I got two reviews in less than half-an-hour! That has never happened before so thanks. I have tried to update quickly as requested. Here is chapter two and the title pretty much describes the overall mood. Enjoy.
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The Serpent and the Phoenix
Chapter Two
Numb and Hurt
Crookshanks mewed and licked Hermione's hands and face, his coarse tongue hurting her tender, scratched cheek. Numbly, she looked at him, as the wail of sirens grew louder in the distance. It was time for her to leave. The bushy haired girl wanted to be long gone by the time the Aurors and muggle policemen arrived.
Hermione slowly got up, wincing with every moment. She checked her pocket. It contained fifty pounds of muggle money and five galleons. Her wand lay in the house that now blazed as fire reduced it to ashes. Before starting off towards the muggle train station. She took one last look at her house, a blazing bon-fire that stood out against the violet sky. As she turned the corner the crack of wizards apperating rang across the empty street.
The bushy haired girl walked down the dark alleyway that lead to the train station of her village. She was hoping to get a ticket to Oterry St. Catchpole and the Weasleys. That was the only place Hermione could think to go. She would probably have to go via Maidstone but she would get there in the end.
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The florescent lights of the train station cast a harsh glow on the pavement path that ran along in front of it. It stood as it had always done, a depressingly gray building with faded signs. When Hermione had been five-years-old and the train station the pride of the village, it had been clean, white and the signs had been bright and colorful. Budget cuts had plunged it into disrepair. Trash and dried leaves were strewn about the inside lobby like dirty clothes thrown across the floor of a bedroom.
A woman, with bleached blonde hair, fake nails, bright red lipstick, in a tight pleather dress that was four sizes too small and showed of her cleavage, sat in the chair behind the only open ticket window. A cigarette rested in her left hand, the smoke curling upward creating a halo around her head. She looked as if she were about to go work the streets as a hooker.
The woman behind the desk eyed the bushy haired girl disapprovingly. Her thickly lined eyes took in Hermione's bushy tangled hair, ripped clothes and blank expression with distaste.
"A ticket for the next train to Maidstone, please," said Hermione in a far away voice that was much more like Luna Lovegood's than her own. The woman smirked. Her heavy perfume was suffocating.
"Twenty-five quid," said the woman punching some buttons on her computer, "and it comes at ten past eleven, about fifteen minutes from now."
Hermione handed over the money not bothering to object to how over priced the ticket was and too dazed to notice the woman slip some of the money down the front of her dress. The woman handed Hermione a ticket with a smug look before picking up the latest Tabloid magazine and continuing to read it.
Hermione sat on a bench of the only platform of the station. Glass was splayed across the pavement underneath the light vandals had smashed in. The only other person there was a white haired man who stank of gin in a tattered coat. Crookshanks appraised the man shrewdly before sitting at Hermione's feet. A light breeze blew some empty chip bags and dead leaves across the platform and into the shadows. The white haired man stirred.
Stupefied and confused, she did not know whether the time at the station passed slowly or quickly. She only knew that it passed and the train arrived. Hermione got on with Crookshanks at her heels.
The train had few other people on it. Shiny, cold plastic seats sat in rows. The whole carriage was lit in a harsh, bright artificial light. The man who smelled of gin sulked in a corner. A skinhead, with so many tattoos it would not have been surprising if her had tattooed his eyeballs, winked suggestively at Hermione. Starting to get up, he noticed that Crookshanks was giving him the evil eye. Not wanting to be stared down by a cat he stared back. Crookshanks won and the skinhead resolved to stare out the window.
Hermione didn't notice. She was in a bubble surrounded by a sea of darkness that was threatening to break in.
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Hermione got to Maidstone at around one o'clock in the morning. The train station was closed for the night so Hermione sat on a bench outside to wait for the morning. Apart from a adolescent boy trying to sell her crack, no one took any notice of her. Even the crack dealer didn't stay long due to the fact that a soon as he offered Hermione the drugs, Crookshanks lodged his claws in the boy's leg.
She did not move, eat, or sleep, a statue in the park. The bushy haired girl was trapped in her horrified trance. She didn't even tend to her scratches, which had clotted messily. She was a girl stuck in her own world of darkness waiting for the dawn.
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When the clock tower near by chimed that at half past six and the sky had turned a light grey, Hermione walked to the stately ticket window. A sleepy young man sipping a cup of tea sat behind it.
"I would like a ticket to Ottery St. Catchpole, please," stated Hermione in an airy monotone.
The man glanced up at the wreck of a girl that was in front of him and swallowed his tea. "A train leaving at seven fifteen goes through there, will that do?" he asked kindly.
"Yes," replied Hermione in a whisper, "how much?"
"Five pounds. You can also buy a nice hot breakfast on the train if you wish."
"Thanks," murmured Hermione handing over the money and taking the ticket. The small sheet of paper rested delicately in her hand.
The stunned orphan looked up at the bulging gray sky that threatened to burst at any minute before heading to the ash-colored cement platform to wait for the train. Mutters and whispers followed her and mothers hurried children out of her way. Comments about bad parents followed her like a shadow.
A sleek, white, train screeched into the station as it slowed to a halt. The bushy haired girl boarded the train right before rain began to splatter the panes of glass that were the windows. During the whole train ride all she did was watch the water droplets run down the windows like the tears that were soon to come from her.
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Hermione arrived at Ottery St. Catchpole at around four o'clock in the afternoon. Stumbling up a small road, tripping over the smallest ditch or stone, studying the path for a familiar land mark, she found her way to the Weasly's house by the path they took to Stoatshead Hill when they went to the Quidditch World Cup. The fatigue, shock, and lack of food was beginning to take effect and it made her limbs shake so badly it was all she could do to keep herself upright and walking. The rain came down harder than ever. Even though it blurred Hermione's vision and made her hair plaster its self to her face, she didn't feel it.
The Burrow slowly swam into sight through sheets of rain. No feelings of happiness radiated from it. Sadness hung in the air like a thick fog. Hermione knocked on the door and waited. She didn't know what she would do if the Weasleys weren't there.
Finally the desperate girl heard the shuffling of footsteps and a few sniffles before Mrs. Weasley opened the door. The last thing Hermione remembered before the fainted was the expression of shock and disbelief in Mrs. Weasley's face.
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"Will she be alright?" asked a voice in hushed tones.
"Dumbledore thinks so," said another.
Hermione slowly regained consciousness and the room eventually swam into focus. The memory of her parent's deaths came back and for the first time she felt the pain of their loss. She wanted to go back to sleep and forget about it all, for the shock that had numbed and protected her had left. It was as if a gapping hole had been opened in her chest where her heart had been. It just hurt too much. They were the people who had loved and raised her. They couldn't be gone.
The bushy haired orphan glanced over to notice Ginny and Mrs. Weasly sitting by her bed. Both of them had pale, tear streaked faces. Letting out a sob she began to shake as tears cascaded down her face. Mrs. Weasly had Hermione in a motherly hug in an instant. This reminded her of the hug her mother gave her bringing a fresh stab of pain. She cried even harder. If only she had been able to stay in her mother's warm, loving embrace for a few moments longer.
"Ginny," said Mrs. Weasly quietly, "go fetch a nice cup of tea and some cake for Hermione." Ginny left through a small door in the corner of the green room. Ginny's belongings covered the floor like snowdrifts.
Hermione stared around bleakly and thought of her room, her house, her parents, and her life. The awful Death Eaters had destroyed it all. It was all gone. There was nothing left to replace it. She felt as if the world had ended and the tears would just keep coming until they had flooded the room.
When Ginny came back she was holding a lavender tea pot on a tray with three cups and three slices of chocolate cake next to them, each on it's own powder blue plate. Hermione took a piece of cake and took a bite with tears still streaming down her face. Even eating a large piece of homemade cake didn't make Hermione feel better. Chocolate, a woman's best friend, no longer had a taste. The soft mush clumsily slid down her throat and dropped into that dark pit that had once been her stomach. The hole in her heart could not be filled with cake. She left the rest of the cake untouched and focused on trying to stop crying.
If she concentrated on the normal things then the orphan could drive the sadness from her mind. She would think she had managed it when a memory of her parents would float up and the torrent of tears would begin anew. There was an endless supply. Ginny and Mrs. Weasly just sat there drinking their tea and giving her comforting hugs. Hermione couldn't think of anything they could do would make her feel better. They didn't seem to think of anything either.
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The light had faded from the sky turning it an inky black and the painful sobs had been diminished to hiccups. Hermione's head throbbed painfully. If she focused on the pain in her head she could temporarily ignore the pain ripping at her insides.
"I have to go make dinner," said Mrs. Weasly quietly before getting up and walking to the door. Ginny sat by Hermione's bed a rather stiff wax figure. Her eyes looked like dying candles. She sat carved in stone and in the light of the one lamp she looked much older than she was in years.
"I thought you were dead," Ginny said as if she were whispering at a funeral. Hermione didn't speak but looked at the sheets. She was alive, but her parents were dead and she wanted to be dead too.
"Why weren't you at the house?" asked Ginny, tentatively.
"I don't want to talk about it," replied Hermione in a shaky voice. Ginny pulled Hermione into a hug. It helped a little but no one could replace her parents or their love. No one could fill the void that they had left. No one could love her like they had, comfort her like they had, or look after her like they had.
Oh, how she missed them.
If only she had been with them a moment longer. Stuck in one of the moving photographs they had been so happy in.
Just five more minutes.
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What do you think of my new divider things that I am using? This is what happens when you can't get to sleep and you have a computer in your room (sadly the only computer with internet access is downstairs). Anyway I hope you liked it. I have written more and I promise you will meet the ghost in the next two or three chapters.