Baby, Slow Down- FIC, HP
Title: Baby, Slow Down
Author: gelsey
Rating: PG-13, maybe
Fandom/Pairing(s): Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Warnings: Character death, violence, nothing serious
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be.
A/N or Summary: The muse has been tricky, but here is my offering. I hope someone enjoys it.
Baby, slow down;
The end is not as fun as the start.
Please stay a child somewhere in your heart.
There are moments that change the entire course of a lifetime. Penelope Granger had taken a long time to discover that fact. She had never really understood the phrase until the day an owl had flown to her window with a letter attached to its leg and taped upon the glass to be let in.
Up until that point, her life had been … not uneventful, or predictable, but … steady, for lack of a better term. No sudden devastating events in childhood or adolescence. She hadn’t instantly fallen in love, not even with her husband, Greg, or had her heart irrevocably broken. Hermione had been a planned child.
Her daughter--her brilliant, wonderful daughter--had shaken things up a little, with what she now knew was accidental magic, but even then everything had gone rather smoothly on the whole.
And then suddenly, her world had tilted on its axis and life had changed irrevocably. Magic was suddenly very real. Finding out that there was a whole other world that she’d lived alongside all her life without knowing about it was one of the most disconcerting and memorable times of her life.
That moment hadn’t started to haunt her immediately. She’d been excited for Hermione at first, though understandably nervous for her. It was a completely different world, after all … some concern was understandable, in a case like this.
Yes, there had been worry when her daughter had trouble fitting in at first, but it had been nothing new when it came to Hermione. Her daughter’s intelligence and drive for knowledge had always made such things difficult.
The first vestiges of fear had stirred when her daughter came home for Christmas break that first year. Hermione was distracted, spending her time reading and doing strange homework, researching some something. Keeping secrets, being vague about school, and her new friends--both boys, which was odd, in Penelope’s opinion.
The passing mention of an incident with a troll fanned an ember into a small but steady flame. The flame was fed further by a refusal to come home for Easter and the way Hermione distanced herself over the summer. Each owl sent every few days was another stick for the fire, as were glimpses of faint worry in the wide brown eyes that increased as summer went on.
The trip to the ‘famous’ Diagon Alley had Penelope nervous, and Greg too, with all honesty. For awhile, she was sure it would go well--that Arthur Weasley seemed like a great man, if a little over-enthusiastic about some things.
But then they ended up in that bookstore. Normally, Penelope loved bookstores, a trait her daughter shared with her, but the crowd from some book signing was nearly overwhelming and then young Ronald’s father ended up in a fight with some posh, rich looking man, with blond hair and a horrible sneer.
Hermione didn’t know it, but she had heard what the man--Lucius, she believed his name was, how odd--had said, and had noticed the significant glance, dripping with disdain, sent their way that had set the redhead off.
Apparently, bigotry existed in the wizarding world too.
The next school term had Penelope trying to read between the lines, to figure out what her daughter wasn’t saying. She met with very little success, beyond the very obvious crush her little girl had on that man from the bookstore, who was a professor this year.
She was finally starting to relax near Christmas (though she didn’t like that Hermione had chosen to stay at school), when she received an owl stating that Hermione had been in some sort of accident--nothing life threatening, she’d been reassured--just a mishap with a potion that had turned Hermione partly into a cat.
Greg had wanted to pull her out of that school then and there. But then, he’d always had a short temper and was very protective of his one and only daughter. Penelope had calmed him down at the time, but when they’d been informed that Hermione had gotten petrified somehow, she had had the same vehement reaction. Of course, until their daughter was un-Petrified, she couldn’t be pulled out of the school.
By the time she was back to normal, it didn’t make any sense to pull her out--the school year was all but over. So they planned to take her out quietly the next year, just not send her back … even planned a vacation as a sort of balm to ease the loss.
It, of course, blew up in their faces. Their bright, strong-willed daughter put her foot down just like they’d taught her to do with her beliefs, only had never expected it to be directed at them. They ended up going on the vacation, and adding some wizarding sites to their itinerary, and sending her off to the Weasley family. They had lost that battle--somehow Hermione won the fight and was back at that school.
The very same school that sent out notices that year that some creatures called Dementors were to guard the castle. These creatures that might cause depression, so don’t be unduly worried, the note said. It was signed by the Ministry of Magic, with the explanation that the creatures were to stay there, because apparently some dangerous criminal had broken out of prison.
Yes, that had been so comforting. So reassuring. Their daughter was oh so very safe. Of course, the notice had been sent just after they’d seen their daughter off … it would be beyond difficult to pull their unwilling daughter from a place they couldn’t even see if they had a clue where it was.
Then the extremely belated note of some import, about something called a ‘Time Turner’--a congratulations on their daughter’s stellar academic performance and how proud they should be at the honor she had been granted to be allowed to use one.
Penelope, of course, was furious. And scared, as well. She immediately wrote Hermione, hurt and angry at her for withholding this information. Hermione had written back a cool reply with some very logical arguments, and Penelope had written back with a plea, to please, baby, slow down. Enjoy life now, don’t grow up so fast, don’t push yourself too hard.
The reply went unheeded. Hermione was stubborn, and would do as she wished. And Penelope, unfortunately, had to accept it.
Her daughter would do as she pleased, just like she’d raised her to. Moving fast, pushing hard. Growing up so fast that by the time summer holidays came and she came home--for only a little while--she barely recognized the look in her daughter’s eyes. There was something she was missing, she knew … something that Hermione was involved in that she didn’t know. There wasn’t any way for her to find out, though.
Hermione spent most of the summer at the Weasleys, who were more than happy to have her. It was obvious she didn’t appreciate her mother’s attempts at persuading her to slow down and smell the roses.
In short, she lost her daughter’s trust. Penelope was truly frightened that she would lose her daughter.
She had never thought that she might lose her physically … only emotionally. The next school year proved her wrong. More notes, more owls … owls that kept reminding her of that very first one. But news of a tournament, letters from her daughter about Harry’s being chosen unexpectedly … there was real danger in that world.
Her daughter got her first real boyfriend, and she knew it was more serious than Hermione let on. After all, she was chosen as the ‘thing most dear’ to Krum’s heart. Her heart pounded in her throat until she heard that her daughter got out of the lake safely.
Time seemed to fly by, frighteningly fast. The death of a boy at her school--all parents were informed. A secret Order of wizards she heard Hermione mention in passing. The worry, the darkness, the resolve she saw in her daughter’s brown eyes.
Though she wasn’t at home to watch for long. Hermione stayed away, at her friend Harry’s godfather’s place. She later found out about a secret club her daughter founded, about how she left a Ministry official and teacher out among centaurs … a bad woman, yes, but it was an act she hadn’t thought her wonderful daughter capable of. She had heard so little from the school that year, until the term was over, and the Headmaster reinstated--she hadn’t even known he had been out of the position.
Hermione had become someone she didn’t know at all.
She came home still nursing an injury from some altercation at the Ministry, and a lot of the story she’d been hiding came out … an evil wizard, his minions, how in danger her best friend was, how people were dying … Harry’s godfather being among the first. Penelope was now allowed to read the Daily Prophet, and she wanted nothing more than to bring her daughter as far away from this place as possible. She wished she had known of the paper’s existence before this year.
Hermione would have none of it, and so Penelope didn’t bother to try. She only hugged her tightly and begged her to be safe, to try and keep part of herself young, joyful, like she had been before that very first owl, so long ago now, it seemed, and then let her go back to her fight. She couldn’t have stopped her.
After all, she would still be safe … she had to be. Albus Dumbledore was protecting her, and the old wizard had promised them personally that he was looking out for her and her friends.
And so, when he died, so did the restraint she had on her fear. Her daughter might die. She wouldn’t come home, insisted on searching all over the world for some Hor-whatsamacallits, risking her life for this boy who wasn’t even family.
Penelope lived in constant fear that next year, seeing her daughter only sporadically. Seeing how thin she got, the hardened look in her eyes from acts that Penelope didn’t even want to contemplate. And then she dragged home two men, one nearly Penelope’s own age, dark and sarcastic and really, very scary. The other was a boy her daughter’s own age, blond and as haunted as the other witches and wizards she had glimpsed in the past year.
She pleaded with them, asked them to care for the two men, to hide them. No one would look here, she said. Keep them safe, she asked.
And for awhile, she was right. They stayed with them, kept mostly to themselves … until that night that five men blasted down the door. Penelope had disliked the elder of the two they sheltered, until that night. She hadn’t understood why her daughter liked him, and came to spend time with him over her own parents. That night, Penelope forgave him that and anything else, when he came and managed to save her and her husband, with no lasting injuries beyond nightmares.
The Order hid them away then, alone but in a safe place. The last time she saw her daughter for months left a lasting impression … Hermione had been holding an owl, reading a missive. The owl looked like the one from so long ago, but her daughter’s face was firm, hard, so different from what Penelope had imagined her to grow up to be. There wasn’t much of her baby left in that face, those eyes.
And then a miracle happened. It all ended. Ron Weasley came and fetched them … he had been their secret keeper, and he had kept their secret. They arrived at Grimmauld Place, as Penelope had learned it was called, and there had been a party in full swing.
She and Greg had immediately sought their daughter out, and found her in the most unlikely of places … in the kitchen, wrapped around Severus, the tall dark man who had saved their lives.
Greg had nearly exploded, but had managed to restrain his temper when Penelope touched his arm. She had been angry for an instant, until she saw her daughter’s beautiful eyes, alight with happiness and love. The eyes she remembered every night, lighted up like the first time she’d found out that magic was real. Filled with the joy that had been missing for so long.
She had smiled at her daughter then, gently. If that man made her daughter happy again, then she wouldn’t say a word against it. Hermione spoke unsteadily, obviously unsure of what her mother and father thought. “I … he makes me happy. He makes me want to slow down and enjoy everything.”
“I know,” Penelope replied. And she did, so she silently led her husband away to celebrate the return of joy.
Author: gelsey
Rating: PG-13, maybe
Fandom/Pairing(s): Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Warnings: Character death, violence, nothing serious
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be.
A/N or Summary: The muse has been tricky, but here is my offering. I hope someone enjoys it.
Baby, slow down;
The end is not as fun as the start.
Please stay a child somewhere in your heart.
There are moments that change the entire course of a lifetime. Penelope Granger had taken a long time to discover that fact. She had never really understood the phrase until the day an owl had flown to her window with a letter attached to its leg and taped upon the glass to be let in.
Up until that point, her life had been … not uneventful, or predictable, but … steady, for lack of a better term. No sudden devastating events in childhood or adolescence. She hadn’t instantly fallen in love, not even with her husband, Greg, or had her heart irrevocably broken. Hermione had been a planned child.
Her daughter--her brilliant, wonderful daughter--had shaken things up a little, with what she now knew was accidental magic, but even then everything had gone rather smoothly on the whole.
And then suddenly, her world had tilted on its axis and life had changed irrevocably. Magic was suddenly very real. Finding out that there was a whole other world that she’d lived alongside all her life without knowing about it was one of the most disconcerting and memorable times of her life.
That moment hadn’t started to haunt her immediately. She’d been excited for Hermione at first, though understandably nervous for her. It was a completely different world, after all … some concern was understandable, in a case like this.
Yes, there had been worry when her daughter had trouble fitting in at first, but it had been nothing new when it came to Hermione. Her daughter’s intelligence and drive for knowledge had always made such things difficult.
The first vestiges of fear had stirred when her daughter came home for Christmas break that first year. Hermione was distracted, spending her time reading and doing strange homework, researching some something. Keeping secrets, being vague about school, and her new friends--both boys, which was odd, in Penelope’s opinion.
The passing mention of an incident with a troll fanned an ember into a small but steady flame. The flame was fed further by a refusal to come home for Easter and the way Hermione distanced herself over the summer. Each owl sent every few days was another stick for the fire, as were glimpses of faint worry in the wide brown eyes that increased as summer went on.
The trip to the ‘famous’ Diagon Alley had Penelope nervous, and Greg too, with all honesty. For awhile, she was sure it would go well--that Arthur Weasley seemed like a great man, if a little over-enthusiastic about some things.
But then they ended up in that bookstore. Normally, Penelope loved bookstores, a trait her daughter shared with her, but the crowd from some book signing was nearly overwhelming and then young Ronald’s father ended up in a fight with some posh, rich looking man, with blond hair and a horrible sneer.
Hermione didn’t know it, but she had heard what the man--Lucius, she believed his name was, how odd--had said, and had noticed the significant glance, dripping with disdain, sent their way that had set the redhead off.
Apparently, bigotry existed in the wizarding world too.
The next school term had Penelope trying to read between the lines, to figure out what her daughter wasn’t saying. She met with very little success, beyond the very obvious crush her little girl had on that man from the bookstore, who was a professor this year.
She was finally starting to relax near Christmas (though she didn’t like that Hermione had chosen to stay at school), when she received an owl stating that Hermione had been in some sort of accident--nothing life threatening, she’d been reassured--just a mishap with a potion that had turned Hermione partly into a cat.
Greg had wanted to pull her out of that school then and there. But then, he’d always had a short temper and was very protective of his one and only daughter. Penelope had calmed him down at the time, but when they’d been informed that Hermione had gotten petrified somehow, she had had the same vehement reaction. Of course, until their daughter was un-Petrified, she couldn’t be pulled out of the school.
By the time she was back to normal, it didn’t make any sense to pull her out--the school year was all but over. So they planned to take her out quietly the next year, just not send her back … even planned a vacation as a sort of balm to ease the loss.
It, of course, blew up in their faces. Their bright, strong-willed daughter put her foot down just like they’d taught her to do with her beliefs, only had never expected it to be directed at them. They ended up going on the vacation, and adding some wizarding sites to their itinerary, and sending her off to the Weasley family. They had lost that battle--somehow Hermione won the fight and was back at that school.
The very same school that sent out notices that year that some creatures called Dementors were to guard the castle. These creatures that might cause depression, so don’t be unduly worried, the note said. It was signed by the Ministry of Magic, with the explanation that the creatures were to stay there, because apparently some dangerous criminal had broken out of prison.
Yes, that had been so comforting. So reassuring. Their daughter was oh so very safe. Of course, the notice had been sent just after they’d seen their daughter off … it would be beyond difficult to pull their unwilling daughter from a place they couldn’t even see if they had a clue where it was.
Then the extremely belated note of some import, about something called a ‘Time Turner’--a congratulations on their daughter’s stellar academic performance and how proud they should be at the honor she had been granted to be allowed to use one.
Penelope, of course, was furious. And scared, as well. She immediately wrote Hermione, hurt and angry at her for withholding this information. Hermione had written back a cool reply with some very logical arguments, and Penelope had written back with a plea, to please, baby, slow down. Enjoy life now, don’t grow up so fast, don’t push yourself too hard.
The reply went unheeded. Hermione was stubborn, and would do as she wished. And Penelope, unfortunately, had to accept it.
Her daughter would do as she pleased, just like she’d raised her to. Moving fast, pushing hard. Growing up so fast that by the time summer holidays came and she came home--for only a little while--she barely recognized the look in her daughter’s eyes. There was something she was missing, she knew … something that Hermione was involved in that she didn’t know. There wasn’t any way for her to find out, though.
Hermione spent most of the summer at the Weasleys, who were more than happy to have her. It was obvious she didn’t appreciate her mother’s attempts at persuading her to slow down and smell the roses.
In short, she lost her daughter’s trust. Penelope was truly frightened that she would lose her daughter.
She had never thought that she might lose her physically … only emotionally. The next school year proved her wrong. More notes, more owls … owls that kept reminding her of that very first one. But news of a tournament, letters from her daughter about Harry’s being chosen unexpectedly … there was real danger in that world.
Her daughter got her first real boyfriend, and she knew it was more serious than Hermione let on. After all, she was chosen as the ‘thing most dear’ to Krum’s heart. Her heart pounded in her throat until she heard that her daughter got out of the lake safely.
Time seemed to fly by, frighteningly fast. The death of a boy at her school--all parents were informed. A secret Order of wizards she heard Hermione mention in passing. The worry, the darkness, the resolve she saw in her daughter’s brown eyes.
Though she wasn’t at home to watch for long. Hermione stayed away, at her friend Harry’s godfather’s place. She later found out about a secret club her daughter founded, about how she left a Ministry official and teacher out among centaurs … a bad woman, yes, but it was an act she hadn’t thought her wonderful daughter capable of. She had heard so little from the school that year, until the term was over, and the Headmaster reinstated--she hadn’t even known he had been out of the position.
Hermione had become someone she didn’t know at all.
She came home still nursing an injury from some altercation at the Ministry, and a lot of the story she’d been hiding came out … an evil wizard, his minions, how in danger her best friend was, how people were dying … Harry’s godfather being among the first. Penelope was now allowed to read the Daily Prophet, and she wanted nothing more than to bring her daughter as far away from this place as possible. She wished she had known of the paper’s existence before this year.
Hermione would have none of it, and so Penelope didn’t bother to try. She only hugged her tightly and begged her to be safe, to try and keep part of herself young, joyful, like she had been before that very first owl, so long ago now, it seemed, and then let her go back to her fight. She couldn’t have stopped her.
After all, she would still be safe … she had to be. Albus Dumbledore was protecting her, and the old wizard had promised them personally that he was looking out for her and her friends.
And so, when he died, so did the restraint she had on her fear. Her daughter might die. She wouldn’t come home, insisted on searching all over the world for some Hor-whatsamacallits, risking her life for this boy who wasn’t even family.
Penelope lived in constant fear that next year, seeing her daughter only sporadically. Seeing how thin she got, the hardened look in her eyes from acts that Penelope didn’t even want to contemplate. And then she dragged home two men, one nearly Penelope’s own age, dark and sarcastic and really, very scary. The other was a boy her daughter’s own age, blond and as haunted as the other witches and wizards she had glimpsed in the past year.
She pleaded with them, asked them to care for the two men, to hide them. No one would look here, she said. Keep them safe, she asked.
And for awhile, she was right. They stayed with them, kept mostly to themselves … until that night that five men blasted down the door. Penelope had disliked the elder of the two they sheltered, until that night. She hadn’t understood why her daughter liked him, and came to spend time with him over her own parents. That night, Penelope forgave him that and anything else, when he came and managed to save her and her husband, with no lasting injuries beyond nightmares.
The Order hid them away then, alone but in a safe place. The last time she saw her daughter for months left a lasting impression … Hermione had been holding an owl, reading a missive. The owl looked like the one from so long ago, but her daughter’s face was firm, hard, so different from what Penelope had imagined her to grow up to be. There wasn’t much of her baby left in that face, those eyes.
And then a miracle happened. It all ended. Ron Weasley came and fetched them … he had been their secret keeper, and he had kept their secret. They arrived at Grimmauld Place, as Penelope had learned it was called, and there had been a party in full swing.
She and Greg had immediately sought their daughter out, and found her in the most unlikely of places … in the kitchen, wrapped around Severus, the tall dark man who had saved their lives.
Greg had nearly exploded, but had managed to restrain his temper when Penelope touched his arm. She had been angry for an instant, until she saw her daughter’s beautiful eyes, alight with happiness and love. The eyes she remembered every night, lighted up like the first time she’d found out that magic was real. Filled with the joy that had been missing for so long.
She had smiled at her daughter then, gently. If that man made her daughter happy again, then she wouldn’t say a word against it. Hermione spoke unsteadily, obviously unsure of what her mother and father thought. “I … he makes me happy. He makes me want to slow down and enjoy everything.”
“I know,” Penelope replied. And she did, so she silently led her husband away to celebrate the return of joy.