Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Harry Potter or Marvel Cinematic Universe. This story is set Pre-Iron Man.
Happy Pride Month, y'all.
Sixth Year
Every moment of Sixth Year feels intangible—dreamlike, diluted watercolor, so surreal that Hermione feels petrified again. There was a touch across a void that is more indefinable than it is definable, a soul-touch of recognition, fire and its answering dark.
Darkness that is a question, not an answer.
And there are the heartbeat drums that follow her wherever she goes, sticky with time. Her heartbeat that is not just her heartbeat, a rhythmical chant. It thunders, you don't belong here, you don't belong here—
And Hermione screams into her stomach, justletmesaveHarry!, but the answering rush thunders in her temples, you don't belong, here you don't belong.
But she must save Harry—and she is afraid now:
Sirius, dead. Dumbledore, blackfingered. Malfoy, bolder. His daddy's in Azkaban with the rest of the Deatheaters, Deatheaters that held their wand at her throat, Deatheaters that slashed her open.
She has a scar from that night. That seems to be the most tangible thing to her now—ropy and blue-veined, traveling from collarbone to navel, as wide as her thumb. At night she touches its oyster-meat silk and feels the drumbeats muffle—as if, instead of the pounding in temple and ear canal, she is only feeling, three-fingered, for a green veined pulse at the wrist—the only thing that roots her in this moment and this time and this world.
you don't belong here, drum, you don't belong here
It's Harry, perceptive thing, that notices.
They're in Charms, Harry to the right, Ron to the left, when the drumming gets loud enough to pop her jaw and spark tears. At the board, Professor Flitwick writes out spells, unconcerned, but Hermione fumbles with her quill, fumbles with her seat, and her desk muddles between her desk and a gold haze, and everything is black and blue and sugar-spun gold, and she wedges her hand at her heart, feeling for the scar, fingers spastic as goldfish fins, and when she feels its smoothness—like volcanic glass—she shudders, calms.
She is real, she is here, she is here here here.
She doesn't unravel.
And Harry—her Harry—has his hand on her knee, which will do nothing for the rumors, and with his other hand he is threading his fingers through her hair. And she risks a glance up at him, her vision still sunspotted with gold flecks, and sees his glasses are askew, almost dangling off one ear, eyes wild and careless and concerned, and he is mouthing over and over, got you.
She is real, she is here, she is here here here.
"Why didn't you tell us," Ron asks, ears red. He's furious. "Why the hell didn't you tell us?"
The drums dance around his words.
Hermione fights against a shrug—it's too careless a gesture, but her skull aches. And besides—she doesn't know, okay?
It's not because she doesn't trust them; she does. It's not because she wanted a secret for herself; she has too many.
Even Lavender Brown draped over Ron like a second shirt isn't why.
Later, in her bed, curtains shut, Hermione is able to boil down the why: she is afraid—afraid that telling them would sound like goodbye.
you don't belong here, drum, you don't belong here
Ron pulls away from Hermione after that. He pulls from Harry, too, but mostly Hermione. Harry shrugs, but Harry's always shrugged during their fights, because when it comes down to it, Ron is not only Brother and Best Friend, he is also Roommate, and except for Fourth Year, Harry always keeps the peace. So Harry shrugs and tries to mediate, but it's from a distance, and Ron is hurt by her secrets, she knows, hurt to the tip of his too-red ears, and he has Lav-Lav Brown to coddle that hurt.
Which hurts.
Though Hermione observes Harry watch Ron-and-Lav-Lav and Ginny-and-Dean, and how his eyes drift over Ginny's copper hair to Ron's legs (and worryingly, Draco's), and she wonders if she's not the only one who's hurting.
Keeping the peace is a lonely job, and Hermione is lonely, even though she still writes Viktor letters. He sends two feet of parchment each time, all written in his cramped black handwriting, like a row of beetles on the page. She even prefers this distance in their relationship, because it means she can write down any secret—save for the secrets Carter, Stark, and blue wormholes—and safely release it Bulgaria. She tells him about her feelings for Ron, about her love for Harry, even about her not-so obvious crush on Fleur.
You should write her, Viktor says, never jealous.
She adores that: jealousy turns Ron into a caveman.
And what would I even say? Hermione writes back. Hello, we've briefly met, and I'm mooning on you from afar like bloody Roger Davies? (or Ron Weasley). No, Hermione slashes, the ink dribbling from her quill, if we meet again, then I'll talk to her.
In return, Viktor tells her of his secret love for all things mechanical, and when she tells him of Sirius' (and oh that hurts) old motorbike, his next parchment explodes with his dreams and questions—Hermione, the gears, magical, no? Or perhaps the whole motor itself? or It must be the fuel, an animation potion? or One exhaust pipe or two? Viktor's dream, she learns, is to build a magical mechanical shop. Once Quidditch is over, once he goes to school. It's always Once's with Victor; they have that in common. Hermione's letters focuses on her Once's too: Once the war is over, once Voldemort is gone, once the Ministry is reformed…
Viktor's not a soldier, not like Hermione. He doesn't understand how deeply she will bleed for this war. But he's a good friend, a trusted friend (and more), but his letters have been coming less and less frequently. The last one was a month ago:
we are wide-awake souls (she always suspected Viktor was a poet) in a world that is dreaming. скъпа—sweetheart—find someone who can see like you do. I blink, you pass me by.
(It's the sweetest we should see other people Hermione's ever heard.)
But yes, she's lonely.
So she invites blonde-and-strong tree trunk Cormac McLaggen, and even though she finds his swagger repulsive, he sure looks pretty (a bit, if she's honest, like Cedric; a bit, if she's honest, like the Captain America of the photographs—granite jaw and wheat-and-cream coloring). So she wears a dress, violet, that dips low in the back and rises high in the front—to hide her scar—and at a hidden alcove at Slughorn's Christmas party, when McLaggen leans in, she leans in too.
Hot tongues meet freckled skin and whiskers and lips and teeth. Hard muscle, firm fingers. She curls her lips into her smile and then her tongue into an invitation.
Orange daze, tangerine taste.
She lets McLaggen's hand dip lower and lower, slip in to her waist, but when his calloused hands brush rough-rough over her belly and find her scar, the difference between her skin and scar is stark—like crème brulee, a hard sugar shell meeting softer-than-velvet cream.
He pulls away, disgusted.
She stumbles back, confused.
McLaggen reaches for her again, but Hermoine is gone—racing from their alcove, embarrassment red on her cheeks and flushing on her chest, colliding bodily into Harry, her black hole crackling and exploding vol-au-vents. Tearing past, tearily past, she runs, and alohomora, Hermione ducks into the library.
It's quiet here, the dust settling in the air and colonizing on the tomes no one but Hermione checks out. Madam Pince has retired for the night. There is a faint light from the window-panes but when it falls it is blue diagonals: the room cast in indigo prisms.
It feels holy here. It feels safe. This is her temple.
She tucks into the ancient history section, breathes in the dust, and folds her knees to her scabby chest.
How could she have been so stupid? Drums like hummingbird wings, too soft and too quick to focus on, pulse high in her throat.
Stupid McLaggen and his flinch, and stupid her for flinching back; Hermione rubs her scar, soothe, soothe, soothe.
Little sobs leak out of Hermione, gusts of air from a too-tight balloon. It feels right crying. Like it's something that's long overdue, and when she's done, she feels lesser, but it's a good kind of lesser, a lesser that means Hermione is a little bit less Hermione-with-the-worries-and-cares-and-lies.
She wishes for Ron or Fleur, Harry or Victor. Ginger or silver, black or brown.
But it's a pale-blonde head that swims into Hermione's vision: Luna. Luna (Looney—though Hermine regrets that, regrets that immensely) Lovegood, Ravenclaw, who followed Hermione from the party. Hermione ducks her face to hide her tears, but at Luna's voice, the drums soften further, a whispering tarantella.
"Hermione," Luna says, and it's all musicality, silver windchimes on each syllable. "Do you mind if I join you?"
Hermione sniffles, scrubs her face with two hands, and glares red-eyed at Luna. "There's a whole library here, Luna. I'd rather be alone, thanks."
Luna smiles that distant half-smile. "Your nargles and my nargles are compatible, I think." And she floats down to her knees, her dressrobes all floaty tinsel and lavender.
Hermione laughs, and it comes out in a gurgled choke. "You…you look like a Christmas ornament." An ornament on the Christmas tree, snow outside, and silver bangling in her ears.
It's a compliment of the highest order: Luna, for all of her oddness, looks completely and utterly fittingly right. Something Hermione has not felt like in the longest time.
Right now, Luna is everything Hermione is not, and Hermione wants it.
Wants Luna, sweet, smart, wise Luna, with her skin smooth as a just ripe-cherry, and Hermione wants to lean in, taste—
And so she does.
And Luna is soft as eyelashes, and those lashes are blonde and long, luminescent, with strands of tinsel caught in them, and it is starlight sunshine, a cold that burns volcanic inside her gut, licorice tongue, and Luna somehow knows she doesn't want her scar touched, so Hermione leaves the dress on, hikes up her skirt in hills of tulle, clever Luna with her clever hands: there are streamers in Hermione's bloodstream, bloodbursts of trapped breath, curling her toes into question marks and then commas—comma, comma, a rising and a falling, an & and &—building clefts and cliffs and crimson stretching skyward of the horizon, cherry inferno, and who knew Luna could grin so wickedly—and then and then and then: arterial confetti
and when its done and they are both cooling in their embering sweat, so cold that Hermione swears she could lick snowflakes off Luna's shoulder, Hermione knows that even though she doesn't like Luna like that (like Ron or Fleur), she definitely likes Luna like this (sweetly wicked and clever as hell). Luna arched underneath her, legs tangled, and they breathe stardust.
The drums are silent.
They don't talk about it after, and they don't talk about it inbetween, because Luna seems to get Hermione anyway, so surely she gets that Hermione has her eyes on other horizons. Luna's not the person Hermione's heart wants (Hermione is Hermione though her heart and her body are two different things) but Luna's a person, a friend.
Hermione kisses Luna's cheek before they leave the library, breathes a thank you. "You're absolutely lovely," she says, because Luna is, good to her soul.
They don't talk about it, and they smile.
And then it is Christmas hols, and she goes home, jauntily, all a-twinkle, and before she steps onto the train, she turns in the snowflaking air, and blows an ice-dust kiss to Hogwarts—to Luna, to Ron, to Harry.
But at home, that joy dissipates: she is painfully aware that this might her last holiday with her parents: Dumbledore is positively withering now. His hand looks like a roasting stick half-burnt to ash.
Hermione hasn't voiced this to Ron or, Merlin-forbid, to Harry, but she firmly believes that this will be the year they lose Dumbledore.
They will lose their leader, and she's seen enough of Mama and Daddy's pinched-faced reminiscing to know what happens when your leader topples to his grave.
But Hermione has her plan in place. Protect Harry, protect Ron, protect the small, and protect her family.
(It means nothing that she lists her family last—they are everything. And she will do everything to protect them: so many muggles family have disappeared; and Hermione knows that through Harry, she has painted a giant target on their backs.)
The plan she made has Mama and Daddy incognito, hidden, living fake lives until after the war.
(If there is an after.)
They won't be obliviated—that is their one request. Let them keep the Grangers (the selves that remember Hermione's rubber ducky and picking apples off their tree) and the Jarvises (the selves that remember Howard, Peggy, Steve).
Mama and Daddy have obtained new passports, false identities. They're an old pro at this, anyway, but her guilt rises anew when she discovers Mama poring over her new passport in the loo. Mama's kneeling, cold tile beneath her and cold porcelain to her back, hairpins askew. There's heartbreak in Mama's eyes as she traces the new picture in her passport (Hermione hasn't looked at it—it's better if she doesn't know).
Mama catches Hermione looking and snaps the passport shut. "I'll have to dye my hair again," she laughs, dabbing where the tears have run down. Then: "I won't look like your mum anymore."
Hermione crumples into Mama's lap, looping her arms round and round. This her mum. This her mum.
"It's my favorite thing," Mama whispers wetly. "Looking like your mum. My favorite thing."
And Hermione turns sideways in her embrace, curling as if she was a child, the baby Mama never saw, and she kisses up at Mama, grazing the underside of Mama's jaw. It's wet, and Mama sqeezes her tight, tight, curling Hermione into herself, and in turn Hermione locks her knees and elbows, and they rock and cry and rock. Mama's heart beats against Hermione's ear, separated only by skin.
There is a break where they catch their breath and snuffle and Hermione can't apologize for the pain she causes Mama because the pain will save Harry, and she can't say thank you for the pain either, because Mama is hurting and it strikes Hermione to her core, lancing her clear through armpit and swollen heart.
So instead Hermione blurts, "I had sex. With Luna. Sex with Luna. I liked it."
And the surprise that races across Mama's face is chased off by sheer delight, fast as hounds after the fleet fox. Mama laughs, tossing her head back, and her smile is so big Hermione can see her molars.
"Did you now? And you liked it? I'm glad." Mama smiles, rolling out each word with her tongue: "Sex with Luna. Have we met this Luna?"
Hermione blushes, bites her tongue with pleased embarrassment. It's not that she was nervous to tell Mama, but it's the first she's told anybody, and she's not sure what this means, and there's a lurch inside of her, gold threads blotchy with blackness, and her breath catches—
"Breathe, darling," Mother cries, sharply on the breathe and soothing on the darling. "Breathe!"
And Hermione finds herself swimming in the green-and-blue tiles of the loo, blue that Daddy had picked, green that Mama had picked, smeared against the soft lilac towels that Hermione had wanted. Her lungs pump and her vision sets, and there is Mama, soft brown hair curling above Hermione and mixing with her own.
Her Mama.
"Oh, darling," Mama sighs against Hermione's forehead. "Love is love and sex is sex and sometimes they're separate and sometimes love is sex. Love's a spectrum, and—you are important, darling, know that. And what you want and who you like is important, too."
Hermione feels that this is right, but still she squirms. "I didn't love Luna," she confesses. "I like her, and I love touching her, holding her, and her touching me, but it's not—"
Not the passion, the fire, the daze—for Ron who snogs Lavender; for Harry who stares at Ron; for Fleur, almost certainly dating Bill (and yeah, she's jealous. Who wouldn't be?).
"Not a worry, my little love," Mama says, squeezing her tighter. "You love the person. Bisexual. Let the chemical be chemical."
"Yes," Hermione says slowly—this is the language she needed. Her feelings explained. "Yes, I love the person."
Then, wistfully: "Luna is sweet—dotty, maybe—and so so lovely."
"I wish I could meet her," Mama says, softer. Her fingers strum against Hermione's cheeks like they are guitar strings.
"I wish you could meet her, too," Hermione answers, honestly.
"And that Krum boy and Harry?" Mama asks slyly. Hermione shifts up against Mama's thigh, warm against the coolness of the tile.
"You've already met Harry," Hermione protests. "And Ron."
"Not like this. Not like yours." Mama's gaze is deep, poring and yet porous. Hermione is reminded that Mama would have made a very good spy. She pictures her, Mama as Anna Jarvis, wearing shades of gray and rose—fedora and felt suit and pistol, the lipstick in her purse clinking around iron bullets. "You're waiting until the end of the war, aren't you. Before chasing what you want." Ron, Fleur.
Yes.
The war will bring devastation, she knows. And if there's an after, she hopes she will still recognize Ron as Ron, Fleur as Fleur, Harry as Harry.
But she's afraid that she won't. Admitting this to herself again is to admit that this word AFRAID has become the foundation block of her vocabulary. Take it out and jenga—it all falls down.
"You're so much like your mother," Mama confesses. "Peg waited, too. Too long."
Hermione doesn't understand. Waited for Howard? Too long? But she abandons that train of thought to embrace what Mama says next, words that leave her warm and fluffy as those lilac towels:
"You're a also a lot like me."
Christmas morning passes without much fanfare. They forgo presents. Everything is grim and grayset, and even the twinkle lights seem dull: Hermione's plan goes in place that afternoon.
The plan: use the distraction that is Christmas—the clogged artery that is airports, bus stops, train stations—for Mama and Daddy née Granger née Jarvis to walk out of Hermione's life. To safety. To save their lives.
Hermione's fingers are bitten to the quick. She hates this. She hates that she thinks this is necessary. She hates herself.
Mama and Daddy load up their Ford Escort three hours earlier than scheduled.
"This isn't the schedule," Hermione protests, waving her nail-bitten fingers and scrubbing her red rimmed eyes. Her parents don't look much better.
Daddy loads their suitcases into the car. It will look like they're just making a holiday excursion, over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house they go. "Well, your mother and I talked, and there's something we need to do before we can leave you to this bloody war."
Daddy's voice is reduced to something feral, all growl and guttural. His eyes are twice as bloodshot as Hermione's. "None of your fretting. Just get in the damn car." He circles the car twice before getting in.
His fingers are dirty half-moons. Hermione realizes with a start that he must've dug back up the metal box that contained their lives—the photographs of Anna and Edwin, Peggy and Howard, Capt. Rogers. Every year they've dug it up, added to it, and then buried it again. The box now contains Hermione's refrigerator finger-paintings, a pair of Anna's earrings, a Tic Tac box with Hermione's baby teeth, movie stubs to the re-release of Casablanca, a lumpy purple bunny that Anna knitted and was so horrifying Hermione and Daddy buried it in secret, the bell to Hermione's first bike…
It's a time capsule of their life, dug up again.
Did Daddy pack it with him, she wonders? Or did he add something to it, bury it, trusting that one day, he can come back?
She wishes she was brave enough to ask him—Gryffindor courage, Hermione.
Mama comes out of the house, her brown hair loose and wild. By the end of the day, Mama will have dyed it blonde or gray or her once-red, and maybe she'll cut it, too—Hermione will have no idea of what Mama will even look like. Couldn't even pick her out of a crowd.
Mama's face is white but she settles into the passenger seat with silent grace. Then she curses, doubles back to the house to make sure it is locked. It's an action that is more habit than purpose—what does it matter if the house is locked? No one will be contacted if is robbed, no one will be there to mow the grass or repaint the porch.
"Alright, then," Mama says, settling back in, and that is that.
Daddy twists the key more forcefully than it needs to and the engine roars to life. They pull out of the driveway. Mama bows her head, murmurs something soft and heavy in Hebrew.
Hermione watches from the backseat, numbly curious. It sounds like a prayer, and they do not pray.
Mama twists round ninety degrees, one hand on Daddy's shoulder and one hand on Hermione's knee. She translates: "Keep far from us all evil; may our paths be free from all obstacles from when we go out until we return home."
"And give them hell," Daddy intones, arching his shoulder under Mama's hand.
"Amen," Hermione breathes. "Amen."
Daddy switches from reverse to drive so quickly there is crunch that is certainly the transmission (Hermione should tell Victor, he'll be horrified), but the car gamely thunders away, pulling out of the street where Hermione once skinned her knee by falling from her bicycle. Their yellow-and-white house contracts to the size of a postage stamp, and as soon as they turn left, it will disappear entirely.
They make the turn, Daddy's eyes on the rearview mirror, Mama's hand on the windowglass, Hermione's teeth bloodying her tongue.
Mama and Daddy take her to an old pond, a pond they've summered at twice. Hermione grew up here—she knows the rushes where she caught a bullfrog, green as apples, and where the shore is thin enough she can sit on a rock and let her feet dangle so that the fish, small as toenail clippings, can nibble on the dried skin flaking from her toes.
Better than a pedicure, Mama always said.
But this winter the pond looks hard, unfamiliar—a winter wonderland that crinkles in shards and sharp angles, wedges of unforgiving ice. The ice is blue-clear patchwork around the edges and a white handkerchief in the center.
Mama hands her a pair of ice skates, brand new. A red ribbon winds around the silver blades, sharp as kitchen knives.
A Christmas present.
"We're going ice skating?" Hermione asks, confused. The drive here was particularly solemn. No music, just Mama and Daddy white-knuckling the steering wheel or dashboard. She's never so much as rollerbladed before, and now they're skating on a rough unpolished pond?
"No," Mama says. "Just you. Strap up."
Hermione obediently straps up and then Mama gently steers her to where the ice has flowered whitely, thickly. But Hermione feels like a foal. Her knees knock into Mama's and it's only her grip on Mama's coat that keeps her from falling down.
Daddy lingers on the shore, hands in his pockets. Head down.
"Wait—" Hermione calls, and there's panic steaming to her brain. "You're not coming?"
"Mm," Mama hums in her ear. "No, darling. This is practice. Now skate."
And Hermione is all giraffe legs, legs sliding, and as she pushes away from Mama on the ice, it is all she can do to not faceplant.
"Practice?! But you're not skating!" Hermione shrieks, and on the other side of the pond, roosting birds fly away. She's flustered, bewildered. Mama ice skated, Daddy ice skated. Why aren't they skating now?
What the hell?
Mama's voice comes from far away—she must be on the shore with Daddy. "Practice for us," she says.
What? Hermione swivels round to catch a glimpse of the shore but the blades fly out from under her, and ice lunges up to meet her kneecap and cheek. Hermione hears a crunch but is unsure of whether it is her bones or the ice.
She stays there, dazed, blinking into the ice with its new flecks of red. "Mum?" she calls, and her tongue feels thick.
"Here, darling!" It's a sob. "Keep skating."
Something is wrong. Her head gongs. There is copper in her mouth.
Hermione struggles to her feet, almost standing before she has to take a knee. She looks to the shore. Mama is kneeling in the snow, hands pressed over her mouth. Daddy is pacing, turning, gripping his hair.
What is happening?
She totters towards them, spitting redly on the ice. Keep skating, Hermione. Something purposeful is obviously happening here. Keep skating, Hermione. She doesn't understand but she still turns away to the rest of the pond.
She falls again. She catches herself with her wrist, jarring bone to bone to ice. Her tongue feels like a clapper, her brain a bell. Dong dong dong.
There's a shout, Daddy's shout, and looking up, Hermione sees that Mama is gripping Daddy's jacket. Like keeping him in place.
Something purposeful is obviously happening.
"This is practice, Hermione."
Hermione gets up again, defiant. Swiveling, swaying her weight, she manages to get halfway round the pond before the blade catches on a snag of ice. Down she goes.
She blinks for a while into the ice. She's dangerously close to the thin blue patches of ice, and there are bits of gravel glassed beneath her fingers. The dark of the water beneath. She could fall clear through, and possibly her parents couldn't get to her in time.
"This is practice, Hermione."
Painfully and instantly, like a flash of the Cruciatus, Hermione understands. This isn't practice for her.
This is practice for parents leaving their child alone to pain and struggle and, maybe, death. Mama and Daddy are raw nerves: this will be their everyday existence for the rest of the war.
They cannot help her. They can only wait, pray.
Hermione-the-soldier understands. This is a test.
Well, Hermione has always aced her tests.
So she tightens her calf, pressures her toes, wills with every fiber in her being to balance, balance, and she sways, left, right, left, right, a swing of this leg and then that.
Show them that she can fall and bleed and then get back up.
She skates: circles the pond entire, winter wind lifting her hair like she is flying on a broom, and she is Wendy-bird flying away to Never-Neverland: a land where everything will be the same and nothing changes.
Her parents cheer. Daddy whoops, fist in the air. Mama covers her mouth with one hand and slaps the snow with the other, once twice three times.
Hermione doesn't so much brake in front of them as she does float to a stop. Daddy's cheek has the imprint of his own fingernails and Mama's wool scarf is shredded yarn at the ends. But they look at her with such pride, such trust.
She probably has a concussion, but this will be nothing compared to the war. Besides, they need this—she circles round again.
The drive to the train station is a short one—too short.
"You've missed your calling, darling," Daddy teases, when they are arriving at the train station. "Anna, we had a Junior Olympian all along. What fools we were." And they all laugh, heightened and forced and shrill.
Hermione had dry-swallowed three aspirin, but she has long stopped feeling the pain. She just feels numb. The drumming is in her pulse and ears. You don't belong here—but she eats that thought as soon as it comes. Who does she belong with if not with Mama and Daddy?
They unload into the front lobby, which spirals into different gateways and destinations and a bison row of trains. Hermione purposefully avoids the screen with the destinations flashing greenly—though this will be just one stop of many for her parents, any knowledge of their destination could be forced out during torture. So she watches her trainers, and follows Mama's wicked and sharp black heels and Daddy's worn loafers.
The black heels pause in the midst of a hallway, so Hermione does too, and the loafers step out of view.
"Where's he going?" Hermione asks. Her voice sounds thick and clumpy, tapioca pudding throat.
"It's safe to look up, darling dearest." Hermione does. She focuses on Mama and Mama only and the rest of the station swims in Technicolor behind her.
"Your dad will be back. He saw something—a present." Each of her mother's words have a toothy gap between them, like each word must be punctuated with meaning and intention. "This is for you."
Mama pulls a letter, no envelope, from her coatpocket. Hermione knows without opening it that will be handwritten, on Mama's signature periwinkle stationary. Hermione turns it over in her hands. It's been thrice folded, and tied with yellow ribbon. "It's not for now," Mama says sternly. "It's for when you need it."
Then Mama cups Hermione's face as gently as if she water. "Promise me," Mama says, eyes bright. "Promise me that you will not open that letter until you need it."
"I promise." Heart in mouth.
And suddenly Daddy is pressing into their shoulders, and they are a tripod, a triangle, a pyramid—the strongest of all the shapes. He pulls a snowglobe out a brown paper sack. "Here, love—just bought it. So you remember this day." So you remember us is left unspoken.
Hermione cradles, shakes it. Glitter seas rise into glitter skies and as the dazzle settles, Hermione sees that is of a family ice skating. It's not a perfect match—this family is a family of five, a child on the father's shoulders and two twins on a sled, but there's a brunette child in the middle with curls like hers.
"Okay," she whispers. "Um, alright, okay." And if she collapses into their pyramid, Mama convexing over, Daddy a ceiling over them both, who can blame her?
"This isn't goodbye," Daddy whispers to the top of her head. "We aren't saying goodbye." Goodbye.
Oh! Hermione hiccups, reaching for her back pocket. "I almost forgot! My surprise for you."
It's the last step of her plan.
She pulls out the two rings, looping them both on her pointer finger. They're both simple yellow gold rings, indistinguishable: her parents' wedding rings from the world before.
Hermione had asked for them last Christmas, and Mama and Daddy had, looking at each other, slipped their rings off that very minute. "Whatever you need, darling," they had said.
Gold is soft, good for rune work, and yellow gold is best. She worked all year, carving gnat-small runes inside the band, boosting her Protean charms. And then her hat trick—beyond the Protean charm, and its signal boost, she charmed their outer rims to be as sensitive as arm skin.
She has a matching ring now, charmed to be dichotomous of each ring.
Hermione slides the rings from her finger to Mama and Daddy. Their gratitude at seeing their rings—a symbol, a societal construct, but oh how their eyes glisten. Mama pushes Daddy's ring into place, kissing his knuckles; Daddy does the same for her, hovering his lips right over the ring; Hermione feels jolts of warmth on her finger.
"Oh, wait—" Hermione starts, fumbling over the mechanics and the science. "It's sensitive. To me. For emergencies, you can scratch on the rings and I'll be able to read it."
She can practically see the relief flooding from their pores.
"This is what you were working on? Oh baby you're so brilliant—" Mama cries.
Daddy, always prepared with a fountain pen, swivels around, trench coat to them, and there's a scritch scratch.
And slowly, shakily, a fire blooms on her finger, hot enough to burn, and though her finger trembles and tears leak, Hermione does not look away from the slow letters branding across the ring:
L
O
V
E
Y
O
U
And Mama kisses her ring too, and a flare burns through Hermione redly.
"Love you both," Hermione mouths, salt on her lips, copper on her lips. Her black hole pulses and everything that Hermione is stamps it down, trying to swallow this feeling into the bulk of her, into her gradually frizzing hair and tight lungs.
Daddy's watch beeps, interrupting. All color vanishes from his face: "That's the train. Oh God. That's the train. Oh God."
"It will be fine. It will be fine. I'll be fine," Hermione repeats over and over in stacatto, and Daddy looks waxen, dead.
"The rings!" Hermione stutters suddenly, gasping for air with the realization of the most important information. "Their shelf life lessens with each use. We can't use it up. And our code—"
"999," Mama affirms, gripping Hermione's fluttering hands, right over her new bruises, and presses them to her own cheek. "For emergencies or attacks or if we need you…or if you need us."
Panic and dread realization curtains them all. This is it.
Daddy's watch beeps again, insistent.
"I love you I love you I love you Iloveyou, please don't leav—" And Hermione breaks. She can't be Hermione-the-Soldier. They're leaving, all according to her plan, yes, but THEY'RE LEAVING.
"—Brave lion girl." Mama interrupts softly, drawing herself tall, floor-to-ceiling, as if she were one of these columns. Wet-eyed, Mama outstretches her hand, palm tight and fingers rigid. A handshake, respect, from equal to equal.
Hermione swallows back her tears, her words—Gryffindor courage—and slowly reaches out, palm to palm, and she is shocked at how small her fingers are in Mama's hand.
"Well done, my love," Mama says, squeezing, pumping her hand up and down once. Wonder and sorrow battle in her eyes. "You are my girl. Mine. You are going to fight and you will do everything you can to survive—everything, do you hear me?— and you will save the world, and—and then you will come home."
Daddy opens his mouth, but out comes a sob. His voice cracks and he takes off his cap and buries his face in it. He just nods, pressing his hand from Hermione's shoulder to her face to her hair and back again, over and over. He presses his hand to his heart, like one would do to a flag.
And his watch beeps one last time and Mama wails, before turning away and clamping her hands over her mouth.
"Don't watch," Mama says with her face turned as Daddy grabs the luggage. "Look at the ground, love. Don't watch."
And Hermione can't breathe there are so many tears. Please don't leave, no please don't leave, I'm not brave enough for this!
But she follows orders, good little soldier, covers her face with her hands. And she hears the click-clack of shoes, other shoes, not black heels or soft loafers, and there is a whistle and a bell and the sound of two men arguing and schoolchildren laughing and a luggage cart with a squeaky wheel—and there is tar in her veins, black studded with gold, slowing her down, telling her to breathe, breathe. Follow the breath tunneling blue through her nostrils, down to wear it sticks to her tarpaper lungs. Gold flecks, gold breaths. She feels for her scar. It's as warm as her ring.
Breathe, breathe. It's silent around her. Noise has stopped.
She cautiously unveils her hands, slick with sweat and tears, and blinks, and where Mama was standing is no Mama. And where Daddy was standing is no Daddy. The corridor is pale washed and empty, the rush for the train quiet for just this moment.
She is alone.
Hermione trembles as she hears the grinding rails, knowing her parents will be on one of these trains, any of these trains.
In the old films, it's the soldier who goes away—who boards the train, the ship, the plane, kissing loved ones, waving caps. They are the ones to leave.
Hermione knows why: being the ones who stay is unbearable.
School starts again. Hermione takes a cab to King's Cross by herself. No one notices.
Her rings don't warm, no messages. And she definitely doesn't feel her black hole shred her from the inside, her nightmares definitely don't newly froth, and her heart definitely doesn't break.
It's safer if they don't message, Hermione reminds herself.
Still.
School gives her the feeling she gets at the top of the rollercoaster—the ride up is great, look at the view, at its cotton candy clouds and gumball gulls. But no one fully thinks about that view on that slow climb: it's all about the precipice, the dangle. The fall.
Hogwarts is at the precipice. It will fall soon, she thinks. It's all she can think about.
Harry watches Draco with what borders on obsession. It's beyond sexual, now, she thinks. In the reflection of Harry's glasses, there are shadows of bone shards.
And then there is Sectumsepra, and Draco nearly bleeds out in crushed porcelain. And Harry did it. Her Harry.
She knows how that anger feels but never thought she would see it on her fellow cuckoobird Harry. (When Harry tells her about it, alone, he cries. "I never thought there would be so much blood," he says. "I didn't mean to kill him.")
Maybe that's what bothers her so much about it. This is war. Muggles are going missing on the streets, muggleborns are burning in their own homes. If Harry was going to kill someone, Hermione can think of plenty of good reasons why he could mean it, even if—especially if—that someone was Draco.
But there are horcruxes to worry about now. The splitting of one's soul, intentional or not. Perhaps Draco Malfoy would be worth that risk. Or perhaps he's just a schoolboy with too much power who hurts those who don't. Perhaps that's justification enough. He's sixteen though, she reminds herself. Younger than her. Sixteen.
Could she ever kill Malfoy?
(Hermione feels like she is at a precipice.)
Sometimes she catches Luna's eyes in the halls and that distant cow-eyed gaze sharpens, turns positively salacious.
"Nargles," Luna will mouth to her.
"Nargles," Hermione will mouth back.
Then Ron almost dies. Her Ron, Harry's Ron.
He is lying on that hospital bed, throat scraped up from that bezoar, and Hermione gushes out like water from a pricked balloon—"What were you thinking? Oh Ron,that was so dangerous—and I don't know if I said it before, but I'm sorry, I am really sorry—and I love you, I love you so damned much—are you hurting? Do you need more potion? Are you comfortable enough?"
And it hurts too much for him to talk, but he flushes all over, and it takes Hermione a moment to realize what he is flushing about. She thinks briefly about Lavender before swiping it from her mind. Then she coughs, covering up her embarrassment with, always, swottiness. "Well, don't make a fuss over it. Of course I love you, you idiot. You're mine."
Dammit, they're in a war. She doesn't have time to be embarrassed.
Besides, Mama's always right.
Ron smiles, his cheeks stretching as far as they can go, and he looks at her like she is the greatest present he has ever received, and Hermione flashes back to firstie Ron, dirtsmudged and neglected and poorer than he can bear.
Well, he can't speak now so she'll have to speak for him. "Love me?" she asks, very quiet. Love me in the way I mean?
And he just continues to grin. He really does look like an idiot—stupidly happy.
Hermione scoffs, then slides onto his hospital bed, and he stills, uncertain. She presses her forehead to his, like what she did with her Harry. She holds his gaze: "Blink if you love me."
(And Ron thinks she's not funny, ha!)
And of course, Ron smiles, a gurgle of a laugh choking his throat and making him wince, and he tries to hold his eyes as wide as he can, boring into hers, and she can make out the thin red veins that hadn't burst from the poison.
And his eyes dry and she she swallows back her laughter at the strain until eventually he gives, eyelashes flut-flut-fluttering, blinking every second, staring and blinking, madly trying to convey what Hermione knows utterly: yes, he loves her.
Hermione laughs then, cuddling into his neck, careful fingers settling on his throat, so grateful, so grateful, that she prays thank you to the universe for his safety.
Ron lives and she loves him and he loves her.
She looks up and Harry is resting against the doorjamb, and he is beaming, his first smile since the Draco incident, and he looks so tired he is practically swaying against the doorframe.
Hermione waves him over to their hospital bed—the same one from first year, Hermione realizes with a start. How about that? And Harry settles on the other side of Ron, and Hermione can see the loss of adrenaline has worn him pliant as a pillow.
"It was good thinking about the bezoar, Harry." She whispers. "Where'd you learn that?"
"Can't learn everything from you, Mione," Harry yawns, wrapping an arm around Ron's pillows so that he can prop himself up.
"Cheeky." Hermione flicks his nose.
Harry smiles but something unidentifiable chases it off his face and is followed by sadness. Maybe it was guilt? Harry's been wearing it like a coat. Savior of the World, almost-murder, horcru—
No. Hermione will not allow that thought.
If you looked into the Mirror of Erised now, she says to Harry in her mind, you wouldn't see Lily and James Potter. You would see us, your family.
Ron threads his too-warm fingers through hers, and yes, she's happy. Harry settles his hand over theirs. "Love you," Harry says lowly. It's the first time he's said it out loud.
Hermione looks at Ron and says the words for him: "Of course."
Blink if you love me. You don't belong here.
Her ring is cold on her finger.
Hermione will forever call June the Blitzkrieg month, the lightning war:
Dumbledore is dead.
Death Eaters have swarmed Hogwarts.
The War has begun.
Hermione nods: okay. Give them hell.
Author's Note:
Next chapter, the worlds collide, permanently, and horribly. Brace yourselves.
Notes on the chapter:
A) Anna's prayer is taken from the Babylonian Talmud. B) I switched up events in Sixth Year to suit my purposes. C) Hermione is actually pansexual, which will be explored much later. D) the rating for this fic is jumping to M, just to be on the safe side. E) Hermione growing into a healthy body image will be explored throughout this series-it's important to me that Hermione confronts her her unhealthy ideas about her scars.
F) I won't label any of Hermione's relationships as taboo—I don't believe in the "don't like, don't read," approach. I'm trying to write about a human (witch) experience, and I believe a human experience is about empathy and representation and relationships and identity, so I want to explore it without treating it as taboo.
G) LASTLY, and most importantly, love to all of you! This chapter was a mammoth, but it was worth it. I felt so much love (and sadness) writing this. Will you let me know your thoughts?
Hope you feel my love: the world needs love right now.