- Hermione...
- Hermione...
- Mione...
- ...
She's twenty-like. All brown hair, dirty - poisoned, burned - robe, thoughtful, focused. Sitting on a floor with a pack of bright plushy thingies. Bears? Maybe; but ugly bears, then. Her face is smiling - a somewhat professional smile. I saw them on her graduation from St. Mungo; sometimes after our most risky Auror raids. Once, when Unspeakables turned down her job application due to "overly high morality" (phrased otherwise).
She's sitting on a floor of a railway station, mesmerized with a squirming bundle.
Reminds me of house elves, almost. But not quite.
Annoyed-indulgent Albus Dumbledore keeps watch. He's like a permanent fixture here. He and the bundle, they both are.
It's the Almost Last Bundle. It reacts to intents. Unknown, if it can discriminate; unknown and unlikely that it is capable of learning. Sometimes, it quietens. I long for it. They say, my emotions mess things up but isn't it always like that on a railway station? I would not leave her now, even if the now is uncomfortably stretched.
Harry visits, from time to time. He has lots of personal experience with the Thing, hasn't he? They test for the influence of True Sorrow, then. I suspect the blend of emotions is much more complex and not really pure in his case, but what can I say? The Bundle has no one Truly Sorry for him (or who would at least claim to).
Merlin, I still remember this - terrifying - Meeting of Bundles. Albus said that it was possible. He didn't say they...