The summer seemed to last far too long, but also end far too quickly, and Hermione felt torn. She loved her internship, she loved reading books and marking them all day, and she even loved doing whatever odd errands Mr. Vitac had her running, but Hermione also longed to go back to Hogwarts - where she could study and practice more openly, where she could ask questions of her teachers, and where she had access to the library. She missed her classes, she missed her professors, and she desperately missed her friends.
On the last day of her internship, Hermione was surprised with a cake and a party by her coworkers, complete with a small wrapped gift of a stuffed dragon.
"Go on, go on!" Cadmus Vitac said. "Blow out the candles!"
"It's not my birthday," Hermione objected.
"All cakes need candles," he declared, scoffing. "Now blow them out!"
Hermione obligingly blew out the candles, and her coworkers cheered. Someone cut up the cake, passing out pieces, and Hermione smiled as they all talked around the break room, relaxing and happy. Even if they were only happy for the break and the cake, she felt fond of her coworkers, even the grousing ones. Hermione had learned a lot over the summer.
"If you want to come back next summer, let me know," Cadmus said, clapping her on the shoulder soundly. "Severus made your contract only for this summer, but I'm sure we can draw up another one and do this again!"
"We'll see," Hermione said, smiling. "I really enjoyed this. Thank you so much for the opportunity."
Cadmus assured her that he would be more than happy to write her a letter of recommendation if she would ever need it, Michael gave her a hug, and Hermione waved good-bye to a cheering crowd at the end of the day, everyone wishing her good luck with her second year.
Her portkey dropped her off at home in her living room, for the last time, and there was a solemn quiet in the house. Hermione's lip quivered, and she threw herself onto the couch, bursting into tears.
Her parents were surprised to come home and find their daughter clutching the small stuffed dragon to her on the sofa, sniffing, tears still quietly streaming down her face. Hermione could see her parents exchange a look, before her father went to the kitchen and her mother moved to sit down next to her, gathering Hermione into her arms without a word. Hermione's arms snuck around her mother's waist and hugged her close, and her mother sighed, stroking her hair.
"I don't even know why I'm crying," Hermione said, her voice wobbly. "It's just – everyone was so nice, and they even got me a cake-"
"Sshh, love, it's okay," her mother said, shifting her so Hermione was lying down on the couch, her head in her lap. Hermione let her eyes close, her mother playing gently with her hair still, soothing her. "Change is always hard, even good changes."
"I want to go back to school," Hermione stressed. "I don't know why I'm so sad about it!"
"Feelings don't always make sense," her mother said gently. "And that's okay. Sometimes they just need to be let out. You're very mature for a twelve-year-old, Hermione, but you're still a growing girl. There's a lot of new emotions and feelings coming your way, and they're not going to make much sense to you at first."
"New emotions?" Hermione asked.
"Your hormones are changing your ability to feel feelings, giving you a greater depth of emotion," her mother told her. "Right now, you probably feel most of the basic emotions – happiness, sadness, anger, love, disgust, envy, surprise, trust."
"And there are more?"
"They're more combinations of all the others in some form of fashion," her mother elaborated. "Falling in love, for example, will be new for you. Heartbreak will be another one. Betrayal, unfortunately. Depression. Indignation. Shame. Pity. Hatred. Dejection. Devotion."
"They all sound bad," Hermione complained, and her mother laughed.
"Maybe, but they're part of being human, Hermione," she said. "It's important to accept them as part of being a person, and when you're feeling something new and strange to realize it, pause, try and identify it, acknowledge it, and move forward."
Hermione sat up, sniffing, giving her mother a curious look. "Acknowledge it?"
"It's important to acknowledge your emotions," her mother said firmly. "If you try to deny them, they'll crop up at the worst times."
"Like what?"
"Well… once, in school, one of my friends borrowed something of mine and broke it," her mother said, her tone changing as she reminisced. "I was furious at her, but I kept trying to tell myself that it didn't matter because it was just a toy. I was scared that if I confronted her, I would lose her as a friend, but I stayed angry for a long time, and it really hurt us in the end."
Hermione had never heard this story before. "What happened?"
"I ended up screaming at her one day after school when she asked to borrow something else," her mother said ruefully. "Everyone watched us have a screaming match. It was awful, and we weren't friends for months afterwards. Looking back, if I had just told her how I felt and acknowledged the emotion at the time, we would have probably been able to work through it and stay friends."
Hermione bit her lip.
"I feel sad," she said slowly, "because I will miss feeling useful and reading books all the time. I feel… anxious, because I do not know how the new school year will go, and I feel nostalgic, because I look back at this summer and I was so happy, and I don't know how things will be from here."
Her mother offered her a smile.
"Very good," she said. "Do you feel any better?"
Strangely, Hermione found that she did.