DISCLAIMER:            This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Many thanks to Niamh, my beta reader. Her own fic, To the Honour of the Mother is well worth reading.

Hermione III Early afternoon…

I know why Hogsmeade was cancelled, and all those odd looks I was receiving suddenly make the most horrible sense.

I'm not even sure why I am writing this down. Could it be some vain attempt to make sense of what is insensible, harrowing and horrendously frightening?

Professor McGonagall called me aside just prior to lunch and walked me to her office. She didn't say anything other than she needed to talk to me privately.

How stupid of me to wonder if my marks were slipping or if Harry had been caught out on one of his nightly prowls.

I rather wish that it had been something as trite and mediocre as that.

Nothing can ever prepare you to face the death of a parent – nothing.

To then have that loss magnified, scrutinised, sanitised and spat out as the next front page, is infamy personified.

I'm not making sense am I?

Don't worry, little book, I will explain all.

Should I explain how I thought Professor McGonagall was annoying me because she just wouldn't say what she needed to say, or should I explain how I didn't even cry…just sat there, feeling as though the world had fallen out from underneath my feet.

I know she gave me some fairly detailed information, but I don't know what it was. All I heard was 'Imperio', 'parents', 'Muggle patients' and 'all dead'. I'm not even sure if that's the order in which she mentioned them.

I'm not sure about anything, truth be told.

It's only a short time until I leave Hogwarts. I wanted to see them and let them know how I've fared, all my friends, my teachers, the magic inherent in every corner of this wonderful place.

I won't ever be able to see them again. I'll never be able to talk to Mum about anything, everything and nothing.

Why couldn't I see them one last time? I have so much that I wanted to say – that I wanted to let them know.

I just wanted to be able to hug them and tell them that I love them…one last time.

I don't really blame Professor McGonagall for wanting to tell me everything in almost one solid breath, but I wish it'd been a bit like that old game of, Whispers; only instead of the story getting worse, it would just be to a stage where it was so ridiculous, I just had to laugh.

I'm not laughing and I'm not crying…I'm just here…and I sort of wish I wasn't.

I need to go for a walk.

I have to try and process things…dream it's all a mistake, and then come to the crashing realisation that it's not.

I don't know what I want or need any more…

About 8 o'clock in the evening…

Umm…I think something really odd just happened.

Oh really, I'm being obtuse! It was bloody odd, not uncomfortably odd, just odd…odd.

I suppose that doesn't really explain anything, other than I seem to have a penchant for the word 'odd' at the moment.

But I can't think of another word to describe it at the moment. If I think of one, I'll use it instead.

I did go for a walk. It was aimless, or so I thought and I just had all these visual images fighting for prime time in my thoughts. I still haven't cried…not really, but I just needed to find somewhere to order my thoughts.

All I found was more questions with answers swimming just out of reach.

I don't know why I headed for the dungeons, or why I felt the need to find a lonely piece of the solid stone-wall to kneel in front of, but I did.

I wasn't praying as such. I wanted to find something solid and quiet so that I could make sense of everything.

I don't think I have…made sense of anything, but somehow it seems less important now.

I think it all goes back to that inconsequential little word, "odd."

As I was saying, I knelt on the cold stone floor, feeling the clammy chill seep rapidly through my tights, then laid my palms flat against the rough hewn stones in front of me. It was a simple matter to then gently rest my forehead on the stonework.

I felt instantly calmed and at peace, almost as though having found the bedrock of Hogwarts meant that its gentle strength was lending me aid and succour.

I'm probably rambling, but I can't describe it in any other way, other than the fact that it was comforting and revitalising.

And then I sensed him. I knew whom it was, even with my eyes closed and my hair forming a curtain around my face.

I managed to subtly move my line of vision to look at him on my left, to see his reaction; see his customary self-important sneer exert itself, and to hear his bluster.

I half expected him to deride me, mock my supplication as a Christian observance, then take points and give me a detention.

He didn't do anything even remotely like that.

He just looked at me oddly, almost fearfully, as though I was a fragile wisp of glass ready to shatter if he so much as twitched the wrong way.

It was decidedly odd!

I really have to think of another word.

He didn't say anything or back away from me, but instead removed his wand from his sleeve and conjured up a hand hewn oak chair, sat down on it and just watched me.

The chair was unremarkable, but I imagined it as old as the wood used to make the A-frame that hefted the cornerstone of Hogwarts onto its bedrock base.

Even knowing he was watching me, I went back to my meditation, seeking solace from the stonework.

I didn't feel uncomfortable. Actually, truth be told, I felt like I was protected, guarded and cared for. It was quite bizarre to sense not only a kindred soul in the stonework under my brow, but to find such a soul also present in a teacher – a person I don't know and find it hard to understand most times.

I don't know how much later it was, but when I sensed him again, he was closer. His right hand was held slightly cupped near my left ear. A libation of sorts to my supplication, or so it seemed at the time.

I leant back slightly, feeling my knees protest at the duration of my set posture, took my left hand from the wall immediately in front of me, rubbed the grit on my robe and grasped his hand.

It was warm, smooth and strong.

He helped me to stand, then let go of my hand once I'd regained my balance.

I didn't look at him, didn't thank him and he in turn said nothing.

I walked back here to the Tower and I knew he was following me. I didn't sense that my journey was a trial or an imposition to him.

As stupid as it sounds, it's almost as though he was voicing his support and sympathy in the most generous way he knew.

I have no idea how I can go about thanking him or whether or not he would see any attempt to do so as a Gryffindor weakness for self serving sucking up.

I'll have to think about that one.

I wonder if I could ask him where he got his wonderful chair?

It looked really comfortable too…