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.
Word Count: 1217
Title: The Surface Breaks
Note:
Warnings: Abuse, murder, gore, stereotyping
Beta: Aya Diefiar
Quidditch League:
[Team]: Pride Of Portree
[Position] Captain
[Theme]: Procrastination Thread
[Prompts]: [Creature] Obscurus
[Theme] Book Club
[Prompts] [title] The Surface Breaks
[Pokemon] Charmander (emotion) angry, catching 104. Cubone [Write about someone losing a parent]
Hogwarts
Assignment 9: Potions: Blood Replenishing Potion: Task #1: Write about someone suffering from extreme blood loss.
Yearly:
Prompt 481 [Fantastic Beasts] Obscurus
UBC: Thestral Wings [Wings] (Can you see them? Equip Effect: Heals 5 dmg if you write about a canon dead character.) - Price: 1k, a death
Hermione Granger was a strange girl, and her parents started to notice odd things about her. At first, her Catholic parents prayed for her soul thinking that perhaps it was some curse placed upon their daughter, that maybe it was a punishment for them being bad. The priest had insisted on several instances that she be exorcised. Her parents often lit incense and candles, but it seemed like a rush of the wind would blow them out. Hermione didn't understand it, how was the wind blowing when all the windows were closed? But every time it happened, her parents would blame her, and every time she would feel angry at being called a liar and a freak.
Hermione was nine when her father began to beat her every time she did something strange. It was like the girl was possessed by some kind of evil spirit. The pastor had insisted they beat her every time something unnatural occurred around her. So her father did. Every time Hermione accidentally did magic, her father would take the whip and count seven strokes while Mrs Granger would kneel down in front of a cross and pray for her daughter's soul to be released from the devil. Each blow would cut into Hermione's skin, and she would bleed by the second stroke of it. She used to cry, but that seemed to anger Mr Granger even more, so now she stayed quiet.
It seemed to be working, it had been a while since Hermione had done anything she wasn't supposed to, but she was starting to have strange dreams. Dreams of flying across a room, and she would wake up sometimes not knowing how she had gotten to the kitchen. The memory lapses started to scare her, but she didn't dare tell her parents. She shuddered. She went to her room, cleaning her wounds on her back as best she could with antiseptic. By now, she was used to suffering from blood loss.
The next time she was angry, a dark shadow seemed to erupt from her, knocking a teacher over who had given her detention with a force so great he almost hit the wall. Of course, her receiving detention coupled with something strange happening meant more lashes with the whip.
"Count, you devil child," Mr Granger said, raising his whip to her back. Her shirt was torn open, and her hands were tied, since on occasion she had attempted to cover her back, and her parents had realised that her hand movements also caused things to explode. Mrs Granger lit a candle and knelt down in her favourite white dress to pray.
"One," Hermione whimpered as the first stroke hit her flesh.
"Two," she said more loudly, feeling fury welling up inside her.
"Three," she said, preventing her body from shaking under the pressure of the whip.
"Four." Hermione felt her back starting to bleed severely, her unhealed scars having ruptured now.
"Five." Hermione realised there was a pause. What was happening? She had no idea, she couldn't turn around, it would anger him. "Five," she repeated. She was wondering if her father hadn't heard her if he was waiting for her to count.
Her mother screamed, and so did her father, and her hands seemed to untie themselves. Hermione whipped around to see the shadow again. She wasn't scared of it, it helped her. Perhaps it could help her now. If it could knock out her father and mother, perhaps they would forget about the last hits.
The burst of the shadow seemed to cut her mother, the strokes were like a knife cutting into her mother's flesh, and once her mother was on the ground, it went to her father. Hermione was sure the shadow wouldn't kill her parents, but then she noticed her father was suffering from severe blood loss, he was on his knees, whimpering like a child. Hermione watched both her parents blood pooling on the floor. Was her father really bleeding so much? He was looking pale, and there was a deep gash on his left leg, he had fallen over. There were also multiple cuts to both their faces. He was unable to stand.
Hermione looked at the situation, horrified. She didn't know why the shadow was killing her parents. She couldn't call 911 or the police, they would send her to an asylum for talking like that. She quickly rushed from the room, attempting to grab her first aid kit from her room. She had to use it quite often, so she was quite adept at covering cuts.
She reached the living room again, and her father was slumped over her mother's body, it was clear he couldn't stand from the cuts to his legs.
"Father, let me help you," Hermione said, advancing on her father, holding the small first aid kit. She knew she could stop some of the bleeding.
"Get away from me," her father spat at her. Hermione was confused. Did her father really blame her for what the shadow did?
"It wasn't me, Daddy," she cried, the words hurting her more than the blows.
"Of course it was you, you wicked child, you killed her," he sobbed.
"Mummy isn't dead," Hermione insisted. "I am sure she is just asleep."
"You are not only possessed, but you are also stupid," Mr Granger said in a low voice.
"Let me help you, Daddy," she repeated.
"Get away from me," he said. "I would rather die than have your evil in this house. Get out."
Hermione started to sob, watching her father turn whiter until he passed out. She knew he had lost a lot of blood, and after checking for her mother's pulse and realising that she was dead, another burst of emotion came from her, blowing up half the living room in its wake. The shadow was getting stronger, Hermione shuddered. She kept tending to her father until she realised his breathing had stopped as well. She was broken, but there was nothing to be done.
She needed to run. Her shadow had murdered her parents; she was wicked, after all. She rushed back upstairs, pulling a bag into her arms with a couple of dresses and her favourite bear, and then she left the house, just in time, before the rush of the shadow was back, and the rest of her house exploded behind her. It left no evidence that Hermione survived, and everyone believed that the Granger house had exploded, and mother, father and daughter had all died instantly. They never found the bodies, although the priest had suggested that they pray for the Granger families immortal souls, as the child had been devilish and wicked. Yet Hermione, the small ten-year-old with bushy brown hair, disappeared, making sure she was far away from anyone who would harm her. In doing so, it kept her from having the shadow kill again.
She didn't live very long after that, one day, it seemed like her body was filling up like a large balloon as if she would float away, and suddenly she was filled with a fury she had never known before. It was over, instead of a small girl, there was now simply a black vaporous cloud. It was all that was left of Hermione Jean Granger.