The school year started without occasion. It was strange, almost uncomfortable, to go through such familiar motions after the drama and adventure of the past year. Being back in those familiar halls, it was almost as though nothing had changed, even though everything had. The emptiness of the dorms from those who had died in battle was filled by the students who should have graduated the previous year coming back to repeat the classes they had missed. The security and warmth that the castle had provided them in their youth was now interspersed with memories of those who had died there.
Hermione opened the door to the Gryffindor common room, hoping to find her friends there. Being back here had been hard on her and she really needed to unwind. There was Harry, sitting in a chair. On his lap was his girlfriend, his beautiful, perfect girlfriend. This was not what she needed.
"Hermione," he said, seeing her come in, "come hang out with us."
"I…I can't."
"Why not?"
"I'm going to the library."
"Hermione, it's the first day of school."
"I….I have some work to do," she stammered, turning around and quickly moving towards the door. It wasn't until she was on the other side of it that she could breathe again.
Harry had watched her leave, concerned about his friend. She had seemed different since the war ended. She had not been her normal put-together self. She was more scattered, more unsure of herself than he had ever seen her. This bothered him, but he had been too wrapped up in his own drama to give it much thought.
x
x
Violet had spent the evening with her father and was making her way up to her dormitory. She had made it through her first day at Hogwarts, the place she had grown up hearing stories about. She was not yet out of the dungeons when she saw a familiar figure sitting on the floor outside of the Slytherin common room leaning against the heavy stone wall.
"What are you doing out here?" She asked.
"I figured it would be better if I just left. That way they can talk about me without whispering."
She laughed.
"So what are they saying about you?"
He grew serious.
"My testimony put some of their parents in Azkaban."
"Are you in any danger there?" He didn't miss the look of concern on her face.
He shook his head.
"No, Slytherin is being heavily watched this year. Everyone knows that one wrong move will get them thrown out of Hogwarts without a second thought."
"Still, maybe you should be careful."
"I always am."
"Of course. You're still here."
"I saw your sorting. How are things going in Ravenclaw?"
"It's kind of weird so far. It's like everyone is just waiting for me to hex them or something. Then there are a few of them that keep trying to suck up to me and then ask me all sorts of questions about Harry."
He laughed.
"So you have the misfortune of being tied to both fame and infamy before they even get to know you."
"Thanks for talking to me. I feel so alone here. I mean, everyone knows each other already and I don't know anyone. Well, Harry's here, but he has all his friends and I don't know if he really wants his little sister hanging around with them. I just don't want to bug him."
"I'm not saying that I know Potter well, but I highly doubt he would object to your presence."
"Well, I should get back. It's almost after curfew."
He stood up.
"Not a rule-breaker, eh?"
She smiled at him, "not if I don't have a good reason to be."
x
x
Hermione sat with Harry in the library when his sister arrived for her first tutoring session. Hermione showed her the small classroom adjacent to the library that she had arranged to use for their meetings. They pulled up two chairs to a desk and sat down as Hermione pulled out a stack of papers from her bag.
"How was your first day of classes?" She asked the younger girl.
"Hard."
"You tested into mostly sixth-year classes. Your scores were understandably higher in History of Magic and other subjects that don't include a practical. You show a lot of promise though, so you shouldn't be discouraged. Did you have any problems today?"
"Yeah, there were some spells that I couldn't quite get. I wrote them down."
She showed the older girl the list and Hermione demonstrated before having Violet give them a try. The session went fairly smoothly as Hermione was a good teacher and Violet was a quick learner.
An hour later, Violet started gathering her things to leave.
"How was your first day besides classes? I mean, are you making friends?"
Violet shifted nervously.
"Not really. I mean, I think people are kinda afraid to approach me. No one talks to me much so far. I don't think they like me much."
"It's ok," Hermione said, placing a hand on the younger girl's shoulder, "No one liked me either when I first started. Harry and Ron were pretty mean to me, actually, and they're my best friends now. Things will get better once people have enough time to get to know you. Until then, you're always free to hang out with us."
"Thanks. It's just hard to be thrust into a world so different from the one I've grown up in. And I think sometimes that maybe if I work harder it will… Sometimes I just don't know if…" she trailed off.
"If what?"
"Nevermind. Nevermind, it's silly."
She turned to leave, but Hermione caught her arm.
"You belong here," she told Violet with conviction burning in her eyes, "You belong here and you should never feel like you have to prove that to anyone."
x
x
Hermione sat in Transfiguration class, furiously scribbling down notes and trying to ignore the hushed conversation of the guys sitting next to her. They had been given time at the end of class to practice the latest spell, but her friends were using it to discuss their plans for the night while only giving the spell a half-hearted effort.
"Yeah, let's go play quittich after class," she heard Harry say to Ron.
"Harry, don't you have an essay due tomorrow?"
"So?"
"An essay that you haven't started?"
"Yeah," he said sheepishly, "Maybe we should do it tomorrow night instead, Ron."
Ron glared at his girlfriend, she was always ruining everything. The professor walked over to where they sat. She had overheard the conversation. Hermione expected the woman had come over to say something to her son, but she spoke to her instead.
"Miss Granger, may I have a word with you after class?"
Hermione approached her professor's desk cautiously after the room had cleared out. It was so strange to not know someone so close to a friend she had known for so long. It was so strange to look into the familiar eyes of someone she had never known.
"This talk," Lily began, "is of a more personal nature."
Hermione nodded.
"I wanted to thank you, for being there for Harry when I couldn't be, for watching over him, for taking the role that I should have taken."
Hermione nodded again, suddenly nervous around this woman who was showing her so much gratitude.
"You saved him…more times that I can count. You kept him out of trouble the best you could. You even made sure he did his homework. He needed you and you were always there for him. I know this sounds strange, but I just wanted to say thank you."
"You're welcome," she replied, turning towards the door.
"One more thing," Lily's voice cut through the empty classroom, "He has a mother now. You don't need to be a mother to him anymore."
Hermione turned slowly to look at the older woman. Her first instinct was that this had been an insult, the woman's way of staking her territory on her son, but the softness in Lily's voice told her that this was not the case. She eyed the woman suspiciously and then turned away from her.
"I was what he needed me to be," she whispered, almost to herself.
"I know you were. But he doesn't need you to be that to him anymore. You're free to be whatever you want to him."
She left the room with a profound feeling of freedom. It was like a giant weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She was no longer responsible for him. She was free.
x
x
Hermione entered the common room. It was full of people. Her boyfriend noticed her enter and approached her.
"Hey. I haven't seen you all day." He tried to kiss her, but she turned her face away from him.
"Ron, can I speak with you in private?"
"Sure," he replied, following her down the hall until they found an unused classroom.
He leaned against the desk and she shifted nervously, avoiding his eyes. She started to unfold a folded piece of parchment she had been carrying.
"So the thing is that…..what I've done is that…..what I needed to tell you is that…..well, I made a list so that…"
"You're breaking up with me, aren't you?" he interrupted.
She looked up at him. His blunt question seemed to give her the words she needed. She crumpled up the piece of parchment and stuffed it in her pocket.
"It's over, Ron."
"Hermione, I…"
"Oh, don't act so surprised. It's over and you know it. You've known it for maybe as long as I have." She sounded tired. He stared at her for a moment.
"You'll never forgive me for leaving, will you?"
"It's not about forgiveness."
"I let you down and I'm sorry. I am so sorry." She had no doubt that he meant it.
"You stayed as long as you could." She said curtly.
He looked at her curiously, "You knew I would leave, didn't you? You knew I wasn't strong enough to make it." He might not have been the most intelligent wizard, but he understood strategy.
She swallowed hard and looked away, "I kept you there as long as I could."
"That's what this was always about, wasn't it? I always got the feeling that you didn't want to be dating me, that you didn't feel that way about me, but I always reasoned that there was no other reason for you to be dating me except that you wanted to. But that's not true, is it? Come on, Hermione, I may not have always been there when you needed me to be, but I've always been honest with you."
He wanted to be angry at her, he really did. But he felt more angry at himself for something that he should have known all along.
She reached out and took his hand, looking back up at him.
"I was worried that you weren't strong enough to stay by Harry's side for what needed to be done, for what we needed to go through to get there. You'd deserted him before when things got rough. I knew he needed both of us there by his side if he was even going to have a chance at doing what he needed to do. I figured you needed something else to anchor you, that you maybe you needed something stronger than friendship to make sure you stayed."
"And I left anyways."
"Yes."
"You're not mad at me for leaving you. You never were. You're mad at me for leaving him."
"Yes."
"It's been almost half a year, Hermione. Voldemort's dead. Why did it take you this long to break up with me?"
"He still needs you, Ron. He still needs both of us."
"You thought I'd get sick of his moods and stop spending time with him. If you were dating me, you could control when who I hung out with and how I spent my time. You'd make sure to drag me along when you hung out with him."
"You know how he gets, Ron."
"Yes, I know how he gets," Ron said bitterly. "This, you and me, it's always been about him, hasn't it?"
"Oh, don't pretend I'm breaking your heart," she said coldly. He looked up at her with indignation, but she continued. "I'm not saying you don't like me, or suggesting that you're not attracted to me, but if you loved me, and I mean really loved me, then you would not have left me there in those woods." Her voice was raised now, stopping just short of yelling at him.
"Hermione, you have these unreachable standards. I loved you as much as I could. There comes a point, only a certain amount a normal man can take, even if he is in love. I came back, didn't I?"
She just stared at him.
"But that's not enough for you. You have this completely unobtainable ideal of what love is," he yelled, and then pausing and lowering his voice, "and you'll never settle for anything less, will you?"
"Never."
He buried his head in his hands. She headed towards the door.
"Did you ever consider leaving?"
"Once," she whispered, "just once." She slipped out the door, leaving him alone in the empty room.
If he was being honest with himself, he had never really expected it to last. He had always known that she was too good for him, that beyond anything else, they had never really fit. But it had felt good to pretend for a while.
x
x
Hogwarts was a big place, with endless mazes of corridors and passageways. And yet, Violet Snape seemed to run into Draco Malfoy quite a bit. It was quite a lucky coincidence...well, that and the fact that she dawdled in the dungeons every time she visited her father in hopes of running into the mysterious boy. He didn't seem to mind, although every time they were together, she noticed him glance nervously over her shoulder as if her father might jump out and hex him at any moment.
"Don't you have a girlfriend or something over there in Slytherin?"
"No."
"Aw, come on. You don't expect me to believe that a good-looking guy like you hasn't been scooped up by some girl?"
"I had a girlfriend."
"And?"
"And her father was one of the Death Eaters I testified against."
"Ah."
He shrugged. The decision to date Pansy had never really been his.
"So she broke up with you?"
"Well, she hasn't talked to me in two months...so I'm just assuming it's over. That and she tried to poison me."
Violet raised an eyebrow, "well, maybe to some people, poisoning is just a sign of love."
This comment had the intended effect and he snapped out of his sulk and laughed quietly. This girl had quickly become the only bright spot in his dark life.
"I'll be sure to check all my drinks if you ever fall in love with me."
She leaned in closer to him.
"Draco, my father is a potion's master. I'm sure I could find something undetectable." There was a mischievous glint in her eye. He liked it.
"Well, then I guess my lifespan depends on how long I can keep you from falling in love with me."
"In that case, you should be prepared for a long, miserable life," she teased before pulling away and skipping up the steps to her tower, leaving him there leaning against the wall and wondering what he was getting himself into.
x
x
Hermione arrived in the Great Hall for breakfast. She sat down across from Harry and had taken only a few bites of her toast when Ginny walked in. The girl grabbed her boyfriend and kissed him deeply.
"Thanks for last night," she whispered, none too softly.
Lily watched as Hermione stood and walked out of the Great Hall, leaving the rest of her breakfast untouched. She watched as her son followed the girl, leaving his pouting girlfriend behind.
Harry caught up to Hermione in the hallway.
"Hermione, you've been acting weird lately." He had meant to bring it up with a little more tact and perhaps better timing, but had not been able to contain himself any longer.
"Weird?"
"Yeah, kinda distant. You've been avoiding me."
"I just wasn't hungry. It's no big deal?"
"Is this about Ron?"
"Is what about Ron?"
"You seemed upset today. What happened between you two anyways? I thought you two loved each other."
"No. He's a good friend, I just don't think we're right together."
"You just woke up one day and decided that?" Their relationship had been a firm rock in his life, something that he could count on.
"No. I've thought that for a while, but things were so dangerous, so much was riding on us, on you, that I couldn't risk causing a rift between the three of us. Dating him…helped hold us together when we needed to be held together. So much has changed, Harry, so much. Voldemort is dead, your mother is back. Maybe at one time it made sense for Ron and I to be together, but things are different now."
"What's different?"
"Everything."
A/N: So you found out why Hermione was with Ron...The reason that Harry is with Ginny is going to come a little later. They have some mistakes to make first.