"Hang with me in my MMO
So many places we can go
You'll never see my actual face
Our love, our love will be in virtual space
I'm craving to emote with you
So many animations I can do
Be anything you want me to be
C'mon, c'mon and share a potion with me"
"Do You Want to Date My Avatar?" – The Guild
It had been a deceptively busy week. Perhaps the end of something so momentous as a job one had worked at for several years always produced such a strange maelstrom of activity. Yet, all things did indeed come to an end, including the list of actions that Hermione felt she could take in response to her situation.
Upon leaving Waldweirness and dropping James and Albus back with their father, she'd had to explain herself to her oldest friend, and endure his looks of pity. She had refused to explain the things she had learned about his colleague.
She hadn't gone into any detail about the Informal Incident of Ill-Will, or her tarnished record. No, she'd left him to draw his own conclusions about why she might have wanted to leave Waldweirness for good.
"Did something happen with Eileen?" He had asked with a frown as he bounced a grizzling Albus on his shoulder and patted him on the bum.
"No, Eileen is fine. She had a visitor, but they'd become friends," Hermione explained, hoping to head off anything James might have to tell his father about Severus' visit.
At this the Auror frowned. Sometimes, Harry Potter could be too perceptive by half.
"Who?"
Before Hermione could answer, James piped up from where he was running around with a miniature quidditch player, making him zoom through the halls of Grimmauld Place. "The Loony, Daddy!" He began jumping up the stairs, causing the quidditch player to jerk in the air as it preceded him, magically levitating as it was enchanted to do, two feet before him.
"Cut that out, James, I told you not to jump on the stairs," Harry scolded him, looking rather half-hearted about it. "What Loony is he talking about, 'Mione?"
She swallowed thickly. "You know months ago, when he'd visited with Eileen, we saw that man around the neighborhood? He and Mrs. Snape struck up a bit of a friendship. They like to attend the gobstone nights at the recreation centre together,"
Harry's mouth twisted, looking a bit concerned about his sons being around a man that Hermione had identified as being a somewhat suspicious character. He turned to James. "I thought 'Maio told you not to call people loonies, James. What was his name?"
James only gave his father a wide-eyed stare in response and a rather comic shrug. "I'unno. He called me Fred,"
"Fred?"
"Yeah. And he gave me custy creams!" James crowed, and then he disappeared up the stairs, trying, and failing, to take them two at a time, and instead using his hands and feet together to shuffle up in a sort of modified crab-walk.
Harry glared at Hermione in an expression which clearly demanded an explanation.
"Er... Tony is quite safe, Harry. I promise. He wouldn't hurt James,"
"Why did he call him Fred?" Harry asked, looking suspicious and bemused all at once.
Hermione shrugged, and it was only half a lie. While Snape had explained his reasonings, she still didn't quite understand why he'd taken it upon himself to rename James and treat him better than she'd seen him treat anyone before. "I mean, he is one of our residents, Harry... he has a few odd eccentricities."
Finally, Harry seemed to accept this at face value. Unfortunately, that only opened the door on the discussion as to why and how she'd been made redundant.
At that point, she'd refused point blank to explain, feeling her face suffuse with heat and her eyes fill up with tears once more. It seemed that Snape's cannabis-tainted calming draught had finally worn off. She had felt the panic fill her up as soon as the subject was broached.
"I... er... I can't talk about it, Harry. I signed something where I promised not to disclose anything," she fibbed.
Her old friend frowned at her, his face showing his obvious concern. "Are you going to be alright? Can you afford your flat on your own? I obviously haven't spoken to Gin about it, as it's just happened, but you know we'd be happy to have you come and stay with us for as long as you might need—"
The witch winced and shook her head. "You know I appreciate the offer, Harry, but you guys have a lot going on to be taking me in too. I have enough saved up to live off of for a while, and I'm certain I can find something. I haven't even started looking yet, after all.
"I'll take some time this weekend to pick up a few papers and circle a few ads. I bet you I'll have something new lined up by Tuesday," she said, snapping her fingers and giving a feeble grin. "Anyways, I've got a hungry cat to feed, so if you don't mind—"
"Yeah... erm," Harry opened the door for her and drew her in for a friendly hug. He kissed the top of her head and patted her back a couple of times, "The offer still stands—don't say no yet, Hermione, wait." He held up a hand to her when she looked like she might protest, "Things might not be so easy out there. I wouldn't know. Don't let your pride get in the way of staying on your feet: if you run out of time, Gin and I would be happy to have you here. Don't you dare think of turning us down," he finished with a bit of a lopsided grin. "Now, get out of here and feed that grumpy old man of yours his steak,"
Hermione laughed at this, a real laugh, and hugged him back before she backed out of the door and crossed to the park to find a place to apparate back to her flat.
One week. It had been one week since. And she'd thought she'd have something lined up by Tuesday...
Am I a fool? She wondered, not for the first time, as she wrote out yet another copy of her CV on creamy, expensive parchment. I don't remember it being this hard to get the job in Waldweirness a couple of years ago...
Resolutely, she continued to expound on her virtues in organization and record her N.E.W.T scores for the umpteenth time.
Immediately after losing her job at the Department of Woe Hermione had gone home and sat in a stupor for the evening.
She didn't know whether it was an exercise in allowing herself to process the emotions or whether she simply wasn't capable of doing anything else... Once she had finally been able to think again, what had played on repeat in her head wasn't the conversation with Mr. Maynard, but rather the one which had come after: the discussion with Snape and his mother about Mr. Rudd, and Eileen's status in Waldweirness.
Was it possible that she had already left? That Snape had been as efficient in packing up all of his mother's earthly belongings as he had been in packing up the Potter boys' nappy bag?
It was all so... so sudden. Like being doused in ice-water. Just like that the friendship she had been working on with the taciturn family had seemed to vanish without a trace, and the last several months—going back to October!—felt like nothing more than a hazy dream.
The witch grimaced, and finally began to summon her paperwork to herself in order to plan.
That weekend was spent updating her information into a master sheet that she planned to copy out and modify for each CV she would have to write. Between that and cuddling with Crookshanks on the couch binge watching reality television shows and shoveling orange sorbet into her mouth, she felt as if she'd accomplished quite a lot, thank you very much!
Straight out of the gate on Monday she had apparated to Diagon Alley in her best dress robes. She made rounds that included Flourish and Blotts (naturally), Twillfit and Tattings, Madam Malkin's, and even the Leaky Cauldron. She took especial care to speak to the proprietor at each establishment for as long as they tolerated her there, and felt reasonably assured that she'd be hearing back from the excited shopkeeper in Flourish and Blotts, (they'd certainly done enough business with her over the years, after all).
She stopped by Ron and Hannah's establishment for a bit of a lunch pick me up and managed to catch a few moments of conversation with Hannah as she bustled about filling orders. L'Orange Boulanger wasn't quite at its zenith in terms of how many customers they were servicing, and she had a few moments of downtime as she passed out cups of espresso and directed her wand to dust flaky pastries with confectioner's sugar.
Hermione accepted the latte and an orange-zest scone gratefully and sipped at the cup as carefully as she could manage, not wanting to disturb the lipstick she'd applied that morning in an act of uncharacteristic self-consciousness.
"So, France was fun?"
"Oh Hermione," Hannah grinned, her hands moving faster than her mouth, "Paris was just... I mean—you've been before, right?"
The other witch merely nodded, her eyes sparkling. "I bet you came back with some ideas,"
"Loads!" Mrs. Weasley gushed. "I'll have to talk to Ron and our suppliers, but I'll wager that by Easter hols we have at least six new flavours to roll out—trendy ones! The things that muggles come up with for food!" she waffled on, effortlessly conversational in a way that Hermione had always envied. "Though I suppose you're familiar with some of the crazy foods muggles come up with,"
Hermione laughed, not taking any offense at all. Hannah was a sweet soul: she'd never have meant it the way another pureblooded lady might have. "I might be, at that,"
"Smoked salmon, Hermione! Apples with brie and walnuts, and—well, I suppose I'll stop there in case anyone gets any ideas," she said, peering around as if looking for bakery spies. The two women shared a laugh.
"Well, if you need an extra pair of hands in the dough, I'm available," Hermione said, suddenly looking quite sheepish.
Hannah peered at her, looking a bit taken aback. "Available? As in—"
"As in no longer employed with the Department of Woe," Hermione said, giving a small sad smile.
Hannah Weasley looked at her with a bit of a pitying look, "I'm afraid we've all the help we need at the moment,"
Hermione rushed to hold up her hands, "Don't—I meant no pressure. It was an honest question about whether there even was an opening." She grinned, trying to smooth over any error or misstep she may have made, "I'm thrilled to hear that you're doing so well,"
"I mean, we just might. We're losing our manager in Hogsmeade sometime this year," Hannah said, suddenly earnest. "We don't know what we'd do about scheduling, and we have more paperwork that we know what to do with now that we're losing him. I can talk to Ron about it, but it'd be six months to a year before we'd have the need. Could I have a copy of your CV to sit on until then?"
Hermione had left the paper with Ron's wife, and bid her farewell. The afternoon was spent leaving a paper trail all over Hogsmeade.
On Tuesday, she attacked the Ministry with a vengeance, putting in her name with every Department Head she knew, and some she didn't, and applying for jobs she hadn't even known existed, such as Junior Chief Undersecretary to the Administrative Assistant for Hob-Fae Affairs, and Private Community Representative to the Underserved but Overprivileged in the Muggle Outreach department.
She really had no clue what either job could possibly entail, given the titles attached, but all of those details were rather beside the point when her main objective was Galleons in her Gringotts account.
It all felt a bit mercenary, if she were being honest, but she didn't have the luxury to consider the impact she'd be making: she could trade in for another position that suited her needs better at a later date. Right now was about making it work.
Wednesday, Thursday, and all morning Friday were spent in a similar fashion, though with diminishing prospects. She'd already given her information out to nearly every Wizarding business she'd ever frequented and had stopped in smaller enclaves like the one in Birmingham, besides.
So far, she'd managed to make some good impressions, but she'd yet to receive an owl back with any answers.
Yet she was undeterred. Hermione Granger was not a witch to be put off course so easily. She wasn't yet in dire straits... she worried her lip between her teeth and tried to head off her nerves with a trip to the Leaky Cauldron.
I just need to regroup, she told herself, picking up a Daily Prophet to add to the stack of muggle newspapers she'd collected from a street-seller. There'll be new jobs added daily. All I need is one...
It's just a number's game.
From noon to two she nursed a single cup of tea and nibbled at a Cornish pasty that she probably had paid too much for, waving away an increasingly frustrated employee as she dithered over her papers.
Yet by the end of the stack, there were still hours left in the day, and only two new jobs in the Prophet that she'd be able to apply for. The muggle world had only ten—even with her University qualifications.
She only barely restrained herself from screaming in the middle of the establishment, though she did tear out of her booth, newspapers stuffed under her arms, and storm out into London like a bat out of hell.
Going back to her flat didn't feel like much of an option. Her steps began to falter after the initial rush of panicked energy wore off.
What was left in the wake of it wasn't restfulness, however. It was a chasm of terror and aimlessness that she felt in no way equipped to deal with. One that she hadn't glimpsed since she'd applied for University in Australia simply to ward it off, not unlike a crucifix might hold a vampire at bay.
So lost in her thoughts and her fears was she that she barely noticed where her feet had led her: the muggle public library.
An old friend of stone, with a paper heart that pumped its lifeblood in ink and stories. She felt her eyes rake over it with longing...
Perhaps the muggle paper wasn't the best way of finding a job, at that. There hadn't been that many openings, and all she had found had been in London... Snape had found work by opening himself up to muggle technology, perhaps she could too?
The process for setting up an account that allowed her to access the library computers was fairly simple. It consisted of giving her name and existing card information to a desk attendant and being assigned a computer password to use with her name. The girl attending her had admittedly looked at Hermione with a bit of a wry sneer when she'd had to ask for assistance in using the internet, but after thirty minutes of instruction, the ins-and-outs of using a simple search engine were easy enough for even a witch to grasp.
No one could ever accuse Hermione Granger of not being a quick study.
Armed with a pad of paper and a stumpy little pencil, she managed to compile a list of twenty or so muggle establishments around the country, and some in Scotland and Wales, that had need of someone with her qualifications. Gradually, her success in drumming up prospective jobs allowed her to relax, and by four, she felt that she could tuck the paper in along with the Daily Prophet to go over that weekend.
Stuffing the paper away felt almost like coming up for air... she hadn't stopped for an entire week and had barely registered anything past the endless copies of her CV or the stilted, backwards language used in job listings.
She stared at the glowing computer screen, her face filled with wonder.
There was nothing more to be done...
Her mouth twisted. Something between a wry smile and a grimace. Perhaps she could explore the stacks...
Hermione dismissed the idea quickly, however. Anything that she took home would only be a distraction from her job search. She continued to gaze blankly at the white homepage for the search engine, wracking her brain for something to do until the librarians kicked her out.
Her fingers stroked the keys with a small amount of amazement. She'd been out of the muggle world for too long, really. Sure, she had a television, and she had a passing knowledge of computers from watching her parents and observing Snape over the Christmas hols... but it really was baffling what they had come up with, she decided, clicking a few keys experimentally.
She hadn't really paid much attention to the mechanics of what she was doing when she had been in a hurry to drum up job openings. As it was now, she typed in a few things to the search bar, just in the interest of satisfying her voracious curiosity.
Looking up "Hogwarts" yielded no results, she registered with a small laugh. Unsurprising, certainly, but she'd had to know.
Typing in "magic" showed a list of results that ranged from the absurd, to the hilarious, to the marginally upsetting, she found, after quickly clicking out of a page that brought up a flashing black and white image of Baphomet.
Muggles clearly had a different understanding of magic than actual witches did. It was, at the same time, both more benign and more sinister.
She smiled a bit as she looked up her parents' Orthodontic practice and read reviews that both sang their praises for their work and commented on her mother's rather abrupt and stilted manner with her patients. Hermione stifled a small giggle.
Finally, on a whim, she typed in "Galdrvale" and waited for the results to load, noting with some wonder that the gaming journalists couldn't find a single thing to comment on that didn't begin with exclamations of wonder and excitement.
"The Best Browser-Based Game You're Not Playing"
"Devs Do it Again: Galdrvale Expansion Surpasses All Expectations"
"Not Feeling the Magic? Make Some in This Charming MMORPG"
"Run to the Hills to Ride the Tiger: Galdrvale's Best Rock n' Roll Moments Ranked"
Hermione grinned widely. It seemed that Snape's obsession with Iron Maiden and Dio was well documented.
At the top of the page was a link to the game's website itself. Hermione felt an almost irrepressible wave of curiosity wash over her. She didn't even try to fight it, but instead gave in. She'd heard far too much about it to not want to see what Snape had been up to at Eileen's kitchen table.
The knowledge that thousands of people across the globe wondered over who wrote for the game and that she knew the secret was almost too delicious.
The page greeted her with a campy font and highly-stylized, pixelated graphics. She was bade to register a username and password, which she did with some impatience, choosing something she knew Snape would probably think was rather trite: Bookwyyrm.
The browser took a moment to process, but eventually her character, a plain looking homunculus in what looked to be tattered rags appeared, situated on a long lane with farm-land on either side.
Tapping at the arrow keys (as a small guide on the bottom of the page advised her to do) allowed her to maneuver her avatar forward, and a bit of text that popped up underneath Bookwyyrm's feet instructed her to follow the lane into the village of Hogham.
The witch snorted. Apparently, Snape couldn't restrain himself from making allusions to the real world of magic wherever he could get away with it.
In the middle of Hogham Bookwyyrm was led to a pushcart attended to by a questionable looking character in a pink jumper and with a head of hair that looked appallingly close to a clown's curly wig, but brown rather than red.
+Hail Traveler! Have you brought me berries?+
She'd not, and said so, and after having been directed into the small forest adjacent to Hogham, she spent the next five minutes directing her avatar to search for and harvest the small ruby bundles that hung from the branches, thinking to herself that it was curiously like some of the expeditions she'd made into the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid over the years, searching out potions ingredients for the school stores.
Upon returning with her haul, she was led to barter with the character whose name was only given as "The Bookseller." The woman presented her with a choice for her payment: A sword, a bow, a dagger, a pair of gloves, a lance, and a crystal phial (filled with something yet unnamable and unnamed).
Hermione hemmed and hawed over her decision for a few minutes, before she directed her mouse over the choice for the lance. Doing so opened a book from the bookseller that showed her two attack moves that Bookwyyrm had evidently learned along with her choice of weapon. She tried them out experimentally, her avatar brandishing the long instrument in a comical fashion at the small shop-keep.
+Ach! Put that away, would you? There's a time and place: you'll damage the books, you arse!+
Hermione sniggered and continued to swing at the bookseller's nest of hair, amused by the defensive position the character took, when off the corner of the screen, a group of three men stormed into sight.
She almost couldn't contain her yelp.
To any witch or wizard they were instantly recognizable. Certainly, to anyone who fought in the war. After all, Snape had clearly modeled them directly after the Death Eaters.
+There She is, men! After her!+ cried one of the Death Eaters.
Above his text box Hermione realised that the game had decided to call them 'Occultists,' instead.
There was a small skirmish onscreen that Hermione tried, and failed to defend against, but her blows did nothing against the occultists' superior weaponry, and ultimately, she watched with a bit of dismay as they led the bookseller off in chains to a location that she could only guess at.
In the immediate aftermath, a wizened old man rushed to greet her, yelping about the bookseller's fate. Evidently, the character was her father, and the owner of the traveling book-stall. He begged Bookwyyrm to run after the occultists and deliver his daughter from their clutches.
Hermione hastened to take him up on his quest, pressing down the arrow keys to follow his directions as if there was actually some kind of real-world imperative directing her course.
Past Hogham was a looming manor house, nestled into a cemetery that looked alarmingly like the one Harry had described to her after coming back from his first encounter with the newly risen Dark Lord. She could have laughed, but then felt it was a bit dark, even for Snape.
Still, she allowed her character to follow the path, curiously devoid of distractions and enemies, and to enter the house, swinging her lance at the door when a small instructional popped up that bade her to do so.
It was all a bit too easy, she decided with mild irritation. Then again, this was only the first task of the game.
Sure enough, liberating the bookseller was only a matter of defeating the single lookout that the occultists had left to guard her in the great hall, though she was treated to a small cutscene depicting discussion between the men who had taken her that clued her in on some of their plans.
The bookseller was to serve some greater purpose: one she couldn't yet guess at.
+You're to keep her here until we get back, Grimeye+ the head occultist instructed.
The sprite for the guard nodded and seemed to snap to attention, +As you say, Julius,+
+I want her in position when we return for the ceremony—+
Again the guard gave two sharp nods of his pixelated head, giving the impression that he was quite dumb and servile, +Just so, Julius!+
+That means no stupid business, Grimeye, you're to keep Lady Hermia in chains, no matter what the wench says: she's a crafty one,+
What followed was a rather farcical conversation in the wake of the other occultists' departure wherein the bookseller (or, Lady Hermia, evidently) begged the idiotic Grimeye for a drink of water and a crust of bread, and he obliged. While his back was turned, Hermia relieved him of his keys and liberated herself just in time for Hermione's character to rush in and slay Grimeye with two simple blows of her lance.
Hermione frowned, wondering at the choice of name for the character, but the plot moved along before she thought too hard on Snape's writing.
Bookwyyrm led Hermia back to her father, who rewarded the lancer with a new skillbook, leather leggings, and a thick tunic to equip. She'd evidently leveled up and finished up the tutorial. It took several clicks to make it through all of the new menus and maps that had opened up to her with the completion.
It had been somewhat distracting, at least, Hermione granted, as she sat back in her library chair and glanced up at the librarian. She'd given out a call over the intercom that announced they were closing in a manner of minutes. The witch made to finish up her session and arranged her belongings before she meant to pack them away, but before she closed the internet browser on Galdrvale, a small text box appeared:
+I appreciate you coming to my rescue, traveler, though I was on the verge of escaping on my own. What? Did you really think I needed your help? Hah!+
+... Nonetheless, it was very brave of you, if a bit stupid... I don't suppose I'll see you again for a while, traveler. The occultists' plans for me are rather concerning: I'll have to travel far afield to research what they meant to use me for in that ceremony... but in the meantime...+
*Egads! The blasted woman planted one on you! Best not to rub it off, though—you might not be so lucky again*
~+5 buff to your Luck for an hour : +5 buff to Damage for an hour~
*You feel as if you could take on an entire horde! HUZZAH!*
If the witch was blushing furiously as she exited the library, no one was watching her to know.
"Hang with me in my MMO
So many places we can go
I'm better than a real world quest
You'll touch my "+5 to Dexterity" vest
What role to you wanna play? I'm just a click away night or day
And if you think I'm not the one
Log off, log off and we'll be done"
"Do You Want to Date My Avatar?" (reprise) – The Guild