May 17, 1998.
Her mother had changed her hair color. No longer was Sarah Jean Granger a fluffy-haired blond like her daughter; instead, she wore her hair straightened and sleek down to her shoulders, its color a rich brunette.
It struck Hermione as incredibly foreign.
"Can I help you?" asked the woman who was called Monica Wilkins. The Scottish accent Hermione loved so well had already softened in a way that only her ears could hear.
"Mrs. Wilkins," Hermione said, her hands clasped behind her back, the wickedly curved wand held between them. Merlin, I can't do this. How could she trust it to work on this, the dearest of her tasks? Gods, all she wanted was to bring them home, but this wand, the wand of that woman, stood between herself and her true parents.
Luna's soft fingers curled around the edge of her hand, and Hermione took a steadying breath.
"I know you don't recognize me, but there is something that I desperately need to discuss with you and your husband."
Her mother's eyebrows raised at the word "desperately," but she didn't let them in the door. "Wendell!" she called over her shoulder. "There are some teenagers here to see us?"
From another room in the house, Hermione heard something clatter. "Teenagers?" replied her father's voice, and soon he appeared in the doorway next to his wife - wearing a suit, of all things. Gerald Granger had always been more inclined toward scrubs than suits, being a dentist. Hermione's own eyebrows went up at the sight of him. The new memories had changed them, and in more ways than she had expected.
She'd almost forgotten how young she would look to anyone who didn't know what she'd been through: eighteen, probably younger. Luna would look even more juvenile, with her cherubic face and bright dress. These people who were her parents in some part of their minds would know how much weight she had lost; they would see the defined lines of her face and the deep shadows beneath her eyes.
"It's a little late to be soliciting for school, isn't it?" asked Mr. Wilkins, wiping his fingers on the towel he held.
"We've come from Britain to see you," said Luna from behind Hermione. The girl's Scottish accent seemed to strike a chord with Mrs. Wilkins, for she exchanged a glance with her husband.
"It's true," confirmed Hermione, looking between the people who had once been her parents.
Exchanging one more look, Monica and Wendell Wilkins seemed to contemplate the girls standing on their doorstep. Finally, Mr. Wilkins stepped aside. "You'd better come in, then," he said, and Hermione slipped past them, hiding her wand up her sleeve. Luna held onto her other hand as they stepped into the entryway.
"Is there somewhere we could sit down?" asked Hermione, and Mrs. Wilkins led her to a living room, where a pair of sofas faced one another. The color scheme was so different from what she expected of her warm, genuine mother; everything about the house had a cool scheme, light blues and whites, with an occasional touch of navy. Their house at home had turned all yellow-toned creams and reds since Hermione had been Sorted. To make you feel closer to your home away from home, and for us to feel closer to you when you're there, her mother had said.
This place did not feel like home.
After Mr. Wilkins had made tea and all sipped it, Monica put her cup down on the coffee table between the sofas. It clinked softly on its saucer. "Now, why in Merlin's name have you come this far to see us?"
Hermione's mouth quirked up. Well, her mother's favorite line of magical origin hadn't faded, at least. Slowly, she pulled the crooked wand from the sleeve of her sweatshirt. "To return something you've lost," she murmured.
"You're here to present us with a stick?" asked Monica, the incredulity high in her voice.
"No," whispered Hermione, looking down at the wand. "This is much more than just a stick." Her eyes rose from the wand to focus on the faces of her parents. They both looked at her like she had been dropped on her head.
Raising the wand and swaying it at each of them in turn, Hermione muttered, "Memento omnia."
Moments passed, and as Hermione watched, the Wilkins' gazes lost focus, peering somewhere out into the middle distance. They no longer stared at Luna's sunny dress or the crooked wand; instead, their eyes clouded over, white mist forming across irises and pupils.
"Is it working?" asked Luna, her voice hushed against the jarringly loud ticking of the clock on the wall behind them.
Hermione had no answer.
Minutes dragged in silence as Monica and Wendell Wilkins stared past them, gazes rapt on Hermione knew not what. Worried, Hermione looked down at the walnut wand. She gripped it on either side of its bend, knuckles turning white against smooth dark wood. She could feel Luna's gaze on her hands - Hermione was almost certain that the Ravenclaw had felt the sting of Bellatrix's wrath, as well, and probably by this wand. Unable to look at the younger girl, Hermione nearly shoved the wand back up her sleeve, but couldn't bring herself to let go of it. If this failed, if her parents never awoke from their dreamlike state, the crooked wand would know her wrath.
She would snap it without a second thought.
As if sensing her distrust, the thing shot red and gold sparks from its tip.
"That's not your wand," murmured a feminine voice.
Hermione's gaze snapped to the face of the woman who was distinctly her mother.
Sarah Jean Granger watched her with brown eyes that felt warm again, and her Scottish accent had returned with all the vigor that she remembered. Beside his wife, Gerald Granger blinked at her, recognition forming slowly.
Hermione vaulted the coffee table to get her arms around them. The walnut wand fell to the floor somewhere along the way, lifeless once it lost contact with her skin. Every bit of tension she'd wound up over the last months fell away when their warmth enveloped her.
Words were far beyond her. Dangerously rapid breaths escaped her lungs and throat, threatening to turn into sobs, and tears streaked from her eyes. She absorbed everything: the softness of her mother's hair against her cheek, the solid strength of her father's arms wrapped around her, the hot line her mother's fingers made against her skin as she tucked some of Hermione's hair behind her ear. Swaddled in their embrace, she buried her face in her mother's shoulder, breathing in her scent. Her perfume was different, but ever after, she would recognize it as the one her mother had been wearing the day she'd gotten her back. It smelled of wild oranges - perhaps another remnant that Monica Wilkins had retained of Sarah Granger's life. The miniature orange tree that Hermione had brought home in fourth year, courtesy of Neville and his newfound affinity for herbology, still grew in its magical shrine in their home in England. The preservation charm had been one of the first she'd cast when her Trace had broken.
When at last they separated, Hermione did not let them go willingly. Her mother pried her off her father's arm and fitted her fingers between her daughter's, and her father followed suit, taking Hermione's other hand. She would have been content to hold them for the rest of their respective lives, but she doubted that they would enjoy the blubbering that would go with it. Instead, she settled between them, squishing into the crevice between the couch cushions and huddling in their warmth.
Across the way, Luna smiled brilliantly.
"Now, dear, if you're comfortable," said her father, "I think it's time you told us why you sent us to Australia, of all places."
May 17, 1998.
"Harry died, Mum," she said, nearly at the end of her story. That horrible moment flashed before her eyes again, the moment when all had been lost, if only for a minute or two. Ginny's scream echoed in her ears, and Neville's protests. "But when Riddle cast that curse, he killed a piece of himself, as well."
Once more, her father stared at her like she'd been dropped on her head, and this time, it was a look that was more familiar. The wizarding world was hard to explain to her parents, as much as she tried.
Her mother, on the other hand, looked absolutely stricken. "Harry's died?" she cried, her gaze flicking back and forth between Luna and her daughter. "We never got to know the poor boy!"
Across the coffee table, Luna shook her head frantically. "The story's not over yet," she said, and Hermione gave the girl a small smile.
"Harry survived the curse somehow, although I'm not really very clear about how it worked." Her mouth twisted into a frown, still dissatisfied with the whole unknown aspect of the death of the sixth Horcrux, the one that had lived inside Harry since he'd been little more than a year old. "He said that he'd been given a choice, to fight or to let go. To stay or to board a train to somewhere far away, according to him." Closing her eyes, she shook her head. "I have yet to understand it, but he came back for us. He stopped Voldemort and put an end to the war." She didn't quite say that Harry killed Riddle. It seemed too harsh, to lay that concept out for her parents, for that to be what they remembered the next time they saw Harry. Neither party deserved it.
Neither did she tell them about the letters carved into her arm, which were angry, red, and faintly sore even two months later. While her parents knew Voldemort had been evil… That darkness was a part of her she would keep to herself at all costs. With a look at Luna, Hermione wondered if she kept the same darkness from her father - if, somewhere on her pale skin, were etched bloody letters of a different kind. Bellatrix had seemed fond of Hermione's own branding, and perhaps a bit more than practiced at it. If Luna had been marked, it was somewhere that her sleeveless, knee-length dress did not reveal.
"I'm sorry, love," said her father. "I wish there had been another way for us to help you, aside from forgetting ourselves." Mr. Granger looked slightly confused as he said the words, as though the last nine months had been some strange dream.
Giving her father a grim smile, Hermione rested her head on the back of the couch and let out a breath. After a moment, she steeled herself enough to look into his eyes. "The only way to keep you safe was for you to not know me. You had to be the Wilkins, be entirely in character at all times. If things hadn't been so dire, you could have been under cover here, but not even the government was to be trusted."
A laugh came bellowing out of his throat. "When is the government ever to be trusted?"
For the first time in nine months, Hermione's cheeks ached from a true smile.