An Unpleasant Task
The night was dark and cold and the young girl shivered as she rushed along the streets of this dismal neighbourhood. Glancing over her shoulder a couple of times she looked nervous.
She looked young, maybe 20 years old. Walking briskly, she looked as if she wanted to get to her destination quickly.
She had thought long and hard about this decision and had decided that it was for the best. In a time like this, it was all she could do!
She had only told Harry, no-one else and especially not Ron.
‘He would just overreact’ she thought to herself. Harry had thought she should tell him and had said she couldn’t hide it forever but yet she had! Even she thought that it was an incredible achievement, to hide something this big!
She had wrestled with the thought of telling Ginny but the fewer people who knew the better and given Ginny’s pregnancy it was probably not a good idea. This was not a secret that should get around. And if the Daily Prophet found out… she shuddered to think! A member of the order of the phoenix involved in this kind of scandal! They would have a field day!
She had almost reached her destination and she was beginning to experience feelings of doubt about the decision she had made. She lifted the bundle in her arms and gazed at it with mingled feelings of love, terror and sorrow. She stopped looking at the bundle quickly and tried to harden her resolve, she had to do this, there was no other option.
Thoughts of life if she didn’t go through with the act came into her head. Her relationship with Ron would suffer and if Ron found out that Harry had known their friendship would suffer. She couldn’t live with something like that, no, she would do this! No matter how hard!
Her destination was a home of one trusted confidant, friend and family member. She was a lovely old woman who lived alone, she was a spinster. Having never married, she had said it was better that way; she had never had the opportunity to have or raise children. Many had said this was sad as the woman possessed many qualities which would have made a good mother even if a father was not around. The woman’s name was Ellen Elizabeth James and was the girl’s great aunt on her mother’s side. At a young age the girl had been close to her great auntie Ellen but hadn’t seen her in long time, too long she thought to herself, too long. She owed her great auntie a favour and now it was time to pay it back.
Suddenly the house she sought appeared in front of her, it jumped out at her and seemed to gaze at her disapprovingly as her aunt would have done. The house itself was tall and in the dark surrounding her it had an eerie presence and feel to it. She had visited this house many times as a child, but that seemed so long ago now. The house was nearly exactly how she remembered it, from the patterned curtains in the windows to the neat little flowerbeds in the front garden.
Even the gnarled, leafy oak tree in the corner of the garden was still there and looked as beautiful as it always had. She had loved the tree then and in her heart of hearts the tree sparked a feeling of deep affection inside her, not only for the tree but for her great auntie Ellen as well.
Hanging from the branch of the tree was a makeshift rope swing her and her aunt had put together. She had spent hours swinging on the tree swing, reading books or simply daydreaming.
Shaking herself from her reverie, she gathered her thoughts.
‘Can’t bottle out now’ she said quietly to herself. She headed toward the shiny red gate and the end of the intricate crazy paving path. Trying to make as little sound as possible she opened the gate, balancing the bundle in her arms at the same time.
The walk to the buttercup yellow door seemed endless and she just wished it would end, yet still the door seemed miles away. She resisted the urge to look at the bundle knowing that it would weaken her resolve, not really a thing she could afford to happen at this point.
Unwanted memories and feelings flickered into her mind, not ones she looked back on with great happiness, quite the opposite in fact. She shoved them to the back of her mind, and determinedly walked to the door.
And so Hermione Granger placed the little baby girl on the doorstep of the house and placed a letter under the mat. Little did she know that this action had been done many years before, leading to an unpleasant life.