~*~*~*~*~
Here comes the thunder and here comes the fear,
‘Another year’ she wonders, ‘why am I still here?’
Oh but ‘boys will be boys’ she thinks,
‘What will ever come of this?’
‘I’ve tried so hard to make this work, but nothing ever seems to fit.’
So many explanations and so little resolve,
A shudder at the slightest inkling you should get involved
‘Oh but I am alright!” she cried, ‘I just feel a little compromised,
When I was a little girl I never had to try.’
Is this all you want, is this all you need?
Look at all these things you own,
Look at all these things you own,
You know these things don’t make a home.
(Song- 'Things' by Duels) ~*~*~*~*~
It had been yet another long day for Hermione Granger. Work was still on her mind as she turned the key in the lock and let out a long yawn. Thoughts on her patient’s conditions drifted through her mind even as she took off her lime green healers robes.
She was healer-in-charge on ward 43 of the forth floor of St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, dealing with patients with unliftable jinxes and hexes. She had been offered a job in the ward for permanent spell damage but had refused because she could not bear to witness the saddening condition of her best friend that had once been so full of life and energy.
She cast a drying spell over her hair and it turned, almost instantly, into the bushy brown mess that she had had all her life. Glancing at the clock on her muggle cooker as she reached for the kettle, she noticed the time. 21:54.Her heart leaped in her chest a little as she realized that she had been 24 for nearly 6 hours now.
Flicking the switch on the top of the kettle, her thoughts tumbled backwards into her past. Her mind flashed with memories of Hogwarts, the place where she had found herself and many other people as well. The grinning faces of Harry and Ron as she ran through the Great Hall to greet them after she had woken up from being petrified. She smiled fondly as she remembered Harry beating the Dragon in the first task of the Triwizard Tournament and, at the time Ron had mysteriously found himself Keeper of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Her throat constricted, however, as she remembered the darker times the trio had faced after their 6th year. Her eyes stung and her grip tightened on the worktop behind her as she saw once more the twisted face of her best friend Ginny Weasly as she was tortured, and her eyes clouded and watered as she remembered the murder of her fiancé before a blindingly white light had knocked her to the floor.
Tears streamed down her face as her knees gave way beneath her and she slid with her back to the wall to the floor. She’d done it again; released the floodgates of her mind, freed the memories that she longed to relive. 6 years ago she’d told herself that she’d never lose control like this again. After losing the people closest to her, she had moved into London and away from her parents. She liked London, with its never ending business and so many distractions from her thoughts. She’d plunged herself into becoming a healer and she had easily ridden to the top, working harder and harder everyday as she struggled to keep herself locked up.
But it was at times like these when she couldn’t help reflecting back over her past, pulling back the plaster she’d covered her pain with. She remembered Ron, her first real love and how he had cruelly met his death at the hands of Lord Voldemort, only weeks before their marriage. On the hunt for the Horcruxes with Harry, she and Ron had learned to get along and their constant fighting had ended. Just before they had destroyed Lord Voldemort’s snake, Nagini, he had proposed and she had found light within those dark times. But it was short-lived and, on the day of Ron’s funera,l she had been crushed and reduced to a sobbing mess as Harry had held her in his arms.
He was dealing with his own pain too. The loss of his best friend and the knowledge that his girlfriend Ginny Weasly was alone in St. Mungo’s with injuries that were far beyond repair. Lord Voldemort had tortured her repeatedly as a way to destroy Harry from the inside. But Lord Voldemort had once again looked over the power of love and did not foresee that it was Harry’s love for Ginny that would eventually destroy him.
Hermione’s breath now came in painful rasps as she struggled to pull herself together and raise herself off the floor, onto a chair nearby.
Now she was remembering the night of Harry’s departure; the eve of his birthday. After the demise of Lord Voldemort, Harry’s life was in no way private. What was left of the Order had had to fight to keep Ron’s funeral quiet and now Harry was tailed wherever he went. His misery was ruthlessly exposed to the public and Hermione could sense how hard he was trying to keep it all together. He visited Ginny regularly but Hermione saw that each time he left the hospital it was like a piece of him had been left behind, chipped away by the pain he felt when he saw her face.
Hermione supposed it had all got too much, and she couldn’t blame him. Upon calling at his house to prepare it for his birthday party, she had found it deserted. A letter was left for her on the kitchen table, explaining how he had taken a job as an Auror abroad.
She had kept in touch with him for a little while, but the letters had become fewer and increasingly distant until they dried up all together.
It had almost destroyed her, losing all the people she loved. But now she had got her life back on track again and there were other things keeping her motivated.
“Well,” she thought, sniffing, “S.P.E.W and my work as a healer.”
The kettle clicked to sound that it was boiling and Hermione walked shakily over to the counter and reached for her favourite mug. As she poured out the water, a knock was heard at the door. Hermione silently cursed at herself as she remembered who it was.
She hastily dried her eyes and tried to fix her hair as she made her way back towards the front door of her little house.
“Hermione!” a voice exclaimed as she opened it.
“Hey, Neville,” she said quietly, smiling slightly at him. He had grown up a lot over the past years she reflected. He had got together with Luna around 3 years ago and they had married not long after. He had taken up a job in researching Herbology, whilst Luna had taken on a joint ownership of the Quibbler with her father. His face was round, warm and inviting, and the sight of him had cheered her up a great deal already.
“What’s up?” he asked, frowning a little.
“Oh, nothing I was ermm... well nothing,” she concluded rather feebly. “Come in.”
She opened the door so that he could squeeze past her into the warm as it was still rather cold, even for March.
“Do you want something to drink?” she asked as she finished making her own tea. “Or something to eat?”
“Hermione,” Neville said with a slight chuckle, “It’s your birthday! I’m not going to make you cook!” He laughed and wrapped his arms around her. He knew something wasn’t quite right, he’d known her long enough. “I brought something for us to eat and I think there’s a little bubbly in there too somewhere. I thought we’d celebrate, you know like people do when it’s their birthday!”
Hermione smiled. Neville really was a good friend she thought. He visited her often, sometimes with Luna as well, and they would talk about things in the wizarding world and about work whilst eating a meal out or having a drink together. Neville had realized immediately that Hermione did not like to talk about the way things used to be, or the way they should have been even, and he never breathed a word of it in her midst.
“I think this just needs heating up,” Neville said, as he rummaged through the bags he’d brought with him.
“Just stick it in the oven,” she replied.
“The oven?” he asked. “Hermione, your a witch remember!” He shook his head. Hermione had chosen to live in a muggle house with all it’s muggle appliances because she still felt she got a certain satisfaction out of cooking without magic. Neville didn’t really se the point, as he had lived in a wizarding household all his life, so he just waved his wand over the meal until steam rose softly over the top.
“What is it?” she asked as she reached for the glass cabinet.
“Italian, your favourite.”
“Yum, good guess.”
“It was hardly a guess Hermione, you have it every time we go out for a meal,” he chuckled.
Smiling, Hermione opened the champagne (with her wand this time) and together they toasted her birthday together. They ate and laughed into the evening and talked freely during their pudding. When at last they were finished, and they both sat slumped in their chairs with considerably tighter waistbands, Neville asked what had been on his mind since Hermione had opened the door to him.
“So, what was actually wrong before then?” he said softly
“Oh, I don’t know,” she sighed, the smile fading from her face.
“You looked like you had been crying,” he said, his eyes full of concern for his friend.
“Okay, so I was. I don’t know why really, I was fine one minute and then...well”
“The past?” he asked, though knowing he was right from the now misted look in her eyes.
She nodded slowly, her chin wobbling slightly.
“Hey,” he said as she rested her head on his shoulder and he put his hands on her back. “Don’t cry”
He held her for a while as she let the memories flow back inside of her mind. When her tears had dried up, she leaned back, away from him, muttering an apology.
“Don’t worry,” he answered as he handed her a tissue from the box on the counter.
“I’m sorry, I just feel so...God, I don’t know what I feel anymore! It seems like, like this is it,” she said though her sniffs.
“What’s it?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I’m being silly. It just my birthday making me think of the past again. I’m 24 and this is all I’ve got to show for it,” she said, rather sadly, as she motioned around the kitchen of her home.
“Hermione! You’re the youngest Healer in charge for...”
“Centuries, I know,” she replied quickly. She smiled slightly as she remembered they were exactly the same words Harry had used when he had become Seeker for Gryffindor.
But that’s it. That’s all I’ve got. I get up, go to work and then come home to my empty flat and do it all again. There’s something missing. Something I need to find.”
“Like what?” Neville asked, now slightly confused by Hermione’s outburst.
“I don’t know,” she sighed.
They sat in silence for while and Neville contemplated what she’d said. Would she want to? he thought, as he suddenly came up with a plan.
“Listen, Hermione, you know the research you helped me with the other day?” he asked
“On healing qualities in certain plants? Yes, I remember. Why?”
“Well, I’ve made loads of progress with it since, thanks to you. There’s something I’ve been planning to do though for a while. I want to go out and see some of the rarer plants I’ve studied and try to gain new knowledge about them.”
Hermione frowned. She didn’t quite see where he was going with this.
“Well,” he took a deep breath, praying for a good reaction. “I’ve talked it through with Luna and she’s all for it. Though I have hit one little snag. I need someone to come with me, someone with outstanding knowledge of healing, and someone who can help me discover plants that could cure the incurable. You, perhaps?” He held his breath, waiting for her response. It wasn’t a lie; he had actually planned this all out. Yes, maybe he hadn’t intended on taking someone with him, but looking at it now, it was down to her help that he had decided to go at all.
“Me?” She asked, bewildered.
“Yes Hermione. You helped me so much that time; we really made a good team. Think of all the things we could do if we actually found these plants and combined our knowledge to create some kind cure for the people you work with every day! The people who your fellow Healers have deemed incurable!
The idea of using her knowledge to help find new ways to cure people was both exiting and alarming. She wanted to do it, the idea sounded wonderful, but then again did she want to leave her current position to go on a mad hunt for some plants that could prove useless? Yes! Take it! her heart screamed to her mind. But her mind was being stubborn and considering all the negatives of this trip and all the things that could go wrong. Her heart squealed in rage and frustration with her mind. This is just what you need!, it said.
Neville watched as she fought the battle going on inside of her. He crossed his fingers and hoped that she would, for once, be out of character and take a completely new chance.
“Listen, Neville, can you give us, I mean me, time to think about this?” she asked.
“Sure,” he sighed. “But there’s not long to hang about. I’m leaving tomorrow evening.”
“Tomorrow evening? That quickly? God, well okay, I’ll talk to you in the morning, before work.”
“Work? Hermione, it’s a Sunday tomorrow! Seriously, when was the last time you actually had time off?” he asked as he picked his coat off the hanger and made his way to the door.
“Ermm...” she mumbled, trying to remeber the last Sunday she hadn’t worked at all.
Neville laughed. “Think about it Hermione. Think of the difference we could make.”
And with that he was gone, leaving Hermione to unwrap her gifts with some serious thinking to do.
~*~*~*~*~
Hermione couldn’t sleep. The battle between her heart and mind raged on, despite the lateness of the hour. She tossed and turned in her covers, thinking over Neville’s words, until she could take it no longer. She padded down her stairs in her nightdress and entered the kitchen. Her now unwrapped gifts were on the table. She sat on one of the chairs that was not strewn with wrapping paper, and looked over them again. Neville had given her an encyclopaedia of plants that heal and plants that harm and she smiled at the thought that she and him could possibly add to it one day.
Setting it aside, her eyes found the present her parents had given her. It was her Grandmothers diary from when she was about the same age as Hermione. Her parents had given it to her as they thought Hermione would enjoy getting to know the Grandmother that she never really knew. And besides, they had thought, it was the only book in their house that Hermione had never read.
Flicking thorough the pages and taking in the scent of the aged paper, her eyes rested on a page where the old fashioned hand writing differed. It seemed more bold and positive than the rest and Hermione decided to read it before taking a sleeping potion and going back up to bed.
My father told me once, the lesson of the 5 glass balls. He told me never to forget it, so I wrote it here. It goes like this.
Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling 5 balls.
The balls are called, work, family, health, friends and integrity and your keeping all of them in the air. But one day, you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls “ family, health, friends, and integrity “ are made of glass. If you drop one of those, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered. And once you truly understand the lesson of the 5 balls, you will have the beginnings of the balance in your life.
Something clicked into Hermione’s brain. She knew what she had to do and she knew how to find the missing piece of her life. Work is a rubber ball she thought.
She got up from her chair and made her way back up the stairs, clutching at the diary. Getting into bed, the battle finally ceased between her heart and mind “ they were united. She settled down between the soft sheets for a good nights sleep and she was beginning to learn the lesson of the 5 balls as she realized she had a long day tomorrow.
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Broken Pieces by abstractpotter
Chapter Notes: Disclaimer - I don't own any Harry Potter characters (unfortunatly) and all credit for the glass balls idea goes to James Patterson, my inspiration for this story.