A/N – This is my entry to the Secret Santa competition on HPFC. This story is for Chasing sunlight – So I hope you all, but especially her, enjoy this. I write far too much Jean and Graham (Hermione's parents) and far too much 2nd person, but hey I have fun doing it!
Disclaimer – Sorry, still not JK, will let you know if I ever – due to one of those bizarre body swap fandango's some people are so fond of writing – become her.
Her Boys
In some of Hermione's earliest letters she'd described the two boys who had become her best friends. Hermione's boys – as Graham called them – were so different to your daughter , from magical families she told you in her pages and pages of letters that arrived via the kitchen window at least once a week, the boy Harry was some sort of tragic hero and Ron one of seven slightly crazy siblings. You could forgive yourself at the time for not thinking that this particular friendship would last. Now, of course, you know them so much better, you've seen them in and out of each other's company; you know just how well they seem to fit, Three thirds of one whole.
You always thought that it would be Harry she fell for. You remember her frustration, all the arguments she had with Ron, the weeks when her letters would take a darker tone and you would know that she wasn't speaking to at least one of her boys. As the years progressed you can remember knowing that there was a lot Hermione wasn't telling you and Graham. A war was coming – that was all you could ever get out of her, a war that centred around Harry and a war that Hermione was tangled up in like a fly caught in the spiders web.
In Hermione's sixth year there was a girl – Lavender you think her name was – who she seemed to have taken a very violent and sudden dislike to. You remember the snide comments slipped into almost every line of her letters for months, until suddenly one day they just stopped. Completely stopped. You didn't know what to think until the next owl through your window brought the news that Ron had broken up with his girlfriend. That's, you think, when you knew that maybe, just maybe Harry wasn't 'the one' after all (you know for sure when you hear that Harry and Ginny are dating and you see the way that Ron's looking at your daughter as she comes off the Hogwarts express at the end of the year)
After the Australia episode you make her sit down and tell you the entire story, from beginning to end, and it's horrible (like the pages of some long forgotten tragedy). Entirely unreal, except for the pain in your daughter's eyes, she's lost so much, so many acquaintances, friends and teachers – Ron's own brother among them. As you met a steady trickle of survivors, who one day, you think, once the mourning period is over, will become hero's , names to be held up as an example to all as they try to rebuild their lives in their secret hidden world. Now, perhaps they have grown into these roles, but back then all that was in front of you was a sea of broken children and a huddles of adults who had been fighting far too long and lost far too much.
Slowly you see the laughter come back to Hermione's eyes and although there are lines of grief etched permanently on her face, they seem to disappear when she smiles and It always seemed to be Ron making her smile – The day he asked her to marry him, their wedding day, the day she told you she was pregnant for the first time and they days Rose and Hugo were born. You can't fault him, he's stuck with your daughter through thick and thin, held her hand when she cried and loved her always, through all of their fights.
Now when, after her first year at Hogwarts, your granddaughter Rose comes home for the holidays, two boys in tow – Albus, who you've known for years and the new kid Scorpius Malfoy (Who makes your son in law grit his teeth together and your daughter laugh, "Honestly Ronald what did you think would happen, after all you did warn her to stay away from him!"). You can see that history's about to repeat itself – with Rose's boys this time
Review and you will have a cool Yule and an equally happy Hogmanay!