Author's Notes: Greetings to you all! Having never been satisfied with the ending of this story, I am going to give it another go! Remember, I don't own the Harry Potterworld, and I am certainly not making any money off of fanfiction. In fact, most of my salary goes to buying Harry Pottery merchandise. Love to you all, especially other grown up girls who love this magical world!



Prologue : A Long Way From Home

"Mia?"

Mia, she thought a tad wistfully, a little confused. No one's called me that since... well, since... you know, I never liked it when you called me that, anyway. My name is Hermione. But the slight fluttering in her stomach betrayed her. She murmured something and turned over, hugging the pillow against her.

Hermione's dingy flat was crowded with bookcases in every room from kitchen to bathroom and each bookcase was full to bursting. Books were piled on the floor and in milk crates. Seven leather-bound hardback books were lined up on her nighstand in special honor.

A identical blip on the inside jacket of each cover seemed to tell the story of the woman in the bed beside them. 40 years old, America's most successful witch, Hermione Granger has earned every accolade and every honor attributed to her. After graduating with honors from Onicoeur University, with a double major in Muggle Studies and Arithmancy, she was awarded her Doctorate in Magic-Muggle Relations. She has worked in the British Ministry of Magic, under Arthur Weasley. She has two children, twins, both daughters: Guinevere, called Ginny, and Elizabeth, called Beth. She currently lives in Salem with her feline familiar, Crookshanks.

Hermione had the biography memorized, but was amused by it's half-truths and glossed-over history.

After working for the Ministry awhile, Hermione had ideas of her own. If her muggle parents had so readily accepted magic, why couldn't other muggles as well? She had quickly grown tired of raiding for artifacts and covering up after magic mistakes. People were people, she believed, and it wasn't right to segregate the muggles from wizards and witches. As always, Hermione Granger wanted to make an impact.

With Harry's help, she had started a small newspaper which quickly grew in circulation. W.A.S.P. they had called it - Wizards Against Segregrating People. For about five years she soared on the winds of fame - it was the craze to wear a blinking WASP button, and her supporters quickly adapted their own version of the peace sign. WASP supporters needed only to hold up three fingers to form a "W", and they would be recognized. It was, she reflected with a sigh, one of the greatest times of her life - a much needed relief after the darkness of her grade school years.

But like any craze, WASP didn't last long. At 26 Hermione decided to put her education to good use. It seemed the wizarding world wasn't going to change because of her. She took off for America to try and educate the witches and wizards of the 'new world'. Harry stayed behind. England was his home, and he had other ideas on how to change the world.

The first two years she lived in relative poverty. Ginny and Beth were actually attending a muggle school for some time. A professor at Salem took pity on them and gave them a drastically reduced tuition in return for Hermione's help with grading essays and overseeing third years in their potion lessons.

Finally, on her 28th birthday, Hermione had an inspiration. It was brilliant. It was barely legal. But it would pay the bills. "If I want to say something that is too difficult for adults to accept," Hermione had been advised by a famous American author, "I put it in a children's story."

Finding a publisher had been hard at first. Editors didn't think the book would do well in America, where Muggle children seemed to prefer Ninja Turtles to centaurs. Finally, she sent it with a nom de plume across the Atlantic. It was a brilliant success, and quickly spread across the globe so that she couldn't leave the house without seeing her own work. The editors had been wrong about the turtles, it seemed. "Harry Potter and the School of Magic" was Hermione's second craze.

She had expected a severe reprimanding from the Ministry at best. Instead, the books were widely read in the wizarding world, and Hermione's name shot once again to fame. The Minister of Magic himself flew out to visit her and congratulate her. She was awarded the Order of Merlin, second class, for bringing Muggles and magic one step closer together.

Hermione Granger, the presentation read, has brought the world of magic one step closer to Muggles. She has laid the groundwork for a successful reunion of worlds. As more and more Muggles are made aware of our presence through the neutral ground of children's literature, the world is becoming safer and safer for us. Today, our celebrities are Muggle legends. Perhaps tomorrow our brothers can be Muggle friends.

Frankly, such success meant only one thing to Hermione - being able to support Ginny and Beth. The congratulations of a certain scroll sent by Owl Post, sent by a certain red-headed young man, she assured herself, meant absolutely nothing, and she certainly wasn't going to dignify it with a reply.

She had been offered a reinstatement at the Ministry - head of the new department created in her honor, Wizard/Muggle Relations, but had declined the offer. Beth and Ginny were getting ready to graduate from Salem, and she wasn't about to uproot them. She was strongly loyal to the school that had supported her children through such hard times.

But now her twins had graduated and gone on to University. She missed them deeply. "I'm tired of being alone," she thought sleepily. She would never have admitted it when fully awake. She was strong and proud, always putting her ambitions ahead of feelings, always making decisions for her self.

The books biography was amusing, leaving out so many details of her professional life, but Hermione was equally amused by the half-truths her own mind could come up with, and her ability to think over her entire adult life without once thinking of him. Regardless, his spirit was present in every detail.

Tomorrow she was leaving for England, to visit the girls for Christmas at Oniceur University. She turned over again and squeezed the locket she wore around her neck with her daughters picture inside. She could picture them vividly in her head - quiet Ginny with her dark frizzy hair and sweet blue eyes, and Beth with her piercing brown eyes and wicked laugh...

"Mia," the voice in her head was more insistent this time. "Mia, don't go..." But Hermione was almost asleep, slowly fading...

Ginny, with her pretty blue eyes... and Beth with her wild red curls...