Insights of my Past
Oh well, there went my plan to practice my Apparating for further routes. I didn't have any time, but I still took several long minutes to concentrate to be able to get into my room at my parents' house. And that's exactly where I stood seconds later, after a very loud bang in the middle of my room.
I quickly spoke to the 'Tempus'. 6.20 pm; I didn't have much time until seven pm, when my parents came home from work. However, I was a witch, and what's more, one with a non-registered wand. This was the perfect moment for my wand to show what it was made of.
I first conjured my real identity, then put the bag with the potion ingredients carefully onto my desk (I'd clear them away later), grasped around in the inner pocket of my gown to get the unicorn blood vial there, and finally put the vial in an upholstered casket on my table. I was sure it would serve me well someday. Next I pulled out my down-scaled books from my inner pockets and threw them onto my bed, increasing their sizes with a swipe of my wand. I'd focus on them later on.
I took off my deep black gown and hid it in my wardrobe. I already wanted to bolt out my room, but the thought of the Horus daggers gave me pause. Oh gods, it wouldn't have been good if my parents had seen me with these weapons. What a problem that would've been. But thankfully, the daggers were still invisible. Nevertheless, I quickly unbuckled the knives and hid them in my bedside table. I would occupy myself with the how and when they got invisible, as I wanted to test it myself. I would never rely fully on Burgin's statement — that was the thing with trust: it was good, sure, but control was better.
I slowed down my thoughts for a bit. Velocity is good, but to breathe for a second, to think through everything again and then to go ahead is always better. That's how I would present myself: the good, innocent Hermione, who couldn't kill a fly.
I whizzed into the kitchen and swung my hawthorn wand like a madwoman. At my command, the doors of the cabinets clattered and the plates zoomed madly through the modern kitchen. Whilst the table in the kitchen set itself, I took all the ingredients for our Piccata Milanese out of the fridge and the cabinets.
Next I bewitched the kitchenware so that the cutlet started to bread itself. Meanwhile I got a pot, to cook the spaghetti in. I was so busy that when I next looked up to the clock, the front door was opening. My parents were five minutes too early. I ended all the spells with a quick "Finite incantatem", quickly put away my wand and bent down for the pan to fill it with oil. Right on time for my parents to enter the kitchen.
"Hello, child! Oh, how lovely, you're almost finished, do you still need help?" my father asked, friendly and caring, but still trivial.
"I'm good, thanks, just have a seat. Or would you please prepare something to drink?" I asked. My father just nodded and walked to the fridge. Sometimes I was sad about the coldness and distance between me and my parents, but I also knew that I couldn't change anything about it anymore.
When I was finished, all three of us sat at the table, our food in front of us. Today, preparing the food, I'd felt for the very first time in my life like Molly Weasley. I started to vividly realize that this would never be for me, no, absolutely not. I made a disgusted grimace, like I had just bitten into a lemon.
Sure, I could do it, it wasn't difficult magic, but fun equated to something different in my own eyes. Just thinking about it made me vehemently wish to be back in Knockturn Alley.
But I was soon snapped back to reality. "Enjoy your meal!" my parents and I wished each other as we started to eat.
"How as your day?" I was immediately asked.
"It was fantastic! The gallery restored a lot of exhibits again, and they made new never-shown masterpieces accessible," I said, beginning my pompous monologue with information about the city's art scene. I sounded awfully precocious and like a know-it-all, but I almost didn't listen to myself as I played the role very well. My parents, I could see, were fooled by my act.
Perfect! I even could see in their eyes, that they had mentally turned off. I mean, who could blame them with that teaching lecture I was delivering? But it also showed that the past four years have gone past my parents without a trace. It was almost as if I attained the full age when I turned eleven and moved out from home forever, into an unbelievable fantasy world that my parents would refuse to believe in their whole life. Retrospectively, I thought it was the point of our utterly, absolute and final alienation. Harry may have lost his parents through Voldemort, but even I lost mine one way or another. I never had them.
Why would anyone ask? Well, for the average muggleborn, life wasn't easy, especially not with their environment consisting of parents, acquaintances, relatives, friends, classmates and teachers. I was never a normal kid, and not because of my extraordinary intelligence. Had I been born in a wizard family, I would have still been more intelligent than average, but otherwise I would not have attracted too much attention. Everything would have been normal. But in the world of muggles, impulsive outbursts of magic and their impact were only just explained at the age of eleven, when the child's Hogwarts letter arrived; by then the kid had already been falling into the well.
At a very young age I could read, write and do math, and by the age of four I already mastered the hurdle. But I'd already had some feisty magical outbursts. I was a cheerful child, but when it didn't go the way I wanted, strange things would start happening. Vases or glasses would burst out without a known cause. My parents would've been so proud of me had it not been for their inability to explain the weird occurrences around them. Instead, they were cautious and scared, but inwardly torn too because of their love for me, their only child. They just wanted the best for me, but indeed saw the strangeness in me that they didn't understand. It was a time of uncertainty and sorrows! It was not easy for either my parents or me, a thoroughly cheerful child. With whom could they have talked about it without being sent to a mental institution, or losing their daughter to the authorities? No one.
That was why I also grew up isolated. And with whom could I have talked? I found comfort early on in books. When I went to school, my 'otherness' just became more obvious to other kids. I believe, that was a reason too as to why I remained an only child. My parents had the fear that another child of theirs would develop the same thing I had. I could quite understand their motives. I was an abnormality. I was a loner too. I struggled to find a counterpart or even friends, devoured every book that I could get my hands on. I even skipped three grades, which didn't make the integration any easier. But circumstances like this always lead to a doom loop, which one never could escape. Behind my back I was called a freak and monster.
Those who should've become my friends in these years became my dreaded enemies! Children could be quite evil, mean, and hurting, and the world of books and knowledge became more and more my friend. A friend who understood me and stayed with me. I was known as nerdy and weird, as sometimes inexplicable things happened in my immediate environment. Everyone was pretty much scared of me. Once a teacher infuriated me. Well, what shall I say, I had a temper. One second she was completely fine, the other she stood in front of the whole class with turquoise hair. Afterwards, she didn't even look at me anymore. Not to mention the obviously shocked pupils. Once I got hunted by another pupil on the schoolyard. I ran and ran and, all at once, I was in my garden at home. Humans are naturally inclined to fear something they don't understand. And that's exactly what I was.
I really was a bit odd and as the years went by, I realized with my brilliant mind that I had to hide my 'otherness' better. I needed to learn to control my feelings, my temper, and hide my terrifying brilliance behind ambition, because by now I saw that even my parents started to dread me more and more. Not only because of the magical outbursts, but also because of my enormous knowledge, which I knew how to use to my advantage. If I think about it, I started to become the person who I am today at age eight — I banished the real, one and only Hermione deep down inside me.
It became better. I didn't allow myself any deep feelings anymore, became distant and unapproachable, buried myself even more into books and tamed my temperament to excessive know-it-all with precocious explanations. Which probably didn't make me more likeable, but at least I didn't spread any fear and terror anymore, as I wasn't angry and I didn't bluster myself into situations that I couldn't change anyways. The old Hermione didn't care about it. She liked it, when the other kids were scared, but she and I, we knew we couldn't risk it towards my parents. So I adjusted.
It took my mind for a ride when one morning an owl flew by with an official-looking letter. A letter that said my name, spelled correctly, and to my amazement, the exact location of my bedroom. How odd.
It was with an open mouth that I anxiously joined my confused parents at the table and began to loosen the sophisticated red wax seal. We were more than flabbergasted by the time we'd reached the end of the letter. I, Hermione Jean Granger, was a witch and should go to a school for witchcraft and wizardry for the next school year.
Mum and Dad looked at each other and me with big unbelieving eyes. It explained everything for which they had never found a rational explanation before! There was magic, I performed magic. I was a witch! We all were gob smacked, dumbfounded and shocked! My brain was at full blast. I was a witch. I could perform magic. I was normal in a way, because this was one thing that always bothered me — not being normal — but I finally had, after ten long years, an explanation.
First we still doubted, until a old, oddly-dressed woman stood in front of our house and demanded admittance. Mum almost succumbed into frightened faint when the woman introduced herself and insisted that both me and my father should be present. She introduced herself as Charity Burbage, a professor of my future school. I confidently shook her hand.
The teacher, Charity Burbage, had for a year already taught the subject "Muggle Studies" at Hogwarts. She explained what this utterly new world meant to me and my parents.
Her remarks were exciting. But it couldn't have fixed my relationship towards my parents. Too much chinaware had been destroyed on both sides during times of doubts and mistrust. Not that they didn't love me or I didn't love them, but closeness was based on trust and that just couldn't be built so quickly after the past few years. We hadn't been a normal family for the last eleven years. Everything was built upon secrecies, the hiding and camouflaging for my 'otherness'. I was brilliantly educated to wear the perfect mask, like an actress.
After my initial shock, astounding silence set into my mind. There were just barely three months left until I would step into a new world, and I wanted to know everything, everything one could know about witches and wizards, as soon as possible. I had eleven lost years of knowledge to catch up.
That's what I also immediately told my parents and the teacher, and I requested to visit Diagon Alley the very same day — to get my school supplies, but more so to buy different books for myself, so that I could prepare myself for this new, magical world. Mum and Dad were surprisingly keen and cooperative and the teacher too offered to show us the way, just so that we could find our way around. My parents almost looked relieved, as they had finally got an adequate explanation for who I was.
Perhaps they cherished the idea that I'd be far away and they'd only see me on holidays. I don't know, I didn't even care and I was indifferent towards it as long as I got the books as soon as possible.
Nothing stood in my way for my first departure to Diagon Alley. We went to Diagon Alley four more times before it was time to go to Hogwarts, as I finished all the books and needed more material. I read like the devil was behind me. I downright devoured the huge reams, qualified myself with enormous knowledge about the magical world and tried to catch up as much as possible. Within a month, I'd learned the whole subject material for the first two years. Only the theoretical material, of course, since I couldn't do practical work with my brand-new wand. We were only allowed to use magic in school, but when I was there I would show that none of the spells would give me any difficulties and that I would succeed with the very first try.
When I thought about it today and compared myself to the likewise muggleborn Creevey brothers, it struck me that they weren't as gifted or powerful or intelligent as me, but they had cheerful, amiable minds. They integrated themselves among the Gryffindors, something I never managed, since my only two friends were Ron and Harry.
I had too many facets in my personality, I indeed appeared good, nice and faithful, an overachiever if ever there was one, but I also seemed aloof, know-it-all and mournful. I even scared the magical kids with my curiosity and skills, even though, or especially because I was a muggle born. That's how even there I lived a quite lonely, isolated life, which was unfamiliar to me, since I didn't have any privacy anymore. To share my dorm with Lavender, Parvati and two other Gryffindor was a huge test for me. I never again took down my mask.
The situation changed only at our first Halloween party at Hogwarts, when Harry and Ron came into my life, rescued me from the troll and became my first real friends. I stood loyal and sincere by their sides, even though — and I'm so very sorry about saying it — I used to get gray hair from their adolescent gormlessness and simplicity and (occasionally) stupidity, but I felt more for them than for anyone else before. They became my surrogate family in the past years. With them I found, for the first time in my life, warmth and affection.
But enough about the past. Enough. I brought myself back to the present, finding that I'd subconsciously continued my monologue about the paintings: "But conclusively I need to adhere that I liked the coronation portrait of Elisabeth I the most!" I ended my lecture and released my parents. They startled out of a kind of semi-consciousness when I finished speaking. Both smiled at me mellowly.
"That's very nice, Hermione, and what have you planned for tomorrow?" My mum looked at me questioningly.
"I wanted to go to my old sports school to register myself for a course during holiday," I declared with a smile.
"Oh, that's surprising, how did you get that idea?" my dad asked, interested.
"Well, there's no sport activity provided in our school. Just Quidditch, and that's not really for me, but I kinda wanted to get a bit fitter. When I climb up the stairs to the Gryffindor common room, I'm totally out of breath. So I intended, starting tomorrow morning, to go jogging every day from 7 to 8 am, to improve my condition," I told them with a certain nod.
I saw astonishment in their eyes.
"That's nice, sounds good, I'm just a bit surprised and your father too. You defended yourself with hand and feet back a couple years ago, when we tried to register you there," my mum said with a shrug. I smiled.
"Yes, I can remember, but I still went there for almost three years and, even though I didn't want to admit it, I started to have fun. I would've continued, if I hadn't gone to Hogwarts," I stated.
My dad took two glasses out of the fridge and uncorked a new bottle of red wine, glanced up and began to speak: "Well, you have my full support in this matter, Hermione. One should never abandon their body. When did you want to go to the center tomorrow?"
"Mh, at around 10 am, why?" I watched him questioningly, whilst we three switched to the living room. Mum handled the remote controller.
"Oh, no reason, I could take you there," my dad offered me, unusually caring.
"No worries, I don't want to complicate your schedule," I refused thankfully, because I had planned to brew potions a little bit and I couldn't have them in the house.
We spent the rest of our time quiet, watching the end of the evening news, until they started to yawn.
"I'm really tired, darling, how about you?" my mum asked my dad.
"Yes, I can barely keep my eyes open. The day was more exhausting than I thought at first," my dad said, before muffling a yawn behind his hand.
"Then maybe you should go to bed," I interjected mischievously. I'd primed 5 bottles of wine with my sleeping potion so far, while we'd watched the news. If they went to sleep now, I could operate more freely and wouldn't have to worry about stumbling over them. "I'm tired too, from the tours today. There was an unusual number of people there today," I said, stretching my body demonstrated.
"Well, good night sweetheart. Good luck at your school tomorrow!" And they left.
Time for other things now.
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