Leaving Home

Hi all. Yes, I know, it’s been ages since I’ve done anything on “Storm”. I haven’t left it (am working on the latest chapter now), but this story has been bumping around my head for months. It’s sort of a one-shot, though I might continue it if anyone is interested, as I have some very vague ideas as to where it might go (although I don’t know if any continuation would be suitable for Portkey).

You should know two things before you start. The first is that this story is utterly, hopelessly, depressing. If you’re in a good mood now, please click the back button, as I don’t want to be responsible for ruining it!

The second is that this continues directly from the HBP common room argument where Ginny slaps down Hermione for being angry at Harry’s use of the “Sectumsempra” Curse. Hermione’s POV, and alternate universe.

“Leaving Home”.

“Oh, don’t start acting as though you understand Quidditch,” snapped Ginny, “you’ll only embarrass yourself.”

The Common Room is silent.

He looks guilty, a bit ashamed (as well he should!), but I can’t help but notice that he looks grateful as well. He’s glad she’s sticking up for him. And that wouldn’t bother me – at least, not much – if I wasn’t suddenly, completely aware that he was going to let her do it.

And in that moment, I realise two things. That I love him, and that it’s not enough.

It strikes me as the funniest thing in the world, and although I should be crying, I hear these breathy, high pitched noises coming from a long way away, and I understand that it’s me. Laughing. And I can’t seem to stop.

The Common Room is quiet – it’s deadly, really. Everyone is looking at me as if I’ve suddenly lost my mind, and on Harry’s face I can see the shame, the guilty gratitude, turning to something like worry. I’d like to stop laughing for a moment, to tell him he doesn’t need to worry, but that’s a lie I can no longer force myself to tell. He makes an awkward movement towards me, a sort of reaching out with one hand, but stops himself. He’s clearly confused, poor boy. I wish that I were so. But I’m not confused, and I’m not weak enough to stop myself from doing what I know has to be done.

It’s another difference between us.

I turn and go up to my dormitory, and no-one tries to stop me. I think they’re all a bit scared, really. It’s funny. Everything’s funny. Honestly, it’s even a bit tragic. Even in the quiet, sitting neatly on my bed, alone, it takes me a while to stop laughing. And then I find I’m not quite as strong as I’d like to think. It’s so easy to keep sitting; staring at nothing, avoiding what I know must be done. There’s even something calming about it, and my life outside this room suddenly seems so far away.

There’s a picture of my parents on the stand beside my bed. It’s nearly hidden by books, and I take it gently in my hands and trace the frame with my fingers. It’s a Muggle picture. It used to be a wizarding one – they were so interested at first, to see how they moved – but as things began to get more difficult, the movements they showed were that of worry. They tried to hide it, of course, but it showed in the tightness of their smiles, and the way that they held their shoulders. After a while, I changed to a photograph that didn’t move, one that had caught them off-guard in one of their last happy moments. When they weren’t worrying about me, or about this world that they’re not a part of.

There’s a knock on the door, and Lavender and Parvati silently enter. I know they’re worried – they’re never silent, and they never knock. It’s their room too, of course. Why would they? But they shuffle over in front of me, these girls that I have shared a room with for five years but have never really becomes friends with, and I can see the worry in their faces. Even in Lavender’s, and it’s not as if we’ve been getting on well lately. I wish I could find the strength to tell her that it didn’t matter, none of it did, but it’s taking all my energy not to hide under the bed, to sit upright, to breathe. And even if there were something to say that she could understand I have no idea how to say it.

They’re nice, really. Clueless, but nice, and they want to know if there’s something they can do for me. The question makes me light-headed, because I know with certainty that there is no longer anything that I can do for them. But in trying to avoid their eyes – Harry isn’t the only one feeling shame today – I notice a small wickerwork basket tucked neatly beside the bedside table, and know that I have to find my cat. Lavender and Parvati look relieved, and offer to find him for me. They think I want to cuddle him, to make myself feel better, just as Parvati does with that ragged old elephant that she thinks I don’t know she has hidden in her trunk.

We’re all so young, and it’s so unfair.

After they’ve checked under the beds, they leave me alone again, but not before promising to tear up the Tower if they have to, to find him. I just hope the lazy little beast isn’t sleeping in the greenhouses again. I don’t want to drag this out longer than I have to. It’s warmer inside, and I take off my jumper, and wrap the picture of my parents carefully in it. I don’t want it to break, and even though I am now of age and could repair the glass easily enough, the thought of everything else that I am about to break today makes me want to keep as much as I can intact, no matter how small it is. The wool catches on my Prefect’s badge, and I trace it with my fingers just as I traced the photo of my parents. The world that each belongs to is so different, yet they’re colliding and there’s nothing that can be done to stop it. The most I can hope for is to avoid that collision for as long as possible.

I was so proud of that badge.

Now I just feel old, and heavy. And every movement, as I collect up my books, fold clothes, and pack my trunk feels as though it’s being done in a higher gravity. I roll most of my notes together, and leave the spare parchment and quills on the table for the other girls. Someone may as well use them. I stack my library books by the parchment – someone else will have to return them. And I hide under my pillow the bobble-hat that I hadn’t finished knitting. I leave all my Hogwart’s robes in a neat pile on the bed. I won’t be using them again. When my trunk is packed, and I’ve charmed it to be feather-light, I sit on the bed, as neatly as before, and wait. Things don’t seem so funny anymore, and not nearly so distant.

I’d write letters, but I don’t know what to say.

Night is falling and the others have yet to come back with my cat. In a way, I am almost glad. This will be easier to do in the dark. When another knock comes, I’m almost surprised to find that it’s Ginny. Another one who has never knocked before. She has Crookshanks in her arms, and he has such a vile expression on his flat face that I just know he has sunk every claw he has into her. I’m not sure which of them looks grumpier, and in the fog around me it’s almost funny. Almost. What is funny is the way that both of their expressions change at once when they see me. I take Crookshanks in my arms, and despite myself hug his fat furry body to me. He doesn’t purr, but rubs his head against my face, and even goes quietly into his wicker basket. He’s never done that before.

Ginny is eyeing my trunk, and her face is a mixture of resentment and regret. Although she doesn’t say so, she wants to know if apologising will make me stay. It won’t. I should be angry, but it’s hard to feel anything but pity. None of it is her fault, really. We don’t speak, as there is nothing to say to each other, but I give her an awkward hug, and after a moment she hugs me back. Poor girl. I hope she doesn’t blame herself for this. I’m fairly certain that she won’t, however.  

It’s awkward carrying my trunk and Crookshanks down the spiral staircase. I’ve never had to do that before. Taking the luggage to and from the rooms is always something the house elves have done. I do hope one of them takes that hat.

There are a few people in the Common Room, and Ron is one of them. He takes one look at my trunk and knows what is happening, but I can see him jumping to all the wrong conclusions. For once, he doesn’t explode but has the sense to bite his tongue and follow me out through the portrait hole. He doesn’t slam it shut, but it closes much harder than necessary, and I flinch. At least we are doing this in the corridor, out of the sight of the rest of the House. The last few glimpses I got were of a small group of junior students, looking after me as if their world had suddenly become a bit less stable, and a lot more frightening. I’m grateful for the door that Ron has closed on them.

He’s angry and confused, but the first drowns out the second. I think that there’s even a hint of jealousy in there. He believes that I’m leaving in some sort of juvenile huff because Harry hasn’t taken my advice. I can see that he thinks I’m being pathetic for resenting the closeness between his little sister and his best mate. Well, he is her brother, after all. And what makes him even angrier is the knowledge, unspoken between us, that I wouldn’t get this jealous for him; I wouldn’t leave for him.

It’s painful, and I don’t express myself well. Ron’s half right, really, but that is all. For someone as bright as he is when it comes to chess, the future is a blank slate – or at least one that he is unwilling to look into.

For today I realised that Harry was going to lose. It’s so unfair, and I’m not sure that it’s anything he can help. No-one should be expected to perform as Dumbledore expects him to, with his only weapon the comforting platitudes that are all the Headmaster sees fit to give. I wonder whether to be angry at him that he finally saw fit to reveal the truth at last. What good will it do now, this revelation that should have come years ago? Now, when Harry has come to expect that the good guys win at the end, simply because they are good and he’s gotten lucky before? It’s not his fault, really, even though he refuses to help with Slughorn. Almost no-one has thought to teach him otherwise. Luck isn’t going to be enough to beat Voldemort, and neither is love, no matter what Dumbledore says. Love didn’t save Harry’s parents, or Neville’s. I won’t rely on its saving mine. It certainly didn’t save Harry. It just gave him an extra space of time to get used to the idea of not dying.

I know that he worries. Ron has told me before how he shifts in his bed at night. Deep down, I feel he expects to win, however. His belief in Dumbledore has become so deep-rooted that he can no longer even be motivated enough to obey him. Today he behaved just like Malfoy, and no-one even seemed to care. It’s just not good enough. I love Harry, but he’s lazy and sloppy when it comes to homework, and I’m sure he just nods his head to shut me up when I try to tell him about SPEW. And I’m positive that after all this time he’s never even read Hogwarts: A History.

I don’t know what he’s relying on to help him beat Voldemort, but I can no longer rely upon him. Ron cannot understand this.

Or am I being ungenerous? Perhaps he sees it as well as I do, but refuses to leave regardless. He’s always been loyal. I used to like to think that I was loyal – more loyal than Ron anyway (who was it who ran off in a snit after the Goblet of Fire episode?) – but when push comes to shove it seems that I am more intelligent than faithful. I cannot follow blindly, and Ron will never forgive me for it. I see it in his face when I turn away, the utter contempt for me, and I now that I have just shattered our friendship beyond repair. It’s heartbreaking. I’ve come to look upon the Weasleys (and Harry of course) as family, but I have another family, and it’s time to put them first. I try to hold on to him for one more second, to kiss him on the cheek, but he turns away, doesn’t let me touch him.

Of all the people to come after me, I don’t expect one of them to be Snape. He doesn’t try to dissuade me, however, and I get the sense that he actually approves of what I’m doing. That has to be a first, my potion making aside.

He shoves a small bag at me. I put down my trunk for a moment to peek inside, and find it stuffed with more books, charmed small, and from the titles I see that none of them can be found outside of the restricted section of the Library.

“Why?” I ask him, genuinely curious.

“They might be useful to you,” he says, and for the first time in years I hear no sneer in his voice. “After all, it’s not like any other student here will bother to appreciate them.” Ah, there it is. Some things just can’t be changed.

“You’re not even going to try and stop me, are you,” I say, and he shakes his head. He doesn’t need to explain. There’s no more that I can do here, but I feel that his work, whatever it is, is not yet done.

And yet he seems to want to be comforting. “There’s nothing you could have done, Miss Granger. Indulgence has ruined the boy.”

And I bite my response back, knowing it to be untrue. And in the silence, we both hear the truth. It’s not indulgence that has ruined Harry, it’s Dumbledore.

Dumbledore, who knew the prophecy all along and said nothing. Dumbledore who, when realising in first year that Voldemort was back, did nothing. Dumbledore who waited until a student was dead before reforming the Order of the , and sending Hagrid as embassy to the giants. It’s not surprising, really, that Voldemort got to them first. Of course, if Dumbledore had taken up the Minister of Magic position that had been urged upon him at the end of the First War, he might have actually been able to prevent some of what’s happened, to build some bridges. It’s not as though he would have left Hogwarts in bad hands; he had McGonagall, after all.

But nothing. The so-called hero of the First War, the only one Voldemort was ever afraid of, seems to have lost the plot, and no-one appears to notice.

But I notice, and Snape notices. We can see it in each other’s eyes, the regret and the resignation. And the anger. Still, it’s easier for him. It’s not as if he’s on Voldemort’s hit list. The bond between us remains, however, and there is part of me that faintly marvels at how a Slytherin is apparently braver than a Gryffindor. I cannot bear to stay, but I am grateful that Snape can. Perhaps he will make the end easier for Harry, if he can. Gratitude makes me stumble forward and kiss his cheek. He doesn’t turn away, but I can see the surprise in his face – although only for a moment, and then the usual cool sneer returns. He bows slightly, silently, and I turn away.

I leave Snape behind and make my way mechanically over the lawn. I can’t apparate from school grounds: it’s in Hogwarts, A History. But once I have reached the boundary I can be home in moments, and plans have been made now for over a year. My parents aren’t stupid, and I never insulted them by thinking I could hide my life from them. They’d been informed when I was petrified. They’d seen the medicines I had to take at the end of last summer. They get the Daily Prophet. They could have pulled me out of school – certainly wanted to, but I persuaded them that it was still safe. They believed me, on the promise that I would tell them when things changed.

They changed today, or perhaps today I only realised it.

My parents have their own trunks packed; waiting in the spare wardrobe in case we ever needed to run. I don’t look forward to the next few weeks, but the arrangements have long been in place for if we need to run. McGonagall helped. She said that it was only in case of emergency, but she didn’t meet my eyes when she said it. I wonder now if she knew this day was coming. With their money and my – talents – our route and fake identification should be doable.

It won’t last for ever, of course. There’s nowhere you can hide from Voldemort, and if – or when, for I now believe it to be when – he comes to power, there will be, eventually, no escape. But it might just be long enough…

He comes to me before I cross over, and grief almost makes me buckle. Beside me, Crookshanks hisses at him, and it gives me strength to stand for a short while longer.  

There’s nothing to be said. Perhaps it is easier to let him believe that I leave out of jealousy, that I cannot bear the influence that Ginny has on him. That underneath my brainy exterior, I’m nothing more than a stupid, jealous little girl. Surely that is easier than telling him that I cannot bear to stay, to watch him fail and die. That I love him, but not enough to abandon my parents to try to keep him alive when I think that keeping him alive is a futile endeavour. That I think that he is good, and brave, and talented, but that despite all that he’s not going to win and that is partly because he and Dumbledore deserve not to. 

But when I look into his eyes I see that I am wrong. I see that he does know, and that although it is hurting him, he will not ask me to stay. He doesn’t have the strength to tell us all to leave, and face Voldemort alone, because he too believes that he will fail, and that all this year has been about him believing he will fail, so why not live while he can?

We both refuse to speak, because it is the last thing that we can do for each other. He’s not going to ask me to stay, because he too thinks that I should go, that I should save myself for as long as I can. I know now that he will speak to Dumbledore and McGonagall, that he will prevent them from coming after me. I do my best to smile for him, to show that I understand and do not blame him. It’s unfair to expect so much of him – he’s just a kid. No kid should have to be a hero for the entire world, it can’t be done.

I lean forward and kiss him, not like I kissed Snape, or how I tried to kiss Ron, but on the mouth, fully, where I can taste both our tears. Turning away from him is the hardest thing I have ever done, because I fully believe that if I ever see him again, it will be from a distance, to weep over his body.

I step across the boundary of Hogwarts, and refuse to look back. It seems that even the mountains are weeping, as my sobs echo amongst them, and I can feel Harry at my back, willing me to go on. I close my eyes, and there is a tug, and I am gone.

I open my eyes in my parents’ study, and see my mother, frozen over a journal. She’s having an article published soon, and I can see the knowledge dawn in her eyes that she will not around to see it when they deliver it to our door. 

“We have to go,” I said. There is no blame in her eyes, and I am no longer laughing.