A little drabble I got an idea for. Loosely based on the style of nimmieamee's Notes From the Wizarding World.
They said many things about Hermione Granger.
When she returned to Hogwarts, after both Voldermort and Harry Potter were dead in the ground, people called her brave, a hero, deserving of a rest for her role in the war. Some called her cold, for she didn't seem to grieve very much for all that she had been one of Harry Potter's closest friends. One of only two that could claim they knew him. And where was Michael Corner, then? Only ever with her or in classes, or else vanishing off to some hidden corner of the castle to do who-knew-what. That Michael, they said, was even worse off. But she, they said, couldn't be bothered to help her friend.
Hermione graduated with most of the honors Hogwarts offered. She would have had more, except she occasionally got distracted, helping Michael with Heavenly issues or sending letters to try and pry Gabriel out of his London house to come see her graduate.
He did come. He turned her cap bright blue and added a brace of feathers to the brim, in Gryffindor colors.
Hermione didn't see Gabriel much, nor Michael once ne had left to go try and manage Heaven again, but that was alright, it was partially her fault too. She was very busy, and people said things about that, too. No time for anybody, that Granger. So driven, no time for family even!
Well. There was Fleur. But people didn't know about Hermione and Fleur. And at that time Fleur was actually away, back visiting her family in France. So Hermione worked, with no indication that she was interested in romance or having children, and people tutted about tradition and The Role of Women and how these Muggleborns always did end up upsetting the status quo.
People didn't talk like that in public. Not after the war. Not with so many Death Eaters standing trial, so many already in Azkaban. The worlds, Pureblood ideals must be upheld were never uttered. Not that exact phrase. But they were thought, and people tiptoed their way around really saying it, while implying it as strongly as they could.
The Death Eater Trials, as they were officially called, were what really brought Hermione to her calling. She was called several times to testify, especially in the matter of the Alley battle. She was asked several times exactly who had killed Voldemort.
She always replied that she was not sure. This was true. She wasn't sure whether it had been Michael or Gabriel - they had both vanished pretty quickly afterwards, and she hadn't been close enough to see the act itself.
Death Eaters pleaded and bargained, and cried Imperius, and the name Loki was often repeated. Hermione was asked about that, too. She said she'd never met Loki properly and only knew of him through a friend, which was also true, in a roundabout manner. You learned how to answer questions like that, when you hung around somebody like Gabriel.
Fleur returned halfway through the trials, and she often met Hermione in the Ministry to leave for lunch or dinner - never at the assigned spot, always deep in conversation with the man who checked wands, or somebody's undervalued secretary, or a friend of Arthur Weasley's in Muggle Artifacts who desperately needed a proper, non-Wizarding explanation for how he could avoid messing with people's electricity all the time while on the job.
The Trials were over eventually, of course. Very few Death Eaters escaped persecution, or jail. A rare few did. Money still talked. But those few were never in the standing they had been in before, never quite the same shining pillars of society they were used to being.
They blamed the Muggleborns. More specifically, they blamed Hermione.
Hermione, in response, got a job in the DMLE.
She didn't start there. She started with her friends, the security men, the secretaries, the 'dumb' departments. But she was very good at research, and at figuring out where secrets were being kept or seeing where something didn't quite match up. And she was also quite good, if it could be called that, at being nice to people who did not expect kindness from an up-and-coming hero of the Second Wizarding War, and who were quite willing to exchange favors with her.
There was more than one Muggleborn, in the Ministry, with the same dreams of change burning away in the back of their mind while they took dictation for some Pureblood Head of Department or entertain some pureblood Valued Campaign Contributor. Hermione was saying all the things they wanted to hear.
Some of them were skeptical, of course. They cried wolf, while in the background the Ministry silently seethed with the audacity of this girl. Barely out of Hogwarts, what does she know? We've already tried, what does she think we can do better? Things are perfectly fine as they are. Let it stay. Let it be as it is. The Wizarding World is better than the Muggle one, we don't need change, thankyouverymuch.
The thing was, they didn't count her stubbornness, nor her friends.
They all thought Loki had left with the end of the war.
Hermione was beginning to think, at the time, that she was getting to know Loki better than she'd ever thought she would. Gabriel had been her friend, she knew of Loki and learned quick what little behaviors meant he was one or the other. She accepted his help most (though not all) of the time; accepted the little favors, let him cause trouble elsewhere so she could slip in an idea unnoticed, but definitely turned him down when he offered to do bodily harm to her opponents.
Loki always grinned at her when she said she didn't want to hurt them. You mean literally hurt them, he said. I'm sure your ideas and words do plenty of damage.
Hermione said that she'd be content to deal only superficial wounds with pointed words and destruction of outdated ideas, thank you, and Loki would fake tipping a hat and spirit himself out of her tiny office just before someone walked in with news.
Sometimes her opponents were hurt anyway. Most of these were the worst of the worst, the pureblooded supremacists trying to rise again with a swell of new ideas. These ones, she never got the chance to counteract Loki; these ones were always 'accidents', and she was never sure whether she would have told him no anyway, so it was probably just as well that Loki never asked.
With a god causing a surprisingly quiet amount of chaos in her wake and her own determination and skill, it wasn't much of a surprise to Hermione that she rose through the ranks within the DMLE pretty quickly. People caused a fuss, of course.
That Granger, too ambitious. That Granger, trying to rise above her station. Leave it well enough alone. Leave her as somebody's secretary, doing busywork. Prove yourself!
She did. Without Loki's help, or anybody else's, really. If they were going to give her the most difficult tasks they really shouldn't have been so surprised when she got them done.
Michael visited her, once. Ne glanced around the Ministry, taking in the people (and what kind of people they were, no doubt) then sighed and said, "I meant to get away from all this."
Hermione took an early lunch and they went and talked in a small restaurant in Muggle London she liked.
People talked about that - mostly the mysterious reappearance of Michael Corner, who hadn't been seen since graduation, and less of what she was doing with nem, though Witch Weekly speculated loudly on the possibility of them being lovers. Somewhat ridiculously, no one had picked up on the fact that she and Fleur were together yet. They'd probably have to get photographed signing a wedding license before anyone believed it.
"Hey," Hermione said, in bed, the night after that idea occurred to her. "Let's get married."
I can end it there, right? I think I'm totally allowed to end it there.