©Sunrispainter: Because of Snape
Hermione
She just sat there in silence and stared onto the water of the lake. Softly, she slid over her fingers over the strings of her guitar and a melodious sound filled the air around her which made her heart flutter with joy. When was the last time she played it? It must have been for about five month, now. She did not play her guitar since the last summer holidays. Her mother had begged her to do then, when they sat on their little porch under the starlight at night. Mrs. Shycates liked muggle music and she was happy that her daughter shared her passion.
As Hope sat at the lake now, the guitar placed on her knees, she felt a thousand thoughts rushing trough her head at once. Why did she let Cormac wrap her around his finger? Why did she let herself get swept away by his charm? She felt like a stupid, little girl. There must have been some kind of sign at one time which could have told her that something was not quite right between them. She bitterly thought about what could have happened if she did not overhear the conversation in the library. Certainly, she would have fallen for Cormac sooner or later. And he would have broken her heart by all means. Stone- cold and ruthless. She sniffed.
One more time she stroke up a song and she felt another serge of calmness overflow her body and mind. Eventually, she could not hold back any longer and played the first song which came to her mind. After simply playing some bars, she also started to sing along. It was a slow and melancholic melody.
The sound of her guitar and her voice matched perfectly. She played and sung with her eyes shut. Every though about Cormac McLaggen were taken to the backseat of her mind.
However, other gloomy thoughts popped up instead.
Was her father really a death eater? Would she ever meet him again? What had destiny in store for Hogwarts and the rest of their world? Since she knew that you-know-who was back, she often thought about it. She somehow knew that dark times were approaching them. Which side was she supposed to take? Would she chose the easy way as Cormac always did?
Cormac! She felt her anger welling up again. What a disappointment! How should she act around that jerk now?
The refrain of her song claimed that every dark day would lead to a more brighter time, full of happiness, peace and love. She did not believe it. There was no change that her situation would become easier. Her broken heart could never be mend and she was sure that she could never trust anyone again. Her guitar vibrated and her clear voice crossed the lake.
The last few minutes, she had been so absorbed in her music that she did not even notice the person who had appeared behind her just a while ago and now listened to Hope's singing.
The song faded away and the quietude came back.
"Wow, was that a muggle song?"
Hope shrieked and turned her head towards the voice.
"Did you listen the whole time?" She hissed and blushed for embarrassment, but for anger, too.
"Yeah." Fred chuckled and placed himself next to her in a rock.
"Since when do you stalk me?" Hope glared at him and tried to use her fury to hide the fact that she felt awkward about Fred Weasley hearing her song.
"First, I never stalk people, especially girls. Second, I just wanted to see iif you're doing okay."
"Of course, I'm doing pretty fine, after finding out that I'm part of a stupid bet between two people I used to trust. I really like getting my heart ripped out my chest, you know." She answered sarcastically.
Fred just ignored her undertone and just nodded his head in sympathy.
"I understand that you're angry and disappointed."
"Oh really?" Her voice was chilly.
"Yeah, I do. Perhaps, it would be a great idea for you to get some distraction. How about coming to the Quidditch game next Saturday?"
"I'll never understand what you like about that coarse sport!"
He chuckled:
"Probably, because it's so unreasonably coarse."
"I'm sorry, but I don't want to see McLaggen ever again and he'll definitely be there. Moreover, I have to study."
"Do you know how much you annoy us all with your boring attitude? You always talk about nothing else, but school, school, school! That's your meaning of life!
"So what? You have to set priorities in life. Besides, I don't see any reason why you should be concerned with my meaning of life!" She was boiling with anger now.
He only sighed and looked at her with a worried expression on his face:
"We're all concerned about sour life. George, Lee, Angelina, Alicia and me. We are your classmates and we all somehow care about you. However, we could never show you, because you always hide behind your books!"
For a while, she was absolutely speechless. Nobody ever talked to her so frankly about her annoyingly nerdy side.
"You care about me?"
He nodded his head:
"Or else, do you think Alicia and Angelina would've tried to include you whenever they had the chance to? Do you think I would've proposed a truce if I wouldn't, at least slightly, care about you?"
She abashedly remained silent.
It really was an awkward situation. The person she detested the most for almost six years actually sat next to her near a lake and talked about the relationship between her and their classmates. And he even told her that the others in fact cared about her, perhaps even wanted to be friends with her. And him, too!
"Do you often come here to sing?" He suddenly changed topics.
"Occasionally last school year, but for the first time, this year." She mumbled incidentally while she was deep in thoughts.
"Would..would you mind playing another song?" Fred asked quietly and somewhat gingerly. In surprise, Hope raised her head:
"Pardon me?"
"I would like to hear another song."
"Really? Are you kidding me?" She eyed him suspiciously.
"No, of course not. You're pretty good at singing!" He smiled and this time his smile was neither superior nor teasing, but an honest and eager smile. She blushed a little and swiftly lowered her head.
"Thanks" Her voice was so low that he barely could hear it.
Musing, she let her fingers wander along the guitar strings and feverishly tried to come up with another song she could play without embarrassing herself.
"Aright, this one is a song I composed myself and no one ever heard it before! So, you better not laugh!"
"I won't. I swear." He promised.
She took a deep breath and started the song. The first two bars were still a little shaky, but soon she was absorbed in her music again.
»A shadow hides my face,
No one here to old it back,
I may need more space,
A room to think
A room to breath
Everyday I am losing grip
Don´t know where to go
Don´t know what to do
My life is fading away...yeah«
Fred listened to her and could not believe that this woman had such a beautiful voice. She really fascinated him and made his blood rush trough his veins. Why did she always hide her talent?
Hope did always acted like a wallflower who did not care about anything else but her books. A grey wallflower between a bouquet of blooming roses, half dead yet half alive.
Musing, he watched her from the side. Did she really feel the same was her lyrics indicated? Did she always feel torn between two sides? He did not know that much about her even thought they knew each other for six years now.
Her glasses rested on her head between her blond curls and it was the first time, Fred thought she looked quite pretty. McLaggen had been right. Hopes eyes were closed with concentration and the words poured trough her lips like a waterfall of sounds.
All of a sudden, she stopped playing which brought him back to reality.
"Fred Weasley, why are you starring at me like that?" Crap, she noticed!
"I didn't stare at you!" Just play dumb!
"You do, the whole time in fact."
"Nope, I didn't."
"Yes, you did."
"Didn't!"
"You did!"
"Did not!"
"Stop! That's enough! Just admit it, you did stare!"
He was about to object when she cut him short.
"I won't discuss something so stupid with you. Let's just forget about it and everything that's happened the last then minutes."
"Why?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Because it won't be good to be friends with anyone of you, aright?" She gripped her guitar, rose to her feed and ran away. Without saying anything else. Without any goodbye. Without another word of apologize or explanation.
Fred's eyes just followed her like he was frozen to the spot. This woman was strange. One moment, she was cute and nice and in another moment, she was cold and withdrawn. He could not figure her out.
Hope wiped the tears from her eyes as she run across the estates. She did not even know herself what was wrong with her. Even though, Fred made her nervous. Furthermore, she did not want him to get any closer to her. Indeed, did not she recently decided to never trust anyone ever again? Never! Not after the thing with McLaggen!
However, Hope could not the deny the fact that she had in fact enjoyed his company. She did not even mind when he stared at her during her song. Quite the contrary, his openness and his smile had made her happier than ever. For a moment there, she had felt free and alive, but she knew that these feelings were not right for her. She had no time for friends as she had to prepare for the NEWTs. Furthermore, while studying harder than before, she could be sure that her thoughts would no longer revolve around a certain boy who recently made her whole world crash down.
It had been her fault in the first place to go to that lake trying to fight her anger about McLaggen with music!
The next few days, Hope tried to avoid Fred and the other Gryffindors. She burried herself behind her books and crammed harder than ever before. Early on in the morning, she was in the library and after Madame Pince, the librarian, shooed her away in the evening, she went on studying in the common room until she feel asleep on top of pile of books. It was not something new to her, but sooner of later yet her schoolmates noticed how pale and morbid she looked. She barely ate anything and did not waste another thought about getting some sleep. When Alicia asked her about it one day, Hope tried to elude the questioning.
"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm perfectly fine!"
Alicia gave her a quizzical look:
"Oh well? It don't looks like that to me, though!"
"And what does it look like to you?"
"Well, it seems as if you're stressed out from work. The way you pour yourself into your books...it's kind of...sick."
"So, you think I'm some kind of a lunatic psycho, now?" Hope flared up. Lately, she was quite edgy.
"I didn't mean it like that." Alicia tried to smooth the situation.
Yet, Hope just had waited for moment when someone gave her a reason to vent some stress. all her anger, frustration and fatigue made her blood boil and her emotions broke free.
"DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I'M FED UP WTIH ALL OF YOU! YOU AND YOUR FAKE WORRIES! IT ISN'T YOUR BUSINESS WHAT I'M DOING IN MY FREETIME!" Hope felt her eyes getting teary. In the common room, all noise was gone. Everyone looked at her with their mouths hanging open.
Oh no, please don't start crying now! She thought bitterly. However, the tears started to flow anyway.
Embarrassed, she run out to the dark corridors. It was already after eleven o'clock and pupils were actually not allowed to stray the aisles at night. Nonetheless, Hope did not care. The main thing was to get away. Far away.
In the meantime, the poor Alicia still stood in the middle of the common room, starring at the spot Hope left just a minute ago. The other Gryffindors recovered from the shock and started to whisper secretly.
"Come on, Al. We need to talk." Angelina gently pushed her friend up the stairs to their room.
Of course, Hermione also witness the incident and she did not really know what to think about that. On the one hand, she thought Hope's outburst pretty childish and exaggerated. On the other hand, she could understand Hope's anger. Hermione actually knew about hat happened with Cormac McLaggen and she sympathized with Hope Shycates who had been tricked by the boys. McLaggen misused her trust and stamped around on Hope's heart.
Hermione had observed the blond seventh grader the last few days. She also did see Hope and McLaggen in Hogsmeade together. She had seemed to look happy and free. No comparison to now. In fact, this incident reminded her of the time Hope had gotten letter and ripped it to pieces before burning it in the common rooms fireplace. Hermione always mused about that situation. Who did send the letter. Why did Hope react like that? Hermione was kind of worried about the older Gryffindor, so she had actually consulted Harry the other day. However, her friend had enough to deal with his own problems. Everyday, new articles were published in the daily prophet, fomenting against him. Umbridge gave him detention and then there was the thing with Cho Chang which kept him busy all the time.
Still, Harry had listened to Hermione and had tried to gave some advice, although it had not been quite the things Hermione wanted to hear.
"You should keep out of it, Hermione. I know that you feel responsible for a lot of people around you. Nonetheless, this time it's something which doesn't concern you at all."
After that she had been a little sulky and tried to ignore Harry, but she she could not be angry with him for more than an hour. In the end, she had to admit that there was some ray of truth in his words.
However, Hermione's curiosity and her sympathy was back again when Hope left the common room in a hurry. She secretly went to the boys dormitory. All the fifth-grader boys were in the common room, except for Neville who preferred to go to sleep early. Hermione opened the door quietly and slipped inside the room. Neville's curtains were closed and his loud snore could be heard. She had to press her hand to her mouth to keep herself from laughing out loud. She swiftly tiptoed to Harry's bed and pulled out her friend's Hogwarts trunk. To tell the truth, it was theft what she was abut to do but certainly Harry would not notice. Neville snored exceptionally loud for a second which made her shriek. Harry was not one of the neatest people around, so it took some time before she found what she was looking for: the Marauder's Map and the Invisibility Cloak. These two things would help her to find Hope.
Was someone coming up the stairs?
With her heart beating like crazy, Hermione put the trunk back to its place and hastily put the Invisibility Cloak around herself. It was not a second to late as the next moment the door swung open and Harry and Ron entered the room. They got ready to go to bed while whispering to each other as not to wake up Neville. Hermione closed her eyes and prayed that none of them would notice her. As someone passed her by closely, almost touching her, she held her breath for a while. Eventually, she heard the noise of the curtains closing and she could barely hold in a sigh of relief. For another minute, she listened to Neville's snore and then she carefully sneaked out of their room.
Hope had barricaded herself in the girls bathroom. For the first time in years, she let the tears flow without holding back. As much as in this week she had never cried before. She was very sorry about to snap at Alicia like that, but she just could not restrain herself then. Shivering, she pulled her legs closer to her body. It was not very comfortable in that toilet cubicle, but at least no one would come here at night. Unfortunately, the library was long closed and she knew no other room were she could drown herself in her sorrow and regret.
Hope had promised herself to get over McLaggen, but whenever she saw him she fumed with rage all over again. He had tried to talk to her, though. He actually dared to bomb her with little messages during lessons. Of course, the teacher had noticed him doing that which made Gryffindor lose about fifty- seven points because of his persistence. She simply had ignored him. Well, it did not help at all. The sadness and the pain remained. Why did she had to be so dumb? Now she was sure: She already had a crush on Cormac MacLaggen.
A new surge of emotions rolled over her and she started sobbing uncontrollably.
"Hope?" A female voice whispered.
Hope paused for a moment. She did not even notice the door being opened.
"Hope?" The voice asked one more time.
Silence.
"I know that you're in there, Hope. Please, open up!" The voice was now right in front of the cubicle door.
"And if I don't want to?" Hope whispered in a tearful voice.
The voice on then other side did not waver at all:
"Alohomora!" The lock clacked and the door opened. Hemione carefully entered the cubicle and closed the door behind her.
Hope buried her face in her hands. She did not want anyone to see her so weak and whiny.
"I want to talk to you." Hermione got on her knees next to the other Gryffindor.
"Please, just leave me alone!" Hope mumbled.
"I'm begging you! I just want to help you. I know that Cormac hurt you, but you shouldn't take it to heart. He's definitely not worth it. There are so many other people who deeply care about you and who you can trust in." Hermione told her softly.
"Oh really? I never noticed, thought!" Hope answered bolshy.
"For you never allow it! You always hide, because you're afraid to get hurt!" Hermione told her frankly. Hope remained silent. She knew that Hermione was right as much as Fred was.
The younger girl gently gripped Hope's wrists and pulled her hands from her face.
"And now stop crying, please. Hand me your glasses, it's all fogged."
Hope did as she was told. She knew that she could not stand a chance against that young, determined witch.
"Cleenval! See, it's all better now!" With a smile, Hermione handed back the blond's glasses.
Hope sniffed and wiped the remaining tears from her eyes before she placed the glasses back on her nose. Somehow, she felt a little better now.
"And now we'll head back to the common room, okay?" Hermione asked. Hope nodded and raised to her feet.
"Thanks."
"For what?"
"For cheering me so kindly." Hope smiled at the other girl. Hermione chuckled.
"No problem."
"No, that was really nice of you. Oh and by the way, did you find me by chance?" Hermione shook her head:
"No, I was actually looking for you."
"Oh! Um...thank you, but why? I mean, I'm two years older and moreover, we don't know each other that well."
"Well." The younger one thought about it for a moment. "I somehow did not like the idea of you hiding in some dark place and crying all by yourself. Additionally, you're in my house. I mean, we Gryffindors have to stick together." Hope smiled:
"I guess you're right."
Hermione Granger really had a big heart and a lot of courage, too. After all, she had wandered trough the castle alone at night to find Hope. Gryffindor seemed really the right place for someone like her.
In silence, they went back to their common room side by side.
"You know..." Hermione whispered after a while.
"Hn?"
"You see, you like to read a lot and Fred and George told me that you have good marks, too. In conclusion, you're pretty smart..."
"Did the twins tell you that?"
"Yeah."
"I think that's kind of true."
"So, why aren't you in Ravenclaw then?" Hermione blurted out ger question.
First of all, Hope had to smirk, but then she got serious again.
"I don't know. When I put on the Sorting Hat, it was really torn between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, but in the end, it clearly chose Gryffindor for me. I still remember its words: So, you seem to be as bright as a button. Deep-read. On the surface, everything about you suggests Ravenclaw, but I can feel that there's still something more inside of you. It's concealed beneath a layer made of diligence. The red flame of bravery which is brighter than your blue flame of knowledge.
I really thought it sounded interesting and to tell the truth, I asked myself then since when I became brave. That's something I wonder about down to the present day, thought."
"You know." Hermione said keenly. "The Sorting Hat wanted to make me a Ravenclaw, too. He told me something similar and now I'm happy that he chose Gryffindor for me as I was able to find good friends. Nonetheless, I felt quite misplaced at first, because everyone seemed to be different from me."
Hope listened carefully to her words. She expressed all the things Hope always thought about, too, like being in the wrong house or being so different from everyone else. Indeed, how alike both of them were!
"I can understand you pretty well, but are we not all different from each other? I mean, everyone had special traits." She said aloud. Hermione nodded her head approvingly.
"Yes, and I think that there are different kinds of bravery, too. In fact, both of us can also be brave. It's deep, deep inside of us."
"You somehow remind me of Dumbledore, speaking all wisely." Hope laughed. Hermione blushed.
"Thanks, I'm doing my best."
"No, really! You're right! Everything you told me is the truth. I want to try and change myself. Perhaps, I also can become more outgoing. Moreover, I don't want to be sad any more. I want to forget about McLaggen. He's not worth crying over." The words come so determined from her lips that Hope was surprised herself. And nothing was a lie. Hermione really got her to feel a lot more confident about herself.
In the meanwhile, they had reached the portrait of the Fat Lady. Hemione slightly smiled.
"That sounds fine to me and you won't have another outburst in the common room?"
"No, I promise!"
"Pupils shouldn't be out at night!" The Fat Lady complained while the girls climbed trough the hole in the wall behind the portrait.
"I apologize, it was an emergency!" Hermione grinned.
"Tsk, tsk." The portrait just shook her head (the girls couldn't see it any more, though) and just closed the hole again. Hermione and Hope giggled.
"So, good night, Hermione!" Hope winked at her.
"Yeah, good night!" Hermione smiled and each of them went to their dorm.
"She's really sweet and carrying." Hope thought jolly while she was getting into her bed. "Maybe, we'll can help each other studying if we meet each other in the library."
Hermione also had quite the same thoughts.
"She's pretty nice. However, there is something else which makes her feel depressed. I need to find out more about it. The first step was already successful and maybe, yes maybe, we can be friends some day."
She yawned and her eyes fell onto the Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder's Map. Whether she liked it or not, she had to go back to the boy's dorm for another time this night.
The End of Chapter Eleven.