Disclaimer: This is all for fun, I do not claim ownership of the characters or anything recognized from the work of JK Rowling. I am only borrowing them.
Warning: Mature themes, subject to change: mild violence, scenes of a sexual nature as well as general innuendo smattered throughout, adult themes including but not limited to death and disease both mental and physical.
Playlist: U2 – The Unforgettable Fire | Radical Face – Ghost Towns | Vitamin String Quartet – Jack and Sally Montage | John Williams – Quidditch, Third Year
Sunday, July 17th, 2005 | 11:13 am | Number 12, Grimmauld Place
Hermione Apparated directly to the front step of Harry and Ginny's home. Despite the war being over for nearly a decade all the original Order of the Phoenix enchantments, with the exception of the Fidelius Charm, were still in place on the Ancient and most Noble House of Black. A family like the Potters only had hope of a quiet home life in something that was Unplottable and still had a few nasty charms left on the front gate for those who had not been welcomed inside by a family member previously. The Ministry also made them pay a large fee every year for continuing to block their Floo to any unknown visitors and owls were rerouted three times before being delivered.
She wore the same jeans she had yesterday, now covered in green and gold paint that only Molly Weasley could hope to clean out, with a faded Led Zeppelin shirt that had once belonged to her father. She tapped the door with her wand to send a silent message to Ginny that she was there without risking waking James with a doorbell or knock. He had the tendency to fall asleep in the sitting room.
Ginny arrived moments later and gave her a friendly once over before huffing air noisily out of her nose.
"C'mon, time to go to work," she said, before she bodily brought her into the front hallway.
The two witches quietly made their way up the stairs towards the first floor of bedrooms. Ginny confirmed Hermione's suspicions about James when she held a hand to her lips as they passed the master suite's doors. Through a crack in the door she saw the outlines of Harry and his son curled up for a post lunch nap as Harry read Tales of Beadle the Bard aloud. There wouldn't be enough time for James to sleep at his normal nap time before Percy and Audrey's wedding so he was being coaxed into it now.
After a few silencing charms were cast in the guest suite across the hall, Ginny turned to the two sealed bags on the bed.
"The left bag is yours, Hermione. It finally came by owl last night."
Trying to not make it obvious she was holding her breath, Hermione reached for the left bag and started to unzip. Ginny had ordered the robes for the two of them from the same company Hermione had ordered her dress robes for the Yule Ball in fourth year. As soon as she had finished unzipping the bag she levitated them out to float gently by the bed. A Pureblood wedding with very Pureblood traditions meant well-tailored robes, and these actually made her take a small intake of breath when they were completely revealed.
They reminded her in a pleasant way of her Healer's robes, the ones she had earned alongside Draco three summers ago after their graduation from L'Institut de Guérison Magique in Montpellier. Those were an unbecoming shade of lime green but fit beautifully with long sleeves just past her wrists and a fitted bodice that did not restrict her movement. The robes for the ceremony were closer to teal than green but also were long sleeved and fitted around the middle with a flowing overlay reminiscent of sixteenth century gowns.
"Those are lovely!" said Ginny as she levitated her own robes out of their travel bags. Ginny's were a very dark shade of amber and cut to flow generously around her pregnant belly, also appearing to be a variant on Tudor styles.
"So are yours, Ginny," Hermione said. "However, for all the trouble we went through to order these for one wedding ceremony and a reception I am so happy that you and Harry didn't go the more traditional route."
Ginny wrinkled her nose. "Percy loves Audrey, and she loves him, but they're doing this for their careers more than anything. Even though he's closer now to Fred and George than he ever was before the war he's still a stickler to doing things by the book and Audrey is only too happy to oblige." She left her robes floating near the dresser as she began to rifle through her chest of drawers for jewelry to match. "Everyone is so…quiet about blood status that it's getting harder and harder to follow the old traditions but he wouldn't have it any other way. I swear he had his wedding planned out before Audrey even had a chance to make a suggestion."
Hermione could feel a headache begin prickling behind her eyes as she watched Ginny hold a pair of earrings up against the fabric of her amber robes before shaking her head and putting them back.
"There are a lot of…traditions I would rather see out of wizarding culture and old laws that should be struck from the books," Hermione said. "Blood magic is still outlawed but there are a lot of disturbing loopholes where Muggle blood is concerned."
Ginny's face was stony as she nodded her head at a pair of small stud earrings with emeralds set in gold, then began to look for something to go with Hermione's robes. The redhead turned to her oldest friend. There was no mistaking the lines of tension that crossed Hermione's brow as she sat on the edge of the guest bed with her arms folded.
"Those laws were made during very dark times in wizarding culture, they predate the Ministry. It will still be years, the way Percy and Dad talk, before they even scrape the surface of the litigations and edicts Voldemort and his damned puppets left behind after both wars. Not to mention that fuckface Fudge and his slimy sidekick Umbridge."
Muttering about politicians who had less spine than a flobberworm, Hermione stood to help her friend choose something from the heirlooms that would be least likely to jinx her hair into another color or make one eye list off to the right. She knew that Fred and George had been around recently with all the wedding preparations and did not put it past them to have broken into this chest during their last visit. Marriage and children had not tampered their joking in the slightest.
Harry had found the jinx placed on the tea set before she left yesterday and had spent the better part of an hour unable to say anything but the version of the Hogwarts school song the twins loved the most: sung in a slow funeral dirge. Really, he should have known better as an Auror to have felt that charm before setting it off, so Hermione hadn't felt bad for him one whit as she saved that memory in a Pensieve to be lived again later.
The slight stinging in the back of her eyes slowly grew to a steady ache as Ginny brushed out her hair and began to braid. Hermione closed her eyes and just listened to Ginny's steady chatter as she picked up where she had left off the day before on updating her on the goings-on of the expanding Weasley family.
"Fleur and Bill finally listened to reason and applied for the Undetectable Extension Charm permit for another bedroom on Shell Cottage. Victoire is almost five now, with Dominique right on her heels and they will absolutely need more than the two bedrooms if they plan on more. Charlie will be staying at Fred and Alicia's this week and I'm hoping to convince him to stay for Harry's birthday as well. He doesn't visit very often and we probably won't see him again until the hols. Mum wanted me to ask you something, but I don't remember if it was about work or the wedding…I'll ask you when I think of it…"
Hermione didn't mind the commentary. Both of her parents had been only children so she didn't have dozens of cousins, nieces and nephews, or siblings to keep track of. Harry absolutely relished this abundance of family after growing up with a piss-poor excuse for one.
It was nearly one in the afternoon when Ginny was finally able to braid, coif and charm every inch of Hermione's hair. Looking satisfied with herself, she cancelled the silencing charms on the room to step out and check on Harry and James. As soon as she opened the door, two redheaded children streaked by shrieking at the top of their lungs followed by James with a dragon kite charmed to breathe fire and roar as it flew behind him.
"June, Jasper and James, stop running in the house!" Ginny said as soon as she got over the shock of the trio running past her. Jasper slowed as he rounded a corner, looking a little sheepish as he continued after his twin sister and his cousin.
Harry stepped around the corner where the children had run from with the same look Jasper had on his face, his hair looking slightly singed as a tendril of smoke rose from his head.
"Ron and Lavender are here," he said unnecessarily. "They're both downstairs with Charlie."
"So that's where the dragon kite came from," Ginny said with a good-humored growl to her voice. She gently put out the small fire on his head and turned to Hermione. "I know I can't indulge, but would you like to come downstairs for a glass of wine, take a break from my torture?"
Hermione smirked. "Pinot noir is just the thing to get me through this."
Sunday, July 17th, 2005 | 3:24 pm | Number 12, Grimmauld Place
"Have you seen his sock? Where is his other sock?"
"He just had it on! I'll just transfigure this one to match."
"Fine, that works for me." Harry gently tackled his son as he continued to run circles around his parents who were desperate to dress him and get out the door on time. "Did they need help with the twins?"
Ginny shook her head slightly as she stuck the last pin in her updo and cast a sticking charm over the whole thing. "June and Jasper are all ready to go, they're in the sitting room waiting for Side-Along with Ron and Hermione. I'm so happy she agreed to come to the wedding, it will be nice to have more adults than children around to help control the chaos."
"She looks great, Gin. I haven't seen her look so happy in months." Harry finally got the two socks to match and was putting on James' shoes when he saw Lavender dart into the bathroom down the hall from their bedroom. He winced. "I don't envy Ron over the next few months."
Ginny visibly shuddered, recollecting the time Lavender was pregnant with the twins. The poor witch had been absolutely downtrodden with morning sickness throughout most of the pregnancy and it looked like history was repeating itself. She absentmindedly rubbed at her stomach and thought silently to her growing son how thankful she was that he was not wreaking the same havoc on her body.
Downstairs in the sitting room Ron and Hermione each held a small twin on their laps and chatted amicably about Ron's part time job managing the Weasley Wizard Wheezes shop while Ginny was on maternity leave. He was also assisting the head manager for her team, the Holyhead Harpies, but without his main player on the field he had free time to spare for his children and helping Fred and George with their store.
Hermione was smirking to herself as Ron bemoaned all the paperwork that went with managing a shop over a Quidditch player and felt a good rush of pride when Ron started talking about how he was making do and didn't once insinuate asking for her help. A significant factor in their break up six years previously had been his unyielding demands for her help just like when they had been Hogwarts students. In the years since, it had turned into something more amicable when Ron asked for her advice instead of assistance. Their friendship was less strained when he wasn't pining after her for homework help.
Charlie Weasley stood by the fireplace, soaking up the heat like a cat, and interjected comments into their conversation between sips from his glass of Firewhiskey. It had been a year or two since Hermione had seen him last, but he hadn't changed much from the dragon tamer of her memory. Still tanned, still scarred, and still built like Viktor Krum. He was fit. She pocketed that information; Hermione had sworn off Weasleys after Ron because there was no redemption for sleeping with more than one brother.
"Where are you working, these days, Hermione? The last time I visited you were still at the Ministry," Charlie said, his voice warmed by laughter.
"I left the Ministry not long after you went back to Romania. I started in the Department of the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures but once they lifted the bans on werewolf legislation I started to get back into my Arithmancy and Theory. I work for a research firm now."
"That sounds perfect for you. They're lucky to have you, no doubt." Charlie made a small toast motion to her with his glass, which she returned, before draining the rest of his Firewhiskey.
"Hermione's always been the cleverest of us," said Ron. "Don't you still check into the Ministry every once in awhile? Dad says he sees you once or twice a month."
Hermione nodded. "Yes. I bring documents into the Ministry that we don't trust to go by owl to several different Departments."
When Harry and Ginny came downstairs with Lavender and James, Charlie set his empty glass down on the mantle and went over to grab his nephew. James still held onto his kite that was shaped like a Norwegian Ridgeback and started animatedly retelling Charlie how much he loved it and how much it looked like the models in his books. Hermione stood after her lap ornament June leapt off of her to join her cousin and went to pour herself another glass of wine at the bookcase bar at the end of the room.
As she took the Stasis charm off the top of the bottle and made the move to pour another glass, she felt her ears pop as if she had just dropped several meters underwater. Her hand abruptly stopped moving before any wine left the bottle into her glass. Her ears still had an abnormal amount of pressure on them; her scalp had shocks of static electricity running through it.
Woodenly she put the Stasis charm back on the bottle of wine and reached for the bottle of Firewhiskey Charlie had opened earlier. Turning mechanically, her dress robes floating around her as she did, she walked closer to the fireplace to face the middle of the sitting room.
Occlumens training gave the user more than just the ability to hide certain thoughts away behind a barrier. Those proficient at it, like Hermione after the last decade of near constant use of it, gained several strengths including suppression of nightmares, lowered anxiety, and being able to spot a lie. Hermione wondered why she had gotten herself into this mess despite all those Occlusion benefits.
She was counting her breaths in and out as she stood with her back to the hearth in the main sitting room of Grimmauld Place. It wasn't as haunting as it had been when it was Headquarters but it still needed a fire or two lit during the summer to keep out the grim and chill. She could feel the slight sunburn from the last two days in the garden begin to heat uncomfortably but she refused to move an inch. Her smile had slipped steadily from polite, to frozen, to something that would easily sink the Titanic.
"You did think to place a Silencing Charm on the room before cornering me in here, correct?" The only hint of emotion in her voice was a shadow of impatience. She picked up the glass from the mantle beside her and took another sip.
The handful of witches and wizards shuffled uncomfortably around the room. Ron and Lavender sat together on the couch shoved far away from the heat of the hearth and Ginny was nearby in her armchair. Lavender looked barely recovered from her rush to the loo; her cheeks were still tinged an unpleasant shade of green. Harry was leaning, in what could be misconstrued as a casually way, against the door and only exit to this room. Hermione cocked her head to the side at him and subtly waved her wand-hand around a bit. She felt like her hand had brushed an invisible spider web of energy…a cocktail of Disapparition wards, silencing charms and a final charm that made her recoil as soon as her fingers began to feel the small tendrils of magic around her.
There was no point hiding the anger from her face now; at least releasing one emotion from behind the barrier made room to control the others fighting to surface.
"How…how dare you, Harry Potter! A Compulsion charm? What am I, a toddler being kept out of a potions closet?"
Harry stared hard at her. "Hermione, you won't talk to us without it."
She turned and smashed her glass into the hearth. The fire swelled with the added fuel of Firewhiskey.
"What the hell do I have to say to people who feel the need to curse me to get me to talk to them?"
"For starters you could tell us why you've been calling off work so much lately," said Ron. His voice was steady but the slight twitch of his fingers locked with Lavender's betrayed him.
The rage she had released towards Harry blurred red around the edges of her vision. She could feel the sparks of energy racing along the lines of the braids in her hair. The strength of the Compulsion made her grind her teeth. Hermione turned her flushed face to where Ginny sat, hands folded on top of her pregnant belly.
"You haven't just been missing work, Hermione," Ginny said in her soothing "mother" voice. "You've been avoiding all of us for months."
Hermione wished she was holding something else she could throw, so she threw her arms wide. "What the fuck do you think this is? I'm here, aren't I?"
Ron shuffled his feet a bit. "You don't answer our owls."
Distracted by anger, the charm got the better of her and she bit out, "I don't need to respond daily to your harping."
Ron's cheeks started to get ruddy, but he didn't say anything else to that. Hermione's fingers began twitching spasmodically. The headache that had started earlier was about to mutate into a full on migraine but she didn't care. She had felt worse under the effects of several batches of DMB. Who were they to do this, to create an intervention just because she hadn't felt very social recently?
Ginny started talking more about how she was never around, never sent anyone messages, never had coffee, and kept going on. Hermione had stopped listening and began moving her fingers into more intricate motions. Once her lips started moving, Harry finally started paying attention to her fidgeting.
"Hermione, don't!" he shouted as he lunged towards her, propelling himself off the door.
Before his outstretched fingers could reach her she had broken through the Disapparition wards, summoned her canvas bag, and left with a bang loud enough to break through the last of Harry's Silencing charms. Once she made it into 19 Aster Way the combination of physical, magical and emotional exhaustion forced the walls of her Occlumency down and she began to cry a steady stream of tears.
She was able to strengthen her wards right before she collapsed from the strain on her magical core, already battered from the treatment then pushed to their limit from dismantling Harry's wards. Even so, they would keep even a veteran curse breaker busy for a day or so.
Sunday, July 17th, 2005 | 7:59 pm | 19 Aster Way, Surrey
There was no concept of how long she had been out, lying on the floor of her garage. Once she was awake, she stumbled into her house proper. Her beautiful robes were off in a matter of minutes and shoved into the back of her spare room closet.
Muggle. What she needed right now was to be Muggle. Grabbing the jean shorts she had worn gardening and her father's Led Zeppelin t-shirt, she cast a forceful Finite on the charms in her hair so she was left with just the waterfall braid around her head like a crown.
She would have to apologize for missing Audrey's wedding when she saw her for the seventh and final session of DMB 4.6. Tonight she was getting drunk in Muggle London.