All the legal stuff, summery and notes are on chapter one.
This chapter is unbeta'd.
You'll be very pleased to know that I've outdone myself and got a couple of chapters ahead, which means more regular updates!! YAY…
Mini-Moony- chapter Twenty-nine
..o0o.. ..o0o.. ..o0o..
Adelaide Granger knew instantly that something was wrong in her house. Something, or more probable, someone was breaching the safety of her home and Adelaide was having none of that!
Stealing a glance at the man who was sleeping next to her, she nearly rolled her eyes- nothing; absolutely nothing could wake Freddie up. It was a well established joke in the Granger household and Adelaide decided it would be easier to deal with the intruder herself than trying to wake up her husband.
Slowly, she crept towards her bedroom door, opening it as slowly and as quietly as she could before she started tiptoeing towards the stairs. The noise came again- there was definitely someone in the kitchen, someone who was trying to be as quiet as possible and therefore made a complete ruckus. Adelaide didn't hesitate as she grabbed the cricket bat that was leaning against the wall. It belonged to her husband, who claimed he was still using it but Adelaide knew that the last time her husband was engaged in any form of sport activity was roughly around the time Hermione was born. That was quite a while ago but the bat stayed, and not by Adelaide's choice!
Making her way slowly down the stairs, her back pressed against the wall and the bat held firmly in her hands Adelaide advanced towards the kitchen. Logically she knew she ought to ring the police and be done with it but from some reason she didn't feel all that threatened. It was probably one of the neighbor's kids causing mischief. Reaching the kitchen door Adelaide could hear the noises stop, and then foot shuffling coming towards the door. Without thinking about the consequences she raised the bat over her head poised to bring it down on the perpetrator's head as soon as they left the safety of the kitchen.
The kitchen door slowly opened and Adelaide gripped the bat's handle tighter. With a mighty bellow she launched forwards only to find herself seconds later dangling a few inches off the ground, still holding onto the bat which was suspended in mid-air. In front of her stood her only daughter, her eyes wide and wand pointing at her and a cup of hot chocolate smashed to bits at her feet.
"Mum? Were you going to club me with that?" Hermione asked incredulously as soon as she could hear anything above the pounding of her heart. Adelaide's grip on the bat was weakening and she dropped to the floor with a 'humph'. Straightening herself up, Adelaide Granger smoothed her nightgown and lifted her chin,
"Hermione? What are you doing here in such an ungodly hour?" She asked, and Hermione sighed, waving her wand to send the bat upstairs and getting rid of the mess on the floor.
"Moving back in…" She said in a small voice, and Adelaide immediately grabbed her elbow and marched her daughter back into the kitchen, sitting her at the table and going for the kettle. Hermione sat at the table, playing with the salt shaker while her mother made a cup of tea for them. She hadn't meant to wake her mother, but it seemed that after years of not living at home she had forgotten how much of a light sleeper her mother was. Placing two mugs on the table Adelaide took her seat and looked at her daughter.
"What is it, sweetie? Did you and Draco have a fight?" Although not entirely happy at first that her daughter was seeing a man she hated with passion all her youth Adelaide had grown to accept Draco over the years. Especially after she met the man in person, and seen the way he was looking at her child.
"Not exactly…" Hermione started, feeling uneasy, she was never much in the habit of discussing her private life, especially not with her mother, "He… um, asked me to marry him…"
"The nerve of that man!" Hermione sighed, it was just like her mother to come up with some lame crack to try and ease the mood,
"Mum, that's not funny!" She cried, and Adelaide shrugged,
"What do you want me to say? You sneak in here in the dead of night like some sort of thief and then you tell me you left your boyfriend because he wants to marry you? Most girls would kill to have a bloke like Draco ask them to marry him."
"They can have him for all I care!" Hermione snapped, and immediately sighed, "No, no they can't. He's mine." She stuck the heels of her palms in her eyes, rubbing them in frustration. Adelaide watched her daughter with a sad expression; the poor girl was obviously agonizing and as her mother is was up to Adelaide to comfort her.
"Why did you leave?" Hermione stared at her tea for a long time, trying to decide what to tell her mother, because she couldn't even tell herself why she panicked so much about the idea of being married. At long last she sighed, still refusing to look at her mother,
"I couldn't go through with it. I can't be married now, it's too soon…" Adelaide studied her daughter, worrying her lip and trying to come up with the proper words to ease her daughter's pain. "I mean, you weren't married when you were my age, right? Because you were too young…" Adelaide felt her lips stretching out in a smile as memories assaulted her, and then she caught Hermione's eyes and frowned,
"Well… it wasn't so much that I was too young…" She started explaining somewhat uneasily,
"You want to tell me that dad asked you to marry him and you said no?" Hermione was a little shocked at hearing that, she had always assumed her parents were married within a year of their meeting. But if at the age of 25 her mother was still unmarried that meant her parents have been together for a whole lot longer than she imagined.
"Who said I was with your father at the time?" Adelaide asked in deadpan voice and Hermione's eyes bugged out.
"What? You had another boyfriend?" She cried, and Adelaide did her best not to roll her eyes, so much for having the 'birds and bees' talk with your child… Gods, she had never imagined her own daughter being such a prude…
"You hardly expect me to stay single and wait for your father to finally come and sweep me off my feet…" Adelaide chuckled. Hermione shrugged,
"Well…" She said with a poorly concealed smile and Adelaide rolled her eyes,
"Cheeky girl…" She muttered, "I'll have you know that I was dating the most charming man back when I was your age, oh, he most definitely was something else…" Hermione watched through the mist of tea steam as her mother became all misty eyed and nostalgic. It was a strange expression on Adelaide Granger, but Hermione liked seeing her mother like that, it made her look younger somehow.
"What was his name?"
"Gus. He looked like that Scottish actor I like, what's his name?"
"Sean Connery?" Adelaide gave her daughter one of her 'looks',
"No. The young one!" She practically snapped,
"Ewan McGregor?" Adelaide sighed; this is what happens when you and your daughter never sit down to watch a movie together…
"No! Gerard Butler! He looked like Gerard Butler!" Hermione smiled, of course she knew who her mother liked, it was a bit hard to miss her mother's wistful sigh every time Gerard Butler's face turned up on the screen.
"Were the two of you together a long time?"
"About a year, on and off. He wasn't a very stable guy, but I kept falling for his shit over and over again…"
"Because you were in love with him?" Adelaide sighed again, those were the times, when she was free to have her heart broken on a pretty much weekly basis, and young and naïve enough to go back to her tormentor every time. A part of her was glad that Hermione had picked up Freddie's more hands-on approach to life- those two would never let anyone step on them!
"I think it was mostly because he was great in bed…" She said with a leering smile and a small wink and Hermione nearly choked on her mouthful of tea,
"Ew, mum!" She cried, and Adelaide laughed, it was so easy to tease that girl it was almost not worth the effort.
"Oh, shush." She said dismissively before turning serious again, "Gus was different from any guy I've ever met before. He was charming, mysterious, and quite romantic. For a young girl fresh out of dentistry school it was quite a novelty to have someone like Gus take interest in me. I guess I was just blinded by the flattery…"
"But it was worth it, right? Him being romantic and all, giving his all to you. I wish Draco was more romantic…" Hermione pouted, her eyes fixed on the liquid pooling at the bottom of her teacup. Adelaide studied her daughter, trying to choose the right words to consol her,
"Romance is overrated," She decided at last, "Being with someone whose romantic says nothing about how much that person really loves you. Gus was romantic, yes, in a 'sweep me off my feet and blind me to his true nature' kind of way, which, when I think back on things is the worst kind of deceit there is."
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked curiously,
"Well, there was this one time he bought me a bunch of red roses, from one of them vendors that are going through restaurants, and by the end of the evening he was selling them to passersby!" Hermione cringed in sympathy,
"Oh, ouch…" Adelaide let out a sad laugh,
"At the time I thought it was the funniest thing, but the next day I woke up to realize I was a complete knob for falling under his charm." Of course it had taken six more months until she finally plunked enough courage to face her emotionally sadistic boyfriend and her fear of being left alone. But eventually she did, and then she re-met an old dentistry school mate and the rest, as they say, was history.
"Is dad romantic?" Hermione asked, trying to remember if she's ever seen her dad bringing flowers to her mum or not,
"In his own, very subtle way…" Adelaide tried to hold back her smile- saying that Freddie Granger was a romantic person was like saying gum disease were attractive…
"I'll take it as a no then." Adelaide laughed, shaking her head fondly,
"No, I mean he doesn't go overboard with romantic gestures like flowers or fancy dinners, but he always knows what I'm feeling and how I'm doing and in the long run, that's far more important." Hermione sighed, fiddling with the teabag and refusing to meet her mother's eyes,
"I guess…" She finally offered, reluctantly. Adelaide placed a soft hand to stop the twiddling with the teabag,
"Look, sweetie, I know you're a bit overwhelmed at the moment, so I suggest you take a couple of days to think things over, you are more than welcome to stay here, you know that but if you're asking my opinion then Draco is the sort of guy worth fighting for."
"You really think that?" Adelaide smiled,
"Of course I do. He's smart and handsome, and polite, not to mention filthy rich…" She added with a small wink that caused Hermione's face to fall again,
"Come on mum, I'm not with him for his money, you know that!" She cried, utterly offended by the insinuation.
"Of course you're not," Adelaide tried to placate her daughter, "There's nothing wrong with dating a wealthy man, mind you. As long as you keep in mind the other reasons you fell in love with them." She rose from her seat, and patted Hermione's head, "Good night sweetie." She said as she tried stifling a yawn and Hermione rose as well, hugging her mother tight.
"Night mum. Thank you for the tea and sympathy."
"You're welcome." She said with a soft smile. She dropped a kiss on Hermione's head and turned to make her way back to bed, stretching as she went. Hermione looked after her mother with a small smile, feeling for the first time in the last couple of hours that things might not be so bad after all.
..o0o.. ..o0o.. ..o0o..
A/N: I looked it up but I couldn't find the names of Hermione's parents anywhere so I made them up. Meet Adelaide and Fredrick Granger. In my story they never went to Australia. Or maybe they did but not to hide and not with false memories.
Does anyone remember a TV series called 'Lucy Sullivan is getting married'? It's from 1999, and it featured Gerard Butler as the charming Gus. The bit with the flowers is also from there.
I decided to make my friend Beankin' very happy and put Gerard in the story, because she's an adoring fan. I'm not sure she'll even read this but babe, this is for you!
