A minute and twenty-three seconds she timed, rushing into her flat. All things considered, Hermione had been more tardy than that before, but she was proud of her punctuality and it always stung her pride a bit when she was late. Before she had the opportunity to beat herself up about it though, a little giggling body was tearing down the small hallway toward her. She crouched down and opened her arms wide just in time to catch Teddy. He screamed in delight when she stood up and hugged him tight, his little hands grabbing at her rain-dampened curls.
"You know, he only ever gets that excited to see you, Hermione," Andromeda said, leaning against the opening to the living room, "I'm a little jealous."
Hermione looked up to see Andromeda's face lit with joy in a warm smile and couldn't help but mirror it as she placed the boy down and kissed his cheek noisily. He responded by scrunching his face and waving his arms around his head like there were bugs around.
"Ewwwww!" Teddy moaned, but quickly recovered as an excited expression took over, "Minny! Minny!" he shouted, running back into the living room.
Hermione had placed her bag down and taken off the rain jacket she had on to shield her from the beginnings of a storm in the brief moments she was outside and not apparating. Moving towards Andromeda, she started to apologise, "I'm so sorry Andy, I was caught up in things today and I had lost track of time and–"
The older woman silenced her with a motherly hug before pulling back, keeping her hands on Hermione's shoulders, "I know how hard your Wednesday's are sweetie, there's no need to apologise. I came early just in case, but now I think Teddy has something he wanted to show you and I should get going." She stepped over to the fireplace and looked back at Hermione, "Does eight work for me to pick him back up?"
"Yes of course, but don't feel rushed. Time flies when I've got this little rascal," Hermione replied, sitting down in front of Teddy and the toys he was playing with.
And time really did fly, or rather, it was Teddy that did. Andromeda had failed to warn her about the miniature broom that Teddy had brought with him, and he had used it to alarming results, both impressive and chaotic.
After a rather terrifying event in which Teddy had fallen from his broom while hovering too close to the ceiling and Hermione had to desperately hold onto reality when a flashback of Harry falling from his broom in third year threatened to stop her from catching Teddy, Hermione had moved him onto other toys for the rest of the afternoon.
Some number blocks, charmed to float around if you put them in the wrong order, entertained him for a while, allowing Hermione to sit back and recover from the scare. She had to applaud herself to some degree for remaining in control, but it scared her knowing that she was so vulnerable to something like that. Vaguely she recalled Anna talking about forcing her to see a therapist. It was moments like these where her trauma could have been a danger to the people she loved that made her want to take Anna up on her offer to introduce her to someone. Unfortunately for the entire wizarding population, it seemed that therapy in the form of an occupation hadn't yet made itself an option for wizards or witches, and Hermione couldn't really spill everything unless it was to another witch or wizard. She tried picturing some of her friends in that sort of position and laughed out loud when she got to Luna, who she figured would either make the best therapist, or the worst one, or maybe both.
Teddy had gotten bored of his blocks finally, crawling over to sit in her lap. He played with her hair and the strings on her sweater for a few moments before yelling her name loudly. Hermione, who wasn't expecting it, jumped slightly and laughed, "Yes Teddy? What is it?"
"Pi–sure! Pi–sure!" he clapped his hands together excitedly, looking at her with wide eyes.
"Okay, okay," she laughed again and stood up with Teddy in her arms. Hermione walked over to her favourite armchair and sat down with the boy in her lap. She reached over to her coffee table and grabbed a photo album with a moving picture framed on the cover which Teddy immediately tried to grab before she could settle back.
"Careful Teddy, we wouldn't want it to get wrecked hm?" Hermione said with a soft smile, watching the boy stare at the three people standing in the cover picture. His hair shifted colours like it always did when he looked at the moving images, going from red to brown to black and back again.
Hermione looked at the photo over Teddy's head, her two best friends and herself smiling back as they stood with their arms around each other, Harry, of course, at the centre, with Ron and her flanking him on either side. Her mind was immediately taken back to the day that it was taken, Harry had taken a beating from a wayward bludger during a practice, and she and Ron were helping to support him on the way to Madam Pomfrey. Colin Creevey had caught them on the lawn right after Ron had told a joke at Malfoy's expense. The result was a smiling Ron supporting Harry's right side who was both laughing and wincing, with Hermione supporting his other side battling her own grin. As the picture looped, she could see herself glancing up to Harry when he winced particularly hard. She tried not to think about the emotion she saw in her own eyes.
Returning her to the present, Teddy's tiny hands started trying to lift the album cover until she helped him flip it to the first page of photos. It wasn't a large book, showing photos from only 6 years, but in her mind it made up the most important parts of her life.
When Andromeda had first cautiously asked her to babysit Teddy, she was going to refuse. She had never considered herself to be any good with kids, growing up an only child and spending most of her life buried in books meant that she hadn't interacted with many kids younger than her. All it took though was overhearing a conversation between Molly and Andromeda about whether or not she should try changing Teddy's godfather to someone else now that Harry was gone. Hermione had immediately blurted out that she would babysit, startling the other two women. She wasn't sure right away why the mention of Harry not being Teddy's godfather made her decide, but thinking about it later brought her to the conclusion that she couldn't imagine a better person than Harry to be in that position for Teddy. Spending more time with him only served to shift her hope in finding Harry from being solely selfish to also including the hope that Teddy would have a chance to meet his amazing godfather someday.
It was that hope that had pushed her to make the photo album. Hermione had tracked down Colin's parents and, after spending some time with them talking about their son, she had asked for any photos that they had so she could put them into a photo album. Mr. and Mrs. Creevey had assumed that she meant she would be making it to give to Harry and they were immediately ecstatic to help her with anything they could. They kept repeating how honoured and happy Colin would be that his photos would be used like this, and saying how Colin had always talked about Harry and his two best friends. Suffice it to say, Hermione had been rather embarrassed and after initially trying to correct them by saying that she wasn't really making it for Harry, she gave up and let them be happy in helping her.
It turned out that Colin had taken a lot more photos than Hermione remembered seeing him take, which worked out well for her now but put her in a sombre mood when she recalled Colin's expulsion from Hogwarts due to his muggleborn status, and his subsequent murder at the hands of the Death Eaters during the Battle. She couldn't help but feel proud at his choice to stand and fight for his future in a world he had only been introduced to a few years prior.
It also turned out that Colin's parents had hit the mark when they assumed she was putting the photos together for Harry, even when she herself hadn't realised it. She had been assembling the photos and sealing them onto the pages with magic, when she found herself writing little notes in the margins for Harry; reminders of when or where the photo was, her thoughts at the time it was taken, or her attempt at a jest she thought he might smile at, all addressed to Harry. When she stopped to finally realise just what she had been doing, she immediately called up Anna on her cell phone and rambled on with a choked voice about missing Harry until Anna had cut in, telling Hermione that she would be at her flat with wine and ice cream as soon as she could. That had been when Anna first started referring to Harry as 'your man' when she spoke to Hermione, much to her chagrin.
Teddy's happy babbling brought her back to the present as he bounced in her lap, giggling and pointing at a moving picture of Harry flying over to the quidditch stands to float in front of the person holding the camera with his mouth moving as he said something. Hermione smiled to herself as she recalled sitting in the stands hearing Harry politely tell Colin to stop taking pictures due to the flash making him think he was seeing the snitch, right before zooming off to catch the snitch only a minute later. This of course never deterred Colin, instead, just forcing him to pursue Professor Flitwick to learn a charm he could put on his camera in order to replace the bulb, removing the flash entirely but magically brightening the photos to still be visible without it.
Teddy flipped the page and focused on another photo, this one from second year following the terrible ordeal with the basilisk. In the moving picture, a young Hermione ran up to Harry, nearly toppling him with her hug while a huge smile covered her face. Looking at the photo, she could recall the intense feeling of pride and happiness she had for Harry, and for herself that through her research and his intuition, he was able to not only kill the basilisk but also save Ginny in the process. She recalled thinking how they made a really great team that year, even if she had been petrified for a while at the time.
The picture moved to show her awkward interaction with Ron, making her smile. Even now she didn't really know why she hadn't hugged him, showing that, even then in their second year, the golden trio was not a triangle with equal sides. She remembered feeling those intense emotions when she first ran in to hug Harry, and then turning to Ron, most of them had faded, leaving about the normal amount of emotion she supposed that one might have after being petrified and coming back alive to see one's budding best friend.
Teddy seemed to like flipping through the pages until he found his favourite photos, usually ones that he could recognize Harry in and almost always ones that included flying on a broom as well. The next one he reached though made both Hermione and Teddy shift in mood, though for Teddy it was unconscious, not knowing why he stilled but still looking transfixed at the moving picture that didn't actually move at all, or at least, didn't seem to. Hermione stilled because she had visited this page more often than the rest of them, with the proof slightly warping the page itself, wrinkled by numerous tear drops wetting the paper.
The photo was simple, only a silhouette of a man sat on a broom, standing out against and staring at the large, pale moon that shone behind him. Hermione knew it was Harry for a couple of reasons, the figure was not far enough away to disguise the shape of glasses in his silhouette, as well as the notorious mess of hair atop his head. She had originally been shocked to find a picture of this in Colin's camera rolls, assuming that she alone had access to the image in her memory, but realised that he must have woken up one night to take a picture of the moon and gotten lucky that his role model wizard was out there as well. Hermione remembered it because it was only the week after returning to Hogwarts for their sixth year, and she noticed that Harry would often stay in the common room well past everyone else only to leave and go flying or for a run, so she had sometimes stayed up to study and watch him out the window to keep an eye on him. She hadn't known how to support him when he wouldn't open up to her so she simply was there for him in the way that she could be by staying up with him and being there when he got back to the common room, often past midnight. She knew he had appreciated it because he never said anything to her, simply sitting down next to her for a minute or two before squeezing her hand and disappearing back up to his room. The reason for the tears though, was the same reason she had stayed up those nights for him, when her heart went out to him as he grieved the loss of Sirius. She knew his summers were never something he looked forward to, his birthday had probably been horrible as well, and only a few months prior, his only hope at someone he could consider real family had died in front of him during their invasion at the Ministry.
This photo was a reminder to all of that, and made her tear up more often than not. This time, seeing Teddy's hair turn black and eyes turn green as he stared at Harry in the pictures almost did her in, but she hugged the boy close to her and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment to gain control. It didn't take too long after that for Teddy to become distracted, sliding off of Hermione's lap to the floor and tottering around her kitchen which she took to indicate that it was probably time to make some food for him.
Sighing and setting the album down on the table, she stepped over to her cupboards to consider their options for food. She knew Anna approved heavily of her babysitting Teddy, as it was one of the few times she would willingly make food and end up eating it, the key factor of course being that she was making it for the boy first, which helped to motivate her.
A short time later, after cleaning up after their dinner, Hermione had Teddy sat down in front of her small telly to watch some cartoons while she got some reading done on the United States. Just like the rest of her investigative trips, she was able to be significantly more efficient if she could understand the culture to some degree, and in some cases, the language as well. If she was going to make a trip soon, she couldn't help spending as much time as she could preparing.
Before she knew it, Andromeda had arrived back through the Floo, thanked her profusely while apologising for disturbing her Wednesday at the same time, and taken Teddy back with promises of seeing her for their weekly lunch tomorrow that happened on Thursdays.
As Hermione padded around her flat, tidying up the mess left behind by her and Teddy, she began talking to Crookshanks who stood on her fireplace mantle and followed her with his eyes wide.
"What do you think Crooks? Could this wandless wizard in America be him?" she said, glancing over her shoulder to peer at him. All the response she got was a slow blink.
"Well I suppose you wouldn't know would you. It's not like you're his best friend who follows him around everywhere and knows how he likes his tea, what sort of person he is when nobody is watching, how he doesn't even picture himself having a family in the future because he thought he would die," she rambled on loudly before slowing down to a mumble at the end, "And I suppose I shouldn't speak about him like I still know him, it has been two years after all."
She realised she had stopped in front of the coffee table with the photo album in her hand, her eyes flicking over the movements on the cover picture.
"You know Crooks, it's not like I chose to let him go," she said waveringly, "I– I would have gone anywhere– done anything–" She had to cover her mouth to stifle a quiet sob. Blinking back tears and taking a deep breath, Hermione focused her eyes on her cat, now presently with his back leg high in the air, giving him access to clean his nether regions with his tongue.
"Well," she said wryly, "at least I know where you stand on the matter."
It wasn't long until she had finished cleaning and gotten herself ready for bed, a quick glance outside showing that the storm had gotten worse, descending from earlier in the day and settling heavy over London, with the drumming of rain against the windows and the deep rumble of thunder in the distance breaking the silence. She stared out of her bedroom window while she brushed her teeth, never quite getting into the habit of doing it magically. She felt like she would be disrespecting her parents if she ever gave up manually cleaning her mouth. Her eyes chased the drops of water down the window pane until her stare caught on the framed picture that was on her bedside table, the only one she hadn't put in the book. It had been taken by Colin after Dumbledore's funeral at the shore of the great lake. Harry had been standing at the edge of it, looking out after he walked away from Ginny and finished talking with Scrimgeour. Hermione had moved to stand next to him after a while and, without a word, they had both put their arm around the other, saying nothing as they looked out across the lake. It had been then when Colin took the picture, and it was the only photo she could find that had just the two of them, together.
Thunder crashed outside, her toothbrush forgotten in her mouth, and the photo moved slightly when both Harry and Hermione had turned their heads to look into each other's eyes before moving back to have their heads facing the lake. It had been such a personal moment that she hadn't been able to put it in the book, but she knew she wanted to see it often, and settled with framing it beside her bed.
Finishing up in the bathroom, she stepped over to her bed only to see Crookshanks pawing at her bedroom door to get out, something that he never did. She moved to open the door and let him out when a sharp knock sounded against her front door, ringing out into her quiet flat. Immediately on her guard, she summoned her wand and crept out to face her front door, casting a homenum revelio to see the outlined shape of a single person on the other side. She almost tripped over Crookshanks lying on the ground as she walked closer to the door, which made her stop. Even when someone as close as Anna had come to her door, Crookshanks always hid in her room until the intruder was confirmed to be friendly.
Crouching down, Hermione heard her cat's soft purring and was in the middle of a thought when another sharp knock caused her to jump back up and point her wand at the door. Putting an immense amount of trust in the instinct of her feline friend, she stood before the door, and wrenched it open, immediately shielding her eyes from the blowing wind and rain that came in from the open-air hallway. When she could open her eyes again, ear-splitting thunder announced a blinding flash of lightning that illuminated the dark silhouetted figure standing at her threshold. Squinting, she tried to make out the figure's face, and what she saw stopped her heart.
"Hermione," Harry breathed.