er. yeah. so, uh. i don't know where this came from. i fear it must be completely horrible and sloppy. i mean, i started off with one style, switched to another, and it became something completely different. i think i was trying to make it... i dunno. trying to convey hermione's absence in her parents' life. then, of course, it ends funny. :/ i have no idea. whatever. read it, tell me what you think?

Zero

The Granger family was always an upright one. They paid their taxes, obeyed the law, dutifully sent their daughter to school, and worked as two dentists in a family practice. One would be hard-pressed to find anything not normal or remotely unpleasant about them. The Grangers were known by their neighbors to be nice, logical, and even a quite amiable family.

They did not believe in magic. Magic was something in books that they would read to little Hermione before bedtime; it was the sparkly dust and the rainbows and the beautiful, colorful unicorns on Saturday morning television. It was something for their daughter to believe in up to a certain age until she became rational and logical. It was most certainly not real.

Therefore, as Mrs. Melaney Granger went to pick up the mail one Saturday morning, she was a bit puzzled to see a rather heavy envelope in thick parchment, it seemed to be, addressed to Hermione. Taking it back to the coffee table, where her husband Aaron was reading the paper and smoking his weekend cigar, she slowly set the bills, letters, and ads down onto the table and lifted the corner from the old-fashioned seal.

"What've you got there, dear?" her husband asked in a gruff tone, his consonants slightly slurred due to the cigar. Melaney scanned over the contents, snorted, then tossed it into the pile of junk mail.

"Just people trying to get our money," she dismissed, and proceeded to open a letter from her father.

-

The Sunday morning following they had the Peacock family over for tea, and Mrs. Peacock let out a cry of alarm as she opened the sugar bowl and a tightly wound letter popped out. Dumbfounded, Aaron reached over and unwound it; both him and his wife exchanged stunned looks.

-

"There is no such thing as magic!" Mr. Granger punctuated the last syllable by slamming the letter down onto the kitchen table. "It's what you said it was yesterday - an elaborate hoax, someone trying to scam us, I'm going to go fix new locks on the doors right now --"

"Dear, I know, but --" She absent-mindedly ran her fingers over the scar on her jaw that she had procured from a rather horrible gas explosion in London several years back. "As... as illogical as it seems... don't you think this is a bit too thorough to be a hoax? I mean - they have a seal, old paper... uniform requirements, and look at these course books: A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration... Magical Drafts and Potions... they talk of wands and cauldrons and broomsticks... isn't it odd?"

"Odd? Downright strange, just bloody trickers with elaborate creativity -- I tell you, one more single bloody letter, and I'm going to have a security system installed -"

There was a noise by the stairway, and both Aaron and Melaney looked to see their eleven year-old daughter standing there and looking rather alarmed and awkward at the sight of her parents fighting.

"...Mother? Dad?" she asked tentatively.

"Yes, what is it?"

"It's just..." she pulled out a piece of paper and a yellowish envelope from behind her back. "I've got three of these on my bed... did you put them there?"

The kitchen was silent; the only movement was an owl flying silently past the window.

-

A few days later, an bird flew right past Hermione's ear as she walked to the car; she screamed and her hand flew out and the windows on the car doors shattered.

-

One week after that, both Melaney and Aaron sat Hermione down and told her, hesitantly, that they believed that she was a very special girl and she had to go to a very special school, managed to confuse and scare Hermione, then clarified - in no short terms - that she was well, technically, a witch, and was going to go to a witching and wizarding school.

The first words out of her mouth were, "Mum, there's no such thing as witches and wizards."

The Grangers, of course, then had to explain their reasoning and showed her the acceptance letter as well as several exchanges between her mother and what appeared to be the headmaster (it was very strange, the wizarding correspondance: they tied the letters to owls much like they used to do back in the 1800s with pigeons). Mrs. Granger watched her daughter carefully, anxiously. Finally, Hermione seemed to believe them and Melaney Granger expected some outward show of emotion: elation, tears, agitation. But Hermione simply nodded, finished off her tea, then excused herself and shut herself in her room.

-

They brought her on the thirty-first of August to King's Cross Station and kissed their little girl on the head and hugged her good-bye. Both Aaron and Melaney were yet not quite able to believe that their daughter was a witch and was going to learn magic. Melaney imagined her coming home on holiday and pulling a bunny rabbit out of a top hat and saying, 'See what we've been learning?'

As of then, neither of the Granger parents had any idea what their daughter was getting into.

One

She came home for Christmas and, on the car ride home, gave them an earful on what she's been doing, her teachers, and two friends: a Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. Melaney was elated to hear about her daughter's happiness, her friendships, and her and her husband shared a smile.

-

Five months later, Mr. and Mrs. Granger waited rather agitadedly, arm in arm, at King's Cross Station between platforms nine and ten. They watched in wonder as young Hermione emerged through the wall with two boys: one tall redhead and a smallish boy with messy black hair. She embraced the latter, smiled and waved at the former, and walked over to them.

As Aaron took her trunk, Melaney hugged her daughter and told her how much she missed her. Hermione told her back how much she missed the pair of them, and Mrs. Granger heard it already in her voice: she was growing up, and had seen far more than both of her parents ever had.

The young girl talked little on the ride home, claiming exhaustion. Over the summer, she gave little tidbits of insight: something had happened with Harry Potter at the end of the year, he had fought one that Hermione called You-Know-Who (although neither older Granger very well didn't know who) and emerged alive and Hermione and Ronald had helped; and why oh why wasn't he returning any of her letters, she must've sent six owls...

Already, Melaney knew she was a smaller part of her daughter's short life.

Two

Hermione didn't visit them for Christmas that year. She wrote the day before what appeared to be a hasty letter saying that she was sorry but it really was imperitive that she stayed at Hogwarts and she hoped they'll have a Happy Christmas; she'll see them next summer.

Sadly, Melaney put down the letter, and walked over to the tree to get Hermione's presents.

-

"Bye, Harry, Ron. See you next year."

Melaney waited, in the same place she had waited exactly one year before, with her husband as Hermione said good-bye to her two friends. She wondered if Hermione had any female friends and made a note to ask her.

They talked in the car ride on the way home.

"...Are you sure," her husband started. "that you want to return next year? You were unconscious for the better part of the year, and I'm not very comfortable with -"

"I'll be fine, dad," said the thirteen year-old in scandalized tones. "I'm alright; Harry and Ron won't let anything happen to me, when I tell you what happened a few days ago -"

"Do tell us," said her mother eagerly, earning a strange look from her husband.

Three

Melaney and Aaron Granger read Hermione's most recent letter then slowly went to package her gifts and stockings.

-

"Mother, Father, I'm going to need to leave home a bit early," Hermione said abruptly in the car on the way home. She had grown very much during the year. "Ron's father is giving me a ticket to see the Quidditch World Cup."

"We were planning a vacation to Tintagel."

"I know; I'm sorry." She did sound it. "But these tickets are very hard to get a hold of, and Quidditch is the most popular sport for wizards -"

"Which one's Ron, again?"

Four

"When's Hermione coming?" asked Aaron gruffly, his face hidden behind the newspaper, a cigar stuck between his lips.

"There's a ball this Christmas and she's already been invited; she can't." She paused. "Do you... do you think we did the right thing, sending her there?"

There was a loud curse, meaning that the cigar had dropped out of her husband's mouth and onto his lap. Picking it up, he set the paper down and looked at her incredulously. "Of course we did! She's a witch, we'd be denying her everything if we didn't send her to get schooling!"

"...I mean the right thing for us."

-

"Dear, who was that?" She was grinning, watching her daughter approach with her heavy trunk.

"What?"

"The boy you just kissed," supplied her husband. He looked disturbed.

"Oh -- oh, that was just Harry. He's gone through a lot this year," she shrugged, dropping her cart onto the trolley. Melaney nodded as if she understood; she gleaned a little from Hermione's letters, but was unable to understand the scope of the situation.

"I'll explain to you on the car ride home."

Five

They decided to take her skiing; something special for Christmas. She was quiet the whole way, contemplative, but assured them that nothing was wrong.

It was going relatively well until Hermione told them she was returning early for Hogwarts because that's what everyone who was serious about the O.W.L.s did.

Aaron and Melaney cut their ski trip short, too. Skiing wasn't their thing, but they thought that Hermione would have loved it.

-

They watched as she marched with a group to what looked like a family of very unpleasant-looking people, all of whom looked cowed at the wizards approaching them. The one, Harry, that Hermione had kissed last year left with the family and Hermione walked for a few steps with a tall redhead.

They embraced awkwardly, and she touched him in the forearm and appeared to say something very serious.

"How are you feeling?" asked Aaron.

"Much better."

"Who was that?" asked Melaney.

"Just a friend." But this time she blushed.

Six

Hermione came home for Christmas for the first time in five years. The Grangers were ecstatic; things have been so dark recently; they were taking extra precautions because Hermione told them that Voldemort (You-Know-Who, and they knew who, now) had risen again and killed wizard and Muggle alike.

When Hermione arrived, she seemed very happy and Melaney and Aaron were, in turn, delighted as well. She spent Christmas holidays with her family (relatives had come over as well), laughing and eating and greeting.

Everyone told her what a grown woman she had turned out to be.

(Melaney knew something was wrong; there were days where Hermione would shut herself in her room and clean or work or read with startling fury. She went up one day to visit her daughter and Hermione had been crying, it was blatantly obvious and Melaney siezed the chance to mother her like she hadn't been able to. It was a nice feeling, to hold her daughter in her arms.)

-

Hermione emerged from the barrier between platforms nine and ten looking subdued and old and solemn. Melaney and Aaron didn't wait; they rushed up and hugged her. A quickly scribbled letter had been owled in nearly a week before and said many frightening, disturbing things.

They finally let go of her, and turned to the two young men that were behind her. Melaney extended her hand and shook; "Pleased to meet you," they all said to each other.

The three Grangers left the station after both Harry Potter and Ron Weasley embraced Hermione. Melaney was glad that one thing with her daughter had gone right; however, looking in the rear-view mirror, she saw that something was dreadfully wrong as well.

"What is it, dear?"

"I'm not going back to Hogwarts next year."

There was a long and ringing silence and Hermione's parents could hear the falling tears.

"There're more important things I'm doing. I..." She paused, and her next words were choked and genuine.

"I'm sorry... but I may not come back."

number seven after jkr finishes her tale.