Round# 8
Year 6
School Ilvermorny - Spinner's End
Theme: Look at the experience of half-bloods, or those that live in two worlds at the same time.
Main prompt: [Setting] Muggle Playground
Optional prompts: [Quote] "Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears." Rudyard Kipling, [Plot Point] Segregation
Word count: 1347
Author Note: AU. Summer between 6th and 7th year; a season of transition and tension.
Somewhere in my mind, I've decided that Hermione reads for pleasure as well as knowledge. While it is clear that someone in her home is a fan of Shakespeare, I also imagine she finds other authors of note on the bookshelves. The Brontës and Conrad, George Sand and Jane Austen. Maybe even a bit of Marlowe. She's well-read in more ways than just one, and even enjoys what I like to think of as 'comfort reading'—books she returns to again and again because they hold a special place in her heart. This is not canon, and therefore is AU.
I'll be relying on the definition of segregation as isolation here within. This is a secondary definition.
Kipling's quote could not be more timely in our current environment of uncertainty and mistrust. Fear can convince us all of things that are not true if we allow it to cloud our vision or distrust our instincts. Hermione, for me, navigates the most complicated path of the Trio having Muggle parents and a whole mundane life that she must balance along with her new, magical one. As danger closes in on one life, it threatens the other and everything she holds dear. Even in canon she chooses to remove herself from her former life in the interest of protecting and preserving those she loves; and I see that decision as having been one that must have required great thought and anguish. I imagine this journey to have been quite a process and for some of it to have been fraught with fear. I am exploring a possible scenario within some of that inner turmoil here. Again, none of this is alluded to in the canon.
As it happens, I recently learned that Hell is cold according to Dante's Inferno; or at least the ninth circle is. Combined with global warming, I thought I might poke fun by making the weather a bit unseasonable, as well as availing myself of some of his words to use as my title. Hats off, Signore Aligheri.
Also, whether I realized it or not, Mother's Day has had its influence on my subconscious. Happy Mother's Day to all the mums who celebrate this time of year and all the year through!
O, what a marvel
The wind ruffled through some pages of the long forgotten book on her lap, and Hermione shivered. It was unseasonably cold for summer, and she had gone out without benefit of a sweater assuming it would have no purpose.
No sun. No warmth. No comfort. Not even from an old friend. She flipped the book closed and sighed. If any would grant her a few hours escape, it was always Austen. Everything she had by Jane was rife with split spines and dog-ears from uses beyond count, and smiles to go with them. Yet, here she sat, her book no more a refuge from her heavy thoughts than her childhood bedroom had been upon her return or had her mother's arms when they embraced. There was a pall of finality to everything, and it frightened her.
She had slipped away from her parents home to a small children's playground down the lane; it was a place she remembered fondly. She loved the swings, the feeling of the wind in her hair and the ground just brushing past her feet as she pumped back and forth. Even after commencing study at Hogwarts, she returned to this place over the Summer holiday—finding amusement and ease in the laughter of younger children around her while she studied or laid soaking up the all-to-brief sunshine. As the years progressed, she found in its simple existence a solace, and it still elicited joy as the world around her only grew more complex.
Today, though, she had to finally concede—the illusion was broken.
The weather-worn bench she sat upon bristled with splinters; uninviting in every way possible. As she pried herself off of it, carefully, she noticed just how desolate a place this had become. Bereft of children and their laughter to fill it, the park was merely a ghost haunting this quiet neighborhood. Weeds grew rampant in cracks and shot up through mulch beds. Grass grew tall and unwieldy alongside the pond path. A small, red trainer, obviously sized for a toddler, had been left behind to roll beneath the slide, its vibrant colour fading with each passing rainfall. Her refuge now seemed an eerie memorial to a peace that was no longer.
Perhaps, it never was. These were the sorts of thoughts she could no longer seem to avoid; no longer control or even escape for short periods of time. Everything that had ever been good or solid or known seems to slip through her hands like sand. And now? Now, as she sat in the empty remnants of a happy childhood, she could not help but wonder, had it all been an illusion? And was it now time to pay the price for being a witch? For choosing to work for good?
She wandered down the desolate path to find the pond's edge, and sat among the reeds, staring out into an abyss that was only vaguely represented by the water before her. There was a fear growing inside that she could no longer stuff down. Fear that she would have to choose; between this life and her magical one. That she would lose her parents, her home, and everything she had known because there was no possible way to bring them together. No way to straddle these disparate lives anymore.
Nothing made her feel more alone. Without my parents? Or without my friends. The choice was heartbreaking.
Beside her, a reed bent down with the weight of a newly arrived occupant. A sparrow had flown in, landing with grace and bobbing happily upon the thin, delicate plant stem. Within seconds, it was singing its familiar song with all its might. Hermione found the interruption frustrating. She had come here to think.
To wallow in my self pity, more like. She shook her head and tried to block it out, but the trill and titter of the bird's warble broke into her consciousness and she could not focus no matter how hard she tried. Yet, despite being thwarted in her intended efforts, she started to recognize a welcome feeling.
Freedom.
She sat still, not wishing to move lest the bird fly off, and listened for minutes upon minutes for the answer she knew the bird itself was seeking.
Didn't we all seek answers?
And then, it came. Distant sounding at first, the answering call grew closer and closer with each passing moment. It drew nearer still until it joined the first, finding a nearby reed and taking up a perch. Together the two sang, and the call continued until others joined them. Hermione found herself frozen, motionless until the whole of the pond seemed filled with song when before there had been none.
And she felt that knot in her chest release.
She could not have said why she felt that relief—not immediately anyway. For the time being, it was enough to feel it. To hold her breath and be a part of a magic that had nothing to do with silly wand waving or dark lords, wizard chess or brewing luck. It was an older magic; the kind they used to write about in epic poems.
The shriek of a child's laughter broke the spell, and she inhaled. The pounding of small feet, slapping the path unevenly in that way that toddlers do, warned her of the incoming intruder just in time. She turned to meet a ruddy-cheeked cherub as it burst through the vegetation and would have stormed headlong into the pond had the path not been blocked. Seemingly undeterred, the child looked up and raised its arms instinctively.
"Up!" it demanded. It's short, blond curls poked out from beneath a sun hat, but in its green jumper and blue jeans, it was impossible to determine boy or girl. It mattered still less, and Hermione found herself complying with the demand immediately, worried that she did not hear or see an adult nearby.
"Now, little one," she started, speaking softly so as not to provoke alarm. "Where in the world are your people?" The child didn't seem in the least bit scared and was too busy picking the feathery ends off of a bullrush to be all that interested. Hermione could not help but wonder at this turn of events. Not alone.
She took advantage of good fortune to soothe herself and the babe, squeezing the child tightly to her own body even as the child naturally clung back. It calmed her even more than the birdsong had, and reminded her all too bluntly that in doing her part she was protecting innocents like the one she clung to now. She felt the tears well up in her eyes, and she released them with gratitude.
Hermione did not linger long before she opted to head back in the direction of the play area with her small companion. Before they even emerged from tall grass, she could hear the shouting.
"Jenny? Jenny!"
Hermione stopped in her tracks, the child still in her arms, but squirming now that she was within earshot of her mum. A smile broadened on her face as she nuzzled that lovely baby hair one last time, and she placed the child down on her own two feet. "Here we go," she coaxed. "Let's find mummy and da."
The child burst from the grass, leaving Hermione behind. She slowed to a stop, watching to make sure that the baby girl made it all the way back without veering off before raising a hand in acknowledgement of thanks from the relieved parents. She reveled only momentarily in the joy of their reunion before turning her feet towards home.
The light was fading as she approached the small house she shared with her parents. She could see them through the front window, bustling about in the kitchen as they normally did making dinner. So predictable. So mundane. She felt her heart squeeze. There was no giving this up—just the way there was no leaving Hogwarts. She would need them both if she were to be true to herself.
And she could not imagine any other way to be.