Challenge Prompt: Write about a character's ability to see thestrals

Setting: The Three Broomsticks, 2 weeks after The Battle of Hogwarts

"So Luna couldn't make it?" Hermione asked. The Three Broomsticks was bustling, a busy Saturday Night as people went out to eat, drink, and celebrate whatever it was they felt like celebrating.

"She's at home with her dad. I don't think he's doing very well." Neville replied, as Madame Rosemerta came back with their drinks.

"Here you go, 5 of the house's finest stout, on the house." She said, smiling as she floated the mugs down.

"Stouts?" Neville asked. Ron was eyeing his eagerly, Ginny was grinning, while Harry and Hermione just looked confused. "We ordered butterbeers."

"That's a kids drink, and none of you are kids. You're all plenty old enough to drink, and if you weren't, you still fought and defeated the worst dark lord any of us have ever seen. If anyone has a problem with you drinking, send them my way and I'll tell them where they can shove their opinions." Rosemerta was grinning wickedly as she said all this.

"Even so, we can pay for our drinks." Harry said, reaching into a pocket.

"Not tonight you can't." Rosemerta said, shaking her head. "You lot said the five of you are here celebrating surviving that insanity, yeah? Then we're celebrating with you, and tonight your drinks are on the house."

Ron laughed. "Well, I'm not going to argue with that. Cheers!" He said as he took a long pull from his drink. The rest of the table quickly gave in, giving their own "Cheers" as they took their first drinks of the night.

A short while later, they were finishing their third round, still laughing from a particularly dirty joke Ginny had just told, when Ron looked in Hermione's direction. "So 'Mione," He said, "Something I've been meaning to ask you. When are we going to Australia?"

"What?" Hermione stopped laughing and looked confused. "Why do you ask that?"

"Well, you said you modified your parents memories and sent them to Australia, yeah? You didn't think we were going to let you run off by yourself so soon after the war, did you? We all need a break, and none of us have ever been there." Ron said, smiling.

"Besides," Neville said, "I know you're brilliant, but restoring an obliviated memory can be difficult and painful for both sides. We're not going to let you go through that alone."

Hermione shook her head. "That's very sweet you guys, but I'm not planning on running off anytime soon." She looked at Ginny with an obviously forced smile. "Besides, I'd rather hear more about what happened in Hogwarts while we were gone, what other pranks did you pull on the death eaters and their kids?"

"Hermione," Ginny said, "What's wrong?"

"What do you mean?" Hermione tipped her head. "Nothing's wrong. Well, I could use another drink, I suppose…"

"Hermione… where are your parents?" Harry asked in a slow, cautious voice.

"I told you, Australia, remember?" Hermione turned to look at him. "I told you before we took off to go horcrux hunting."

"Yes, you did… and when that death eater caught up to us after we fled Bill and Fleur's wedding, you talked yourself through casting a memory charm as if you'd never done it before. Only, you'd told us you'd already cast the charm on your parents, and I don't believe you'd have done that to your parents if you weren't certain it would work." Harry said.

"The thestrals." Ron cut in. "We all rode thestrals when we got Harry out of the Dursleys' place, but you didn't have any problem getting on yours. Only, you couldn't see them in fifth year."

The table stared at Hermione, who fidgeted uncomfortably under their collective gaze, before sighing and taking another drink. "If something had happened, what could anyone have done about it? We all had more important things to be worrying about, as I recall."

"More important…" Ginny said, shocked, "Hermione, we're talking about your parents! What happened to them, Hermione? We'll help, however we can."

"You can't." Hermione said. "You've all already figured it out, or near enough. I couldn't see thestrals, now I can. So clearly, I saw somebody die." She took another drink. "It's not something I particularly care to dwell on."

The rest of the group was shocked. Neville cleared his throat. "Hermione…" he began, "Are you saying…."

Hermione shrugged. "That my parents are dead? Yes. They have been since last summer."

"Hermione…." Harry said, "I'm sorry. Why didn't you tell us?"

"Because I couldn't. The death eaters found them, you see, and decided they wanted to wait until I returned home to kill them. They didn't manage to keep me bound for very long, just long enough to get off a couple of killing curses." She took another drink. "Bloody pricks fled before I could get off my own."

"You… you were going to use the killing curse?" Ron asked, his eyes wide.

"They had just killed my parents, Ron. I was a little upset. And I did use the killing curse, I just missed." She shrugged. "Probably for the best. The ministry and the Order didn't see fit to protect my parents, I'm sure they would have had no problem arresting me for killing their murderers. So I spent a few days in shock, then spent a couple weeks putting their affairs in order. Buried them quietly in a cemetery near our house. Sold the practice and the house, probably broke dozens of laws on both sides in the process, but I got a solicitor to take care of the details. I checked the accounts last week, everything's been sold off now, so that's it. Everything's taken care of."

When nobody said anything, she put her mug down. "There were no wards around my parents' house. None. Harry was behind the strongest wards the Headmaster could think of, the Weasleys were moved behind a fidelius, I was invited to stay with them, but my parents got nothing. I begged them, I begged them to leave the practice, get out of the country for a while… but I'd never been entirely truthful about how dangerous the wizarding world was, and nobody from the school ever told them anything. They never even knew I'd been petrified."

"What?" Neville asked, slamming his mug down. "They didn't know?"

Hermione shrugged. "Prejudice against muggle-born and muggles. The worst came from the pure-blood supremacists, but when I asked the Order about protecting my parents, all they said was that they didn't want to draw any attention to my parents' house. Something about hiding in plain sight." She laughed, a short bitter laugh. "Bloody brilliant idea that turned out to be."

"I just… mum would have taken your parents in, Sirius would have too I bet." Ron said. "Why didn't the order do something? Anything?"

"Because they were muggles?" Hermione said. "Because I wasn't the one in the prophecy? Because it was made perfectly clear that while I could visit you, you wouldn't be visiting me, that the muggles weren't welcome?" She took another long drink. "Those are my guesses, but I haven't exactly asked. I won't get the truth, and I don't want to hear the lies and excuses. Besides, that would have involved telling the Order that my parents were dead."

"Surely they know…. don't they?" Neville asked, before looking at Ginny and Ron. The latter shook his head.

"Mum is rubbish at keeping her emotions hidden." Ron said. "If she'd known, she would have been overly kind to Hermione, whether she admitted why or not. She'd have mothered her senseless." Ron winced at his choice of words.

"He's right," Ginny said, picking up where Ron had left off, "Mum couldn't have known, and I don't think the rest did either. Does anybody else know, Hermione?"

Hermione shook her head. "I couldn't exactly go public, could I? There was enough difficulty with the three of us leaving, I didn't want any more complications. They weren't watching, nobody from the Ministry ever noticed." She had a wry grin on her face. "Muggle-borns only barely count in wizarding society, remember? Muggles don't matter at all, even if they're family."

"They're wrong." Harry spoke up. Everyone else realized he'd been quiet for a long time, and as they looked at his face, they were shocked to see fury there. "All of them, we just fought a war over blood purity, I'm not going to live in a society that doesn't bloody care if a muggle-born's family dies. What you just said, they way everyone acted, it's wrong."

Hermione nodded. "It is. I intend to change it, but we needed to win the war first."

The group fell silent for a few minutes.

"So…. when are we going to meet your parents?" Ron asked.

Ginny smacked him. "Ron! I can't believe you!"

"What? She said she buried her parents, but I don't think she's had a chance to visit them yet." Ron turned back to Hermione. "We all agreed to go with you when you went to find your parents after the war, and, well, I still want to. I should have asked about them before now, the least I can do is apologize to them in person."

Everyone stared at Ron, who began to fidget. "Well, if it's a bad idea…"

"No." Neville spoke up. "It's a fine idea. We should all go visit them together."

Hermione smiled. "I think I'd like that. Maybe when we're done we can visit… everyone else?

Harry nodded. "They all deserve to hear about how things ended. We'll visit everyone. Your parents, Neville's, mine…. Fred…we'll tell them what happened, and then we'll make sure it never happens again."

Hermione looked at Harry. "How exactly do you plan on doing that?"

Harry smirked. "Me? You're the one with the plans, I figure I'll just make you minister of magic and let you do all the hard work."

Hermione reached over and smacked Harry's arm. "Prat, how are you planning on doing that?"

Harry rubbed his arm, grinning. "I'm the hero, remember? I'll just get up and make a few speeches about how you'd be perfect for the job, everyone will vote for you."

"I'd vote for you." Ron said, matching Harry's grin. "You already boss all of us around and it's worked out pretty well so far."

"Hmmm…. Hermione Granger, Minister for Magic… I think I like that." Hermione said. She nodded. "I'll do it."

The group laughed, and the conversation moved on to lighter topics.

As Rosemerta finished closing up for the night, she turned back to see one woman still sitting at the bar. She'd been there all night, quietly enjoying the atmosphere, everyone celebrating. Rosmerta walked around the bar, started wiping it down in front of her. "You hear their story earlier?"

Professor McGonagall nodded. "I doubt there was a soul in here that didn't. They were the center of attention all night, not that I'm surprised, given what that group did. I don't think any of them noticed though."

Rosemerta shook her head. "I don't think they did, they're not comfortable enough with attention yet to have carried on like that if they had." She sighed, "Our world discriminates against muggle-borns every day, and if that one hadn't been strong and determined enough to set aside her grief over her parents' deaths, we probably wouldn't be standing here having this conversation."

McGonagall nodded. "You're right. And she wasn't lying, the school never let her parents know what had happened to her. At the time, we thought that since there was nothing they could do, they couldn't come visit, and she would be fine as soon as we treated her, why worry them needlessly?" She finished her shot, passed the empty glass back over to Rosemerta. "Now, hearing her talk about it, seeing how quickly the rest of them grew angry on her behalf, I can't help but wonder how many other things we've done over the years that were wrong, without even realizing it."

Rosemerta shrugged. "Maybe she really should run? As much as our world's resisted change, sometimes it takes an outside perspective to fix things. I'd vote for her, if she ran."

McGonagall smiled. "So would I, Rosie. I think I'll head back up to the castle now, and in the morning…. Maybe I'll ask Miss Granger what she thinks of our procedure for welcoming muggleborns into our world."

Rosemerta smiled as McGonagall nodded in her direction once, then walked out of the pub. Hermione Granger, Minister for Magic… it did have a nice ring to it. Maybe she'd start putting out a few stories about how well Hermione would run things. If she really was going to run someday, people needed to keep talking about her, and if there was one thing Madam Rosemerta knew, it was how to get people talking.