"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." --Robert Frost

Chapter Two: Life's a Struggle

Nerves overcame her one more when she reached the fourth floor. Only sheer will got her past Ward Forty-Nine. For a moment she was tempted to drop in on the elder Longbottoms, then she recalled that they no longer dwelled there, that in their place was Narcissa Malfoy. So much had happed in those last years at Hogwarts, and in the six years since the Final Battle. So much had changed. The deep breath she took before pushing open the door to the Specialty Magic clinic did nothing to calm her.

"Hullo and welcome to Specialty Magic. How may I help you?"

The greeting had the almost-bored quality that oft-repeated sayings got over time, but the red-haired witch's smile was sincere. The azure robes she had on went well with her eyes. Hermione had to swallow some bile that threatened to gag her when she opened her mouth to return the greeting. Merlin! She would rather be facing down Voldemort again.

"Um," she managed, "conception magic?"

The wobbly question caused an instant transformation in the receptionist. The smile disappeared. The grimace that replaced it was one of long-term annoyance. The blue eyes closed as she seemed to count. When she spoke again, it was in a plastic voice.

"Now you see here, Miss--"

"Granger."

"Miss Granger, we cannot arrange for you to carry the heir of a famous person unless you have a signed and authenticated contract with said person--Granger? Surely not Hermione Granger?"

"That's me."

"The Hermione Granger?"

"Yep."

Hermione pushed the familiar comfort of the hood away from her face. It fell to her shoulders, revealing the tell-tale mop of wild brown hair. As if the other witch needed any farther proof of Hermione's identity, Hermione slipped off her cloak. Her muggle sundress revealed the scrolling lacework covering her left arm like an inky shadow before ending at her wrist, except for two tendrils that formed the Rune on the middle of her hand, one on back and one on the palm. The lacework also crawled over her shoulders and up the side of her neck. Half of her chin was covered as well. All of it was elegantly graceful and exactly drawn. Even the spot where Voldemort's portion had spattered on her had a flawless shape. She knew because Harry had told her so. She had been concerned, she recalled as she hung up her cloak, when Harry's markings had begun to fade, but hers remained. But at least she now knew how Harry had felt all those years when people stared at his scar.

It almost made her long for her customary glamours. Without those glamours, and now her cloak, she felt naked, exposed in ways that going without her wand during the dark years of the Second War had never made her feel. She could feel the weight of the receptionist's awed stare. Hermione forced herself to act like she didn't notice, to nonchalantly turn from the rack by the door to face the other witch.

"I am so sorry, Miss Granger," the redhead said in a horrified whisper. She instantly conjured a not-so-small stack of paperwork which she handed to Hermione. "Here's your paperwork. I really am sorry--"

"Do you have a quill I can borrow?"

-/-­-/-­-/-­-/-­-/-­

So much had happened in the years since the start of the Second War.

Both sides lost people, every single of them important. Justin Finch-Fletchley and Hannah Abbott died defending a trio of third years that should not have ever been involved in the Final Battle. Two of those thirteen-year-olds, Euan Abercrombie and Rose Zeller, had died despite the Hufflepuff couple's sacrifice. The third child, a Gryffindor named Nathalie McDonald, had been used by Zacharias Smith to take out her partners-in-crime as well as the Patil sisters. Dean Thomas took a Killing Curse that had been meant for Seamus Finnegan. Michael Corner and Colin Creevy had likewise taken what was not aimed at them, for Cho Chang and Dennis Creevy respectively. Luna Lovegood had died with that dreamy look in her eyes and that oddly far-away smile on her face even after twelve rounds of Crucio from Voldemort himself. And many, oh, too many, of the Order had died: Arabella Figg, Alicia Spinnet, Alastor Moody, and others whose names Hermione had never learned. Cedric's death might have started the War and Dumbledore's may have changed the rules, but every death counted.

The price for life, and the freedom to live it without fear, had been paid in blood.

Graduation had been a sober occasion that year. While the rest of the Wizarding world had still been celebrating Voldemort's Fall, the Great Hall had been silent. While the newspapers and magazines, miffed that Harry and Hermione weren't talking, had been informing the world about the Trio's--now Duo's--Arcanic Runes, McGonagall had been graduating students posthumously. Everyone who had fought for the side of light in the Final Battle got an Order of Merlin of some degree. Those who had paid the ultimate price received a new token of recognition, the Medal of Mnemosyne.

But what good was a medal to the dead? Or to people like Molly Weasley or Mr. Lovegood who had to bury a child? Or to Neville, who buried a mother that he had never really known but had used the only moments of lucidity she had had in fifteen years to save him? It didn't bring back the departed. It didn't help ease the hole left by their absence.

So what good was it?

The questions continued to haunt her. For a month after the Commencement Ceremony, she had walked around Naman's house like a ghost. Naman had never asked any questions and had kept Rity from asking any. The many relatives that made up the Cooper gypsy troop had just shown up at the choovihni's home like they had the summer that Rity had been born. They only stayed a week before leaving. Hermione could still remember what Naman had told her when she sent Hermione with the troop.

"Go with them, m'dear." The aging woman enveloped her granddaughter in a hug that conveyed what she would never be able to say. "Learn that there is life after death. Learn to dance to the music of your heart. Learn to be the wild gypsy that is locked inside you. We'll take care of Crook."

So Hermione had left with the caravan, for Naman. She had become the same ever-efficient Hermione that anyone from Hogwarts would recognize, but like her first semester at the magic school, she was miserable. She couldn't bring herself to join in on the songs or to make her feet move in the almost familiar steps of the many dances. Every time she began to see the glimmer of life, one of the faces of the friends she had lost came back to her. Severus' or Ron's were the most common ones.

In the year it took for her soul to recover, she had missed Pansy Parkinson's marriage to Theodore Nott and Ginny's marriage to Neville. Harry moved to his Nest on an isle that was part of the Potter legacy about six months after she had left. Ronald Longbottom, the first of Ginny and Neville's children, was born that spring on his deceased uncle's birthday. Draco Malfoy had somehow disappeared from the limelight after making a public apology for his and his father's actions. When Naman and Rity moved to the States, Hermione found out from McGonagall.

Then one day she had woken up on the ground next to a burnt-out fire and found the scar on her spirit didn't hurt so much. As she revived the fire, the words of a song filled her. For once the notes didn't stop in her throat but filled the early morning air. Her Uncle Radel had smiled for the first time in her presence. The next time there was a dance, her feet and hips moved without her having to tell them. And when she laughed, it finally reached her eyes.

Her life had been renewed and now it was time to go home. She knew what she had to do if she was to get anything on her own steam and not for her part in Voldemort's Defeat. She had to become a completely new person. Thus Helen Daniels had been born.

McGonagall had helped with the necessary documents. She had them all waiting when Hermione came, like a fugitive, to her office. Everything was there, O.W.L and N.E.W.T scores (which were less impressive than her actual scores, but still impressive), a minor age adjustment to account for extra two years she had gained because of the Time Turner use in third year, and an employment history consisting of being the personal librarian for the Dumbledore estate.

After seeing the library at the Hive, the name of the Dumbledore estate, she could understand why he would have needed a librarian. Every book ever given to the old headmaster had been put into one room. They had just been placed on the shelves wherever there was a spot. With twice as many books as the Hogwarts library, but half as much space, it was utter chaos. She spent the three months after sending her resume to the Department of Mysteries making sense of it. She had managed it only after conjuring new bookcases and rearranging the entire room. She left an empty bookcase near the door with the words 'new books' scrawled across the top so that her hard work needn't be a waste of time.

Helen Daniels didn't 'live' for very long, though. It was enough to get her the research job on her own merits, but her roommate's mother also worked for the Department of Mysteries. When Hermione messed up and used one of Blaise's favorite phrases, Lanai Zabini had instantly caught it. Both Zabinis had a habit of being too observant for their own good. That trait, Hermione was sure, is what had landed both in Slytherin.

Luckily, Hermione was the Hermione Granger and the Head of the Department had understood her reasoning. He had looked at her actual school records (which had broken several records that had been held since the beginning of Ministry testing). Those records and the advanced magic she had performed over the years are what won her the right to remain as a researcher. Her name only made Karl Abahalkin look at them. She was lucky he decided not to press charges.

But, then again, falsifying documents was such a small thing.