Rediscovering Reality

arent you?

"I know that you weren't my parents.... biologically." Hermione began softly, the two tombstones seemed eerily clean for what was taking place.

Hermione wasn't talking to anyone, not really. The crisp winter air had settled into her lungs and she was speaking to two dead people who had lied to her. 

Blaise had offered to come, so had Theo, so had Harry.... Ginny had as well. 

But something inside of her told her that this might be easier alone. No worrying about saying the right things for the right people. It was just her, and the liars she hadn't known were liars. The liars she loved with her whole heart for so many years. 

It seemed rather peculiar to refer to them as liars. What had they done to deserve such a bitter title... well obviously they had lied to her for years on end with only the slightest intention of ever telling her the truth and no actual plan to follow through with it. 

"You know.... I wish you would've told me." Mari felt the words slip sharply past her lips.

"Maybe then we could've all gotten on. Had big weird family dinners. Tea on Sundays, that sort of thing. Would've been strange but lovely wouldn't it." Her eyes were stinging and she didn't know if it was from the cold, or the sadness, or the rage. 

"But it would've been the truth at least." Every syllable tasted bitter on her tongue. 

Spiteful. Angry. She was so sad and yet so angry as well. Angry at them for not telling her. Angry at them for dying before she could hear them say it. Angry at herself for taking herself out of their lives without consulting them. Though she had a feeling that it was the right choice in the end. But angry that it had to happen none the less. 

And she was sad. 

Sad that they were gone. Sad she would never year them yell at her for slamming the door or accidentally tracking mud in. Sad that they would never meet Blaise or Theo. That they wouldn't get to continue to grow old as they had been. 

Sad that one day with just a smidge of luck she would be older than they were. 

How would harry get through it when that happened to him in a few short years? How would she handle it when it happened to her years later. 

"You lied!" She hissed bitterly, "You lied over and over again, when the truth was right there. You lied about my identity, you lied about witches and wizards. You lied about knowing i was different. You lied about it all!" 

She was lost mostly. Confused and lost and without a book to read that would provide her a direction to look in for an answer. 

"You could've told me at any time! But you can't now! You can't even explain yourselves. Because you're dead. And dead parents can't explain the shitty things they've done." 

And as a child does when they are desperately lost. She found herself wishing for her mum and dad. The ones who had scared away the monsters from under her bed as a child. The ones who had reminded her to brush her teeth. The ones who held her hand in the store so she wouldn't get lost. 

The ones who would always find her if she was lost. 

"You're still my mum and dad you know." Red hot tears streamed down her face. 

"I may have two sets of those now but you are still my mum and dad."  She didn't bother to wipe away the tears as the cold hair made them chilled against her cheeks. 

"Aren't you?" She whispered out to two granite slabs.

"Aren't you?!" She yelled this time.

There was no response. 

Why would there be. 

"You always told me i would change the world one day." She stared at the patch of grass covering the grave of the man who raised her like his own. No... she was his own. 

In every way that mattered at least. 

"But you never said how." 

That was true. He had never told her exactly how she was going to do it, just that it was going to happen. The same way that gravity must exist and the earth must go around the sun. He spoke it with the same tone. 

Hermione would change the world. 

To her father, it was simply a fact of life. 

"Did you do that on purpose?" She mused into the silence again, "Did you purposefully not tell me how i was going to do it so that no matter what one day you could look at me and tell me that I changed the world just like you said i would- no matter where i ended up?" 

"I've had some offers for things to do." She continued on, "And you, you always told me to have a plan, or at least the beginnings of one." The granite slab of her mothers tomb was glistening with falling snow flakes. 

"And now I'm simply at a point where I've got to pick a path. I can't make a plan until i do that. So i guess i have a plan, step one pick something." 

And once again there was no response.

"I don't think that i can do just one thing anymore. I don't know how to do that." Hermione thought back on all of her years of schooling. She had felt sharpened by the immense amount of things she had done. The preassure had driven her to heights she didn't know she could achieve. 

One job, one thing..... that wouldn't cut it for her anymore. 

It probably wasn't healthy but it didn't particularly matter- it was the truth. 

 

"I know both of you were rather scientific driven. So i don't know if you ended up in heaven. Where do you go if you're agnostic at best?" Mari shot a look quickly toward the sky above, and then met the glistening letters on each of the tombstones in front of her. 

"You made sure to tell me you were proud of me." The words came out just above a whisper. 

"I just want to make sure you would've stayed proud of me.... no matter what i do next." 

"I love you, even with everything, i love you. That true love i think, loving in spite of all the shitty things that happen. Well even if it's not true love. It's love at least." Hermione Mariella took a deep breathe of the cold night air and stared into the granite once more. 

"You'll be proud of me?" She asked rhetorically. 

Once again there was no response, but this time she didn't feel nearly as empty at that fact. 

The lack of response comforted her in a weird way she hadn't been prepared for- but the comfort was there none the less. 

They were her parents still-despite the lies- in all the ways that mattered.