intervention
- September 1989 -
While she doesn’t have grand expectations for her tenth birthday, Hermione knows the 19th of September is generally an exciting event in the Granger household.
Her ever so busy parents have long made it their mission to cherish every single one of her name days without fail.
No matter the day of the week or the numerous procedures they’d done at the dental clinic or how strained their neck and shoulders were, the 19th of September ends on most joyous notes.
And, well, how can it not? They eat delicious cake (with sugar!) and open her gifts (books!) and rerun her favorite films (Beetlejuice topples Anya’s Saturday Cases as of 1988) and their home is submerged in laughter and love.
There exists one case of a 19th of September gone horribly, terribly, wrong. For on a sunny Saturday, amidst balloons and confetti, Jean and Robert Granger learnt how cruel and malicious children can be while whatever joy eight year old Hermione had possessed withered and died.
(Strangely enough, so did Robert's roses, orchids, magnolias and Jean's apple tree and what began as a sunny Saturday with clear skies abruptly shifted into a drizzly, muddy miserable cloudy day. Odd for sure but then again, bizarre occurrences have been happening for as long as they settled here, a four month Hermione in tow. They had more pressing matters at hand and didn't puzzle over it till weeks later)
She has never invited her classmates since and her parents never encouraged her to do so again.
Her parents remain her only companions.
Hermione is more than happy to make this unspoken understanding permanent and everlasting. Jean and Robert, on the other hand, seem to have other ideas.
Ideas, she can not for the life of her (she is all but ten at the time) process let alone find worthwhile.
She has her parents, her books (for leisure) and her books (for school) and her peace (somewhat). What else could she be wanting for ?
'"Social interactions with children your age darling," her father says gently, ever mindful of the painful topic.
Children her age made their opinions of her and her attempts at friendship quite clear (and loud), she reminds them. You were there, you saw how that played out ! she adds and startles as glass breaks.
Her father goes to investigate in the kitchen, finds shattered pieces of what were once lightbulbs on the floor - how odd - and hurries to open windows, close the dinning door and up to her room they all relocate.
There’s no helping the inflamed, smarting hurt the memory of that blasted eight birthday invokes or the burning in her eyes as tears spill out. There’s no helping the nausea zig-zagging her esophagus or her stomach’s upheaval or the sharp sting of- of - outright betrayal she feels when her strongest defenders, the only people she loves and trusts more than anything all but throw her in the lion's den.
After everything that happened, she has to make 'friends' again.
" Positive social interactions with children your age," her mother amends as she gathers Hermione in her arms, and the latter all but melts in her mother’s embrace.
Jean knows the apple of her eyes well enough to appeal to her rational sense and not her heart in this case, "Humans are social creatures Hermione, positive interactions are crucial to our development, to our mental health, to our thinking abilities," and as she lists benefits after benefits her hand draws slow circles on Hermione’s small back hoping to soothe her distress.
" I have both of you, that’s more than enough," is their daughter’s muffled response on her shoulder and then a quiet, "it has to be"
" Oh Hermione," comes Robert’s pained murmur as he joins the hug. Jean doesn’t have to look up to know her husband’s heart is shattering into pieces, she knows hers is. Not for the first does Jean curse and curse that execrable school in the privacy of her mind.
It takes lengthy heart to hearts, plenty of choco and many warm hugs for a teary Hermione to agree to her equally teary parents’ plan.
It doesn’t make the hurt disappear at once, nor does it work miracles on what she recently learns is anxiety.
Her distress is, however, abated (for now).
The week-end following her tenth birthday, with her parents’ perpetual comfort and reassurances at her back, Hermione works up the courage to put a resolute end to her self-imposed social withdrawal.
It takes the shape of a filled out and signed enrollment form for The Sunshine Smashers.