After the revelation of Granger's plans, there was an uptick in the cottage's mood. Narcissa too had benefited from the largesse as there was now a vault in her name with enough capital in it for the interest to cover the Ministry's fees. Removal of the prospect of an abject descent into penury or slowly dragging her sister and great-nephew into poverty with her, did a little to ease Narcissa's heart. Draco's presence did more. Perhaps, just perhaps, Fate had taken its lot from her. She couldn't quite believe that yet.
Life settled into an amble. None of the cottage's occupants were by nature mellow but Azkaban's toll was not quickly recouped. Hermione's activities were curtailed by the lacklustre speed of bureaucracy; Muggle, magical and goblin. Andromeda preferred to savour the time she had with Teddy while he was young. Nymphadora had grown up so quickly and then it was Hogwarts and the Aurors and the grave. Losing nearly everything had greatly changed her perspective on life.
Theo knew he was getting better when something bothered him. He was lying in a hammock strung between two orange trees drowsing in the April sun when he recalled the day of their departure from England. It seemed ages ago, his memories of that time distressingly foggy, but he remembered Granger Apparating them from the bedroom. She hadn't wanted them to go downstairs that morning. Why?
A Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff would've asked outright. A Ravenclaw would've lain in the orchard worrying at the conundrum. He was none of those so with a sense of rediscovering himself, Theo swung himself upright and padded into the house. Granger was in Switzerland again. She popped back and forth regularly, though never staying overnight. Which was good. He liked knowing where she was.
The witch had claimed the attic as her room. It was either that or the cellar. She had warded the pull-down steps against children so Teddy wouldn't hurt himself. Theo knew this because she had told Andromeda. He couldn't sense the defensive magic. He didn't feel any urge to wander back to the hammock so he presumed there weren't any other repellent charms. Pulling the dangling toggle, the ladder contraption swung down and he climbed up.
Bookshelves lined the walls floor to ceiling. Bookshelves continued across the ceiling, slotted in between the rafters. Bookshelves made up the base of the bed. Bookshelves framed the desk. Granger had brought every last tome from England. Given her proclivity towards reading, Theo could reconcile the library. He found shrugging off the significant of the shrunken furniture used as paperweights more difficult.
Her chair and Crookshanks's cushion were full-sized, tucked into a corner. The mattresses were also present. Useful additions to an unfurnished garret. However, miniature Muggle appliances, a large table, three chests of drawers, a television cabinet et al suggested Granger had cleared out her English house entirely. Theo didn't touch any of the tiny furniture but he made a mental catalogue of it. She'd even gone back and cleared out the master bedroom. He left quietly.
Outside on the north of the house in the gravelled area around the lily pond, the inquisitive wizard found Granger's outdoor chairs. He recognised them from her patio. She had brought everything. Slughorn had reputedly travelled with a piano. With the aid of a wand, you could junket about with your house quite literally on your back. Why Granger would wish to do so eluded him.
Draco was in the kitchen garden stealthily eating the early strawberries. He looked angelic with downy hair and juice red lips. Theo made sure to open the gate loudly to alert his friend to his approach. Weeks out of prison, they both still startled easily. Granger had taken to Apparating from behind the hill beyond the cottage where the noise would be less jarring.
"Just checking for ripeness." Draco aired his excuse pro forma. Theo kissed him, licking the sweetness from his mouth. They lingered tasting until they had to part for air, with the blonde looking impish now.
"Come into the house. I have something to show you." He tugged his friend then feeling some resistance, clarified. "I don't intend ravishment. I want you to see something. It's easier than explaining." Theo guided him up to the attic and watched Draco take in the scene.
"She's not for England soon." He paused, frowning at his own words. His speech was stilted, out of pace with his thoughts. His mind was sharpening from the dullness of prison in fits and snatches. Draco tried again to better express himself. "Granger has moved here, not just for a holiday. Months or more." This time he frowned because of the implications. "For us?"
"I think so." Theo was uncomfortable with altruism. Granger could just as easily finagle her way into the derelict vaults while living in Kent. The commute would be shorter, a significant factor when repeatedly using blood magic. When she had told them they'd be visiting France, he had presumed the stay would be a few weeks. Long enough for them to reacquaint themselves with the outside world. "I don't know if I am at ease with her genuinely giving a damn about us."
"You look at her a lot." Draco craned his neck to read the titles on the books above his head and to avoid meeting his friend's gaze.
"So do you." His reply was soft.
"I don't know what I want." He had to be honest. He wasn't himself yet. Whatever self was left to him was still half-asleep, stunned at his own freedom. Draco felt Theo's fingers touch his and gripped them. "Do you?"
"I think so." Theo repeated, unwilling to assert certainty. Draco and Granger in a cottage filled with books. He could stand to want that. Desiring more complicated things was dangerous. If either of them approached the witch now, she would be kind. He was sure though that she wouldn't be intimate. Her ethics would not allow her to take such advantage.
"Lucky." Draco sighed.
They went downstairs and disported themselves in the kitchen, hunting through the pantry to renew their acquaintance with tastes. Narcissa Malfoy had never prepared any dish more complicated than tea and Andromeda Tonks had married a man happy to eat whatever was put in front of him. The sisters had discovered the delights of the market in the Place de la Republique then brought great baskets of provender home.
Most of the wizards' meals were still soup and steamed vegetables. They ate all the bread and legumes they could put away with cheese as a treat. The rich allure of rillettes, potted pork, tempted them both but Draco had vomited his first red meat meal and Theo had spent the night doubled up with cramps. But a lunch of Emmenthal, anchovies, onion jam and cold consommé was as fun to scrounge as it was to eat.
Hermione strode into the kitchen wearing a business suit in burgundy, black kitten heels clicking on the tiles. As soon as she was inside, she kicked off her shoes and shed her jacket then sat down heavily at the refectory table. The verve with which she wrung a baguette into pieces arrested the attention of the parolees. Draco passed the jam while Theo poured a glass of verjuice.
"Thanks." Hermione slathered her dismembered bread and chewed grimly. Feeling the weight of their gaze, she swallowed. "It's nothing bad. Not even unexpected." She took a long drink. "I had forgotten how patronising Muggles could be. I was so used to being sneered at for my blood status it had slipped my mind that men are pigs."
"I apologise on behalf of my gender." Theo ventured, testing the waters of her ire all the while hoping to avoid any reminisces of schoolyard insults. He and Draco had sneered frequently. Granger smirked at him.
"I should've brought you two with me. You could've done the aristocratic thing of looking askance at his presumption." She sighed and helped herself to a slice of cheese. "I've never mastered hauteur."
"Bit short of supply myself." Draco slid the jar of anchovies across. Hermione waved it away.
"I have a meeting with the village mairie. I don't want to breathe over him." Freshening charms could only do so much and in her experience cured fish was resistant to toothpaste. "I'm hoping to register you quietly as French residents or at least start the application process. You've got no Muggle ID, which makes it difficult to open bank accounts for you. I'd like to keep the Confounding to a minimum."
"Why do we need Muggle accounts?" Theo asked what he presumed to be an idle question and noticed the shift in her demeanour immediately.
"Well, in addition to blood magic and conspiring with Gringotts, I have also embezzled most of the contents of your vaults. As your custodian, I have full access, so I emptied all the ready cash out of them." Hermione confessed. "I'd rather like to give it back to the both of you, hence the need for bank accounts." She took a breath. "Because once you have Muggle identification and money, you can disappear if the British Ministry tries to send you back to Azkaban."
"That potion you took? The goblin one." Draco queried. The witch looked at him expectantly, not trying to put words into his mouth. He licked his lips waiting for the language to come. His mind was racing, his tongue lagging. "Side effects?"
"Are you asking if Gringotts somehow turned me into a lawbreaker?" She chuckled softly. "Sadly, no. This is me. I cursed Marietta Edgecombe and gave Umbridge to the centaurs." Hermione couldn't blame the Fragarach brew for her ruthlessness. In a good light, her defiance might be mistaken for daring. Certainly at eleven years old, the Sorting Hat might have seen it that way. "I won't be told to behave by those I hold in contempt."
"Is the Ministry so far gone you don't respect them?" Theo poured another round of verjuice. He'd rather like a glass of wine and wondered at its absence. This was not a conversation to be had over unripened grape juice. This was interesting.
"There are hundreds of diligent people doing good within the various Departments. They're the reason why I'm trying so hard to stave off the debt crisis." Her answer sounded a cavil to the three of them. Hermione shared something with the wizards she had not shared with Harry or Ron. "The hope's worn off. All the golden dreams after victory have failed to materialise. Nothing's changed."
"Azkaban!" Draco shouted, emotion choking him. He heaved in a deep breath as his fists clenched. Things had changed. So much. A different world, one in which he was utterly foreign. "We were punished."
"The hammer came down pretty hard on the scapegoats, true. Justice had to be seen to be done. Then a bit more, just to make sure." Hermione was matter-of-fact. "But the catchment area of reprisal was small. The Snatchers were the usual suspects of petty criminals and thugs. The Death Eaters were handily labelled. Easy to round 'em up and lock 'em up." She quoted a colleague of Neville's she particularly disliked. "The appeasers and toadies weren't punished. They went back to work still bigoted arseholes."
Hermione had made certain Umbridge went to Azkaban. If she hadn't been half-convinced the former High Inquisitor would respawn as a Dementor, she would've had the bitch Kissed. She had extracted her memories of the worst of Umbridge's excesses so the sense of injustice would never fade. Keeping the experiences in her head would dull them as her mind made a pearl around the irritant. This way, Hermione made sure she wouldn't forget why she fought.
"Why us?" Theo tried to play the question off as casual, something on par with asking why she'd chosen to wear a flattering dark red today. He didn't want to air the pitiable tendre he was developing for her. He was half convinced this was some excruciatingly prolonged form of brainwashing.
"I know slavery when I see it." Her voice came out hard, a backlog of anger shoring her declaration. "I don't care how the Ministry dresses it up. They're selling the parolees." Hermione took a gulp of juice and did a little slow breathing. Meditation, serenity, positive thoughts, all that. She made a small noise of amusement. "Assigning you to me was an outright bribe, but Draco was an appeal to the little devil on my shoulder. A chance to get even for all the petty wrongs of adolescence."
"You don't want that?" The blond asked, ready to be a whipping boy if it gave him any sense of atonement. Her scornful glance made him bristle. "I was a shite to you." He wasn't proud of his bullying but at least he'd done it well. He hadn't failed in intimidating his peers. Just in everything else. "I would in your place."
"Would you? Really?" She tilted her head in contemplation of him. "You see, I don't think you would. I think every time you looked back on some snide little comment, you'd be half-relieved at how childish it'd been. Pulling hair in the playground. Ordinary angst." Hermione rubbed her left forearm unconsciously. "That's how it is for me. Revenge for hexing my teeth cheapens the vengeance I want for losing my mother and father."
"My condolences. I wasn't aware your parents had passed through the Veil." Theo said formally. He had never met the Grangers and his father had never mentioned removing them so he felt safe in offering his sympathies. The loss of a parent scarred you for life.
"They're not dead." The witch made herself tell him. She had told Harry and Ron and the Weasleys. Each time, the wound reopened. The pain was part of owning the deed however. Hermione didn't regret it. "I Obliviated them. Monica and Wendell are very happy in Australia. I check on them often. Mum has gone back to uni and Dad is learning how to surf."
"Sensible of you." He risked the remark because Theo was fairly sure most people would've asked if she could reverse the charm, and he already knew the answer.
"I couldn't leave them undefended." Hermione had considered a dozen ways to protect her parents but the galling truth was there was no one spare to guard them. People had fallen over themselves to take the Dursleys into hiding as a favour for the Boy-Who-Lived. The Chosen One's Girl Side-Kick had to make her own arrangements.
"I wish I had thought of that." Draco pictured his mother passing the war tranquil on a beach, untroubled by the monster in her home. If done properly, Obliviation could be reversed in witches and wizards.
"Madam Malfoy would never have forgiven you." Theo shook his head at his friend's regret. Few witches were as devoted to their children or as implacable in their wrath as Narcissa Black. Being squirreled away while her husband and only son were in danger would seem more a gesture of contempt than esteem.
"Why do you use Madam instead of Mrs?" Hermione asked, half curious and half intent on defusing a burgeoning quarrel. Draco's face looked like a smacked bum.
"Courtesy." He answered simply. "The correct term for a married witch is Madam. A witch one knows has attained a Mastership should be properly addressed as Mistress." Theo paused to edit his phrasing. "It is my understanding that Muggles shortened Mistress into 'Mrs'. Familiarity with Muggle ways and a certain slackness of manners caused the spread of the incorrect habit among magical folk."
"Madam Pomfrey versus Mrs Weasley." She mused, anticipating either of the Slytherins to comment unfavourably on Molly the proud blood-traitor. They didn't. Instead they seemed to be watching her anxiously. "I'm not trying to bait you. I should be opening a dialogue so I can introduce you to Muggle culture. I expect if the Ministry suspects how slack I'm being in that regard, they'll send someone over to quiz you on traffic lights and the space race."
"Do we need to know about those things?" Even if his father had not expressly forbidden it, Theo would not have bothered taking the soft option of Muggle Studies. He had been far more interested in Divination than how the unwashed masses disported themselves. A stroll around the village to see the locals not being bucolic caricatures had disabused him of quite a few of his presumptions. Despite Granger's assurances, he wasn't convinced bicycles weren't some means of maiming pedestrians, having nearly been bowled over by an enthusiast.
"You need to know of them." Hermione couldn't sincerely say that an understanding of the British Road Safety Act or Project Mercury had enriched her life but ignorance was a poison. "I'll set up the TV in the attic. There isn't really space for it anywhere else. While I'm out, you can watch it. We won't get British channels without a satellite box but if you really want the news in English I can get one installed."
"You brought the television?" Theo asked as though he didn't already know she had. The conversational opener was too convenient to let pass.
"I cleared out my place." She had wanted to put off discussing the stickier bits of her Ministry defying plan but faced with a direct query, Hermione didn't want to fob him off. "I'm in the process of selling my house." Two pairs of eyes sharpened on her, both sets suspicious. "I've listed this cottage as my primary residence, which I can't do if I own property in the UK."
"Why?" Draco asked as Theo tried to puzzle out her motivations for himself.
"A lot of my friends are Aurors. Sooner or later they're going to want to visit. That's easy to do in England. If they want to drop by here, they have to get clearance from the French Ministry, who will notify us unless there's an arrest warrant." Hermione explained, actually hoping Draco and Theo were sufficiently uncaring not to feel guilty about her house. From the tightness of their expressions, she saw they weren't. "If we have some warning, you can gird yourselves."
"Potter was not..." His voice died as he returned to his first day out of Azkaban. Draco could only just remember arriving at Granger's home with his former nemesis, who hadn't raised a hand to them. Hadn't even raised his voice. Hadn't actually looked at them much at all.
"It's not Harry I'm worried about." She recalled her assertion the Fragarach potion hadn't changed her. It had altered nothing but her perceptions. A fresh point of view had made her reassess some parts of her life. "I broke off my relationship with Ron about eight months ago. He'll resent you being here with me, which will be one reason amongst many he'll want to see you squirm."