Disclaimer: Anything you recognize is not mine. This is just for fun. I've tried to be detailed enough that you can see my vision, but vague enough that you can use your imagination too. I might include a song list after the final chapter, but the songs I've used for inspiration are not from the early 2000's when this fic is set. Again, this is just for fun. Any mistakes are my own. I hope you like it!
"We have a problem," Hermione said as she exited the floo, dropping a stack of muggle tabloids and newspapers across the lap of her best friend as she went.
"We?" asked Harry, grunting when the corner of a magazine hit the right spot the wrong way.
Hermione pinned him with her best you're-joking-right? glare, mixed with a dash of you're-not-really-that-stupid-Harry-James-Potter. He clicked the telly off and gestured for her to sit on the lounge beside him, visions of a lazy day off disappearing with the green floo flames.
"Yes, we. I'm in every single one of these," she gestured to the pile that her friend was slowly beginning to browse, "and it's only a matter of time before someone catches on, and then less time again before you're ambushed."
"Honestly Hermione, it's a bloody miracle that nobody's found out already. How long did you really think you'd be able to pull off a double life? Especially after the last tour."
"It's not a miracle Harry," she sighed, rubbing her hand along the small, almost invisible tattoo behind her ear. She'd spent her entire eighth year at Hogwarts studying ancient ruins and their practical uses, coming up with a nifty way to guard a personal secret. A big personal secret.
"Yeah, yeah," he huffed, eyes flicking quickly from the magazines, to her and then back again. "So why the sudden increase in attention? There must be a dozen rags here."
"It's the tour - international this time. Starting here in London and finishing up three weeks later in LA. Yes -" she cut off his obvious sound of surprise, barely glancing at his wide eyes and shocked expression before continuing. "I know I've never toured at home but I couldn't put it off any longer without people asking uncomfortable questions. The dates and locations were released ages ago, but with the first gig coming up and my arrival yesterday… well," she huffed. "I normally wouldn't be concerned about the stupid media but at least half of these photos show my tattoo, and you know that the moment a witch or wizard sees it they'll know."
Hermione was pinching the bridge of her nose, frustrated beyond belief. Her ruin was designed to hide her identity. Oh, she'd still look and sound like herself, but if anyone stumbled across her on stage, they'd just think that she was familiar somehow - that they must've seen her somewhere before - but would never be able to quite put their finger on it. Once someone had seen the little bit of black ink they'd be able to make the connection. It was almost like the innocent little tattoo was scrambling the mental links of recognition - like hearing static on the radio right when the host introduced the next artist.
She was extremely private for a celebrity. She was rarely spotted out - the marvels of being a modern day witch meant that she could easily fly under the radar - but working entirely with muggles meant that she couldn't just disappear all the time. To avoid suspicion she had no choice but to be seen by the public; the odd luncheon or dinner outing, putting fuel in the car, or shopping with her stylist were really the only times she was seen in public unless she was at the airport or on the stage. Unfortunately for her, when she arrived at Heathrow just yesterday morning a fan had posted a picture online of her "new" tattoo (that wasn't actually new, but was usually hidden beneath her mane of unruly curls that for some idiotic reason she'd braided back for the flight), which had then been picked up by the tabloids and was now gracing the covers of every damnable newspaper and magazine in the country.
Honestly she still wasn't sure why people cared so much about every little thing she did, what she wore or who she was seen with. She was just a normal person. A normal person who happened to be ridiculously successful in her chosen field, but still.
Harry stared at his longest friend, his best friend, suddenly extremely grateful that she'd told him her plan before she'd boarded her first flight to the USA after finally finishing at Hogwarts. They'd fought, oh how they'd fought, but in the end he couldn't imagine not being there for her after everything he'd dragged her through.
You see, Hermione Granger had lied about her background. Harry understood why - after all, the best way to keep a secret was to tell no one - but when she'd dropped the bomb on him while packing up her private dorm after the graduation ceremony he'd been livid. It had taken him a solid two days to pull his head out of his arse and get his priorities in order, but come on! It was a doozy.
Hermione's parents had never been dentists. She'd never been from a middle class family living in the outskirts of London. She hadn't modified their memories and sent them to Australia during the war, like she'd told the Order. No, her mother was a successful script writer in the muggle world, writing music, plays, television and movies for the upper echelons of Hollywood. And her father was an equally successful music producer.
When the war had really kicked off, Hermione had encouraged her Dad to take a new producing job in the United States - she was at Hogwarts for most of the year anyway, and it was a natural "next step" in his career. Mum could write from anywhere, but Dad needed to take that opportunity, lest it never come around again. It was the perfect plan really. If anyone from the Order had been interrogated, or if the information had somehow been leaked, the other side would have been sent on a wild goose chase looking for two married dentists in Australia. Smart - at least Hermione thought so.
Harry felt stupid for never investigating his friend's personal life, for never really taking much of an interest. Granted, he'd had other things on his mind - a psychotic megalomaniac to be precise - but still. He had a guilt complex for sure. For her part, Hermione had been warned against telling her friends who her parents were for most of her life. Her parents knew what kids could be like when they discovered a friend had serious money - envy could turn into bullying, but it could also make Hermione vulnerable to others' true intentions. They didn't want her to be used. So, for as long as she could remember, she told other kids that her parents were dentists. Dentists made good money, so it easily explained why she had new everything, why she never invited people over - long hours in the clinic, see - and why they went on overseas trips twice a year. When she went to Hogwarts, it was natural for her to keep the story she'd been telling for years.
So, when the end of her seventh year had rolled around and her parents were expecting Hermione to join them in the States, she'd simply told them that she wanted to take a gap year before moving, and so the ruse continued. To her parents, she was travelling the UK with her friends and spending days playing tourist and nights busking in busy pubs; to everyone in the wizarding world, she was the "Brightest Witch of Her Age", studying to take her NEWTs before she'd get any job she wanted in the Ministry of Magic and before long they assumed she'd be running the joint.
When Harry had offered to help her take her things to Grimmauld Place after graduation, Hermione had told him that she wouldn't be moving in with him, as she'd sent off a demo and had been signed to a record label in LA. She was taking the red-eye out of Heathrow in a week and needed to check on her parent's bloody mansion before she left. When he'd gaped like a guppy out of water the truth had come pouring out of her and, well, his brain had exploded.
Hermione Granger had no intention of becoming another cog in the machine. She was tired, emotional, scarred from war and more than ready for a real change of scenery. She and Ron had fallen apart mid-way through her last year, and the break up hadn't been easy. It had ended up being a blessing in disguise, as most of her first album was made up of songs that she'd written about him, but even that was coming back to bite her in the arse now wasn't it?
"So let me get this straight - I'm still the only one who knows about you?"
"Yes."
"And you're playing here in London in what, twelve?" at her nod, "twelve days time."
"At the O2, yes. Two nights in a row."
"At which time possibly every muggleborn and half-blood in the country will catch on, which means the wizarding media will catch on, which means you'll be well and truly exposed."
"Yes, Harry. Thank you for spelling that out."
Silence reigned.
Biting her nails down to the quick, Hermione glanced distractedly at Harry, his eyes looking at a particularly unflattering photo of her climbing into a dark SUV at the airport while not actually seeing. That was his deep thinking face - a slight crease in his brow, eyes focused but far away at the same time, slight movement in his angled jaw. He really had grown up.
"Are you still seeing Malfoy?" he asked out of the blue.
She choked on her spit. "What? N-no - I mean, what would make you ask that?"
"Come on Hermione, he's my partner, I know these things."
She sighed, rolling her eyes as she divulged, "No. He wanted to go public and I didn't. He couldn't understand why," her voice dropped to a mumble, "not that I gave him a real reason of course."
Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. He and Hermione had skirted around each other during their eighth year at Hogwarts. Civil and almost painfully polite to one another after his family's war efforts came to light. After the fiasco in the Department of Mysteries in fifth year and Lucius' subsequent imprisonment, the whole family had defected against the Dark Lord. It had come out in the trials that Lucius, Narcissa and their son had been passing information to Severus Snape throughout the final two years of the war.
As a past Death Eater, Lucius had been drawn back into the war after Voldemort's return at the end of Hermione's fourth year, but after the fight in the DoM he hadn't wanted a bar of it. Fighting children? No thanks. It was one thing to want to preserve magical traditions - pureblood traditions - which is the goal that the Dark Lord had used to recruit the older generation of his followers in the past. It was a totally different thing to be executing children. Magic was magic. No, he didn't want muggleborns and half-bloods waltzing into the magical world and desecrating centuries-old traditions and practices, but he certainly didn't see the point in spilling magical blood over it, pure or not.
Narcissa had never been a marked follower, nor even a follower of Voldemort's ideals in the most basic sense ever since he'd tried to kill a baby. An innocent baby who'd barely lived at all. Her son had been around the same age and as a new mother she had been horrified by the entire thing. She had been beyond relieved when the Dark Lord disappeared, and then inconsolable upon his return. She liked to think that her severe disgust and disapproval of Voldemort's ideals and methods had helped to sway her husband to defect. Any lingering doubt Lucius had felt had been diminished during his stay in Azkaban. A holiday, it was not.
Draco'd had a harder time of it, what with being forcibly drafted into the Death Eaters as a punishment to his father. Given an impossible task, despite Severus' reassurances that he needn't worry, he'd thought for sure he would die. He almost did, many times. It would have been easier to go along with the Dark Lord, albeit soul destroying. It would have even been easier to openly defect - run away from home, hole up in one of his family's many estates somewhere until it was all over. But he had known that he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he had to watch from afar while people died unnecessary deaths. Not to mention his parents would have been the first ones to go, as punishment for running. So he'd taken the path that was right, and decidedly not easy, and had turned into something of a spy - informant, Snape had called him. Later, after graduation, he had become the first Malfoy to ever be accepted into the Auror Corp, and had partnered with Harry Potter (the new Minister's idea - to show acceptance and progress) and hadn't looked back.
Due to Harry and Malfoy being partners at work, they naturally spent a lot of time together and became surprisingly fast friends. No, really - it was downright shocking. A side effect of their friendship was Hermione finding herself in Malfoy's company more and more often, until all of a sudden, he was Draco and she was Hermione. And they were kissing. Regularly.
"It wouldn't have worked out anyway," she waved a hand dismissively before shoving her thumb nail back between her teeth.
"Why not? He seemed to think it would. He really likes - liked? - you, y'know."
"I don't know what he told you, Harry, but he has a bloody betrothal agreement! I know he said he didn't want it and was looking for a way out - and he thought that us going public would do that - but really, we all know that those old contracts don't have loopholes. They have to be agreed upon by the patriarch of the family and can usually only be dissolved that way too. There's no way his father would allow it."
"But -" Harry had an update on that front. One that Hermione did not allow him to finish.
"No, Harry. It wasn't just that anyway. I wasn't ready for everyone to know about my job, and if we went public in our world we would've had to go public in the muggle one too and there's no way he'd be okay with that. He already hated me living in LA. Only visiting for a few days each month. My schedule is just too packed," she rambled, barely taking a breath. "Besides, betrothed or not, do you really think that Lucius Malfoy would be okay with his son dating a muggleborn? I know he says 'magic is magic', he's been quoted saying that so many times you'd think he was the next Merlin! But you can't honestly believe that he'd dissolve a pureblood marriage contract that's been in place for the last twenty-something years just so his son can go gallivanting around the world with his muggleborn girlfriend."
"But -"
"And Draco doesn't even know about me! He's going to hate me when he finds out and any trust we had built will be gone. And I know that it's my fault but I just wasn't ready. I'm still not! I don't want the entire world to know. Each world has been an escape from the other. When things get too crazy on one side, I can slip into the other and while I know that they're two sides of the same coin, it's still different."
She was panting at this point. Actually panting in her rant.
"So no, we're not seeing each other anymore. And there's no point bringing it up again because even if I wanted to get back together with him, there's too much standing in our way and I don't have the time or energy to fight for something that he probably doesn't even want long term. It's been over six months anyway, he's probably moved on by now. It's fine."
Hermione sat, red-faced and breathing heavily while she blinked back stupid tears that she didn't even realize had formed until now.
Until: "Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?"
"I'm really sorry Harry," came the sad whisper a short while later. "Will you be okay?"
Harry sighed heavily, resting his head against the back of the worn couch. Ginny wanted to replace it but Harry refused. It was soft in the right places and it would take years to break in another couch like this.
"At the end of the day, it's not my secret to tell Hermione." He rolled his head to face her at the other end of the lounge. "Gin'll be pissed. Hell, the whole family will probably be pissed. Except George. And Charlie. And maybe Bill and Fleur," he mused. "Actually I reckon you'll be fine with everyone except for Ron and Molly. I love them, but they just won't understand."
"I'll explain to Ginny."
"And Ron? Molly?"
"No. I don't owe them anything, Harry. They were awful to me when Ron and I broke up. Ron, I understand. But Molly didn't need to stick her nose in it."
"He's her son -"
"Who was an of-age adult when we split, Harry," Hermione persisted, shaking her head. "He could've told her to stay out of it but he didn't. He said some really terrible things to me Harry and while I've moved on from it, I don't owe him anything. The only thing I'm worried about is the fallout from you having known this whole time."
Harry stayed silent for a minute. Two. Three.
"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it," he stated. "I think the only way to handle this whole thing is to get it over with. Rip it off like a bandaid. Send passes to anyone you don't want to find out through the press. Opening night is probably best - before the Prophet gets hold of it."
"It wouldn't work unless they've seen the ruin."
"So I'll print out a picture and show it to everyone who shows up?" he suggested, shrugging his shoulders like it was no big deal. "Send the tickets to me and I'll hand them out to the usual gang, and I'll break it to Gin beforehand too, that way it's not as shocking as seeing you up there on the night. Less chance of her causing a scene then yeah?" he tilted his head to the side, thinking. "Actually why not get your agent to set up a section for us? I can organize some wizarding security through the Corp just in case, and just let it play out how it's going to play out. There's no real point worrying over it."
"Really Harry? Really? You're going to tell me not to worry?" Hermione laughed slightly manically. "It's going to be a disaster." She flopped backwards over the arm of the sofa, letting her head hang back as she stared at a spot on the ceiling.
"Well, the alternative is letting it out via the press. At least this way you have some control."
"This is as good as it's going to get, isn't it?"
"Yep."
That evening, tucked up in her penthouse suite in muggle London, Hermione sent an email to her agent requesting an obscene number of tickets (in comparison to the usual pair for her parents, that is) and her instructions to rope off a section behind the paying VIPs for her attendees. She was sure this was a terrible plan, but honestly, she didn't have any better ideas.