, the more she wept, as though his hands soft on her head were smoothing the tears out of her.
Dumbledore saw the girl's parents to their home before going in search of her himself.
When he reached the dungeons, he found the luggage sitting firmly outside the room he had assigned to Hermione. "May I go in?" he asked it.
The luggage said no. It did this by backing up against the door until the only way to enter the room would be to go through it…and going through something displaying two rows of vicious teeth in its inside didn't seem like a very viable option to the Headmaster.
"Well, I guess you know best," he said, and summoned himself a chair so that he could sit down beside it. Now assured that he wasn't going to try and enter the room, the luggage relaxed.
But it didn't move from its position in front of the door. Not that Dumbledore expected it to.
Together, they waited.
The girl spins wildly on the spot. "Catch me Daddy, catch me!"
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Ice cream sticky hands reach up and clasp around her waist. Laughter. Little brown eyes stare into laughing big ones. "Push me on the swings, Daddy!"
"Anything, Angel."
Now she's standing in line at a department store, clinging tightly to Mummy's hand. They are waiting to buy the frilly gold party dress for her birthday party. It is her first party ever.
In nine days, two hours and forty-six minutes, she will be five years old.
Crowds push in, she stumbles. Mummy wraps an arm around her and hugs her close. The little girl buries her head in Mummy's jumper. Sniffles. "Mummy, my feet hurt."
"It won't be long, now love. Just be patient."
"Don't wanna be patient!"
Mummy's face tightens. "Behave."
Daddy's glaring, too, behind his glasses. The girl is puzzled. Where did Daddy come from? And why are they out on the pier? The pier is in South London, on the Thames, and she was supposed to be out shopping.
But no. There's a fishing rod in her hands, and she's dressed much the same as Daddy, in slacks and heavy jumper to brave the morning cold.
Daddy's not happy. She knows she can't catch fish, but he shouldn't be glaring at her like that.
"What is it, Dad?"
"If I were your 'Dad', if you were really my daughter and not some goblin or gremlin changeling, we wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be having this conversation."
"What?"
"You're no daughter of ours."
The girl doesn't understand. She stares, frantically, at him. But he turns away, won't look at her, packing up his rod and walking off, leaving her there.
"Dad, wait!"
"You're a stranger now, 'Mione."
He's gone. She searches the pier desperately. "Dad…"
How? Where? Why?
Losing her footing, she flounders into the murky water, and falls out through into her living room.
Mum's doing the crossword in the Times, across from a welcoming, roaring fire. She tries to warm herself, but it gives off no heat.
"Mum, what's wrong with the fire?"
Mum ignores her, keeps puzzling over the paper.
"Mum!"
Mum puts down her pencil, and turns to face her, expression unusually grave.
"It's you again, is it? What do you want?"
The girl blinks confusedly. "I live here."
"No, you don't. You chose to leave us. You've made your choice, 'Mione, and now you'll just have to learnt to live with it, and whatever it happens to mean. By yourself, as you seem to want."
"I've done something?" What, whatever could she mean? The girl is too young to understand.
"You might not know now, but you will. This is it, Hermione. This is goodbye, because our paths are too different to converge any longer. So long, love. Farewell…and good luck."
"Mum?" Pleading, crying. Wiping ten-year-old eyes with chubby ten-year-old fingers.
"Sorry, love. I'm so very sorry."
Mum brushes the tears from the girl's eyes, and straightens her clothes impassively. The girl looks down and finds she's wearing some kind of fancy costume.
"Mum, what is this?"
Sad smile. "What you've chosen, darling. And I can't say I don't wish it were otherwise, but you've plenty of people to take care of you there, and I know there's no other road you can take. Best be off now, then." She steps back and raises one hand in farewell. But the girl doesn't want to go.
"Please, can you explain, Mum? What's going on? What IS this? And what are you talking about?"
"You'll find out soon enough, love. And you already know, really, only you're choosing not to admit it at the moment. I daresay you want to be a child a little longer."
"I'm not a child!" The angry declaration snaps quickly out from between her lips. Hands land firmly on her hips. Chins rises, defiantly. "I'm nearly eleven. I'm not a little girl any more!"
"No, of course you're not." Mum checks her watch absently. "He'll be here any moment now. Are you ready?"
Ready? Ready for what?
"Mum?"
"Okay, it's time now. Remember everything you've learnt, and remember, just because you don't see certain people any more, it's not because they don't care about you, or because you shouldn't care for them, just that some people need a little longer to adjust to things that can't be helped. Eventually you'll sort it out between you."
"Mum, are you talking about Grandad?" Grandad had died two years ago and was the only person the little girl didn't see any more that she could think of.
Mum shakes her head sadly. "No, dear. Come on then, he'll be impatient if you don't turn up." She leads her to the door which vanishes at her touch, and down along the cobbled driveway. A dark figure stands at the gate, cloaked in ebony robes and seemingly unaffected by the wind that buffets the girl's every step.
Mum stops just inside the gate. "Go on love, this is your show now."
"Come with me, Mum, please. I'm frightened."
"Sorry…"
Just a whisper and she is gone.
"Well? Are you coming?" The dark figure turns unreadable eyes to her, and she quails under their forthright gaze.
But she takes the last step forward, and puts her little hand into his outstretched one.
The wind disappears.
And Hermione wakes, hair plastered to her scalp by sweat, staring around her with wild, unseeing eyes.
Snape stayed with the girl until she fell into an unsteady, uneven exhausted sleep. Then he went to the door, where he found not surprised, Dumbledore asleep in a light wicker chair, the luggage by his feet.
The old wizard opened his eyes immediately came the sound of the other's footsteps. Not such a heavy sleep, then. If he really had been asleep.
"How is she, Severus?"
"Asleep."
"The poor child."
There was silence for a moment while Snape considered all the things he could say, that warred with his tongue for attention. To keep any of them coming out, he bit down on it fiercely.
"She will come to terms with it."
"As you did, Severus?" A raised eyebrow. "Turning away from the world might lessen the sting of rejection a little, but it brings with it worse pains, like loneliness and envy and an endless stream of might-have-beens."
Snape's face shuttered closed. "Keep your oratory to yourself, old man. I have no need of it, and Miss Granger is asleep. Perhaps when she wakes she will appreciate your wisdom. Until then, good day."
With distant eyes and cat-light footfalls, he strode off along the corridor. Dumbledore watched him go with a sad look of his own. As he'd feared, then. The similarity of Miss Granger's experience to Severus' own had reopened all the old wounds he had kept buried for twenty-two years.
Sighing, the Headmaster leant down a hand to rub lightly the luggage's lid. "At least we've never had those problems, have we, old friend?" he murmured, and the luggage, quiescent for once, purred softly in agreement.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disclaimers & Author's Notes:
All characters from the Harry Potter series are the property of J.K. Rowling. Though I am borrowing them, all I get out of it is fun. The luggage belongs to Terry Pratchett's Discowrld series; I'm not quite sure what Rincewind's going to do now Hermione's got Luggage, but I'm perfectly happy to buy him a hold-all, if he likes!
Some of the description of the luggage's characteristics comes in part from Pratchett's The Discworld Companion, and The Light Fantastic. I have to correct my earlier statement that the luggage first appeared in the latter novel, since in rereading The Colour of Magic, the very first Discworld novel, I found it features quite predominantly.
Similarly, I have 'borrowed' part of the scene where Snape comforts 'Mione in the dungeon; about a paragraph of this is scabbed, with alterations, from one book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.
Apologies to everyone for the lateness in posting; I've made this a little longer to compensate. But I have just moved out of home in order to go to uni, and the last few weeks I haven't had internet access (due to my home access being cut off and not being able to get down to the uni computer labs), nor the time to write anything!
Andolyn – I'm very happy to get such an enthusiastic review from you! I've been reading your "Muggle" story with great interest and it just keeps getting better and better.
Jade – once again, your comments make me feel all warm and happy and buttery inside, sort of like Dumbledore when he's just had hot chocolate and buttered toast. But seriously, I absolutely *love* your reviews. They give me inspiration and encouragement to write!
Amy Lee - Don't worry, I have an idea that will make Filch feel a lot happier about the luggage and Mrs Norris! I think I've answered your questions about 'Mione's parents, her and Snape, though…
Annabella – I suppose everyone needs a little luggage in their life… grin Oh well. Even if Pratchett created it, I've brought it to the Potterverse, and I'm glad so many people like it. But I am totally in awe of Pratchett's genius.
PotionsMastersMistress – Hedwig is safe. I promise.
Starlight, PotionsMastersMistress, Annabella & everyone else who commented about the PtQ thing – Your comments have made me feel a lot better! I've corresponded with Irene; she has raised some interesting points, but all coincidental. And very much to do with D.E. = Bad Things; wouldn't it be interesting now to see them selling candy floss at a carnival? And Voldie can operate the merry-go-round, just to prove what a little sweetie he is. J
Deborah – I've always thought that even if Snape was hellbent on being nasty, he had to have a good reason for it. And J.K. isn't very forthcoming with her hints & reasons. I have a nasty suspicion that we'll have to wait till the end of book 7 for the whole story on his past. So I decided to fill the gaps a little…
kjsparkles – thank you for that. I'll certainly keep your request in mind; it's very reasonable and a very, very, good point. I'm not quite sure how they will eventually end up together, but it will be a long ride. It has to be, to be feasible!!
Strega Brava – Maybe they make indigestion tablets for suitcases. I'm not sure. I'll have to look into it.