Part IV
Ronald is standing at the kitchen counter when she descends the stairs. He is eating the leftover casserole, cold, directly from the dish. She sees this as a prelude to his next month or so, and is spitefully pleased.
He meets her eyes in the mirror of the night-black window, and swallows. Is he going to speak to her reflection? He's been doing that for years, and she's past the obligation of listening.
She pulls her boots on, and walks out of her life.
The grass is frozen, and makes a satisfying crunch with every step; she lifts the latch on the garden gate, and continues around to the front of the house. She's going to check the letterbox one last time. Because you just never know.
But of course there's nothing there.
She closes the box, and leaves the key in the door. Perhaps Ronald will want to keep up the electricity, which he'll have a hard time doing if he can't get at the utility bills. Really, though, she should probably cancel everything, else she'll end up paying it. The thought of all the new complications stretching before her is nearly overwhelming. Now that she's checked the post, she has no idea what to do next. Everything? Nothing.
She sits down on the front step, shrunken trunk and carpet bag of books at her feet. She can hear Ronald shuffling up the stairs to bed. The lights go off. She wonders if he'll sleep.
Showing up at 12 Grimmauld Place would be the easiest. But if she does, and it transpires this is only a tiff, she'll be telegraphing undue alarm directly to Molly. And if it's not? Well, Harry's a Weasley in every way that counts. He'll bow out as a non-combatant at the earliest sign of open warfare. Moreover, although she'll never rub his nose in it, she remembers only too well how they shunned her over the Firebolt. She is not under any illusions as to how battle lines will be drawn should she ever force the issue.
Her parents' flat, then. Ronald's incorrect: it's not 'empty' in any meaningful sense, but they're also not in residence at the moment. It's somewhere to sleep, anyhow. And she'd like very much to do that. Maybe just for a month or two, wake up when things have lost their radioactive glow.
She pulls herself reluctantly to her feet. The cold, or some delayed reaction now that the adrenaline is running down, has her shivering.
She closes her eyes and concentrates on her memory of her mother's kitchen, with its spotless white cupboards, gleaming appliances, and surgically clean smell. There are several moments of blinding pressure as her atoms rearrange themselves, and then she's there, stumbling against the stainless steel refrigerator.
It's been years since she's seen this room. But that's alright – it's the one place in their lives that never changes, because it's not as if it ever gets used for anything. She steadies herself against the counter, and notes that there is at least sweetener – not sugar, her mother's been on a diet as long as Hermione can remember - in one of the glass canisters. At least she won't have to run down to the shops before a cuppa in the morning.
Morning. It's not that far off, but when she runs the calculation in her head, there is still plenty of time to call to Melbourne. Unfortunate, that, but she can hardly impose without their permission. She pads into their shared office, and seats herself in front of the telephone. She has to look up the number, but she finds it eventually, so there's no putting this off.
"Hello?" A woman's voice from the other side of the globe.
"Mother. It's… well, it's me. Hermione."
"I expected so when I saw the number. Why are you in our flat?" Our flat. A word that excludes her.
"I… I need a place to stay for a few days. Until I can sort something of my own."
"I find it disconcerting that you've broken in so readily. But then, you don't have a good sense of boundaries."
There is nothing she can say to this, except "I'm sorry. I'll leave if it's a problem."
"I'll discuss it with Lester and call you back." Lester, not 'your father'. There is a click, and the line goes dead. She sets the phone back in its cradle, and carefully touches nothing else on the desktop.
She rubs her eyes. They're burning from the tears shed earlier. She draws in deep, calming breaths, trying to trick her body into releasing the tension bound up in her stiffening limbs. This was a monumentally fuck-witted idea; she could have sprung for a room at the Leaky. Or even some Muggle place, if she didn't want to advertise to half the wizarding world. What has she hoped for, anyway? Sanctuary? The notion's laughable.
The phone ringing startles her half to death, a statement on the efficacy of deep breathing. "Yes?"
"Move my suits out of the closet in the guest bedroom. You can sleep there, although I expect you to wash all the bedding before you leave."
"Of course. I appreciate this very much."
"Then don't leave a mess. I will expect everything in its rightful place. We're back on the 20th. Clear out before then." She hangs up before Hermione can stammer more gratitude. It's just as well, probably.
Alright. She has a place to sleep. That's something, isn't it?
There is considerable irony in that her sprawling life with all its semi-secret tendrils should be reduced to such small victories, and that these miniscule skirmishes should seem so overwhelming. Take the suits, for instance: she sits on the foot of the bed, staring at them. There aren't even that many, a couple dozen, perhaps, but it's more effort than she has the will to tackle. In the morning. In the morning, she'll sort Everything out.
Her Everythings have gotten smaller, too. Although maybe that's a mercy.
She wakes at the crack of noon, with the sensation that she's displaced parts of herself again, forgotten them somewhere: a public loo, a grimy café, a shop in Knockturn Alley that she wouldn't want anyone to see her sneaking out of. Someplace like that. Unsanitary at best, disreputable on the pendulum's backswing.
Her day's all disordered, so maybe it's just down to the lack of caffeine. There aren't any teabags (are they on another health kick?), and the stash of frozen coffee beans is playing at being invisible when she pokes through the near-barren freezer. Nor is there anything she can scavenge for breakfast: a lonely box of bran in a cupboard, a plastic jar of whey, forlorn Worcestershire sauce in an otherwise empty refrigerator. She runs a glass of cold water from the tap – can she manage a shower and a toothbrush before the corner shop? Is the corner shop even still there?
She's forgotten to bring her toothbrush, so she swipes a fresh one from the drawer after a few minutes' debate. And since she's forced to go out anyway, she ought to track down a letting agency or two. 'Home' just isn't, after all. Having stolen a toothbrush, it's only another small step to borrowing one of the pert suits. It fits well enough, and she can't very well turn up to an agency's office in denims and a Weasley sweater.
The rents are outrageous. She considers swallowing her pride and scouting something on the wizarding side, but her Order of Merlin allowance, once changed for pounds, does stretch to a cramped bedsit that she tours on the fifth day. The agent's smile is brittle: what does a well-dressed young woman want with this tip? She'd prudently removed her wedding band, which would otherwise have been an answer.
In the meantime, she's managed to buy respectable Muggle clothing of her own, have the suit dry-cleaned, replace the stolen toothbrush, procure a ready supply of caffeine, navigate the purchase of a mobile telephone, and even lay in a stock of comestibles from Sainsbury's. This flurry of busy-ness has kept her mind from dwelling on the fact that Ronald appears entirely serious, and neither of her closest friends, the sainted Potters, have been in touch.
She abandons her parent's flat for the dismal little bedsit with a day to spare, and springs for a cleaning service to scour the place of her occupancy. She leaves the cleaners' receipt on the kitchen table, mute evidence that she's kept to her end of the bargain. Her mother would've cleaned all over again anyway, if she'd had to rely upon Hermione's presumed incompetence. Magic doesn't kill germs, or so her mother believes. Her mother is not exceedingly fond of magic, admittedly with good reason.
She makes one trip into Diagon Alley, to send Ronald an owl. It's a quick note, cold and devoid of any grovelling. Just her new address, and a request that he forward on any mail that she receives at the house. She's not going to be the first to crack, and besides: she's happier this way. Isn't she? She has all the time in the world to work on her research now, which explains entirely why she has yet to complete her revisions.
She finds both the cheery strands of music that pour from shop doors and the unrestrained festoons of Christmas greenery and glittering lights to be utterly oppressive. She hurries back through the slushy streets, fleeing reminders that the rest of the world has not imploded into a yellow room with bed, stove, and dingy narrow shower stall.
The bedsit's not conducive to work. It's barely conducive to sleep; she can hear Next Doors' television set late into the night. So she finds herself drinking coffee at midnight in a little Hungarian café. There's no Christmas music, and the only decorations are bright rustic patterns on the china, and the embroidered scarf that drapes across the dessert display at the till. The coffee comes bitter and so dark it hurts her teeth, and the walrus-mustached man who sets down his invariable paper to prepare her order smiles knowingly at her when he selects a marzipan to perch on the edge of her saucer. He's someone's uncle, surely, he has that kindly look.
So she comes here, evenings and afternoons too. She spreads out her revisions because there isn't anything else to do, between marzipans. When she finishes the last edits, she treats herself to a slice of rakott palacsinta. This is the highlight of her week, although she tries not to frame it that way. Laszlo (because of course his name is Laszlo) sets it on her tiny table with a flourish, but ruins it by telling her that the café will be closed over the upcoming holiday. She nods affably, thanks him, and wonders where else she can hide until exhaustion walks her home at night.
An owl flutters against her window later that evening. It's carrying a plague-infested note from Harry, a few hasty lines that assure her that they'd love to see her for Christmas dinner, but understand entirely that she might not feel comfortable joining them. Well, now that's been made certain, hasn't it? She shoos the owl away into the London night, and unshrinks a few books. She'll get started on her idea for time-delaying the reactive and otherwise-toxic effects of a particular class of antivenins, a Christmas game of 'Howdunit'. If she ever solves the mystery, maybe she'll get another note. She wants to tell herself comforting bedtime stories: you are not alone, not really.