"The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven." - John Milton, Paradise Lost

Chapter Twelve: It's Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door

Hermione struggled with toweling off her hair, knowing that her usual method - rub the towel all around - was going to be more troublesome than semi-wet hair. Now she remembered what it was like to be blind, what it was like to move around a foreign place without any idea where she was going. During the ride on the boat, Hermione had basically felt her way to four places - the kitchen, the bathroom, the cargo hold, and the top deck. She had just begun to feel comfortable moving around the boat when they arrived in Bergen. When she thought of Norway she did not immediately think of Bergen; in fact, she didn't know much about the country at all, besides the fact that it was mountainous and beautiful. She tried not to think about that, because she would not be enjoying the sights anytime soon.

She did not need to be reminded of what she was without. Traveling was something she had always wanted to do; she couldn't bear the thought that the one chance she got to travel, she couldn't see the scenery.

"... Hermione?" It was Sasha's voice. Hermione opened her eyes, earning a gasp and a few seconds of silence.

Cursing silently, Hermione automatically bowed her head in embarrassment and shame. Her rashness about the sunglasses had frightened her host.

"... Are you blind, dear?"

She nodded, trying not to acknowledge the tightening of her throat and the prickling of her eyes. She hadn't had an opportunity to talk to someone about her condition. She suspected that Tim knew, but he hadn't said anything to her.

Arms circled her shoulders, wrapping her in a hug that smelled of rosemary and muggle lotion. "I'm sorry, honey."

Hermione nodded again, knowing she was going to cry. She was finally getting the comfort that she had wanted from the beginning, finally being allowed her release. She wouldn't dare cry in front of Draco, whether he was asleep or away or not.

"What's going on, Mum?"

"Nothing, Jesse. Hermione here is going to help me make dinner. Would you like that, honey?"

She was five years old again, being consoled for scraping her knee; she couldn't fathom the strangeness of her first impression with Frank's family. She nodded again, trying to wipe her bottomless eyes.

She felt Draco enter the room, coming from behind her and the direction of where she had stumbled from. She pushed down her panicked breaths as she thought about herself clambering around the little room, knocking into corners and trying to dry her skin and hair. Hadn't she been naked at some point in there? Why hadn't he made his presence known to warn her? Instead of feeling the disgust that she knew she should have felt, her attempts to suck up her tears turned into embarrassment.

Draco crossed his arms. "What happened?"

Sasha shook her head. "Nothing to worry about." She ushered Hermione into the kitchen, where the smell of thick cream sauce and pepper made her lift her head. She stood there, silently trying to collect herself while Sasha stirred the tortellini and watched as they floated to the top of the boiling water. Minutes passed; Hermione was grateful for the companionable silence and the knowledge that she finally had company. She hated being weak; she was supposed to be a strong person.

"I don't want to pry," Sasha began.

"It's a long story," Hermione said quietly.

"Well, we've oodles of time, because I am not letting you out of my sight in your condition; that poor lad definitely had his hands full with you." Hermione's heart twisted a bit. She hated being a burden, even on Draco.

"Thank you for your concern."

"Of course. Now how did it happen?"

"I... was being chased down. They were going to kidnap me - this organization - and get information out of me in order to disrupt our government... Draco saved me from them, and we went into hiding. They blinded me for it."

Sasha shrugged, her face worrisome and frowning, as she stirred the sauce quickly. "That wasn't too long."

"Well, it's not that simple... Draco used to be a part of this terrorist group, but they imprisoned him because they doubted his loyalty. He escaped and is seeking revenge. We're going to expose them and put them to justice." Hearing their mission out loud made it seem preposterous, like something out of an adventure novel staring the two young heroes as they embarked on a dangerous journey to rid the world of evil. Hermione was Frodo Baggins, and Draco was Samwise Gamgee. She was Luke Skywalker, and he was Han Solo.

Well, considering her blindness, all of that was probably the other way around. Hermione Granger, the smart girl that she was, was once again reduced to sidekick status. It wasn't a new thing, though during her journey with Harry it had been difficult to bear. And this was different:

This was two people against the world. They had no one to help them, no one crazy enough to join them. Not even the Order, not even the Ministry.

"Do you like tortellini?"

"What?"

"I asked if you liked tortellini."

Hermione wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve. "Yes. What kind did you make?"

"Cheese, of course. The meat ones don't always cook right when I make them from scratch."

Hermione nodded. She hadn't talked about cooking with anyone in years; she wasn't really sure how to.

"Oi, Mum."

"Jess. This is Hermione." Hermione faced the direction of Jesse's voice.

Jesse was tall and thin like her mother, with unremarkable brown hair sheared off below her shoulders and a strong chin. Her voice sounded older than her twenty four years; while Hermione saw none of Jesse, she felt as though she were standing in the presence of a wise and responsible adult.

Jesse took her hand and squeezed it by pressing her thumbs into Hermione's palm; the girl's hands were rough. Hermione stumbled a bit as Jesse's arm around her shoulder caught her off-guard.

"Dinner is almost ready. Jess, would you mind stirring the sauce for me? I've got my hands full of colander."

Everything was less than before. He just hadn't seen it when she first disappeared.

France, Nora had said. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement was combing the area, searching for her. They had some leads, some dead ends. A new piece of evidence here, some identity confirmations there.

It was too confusing, too taxing. Harry was going to explode.

There was a knock on the door, and then a creaking as Ginny stepped in.

She was the first example. He hadn't realized how much Ginny cared about Hermione until she went missing; Ginny's once fiery eyes had dulled, and her skin had ceased to glow. Without warning, the girl sat on the bed next to him and threw her arms around his shoulders. He didn't realize that she was kissing him for several seconds. "Make this go away," she whispered against his neck after he'd pried himself away enough to breathe. "Make me feel alive. I don't want to feel like this anymore."

"If I knew how - "

"I think you know." Her eyes regained some fire. They were almost black in the gloom.

Harry's breath caught. Yes, he did know. "The circumstances - "

"Make it weird, I know. I just want to forget for a little while. Make it go away."

As tempting as that sounded, Harry knew an invitation to escape when he heard one. He'd done that too many times to not see it now. He calmly removed her from his lap, knowing that she would be hurt by the gesture.

"My mind isn't right," he said. "I'm sick from this too. But we have to power through it."

"I don't want to power through it. I want to escape. I want to forget, obliviate. I want to have her back and this to be over and her to lecture me about my crappy arithmancy skills and laugh about Ron. I want to braid her hair while she reads some huge book about some obscure charm from the Middle Ages. I want her to smile knowingly at us..."

"... And you want Draco Malfoy to bleed."

She nodded, her face now in his shirt. Ginny was not the crying type. It was a rare thing to comfort her like this.

"It's not him," Harry murmured, almost to himself. "If he was her enemy, then she'd be dead and he'd pop up on the radar again. Besides, the Death Eaters see him as an enemy now."

His voice had taken on the logical quality it had when ever he tried to puzzle out some mystery or contemplate intentions and culprits. "Shut it. I don't want to hear logic. It makes too much sense; I just want to fantasize about his death and be done."

He shook his head. "It doesn't work that way."

Ginny sniffed and leaned away from him. "You're really bad at this comforting thing."

"I know."

"I just want to be the weak little kid for a while. It makes me feel better."

Harry could understand that. He'd been strong his entire life, bottling up anger and sadness and fear, pushing it all aside in order to do what he had to do. He had priorities, and those never included his emotions. "Me too."

They sat in silence, Ginny staring, unseeing, at her feet.

What else had affected them so? Not even Sirius' death created so much gloom. He wondered at this. Why was it that he missed Hermione so much, like a piece of him was removed and carried away by a conniving prat with blond hair?

Because he was guilty.

Yes, guilty of forgetting about her, guilty of taking advantage of her and her knowledge. Guilty of underestimating her and under-appreciating her.

Now where was she? Gone, and now they knew of the loss. Aunt Petunia had once said that everything happens for a reason. Harry had always said if that was the case, she shouldn't yell at him so much; nothing happened for a reason. Things happened because not everyone in the world had the kind of morals they had.

"Wait; you want to be a weak little kid?"

Harry looked up at her. She had been staring at him, a note of mirth in her eyes. He allowed himself a smile. "That's not what I said."

"I'm pretty sure you said 'me too.'"

"I'm pretty sure you have it confused."

Ginny crossed her arms, her mouth twisting into a smirk. "I'm pretty sure you can't own up to it."

"I'm pretty sure... your face."

She laughed an actual laugh, and the sound was musical, breaking through the heavy air. Harry grinned. "See? I made you feel better." It was a start. They would have to go from there, because even though he did not want to lose hope... there was always that possibility that they'd be forever waiting for Hermione to come back to them.

Dinner was wonderful; the tortellini dish that Sasha had made was a hit, filling them up nicely. Frank looked especially grateful as he dug into his third helping; food on the ship had consisted mainly of bread and canned soup with some fresh fruit in the mornings, depending on the number of days away from land. Tim wasn't a believer in great eating on a smuggling ship.

Jesse and Amy conversed in French for a bit as Jesse tested the other girl on vocabulary; Tim kept Hermione occupied with talk about the scenery. So Draco was left staring at his plate as he chewed.

Something about this house made him sad. It might have been the family in it and their collection of family portraits and pictures on the walls; it might have been the lightness of the air or the ease of everyone's smiles. He hadn't been around this kind of thing since... since Hogwarts.

The world had gone on existing while his life had turned to shit.

Draco looked up to watch the family, see how it operated, see what made it happy. Why did these parents love their kids? Why was Sasha so smitten with her daughters? Amy looked like a troublemaker; she had bright cherry hair and thick black eyeliner under an eyebrow piercing; as she began to speak English he discovered that she had a tongue piercing as well. Jesse, who was pretty though not in a conventional way, looked almost like Hermione in her uptight-ness. Frank, as Draco knew, was hard to approach but almost foolishly generous when presented with an opportunity to help. Sasha reminded Draco strongly of Weasley's mum; she had the same kind of motherly air to her.

What was it that held this family together? Was this considered normal?

"So I was watching the show on the telly about cattle farms - you know the guy who does the dirty jobs?"

"The show is called 'Dirty Jobs'."

"Shut it. Anyway, they treat the cows like little princesses! They load them up onto a carousel and put food in front of them, and then hook this machine up to the utters. And the cows were all like, 'mooo' - "

"And they actually shook their heads like that, too? You watch too much TV."

"No I don't. You're going to run someone through with that sword one day."

"Hopefully I'll get the chance. There are people out there who deserve it." Jesse glanced at Hermione, who was once again wearing sunglasses. Hermione must have told her about how she became blind. Draco turned to Hermione.

"This isn't a field trip, remember."

Whatever she had been about to say didn't come out. She turned in his direction. "I know that. Forgive me for trying to escape from everything for a nice, warm dinner with a wonderful family." Her slight emphasis on the word warm was not lost on him. Surely she wasn't being snotty about the bread and water they had eaten before Frank had taken them in?

Draco shook his head. "I wasn't talking about that. We have to get you cured, meaning that we need to find a way to get to China."

"An airplane would be the obvious thing."

Draco grumbled something about "muggle flying cans."

"I suppose you have a better way, then?"

He didn't, of course. "We'll figure something out."

After dinner, everyone went their separate ways. Amy went to her room and started blaring music; Jesse went back outside despite the growing darkness. Tim said his goodbyes to Frank and Sasha, then left in his car.

Draco was temporarily relieved of his guard-duty of Hermione as Sasha treated Hermione's wounds a little better, replacing the bandages and cleaning the scabs with some more muggle chemicals. Hermione had ripped off the old bandages before her shower; the hot, torrential water had pealed off some of the scabs. Draco resolved to give her some panacea sap after she was done.

Suddenly he remembered why he'd been dreading coming back into the room.

"Thank you very much, Sasha," Hermione said as the older woman steered her into the room. "The old ones were gross."

"No problem dear... you two sleep well. Breakfast is at nine."

She felt Draco in the room and felt the tenseness in the air. The air was thick with some kind of horrifying thought, and if she was not mistaken, they were completely on the same page now.

Hermione jumped as the door slammed, and she was left alone with him.