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Author: angelmorph Story: A Different Boy Who Lived Rating: Everyone Setting: AU Status: WIP Reviews: 5 Words: 62,801
Usually, when the boys went over to Hermione’s house they played outside in the yard. They’d been in the house certainly, but she’d never had occasion to invite them up to her room. But November 3rd, was rainy day and they couldn’t very well stay out in the rain, so Hermione invited them up to her room for the first time. There wasn’t a single toy in sight; not simply because Hermione was a very neat little girl –which she was –and had put them all away, but because there was no toy chest in the room. The only furniture, aside from her bed and chest of drawers, was a shelf filled with books, and the occasional board game, lining one wall, and a desk equipped with reading lamp, by the window. Curious, Harry picked a book off the shelf. Surprised at the text-filled page, he replaced it and picked up another. When the second, and third where equally devoid of pictures, he asked, “Don’t you have any books with pictures in them?” “Sure,” She plucked a large volume off the bottom shelf, “Here, the encyclopaedia has plenty of interesting photographs. There’s even one of…” “No, no, storybooks, where all the storybooks?” “You mean the picture books? Those are all in the nursery. But we can’t go in there because it’s locked up tight. Mother and Father didn’t want to be reminded of the fact that my baby sister never got to use it on account of dying before she was even born. But, they were mostly childish stuff anyway… Mother and I are reading ‘Jane Eyre’1 now, which I am quite enjoying.” Neville sighed, “I suppose the toys are all locked away too…” “Of course. Well, except for the Rubik’s Cube… We can play a board game though. I have plenty: Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, Scotland Yard, Cluedo, Scrabble … I particularly enjoy Scrabble even though I still lose most of the time, since I can’t spell many words yet. But, I’ve been getting better ever since I started reading the dictionary. It would be interesting to play against someone my own age… Do you think we could?” Harry and Neville exchanged twin looks of alarm. Finally, Neville answered for them both, “I don’t think that would work. Harry and I don’t know how to write many words –except for our own names. Where’d you learn to write anyway? We only just started to learn at school …” “Father taught me some, the rest I’ve picked up from reading.” “You can read too?” blurted Harry. Hermione nodded shyly, realizing –perhaps for the first time –that her peers might not share many of the skills she took for granted. “Maybe we can play Scotland Yard instead; you don’t have to be able to read for that one.” She moved to pick the game off the shelf. Harry took one glance at it and decided it did not sound fun, “I have a better idea. Let’s play Hide and Seek.” Neville nodded his agreement. “Maybe we can play the board game later, if it keeps raining,” he added diplomatically. Harry glared at him for the suggestion but, luckily, Hermione didn’t notice. “Okay, but my father’s study and my parents’ bedroom –the two rooms at the end of the hall –are off limits. Mother and Father would not approve of me bringing friends in there. We shouldn’t go into Mother’s study downstairs either –that’s where she is now –but it’ll probably be locked so that’s not really a problem… Base is my bed.” She sat down on it, “I’ll count first.” That said, she closed her eyes and started counting backwards from one hundred, “One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven…” The boys, not knowing how far ninety-seven was from zero, needed no further encouragement to take off in search of a hiding place. Harry took off down the stairs, while Neville, heading the other way, tried the door to the room next to Hermione’s. It was locked, which is why Hermione hadn’t thought to include the nursery in her list of forbidden rooms. Neville was about to move on to the next door –a closet as it so happens –when it occurred to him that hiding behind a supposedly locked door would be the best place to hide. It was a Muggle lock, unlike the locking charms Lily used at home; he could probably get it to open if he wished hard enough. Hermione’s voice drifted down the hall, “Seventy-one, seventy, sixty-nine…” No time like the present. He focused hard on getting the door open –doing magic on purpose was hard –and grinned when his efforts were rewarded with a soft click. He scrambled into the room, pulling the door closed behind him, and grinned again; Hermione would never find him in here… And she didn’t. Having been discovered under the sofa half an hour ago, Harry was getting tired of waiting for Hermione to find Neville and joined the search. It was he who finally threw open the door in the nursery to find Neville calmly rummaging through Hermione's box of Lego bricks, which he had retrieved from one of the shelves of the nursery. When they entered, he looked up, “You really have a lot of cool toys, Hermione. It’s stupid that they have to be locked up.” Taking in the contents of the room, Harry added, “I think you should hide some toys under your bed. Bet your Mum wouldn’t even notice. She’s in that office of hers every time we come over. And then you could play something fun once in a while.” Hermione had a strange look on her face. She hadn’t said a word since she’d stepped into the room. Instead, she stared blankly at the toys she’d given up two and a half years ago, when her parents a sealed them in along with the memories they wanted hide from. She’d tried to tell herself that they were childish things and that she didn’t need them but as she caught sight of Annie, the redheaded doll that had been her near-constant companion for the first three years of her life, she burst into tears. She ran over to pluck it off the shelf and hug it tightly. It seemed smaller than she remembered, but it was she that had grown and not the doll that had shrunk. She’d grown, yes, but not so much as to give up on dolls. The tears flowed freely; she was tired of pretending to be grown up. It was probably no more than a few minutes later –though time had lost meaning to her –that Harry and Neville joined the hug. “It’s okay, Hermione. Lily says crying is good for you.” They didn’t break apart till the sound of Mrs. Granger calling up the stairs that it was dinnertime reached their ears. In a flurry of activity they cleaned up the toys that Neville had taken out and scampered off to Hermione’s room to hide the doll under her pillow –Hermione didn’t want to hide it under the bed –before finally rushing down the stairs to dinner, as though nothing had changed. When admonished for the delay, Hermione replied in her usual prim voice, “Sorry, Mother. I was reading to the boys and lost track of time. We just wanted to finish the chapter.” No one contradicted her. It wasn’t till a week later that the truth of what they’d really been doing came out. It turned out that under her pillow was really not the best place for Hermione to hide her doll. When her mother lifted the pillow to retrieve Hermione’s nightdress for washing, she discovered the doll there. When asked where she’d gotten it, Hermione was forced to admit that she’d been in the nursery. When asked how she’d gotten in, Hermione just shrugged her shoulders, “Neville must have picked the lock. We were playing hide and seek…” This revelation sparked a phone call to Lily about the bad influence the boys were being on her little angel. She would have called Augusta too had she known the number… Thankfully, Mr. and Mrs. Granger hated seeing their daughter miserable, and being forbidden to visit with or invite the boys over made her miserable, so the prohibition of contact with the two wizards didn’t last long. In the end, they even let her place all her toys in her own room before locking the nursery up again –with a dead bolt this time. She was their only daughter –and the apple of their eye –after all…
** 1 ‘Jane Eyre’ does not belong to me. It was first published in 1847 by Charlotte Bronte under the pseudonym Currer Bell. It has since been republished many times since. A.N. I admit I may have taken some liberties concerning Hermione’s home life but I don’t think they’re too much of a stretch. After all, JKR tells us that she planned to give Hermione a younger sister old enough to appear during one of the first 5 books (She stated “it feels like it might be too late now” in an interview after OotP was published) but never got around to it. Three years seemed like a reasonable age gap for me. A special thanks goes out to Mistri Tonks’ Admirer whose comments about a quote from last chapter prompted me to type up what I’d jotted down. He also proved instrumental to my brainstorming of this chapter. Thanks, as well, to all my reviewers and to my beta, Arnel, who was a tremendous aid ironing out the wrinkles in this chapter.
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