The library at the Malibu mansion was expansive, full of books on topics Hermione had never even heard of, the perfect thing to occupy her mind while she stayed with Tony. God forbid he let her have more than three minutes of peace and quiet.
"I have something really important to show you."
Hermione narrowed her eyes at Tony. This could mean anything from 'I've solved world hunger' to 'Look at this picture of two badgers doing it.' "What is it?"
He rolled his eyes and offered a hand to help her stand, not that she needed it anymore. Two weeks was enough time to recover physically, if perhaps not mentally. Pointedly ignoring the question, he pulled her to her feet anyway and nodded towards the parlor. "Just come with me. Even Jarvis is coming," he whined, and that did help get her feet moving (at a slight drag).
"Let me bookmark this," she insisted, and he snatched the book from her hands and lazily dog-eared the page and threw it onto one of the library sofas. "Okay, or not." She rolled her eyes again and they were off.
The living room was the most beautiful, most modern part of his home. What it lacked in adornment it more than made up for in sheer class; everything from the fabric of the sofa to the careful inlays of the walls spoke to an attention to detail and intentionality that she appreciated.
On the south wall was something between a bar cart and a full bar, and this is where Hermione found herself being dragged. "What are you making me drink?" she asked lightly. Typically she had a glass of white wine with dinner, although she'd been considering acquiring some butterbeer for lighter fare.
"Scotch," Tony said shortly, rifling through the cabinet for a specific bottle. "It's for grown-ups. You're a grown-up now." He looked over his shoulder and squinted at her. "And you're well enough for a real drink."
"I thought you said Mr. Jarvis would be joining," Hermione said, ignoring his commentary.
"Right behind you," said Mr. Jarvis quite literally, making her nearly jump out of her skin.
"Mr. Jarvis," she growled, "I don't know how you do that, but you'll be the death of me."
He only smiled placidly. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
"Aha!" cried Tony, rising victorious from the depths of the cabinet with… a cardboard tube. "This," he told them formally, "is a fine single-malt scotch whisky. It's an important part of every man and woman's alcoholic repertoire." He clearly was adapting this speech for a female audience, making Hermione smile. "Jarvis, pour this over ice while I get Hermione a cigar."
Mr. Jarvis nodded as Hermione balked. "I'm not smoking a cigar, Tony!"
"Yes, you are." He made his way to the small refrigerator he kept solely for cigars and stroked his goatee in thought.
"No," she said as if speaking to a small child, "I'm not. It's terrible for your teeth, my parents would — would kill me." She only stumbled a little talking about them, a huge improvement in such a short time.
He pursed his lips. "Fine, that's fair." Hermione wondered if he did anything to keep the memory of his parents alive.
Having started drinking at six o'clock, and given the current time of nine-thirty, Hermione and Tony had 'only' been drinking for three and a half hours, and they were what one might call tipsy. Drunk, even, maybe. Mr. Jarvis had left them to their devices after his first glass, deciding that this was "a bonding opportunity for the two of you."
"Thank you for letting me stay with you," Hermione said at some point. "I really appreciate it. I'll be out of your hair soon, I promise."
"You're so British," Tony said, as if she knew what that meant. Sometimes, when he wore a suit and tie, it was easy to think of him as a real adult, someone so much older and wiser than her. Other times, she remembered that he was but nine years older than her and a complete man-child. "You're my sister, you're staying." This was one of those latter times.
She smiled sadly. "We're not even related, Tony."
He glowered. "We'll see about that!"
Unwilling to imagine what family secrets he was willing to fabricate, Hermione changed the topic to possibly the worst option available. "Do you do anything in your parents' memory?" His glower didn't go away and she bravely didn't cringe. "You know, like how I wouldn't smoke a cigar…"
"I invent shit," he said offhandedly, forcing his expression into a facsimile of nonchalance. "I don't know if you know this, but my dad was—"
"You are such an arse," Hermione said without heat. It might've been a stupid question. Still, she said, "You know what I meant."
"Yeah. No, I don't think I do that," he said stiffly.
They sat in quiet contemplation for a long moment before Hermione said, "Well, if I do therapy, so do you, so get ready to talk about it to someone else," and Tony choked on his scotch.
"Alright, let's talk about your problems, then!" He fixed her with a steady look and she steeled herself. "Tell me about boys."
She threw her head back in laughter. "Boys? You think I've been thinking about boys lately?"
He frowned. "I mean, I'd have been thinking about girls."
She smiled fondly. "Harry and Ron probably were, now that you say that."
"So…" he said slyly, "who are Harry and Ron?"
"They're my best friends," she said earnestly, "and I don't have feelings for either of them."
"Are you sure?" he asked probingly, and her self-assuredness faltered.
"Well… I mean… that is…" She was floundering. "ImayhavekissedRonintheChamberofSecrets."
Tony blinked. "Is the Chamber of Secrets a euphemism?"
"No!" She could feel the heat rising on her face. "It's a place. A gross place, disgusting."
"And you kissed this Ron guy there?" He looked pensive.
"I did." At least her voice didn't waver. That might've killed her. "So, who have you been kissing lately? According to the tabloids I think it's, oh, everyone?"
"There's a good amount they don't report on, too!" he said with a wink. "Anyway, what would you know about being in the tabloids? It's a pain in the ass."
She scoffed. "What would I know about it? Tony, I essentially got called a whore in a mainstream paper when I was fifteen years old."
"Oh my god." Instead of offended, he looked like she'd just presented him with solid gold. "Please tell me more."
And so she regaled him with the story of her illicit love affair with Viktor Krum ("What's a Quidditch?"), how desperately hurt Harry was ("Are you sure there were no feelings?"), how Ron's mom had called her a scarlet woman ("She sounds jealous!"), and he regaled her with tales of his many exploits in love. And in things that weren't quite love. He was disgusting, and she was cackling.
"So, how about you have some friends over?" he asked eventually, and she was taken by surprise.
"I didn't realize I was staying long enough to have my own guests. I'd love to, if you'll have them," she added quickly, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth. She did miss them terribly. "They're not going to know what to do with you or this place." Hermione looked around the room with a tiny smile on her face; even she wasn't used to it yet. Tony truly surrounded himself with things useful, beautiful, or handmade — and sometimes all three, if you counted some of his robots.
"Are they gonna hit the library, too?" He was at the bar, pouring himself another glass, and Hermione gestured for him to bring the bottle over.
"Absolutely not," she said with a laugh. "I think they'd sooner die." The joke rolled off her tongue sour. Maybe not die. "Ron's going to have so many questions. He was raised in the wizarding world, you know?"
"Harry wasn't?" For some reason, Tony was really harping on Harry.
"No," she said nervously, not wanting to betray Harry's confidence. "He was raised as a Muggle. Like you," she added unnecessarily.
He smirked. "Not many people were raised like me."
And Harry most assuredly wasn't one of them, she knew. "Fair point. He at least knows what a computer is, though; I think Ron's head is going to explode." She fixed him with a pointed stare that tended to work on the boys when she was sober. "Why are you so interested in Harry?"
Tony shrugged, and Hermione wasn't having it, only staring harder. The look may not have its full efficacy when she was drunk, she realized.
"Tell me, or I'll keep asking."
"You're as annoying as me," he muttered before admitting, "I've heard of a Harry Potter. Heir to a big fortune. Not as big as mine," he said, managing to not make it sound like a brag, "but still huge. His parents died when he was a baby and no one has a clue where he went."
Hermione frowned. "I had no idea. I'm not sure Harry even knows."
"Something for me to bring up with him, then."
Something occurred to her. "So, what, you thought I was some sort of gold digger?"
"No," he said rudely, "I just wasn't sure how much money you were gonna end up with if you got the Stark and Potter fortunes!"
She blinked dumbly. "The Stark fortune?"
"You're an idiot," he said fondly. She hadn't heard it said to her like that in a long time.
"Would an idiot be reading about quantum mechanics?" she asked primly. "The theory seems rather basic at the beginning, I do hope things thicken up or I'll be bored."
He raised a single brow. "What a relaxing read."
"I think so," she said haughtily. A memory surfaced of a little boy saying This is light reading? and she felt the smile on her lips widen. "I'm interested in seeing how quantum states might correlate with magical potential, you know?"
"No," he said honestly, "but I love that for you." He raised his glass in a silent toast and she dutifully clinked hers against his and took a deep sip.
They were far enough into the night now that she wasn't even choking on the whisky anymore! She felt properly grown-up.
The next day she mostly felt properly hungover in a way she hadn't felt since sixth year when Ron and Lavender were going at it everywhere anybody looked. Only Harry knew, but she'd ended up going on a bit of a binge one night. She still couldn't drink Firewhiskey, and she really was regretting the drinking the night before.
She couldn't bring herself to fully regret it, though; something had transpired between her and Tony, and her friends were able to visit besides.
She set about writing two letters, knowing they were going to the same house regardless — there was no chance Mrs. Weasley had let Harry leave the Burrow yet, but it was only polite to write each of them separately.
"Do you know where the nearest wizarding district is, Mr. Jarvis?" she tried, fully aware he didn't and unsurprised when he shook his head apologetically. He wasn't even supposed to know magic existed, but there was no keeping anything from a young Tony Stark and a young Tony Stark kept very little from Edwin Jarvis.
She waited several hours for Tony to wake and pounced on him immediately when he came crawling into the kitchen for his 'morning' coffee: "Can you please buy me an owl?"
To his credit, he only blinked. "Like, any owl?"
Hermione was saved any further explanations or awkward shopping trips by an unfamiliar owl pecking at the nearest window. "Oh, thank Merlin!" she said, running to the owl and missing Tony mouthing 'Merlin?' to himself. The window took a moment to open but she managed, and the owl perched on the back of the sofa with its leg stuck out. "Look at you," she cooed, and this time she did catch Tony looking at her as if she was insane.
Ignoring him, she read the letter the little owl presented.
Hermione, it began,
We miss you. Things are sad here, but good. We'd like to see you. Everyone would, I mean, but especially me and Harry, you know?
Any time you want to come home, just let us know. How are your parents?
Ron (and Harry)
She stroked the word home. She'd have to break it to them about her parents eventually, but she didn't want to do that right now. Instead she tucked the letter away to deal with later. For now, there was an entire library of topics she knew nothing about to dive into.
7