Revelations at the Grangers
Emma Granger glanced over at her husband, as he drove them back home. "I'm worried about Hermione," she sighed.
Dan sighed, "I know," he replied, "She's been getting more and more distant from us over the years since she went to that damn school; we barely speak to her, besides sending the odd letter, but we're no longer as close as we used to be."
That wasn't all that was worrying Emma. "It's more than that, sweetie," she sighed and looked out of the window, "Do you remember how smug she was, how she said she was the Brightest witch of the age because she helped prove her friend was a murderer?"
Dan grimaced. "I'm hardly likely to forget it. Honestly, I liked the Potter boy."
"It's not that, Dan; it's the cruel way Hermione boasted about how she had helped make sure a murderer was put behind bars. We made many mistakes with her when she was growing up, chief among them making her believe she can boss people around, and make them do things the way she does things, believing she's always right, but one of her worst traits or flaws, or whatever you'd like to call them, is the belief she can get all of life's answers from a book, and believing authority figures are always right," Emma clarified.
"I know. And no matter how many times we both tried to talk her out of that mindset, it didn't work," Dan sighed, remembering the countless times they'd answered complaints from parents, when Hermione bossed them around, trying to make them do well at school only to lose it with them whenever they dared get a question wrong. He loved the girl, but he wished she wasn't so fucking stubborn and pigheaded. That was not intelligent by any means.
"Do you sometimes wish we'd never let her go to Hogwarts?"
"Every day. The distance between us gets wider and wider; while we respect her privacy, I keep getting the impression she's hiding stuff, and I don't like it, and I don't like the people she hangs around."
"The Weasleys, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and those other people," Emma sighed.
The Grangers had not taken too kindly to the notion to the thought a convicted felon was not only innocent, and a wizard, but personally knew Hermione. Emma and Dan liked Arthur Weasley even if it bordered on him being annoying and condescending; it was all "Really? You pull out people's teeth? The things you muggles think up," along with talk about how wizards were superior, even if they both got the impression he was truly not trying to be offensive, which made it even worse.
But neither Dan nor Emma had gotten a good vibe off of any of Hermione's 'friends.' There was something about Sirius Black and Remus Lupin that bothered her, and the Weasleys rubbed her the wrong way, too.
"I'm frightened we're losing her, Dan," Emma said. "If this goes on, we won't have a daughter, and I don't know how we can stop it."
"I know," Dan whispered, knowing his wife was upset at the thought.
"I carried that girl for 9 months, and it was a hard pregnancy, do you remember?"
"Definitely. I thought you were going to miscarry several times," Dan said as he pulled into their drive. As they left the car and locked it before walking into the house, they were stunned to find their daughter sitting in the living room. She was on the couch, crying in her arms.
"Hermione?" Emma immediately rushed to the young witch's side. Gently she pulled the girl up and looked into her face after prying her hands free, and she gasped when she saw the utterly shattered expression on her face. "Hermione, what's wrong? What's happened?"
Hermione sobbed harder. "H-Harry. He's innocent. He was…innocent the whole time!"
Emma and Dan didn't know what to say about this; Hermione had been extremely vague about what happened to her former friend. All she'd said was he'd been found guilty of mass murder, and she wouldn't say what happened.
Emma sighed and wrapped her arms around her daughter, knowing a mother's touch was most definitely needed right now. "Sweetie, tell us what happened. The whole truth; you've got this habit of not telling us the whole truth nowadays and we don't like it."
Hermione flinched, and Emma felt it; a part of her was upset for saying that to Hermione, but the girl needed to wake up. Fast. "O-Okay," she sobbed, and Emma felt her arm and shoulder move with the motion, "I'll tell you."
And Hermione did; she had given her parents edited accounts of what happened during her time at Hogwarts, she didn't want to leave since she wanted to finish her education and become a proper witch, although she knew only too well deep down there was a wedge between herself and her parents.
Hermione had been affected by the memories she had seen in the Ministry; while they were largely private and personal for Harry, she had a good idea why he'd shown them. He wanted them to finally understand his pain, something the Ministry and the magical world seemed blissfully ignorant of.
When she had left the Weasleys and the Order, she had wanted to get away from the magical world and see her family, suddenly reminded of how much she missed and loved them, and after seeing the love shown by Lily Potter even before her death, it had struck a chord. She didn't want to love her parents, especially not in the same horrific way Harry had lost his own, so she'd left. Right now she couldn't stand to be with the Order anyway.
Hermione started talking.
She told them about Harry and his past. She told them how he was the Boy Who Lived, how he had lost his parents at the young age of one, his whole family. She told them how Professor Dumbledore had stopped his relatives in America from trying to take him in for years, instead giving them to the Dursleys, who were the opposite of the Grangers and they'd abused the once sweet, loving child who'd had loving parents in turn, and he began to become slowly darker as the years passed to the point where he no longer cared about his parents, and only went into the magical world to become a wizard.
She told them of how her years at Hogwarts went; the troll, going after the Philosopher's Stone, Dobby the House Elf giving Harry that warning, the attacks on muggle-born students, being petrified, Harry stopping the basilisk, the Dementors going for Sirius Black, Harry falling from his broomstick when he heard his mother's final moments (that last one frightened and upset Emma, who clapped her hand to her mouth), and the final confrontation with the Death Eater who betrayed the Potters.
It took Hermione a while, but she then went into detail about her fourth year, how she and everyone turned on Harry when his name came out of the Goblet of Fire, putting him in a dangerous tournament and he proved his innocence but refused to speak to anyone, preferring his own company..which would have terrible consequences later…
Hermione didn't gloss over the details surrounding the Tournament; she told her parents everything about the dragon, the Yule Ball, Harry's refusal to forgive them all, the Second Task, and the Third Task…
Which saw the return of the Dark Lord who'd murdered Harry's parents and would go on to cast his shadow over everyone again. Hermione told them how, when Harry returned and someone touched the Triwizard Trophy which took him to some far-flung graveyard for the ritual, it exploded with a dark curse which killed so many people, it didn't discriminate. Harry survived and he got the blame, and he was rushed through a trial.
At first, Hermione was unsure about his guilt, but she'd been talked around and the evidence was so overwhelming then there was Harry's reclusiveness she was finally convinced, and she helped put Harry away. She had even helped destroy his things, like his photo album and the Potter invisibility cloak.
Emma and Dan were horrified by what they were hearing. They were horrified by the amount of stuff that her daughter had gotten involved in, and what she'd done, but what horrified them the most was hearing that when she began her fifth year after a few months of living with them and being smugly arrogant after believing she was right, Hermione had bullied a few of the students who believed in Harry's innocence. She had been one of the ringleaders who had bullied Neville Longbottom, and Luna Lovegood, a girl a year younger than she was.
They knew the worst bullies were the ones who bullied themselves, they had just never imagined their daughter becoming one of them, and they were disgusted, but they listened as Hermione told them about how three Death Eaters were caught after the Dark Lord announced his return to power and started launching terrible and horrifying attacks on both the muggle and wizarding worlds; the three caught Death Eaters told them Harry was innocent.
Dumbledore and his group and the Ministry had rushed to Azkaban to get him out, only for them to get into a pitched battle with the Dark Lord and his followers…only for Harry, who'd been in prison for a year, to turn the tables, draining the magic away from the Dark Lord and his followers and largely restoring his health before being taken to the Ministry.
When he arrived, everyone saw the truth of what happened during the Triwizard Tournament, and they also saw Harry's past which was full of trauma and abuse, because Dumbledore refused to let him go. When she was finished she looked down at her hands.
"I…I knew he wasn't happy, but I didn't know he was being abused," Hermione whispered.
"Why didn't you tell us about all of this?" Emma demanded.
"I…I didn't want to leave Hogwarts."
"You had no right to hide this from us, Hermione. We should have been told what was going on!" Dan snapped. "Sometimes I feel we're losing you to that…that madhouse called a wizarding world. Now it seems we're right! You became a bully and you gave into peer pressure, all to hurt someone who saved your life!"
Hermione shook with fresh tears. She couldn't refute that. "I know," she muttered quietly.
"I can't believe you became a bully, Hermione," Emma said softly. "All because you believed you were right. How many times do we need to tell you, you can't be right all the time!?"
Hermione couldn't answer that.
"Where's Harry now?"
"I don't know," Hermione whispered. "He left the Leaky Cauldron. He could be anywhere by now."
"So, what's he going to do? You mentioned he has family in America, is he going to go to them?" Dan asked.
"No," Hermione shook her head. "Dumbledore and the Wizengamot - their government - passed a law, stating he has to return to Hogwarts. He'll be there until he is 17."
It took a moment for her parents to understand what that meant. "Wait, he's not going to America?"
"No."
"And Dumbledore made this happen?"
"Yes."
"What right does Dumbledore have to do that?" Emma demanded, disgusted with the magical world now.
Hermione shook at her mother's anger. "W-Well, Professor Dumbledore-."
"Hermione, you're once more blinded by that faith in authority," Dan sighed and rubbed his forehead tiredly, cursing himself for telling his daughter time and time again to defer to authority. They'd done it when Hermione was very young, and it had made her blindly obedient to people like headteachers.
It was clear as day Hermione believed Dumbledore could do no wrong, and she honestly believed that keeping Harry locked up was the best option.
"Dad?" Hermione blinked her red eyes.
"No, your's father's right. Hermione, when we told you to trust authority figures, we didn't expect or want you to believe in them so blindly," Emma folded her arms with a weary sigh. "A Headmaster does not have the right to tell a student where he can or cannot stay, and while I admit I know he is an important magical government figure, it sounds like he wants to keep Harry locked up; has it never occurred to you Harry just wants to be left alone, and wants to be with his American family?"
"Put it this way, Hermione," Dan got in; he could tell, like his wife, Hermione was thinking, "You told us this Harry Potter boy lost his parents when he was a baby, and he was placed with abusive people, keeping his rightful family away. If it were you, wouldn't you be resentful and furious towards him if you lost us and someone meddled in your life?"
"Of course, I would!" And then Hermione gasped, suddenly getting it. Harry just wanted to be with his family, but he was completely alone and everyone kept meddling in his life. Hermione had assumed it was for his own good for she believed Dumbledore when she had learnt Harry had the potential to go dark, and everything she had seen proved it.
But now….
Now, she was realising Harry only needed to be pushed down that route, and being thrown into Azkaban could have been that push.
"Yet you don't seem to find anything wrong with an authority figure doing it to someone else," Emma pointed out, shaking her head while she kept her concern and nervousness hidden; she loved her daughter but she didn't like the idea of antagonising a witch, and the divide between them had grown more and more until she was worried about what Hermione could do. "Face it, Hermione, I don't think you care at all. You came back the year before, all smug and superior, claiming yourself to be the Brightest Witch ever and now it's been thrown into your face. You're responsible for this mess, and you are now an accomplice to illegal imprisonment."
Okay, Emma didn't have a clue about magical law, but by using non-magical law as an example, she was hoping to make her daughter wake up.
But now she was going to be cruel. "You're pathetic, Hermione," she finished harshly, shocking her daughter who began sobbing silently, "you're too easily swayed by adults and their words without thinking. You hide behind books, telling people what to do when you believe you know best, not caring one little bit if they have their way of doing things. You have never been able to have friends, and you have thrown one down the drain while smugly saying you put a murderer behind bars without questioning anything. I don't think Harry will ever make peace with you, ever, from what you've told us about him he doesn't have it in his nature, and you're going to have to accept that. It's time for you to wake up and stop letting others tell you what to think."