Hermione Down Under
Chapter 16 Reconciliation
"I think I'll be going," said Luna, as if apologizing for leaving a tea party. "Could you return my horse to the stable for me, Hermione? It was fun to ride one, but rather two-dimensional."
Hermione's Dad looked intrigued. "I presume that the 'thestrals' you mentioned could travel in three dimensions?"
"Oh yes. But this time I'll be travelling by flying carpet." She turned to Hermione. "I think this time, when I hit the warmer climates, I may take my clothes off and sun myself a bit. After all, they'll be nobody to see me, half a mile up."
"Um, okay," Hermione said, not sure whether she wanted to visualize that or not.
Luna twirled and vanished. Hermione's Dad was obviously still not used to Apparation, and stared at the point for a few seconds more. "Very odd girl. But obviously devoted to you, Hermione."
"Yes, she'll do anything for her friends." Can I say the same thing for myself? Look how rude I've been to Ron – and yet he vouched for me to Mrs. Arwen. She fussed a moment with Luna's horse so her father would not see her expression, then hoisted herself into the saddle.
Father and daughter rode side by side, for the first time in their lives. Hermione wasn't even sure when her father learnt to ride: early in life, or while she was at Hogwarts, or in Australia? Hermione was starting to realize how alienated she had been from her parents, even before the disastrous memory spell. It wasn't just her physical absence at Hogwarts. Ron, Neville, even Luna kept up a close relationship with their family members even when attending school. Hermione's problem was the huge cultural difference between Muggle life at home and living in the wizard world. Does it have to stay this way?
"Minnie, there's something I need to ask. You said that you knew a killing curse. Have you—"
She could tell he felt a little awkward asking, but he deserved an answer. "I've never killed anybody, Dad. But I've been in fights where people have died on both sides."
"I see, " he said, looking distressed.
"I didn't seek these things out, Dad! Harry was pulled into the war willy-nilly, because of a silly prophecy made about him at birth. I had to stand by him."
"I suppose I'm proud that you DID stand by him, Minnie. Though I still you wish you had let us stay and help you."
They fell silent after that, and tried to derive some pleasure from the sheer physical situation, riding horses through lovely fields in an exotic country, with the sun starting to set. Both knew that there was a large argument looming, when the entire family got together. No reason to start it ahead of time.
Hermione finally dismounted at some distance from the stable. It might confuse the clerk if one girl hired the horse and another returned it, particularly when an encounter with Luna tended to be rather memorable.
Then she went to her parents' room for the argument.
"You violated our minds, taking away crucial memories of our lives," charged her mother. "And if that wasn't enough, you didn't even do it RIGHT! I've been bewildered for a year of old memories leaking through, I thought I was going insane!"
"It was horrid of me," admitted Hermione, almost on the verge of tears. "I'll do anything to make it up. Anything but one."
"One?"
"I can't stop being a witch. I know that it sounds arrogant, but I think the wizard world needs my experience as a Muggle."
"You say you helped bring down that Voldemort. Isn't that enough service to the wizard world?"
"I don't want to measure out service like that. Dad, you admired Luna for coming to my aid when she didn't have to. Can't you understand that I'd like to help out as well? I promise, I won't ever cast a spell on you again. I'll even leave my wand behind when I come to visit."
"It isn't just that," said her mother. "What about other people? Will you promise never to cast a spell on somebody else?"
Hermione hesitated. What her mother was asking was to renounce all the defensive spells she had learnt over the years. The same deprivation that Umbridge had wanted, though from vastly different motives.
Of course, Voldemort and Bellatrix were dead, most of his Death Eaters in prison. She didn't need defensive spells at the moment. But who could foretell the future? An escaped Death Eater trying to ape his former master? Vengeance from a defeated enemy? Some other upstart trying to exploit the Dark Arts?
To Hermione's relief, her father joined in. "I see you're hesitant, Minnie. Will you promise never to cast a spell on somebody except to defend yourself or a loved one against a direct attack?"
She sighed in relief. This was one promise she could keep. "Yes. I'll promise."
"And one more thing. TALK to us, Minnie. I know you're eighteen and consider yourself a grownup now. Things are so topsy-turvy, we were absent from much of your life when you were a teenager. I know that you've already been forced to make decisions that no teenager should have to choose on. But it sounds that you're going to be involved in some complicated politics in the wizard world. Let us help you. I admit, I'm a dentist, not a politician," he added, unconsciously imitating a famous fictional doctor. "But I think we can give you some good advice as things get complex. Perhaps you think we can't understand wizards. But personally I'd like to see the Weasleys more – you're quite involved with the boy, aren't you? And Harry, of course. I'd even like to see Luna again."
"Yes, I'll arrange for you to visit when we're back in England, and I WILL talk with you about what I'm doing ."
She tried to explain about her concerns. Elves in particular: she had had to abandon her SPEW crusade because of the larger crisis, but now she could take it up again, and Dobby's tragic death had already impelled many of her friends to take it more seriously. Her parents were shocked about elves, but now they understood why she felt obliged to do something about them.
It was fairly late at the evening when she got back to the bunk building. She decided to go directly to the shower room. As before, the washing-off was symbolic as well as physical, she felt all her mistakes with her parents wash away. Afterwards she wrapped a towel around herself, picked up her discarded clothes, and walked to her room, confident that she was unlikely to encounter anybody in the hallway.
Ron was lying on the bed.
"Oh!" squeaked Hermione.
"Whoa!" exclaimed Ron.
Hermione walked to the dresser. She would have preferred to run, but that might dislodge the towel and create an even more embarrassing display. "Um, Ron, could look away for a few minutes while I put on my pyjamas?"
"Sure."
She dropped the towel and rummaged for the nightclothes. She could trust Ron not to look, and yet she felt a bit of a thrill standing naked with the boy quite nearby. It was not a feeling that she could explain but, as a Muggle philosopher had once put it, the heart has its own reasons of which Reason knows nothing. "And we can still talk. I thought you wanted to stay in Brisbane, and get away from me for a few days."
"Wanted to tell you what I've learned. I've been reading your history book, honestly. I haven't even gotten to the philosophical part yet, but I've realized something important. Muggles have accomplished a LOT without magic to help them. It's not how much power you have, it's what you do with the power you've got. All of this stuff about "blood" is nonsense. We need to learn more about Muggles at Hogwarts, not just pack it into an elective called "Muggle Studies". Because when we don't, it causes idiots like the Malfoys to swallow dangerous nonsense about Muggle blood making somebody inferior. Poor Draco, he could never understand how somebody like you, a, um—"
"Mudblood."
Ron shuddered but continued. "—could outperform a pureblood like himself, and it caused us AND him a lot of misery over the years. So yes, I'll help you persuade McGonagall to change the curriculum."
"Thank you, Ron. That means a lot to me. But let me bring you up to date on what's going on here."
She described the encounter with Mrs. Arwen. "So now she's through with us and looking into a LORD OF THE RINGS film. Dad says that's impractical, but either way she's out of our hair now. You can turn around now. Ron, I want to thank you for vouching for me to her. I know I've been rotten to you during the whole trip, and I feel terrible about it. "
Ron sighed. "This trip. But you've been the best of friends for seven years. And the person who came nearest to throwing the friendship away wasn't you, it was ME, deserting you and Harry in the tent. But the two of you forgave me and took me back into your friendship. Remembering that, I was willing to put up with quite a bit of crap from you, particularly when I knew where you were coming from."
"Where was I coming from?" She wanted to know if Ron understood her motivations, instead of just considering her a bossy know-it-all.
"You felt really guilty about hexing your parents, then you got terrified when it looked like you wouldn't even be able to find them, and when you finally found them, they put you in a huge dilemma – them vs. the wizard world. Then you were so anxious to demonstrate problems with wizard education that you put me in an embarrassing position. It was Hogwarts that you were trying to criticize, not me."
Hermione winced. "I admit to all that. By the way, I've reconciled with my parents. I can keep both parents and wizarddom, as long as I keep certain promises, which I will."
She knew that she did not deserve her parents' forgiveness, but was determined to earn it. Fortunately, Ron did not press her.
"Thank God that's all over. Let's get some sleep now."
The room still had just one bed; Ron's departure and Hermione's kidnapping had deprived them of the chance of ordering another one. Hermione climbed in one side, Ron climbed in the other, and neither had anything more in my mind than a restful night's sleep.
Afterwards they were neither quite clear on how it happened. As Hermione remembered it later, Ron accidentally brushed against her in bed, and she playfully retaliated by nudging him back. Soon they were tustling and laughing together, shifting positions to the middle of the bed in order to make it easier to reach each other.
At one point, after she had given a playful punch in the arm, Ron pinned her down to avoid another blow.
"Say uncle," he demanded.
"I've got a better idea," she said. "Alohanuda!"
Her wand was under her pillow, a habit she had developed when they were hiding from Voldemort and could be attacked at any minute. That was close enough to be triggered. Her clothes vanished from her body and rematerialized in the corner, where they fell to the floor in a heap. Ron found himself holding a naked Hermione.
"W-what!"
"Found the spell in Forbidden Books," Hermione chuckled. "Thought we'd be classy. The Greeks wrestled naked." She forebore to mention that the Greeks didn't wrestle boy-on-girl, but Ron was clever enough both to realize that and to not say so.
"Okay – alohanuda!"
Ron's clothes followed suit, and fell on top of Hermione's. While back in the bed-
About twenty minutes later Hermione was lying serenely in the bed, gazing up at her lover. It wasn't the fight itself that had aroused them, of course; they were never actually trying to hurt each other, and the final moments had been of great tenderness. But it had helped them release their inhibitions. A few moments of acting on impulse had accomplished what days of talking had not: they had gotten together at last.
And this time it had felt RIGHT. Ron was her man, not Harry – though she knew she would never be able to say that to her lover. Instead-
"I love you, Ron."
"I love you, Hermione – what are you giggling at?"
"Oh, a silly pun – I just realized that now I'm really DOWN UNDER!"
THE END