"The hour's now come; the very minute bids thee ope thine ear; obey and be attentive."
----Prospero, Act I, Scene II, The Tempest
THE TEMPEST
--- Prologue ---
" 'Sir, I invite your highness and your train to my poor cell, where you shall take your rest for this one night; which, part of It, I'll waste, with such discourse as I, not doubt, shall make it go quick away. The story of my life and the particular accidents gone by since I came to this isle: and in the morn I'll bring you to your ship and so to Naples, where I have hope to see the nuptial of these our dear-beloved solemnized. And thence retire me to my Milan, where every third thought shall be my grave----'"
"Daddy?" said a little voice from the crook of his elbow.
David Granger set down his book for the seventh time and looked at his daughter. "Yes, Neenie?"
Hermione Jane Granger was only two years old, yet she had the mind and speaking capacity of a four-year-old girl. At six months she had started crawling, at eight she had uttered her first word, and at eight and a half, she had taken her first step. Now, just 25 months old, she had progressed past repeating words and moved on to asking her own questions, which happened one hundred times each day.
She was pointing to a picture on the page opposite what David was reading aloud to her. "Wha's that?"
David studied the picture. "Well, this man right here is Prospero, the wise man, and the girl is Miranda, his daughter, and her soon-to-be husband, Ferdinand. The King has a beard, the evil slave Caliban is lurking in the shadows, and the good spirit Ariel carries his beautiful harp."
Hermione looked at the picture, her eyebrows drawn together in concentration, her little mouth puckered up as she traced her finger over the people shown on the page. When she was done, a full minute later, she looked up at her father and gave him a serious nod.
"Keep weading," she said, smiling softly as she nestled into his arm again.
On the windowsill of the small room, littered with books and toys and dolls, a candle flickered against the darkened panes. A crib sat in one corner, a dresser and a wardrobe in others, and bookshelves and toy-boxes lined the walls.
The room of Hermione Jane Granger, aged two, was furnished in deep velvet curtains and blankets, brown floorboards and furnishings, and walls with the softest red tinge. Hung around the walls of her room were the few nursery rhymes and finger paintings, right alongside such famous pictures as "Starry, Starry Night", by Vincent van Gogh, and various detailed maps of Somerset, the Bristol Channel, London, and Britain.
And in the corner of the small alcove next to the curtained window overlooking the very small backyard and garden they owned, David sat in the rocking chair and rocked his daughter, reading her a bedtime story like he did every night.
So David read on, slowly and steadily, as sleep crept upon his little one, while underneath the same roof, a woman stood in the kitchen, sweeping the last of dinner's crumbs into her hand.
Cordelia Granger softly hummed an unknown tune as she washed her hands in the sink, and by the time she was drying them, a few lines from her song could be heard:
"Come unto the yellow sands.
And then take hands:
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd.
(The wild waves whist)"
She turned off the light and glided into the living room, fingering the softness of her belly.
Tomorrow her husband, daughter, father-in-law, and herself were all going to spend the day sailing…she would tell him then. It would be a day he'd never forget…
In that very same hour, six miles away from the Grangers' house, lay a small seaside cottage on the open sand underneath the stars.
Its lone occupant, a captain of sixty years, lay on his dingy bed in sopping wet clothes with a bottle of fiery whisky in one hand and his old, bare-threaded socks in the other.
In a small pile near the door all of his other socks lay ---- dirty, wadded up, and starting to stink.
And all of them had holes in them.
He smiled sadly. Looks like my socks are running low again.
One could never have too many socks.
But his smile slid off of his face when he thought about the reason he knew he'd never get them. However many times he refused his son's money, he certainly did need it. Of course, he only admitted this to his own soul…and those of his three otters, whom he loved more than life itself.
He glanced over at them, lying together in his half-filled salt-water bathtub. One of them opened her eyes and looked at him for a single moment before she slipped over the edge and crawled to him. She laid her head on his chest and gazed adoringly at him with her black eyes. The old captain chuckled and reached out to scratch her chin.
"Aye, Iris, dear…I'm not the only one awake at this hour," he growled quietly in a mostly unused voice. The otter, Iris, closed her eyes contentedly in answer.
Yep…more than life itself.
Meanwhile, far away in the night, a black-haired man was putting on the same façade as the captain. In his small apartment he was accompanied by a girl he met in the pub, but while this daredevil was far from lonely as he lay in bed with this beautiful stranger, he felt like the emptiest man in the world. He needed what he had lost years ago…what he had thrown away.
And what was, also, clear across the country.
What I need, he concluded…is my brother.
Houses away in that very same city called London, on a doorstep under the eaves, stood a young man, barely a boy, but old in what he had seen and witnessed. Though he was just past twenty, he was in some ways much more mature than the daredevil.
He stood, hugging his sister good-bye in the dead of night, thoughts running through his mind like the water in the gutters. He never knew when he would see his sister again---if he would ever see her again, at all. But tales of their seekers drew nearer, and if these two stayed together, it would only give those murderers a better chance to find them.
The young man had already secured a job with an old bloke in Bridgewater Bay, but what of his sister? He couldn't guarantee her safety…
Would he ever see her again?
He hugged her fiercely and wondered…how long would they have to keep living in secret? How long until they could finally stop running?
Far off to sea on a small island off the West Coast of England, just outside a small village, two different couples were wondering just the same thing. The first couple, a young husband and his wife, got into bed after a very trying day, in a house that didn't exist. They had just tucked their small, black-haired son into his crib…just like his father, the boy began snoring lightly as soon as he hit the pillow.
The second couple, a widowed man and his single sister, sat on their couch watching an old British comedy on the telly and laughing at an old blighter's antics.
A nightly routine.
Their own grief and sorrow trapped both couples, though they lived in two different houses and in two different lifestyles. How long would they have to live like this? How much further along this dark and dangerous road must they travel?
With a sigh, the brother and sister finally turned off their television and retired to their own beds. Though they didn't know it, this long, drawn-out comedy of errors would have one final victory, and it would test their very souls.
And, though the married couple didn't know it, the end of their hiding in secret was at hand. But their final way out would bring about more chaos, and yet more peace, than they could ever have imagined.
The only question is, if they had known what lay ahead, would they have been able to endure it?
They fell asleep, holding each other and dreaming about their son and his future.
Yes.
" '…I long to hear the story of your life, which must take the ear strangely,' said the King.
" 'I'll deliver all;' Prospero swore, "And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales, and sail so expeditious, that shall catch your royal fleet afar off…'"
David read the last of his sentence very quietly and trailed off, noticing that he had done his work. Very quietly, he tucked the book into the crook of his arm and lifted his sleeping child, laying her in her crib. He smoothed her curls away from her face and drew the covers up under her chin.
Softly, he shelved the book that told the tale of the mighty gale that brought so many people together: some to repentance and others to their deaths…some to marriage and others into captivity. Yet throughout the tale, goodness prevailed and wickedness was brought to justice…
If only life were like that.
Underneath the star-studded sky, while thousands of people were going on with their daily (and nightly) businesses, these nine individuals were pondering their lives. Not even knowing that they were questioning the very same thing:
What would tomorrow bring?
Author's Note: And so begins a provocative, new tale of the Granger family. One, I pride myself in saying that has never been done before. Yes, you might notice the date in which this starts. Yes, you might have an idea of what is about to happen...but the depths of the enormity that this has unearthed has yet to expound its importance upon you.
For those of you don't know me, I am the witch, Hestia Hesperus. I usually update weekly, lest I am on vacation, or otherwise am incapable of holding a quill in my hand. My beta is the beautiful Miss Whydoyouneedtoknow. If you would like to visit her numerous works, she can be found in my Favorites page, and if you'd like to enter into her spacious website domain, just click on the Homepage button on her profile. I am quite sure you'll find it to the best of your liking.
Just so that you know, this idea was inspired by William Shakespeare's famous play, The Tempest. If you look closely between the two, you'll find very many similarities.This is also based on numerous things that JK Rowling has said in her website...such as the first things she's written for Harry Potter, saying that:
"The very, very earliest drafts of the first chapter of 'Philosopher's Stone' have the Potters living on a remote island, Hermione's family living on the mainland, her father spotting something that resembles an explosion out at sea and sailing out in a storm to find their bodies in the ruins of their house."
----plus, a very many other things have made me come to the realization that this might not be too bad an idea after all.
The Tempest takes place in the canon books, I hope you'll understand. It just shows things from the Grangers' point-of-view, such as, where they were the very hour Voldemort met his downfall and the Potters' met their death. Not many people know that the Grangers' were right on that very island when it happened. Not many people know, in fact, that they had met thePotters' that very day. And even fewer people know that it was that very night when the Grangers' encountered something far worse than they had ever dreamed of...or ever could have imagined.
...And it is this very tale where it all begins...on a dark, dark night...in a dark, dark room...with a dark, dark purpose...