Epilogue –
The Final Stone
"Goodbye, Mum. Dad. I'll see you for the Christmas holiday?" Her parents had won that fight. Skiing. She shuddered. Why people chose to ignore the injury rates of such an activity, she would never understand. "And I'll write, of course."
"A letter every day, I insist," teased her mother. But her teasing seemed desperate.
"I'll write," reaffirmed Hermione.
Standing in the doorway, Mrs. Granger suddenly changed her position and pulled Hermione toward her, acting out the desperation that the teenager had witnessed hidden behind the joke that she made moments before.
"I love you," her mother whispered in her ear.
I know. "I love you, too," Hermione replied. And she meant it. She would never stop loving them. They were her parents.
But that was the point. They were entirely different people, coming not only from separate generations, but from separate worlds.
Maybe her parents could feel it too—there was something different about the hug that her mother had given her—but their actions spoke to the contrary. They wanted her to like skiing because they liked it. It was a Muggle activity, and a useless one at that, thought Hermione. But she did not have the heart to tell them anymore. They would only resist and push back, forcing her to retaliate in the only way she could—seal the space.
For now, she wanted it open, just in case. There was always the hope that one day, they would understand her world, and she could preserve some of theirs.
But as she looked one last time over her shoulder at her parents, standing arm-in-arm watching her leave, she knew that there was no going back. Her life would be different from today on. And she was ready to accept it.
She had pushed in the final stone.