Chapter Fifty

"Happy birthday," said Hermione to her foggy reflection over the bathroom sink.

Outside, the world was trying to drown itself. It was raining fat, hard summer rain that fell straight down to the ground in the breezeless air.

The woman that stared back at her from the mirror didn't look particularly thrilled by the birthday announcement. But then it was seven in the morning and Hermione had never been very functional before nine and at least one cup of tea.

She brushed her teeth, making a mental note to do another load of laundry that evening as she stared at the growing pile of towels in the hamper behind her. Or maybe not. It wasn't good weather for drying laundry.

At least the cottage garden was getting a bit of a watering. Her landlady had been alarmed at the brown flower beds and yellowing grass that summer.

Perhaps moving into Ginny's London flat would have been the wiser decision. A cottage was always going to require more maintenance than an apartment. In the end, it was Crookshanks who settled it. He was getting on in years and could no longer sprint up a flight of steps with his usual agility.

Ginny's flat was at the top of four flights of steps, which was challenging at the best of times. And so the small, two-bedroom, renovated Edwardian cottage had been too charming to pass up. In the warmer months, the catnip and cat grass grew rampant along the sun-faded brick path in the backyard and this was heaven for an elderly cat who still fancied himself a romp every now and then.

It had been squeaky clean, but very Spartan when Hermione had signed the lease. She had needed to purchase a larger bed, a fridge and a gas stove. Harry lamented the lack of a television when he came to visit, but Hermione assured she had always been able to do without. One room was to sleep in, the other was a makeshift office and library, only her collection of books had outgrown the shelves her mother had contributed.

They neatly lined one wall; great teetering piles that Ron joked were in danger of doing mortal harm to Hermione or Crookshanks should they ever topple on top of either of them.

Her landlady was a kindly widowed Muggle woman who had insisted on donating new curtains and the warm, colourful rug in the small lounge area. She only lived down the road and came by for tea and gossip after Church almost every other Sunday. The nearby village was Muggle, as was the cottage, but it hadn't been difficult to register and then hook up the two fireplaces to the Floo Network.

Ginny continued to nag that Lavender Brown was the world's most unreliable housemate and if Hermione ever changed her mind about living the life of a recluse…

But that wasn't going to happen any time soon.

Hermione had pondered over her reasons for wanting to live alone, and quietly attributed it to the fact that she was an only child who enjoyed her own space. And after attending boarding school for seven years, a bit of privacy was welcomed.

There was truth to that, anyway. She would hang on to that reason.

The staring face in the mirror was pink cheeked from the hot shower. Short, curly, wet hair framing a delicate, heart shaped face that was perhaps a little leaner than it had once been. Dark ringlets clung to her hairline and the nape of her neck. The hairstyle made her eyes appear even larger, and she never really noticed how much of a tilt there was to them until after the hair cut.

Eager for a change, Hermione had shorn off her heavy, shoulder-length hair more than a year ago during an unusually hot summer. She hadn't looked back since. Short hair wasn't really low maintenance, she discovered, as it took quite a bit of grooming in the mornings to tame the mass into an acceptable style.

But she rather thought the cap of curls suited her better. And she certainly did not miss the weight on her scalp.

The bell at the front door sounded just as Hermione finished rinsing out her mouth. She could only just hear it over the rain. It was a bit early for visitors. Hermione frowned as she pulled on a dressing gown over her pyjamas and socks and went to see who it was.

Ron was standing on her front step, holding a sodden brown paper bag. He looked extremely grave and extremely wet.

"Birthday greetings," he said, with a smile. This was followed by two quick sneezes.

"Ron, you're soaked through!"

"Yeah," he sniffed, shaking himself off like a wet dog. It was then that Hermione saw the broom he had strapped on to his back.

Hermione's eyebrows rose. "You flew in this?"

Ron nodded. "From the Burrow. And yes," he held up a forestalling hand, "mum did tell me so. She made you these, by the way." He handed her the brown paper bag. Hermione could smell cinnamon buns, even though they had transformed into sponges during the journey.

"Bloody water repelling spell wore off after the first kilometre," he said, with resignation.

Crookshanks came to the door to see who the visitor was. There had never been any love lost between Ron and the cat. They eyed each other beadily before a disinterested Crookshanks slinked back to the comfort of Hermione's yet unmade bed.

Hermione stood aside. "Come in, I was just about to make up a pot a tea."

**

She was taking the news too well, Ron decided.

He had told her as she fussed over making them breakfast, even though he insisted that his mother had already fed him up to his eyeballs. Still, for the sake of having something to do while he relayed the dreaded information, he managed to squeeze in two slices of toast with marmalade and shared the segmented grapefruit that Hermione had laid out.

Hermione preferred black, sweetened tea that was stewed to the point of being coffee, so he also took his time making his way to and from the fridge to top up his milk.

The rain continued to pound over the slate shingle roof, a fitting, tense background noise, Ron thought.

They were seated at the table in her small kitchen and the only outward reaction she was showing to the news was the fact that she'd been stirring her tea for the past five minutes. Half of it had left the cup and sloshed onto the saucer. She didn't seem to notice.

"Hermione," Ron started gently. Merlin, why did he have to be the messenger this time?

Because Harry had his hands tied and Ginny was a bloody chicken, was why. "Did you hear what-"

"I heard you very clearly, thank you," Hermione interrupted. She took a distracted sip from her tea cup. Her eyes were trained on the table top.

"You're taking this very well."

She shrugged. "So he was dead and now he's back."

Ron shifted in his chair. The only part of him that seemed to be dry was the seat of pants. His sodden shoes and socks were hovering over the laundry sink.

"That's just it. You never believed he died. No matter what Harry or I said, remember? Turns out you were right."

Hermione's jaw tensed. She tucked one of her short, springy curls behind her ear. "As far as Malfoy is concerned, I don't care, Ron. I really don't. He was lost to me a very long time ago. I've moved on."

"Of course you have," he said, probably too placatingly. "You're only human, though. It's alright to admit that this is something of a big deal, Hermione."

Ron was not prepared for the fury in Hermione's expression. Her brown eyes bored into him as she jabbed her spoon in his direction.

"There is nothing between us! It was the beginning of the end the day I died in the Lake. The Fida Mia enchantment was dissolved and then he left. He left! End of story. Adventure story, love story, tragedy. Mistake. Whatever you want to call it, his returning means nothing other than a possible, swifter solution to the war!"

Ron said nothing, though he carefully got out of his seat and fetched a tea-towel from the sink. He handed this to Hermione.

Who then dabbed at the tea she had spilled across the table. "Thank you," she said, primly. "Having Bellatrix is a real score. Moody must be over the moon."

"He is," Ron stated, frowning.

"He should be," Hermione snapped.

They drank more tea in silence.

Ron sighed. He was crap at deep and meaningfuls. "I know you've moved on. But I also know you. You don't just…forget."

She replaced her tea cup in its saucer with too much force. "Watch me," she said icily. "Trust me. I'm fine, Ron. All I feel towards Malfoy right now is pity."

"Funny, I'm sensing anger."

"I'm not a teenager anymore. These are not romantic times. I'm not about to run to him to rekindle wasted, dead passions."

"They weren't romantic times when we were eighteen either," muttered Ron. "They were more looking behind your back, running for your life sort of times."

Hermione pretended not to hear him. "If it can be avoided, I'd prefer not to see him."

Ron glanced up. That had been exactly his suggestion too. "Now see, that might be a bit difficult…"

"Why?" she asked, frowning. "My work has nothing to do with yours or Harry's. We hardly cross paths at the Ministry as is."

"Well, because he's living with Harry is why!"

"He's what?" Hermione's eyebrows disappeared into her curly fringe.

Ron had rehearsed this part, at least. "As you know, Malfoy Manor's been under Pansy Parkinson's stewardship. It was all Ministry arranged. By law, they can't declare Malfoy well and truly deceased until he's missing for at least seven years. In the event of a missing heir, the estate is to be run by a caretaker. Parkinson put in a bid for a contract to maintain the place and it was accepted. Malfoy said he didn't want Parkinson to be out of a job in a hurry so he said he'd like for her contract there to continue for the time being. Meanwhile Moody doesn't want Malfoy out of his sight and so…"

"So Harry took him home?" Hermione concluded.

"Yes."

She stood up. "I've heard enough. I'm going to be late for work."

Ron wondered if it was indeed naïve of him to think he could made the visit that morning without getting his head bitten off.

"Hermione, your supposedly deceased, secret, former husband has mysteriously re-appeared after a five year absence bringing the second most wanted person in Wizarding Europe with him as his prisoner. Under the circumstances, I'd say you deserved a personal day. Take today off. It's your birthday."

**

Oh, there was no way she was missing a day of work.

Ron left via Floo, looking very concerned and not a little bit guilty. Hermione stiffly thanked him for the birthday wishes, the cinnamon buns and saw him off with a peck on the cheek and a sincere promise to visit a lonely Molly at the Burrow soon.

She then sat on the edge of her bed and stared down at her folded hands.

There was an unravelling sensation in her belly. It didn't exactly hurt, but it was still a pain. Like an injury you carried for so long that you forgot about it, except on really cold days when it acted up or when everything in the world and in your head was so quiet that you allowed yourself to remember again.

Only it felt dull now. More an ache, actually, but even as she thought this, it grew sharper and more acute until she was gripping the coverlet of her bed with white-knuckled fingers.

Sometimes, in the moments between sleep and wakefulness, she'd swear the dragon was still at her hip. Still delicately coiled around her leg like clinging, silver ivy.

In the early days, she'd use this phantom sensation to see if she could locate Draco, but feeling and using were two different things. It was always like trying to catch smoke.

The ache was sense memory, nothing more. A magic-induced scar on her soul from Fida Mia that still tingled every now and then. It was not a compass to direct her to him.

Fida Mia had been extinguished when life had fleetingly left her body.

There was no longer a bond between them and Hermione had long ago concluded, with some bitterness, that the absence of the spell had been all Draco needed to come to his former senses and leave.

Leave her. Abandon promises given under enchantment. Abandon his inheritance. He hadn't just walked out on her, he'd walked out on his life.

His account at Gringotts remained untouched. That had given her a morbid kind of hope at first. The more Hermione pondered this fact, the more she insisted that he had not left off his own volition.

Perhaps he had been coerced? Maybe there were other forces at work?

But then the postcards came in that first year he was missing, a sad reminder of the promise she had forced on him the day they had met by the Quidditch shed.

"I know you're off to do whatever you think you have to do, but a mailing address would be nice..."

He sighed.

"A weekly letter would be ideal..."

"Granger, I-"

"Hell, I'd settle for a postcard every month. I'm not fussy."

He had tried to tell her, hadn't he? She had felt quite the fool to know that wherever he was, he was there by choice. He had left her by choice. That had hurt a great deal, even though she often thought she understood why he had done it.

There were sudden spots of warmth on her bare thigh. She glanced down and noticed the splatter of tears in her lap where her dressing gown had parted.

Hermione brought her fingers to her face and was startled when they came away wet. No, she was not crying.

She would not cry. Not anymore. There was nothing to cry about, really. Two admittedly eventful weeks in her life when she was only eighteen were hardly worth getting upset over, all over again.

Being adamant counted for nothing, in the end. The tears fell anyway. She was older now and more seasoned, but she was still the same Hermione who got wistful over particularly pretty sunsets, ecstatic over the birth of the latest Weasley grandchild and accused of being a busy-body every time she inquired over the state of Harry and Ginny's ongoing, turbulent love affair.

After thinking deeply for a minute, she walked to her closet and retrieved a small, hinged wooden box that was buried under shoes she hardly ever wore, suitcases and a pair of rollerblades her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday.

Her work with the Department of Mysteries was concerning the power of symbols. The research and its potential implications was very promising indeed.

Not to mention enlightening.

And so she knew what she had to do and really, she had given herself enough excuses to not do it.

There were several items inside the box. A walnut. A small monogrammed towel from the Cobblestone Inn. A receipt from the Sushi Hut on Euston Street. A note that was dog-eared and folded so many times over that it was all lines and creases. A t-shirt with a peeling rainbow and a thoughtful-looking frog sitting beneath it.

The fire in the living room was still lit, in anticipation for Hermione's Floo trip to work. She walked up to it and tossed the entire box plus contents into the flames.

After that, she set about getting dressed and packing her lunch for the day.

There was a lot to be said about routine and the comforts to be derived from it.