Legal Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters.
Summary: Hermione gets letters from a secret admirer.
A/N: This is a bit of an AU. This first chapter will be longer than most I think because I need to set up everything that's happening. The other chapters will pretty much just consist of one letter and the ramifications of each letter.
Love Letters
Hermione Granger never felt more at home anywhere than at Hogwarts, not even in her parent's house. She had yet to retrieve her parents from their "vacation" in Australia mainly because Bellatrix Lestrange was still out there somewhere in hiding and may still bear a grudge, but partly because she didn't want to have to face her parents after what she did to them.
Hermione actually never left Hogwarts since the final battle of the second war. She had stayed behind to help with the repairs to the castle and it wasn't like she had anyone to go back to. Her friends had all stayed behind to help rebuild, at least for a week or two they had. Harry and the Weasley family were the first to leave as they had to grieve and deal with order and ministry business since the war was swiftly ending. Ron and Harry had decided to take the ministry's offer to start their auror training instead of attending their 7th year at Hogwarts.
A few more weeks passed and Ginny and Luna returned to help with the continuing repairs. They told Hermione that they would both be returning to Hogwarts as well. This further justified her decision to finish her time at Hogwarts instead of joining her friends as aurors. She had always been more partial to teaching than "crime-fighting" anyway. They informed the new Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall, of this and she had started a trial student-teaching program for Hermione where she would grade 1st-4th year papers for a different professor each week and she would be first in line for a new teaching position that opened up (probably transfiguration whenever Minerva decided to step down from it and focus on her Headmistress duties). She was even given her own private quarters as they had more room since many students were not returning for the next year.
A few weeks before the next term started, Hermione decided to take Minerva's advice and take the N.E.W.T.S. early so she could focus on shadowing the teachers and preparing herself for when she would take over for one of them. Once she got the results back (they were all O's of course) Minerva set up a schedule for her and changed the plan to a different teacher each month since she would be observing them now instead of just grading papers. Minerva thought it better to get a long-term view of the different teaching methods instead of switching between them so quickly.
The day before classes started, Hermione was sitting in her bedroom lying on her bed thinking of the next month she was going to spend with Horace Slughorn, the potions professor. She was in the middle of her thoughts of failing in her duties and the Headmistress kicking her out of the castle when she heard a tapping behind her. She was still a bit jumpy from the war and the nightmares she'd been having of late, so she grabbed her wand and quickly sat up and spun around on her bed at the same time while looking for the intruder. What she saw was not a human, but a Black Eagle staring at her from the ledge outside her window. It tapped again impatiently. Hermione slowly walked over to the window, still slightly wary of it. When she got closer, she spied a parcel strapped to its leg. While unusual, it was not unheard of for birds of prey other than owls to be used as couriers. Hermione had heard of people using eagles and hawks and even some more eccentric people using vultures, but she had never seen any of these in person.
She opened the window cautiously and backed away, her wand still clutched tightly at her side. The eagle hopped in and perched on her nightstand next to her bed and waited for her to take the message. No sooner had she disentangled the letter from the eagle, had it turned and soared away. She figured it preferred live food rather than the snacks people usually gave the owls.
Hermione closed the window and sat on her bed to read the letter. She broke the wax seal, and noticed that it wasn't stamped with anything, which she thought was odd considering this person had a Black Eagle to deliver their mail. She thought they would be a bit more ostentatious than this. Upon opening the letter, she discovered that the reason for this was that they wished to remain anonymous. The letter was written in silver ink, but what made it even odder was that it didn't shine. If the color was shining, it would be easily discernible as silver, but if it didn't, most people would simply say it was gray, but for some reason, this dull silver was still silver. Hermione shrugged it off as another small magical mystery she didn't have time to understand as she was more concerned with the bigger ones.
Dearest Hermione,
Your upcoming year is sure to bring new experiences, some good, some bad, but all formative in whom you will become as an educator.
I am sure you are worried if you will be able to perform to the level everyone expects of you, but you mustn't focus on them or what they think of you. Just do what you're best at and learn. Think about how you'll be able to help your future students and pass on your knowledge to those who seek it.
As Charles Shultz would say, "Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia."
Your Secret Admirer,
B.
Hermione read the last few lines to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. The fact that this person had mentioned Australia made her worry for a moment that they knew about her parents and they were no longer safe, but for some reason, the letter as a whole had calmed her from her worries of the coming year. She made up her mind that she would settle for that bit of peace she'd received and worry about the last line and the fact that she had a secret admirer later.
A/N: I have a few ideas planned for what will happen in this story, but as a whole, I have no idea. I'm just kind of making up the plot as I go. If you have any ideas about what I should add, please feel free to leave a review. Also, I had originally thought of having Minerva and Bellatrix vie for Hermione's affection, but decided against it for now. Maybe I'll do that in a different story if inspiration strikes me.
