Chapter 3

What color is sweat? Is it silver? Translucent tinted with blue like a glass pane? It's like rain, she supposed.

Hermione Granger was running and this was the thought going through her mind. Color being what it was, it was often a singular thought in her life. She had taken up jogging in an attempt to clear her mind but she often found herself contemplating hues throughout the nature that she saw on the park path she ran along the banks of the Thames. They inspired her work and motivated her towards the beauty she sought.

Her hair, a curly mess that she had given up on taming long ago, bounced behind her as she pounded down the riverside path. She jogged on, her normal path coming to an end ahead of her. She chose to run through the Royal Botanical Gardens as the colors of the world were vibrant there. Coupled with the sounds from the river, she was able to lose herself easily each time out. She slowed her pace, having covered the kilometers she was hopeful to get in before the start of her day.

Her apartment was a good distance from the trail and she had to be careful. It's not that she felt unsafe, but rather that she lived amongst muggles and had to be smart about her outward displays of magic. Casting a subtle Homenum Revelio and finding herself alone, she apparated on the spot.

With a quiet pop, she arrived in her apartment. The sunlight was streaming in through the windows of her third floor walkup, warming every inch of the studio space. Hermione liked to think that she didn't live like some fanciful Bohemian artist but looking around, she couldn't but help to think on the contrary. Paints, ingredients, canvases, smocks, drop clothes, study samples, and art books cluttered the landscape. Her clothes were strewn about with dishes and cups cluttering spaces around the room.

Where once she prided herself on her neat and meticulous nature, now she finds order in chaos. She prefers the clutter and spontaneity that her life has afforded her. Truth be told, eighteen year old Hermione would have been aghast at the state of her life. In that same truth, though, much had changed since she left Hogwarts the night of the battle. For God's sake, she was a runner now! Who would ever imagine that? Certainly not either of the boys she had counted as her best friends.

Men, now, she reminds herself. She tried to not be remorseful towards her actions taken that night. In the end, things had worked out well for her. Her new lifestyle was satisfying, if not lonely at times. While Harry and Ron had been at her side through thick and mostly through thin, they were a memory now. Not the present and certainly not the future. She had written them when she left, that she hoped that their paths might cross and, while that remained true, she was frightened of that day. Worried with how they would look at her, the friend who had abandoned them. Who had been gone while they moved on with their lives, achieving and growing. She tried as best she could to follow their exploits in the Daily Prophet, but she knew to take all of that with a grain of salt. The validity of the paper's claim that Harry had stepped down from his post as an auror was particularly surprising. Maybe even intriguing...

Shaking her head, she pulled away from her thoughts and considered her day. She couldn't muddy her mind with that nonsense, especially with much to do and so little time left to do it. She disrobed from her sweaty exercise outfit, showered, and settled on a simple tank top and shorts for her day. She made her way to her kitchenette, petting Crookshanks along her way. Her only companion these days, as her bed was most often empty and friends were few and far between.

But then, her friends these days were of a different nature.

Settling on a quick breakfast of granola, she turned to the work at hand. On her easel was a work in progress, a canvas with a figure, the space around him to be filled and finalized. She takes it all in and considers her next stroke. Raising her spoon to her mouth with one last bite, she hums, a familiar tune coming out.

"Really, Hermione," she hears. "This song again?"

"Quiet, Pavel," Hermione scolds her subject. "I thought you, of all people, would like Chopin."

"To play, yes", her subject replied. "But seeing that I am but a painting now, a memory in the company of an artist, it only makes me wistful."

Hermione placed her bowl and spoon down, picking up her magical brush. She prepared her paint, choosing a dark red to work with today. Sangria, if she recalls the hue correctly.

"Well, then. Let's see how far we get today, Pavel."