2. A Hogwarts Letter.
Disclaimer: I do not own any aspect of Harry Potter. I do, however, take Draco and Hermione out to play sometimes.
A/N. Happy Easter, everyone! And thank you to all those who have reviewed, favourited and followed! Kimbrewlyyy-to answer your question I will be writing this mainly from the POVs of Draco and Hermione but maybe with some Ron and Harry thrown in.
This is a bit of a slower chapter, with lots of scene setting—but the pace will pick up soon, I promise! This chapter is more heavily based on Muggle Studies by theangelsarecoming. Paragraphs that are heavily derived from Muggle Studies will be marked with one asterisk * at the beginning. Paragraphs that are quoted verbatim will be marked with two asterisks **.
I hope you enjoy!
"All over at last," sighed Harry, slumping onto the couch at Grimmauld Place. Kreacher immediately scurried over with a cup of hot tea and something small and crispy that looked like a cross between a scone and a chip.
"One for Mistress Granger too, Harry Potter, sir?" he piped.
Kreacher still couldn't quite bring himself to address Hermione directly, but his attitude towards her had nonetheless softened considerably. He referred to her respectfully as "Mistress Granger", and was as attentive to her wants and needs as he was to Harry's, save for the fact that if Harry was not in the room, he would pose any questions seemingly to the empty air, refusing to look at her.
"Yes please, Kreacher—that would be lovely," Hermione said, her lips twitching. Kreacher's awkwardness around her was merely a source of amusement now, any real hostilities between the two having long since ceased. The elf made a bow in her general direction and scurried off.
Harry frowned at the strange scone. "I wonder what this is. I don't know how I feel about his new baking craze…."
"Hm." Hermione made a noncommittal noise. Kreacher was a free elf now, with a salary and several pairs of brightly-coloured woollen socks which he wore with great pride. (Today's pair was hot pink.) To Harry's alarm, Kreacher had spent most of his first month's salary on new, fancy baking equipment and an assortment of bizarre ingredients, and had promptly embarked on a series of highly experimental baking. Thus far they'd had pumpkin and truffle pie, raisin, chocolate and coriander slice, a very peculiar meatloaf, several indescribable types of jelly, and a kind of chilli-infused hot chocolate which had turned out to be delicious.
"…Then again," Harry continued ruminatively, "these days I don't have to worry that he's going to poison me. Or you."
"And most of his ideas turned out great," Hermione pointed out brightly.
"Except the one with the coriander," Harry said, making a face. "He's ruined raisins for me forever. Still—" he took a bite of the scone, "there have been more hits than misses. This one's delicious."
"Master doesn't like the scone?" Kreacher had reappeared with a scone and steaming mug for Hermione, and, seeing them talking, looked downcast.
"No, no," Hermione said hastily. "Harry really likes it, don't you, Harry? I can't wait to try one…oh, Kreacher, a hot chocolate! Thank you!"
Kreacher did not reply or look at her, but looked distinctly pleased as he bowed and nearly skipped from the room.
"Anyway," Hermione said once Kreacher was gone, "how was the trial? That awful reporter didn't try to ambush you again, did he?"
After the initial spate of funerals, Hermione had hoped that they would get some rest, but all three of them—herself, Harry, and Ron—had been kept busy throughout the spring, as the trials of Death Eaters dragged on. All three of them were important witnesses at many of the trials, and though she and Ron sometimes managed a few days off at a time, Harry never had more than a weekend to recuperate before he was called to the next round of trials. Hermione and Ron would watch him throughout the week, noting with concern how dark circles appeared under his eyes as the days wore on. Thursdays and Fridays, he drank Firewhiskey in the evenings.
This week, though, he'd regained some spring in his step as the end came in sight. The trial of the elder Nott would be the last for some time, at least until those Death Eaters who had fled to various parts of Europe could be found and brought to justice.
"Harry?" When he still didn't answer her question, merely sipped his tea and gazed into space, Hermione reached over and prodded him in the shoulder.
"Huh?"
"I asked you how the trial went. And whether O'Keefe tried to weasel information out of you again."
"Oh—no. It was very uneventful, actually. I'm just glad they're finally over." Harry sighed and stretched, looking for a moment like the boy he had been before their hunt for the Horcruxes. His hair was growing long again, nearly to his collar at the back; both Hermione and Molly Weasley had protested that it did not behove a war hero to have messy hair while testifying in court, but to no avail—and when Molly did not drop the subject, he'd given her such a terrifying look that even she shut her mouth, abashed.
Hermione thought, with no little concern, that the hair problem was only one symptom of Harry's reckless disregard for public opinion, which had always been part of his character, and was reaching new heights since the war. But there was no use saying anything—Harry had also, in the last few months, perfected an icy glare and a total disregard for opinions that he did not want to hear. So Harry did as he pleased, with little regard for the opinions of those around him, save perhaps Ginny, whom Hermione had once spotted tangling her fists into Harry's hair while they kissed in a corridor.
*That had been in the early days, when Grimmauld Place was still full of recovering Order members and students. Harry had opened the place up to any of the Order of the Phoenix and his school friends who needed a place to stay after the War, and at first the chaos in its many rooms had rivalled that of fifth year—the full Weasley clan, Luna Lovegood, even Neville and his grandmother. But soon enough the Weasleys returned to the Burrow, and the various other people to their own homes, and the house became quiet once more. It was just Hermione and Harry now—Hermione choosing to stay because her parents were still recovering their memories in St Mungo's—although both Ron and Ginny visited often.
Truth be told, she had come to dread their visits. Ginny was full of energy and fierce, and Hermione had enjoyed that in the old days, finding in Ginny's wit and verve a good counterpart to her own energy and intellect. Now she felt washed out, a pale ghost drifting around the house, and Ginny's aliveness hurt to be around. But she could see how having his girlfriend around warmed and softened Harry in a way nothing else could anymore, and was happy for them. Even though she'd had to soundproof her room a few times at night….
As for Ron—well—things with Ron were…complicated. She blamed it on her constant tiredness, her feeling that the whole world was too bright and harsh, but it was hard to feel anything at all when he kissed her, now. Let alone going further. They'd tried, once. She'd tried. They still had most of their clothes on when Ron had seen that she wasn't into it, and stopped. He'd zipped up his jeans and she'd pulled her shirt back on, and they'd sat and watched a Muggle movie with his arm around her, and later she tried to apologise, and he stopped her.
"But…it's not me, right, is it, 'Mione?"
And at the uncertainty in his voice she made herself take his face in her hands and kiss him.
"It's not you," she'd told him softly. "I'm just…recovering. That's all."
But things hadn't been the same since, and when he came over all his movements around her were wary, as though she were something that might break if he touched her.
Harry's voice jolted her from her thoughts. "What about you, 'Mione?"
"What?"
"What have you been up to? Lots of reading?"
Hermione's cheeks flushed. "No…not really…" she said. "Just pottering about."
Pottering about (she thought) was a generous way of describing it. Hermione had always prided herself on being a morning person. Even on weekends at Hogwarts, she'd been up at six-thirty for a cup of tea and some uninterrupted study time while Harry and Ron snored until ten. Now, though, getting out of bed at all was a struggle. The last few weeks—though she would get up at seven and pretend to busy herself around the kitchen while Harry ate breakfast—saw her crawling straight back into bed once he left, or drifting aimlessly around the house, or playing on the Muggle computer she'd retrieved from her parents' house. The stack of books she'd meant to read sat beside her bed, looking at her—she thought—with increasing reproach. Today she'd picked up the topmost book (Demons and Demonology in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia) and tried to read, but it took all her effort to focus on single words, let alone comprehend the sentences into which they arranged themselves. In the end she'd given up and sat on the couch downstairs with Titanic playing on the TV (another borrowing from her parents).
Comfort-eating had always been Ron's thing, but lately Hermione had found that a good toasted-cheese sandwich was about the only thing that could improve her mood, at least for an hour or so. Or chocolate… Her parents would probably faint with horror if they knew how much sugar she'd been eating lately. But with spells to keep the enamel on her teeth in top condition, her one big deterrent for eating sweets had vanished. Besides, now that she was living in Grimmauld Place, Kreacher was always around to encourage any and all sweet-eating she cared to indulge in.
For the first time in her life, Hermione had no school to go to, no goals to achieve. For her whole teenage life, her world had revolved around Hogwarts—kicking academic goals; keeping Harry and Ron out of mischief; being, at least for them, a conscience, a role model, a political advisor. None of these things applied now. Sure, she'd planned to be a Healer after school, or perhaps work for the Ministry as an advocate for the rights of disenfranchised magical minorities. But any concrete sense that she was working towards those goals had, for the first time in her life, vanished. As for Harry and Ron, they had, in their different ways, grown up over the past year and taken their lives into their own hands, leaving her doubly adrift. It was as though she didn't know who she was anymore, without a war to fight, friends to guide, and study to do.
At her noncommittal answer to his question, Harry had given her a sharp look, and she thought, with a mixture of dread and relief, that he might probe further; but then he shrugged and sank back into the couch. "Can't wait to just potter around for a few days, come tomorrow," he remarked. "What's that Muggle TV show you always talk about? We should watch it together."
"Doctor Who?"
"Yeah, that's the one. We should get Ron and Ginny over. Do you think they'd like it?"
"Maybe…Ginny would. It would probably scare Ron…What's that?"
"What?"
"That." A sharp tapping noise had come from the direction of the door. She started up, but before she could go anywhere a large brown owl flew in sight and began rapping on the window.
"It's a Hogwarts owl!" Hermione said in disbelief, hastening to open the window.
"What's a Hogwarts owl doing here?" said Harry.
Hermione was already untying the ribbon around its leg. "Two envelopes—to Mr. Harry Potter and Ms. Hermione Granger…" Fingers shaking, she slit hers open and read:
**Dear Ms. Granger,
Given the unfortunate events that occurred last year, we would like to invite all the students of the Class of 1998 to return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for an eighth year. It was in the wishes of the late Albus Dumbledore that this be the case if school be interrupted by the war. This final year is not compulsory, but rather an option made available to those who wish to complete their education at this school.
Students who feel that they have the capability to and wish to sit their N.E.W.T.s without returning to classes may do so at the Ministry of Magic on 17 August.
For the students who do return to Hogwarts, the school year will be run as per usual, though some classes may be run together with students from the seventh year. Accommodation for all eighth year students will not be according to Houses, but will instead be in the Eastern Tower.
Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment, if you do wish to return to Hogwarts. Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Headmistress
A/N. This was trickier to write than the last chapter, and I hope it remains readable. The concept of a Hermione who is (at least temporarily) showing a very different side of her character to that of the eager, driven bookworm of the original series is one that I really wanted to explore in this fic.
Any and all thoughts and reviews are greatly appreciated.