He handed her a book. But it wasn't just any book; it was an old, beat-up copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2!
"But - Then how did-?" she stammered.
"Magic, I would guess. Isn't that the way your world works? Either way, your guess is as good as mine," her father shrugged. "I came down from checking the insulation, saw the owl, and when I turned around there was the book sitting on the counter. I guess someone wants you to have it."
"But I'm not allowed to do magic outside of school, even to practice," she told him.
"That doesn't mean you can't study up and practice everything except putting it all together in one final abracadabra," the man said with a smile.
She hugged him again.
"And what's that one for?" he asked.
"For everything."
She knew then what she had to do. It was her only way out. She had to write to Harry and tell him there were no hard feelings and that all she wanted was to be his friend. It'd hurt, but it's just the way things had to be.
...
Two weeks, why did this have to come up everytwo weeks?
'Because you're able to distract yourself for the first week, ' the voice in her head that sounded like her father told her. 'After that you start getting worried because you should have heard something by then. At two weeks you think there's no way a response would've taken so long so something must've happened .'
Hermione snapped the book shut. She knew studying wasn't going to be able to get her out of this one just as she knew better than to argue with her father when it came to thoughts and feelings. They had talked too often when she was younger for the echo of him still stuck in her head not to be the same way, at least when it came to her. She often thought he'd missed his calling when he'd gone into dentistry and not counselling or psychology, or even history or one the other humanities. The man absorbed it all like a sponge.
But what could've happened to prevent anyone from hearing from Harry though?
'You said he wasn't much of a studier, maybe he's even less of a writer .'
Hermione shook her head. Her father might know her but he didn't know Harry like she did. Harry would never abandon his friends; brood, perhaps, but never just disappear. If her letter to him hadn't been enough to make him respond, and her second letter hadn't been enough, then surely Ron's repeated call for him to visit for his own birthday should've had him chomping at the bit to get away from his relatives and there's no way Ron scoring that kind of coup wouldn't have resulted in a cheer which would've been clearly audible all the way from - wherever it was he lived.
'Maybe there's something to that relative issue,' the mental echo of her father said.
Hermione suddenly got a deepening sense of dread. Harry had said that he disliked his relatives, he called them horrible. But everyone exaggerates when it comes to their parents. She didn't really think her mother was a robot, no matter how apt the comparison. But what if the Dursleys really were horrible? What if they weren't just horrible but abusive? Harry could be lying with bruises from head to toe, starving, and alone and she didn't even have his telephone number to check!
'Calm down, Hermione, you're panicking. '
She didn't know if that had come from the echo of her father or from some self-protective Puckle part of herself, but either way she was glad it was there. There had to be something she could do to find out, or to help if she could. Telling her parents would do no good; they couldn't call every Dursley in Surrey asking if they had a Potter living with them. Did the wizarding world have something like the Child Protection System? For a society backwards enough to still use quills in the twentieth century, let alone allow a giant Cerberus to be kept in a school, Hermione had severe doubts it had any concept of child welfare at all.
There had to be something she could do, someone else she could write to. Think, Hermione, think! Professor McGonagall? She was sure to take this seriously. Then again, she was so busy chasing down all the new students that even if she knew where Harry lived it might be another two weeks before she was able to catch up with her mail and know to check on him.
Professor Dumbledore? He was no good; he didn't interact with the students at all except to take his meals with them. He might be the head of the school, preside over the legislature, and oversee a body of international wizards but that only meant it'd take him even longer when it came to answering his mail.
A smile bloomed on her face as the solution presented itself; a solution with glinting beetle-like eyes and a big bushy beard. Hagrid! He'd be perfect. He'd pull down the moon if it was for Harry, and he already knew where he lived! Harry said Hagrid was the one to deliver his Hogwarts letter in the first place. McGonagall must've been very busy last year for him to have been drafted, but whatever the reason was Hermione was glad for it if it helped out now.
Plan in place, she started to write.
.....
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