Hermione looked over at her sleeping daughter, wishing that she could also be konked out at a time like this, rather than anxiously twiddling her thumbs. She stared out the window some more, watching the ocean so many miles below, both dreading and hoping for land to come into view. Hermione finally thought she caught a glimpse of lights in the distance, but didn't know whether it was her imagination or her tired mind playing tricks on her again. She waved for the flight attendant's attention. "Excuse me, how much longer until we're at Heathrow?"
"Oh, not long at all, maybe about twenty minutes. If you look out from your window, you could probably start seeing lights." The kind flight attendant responded. So she wasn't imagining things, home was close, very close, though the kind of home that would be there to greet her was playing against her thoughts.
The rest of the flight was rather short, though for Hermione it felt like an eternity. Hermione woke her daughter and they grabbed their carry-on bags and exited the plane. As they walked out the long corridor, Hermione broke into a grin. Winter picked up the pace a bit upon sighting her grandparents, and finally the two girls broke into a run, ending in a tight embrace.
"Hermione, it's so good to see you darling! Though this is a bit more last minute than I would have expected from you." Mrs. Granger spoke to her daughter over Winter's bushy red hair. Hermione smiled and began chatting hurriedly with her dad, who hugged her, held her out at arms length to look at her, then hugged her again.
"Oh Dad it's so good to see you!" Hermione exclaimed, though she was a bit anxious on the plane to see how her parents had aged, she was pleasantly surprised to see that they looked almost exactly the same, plus a couple of gray hairs and wrinkles.
"Jelly Bean it's great to see you too! Let's go get the rest of your luggage." Hermione blushed at being called her old nickname and followed her father for a short distance to the baggage claim. They lifted Hermione and Winter's bags off of the claim and were lead outside by an exceptionally buoyant Winter.
"And I scored the goal and won the game, but that isn't even the most interesting part, Gramps, I won MVP at the end of the season. But school was good too, and there was this girl there who tried beating me in the spelling bee, but she couldn't…"
"Whoa Winter, slow down, you will have plenty of time to tell them everything…as will I…" Hermione mumbled the last bit, but her father's ears were better than even she remembered.
"And what exactly did you need to tell us?" Mr. Granger whispered to his daughter aside from Winter and Mrs. Granger.
"Oh Dad," Hermione sighed, "I have to fix things in the wizarding world. I have to find out what happened to Ron and Harry." and me* Hermione thought the last part to herself. She looked up into her father's eyes and saw nothing but understanding. "I thought we could head home for now, get a good nights sleep, then I wanted to start checking things out tomorrow." Mr. Granger nodded in agreement, taking the keys from his pocked in a fluid motion and unlocking the car just as Winter and Mrs. Granger approached. The four headed off to the Granger residence. There was no need to put the radio on in the car, Winter was buzzing about every little detail in her life she could think of, even though most of it had already been told over the phone. As they drove down a particularly long road, Hermione drifted off, having one of the most peaceful dreams she would ever remember in her entire life.