A/N: Written for Ron's Chessboard Write-a-Ron on AO3
~Dot
It was another never-ending day at the Auror office for Ron and Harry. The grandfather clock in the corner of the archival room's steady tick made Ron sure that they had been in there for at least 20 hours. The room was getting dark as the sun began to set, but their task seemed ages away from being done.
Ron knew there wasn't a single thing in the world more boring and mind-numbing than sorting through old Auror photos and memorabilia. Whoever set their punishment must be Satan himself.
Ron not only disagreed with their punishment but also the reason they were being punished. Sure, Harry and Ron weren't the most polished of Aurors, but everyone makes mistakes. However, not everyone ends up almost choking on the sheer amount of dust in each box they opened.
Ron seemed to be taking their treatment a lot harder than Harry was, as even when organising box after box of old Auror photos, somehow Harry still had a smile on his face.
"Look at this," Harry motioned to Ron.
Harry showed Ron an old black-and-white, yet moving, picture of a group of early Aurors. They were wearing the traditional uniform–bright looking shin length robes with pointy shoulder pads and frills, a collection of sparkly stripes, and the most striking part–a wizard's hat that had to be as high as Dobby was tall, with golden fringe and twinkling stars wrapped around it. Ron looked at the bottom of the picture and saw the title "12th RGT. of Aurors, 1728".
"Imagine if we had to dress like that," Harry laughed, "we'd have an even harder time camouflaging."
By the time the view out the only window in the room was pitch-black, Ron's vision became blurry. He was sorting through a box of photos from the 20s, writing down every name and rank of each Auror pictured and sorting them into their respective boxes. At this point, he could barely tell one beardless, stoic face from another.
"This is ridiculous," Ron stated, exacerbated, "this is receptionist work! Not work for 3rd year Aurors."
"Ron," Harry said.
"I mean, sure, we might have ignored some orders. And yes, there might have been a teensy explosion because of it. But no one got hurt! That should stand for something." Ron felt his anger growing at Harry's apparent admonishment.
Ron had to admit that the transition from world-renown celebrity to Auror underling had not been easy for either of them, but he seemed to be having a more difficult time
"Ron."
"What?" Ron asked. "If you think that this is proper punishment, then you're a sadist!"
"Look."
"I really am not in the mood for another photo of silly-looking Aurors, mate," Ron responded in a huff.
Then Ron looked more closely at Harry. Harry's mouth was slightly ajar and his brows were wrinkled–it wasn't the look of someone poking fun at outdated uniforms.
Ron felt his anger dissipate and be replaced by curiosity. He couldn't imagine what kind of photo would make Harry look so shocked. The only possible idea Ron had was that Harry could have found a picture of his parents or perhaps Sirius.
But when Ron stumbled over to Harry (his legs had gone numb from sitting too long) he saw that it was another antique photo, too antique to be from the generation before them.
"What is it?" Ron asked as he looked over the picture.
He first looked at the inscription which said "MoM soldiers and nurses 1942."
From his minimal historical knowledge, he could presume that they fought in the Muggle World War II. He could also figure out that they were wizards, partially because MoM stood for Ministry of Magic, and partially because the photo moved.
"Neat," Ron said, unamused. He wondered if Harry was starting to lose it from staring at pictures all evening.
"Maybe we should take a break?" Ron said as he stretched loudly.
"Look," Harry said again, apparently losing his vocabulary as well as his mind.
Ron's eyes followed Harry's finger, which was pointing at one of the nurses. Even as a magical picture, the quality back then wasn't great, and the nurse's features were somewhat blurred.
However, there was something familiar about the bushy dark hair that had fallen out of the nurse's plait, something about the bridge of her nose, and the way she carried herself.
Then she looked directly at Ron.
"How could this fucking happen?" Ron yelled much too loudly for being in a library. Luckily, it was after-hours and they were the only ones in there. "How could we just…forget her?"
"I don't know mate," Harry said, haphazardly turning the pages in the book he was reading. "I'm trying to find information about memory erasing spells."
"She erased her parents' memories, didn't she?" Ron asked, suddenly remembering their trip to Australia to undo the spell Hermione had put on her parents.
That kept happening–random memories rapidly coming into Ron's mind. It had been going on since he saw the picture of Hermione all those–he looked down at his watch–ten minutes ago. How had it only been ten minutes? It felt like ages. Ages since he had seen her picture, and ages since he had seen her.
The mysterious ache in his stomach, one that he had seen many healers for over the years, made sense all of a sudden. The ache was that of longing. He was missing her. He had been missing her, even when he didn't know she existed.
Each new emotion attached to his newfound memories felt like a stab from a three-sided blade. Emotional range of a teaspoon, his ass.
He coughed to stifle the strangling sob he felt pushing its way up his throat.
But now was no time for tears, they had work to do. They had to figure out how Hermione changed their memories and how she managed to be in 19-fucking-42.
That was Ron's job; he was supposed to be looking up time travelling devices. Though he felt it would be easier to pinpoint what exactly he was looking for if they knew why she did it. Why had she erased their memories and what made her decide to go back to a battlefield, for Merlin's sake?
"What about time turners?" Ron asked.
"They were all destroyed ages ago," Harry responded, his nose still in his book.
"Yeah, but what if they weren't? It wouldn't be the first time the Ministry's lied about something."
Harry nodded and scribbled time turner on the parchment next to him. The list was annoyingly short, with only a few vague ideas about memory enchantments written down.
Ron grunted. Hermione may have been stuck in the 40s for three years. Three years. But Ron didn't want to wait any longer. He needed to figure out how she did it and he needed to figure out how to get her back.
"Harry", Ron whispered, a horrible thought coming across his mind. "1942 wasn't that long ago, was it?'
Harry looked up at Ron with a quizzical expression.
"I mean it was a long time ago, but it wasn't that long ago. It was only…" he calculated in his head (and on his hands), "59 years ago. If Hermione was 19 when that photo was taken she could still be alive."
They had scoured records, trying to find any hint that Hermione existed. But the photo of the nurses mysteriously did not have her name written on the back of it, and Harry and Ron weren't sure that she had gone by her real name. After hours of not finding a single trace of Hermione Granger, they began looking up the names that were on the back of the photo.
Rosemary Curtis was still alive, according to the latest census, and was residing at Evergreen Retirement Village.
As dawn had broken hours ago, Harry and Ron rushed to the pensioner's home, abandoning their archival sorting for something much more important.
The retirement home was a collection of Tudor-esque, white-washed buildings surrounded by lush green grass and bulbous-shaped bushes almost as tall as Harry. After following sign after sign and walking around in what felt like three repetitive loops, the men finally found the main house, which housed a tired-looking receptionist chewing gum with loud smacks.
Ron and Harry went over their story before walking through the double-paned glass doors. It took some convincing but their story of two brothers desperately looking for a long-lost aunt before their mother died got them through the locked door leading to the rest of the village. They made their way to the dining hall where Rosemary was just finishing up her breakfast.
"So, I've heard you've misplaced your relative?" Rosemary asked as she sipped her cup of tea.
Ron knew that stereotype that old women were gossips, but he didn't realise they were so quick about it. It had only taken them a couple of minutes to walk from reception to the dining hall, and yet Rosemary was already aware of their presence and why they were there.
"Yes," Harry responded. "Our aunt, she's right here," he pulled the old photo out of his pocket and pointed to Hermione.
They had magicked the photograph still, just in case. While there were many witches who serves as nurses in World War II, most of them were muggles. Ron and Harry didn't want to risk having to wipe an old lady's memory from the shock of seeing herself waving back to her in a photo taken decades ago. Nor did they want to explain to their bosses why it had to be done in the first place. As of right now, this mission was covert, and they didn't want to let anyone know about it until they knew more.
"Ah yes, Hermione," Rosemary said as she squinted through her glasses. "She was with us for a couple of years."
"She was a nurse?" Harry asked.
Ron was surprised that Harry was focused on Hermione's occupation, as Ron was more worried about the fact that she was there for at least two years.
"Yes," Rosemary confirmed. "Anyone with any sort of first aid training was back then, civic duty and all that."
"What do you remember about her?" Ron asked a bit too urgently. "Do you know where she is?"
"It was a while ago," Rosemary laughed. "It's hard enough for me to remember what I had for dinner last week."
Ron and Harry's disappointed faces must have been evident, as Rosemary amended her statement.
"She was very quiet, bookish. Rarely went to dances or out with the soldiers. Other than that, she seemed normal." Rosemary brought her hand to her temple and closed her eyes as if she was thinking hard. "But…"
"But?" Ron inquired.
"She was flitty, reminded me of a frightened cat, always jumping and looking over her shoulder. I always wondered if there was someone she was running from. It wasn't that unusual at the time, divorce wasn't as accepted as it is today. Sometimes a lady's only way out was to leave."
Ron eyed Harry. Hermione running from someone would give a reason as to why she had disappeared. Though until they knew who it was, they weren't any closer to finding Hermione.
"Do you know what happened to her?" Harry asked after taking a pause to take in what Rosemary had said.
"No," Rosemary said. "As far as I remember, she had just not shown up one day. I always figured that…Gladys!" she yelled. "Gladys come over here!"
A woman a few tables away, who Ron assumed to be Gladys, sprinted over.
Gladys was hard to miss. She wore a bright pink tunic over pink sparkling trousers. Her necklace and earrings were large and chunky and pink too. When she sat next to Ron, he saw that she was wearing matching bright pink eye shadow. The only thing about her that wasn't pink was her hair, which had been dyed blue.
"You finally took up my suggestion to start dating again?" Gladys flirted. "Which one's yours? You know, many people say orange and pink don't go together, but I disagree." She stroked Ron's arm as she winked exaggeratedly.
"Gladys, close your legs," Rosemary said after rolling her eyes. "These are—I'm sorry I never got you names," she interjected.
"Erm, I'm Harry and this is Ron."
They hadn't discussed whether they were using pseudonyms or not. Ron hoped that the women were muggles, so they wouldn't figure out who Ron and Harry were and their story about being brothers would fall apart.
"Well Harry and Ron," Rosemary said, not showing any sign of recognition, "are looking for their aunt." Rosemary showed Gladys the photo. "Hermione, do you remember her?"
"Oh yes," Gladys said, "the prude."
Rosemary looked at Ron and Harry as if to apologise for Gladys' indecency.
"Do you remember what happened to her?" Rosemary asked.
"Not a bit," Gladys said. "She was a strange one, wasn't she?"
Rosemary picked up the photo and handed it to Harry.
"I'm sorry boys, I wish we could be more help."
Harry and Ron nodded, and Harry stood to leave.
Ron waited, desperately wanting to get more information about Hermione. But he knew that they had gotten as much pertinent info as they could out of the old women.
"Wait," Gladys said as Ron stood to get up. She put a hand on his arm to stop him and Ron worried he'd have to dodge another advance from her.
"You said your name was Ron?"
Ron nodded.
"Ronald Weasley?"
"Yes," Ron responded, assuming that Gladys had finally recognised them.
"Come with me," Gladys said, already having had stood up.
Ron would have given some excuse to not have to follow her, but she had taken Ron's hand and was essentially pulling him out of the room.
Ron glanced at Harry with help eyes, and Harry cleared his throat.
"Alone," Gladys stated as she pulled Ron through the entrance to the dining hall.
Ron was sure his eyes couldn't have been any wider. Though, for some odd reason, he didn't fight her off and let her bring him to her room.
He was not sure what he expected when she unlocked the door to her bedroom and kitchenette. But, by the look of Gladys, he should have.
He didn't realise there were so many shades of pink.
Every inch of Gladys' flat was drenched in pink. Every cabinet, dresser, sofa, and even floor tile, could make a flamingo jealous.
But Ron didn't have much time to absorb the decor, as Gladys dragged him to her bedroom.
Then she dropped his hand–thank Merlin–and began scuffling through boxes under her bed.
Finally, she found what she was looking for. She held up an envelope, blew off a layer of dust, and handed it to Ron.
"She gave me this," Gladys said, "a day before she left."
"I don't know how, because there was no way you were alive, but she told me that if a red-haired man named Ronald Weasley ever came asking around, I should give him this."
"It was such a strange encounter, that I decidedly kept the envelope, hoping one day I'd be blessed with the presence of the enigmatic Ronald Weasley."
"And here you are."
Ron nodded his head, but he was barely paying attention to Gladys' words. All he could see was his name written on the envelope, his name written in Hermione's handwriting.
Much to Gladys' dismay, Ron nearly ran out of there, picking up Harry as he barreled out of the village.
As soon as they were alone, Ron tore open the envelope.
He had hoped it would explain everything. That she would tell him where she was and why she left. He was expecting a long-winded letter, as was typical of Hermione, that made everything make sense.
Instead, it simply said
Clifton, 1812
