Harry Potter Oneshots

Obliviate

Hermione's lip quivered and she let her hand trail over the spines of books sitting neatly in one of the bookshelves running from floor to ceiling on either side of her bed. She swiped her hand under her nose and walked as slowly as she could alongside her childhood bed, the lavender duvet wrinkling under her fingertips. The afternoon sun sent streams of light through the window, limning the surface of her desk and glinting off the glass surfaces of the photographs decorating her dresser and nightstand.

Looking at them now, she could hardly recognize the young girl in half of the pictures. These were taken long before she became who she was now: before Hogwarts and before she knew her true potential. Before she learned of the magical world. But it went beyond that. Those pictures--the one at the beach or the park for her eighth birthday--those were long before she had given up everything for her new future and before she was unknowingly set on the path towards what she had to do now and all that was at stake.

After age eleven, there were hardly any family pictures to reminisce on since so much of her time was taken up by Hogwarts and the other world. She hadn't really known what it would mean to accept a spot at the school back then, but surely her parents understood it meant hardly seeing her except for the holidays. It meant giving up their daughter to a world they could never truly see or be a part of. And far too soon, they wouldn't even remember the small part of that world that they know now, let alone their only child.

But it had to be done.

For their safety and her own. It had to.

Hermione sniffed and rather than setting the frame of one family photograph back onto the dresser, she opened up the beaded bag at her side and slid it in, hearing the dull thud as it hit something on its way down, knocking over her neat and organized stacks. Yet she couldn't seem to find the energy to care.

She snatched up the small duffle bag from the floor for the fourth time that afternoon, but this time was different. There was a new steely glint in her eye that matched the harsh angle of sunlight, counting down the minutes until she would lose her nerve and wait until the next day. But she couldn't do that to herself. She had already lost too much sleep and sanity over deciding what she had always known was best. Now there was only one thing left to do.

With her beaded purse slung across her chest and her duffel bag in hand, she cast one last precursory glance across her room, though she had already memorized every aspect of this house during her midnight wanderings when she couldn't sleep and during the day when she needed something to distract her mind. Decisively, she turned away from the room and closed the door softly behind her, letting her hand rest on the handle for only a moment longer than necessary.

Twenty-two steps down the hall to the stairs, just like every other time she had padded over the worn carpet. Seventeen stairs to descend onto the tiled floors, stepping on the side of the sixth to avoid the inevitable creak in the middle of the step. Seven short steps around the corner to come to the kitchen where her mother and father stood side by side at the sink washing the dishes from their typical Sunday afternoon tea.

With a newly invigorated pang in her chest, Hermione remembered how she used to join them at their ritual every weekend where they shared stories from the week and gleaned what went on in each of their separate lives, bringing them even closer together. After she went off to Hogwarts, she would only sit for tea during the summers and those scant weeks during Christmas and Easter. Then later on, even that was not a certainty. Now, they hardly knew what was going on in Hermione's life because if they did, they would surely try to stop her.

But little did her parents know, the little they did know would soon be gone.

Her Mom was leaning against the counter, a gingham towel draped over her hands. Her Dad's hands were lathered in soap with steam rising from the hot water running from the tap, the china clinking merrily in the basin. His Dad's eyes were glued to his wife as she told a story, though Hermione couldn't hear what she was saying. The words seemed to reach her then run off her skin like water, meaning nothing to her ears that were ringing as loud as a hundred angry bees.