Work Text:
Hermione Granger stumbled out of bed, wincing as the bottle she had been drinking the night before was knocked over and rolled along her floor. It clinked into other empty bottles, making her head ring. She grimaced at the sound, putting a hand over her eyes to block out the meager sunlight coming in through her window. It sounded like she needed to clean out her bedroom again. It was happening more and more often, this waking up with a massive hangover. She knew she needed to stop.
She wouldn’t.
She raced to the bathroom to vomit what little she had in her stomach, dry heaving when nothing else came up. Her hair hung around her face and in the toilet bowl. She would definitely need to wash it this morning. Her stomach clenched again, she was sure she was going to begin vomiting blood, but it was just another dry heave. She’d done that once: vomited blood. It had scared her so bad, she’d stayed sober for almost a whole week. But when the shakes and the sweats and the withdrawal got overwhelming… she found herself down at the nearest liquor store, buying another bottle.
Her magic was too unsteady, too unstable these days to Summon a Pepper-Up Potion, but she needed one if she was going to get to work at a decent time. Work. The source of all her troubles. She had joined the Obliviator Division thinking she would find the cure for her parents.
She didn’t.
It was almost five years now, since the war and she spent most of her days Portkeying around the British Isles Obliviating unsuspecting Muggles. She knew that being an Obliviator would be challenging. But she was Hermione Granger. She was made for challenges. She loved a good challenge. And the bonus would be learning more about how Obliviate works and hopefully finding a way to cure her parents. Her life’s goal. She had thought she could handle it.
She couldn’t.
It was why she found herself at the bottom of a bottle most nights. Why she couldn’t hold a relationship longer than it took to get off and kick whichever poor wizard out. Why her parents were still living in Australia, completely oblivious to having a daughter half-way across the world.
The first few years, she had gone to see them. Watching them from a distance, trying to figure out if walking up to them and introducing herself would cause them to regain any part of their memories. Mostly, she worried it would fry their brains totally and they would end up like Neville’s parents, permanent residents of the Janus Thickey Ward.
It had been a few years since she had been, it was too depressing to watch them from afar. Harry and Ron were sick of her shit. They’d been sick of her since she started drinking, but she had started drinking to cope with the idea of having excommunicated herself from her parents’ lives so completely. She had thought that Ron, who had parents and who had lost a brother and was heartbroken over it would understand.
He didn’t.
He didn’t understand because Ron was a man without empathy it seemed. If Ron didn’t understand, Harry surely would have right? Harry, who had never known his parents. Harry who had grown up unloved, neglected, abused. Surely, he would understand what she was going through. How hard it was to cope with the fact that her parents were no longer her parents. They might as well not even be alive at all since they didn’t know her from Adam.
He couldn’t.
Alcohol helped. At first. The sweet oblivion of the bottle, the numbness that stole over her as her body warmed up and began to tingle with a buzz. It was beautiful, satisfying, and at first she was sure she could control it.
These days, she knew she wasn’t controlling it. It was controlling her. But what to do about it? Nobody cared. Nobody checked in on her. As long as she made it to work and Obliviated some poor sad Muggles, she would go completely unmissed in wizarding society.
Anonymity was a thing she had longed for from about fourth year on. Especially during the war years and directly after. Now that she had it… well, it was too convenient for her to disappear into her anonymity. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen either Harry or Ron or any of the Weasley’s. She had run into Arthur in the Ministry a few months ago, but it was nothing more than a wave and a “Good to see you!”
She desperately needed someone, anyone, to see her. To see what had become of her and offer her a lifeline. She was realistic enough to know that she wasn’t climbing out of this hole without some help. She dreamed of someone, Harry maybe? Stopping by to see her, seeing her flat for what it was and swooping in to save her. Like he saved so many people when they were younger. She hoped Ron would come by and offer a shoulder, a hug, a kind word.
They wouldn’t.
~Fin~