Hermione Granger was a daughter of two worlds.
There was the world that most people knew, a world of aeroplanes and telephones and cinemas and the Internet; and there was the world that a very small number of people knew, which had none of these things but instead was filled with dragons and Portkeys and Quidditch and Dark wizards. A world of magic, beautiful and wonderful and terrible magic. And it was only an even smaller number of people who could, like Hermione, pass effortlessly from one world to the other with but the flick of a mental switch, and occasionally a change of clothes.
It's not exactly easy, but Hermione was nothing if not organised, and she had everything put neatly in its place. Labelled, sorted, pigeon-holed, compartmentalised.
When she allowed her worlds to meet, it was usually under carefully controlled circumstances. Like chaperoning her parents to Diagon Alley. Or her boyfriend to the movies to watch the latest mindless action flick.
"...and when the little green goblin came in and took the lightning spell and attacked the Muggle Dark Lord with his green fire wand, that was pretty cool," said Ron Weasley, as they strolled out of the cinema and down Shaftesbury Avenue amid a throng of gaping tourists and drunk Londoners, Hermione tucked comfortably underneath Ron's long arm.
" 'Sith Lord'," said Hermione reflexively. Terminology was important to her, even fictional ones.
"Right. But the love scenes with the princess and the Muggle Auror – Merlin's beard, that was naff," said Ron, making a face of disgust.
(" 'Jedi'," muttered Hermione.)
" 'I hate sand, it's coarse and irritating and gets everywhere'. What does that even mean? Who talks like that? Can you imagine if I talked like that?" They stopped in the middle of the pavement, and Ron pulled her close and gazed earnestly into her eyes. Hermione giggled. " 'I like your skin. It's smooth and glowing and y'know, nice'."
"YUCK!" they exclaimed, together, and then, laughing there by the road with the statue of Anteros across the way, it was only natural to lean up against a convenient signpost and share a warm kiss in the cool September evening, hands slipping under jackets to circle waists and pull that solid comforting loving body close...
"Hermione? Hermione Granger?"
Hermione jumped back and looked around. Standing a couple of feet away was Charlotte Turner.
"Ch-Charlotte?" stammered Hermione.
"Oh my God, it is you!" squealed Charlotte, and she dashed forward and hugged Hermione in a whirl of Gant and Zara shopping bags... then broke away suddenly in a spike of awkward self-awareness. "Um... sorry."
"No, that's, that's alright, Merl... my word, it's, how long has it been..." Hermione trailed off. She had last seen Charlotte Turner in August 1991, when she told her then-best friend that she was going to a school in Scotland named Hogwarts, and with wet eyes promised she would write every week. And she had, too... until they became once a month, then once a term, then not at all...
"Ages," said Charlotte, fiddling with the corner of a shopping bag.
No. No, that hadn't been the last time. The last time had been in July of 1993. They'd met for ice-creams on Hampstead Heath, and sitting on the playground swings licking 99 Flakes, tried desperately to reconnect. That had been the last. The meeting had been awkward and forced; Hermione tongue-tied and unable to say a word about Arithmancy and Basilisks and Time-Turners; Charlotte gawky and mumbling shyly around two-day-old braces and a scratchy ill-fitting training bra... and well, that had been that.
Hermione looked the other girl up and down. "You've changed a lot," she said. The Charlotte Turner who had been her best friend had been short and stocky; teenage Turner was a gangly beanpole looking down from on high while tripping over her own feet; the young woman who stood in front of her now was about her height and build, toned and tanned with the natural beauty of the young, healthy, and carefree.
"So have you," said Charlotte, who thought much the same about Hermione; that she had finally tamed her hair, found a halfway decent sense of fashion, and even an oh-so-tall boyfriend who looked fit and caring (even if he was goggling at Charlotte a little) – but she had also collected scars along the way; a thin neat livid one across the front of her neck, and deep dark ragged ones lurking somewhere behind those familiar brown eyes.
But hell, what did she even know any more, more than ten years since the time when she could read Granger like a book?
"A lot's happened," said Hermione quietly, with a touch of sadness. "I..." She couldn't find the words; her mind was a whirl of memories. Northbridge House Preparatory School. Hogwarts. The Ministry of Magic. Malfoy Manor.
"That's okay. A lot happened to me too," said Charlotte, hoisting up her bags. "Look, I'm just glad you're okay. Sophie and Leslie and I, we did wonder sometimes, if you were happy or what, you know you hear of all sorts of things that happens in the news. It was nice seeing you again." She turned to go.
"Wait!" Hermione ran forward a couple of paces. "You're still in touch with Sophie and Leslie?"
"Of course," said Charlotte. "We went up to Highgate School together, all the way through to Sixth Form, and we still meet up at least once every couple of months for coffee. Leslie's doing finance in L.S.E.," meaning the London School of Economics, "and Sophie and I are in Imperial College, but Sophie's in medicine over in St Mary's and I'm in Kensington studying computers. Still all in the same city, anyhow. Us three, I mean," she said carefully.
"God," said Hermione again. "I mean... so am I, I still live in Hampstead, actually. " But as she got around by Floo or Apparition and spent much of her time in either magical London or in Devon, thought Hermione, her chances of bumping into any of her old childhood friends were about the same as if she had been in Lossiemouth. "Oh, er... this is Ron."
"Nice meeting you, Ron. Well, I don't want to interrupt what was clearly a nice night out for it," said Charlotte with a trace of the familiar old smirk. "It was good to see you, Hermione."
Hermione shot a glance at Ron, who was smiling the politely blank smile of someone who's not really part of the conversation, and said, "Please don't go, Charl," she said. "I want to... I'd love to see you all again. Why don't we meet up for coffee? This Saturday?"
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why?"
Charlotte blinked.
There were a dozen reasons why, beginning with I don't know you any more and I don't think I care, and Charlotte almost opened her mouth to say it, but a decade of rigorous schooling in what proper young ladies did not say won out and she stopped. Besides, what was the harm with one coffee, anyway? "Alright, this Saturday, 3pm. I'll invite the others. I know a quiet cafe near Queen's Gate." She fished in her handbag for a pocket diary, wrote out the address and her cellphone number, tore out the page and handed it to Hermione. "See you then."
Hermione watched her trot briskly away, clutching Ron's hand so hard he winced.
"Who was that?" he asked.
"A very good friend from before Hogwarts."
"Is she?" Ron looked hard at the figure now almost lost in the bustling crowds. One didn't need to be an Auror, a highly-trained magical police detective; or a decently-attentive boyfriend to sense something was off, and Ron was both. He gave Hermione a reassuring hug and a light kiss on the cheek; she accepted both stiffly. "Well, you never mentioned her to me or Harry."
Hermione flinched. "I'm sorry, Ron, I don't think I'm feeling well. Can we call it a night?"
There had been unspoken plans of Hermione being 'too tired to go home and falling asleep in Grimmauld Place after a long night of completely chaste cocoa and muffins and talking with Harry and Ginny absolutely in attendance throughout', a rather worn story that was fast losing whatever smidgen of credibility it'd once had the first time she'd told it to her parents.
"Of course," said Ron gently. He Apparated with Hermione home to Heathgate, pecked her again on the cheek, told her honestly that he loved her, said goodnight to Dr and Dr Granger, and went back to 12 Grimmauld Place, trying not to wonder if Harry was having a better night than he was – and with Ron's sister.
The sign over the door said simply "Gary's".
The entrance was located in a mews somewhere near Queen's Gate, strategically hidden by a couple of large rubbish wheelie bins and a delivery lorry. The wooden doors were scratched and scuffed, and the pitch-black glass windows seemed to invite one to kindly piss off at risk of life and purse. There were no signs displaying opening hours, specials du jour, or anything that suggested that this was in fact a place where people paid for food and drink.
Hesitantly, Hermione double-checked the address, then tried the door, one hand unconsciously straying to her wand pocket.
The inside was brightly lit with warm beige lights, the floors were tiled with laminate faux-wood, and the large room was crammed with comfortable cane chairs and clean Formica-topped tables. When Hermione turned around, she saw that the windows were actually made of one-way film, which helped make the space look bigger, although the view was not much to look at. There were signs and pictures on the walls, the biggest being a poster, inexplicably, of a cute gun-toting penguin signed 'Linus Torvalds' in hot pink lipstick. Small flowerpots hung from the ceiling down both sides of the room like colourful runway lights leading to the counter. The cafe was about a quarter full, but most of the young men and women were too engrossed with textbooks and laptops to take much notice of her.
Here in Muggle London, Hermione was safely obscure.
Hermione scanned the chalkboard menus, the cake display, and, surreptitiously, the other customers' plates. Gary's sold typical student fare – all-day fry-ups, pies and mash, burgers, chips, beer, coffee, Coke, cheap cocktails, sticky toffee pudding, ice-cream – but also, to her surprise, twenty types of tea from Earl Grey to oolong, puffy croissants, delicate apricot Danishes, a gorgeous summer berry tart, and a lemon drizzle cake artfully crowned with candied peel.
"Cosy, isn't it?" said Charlotte Turner, and Hermione whirled around. "It's our little secret hideaway, just for us Computer Department anoraks." Her smile was uncertain, appraising, ever so slightly hostile. Behind her were Sophie Hamilton and Leslie Phillips.
They settled in a corner with coffee and slices of tart. Both were good, but Hermione couldn't really fully enjoy them, gazing at the friends she had not spoken to for nigh on a decade even as they settled the basics: the Grangers were fine, as were the Turners, the Hamiltons, and the Phillipses. Sophie had been quiet, bookish, scrawny; now she did shifts in St Mary's Major Trauma Centre between classes and had filled out all over with ropes of wiry muscle. Leslie had been something of a cut-up, athletic, never turning in his homework on time; now he was actually a research assistant, top of his class in the arcane world of money supply and and gross domestic product and purchasing power, he said softly and diffidently to Hermione. And as for herself...?
"I work in a small office in the Ministry of Justice," said Hermione. Well... the Ministry of Magic was part of the British Government. "It's something of a legal and policy research group, mainly for, uh, minorities." That was certainly one way to describe Muggleborns and house-elves, she thought. "I'm not a solicitor or barrister, but I do occasionally assist lawyers in court." Magical lawyers, in a magical court.
"Well, you were always the saving-lost-people-and-animals kind," said Leslie with a faint grin. "Remember the little baby birds you kept picking up, feeding up, putting back into nests, and protecting from squirrels?"
They laughed, and the tension eased a little. They reminisced about the adventures they'd had as children, flying kites, wading in ponds, growing their own garden peas and tomatoes. Hermione found that she could still gush over books with Sophie Hamilton, who didn't let her busy medical student schedule get in the way of Atonement and The Lovely Bones; and that being a banker-in-training did not make Leslie Phillips any less dryly sardonic ("I'll be absolutely shattered if I can't change the Bank of England from the inside, Hermione, so I just have to hope the outrageous salary makes up for the disappointment... fingers crossed.")
The snag was when they asked her about Ron, of course. Hermione looked down at her half-eaten berry tart, wondering what she could tell them. "He's wonderful," she starts, and Sophie titters, Leslie rolls his eyes. "He's a, uh, detective. I met him on the train to school, the very first day, and at first, we didn't get along, and then we did. I spent a couple of summer holidays with his family – he has a huge family, in Devon – but we only really got together during the..." She couldn't say war, of course. "Well, we had a, um, a couple of incidents with some violent people. It helped bring us together."
Hermione looked up in time to catch Sophie's eyes flicking back up to her face from her neck, and not for the first time thought Harry did have a point, it was irritating when people did that.
"Where did that happen, in Scotland, or Devon?"
Wait, where was Malfoy Manor again, Hampshire? Kent? And if you count the Department of Mysteries... "In England," said Hermione. "I'm sorry, I can't really talk about it."
"That's alright," said Leslie, "it's not that we didn't expect that."
"We understand," said Sophie kindly. She checked her watch. "Well, it's gone half five," she said, clearly getting ready to leave. "It's been nice catching up."
"I suppose you're meeting Ron and your friends for dinner?" said Charlotte. "He seems like a nice fellow, I'm glad for you."
Perhaps it was because of the clear disappointment etched underneath the smiles and words. Perhaps it was because Hermione hated, innately, to be misunderstood. Perhaps it was because she did desperately want to bridge the yawning chasm of years of secrets that stretched between herself and these people whom she liked, admired, once knew, and wanted to know again.
Hermione opened her mouth and blurted, "Actually, why don't you come to my birthday party this Saturday? I can introduce you to my friends, then."
"And they said yes?" asked Ginny Weasley.
"Yes," groaned Hermione.
The sun was shining down warmly on the back garden of the Burrow. Hermione and Ginny were lounging by the duck pond, the boys talking Auror shop in the kitchen, all of them digesting Mrs Weasley's Sunday roast. To help the roast down Ginny had a chilled Butterbeer and a packet of fruit pastilles. Hermione was by no means a drinker, but had felt the need, what with the situation and all, to adulterate her ginger beer with a slug of gin. She took a deep swallow, scowled at the lowering liquid level in her glass, and did a Refilling Charm to top it back up.
"Alright, so this week we'll get to meet your Muggle friends," shrugged Ginny. "It'll be nice."
"No, it won't!" snapped Hermione. "I'll have to write and tell everyone there'll be Muggles at the party. I mean, Muggles who aren't authorised to know about magic. That means no magic, we'll have to watch our words, and I'll have to make extra sure George doesn't sneak in any Headless Hats or Canary Creams or Bollocking Bourbons..."
"I'll back you up with George," said Ginny, her eyes glinting dangerously. "He knows what it means when I put my foot down."
"We'll have to get all our stories straight," fretted Hermione. "I didn't say anything about the war, I couldn't think of any way to describe it that would make sense, and I think they spotted that, that I was waffling about that... and loads of other stuff."
Ginny eyed her knowingly over the top of her Butterbeer. "Sophie and Leslie and Charlotte – they really mean a lot to you, huh?"
"They were my Ron and Harry and you, before Ron and Harry and you," said Hermione sadly. "Charl especially. We were inseparable ever since the first day of prep."
"Well... what changed?"
Hermione actually reached up and pulled at her hair in anguish, something she thought people never did outside of books. "When I went to Hogwarts, I completely lost touch with them. I was totally caught up in the world of magic. I stopped seeing them, stopped even writing letters. That was my fault, and I'm trying to put things right. But it's so hard to reconnect when there's so much I can't say, so much I have to lie about." She thought again of two girls on swings in a park, floundering towards each other through seas of emotions neither understood, hands reaching out... and swept apart. "It's not fair, but it's what I'm forced to do."
"The Statute of Secrecy," nodded Ginny.
"The Statute. Wands. Magic. It sets me apart from my parents too, sometimes," said Hermione. Especially after what I did to them, she couldn't bring herself to say out loud. "And you know what it means if we slip up around Muggles."
Memory modification. Obliviation. It was a deeply sore spot with Hermione, to this day. Her parents assured her they had forgiven her fully, but... There had been a time, shortly after the war ended, when the Grangers had come close to not being a family, and Hermione, a single child who had known no one closer than her parents, was still haunted by those terrible days.
Hermione stared at her wand, lying there in the grass where she had dropped it.
"Sometimes I think of throwing my wand into the sea and walking away from this world," she said to Ginny. "But... I don't want to have to stop doing magic, magic's amazing. But I also don't want to be cut off from my parents, my neighbours, my friends." She rubbed the back of her hand angrily across her eyes. "I don't want to have to choose!"
"It'll be alright," said Ginny, patting Hermione's knee. "You can be equally magical and Muggle if you put your mind to it. Nobody," said Ginny almost defiantly, "absolutely nobody can force you to do anything you don't really want to."
Yes, they can, thought Hermione. I did.
On Saturday, the morning of the party, Hermione was a frenzy of nervous activity.
She had a checklist, of course, but as her family had firmly told her she was not to do anything but enjoy her day as the Birthday Girl, she mostly bounced around the Grangers' house hovering anxiously while the others prepared for the party.
Mrs Granger had made her famous spinach-and-ricotta lasagna, and they'd ordered out for lamb tikka biryani, vol-au-vents, and blackberry-and-pear crumble. Mr Granger was laying out a massive cheese board fit to feed forty, with help from Harry, while Ron sliced apricots, peaches, figs, and tomatoes by hand.
"It's no use, it's not going to fit," said Harry, taking out his wand. "Er, if you don't mind, Mr Granger...?"
"Go on, Harry," said David Granger, taking a wary step back.
The wooden board expanded to nearly the size of a writing desk. Harry and Mr Granger nodded in satisfaction as they saw it could now just about hold the huge heap of sliced cheddar, camembert, stilton, feta, prosciutto, and table water biscuits to which Ron was adding the fruit.
"HARRY! I said no magic today!" exclaimed Hermione. "Put your wand away!"
"It's quite alright, dear," said Mr Granger placatingly, "it really did come in handy, and your friends aren't here yet."
"It's a matter of getting into the proper mindset for the day," said Hermione shrilly. "Ohhh...! I'm going to check on Ginny."
Ginny, Percy and George were decorating the living room. A riot of many-coloured balloons bobbled against the ceiling, long streamers hanging down, and George was blowing more up with a hand pump, in between swigs of one of Mr Granger's long-necked Heinekens. Percy was helping Ginny put up a string banner that spelled out H-A-P-P-Y B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y H-E-R-M-I-O-N-E-!, along with fairy lights and tiny paper windmills and little bells that tinkled merrily.
"George, you're not using magic on those, are you?"
George looked up from twisting a balloon horse into shape. "Do I look like I'm using magic here?" he exclaimed incredulously. "Cause if I was, I wouldn't be needing quite as much help from this jolly Muggle drink..."
"Don't say the word 'Muggle', George!"
Before George could retort, Ginny said smoothly, "I think it's time we made up the punch. Come help me, Hermione, let's make sure we get the mix exactly right."
George made a gesture of fervent thanks as Ginny passed, towing Hermione; she stuck out her tongue and aimed a kick at his shins.
Hermione had arranged for the magical guests to arrive a full hour ahead of her non-magical friends, so she could give a last-minute briefing. Of course, not everyone arrived at precisely the specified time, and everyone was in a party mood, which didn't improve Hermione's, as she gathered them in the living room for to 'get their stories straight'.
"I think it's best if you don't talk too much about your work," she said to Harry, Ron, Neville, Parvati Patil and Susan Bones, the Aurors. "I've told them Ron is a police detective, but you can't all be detectives although you are, so maybe a couple of you should be, um, advisors to the police or something."
Susan made a strangled noise of outrage at this, which Hermione took no notice of. She turned to the other Patil twin. "Padma, I told my friends I work in the Ministry of Justice, I think you can say something similar. George, don't tell them you're a joke shop owner, they'll ask to see your tricks. Maybe tell them you're a grocer. Ginny, tell them... oh tell them you help George at his shop." Hermione raised her voice to a shout so she could address everyone. "We all went to school together and studied English and Mathematics and Chemistry and Geography! And nobody mention the DA, or Voldemort, or the war, or anything – magic!"
"Merlin's beard, Hermione, we know all that, we weren't born yesterday," said Lee Jordan.
"Hermione..." began Luna Lovegood.
"Luna, yes! We'll, uh, you're, uh..." A bright idea came to Hermione. "You're fine! Just tell them you write for the News of the World, not the Quibbler!"
"I know what I'm going to say, Hermione," said Luna calmly, "but what I wanted to point out was that your friends are coming up the garden path."
The party began with drinks and snacks and introductions.
This part should have been easy, but it was also the most difficult. Her heart sinking inside, Hermione introduced Charlotte, Sophie and Leslie to Ron, Harry and Ginny – their replacements, as it were, in her circle of friendships. Like ripping an Elastoplast off, she came out and said it in a red-faced rush: "They were my closest friends in Hogwarts. And Ron's now, well..." and she couldn't help a little smile there.
Sophie giggled. "We get the idea. So, what do you do?" she asked, looking directly at Harry.
"I'm a police detective," said Harry. "Same as Ron. He's my partner in, uh, anti-crime, actually."
"How exciting," gushed Sophie. "With the Met? Are you in Special Branch? The Flying Squad?"
Harry went with the standard Auror cover story and said, "We're in a specialist unit attached to the Home Office, our brief covers all of the United Kingdom. I'm afraid I can't go into detail, but we are involved in all sorts of cases – usually assault, drugs, the occasional murder – if it falls in our area of expertise." He saw her gaze do the usual flick up and linger a little on his forehead, and said "Yeah, I've had my adventures." Harry joked, "Hermione used to be in a couple of them as well, but now it's just Ron and me."
"Is that a knife wound? It doesn't look exactly like one," said Sophie. "I'm still finishing my medical quals, but I help out regularly in Major Trauma at St Mary's, we see a lot of those. What an interesting shape it's got..." She made as if to lean in and inspect Harry's forehead.
Harry winced as if someone had trod on his foot. "Oh, uh, I really shouldn't talk about that one either. Did Hermione mention? Ginny here's my girlfriend. Ron's sister."
"Pleased to meet you," said Ginny, her chin set, eyes flashing, and one arm casually leaned on Harry. "I'm a professional athlete."
Hermione's jaw dropped.
"Oh? What sport?" Sophie asked sweetly, "Rhythmic gymnastics?"
"Basketball," said Ginny, flicking back her hair and putting a hand on her hip. "Mixed Australian basketball," she clarified, "tad different. It's a pretty violent sport. Bruises and breaks all the time. But I like the challenge. Actually, I'm on the England national team, and we're shooting for the World Cup."
"The very best of luck, then," said Sophie with sincerity, graciously yielding the field.
"I bet it gets pretty hairy in the hospital," said Ginny, the charitable victor offering an olive branch. "All that blood and guts. You have to sew people up, right?"
"It is scary, sometimes," admitted Sophie. "But it feels good to be helping people, and I like the challenge too."
Ginny grinned. "Let me get you a drink, I'd like to hear more about it." And off they went together, chattering away.
" 'Help out with the shop'," muttered Hermione under her breath. She looked around. "Where's Charlotte and Leslie?" she said, panicking.
"Charlotte went off with Dean," said Ron, "and Leslie's over there talking to Ernie and Seamus."
Dean was safe, he was Muggle-born. Hermione hurried over to Leslie first.
In the corner, Leslie Phillips was arguing with Ernie Macmillan, both of them gesticulating with glasses of punch and half-eaten biscuits layered with cheese and prosciutto, while Seamus leaned back with a huge grin, enjoying the battle.
"Look," said Ernie, "at the end of the day, it's simple; I pay my staff a decent wage making decent products for decent folks, and I get my profits and dividends in for my partners who've taken all the risk fronting up capital, and that's a big enough ask as it is."
"Risk," snorted Leslie, "what's the risk when H.M. Government will bail you out anyway? What about your average bloke, the man on the street?"
"Yes, risk; anyone who thinks it's easy should try going into business for themselves. And corporate bailouts are primarily the fault of interventionist policy by the Government. Bail out the average bloke, that's the policy change you need."
Leslie rolled his eyes. "As if the lot of the small-business owner is the same as Rupert Murdoch..."
Hermione muttered to Seamus, "Should we be intervening?"
Seamus shook his head. "No, no, they're just having good craic fencing. Your friend's a decent chap, and Ernie's behaving himself. They've already made a date to play golf next week, the dears."
Leslie made a dismissive reply to something Ernie said, then caught Hermione's eye and grinned widely. "How did you meet old 'Harold' Macmillan here? Ernie says you were in different Houses in school."
"That's right, Hermione and I were in the one with all the brave thickos," said Seamus. "Ernie here was in the Liquorice House – all sorts. We did share some classes, but it was really the D.A. that pulled us together."
"D.A.?" inquired Leslie, as Hermione glared furiously at Seamus.
"Self-Defence Association," said Seamus casually. "Teach ya to defend yourself, sorta thing. Hermione started it up, Harry was president. Came in right handy, it did."
"Did it," said Leslie levelly, his eyes flicking down to Hermione's neck again.
"It's not something I like to talk about," said Hermione hastily. She beat a quick retreat, and went looking for Charlotte.
Who she found sitting on the sofa listening intently to none other than Dean Thomas, Padma Patil, and George Weasley.
"I'm more keen on litigation," Padma was saying. "Hermione and I have worked together on a number of cases, actually. But she usually prefers to stick to research and policy. She's very dedicated to her work for minority rights."
"Well, that's our Hermione. She was after us all through fourth year for donations to the cause, remember, Padma?" chortled Dean. "Quite frankly, I paid her off just to get her to leave me alone. Only time I saw her mad for anything besides her studies."
"Well, there was the D.A.," smiled Padma. "And being the smartest person in our year. And running around with Harry and Ron breaking all the rules. Oh, hi, Hermione."
Hermione forced a grin. "Telling tales of me out of school?"
"Of course," said George. "I tried to get Charlotte here interested in a couple of my tricks, but she wasn't buying any." He riffled through a pack of Bicycle cards, made them disappear between his nimble long-fingered hands, and reappear again. "Said they weren't magical enough."
"I was never one for stage magic," said Charlotte calmly. "It's all illusions and trickery, you just need to know how it's done."
Somehow this statement upset Hermione more than anything else. She said directly to Charlotte, "I don't know what they've said, but take it all with a big pinch of salt. Anything they've said."
And then she fled.
Hermione's birthday party progressed.
That was the kindest way to describe it.
Hermione shut her ears and eyes, metaphorically, to whatever her friends were talking about. She avoided them all and took refuge under Ron's arm and in second helpings of everything. Deep inside she braced for when someone would accidentally do a burst of magic or let something slip, and they would have to call in the Obliviator Squad. That was just how it would be, henceforth. This was her life.
When they made her cut the cake – a massive chocolate gateau piled high on top with strawberries and raspberries – and sang "Happy birthday", Hermione looked up to see Charlotte and Sophie and Leslie singing merrily along, sandwiched between Dean and Ernie, and tears blurred her eyes.
Suddenly it was all too much. She made it halfway through her slice of cake, and then said to Ron, "I'm going out to the garden. I need some fresh air."
Ron studied her intently, and said, "I can take you out for a walk if you want. Or Appa... go anywhere. Just say the word."
"I'm fine," she lied. "I just..."
Ron raised her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips over her fingers. "I'll be here if you need me."
"I know."
In the garden, Hermione tucked herself behind the large maple and buried her face in her lap. Over the years, when she was upset, she had made it a habit to play at charms. It was displacement activity, she knew, but it soothed her somehow in a way she didn't understand. But today she couldn't do even that – and truth be told, right now she hated the weight of her wand in her pocket, the very thought of magic.
Magic. It's both a blessing, and a kind of curse, when you're Muggleborn. You are like a god amongst mortals, but you can't breathe a word about it to those not your kind. You either live a double life cloaked in secrets and lies, or renounce the non-magical world you once were a part of, and let yourself be subsumed entirely by the magical world. And many people do one or the other – who's truly honest with their family and friends about all they do? Who cares really for friendships formed when you were but a child, no matter how deep they were?
Hermione cared. Cared too much. Perhaps it was because she hated deceiving her friends. Perhaps it was because she'd cut out the Muggle part of her once, and was terrified of doing it again.
Maybe that's the problem – that I care.
"Hermione?"
She stiffened. That sounded like Charlotte – and sure enough, here she came, stepping around the screen of trimmed rose bushes, with Sophie and Leslie.
"How did you find me?" asked Hermione.
"You'd always run off somewhere to sulk," said Sophie. She looked around the arbour. "Your parents don't believe in replanting their garden, do they? It looks exactly like I remember. God, I remember when we used to play dolls here."
"We just wanted to say we're leaving," said Charlotte. "Sophie has a shift tonight, and we car-pooled in her Golf."
"Bye," mumbled Hermione. "I'm... I hope you didn't have a terrible time. I'm glad you came."
Charlotte sat down cross-legged in the grass in front of her. "We had a great time, it was a great party and we enjoyed meeting your friends. They told us so much about you we didn't know."
That I didn't tell you. "They didn't say everything." They can't. I can't.
"We know. We could tell," said Sophie. "Like I said, my line of work, stab wounds are kind of my thing. I could tell you the differences between being glassed or shanked, clawed or scissored. I know what the scar from a knife held to a throat looks like."
Leslie spoke up. "Everyone talks about how brave you are, but it's not, like, normal – it's like they're talking about a hero, a Victoria Cross winner. Like you've been in a war."
"I was," whispered Hermione. She looked up, frantic. "You're not supposed to know that! I can't say any more!"
"We won't tell, and we won't ask," said Charlotte gently. "What's important is that you're safe now, right? And happy?"
Hermione nodded. "Yes, I am." She gave a watery half-smile. "I'm truly very happy."
And that was that. Like two ships passing in the night, Hermione and Charlotte could have exchanged pleasantries and gone on their way, as we do with so many of the lives we touch briefly. After all, they had only been friends for a short moment in time, when they were but children at play, with so much of their adult personalities unformed. Do we not grow up, and put our childish ways behind us when we do? Hermione had her wonderful magical world, and Charlotte her blissfully-unaware other world, and with so little in common and so much that had happened, Hermione could just let it all go, couldn't she? What had she to lose? Only the mundane, non-magical, oh-so-common Muggle part of herself, and what was that worth?
Maybe nothing.
Maybe everything that was Hermione Granger.
"Except for one thing." Hermione took a deep breath, and took the plunge. "Charlotte, Sophie, Leslie – I'm sorry I went away all those years ago and left you all. Will you forgive me?"
The three of them exchanged glances. "But of course," said Leslie, in puzzled tones.
"No, I mean really, I mean..." When she had been in Northbridge, and then again at Hogwarts, Hermione had often turned in essays twice the length requested. She devoured words, millions of them, and words flowed back out of her. She could write books and books on what had happened to her in the past ten years and never stop until she died, yet she couldn't say a single word of it to the people she wanted so desperately to share the words with.
"I... there was a... there were so many..." Hermione tried to explain. I found an amazing new world I can't tell you about, and then I was in a war, she wanted to scream. I was a stupid teenager; I hurt you, yes, I hurt my parents, I hurt my boyfriend, I... "It just... it was all too much, I..."
The words couldn't come out so the tears did. Big, sobby, painful tears that seemed to choke and cut as they flowed.
It was Charlotte who put gentle arms around her, and Hermione flung hers around her former friend and cried her heart out.
"Oh Charl," she gasped, "I – I want us back the way we w-were. I want us to be f-friends again. But it's all d-different now, and there's so much I can't, and..."
"Hermione, you silly thing," said Charlotte. "We just grew apart. That's all that happened. I understand that. We all do. I don't blame you for that at all. That's something we both did, that we all did. And there were all these things that happened in those years, triumphs and tragedies and everything in between, and it's changed you in some ways, and we understand. We've been through a lot as well, and we've changed too. But it doesn't matter."
"I-it – it doesn't?"
"No. Because you are still the same old Hermione I knew. You love words and ideas, you're brilliant, you're kind, you're brave, you want to help everyone around you... you're still every inch the Hermione we knew all those years ago, deep inside where it matters."
"You don't understand, I've done things, terrible things... even right now... and there's so much I can't say. We can't go back. I can't open up and tell you all my secrets the way I used to – the way we used to. But I want..."
"That's okay too," said Charlotte, her own eyes glossy. "I can live with that. As long as we can still be friends in all the other places where we have common ground. Because that's what I want us to be, and you do too. Don't you?"
"YES!" sobbed Hermione. "A-all... all those years we lost... forever... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...!"
"No, you're right, we can't ever get those years back. But we can yet make the best of the many years ahead, can't we? Cheer up. There, there," soothed Charlotte, patting Hermione on the back, as she wept into her shoulder. "There. It's going to be alright."
Hermione Granger is a daughter of two worlds.
There's the world that most of her friends know, a world of magic wands and potions and spells and curses; and there's the world that a small number of her friends inhabit, where satellites and computers and science rules the day. And Hermione is proud to be a member of both these worlds. It's not easy, but with a little love and kindness and understanding – what we call "friendship" – she makes it work, somehow.
Today the sun was shining unusually bright and warm, for an early October afternoon, so Hermione and Charlotte were lounging in the small garden bordered by the roses that were Mr Granger's pride and joy. Gentle pink blossoms filled the air with fragrance as they shared tea, scones, and a new old friendship.
"...and sometimes I still talk to some of our mutual friends," said Charlotte, "and they say, 'why don't you give him another chance, you two were so good together, then you wouldn't be feeling so lonely', but they just don't understand, there are some things in a partner I just cannot countenance. We have to have the same ethical values, that's really important. You know what I mean, don't you?"
"Of course," Hermione nodded. "Stand by your principles always. You did absolutely the right thing. And you tell those fools they're not the ones who'd be spending ten years in an increasingly-loveless marriage headed straight for Family Court for 'irreconciliable differences' at the end of it, so they can jolly well stay out of it."
"Too right. Fucking meddlers," groused Charlotte. She noticed Hermione's grin. "What?"
"First time I've heard you say that."
"Well I'm sure you've heard the word before!"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh please, I am Ron's girlfriend. You've been around him enough by now to get a good idea of what I go through."
"Well then. Stick around me, I've plenty more where that came from."
A distinctive jingle cut through the still afternoon air, an electronic bell-like sound playing a simple tune over and over.
"Ice-cream!" exclaimed Hermione and Charlotte together, and they jumped over chairs and dived for handbags and ran out into the street to catch the van before it passed. Charlotte flirted outrageously with the grey-haired, wrinkle-faced old man in the ice-cream van, and he took it in good humour and winked back with a hint of decades-past roguishness as he handed over two wafer cones piled high with soft-serve and rainbow-coloured hundreds and thousands, a crumbly bar of chocolate sticking out the top.
As they walked back into the house, Hermione bit into her ice-cream, and savoured the soft sweet vanilla taste of a healing heart.
Long years apart can make no breach
A second cannot fill
The absence of the Witch does not
Invalidate the spell
The embers of a thousand years
Uncovered by the hand
That fondled them when they were fire
Will stir and understand.
- Emily Dickinson -
A/N: This was going to be a birthday fic for Hermione, but alas... As always, love it, hate it, please let me know what you think. =)