AN:
Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Season 8
Round: First Round
Team: Puddlemere United
Position: Beater 2
Task: The creator- Goal: Realize vision
Optional Prompts:
1- (Quote)"The excitement of dreams coming true is beyond the description of words."- Lailah Gifty Akita
5- (emotion) hopeful
15-(character) Teddy Lupin
Word count: 1646
When You Can See a Different Future
The excitement of dreams coming true is beyond the description of words."- Lailah Gifty Akita
Hermione Granger sat on her living room couch enjoying a glass of wine and reading a book when a very excited mass came barging through her floo, stumbling on the way in, too.
She couldn't help but smile at the sight of her godson's excited posture and his ability, like his mother's, to slip on air.
"I did it, Aunt Hermione, I finally did it!" he announced excitedly a huge grin taking place on his face.
"What did you finally do, love?" she asked, already having formed an idea of what was going to happen next.
And she was right—without uttering another word, the young man morphed in front of her eyes into a beautiful silver wolf. The wolf was a magnificent creature and she was amazed by the similarities she saw between his wolf and that of his father. Of course, Teddy wasn't as skinny, but he still held the same presence.
"You are beautiful, love. Come here."
He came closer to her, rubbing his soft fur on her legs, hoping to get some pets. She complied with his request and petted him softly on the head.
"I'm so very proud of you, Ted, you've been working on this transformation for so long. You look very similar to your father, you know. He would be so proud of you. Nymph too. She was so excited after she met Remus's wolf," Hermione told him wistfully.
She missed her friend and mentor so much, and seeing their son here looking at her with such love and adoration, she couldn't help but feel sadness seeping at the notion that neither could see the man he had become.
He was a very well-built young man; he was a mixture of both his mother and father. He harbored Tonk's infamous pink hair as a homage to his long-lost mother, but his eyes were his father's. They held such warmth in them, such love that sometimes she would think her old professor and mentor was looking back at her.
Teddy had become the light of her life soon after the war. She had spent so long surrounded by darkness after her torture at the hands of Bellatrix that when she had seen his eyes and magical smile, she had become immediately attached to the small bundle of joy. He was her only hope at the time to save herself from the darkness. She had become a constant fixture in his life shortly after, and would spend hours upon hours playing with him or spending time with him and his grandmother, Andromeda. The woman had become a shell of her formal self after the war; she had lost so much, but remained strong for the small child. Hermione did everything in her power to help the woman take care of Teddy, and soon a friendship blossomed between the two.
Andromeda helped Hermione deal with her torture and Hermione helped the other woman deal with her grief. Soon enough, Hermione graduated Hogwarts with the highest marks recorded in history and took a job at the Ministry in the Department of Magical Creatures. Her relationship with Ron frizzled out soon after as he wanted her to stay at home and pop out children.
Working for the Ministry, Hermione found out that the magical society was more complex than she had already thought. Being a muggleborn came to be a hindrance to her work as she tried to change the law pertaining to magical creatures. Andromeda, after seeing the young witch so at a loss, decided to help her with navigating the magical society.
Hermione's goals had always been to create equality in the magical society, so with the help of Andromeda, she started to understand more and more how everything functioned, the little things that people would do to "help" or "manipulate" a situation. She started little by little to adapt and process these things and assimilate them to the way she dealt with the people around her. Soon she found herself gaining more and more support inside the Ministry, and with that support, she was able to slowly create the world she so desired.
Her first victory had been gaining the trust of multiple herds of centaurs and creating pacts with them that permitted trading between them and wizards. After that first win, which garnered her some more support, she was given the position of head of the department, which turned out to be a very good thing. Her first order of business was to change the name of the department to "The Department of Creature Relation". Soon after she passed a law permitting werewolves to work in her department, her goal was to show the rest of the wizarding world that werewolves were not dangerous creatures if said creature was able to control the wolf with or without Wolfsbane potion.
The acceptance of werewolves into society was a slow process but it was happening. Years after she had employed the first werewolf all laws regarding werewolves were modified and they were fully integrated into society.
When Hermione decided to go talk with the goblins, she had been expecting the worst, and she had been right in her assumptions. The goblins knew how to hold grudges—they had not forgotten the stunt she had pulled in Bellatrix's vault and refused at first all negotiations with her, as well as letting her conduct business with them. She had a vault, yes, but was not allowed to enter Gringott, all her dealings with the bank were done through owl. The same was applied to Harry and Ron. But she didn't give up, and after trying for a couple of years, she was granted an audience with the head goblin. She had done a lot of research on goblin society and the banking system in the wizarding world, and came to a brilliant discovery that would let her gain the goblins' trust and create better relations between them and wizards.
It was simple, really. She introduced to them the loan system; after a lot of research she had discovered that the bank did nothing with the money it contained. It was there just to protect it and stash it away. The loan idea was received at first with mixed feelings but after some more discussions, they had agreed to test the process using her accounts as the loaner account. The idea was a hit, interest rate and loans soon skyrocketed, and the goblins grew richer with each transaction. To say they were happy was an understatement and Hermione was forgiven for her action and her debt towards them was fully repaid. The same could not be said about the other members of the Golden Trio. Ron was too daft to understand the consequence of his actions; in his mind, it was what had to be done for the greater good. He had refused to apologize for his actions and continued to forgo dealing with the creatures. Harry, unlike Ron, had apologized for his actions, but could not for the life of him understand why he had a debt to repay to the goblins. He had paid for the repairs and therefore didn't owe them anything.
The thing about goblins that most didn't know, and that Hermione came to discover, was that the creatures had their own sets of laws and rules. Their society was very well organized, and the goblins had their own world built underneath Gringotts. When the Golden Trio had destroyed a part of the bank while trying to escape, they had unknowingly exposed that world to everyone. They had caused a lot of damage to the underworld as well as a lot of injuries. Luckily no death had been caused by the little escapade, but the damage nonetheless was great. In the goblin society, if any harm comes to any of them, the perpetrator has to be judged and sentenced to hard labor, or in some cases, death. By not having captured and killed the Golden Trio, the trio owed them in fact their lives. She had tried explaining this to her friends, but they had laughed it off saying that wizards did not submit to creature laws.
Hermione's relations within the goblin nation prospered and because of these relations, held greater power in the wizarding society.
The elves were on her agenda too, but the little creatures were a different matter. After a lot of research, she had discovered that house elves life essence was entangled with the magic of the family they served. If an elf is set free with no new master to take them, they would slowly lose their mind and kill themselves in the end. So she worked on creating laws for the protection of the elves. If a witch or wizard were discovered to be treating their elf badly, they would face paying a large fine, and if the abuse was extreme, imprisonment. The elf would then be bonded to another person.
Hermione went on and on in her work and soon was named Minister of Magic. She was shaping the world as she pleased and creating a new society. Along the way, Teddy and Andromeda became her family, as did Minerva. She had reconnected after the war with Neville and soon found themselves married, they had two children of their own now and lived in a quiet isolated house in a forest. Teddy had become a son to her, and Neville accepted him and took care of him as though he was his own.
So here today, seeing her son in all but blood so happy and radiating excitement, she couldn't feel anything other than pride and hope that the future she had so long fought to shape would bring her children happiness and bright futures.