It\'s All Done With Mirrors

A/N: WARNING - Post-Rape Scene (all in the past, but it\'s down here, nevertheless). it\'s the only time I\'m going to go into detail on that subject.
I hope my timeline makes sense - I got it from a HP unofficial fansite. if I\'m wrong, please let me know and I will change it!
Thanks, K

Chapter Three
Close your eyes.


Chez Nous, Later that day (August 2010)

In the bathroom, the ancient plumbing clanked and knocked air along the pipes, but I found the sound comforting. He was not here. He had gone out, leaving me with nothing to do, since I had cleansed the entire house, made the beds, even scrubbed the windows. The last task I always did without magic, as it\'d always been a therapeutic occupation for me. Newspaper (I like to use the Daily Prophet for slightly mean reasons) and cider vinegar. Works a treat. And as always, after a good houseclean (even one aided by magic) I like to celebrate by having a long soak in the bath.

To my left stood a bottle of wine, dark and fruity. I saw no reason to bother with a glass as I was clearly going to drink the whole thing. To my right, my secret copy of Moste Potente Potions hung suspended in mid-air. I like to flick through it when I am alone, and occasionally I will dream of administering some of these highly illegal brews to a few choice subjects. Not that I would, of course.

If *he* had known I had a copy, he would have freaked out. I had lost count of the times he\'d asked me to make Veritaserum, or Polyjuice. I\'d always refused, of course. I could only imagine too well what would happen if *he* got his hands on this book. It could only have served to make my life more miserable.

The truth of the matter is, I had married someone I wasn\'t in love with.

So I suppose we were both to blame, in our separate ways, for this poisoned relationship which has made a wreck of two young lives.

I hadn\'t had a very successful twelve years, really.

When I left Hogwarts...

~ Sneaked away from Hogwarts. ~

Yes, thank you, silky voice. When I sneaked away from Hogwarts, I just wanted to forget. Not just forget the past seven Hogwarts years, but more than that.

I wanted to forget Hermione Granger, because I despised her.

So I became Carol Jones, Muggle, and did not so much as lift a wand for two years.

~ But you didn\'t get rid of your wand, did you? Or your beloved books? ~

No, I hadn\'t. I\'d stashed them at Gringotts Bank, with my galleons and sickles and Knuts. And I left them behind, for what I\'d assumed would be forever.


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Somewhere near the Berkshire/Wiltshire border, July 1998

Hermione had walked for miles, in the hot sunshine. The weather seemed to her obscenely cheerful, completely out of keeping with her mood, but she got a bit of a kick from the way the sun made her scalp burn, and her body feel weak. This was not supposed to be fun, she reminded herself. This is a punishment for being a stupid little girl, who had thought, for one brief season, that she was loved. The reality? Hermione, he was too good to love you. At the very best, he was trying to help you. And he was obviously trying to let you down easily. It\'s not like he had known what you needed to tell him.

She could not think badly of that soul she adored. The one who had shown how tow to drink in love through her skin, and to pour out love from her eyes.

She placed her hands against her belly. She\'d been walking through the night and half the day, and her body was screaming for food and water. She\'d prepared nothing to take with her. Even her wand was ensconced in her bank vault at Gringotts, along with her precious books. She had eaten her last meal at Diagon Alley. That had been over 24 hours ago.

She had taken the Hogwarts Express to London, and by means of a glamour, had disguised herself as Oswald Smegbury, a particularly unwashed second year Hufflepuff, as as a result went unnoticed on the train journey, as well as having an entire carriage to herself. At one point, feeling lonely enough to consider changing her mind, she had travelled down the train to look for people she knew, but when she had reached her friends\' carriage, her feeble courage deserted her again. It had hurt to overhear Harry and Ron laughing and joking with a couple of other Gryffindors, but what had hurt most was that no one seemed to realise she wasn\'t there.

Her feet, though sore, continued to march steadily for another hour. Finally, in Muggle countryside, she stopped by the side of the road. And when the tears of exhaustion and misery began to fall, she cried as if she would never stop crying.

After what seemed an aeon of hunger pains and breathing raggedly with dehydration, she heard the sound of a car.


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Chez Nous, the Bathroom, one bottle of wine later (August 2010)


I finished the wine, tipping the bottle upside down over my mouth, and droplets of red plopped fatly onto my lips. Moste Potente Potions had put itself down on the side of the bathtub, since I hadn\'t been paying it any attention for the past half-hour or so.

I stood, pulling the plug out with my toes, and grabbed my wand. \"Wingardium Leviosa!\" I slurred, sending the book back to its hiding place in the tiled ceiling. I sealed and protected the space with wards and a couple of hexes. I\'ve always been good at hexes.

~ Never nastily, though, Hermione. Only when you felt threatened or afraid. ~

That velvet voice again. Seems like it\'s decided to be nice to me.

~ Close your eyes. ~

\"Um...why?\" I asked aloud.

~ Close them. ~

\"How do I know this isn\'t some Dark Ploy to get me to dance a tarantella on the hairy, naked back of my ex-boss?\"

~ You can do that too, if you want. Later, though. ~ The voice sounded amused.

I, on the other hand, was confused. The voice brought back memories, but I could not place it. I felt as if I ought to be able to...but...

~ Time, Hermione, can be a great Healer. Close your eyes. ~

For some reason, all my fear left me and as I stood in the bath, water whirling into the plug-hole, eyes closed, I felt an inexplicable heat envelop me.

~ Now look within, and you will see a dark shape around your heart. Can you see it? ~

\"Gods. How can I see anything with my eyes closed?\" I grumbled out loud.

~ Concentrate! ~ The voice suddenly snapped.

I jumped. An alarm bell rang somewhere in my mind. I shivered, suddenly feeling the chill of the cooling bathroom.

~ Concentrate, Hermione ~ the voice continued, returning to the silken, voluptuous tone once again. And I sighed as the warmth returned, wrapping itself around me, and it felt...

It felt familiar. Like the voice. A broken memory, temporarily healed by...by what? I breathed deeply for a few moments, the dry heat enclosing my scrubbed skin like a soft blanket.

And suddenly I *could* see, I could see the dark shape in my mind\'s eye, and it began to take a form, become more solid, square, no - rectangular. It was completely black, and looked oiled or polished in some way. A box, or a chest of some kind.

~ Everything you need is within that box, ~ the voice purred. ~ Everything you need to remember, and everything you need to begin your life. ~

\"But I have a life!\" I stoutly pointed out, starting to fight the warmth, the voice.

~ That, ~ it drawled, ~ is a matter of opinion. ~


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Chez Nous, London, May 2002

She felt dirty, and sore and...and stupid.

Her ribs throbbing with pain, she sat up and looked down upon the ruined bodice of her nightgown. Her breasts were showing, both bruised and one bitten. A smear of blood made a coppery streak above her left nipple, and she winced as she tentatively touched it.

He\'d screamed at her, and hit her, and finally raped her.

But could you rape your own wife? No...Yes...she wasn\'t sure.

She didn\'t care about his affairs. At last it had meant he\'d left her alone. Until tonight. He was her husband, and she was bound to support him in everything, and she had not done so tonight.

\'But he\'d wanted my wand,\' she reasoned with herself. \'I couldn\'t give him that...I promised I wouldn\'t. On pain of death.\'

As she stumbled into the bathroom to wash the blood from her aching body, she wondered if perhaps death would be easier to \'live\' with.


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Chez Nous, the Bathroom, August 2010

My eyes snapped open. The bathroom was now as cold as it should be, with no heating and the bath water drained away. I was standing in the bath, clad only in gooseflesh, my arms limply at my sides. I bent down to pick up my wand. The candles had guttered out and I muttered \"lumos\".

In the light from my wand, I regarded myself in the reflection of the mirror. Naked, slightly damp, my hair doing what it does best, which is exactly what it pleases.

Coming to my senses, I realised that my husband would be home shortly, and I would need to put some clothes on pretty darn quickly. So I turned away from the mirror, but just before it vanished out of my peripheral vision, it appeared - a trick of the light, no doubt, or the wine - that there was a tall figure standing behind me, and very faintly I heard the voice whisper:

~ Look at your eyes. ~

I vaulted out of the tub and grabbed my ancient bathrobe.


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Chez Nous, a few minutes later.

I hauled some Muggle clothes on - baggy sweat pants, a heavy sweater. Not your most stylish clothing, I\'ll grant you, but to be frank, it was the safest thing to wear chez nous. The last time I\'d worn anything remotely figure-hugging, I had been sentenced to a whole night of ghastly sex.

I had not always loathed and despised *him*. In the beginning, having sex with *him* was not the (at best, dull and at worst, painful and nauseating) chore it had become.

But, when the anniversary of our first year of marriage had arrived, and he\'d gone off to watch a Quidditch match with his mates instead of coming home as promised to eat the meal I had spent four hours cooking (and without the aid of magic, I might add), I realised a few truths about our relationship.

By marrying Ron Weasley, I had signed a contract to become his mother. I was destined to cook, to clean, to spend many nights wondering where he was, and to always forgive him in the morning when he showed up for a cup of coffee before heading off to Gods knew where for the day.

That Ron was in many ways an angry child, and this was not going to change at any foreseeable point in the future.

That Ron wanted us to have many children, and I...don\'t go there.

That trying to make love with Ron was hopeless, and even meaningless sex was impossible unless he was drunk and/or sweaty after watching a Quidditch match. Therefore our conjugal activity was about as sexy as a used bedpan. Which is, suffice to say, not sexy at all. Except for the group of people who are into that kind of stuff. Which does not include me.


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Chez Nous, an hour later.


Ron arrived home, late as usual, and, as usual, his filthy outer robes were thrown in a heap at my feet, and he immediately went off, as usual, to sit in the living room to read the paper. He picked up a six pack of beer from the fridge as he left the kitchen. At some point during this ritual, I received the usual damp kiss, and I stood there until he had gone to the next room before bending down to scoop the laundry off the floor. You just didn\'t bend over in front of Ron Weasley if he\'d either been out drinking, or watching Quidditch. Judging from the flavour of the kiss, he\'d done both that day.

\"Hermy? Have you seen the Daily Prophet?\"

I looked at the setting sun through my sparkling, clean windows and enjoyed a tiny victory.