"She's such a strong girl." Luna spoke dreamily, her eyes wandering over the room before resting on the working Hermione.
Harry snorted at the random comment, quickly sobering himself before he regarded Hermione and then turned to Luna as Neville pointed out a passage in a book to their deaf friend. Certainly Hermione stood up tall with her difference, a light seemed to cling to her as if she was a unique race all on her own and softly proud of it…but that was just her adapting like any other human, right? She had developed that aura because she needed to be seen that way- competent and intelligent and …strong.
Instead of pondering further he smiled at Luna and gave her a bemused look.
She smiled vaguely in return, the bottle caps of her earrings clinking oddly as she swung her head to some tune. "She's struggling so hard to work on fitting in, and she's probably so tired of seeing medics and doctors. I think she should be worried about Carnlots…she's in the hospital wing enough to catch them- they only take to familiar patients you know."
Harry sighed and shook his head, he didn't know after all. Wait- "Why does Hermione need to go to the nurse all the time?"
Luna whispered a giggle. "Kids are so mean."
Harry scrunched his nose and left it at that. Luna was odd at the best of times, anything other than that was near undecipherable. And he didn't think his brain could handle the multiple layers present in Luna-speak right now. (He wasn't sure if he could handle it most any other time either.)
The four of them were meeting in the library to study for their charms exam coming up, and Harry had crammed as much information in his brain as he could - Hermione was a well spring of odd facts that strangely helped - now he didn't have any power or energy left to contemplate the ambiguous blonde he tentatively called friend.
He had finished some flying with Ron; talked to him and Ginny for a while, and then slipped out to meet the group at the library in that corner stack they loved so much. He briefly felt guilty over how he avoided introducing them to his friends….but weren't they his friends as well? Didn't it work both ways? Was he embarrassed of Ron and Ginny? For him to think that, did it mean he was embarrassed of the odd trio?
He looked down at his scratchy notes, examining the difference between his writing and the cursive side notes Hermione had written for him as hints to remember the topic- little anagrams, some rhymes as well as those acronyms…and some other mnemonic devices he'd never seen or used before.
He smiled as he spotted the little smiley face at the bottom of the page next to `Good luck'.
He looked up to watch a confused Hermione speak to an equally confused Neville, her occasionally heavy spoken word accenting her sign language and the boy's scratching of his head as he drew diagrams on the parchment and they tried to overcome their language barrier in that moment.
He watched them with sad eyes, wondering how they had become friends in the first place when they so clearly shied away from large crowds and other people- maybe they had run into each other while hiding in some corner. He shook his head.
Luna laughed and interrupted his thoughts as she helped Neville… "Hermione meant that the protego comes from the latin words `for all' and `cover'; but various meanings give it different connotations."
Hermione held up her hand and performed a quick word, Luna's eyes lighting up before she spoke clearly: "Connotation." She gently took Hermione's hand and placed it upon her throat, repeating the word while Harry watched.
Neville brightened and turned to Hermione, grabbing her attention by tapping her shoulder before using cued speech around his neck as he also repeated the word and their friend's face brightened. Neville spoke and continued his hand movements, "also implication, undertone…"
Hermione nodded slowly, mouthing out the word quietly and blushing before quickly turning their attention to something else, she nodded and signed again. Harry watched Luna light up brighter than her usual foggy haze- "It really means that? I thought they would loosely mean the same thing."
Neville turned questioning eyes to Luna, a soft light to him as he smiled and waited. She simply smiled in response and waited for Hermione to finish signing. "Hermione said that because of modern meanings, the spell alters to focus on the casters interpretation- so if you use the suffix `pro' to mean `favored' or `for all' or any other depends on your view of who the suffix contains and if your magic can conform to that direction."
Harry laughed a little oddly before he shook his head and smiled- he should really stop being surprised by her. It was sometimes hard to mesh the image of tired defenseless Hermione with this stunningly brilliant young girl who completely disregarded the box she was put in by wizarding society.
Harry wondered if looking at it from a muggle's perspective had changed her view on magic…or maybe that was just the way she was. Certainly no other muggleborn he knew of thought so deeply about their subjects. Despite the fact that the wizarding world had labeled her unfit to learn their ways because of her heritage; she seemed to eclipse them all as she understood it.
He felt a sort of pride in his chest- though he didn't know why it would be so. He wasn't responsible for any of her accomplishments and they weren't even the best of friends- though Neville and Luna quickly accepted him. They were warm and welcoming, but Hermione seemed stilted in his presence and she never seemed to talk to him directly.
Harry wondered if that was his fault.
……
He sat beside her on the rock, overlooking the lake as he fiddled and tried to find a way to communicate. Luna had her lip speech with fluency in sign language and Neville had that cued speech and some sign language…Harry hadn't really wondered how he would talk to her on his own. It was also awkward considering how long they'd actually known each other. Was it just after Christmas when he'd finally joined her and Neville? Surely nothing could account for the way everything felt so unrecognizable when he was near her- like he shouldn't speak because she would misinterpret him or that he shouldn't sign because he would do it wrong…like he didn't know her.
Neville's attempt to teach him finger spelling was admirable, but even with Luna's assistance and his new knowledge it took too long to spell out the words he wanted to say. He didn't know any other way to talk with her, and he wondered why that communication gap bothered him enough for him to feel a pinching in his chest.
He sighed and watched her hum to herself (off tune) - he smiled ruefully and then waved his hand to get her attention. She turned to him with guarded but welcoming eyes. He took in a deep breath- making sure to think out his sentence clearly before he bothered uttering it. "I never did thank you."
She blinked and then smiled, her hands quickly coming up to her mouth the cover her laugh. One of her hands detached to wave dismissively, and her eyes twinkled at him before she was shifting and holding her knees as she looked at him- as she was prone to stare directly at a person so she could understand them. She pursed her lips before loosening them, "I was happy to help."
Harry smiled and then watched her twiddle her fingers and happily get distracted with the lake, her eyes widening when the squid raised a tentacle to wave and then she grinned and waved back. Harry laughed.
She looked over at him to figure out why he was shaking, but when she saw him laughing she pursed her lips and raised one eyebrow before smiling and smacking him across his arm.
He sobered and leaned back to watched her more intently, looked at slight scars on her hands and the freckles across her nose, watched her eyes widen and brighten before narrowing in playful suspicion, smiled as she wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue. "It's rude to stare." She spoke slowly in her heavy voice, staring at him and winking at the hypocrisy of her stating that. Her face cleared as she noticed his solemn air.
She was the only one he'd met that had ever done that- Ginny and Ron far too uncomfortable with his brooding to attempt facing it so they usually ended up joking and ignoring him while he drifted into deeper thoughts (Trying to joke him out of his mood he was sure, but not everything worked like that. Especially when mothers and family and life came into his thoughts and they weren't things he liked to take lightly.).
Hermione didn't bother with any of that- if you were serious there was a good reason, and she paid attention to you and asked about it and worried for you. She also seemed to be more sensitive to it, more readily able to change her mood to comfort him if he needed it. And they weren't yet what he would call close friends.
He licked his lips unsurely before he leaned closer to her and spoke- knowing that it made no difference except to create a greater feeling of privacy. "I don't know how I can talk to you without messing up. I feel like an idiot every time I want to tell you something and can't."
Hermione's eyes angled to a more sympathetic slant, her mouth open as she watched him and then she smiled softly. "You know Harry, I used to talk all the time; it's not as if I can't speak at all."
Harry tilted his head and narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. Her voice echoing in his head, scolding him for thinking she would believe he was an idiot. He stared back at her, wondering if she was as comfortable under his stare as he was under hers- because he knew she wouldn't judge him. He swallowed, "Then why don't you?"
She relaxed further into her seated position, her muscles going lax and her face going wry. "You can hear my voice right?" She sighed and looked away quickly, her eyes darting to him so she could still maintain contact. "It makes people uncomfortable."
Harry flinched back like he'd been struck, and Hermione turned to him slowly with an understanding light. Harry grimaced, "But you speak beautifully."
Her eyes widened and she blushed, a little smile making its way out of her lips before she rushed to cover her mouth. Harry's hands stopped her from covering it up, and he smiled and tilted his head to her in silent challenge. She smiled broader and laughed freely.
"You laugh just fine too."
"Harry, thank you."
……
Hermione sat as still as she could as she watched the boys approach her parents, their bodies slumped as they glanced awkwardly around and their own parents watched with a stunned disproval- trying not to look at the child their own had injured so greatly.
The large court room was elegant with wood and the proper looking judge, but Hermione wasn't comfortable in such a large place with all these people. It was even harder to watch her parents weep and talk to the boys who had caused all this trouble. Certainly they were going to be punished, but Hermione wondered if it would ever be the same.
It was hard for her to look for things she normally took no note of; but now she had to notice if someone's eyes darted about, if their lips moved in a sound she couldn't hear anymore. And no one liked to meet her eyes as she stared.
And she stared as the boys choked on apologies and they tried not to shake when they spotted her sitting in her corner as serene as she usually was in the class room, hands folded neatly in her lap as she stared and stared and stared.
When they were done only one approached her, and she took note of his shoulders rising with a steeling breath and his chin tilting up even as his eyes watched his feet as they shuffled in her direction. She tilted her head as she stared at him, when he stopped in front of her, at the way his hands fumbled before he took out a wrinkled letter and handed it to her, his eyes finally rising to meet hers as her hands took the paper but her eyes stayed on his.
He swallowed hard and his shoulders shook- his eyes bright with tears as he watched her in return. He licked his lips and then pursed them, his face crumbling as he reached out to gently touch the bandage at her temple. He looked down briefly before he was looking back up at her. "It was supposed to be a joke."
She saw the rush of movement that was her angry father lunging for the boy, but her mother had caught him as he steamed and the other parents shook and trembled, their little children cowering and weeping as they watched and wondered. Her mother quickly made a sign to her, and Hermione's eyes lit with understanding before she returned all her focus on the boy- his name was Jack Robins, and he liked the dumplings his mother made him for lunch.
Hermione leaned forward slightly and moved her hands to cup his cheeks, looking straight into his eyes and watching as he struggled not to move away from her stare. She could see the purple of regret and the dark blue of sorrow, and she wondered if she had seen that misty color before because it was so familiar to her- she knew exactly what it was. But she smiled and nodded her head, her eyes large and still intent as she opened her lips and hoped she had enough control to make words she couldn't even hear anymore: "It wasn't very funny, but that's okay."
The boy choked and fell to his knees, her hands still on his face as she wondered why he cried when she had just forgiven him. The boy was drawn away by a tired man who had his eyes, and she watched as he was taken to a weepy woman who stood and fretted with her handkerchief and drew him into a hug before he was at arms length and under a scolding but misty-proud glare.
Hermione tilted her head and sighed, her shoulders feeling the brush of her shirt as she returned her hands to her lap and swung her legs.
She didn't know why they worried. Even with her loss everything else was so much clearer.
.
.
.
.
.
AN:
I have to point out some more exaggeration on my part, but going along the lines of Hermione being a genius and learning early I think I can be forgiven. Usually completely deaf people can not speak quite so clearly that everyone will be able to understand them- I made it so Hermione can communicate if she's calm and thinks about what she's saying (with her tiny accent). As it is I don't know how to describe the speech of a deaf person; I don't want to call it a speech impediment since they are technically capable of speaking and making noises- it's just that they're hard to understand if you're not used to it. I made it so Hermione has more of a thickness to her voice so she is easier to understand, but still unusual to hear.
Though, maybe, I have Pomfrey and her doing something….you'll not know until later now will you?
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