On Teenagers & Love
a story by anamatics
part three - the fog
Chapter Three - On Mothers & Fathers
That day, October last, when Fleur had shown up in Hogsmeade with a devilish smile and a muggle leather jacket, Hermione had learned what it truly meant to love a veela. Much like the history lessons whispered deep in the stacks of Madame Pince's silent library, Fleur had relayed the information that she knew in round-about, broken English.
Veela did not love like humans; Hermione had known that from the first time Fleur had kissed her. What she had not realized was how quickly they fell into a deep and all-consuming love. There was a common misconception that veela were like many of the birds that they shared so many common attributes with and mated for life, but that was not the case. A veela could fall in and out of love, just like any other magical being, it was just the nature of how they love that changed.
A veela who loved deeply and truly traditionally gave their desired partner a gift of jewelry forged deep in the forests where full-blooded veela still lived as they had for thousands of years. The idea, Fleur had explained with a raised eyebrow, was that the jewelry would serve as an added protection from the wayward eyes of others. A veela's wrath an ill omen, as they were long-ago associated with the hearth and home.
"Nous som-we are-" Fleur had corrected herself, "creatures zat are ze embodiment of love of all ze kinds. Not just ze lustful et romantique. Non, ze mozer's love for 'er child, ze fazer for 'is fazer. Tout l'amour... it is all comment-dit-on... sacred to ze veela."
To love a veela, Fleur had gone to explain, is to love that expression of love and to be loved by all that is love. It is not, Fleur had cautioned, something to be taken lightly.
Over time, the book that Fleur had sent Hermione for her sixteenth birthday had explained, the recipient of such love would come to crave it. It would start as an ache at the pit of the stomach when away from their veela love for long periods of time, and soon it would manifest itself in other ways. Irritability, sullenness and depression would follow if the pair were not fully bonded in the manner of the old ways. The human, non-veela member of the relationship would have to return the promise of the veela in the form of a ring forged by a master smith in the old style. The book had made assurances that because of how common intermarrying with veela was within the wizarding (and muggle, interestingly enough) communities, that such rings were not rare at all.
Once bonded, a pair could continue apart if needed. Hermione underlines and marks this page with a little flag so that she can refer back to it later. She still isn't entirely sure what the bonding ceremony truly entails. Is it just the giving of the ring and reiterating the promise? The books that she has here are not very helpful, and she wants to do this properly. She owes that much to Fleur.
She has a sinking feeling that no matter what happens with Voldemort, she and Fleur are not going to be able to be at peace until he's dead.
Merlin, Hermione thinks, falling back onto her bed, a flutter of parchment and books and a few feather from her down pillow floating up into the air as her body hits the mattress. She's only sixteen; she shouldn't have to think about this sort of thing.
Yet it is all that's on her mind. There is a war brewing and she can see it coming clear as day in the papers and in the drawn and wary way that even the muggles in her very muggle hometown are walking about. Hermione wishes that it were different, that she'd had more time, that she'd met Fleur when she was older and less likely to bugger it all up.
She's only sixteen.
x
Ginny writes her to tell her of the plans for Harry's birthday party and to bemoan Bill's new girlfriend. Hermione reads her letter with a smile and tucks it next to the short notes that she's been getting from Harry. He's been sending her snippets of things he's remembered that Sirius has told him, things that he thinks might be important. Hermione's just grateful that he's talking at all as she thinks she'll go mad, cooped up in this house until the end of July.
Her parents aren't really helping. They're watching her with what Hermione thinks has to be trepidation and it's starting to grate her nerves.
The morning that Ginny's letter arrives, Hermione's mother mentions that she has wanted Hermione to come with her into town for the day. It is a Sunday, after all, and they've never been a particularly religious family. Sundays are for day trips and reading and tending to the garden, with a bit of shopping thrown in for good measure. They go to church on Christmas and Easter, and Hermione honestly cannot recall the last time she went.
"Why don't you come into town with me today, we can get you some new clothes for school," Her mother taps her chin pensively and adds with the grin that Hermione has long come to expect from her mother. It's slightly teasing, but definitely supportive at the same time. "And a haircut if you'd like."
Hermione's fingers fly to her hair, she's put it back with a headband and tie, but it is getting a little long. It's always been a problem when it gets to be past a certain length. During the school year, she'd had Lavender Brown use a trimming charm on it because Lavender was most certainly one of those sorts of girls and was really rather good at it. She'd confessed to Hermione on more than a few occasions that if her proposed career in divination did not work out that she'd very much like to go into magical hair-dressing. Hermione's cheeks color a little when she thinks about just how hard it had been to hide her derisive snort of contempt. At least she had loftier ambitions than Lavender Brown. Hair dressing indeed.
"I could use a trim," Hermione says tentatively, tugging at one of her curls.
"It's settled then," Her mother drains the rest of her tea and rises to put her cup in the sink. She pauses then, her body frozen as if she's been hit by the impediment jinx, and stares at Hermione.
"What is it?" Hermione asks, but her mother shakes her head and heads towards the sink where the pathos is apparently thriving and threatening to take over the entirety of the upper kitchen cabinets with leafy tendrils that remind Hermione all-too-much of devil's snare. Her mother doesn't say another word about whatever it was that had stuck her in that moment, and Hermione doesn't dare ask.
They go into town and Hermione spends the afternoon getting her hair cut and seeing a parade of vaguely familiar faces from her days at primary school. She recognizes some of the boys and hardly any of the girls. She supposes that it's because boys grow up slower than girls, and most girls start to wear their hair differently and put on makeup. Harry and Ron haven't really changed that much at all since first year. They're growing like weeds, yes, but Harry's only just starting to grow a mustache and she's pretty sure that Ron's never going to have much of a beard. None of the men in his family do at any rate.
Still, it is nice to see people that she hasn't seen in years. Hermione trails after her mother through the stores, pausing only to admire a bag she's found at the back of one of the more high-end shops that her mother's dragged her into. Neither of them are really much for shopping, but Hermione has made the mistake of mentioning that she probably could do with a dress for school functions. They've been into five shops now and the only thing even remotely appealing to Hermione is this bag.
Staring down at it in her hands, it really doesn't seem that interesting, honestly. A bit girly for her tastes, really. It has a beaded fringe and isn't very big, but the strap is a cross body one and it's made of thin, subtle leather that feels very much like Fleur's Gringotts jacket under Hermione's fingers. Hermione wonders if it can be modified at all, expanded to hold more. It's the sort of thing that people would think to be unassuming, they wouldn't questioning her having it and she could maybe charm it to hold more…
Bigger on the inside, she recalls from her childhood, and turns to find her mother holding up a pink, frilly monstrosity of a dress that she would not be caught dead in.
"I'd like this?" Hermione says hopefully, and holds up the bag. Her mother seems almost grateful that Hermione has asked her for something and takes it up to the clerk without a second glance at the horrible pink dress.
After Hermione reads Ginny's letter upon returning home that evening, she realizes that her time to actually discuss what's going on in the magical world with her parents is growing short. She sits them down in the garden, grateful that the evening is warm for a change, and begins to explain what's happened in the past year.
"We heard about those escaped convicts," Her father says sagely. He's starting to go a bit bald on the top of his head and Hermione wonders when that had started to happen. She honestly doesn't remember much about what her father looked like last summer. Her mind had been elsewhere and the pang of guilt she feels upon realizing this is enough to make her wish that she could be a better daughter. "It was all over the papers like that Sirius Black bloke two years ago."
"Yes, only Sirius was innocent," Hermione reminds them for what feels like the hundredth time. She had had to be very careful, coming home after third year, with what she told her parents about the events of that night she'd lived two nights during the time it took a normal person to live one. "Only I suppose it doesn't much matter anymore, he was killed by one of the one who escaped Azkaban. His cousin."
"My-" Her mother begins but Hermione just shakes her head. "That poor boy," her mother says and Hermione's thoughts turn towards Harry once again. She hates that he can't come spend summers here, or with Ron. She understands that there has to be a reason why Dumbledore keeps sending him back to that household that is so clearly cruel to him. She doesn't think that any head of any school would tolerate the sort of treatment that Harry so casually describes when he talks about his summers, and she's absolutely positive he knows about it.
And she almost hates him for it.
Hermione begins to explain what's been happening. She tells her parents of the dire news that's come through and of the attempt on John Major through one of his secretaries that's lead to him having to have a magical guard at all times.
"The Prime Minister?" Her father's eyebrows are raised and he sounds almost incredulous. "What would they want him for?" He lowers his voice, casting a nervous glance around the garden and Hermione is once again glad that she decided to let Ginny take Crookshanks with her back to the Burrow. He would have an absolute field day, chasing all the wildlife that lived in and amongst her mother's shrubbery. Her mother would hate it. "He's not… you know…" He trails off, his eyebrows climbing even higher up his forehead.
"No," Hermione shakes her head. "I don't think so at any rate." She looks between her parents. "No, but Voldemort," she swallows at the name, "isn't stupid and probably realizes that if he were to kill or control the muggle prime minister that a lot of his future plans would be a lot easier."
"Now look here," her father says then, and Hermione almost winces. "Voldy-whatsit isn't going to just go into Downing Street and wave a wand and kill the PM just like that, it doesn't work that way. There are guards."
"No," Hermione says, feeling defeated and knowing that she cannot urge her parents to leave if they don't even accept the fact that yes, it would be just that simple for Voldemort to kill just about anyone. She feels the weight of the argument pressing down hard on her shoulders and she knows that she has to think of something else in order to keep her parents safe. "I don't suppose it would work that way."
AN: hahah oops, forgot I was releasing this slowly. my b yall.
