A/N: Once again we're picking up where we left off, with Hermione and Ron visiting her parents the day after she reversed the memory charm. In Hermione's conversation with her mother I refer to a previous fic of mine, "Girls Like You" (be kind, it's the first fanfic I ever wrote almost seven (!) years ago). Other fics with these two up to this point in time are "More Important Things" (especially chapter seven) and "A Quiet Beauty."
Finally, I'm very excited to recommend a fic I have long anticipated and am thoroughly enjoying, Order of Mercy by my friend MandyinKC. It follows some of the older canon characters (especially Bill, Fleur, and Percy) through DH with a unique focus on the resistance outside of Hogwarts and the Order. You can read more of me raving about it on her reviews page, but-spoilers, sweetie! Bonus: She's updating every Tuesday, so you'll get two helpings of fic in a row every week! Check it out here: ff dot net/s/12181042/1/Order-of-Mercy
Hermione and Ron walked hand-in-hand along Circular Quay. Her parents had brought them into Sydney after breakfast, and the four of them had spent the rest of the day sightseeing along the harbor, including a very pleasant lunch by the waterfront. Hermione and Ron had left her parents to go to the owl office and make arrangements for delivery of the Daily Prophet and as darkness fell, Hermione had asked to come back here and see the city at night. Dead ahead were the graceful white sails of the Sydney Opera House, lit so as to emphasize their three-dimensional shape, and to her left was the arched outline of the Harbor Bridge, its lampposts throwing green light onto the water.
"Today was a good day," Ron said.
"It was," Hermione agreed. "Thanks for saying you needed my help to get around."
"I do."
"You're getting better." She smiled up at him. "You got us back here from the—newspaper place." It was dark but not late, and there were still lots of people around.
"I think it will help to be in the same place for a while," he said.
"Mm-hmm." Hermione stepped a little closer, appreciating the simple pleasure of strolling with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend. She relished the word, and most especially that it applied to Ron. It had been warm in the sunshine but cooled considerably after dusk. The wind picked up when they passed the shelter of a group of restaurants, and she shivered.
Ron took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. She had a perfectly good jumper (several perfectly good jumpers, in fact) in her handbag but didn't protest.
"Thanks." The plaid flannel was warm, and she turned her nose into the collar and inhaled his scent.
"Welcome."
They walked a few more paces before Ron asked, "You don't want to stay with your parents?"
Hermione grimaced. "It's not that, really. I just—if I'm staying with them, I won't have as much time with you."
"They won't be off work every day."
"True."
"Are you worried about your nightmares?"
"A bit," she admitted.
Ron rubbed his thumb back and forth along the back of her hand. "You could put up a Muffliato Charm."
"Yeah."
"You've been doing okay since we got here, haven't you? Other than last night?"
She nodded, watching a ferry move into the open harbor.
"Ron?" She turned suddenly. "Thank you. Thank you for leaving your family, and coming with me, and keeping me on track and—you've been wonderful. Just lovely, and a real help, and—I'm so glad I didn't have to do this without you."
He dropped her hand to squeeze her shoulders. "I wanted to come."
"I know, but—it must be hard, with Fred … and Percy…."
Ron stopped, staring back the way they'd come towards the lights of the business district. "As hard as it has been watching you try to mend your relationship with your parents, it seems easier. Maybe because it's not my family? I don't know. I just—it was kind of suffocating being home, you know? Here, it feels like—" He took a deep breath. "Like I can breathe, like I can take some time to process for myself."
"You know I want to help. If you want to talk about it, or not, or just—whatever. I want to help you too."
Ron pulled her against his side and kissed her temple. "I know you do. And you are, just by being here."
()()()()
Jean Granger looked at the paperwork spread over the dining room table, this week's Saturday project, and sighed.
"How on earth did Hermione do all this in less than four weeks?"
"Magic," Hugh said wryly.
"Mmm. About that…."
"Yes?"
"I want to go home our way, the Muggle way. I want to know that all of our documentation is correct and everything is above board."
Hugh looked surprised. "Of course."
"Well, I'm not sure … I'm afraid Hermione thinks she can undo all this the way she did it in the first place and we'll be in England in a few days."
"But we can't just abandon the practice," Hugh said. "We have to give them adequate notice."
"I know. I was thinking … a month?"
"At least," he said, setting a cup of tea at her elbow.
The intercom buzzed.
"That will be them," Jean said.
"I'll get it."
A few minutes later, Hermione and Ron entered the room.
"Hi, Mum. What's all this?"
"'This' is all the stuff we have to take care of before we go back to England."
Hermione's face lit up. "You're coming back to England?"
"Of course we're coming back to England. You're there."
"Unless you have secret plans to move to Australia that you haven't told us about," Hugh added.
"No! No, we're not moving, but—well, you hadn't said anything, and I didn't want to assume."
Jean looked from Hermione to Ron, never more than an arm's reach away from her, and couldn't help but feel she'd already lost her daughter. She didn't know how long Ron and Hermione had been together as a couple but it couldn't be a year yet, and already Hermione spoke of the two of them as a unit, as if their futures were inexorably intertwined.
"Well, in that case, I can help," Hermione said brightly, pulling out a chair at the table and setting down a purple beaded bag with a puzzlingly loud thunk.
"That's the handbag we bought over Christmas the year before last!" Jean exclaimed.
Hermione smiled. "Yes, I chose lilac dress robes to match it. That's what I wore to Bill and Fleur's wedding."
Jean nodded. Hermione had written about the beautiful French witch who was engaged to Ron's oldest brother.
"What do you mean, you can help?" Hugh said cautiously.
"I have all your original paperwork," Hermione said, plunging her hand—indeed, half her arm—into the small bag.
"What—"
Ron laughed at their expressions. "Harry and I had the same reaction," he said. "It's an Undetectable Extension Charm. It makes the inside of the object bigger without affecting the size on the outside. Bloody brilliant, she is."
"May I see?" Jean asked.
Hermione pulled a fat folder out of the bag before pushing it across the table. Jean picked it up, running her hands all around and squishing it between them. She could feel the shape of various things inside it, just like a regular handbag, but it was lightweight. Lighter than her own handbag, even.
"You can look inside," Hermione said.
Jean looked up at her, then peered inside the open drawstring. "Why, this is your luggage!" she said in surprise, seeing various pieces of clothing, toiletry items, and books.
Hermione nodded. "I used it to carry everything we needed while we were on the run."
"That's amazing! And incredibly convenient."
"I can cast it on your cases, if you like," Hermione said shyly. "So you won't have to—"
"No!" Hugh said.
Jean and Hermione both looked up.
"We want to get back to England on our own," he said. "No magic and no tricks."
Hermione swallowed. "Okay. It was just a suggestion."
"What's in the folder?" Jean asked, moving past the awkwardness.
"Your original documents. Passports, driving licenses, credit cards … everything that was yours as Jean and Hugh Granger."
Jean opened it and saw Hermione had organized the papers by name, with hers on the left and Hugh's on the right. She pulled out her stack and passed the folder over to him.
"This is great," she said in relief. "I thought we were going to have to travel back as Monica and Wendell, but now—"
"You can do either," Hermione said. "Percy added the arrival stamps in your original passports, so it won't look suspicious for you to leave the country as yourselves."
"That's probably for the best," Hugh said, tearing open a small envelope and dumping his license, bank, and credit cards into his palm.
"What about you two?" Jean asked. "When are you going home?"
"We're going back with you," Hermione said.
"What about your passport? You didn't fly, did you?"
Hermione shook her head. "No, we took a series of Portkeys. I thought of that when I was making the plans to come and get you. Percy stamped my passport too and will do Ron's before Harry mails it to us."
"Another brother?" Hugh asked Ron.
He nodded. "Percy used to work in the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Between him and Dad, they figured it out."
"How many brothers do you have again?"
"Fi—four," Ron said, clearing his throat. "It's four now. And my sister, Ginny."
"How many of them work for the Ministry?" Jean asked. God, that really was an awful passport picture. She'd forgotten.
Of course she had.
"Just Percy and my dad. Bill works for Gringotts, Charlie is a dragon keeper in Romania, and Fred and George had their own joke shop in Diagon Alley, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes."
Hugh tucked his papers away and closed the folder. "Hermione, there's something we've been meaning to talk to you about."
"Yes?" Her voice was calm, but Jean saw the slight movement of her arm where she reached for Ron's hand under the table.
"I said we wanted to travel back home without magic, but that's not all. We—" He shot a quick sideways look at Jean, and she gave a nod of encouragment. "We're asking you not to perform any magic around us."
Hermione nodded. "I understand," she said. "It's why Ron and I have been traveling as Muggles."
"What do you mean?" Jean said.
"Well, we took Portkeys here because it's so much faster and cheaper, but once we left the Australian Ministry, we've been traveling without magic."
"We did Apparate to the owl office the first time," Ron reminded her.
"But only because the only address we had was Apparition coordinates, and obviously we couldn't ask anyone," Hermione said.
"Apparition—didn't we pay extra for you to have Apparition lessons?" Hugh said.
"Yes. It's the process of disappearing in one place and reappearing in another."
"I remember," Jean said. "You had extra lessons in Hogsmeade and passed your test there."
"That's right, Mum."
"Do you have your wand with you?" Hugh asked.
Hermione nodded.
"May I see it?"
She pulled it out of her trouser pocket and handed it over without hesitation.
Hugh examined it carefully, but as far as Jean could see, it looked exactly the same as it always had: about eleven inches long, tapered at the tip with a twirling vine pattern covering the lower two-thirds of its length. He held the wand with both fists, and for a moment, Jean thought maybe—
Hermione gasped. "Daddy?"
He passed it back to her whole. "Have you hurt anyone with that wand?"
Ron shifted, leaning forward and angling himself towards her protectively. Hermione stopped him with a hand on his arm.
"Yes."
Jean felt a heavy pain in her chest, as if a hand was squeezing her heart tightly and it was trying to beat against the pressure.
"Did you kill anyone?"
"Hugh!"
Hermione's eyes filled with tears, but she didn't cry. "No."
"She saved our lives more times than I can count," Ron said, his voice tight and angry. "She packed ahead of time so when the Death Eaters crashed Bill's wedding and we had to escape, we had everything we needed. She learned the protective spells that kept us hidden for months. She did the research so we knew how to destroy the—Voldemort's magical objects that she told you about. She was absolutely, positively brilliant and essential to Harry's success even without that wand, but if Hermione was not a witch—if she was not as good at magic as she is, I'd be dead," Ron said flatly. "We all would." He waved his hand to include Jean and Hugh. "And so would Harry. There would have been no battle at Hogwarts, because Voldemort would have won long before then."
"I used my wand to defend myself and my friends," Hermione said quietly. "I won't apologize for that. I'm a witch—that's who I am."
Jean looked at Hugh, then back at her daughter. "You've changed so much," she said with a sad smile. "It's—sometimes it's like we don't know you at all."
Now Hermione did cry, the tears spilling over both cheeks. "I'm sorry. I know I lied to you so many times, and I am sorry, really I am. I don't want to do that any more. I want to be able to share this part of my life with you, but—"
"All right, love." Jean pushed away from the table and walked past her husband to embrace her daughter. "It's all right. We'll work it out." She wasn't sure quite how, but living without her daughter now that she did remember her was not an option.
Hermione buried her face in her chest and cried as she hadn't since—well, since she'd told Jean about Ron's new girlfriend. And that had turned out all right in the end, hadn't it?
Jean stroked Hermione's hair—short and wilder than ever—and murmured soothing nonsense. Hermione raised her head after a few moments and Ron thrust a box of tissues under her nose.
"Thanks, Ron."
"You cut your hair," Jean said, fingering the ends. "I've never heard you talk about cutting it. What made you want to do that?"
"It got burned when we were attacked with Fiendfyre," Ron said shortly.
Jean froze for a moment. She had thought she was changing the subject, making innocent conversation, but she kept blundering without knowing it.
"It's—well, it's…."
"Horrible and more unmanageable than ever," Hermione said, standing up to throw her tissues in the bin.
"It will grow."
"That's what Ginny said when she cut it for me."
"Hermione," Hugh said. "Hermione, I—"
"It's okay, Daddy." But the words were said to the hands in her lap, not the man sitting across from her.
"No, I—I should have known you wouldn't hurt someone else without good cause. I don't really understand, but that's no excuse for doubting you."
Now Hermione did look up. "Thank you," she said, and Hugh nodded.
"Come on," Jean said, forcing a smile. "Let's see what's on telly. You've missed so many shows this year!"
()()()()
Lunch was over and Jean and Hermione were folding laundry in the master bedroom. In the lounge, Hugh and Ron sat in front of the telly, Hugh giving Ron a crash course in football.
"So," Jean said, accepting a clean stack of undershirts from her daughter and turning to put them away. "You and Ron."
Hermione smiled. "Yes."
"How did that come about?"
"With great difficulty," Hermione said dryly.
"I know that. Seriously, though."
Hermione turned a sock right side out. "It started last summer, really. We—"
With her shorter hair, her blush was easily visible.
"We had this huge row, and I found out why Ron was so angry with me sixth year—"
"Why was that?" Jean asked with interest, lining up a pair of Hugh's trousers by the hems.
Hermione sighed. "Because Ginny told him I'd been snogging Viktor Krum."
Jean frowned. "You told me you didn't fancy Viktor."
"I didn't, not really."
"She lied?" Jean said indignantly, sliding into mother-bear mode with no difficulty at all. "I thought you two were friends!"
"We are," Hermione said, pairing up the socks.
It threw Jean back for a moment; it was the first chore Hermione had learned to help with when she was just a toddler.
"Ron and Harry walked in on her and her boyfriend, and—"
"Walked in on them doing what?" Apparently she didn't succeed at affecting a casual tone, for Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Kissing, Mum, they were just kissing in a deserted hallway, and Ron—well, he didn't handle his sister dating very well and they got into it and Ginny blurted something she knew would hurt his feelings. And because she and I are friends, he believed her, and—well, that's how the whole mess with Lavender got started."
"Okay," Jean said. "But how does that relate to—"
"I'm getting there. After the fight Ron and I had last summer, all that stuff came out, about Lavender and the Yule Ball and all these misunderstandings, and … well, I kind of shouted that I was in love with him," Hermione said sheepishly.
Jean leaned back against the chest of drawers, another pair of trousers draped over one arm. "You shouted at him."
"He was so bloody oblivious, Mum! It—sorry." She caught Jean's disapproving look. "Nine months in a tent with two boys." Hermione shrugged.
On second thought, if all Hermione had caught was a propensity for colorful language, Jean should be thankful.
"So, you've been together since last summer?"
Hermione shook her head, smoothing a pillowcase and setting it on top of the stack of matching sheets. "No, we—we knew we were going to go off with Harry, see, so we couldn't really be together. We decided to wait until after the war."
Jean slid the wardrobe door to access the other side. "That's very mature of you."
"It was just logical."
She smiled. Now that sounded like her daughter of old.
"So what, then, after the Battle at Hogwarts? When did you say that was, two weeks ago?"
"Three now," Hermione said, passing her the linens and sitting down on the end of the bed. "That was me too, I just dropped the basilisk fangs and kissed him."
Jean ignored her questions about basilisks and why Hermione was carrying fangs and focused on the important issue. "Did he kiss you back?"
Hermione blushed, one foot crossing over the other as she fidgeted. "He did."
"That's a long time, from one summer to the next." Not really, in the grand scheme of things, but at eighteen, it must have felt an eternity to Hermione.
Eighteen—she'd missed her daughter's birthday!
"Hermione!"
Her expression morphed into concern. "What, Mum, what is it?"
"We didn't do anything for your birthday! Your eighteenth birthday!" Jean spun around. "Hugh!"
"Oh, that's okay," Hermione said, following her out of the room. "I came of age at seventeen, remember?"
"Hugh, we missed Hermione's eighteenth birthday!"
"It's okay, Mum, honestly, I don't need—"
"But of course we should do something for your birthday," Hugh said, looking up from the match. "What would you like, love?"
"No, really," Hermione insisted. "It's fine. I'll have another one in a few months."
"Don't be ridiculous, Hermione," Ron said. "We should at least have cake!"
"You're only saying that because of your sweet tooth," she accused, but Jean could tell she was amused.
"We haven't had pudding all week!"
"Cake it is," Jean said. "Tomorrow. And perhaps a new outfit? Or some books?"
Hermione glanced toward Ron, then nodded. "A new dress, maybe."
For a date, Jean realized. "That sounds lovely. I'm sure we can find something nice for a special occasion."
Hermione smiled.
()()()()
Ron had just crawled into bed and was reaching to turn out the light when there was a knock on the door. He threw back the covers and got up without bothering to pull on his jeans.
Hermione stood in the hallway freshly showered (he could smell the strawberry shampoo she favored) and wearing pink pajama bottoms with hearts and one of those strappy vests, gray this time.
"Hi."
"Hi."
This was new. They'd already kissed goodnight (and more), and neither one of them had ever approached the other once they split to separate rooms. Plus she was fidgeting, and if she needed a spider killed or something off the top shelf of the wardrobe, she wouldn't be nervous about asking.
"Can I—" Hermione looked down, to the side, then up through her lashes. "Can I sleep with you tonight?"
Ron leaned against the doorjamb, amused at this attempt at flirting from his practical Hermione. "Just sleep?"
Her mouth fell open and she flushed, stammering. "I—er—" She bit her lip. "Yeah. I think so. Um, yes."
"That was convincing."
Her eyes skittered across his chest and down, then anywhere but at him when she realized he was just in his pants. Ron resisted the instinct to cover himself, despite the fact his body was starting to react to her suggestion.
"Maybe … something between sleep and—and everything?"
He closed his eyes and groaned. "Hermione, you're killing me."
"We don't have to," she said quickly. "I can sleep in my room, that's fine, I—"
"Shut up and come in." Ron opened the door wide, then closed and locked it behind her.
She stood at the foot of the bed. "Which side—"
He pointed to the left and she crawled in. Ron turned out the light and joined her, and she turned towards him. He reached for her in the darkness and she responded immediately, wrapping her arm around his waist and laying her head on his shoulder. He could feel her breasts pressed against his side and her head tucked under his chin. Ron lay quietly for several minutes, heart thumping, waiting for Hermione to make the first move.
"I thought Dad was going to break my wand."
He took a deep breath, scented with strawberries, and brought one arm around to rub her back. "For a minute there, so did I."
"I'm so glad they're coming back to England."
He squeezed her. "Me too. They do love you, Hermione. They're doing it for you."
She nodded against his chest. "I know. It's just … hard. It's just really, really hard."
"You'll think of something," Ron said. "You always do."