Hermione gave Ron his space with reasonable composure until her birthday. She focussed on her lectures and tried not to think about anything else. Yoga helped, as did her study group united in their mutual dismay over Professor Hepworth's abstruse essay topics for their first assignment.
When she woke on the morning of the nineteenth, Hermione was delighted to find a parliament of owls in the roost, all with birthday messages. Dumbledore's Army and Order of the Phoenix members, and people she'd met during the legal appeal against the Marriage legislation had all sent felicitations for her twenty-first birthday.
One of the dour Flint owls held an ordinary envelope containing a Muggle birthday card with a kitten on it. Hermione smiled at the mundane bit of stationary Marcus had braved a foreign world to purchase.
Harry had sent a wizarding card via a Ministry owl. His message included a number for the mobile phone he had bought in defiance of Ginny as well as the Harpies' playing schedule so they could meet discreetly.
Nothing from any Weasley.
Hermione put the cards on the mantle, fed Crookshanks then went to university. She had a good day and bought dinner from a Greek delicatessen, opting for baklava rather than cake for her party of one.
When she returned to her building Hermione found at the front door Eliot, D. Wright, the man in the other downstairs flat, and S. Hughes, the woman who shared her floor. They were all smiling as though they were in on a good joke.
None of the three would tell her the source of their amusement but assured her she would find out when she got to her flat. She did. Someone had filled the hall with bouquets of red and yellow flowers; roses, lilies, chrysanthemums, tulips, irises and more she couldn't name.
Afterwards, once she had read the note, Hermione chided herself for the little skip her heart had done. A good and kind friend had done this for her. He had made this lavish gesture because he cared and because he knew she would miss her parents as he had missed his on special days like this.
"Either someone loves you or they've done something really, really stupid." Eliot observed as he and their neighbours climbed the stairs to admire the floral extravaganza.
"It's my birthday." Hermione said simply. "And Neville wanted to cheer me up."
"Neville isn't that loud ginger chap, is he?" Ms. Hughes asked with a significant look at Eliot. They met for chai tea and gossip at least once a week. They had not been impressed at being woken so early by boyfriend drama.
"That's Ron. I don't expect he will be coming around again." The witch spoke with an airiness that fooled no one, regretfully not even herself. Hermione would have liked a little self-delusion right now. "Neville is a friend from school."
"Is he as built as that other 'friend' from school?" Eliot moved his hands to convey how tall, how broad and how not bad that particular friend was.
"They're cousins." Hermione reckoned that if she was going to have good relations with the people in her building she was going to have to put up with them grinning at her That Way. "They do look fairly similar, yes."
"I wish I'd gone to your school." Ms. Hughes hadn't seen Ms. Granger move in but Eliot had described her friends in detail later. Particularly how good the dark haired one looked in jeans going upstairs.
"It was very dull." The Muggle-born war hero said with a carefully bland face.
Eliot, Daniel and Sarah helped her carry the flowers into her flat. She shared Marcus's divorce champagne with them and they toasted her coming of age before going back to their various apartments.
Hermione sat on her shabby chic sofa, rubbing her feet against the soft cushions. She acknowledged to herself she was unhappy Ron hadn't sent or done anything for her birthday. It wasn't childish or maudlin to be disappointed. She was allowed to be upset.
But it would not happen again.
Transfiguring a highlighter into a glass bird, Hermione set it on her coffee table. She'd use it as a paperweight and every time she looked at the yellow ornament she would remember the Oppugno Jinx she had used on Ron in sixth year. Just because he kept leaving didn't mean she had to keep taking him back.
She didn't actually have to do anything. Hermione stretched out on her sofa and stared at her white ceiling. The war was over. Hogwarts was over. Her adolescence was over. She didn't have to protect or help or fight for anyone any more.
She still wanted to, which was fine. It was good to give a damn. But she got to choose her battles now. And her next fight was going to be getting a degree. A proper MBiochem that she could take pride in, and that would help her revolutionise the frankly medieval approach to magical research.
Which was not going to happen if she moped. So she sat up and did some reading on peptides to see if short chain amino acid monomers could be her friends. At first meeting, they didn't seem amiable. Hermione went to bed at midnight and dreamed of molecules dancing a slow rumba of chemical reactions.
On Wednesday between lectures, Hermione Apparated to Diagon Alley to buy an owl. She had always had access to either Hogwarts or Burrow owls, or had borrowed a Flint bird while she was staying at Marcus's great-uncle's pied a terre. Now she needed one of her own.
Having done some research on indigenous owl species in the United Kingdom, Hermione hoped to find a Long-Eared Owl as she thought their elongated ear tufts made them look attentive. Asio otis also had the benefit of being reclusive and generally silent, so she hoped it would go unremarked in Oxford.
Hedwig had been a lovely animal but Snowy owls were not a native species and were thus far more noticeable. Hermione conceded she might be being paranoid as most people didn't know one owl from another. However birdwatching was a popular hobby in Oxfordshire and she would feel better for having the right bird for the right environment.
Eeylops Owl Emporium did not have much of a selection left after the back-to-school rush. Hermione refused outright to buy a screech owl as they were a New World species. The sales assistant offered her an elf owl with the assertion that it was too small for Muggles to notice. He did not understand when she asked whether the shop would also provide the poor thing an overcoat.
She left without an owl, bustling out of the Emporium debating with herself whether she should Apparate to one of the other Eeylops stores. Hermione was distracted trying to remember if she had been to Leeds or Glasgow.
They had definitely camped in Yorkshire during the Horcrux hunt. But had it been Bradford or Leeds where she had tried to shop only to spot Snatchers? Those miserable days blurred together so much she couldn't be sure. Lost in thought, Hermione walked into someone. She stepped back to apologise then smiled.
"Neville!" The witch hugged her friend. "Thank you for the lovely flowers. My flat smells like paradise."
"I'm glad you like them. I tried to think of a book to get you that you didn't have or something intellectual or alcoholic. What do apprentice scientists drink?" Neville was relieved he hadn't been excessive. Once he had started looking for Gryffindor coloured blooms, he had just kept going.
"Right now, tea. Do you have time to join me?" Hermione scanned the Alley and spotted a café she had not tried. "What's brought you into London?"
"I have time." He strolled with her into the chintzy tea-rooms and tucked his long legs under their spindly table. Hermione grimaced at the doilies. "I need a few seeds and a silver trowel. I'm trialling some new planting methods."
"Synchronising with the lunar cycles?" She asked as she waved to the waitress. Neville nodded and made a quick choice between a cream tea and a plate of sandwiches. They ordered then sat back to talk shop. Hermione was halfway through her petit-fours when she noticed him shift uncomfortably. "What?"
"I spoke with Ron yesterday." Neville did not want to broach the topic. "He and Harry are arguing, about a Quidditch game. And you." He sighed. "Hannah said I should keep out of it. She nearly got hexed by Ginny when she asked if you were having a birthday party."
"I'm not, having a party, I mean. I thought about it but I think I'd much rather just get on with Uni and let things cool down." Hermione speared a blameless piece of sponge cake with her fork. "I thought we'd made a fresh start but old things keep bubbling up and I'm tired of it."
"Hannah's planning a Samhain do. She'd like you to come. Everyone might be a bit more even-tempered by then." He cast a Muffliato Charm. "From what I heard, the Aurors are being run ragged chasing unregistered wands." He had excused a lot of Harry's and Ron's snappishness when Dean had let him in on the hush-hush. "Someone got at the Ministry stockpile of wands confiscated from Muggle-borns during the war and is selling them."
"I thought the wands were returned. They should've been." She said militantly. "How sub rosa is the wand thing? I might be able to ask Theo to make inquiries. His dad was one of the inner circle of the Death Eaters. Someone on their side might've kept accounts, and I doubt he'll open up to the Aurors."
"Dean said they tried to keep it quiet but it's an open secret at the Ministry now. The Prophet has been gagged, though I wouldn't put a Knut on that lasting." Neville finished his last sandwich and drummed his fingers on the table. "I thought about asking Flint myself but I think you'll have a better chance with the Slytherins. This is a hold-over from the war. We need to help."
"Okay, I'll speak with Theo. Leota and Alun might know something, or know someone who knows something. No harm in asking. And no one wants untraceable wands flooding Britain." Hermione checked her watch. If she left now, she'd have time for a very fast trip to the Wizengamot.