Fool if you think it's over
by Katta (KET on ff.net)
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters. They all belong to J.K. Rowling, of course, of course. I'm sorry if I've borrowed them for a bit, but I am making no money from it.
This is an HG/SS fic – please don't read it if you don't like that pairing. Note: rated R for various nasty things that happen to Hermione.
This is really just a short story – 5 chapters. Teenage angst meets midlife crisis. I hope you enjoy it.
Chapter 1 : The Party
How was it possible for your life to fall apart in less than two weeks? Hermione hugged her knees and pushed herself into furthest corner or her four-poster bed. Another sob wracked her body, but she had cried herself dry. It felt as if every liquid there had ever been, had flowed out as tears. Now she would start to shrivel up like a mummy and die here in the corner of the bed. No one would know for ages and ages. As Head Girl she had her own room. When would they come looking for her? Not when she missed breakfast – she often did that. Nor even when she didn't show up at the first lesson. No one would leave a lesson to go looking for her. Morning break perhaps. She pictured the incredulous faces of Harry and Ron when they found her, dried as a fig. No one would know what had happened. No one would understand. She pictured people talking about her, years from now. Do you remember Hermione? So clever, but just dried up and died in her bed. It was a great mystery. I wonder what she would be doing by now. All those plans she had – studying, research, doing something good in the wizarding world, they would all go up in smoke. She heaved another dry sob, aware that she was wallowing in self-pity.
It had all started so well, the Christmas holidays. She had gone to her parents' house – the first Christmas holidays she had spent with them since – well, for years anyway. Dumbledore had insisted. She still wasn't sure why. Perhaps he sensed that the showdown with Voldemort was coming in this her seventh year. Either he wanted all students out of Hogwarts over Christmas to make preparations, or he wanted to make sure that they all saw their parents one last time. (That didn't really bear thinking about). For whatever reason, Hermione had been glad to go home. Grimmauld Place and the Burrow were all very nice, but home was home. And it was so much easier this year. Ever since her 18th birthday in the autumn, Hermione had been taking apparition lessons, and she passed her test just before Christmas. No day-long trip on the Hogwarts' Express for her. She just had to go down to Hogsmeade, concentrate long and hard, and hey presto! she was in her parents' garden.
Her parents' had gone to town over the Christmas celebrations once they knew she was coming home. There was an enormous tree, decorated with tartan ribbons, roast chestnuts by the fire, stockings on the mantelpiece. Christmas dinner had been splendid with turkey and all the trimmings, Christmas pudding lit with brandy, all eaten in mock solemnity wearing the paper hats from the crackers. She had been allowed to drink wine with the meal and port with the Stilton. And the presents had been wonderful. Clothes and books and lovely stuff. A Mont Blanc fountain pen. (Her parents didn't understand about quills, but she reckoned she could always use it once she had left Hogwarts). They had clearly made a great effort for remember that she was now an adult and would want adult presents. But the loveliest of them all was antique locket which had belonged to her great aunt. There had been nothing in it, but her mother had whispered to her that it was perfect to hide her most secret things and Hermione had decided to wear it always. Hermione hugged the locket to her now and sobbed again. What had her mother thought that her little girl might want to hide. A lock of hair of an admirer? Well, that would never happen now, thought Hermione savagely.
Boxing Day itself had dawned cool and crisp and even, without any hint of the disaster that was to come. They had gone for a walk and that was when they had met Moira and Katy. Hermione's parents had lived neighbours with Moira's parents for years, and Hermione had known her since she was a toddler. Moira was few years older than Hermione, and together with her inseparable friend, Katy, a lot wilder. Many a time young Hermione had got into scrapes trying to follow the older girls on some madcap adventure. Hermione sometimes thought of those days as a forerunner of her adventures with Harry and Ron.
When Hermione was still at primary school, and the other two girls were in their early teens, the scale of the adventures had usually run to climbing chain-link fences into scrap yards or stealing apples from gardens or, on one particularly horrendous occasion, shop lifting from Woolworths. Hermione had been aware that this was at the very edge of what she was prepared to be involved with, and if she had stayed in her parents' house, it would probably have come to some sort of a schism. After she had gone to Hogwarts (and she sometimes thought that her involvement with Moira and Katy had been one of the reasons her parents had been prepared to let her go), she had seen them only rarely when she was at home on holidays. But her mother had kept her up to date with their exploits in her letters. Things had clearly gone from bad to worse. There had been arrests and formal warnings for minor thefts and drunk and disorderly behaviour. There had been darker rumours of drugs and at least one abortion, although Hermione reckoned that you can't always trust rumours. Moira's parents had been at their wits' end. (Probably Katy's, too, but Hermione's parents didn't know them). But then, quite suddenly, the girls seemed to have pulled themselves together. They had managed to scrape their GCSE exams and gone to the technical college to do A-levels. Although hardly model pupils, they had stayed out of the way of the police and put in a sufficient amount of work. By some miracle, their earlier exploits had not resulted in a criminal record on a scale that would seriously hamper their career prospects. And Hermione had been pleased to hear a few years' previously that they had gone off to train as nurses.
Once legally adult and in possession of student loans, the two girls had got themselves a flat in a run-down area in the centre of town and were, in fact, rarely at Moira's house any more. But they had apparently come home to celebrate Christmas, which just went to show how far they had moved away from their wild teenage years. And on Boxing Day, they were taking a leisurely walk in the country park nearby. And that is when they ran into Hermione and her parents.
They stopped and talked for a bit, and then Katy invited Hermione to a New Years' Eve party they were having back at their flat.
'Oh, do come, do,' she entreated the younger girl. 'It'll be fun. There'll be lots of men there. Junior hospital doctors, you know.' She winked.
Hermione's mum didn't look best pleased but she was torn, She was trying so hard to accept that her little girl was now an adult. And she did want Hermione to meet some 'normal' men, muggle men as Hermione would call them. It wasn't that Hermione's mum objected to wizards – in principle – it was just that, well, she wasn't quite prepared for her daughter to marry one. So when Hermione asked if she could go, her mother presented no objection and even encouraged her a little.
Katy had written the address down on a piece of paper and added '8pm start'. Hermione felt quite grown up clutching the paper. Of course, she had been to parties before, Feasts in the Gryffindor Common Room for one thing. And at the Burrow. But she had never been to a genuine, young people, no parents/teachers party. And the thought of junior hospital doctors sent delicious shivers down her spine. She spent most of the next five days wondering what to wear. Her mother suggested the taffeta dress that she'd worn to cousin Alex's graduation. But even Hermione the bookworm realised that that would be seriously uncool. In the end, and with the winter weather in mind, she had settled for jeans and a white broderie Anglaise top. She thought it looked quite neat as she added rather more make-up than her mother really approved of.
'Do you want some dinner before you go?' asked Hermione's mum, but Hermione told her to stop fussing and there was sure to be food at the party.
'I really don't mind coming to pick you up. It doesn't matter how late it is. I'll stay up,' said her father.
But Hermione turned the offer down as she thought it would seriously hamper her style to know that her parents were waiting up for her phone call. She promised that she would take a taxi home, but in her own mind she was already being given a lift by a handsome junior hospital doctor. She had enough sense not to mention this to her parents as she suspected it would lead to a lecture on drink-driving and the dangers of accepting lifts at parties.
Hermione was so full of anticipation that she thought she would burst when she boarded the 7:32pm bus for town clutching the bunch of flowers her mother had insisted would be de rigueur. Every so often she had to hug herself to stop herself grinning at the thought of all those young men who were going to be at the party. She kept checking her lipstick in the mirror on the deserted bus and humming a little tune to herself in her head. Her only worry was that it would take her a while to find the flat and that she might be late.
She realised her mistake as soon as the door to the flat swung open and a slightly surprised Moira in a dressing gown stared at her, automatically accepting the bunch of flowers thrust at her.
'I … er … am I early? Katy said 8pm,' said the flustered Hermione.
Moira grinned and open the door wider.
'Come in! She always says 8pm. It's a bit of a joke. People will turn up when they come off their shifts. Katy isn't home yet and I'm just getting myself ready. But you can make yourself at home. Are you any good at mixing punch?'
While Moira disappeared back off to the bathroom, Hermione looked around the flat. She wasn't quite sure what she had expected, perhaps something like Moira's parents' perfect house in miniature. The flat wasn't anything like that. It was incredibly dilapidated, with faded wallpaper peeling off in the corners. In one room someone had made an inexpert job at putting up new wallpaper, and that looked even worse. The furniture looked as if it had been scrounged from a tip. In the living room was a sofa with hardly any springs. One leg was missing and it was propped on a pile of nursing textbooks. The other chairs were covered in multi-coloured throws, no doubt hiding a multitude of sins. It didn't look as if anyone ever cleaned this room, but then it was lit mainly by candles, so it was hard to tell.
Hermione peeped into Katy's bedroom and found that she slept on a mattress on the floor with all her clothes apparently stored in piles around it. The walls were covered in posters which were testimony to an eclectic taste. A rock band on one wall faced Che Guevara on the other.
There was no apparent source of heating in the flat apart from single bar electric heaters which were not switched on, and the place was pervaded by a damp, musty, slightly mouldy smell. In search of warmth, Hermione continued into the kitchen, where the oven was on making the temperature bearable. On inspection, the oven was found to contain dozens of large potatoes, in the early stages of being cooked on a low heat. There was no other sign of food. On the kitchen table was an array of alcohol such as Hermione had never seen. There were dozens of plastic gallon flagons of beer, a whole army of bottles of cheap wine, and a huge vat of punch in the making.
Hermione fell in love with the flat instantly. This was all so grown-up, liberated, un-parentish. She wanted a flat just like this when she went to university! (Up to that point she had been rather envisaging herself as living in one of the ancient colleges under a dreaming spire). And she wanted posters on the wall. And no heating. And lots of alcohol.
Katy appeared in the doorway saying, 'Hello, Herm. What would you like to drink? Don't bother with that cheap stuff on the table, I've got something better in my room.'
She reappeared shortly with a bottle of Russian vodka and two smeared glasses. The normal, sensible Hermione, balked slightly at the sight of the glass, but the new free-thinking Hermione convinced herself that it would be sterilised by the alcohol and Katy, being a nurse, would know about these things.
Hermione had never really drunk spirits before and on an empty stomach it went straight to her head. Soon she was in the highest of spirits, adding crème de menthe to the punch and choosing music for the party. She talked and giggled and awaited the guests with great anticipation.
The guests started to arrive at about 10.30pm, by which time Moira and Katy were exhausted by Hermione's chatter. Hermione was briefly put out to discover that the other guests brought bottles not flowers, but that little faux pas was soon forgotten as she fluttered her eye lashes and attempted to flirt with the many junior hospital doctors who had arrived as promised. Before long she was sitting on the sofa with a particularly nice member of the species man called Daniel. She thought that she was being incredibly witty and he certainly seemed to have a smile on his face. After a while he rose and said he was going to get some more drinks. Hermione leant back and discovered that her head was spinning rather alarmingly. Perhaps she had had too much vodka. Or perhaps it was mixing the punch and the vodka. Whatever. It didn't seem to matter.
But as time dragged on Hermione began to wonder where Daniel had gone. She wanted the drink and she was beginning to feel a bit lonely, not to mention cold. She stood up unsteadily and was making her way towards the kitchen when she spotted Daniel talking to Moira.
'Where did you find the child? Does her mother know she is out?' he was saying as Moira laughed.
In an instant, Hermione's evening fell to pieces. She had thought she was adult and funny and sexy, but Daniel had been laughing at her, not with her. Hermione's face burnt and she ran upstairs. She slipped into Katy's bedroom, but realised almost immediately that the bed was heaving. There was a couple there … actually … doing it! Hermione knew then that she was way out of her depth.
She made for the loo, where she locked herself in (with some difficulty as she couldn't quite focus on the bolt). She realised now that her outfit, which she had thought quite nice, had only served to make her look young. With excruciating embarrassment she sat on the loo and wondered how early she could slip out of a News Years' Eve party without losing face with her friends and her parents. It had to be at least an hour until midnight! Perhaps she could just sit right here on the loo. But no – someone was already knocking on the door asking why she wasn't finished yet. And, besides, it smelt too bad. So, taking a deep breath, she opened the door to face the party again.
As she walked down the hall, a voice shouted 'Hermione!'.
She looked up to see Nick Moran, of all people. Nick had been three years above her at Hogwarts and she wasn't even aware that he knew who she was. What was he doing here at this muggle party? Well, she was here, wasn't she, so there wasn't any reason why other wizards and witches might also happen to get invited. Nick made straight for her and kissed her on the cheek. He then caught her when she swayed alarmingly with the drink. Heads were turning. Nick was a good looking guy and people looked jealous. Hermione's standing rose several degrees. She was so relieved she hugged him, and when he kissed her it seemed wonderful.
Nick's kiss deepened and became more demanding. Alarm bells began to ring in Hermione's head and she tried to push him away. He laughed and backed off a little, kissing her neck instead. Someone brought round glasses of punch and they drank some more. Then Hermione found that she had to lean on Nick to stand up. He put a solicitous arm around her and pulled her onto the sofa. When he kissed her again it seemed only fair. Nice even. And this time she didn't protest as he leant over her and kissed harder.
After that, things began to blur at the edges. She could only remember snatches without the intervening bits to explain how they hung together. They had definitely kissed on the sofa for a while. When someone turned on the BBC for the midnight bongs, they were lying behind the sofa and Nick was on top of her. It felt nice. His hands did things she hadn't really expected hands to do. Part of her brain was saying that she should get him to stop, but her mouth wasn't obeying. Later on she remembered him helping her to the loo and sitting helpless on the loo for ages before she remembered why she had come. When she came out, he was still there and he started to walk her somewhere else. She could remember the feel of an itchy wool blanket against her naked buttocks, but not how she had come to be naked.
And then all memory stopped.