***

Like Water on Charcoal

Part IV: Hermione Granger

***

Before she went to a Wizarding school, Hermione Granger was educated at a Muggle one and her years there taught her a very important lesson. It taught her that she was very different from everyone else, not just because of her magical abilities (which she hadn't known about yet) but because her mind functioned differently than everyone else's. Her thought processes differed greatly from the other children.

She had been eight (three years before she began to grasp just how different she was) and the teacher had left the classroom. All the students were either working or speaking to their friends and needless to say, Hermione was doing the latter, when a rather large rodent entered the room. Everyone had screamed and scrambled to the back of the classroom, the location farthest away from where the rodent had situated itself (which was the front of the classroom).

While all the other children thought, Who's going to get the teacher, Hermione had thought in resignation, I suppose it'll have to be me.

Though she was just as frightened and disgusted as the others, the little girl that would one day grow up to be a powerful witch marched up the the furry rodent, grabbed it by the tail and threw it out the window.

Hermione was different from everyone else and she didn't realize what that meant until much later.

***

Certain things were meant for certain people.

Hermione had decided long ago that friendship was not something that was fit for her. She watched it happen to other people and knew that it was not something that would fit her very well. It was fine, though, because she had other things to compensate. She had books, tombs of knowledge that stood on shelves of dust, to read and delve into and she had information to gain. Friendship was not something that would be able to fit into her already cluttered life.

Hermione honestly believed this for eleven years.

***

She had opened the compartment door with a confidance that could not be learned and what she saw briefly stopped her heart.

Later, Hermione would lie in bed and think for hours about the reasoning behind it. She would ponder how it came to be that it was so perfect that they should all come upon each other on that train. With the moon as the only witness to her night reverie, she finally decided upon the explanation. She should have came upon it sooner simply because it was so similar to her observation about friendship. Harry Potter had needed something and she and Ron was there to satisfy that need. They were his reward. It was Fate's way of balancing. I'm sorry that your father and mother had to die and that your childhood had to be taken away, but here are two to compensate for that. Here are two who are willing to love you without judgement.

Hermione had opened that compartment door and saw two boys waiting, both thin and rather scraggly, waiting for a third to finish their tight triangle.

She should have closed the door and walked away, but she didn't.

Instead, she took one step closer and thought happily, I suppose it'll have to be me.

***

If Harry's home was the sky and Ron's was the Great Hall, then Hermione liked to believe that hers was the library.

The old Hogwarts library with its tall, dusky shelves like arms that seemed to embrace her as she stood between them. There was a comfort in the library that she knew she could never explain to either of her friends. It was the idea that if there was a question, then there was an answer. It was the idea that if there was an answer then it could be found if one only looked hard enough.

It took Hermione years of falling asleep on top of dozens of books before she realized that if you didn't know there was a question, you could never find the answer.

***

Harry soared and twisted through the sky and Hermione wondered, Do you find your answers there?

With Ron to her right and Ginny to her left, Hermione watched him and felt a heavy, metal chain wrap around her heart. Her eyes burned without reason.

When Harry landed in front of the ones he valued, a grin of pure joy on his face, Hermione felt the chain loosen and an almost unbearable relief came over her. Harry smiled at them, but when his eyes landed on Hermione, they dimmed slightly. He understood her fear even if he didn't fully know he did.

"You were great! The Slytherins won't stand a chance," exclaimed Ron.

You're going to leave us, aren't you, Harry?

"Yeah, you were," Ginny agreed. "I wish I could fly so wonderfully."

When did you come upon this decision? Was it after first year when you realized that you could never have what you wanted most? Was it after you met a boy that could have been you deep inside a chamber with a monster? Was it after you realized that no matter how many wonderful things you did, it didn't matter because you couldn't change the world? Was it after you held a dying boy in your arms and wondered what it would feel like if it had been either Ron or me in your arms?

Or maybe.

"What do you think, Hermione?" Harry asked her.

"I think you were wonderful, Harry, but we better get inside before we get caught up in a storm," Hermione replied with hands that gestured towards a cloudy, thundering sky.

"Of course," they all agreed because it was Hermione and because she was right.

Was it Sirius?

Was it his death that made you decide you will die before your friends?

They didn't manage to get inside the safe haven of Hogwarts before it began to rain.

***

Hermione's hair had a force of it's own.

Sometimes Ron would, unconsciously, reach out a hand towards it and have Hermione snap, "What are you doing, Ron?"

He would pull his hand back swiftly as though he was shaken awake and a horrible red blush would come over his face.

Her hair had a force of it's own and Hermione didn't want Ron to fall and die in the brambles of her jungle.

***

After Dumbledore announced the news in the horrible light of the Great Hall, he advised all the students to return home. All the faces (even the Slytherins) held the same expression of terror as the most impossible of impossible events happened. Hermione stared at her plate and refused to meet any of their pleading glances.

Professor McGonagall had pulled her and Ron aside earlier that day and told them the latest changes in the war.

Beside her, Ron sat mute (he had not said a word since that morning), and Hermione knew that she will have to be the one to hold his sobbing form later that night after the shock wore off.

Underneath the table, their hands were linked.

***

The tear streaks down McGonagall's face should have tipped them off, but it didn't.

Hermione knew that something devastating was about to fall upon them and so she commanded, "Take my hand, Ron."

He blushed and tried to form a question.

"Just take it, Ron," she pleaded and thought, You'll have to lean on me from now on. I don't think Harry can support you anymore.

He took her hand and the little exchange between them caused tears to wash Professor McGonagall's eyes again.

She told them.

Hermione closed her eyes and felt Ron's tall form slump onto her.

She had anticipated this, but she hadn't expected it to hurt this much.

She wanted to say, "It's going to be okay. It isn't the end of the world," but she didn't want to lie.

***

The question hung in the air.

It was wrapped in the stone walls and slid with the moving stairs.

The students whispered it as they packed.

The portraits murmured it as they waited.

Who's going to kill Voldemort now?

She laid on the Quidditch pitch as the phantom of a flying boy haunted her and thought, I suppose it'll have to be me.

***

The fire flickered angrily in the common room that last night. Hermione was huddled in thick blankets as she watched it from her perch on the chair.

Ron stepped in front of the fireplace and he begged something of her.

I can't, Ron. Maybe in another time, but not now. It would feel like too much of a betrayal for us to be happy when Harry's - when Harry can't be happy.

She stared at him and whispered, "Take me flying, Ron."

He could give her that much.

***

The world slept underneath her as Hermione hugged Ron's body tight on that broom zooming off into the sky that final night.

Did you find your answers, Harry?

***

In another time, Dumbledore had asked her, "Do you know what you will give up?"

"Yes," she answered resolutely.

***

The hourglass tilted in her shaking hand.

The world changed.

***

She didn't want to see an eleven year old boy with black hair that reminded her too much of Harry. She didn't want to see the wand that would one day kill the ones she loved and so Hermione waited patiently outside the Slythering common room during the sorting. Harry's invisibility cloak protected her just like it's owner used to do. She entered with the first years.

She waited till the small boy that was Tom Marvolo Riddle fell asleep until she held the wand over his small form.

Whispered, "Avada Kedavra," and felt the world shift around her.

***

Hermione opened the compartment door and was greeted with the sight of a boy talking animatedly to his group of adoring friends.

"- then Sirius pushed the broom and everyone thought I was going to fall off, but - yes?"

His eyes were crystal green and his forehead was smooth.

"Have any of you seen a toad? A boy named Neville lost his," she explained.

They all shook their heads and he suggested, "Why don't you ask the people in the next compartment?"

Hermione nodded and closed the door.

"Who was that?"

"Oh don't worry about her, Harry. She's some know-it-all first year. I met her going to the loo and she caught me up telling me about all the books she read over the summer."

"Oh. Anyway, Sirius pushed me off the broom and - "

Hermione opened the next door and saw three heads of red and one other boy.

"Excuse me, the boy next door told me -"

"Ah yes, Harry Potter the Quidditch Star," one red-haired boy, a twin, snorted.

"I'd be a Quidditch star too if my dad and his friends had me riding the newest model broom since I could walk," the boy that did not have red hair commented.

"These walls are not thick enough," one twin said.

"We were subjected to his bragging all ride," the other supplemented.

The tallest boy turned to Hermione and asked, "Well, what did you want?"

Hermione sniffed indignantly, but explained the toad situation. They all denied seeing any amphibians or pets. She thanked them and closed the door.

Hermione walked away.

***

Hermione Granger knew what she was giving up.

She was choosing the lesser of two evils.