Your Deepest Wish, My Deepest Pain
She was finally ready for them to come home.
It had been a rough few years. Being on the run from Voldemort was only the beginning. After the Final Battle she had to be the brains helping Ron and Harry and the rest of the Order round up the rest of the Death Eaters.
That took a while, but she rightly assumed that any rouge Death Eaters would target her parents if they could find them.
But now, it had been four full years since she adjusted her parents' memories and hidden them in Australia. Her wandwork and Obliviate had even been studied by her Unspeakable peers. Especially the modified charm that she included – the spell that is cast over Veritaserum during its brewing.
She had been investigating Memory Charms and her emotional involvement with the "subjects" (as her fellow Unspeakables called her parents) led her to determine that by adding the spell she could alter the natural resistance to risk in her parents.
In effect, the spell would allow their deepest wants and desires to manifest while in Australia. It eased her conscious to think that while banishing them to a far-away place (without their knowledge) she was giving them a chance to live the life that they had always dreamed of, with nothing to hinder them.
When Ron formally asked for her hand in marriage, she was thrilled. Her dreams of a simple garden wedding (nothing like the monstrosity that had beset Ginny and Harry the year before) were well within her grasp.
All she needed to complete the wedding picture and her perfect life was her parents. A mother to help her plan the wedding and her father to walk her down the aisle.
She stood in the atrium of the Ministry of Magic, waiting for her turn in the Portkey Terminal. She spun the platinum band on her finger, catching the opal with her thumb to push it around again and again.
"5:42 a.m. Portkey to Perth, Australia, now boarding."
Hermione looked at the bored Ministry employee, smiling weakly as she handed him her ticket.
"Proceed to the center of the room and firmly grasp the wheel. Portkey leaves in 4 minutes."
"Thank you," she replied, smoothing a stray curl behind her ear. The nervousness was unusual for Hermione Jean Granger, she didn't remember being this scared when she stood with Harry, Ron and Ginny to face Voldemort for the final time.
The tug at her navel broke her thoughts, forcing her to concentrate on remaining upright when she landed in Perth.
"G'day and welcome to Australia. Please follow the lit path to register your wand as you enter the country. Those of you traveling into Muggle Perth must also fill out form Q2549. Have a pleasant day."
Hermione followed the other seven passengers down the path, plucking a flying form Q2549 out of the air and filling in the blanks as she made her way to the Customs line.
"May I ask your business in Australia?"
"I'm here on behalf of British citizens," Hermione answered the agent behind the counter, pulling out her Unspeakable credentials. She had found that the shiny piece of identification had saved her more than one headache on foreign soil.
"Good luck to ya," he tipped his hat and pointed to the closest door. "You'll want to be heading that way, ma'am."
"Thank you," she said, pulling out the map she had made to her parents' home. They lived on the Sunset Coast, in Nedlands, right on Napier Street. There was a small cafe nearby, where she planned to stop to sit and think. In all her planning, she had never really determined what she was going to tell them when she removed the spell.
She slid into one of the outdoor chairs at the last available table, nodding as the waitress acknowledged her from inside the shop. Hermione lifted the small menu board off the table and pointed to the special, Blackberry Scone and Hot Tea.
She was shocked when someone slid into a chair next to her.
"G'day, you don't look familiar. I'm Monica," the tan woman held out her hand and waited for Hermione to shake it.
"Mu-Monica?" Hermione looked at mother with fascination. Dr. Granger, aka Mrs. Wilkins, looked younger and healthier than she had ever looked in London.
"Oi! You're British! How exciting! My husband and I are British, but we've not met another in quite a while. Are you visiting the country?"
"I'm here to meet my parents," Hermione answered, faintly.
"Are they expecting you? I don't know of any other Brits living in the neighborhood. Do you, Wendell?"
"Do I what, love?"
Hermione stared as her father sat down beside her mother at the table.
"Do you know of any other Brits around here? This is a lovely British girl, who is here to meet her parents. I'm sorry, dear, I didn't get your name."
"Hermione. My name is Hermione."
"Such a pretty name!" Monica smiled. "Do your parents know you are coming?"
"No," Hermione shook her head. "I haven't seen them in four years, but I recently became engaged to my childhood sweetheart and want to invite them to the wedding."
"How wonderful," Monica clapped her hands. "The bloke who lives in the apartment below us married a girl from his uni last weekend. We had a wild time at the wedding, didn't we Wendell."
"Bloody well did," Hermione's father nodded vigorously and leaned back in his chair. He placed his arm on the back of his wife's chair and gave a cheeky grin to the waitress who approached the table. "Bernice, be a dear and grab another two specials for Monica and I, would you?"
"Of course, Wendell," the petite brunette grinned. "Anything else?"
Monica shook her head and turned to Hermione.
"I hope you don't mind us sitting down with you. It was the last table and you looked so lonely all by yourself."
"No, it's fine," Hermione placed both hands on the tea mug, attempting to steady herself. "What brought you to Australia?"
"We always wanted to learn to surf and about five years ago we found this beautiful city. We've never gone home."
"You enjoy surfing?" Both Hermione's eyebrows shot up as she stared at her parents. Her father had lost at least two stone, and now that she took a moment to study him, he was obviously very fit.
"As often as we can. The rest of the time we run a little Inn for tourist, mostly Americans who find their way here."
"Sometimes I believe we have the perfect life," Monica turned and laid her head on Wendell's shoulder.
Hermione's stomach finally relaxed, this was exactly what she had hoped for.
"Is there anything you don't have?" Hermione asked, her curiousness getting the better of her.
"There is one thing," Monica looked up at her husband.
"Yes?" Hermione leaned in.
"You'll think it's silly."
"No, please tell me," Hermione picked up a bit of blackberry and popped it in her mouth.
"We've always felt there was something missing from our family."
Hermione's heart swelled, Providence and the Fates were on her side, perhaps even in time to catch the last Portkey back to London and Ronald tonight.
"What is that?"
"An orange cat," Wendell said, his voice low. "Both of us have wanted an orange cat since we arrived in Australia, but we can't seem to find the right one anywhere."
"Oh," Hermione's voice dropped and she prayed it did not drip of disappointment. "I thought you meant children. Do you have any children?"
Monica gave a silvery chuckle.
"Goodness no, neither of us wanted children."
"Really?" Hermione became faint.
"Not at all. I'm rather glad we didn't have any by accident. I know they say that it's different when you have your own child, but I know I would have been rather resentful."
"Likely would have sent the bugger off to Boarding School as soon as he or she was able," Wendell added, nodding his head in agreement with his wife. "Any child of Monica's would be brilliant and I can't even imagine trying to love a little ankle-biting know-it-all. I would be constantly annoyed. No, Hermione, we weren't meant to have children."
"But you're missing a cat?"
"A specific type of cat," Monica lowered her voice. "One that's intelligent...I knew you would think it was silly."
"No," Hermione lifted her mug and swallowed the last of her tea. "Not silly at all. Do you have a name picked out for the cat?"
"I would rather like to call him Crookie. I feel like it would fit, somehow."
"Crookie," Hermione repeated, her voice barely cracking. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize the time, I must be going."
"It was lovely to meet you, Hermione. Good luck speaking to your parents. I'm sure they'll be very proud of you."
"Yes, thank you." She rose from her seat, dropping a twenty dollar note on the table.
"That's far too much money," Wendell tried to correct her.
"No, please, I enjoyed your company," Hermione slid her wallet into her back pocket. She hurried, hoping to keep the tears from falling before she could get away.
"Have a safe journey, Hermione," Monica called after the younger girl. "She was a sweet Shelia, don't you think?"
"Hmmmm?" Wendell looked up from his pastry and smiled at his wife, all memory of the stranger fading from his mind. "Would you like to hit the sack early and do a little surfing tomorrow morning?"
**********************
"You're the Hermione Granger!"
She cringed at the recognition by the Australian Unspeakable.
"Please, I just need a quick favor, before I catch my Portkey home."
"Of course, anything," the eager Wizard gave her a huge grin.
"There is a Muggle home on your Magical Watchlist. I need to register it for an additional 25 years."
"Certainly, sign here."
A small mint green piece of parchment appeared before Hermione and as soon as she finished signing it, the sides folded into an airplane and it shot though the door behind the Unspeakable Desk Agent.
"Anything else?"
Hermione took a deep breath, before explaining the package that would be sent to the Unspeakable Department and where the arriving familiar would need to be delivered.
"Someone will need to check up on him, or else he will confound the local vets."
"You say he is half-Kneazle?"
"Yes, and rather old, but he will be taken care of at the house on the Watchlist."
"Very well then, Ms. Granger. Have a safe trip home."
Hermione nodded and escaped to the Portkey Terminal with less than 3 minutes to spare.
Ron was waiting on the other end, having stayed late after a long shift as an Auror, for his fiancée.
"Love? What's wrong?" He stood shocked as she seemed to crumple into his arms after exiting the Terminal.
"Take me home, Ron."
"Did you find your parents?"
She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes.
"They aren't coming back."
"Ever?" His voice was full of shock.
"Never," she whispered. "Please, take me home Ron. Take me home."
**********************
Crookshanks didn't quite understand why he was being shoved into the small box, but when it opened on the other end he let out a huge purr.
Snuggled at the feet of Wendell and Monica Wilkins, he lived the rest of his life – another six years – playing on the beach and chasing the small sand crabs. And before he died, he left them two small heirs to his throne, a son and a daughter with enough of his "intelligence" to fulfill the dreams of the Wilkins forever.
Because sometimes my deepest wish is your deepest pain.