Hermione Granger and the Fate Foretold

Chapter 5: Death's Dealings

Hermione had known that being intentionally kept in the dark after what he had gone through would make Harry furious. She remembered pleading with Dumbledore to at least let her give him some information. But the headmaster had been clear: Harry was not to be told anything lest the letters be intercepted. So that time at least, she had reluctantly put the supposed safety of the entire wizarding world first and wrote him letters she had known to be useless. She had certainly imagined him feeling resentful and hurt over the secrecy, but now reading about him having to resort to lying in the dirt on the hottest day of the summer, surreptitiously listening to Muggle news after the Daily Prophet had proven to be useless, made the guilt grow. Harry had been angry with her and Ron to the point that he had thrown both their birthday presents of Honeydukes chocolates away unopened. He had been effectively abandoned at a time when he desperately needed support but the most human contact he had had that summer had apparently been his uncle's hands closed tightly around his throat. It had been an unbearable month or so for him—all the ugly thoughts and frustrations keeping him seething throughout the day, and nightmares of Cedric's death and long dark corridors waiting for him in bed.

When she had heard about the dementors, she had nearly lost her mind as well. Of course something like that would happen; trouble and misfortune seemed to be drawn to him. She had frantically turned to every book she could get her hands on, ignoring the reassurances of many Order members and looking up everything she could to personally be certain he could not be expelled.

As Harry's neighbor, Mrs. Figg, revealed to him she had been in contact with the magical world all along as a Squib, Hermione was unpleasantly reminded of the character of Harry's relatives. They were the type of people who not only neglected their nephew but intentionally deprived him of anything even resembling the smallest amount of joy. "The Dursleys would never have let you come if they'd thought you enjoyed it," she read Mrs. Figg offer as an explanation as to why his annual visits to her house had also been miserable—albeit slightly less so than being in the company of his actual relatives.

After a very revealing, angry shouting match between Harry and his aunt and uncle, culminating with a Howler from an unknown sender, Harry had spent all of next day in his bedroom. Hermione read that three times that day Aunt Petunia shoved food into his room through the cat flap Uncle Vernon had installed three summers ago and bristled with anger. It was a constant reminder of how they had starved him as a child and the bloody thing was still being used!

Then she remembered. It was not a moment from years ago that the books made her think about once again but one from just earlier that day. It had been hours before and the voice in her head had led her back to this room with the ghostly whisper of "cat-flap." She put the book down. How could she have forgotten about everything she had read once she went outside this room? What had even made her leave? She recalled the drowsiness that had come to claim her upon finishing the third book. And after that, she had found herself back in the Weasleys' kitchen, not remembering a thing until seeing Crookshanks had triggered her memory of the cat-flap she had read about in the second book.

Hermione looked towards the flowing sand in the giant hourglass and sensed that soon, fatigue would come for her once again. She glanced over the long roll of parchment on the small table next to her, covered with notes from reading through the fourth book. At least she had come prepared this time. But she could feel, understandably so, that what came from these books was knowledge she was not supposed to have. And just as some force seemed to be determined to have her find out what was in them, another opposing one seemed equally bent on making sure she did not keep that information in her head.

She returned to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix where Harry finally arrived at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. She had thrown herself onto him in a hug that nearly knocked him flat upon seeing him, hands bearing the marks of Hedwig's beak from when she had not been able to provide satisfactory answers in her letters. She read that Harry found that he was not at all sorry and smiled sadly. She could not blame him; death had been hanging over him. The bitterness and pain he had felt had paved the road for all the angry shouting. It was the angriest she had seen him up to that point, though there would be plenty of other moments later that year in contention. It was as if he had decided that wrath was a suitable weapon to ward off the grief.