On Teenagers & Love

a story by anamatics

part three - the fog

Chapter Eleven - On Parties


Slughorn's party is rather uneventful, save for what Harry overhears Snape and Malfoy talking about in the corridor afterwards. It adds a lot of weight to Harry's Malfoy-is-a-Death-Eater theory, but that's all the credit that Hermione and Ron are going to give him before he discusses it with Professor Dumbledore. They all know full-well that Professor Snape is a spy for the Order of the Phoenix and Hermione knows that if Malfoy is indeed a Death Eater, he's a very young and therefore unimportant one. Snape might, Hermione argues to Harry, even be trying to get Draco out of that situation before he can become too entangled with it.

Hermione takes Pansy no further than the door and slips the arithmancy equation and the spell it's in relation to into Pansy's obnoxiously pink dress robe pocket and thinks nothing of it. Maybe it will give Pansy something to think about over the holidays. No one seems to notice that they arrived at nearly the same time, Hermione lingering a half-second in the door under the pretext of fixing her shoe to stagger their arrival times slightly. Harry's brought Luna and Hermione spends an entertaining evening with the pair of them, talking about nonsense and drinking mulled cider and the spiked punch while dodging Professor Slughorn.

The final days of the term seem to blend together and Hermione finds herself weaving through the crowd at King's Cross Station looking for her parents before she knows it. Fleur's already in France and Bill's promised to come retrieve her Christmas morning in case there's some sort of a problem with Fleur's returning International Apparation Permit.

Hermione waves goodbye to Harry and Ron as she follows her parents out of the barrier and towards the carpark. It's warmer in London than it was at Hogwarts, but it's still bitterly cold. Her father and mother both look about is cold as Hermione feels and they don't really talk much at all until they're safely bundled into the car and Hermione has assured her mother that Crookshanks will be much happier mousing for the house elves than traveling back and forth over a fairly short Christmastime holiday.

"You look tired," her mother says to her, peering around to stare at Hermione as her dad starts the car and heads out into the heart of the London traffic.

Hermione sighs and scrubs a hand across her face. "It's been a long term," she says wearily.

Her parents nod their heads in acknowledgment and launch into easy conversation about the coming holiday and the rush of patients they've been attempting to see before their office closes for the few days leading up to Christmas before reopening after Boxing Day. Hermione half-listens and stares out the car window, watching the countryside whir past and wondering if this is the last time she'll ever take a trip like this.

Fleur's letters regarding memory charms have been helpful, but Hermione knows that whatever she does, she first has to attempt to reason with her parents. She has to tell them the truth and hope that they're not too stubborn to listen and get out of England while there's still time. She knows that the families of muggleborns are the first who are going to be attacked and she knows that her friendship with Harry is going to paint a target as bright as the sun on her parents' backs. Hermione worries her lip and wonders if telling them straight away is better, or if she should wait.

In the end, she tells them over dinner. She explains the attacks and how Voldemort is amassing an army that he'll turn loose whenever he sees fit and how a lot of people have already gone into hiding. She tells them how Mr. Olivander is missing from Diagon Alley and of the boarded-up shop windows that now line the streets all over wizarding Britain.

"Why don't people fight back?" her father demands when Hermione finds herself shockingly without any more words to impress the imminent danger that they are all in. "I mean, isn't that you have a police force and a government?"

Hermione sighs and pulls out her wand. "The problem is," she explains quietly, wordlessly summoning one of the glass baubles from the Christmas tree that's been set up in the corner of the room to float in the air before her. "It isn't really so simple to track down someone who doesn't want to be found. There are ways of making places and people untraceable. I could charm this ornament to vanish before your eyes, but it would still be there." Hermione flicks her wand and banishes the ornament back from whence it came. "No, the solution is to take out the very heart of the rebellion - it worked nicely the last time around."

"So the group that Fleur and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are a part of is trying to do just that?" Her mother clarifies. "I still don't see what it has to do with us, Hermione, dear."

Realization echoes in her ears and they seem to be filled with a strange sort of rushing sound that Hermione can't ever remember hearing before. Her eyes are narrowed and she feels like she's under Bellatrix LeStrange's knife again. They're not going to go, they're not going to take her advice and get out of England while they still can. "You are my mum and dad," Hermione says desperately. "They'll see you as a way to get to me!" She closes her eyes and waits, but when her parents are oddly silent, she adds hurriedly, "And they'll use me to get to Harry. Or to Dumbledore, or someone else that I care about."

Her parents share a long look and finally her mother asks, "Do you need to be a part of this? Could you leave the school? You're of age now, right?"

She bristles and scowls, looking down at her hands. Pride is a flaw of all Gryffindors, and she has it in spades. It's hard for her to ask for help, harder still to acknowledge that she had weaknesses. Hermione, will, however, defend her importance to Harry to her last breath. "Harry Potter would be dead or expelled or in Azkaban if it wasn't for Ron and I," she says hotly. "If you think I'm going to not finish what I've been up to my neck in since I was eleven..."

"We're not," her father cuts in. His eyes are soft, kind, full of emotion that Hermione almost never sees. It takes her a moment to realize what it is, to realize that its fear and worry and desperation all rolled into one. She swallows hotly as her father lays a hand on her knee and speaks once more. "We're just saying that you don't have to."

But if I don't, who will? The question rattles about in Hermione's head along with the memory charms and expansion charms and Fleur Delacour. She doesn't think that there are many other options, and she won't abandon Fleur or Harry or the Weasleys to this fight. This is a fight about her, much more so than it's a fight about Harry or Ron. She's the one that is always singled out as other, after all.

The summer before her third year, Hermione read every book she could find on Greek mythology and philosophy following a particularly interesting lecture in Professor Binns' class. Somewhere in the works of Plato, there was a quote that's always stuck with her, and she says it without thinking now. "He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy." Hermione smiles sheepishly at both of her parents, seeing her own face all mixed up between the two of them, drawn and far too worried. "Or, in my case, a woman."

Her parents say nothing and Hermione feels something within her break, just a little bit. She's always found that muggles are better at seeing the cold logic in things, where wizards don't seem to comprehend it because magic defies the very basic premises of logic. It's logical for her to want her parents to be safe, logical and reasonable. What is illogical is them wanting her to run away and hide from a fight she's been preparing for since she was eleven. "So many people are afraid. I'm afraid. But I know that I need to stand and fight. I need to inspire others to do the same. So many people remember what it was like before, and they remember the fear. I want to fight against that darkness, I want to help Harry." She levels her gaze on her parents and adds, "And I want you to be safe and away from here. You don't have magic. You have no way of protecting yourself, not against them."

Her mother's muffled sob is the first indication that Hermione might have gotten through to them, but she turns to her husband and laughs sadly, "She's quoting philosophy at us to make her points." It's followed by almost hysterical laughter, desperate and forced, and Hermione wishes that she'd gone ahead and taken her apparation test early so she could leave this stifling sitting room and the feeling of utter helplessness far behind her. Instead she sits, shifting uncomfortably on the sofa and staring at her mother and father, worry etched across her face.

"When did you grow up so much, dear?" Her mother continues and Hermione looks from her mother to her father and back again.

"I..." she begins.

"I think you're worrying over nothing, Hermione," her father says, standing up and offering his hand to her mother. "Things like this blow over in time, look at Germany. They're happily reunited as once country now, no hard feelings at all."

Hermione personally thinks that this is a terribly naive view of that particular conflict, and her mind drifts to the various muggle newspapers that she's caught glimpses of over the summer and during the school year. Dean Tomas' mum sends him the football scores every weekend and usually will include any interesting clippings that Hermione will read over his shoulder. There are countries that are reacting violently to the Soviets failing. Viktor has written her about how Bulgaria isn't faring that well, there's war in what was once Yugoslavia.

It all seems so surreal.

And Hermione knows that she'd better get very, very good, at memory charms.