Atonement

When I awoke, it was to bright lights that stabbed my eyes and noises that destroyed my head. My eyes were screwed up in pain in less than a second. God, why didn't it just end? It went on and on, forever and ever and ever, three infinities worth, six lifetimes worth. Just kill me! Kill me, and have done with it!

Somebody forced a potion down my throat, and the pain lessened. I welcomed it. I enjoyed the respite, though I knew it would be brief, because that kind of pain never stayed away for long.

As time went on and the fiery, all-consuming pain didn't return, I dared to open my eyes. Tears were still leaking from my eyes in remembrance of the pain. With a great effort, I made them stop.

"Are you feeling all right now, Hermione?" A woman with a kind face - too kind - was leaning over me.

"Who are you?" I asked, suspicious instantly.

"I am your healer," she said, still in that gratingly nice voice. "Do you remember who you are?"

"What kind of question is that?" I demanded. "Of course I do!"

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Freaking out on Krum," I said bluntly. I couldn't bring myself to regret doing that, even when I realized how much trouble I'd be in.

"Why did you freak out on him?" she pushed me.

"Why do you want to know?" I asked, moving to rub my eyes. I couldn't. "Why am I tied down?" A tinge of fear entered my voice at those words.

"You were having fits-"

"Let me loose!" I said. "Please."

"Just tell me-"

"Now! Please! Just let me go, I'll do whatever you want, I swear, just let me go!"

"I have to make sure you won't-"

"Let me go! Please, I promise I'll be good, just untie me, please, I promise I won't fight you, just let me - g-go . . ." I was sobbing by the end.

"Calm down. Hermione, I'm releasing you now, just calm down. Relax, you're safe."

"P-Please-" I gasped. My vision was going gray, and I could barely breathe.

"Hermione - here, take this-"

"I - how can I-" I couldn't continue; something was being forced down my throat. My breathing and vision cleared. I was thinking clearly again.

"Are you back with us?" the healer asked. I nodded, feeling stupid and foolish. Why had I spazzed like that? I was normally more controlled.

"Why am I here?" I asked her. I moved to sit up and was relieved to see I could.

"You've had emergency surgery . . ." She didn't seem to want to continue.

"Why?" I asked.

"The tumor in your brain metastasized to your heart," she explained. "We had to go in and get all of it. It might be a while before you can handle much exercise, and your head's going to hurt badly while it gets used to not being pressed on."

"Why would it hurt more after the pressure's been removed?"

"Any sudden change in physiology is enough to make our heads hurt. that's why allergies hurt, why stress brings on headaches, and why pregnancy can screw with a woman's circadian rhythms."

"I see."

"You're going to be here for about a week," the healer continued. "You're going to see a therapist today and tomorrow, and if you seem to need more, we can schedule more. You'll have physical therapy for the next week, and you'll have regular tests for anything that can go wrong. This button here will alert us to any problems you might have - just press the button there."

"Thank you," I said.

"Would you like to meet your roommate?"

I shrugged; she took that as a yes and moved to peel back the curtain surrounding my bed. I looked across the room into a pair of blue eyes, blond hair, and a snub nose.

"This is your roommate, John Dickinson," the healer told me. "John, this is Hermione Granger."

"Nice to meet you," he said.

I cocked my head, identifying the accent. "Wales, southwestern coast, correct?" I asked him.

He looked surprised. "How did you-?"

I tried to smile. "Practice."

"So where are you from?"

I waved a hand. "Here and there. Right now I'm living in Great Britain."

"Before that?"

I shrugged again. "Ireland, Wales for a bit, did a stint in the highlands of Scotland, moved to London, then Surrey, and now I'm in West County."

"You've moved a lot," he observed.

I glared at the wall. "Wish I hadn't."

"Hard to make friends?" he guessed.

"No. Well, yes, but that's not the reason." He looked at me curiously, so I elaborated. "My father regularly got drunk and used drugs. We would get evicted from one place, so we'd move to a place nobody knew our little family and start over."

"What did your mother do?"

"I've no idea. The stupid slut left when I was three."

"That must've been hard," he said sympathetically.

"Not as hard as finding out it was because of you. That came later, with time to soften the blow. What about you? What did your parents do?"

"My father was fisherman. The best in the area. My mother was a novelist. She did well for herself, too. We lived in such a nice little house by the sea. I never appreciated it when I was growing up, of course, but now I like it. I visit as often as I can."

"It must be nice," I said, a little wistfully.

"What?"

"To have had a family and not have it taken in one fell swoop."

"What?"

"I had four sisters," I explained. "Quadruplets. They were the cutest things. Not identical, but that was all right. That was perfect.

"They were ten and I was eleven when our father died. I became their legal guardian. Dumbledore was kind enough to let the four of them live in the castle. That was one of the best times of my life." I smiled wistfully. "If only it had stayed that way . . .

"We had gone home for Christmas break. While I was out shopping for groceries, a mad Muggle broke into my house and killed them all. I found their heads hanging from the chandelier. Their arms and legs had been put into the oven. Their chests I found in the backyard with old dolls' heads put on their severed necks, scarecrows of death.

"Then, who gets blamed for it but me."

"What idiot would blame you?" he asked.

"The head of the Auror office. My prints were on the knife, see - not surprising, considering that I never let my sisters handle the kitchen knives. I lived there, and I supposedly had motive - money was tight - so the idiots there thought it was open-and-shut. Nobody even bothered to talk with me. The guy still hasn't been found."

He shook his head in disbelief. "I swear, Scrimgeour is an even bigger idiot than I thought."

"You know him?"

"I work for the man, unfortunately." My face must have shown my surprise, because he smiled. "I'm an Auror."

"Oh." I suddenly felt very stupid.

"Do you always tell people that much when they ask?"

"I try not to lie. I've more or less made my peace with what happened to them. Now, what happened with my adopted son I still haven't accepted."

"What happened with him?"

"I found him, badly beaten, on the street outside my house the summer after my sisters were murdered. I took him in, called a Healer, calmed him down when he had nightmares. I got an owl in the middle of the school year - he was my age, by the way - saying that unless I let him go, I'd end up in front of the Wizengamot on kidnap charges. I had to let him go back to those stupid, ignorant Muggles and he hasn't spoken to me since.

"So what's your story?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Not one time you felt your parents gypped you?"

"One I heard that, I realized they were just being parents."

I nodded, hoping my wistfulness would not show. "So what are you in here for?"

"Blunt force trauma. Took a frying pan to the head and was out for a month. They found something in my head, so I'm in here until they can figure out what. You?"

"Brain cancer."

"What?"

I nodded. "Tumor metastasized to my heart. We're waiting to see whether I'll live to se twenty now?"

"Only twenty?"

"Prognosis before was seventeen at a stretch. Fifteen was possible, sixteen was improbable."

"How old are you?"

"Fourteen. You?"

"Thirty-six. Fourteen? Not forty?"

"You saying something about how I look?" I teased him.

"No - I just - wow. Fourteen. Wow. Only seventeen? Wow." He was obviously taken aback, and sheer amazement was plain on his face.

"Is 'wow' all you can say?" I teased him again. "Sure you don't want to throw in a 'whoa' or a 'God' or a 'holy-"

"Hermione!" the healer sang as she sailed through the door. "Time for your x-rays!"

"Duty calls," I said dryly to John as I was wheeled away.