Disclaimer: I am a student, and I do not have any money, so don't sue... you'll get nothing. I am not the Goddess in person.
A/N: This is an independent follow-up to Left Behind.
Summary of Left Behind: The Granger's house has been attacked by Voldemorts followers and Hermione has been bitten by a werewolf. Remus has agreed to take her into custody.
Broken.
She heard the door slam and held her eyes closed tight. She had been awake for a while and though they had whispered, they could not hide what they were talking about.
"Should we wake her now?" Pavati's voice echoed, and was quickly answered by Ginny's low hissing words "Not yet. Susan will be here any minute now."
She knew Susan was a Ravenclaw student, who had found a way to break the spell that kept boys out of the girls' dormitories. So, she thought to her self, they are trying to get Ron and Harry up here as well.
There was a cough outside the dormitory and a girl's voice said "Alarm disabled, slide, disabled. You can bring around the boys now." Footsteps and people grinning quietly, struggling to hold back laughter. She then heard Ginny's voice again, counting "One, two, three, now."They started singing, "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Hermione, happy birthday to you."
"Hermione sat up, trying to look tired and surprised. While she unwrapped her presents and thanked the people who had come, she hoped that no one figured out that she had been awake for hours.
And after a while they started drifting back out of the sixth year girl's dormitory, getting ready for classes.
She had unwrapped most of the presents, but left Harry, Ron and Ginny's for last.
"I knew you weren't asleep, you know!" Ginny said, while closing the door. Hermione smiled at her. "I know." She opened Ginny's gift. "Wow, Ginny. The new copy of House Elf Traditions – A Race We Take for Granted! That must have been really expensive!"
"Yeah, well. Fred and George asked if I wanted to help them during the summer holiday, you know around the shop, so I made a fair amount of money on that."
"It's great. I wanted to buy one myself, but I never really had the chance." Hermione stopped, and looked shortly at her hands. "Well, Remus and Dumbledore replaced most of my school books, but I'm still poor."
"You're not poor Hermione. You're one of the richest people I know." Ron said firmly.
Hermione shook her head and looked at them all with a strained smile. She reached for Ron's present, unpacking it quickly.
"Oh, Ron! It's beautiful!" She held up a thin necklace in which there hang a gold-framed picture of Harry, Ron and herself, laughing and waving at her.
"Colin took it last year, remember?" Ron said, his creaks flushed and his ears red. Hermione smiled and reached for Harry's package; a large turquoise box. She cautiously opened the lid.
"Oh, Harry, wow! It's so cute!" she said, looking at the red kitten with golden flicked fur staring up at her from the blanket in the box.
"She's part Kneazle, just like Crookshanks was," said Harry pausing shortly. "But she's just a kitten, so you get to train her. And name her, and please make it better than Crookshanks!"
"She's great – you're all great. How do you like the name Gold Flake?" She asked the kitten in her lap. It purred and curled up in a protective ball. Hermione turned to the last package –a quickly wrapped, quite large box.
"It's just arrived with a note to wrap it before we gave it to you. We didn't have much time," said Ron quickly.
Hermione looked at them and then at the package with great confusion.
"Well, unwrap it!" Harry demanded, grinning at Ron. Hermione quickly tore of the paper and opened the box and...
"Oh, she's beautiful..." it was a young snow owl with a letter in her beak. It read:
Dear Hermione.
A very happy birthday.
Since I am now your legal guardian, I felt it necessary to make sure that you can contact me at any time. I therefore sent you this owl. Harry and I have agreed that you can have two animals, since this owl cannot curl op on you bed.
Sincerely
Remus Lupin.
PS. There is more to come.
"There is more to come? What does that mean?" Hermione asked, but Harry and Ron just beamed at her, and Ginny said "We aren't gonna spoil your surprise, come on, and let's go have breakfast." Hermione sent her new owl out the window, with the message to go to the owlery. Then she turned to her friends, suddenly alarmed.
"For how long did you disable the alarm, Ginny?"
"For about fifteen minutes, why?"
"Shouldn't fifteen minutes have passed by now?" Harry asked, catching Hermione's point. Ginny looked at her watch. "No, only fourteen minutes. We've got plenty of time," she said opening the door and pushing Ron and Harry down the stairs with great haste.
They reached the great hall and sat down just as the owls arrived with the post, filling the ceiling above them. Hermione looked up and cough the sight of not just one, but two snowy white owls. The one landed at Harry's plate, dropping the letter on top of his oatmeal, where he greeted it with a soft "Hullo Hedwig." The other owl, however, landed on Hermione's shoulder and waited for her to take the letter in its beak. "I still haven't found a name for you." Hermione said, while opening the letter. "Better find one soon." She looked at the letter, reading its clumsy scribbled note:
Happy birthday Hermione.
Gawp says hi too.
I have a present for yer, which you can get later.
I need your help with somethin' an' I need you ter come as quickly as possible.
Again huge congratulations.
Hagrid
As Hermione, Harry, Ginny and Ron made their way across the grounds heading for Hagrid's cabin, Hermione noticed a large crowd of familiar people setting the table outside, blowing up balloons and talking loudly to one another. They were all there; Mad-Eye Moody, Tonks, Lupin and the most of the Weasley family. For a brief moment Hermione feared that they would stop laughing and look at her with guilty faces full of pity, as most of the students had done lately, when she walked into a room.
But no one in the present congregation stopped smiling as they saw her. On the contrary Fred and George sent of a bunch of their Weasley's Wildfire Whiz-bangs, which spelled Congratulations and Happy birthday, but also ones that spelled Manure and Dimwit Tonks who had been spreading steamers over the table turned joyfully and knocked over a couple of glass in her efforts to wave at her; and Hagrid pulled her into a hug and when he released her, he gave her a proud smile. "All grown up, our Hermione. Look at her! Grown up an' pretty."
"What are you all doing here? With everything going on I would think you'd have more important things to do."
"Nothing is more important than you, love," said Mrs. Weasley and gave her a firm, loving hug.
"We thought you needed us more. And we needed a party." said Lupin's voice behind her. She turned and looked at him shortly before giving him a shy hug.
"I suppose you are the reason why all these people have assembled here," she said surrendering, but Remus Lupin just smiled.
"No the reason is none but you, Hermione. And the ones who are responsible for getting us all here is Harry and Ron. So as you see, I am without fault in this." The two of them strolled across the grounds without purpose
"I doubt it! You're becoming a sneaky old crook like Dumbledore. You even talk like him at times."
"Damn! Sirius would be very disappointed at me if he ever thought I'd turned out to become Dumbledore. He always told me that he'd rather want me to be a paranoid old zany like Moody."
Hermione couldn't hold back untroubled laughter.
"It's good to hear you laugh. I've seemed to have forgotten how laughter sounds."
"And I've forgotten how good it feels," said Hermione guiltily.
"Boggarts thrive these days, you know. They live off our fear, like dementors live off our happiness. We should all laugh more."
"But it's so hard," said Hermione, shaking her head.
"Ah, but it is when it is the hardest that it is most necessary."
"Now you definitely sound like Dumbledore!" the young witch said, smiling.
"I do, don't I?" Remus said, scratching his head. "I might as well go around using words like: "Alas" and "Peril" and eating sherbet lemons."
Hermione smiled and shook her head. "I don't think that will be your destiny."
"No point in trying to predict your destiny. James, Sirius, Peter and I tried once, in our fifth year, before the war began for real. We were all so sure that we'd end up like four old cronies sitting around telling stories about our Marauding days. Peter was so worried that we'd split up and stop being friends. Kind of ironic that he was the first we lost. I sometimes wonder if the Peter who's out there ever thinks about our time together, our predictions for the future. If he knows, or even cares that Sirius is dead."
"I don't think so, Remus. Like you said, he's not the same Peter. The Peter you knew died a long time ago. And if you ever meet him, you must never doubt that. He'd rat on you without turning a hair."
"I know. I guess it's just my foolish faith in the good in people. It was the same trust that I had in Sirius all those years. I knew he'd done it, killed all those people, but maybe he didn't mean to, or something. You know?"
"Sure. It's kind of like that foolish faith that Dumbledore has in Professor Snape." Behind them a Weasley's Wildfire Whiz-bangs exploded and a great number of golden and blue birds fluttered around for a while leaving golden sparks in their wake.
"Nah, that's real trust. And with good reason, too. So how are you doing? I mean, how are you really doing?"
Hermione looked at the man in front of her. His sad, brown dog eyes rested on her face, ready to detect any kind of discontentment caused by the topic.
"I'm tired and I feel annoyed and edgy all the time. It was enough that I had to feel that way once a month, now it's all the time. And I can feel it, Remus, the wolf. Like it is a part of me that I suddenly can't control."
"That's normal, it'll pass. Well except for the wolf. It'll always be there, just below the surface. Are you having problems with your potions?"
"No, not really. I am actually grateful to have Professor Snape around to make the potion; otherwise I don't know what would happen. Professor Snape has even agreed to teach Harry how to make the potion, though I doubt Harry are fond of taking remedial potions. But he said he'd do it for me. Both he and Ron have been great, getting me through the worst days. But I am really grateful for the potion. I'm even getting used to the taste." She said frowning.
"That is the worst part, isn't it?" said Remus, looking at the young witch uncertainly.
"I've tasted worse potions" she said, thinking of their second year and the Polyjuice Potion..
Lupin smiled and looked back over his shoulder at the people standing around down by Hagrid's cabin. "I've brought you this." He handed her a small box. "It's a few things that Moody found in your house. Pictures and so. I'm afraid that there wasn't much left."
The girl froze and fought against the tears, but they came anyway, burning their way down her cheeks, leaving silvery traces on her pale skin.
Remus Lupin gave her time to recover before the two of them walked back to the birthday party.
"Hermione, just in time to cut the cake!" said Mrs. Weasley happily and handed her a knife.
"Blow out the candles," said George innocently.
"We haven't done anything to them," said Fred in a fake hurt voice, when Hermione gave them an uncertain look. "They won't explode."
Hermione drew breath and blew out the candles, which instead of exploding yelled "Happy Birthday" in high, piercing voices.
"Do you like our fireworks? We tried to separate the happy ones from the rude ones," said Fred with a foxy smile.
"But they somehow found their way back into our bags," continued George thoughtfully.
"So, how has you day been?" asked Tonks, as she sat down beside Hermione.
"It's been rather good actually. I don't know, it might be because the sun is shining, but I feel the happiest that I have felt in I long time." Hermione answered with a worried frown.
"You know, it's okay to feel happy. They wouldn't blame you. Sometimes we just need to smile, when our troubles seem too many. Even though it might seem hard."
"Remus said something like that earlier."
"He did? Then it must be true. He's very smart, even beginning to sound a bit like Dumbledore, he is."
Hermione let out careless laughter.
She'd always been afraid that someday she would stop laughing or stop caring. She always thought that growing up meant that she would have to be serious and staid, but somehow it felt more like being happy at the right times. When your happiness is limited, you tend to enjoy it all the more.
And even though her family had been killed by Deatheaters and she had been bitten by werewolves, she knew that she too had the right to be glad, what ever that meant. And for the shortest moment, she couldn't find it in her heart to hate anybody. Not Voldemort and his trailing Deatheaters, not the werewolves who bit her, not her parents for dying on her and not even Peter Pettigrew for starting this nightmare known as the Second War.
Behind the castle and the hills the sun had drowned its own sorrows behind the horizon. Tomorrow was going to bring along another day full of worries and pain and doubts, but she couldn't care now. Today was her birthday, today she turned seventeen and today she had been happy for the first time since she went to bed that night, two months ago.
She felt a familiar hand on her shoulder, and she didn't have to turn her head to know who it was.
"Happy Birthday, sweetheart. We wanted to be here today," said her father and stroked her cheek gently. "Your mother and I are very proud of you."
She put her hand on her own shoulder, where her dad's hand had been, but there were no hand there, and there never would be again. Just lonely whispers in the wind and honest wishes for what could never be.
The End
I kept everything inside
And even though I tried
It all fell apart
What it meant to me
Will eventually
Be a memory
Of a time where I tried so hard.
"In the end"
Linkin Park