Chapter 9: Just Hermione
On Sunday I woke up to Crookshanks "lovingly" batting at my face. In the past I had woken up similarly to a mischievous ginger flicking my nose, so I sat up with a yell of, "Ronald!"
Rather than a ginger man, all that awaited me was a ginger cat that yowled at me. As I pushed Crookshanks away, I couldn't help but consider how pathetically alone I was. When I was younger being single had never bothered me much. I knew that the right man would come along one day.
And I thought he had. Ron really did bring me happiness, true happiness. That meant it hurt all the worse when he left.
In my heart of hearts I thought that it would have hurt less if Ron had died instead of cheated. To clarify, I by no means wished death upon Ronald. A minor case of Dragon Pox, perhaps, but not death. And I suppose it wouldn't hurt less necessarily, but it would've been a different sort of hurt. As things happened, it felt like I cried every tear for myself.
It feels bloody stupid, but that's the nature of being cheated on. There is no upside, at least none that I had found yet. Being cheated on meant constantly second-guessing every decision you've ever made, as well as questioning what exactly made you so repulsive that your "significant other" felt the need to content themselves with the company of a half-Veela.
And even now, a month later as my cat stared at me with his infinitely condescending wisdom, I wondered if this was all the love I was permitted in life. All I had been allotted was a cat with a foul temperament, an owl who had adopted me, and an overgrown herb garden.
Time and time again I tried to tell myself that my situation could be so much worse, and that I should be grateful for what I did have. But sometimes one can't help but wallow a bit. However, Crookshanks was having none of that today. He batted at my chin once more to remind me that he was waiting for his breakfast.
With a groan I heaved myself out of bed. Yesterday had been entirely too long, and my real investigation was halted. Harry had given me a list of search methods to follow before declaring it a cold case, but I had done everything on the list on my first day of investigation. One day I would have to broach the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's terrible investigation protocols, but that was a battle for another day.
I would have to give some half-baked evidence as to why I couldn't find the corpse of Draco Malfoy, but I had at least a week to do that. For today I was taking a break.
Unfortunately I was terrible at relaxing. Crookshanks had ruined any chance of me sleeping in, and that was the one way I really indulged myself.
I decided to take a bath and soak a while, and I finally had the opportunity to start a book I had been looking forward to. It was a muggle novel, a historical fiction that had great reviews.
My leisure-reading crashed to an abrupt halt when I found myself penning an angry letter to the author over several historical inaccuracies. I forced myself to discard the book and burn the letter, meanwhile contemplating that I may have a problem.
After that I attempted to fill my day with several different activities that were traditionally considered "relaxing," but each served only to wind me up into a more anxious mess. I tried watching TV, only to find myself watching a dramatization of some witch hunt or another. I tried baking, but just as it always did when I baked in the wrong mindset, it literally exploded. I even apparated to my cottage in Godric's Hollow to do a bit of gardening, but I stumbled across a broomstick that Ron had left there. Before I realized what I was doing, I had smashed the thing to splinters an set it on fire for good measure.
I tried to tell myself that I wasn't usually this petty or violent, but no smore had ever tasted as good as the one I roasted over Ronald's broom. Truth be told, I was always a nightmare when I had a big project hanging over my head. Directly after that war I had fixated on the act of obliviation.
Since the invention of the spell, there was no cure or records of recovery from it other than when extreme torture was used. That had been my intent when I used it on my parents, though it remains the hardest thing I've ever done. But after the war I had lost so much, I just wanted my parents back.
Countless well-meaning people tried to tell me that it was a pointless endeavor that would result in me being hurt or disappointed. But somehow I crammed years of research into the few months I had between finishing my seventh year at Hogwarts and beginning university.
My breakthrough came a mere two days before I was scheduled to start university, both muggle and wizard. What the final clue happened to be was a muggle neurology textbook that I had bought as a last resort. In many ways the brain is a mystery for muggles and wizards alike. But muggles have already answered some questions that wizards hadn't thought of yet.
Science and magic rarely coexist peacefully, and generally each is seen as an antithesis of the other. But really, they're more like opposite sides of a coin. Both have strengths and shortcomings.
With a hefty knowledge of both magic and neurology, I was able to find the cure. My parents were the first to ever fully recover, and unfortunately they were followed by Gilderoy Lockhart. A fraction of St. Mungo's patients were released, some after decades of hospitalization.
The cure spread around the world like wildfire. I still occasionally received letters from grateful patients or their families. But it always interested me to see how people tended to compartmentalize things. It was astonishing how few people made the connection that Hermione Granger, war heroine and friend of Harry Potter was the same person as Hermione Granger, Order of Merlin First Class for her medical contributions. Even more entertaining were my coworkers that didn't realize that Hermione Granger, department jumper was in fact both of those people as well.
I was broken out of my thought when I noticed the time. I was still in my pajamas and I was having dinner with the neighbors in an hour. If I didn't hurry things up I would be Hermione Granger, the girl who was late.
A/N: Not entirely sure where this chapter came from, but here it is. I normally try to keep at one chapter a week, but I also believe in celebratory chapters. I just got back from presenting at a national literature conference and I killed it, so here's my personal celebration.
