There were quite a few times that Hermione almost left in the first few months in LA. She almost left when she figured out that while the three remaining members of Angel Investigations knew they needed her help, they didn't trust her.
Taking Wesley to Cordelia's apartment might have been a bad idea. Cordy and Gunn certainly weren't expecting to have the two of them appear in the living room with a loud snap. Hermione'd almost been beheaded, and Gunn hadn't been far behind with his axe. It took a few minutes to explain apparition, and the three of them kept looking at her like she was some sort of caged animal.
The real good that came out of that night was her getting to meet Dennis. Hermione and Cordelia's ghost had gotten on splendidly, which may or may not have helped with the trust issue the rest of them had. She'd been in the living room talking to him while the others were in Cordy's bedroom arguing, when she caught wind of their distrust. She'd almost cursed the twin's extendible ears, but she knew she needed to have a clear understanding of her place here.
She'd been a member of the wizarding world for so long, she'd forgotten what it was like for Muggles. The easy use of magic, the teleportation, the mind reading all added up to them thinking she was a time bomb waiting to take them down. She'd been close to tears, and about to leave, when Dennis convinced her to stay. The poltergeist told her how understanding the group could be, when given the chance. And when they returned to the living room and saw her reaction to their misgivings, they'd reacted the way Dennis had expected. Cordelia immediately pulled her into a hug, Wesley went to make her a cup of tea, and Gunn shifted uncomfortably on the carpet before engulfing both women in his arms.
She almost left after the incident with the zombie police force. The others had left her out of the initial plan, and once she got involved, she'd been livid. Wesley had been shot, there were kids in trouble, and no one had let her know. After the whole episode was contained, she'd railed at the three of them. Only Wesley's injury kept her from spewing some of the most intimate details of the War at them, as proof of what she was able to help with. She'd stormed out after her diatribe, determined to leave them to their own devices.
It was Lorne in that case that calmed her down. After she stomped her way into Caritas and proceeded to get blindingly drunk, he plied her with water, put her to bed, and went to give the three a piece of his mind. Even without singing, he could tell how much pain she'd been in, how lonely she'd been. If they wanted to keep their witch, they'd have to start trusting her.
A week later, she'd gotten on stage for him and sung her broken heart out. Lorne's head almost crumpled under the force of her, and he wasn't ashamed that he cried in front of the others. His reaction was the last bit of confirmation that they needed to accept her as one of their own.
She had her rucksack packed, and was almost to the local apparition point when they caught up to her, after they went back to Angel. She flat out refused to work for a vampire. It took a lot of begging on his behalf, Wesley's word that she'd be working with her team and not FOR the vampire, and the promise of the hotels kitchen as an experimental potions lab to get her to stay.
She sometimes wondered why she even did. There were plenty of other places she could set up to brew. She didn't like the city that much, and she didn't trust the heir of Aurelius as far as she could Muggle toss him. She liked the rest of them well enough, but they weren't nearly as close as she'd been to her friends back home, and she'd left them without a thought. It certainly wasn't for the money. She ended up helping to pay the bills more often than she received a pay check. Thank Godric for her Order of Merlin stipend!
Then, Cordelia went missing. In a library. The whole thing incensed her, and she was the first to demand that Lorne help them travel to his home world to save the Seer. Libraries were sacred, and to have her friend harmed in one was unconscionable.
It was in Pylea that she realized the real reason she hadn't left. She, Gunn, and Wesley were helping the rebels plan the attack that would lead them to recovering Cordy. She had given up magic on that world, as it tended to be unpredictable, and was using the skills she'd picked up travelling to negotiate, and fight by hand when there was a need for it. She glanced over to where Wes was making a rousing speech before the attack on the castle, and it clicked for her.
He had a sword in one hand, was gesturing with the other, and a drop of sweat rolled down his neck and into his shirt. She felt the bottom drop out of her stomach, and she knew. She'd done it again. She'd gone and fallen for the brave, determined, kind hearted man that would never feel the same for her. And to make it worse, this one was smart and stoic as well. She might as well have put her favorite bits of Harry and Severus into a blender, and concocted what she wanted.
She forced herself to look away before anyone could see the tears in her eyes. Four and a half years, she'd travelled the entire planet, gone to another one, in fact, and she ended up in the same damned place. "Oh, Severus, you'd be laughing your little black heart out at me right now. Stupid Gryiff know it all."
"I caught about one in three words there. What'cha saying, girl?"
She startled, not having seen Gunn walk up behind her. "Nothing. It's nothing. Just a memory. This isn't my first battle, you know."
"Yeah, my man Wes said something about there being a witch war over in merry olde. I never did get details on it, though."
Closing her eyes, she tried not to think about it. She forced herself not to raise a hand up to touch the scar on her chest from Dolohov's hex, but couldn't keep herself from rubbing her sleeve over the carved word Bellatrix had left on her flesh.
"Trust me, Gunn. You don't want details."
"That ain't the first time you've done that. With your arm. Don't think I never noticed. What happened?"
"It's nothing. Don't worry about it."
"Yeah, keep saying it's nothing, like I'm not gonna ask again. We're about to go into a fight, and I gotta know if you can hold your own."
Her head came up defiantly, "I can handle myself in battle. I've done it before, many times. I started fighting when I was eleven, I'm not going to start falling apart now."
"Eleven?" Came a quiet voice from behind her. She stifled a groan when she realized that in focusing her attention on Gunn, she'd been ignoring Wesley. He'd managed to sneak up on her.
"What of it? When it comes to defeating an evil, everyone does what they have to. And if adults don't listen to you, you do it yourself. I may have been on holiday for the last four years, but for the seven before that I was fighting for my life, for my friend's lives, for the freedom of the planet. I won't apologize for it."
"No one would ask you to. May I see your arm, please?"
She shrank away from both of the men staring intently at her. "No. Why does it matter? I've worked with you for six months, you've never cared before. It doesn't change anything."
"No, it doesn't change anything, but Charles is right. It's something that you do a lot when you're nervous, and I rather think it best to get out in the open."
"Yeah, and for the record, just cause we didn't ask doesn't mean we don't care. We just figured you'd tell us when you wanted to, you know?"
"Please."
It was the hushed request, and the outstretched hand that made her give in. She cursed herself inwardly even as she placed her hand in Wesley's. It was the same kind of plea Harry always used, one she could never refuse. She looked away as Wesley carefully turned her arm and rolled up her sleeve. Both men inhaled sharply as her scar was revealed.
"What's that mean, English?"
"It's a slanderous term for a witch that comes from a non wizarding background." He brushed his thumb over the word.
She yanked her arm away. "So, now you know. Feel better? You've got proof that after hours of torture, I can stand up to an insane racist bitch that carves slurs into me without divulging information. Happy? Trust me to help storm the fucking castle with you? Or should I go wait by the car, like the helpless little girl you obviously think I am?"
If she'd been looking at them, she'd have seen the furious exchange of looks the men made. Gunn finally spoke up.
"How old?"
"What?"
"How old were you when crazy bitch did that?"
"Why does my age matter? I was hexed badly enough to require a stay at Saint Mungo's when I was fifteen, being put under the Cruciatus repeatedly was just par for the course."
She heard Wesley hiss in a breath, and realized a bit too late that anyone trained by the Council would know exactly what Unforgivables were.
"Fuck. It's not important, Wesley. It was five years ago."
"I was trained in the curses when I was a watcher. The Lestranges and Crouch used that curse to drive a couple of Aurors into insanity. Repeated use of the Cruciatus is enough to drive anyone mad."
"Yeah, well, I had more important things to do at the time."
"Tell us."
"We've more important things to do at this time, too."
"You know, I don't think we do," Gunn interjected. "We got about four hours before this whole thing goes down. I think that's enough time to tell us about what ever this crus-thing is. And I know I want to hear about it."
"I was involved in a war for seven years, and you want to hear about it in four hours?"
"See, that's the part that's all hinkey. You keep saying you were 'involved with' this war deal, but that makes it sound like you were some kind of soldier. What I'm hearing about this curse thing makes it sound like you were front line kind of people."
"Fine." She walked to the tree line and sat down on a stump. The guys followed after her.
"There was a war. A dark wizard wanted to 'purify' the bloodlines of wizarding society, which meant anyone that wasn't pureblood. Muggleborn 'Mudbloods' like me, and Muggles alike. Muggle would be the term for you, Gunn, and everyone else that isn't a witch or wizard at least a generation old. He was defeated once, in 1981. He tried to murder a baby named Harry Potter. He killed Harry's parents, but when he cursed the baby, it rebounded and killed him instead.
"That baby grew up to be one of my best friends. When the Dark Lord came back, he and Harry were pitted against each other in ultimate battle. We spent seven years fighting him. A lot of things happened in those seven years. We won. The end."
She stood. "There, that wasn't so hard."
Gunn grabbed her hand and pulled her back to her seat. "Nu-uh, girl. You're gonna have to do better than that. I get that it's a long story, and I wanna hear it, but for now, I wanna hear about this curse thing. So get talking."
She threw a pleading look at Wesley, who shook his head. "You lot aren't going to let this go, are you?"
Both men shook their heads.
"Right. In the last year of the war, Harry, our friend Ronald, and myself became the focus of Voldemort's wrath. We were the most hunted people on the planet, so we had to go into hiding. We managed for about six months before we were grabbed."
"If I recall, the end of the War was not long before the Mayor's ascension in Sunnydale. A year, at most. That would have made you, what, seventeen?" Wesley asked.
"By the Final Battle, I was eighteen. But yes, your timing is close."
"You're telling me three teenagers were public enemy number one, on the run, from some resurrected bad wizard dude? How the hell does that happen?"
"I don't know, Gunn. How do a bunch of homeless teenagers end up fighting vampires? You do what you have to. I spent months preparing for the fact that we'd have to go into hiding eventually. And we didn't do too badly until we were snatched. We went hungry a lot, and we were ready to give up and face the Dark Lord on a daily basis, but we survived."
"Until you got snatched."
"Yes. The Snatchers caught up with us, and took us to the home of one of the Dark Lord's generals. They locked up Harry and Ron, and decided I'd be likely to give them the information they wanted. I was tortured by repeated use of the Cruciatus curse, as I said, and when I wouldn't give them the information they wanted, they started with knives. Not long after I received my permanent reminder, we managed to escape."
"I notice you're leaving out quite a few names. Who was it that tortured you?" Wesley asked.
She closed her eyes. "I'd say it doesn't matter, but I know you two won't let it go now. It was Bellatrix Lestrange."
"No!" She and Gunn both stared at him at his outburst. "The Lestranges were put in prison after they drove the Longbottom Aurors mad. It was public record!"
"Prisons have a way of being broken out of, especially when the man pulling the strings is the most powerful dark wizard in history. She's dead now, though, so you can relax. Ron's mother killed her in the final battle. And I've visited the Longbottoms, I'm very good friends with their son. I'm well aware of what could have happened to me."
The three of them sat in silence for a few minutes. Hermione had an almost painful bout of déjà vu. A man she wanted but couldn't have, and a best friend, and herself. Sitting in a forest, waiting to go into battle. Merlin help her, she was repeating everything over again. She almost couldn't take the pain in her heart.
But she withstood it. Even when it was trebled by the newest addition to their group. She was almost grateful that there were no more questions about the war. Everyone was concerned about making sure Fred was all right.
And no one noticed that she flinched every time she heard the name. She felt badly at first. It wasn't fair to the poor woman that her very name brought up the grief of losing Fred Weasley every time she was addressed. And if they realized she always referred to the physicist as 'Winifred', no one said anything.
But then she had to watch the spectacle unfold around her. Angel was in love with Cordy. Fred was infatuated with Angel. Wesley and Gunn were smitten by Fred. Hermione started spending more and more time in her lab. And no one noticed.
It was just like being back at Hogwarts. Drama and teen angst, and she really expected better from a two hundred year old vampire. She started thinking about moving on again. She'd had close to a year in LA, and she'd gotten a lot of her notes together. It had only been Cordelia's surety that she had to be with them for a specific reason that kept her from leaving earlier.
Well, that wasn't entirely true. After travelling for so long, it was nice to be a part of something again, to belong. But she didn't, anymore. She didn't really have a place. Her offers of translation assistance were brushed off, her shield charms not needed. The only things they ever really asked for from her were potions, and any apothecary could provide those.
She quietly began making plans to leave. She started thinking about going back home. Maybe it was time. She could rent her own building for research. She was sure that she could get funding, as one of the War Veterans. Or maybe Italy, they'd offered her a spot there, once they'd gone over Severus's notes and realized how perfectly he'd trained her. She gave notice on her lease, and started shipping her things back to her parents long abandoned house in England.
And then, Angel bought the wrong damned tickets. They all went to the ballet instead of the concert Gunn wanted to see. In just one night, in a handful of hours, everything went to hell.
