Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2018 16:58:44 GMT
HERMIONE Jean GRANGER
** 24 -- UNSPEAKABLE -- BRITISH -- UNMARRIED **
"I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I'm meant to be, this is me"
You've always been different from other people your age. You've seemed to grasp concepts faster than anyone around you – sometimes even faster than adults. The first time you got in trouble at school, it was for reading a book that your teacher insisted was beyond your ability to read, so, of course, you, being the helpful over-achiever that you were, started reading it aloud to her to show her that you could read it after all. Ms. Welles didn't think that you could understand it, so you started explaining it to her, trying to get her to see. Unfortunately, she took it as you smarting off to her, and your name was on the Naughty Board – you had never been on the Naughty Board before! – and called your parents. Your parents are wonderful, even if they never let you eat a lot of sweets and you had to hide your Halloween haul in your closet, and they took your side against your teacher. Ms. Welles never quite forgave you or your parents, but you only had her for a year, anyway.
It wasn't until later that it occurred to you to wonder if the reason she didn't think you could do it wasn't because you were "too young" but maybe because you were "too dark". After all, she didn't tell any of the other students that they couldn't read something (granted, you were reading books well beyond what everyone else in your class was). The fact that you even have cause to wonder says a lot about your childhood.
You read “Matilda” when you were small, and you could relate to her quite easily. She had a friend, and you didn't have any, and your parents were amazing while hers were horrid, but you could relate to her. You imagined being able to make things come to you at your whim, being able to use your mind to make things move, and discovered that sometimes, you could make your books come to you from your shelves. You found out later that it was “accidental magic”, because you were a witch, but at the time, you took it as something normal for people to do and were surprised to find that not everyone could do it and you were called a liar when you tried to talk about it to anyone that wasn't your parents; you weren't entirely sure at the time whether or not your parents believed you, but they at least "encouraged your creativity".
You still remember the first time someone called you the n-word. You were at the shop with your mom, and you accidentally got in an older man's way. He reminded you of your grandfather at first, with the same beard and hat that he wore low. But he scowled at you and told you to get out of the way, that n-words like you should know better. You didn't know what the word meant, but it sounded dirty.
That was the first time you ever felt like you were something dirty.
Your mom scooped you up, glaring at the old man while stroking hair that you could never get under control, hair that you inherited from your dad, holding you tight while you tried not to cry over a word that you didn't even know.
It was the first time you'd heard it, had it directed at you, but it wasn't the last.
You wanted to be more like your mom. Your mom was so light and pretty, with her fluffy blonde hair that you could never get your own hair to look like. You got your dad's hair, his tight curls, his eyes, and more of his skin than your mom's, though you did get her freckles. When you watched movies, there were never any girls like you, not in the main parts. None of the Disney princesses had hair like yours. When you read books, you could relate to the characters, but you couldn't see yourself as them.
You never got along well with other children your age. When you found out that you were a witch, you thought that maybe that was why. Maybe the other children were able to see something different in you, that magical bit of you, and that was why they didn't like you. You were so excited to go learn at a magical castle, and you started learning from the books you got when that nice Professor McGonagall took you to Diagon Alley for all your school supplies as soon as you were home. You were determined to not be behind – what if you were the only non-magical-born in your year, and everyone else knew more than you did? You read “Hogwarts: A History” at least three times before you needed to be at Kings Cross, and you read about the horrible wizarding war and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and you read about Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. And you thought it was horribly sad, that this little baby was the savior of the wizarding world when he couldn't remember doing anything, and he'd lost his parents in the process. Then you saw when he was born and you realized that he was going to be in your year! You'd get to meet him! You decided right then that he was going to be your friend, because if there was anyone that would be able to overlook your insufferable know-it-all-ness, it would be him, right?
But because you were who you were, you managed to alienate him and his new friend right off the bat. And that settled that. It wasn't a problem with other people. It was something that was wrong with you. It was something you lacked.
So, because you are Hermione Jean Granger, you threw yourself into your coursework. If the other students wouldn't be your friends, then you would make them respect you and your brain. Most of the professors loved you, and oddly, Professor Snape's treatment of you made you work that much harder in his class, because you wanted to prove to him that you were the most intelligent student he had ever had, regardless of colour, regardless of House, regardless of blood. You thought you'd left that stupidity behind, but, no, you'd traded one prejudice for another and both were so stupid you wanted to scream.
You didn't have friends. You had your books for company and you tried to make yourself believe that that was good enough. Your parents worried about you, so instead of telling them how things were really going, you imagined that Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley were your friends, the way they would have been if you weren't you but were more like Parvati or Lavender, and told your parents stories about them in your weekly letters home. It wasn't hard; you were able to include things that you overheard them saying, or things you saw happen, and just neglected to mention that you weren't a part of their friendship.
When you overheard Ronald Weasley call you a know-it-all, it hurt more than anything else anyone had called you. It had hurt more than Professor Snape calling you an insufferable one, and you didn't know why. It hurt even worse than the n-word had, because the n-word wasn't really about you but rather about something you were that you couldn't help being. Being a know-it-all, though, that was about you. You were a know-it-all, and not only did you know it, but you took pride in it. Something you took pride in was being used against you, used to hurt you, used as an insult, and it hurt more than anything else anyone had ever called you. You ran for the lavatory so that you could have a good cry in private and not be mocked for it by the other girls in your dorm who only wanted to talk about make-up and hair and boys and didn't understand that your hair wasn't the same as theirs and kept trying to touch it. When the troll cornered you in the bathroom, you had never been so scared in your life. You hadn't learned any offensive spells yet! The boys came and rescued you, and the three of you worked together and you felt that flash of... camaraderie, of friendship, and you weren't willing to let that go. You appointed yourself watchdog over the boys to make sure that they weren't getting in trouble, and somehow, that morphed into actual friendship and not you forcing something on them.
You had friends! You, Hermione Jean Granger, actually had friends!
Six years later and the three of you had been through hell and back, but you'd done it together, other than the time that Ron left.
Then the battle was over, and you had no idea what to do. You have a scar on your chest from Bellatrix LeStrange and you don't let anyone see. You have nightmares about being trapped at Malfoy Manor and no one rescuing you. In the months afterwards, you insisted on staying with Harry and Ron because you needed it, you'd had months of being on your own together but you weren't ready to give it up. You didn't sleep at night alone and would sleep in an armchair in front of a fire, barely dozing enough to keep you functioning. One night, when you heard Harry in one of his nightmares, his cries echoing your own, you thought nothing of curling up in his bed, molding your body against the knobby joints and bony angles of his own, Ron's weight settling in behind you, and you fell back asleep between your two boys, Ron's arm draped over you and Harry.
You didn't sleep on your own for ages, and even now you don't sleep as well as you did between them.
It's not a sex thing. You've known for ages that they're for both of your boys, whether it's romantic or not. You've been a little in love with both of them since you were eleven, but you'll be whatever they need you to be, tactician and nurturer and sister and mother, because you don't know how to be anything else. But you need them, need them more than you need books, and if forced to choose between them and anything else, anyone else, you'll choose them every time because they are both your other halves.
When the three of you received Hogwarts owls, inviting you back for the last year you weren't able to do, you knew what your answer was, which you're pretty sure surprised them. Your answer was a plain "Only if it's all of us". You're sure they expected you to say yes immediately, but staying with them was more important than going back to school. You could always study on your own and sit for your N.E.W.T.'s, after all. So the three of you talked about it and you stood by it, even when Harry opted to not go back. You didn't go back, either. You sat your N.E.W.T.'s at the end of the year with most of your schoolmates, and, of course, you received high scores in all your subjects. You were quickly inundated with job offers from people willing to overlook your blood status because you were a part of the Golden Trio (Merlin how you hate that moniker).
Overlook.
You opted to go into the Department of Mysteries, because you wanted to keep learning. Learning new things was your first love, and you didn't want to give it up just because you were no longer a student.<p>
What you've tried to keep hidden, even from your boys, is that you're angry. You were children facing prejudices that should have been stamped out years ago. You were children, fighting in a battle that should have gone to the adults.
Children died because of the stupid bloody idea that blood meant something.
So, yes, you are angry, and over the last six years, that anger has built up even though you've done your best to ignore it.
And by god, you are going to find a way to stamp out the stupid prejudices, against your skin, against your gender, against your blood, for every other little girl that wants to be treated as an equal and not as someone that's the exception to a rule.
OOC NAME: Kat
