The front door had barely shut behind them before Ben Granger heard his daughter's footsteps scurry up the stairs. Any other child in this situation would surely slam their bedroom door shut, but all that followed was the distant click of it being gently closed. It wasn't like Hermione had never slammed her door - she was no stranger to tantrums after all - it's just that whenever she did there would be another incident. Ben knew she would be avoiding anything that caused those, especially after where they had just been.
"This isn't just going to go away like we hoped, is it?" his wife sighed from his side. "There's no use in denying it."
Ben merely shrugged off his coat and took his time hanging it on the coat stand by the door. No, he thought to himself sadly, no use denying it after the third meeting with her head teacher this term.
When he had turned around, he found she was still watching him, waiting for him to give her the reassurance she desperately craved. Hermione may have inherited his features, but the resemblance between the two Granger women was striking at that moment.
After so many years of marriage, they didn't need words to know what the other was thinking, nor what they needed. Wordlessly, Ben pulled her into a hug and held her. She was one of the strongest women he knew and seeing her like this pained him. He was meant to be her pillar in all of this and yet he was as lost for a solution as she was.
"I'll talk to her," he breathed, slowly releasing her. "You put the kettle on."
"Like a good little wifey?" Her tone may have been harsh, but the corner of her mouth twitched.
"Exactly," he chuckled.
Another sad smile and she was gone.
Closing his eyes and asking for the answer to his family's problem, Ben went over in his mind what he had learnt in the past hour. While excelling in school, Hermione was still struggling to make friends. She was in year five now and not once had she asked to have anyone over for dinner. There had been no sleepover invites, no birthday parties to attend - nothing. It had nothing to do with Hermione being quiet or shy because she wasn't, not even a little bit. While she could be assertive and stubborn, she was never cruel or horrible to the other children. Anyone who had met her could tell you she didn't have it in her to be a bully.
The obvious reason was the same one that had resulted in them being called in for another meeting with Miss Mason: the incidents.
Ben wished he could think of a better word for them, something that would make them seem less intimidating, but he couldn't. They were all different and unexplainable. The only thing that they had in common was Hermione and their bizarre natures.
Knowing he couldn't leave Hermione on her own much longer, Ben began the journey upstairs, hoping the words of comfort he needed would come to him along the way. When he reached her bedroom door he knocked softly and waited for a response.
"Dad?"
His heart swelled knowing that she knew it was him just from the knock. So many times in the playground he had seen children having screaming matches with their parents. Knowing that he and Hermione shared a bond as close as they did made him prouder than just about anything.
"Can I come in?"
"Of course."
With a deep breath, Ben opened the door and quickly found his little girl sat on her bed, still wearing her school uniform. Normally she would get changed the moment she got home, but the only item she had removed had been her shoes, which sat neatly by the side of her bed. Even though her red jumper wasn't creased or rolled up at the sleeves and her white socks were still pulled up to her knees, Hermione still looked slightly rumpled. She wasn't crying, but Ben knew she was close. Her eyes were wide and staring at her clear desk.
"How are you feeling?" he asked her kindly, moving into the room and closing the door behind him.
Hermione shrugged. "Okay." She didn't look away from her desk.
"You know we aren't angry, don't you?"
This time she nodded, her ponytail dancing behind her.
Her lack of eye contact disturbed Ben slightly so he followed her gaze and saw she was looking at a Barbie doll, dressed in an over the top ballgown. The sight of such a thing in this room was surprising on a normal day as Hermione had never been interested in dolls, but that wasn't what shocked Ben. It was the fact that the last time he had seen that doll, Hermione's head teacher was handing it to him, telling him it belonged to another girl in Hermione's class and all of its hair was missing. Now it had an immaculate blonde style attached to the plastic head.
"Is that-" Ben faltered, unsure if he wanted to ask the question, let alone know the answer. "Is that the doll that I was meant to replace?"
Hermione nodded again.
"But… the hair-"
"I fixed it," Hermione replied simply.
"H-how?" Ben knew she didn't know how, that no one knew how because no one ever did. Years of these things happening never prepared him for when they did. As soon as he spoke, he regretted it as Hermione's face fell and she started crying. By the time he was sat beside her on the bed, she had pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her face into her skirt.
"Hey, don't do that," he placated, putting an arm around her. "It's fixed. Now all you have to do is write that apology letter-"
"I didn't do it!" Hermione shouted, lifting her head to glare at him.
Ben sighed. "I know, but we've been through this."
They had. Several times with several different teachers and parents. Neighbours and friends. Doctors and psychologists. They all knew Hermione couldn't possibly be doing the things that scared the children and shocked the adults, because they were all impossible. No one could make things float, or break without touching them. No one could change the colour of things without paints or dyes. No one escaped accidents without injury.
No one except his little Hermione it seemed.
At his words, the anger in Hermione's eyes melted away and was replaced with a sadness that was much older than a child of ten should have been able to achieve.
"You don't believe me," she whispered.
"I do," he reassured her. "I-I do. But until we can explain what these incidents are, we're going to have to do these things, okay?"
It seemed to take Hermione a long time to process what he had said. Ben knew that she understood him perfectly; she was just trying to find a way around it. She'd been forced to apologise to so many people for so many things over the years that they should've been used to it by now. At first, when Hermione had been younger, she had given tearful and sincere apologies, the fear still evident in her voice. Now they were so routine you could hear they were rehearsed.
It wasn't that Hermione didn't feel bad because she did - Ben could see it in her eyes - but she was also sick of people not listening to her. These things weren't her fault and she was being treated like they were. For a child who valued honesty and obeyed rules as much as she did, constantly being treated like she was a misbehaving liar must have hurt her more than anything.
Eventually, she seemed to accept that he believed her. Fresh tears joined the ones still on her red cheeks as she flung herself at him. Ben pulled her close and kissed the top of her head as she continued to cry.
These weren't the tears of a naughty child who had been caught out, but of one who was scared and confused. Being unable to explain things to her and make them better made Ben feel like he was failing her as a parent and he hated it.
With no words coming to his aid and Hermione's sobs becoming more violent, Ben pulled her onto his lap and tried to ignore the reading lamp on her bedside table as it began to flicker on and off.
Slowly, the tears had faded into the odd sniffle. When Hermione's vice-like grip around his neck loosened, Ben pulled her jumper carefully over her head. He'd seen her cry like this more times than he would like to count and he knew she became unbearably warm. Hopefully by removing a layer of clothing she would at least be more comfortable. Once the jumper had been tossed to the end of the bed, Hermione shifted a little on Ben's lap to get more settled.
"Oof," he complained with a smile. "You're getting too big for this now, young lady."
"I'm four foot nine now," she snivelled and Ben chuckled. Reciting facts always seemed to cheer her up.
"That may be, but much more and you'll break your dear old dad."
Hermione gave him a small smile that Ben returned. She was still far from happy, her eyes blotchy and red and her nose running, but it was a start.
"Come here," he sighed, hugging her again. She rested her head against his chest and he moved to lie back against the headboard. They stayed like this for a long time. Ben thought Hermione might have even fallen asleep on him until she sat up a little to look at him.
"I tried to find it in a book," she told him, her voice still gravelly. "Why the incidents are happening."
Ben nodded, trying to keep the pain he felt off his face.
"Well, this boy at school has learning difficulties and I thought that might be it," Hermione continued. "I read up on them in the library. It doesn't mean you're stupid." She shook her head and sat up a little straighter. "It just means you learn differently and I thought that was it. Maybe I learn differently?"
As she spoke, Ben saw a bit of his Hermione return to her expression: her thirst for knowledge, her excitement at showing him what she had learnt. It would have filled him with joy if it wasn't for the subject matter and the way she couldn't quite look at him.
"I looked and there's Autism and Asperger's among others where you can be clever, but different," she finished explaining before falling silent. Her gaze fell to her knees and her voice to a whisper when she started talking again. "But I don't think I have those."
Ben shook his head gloomily. He knew for a fact she didn't. They were some of the first things they had had her tested for when she failed to interact with the other children at nursery, preferring to sit by herself and read quietly. Since then, they and the doctors had become desperate and had tested her for as many things as possible in the hope they could find something - anything - to explain what was happening to his daughter.
"I didn't fit any of the symptoms," Hermione mumbled, blinking back more tears. "I didn't fit there and I don't fit in at school." For a moment Ben thought Hermione was becoming angry again, but instead her shoulders slumped. "I don't f-fit in anywhere," she whimpered as the tears started to fall once more.
And all Ben could do was wrap her in his arms and rock her as the hopelessness of the situation consumed her once more.
"I j-just want t-t-to be normal," she sobbed.
Ben pushed her away from him gently so he could look at her properly. "You're not abnormal. Or ordinary," he told her softly. "You're extraordinary. You should never try to be what everyone else is."
There was a flicker of a smile on her face for a moment, but then it was gone. He should have known that she was smart enough to know that words couldn't solve this one. It was like a line from a fairytale and they had both stopped believing in those years ago, even if it seemed like they were living in one at times.
"Look," he sighed, "next year, you'll be starting big school-"
"Secondary school, Dad," Hermione corrected him with a roll of her eyes.
"Secondary school. You're going to get into King Edward's," he continued. "No one will know you. None of those nasty children who pick on you will be there. It'll be a fresh start."
He had hoped reminding her of her future would cheer her up, but all she did was look downcast still.
"What if I ruin it again by being weird?" she asked quietly.
"You're not weird," he told her firmly. Hermione looked up at his tone and he met her with a stern gaze. It seemed to cheer her up because, when she next spoke, her voice was a touch stronger.
"Well, with another incident?"
"They might stop."
They looked at each other for a moment and Ben had the feeling that she felt as confident about that happening as he did.
Hermione sank back into him with a sigh and began pulling the fluff that her jumper had left behind off her white polo shirt. Ben watched her tiny fingers work as he rubbed her back, his mind full of Barbie dolls, awkward explanations he could never quite make sound convincing and a future that looked as uncertain as everything that had gone before it.
"Why can no one else do these things, Dad?" Hermione asked, the misery in her voice evident in every syllable.
"We don't know for sure that it's you doing them."
Ben held his daughter tightly, knowing that he was both lying and twice as scared as she was.