Life After Hogwarts
By Arime Mya Setta
Summary: What is life like after Hogwarts? Begins during Hermione Granger's 7th year and follows her through graduation and all the stress involved. Will she figure out where she wants to go and what she wants to do? What will happen when Hogwart's favorite bad boy follows? What happens when they get involved in a humorous and possibly dangerous mission for the Order?
Disclaimer: Of course I do not own any part of Harry Potter or the multimedia world related.
Warning: Post-HBP and has HBP spoilers. Not completely Cannon and fairly quirky.
Prologue
What is life like after Hogwarts? I have wondered and worried for the past seven years what will life hold for me. (Being the overachiever that I am I started thinking about university in primary school days…) When I was young I went on campus tours with my mum and dad and soaked in all that my future had to offer. Then the owl landed on my doorstep and POOF everything was different.
First let me start with what life should have been like. I should have attended school, graduated, did remarkably well over all and then shipped myself off to some high end hoity-toity university to get a useless degree only to then go on to graduate school where I would actually become somebody. Well, Hogwarts changed all of that. True, it is quite obvious that beyond my love of learning is a feeling of dislike for the whole education system. I was sick of waiting patiently for my future. Keep in mind I was also 10 years old and didn't realize how quickly time flies. When I was accepted into Hogwarts life changed so dramatically and suddenly I was neck high in studies, practice and adventure. Everything I learned was completely new to me and had never been revealed before.
Contrary to popular belief I was not an especially impressive student before Hogwarts. I was your average moping pre-teen with enough ability to fly through classes and do well. Truthfully I loved to read but not for knowledge's sake. I've come to realize now that I was simply lacking a challenge and that Hogwarts and the whole magical community presented that challenge. Hence how I became the smartest witch of my age.
So now we are back to square one. Now what? Soon I will be leaving Hogwarts and heading off into the real world. Ha, as real a world as I can live in. Magic distorts the whole attitude towards "reality." I am a semester short of graduation and have no idea what is next. Everyone has assumed that I am just waiting for my graduation speech to surprise and impress all with my plans for the future but actually I simply have none.
After Dumbledore's death last year and the subsequent war things have been a bit of a mess. Damn, another story to tell I suppose. Okay, well Harry, Ron and I went our separate ways for the first month of summer break. Harry, of course, went to the Dursley's to torture his oaf of a cousin for a while and then he disappeared for a few weeks. Ron and I went to the Burrow where my parents were temporarily staying. With all of the worries and whatnot everyone agreed that my parents and I needed a little safety and an extended vacation would provide just that. So Mum and Dad packed up, cleared their schedules for two months and headed off, first to the Burrow then to France under the protection of a handful of Aurors and me. Okay, so I can't quite count as "protection" but I'd like to think that if it came down to it I could at least help save a few lives.
I never really found out what happened during that summer with the Order or the Weasley's. They also went on a vacation, though more for the sake of relaxation then protection. The Order continued on its path of growth and when I returned at the end of the summer Harry had become an official member and had just returned from a series of training sessions with Moody and a few dangerous operations. Ron and I were hurt to say the least but I was a bit more understanding. Some things just can't wait for fall. Ron and I then began some training of our own and were inducted this past Christmas though it was fairly unnecessary seeing as how Voldemort's been defeated.
Yup, defeated, finite, dead. When the Weasley's and my family returned to Grimmauld place we were faced with two, erm three, major changes. First Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape were sitting in the kitchen drinking coca-cola. (I'm not sure what was more stunning, the coke or the two guests) Well, Mrs. And Mr. Weasley, Miss Ginny Weasley, and myself hexed them both repeatedly but luckily all missed but mine. Well, lucky isn't quite the right word but you get the picture. At that point Professor McGonagall and Headmaster Dumbledore (don't worry I'm getting to that explanation) walked in and attempted to revive the poor creatures on the floor. I definitely think that the Order needs to work on communication.
So, Snape and Malfoy weren't really bad guys, just idiots for not letting anyone else know the big picture and Professor Dumbledore was shamed into seclusion but the Weasley's and myself for not telling us he was alive before we went on break. Once we all yelled and screamed and cried enough the entire story was revealed and he was forgiven (but not without a bit of anger from many of us).
So Dumbledore had Harry poison him with the stuff in the cave so that technically Dumbledore was already dead when Snape "killed" him thus making the curse useless. (Can't be killed twice right?) Once the dust had settled and Dumbledore was buried and whole resurrection scene occurred when Malfoy and Snape brought him back to life by giving him the antidote to the poison. Okay, so you're completely annoyed with me for being so, erm, vague about the whole thing, but we both know that I spent days researching this poison, the Somnus Aqualis, and could go on for pages on how it works and why. But since this is still a prologue lets go the easy way around. The poison causes the user to fall into a deathly sleep that will in layman's terms kill him without the antidote. Once the sleeper has received the poison and has fallen asleep he is unable to perform any magic and will quickly deteriorate into a corpus for a length of time before actually dying. Snape actually performed the spell on Harry, not Dumbledore, but that's irrelevant.
Since Snape concocted the poison for Dumbledore he ultimately killed him, thus relieving him of the unbreakable vow with Mrs. Malfoy. The Antidote then "woke" Dumbledore but required months of recuperation before even thinking about revealing himself to the order. Now, I know that this is all so much but really the only important part is that it places Dumbledore, Snape and Malfoy in one house with Harry, Ron and myself.
On one of Harry's trips for the Order he found Snape and Malfoy and a recovering Dumbledore and almost killed all three but luckily after much delay and discussion the foursome returned to Grimmauld place safely. Malfoy and Harry actually saved Snape and Dumbledore from a sticky situation and learned to trust each other. At this point in the summer Ron and I were the only ones left to befriend Malfoy. To say the least I am currently the only one that thinks he is a complete git, even if he is on our side. Quidditch will make any boys friends, even former enemies.
Ugh so many memories flooding onto the paper is difficult to cope with. Maybe one day I'll take the time to actually go into all of the gory details of the summer and the proceeding war but for now I am much more concerned with where the hell I'll be going in 6 months. After defeating Voldemort the entire gang and many more returned to Hogwarts to complete their education. Truthfully it took a lot of forcing on my behalf to convince the guys to go back and cover the basics before jumping into their Auror training. Boys are too simple to realize that training includes a lot of bookwork and studying and they don't have all of those little things learned just yet.
Wow, I seem to be covering a lot of ground quickly. Well, it is all to get to the real point: life after Hogwarts.
