Condemnation
Team: The Order, dahling
Challenge: Condemnation
Word Count: 2 x 100
Rating: All ages
A/N: No spoilers.
No, no. This wouldn’t do. She couldn’t do it here. Not inside.
She practically ran out of her building, a shapeless, homogenous piece of Muggle London, into the cool night air. She pulled her jumper tight around her. The air was far too chilly for a summer night; she could almost see her breath. A cold front had settled on the North Atlantic - how fitting, that the weather should match the mood.
She walked down the sidewalk with no particular destination in mind. She rubbed her hands together and lifted them to her mouth; her breath hot on already-cold fingertips.
She halted in her tracks as she walked by a bookseller. Severus Snape - Friend or Foe? a sign proclaimed. Her throat tightened. Did they really think it was that simple?
*
She knew what happened. She knew the outcome; had lived it, had replayed it numerous times over, searching, looking - through all those years, could she have done something? Could Harry have done something? Could anyone have done anything to help…
If his childhood had been better, if James and Sirius had not been so awful - if Remus had said something, if his housemates had not preyed on his thirst for knowledge and desperation for acceptance, if Lily…
Well. Enough of that.
Soon the world would know. They’d know everything; everything that she and the survivors had known for years. They’d struggled with the truth, had fought it desperately.
They’d been filled with condemnation at first. And Hermione Granger just didn’t know if she could deal with it, the coming morning of July 21st. An entire world full of condemnation.
Let them understand.
Challenge: Condemnation
Word Count: 2 x 100
Rating: All ages
A/N: No spoilers.
No, no. This wouldn’t do. She couldn’t do it here. Not inside.
She practically ran out of her building, a shapeless, homogenous piece of Muggle London, into the cool night air. She pulled her jumper tight around her. The air was far too chilly for a summer night; she could almost see her breath. A cold front had settled on the North Atlantic - how fitting, that the weather should match the mood.
She walked down the sidewalk with no particular destination in mind. She rubbed her hands together and lifted them to her mouth; her breath hot on already-cold fingertips.
She halted in her tracks as she walked by a bookseller. Severus Snape - Friend or Foe? a sign proclaimed. Her throat tightened. Did they really think it was that simple?
*
She knew what happened. She knew the outcome; had lived it, had replayed it numerous times over, searching, looking - through all those years, could she have done something? Could Harry have done something? Could anyone have done anything to help…
If his childhood had been better, if James and Sirius had not been so awful - if Remus had said something, if his housemates had not preyed on his thirst for knowledge and desperation for acceptance, if Lily…
Well. Enough of that.
Soon the world would know. They’d know everything; everything that she and the survivors had known for years. They’d struggled with the truth, had fought it desperately.
They’d been filled with condemnation at first. And Hermione Granger just didn’t know if she could deal with it, the coming morning of July 21st. An entire world full of condemnation.
Let them understand.