Golden Haze

Postlude

AN: There's just one more part following this one, and it should be up in the next few days, leaving me to feel a lot less guilty when I write Rizzoli and Isles fanfic, knowing that this is done.

This chapter was intended to give conclusion to Hermione's year at Hogwarts - the next chapter, the real conclusion, will provide the finale for the story. Hopefully it won't be too hard to write for me.

Thomas Granger boarded the bright red train at King's Cross station with some trepidation. His wife had found them a compartment next to Molly and Arthur Weasley, familiar faces among a sea of strange and unfamiliar ones. He wasn't really the sort to believe in magic, not before Hermione started doing strange things at the age of three and certainly not after her Hogwarts letter had been hand-delivered by an elderly witch named McGonagall.

This train, however, was most certainly magical. The steam that's billowing from the smokestack is a strange orange-like color and there's little purple sparks catching on the smoke.

He did not like it.

He read the wizarding newspaper; he did it because Hermione had somehow found the money to buy them a subscription after they got back from their prolonged holiday in Australia. He tried to be as understanding as possible, and for the most part he was successful.

But still, magic was enough to give him pause and freak him out at times. He didn't like the strange and sudden changes in things, the way that photographs moved like little video screens within bloody paper. He didn't like how that world had taken his daughter, his young and innocent daughter, and had turned her into a young woman that he could barely recognize.

At least she's happy, Thomas thought, swinging his legs up and onto the train, heading past the uncomfortable combination of wizarding and non-wizarding folk that had gathered on the train, watching with half-terrified eyes for some sign of the violence that this entire community is still reveling in. There was not any, there never was any outward sign that anything was wrong. All was well, as they say.

They'd met the girl that Hermione had fallen in love with in April, before Hermione started to truly study for her final examinations. Thomas didn't have much of an opinion on Fleur Delacour other than that she was French, very pretty, and seemed quite smart. Hermione was obviously taken with her, and he would have been a complete idiot to not miss the ring on Hermione's finger. At least it wasn't on her ring finger – it wasn't an engagement ring.

He was pretty sure that that would come soon enough, after Hermione was done studying in bloody Cairo.

He understood that Fleur Delacour was an archeologist by trade, that she had formerly worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, extracting things from tombs in the Middle East. That was all well and good, but he did not want this French witch taking away his daughter. Not when they'd only just gotten her back.

He was so grateful that Hermione was still honest with them both, and as he sat down next to Molly Weasley, they all shared a smile – world weary and distant. Hermione had said that one of their sons had been killed during the war, that Molly wasn't coping with it as well as she let on. He could see it in the drawn lines in her face, and in the way that she fingered the wand just barely peeking its way out of her sweater's pocket.

"You two have never been to Hogwarts, right?" Arthur's tone was kind and they share a long look between them. The Weasleys know what Hermione did, Thomas reasons, and they're not sure it was the correct choice either.

"No," Thomas confessed, wishing he could say otherwise. "Just the village, so we've seen it, you know, off in the distance."

Hermione had mentioned something about muggle-repelling charms on the castle, but Thomas had not felt drawn to leave as he looked up at the spires and pennants waving in the distance. Instead, he felt drawn to the place, like one feels when coming home. He'd asked Hermione about it, once they'd settled down to eat their lunch, and Hermione had told him that that was fairly normal.

Molly smiled kindly at them, "You're in for a treat. The commencement ceremonies that they have are lovely."

Thomas was glad of that, because all of his friends and colleagues were asking when Hermione would finish college and move on to university. There was only so much lying that he and his wife can do on Hermione's behalf, they haven't even told the extended family that she's a witch.

It was probably for the best. Grangers and Hughes are sensible people, and magic isn't really their speed.

The train whistle sounded and soon the train lurched into life, pulling out of the station and speeding off north (Hermione had told them that Hogwarts was somewhere in Scotland – she was never really sure exactly where) towards their daughter and an uncertain future.

x

They had named Hermione the way that they had because at the time, it had made perfect sense. They were both educated people, they loved the classics and Shakespeare as well, and when it came time for them to have a child, they picked the name of the little girl left behind by Helen when Paris took her away to Troy.

Jean was for Thomas' mother, who they both missed dearly. She had died about a year before Hermione was bored and the pain of her loss still panged Thomas at times, when he was alone late at night reading the same books his mother used to read.

"Dot?" He said quietly, pulling on his wife's arm as the steam and smoke cleared. There were winged horse-things attached to carriages lining the road just outside of the station. "Dot, look!"

"Ah yes, Thestrals," Arthur gave Thomas and Dorothy a friendly smile. "I take it you've seen someone die?" His face was grim then, lines drawn out long and hard and Thomas realized that almost everyone here could probably see those creatures.

A lot of people, according to the wizarding newspapers, died here.

They clamber into the back of a carriage and ride up to the castle in silence. The grounds still were marred with the marks of the battle, and large monuments stood to remember the dead there. There was a pavilion tent set up on the wide and sweeping green, and the school's students were milling about as the parents start to arrive.

There are two classes graduating this session, Hermione had written them the week before, So the ceremony is going to be a bit long, but I think it'll be worth it for you both to come and see where it is I went to school.

Hermione found them in the crowd a few minutes later, dragging Harry and Ron along to come and say hello. They're wearing robes and cords and are all dressed in the style that Thomas has come to learn is called wizarding-formal. He doesn't know how to react to this vibrant young woman standing before him, ring twinkling on her finger, rosy cheeks and hair tamed into some semblance of order.

His little girl's hair was untamable curls that he loved to bury his nose in when she was still too young to protest.

This was a lot bloody harder than he'd thought it would be.

"'lo dad!" Hermione laughed, batting Ronald Weasley's hands away from her hair – he seemed to be as fascinated by its tamed state as Thomas was. "Mum."

Harry Potter stopped just short of the bear hug Thomas was currently giving Hermione, but his smile was genuine and Thomas wass glad to see it. He knew that Harry had been through a lot recently.

"Did you want to find seats? The ceremony's going to be starting soon and we need to be getting back in line."

Dorothy nodded and Hermione grinned at both of them, hugging them tightly once more, before running off after her friends and into her uncertain future.

"I guess we can give up on her ever becoming a doctor…" Thomas sighed quietly as they found seats next to a rather stuffy-looking blond woman.

"Well, she could still go to university, if she wanted to." Dorothy shrugged. "It would just be a matter of getting her exam results erm – fixed. They do that here don't they?"

Thomas laughed and the woman next to them looked down her nose at them and then turned away. He scowled at her turned back and watch as the ceremony began.

x

The ceremony was short and to the point. Each graduate's name was read by their head of house (or former head of house, in the case of Hermione's class) and there was a brief comment about what that student had been particularly skilled at. Hermione's had been charms and potions – but Thomas knew from her school reports that there was no subject at Hogwarts in which Hermione did not excel.

They stood as one and were recognized with clapping and wands shooting sparks up and into the air. Thomas felt his heart swell with pride as it was announced that Hermione was the best in the class, followed by a young man that she'd mentioned in passing, Draco Malfoy. The woman next to them clapped loudly when his name was read – perhaps she was his mother.

There were obviously missing faces, parents without children attached to them, coming to mourn among their peers on this joyous moment.

Thomas felt for them. He wanted to reach out to a crying young couple holding a photograph of a little boy with a camera, he wanted to put his arm around Molly Weasley as she lamented that Fred had never had a chance to graduate (even though Thomas understood that both he and his brother had dropped out). Death was everywhere here, and the cloud of it hung over the school like a shroud.

He could not wait to leave.

When all was said and done, Hermione came back over to them, Fleur Delacour in tow and a foolishly large grin on her face. "Mum, dad," she began, "I'm so glad you came."

There wasn't much else to be said, Thomas opened his arms and pulled his daughters in close to him, hugging them both and telling them how proud he was of them. They were going to Cairo, to the university there, to learn about dead wizards and anthropology. It was what Hermione wanted, and she'd taken it like she'd always done.

As a father, Thomas could not have been happier.