Authors Note: Wow. Hi there. I have been sightly MIA for the past...year or two. I am back, sort of. Currently I am working on this series, in theory, and planning, there should be 26 chapters. How that will wok out is anyone's guess. This was bittersweet to write, I hope you enjoy.
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For the record, Hermione Granger loved Christmas Carolers, thank you very much. As an only child she had always wished she had had a huge family full of kids, so they could go around her neighbourhood and sing together with harmonies and everything, just like the Brady Bunch. She had found out very early on in life, and so had her unfortunate neighbours, that you cannot create harmonies when you are an only child. Nevertheless, she loved Christmas Carollers. However, what Hermione Granger did not love was people singing carols, terribly, outside her house at 2:37 in the morning.
At first she had thought she was dreaming, wisps of memories of the Weasley boys and their crude adaptations over Sunday dinner. It wasn't until the German version of silent night began that she realised it was someone on her street, more than likely outside her house.
Only seven months after the war had ended, Hermione still carried the bad habits she had picked up. She still slept fully clothed, her wand tucked in its sheath on her arm with her bag sat beside her, fully packed and her ready to get up and leave her life behind. Seven months wasn't enough to create one she would miss.
Tonight was the first night in as long as she could remember that she had fallen asleep without shoes on, more than likely a product of George slipping a little too much fire whiskey into her hot chocolate. Slipping into them and donning her dressing gown, just in case it was just one of her Muggle neighbours, merely drunk after a Christmas party. With her wand poised and a stunning spell on her lips, Hermione peered through the gap in her curtain, huffed, and stamped to her door before throwing it open.
"McLaggen, what on earth are you doing?" She shouted to the man lying in the snow in her front garden, letting the entire street know the capacity of his lungs. He pushed himself up onto one arm before a slow smile spread across his face.
"Granger! Come! Join me!" He hiccuped, his other arm outstretched towards Hermione. She looked at him with pursed lips before tightly crossing her arms. She realised very quickly that he was drunk, with only one shoe on and his hair plastered across his forehead rather than neatly styled as she had only ever seen it before, Hermione felt a twang of pity for the boy in her heart. She slowly made her way over to him and kneeled down.
"Cormac, why are you here? You know this is a Muggle area, you're going to scare-"
"HA! Scare them? Why would they be scared, they have no idea what they need to be scared about? Lucky bastards. They have no idea h-how fucking close their pretty little world came to falling- they have no idea Granger. Merlin, they don't know."
Hermione leaned back on her heels, pulling Cormac up with her. He was not the first visitor she had had in the last seven months; and she was certain he would not be the last. But he was the least expected. Hermione knew that he had fought in the battle, she had seen him, had pushed him out of the way of a curse, he had done the same for her. But she knew everyone had different experiences and dealt with it in different ways, she helped others, Dennis stopped using magic, and Dean relived it at every opportunity. Cormac, it seemed, found solace in the bottom of a bottle, Hermione knew he wasn't the only one.
"Come on Cormac. You're coming in with me."
"Oh so you're bringing me in for a coffee now are you Granger?" He tried to wink at her, instead he only succeed in blinking. Hermione held back a smile.
"Don't push it." She led him into her small house and sat him down on the sofa; he sank down into it, face resting on the arm, his long legs twisted in front of him. "Now don't move. I'll be back in a second."
Cormac breathed in the smell of Hermiones couch, he could smell the ink that he was sure she had split on it many times, the faint vanilla scent she always seemed to carry with her and the smell of burning logs, of a hearth that was always roaring. It smelt of Gryffindor tower, it smelt like home.
"Here. Drink this; it's a pepper-up potion. It'll make you feel better." Hermione handed him a small chipped tea cup with a warm smile on her face. He gulped it down in one and sat back.
"Thank you Hermione." He whispered, eyes closed as he pretended he was home. They sat in silence before Hermione finally cleared her throat.
"Who was it?" She said slowly. Cormac sat up, looking at her with guarded eyes that Hermione knew all too well in survivors.
"What?"
"You know what I mean. I didn't see you at the end, I only knew you were...I only knew when I saw your name on a list wanting to help rebuild. But I knew you were there, and people only turn up to my house when there was someone and they don't know where else to turn to."
"I'm not the only one?"
"At Hogwarts, everyone came to me for the answers to their hard problems they couldn't work out. Things haven't changed that much." She shrugged, a heavy weight on her shoulders. Hermione Granger, the brightest witch of her age, the know it all, of course they all gave her their burdens, they always had. She didn't mind, not anymore.
"Creevy. Colin Creevy. You remember, the kind who use to take all the-"
"Photographs. I remember, he used to drive us all insane. You couldn't turn without a flash in your face." She laughed softly.
"Yeah." He laughed in return. "We were on the far left staircase, you know, the one near the astronomy tower? I told him to run, to leave, that he was too young to even be there. He didn't listen. I think we argued on that staircase for about ten minutes, he just, he wouldn't listen, you know?" Hermione nodded and Cormac carried on. "So we were still arguing when a scrawny Death Eater came running along, I knew I could take him but I was worried about the kid. And then the staircase started moving and I told him to get behind me and he actually listened to me and..." He broke off, his voice cracked on the last word as he put his head in hands, Hermione immediately leapt forward to comfort him.
"It wasn't your fault. You were only trying to protect him."
"But I told him to get behind me! What if I hadn't, what if-?"
"If he hadn't, then that scrawny Death Eater would've taken him out first, then when you were in shock, you would've been next. There was no way around it Cormac." She hugged his broad body, pulled it into her as he cried, tears soaking through the fabric of her dressing gown. She knew Cormac would never fully recover from this, that he would blame himself for the rest of his life, and for once, Hermione didn't know the answer to make it better, so she sat and held him till her clock struck four and Cormac finally pulled away, wiping his face.
"How many others have come?"
"Six, seven." She shrugged. He paused for a minute.
"And how many people have you gone to?" Hermione was momentarily struck; people often forgot when they came that she had gone through just as much in the war, is most cases even more.
"Just one. He helped me and I helped him. Like a partnership I guess."
"Ron?"
Hermione shook her head.
"Oh."
Again, silence engulfed them, but it was comfortable enough that neither wanted to break it. Hermione got up and meandered her way round her furniture again to her kitchen. Cormac looked around at her sagging bookshelves, an old, well used fireplace and her mismatched brown couches. Very Hermione-esque. He thought.
As he browsed the bookshelves, Hermione re-entered the room, shoving a steaming cup of hot chocolate into his hand.
"You can stay. Well, I say you can but you don't really have an option I'm afraid. The guest room's down the hall to the right."
"I'll sleep on the couch."
Hermione smiled.
"I thought you'd say that." She stood grasping her own mug, clearly not finished speaking but not ready either. Finally she gulped and opened her mouth. "You might think it's your fault Cormac, but it's not, it was never your job to protect anyone. We were kids, we still are kids. It was never our fight and it was never our job but we all took on the role just as easily. Colin made his choice to fight and so did you. We all went through tough times in the war Cormac; we all know what it's like. The battle screwed us all up, some worse than others. You should talk to the others, it helps."
Cormac nodded at her and lay down on the couch; Hermione gently placed a patchwork quilt over him.
"Goodnight Cormac." She whispered before padding down the hallway to her own room and shutting the door.
"Goodnight Hermione." He whispered back, closing his eyes, breathing in, and pretending he was home.
Hello! So I
