On The Color Of Fur
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A/N: ATTENTION, DON'T SKIP!
I'VE POSTED BOTH CHAPTERS 6 AND 7 TODAY, SO READ CHAPTER 6 FIRST!
I went through all the trouble of uploading Chapter 6 to the doc manager and forgot to post it lol! It was supposed to go up in December, but things were pretty crazy due to the end-of-the-year rush and my brain malfunctioned lol
So sorry about the delay, but at least there are two now, right? :)
Hope you guys enjoy them!
Nights were the only time she could exert some measure of control. Everyone being deep into slumber meant no expectations she would fail to meet, no interactions she would agonise over and yet still be ill-equipped to navigate.
There was a rawness to her every nerve that burned in the daylight, open flame.
It was as if she had forgotten how to be a friend, a student, or overall a person. They had either been stolen from her or she had lost along the way, those seemingly simple things she had never given thought to before. They used to be as easy as breathing, but as breathing grew harder, almost impossible at times, so did they.
Her every flaw and failure was scorched flesh, exposed and boiling under the sun for all to see. So yes, nighttime meant carving space for her thoughts amidst the constant concern for other people's needs, always above her own, because at some point Harry's need to save everyone had rubbed off on her, yet unlike him she hadn't been prepared for everything that it entailed, being so selfless she effaced herself. And she had given everything to help Harry win the war, as Harry had given everything for absolutely everyone possible, but she wasn't built the same way as him, she wasn't , and she couldn't—
She could not bear it, this heavy, suffocating thing—because the truth was, she didn't want to sacrifice herself any longer. Deep down, she wasn't sure she ever did.
Rare were the times in which she could exist outside of it, this façade and the guilt that accompanied it, of making people believe this farce, that Hermione Granger was a good person when she was not. Only silence, darkness, and space granted her that reprieve. Some nights, though, there was little peace to be found even in it. On those nights, the quiet helped less than it hindered, thoughts running amok inside her head without distraction, chasing around ghosts that vanished upon reach. The darkness drowned her further, and the same space that would ease her lungs enough for her to breathe only added to her loneliness.
The tears formed unbidden, her nightly haven tarnished, and a single piece of parchment remained as a silent howler, broadcasting her cravenness to the empty room.
Seal unbroken, the letter had gotten slightly crumpled as she had taken to carrying it around until she felt brave enough to open it. Until such a time some gryffindorness was returned to her, along with every other part she no longer had.
Ever since receiving it two nights prior, the little missive had merely sat there, atop her bedside table whenever she went to sleep, a taunt and a plea both, daring, begging her to open it one moment, and then, when indecisiveness inevitably stopped her, mocking her inability to, its very presence a derision.
She had postponed it until it was too late, until her silence was too telling, even though it sent the wrong message. All because she had kept waiting to face whatever its contents brought, for a time of readiness that never arrived, solely because she wasn't certain she could endure it.
While it seemed a hardly consequential thing, opening one's correspondence, Hermione's previous experiences had taught her better. Not that she expected it to contain Bobotuber Pus—Remus would never stoop so low as to injure her, yet he might be unaware of the magnitude of his impact, might not realise how his disappointment could cut her.
Far harsher than an acidic substance, once read the letter's ink would become indelible in her mind, his words a passed, final judgement on her behaviour. Hermione would then be childish, pitifully misguided, or silly—no, foolish, as Remus would sooner deem her a tantrum-prone fool who refused to listen to reason before he ever uttered or wrote the word silly. Yet, in the meantime, while the parchment remained unopened… Well, she could exist in this in-between—embodied, at times, by the torment of imagined worst-case scenarios, in which Remus abjured her and any seedling friendship they'd formed, but, at others, the ones she would covet, by the soothing comfort of an equally conceptual understanding outcome and unconditional acceptance.
Ignorance may not be bliss, but its pain was bearable, duller in contrast to the stark sharpness of knowledge. Like standing on the edge of a cliff blindfolded, unaware of which direction held safety, Hermione remained still. Perhaps the entire precipice was an anxiety-spawn figment, but her body could no longer distinguish it and the fear it elicited was unfeigned. Genuine enough to engulf her.
Deep down, she knew it to be unhealthy. That delaying any sort of decision-making by closing one's eyes and refusing to look would never solve anything at all, and as far as coping methods went, it was fairly faulty as well.
After all, unless she planned on abandoning Hogwarts before attending her first class tomorrow, she would be faced with Remus regardless. For a double period, no less.
In the end, it was the inevitability that decided for her.
She pushed a fingernail under the red wax and broke it, one pillow held tight against her stomach as she unfolded it.
In the time it took for her to draw a fortifying breath, her eyes had travelled over the entire message.
Please come back.
Hermione reread the words, then turned the parchment over in search of more, to no avail.
She was such an idiot.