"Mom? Are you here?"
"Hermione?" A voice answered from upstairs. Seconds later, quick, familiar footsteps echoed down the stairwell and Hermione's mother rushed into the living room.
"Hermione! Your father and I were expecting you ages ago!"
As Hermione watched her mother approach, arms already outstretched for a hug, she was suddenly overcome with a wave of such utter sadness that she couldn't speak. This scene was so familiar, so warm and loving, and so completely different from her life over the past year that all of it, the house, her mother's unquestioning love, seemed foreign to her. Like it all belonged to someone else. Why did she feel like an imposter in her own home?
God, she was so tired.
The embrace of her mother still had the same calming effect that it always had, Hermione was relieved to discover. A kiss on the forehead put her almost to rights. Sadly, she hadn't come here to be babied. Hermione was here for a purpose, and she may as well get it over with.
Plastering on the brightest grin she could muster, she led the way into the kitchen. "Let's make some tea, Mom. I haven't had a decent cup of tea since I left for school last August."
After two steaming cups of Earl Grey had been poured, Hermione sat in silence under the appraising eyes of her mother. Usually they would be trading gossip, Mrs. Granger of the neighbors, Hermione of her schoolmates. Sadly, current times were a long way from usual.
Mrs. Granger just looked at her, watching her with her arms crossed. "How long are you going to be able to stay before you have to leave again?"
It never failed to amaze Hermione how quickly her mother could find the heart of a problem. She was no doubt the person from whom Hermione had inherited her celebrated deduction skills.
"Not long. Harry and Ron are waiting for me at the Burrow right now, actually."
Her mother gripped her cup, staring into the dark liquid. "Where will you go?"
"His aunt and uncle's house. It's the only safe place…at least until Harry's birthday, that is."
There were no questions as to why the house would no longer be safe after Harry's birthday. Her mother had long since given up on attempting to understand the complicated rules of spells and potions and the magical world in general.
"And then where will you go?"
Her mother's fingers were a little too tight around the cup, and her eyes were a little too bright. It was killing Hermione to put her through such pain, but it had to be done.
"I don't know," Hermione answered, "well, I know where we'll probably go, but…"
"But what?"
"But I can't tell you." Hermione realized that this was the first time she had ever spoken those words to her mother. Given the pain flashing through her eyes, her mother realized the same thing.
"It's not like I don't trust you, Mom," Hermione quickly explained, "It's just that telling you would…would put you in danger."
"This Voldemort fellow?"
Hermione shuddered and nodded. "He's evil, Mom. Violent. A murderer. He hates muggles and muggleborns."
Her mother rose to her feet and began to quietly clean away the mess made from the tea. "Especially those muggles and muggleborns who are connected to Harry Potter."
Hermione felt a stab of annoyance. There was definitely a tone in that last statement. "What's that supposed to mean?"
The question went unanswered for a few seconds. "You…," Mrs. Granger began carefully, "That world…isn't…it isn't really where you belong, is it? You don't have to go back. Stay here. We…your father and I, all of us…we could leave if we needed. Go and visit your cousins in the States."
Mrs. Granger's back was to Hermione, her head hung low. Hermione, witnessing her brave, headstrong mother encouraging her to quit, to drop out, finally realized how much worry her mother had been hiding. Choking back tears, she struggled to do the one thing that she knew would break her mother's heart.
"I…can't, Mom. I can't abandon them. Harry needs me. Ron needs me. I know that the prophecy placed fate in Harry's hands, but…I can't help but feel that…it rests with the three of us together. Harry can't do it alone, and I…I simply will not allow him to do it alone."
"My little girl…the hand of fate." Her mother gave her a teary smile. "And you wanted to be a…what did you call it…a medi-witch after school. Are you still planning to do that?"
Her mother was obviously trying to steer the conversation into something a bit less painful than her daughter going off to war.
Hermione smiled sadly, facing a possibility that, as times grew worse, began to seem like more and more of a certainty. There was no way in hell she could voice this possibility to her mother, though. So, she gave her mother a half-truth.
"I honestly haven't thought about it."
Mrs. Granger took in Hermione's sad smile and the dim shadow of despair that she tried to hide behind her eyes, and came to a horrifying realization:
Her daughter did not worry about her future because she didn't expect to live long enough to see it.
A wave of nausea swept over her, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. "Don't go, Hermione. Please, sweetie, don't leave us."
Her whispered words could barely be heard, and there was no spoken answer. One look at Hermione, her only daughter, and she already knew the answer. In Hermione's eyes was sadness, fear, and much more age than Mrs. Granger was used to seeing; yet there was also steel, hard and strong and sure. There would be no swaying her.
Mrs. Granger closed her eyes. "How long?"
"A couple of hours. I'm going to set some wards and protection spells around the house, some strong ones, just in case, and then…then I have to go meet Harry and Ron."
Funny. Mrs. Granger had always imagined that this moment would come much later than it had. But it was here, and she had to do what every mother eventually has to do. She put her arms around Hermione, and, with a deep breath and a tender kiss on her forehead, she let her daughter go.
With one last tear and a final grasp of stony resolve, Hermione let go of her mother, and with her, let go of the safe haven of her childhood.
It was time to go to work.