Enter GRANGER, from the north Who: Hermione Granger and her parents (with a brief appearance by Mrs. Currington, her neighbor five blocks away and the nearest witch she knows) When: the night of 23rd May Where: Hogwarts Castle grounds What: Hermione comes home. Notes: She's finally back! an interlude type scene as she attempts to enter the castle Status: Complete but (edited)
Hermione was beginning to feel sleepy. Mum's shepherd's pie (Mum always seemed to be giving up and making shpherd's pie) sat warm and heavy in her stomach, and she felt a sense of accomplishment at having made it to Mrs. Currington's to borrow a dark brown, lightly speckled owl. Basker seemed competent and recognized the word "Hogwarts"; when he left, he headed north, and Hermione was satisfied. Mrs. Currington wanted to chat, it was obvious, but she was only warming up when Hermione excused herself. The old woman's face fell in disappointment, but Hermione's mention of Harry's name cleared that up soon enough.
"You go take care of him," Mrs Currington sent her along with a blessing and a pat on the shoulder. "There's still work to be done, you know." She hesitated before asking, "You know how to fend off Inferi, don't you, dear?"
Hermione nodded and slipped away into the night, back toward her house to organize before traveling north herself. The sidewalks were well-lit under orange streetlamps, and she felt a quietness wrap her up like a blanket. It had been a long time since any degree of comfort had entered her mind, and the feeling surprised her. A odd expression crimped her lips before Hermione smiled. She gripped her wand in her jacket pocket and quickened her steps; it would not be long now.
She entered the house through the front door, and the sitting room seemed to her to be so bright. Mum came into the room from the kitchen, wiping her hands dry on a dishtowel. "Did you send your letters, dear?" Hermione nodded and watched her mother struggled to cover her own look of disappointment. "You've got plenty to do, I know, but," Mum paused at something. "But don't stay away too long, please," she finished with some difficulty. With this, both women looked away for a scrap of privacy but smiled to themselves.
"Of course, Mum," Hermione promised. "I'll be back in a few days. It's just that I've left them for a long time, relatively." Her gaze moved as Crookshanks waddled his orange self into the room, followed by Daddy. She looked up into Da's face, and he nodded in understanding.
"You've got your wand then, Hermione?"
"I do, Da."
"Is there anything else you need right now?" She shook her head, and he nodded to himself this time. "Then give us a hug so you can hurry home." Hermione rushed into his arms, then felt her mum's arms wrap around them both. She felt her eyes fill with tears, but she knew they were the happy sort of tears. Mum and Da were home, and she had somewhere to come back to again. She had not realized her need for a safety net.
When she pulled away, all three of them swiped at their eyes with varying degrees of openness. Hermione leaned back in to kiss them both, and then she moved past them and up the stairs to her room. Such a quick trip would not need any real supplies, she concluded. Pulling out her wand, she took a deep breath to aid her concentration and held it as she Apparated.
On the other side of the resounding snap, she opened her eyes to the edge of the grounds outside of Hagrid's hut. Even in the dark and by the moon's meager light, this place was as familiar as her own dormitory. And so she wrapped her jacket around her, wand still in hand, and trudged the path she had trudged for six years back toward the fondest place in her memory. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she felt sorry that she had just proven Hogwarts, A History wrong by her magical feat on Hogwarts grounds. The castle had faced so much in the last month, but it still felt all wrong. But then the Forbidden Forest still seemed to breath of its own accord, and the Whomping Willow twitched menacingly as she walked a large arc around it. The castle slowly came into view around the far side of the Willow, and any wishful thinking Hermione might have had disappeared.
The turrets that had once held Ravenclaw and Gryffindor Towers were effectively gone, single walls standing without rooves and barely hanging on to the castle's major structure. Hermione took the wide road toward the courtyard and heavy doors at the front of the castle's remains and surveyed the gaping holes where stained glass and Gothic windows had once stood. Mrs. Currington was right: there was still plenty of work to be done.
For now she was thankful, and the courtyard never felt longer or wider than it did now as she sprinted across it. The doors, those huge and heavy doors that seemed as tall as the castle itself--she dug in her heels and tugged. It stuck fast, so she pulled again. Nothing. She looked up the walls that never seemed to end and felt the first twinge of panic. Why was the castle closed? She ran her hand over the space between the doors, and her hand didn't dip. The doors were sealed effectively and seamlessly, she marveled before the fear came back into her chest. Where would she go?
She stepped back from the doors and looked around at the nothing there was to see. What else? She chewed on her bottom lip and thought. Where would they go? Oh. It wasn't that hard, was it? Where else would they go. Taking a deep breath to steady her heartrate, Hermione turned around and started back up the path that led out of the castle and into Hogsmeade.