Hermione Granger and the Year Hidden from Hogwarts
Harry Potter Fanfiction
Chapter 6
March 12th, 1986
Hermione huffed in frustration, tossing down the antique pocket watch with little care.
"Hermione Jean!" Dad called out, affronted. "You can't be stroppy at not achieving that psycho-symmetry thing on your first go. It's only been two months."
Hermione sighed. "It's psychometry, Daddy, and I mastered that last month."
Interest piqued, he brought his mug of coffee over and sat at the table, picking up a lace handkerchief. "Really? What did you get from this?"
"Old lady, Ambicus Horatius."
"Unfortunate name, that."
"Her husband had it custom made for her in the early nineteen hundreds, and she treasured it as a momentum of his love until the day she died."
Her dad's face softened, and his eyes misted. "That's so…beautiful."
"Yes. Of course, I complimented Dr. Hampton on MI5's cleaning skills."
He sniffed and tore his eyes from the delicate cloth on the tip of his finger. "Why's that?"
"Well, she was an elderly widowed woman that died of a heart attack alone in her home. The neighbors called in a smell complaint before anyone realized—"
Dr. Granger's eyes had rounded with horror before he dropped the monogrammed hanky as if it'd spontaneously combusted. "Okay, okay! I get the picture."
He sat there for a moment more before he released a full-bodied shiver. "I think I need to wash my hands."
"But I already told you how well they cleaned—"
"Let it go, Tootsie Pants," her dad parried before turning and leaning back against the counter. "Did you really see all that just by touching it?"
Hermione shrugged. "The stronger memories were from when she was alive, so I was spared a lot of the gorier stages of post-mortem decomp—"
Dr. Granger closed his eyes and raised a hand as if see no evil, hear no evil were a thing. "Right, right. So those parts were…what, blurry?"
"Yes, I guess you could say that, but faded might be a more apt descriptor. Muted, even."
Her dad gave her a deadpanned look. "Hermione, bug, you're splitting hairs again. Remember we talked about—"
Hermione folded her arms and glared at the table. "Right, my being 'precocious.'"
"Now, now, your teacher said that, not us, and you're the one that came to us for advice about that. If you'll recall, I said I liked you just the way you are. Remember?"
Hermione sighed, pushing around a thimble. "Yes, but it really is better for me to learn. I know now that it's not just my peers in school being immature if the adults think it too. And a fair share of the ghosts. I could do with a little more…tact."
Her dad reclaimed his seat, reaching for his coffee, spotting how close the handkerchief had landed next to his mug, and seemed to change his mind, swallowing thickly. "Well, self-improvement and introspection are never a bad thing, pookie. In fact, some of the best philosophers got their start that way," he joked.
Hermione didn't smile, staring down at the grain of the wooden table as if committing it to memory.
He sighed. "If you're not upset about this psy-comedy—"
"Now I know you're butchering it on purpose."
Dr. Granger grinned. "But you still want to correct me."
Hermione bit her lip before she huffed under her breath, "Psychometry."
He pointed at her. "Heard that. Listen, bean—"
"What's with all the nicknames?" Hermione blurted.
"I was trying some on for size. You said I'm not allowed to call you Tootsie Pants anymore."
"It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't feel compelled to tell every Jane, Dick, and Harry the story behind it, Daddy."
Her dad snickered into his hand before he could restrain himself, but at her stern pout, he straightened. "Right. Of course, you're a growing girl. How about a compromise then. I'll call you Tootsie, and the story can be a secret just between us. Okay?"
Hermione considered the offer, working through different scenarios before setting her jaw and nodding. She stuck her hand out for a shake. "Deal."
"Nah, Tootsie, this one outranks a handshake." He held out his pinkie, and she returned the favor, her small digit unable to fully wrap around her father's.
"Thank you, Daddy."
"My pleasure. So, now that we've sworn sacred oaths, all before your mother's even finished her shower, how about you tell me what's really bothering you?"
"Klaus crossed over last night," Hermione mumbled, tears welling in her eyes.
Dr. Granger blinked. "What? How do you know?"
"Because he told me, and then I saw him disappear into a white light."
A frown had pulled down her father's brows. "Yesterday? But yesterday was Sunday. We didn't go to—he was here? At the house?"
Hermione matched his alarmed expression with one of confusion. "Yes? Didn't I tell you about it? He'd learned how to leave the facility last month. How do you think my German improved so fast?"
"No, you certainly did not! I think I'd remember hearing you tell me about a cute boy being in your bedroom!"
"He was four—"
"Two months shy of five! Charlie told me so!"
"Good heavens," her mum complained as she entered the kitchen. "What's with all this yelling? I could hear your voices three floors up."
"Yes, did you know our daughter has had a boy in her bedroom for the last month—"
Her mum spit up her sip of tea. "I-I beg your pardon?"
Hermione burst into tears. "Oh, Mummy, it was terrible!" she wailed, throwing herself into her mother's arms. "Klaus passed on!"
Her mother hugged her, even as she shot a scathing, "Oh, honestly, Richard! A boy? Hermione said he was four years old," over her daughter's curly bush of hair. "There, there, Hermione. It'll be okay."
"No, it won't! Who's going to be my friend now?"
Her mum's hug grew stilted. "Hermione, dear, you told us you were making friends at your primary school. Is that not true?"
Hermione sniffed. "It wasn't not true. Klaus had been following me there. We talked during recess." Hermione's tears grew and spilled over once more. "Oh mummy!"
Dr. Granger sighed and patted her daughter's back. "Just let it out, dear. That's a girl."
"He was my only friend."
"Tootsie, Klaus deserved to be at peace. It would be hard to see the living and be constantly reminded that you were no longer of this world. He's probably in a better place now."
Hermione's cries slowed because that was true. When the light had engulfed him, it hadn't seemed malevolent. In fact, she'd gotten the distinct feeling of peace.
Sensing he'd soothed her fears and pain, he said, "See? Only a really selfish friend would want someone to suffer just so they didn't have to be lonely. You'll make new friends."
"I-I suppose."
Her mum patted her hair one more time before fetching her a tissue, since old Ambicus's hanky would definitely be out of the question. Despite her assurances to her father that the post-mortem flashes had been brief, it'd still been more than enough to ensure she kept her distance.
"I-I-I d-don't even have a picture to remember him by."
"How about we see if Dr. Hampton has one on file?" her dad tossed out.
"Really?" Hermione asked. "Do you think he would?"
"I wouldn't know why not," her mum agreed. "They keep meticulous records, and they would've documented the ghost they'd captured and your interactions with him."
She threw herself back into her mother's arms. "Oh, that's brilliant!"
"Hey," her father protested. "It was my idea, Tootsie!"
"Now, Richard. No one likes a credit hog. Hermione, why don't you run upstairs and get dressed."
"But school doesn't start for another hour. I still have time."
"No, I know better. You're like your dad, stubborn and willing to worry at an old bone for hours once you set your mind to it."
"B-But," she whispered, "what about school?"
"You'll find that some things are more important than school, dear."
Yeah, losing a friend, even if he'd been two years younger than her and dad had loved giving her a hard time about him being a boy, despite seeing him as a lost, little brother, was more important than whatever number sense they'd be learning in reception today. She'd been able to do simple arithmetic since she was Klaus's age, so really, she wouldn't be missing anything but suffering through tears of boredom in silence now that Klaus wouldn't be there to distract her.
Oh, Klaus.
His sad blue eyes always held a haunted look about them, even when he'd smiled, but lately, he'd seemed to glow brighter. She should've seen the signs well before he'd sat her down and told her goodbye.
And maybe she had.
Maybe she'd just wanted to live in denial that she could ever lose him.
It turned out that Dr. Hampton didn't have any pictures of the boy, but he had an entire box of belongings neatly labeled in a storage box. Apparently, he used them to see if psychics could get readings off them, but he'd never tested her with them, despite the long line of trinkets he'd been having her assess.
"I carefully vetted the ones you're exposed to. You're still so young, Hermione," he'd explained.
That sentence didn't make much sense to her until she began picking the items up, looking for one infused with a happy memory, only to be assaulted with violent images that made her eyes water.
"Hermione," her mum and dad intoned, both stepping forward with concern clear on their faces.
"No," she choked out, recalling how they'd warned her that his dad must have been one of the "not nice" adults.
Oh how grossly they'd misrepresented that, especially after she flinched as she relived receiving a black eye while holding a moth-bitten shirt of Klaus's.
Although, maybe they'd just been trying to tell her the truth in a way that her six-year-old mind could comprehend. They had to have known the extent of it. She should have too.
Klaus had ended up as a ghost somehow, after all.
There weren't many items left in the box, and, wary of being exposed to something else horrific, she switched to her otherworldly eyesight.
The items glowed a violent red, except for something small and round. In this vision, she couldn't make out much detail, so she blinked again, bringing the shape of a small shark tooth necklace into focus.
Lifting it from the box, she could see a clearer pink color. When she closed her eyes and concentrated, she got flashes of a beautiful young woman, probably his mom, putting this necklace on him when the family had visited the beach—their only vacation. Klaus's blue eyes reflected the happy waves of the sun sparkling in a million refracted lights.
She'd never seen him so vibrant.
"This one. Can I have this?" she asked through her tears, blinking back to normal from one moment to the next.
Dr. Hampton's thickened grey eyebrows softened. "Of course, Hermione. Of course."
October 8th, 1986
"Are you sure there's no other way?" her mum checked for the sixth time in the last half hour as Ms. Walters had explained.
"No, I wouldn't have even offered it as a possibility if I didn't think the police had absolutely any other leads they could follow. They've hit a dead end, and you know how time-sensitive child abductions are."
Dad placed his hand in Mum's, and both their eyes traveled in my direction.
"She's only six," Mum whispered, looking torn.
"Seven, Mum."
Ms. Walker was already nodding in understanding. "Yes, we understand, but this was found in the alley. There's a good chance that it'll have a memory of her abductor, but since the lab techs found no other evidence of… DNA, then there shouldn't be anything too extreme to upset your daughter."
"A young girl has been abducted, and she has to hear about it and, at best, witness the event. That's quite a traumatic thing you're asking of our daughter here, so don't try to downplay it, Ms. Walker," Mum bit back.
Hermione's chair was pulled back and swung around to face her dad who wore an uncharacteristic mien of seriousness. "Do you understand what Ms. Walker is asking you to do, sweetie?"
Hermione nodded, her fingers drifting up to Klaus's necklace around her throat, getting a faint echo of the happiness that radiated from the object. "Yes, daddy."
"And you know that it's okay to say no if you're scared, right?"
She nodded. "I—I want to help."
Fifteen short minutes later, and she gave a detailed description to the sketch artist, and two hours after that, Marlene Kit had been found and returned home to her family, alive and well.
She was shaken, but unharmed for the most part, and Hermione had a big hand in making that happen.
It felt good, incredible, even. It was a win after she'd struggled with the loss of Klaus off and on for months.
That was when Hermione began pushing herself during her times in the lab with a new level of fervor. She wanted to use her skills to help the living.