Castaways on a Sullen Sea
By weasleywheezes
Chapter 9 – Waifs and Strays
Hermione returned to the little house on Dorsett Lane. Her mother had placed herself into a mental institution not long after Hermione's graduation from Hogwarts. Hermione and Crookshanks continued on by themselves for a while, until one evening Hermione came home after attending a Weird Sisters concert in Knebworth and found her ginger cat dead on the floor, having asphyxiated on a mouse. Hermione was alone with her thoughts and nothing to buffer them.
It had been three weeks since she last saw Professor Snape. He had not tried to contact her. Hermione had sent a letter via Pig (Ron had let her borrow the owl for the summer), but when he returned, there was no answer. She started to think that perhaps the tender kiss they had shared was an aberration.
She took the opportunity to pour through her mother's personal articles. Her mother seemed to be clinically depressed, and would be in the hospital for a long while yet. Hermione thought, in case of something else happening, it would be a good idea to know where everything was in the house.
She found her baby book, a leather notebook with "The Tale of Hermione Eurydice Maris Granger" embossed in gold on the front. Hermione Eurydice Maris Granger. It had a certain intellectual sound to it, she thought. Her parents knew she would be an extraordinary child and therefore gave her an extraordinary name, but she often wished they had named her something normal like "Audrey" or even something boring like "Edith".
Looking through the book, seeing pictures of her father holding her up on his shoulders with her laughing, smiling mother looking on, Hermione felt a sense of isolation she had never felt before. There were no family, no friends, and no cat to share her life with. For the first time in her life, she knew exactly how Harry had felt for so many years, and it caused her pain. What puzzled her most of all was the feeling that she would gladly give up all of what she missed just to be near him again.
"Please, Miss Granger, call me Severus," he had said, and she wondered if it was an invitation to take him into her heart.
Severus Snape. It was an extraordinary name, too. She questioned whether his mother and father knew he would be a remarkable man, if Severus was a family name, if he hated it as much as she hated her own name.
Severus fled Hogwarts as soon as his duties allowed him. The dungeon was no longer his own realm, but a place of cruelty where he lived Hermione's kiss over and over.
The ancestral manor seemed even more ramshackle and despicable. He walked around the grounds, snipping dead branches off of his numerous trees and generally releasing his frustration out on the helpless plants. Humming Mahler's Symphony #5 loudly, and with every note pruning more and more off of the tress, Severus tried to escape the constant reminders of Miss Granger.
When he returned to the house, Gromnett had started a fire to ward off the slight chill of the sea breezes, and set a tureen of soup out for his master. Severus was glad to have Gromnett's company, even if he was a house-elf.
Coming back to his childhood home was always difficult. He loved the land. His family was fortunate enough to have planted thousands of trees around the terrain, mixed with the fresh salt air and the rolling hills. It looked like a fairy tale, but the vexing memories, the constant roar of the ocean mingled with the roar of his uneasy mind was nearly too much for him to grasp.
He had received an owl from Hermione the week after classes ended. The parchment was tattered now; as he had read it constantly since the day he got it.
Dear Severus,
I am writing to you to ask if you would kindly write a letter of reference for me to a few universities. I have enclosed a list. Since you have tutored me in many subjects, I thought you might understand me better than some of the other teachers. Actually, I know you do. I'm sorry I ran from you, but I was afraid. I am still afraid, but I think we can be good friends, if we try.
Ever your Hermione
It was such a simple note, but it said so much to Severus. When he first read it, he thought it was just a letter asking for a few references, but upon further scrutiny, he saw the deeper meaning in it, not the least the way she ended the missive. Ever your Hermione, as if she wanted to be his.
Severus tried to write a letter back, but each one became epistles of love, which he wanted to stay away from. He even tried to write a few letters for the magical universities she had listed, but those, too, turned into an admission of devotion on his part.
"This is the most loathsome emotion," he thought.
The owl hovered in front of the television, waiting for Hermione to take the message strapped to his leg.
"Blasted owl! Move, I'm trying to watch my programme!" Hermione hissed, as she endeavoured to shoo the bird towards a table.
It was the first letter by owl post she had received in almost a month. Harry was spending a blissful summer with the Weasleys, travelling to Romania to visit Charlie. Ron and Harry usually sent postcards, but for some reason, they didn't during this trip. Hermione was glad for the missive, but agitated that the owl kept flying in front of EastEnders. "Bloody owl! Land already!"
She plucked the letter off the owl's leg and saw the tight, loopy scribbling. "Ron," she said, smiling broadly.
Dear Hermione,
Harry and I are having a great time. We've seen Norbert (remember him?) and Charlie's taken me, Harry, Fred and George to Transylvania to look for Lupin (he's hiding out up here for the summer. This place is crawling with werewolves!). Ginny and Mum have sent me owls asking if I've heard from you. Maybe you should send them a note? They really miss you. Sorry I haven't written, but we've just been so busy. Write back and tell me about your summer.
Love,
Ron
P.S. We saw some statues of Vlad the Impaler and he looks a lot like Snape.
Hermione sighed. Even out of school, Ron couldn't help but put Professor Snape down. She wondered if there would ever be a time in which Snape wouldn't be a running joke with Ron and Harry. She turned the television off and grabbed her baby book. Flipping through, she saw a snippet of hair, her first tooth, a footprint in purple ink. She smiled. Those were easy days, before she knew about witchcraft and Dark Lords and Norwegian Ridgeback dragons.
"Dad, catch me!"
"Hold on, precious!" He spun her around like a helicopter.
"Lionel! Lionel, be careful! Don't hit her head on the tree!"
"Maris, are you ready? You have the camera, right? Take one of me throwing Hermione in the air…"
"Daaaad…catch me!"
A large amount of bushy hair flew into the air, giggles effervesced. The young man smiled. He had a slight overbite like his daughter. "Hermione, my precious, I love you."
The soft hooting of the owl brought her back to her senses. Hermione wiped a few errant tears away. She gave the owl (perhaps Charlie's, she thought) a liver treat and he flew away. Hermione closed the baby book and turned the television back on. It was classics hour, an ancient episode of "So Graham Norton" flickering on the set. She groaned.
"Brainless. I wish I were in Romania."
She sat down at her desk and composed a letter, not to Ron, but to Severus.
Dear Severus,
I wanted you to know that I've also sent an owl to Professor McGongall about the referral letters, so if you need to discuss anything with a fellow teacher, you can contact her.
Sincerely,
Hermione Granger
"There. Short and businesslike," she said. She strapped the letter to Pig's leg and tossed him out the window.
"Stupid girl!"
Severus threw the parchment toward the roaring fire. It licked the edges of the paper greedily. He ran his hands through his lank hair.
"Gromnett, please draw me a bath. I have a lot of thinking to do."
The house-elf bowed low and scurried towards the master bathroom. Severus took a book down from his shelf and began reading. He noticed something about love being Divine.
"Ruddy Victorians," he glowered. He put the book back in its place and walked into the bathroom. The large porcelain tub was filled with steaming water, causing the room to fog up. Severus discarded his robes and sunk into the bath, dipping his head back to wet his hair. Drops fell into his face, but he ignored them.
He took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind, but all he could think of was Hermione, her face streaked with tears, her soft lips on his. He stuck his face in the water quickly, and then funnelled the water away from his eyes. Severus took a bar of bay rum soap and vigorously scrubbed his skin, then delicately skimmed over the top of the Dark Mark. The soap foamed, acting as a cauterisation of the mark, filling Severus with searing pain as it faded from view. Severus grimaced, then placed his arm into the warm water. The pain eased. He lifted his arm up, and watched as the mark slowly began to darken. He stood up and dried himself off, slipping his nightshirt on and pulling his hair back. "Every time, I think it might go away," he said wistfully, as he stared at the symbol.
The telephone roused Hermione from a fitful sleep. She rubbed her hands over her eyes and glanced out the window. It was still pitch black. "Granger residence," she said sleepily.
"Harmony Granger?"
"It's Hermione…"
"Pardon. Hermione. My name is Gillian King. I am the administrator at St. Teresa's Home. Could you please come down as soon as possible?"
Hermione swallowed hard and breathlessly answered that she would be there as soon as she could. She rose from her bed, and quickly slipped on a pair of dungarees and a soft purple t-shirt bearing the crest of Viktor's Quidditch team. Running downstairs, she grabbed a granola bar to munch. Hermione wished that she could legally Apparate near Muggles, or that St. Teresa's Home was connected to the Floo Network. Then she remembered that if even it were connected to the Floo Network, she never bothered to buy any Floo Powder. She called a taxi service, then took a train to Bristol. Once she arrived at the station, she found a bus, and arrived downtown at the mental institution that held her mother.
The sun had risen long ago; the last sweeps of purple and gold were fading from the sky. It was a perfectly cloudless day, unparalleled in its midsummer beauty, Hermione noted as she entered the building. It was a sterile white and green coloured hallway, cinder block walls and no ornamentation. She approached the nurses' station and asked for Gillian King. A blond, short, stern faced woman walked out of the door behind the nurses' desk.
"You must be Hermione Granger. I'm Gillian King."
They sat in Ms. King's office, the harsh fluorescent lighting reflecting off the frosted glass panels in the windows. Gillian grimaced and looked at Hermione straight in the eye.
"Miss Granger, I'm afraid I have some rather unsettling news. It's your mother."
"She's dead, isn't she?" Hermione said without feeling.
"Yes. She's committed suicide. We found her this morning. She had taken her bed sheets off and hung herself by the bars in the window. I'm very sorry."
Hermione sat stoically. "Did she leave a note?"
Gillian shook her head. "Nothing. I'm really very sorry."
Hermione stood and turned to the door. "I would like to see her."
Gillian nodded. "She's in our morgue for now. I wanted to know if there is a particular funeral director you'd like us to use? Do you have any idea what she would have wanted?"
"Cremate her. I don't have a lot of Mug…er…money, so it doesn't matter who you use. I can scatter her ashes near where my father was buried. I'm sure she would have wanted that. Don't bother calling me when it's finished. I will be back to town in a few weeks and I'll pick her up then."
Ms. King smiled faintly. "Miss Granger, I'm sure this is hard on you, being so young and all…"
"No, I expected it. My mother died when my father did, Ms. King. It's only her body that's gone now. You don't have to worry about a memorial service. I will just call people and ask them to come to my father's graveside and we'll say a few words there. You can come, if you like."
"No. I didn't know your mother. A few nurses tried to get close to her, but she refused. Kept saying her daughter was a witch, though." She flinched. "They told her that wasn't a nice thing to say. I am surprised at how disturbed she really was there towards the end."
Hermione paused. "Really? What was she saying?"
Gillian twiddled her thumbs. "Oh, something about the soul being sucked out of her. People with schizophrenia often feel that way. She kept moaning something about Lionel. I assume that's your father. He's deceased, correct?" Hermione acquiesced. King continued, "She would also scream out odd names in the middle of the night. One of our third shift nurses, Matilda, kept asking if there was anyone named Harry in her file."
Hermione wondered why her mother, who seemed to have lost touch with reality, would ask for a boy she barely knew. The thought of her mother's torment sent ice-cold daggers into her spine. "She asked for H-h-Harry?"
"Yeah. Name seem familiar to you?" Gillian opened the door of the morgue room and ushered Hermione inside.
"Sure. My best friend is named Harry."
"Your mother seemed to think that he could help her. Poor bird," she clucked her tongue. "Well, here she is. I hope this isn't too traumatic for you."
Ms. King slid the sheet back to expose Hermione's mother. Hermione had to fight the gagging reflex she instantly felt as soon as she saw her mother's body. She was waxy, pale, and her face was fixed in a masque of terror, as if she didn't want to die but was forced to. Something about the way her expression was set didn't seem right to Hermione. She turned away, and the sheet was pulled back over the lifeless body of Maris Granger. Hermione wondered if it truly was symptoms of schizophrenia that led to her mother's death, as Gillian King had said.
When she returned home, she gathered up a few things and stuffed them into a duffle, grabbed Pigwidegon's cage and began to walk down the street towards the bus stop. There was no way that Hermione would stay alone in her house. She wanted someone to talk to. She wanted someone who could care for her. She needed to get to a train station, she needed to get as far away from Dorsett Lane as she possibly could, and there was only one place she could think of.