Chapter 2! Please leave me reviews letting me know what you think!
Hermione's house was finally quiet. The twins had finally fallen back asleep about an hour ago, her husband was reading their oldest a bedtime story, and she was rocking gently in the chair her parents had bought them as a gift when Miranda was born, watching her baby sleep. She was fairly certain, having had experience with the matter, that the twins would be waking up again in a few hours in need of more potion, and Oliver would be ready for a diaper change in less than thirty minutes, but the peace and quiet was nice while it lasted.
She had rushed home earlier that day to help Draco with the kids. The college student who helped out as their nanny in the summers was back in school and wouldn't be available during the days again until December. The two elves whom they employed — a married couple named Louis ("lou-ee") and Flora — were on vacation, a federal requirement that made Hermione's inner rights activist extremely happy. And while many of her friends would call for helpful grandparents in times like these, Hermione always hesitated to do that.
She had found her parents easily enough after the war. They had set up a new dental practice in Brisbane, so after looking them up in a phone book she set up an appointment. It was easy enough to get their memories back too. The hard part was figuring out what to do next. They hadn't been pleased with her and the guilt that piled on every time she thought about her lies and mistreatment of them, the more she started to hate being a witch. It was then that her mom suggested a muggle university.
Hermione had, of course, intended to return to Hogwarts to make up her missed 7th year. But every time she so much as looked at her wand, she would be filled with anxiety. So she applied to a few muggle universities in the United States and got some Hogwarts professors to write letters of recommendation. Acceptance letters came and suddenly she was all set to start in the spring. Her parents came with her, and stayed with her until after graduation. But after her wedding they announced a new plan.
Richard and Jane would be closing yet another dental practice, selling their home, and traveling the world with the money they had been saving up for years.
"We want to make valuable memories that — no offense dear — can't be taken away from us," her mother had explained. "Of course we'll visit multiple times a year, sweetpea. And you'll always be able to reach us by email."
They came to visit for holidays and for all the children's birthdays and would probably have dropped everything to come help her if she really needed it, but she didn't need it.
Her children absolutely loved when Grandma Jane and Grandpa Rick came to visit; they always brought exotic presents and a huge stack of pictures to share. Still, though, on days like today she did miss them, and she often had to suppress the inner voice telling her it was her fault they weren't there.
"Are you waiting for him to wake up?" Draco's soft voice whispered in her ear, chuckling lightly when she jumped.
"I didn't hear you come in," she defended, smiling up at him all the same. "He'll be up in a few minutes," she added.
Draco squeezed her shoulder. "Why don't you let me deal with Ollie when he wakes up?"
Hermione's face must have registered confusion because Draco continued. "You go grab some carryout from Lisa's and then we can watch a movie." She smiled, and looked back at their second son.
"Are you sure?" She felt bad. She had made it home to help him quickly enough, but Draco wasn't exactly a fan of germs to begin with and he'd been forced to deal with those awful first two hours alone. But he was nodding.
"Unless you have more work to finish . . ." Hermione shook her head no; she had finished everything earlier today while the kids had been napping. "Well then it's settled. I'll change the nappy and give him a bottle; you'll go get my favorite foods as a reward for being such a great dad!"
Hermione rolled her eyes. He could be such a pompous goofball sometimes. But takeout and a movie did sound good. Giving her husband a quick peck on the cheek, she went downstairs to order their favorites for carryout.
Draco had discovered Lisa's when they moved into the neighborhood a few years ago. They had been living downtown until just before the twins were born, and they were used to having at least 10 carryout options within three blocks of their building. The suburbs were fantastic in so many ways, but providing options for her pregnancy cravings was not one of those ways. Luckily, Lisa's was open late, and Draco came home one night with three full bags of "the best American Chinese food in the world!"
She just finished placing their order when Oliver started to cry. Waiting to confirm that Draco had been able to quiet the tired 6-month-old, she grabbed her car keys and headed out the door.
Lisa's was only about 10 minutes away, but their order wasn't complicated, and Hermione was always running into people she knew there anyways. She didn't mind chatting with friends while she waited for their food.
The restaurant was located in the center of a plaza where both muggles and magical folk liked to spend time. The restaurants had been getting fancier over the years, but they had put in a little playground across the street for children, and so the familial atmosphere was the same.
Hermione parked her car on the side of the plaza closest to Lisa's carryout entrance and walked in already thinking about which movie Draco would pick to watch. She had been surprised when they had run into each other at the same muggle university and even more surprised when he asked her to accompany him to a movie.
Of course, that was nothing compared to the surprise she felt when she walked inside. Standing in front of her, holding a carryout menu and a look of pure shock on his face, was none other than Harry Potter.
Hermione froze in her tracks, trying desperately to suppress the immediate and overwhelming guilt and fear that washed over her and stole her voice.
"Hermione?" Harry gasped, and she suddenly felt like crying.
"You're — I —" he was having trouble speaking too, she realized. Well of course he was having trouble. They hadn't seen each other in 10 years.
"We thought you were dead."
Hearing that was like taking a brick to the chest. They thought she was dead? She hadn't been the greatest friend, of course, completing cutting her best friends out when she cut out magic. And true, she hadn't gotten back in touch with them after a year had gone by and she had been able to confront her trauma more healthily. But dead? Surely she hadn't disappeared so thoroughly that they thought she was dead, did she?
Some time must have passed with the two of them staring at each other because she was suddenly pulled out of her trance by some waving and calling her name.
"Jeanie? Yoo-hoo! Earth to Jean!"
Hermione's head snapped to the side. One of the owners of Lisa's — Lisa herself, in fact — was standing behind the counter, waving her arm and holding a bag (Hermione's order). The look on her face was pure concern.
Hermione quickly shook herself more fully out of the trance and, feeling as though she had swallowed a baseball, walked around Harry and up to the counter.
"Hey Lisa," she greeted. "Sorry about that. Long day."
"Everything alright?" Lisa was in her sixties, a DC native who had lived in this particular suburb ever since she had gotten married decades ago. When Hermione and Draco had first moved out here, Lisa had welcomed them with open arms and taken them under her wing.
Her own daughter, a woman close to Hermione's own age, had moved to California with her girlfriend that same year and Lisa hadn't liked being an empty-nester one bit.
Hermione sighed heavily to force away the imaginary baseball blocking her vocal chords. "Yeah," she told Lisa, "The twins have strep, though, so it's been a rough day."
Lisa immediately grimaced. "Oh strep is just awful. At least the antibiotics kick in quickly." Hermione nodded. Lisa was a muggle, and though Hermione and Draco had confessed to being magical a year ago, Lisa never quite bothered to figure out the differences between their lifestyles.
"Well anyways, I should get back," Hermione replied, bracing herself to deal with an angry and hurt Harry Potter.
"See you Sunday?" Lisa asked, confirming that Hermione would be coming to the biweekly meeting for a bookclub Lisa ran.
Hermione nodded once, said "See you Sunday," and turned around. But Harry was gone. Her brows wrinkling in confusion, Hermione shook her head as if to clear it of cobwebs and went back out to her car. It had been Harry, hadn't it? He had called her Hermione.
"We thought you were dead."
Harry was at a loss. Why did he just say that? He didn't think she was dead. Not really, at least. Despite everyone's advice to the contrary, he and Ron had been holding out hope that Hermione was still alive somewhere. And he'd been right. Here she was.
Someone was making quite a bit of noise behind him, and Hermione's head snapped to the side to see what it was.
"Jeanie? Yoo-hoo! Earth to Jean!"
The unreadable look on her face melted away and was replaced by a look of recognition. The noise was intended for her. The woman — was it not Hermione? — walked around him without so much as an apologetic glance and went up to the counter. Harry turned to watch her, completely and utterly confused.
The woman at the counter, a woman named Lisa apparently, started chatting with the woman Harry had been sure was Hermione. He couldn't wrap his mind around it, but he knew he wouldn't stay here to confront the truth.
Shoving the menu back onto a counter to his right, Harry rushed out of the door and over to an apparation point. He was back at the hotel, running past the front desk and up to his room in a matter of seconds.
He pushed his door open, threw open his suitcase and rummaged frantically until he found what he was looking for: the two way mirror.
"Ginny!" He called, into it, silently begging her to hear him and answer despite it being almost midnight in London. "Ginny!"
Finally, her face filled the screen, a hand blearily rubbing her eyes. "Hi Harry. Sorry about that. Albus was horrible today. I must have fallen asleep."
Normally Harry would have apologized for their two year old's behavior, which had recently been one tantrum after another, and offered some long-distance support, but he wasn't thinking normally.
"I saw Hermione!" He blurted. Ginny's face fell.
"Oh Harry," she sighed, "not again."
"I know, Gin, but this time she was real. It was Hermione! I was sure of it." Harry was sitting on the bed now, his legs bent in front of him and the mirror resting against his thighs.
Ginny shook her head sadly, "Was sure? Did she speak to you?"
Harry paused before admitting, "No." Ginny gave him a pitying look. "But she did speak! We were at this Chinese carryout place, and she spoke to the woman behind the counter."
"Did the woman behind the counter call her Hermione?" Ginny asked, sounding skeptical but maybe a bit more willing to believe him.
Harry looked up at the ceiling, hating the mental war between hope and logic currently destroying his ability to think. "No," he said slowly.
Ginny was getting ready to ask another question, he knew. "Did she recognize you or seem like Hermione?"
"I thought she did!" He immediately defended, "But I heard her say something about twins and and a muggle illness I used to get as a kid, so . . " he added, realizing that it didn't seem to fit. "Dammit."
Ginny gave him a sympathetic smile. "This happens every time you travel, Harry. Until you stop searching for Hermione's features in every female face, you're going to be running into Hermione look-a-likes everywhere you go."
"I could have sworn it was her this time, though," he said, feeling defeated. And he could have. The way she had frozen too when they locked eyes . . . the way fear and guilt had briefly flickered in her eyes when he said her name . . . it had to be her! But Ginny was right. He'd been seeing Hermione lookalikes everywhere for years. It had gotten him into trouble a few times too.
Once, in Germany, he had chased a woman through the streets of Berlin for ten minutes. He'd followed her into a muggle grocery store and through the aisles until he finally worked up the nerve to confront her in the produce section. But when the woman turned around, she didn't look a thing like Hermione. For a while he had been convinced he'd gotten confused and that the real Hermione had apparated away, but eventually he had to admit that it had probably never been her.
Another time, when he'd gone to that photo-op in upstate New York, he thought he'd seen her in the crowd. It had just been a flash from a camera though, obscuring his eyesight. When his eyes refocused the only Hermione he could find was a picture of her blown up to look life-size next to the same ones of him and Ron.
The most recent sighting before this one had been in France at the airport. He'd almost gotten arrested by French Aurors for trying to get through the Magical Customs line without stopping. While waiting in line to drop off his portkey and declare any magical items he'd brought with him, he'd seen someone he was convinced was Hermione standing further up in line. Older, obviously, and more stylishly dressed than he'd imagine her, but 100% Hermione. He'd run after her, barely looking where he was going. Of course, the near arrest prevented him from seeing whether or not it was really her; she'd been gone by the time he got through.
"Look, Harry," Ginny started in with the same speech she'd been giving him for years. "She's been gone for 10 years. We haven't seen her — the real her — or heard from her since she left for Australia. Maybe she's not dead. I would love it if it turns out she's not dead! She was my best friend and I miss her every day. But she's probably dead. And if she's not, well, maybe she doesn't want to be found. And that hurts. And it's horrible. But it's Hermione. If she doesn't want to be found, we won't find her."
"I feel like I failed her, Ginny," Harry whispered, holding back tears.
Ginny tapped her forehead to the glass and then backed up again. "I know, Harry, but you didn't. She's Hermione. If she's still alive, we'll find her. But only once she's ready to be found."
Harry breathed a painful, shaking breath. His heart rate was finally slowing down and all of the terrible emotions that were usually bottled and had come leaking out were starting to go back into their metaphorical bottle.
"Your son was asking for a broom again," Ginny mentioned, quickly changing the subject in an attempt to lighten Harry's mood. It worked. Harry smiled. James was three years old and had been asking for a training broom for a few weeks now. Harry was reluctant to give in, not because he didn't think it was safe — heck, with a former professional Quidditch player for a mother it would probably be safer than walking — but because he didn't want his children thinking they could get whatever they asked for.
"We could get him one for Christmas," Harry suggested. Ginny nodded her agreement.
"That's what I was thinking."
They finished the conversation with some lighthearted talk about their two young children, Ron's decision to cut back on his Auror hours to help George at the joke shop, and Arthur's new obsession with something called a Kindle. After saying goodnight to his wife, Harry drifted off into a fitful sleep tormented by dreams of women who looked like Hermione but weren't.
Hermione pulled into their driveway and took a deep breath, trying to steady her still racing heartbeat. Locking the car (a habit left over from living in the city), Hermione walked blearily into their house and set the food down in the kitchen. Draco came downstairs just as she was getting out plates.
"Everyone is sound asleep," he said, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist. After a beat, his body stiffened and he leaned his head around to look at her face. "Are you ok? You're shaking."
Hermione gulped, placing her hands on the edge of the marble counter to steady herself. "I saw Harry," she whispered, barely able to get the words out.
"You what?" Draco gently but forcibly turned her to face him and took her chin is his hand. "Tell me what happened, love, but first tell me if you're ok."
"I'm okay," she whispered, not sure if she entirely believed herself. Then she launched into the story, telling Draco about walking into Lisa's, about freezing up when she saw him, and about how he disappeared while she was talking to Lisa.
"Remember when I told you I saw him in Germany?" She finished, asking him a question that would lead into something else. Draco nodded.
"And you chickened out and apparated away?" Now it was her turn to nod.
"And in New York, when I went to the photo op at that new school?"
"You meant to talk to him, then, didn't you?" Draco asked, confirming a story he knew by heart.
"And I chickened out again."
"You hadn't been ready to face him," Draco spoke gently, working through a variety of speeches he'd practically memorized for occasions like these. "It's okay not to be ready, Mya. We both came here to escape the Wizarding World and both been reintegrating at our own pace."
Hermione shuddered. His words were familiar and usually calmed her, but they weren't helping much this time. She looked up at him and said, "He said they thought I was dead. What if they don't forgive me?"
She hadn't intended to go 10 years without contacting the friends she'd considered family. But when the weeks passed, and then the months, and then the years without so much as a letter from them, she stopped feeling so bad about not contacting them first. Of course, Draco pointed out a few years later, it's not as though she'd provided a forwarding address. Even McGonagall, who had written Hermione a glowing letter of recommendation, hadn't been given a forwarding address. Hermione had sent the new Hogwarts Headmaster a thank you note when she got her acceptance letters, but had explained her new anxiety about magic and asked that the Headmaster allow her some space to come to decide who she wanted to be as an adult.
Then Draco happened, and she kept getting promoted, and their children took up so much of her time that everything sort of slipped her mind. Every now and then, at holidays and other important moments, Hermione would think of her friends back home and feel guilty and sad, but she knew that it was healthier for her to stay where she was. At least, she had thought it was healthier.
A few months ago, just after Oliver's birth, an article appeared in the paper announcing Professor McGonagall's death. She had succumbed to an illness brought on by old age, and Hermione had cried for a week after seeing it. When she wasn't crying, she was nearly catatonic. Draco had even called her parents, who rushed to their Virginia suburb from a vacation in Hawaii, in order to keep the children from seeing their mother so broken.
Sometime that week, Draco had gotten in touch with the new Headmaster, Professor Flitwick, who replied with a letter assuring him of McGonagall's peace and happiness at the time of her death. He even, though Draco didn't let on about Hermione, mentioned that the board had wanted Hermione to take over as transfiguration teacher and were busy lamenting her disappearance. He told her this news, but it didn't help. It took another week (and the help of some close friends of hers from work) to get her back on her feet. Draco was wonderful, but still, the guilt had been eating at her more fiercely ever since.
"If they don't forgive you, then they're bigger tossers than I was at age thirteen!" Draco told her sternly. "Hermione Jean Malfoy, you are an amazing mother, wife, and friend. Everyone deals with trauma in their own way and you, Mya, you are the kindest, most deserving person I have ever met. If they can't forgive you, it's their loss."
Hermione kissed her husband's reddening cheek. "I was the one who didn't reach out to them. I was the one who abandoned my friends. I was selfish, and childish, and I abandoned them."
"So un-abandon them," Draco said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Look, Mya, you won't know what will happen until it happens. If you're not ready to merge your worlds, then don't. There is absolutely nothing wrong with not being ready. But if you're ready, or even a little bit ready, give it a try. You know I'll support you whatever you decide."
Hermione smiled softly. Looking him in the eye she warned, "When they find out I married you, you may not feel so supportive." It was an incredibly subtle reference to their past, which she knew he would get. When they had first become friends, and again when they started dating, she would use Harry and Ron as a threat, a warning for Draco to keep her happy (her favorite threat was that he should keep her happy, "or else the heroes of the wizarding world might descend mess up his perfect hair"). They both knew no such thing would happen. She had been so adamant about keeping her new life separate from her old that Draco didn't even call her Hermione for a year. He'd called her Janie, just like everyone else, until he finally convinced her not to ignore her past:
"Your past shaped who you are and got you to where you are now," Draco said, cupping her cheek and wiping away the tears that had fallen a few moments earlier. "You convinced me not to hide from my past. Why are you still hiding from yours?"
Hermione took a few sniffing breaths and shook his hand off. "I don't even know who I am anymore. I did a horrible thing to people I loved," she said softly.
"And I did even worse things," he replied, a biting tone in his voice that revealed both anger and shame. "Yet you forgave me," he said, his voice softening, once again forcing her to look up at him. "Why can't you forgive yourself?"
Draco smiled at the familiar teasing, teasing he hadn't heard for a few years now. He dropped his hands and grabbed the Chinese carryout from behind her, and then let a devilish smirk take over his features. "Let's go Ms. Deputy Secretary. Time to watch a movie!"
With one last shaky breath, Hermione shook off the remnants of her fear and guilt, reburying them until she had more time to grapple with decisions she'd been putting off for a decade, and even more she'd been putting off for a few months now. She grabbed plates ("we have plates, Draco, we don't need to eat out of the container!") and followed her husband into the living room. "So, what are we watching?"
Thoughts? Questions? Concerns?