Blood In The Stars

1. Prologue-A Home

"Read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river." -Virginia Woolf  

(One of the most innovative writers of the 20th century) 

5549 words 

Hermione found comfort in the walls of the Burrow, how could she not? She spent several of her formative years within these walls, learning how to tame her hair by Molly's gentle guiding hand. Learning how to have intellectual conversations with an adult, like Arthur, over Muggle appliances of course, but intellectual all the same. 

Most of the times at least, others it was tiredly explaining the uses of a Muggle calculator to him-repeatedly. 

Learning what it meant to have brothers that teased, but in a loving way. It had taken her a long time to learn it wasn't bullying, but odd affection. Charlie would bop her scrunched nose every time one of the boys made a comment she didn't understand, and Percy would pull her aside to explain it to her in kinder words. 

Usually going on long winded rants about inequality and how utterly horrible it was to grow up in a house full of kids-Hermione always politely disagreed, but Percy's nose was higher in the sky than hers. 

She learned to have a sister, who was more rough and tumble than any of her brothers, yet knew with just a look when Hermione needed something soft. A cuddle under a blanket fort, with soft lanterns and books about princesses in far away lands. 

When she needed an escape. 

That was a good word to describe Hermione, soft. She was born soft. She liked sunrises, soothing tea and old novels. She liked hugs, and knitted blankets. She liked slow afternoons, and late nights gazing up at the stars. She liked to be pressed between her parents on the couch as they watched sitcoms from the sixties. She liked waving to the milkman and greeting the paper boy. 

Then she changed. The world had made her hard. It made her cut throat, when the pleasure-reading novels became research textbooks. When she read for answers, to solve riddles and clues. When every book she picked up meant she'd be alive for that much longer. 

The world made her hate sunrises, as it meant she had to fight another day. The world made her hate tea, because she could never make it just right on the run in the woods. It made her hate hugs, because hugs meant goodbye. It made her hate knitted blankets, because knitted blankets didn't like to travel. They tore, ripped and burned under the harsh conditions. 

The world laughed at slow afternoons, and instead dumped heart ache and pain into the ticking hours. 

One thing the world could never make her to do is hate the stars. Because the stars never changed. They were always there, each night. Blinking at her, welcoming her from a distance. Perhaps that is why she loved them so much, because they were so far away, nothing she could ever do would alter the stars. 

She had begun staying with Molly and Arthur, a few short months after graduating from Hogwart's. At first, she just needed somewhere to lie her head and didn't fuss where she stored her socks, but all too soon to much time had passed and Molly presented her a dresser. An empty dresser, aside from a few lively dust bunnies, and soon Hermione was storing her socks in it. 

She continued to stay there, as her friends all got jobs and traveled. Hermione had a job, an easy one down at a wizarding library, hidden in the alleyways of Diagon. Molly had showed her, then had forced her inside to ask for a form. 

The old lady, with glasses that hung on a chain, had looked her up and down, and asked:

"When can you start young lady?"