Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue... so forth and on with the fic! Chapter... 14? eh, whatever. I'll type that in right later... Okay, well, it was right, if I looked at it correctly so no changes need be made! Read on!
Chapter 14: Fighting in the Attic
Hermione sat, staring at the ceiling as her stomach let out a long, low growl. It had been ten days since Professor Dumbledore had been able to bring her the last basket of food. All that was left of the basket was a small, slightly molding peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She knew that as hungry as she was, she wouldn't eat it, even if it meant starving to death: which she knew her grandfather would never let happen.
Another hunger pang hit her, and she sat up on her bed and then slowly stood up.
She walked into the bathroom and tried the door, to see if it was unlocked. It snapped open and she smiled to herself. She had been in this house for three months she guessed, but with no calendar it was hard to tell how much time had passed. The only time she ever really had a grasp on the days were the days the door in the bathroom open, or whenever her grandfather came in the middle of a week to bring her food.
Turning to fix the room as though she'd never been there, Hermione caught her reflection in the large gilded mirror of the bathroom. She had grown thin, even though she usually ate everyday; all that she was given, though, were the small peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a clean, cold thermos, in which she could put water. This was only a fourth of what she was used to at Hogwarts and even at home.
Her usually deep, sparkling brown eyes appeared larger, more dull, and hollow. Her skin was wan, the usual gentle tan she had gone with her lack of sunlight.
She looked away quickly, flicking her tears away. She held up her wand and mumbled a hoarse, "Repairo" at her room. The lack of using her voice made it rough, broken, but by now she was used to the scratchy sounds it made.
She walked up the small staircase to the closet, picking up a bundle of extra robes she left for Thursdays. They were dusty from the stairs, and the layer of dust that blanketed everything in the attic. She pulled them on over her now much-tighter nightgown and stepped into the attic, barefoot and sweeping up dust.
Harry laid under an open window, sunlight bathing his also much thinner, paler body.
"Hermione," he mumbled, his own voice scratchy from disuse, when he heard her stepping tentatively toward him. "Hermione, come and join me. The sun's nice today."
"It was raining last week, I think," Hermione replied, sighing heavily as she sat, and then lay beside him. "I- I don't really remember anymore, from week-to-week."
She laid her arm gently over his chest, and he kissed her softly, chastely on the cheek, and they both smiled.
"We'll be out of here tomorrow."
Hermione's eyes filled with tears at his utterance. He had said this every week since the beginning of being in hiding, and every week it never happened. It was starting to break her heart to hear him say it.
"Please, please don't say that anymore. Let's just be miserable without being reminded?"
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, looking at her through the corner of his eye.
"I mean, hearing you say that... it, well it hurts because we know that's not going to happen. Not anytime soon. We know that... so please don't?"
Harry sat up, and with him, Hermione.
"How can you say that? The hope of getting out is the only hope we have! Without that, what do we live for?"
"Anything, everything, something other than just this- this getting out that will never happen! We've been here so long, I don't even know how long it's been. We've lost so much weight, and we weren't all that big to begin with! We've both lost all of the tan we ever had! We've been wasting away like flowers without sunshine! I mean, we're hoping for the one thing we need, but we can't have it!"
"Which is exactly why we must have hope, Hermione!" Harry said simply, holding out his arms in a way that suggested he were begging for her to understand why they needed it.
"Hope has brought us nothing but pain. You and I both know that the only way Voldemort will ever go away is if you kill him! No one else can do it, not even Professor Dumbledore! He'll die to keep us safe and it will do no good, because you are the only one that can kill him! I hope that we'll get out of here, but I won't lie about it: we're going nowhere fast, and being reminded of it is the biggest hurt of all!"
"Hermione, please..."
"No! Stop with all of the futile attempts at making me, or us, feel better! It won't work anymore! All I want is to get out of here, but until that happens, I don't want to hear anymore about it! Anymore, do you hear ME?!"
She walked away from the broken Harry, tears streaming down her dusty face. She couldn't go back into her room yet, but she certainly couldn't stay with Harry. Where to go, what to do? They had already, long ago in their first month, explored every nook and cranny of the attic. The old clothes and musty armoires held no magic for her now. Now she just wanted out.
In the end, she just went back to the staircase and waited until she knew that the maid would be gone from their wing. Then she went back into her room, and closed the door behind her, the lock snapping with an echo.
She saw the basket of food left on her bed from her grandfather, and instead of feeling happy for possibly not starving, her tears flowed more freely, and she felt more alone than ever.
She was ever deeper in the woods of despair.
So... the end for now. Can anything help Hermione and the others now? Eh, I dunno yet... the cryptic talk is hurting my brain, and I've got some beta and editing to do for another author... you might know her as the Bookworym? She's doing my 'The Seventh Year' story, along with Lonrem, and another story, that I've promised to beta and edit for her... so, check them out, yesh? Alright, well, g'bye! Review, pleases? Thanx!