Back to the Beginning
Sydney, Australia
She broke the surface and gasped hungrily for air, sweet oxygen filling her lungs and feeding her pounding heart. The sea rippled around her as she sat up and wrapped her arms around her trembling body in the dark. Her fingers brushed across damp cheeks. She blew a shuddering sigh past her puffy chapped lips as she pushed back the covers and swung her legs off the side of the bed, her bruised knee hitting the bedside cabinet.
She reached blindly and fumbled in the dark for the light that illuminated with a soft click of the switch. Her fingers ran through her hair, pulling it back and tucking it firmly behind an ear as she picked up the photograph that had fallen on its face. She smiled faintly at the picture of her younger self and her parents waving enthusiastically at her as she wiped the thin film of dust off the glass surface with her tear-stained sleeve and set it back down next to the digital clock that displayed 2:46 in subdued green light.
Hermione sighed as she drew the cabinet drawer open and reached inside for the amber-tinted plastic container that lay within. Her fingers ghosted over the carved wooden box that lay snug against the side of the drawer. A well-worn book of poems lay next to it where the pill case rested on its leather cover. She unscrewed the cap and tapped out a small caplet and closed the container, tucking it away in its drawer. She stared blankly at the pill lying innocently in the palm of her hand for a moment and slid the tiny capsule between her teeth, tilted her head back, and swallowed.
She pulled the covers over herself and the light clicked off.
—
Hermione sipped her latte as she pored over reams of newspapers spread out on the table before her, scanning for a sign of her parents' dental clinic or an advertisement, something about a Wendell or Monica Wilkins — the monikers she had implanted in her parents' memories. She sighed as she closed the newspaper, her eyes shutting tightly and her fingers pressing against the bridge of her nose.
"You look frustrated."
Hermione's eyes flew open at the sound of Harry's London accent and fixed on his green eyes.
"Harry!" Hermione's seat skidded backwards as she stood and pulled him into a fierce hug. "What are you doing here?"
Harry chuckled, returning her embrace warmly. "It's been a long time, Hermione."
"Yeah..." Hermione murmured awkwardly as she stepped back and took her seat as Harry did the same. "How are you? How's Ginny?"
Harry eyed the coffee shop they sat in with a thoughtful expression on his face. "I'm doing well," he said, smiling. "Ginny's doing fine. She wanted to visit you, too, but she hasn't got her Apparation test so we decided she should just stay at the Burrow for now in case you weren't actually here."
"Oh." Hermione mumbled, trying not to let her disappointment show as her feet fidgeted under the table. "I didn't know you were looking for me. I would have said something about it in my letters. I... Wait a minute," her eyes narrowed in on Harry's face suspiciously. "How did you find me?"
Harry turned pink. "I had someone look for you."
"Someone like Kreacher, you mean." Hermione glared at him in reproof.
"Well, you said you didn't want us to owl you..."
Hermione sighed exasperatedly. "Owling less doesn't mean not owling at all!"
"Oh."
They sat in heavy silence. Hermione ran a finger over the rim of her latte cup in the absence of conversation, her gaze flitting from one corner of the table to the other.
"Ginny's playing Quidditch again," said Harry abruptly, eager to break the uneasy silence. "I'm not sure if she can get enough of it now that she's been cleared with the Healers."
Hermione brightened at the news of Ginny's recovery. "So she's doing well? No problems with her arm at all?"
"Not so far as I can tell. She's spending every moment she can playing Quidditch," Harry replied with a grin. His grin fades as he scanned the Muggle newspapers lying on the table in front of him. "I guess you haven't found your parents yet." It wasn't a question.
"No." Hermione sighed and pulled back her brown hair from her eyes, half aggravated, half bemused. "All the places I thought they'd be, they're not there. It's almost like they knew to stay hidden in case Voldemort went after them."
Harry leaned back in his chair, studying Hermione's face carefully. "So, what are you doing in the meantime? How're your N.E.W.T. classes? Blown away all the professors at school yet?" He grinned.
Hermione laughed half-heartedly. "I left; two weeks ago," she whispered so quietly that Harry wasn't quite sure he heard correctly. "I'm working as a receptionist at a dental clinic down the street instead." She glanced up at Harry. "It makes it easier to track down all the dentists in the region," she explained, seeing Harry's blank expression, "since they all have to know each others' numbers and refer their patients to specialists."
"So you're working as a receptionist at a Muggle dentist's office instead finishing your N.E.W.T.s and becoming a Healer?"
"Y-yeah," Hermione affirmed unsteadily. "I'm not sure if being a Healer really suits me. Anyway," she went on, changing the subject, "It helps working at the office, it really makes it easier to find other dentists." She tried to ignore Harry's somewhat disbelieving stare, looking at the clock on the wall instead. "I have to go, work starts in a few minutes. It was really nice of you to come by, Harry. Tell Ron I said hi?" She folded up the newspaper in front of her hurriedly. "If you want you can visit my flat when I get off work at six o'clock."
"Yeah, sure, I'll do that," Harry nodded, forcing a smile. "That's 8 o'clock London time, isn't it?"
"7 o'clock," said Hermione distractedly as she gathered the newspapers into a haphazard pile and stuffed them into her canvas tote bag. "And Harry?"
"Yes?"
"I don't mind the company, but just owl me next time."
—
Six and a half hours later, Hermione returned to the small café on her lunch break, sipping yet another latte at the same newspaper-strewn table. The repetitiveness of it was comforting. It was dependable.
A sheet of parchment neatly cut to A4 size and a fountain pen lay in front of her, staring at her accusingly. She stared back. Picking up the pen and turning it in her hands, she held it poised over the parchment and slowly began to write the first letter she had written to the Weasleys for nearly a month.
At first, the words came slowly, seeming fragile and detached but the more she wrote, the more the words began to flow from the tip of her fountain pen. Her brows furrowed as she leaned closer to the paper, her nose only inches from the sheet, breathing in the scent she loved of fresh parchment.
She leaned back in her chair and surveyed the lines she had written on the parchment, proofreading it as the ink dried. Her current address was included in the letter if they wished to contact her and, as an afterthought, she added the phone number to her flat at the bottom. Hopefully by now Ron understood that it was unnecessary to yell into the telephone receiver.
With another sip of her latte, her mind drifted to how this whole mess came about, to when it really, truly began.
—
On one particularly stuffy summer day two weeks after the school holidays had begun, eleven-year-old Hermione Jean Granger sat by the windowsill of her bedroom, her hazel-brown eyes momentarily taking a break from the heavy volume of Fantastic and Mythological Creatures in her lap and stared out the window, her cheek resting on a fist propped up on the sill. Observant eyes scanned the bright horizon, latching onto the occasional pigeon that flew away from its flock overhead until she stared at a dark speck in the distance she was sure was gradually getting larger and with every passing moment, closer. She carefully set the book down on her bed and perched on her chair, watching the bird with mounting excitement.
She sprang forward to the latch on the window, unlocking it and turning the crank that squeaked and groaned in protest. An owl! She gaped at it. She had read about them in her very own encyclopedia safely stashed away in her already overflowing bookshelf. She knew that owls only flew at night, so she was puzzled over why this particular owl was flying in broad daylight. When it released something that flew in through the open window, she could scarcely believe it. An owl, making deliveries? She watched as the object slid to a halt on the windowsill and when she looked down to examine it, she was astonished to find it was an envelope that was, in fact, addressed directly to her.
Miss H. Granger
Second Bedroom
12 Gratton Dr.
Windsor
Berkshire
She turned it over and squinted at the seal, the purple wax bearing a coat of arms consisting of a lion, a serpent, a raven, and a badger. Hands shaking slightly in excitement, she carefully pried the wax seal off the heavy parchment envelope and pulled out its contents. "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," she read aloud to herself in a whisper, her eyes glowing as she scanned the rest of the letter, her smile growing increasingly vibrant with every word she read.
"Mum! Dad!" she shouted and darted out the door and down the stairs, waving the letter wildly over her head as she skidded into the kitchen and thrust it on the dining table. "Look! I got an acceptance letter! I want to go to this school! I want to go to Hogwarts!"
"But you haven't gotten all of your letters back," her mother reasoned, taking the parchment from Hermione and frowned disapprovingly as she read it. She read it a second time before handing it to her husband whose initial reaction was almost identical.
Dr. Granger exchanged a smile with his wife. "Hermione, is this the book club that you were talking about starting all summer with your friends?"
Hermione shook her head, frowning up at her father. "No, my club's about tigers in captivity at the London Zoo. They're not treating them properly." She explained the needs of tigers with exasperated patience to her father, so enamored in her explanation that she missed the look of amusement and bemusement on her father's face as he glanced up at his wife for support.
"Hermione, this is absolute nonsense," her mother said firmly, "Do you realise the sacrifices that your father and I have made for you to go to a respectable school?"
"But you said –"
"I said," Dr. Granger repeated carefully, "you may choose from the schools you sat exams for, not some school you made up in your daydreams."
"But I didn't..." Hermione trailed off overwhelmingly nonplussed with anger. She looked at her father for support but, seeing none, stormed away, locking herself in her bedroom.
That night, Hermione lay restless in her bed, frowning as she heard the soft indiscernible mumbling of her parents' discussion downstairs. Torn between her insatiable curiosity and what she knew was wrong, she sighed and sat up, glaring furiously at the wall. She threw off the blankets and crept out of her room, tiptoeing down the stairs until she could see a clear view of the living room from between the balusters of the stairs.
"Well, you know, this does sort of explain those incidents at school," her father sighed. The couch creaked beneath him as he shifted.
Hermione could almost hear her mother frown disapprovingly. "But she's a half-mediocre student. Her teachers tell me she's always got her nose in those fantasy books; she doesn't pay attention in class. If we didn't speak with her teachers last year, she would have been held back! She's only eleven years old and she's already setting herself up for failure."
"She just hasn't found what she's interested in yet, that's all."
"This is Junior school we're talking about, not University!"
"It was only this past year that things have gone downhill," Hermione's father relented. "Look, the doctor said she has an eidetic memory. She can repeat and rewrite anything she sees or hears verbatim so the only reason I can see why she isn't doing well in school is because she sees no reason to. Quite frankly, I think we should let her go — she's never been this excited about school before. Maybe she'll make some friends. You know how important that is to her. Besides, we've received most of the letters from the schools she sat exams and none of them are accepting her. You can't just rely on the two schools she might be accepted to. This is the only half-decent school –"
"Half-decent school?" Dr. Granger repeated incredulously, her voice hysterically shrill. "We don't even know if this school exists! Have you looked at this?"
The parchment in Dr. Granger's hand crackled as she waved it in front of her husband's face.
"This is witchcraft! Do you want our daughter to be raised as a witch? Have you thought about what people will say if she goes to this school? We decided to raise her with standards and good beliefs and a real support system since the very day she was born! I can't believe we're even having this conversation! Hermione is going to a real school, none of this Hogwarts nonsense! I will not have my daughter being called a witch! She will grow up and have a practical, safe education so she can live any way she likes without prejudice."
If there was anything that was said after that scathing tone of finality in her mother's voice, Hermione never got to hear it. The floorboards creaked as Dr. Granger's rose to her feet and Hermione scrambled up the stairs to her room, shutting the door behind her. She sat there with her back against the door in silent contemplation. Her heart pounded in her ears as her mind buzzed and she fought the tears in her eyes.
Maybe her mother was right. After all, she hadn't heard of anyone considering a witch as good. And she wasn't anything special. She couldn't do anything magical or fantastic.
But what if she could be a wizard? Merlin was a wizard and he was good. Maybe she could be a wizard and free creatures like the tigers at the zoo if she studied hard enough. And if she studied hard enough, perhaps she could save herself from becoming a failure.
It wasn't until the next day when they sat down at the table to eat lunch that the subject was brought up again.
Hermione took a deep breath. "Mum, dad," she looked at her parents on either side of her in turn, "I really want to go to Hogwarts." She trembled when she looked at her mother so she spoke to her salad plate instead.
"I know I haven't been doing well in school lately but... I know I'll do well at Hogwarts. You always taught me to keep an open mind and pursue what I want to do." She bit her bottom lip, her short speech finished as she looked at her still unconvinced parents with begging eyes. "Is there anything – anything at all – that I can do to convince you?"
Hermione's mother studied her child, ignoring her husband's sheepish shrug and smile of encouragement. "Will you study hard and do as best you can?"
Hermione nodded vigorously. "I promise I'll be top of my year."
Her mother sighed and leaned back in her chair. "We will consider it," her mother finally stated. "After," she added with a sharp look at her husband, "the other schools reply."
In the end, all of the schools Hermione sat entrance exams rejected her, claiming that her academic prowess was lacking.
Within the week, a severe-looking woman arrived at their front doorstep and introduced herself as Professor McGonagall, the deputy headmistress of Hogwarts. It was through her patient but clipped persuasion that the importance of Hermione's attendance at Hogwarts was impressed upon her parents who ultimately resigned themselves to allow her to attend the magical school. Before long, Hermione was poring over every book about magic she could get her hands on while her parents went through pamphlet after pamphlet bearing such titles as Career Opportunities for the Budding Witch and Wizard with obsessive care.
On the first of September, she followed the Magical Muggle Orientation Representative into a post on Platform 9 at King's Cross station to board a magical train to take her to the school of her dreams. Every last detail about the school seemed to be embedded in her memory from the book she had eagerly yet regretfully paid for with the money she had been saving up to free the tigers from the London Zoo.
The rest was history.
Staring into the cup of coffee with a small frown, Hermione pursed her lips together and squinted outside at Sydney's late spring sunshine. Not for the first time in her nineteen years, she privately entertained the thought that perhaps her mother was right about Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry after all.
