She didn't really mean for Ron to be the beginning. But soon enough, she realizes that he is. It's not until she's brought a basil and strawberry sponge cake to Neville Longbottom and his new girlfriend, Hannah Abbott, a dozen rhubarb hand-pies to Luna and Xenophilius Lovegood, and another basket of ganache-covered muffins to Dean and Seamus, that Hermione admits to herself what she's actually doing: she's making a thing of this. She's intentionally, methodically visiting everyone who fought and suffered in that damned War. Anyone who lost someone, or was hurt, or had to hurt someone else. Anyone who served a cause they believed in – or didn't – and survived. It's a veritable PTSD tour. With pastries. And hand-skimmed clotted cream. And she has no idea why she's doing it, but it's becoming very apparent that she is.
So she admits that much to herself – the existence of her PTSD Pastry Tour – and then refuses to think any further about its meaning, or how long it will last, or why cooking seems so central to the mission. Her work at the Ministry keeps her more than busy during the week, so the pastry visits are relegated to Saturdays. Each Saturday brings a new visit or two, and just as many new confections.
After Dean and Seamus, Hermione visits Andromeda Tonks. For the older witch, it's a banana pudding and whipped-cream trifle, topped with homemade vanilla wafers that Teddy Lupin picks off one by one to pop into his tiny mouth.
Next, Kingsley Shacklebolt and his new wife devour an entire orange blossom honeycake, decorated with candied rose petals in the shape of a heart. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil share a flat and therefore an offering of mango lassi ice cream, which scoops nicely onto dried lavender biscotti. Lavender particularly likes the ice cream, which she says feels cool against the still-healing werewolf bite on her throat. Padma, unfortunately, gets a smaller version of this dish the next week, and Hermione assuages her own guilt with the fact that the twins always seemed to have the same taste in boys and desserts.
Lee Jordan gets a platter of Turkish Delight, Ernie Macmillan a tray of fudge, and Cho Chang a rich custard with freshly macerated blueberries. Hermione presents Dennis Creevey (who is still wan and listless when he opens the door of his parents' house) with a warm, gooey banoffee pie that smells so rich, even in its container, that the boy actually giggles. Katie Bell, Terry Boot, Michael Corner, Anthony Goldstein: every member of the D.A. receives some decadent treat, created during the wee hours of the morning in Hermione's kitchen. Cormac McLaggen, however, gets a relatively bland mincemeat pie, and she pretends to "accidentally" dodge his thank-you hug.
For Madam Rosmerta it's a rum cake, obviously. Hermione gives Hagrid the largest pumpkin pie she could possibly make in her standard-sized oven, and he still finishes it in two bites. Headmistress McGonagall eats her éclair with a controlled kind of zest and then tells Hermione to call her "Minerva" from now on. This makes Hermione cry, which in turn makes Minerva…well, sniffle wetly. Before she leaves Hogwarts that day, Hermione hands Irma Pince some quince-paste scones. And finally, she leaves a note and a plate of Earl Grey-infused biscuits at the door of Sybil Trelawney's empty classroom, thanking all the gods she's ever read about that the Divination professor didn't foresee that afternoon's visitor.
It's only after finishing with this litany of friends, each of whom is shifting into an "acquaintance" as adulthood approaches, that Hermione can stomach the harder visits.
First, she portkeys to Bill and Fleur's lovely flat in Paris. The three of them spend the afternoon eating cardamom teacakes and ogling Muggle ultrasound images that show the tiniest smudge of the first Weasley grandchild. In Romania with Charlie, Hermione eats a chocolate-covered marshmallow on the run, darting from dragon pen to dragon pen and gasping aloud when he toasts his mallow in the fire from a Welsh Green. Charlie's arm hair is singed and the chocolate has melted literally everywhere, but he claims it tastes better this way and she almost believes him. Her visit to Percy is far more perfunctory: an exchange of pleasantries and lemon-curd shortbread. A goodbye with a promise to chat soon, both of them knowing that what "chat" really means is saying "hello" from time to time in the Ministry halls.
Her day at the Burrow is probably the hardest. Hermione stays almost twelve hours, during which she, Molly, and Arthur cry into their salted caramel bread pudding at various intervals. Harry and Ginny attend for a long while, as does Ron. It's the most relaxed she has felt in his presence in months.
The trip to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes is hard, too, in a different way. At first George seems manic, refusing to rest but instead dragging Hermione from gadget to gadget, displaying his newest inventions. Finally, when the front doors are shuttered for the night and she's transfigured two Exploding Snap crates into comfortable wingback chairs, he agrees to sit and eat the first savory thing she's ever made. The quiche stands over seven centimetres tall, surrounded by a flaky, gold crust and filled with goat cheese, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, and loads of ham. George actually moans after the first bite. Before they've each finished a second slice, he's laughed at least eight times and sniffled once. Unlike his parents, he doesn't fully cry. But when Hermione leaves, he clutches her hand so hard her knuckles pop.
The weekend after George, she stays home and decidedly out of her kitchen. But her downtime feels restless, and dammit, she knows why. This isn't over; not really. Because, by Merlin, she's Hermione Granger, and she's already committed to visiting everyone on this PTSD Pastry Tour. Even the unpleasant characters.
Sitting in her squishiest reading chair with a cup of her favorite tea, Hermione asks herself why she saved these people for last. Why she didn't just start with the baddies, and then move on to better and brighter. Taking a contemplative sip, she reasons that it's similar to why she always studied her favorite subjects first at Hogwarts: there's just more fun in the things that please you. Even if those things are Ancient Runes or cathartic quasi-therapy sessions over tear-soaked sponge cakes.
On the other hand, she might have waited because this next set of people will require more from her, if they willingly open their doors at all. They're basically pariahs in the brave new Wizarding world – pariahs whose assets have been seized or parents jailed; who've faced any number of other horrible consequences that come with being on the losing side of a war. Needless to say, these people will be work. Perhaps she needed the previous visits to mend her own heart before she attempted to soothe theirs.
Or…maybe she just waited because these particular people were prejudiced jackasses in the past, and she intentionally took this long to hone her baking skills so that they resemble the sharpsharpsharp knives she now wields. Metaphorically slicing through her old enemies with pie, as it were.
Ultimately, it doesn't really matter why she waited. She's going through with this part of the Tour, regardless.
For self-preservation purposes, Hermione decides to start easy. Marietta Edgecombe gets a jar of berry compote and a mumbled "Sorry about those marks on your forehead." Which, admittedly, is probably more than Marietta deserves, since she wasn't even at the final battle. Rita Skeeter finds an anonymous basket of saffron-poached pears on her desk at the Daily Prophet – pears that may or may not also contain the tiniest infusion of Veritaserum.
Next, wand tucked very securely within reach, Hermione takes on Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott. The first receives an apricot crostata, the other a tin of macarons. Both men are perfectly civil to her, if extremely confused. They each give her polite nods and uncomfortable acknowledgments of the treats.
But in the most perplexing response to this Tour yet, Theodore Nott actually invites her inside his near-empty manor for tea. He obviously has no idea why she's there – with pistachio macarons, no less – but his impeccable pureblood breeding seems to override his better judgement. And so he sits through the first half of their ordeal looking utterly lost, making small talk until Hermione finally takes pity on him and tells him why she's come.
"PTSD?" he asks, obviously unfamiliar with the term.
She explains it to him and, as she talks, understanding begins to dawn on his face. Then to her surprise, Theodore Nott starts to talk as well.
He tells her about his mother's accident when he was five, and his crazy Death Eater father, and his own refusal to take the Dark Mark. He tells her about his favorite food at Hogwarts – pistachio pudding, incidentally – and pick-up Quidditch matches over the gardens of Malfoy Manor when he was a child, and how he wishes everything could just go back to the way it was before. Hermione tells him that she agrees, so very much, but they can't go back. And maybe that will turn out to be a good thing, someday.
"Maybe," he says.
"Maybe," she insists.
You could knock Hermione down with a feather when Theodore Nott actually hugs her goodbye. But when he tells her that he'd like to grab a pint together, she believes him. They set a time for the upcoming Wednesday after work and by Merlin, he's there, with Blaise and Pansy Parkinson in tow.
As Hermione suspected, Pansy is all black silk and grey fur and toothy snarls. More often than not, any inroad Hermione makes with her is shortly followed by a feral "Piss off, Granger." Despite all that, Hermione pulls out the rather large (and only slightly ironically entitled) box of peanut brittle that she'd been saving for Pansy. By the time the pints transition into tumblers of firewhisky, Pansy has finished half the box of brittle herself. And when Hermione encounters her at Madame Malkin's the following Sunday, Pansy manages a slight nod. It's not much, but Hermione knows that small head-tilt probably took more effort on Pansy's part than all the "Piss offs" did. So it's not nothing, either.
Hermione waits two weeks before the next stop on her PTSD Pastry Tour, which requires less strength of will than she originally thought it would.
Gregory Goyle's flat is in a seedier part of Wizarding London, above a dingy apothecary and a place that sells magically never-ending buckets of chips. Goyle answers on her sixth knock, pulling back the door only a few centimetres. Even through that small crack, Hermione can see that he's wearing track pants and a stained white tank – a far cry from his pressed Slytherin robes. She tries her very, very best not to grin.
"What do you want?" he asks, after an appropriately uncomfortable silence.
She holds up a large parcel, wrapped in black ribbon. "I've brought you a Black Forest Cake."
Black for your heart, she adds in her head.
Goyle scowls, an expression that seems more uncertain than it does hateful. "Why?"
"Well, I'm trying this whole thing, you see. Reconciliation. Through baked goods and sweets. It's…well, it's kind of a thing."
"Recon—what?"
Hermione is about to explain herself further, when another voice from inside the flat cuts her short.
"Greg, who's there?"
From around Goyle's sizable bulk, Millicent Bulstrode peeks out with watery, suspicion-filled eyes.
"What does she want?" Millicent addresses Goyle without taking those narrowed eyes off Hermione.
Likewise, Goyle keeps his own gaze on Hermione as he lifts one massive shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. "She said she wants recon—reconcise—"
"Reconciliation," Hermione offers, lifting the box again. "And maybe healing. In the form of chocolate cake."
Millicent emits an unflattering, piggish snort, but she still reaches around Goyle – her flatmate? boyfriend? – to take the cake out of Hermione's hands.
"Consider us reconciled, then," she growls, before shoving Goyle out of the way and shutting the door in Hermione's face.
After a beat, Hermione tells the splintered wood, "That actually went far better than I'd planned." Then, with a small giggle, she Disapparates back to her own flat for a much-needed break.
And take a break she does, for over two months. She doesn't sit idle during that time, however, and not just because it's already the Christmas holidays. In addition to working and shopping and spending time with her – finally, finally – un-Obliviated parents, Hermione is busy practicing. Because Merlin knows, for her next and final visit, she's going to need to be prepared.
It's during this time that she meets Harry and Ginny four times for dinner, Ron three times for tea at the office, and Theodore Nott twice for after-work drinks. In her head, he's become "Theo" now, and she introduces him to a handsome clerk named Erik from the Ministry. After his and Erik's first date, Theo sends her a bottle of food-grade rosewater and a note that says:
"Maybe" you were right.
Hermione also receives another, wholly unexpected note from Millicent Goyle, née Bulstrode, thanking her for the cake. Below Millicent's pert handwriting is a single, sloppily scrawled line:
Best bloody thing I've ever eaten.
These are all good things. Very good things. But Hermione can't let them distract her from the task at hand. So for ten straight weeks, Hermione plows through every tricky recipe she can find, from panna cotta to soufflé to baklava. She tries French delicacies and Indonesian desserts and things that she can't even pronounce with a phonetic guide.
By the time she feels fully prepared, she's confident she could apply for an internship as a pastry chef anywhere in the city. But on the morning of her final visit of the PTSD Pastry Tour, she doesn't fill her cakebox with mille-feuilles or baumkuchen or chestnut cream-topped mont blancs. Instead, she packs something far simpler. Something she suspects will be flung back into her face, possibly quite literally.
Just in case, she decides to wear a waterproof trench over her mauve jumper, wool skirt, and thick tights. It's late February, she chides herself as she dresses. This coat isn't nearly warm enough. And yet she can't seem to rid herself of the precaution. She wraps a bright purple scarf around her neck, takes three long, calming breaths over the cakebox, and Apparates somewhere she once hoped never to see again.