Interlude three.
Hermione:
Hermione was worried. Headmaster Dumbledore had just stopped by to talk with her and her parents and the conversation had been unusual. He told them that Harry had run away from his relatives and that he needed to go back there as soon as possible for his own safety. Harry, safe, living with the Dursley family?
Hermione mentally snorted at that ridiculous thought.
She knew that wasn't true. Harry might never have actually told her what they did to him but she had eyes. Those horrible Dursleys had never cared for her friend, that much was obvious. Harry was way too skinny, wore ratty clothes clearly not his own and he just wasn't cared for. She could remember how he had reacted when she hugged him back in their first year. He had acted like nobody had ever hugged him before and it just broke her heart thinking about it. Or made her furious. It depended on the day, really.
It hadn't taken her long after she got to know Harry to know that something was wrong in his home-life. Hermione had needed more information so she went to her usual place, the library. Both muggle and magical. Books for abuse survivors and books for friends of family members of people who were getting or had gotten abused. She had found a few very good books about it over the years about it that she left for him in places only he could find them.
She just hoped they helped him a bit. It was important to her that he knew that it wasn't his fault. That he deserved to be treated better and that there were places were he could ask for help if he didn't or couldn't go to her. Shelter or therapy.
He needed to know that. Harry would have had to go back there again if Professor Dumbledore got his way but Hermione would not help the Professor do that. She would never make Harry go back there if there was another choice and there was another choice now, she strongly suspected. Sirius would have left everything to Harry if she had read him right. He would have done everything for his godson and what Harry needed most were a safe place to live and a way to survive the war. Hermione understood that Sirius couldn't really help them with the second thing but he had a house.
No one could help them it seemed. But she was sure that he would have left Harry a house. Grimmauld Place probably since Sirius hadn't been able to go out and buy another house. Or maybe there were other houses in the Black family? But she didn't know for sure so she couldn't lie to the Headmaster when he asked her. And she was sure he would ask her soon.
Hermione still didn't understand why Headmaster Dumbledore couldn't see that that house on Number 4, Privet Drive wasn't a good home for children. The man was the headmaster of a school! He should have the welbeing of his students on his mind first and foremost. Yet that had never been the case. The professor had always been too busy with other things like one of the other jobs he held.
Hermione still thought that it was very irresponsible to give a man three full time jobs. Just like professor Mcgonagall actually. She too, had to many jobs which caused her neglect her students. It was unfortunate for the students that needed extra help in Gryffindor House. They never really got all of Professor McGonagall's attention. But they still knew that the professor cared for them. Hermione had started to wonder lately about the Headmaster.
The Headmaster then had finally asked if Hermione had heard anything from Harry or if she had know what he had planned. She did not. But even if she had she would not have told the Headmaster right then. Something felt wrong.
Professor Dumbledore was acting strangly. The Albus Dumbledore she knew was calm, wise and balanced. The Professor Dumbledore that just came by was anything but that. What was going on? It couldn't be just that Harry left that horrible home, could it? The Headmaster had always been very focussed on Harry but never so unhinged as he appeared to be like now. It worried her.
It was after the Headmaster left had she and her parents had a good talk about Harry and Hogwarts. What she told them was visibly worrying them and Hermione was getting a bit afraid. While she knew things were often strange when they involved Harry, she never really talked about it to others. No one really seemed to talk about it. Yet Hermione couldn't believe that no one saw the things she did.
Why did no one see how underfed he looked? How he never wanted to go back home? Why was it always Harry who put himself in danger? Why was er even danger at their school to begin with? Why did an adult never even try to help them?
Why did no one talk about it?
Hermione never had friends before. It was only when she came to Hogwarts that she found her best friends Harry and Ron and even that wasn't easy. She knew she was bossy and a bit controlling and that her ideas of fun weren't what the boys liked to do, but they were her friends. Her best friends.
Though she and Ron weren't as close anymore lately. Ron had broken something between them at the Yule Ball with the things he said to her. She hadn't been able to get past it anymore. First he dared to abandon Harry, accused him of horrible things and then he dared to talk to her like that? Like she had betrayed Harry? Like Hermione had cheated on Ron by going with Viktor to the Ball? It had been to much.
Ron and her had never been as close since then as she used to hope they could become. The boy was just a bit too immature and jealous for their friendship to last into adulthood let alone a relationship. They still talked and were friendly but lets face it, she and Ron had nothing in common but Harry.
Hermione had never told her parents much about the dangers she experienced at Hogwarts in the fear that they would take her out of the school. Which would mean that if she didn't go to another magical school she would have her memories wiped and her magic bound. She would have to leave Harry. Hermione would never leave Harry. He meant everything to her.
For now he was her friend. Her best friend. But she had some hope that some day that might change. Hermione really thought that they had potential to be more. She just had to make her blind best friend see that they could be great together. Maybe not now but she hoped in a few years at least. Hemione understood that the war came first, that Harry wouldn't want to put a target on anyones back. So she would be patient. Their friendship came first anyway.
After the Headmasters visit she had to tell her parents a bit more about what had happened at Hogwarts and to say they weren't happy was an understatement. They told her that they had trusted her to go to a boarding school all by herself and that she had damaged that trust. That she didn't trust them to do right by her as her parents. They weren't just muggles, they were her parents.
That truthful comment caused some tears but they talked it out and hugged each other tightly. Hermione promised her parents that she would let them be her parents again. That she would be respectful of their agency and talk to them before making a life changing decision. Honestly, Hermione was kind of relieved to have it all out in the open. She had been taking to much on her shoulders lately and it was nice to lean on her parents for a bit.
Hermione had forgotten, but her parents were just as smart as she was. Her mum and dad might not be magical but that didn't mean that they couldn't help her out in other ways. Her father had been a soldier before becoming a dentist so he knew a bit about war. Meanwhile her mother had a next to her dentist degree, a minor in psychology.
They told her how worrying it all sounded. It sounded like all their trials and troubles where designed in mind for Harry and later for her and Ron too.
Hermione had to agree thinking back on it. Why could the door be opened with a simple first year spell? Why did no one stop the bullying of Hermione and in second year, the bullying of Harry. How could a troll get in one of the safest schools of Britain? The wards should have never allowed it even if a teacher had let the creature in.
Why had no one investigated the death of Myrtle Warren? Why did no one help the students when a teacher was using a Blood Quil on them? It was always the students that had to fix their own problems. Even the problems caused by adults.
There should have been great ancient Wards around Hogwarts who should have stopped most things that had happened. Why weren't they active? Did they even still exist?
There were so many things that just weren't right with how their years there went. Hermione just didn't know why. Not the mention the way the teachers were at Hogwarts. There was just no excuse for a school giving a bad education to students. Hogwarts education being the best was clearly a lie.
Then her father said something that was so disturbing but yet it rang so true that it made her keep her mouth shut. Her father said that it sounded like Harry was getting kind of groomed by Dumbledore to do something. To be something more.
To make Harry do what Dumbledore wanted Harry to do he had to change him. He kept making her friend go back to an abusive household year after year, gave him no help while at school even when Harry was in life threatning danger. It certainly seemed like Dumbledore was planning someting for Harry. Was he truly grooming Harry?
Hermione knew that it might be true. Harry was made to go through such awful things year after year and it had made him not very confident, or very sure about himself or trusting of other outside a very smal circle. Then with his homelife being the way it was and the way the Wizarding world kept expecting Harry to fix everything it was almost as if the Headmast wanted Harry to sacrifice everything for him. To have nothing to want to live for.
But no, that couldn't be it, could it? Nobody could expect that of a child. Do that to a child. Certainly not Albus Dumbledore. Right?
The papers said that Harry was the Chosen One. There was a Prophecy, Hermione knew that but she did not know what it had said. What if the papers where right for a change? Was there a Prophecy concerning Harry and you-know-who?
Would Dumbledore set Harry up for a confrontation with Voldemort? What was she thinking? Of course the barmy old man was planning something like that. It would be just Harry's luck to have the leader of the dark want him dead and the leader of the light wanting to sacrifice him to win the war.
She would not let that happen. Not her Harry.
Harry needed to know this. He needed to know that Dumbledore was not to be trusted anymore. Oh she hoped he was safe where ever he was. She had a good idea where he could be but she could be wrong. Maybe.
That stupid boy made her worry about him so he better sent her a letter soon to tell her he was alright.
Or better yet, she will sent him a letter. A long one.