Leaving Home

Leaving Home (3 of 6).

Oddly enough, HP hasn't suddenly become mine overnight, so it all still belongs to JKR. Pity - my student loan could use the break. I'd like to say thanks to all the people who have taken time to review - I'm very grateful, even if you don't like the way the story is going. But to save me from keeping on telling people individually - no, Hermione is not going to be the great be all and end all saviour of the wizarding world. That's Harry's job, not hers.

As for this chapter, there are a couple of warnings that you should know about. First - there are character deaths in here (thank Tank for the warning!). Second, there's a small amount of Hr/Other in here. Don't worry, it's over quickly. This is an H/Hr fic after all. So…

Chapter Three.

It has been two years since I arrived in this country, and there begin to be times that I can forget, where the past seems all a dream and this is the only life I have ever had. A normal life, like other girls. Well, maybe they don't all spend quite as much time in the library as I do, but some things are past changing.

Still, there are times when I remember and cannot forget, even though I try. Little things remind me, and I know that I keep at least some of them around so that I cannot escape what I have done, where I have come from. I wonder sometimes if the litany of small hurts is a way to further punish myself, or if focusing on the small matters allows me to escape from the big ones. Another form of betrayal? I don't know - but I wonder just how much of a coward I have become.

There is something comforting about the small reminders, even so. My fellow students, in the laboratory and classrooms of the university I now get to work in, tease me for using chalk to explore my research, when they use whiteboard markers and computer programmes. I find that mathematics is more enjoyable with chalk, the faint, furry smell of it and the way it catches on my clothes, leaving ghostly fingerprints everywhere. It reminds me that I still exist, even outside of the Arithmancy classroom. That always was my favourite subject, and if I cannot have it back, I can have the closest substitute. I have stimulation when I want it, but most of it can be done alone. I am allowed lot of privacy, a lot of freedom to work. It's amazing what being really clever can get you.

I've even made friends, although they are pale imitations of what has been left behind. No matter how I try to sink myself in them, to concentrate on the new life I have built for myself, this is the one lie that I cannot force myself to tell. They are not the friends I had, and I am not the friend I was. I did not think that the loss would be this crucial, could not fathom what it would do or how far it would send me. I knew that it would be bad, but this…?

Unfathomable.

It's sunny outside, one of the last warm days of summer's ending. It is very bright here, different from the soft earthiness of Hogwarts, and I have to force myself not to think about the coolness of the lake and the dimness of the hills. Here I can let the colour carry me away like a leaf on the river, in ignorance of the current beneath. It may be a shell, but the colour is, I think, what has kept me sane, and it is too nice a day to continue with my derivations.

Dave smiles at me when I leave, teases me for being a layabout, and I can see by the tilt of his head that he wishes I would invite him along, but that part of my life is over. He's a good man, and the time I spent with him allowed me to forget, for a short while at least. But eventually I could hide it from myself no longer. Dave was funny, and charming, and maybe even slightly better than I was at maths, but despite the pleasure that he gave me in bed (the thought of Hermione Granger with a lover, even after the fact, still makes me shake my head and smile in disbelief) it didn't last, and the fault was mine. My first lover. At first I didn't see the similarity. He smiled too much. It was only when he moved to contact lenses - the chalk in the study room we shared always misted his glasses - that I was angry, unreasonably so… and that was when I really noticed the skinny build, the messy dark hair.

Again the loss, the laceration of realisation and abandonment. Sometimes the torture we inflict on ourselves is worse than anything others can come up with. Would Voldemort really have been worse than this?

Leaving the university is like stepping across into another world, where the shadows of my past become stronger. The house where we live has yet to feel like home, but it has become familiar. That is a small grace in itself. It has been divided into two sections, a larger one where a normal family lives, and the other hidden by the Fidelius charm. Professor McGonagall was very thorough, and we have a small space where we can hide, if necessary, and for me to do my study, my other research - and a bigger house that is open to anyone, although few are invited in. We are a private family, by inclination as well as necessity.

It grows harder to believe that anyone is looking for us. I don't want to be lulled into a false sense of security, but I simply cannot believe that finding one lost Muggle is of any great importance to Voldemort. Surely my leaving was an amusing irony, another thing for him to beat over their heads…

It grows harder to keep feeling guilty as well. There are times when I forget to, for as much as several hours together, but it never lasts. I should be ashamed to forget at all, but sitting in my bedroom, feeling the warm air waft through the window, I see the new man in my life stretched out on the bed, and realise that there are things about this new life that I would give up for no-one. Not even for Harry.

Ben is half-dressed, laughing, taking advantage of the breeze to escape the heat. It's close in here, and I want to touch him, feel his skin on mine, and his body under my fingers. He lifts easily, smelling of baby powder and just-washed hair. Fresh and clean. New. He gurgles in my ear, and I know again that I would never give him up. He is almost worth betrayal, if anything is.

I carry him downstairs, fat thirteen month old body cuddled against mine, fat hands reaching up to tangle in my still short curls. I open the patio doors, see my parents lying in the sun. It's a golden afternoon, and their faces light up when they see us. My mother reaches out her arms, and I swing Ben down to her. “Go to mummy, little one.” He smiles up at me, making nonsense noises that, with effort, we have all learned to decipher.

“Perdy, perdy!” he crows. For in this tale, I am Perdita. We all have new names here. It's a silly name, really, but my parents loved the idea of having their daughter called after a Shakespearian character, and it seemed to fit. Perdita, lost in her winter's tale. Unable to go home.

I managed to save Ben from that kind of fate. Over a year ago, watching my father flip through his well thumbed Collected Works, I had put my foot down before they lumped my little brother with something truly horrible. He'd be beaten up at school with a name like “Lysander”. As it is, the poor child is saddled with it for a middle name. At least I escaped with “Jane”.

I never thought I'd get this clucky over a baby, but Ben's not just any baby. A complete surprise to us all - my mother is nearly past the age of having children, and despite decades of trying has only managed to conceive once before. They had given up hope of another child, and focused all their love on their daughter. For years, I was the most precious thing in their life, but now I find I do not mind sharing. Ben is a happy baby, and I wonder if it was the move, the lack of stress in their lives, that finally allowed them to relax enough to have him. If we had stayed in Britain, they would be dead and Ben wouldn't exist.

I can't bring myself to feel sorry that he does.

There's no magic in him, however. No hint of it at least, and I should have seen something by now if there was. I've been watching for signs, and I know that they have as well, even if they don't say so. I can feel them watching, comparing, what it was like with me to what it is like with him. There is a difference - I can feel it in the relaxed set of their shoulders, the almost perfectly concealed relief in their foreheads. Ben is a perfectly lovely, perfectly normal Muggle baby - they will not lose him to boarding school and threats of death that are beyond their comprehension.

Five minutes later, I wish I had stayed in the sun. My research area at home is quite different from the one at university. There are ingredients and equipment and at least three cauldrons, one of which is a modified baby bath (it's impossible to buy cauldrons as a Muggle, I swear, and the house is full of baby things anyway). My coming up here, into the small secret upper floor, seems to be more habit than anything else. I hadn't lied to Dave - had actually planned to take time off - but I can't seem to stop myself from coming up here. It feels like my nearest connection to home.

But it's all so hopeless that I may as well not be here. I've read every book that Snape gave me, back to front, and for a long time didn't know what to do with them. Some spells seem completely irrelevant, and there's no good reason to do them. Others are so dark that I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole, no matter what. I expect Snape would sneer at me for it, but I don't think that I can be that brave, if it is bravery that excuses your throwing away all your morals for the greater good. I feel hypocritical saying that, though, considering...

But eventually I found something that I could do. The only one I wanted to do - but it's complicated. Naturally. I like to think of this potion - and Snape would no doubt be secretly pleased that it is a potion - as my redemption, but I know that this is ridiculous. As powerful as this potion is, it is not anything that can be used to stop Voldemort. There is no hope of it being used to save anyone. It's not a weapon, or even a defence against one. And suddenly the image in my mind of Snape returns to his trademark sneer - no doubt he would consider my choice as weak, given all the other options he had provided me with. Oddly, I feel slightly ashamed at the thought - but why should I feel shame at the opinion of a man who has probably betrayed us all, even if I do feel pity for him?

Perhaps I am weak, after all. Weaker than I thought, at least.

But I cannot help it. Those other spells… I have come to believe that betrayal is the one true Unforgivable, but the thing that really curls me up in shame is the knowledge that I will betray Harry but not myself. I can leave him to fail and die, but I cannot bring myself to try and master really dark magic in his defence. I'm prepared to leave him for a second time, it seems, for the price not of my life but of my soul. But if it were only myself I was betraying, then I would be the only one to pay the price. Strange. Perhaps, in time, I could forgive self-betrayal - but that is exactly what I can't bring myself to do. I can never forgive the betrayal of another - but that is exactly what I have done.

It leaves a bitter taste, and I don't believe that it will ever wash away.

So I fiddle with this potion instead, something useless and beautiful - and something that is utterly beyond me. I know that I am no fool, and perhaps it is true that I really was the brightest young witch in Hogwarts, but I am no Potions Master. I never even took my NEWTS. And this potion, that I focus on perhaps for redemption, or in order to fool myself that there can be redemption - I no longer know which - is, simply, too hard for me.

There are so many ingredients, and all have to be prepared in their own hideously complex ways, before a blending of a type that I have never seen before. After many months, I was able to complete the preliminary steps, but in the more complex final mixture, there has been nothing but months of failure. This redemption that I need so badly is impossible to reach. I cannot complete it alone - but neither is there anyone who I can ask for help, or who would come if I called. I need a Potions Master, and do not have one.

Really, I've stopped trying. I wonder if I sit up here not in order to try and make some great breakthrough, but to punish myself because I know that that same breakthrough is beyond me. At least if I succeeded, I would be able to say that I have done something. It wouldn't be a useful something, or a relevant something. It probably wouldn't even buy me redemption. But it could give me hope - not that Voldemort can be defeated, or that Harry could forgive me, or even that I would, at the end, be able to go home - but hope that perhaps there is something better in this world, something that I cannot betray. Perhaps success will take away my guilt, and assure me that there is something worth fighting for when even Harry is not.

Perhaps my failure is because Harry was worth fighting for, and I didn't. Unforgivable. It's a circle I can't get out of. For how can someone capable of Unforgivable produce something as peaceful as this? There is no peace left in me, and precious little left in the world.

The yearning to be able to finish, to be able to know, to be able, finally, to see a path through which I can forgive myself has become stronger over the years - painfully strong when I see Ben, and his little face smiling up at me. I can no longer bear this dislocation. I can bear the breach from Britain, and all that is in it, even when I see reports on the evening news of increasing mass violence and unexplained events. I can bear knowing that I betrayed Harry, painful though that admission is. I saved my parents. I saved Ben, or the Ben-that-would-be. I need to know if there is a way to save myself - not my physical body, but the beliefs that I once had, the yearning within me. There must be more to life than this - the emptiness of betrayal, the sterile beauty of mathematics, the power of the physical world and its machines that I am so good at building.

There must be more even than magic.

And so I contacted Professor McGonagall. I can't even say why, really - it's a foolish move. Stupid really - and a little risky too I suppose, although I honestly wouldn't have done it if I thought the risk was real. Stupid, and utterly selfish. It's not as if I can go back now. Mum would stay with Ben, but Dad would go with me if I chose to leave - and I can't do that to any of us. So, no going back, and no contacting where I would go with some sort of miracle cure from the bookworm, banished by her own hand to the back of beyond. But I just couldn't not know any longer. I must finish this potion, because although I was prepared for guilt, I don't think I ever realised how crushing it would be. It goes away sometimes, but it always comes back, and this…

I have no illusion that this potion will buy me redemption from those I have betrayed. That is past hope, and there the winter will always remain. But I must find a way to forgive myself - to know that there is still something in me that is worth preserving.

There was no-one else to ask, and I didn't expect an answer. I don't even know if Hogwarts is still standing, or if there is anyone left there who is knows enough about potions to answer. I'm not sure that I want to know the answer to either of these questions. They say that not knowing is harder than knowing, but I find that I can cope with not knowing well enough in this case, thank-you - although that is something I never would have expected to hear myself say, back when I still had hope. Hope for the world, and hope for myself.

So as I sit in my home laboratory on one of the last warm days of summer, staring at but not really seeing a page that I must have read one hundred times already with no result, I am surprised to see a Patronus pace through the door, and look at up me questioningly, with an intent expression on its whiskered face. For a moment I wonder if I have fallen asleep, for it is only in dreams that I see a Patronus lately - only in dreams that I remember home. But it is still there, and there is a faint grumble, a faint purr in its throat. Tears fill my eyes. I believe that it may even be happy to see me - but I have never seen this Patronus before. It must be from a Gryffindor, but who would come? Who would know? It must be McGonagall, and I drop my book, for once uncaring of the cracks left in the spine, and practically fall against the window looking out into the street.

Standing in the next door but one is someone I haven't seen for a very long time. My throat closes up, and I am wretchedly, stupidly glad. I had thought that I had plumbed the depths of how much I missed my life before this, but the joy that comes from seeing Neville Longbottom on my doorstep convinces me that I had yet to truly understand how lonely this life is.

Our reunion is awkward, made the more so by Neville's obvious injuries. He is limping badly, and the way that one arm is strapped to his side makes me suspect broken ribs. I usher him past my parents, and turn away from the shuttered look that has come over their faces; the way my mother clutches the baby closer to her for a moment, then forces herself to relax. Ben is sleeping, and they put him to bed on the sofa, and make a rather transparent excuse about needing some fresh fruit and vegetables for dinner. We're having curry. I know that they are going out to spare us all the awkwardness that attends this intersection of our past lives. I know that they hope that when they get back, Neville will be gone.

I fetch tea to fill the silence. It is still awkward between us, but Neville is not unfriendly. I am glad that it is him who came - I do not think I could bear to see Harry or Ron, and I do not believe that they could forgive me. Betrayal is Unforgivable, but Neville… I wonder what he would do to redeem his parents if only he could; what he would sacrifice within himself...

I want to believe that he does not judge me.

I wonder why McGonagall has sent him, for Neville has never been gifted at Potions. It seems he is only here as messenger, as he is too recently injured to be useful in the battles that now rage through Harry's world.

Harry. I can barely bring myself to ask, but Neville has always been kind, and he sees the question in my eyes.

“He's alive, Hermione. Ron too.”

I cannot help myself. I have to know. “Does he know that you came?” I ask, and my fingers tighten in my dress.

Neville nods, once.

“Did he…” my mouth is dry, and I can hardly form the words. “Did he… say… anything?”

And at this Neville has to look away. “No,” he says, and there is a finality in his tone. It is no more than I deserve, but I cannot stop the whimper that rises in my throat, the tears that suddenly fill my eyes. Neville glances at me again, and I can see the beginnings of pity in his eyes.

I do not want it, and turn to the window, facing away from him. I brought this on myself, after all. There should be no pity.

He has the decency not to apologise, and not to mention it any further. Staring at the empty street, I try to get my emotions under control as Neville fills me in on his errand. It appears that Snape is at Hogwarts, and that he killed Dumbledore on the old headmaster's orders. I cannot imagine how Harry must feel at that… or how Snape must have felt. Oddly, it strengthens the feeling of kinship with the Potions Master that has stayed with me since his gift of the books, his utter lack of condemnation when I left Hogwarts. It seems that he knows the price of betrayal as well as I do.

“He couldn't come himself,” Neville continued. “He's too important, and he can't leave Hogwarts now. Voldemort knows that he has betrayed him, you see…”

I understand. Snape cannot be risked. Yet McGonagall will risk this boy - this man, I amend to myself - to bring me his aid. He will take some of the potions I have back to Hogwarts, to be worked on by the Master. My one chance at redemption, in my own eyes if in no-one else's. It must gall Snape to do it. I believe that he would have helped me anyway, out of some grim sense of symmetry - it is only fitting that the ones who colluded in my running away would assist in its mitigation - but it must be hateful to him for that assistance to be so useless, for I know that is what this potion is. It is hopeless against Voldemort - and I should be ashamed to take his attention away from what must be more important work.

I should feel ashamed, but I have lost shame in desperation. There must be redemption, or suicide is the only alternative. I cannot live like this any longer. Perhaps McGonagall knows that, deep down. Perhaps even Snape does. Relief washes over me like a wave, and hope returns. My parents will be glad at the change, even if it came at the price of the temporary re-entry of the magical into our cloistered little world, far from the angry shores of Britain.

But when I see my parents return, walking down the street to our house, a large basket on my mother's arm, I see shadows move toward them and in a moment of exquisite clarity realise that redemption is gone, and will never come again.

There is no hope for me in the return of magic, and no hope for them in the crowd of dark robes, of green flashes sent at them by a man with dark hair and a cruel mouth. There is no hope for any of us in the bright fruit that rolls from the basket away from their bodies, and no hope in the shattering of my teacup as it slips through my fingers.

For two years, grace has slowly died within me, kept alive only by tortured rationalisations and fractured, painful dreams of the future. In the breaking of the cup, I know that that grace is gone. It is a quick death at least, after the fight I had to keep it alive within me, but I know that I will hear its death forever, in the tiny, echoing space between my parents' silent fall and the shattering of the cup. In this moment, I have truly become Perdita, the lost.

It is Neville that moves first. Neville, with the battle-hardened reflexes that I have never had to develop, and he scoops Ben up into one arm, and grabs me with the other. “Fidelius,” he snaps at me, shaking my arm. Numb, I can only point shakily at the door that enters into the magically protected part of the house, the part that McGonagall left for us all to hide in should something happen, and he drags us both across the floor, shoves me into the room, and places Ben on a nearby chair, groggy and sleeping. The door connecting the two parts of the house disappears, and we are safe.

I stumble to the window. Only a few meters away lie the bodies of my parents, my mother's arm out flung, tomatoes scattered around from the shopping basket that lies upturned on the pavement. I can hear great, wrenching gasps, and realise from a distance that they may - they - be mine. I can't seem to get enough air, and it is only that that saves me from screaming when the face of the dark-haired man suddenly appears at the window, his face only a few centimetres from mine.

Neville holds me tight from behind, one hand clamped over my mouth. Neither he nor I know how much protection Fidelius gives - the Death Eaters must be searching randomly… They cannot see us through the window, cannot even see the window itself, but I can see them. I can see him. He cannot see me, but could they hear me scream with only the window between us? The eyes of the man that murdered my parents stare into mine for a few seconds longer before moving on, searching elsewhere - and suddenly I am on the floor, with my legs at an awkward angle around me. They are no longer able to hold me up, and Neville's arms are still around me, his hand tight over my face. I can hear the noises begin next door, as the house that was our sanctuary is torn apart. No doubt they are looking for me, and I want to go to them, to allow them to find me…

It is Neville that holds me back. He jerks one arm at Ben, flushed and orphaned on the chair, just beginning to wake.

“There are too many of them,” he hisses in my ear, so softly I can barely hear him. “Don't let him grow up without you as well.”

Stung, stunned, I wrench free from him as quietly as I can, and make my way over to the baby, cradling him in my arms. I bury my face in his neck, and he starts to whimper.

I wonder if he knows something is wrong.

Distantly, I hear Neville apologise, dragging himself across the floor to us. “I'm sorry, Hermione,” he keeps saying. “I'm sorry. They must have been able to follow me here somehow… it's my fault. I'm so sorry…”

But I know that it is not his fault. He only came - McGonagall only sent him - because I asked for help. I could not bear my guilt alone.

Two years ago, I betrayed my dearest friends to save my parents. I thought I would be able to live with the guilt, but in the end it overwhelmed me. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't strong enough to live with my own decisions… I wanted redemption, and by my own hand received damnation instead. This winter's tale will never end, and I can see no possibility of redemption for me ever again.

My parents are dead, and it's my fault. I betrayed them.

It's my fault.

Unforgivable.

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