Disclaimer: Wow we're back to this…are we really THAT stupid? Point…Grunt, Snort, Grunt, Weep and Wail…that's supposed to mean I don't own Harry Potter. The idea of me owning Harry Potter is a laughingstock. I'm still very sad that I didn't come up with it first. (Amazing how you can say that with five or six sounds, huh?)

Previously: Harry and Hermione visit Remus's home, Harry and Hermione tell their greatest secrets, and Kate and Remus come to an understanding.

Warnings: Child abuse in detail and plenty of swearing. Self-deprecation—of course—and as always, ANGST ABOUNDS! Dammit, and I was trying to be nice when I started writing. All I end up doing is ruining my characters' lives. Be forewarned.

Chapter Seven: Sensibility Is Often the Greatest of Faults, in which Harry and Hermione are even worse off and the adults decide to do things the "right" way.

When they sat at the table again, all faces were dead serious. Sirius let his hand fall onto the table with a loud, heavy thud.

"I don't give a damn what Dumbledore or the bloody inefficient child authorities say, I am taking them out of there tomorrow. Dumbledore knew what the Dursleys were like—they've been using a belt on him, Remus! He probably hasn't been able to lie down or touch his back for days! Another mistake—my God, he'd be near dead. I don't give a damn for authority—these two are not staying with their 'guardians'. If I have my say, those 'humans' will all go to prison for abusing them, until they go to hell."

"And I don't care what the bleeding hell anyone thinks of lycanthropy, I am adopting Hermione, and no one's going to make me give my cub up," Remus snarled, his eyes taking on a golden sheen and his voice rasping in his chest.

"Rem, calm down," Kate said patiently. "Besides, I get first crack at her damned parents. I've never used an Unforgivable Curse before…" she mused.

"Doesn't mean now is time to start. I'm an Auror, remember, I'd be obligated to arrest you," Meghan said off-handedly, her face unreadable. "Don't make me pull out those cuffs. I don't want to use them on my best friend and my daughter's godmother."

"As a special-clearance Unspeakable, you don't have any authority over me," Kate retorted. "I work for a top-secret branch of the Department of Mysteries," she forestalled Remus's eager questions. "Really, if I wanted to, I could tell you all about it. But then I'd have to kill you. Or give you a mind-wipe."

"Please don't, then," he said pleasantly. His eyes were still smoldering, though their color had returned to a green-hazel. Kate's usually mischievous face was set in furious lines, none of her usual easy humor present in her stance and overall demeanor. Meghan kept her lips tightly shut. Had she opened them, such swearwords would have emerged that they would have made an old, tough sailor flush red with embarrassment. Sirius was gripping the cup of water he'd just poured for himself tighter, tighter, tighter…It shattered. Again.

"Sirius!" Meghan scolded. She picked her wand up from the table and repaired the cup with a wave of the slender wooden stick. "You're worse than Kate!" Sirius's normally emotionless face was contorted in fury.

"I'm going to bloody kill them," he muttered dangerously. "And his cousin prevents him from having any friends at school. Tyrannical—" he inserted a distasteful, inappropriate (well, it might have been appropriate, given the circumstances) word, for which Meghan slapped him.

"Sirius Orion Black! You watch your language, sir!" she admonished.

"Sorry," he muttered insincerely.

"But I agree," she added a short moment later. "I even approve of the language—in this case. What dirty great prats! Bloody bastards!"

"And that's why I love you," he said sweetly, knowing his type of flattery wasn't usually very efficient with his wife. "You'll stick by what you profess to swear against. So, how much should we torture the Dursleys before we kill them, love?"

"Not too much. Just enough to show them the pain they inflicted on my nephew," she said evilly, fingering her wand as she spoke. "Sirius, we're going to Diagon Alley tomorrow. Think of a good disguise."

"Yes, madam. Why, pray tell, are we going to Diagon Alley?" he asked politely. "Is there a special reason, or just for fun?"

"You need a wand if we're going to torture anyone."

BREAK

Sirius, aka John Smythe, held Meghan's, aka Louise Campbell's, hand as they walked into Diagon Alley. Ashley "Campbell" was next to him. "Remember, if anyone asks, we went to the VMA and have been dating for years, just a little while after my husband Tom died. You took a job in Vancouver; we came to England. We dated via Floo, Apparating, you know what to say. Try to pretend you haven't been out of the normal wizarding loop forever."

"The VMA?" he asked, nonplussed.

"Vancouver Magical Academy in Canada. Just follow my lead?" Meghan looked sternly at the apprehensive man.

"Sure, whatever." They walked slowly to Ollivander's. Once near it, Meghan gave Sirius a Look. "Pretend you accidentally broke your wand dealing with a renegade Canadian Auror or something. Make it believable."

"How about it got regrettably confiscated in customs? Muggleborn me flew in an aeroplane with my Muggle best friend. He left for, what was it, Vancouver again just a day or two ago." Meghan shrugged, then nodded.

"That works too, I guess." She pushed open the door to the shop, then pushed him through. "Get in, come on, we promised to be back by lunchtime."

He stumbled in. "I'm going, I'm going. My God, woman! Patience! It's considered a virtue by most." Once inside, he noticed the old, pale-eyed Mr. Ollivander. "Mr. Ollivander," he greeted with a smile. "My name is Smythe. John Smythe. I'm from Canada, and the Muggle officials confiscated my wand going through customs. They didn't know what it was, obviously, so I suppose it's understandable. But we're getting off track. Sorry. Louise here told me this was the best place to buy a wand." He mentally thanked Meghan for teaching him to mimic the Canadian way of speaking.

"Mr. Smythe," the old man greeted him suspiciously, as he pulled a wand from behind the counter. "Try this one. Eight inches, willow, whippy." Sirius waved it and promptly broke a blown-glass ornament on the counter. It shattered into a thousand pieces. Sirius winced and apologized. "Oh, it's okay. Nothing a simple Repair Charm won't fix. This one. Seven inches, rosewood." The second one had barely made it in his hand before it was snatched away. "No. This one, ten and a half inches, yew. Don't think so. This one. Nine inches, oak. No."

Ashley was making faces by the window after about a quarter of the store was sitting on a free chair and Mr. Ollivander was in need of a repairman. "Here, try this one. Mahogany and dragon heartstring, twelve inches, pliable," he said proudly. He seemed sure it was the one. Sirius gripped it, and sure enough, he felt the magical core bind with him. "Ah, very good, very good," Ollivander said, seeming genuinely pleased. "One would think you'd been here and already bonded to your wand, Mr. Smythe. Tricky customer, eh, miss?" he asked Meghan.

"Should have known it would take you forever, John," she said affectionately, coming over to shove him gently. "Thank you, Mr. Ollivander, sir. John, pay and let's leave," she whispered in his ear. "We have to be home." He nodded once in understanding and did as his wife had instructed.

"Now," she said after they had Apparated back into Remus's home and sent Ashley to play in the living room, "we have the means to torture our friends the Dursleys. Moony! Kate! Anyone who knows who we are! We're back! Get your sorry arses over here."

"Coming, coming," came Remus's voice. "Sirius is equipped, then? He can go curse the Dursleys and bring Harry back?" He and Kate clattered down the stairs. "Kate here is getting pretty impatient, because I won't let her kill the Grangers until you curse the Dursleys silly." Kate nodded, messing up her hair in a failed attempt to look anxious. She looked insane more than anything. She felt insane. Insane with worry. This was her cub they were talking about, to use Remus's words! She was going to be protective!

"If I don't get my Mya out of that accursed house soon, she's going to need an effing doctor. I could feel her back; all of the scars there. That son of a bitch has been whipping her. I could feel her ribs through her shirt. They've been starving her as well. I didn't say anything about it to her, but still!"

"I know," Sirius said defeatedly. "I'm going to effing murder Dumbledore. Whoever told him the Dursleys could raise a child—ugh. They're first on my list. I suppose their wonderful son is spoiled rotten, isn't he?" When he had grown up, he had been the one constantly looked down upon. His younger brother, Regulus, had reaped in all his parents' pleasure and leniency, while Sirius was their chosen scapegoat. Regulus was rewarded for his bad behavior and his inconsiderate actions. Sirius was demoted further and further, until his status was on par with the house-elf. The magical creature was seen as the bane of the wizarding world by his parents and their fellow pureblood maniacs.

"Well, he seems to be following in his Daddy dear's footsteps. He's the one that breaks Harry's glasses, practically daily." Meghan made a disgusted face, despairing for the sanity of all people and children of Little Whinging. "I'd say yes. I think we should curse him silly too. Just to finish it all out the right way. Go out with a bang. Make sure he won't—or can't—hurt anyone else the way he and his parents have Harry."

"Like I said, he's the reason Harry's had no friends in the summer or at school, 'cause he chases away anyone who's nice to Harry. Probably would do the same thing if he figured out about the friendship with Hermione," Sirius said sadly, staring at the table. "He doesn't want his cousin be better-liked than he is, I would assume. And Harry would be, if anyone noticed him. He's a good friend, and a better person than that cousin of his—Donkey, was it? Oh, no, it's Dudley. Right."

"He's the only friend she has as well. Her father doesn't let her get out much," Kate said slowly, painfully. "It's obvious he's never dealt with a real, unruly child before. If it were someone even remotely like a younger Meghan, the house would be in pieces by now." She sighed. "She doesn't even want the other kids to know she's there. If 'daddy finds out that I've been attracting attention to myself', he doesn't like it. I would assume that to mean he beats her. From the look on her face, that was what I understood to be the case." Her fists were clenched, as were her teeth. "Both of them need out. As soon as possible." Remus nodded. Kate scrutinized the faces at the table, her eyes flat and cold, promising a sticky end for anyone stupid enough to cross her path. She was like a mother lion on the warpath to save one of her cubs. "How soon can we liberate these poor kids?"

"Wait. Kate, we'll need a plan. Where are four adults and two kids going to live? A good idea would be a duplex type thing, but another question is where. We can't stay in Little Whinging, obviously."

"We could look for something in London," Meghan suggested. "I need to get out of Mum and Dad's house—all the way—anyway and I've always wanted to see what London was like."

"Well, you can take my car," Kate offered. "I walk everywhere I go here. Or I Apparate. I'm famous for being on time to social events. You and Sirius go out and check around…Speaking of Sirius, why hasn't anyone found out you're here yet?" Seeing Remus's prompting look, she elaborated. "Scrying spells? Has Remus anti-scry-charmed the house or some such thing? People have probably been scrying for him. I know Marie would have scryed—probably did scry—as soon as she heard the news. Someone ought to have seen him by now."

"You know how much I like my privacy, Kate," Remus said, pretending to be embarrassed. "I don't want everyone to be able to see my transformations." Kate looked at him pointedly. "I spelled it just before Meghan showed up. Didn't want anyone to see her and go into cardiac arrest. Dangerous thing, that." Kate shoved him playfully. He looked at her with feigned injured innocence. She grinned.

"Unless it was Cornelius Fudge," she said evilly. The whole group laughed.

"Coming back to the topic at hand. London real estate," Meghan said after a few more minutes of poking fun at the government. "Sirius and I'll go up there tomorrow and scout out all our—probably limited—options."

"Anything that looks good and functional, snap it up," Kate advised. "The sooner we get a place, the better." All faces were once again serious. "Does this mean we have to wait to curse those—those people?" she demanded.

"Yes, it does. We have to figure out what we're doing before we destroy the guardians' power to give them a home, et cetera. I mean, it's not a good home, but it is a roof over her head. I don't think we can all cram into my house," Remus said dryly. "We need to work on this before we take them out of—you know."

"I know, I know," Kate grumbled. "Still wish I didn't have to wait. That's going to hurt. And if Hermione gets hurt before you find a house, Meghan, Sirius, it's on your conscience. You hurry up and get a house. Sooner, rather than later, I demand." Her eyes dropped to the table and she traced a stain on the wood, worried and thinking about how complicated her life had become all of a sudden. "I need to help. What can I do?"

"Kate, you need to stay by the phone in case Harry or Hermione calls. Or, in case it's us calling to tell you we found a house and need you up there ASAP," Meghan said, putting her hand over Kate's, stilling the motion of the small, long-fingered hand. "We know how much this means to you. We'll try to do this as fast as possible because it means the same thing to us." She looked at Remus and Sirius, who nodded resolutely. "Let's do this."

BREAK

Hermione slipped in the back door, hoping no one would notice her coming in. She closed it silently and tried to make it up to her room.

Her father was standing on the stairs, waiting for her.

Hermione looked down, her heart racing. Not now. She didn't need this now. She never needed this, never wanted it. She went out of her way to avoid it. She shouldn't have come back, she should have stayed away from him and what he'd do to her if she was late. Please, she thought, just let him do it quick and have it be over with.

"Hermione Rose," he said, his voice chilling her to the bone, "you are late. I remember very well telling you to be home by four. Did I not tell you to be home by four, Hermione Rose?"

"Yes, sir," she said quietly, wishing she was not here, that she was not saying this. "I'm sorry I'm late, sir. I lost track of time, sir." She studied the print on her shirt, then the grain of the stair.

His hand closed around her arm, his vice-like grip impenetrable. She swallowed hard. "Well, I think it is high time you learned your lesson. You do not lose track of time. You do not leave the house. You are to help your mother with everything she does. You are not to eat except for what I allow. You are to do anything your parents tell you to. You are not to say anything out of turn. You are not to talk back. You are not to touch anything that is not yours. You are to keep yourself in your room, make no noise, and pretend that you are not there. Is that understood?"

She nodded mutely, not wanting to say anything for fear that it would be the wrong thing. She did not want him to have any further reason to hit her.

"I said, is that understood? Answer me, girl!" he said, his voice low and his tone dangerous. Hermione cringed away from him.

"Yes, sir. I understand, sir." He bared his teeth in a smile the likes of which she had only seen in her worst nightmares. He dragged her into her room by his grip on her arm and undid his belt. As he raised it, Hermione scrambled away from him. He stepped forward. "No, please, father, I didn't mean to! I understand!"

"I don't think you do. Maybe we should go over it again." And he repeated the harsh creed as he reinforced it, bringing the belt down each time with a terrible crack on the girl's body. Long ago, Hermione had started to have daymares. Every time her door would open, even if it were just the wind, she would see someone come to hit her. She would have nightmares. She'd see her father tying her to her bedposts, then pulling out his belt to hit her unprotected back where she could not back into the corner. She had never thought those awful dreams might become reality.

And yet she felt it. She felt her father heave her from her safe corner and stretch out her arms. She heard him rip her sheets carelessly and tie her arms to the bedposts, then attempt to tie her ankles. She was being stretched. She wasn't tall enough for him to tie her like that, she realized. She heard his grunt of frustration before he decided she wasn't going to move from the position she'd been forced into.

It was agony. He used any way he could to hurt her. The belt buckle raked down her back. His strikes were harder, more vicious than ever before. She longed for Kate's comforting embrace, and the kind words of the other adults. All he was shouting were the words of his terrible creed. She gave up. She deserved it. She didn't deserve anyone's love. She deserved hate, and horror, and all that she was given. She would obey his creed. It was meant to keep her from hurting anyone else with her horrible ways. It was meant to keep her safe from others in the crueler world that awaited her if she were to leave the house.

Her back arced with pain, she couldn't move. She felt his presence—he hadn't left. She felt his strikes—he hadn't forgotten her. She felt his fist—he was more and more frustrated. She wondered if he was drunk. The last thing she wanted was her father to be drunk, beating her for an accidental breach of the unwritten law.

"Daddy, please," she pleaded. "Please, just leave me alone, it won't happen again. I'll never be late again, Daddy! Just leave me be, please."

"Oh, but Hermione Rose, you know you deserve all of this…you are a creature of the devil, meant to sway us to his evil ways. This is the only way you are to learn your place, with the other demons of hell, where you belong. You are a crime against human beings and do not deserve to live. I am being merciful!"

"I know, Daddy, I know. I'm evil. I deserve it," she cried in lost, broken tones. "I don't mean to hurt you, Daddy."

"I do not mean to hurt you, but you are a tool of the devil, and you must be destroyed. I am merciful to let you live, daughter! I do not believe my wife ever carried you—she could not be the fountain of such undiluted evil!" Hermione slumped against her mattress. He didn't believe she was truly his daughter. I should never have been born, she thought, even as he broke her lamp over her head. She saw stars behind her eyes just as she passed out.

BREAK

It was nearly a month later, and the oblivious house-hunters had still had no luck finding a place for the whole of them to live. Meghan looked at Kate. The disheveled, exhausted woman sat listlessly in Remus's lap, the telephone on her lap, as it had been for most of the month. She had only gone to work on those days it was necessary, and she had only gone home to sleep. She hadn't realized how close the two had become in the month they had spent together. But even as she thought that, she realized that, subconsciously, she was already thinking of Kate and Hermione as mother and daughter. Someone has destined this. No one gains the love of such a child in a month.

Her thoughts turned to another, older child with arresting green eyes. Oh, Harry, Harry, what does it take to get you to trust us the way Hermione trusts Kate? We love you, Harry. If only you could see that. She looked over at Sirius, who was giving himself blond hair and blue eyes. It had been decided that Will and Genevieve Asbury and their son Matt and daughter Leigh would accompany John and Theresa Osborne and their daughter Mya in moving to a London duplex. The families would joint-own the home and be very close-knit neighbors. Meghan, happily, had kept her own black hair and instead changed her eyes to brown. She and Sirius would both apply for jobs as Aurors. Kate would go undisguised to work each day, as a disappearance in her field of work would raise a lot of questions. Meghan—as Louise—would move to America, no one being any the wiser. Remus would look around for another bookstore.

"Well, Will, let's move it or lose it, shall we, my love?" she said, slipping a hand into her jeans pocket and pulling out the keys to Kate's car.

"Don't want to be late," he agreed, forcing his face into a smile. "Come on, Genny; let's go before we hit any spectacular London traffic."

"I am driving," she said firmly, leading him to the door. "We'll see you when we get back, John, Theresa. Take care of yourselves while we're gone."

"Bye," Remus called. Kate nodded distractedly. "If we get any calls, we'll let you know the moment you walk in the door," Remus whispered, patting his girlfriend's shoulder.

"You take care of Kate, Rem," Sirius said accusatorily. "If we come back and she's still weepy, you haven't been doing your job." He linked his arm with Meghan's and they strode out the door, closing it behind them and leaving the two to their own miserable fantasies about their surrogate children.

Kate leaned back into him, the short woman's head pressing into the hollow at the base of his neck. He rested his chin in her thick brown hair. They sat there for a long, long while, saying and doing nothing. It wasn't until her shoulders started to heave that he realized she was crying.

"Kate, love, what is it?" he asked her soothingly, stroking her hair to calm her. She sniffled. He repeated his question.

"Hermione, Remus, what's happening to Hermione?" she asked. "I know she's not mine, and I'm not really allowed to be her guardian, but I love her, Remus." She stopped, drawing a deep, wondering breath. "I love her," she admitted again. "God, Remus, I've finally admitted it. It's like she's my daughter, she's my, my cub…It didn't take me quite as long as admitting the truth about you," she thought aloud.

"Kate," he said to the babbling woman. "Kate, I know you're happy as you can be under the circumstances, but moping won't help her." He turned her around and kissed her on the lips. "Kate, love, there's something I needed to ask you. Seeing as we'll be starting a long charade as soon as, er, Will and, umm, Genevieve find a house, I thought now might be a good time."

He deposited her on the couch. She put the phone aside, confused. As soon as Remus got to the floor in front of her, realization dawned on her. "Yes!" she exclaimed. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, you silly, silly man!"

"Kate, I haven't even asked you yet. And talk about mood swings, woman. Am I sure I want to put up with this?" he muttered to himself. Nonetheless, he cleared his throat and said, "Kate, I know this is really sudden, seeing as we just, for lack of a better term, re-met a little while ago, but I need to ask you. Katherine Theresa Bassett, will you marry me?"

"Yes," she repeated promptly. Her eyes held a light they hadn't in months. "I was waiting for you to ask. Whether or not you had, I was going to have to pretend to be married to you. Those two better find a house soon. It's been a month since we've heard from the kids. Who knows what's happened to them?"

"Kate, please don't get depressed again. Are you bipolar or something?" The phone rang. "That's probably, what is it that we're supposed to call her again? Oh, right, umm, Genny calling about the house."

Kate picked it up excitedly. "Hello?"

"Hey Theresa, it's Genevieve. Good news! Think we've found something. He's interested in selling. He was renting, but the city is starting to get on his nerves. He's willing to sell as soon as we can come up with the money. Will is running over to the bank so he can, well, you know. He did find his account number. You know how scatterbrained he is." Kate took this to mean that she had kept his account key for Gringotts, for some reason, and he was going to go change some magical currency. It seemed a logical explanation.

"Think we'll be able to fit, Meg?" Kate asked, applying the house to the charade. "You and Sirius and Harry and Ash and Remus and Hermione and I?" She was hoping desperately for it to be the one. She'd been waiting far too long for this.

"Oh, we'll definitely be able to fit. Plenty of room. Tell John that you three should get ready to move. We'll take care of telling Matt. He's probably been waiting for us to finally tell him that we picked up a house. And would you be a bit quieter please?" She meant to use false names.

"Well, see you soon, then. Try to get the papers finished up at least by next week. We're waiting for Mya to show up. She hasn't made a peep in quite a while. Neither has your Matt. Leigh's with you." That would suffice to say that Hermione and Harry hadn't called or come to the door. "And I've, well, got news for you when you get home, Gen."

"Well, don't tell me now. There's Will pulling up. I think that's him anyway. Well, see you soon, Theresa. We'll be back in a bit."

"Yeah, yeah, sure." She heard the click of Meghan (or Genevieve) hanging up, and put the phone down herself, turning to Remus. "They've found something."

"Well?" he asked. "Did she say how soon they thought it'd be possible to move in?" Kate shrugged. "Ah. You didn't ask, did you?"

"Well, no," Kate said, embarrassed. "We're females, we think about the sentimental stuff, not all the logical things that you men do." She stood up. "I wonder if the Grangers' number is listed?" Then she stopped. "It's probably not. They're dentists. They wouldn't want their patients to be able to look up their number anywhere and call them with oral problems. Damn."

"Calm down. I'm sure that if Mya's in trouble, she'll call."

BREAK

"'Mya" was in trouble, but she wasn't in the position to call anyone. The petite girl was starving. Her thin frame was bruised. There were dark circles around her eyes, and the purple smudges of stress were plainly visible. She hadn't been outside in a month. She'd been beaten nearly every night when something else around the house went sour. Quite frankly, she thought to herself, it was surprising she could still move and walk around. She spent the day in her room, her mornings and evenings assisting her parents with every little thing, and her nights in pain.

It was the middle of the day, and she was sitting on her bed, a book in front of her. She tried to concentrate on the words, but it was all swimming together in her tired head. She knew better than to try the doorknob to get something to eat or possibly a drink. It was locked, and she knew she had a snowball's chance in hell of surviving the summer this way.

She thought about Kate and Remus and Meghan and Sirius. But Kate mostly. Her face kept appearing in Hermione's mind, even though she tried to will the image away. She saw the face crumple, saw the woman who was like a mother to her telling her, begging her desperately not to go back home. She saw her own traitor self giving the adults and Harry a last, longing look before she disappeared out the door. She saw herself round corners, and try to sneak quietly into the house. She saw herself run into her father. And then her thoughts would spin back to Kate. And Remus, if she was honest with herself.

She tried to push the faces away, tried to push away their advice, tried to push away the facts she knew and understood to be true. She tried her hardest, because she didn't want to remember. It was too painful to remember. She had had her chance at a family, she saw now, and she had let fear conquer her. Fear of her parents was stronger than even her wish for a true family, a loving family. She was weak, and she knew it. A tear snaked down her cheek. She shook her head. She could not afford to cry. That would waste precious water.

She wanted to call Kate. She wanted Kate to be there with her, telling her it was all right. She knew Kate, she trusted Kate. She rocked back and forth, cursing her own stupidity.

And who was she to make demands on Kate's time? The voice sounded like her father's. Kate had no ties to her. She did not need to have Hermione as one of her hopeless worries. Hermione did not deserve the attention Kate afforded her. Kate didn't feel affection toward her. She had no claim on the woman. She had no ties to the woman.

The woman probably didn't even remember that she had once spilled her heart out to her, told her everything that few others knew.

Hermione rolled up into the tightest ball she could manage and tried not to cry. Her shoulders quivered with suppressed sobs, and she shoved her face into the fabric of her jeans, contenting herself with failed attempts to bury her sorrow.

Did they remember her? Any of them? Did they think about her? Did they know the bond she still felt to the "babysitter" that had been so much more to her? The person who had shown her light in the dark was not going to always be there for her to fall on. She had no right to fall back on any person. She was just a tool of the devil. She deserved nothing, especially not love.

Hermione's mouth opened. Her tortured throat, tired after nights of restraining her screams, let loose a small cry. Thank goodness no one else was in the house to witness her breakdown, she thought tiredly. She froze as she heard a door open and shut below her, and a voice raised in frustration. "I know, Serena, and there's nothing I can do about it. I can't control whatever it is that acts up so often in Hermione. If I could do that, I would know what it was, obviously. Don't you even look at me like that! It's not my fault she's such a freak!"

She had forgotten. It was Wednesday. The day her parents had always come home early. It had slipped her mind. Things seemed to do that more often now. She seemed to have lost her ability to concentrate. Ever since she'd stopped having regular meals, and she'd gotten weaker through starvation.

Her father thundered up the stairs. She could tell it was he. He had the heavier step of the two of them. Her mother's daintier, lighter steps followed his. "I'm telling you, Stephen, you should just beat it out of her. I know you can."

"Seri, I've been trying to do that since she started being unnatural. Haven't you noticed that none of it seems to do anything to it? It's like it's a demon inside her that just gets aggravated by anything I do to inhibit it." Hermione shivered. Demon. That word was used so often when they were talking about her. What if she was?

"I refuse to believe that you can't make one tiny little girl bleed often enough for her freakish nature to go away. You are a fully grown man, and nothing an eight-year-old girl can do should be able to baffle you, Stephen." The argument continued, both of her parents raising their voices so often that Hermione cringed from the sound.

"Go in there and teach her a lesson, then!" Serena demanded. "If you're so sure that you can do this, show me and go do it!" Hermione shook her head, even knowing her mother didn't care, couldn't see, and wouldn't protect her. She was encouraging her father. Hermione shrunk back, trying her hardest to become one with the headboard behind her. No. Not now.

"FINE!" Stephen yelled. "What does it take, woman? What have I been doing every single night?" Hermione heard him stomp toward her door. She heard it fling open. She understood that he walked toward her. Then her mind blanked out what followed. She didn't want to remember. It was the beating of her worst nightmare, fueled by Stephen's anger at his wife's accusations, an afternoon she would never forget.

Somewhere in the course of the pain, her body collapsed along with her awareness. Her eyes felt like there was a tremendous weight behind them. Her body cried out in pain beyond pain. A girl too weak even to protect her head let out a heartrending scream that was held in by the walls of her bleak room.

BREAK

Vernon Dursley's company was not doing well. In fact, it had started to fail, unfortunately. The only outlet for his anger: his nephew.

Yes, Harry Potter had made a perfect target for his frustration. The freakish little boy with the ugly scar on his forehead. The wizard kid, the son of his unnatural sister-in-law and her unnatural husband, he made the perfect punching bag. If he hit hard enough, he would scream. If he hit and hit and hit often enough, he would faint. He was powerful. He was strong.

As soon as he was finished with the boy, he could have the satisfaction of throwing the brat into the cupboard bedroom he was often confined to. He could force him to do his wife's chores, giving her the opportunity to take out frustration on him as well. It was always refreshing to see the boy hobbling away in pain.

And who was to say he hadn't caused the failure of the Grunnings firm? He was, after all, a freak with the power to break the laws of physics.

Feeling fresh outrage, Vernon J. Dursley, director at Grunnings Drill Manufacturing, headed for his own version of a gym—his nephew's cupboard.

Harry Potter trembled with fear as he heard his uncle draw closer. He still hurt from the last night's beating. He didn't remember doing anything to warrant another one. He hoped he hadn't done anything to warrant one. He hoped his uncle wasn't in too bad of a mood.

He remembered being forcibly pulled out of his cupboard. He remembered his uncle yelling in his face that it was his fault the company was failing. He remembered the first few hits. Then, all went black and trailed away with his final scream.

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A/N: I HATE it when my characters are oblivious—who am I kidding, if they weren't on paper they'd be living, breathing fire, and murdering me. They do so not belong to me. Thank you to all who reviewed, although I would enjoy a slightly argumentative review that could improve my story—encouragement is GREAT though. You've all been TOTALLY AWESOME in your reviews…at least now no one's telling me they wasted their lives on this "piece of shit" ah-hem, but yeah, thanks for being so supportive, when I checked and I had six reviews I almost fell off my chair and woke my sister up! LOL I love all you guys! COOKIES all around. AND THEY ARE NOT BISCUITS! Sorry, but as an American in Aussieland, I have arguments like this.

(Meghan says they're biscuits. "Snore" says my little sister.)

Lotsa love and I should be working on my Rose Avenue Project before I fail,

LysPotter