A/N: This is for my dad, he asked me to write it for his Christmas present and I finally finished it. (Sorry it's late, Da!)
Disclamer: I do not own any of the characters in this fanfiction, and if I spelled their names wrong, I'm also sorry for that.
i.
The house was small, and unimposing, perfect for a childless couple in their middle age. It was painted white and had green trim, and there were roses in the front yard. Wendell and Monica Wilkin's home was beautiful and unthreatening.
But Hermione was still scared.
It hadn't been hard to find her parents. All took was a careful look at a phone book and a little bit of pretending to be a telemarketer. The procedure had baffled Ron slightly.
"C'mon Hermione, you could at least go and make a good impression if you aren't confident enough to do it now. You've always told me that magic will only work if the spellcaster is certain."
"I'm afraid, Ron."
"I know you are, but they would have seen us at least, just go up there and ring the doorbell."
She was Hermione Granger, she had faced off Bellatrix Lestrange, she had solved the riddles of the ages and she had managed to continue being at the top of her class despite not formally finishing her final year at Hogwarts.
This was worse though. If she failed on this it would not only show a weakness in her witchcraft ability, it would also be a wound to her spirit.
The sound of the doorbell interrupted her thoughts, and she started to see Ron in on her parents' porch. She hurried up to stand next to him and hoped, in a cowardly, non-Gryffindor fashion, that nobody would answer and she would be able to have another day to gather her courage. Alas, it wasn't to be though, the door opened and Monica Wilkins stepped into the doorway.
"Hello, good morning," she said pleasantly, "can I help you?"
"Who is it dear?" Wendell Wilkins stepped into the doorway behind his wife.
For a moment Hermione could only stare at the two people in the doorway as her mind flooded with memories. Enchanting them behind their backs and walking away without a word out into the world alone.
And then Ron nudged her elbow, "C'mon, Hermione," he said softly. And she remembered the story she had ready.
"Oh, oh yes! We're here because our car broke down a little ways down the street and we've been knocking on doors…" she trailed off, very aware of her bad acting.
But it seemed enough to convince her mother. "Oh, dear! That's strange, usually Mrs. King is home, but I guess she has her hearing aid off though. Well, why don't the two of you come in for a cuppa? Wendell can call the two of you a tow truck."
Hermione put out of her mind the question of what the driver of the tow truck would think when he sees that there is no car.
"Oh, and what are your names?" Monica asked over her shoulder.
Hermione froze again, and Ron answered for her "I'm Ron Weasley, and this is Hermione Granger."
"Hermione, that is such a beautiful name. You know, I always knew that if I ever had a daughter I would name her Hermione, this is such a nice coincidence."
Monica led the two of them into the sitting room, where there was already a pot of tea and a small plate of biscuits waiting. Wendell came in from the kitchen, where he had been calling the tow truck.
The four of them sat across from each other, with Ron and Hermione on one side, and Monica and Wendell on the other.
The four of them made small talk and sipped tea, well Hermione and the Wilkins' did, Ron still didn't know much about what was going on in the muggle world.
"I'm going to tell you something personal, but I'm not really sure why, but I think it is interesting," Monica said, putting down her teacup and leaned back. "For some reason I remember having a dream that showed you, or someone like you. And seeing you now, Hermione, brings it to the forefront of my mind.
This was it, it could only be a sign from God, or maybe Hecate, the Greek goddess of witchcraft and whom Hermione had adopted as a personal saint, along with Athena and Artemis. But she couldn't go down that thought path right now.
Hermione was filled with certainty as she pulled out her wand.
"What's that?" Wendell asked as she pointed it at them.
"Momento!" Hermione said firmly.
There was a brief silence as Hermione carefully watched her parent's eyes as they started to shimmer with recognition, restored knowledge, and finally: tears.
Ron sat at the far edge of the couch and pretended for the time being that he wasn't there as Hermione sat between her parents and cried. Between sobs and hiccoughs she managed to tell the entire story, it took all of forty-five minutes.
"Sweetheart we could have helped!" Hermione's father said firmly.
"No, they just would have killed you! I had to disappear, but you had a practice you couldn't have vanished as easily." Hermione sniffled.
Hermione's father blustered, leaping to his feet and walking up and down the sitting room, but her mother interjected.
"Oh hush!" she told her husband. "Our daughter has done a very brave and just finished something terrible and we are all safe and together now. And you," she said to Ron, who jumped slightly, "who are you?"
"Oh, that's Ron," Hermione said, "you met him once or twice, and I've talked about him a lot." She said the latter while blushing slightly.
"Really?" Hermione's father said dryly, "must've forgot."
"You had better start remembering then," Hermione said warningly, her tears finally drying up. "I'm going to marry him."
Hermione's father sat up straight. "What, I just got my daughter back for about an hour and now you're telling me that you are going to get married, where is the justice in that!" He demanded.
"Dad!" Hermione said sharply.
"Listen, Hermione," her mother spoke up, softly but firmly. "We have lost more than a year that we could have spent with you. Let us have that year back, and then you can talk about marriage."
Hermione paused, but didn't even look at Ron for his agreement before nodding yes.
ii.
They spent the year on a nearly perpetual vacation, first Hermione and Ron helped her parents pack up their possessions for the move back home, back to England.
Then Hermione spent the next six months with her parents only. She shopped in London with her mother and redecorated their house with her. She sailed with her father and good-naturedly learned to play darts with him. Something that he had been pressuring for them to do together, he beat her every time but the last few games were pretty close.
They also traveled around Europe, in short Hermione spent a few months being a muggle with her parents.
Then for the next six months she reacquainted herself with all of her friends with Hogwarts and the other contacts she had made in the wizarding world.
The high points of that visit was that Harry and Ginny were still both going strong and Mr. Weasley still peppered her parents about what it was like to be a muggle and how different apparatus's worked. Hermione noticed that her mother and Mrs. Weasley whispered together very often, a conspiratorial glint in their eyes.
Hermione even got a chance to visit Diagon Alley and Hogsmede and even Hogwarts again that month, and to some extent either reacquaint or introduce the above to them. Professor McGonagall was kind enough to grant her permission to show her parents her school, still clearly under construction as it was, by happenstance the protective spells had been broken then and had not yet been recast.
In short it was a wonderful year, but Hermione couldn't help but look forward to the end of it and the promise that she had made with her parents.
iii.
Hermione ended up having two weddings: A wizarding one and a muggle one. The reason that she decided this was because she had a massive extended family, and it wouldn't be a good idea for every single member to know that they now had a witch in the family. The idea proved most wise when Hermione and her parents considered the slightly matriarchal status of her great-aunt Adelaide, who also was a devoted reader of the bible.
As Hermione had feared, all of them had been clamoring to know why three members of their family had disappeared off the face of the earth. She had decided that it wouldn't make sense for her to modify the memory of everyone. Instead she and her parents came up with a blanket lie that they stuck to no matter what. Eventually everyone else learned to be content with their words.
Ron, meanwhile, was baffled when he learned that there was an actual religious book that ordered the death of magical folk. Mr. Weasley was also somewhat depressed by this also.
And of course there were simply too many wizards who knew Hermione and Ron and who knew of the two of them to invite them all to a muggle wedding.
Both receptions were beautiful, although Ron looked odd in a tuxedo, and there were a number of magical friends who insisted on going to both weddings who also looked strange in muggle clothing. At least there weren't as many crashers as there was at the wizarding wedding.
Hermione's second wedding was also beautiful, as lovely as Bill and Fleur's.
And her father insisted on walking her down the aisle twice, and he got to.
A/N: Review, please!