Chapter 13
Hermione was tired, no, she was exhausted. It felt like her life had picked up the pace and started running faster than it had ever done so before.
So much of her life was surrounded by war; she didn't have the regular sort of childhood growing up because there was just something off about her. It wasn't until later that she realized it was because she had magic, and that she was special. And once she went to Hogwarts, she thought that maybe she'd found a new normal. But nothing about her experience at the school had been normal by any standards; especially because of who she was, and who her friends were. It hadn't helped that she had been fighting a war since she was eleven.
When the final battle was over, she had once again thought that maybe her life would calm down slightly. And for the three years after the war, it had.
But nothing about Hermione Granger had ever been normal.
She often wondered when she grew up, what happened after the 'Happy Ever After' that she read in fairy tales. Did the characters who had a grand journey of love and self-discovery just settle down into a domestic life? It always confused her how they didn't continue to live exciting lives until the rest of their days.
She supposed that now she was older, it made sense that they didn't. There would always be something or the other for people like her; one battle or another. It was just who they were fighting that changed.
And after the amount of time she had spent fighting and surviving, she just wanted a nice long vacation somewhere.
It was probably that same tiredness inside her that caused her to snap at Draco when they were in the kitchen that morning.
Which had given the day an interesting turn, despite how early it might have been in the day.
Hermione had been making breakfast for the three of them, given Ron had stayed over with Luna and Hugo, and Harry and Ginny were sleeping in. James hadn't gotten up either, meaning it was one the first times it had been just the three of them since all of this had happened. Sure, she had spent time alone with Draco and Scorpius, but it had never been so domestic, as it currently was.
"Can we go flying after breakfast?" Scorpius asked hopefully. "On your broom?"
"Sure," Draco said with a smile, at the exact same time Hermione firmly said, "Definitely not."
The two adults looked at each other at the same time, eyes widened at the other's response.
"It will be fine, Hermione," Draco said gently, "I'll be holding him the entire time."
"Why can't you just use his training broom?" Hermione asked. "Do you know how dangerous flying can be?"
"Because those brooms barely go a yard off the ground, and he's five years old, for Merlin's sake! He deserves to go higher than that. I'm not going to take him higher than the tree line or anything; but just a little bit. Besides, there's disillusion charm on the entire property and yard, so it's not like any muggles are going to see us," Draco argued.
"And what if you drop him?" Hermione countered, hands on her hips. "He could be killed!"
"Do you honestly believe I would be careless enough to drop my own son?" Draco asked heatedly, as he stood up.
"I DON'T KNOW!" Hermione yelled. "I don't know what kind of parent you are. I barely even know you. But there's no way you're taking my son on one of those death traps."
"He's my son too," Draco said, moving closer to her.
"That doesn't mean I'm just going to give you permiss-" Hermione started before he cut her off with a laugh.
"I don't need your permission to do anything, Granger," he snapped. "Now, if you're done implying what a terrible father I am, I'm going to be in the garden."
Hermione huffed as she sat down in the chair. "I don't know how any version of me could have married that insufferable man," she muttered to herself, forgetting about her son, who was still in the room."
"You and Daddy usually argue," Scorpius said in a small voice. "Not like that, because the two of you never get that mad, but you argue. Daddy says it's because you both love each other so much but you have differences."
She sighed, as she listened to her child's words. She never really thought about what kind of couple they would have been once they got married, simply because the thought never crossed her mind. How happy could a couple really be if they argued that much, as her son claimed? Surely it couldn't be healthy.
She stood up as she pressed a kiss to her son's forehead, refusing to relent on the matter. "I have to go to work now, Sweetie. Be good for Daddy for me."
Her son gave her a tight hug before she left the room, heading out to the back yard. She had a feeling of what the two of them would achieve while she was gone, but she pushed the thought out of her mind for her own sanity. The last thing she needed was to constantly be worrying if her son would be rushed through to the Hospital's Emergency Ward while she was on duty.
Four hours later, and Hermione was just as exhausted as she had been before she left, despite the number of cups of tea she had drunk since arriving at work.
It had been a busy day so far. Luckily for her, it seemed as if St. Mungo's had finally calmed down from the earthquake and the aftermath that it had entailed. Which meant that while she wasn't doing research, she was still on call for any sudden injuries or accidents that happened to walk through the door.
So she sat with the ages upon pages of memory selection in front of her. While it had been a theory she hadn't yet looked into, seeing that in the future she was able to properly cast the spell was definitely motivating.
Except that it was rather difficult to research a topic which no one else had bothered, or successfully studied. Yes, there were lots of studies out there about memory, memory modification, regaining lost memories, altering memories, and so on. But nothing in the range of what she was attempting to do.
Which made it rather frustrating.
She sighed to herself, as she got up from her desk and headed to grab another cup of tea. She knew it wasn't exactly healthy, so to placate the inner Healer in her, she settled for making a quick pot of an herbal tea instead.
Unfortunately for her, she never did get to drink the tea, because as she brought that cup to touch her lips, the alarm for incoming trauma sounded.
She placed down the cup, and pulled her wand from her robes as she rushed over to the area where the patient would be brought in, to be met by her intern Mary.
"Incoming, male, injured during Quidditch practice due to falling of his broom after being hit by a stray bludger. Several broken bones, a broken rib which is possibly piercing his lung. On site Healers fixed a few minor bones, but decided to leave the major ones for you seeing as they didn't want to cause more damage while attempting to heal the bones."
She nodded as she made her way into the room. She cast a few quick diagnostic spells to come to a better understanding of just how many injuries her patient had procured. After, she set Mary on the task of healing the remaining minor injuries while she settled for the area closest to his lungs. The healers on site had been right in their assessment of a punctured lung, meaning she needed to be careful in healing it, as she would have to first spell the rib away from his lung, then work on healing his lung, before finally the rib involved.
The spells were in no way easy, and a simple misstep or mistake could cost her patient his life.
She didn't look at his face, and he was already given a sedative so he wouldn't be awake due to the pain he would be in. She had found that while dealing in trauma cases like this, the less she knew about the patient the better. It made it easier to focus and she didn't have the distraction of whether she actually knew the patient or their family affecting her decisions.
So she worked meticulously, healing bit by bit. There were times where she was grateful she was a magical healer, and not a muggle doctor. Spells almost always ensured survival of the patient, meaning the number of losses she had to cope with had been far less than the number of people she had saved over the years. Hermione honestly wasn't all that sure that she could say that if she were a muggle, she would have been able to handle the equivalent profession. Perhaps it had been why her own parents had gone into dentistry over being a surgeon.
After about an hour of casting spells, the procedure had been completed, and she stepped back to let out sigh of relief. She looked at her patient's face in surprise to see none other than Oliver Wood laying on that bed. She definitely had not been expecting that.
She informed Mary to move him to the Recuperation Ward as she left the room to head back to her office so that she could take a break.
What she hadn't been expecting was to see Harry there, sitting in the chair across from her desk, holding a bag with lunch in his hands.
"Hi," she said in surprise as she entered the room. "I didn't know we had plans."
"We didn't," he said simply, as he pulled out two wrapped sandwiches and handed her one. "But I figured you wouldn't eat properly, again," he said given her pointed look. "Plus I wanted to check up on you."
"How much did you hear?" she asked with a sigh, in reference to the fight she had with Draco that morning.
"Almost all of it," he admitted. "The two of you can be rather loud when you want to be."
"Sorry," she winced. "I didn't mean to wake you and Ginny up."
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked her carefully, as he took a bite of his sandwich.
"He wanted to take Scorpius flying!' she said weakly. "I just had to heal a patient who fell off his broom, and do you know how bad the injuries were?"
"Hermione, Draco wouldn't drop Scorpius," he said softly. "He was practically raised on a broom. Plus, he probably would have cast a charm on the ground to make it bounce in case of an emergency."
"Oh," she said softly. "I hadn't thought of that. But he could have just explained that to me!"
"I know you didn't mean it, but you also kind of implied that he was a bad father," he said softly. "And while the two of us haven't talked about your fight, I know that hurt him. Hermione, he's been trying to prove for years that he's not like his father; every day at work it's been a struggle, and when the earthquake happened and people found out it was at his home, they turned on him extremely quickly. He's changed, and I know that he doesn't want to be the father to Scorpius that his was to him. And I know you didn't say that he was, but I think half the reason he was so upset is because he thinks you just compared him to his father."
"I didn't mean that" she exclaimed. "Merlin, I've gone and made a mountain out of a mole hill haven't I? I should go apologise to him!"
The logical part of her knew that waiting until the end of the day wouldn't make things worse than they already were, and would probably give him some time to cool down, but she felt so terrible that she couldn't wait any longer. She heard Harry calling out to her to at least finish her lunch first, but she had already grabbed the floo powder and dropped it into her own personal fireplace.
When she arrived at Grimmauld place, she rushed out to the garden to see Scorpius flying around on a training broom, while Draco chased after him playfully. She watched the two of them interact for a few moments, as a smile flitted across her face.
As Draco spotted her, a scowl appeared, and she took a step forward, as he walked over to her, ready to argue that Scorpius wasn't even on a real broom, so she shouldn't say anything.
"I'm sorry," she said, causing his eyes to widen. Clearly he hadn't been expecting that from her. "Draco, I didn't mean to imply that you were a bad father. It's just, flying really scares me, you know? I always feel so out of control whenever I fly and it's scary. I always wonder what would happen if I fell, just as I've seen Harry do so on several occasions. And it's not something you can learn from a book and become good at. I guess I pushed my own fears onto Scorpius in that I want to do anything to keep him safe. Even if it meant hiding him from the world forever. But I know that it's just as unrealistic as expecting he would never fly. I know I can't keep him safe forever, and I know that if you took him flying, you wouldn't do anything which could endanger him."
His face softened towards her as he moved closer, "I'm sorry for overreacting right away. I shouldn't have taken my own insecurities out on you."
"You're an amazing father," she confessed. "You're so natural at it, and honestly sometimes I wonder if it even scares you a little bit, like it does me. But Draco, I want you to know that you're nothing like your father. You're firm with Scorpius, but you can also be gentle and kind depending on the situation. And just watching you interact with him is amazing."
He seemed surprised that she seemed to know just what insecurities he had been talking about, but didn't comment on it. Instead he settled for saying, "Maybe I can teach you to fly sometime," he asked her softly. "I know Potter and Weasley have tried, but I promise we would take it slow, cast a dozen cushioning charms, and even not go all that high if you wanted. Besides, practice makes perfect, right?"
Hermione gave him a smile, "I would like that," she admitted, "But I swear if you drop me, I'll never speak to you ever again."
"I wouldn't have it any other way," he grinned.
"And Draco?" she said. "I know I don't need to give you permission, but I would be okay with you taking Scorpius flying. I trust you."
He smiled at her, but instead of commenting, he said, "Do you have to go back to work just yet, or can you stay and play with us for a bit."
She grinned widely as she stepped onto the grass, "I would love to play whatever game it is that the two of you seem to be enjoying."
He took a step closer to her until they were mere inches apart and she felt her breath start to shake as he leaned in slightly so that his mouth was close to her ear.
Before she could react, he touched her arm and said, "Tag, you're it!" and bolted away from her, leaving her momentarily baffled, but she quickly regained her composure and chased after Scorpius who teasingly came closer, before shrieking and flying away on his miniature broom.
Half way across the country, in a shady bar, two individuals met up to discuss some business.
The taller of the two was the first to speak, but not before casting a quick Muffliato over themselves.
"We need to move," the taller said. "Whatever happened causing the disruption was an unexpected side effect, and it means that soon there shall be interference. We need the staff, and we need it now. There's no more time left to waste."
The second simply nodded in agreement as they glanced at their co-conspirator, "We need a way to break into Gringotts to get it," they reminded. "It's not exactly an easy task."
The first person tsked slightly, "Between Potter and Voldemort breaking in, it seems security isn't as up to par as we were lead to believe while growing up. It might take some planning and time, but I believe we should be able to do it."
"How do we know that it's even there?" the second asked, raising an eyebrow questioningly.
"I traced the history, it's there," the first said again. "Now, to come up with plan."
The two individuals plotted for the better part of the afternoon, using blueprints and floorplans to properly break in and ensure an exit strategy. The plans hadn't been that hard to come across; a simple imperius of one of the Curse Breakers, and it was as easy as having Gringotts hand deliver a way into their bank.
Once satisfied, the taller individual looked at the shorter of the pair, "I think we finally have a way in," they said, pleased with themselves.
"So when are we going to do this?" the other asked, starting to get slightly nervous. And the other individual didn't blame them; the repercussions if they got caught were monumental. In fact, it would place everything they've done on hold.
"Two days from now," the first said again. "That is when we strike."