Harry had looked over all the notes and names and vials of people who had taken the time to send her a memory and approved them all, paranoid as he was.
One that intrigued her the most had been a frosted glass phial from Draco Malfoy. There had been no note on the folded slip of thick, creamy parchment aside from the quick scrawl of his name in a scratchy elegant hand. She'd puzzled over what Malfoy might have to share with her, a memory of her former self that he obviously thought was important.
Hermione stood with hesitant indecisiveness after she tipped the contents of his phial into the shimmering pensieve water, dressed in her newly purchased clothes. Stiff and new, they were still more comfortable than the old Hermione's clothes.
She took a deep breath and submerged her face in the water.
People were streaming into the castle from the Entrance Court and the thick smell of smoke in the air swirled around in the morning breeze. Hogwarts was absolutely covered in rubble and blasted craters, so much that it looked as if it had been the centre of a meteor shower sometime during the night.
She knew that that was not the case.
The sun had just dawned over the Scottish hillside; the Final Battle was over, things would finally be happy again, one day. They wouldn't need to be on the run anymore, they could eat real food and sleep in warmer beds and wash in an actual bath –
Her leg was stinging and bleeding profusely, the jean around the wound ripped and charred. Hermione had felt the Welt Hex collide with her thigh as she was trying to scale a large chunk of castle wall. It had caused her to trip and fall, scraping the side of her head roughly. As the people around her continued to cheer and nurse their own injuries, she cast her eyes around for Ron, for Harry, though she was certain he was buried in the middle of the crowd somewhere, shaking heads and accepting embraces no matter how much he wanted to fall dead asleep.
Ron's red hair was nowhere to be seen and Hermione shifted and leaned her weight more heavily onto the rock behind herself. She took her first steps toward the arch of the massive and destroyed door and before the minute was up she felt someone slip her arm over their shoulders and take a large majority of her weight.
"Thank you, I -"
The Hermione from May 2nd turned her head, hair covered in stone dust and face smeared with sweat and blood and soot, her voice catching in her throat when she saw who was helping her.
Even under the dulling of grime and battle, Draco Malfoy's hair still stood out sharply against the sea of browns and blacks.
They both observed one another, and Draco was the first to break the stare and shuffle them forward without another word. He helped her over to the front door and largely lifted her into the Entrance Hall, a narrow path free to get through to the Great Hall beyond.
His arm was tight around her back, supporting her as gently as possible. She remembered this from her point of view, she remembered –
The haze of dust settling over the castle, the constant noise, bursts of happiness and grief.
The complete inability she had to turn down the Slytherin's help.
If she had come this far and he decided to hex her, so be it. She had nothing left to give.
Instead of turning his wand on her, Draco helped Hermione to the first free spot in the Great Hall, setting her down slowly. Hermione hissed in pain but smothered the noise in the next second, refusing to display how much the stinging hurt.
Shocking her yet again, Draco didn't turn and leave her. He crouched in front of her and surveyed her leg and the blood still dripping from it. He quickly pulled his robes over his head and ripped large strip after large strip from it to form a bandage to staunch the flow.
Both Hermiones watched him in awe as he wordlessly wrapped her leg up as best as he could. When he was finished, his hands were smeared with her blood, bright and red and wet.
"Sorry -" she started to apologize, breaking the spell of silence.
"Don't be. It's all the same isn't it?" Draco said. She watched him wipe his hands slowly on the fabric of his pants, already filthy from the battle.
"Yeah," Hermione saw herself nod minutely and give Draco the most infinitesimally small smile she had ever seen. "It's all the same."
The scene dissolved in front of her eyes and she stood up, pulling herself from the swirling remnants of the memory.
Draco Malfoy had always had too much pride to apologize for anything, and that was the most she would likely ever get from him. As little as was said, a lot had been communicated and she remembered feeling like it had been an out of body experience.
Of course, the whole thing had felt like an out of body experience, of course.
Hermione found there were tears in her eyes, and images of the ruined castle and grounds floated around in her mind. She wiped them away and took a breath.
Draco Malfoy had wanted to make sure she remembered that moment.
Tony Blair was still the muggle Prime Minister and Queen Elizabeth was still the Monarch, thought Bill Clinton was no longer President of the United States. The last thing she remembered reading about in the muggle news from 1999 was that the Discovery Space Shuttle docked with the International Space station. Since then it had run four other flights.
And now there was a massive ferris wheel on the opposite bank of the Thames.
"I'll have the roast beef sandwich," Hermione handed the menu to the waitress before sipping her water again.
"You're vegetarian," Ginny commented before her eyes widened. "Sorry. I guess you're not, actually."
"It's okay," Hermione assured her she wasn't mad at the slip.
People still kept doing that, and it wasn't bound to end soon. The one she got asked all the time was "Are you on your way somewhere important?" as if she was never spotted outside her apartment in pencil skirts and blouses. Apparently the old Hermione wore nothing but sneakers.
"So how did the weekend go?" Ginny sipped her drink and observed Hermione from over her glass.
Hermione decided to open The Hunter and Hare over the weekend, just for a few hours. She had spent the whole of Saturday and Sunday in the shop, exploring the shelves and getting to know the layout. She riffled carefully through the back office and front desk, looking for any clues to – well anything, really.
The front door had been propped open and Hermione had waved to the woman across the way with the flowers. There had been no customers but she did reply to owl correspondence and owl orders. Though she didn't know where things were in the office, she seemed to be able to find everything she needed fairly easily. Things were organised and obvious and she was pretty sure the business wouldn't be shut down while she learned how to do everything the previous Hermione had.
"It went well, I think," she answered. "I'm pretty sure I managed to answer all the letter waiting for me and nothing was too confusing."
"How strange is it trying to run a business without knowing what in Merlin's name you're supposed to do?" Ginny asked, taking another sip of the juice.
"Well, Remus gave me a quick rundown and…" Hermione trailed off.
Ginny waited expectantly while Hermione found the right words.
"It's strange but – it sort of feels like I already know my way around pretty well?"
It was strange. Whenever she thought something like "where's the quills?", they would be in the first drawer she looked in.
"Everything seemed to be right… where I thought it would be," she finished.
"And have you been looking at those memories? Harry told me about the massive pile of them on the table."
"And the bookshelves, and the sideboard. They just keep coming in, Ginny. And I never know what's going to be inside them. On one hand I want to know, I want to watch them all in one day, I want to know who I was, but on the other – I don't want to know. I don't want to compare. I don't want to even have am image of who she – I – she was."
Ginny let silence fall for a few moments before she nodded gently.
"That makes sense. And it's okay to not know what you want, Hermione," the redhead continued. "You always want a plan. And I don't think there is one for this sort of situation."
"Sometimes it seems so pointless," Hermione sighed. "I make myself get up and eat, I try to keep myself occupied in the day. I feel like I'm floundering in things that aren't mine. Things I never wanted."
"You did," Ginny said.
"But I don't feel like I did."
"I know."
"How's George?" Hermione asked, changing the subject.
"He's alright," Ginny answered. "I think he really misses you."
"I miss me, too."
A/N: I know some people would prefer longer chapters, and I am trying to lengthen them. Sometimes it just feels better to post a short one.
Thank you for all your feedback and lovely notes on the last chapter.
xxx
