Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original characters or elements of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter. Anything written here is purely for entertainment and will not be making any profit.
Insanity Is Relative
Summary: 'Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.' -Ray Bradbury. A young woman is locked away on the request of her doctor and parents. But what of the tangible world she knows is hidden behind that fog in her mind? And what of her unusual ward-mates?
Rating: T
Warnings: None as yet.
Genre: Angst. Romance. Drama.
Insanity Is Relative
Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.
-Ray Bradbury, writer (1920-2012)
"Granger, H. Date of birth: 19th September, 1979. Age: 24. You are being committed to the Greater Hawkesley Institute for the Mentally Insane. You understand that you have been brought here on urgent request from your Doctor, Dr. J. Hammersley, and on consent of your mother and father?"
"Please, there's been a mistake, I…"
"You understand that you are to give up all rights to contact with the outside world unless deemed appropriate by a psychiatrist or ward matron at any time, and that such contacts will be strictly monitored?"
"If you would just let me explain, I could…"
"And you understand that you may not leave at any time of the duration of your stay until deemed mentally stable and well by a psychiatrist of the ward?"
"Please, if you would just listen to me!"
"Miss Granger, you are hereby obligated to hand over all personal effects brought her with you, and are required to don the customary attire of all patients and resident of the Institution."
"You don't understand, I'm not supposed to be here…"
"Yes Miss Granger, everyone feels that way at first. But I'm sure you'll soon find you fit right in. Warden, please transport Miss Granger to her dormitory of residence. 3rd floor, the Matron will show her to her room."
Wild brown eyes flew about the corner, looking for a way out, an escape route, anything. Anything but being left here.
"Good bye darling, we'll visit you soon, we promise."
"Mother, please, don't let them…"
"We had no choice, sweetheart, you must understand. It's just not safe anymore…"
"Please…"
"Checks."
The cheerful voice of the over-friendly ward Sister resonated to her very soul as Hermione Jean Granger sat huddled up under a thick woollen blanket on the single, thin-mattressed bed that had become her home.
"Don't you feel like doing something today, Hermione? Activities start in 20 minutes. It might be nice to join some of the others."
"I'll think about it."
The Sister nodded optimistically, as if believing that today would be the day the girl emerged from the room.
But Hermione knew she would not. She had vowed to herself on arrival that she would not join in with the others. That she would not become one of the others. She was not supposed to be here, and with all her heart could not understand why her parents had felt it necessary to have her locked up and thrown in the loony bin.
A light knock sounded at the door.
"Her…Hermione?" A tentative voice sounded through the thin wood.
She rolled her eyes and turned over to face away from the door, taking the blanket with her.
"Hermione? Would you like to join in with us?" A long pause stretched on as Hermione routinely ignored this hesitant request. She was barely sure she knew what the girl on the other side of the door looked like, leaving her room only when forced to by the Ward-Sisters and Matron for meals and medication.
"Ok then, Hermione. Maybe next time." Every day since Hermione's arrival the girl had knocked on the door, trying to get her to come and join in. And every day Hermione ignored her, refusing to come out to play.
She rolled back over to take out the thin notebook she had been allowed, and HB pencil she had to take to the Nurses' desk to be sharpened almost daily now, for her incessant scribblings were continually wearing the implement down.
And every day Hermione wrote, trying desperately to keep a hold on the life she knew she had once.
The longer she spent in here, the farther away it seemed to fade. The medication they had her on wasn't helping either. Fuzzy day blended into fuzzy day. Little was beginning to make clear sense anymore.
But still Hermione wrote. For if she stopped, she feared she would forget altogether. Some days she wrote of the adventures she knew she had been on with two boys she was sure she had called friends. Mountain trolls and great snakes, and evil men in masks. Some days she merely wrote names of the people she knew to exist. Somewhere in this world, they must exist. For she could not be real herself if they were not too.
Today she drew maps. Maps of grounds that stretched on, touching forest edges and lake shores. Maps of cobbled streets with fantastical shops lining the edges. Maps of a beautiful, comforting home, with nonsensical staircases and more bedrooms than could be counted at first glance.
She had to keep a hold of this world. She had to. It was real and she knew it. Some days she could smell it, taste it, near touch it. Some days it was as if the corridors and stairwells were shrouded in mist, a fog that could not be lifted.
But to lose this world was to lose a part of herself. She was sure of it.
Unfortunately, today would not be a day to dwell for long.
The door slamming against her bedroom wall startled her into tumbling off the bed and into a sprawled mess on the floor as she rushed frantically to hide her drawings and neat labels.
"Hermione Jean Granger." The Matron's voice boomed. "Today you will be participating in the ward's activities. I don't give a damn whether you are to enjoy yourself or not, this will be the day you awake from you self-induced reverie. Up girl, and out we go."
The portly woman near picked her up off the ground in one go, and had her marching out the door, blanket-less and notebook-less before she even had a chance to recognise the change in light.
"Afternoon girls." The woman announced once they had reached the end of the corridor that opened up into the Communal room.
"Good afternoon Matron." The women chorused back whilst sat neatly around neat tables with neat stacks of paper and neat rows of coloured pens.
"Hermione here will be joining you for today's activities. Come along, Granger, take a seat and get stuck in. It's Arts and Crafts today."
Hermione stared wide-eyed at the many merrily-smiling faces that peered back at her. It took her a moment before registering a single seat at a table of women who seemed less curious in herself than the rest.
The women barely acknowledged her as she sat, most far too engrossed in other, more important matters, such as their own nails or the wall opposite to pay too much attention to her.
Hermione wondered whether she should say something; perhaps introduce herself as was polite in most normal social circles. But this was hardly a social circle, and one could hardly call current circumstances normal. So what was protocol in this situation?
The decision was made for her as she fell silent when one of the Ward-Sisters piped up to explain the bland activity that was to be her torture for the afternoon.
The women around her barely uttered a word for the duration, and certainly never made eye contact. Once or twice she reached for a coloured pen or sheet of paper that was swiftly snatched out of her grasp by one of the others. She would have protested had it not been for the clear shaking of the head of a blonde girl sat opposite her. Clearly this was not a matter to argue.
And so she sat, colouring in the edges of a bland piece of paper, drawing bland patterns across the bland sheet, until she was sure her life had drained of all colour into a bland mess of nonsense and uncertainty.
She used to be so logical. So why did the meaning of this whole situation elude her so?
She had been at home. Recovering. For some reason. Her parents had…
Her parents.
They had been away. Somewhere warm perhaps. Had come home, happy to return to lost lives, pick up the pieces of where they had left off.
She remembered afternoon teas at quaint cafes with her Mother and Father, catching up on all that had been missed. Shopping trips to redecorate a dusty and abandoned home. Mowing the lawn whilst a ginger tomcat rolled about lazily in the patches of long grass that had yet to be sheared.
The background drifted into a haze; she could barely remember what the living room of her parents' home looked like.
"Hermione, dear, I think you've missed the edges a little. But good effort, well done. We'll put it on the wall later."
She looked down at the bizarre mess she had created: A mixture of multi-coloured smears and lines, crossing each other, swirling amongst each other that went right off the page and across patches of the table. She really hadn't been paying attention.
And yet, right in the middle laid a distinctive letter.
"That is nice, Hermione. An 'H' for your name. How lovely."
But this 'H' she had seen before. It was recognisable somehow. And the reds, blues, greens and yellows that surrounded it seemed to make it more real, more tangible. She reached out to trace it, the familiarity on the tip of her tongue, when the Sister reached down to pull it from under her fingertips. And it was gone. That train of thought that threatened to bring her back.
"Lovely. That will fit right in with some of the others. Good job."
She glanced around and swore she noticed an exchange of looks between some of the women sat with her. She took a breath in, ready to say something, anything to bridge this gap.
But the scrape of their chairs as they simultaneously departed the table to move to the other side of the communal area and switch on the radio. Nothing but white noise, she was sure that was all they listened to. Only the blonde girl lingered a moment. Her silver grey eyes seemed to bulge out a little as she gazed into Hermione's face, and for a moment she was sure she could see right through her.
And then she was gone.
Hermione pulled herself out of her seat to find that all the other women had moved on to other things, and so, with a nod towards the Ward-Sister, she shuffled back to her room, trying to keep a hold of that thing that danced just out of reach.
"Checks."
It was Louisa on night time checks. And these must be the half-past ten checks, Hermione counted.
She would have approximately 71 minutes before the Sister realised she was late for the next hour's worth, as she gossiped on the phone to her friend, boyfriend, sister, mother, Hermione didn't care.
She lay there in the darkness, wishing she could spin herself into another dimension, another reality, another place, anywhere away from here.
Twelve days and her Mother had not visited. No word from her Father. If she had known friends before, they were not here now.
As the minutes ticked by in the darkness, Hermione counted with them. She envisioned a metronome swinging before her, in time to her heartbeat. The pale wood looked so beautiful in the moonlight, the carved vines wrapping gently around the pendulum.
A torch flashed under her door, and she wondered why Louisa was so early returning. It had only been twenty-three minutes and forty-four seconds.
A light tap sounded on the door, so quiet that Hermione couldn't be sure she heard it, before it was echoed further down the corridor. A chill shot down Hermione's spine. Tonight, something was amiss.
She saw the torch flicker off beneath the gap between her door and the floor, and hoped that whatever disturbance outside her room was being dealt with or would abate on its own.
She heard movement and the soft 'click' of the door latch. Someone was in her room. And the disturbance was coming to her.
All of a sudden, blinding light filled her vision as the torch was being shone directly onto her face.
"What the..!" She exclaimed, before her voice was muffled by a delicate hand placed over her mouth.
Two dark eyes came into view, along with grey, bright brown and hazel, as her own adjusted.
"All right Granger, got a little magic in you then?"
A/N: I apologise for my long absence from the site. But this caught me and I couldn't let it go just yet.
Please review with your thoughts. Much appreciated.
SimpsonSortia