Life in a Vacant Lot (HP/BtVS gen, PG, 1/1)
Writing fic is a lot more fun than memorizing Contracts or outlining Civil Procedure. Who knew?
Life in a Vacant Lot (1/1)
HP/BtVS gen, PG
Summary: Hermione in exile.
Note: this takes place shortly after annakovsky's All Too Sweet To Last. It's probably a good idea to read that first, or you'll be wondering why Hermione has a skateboard.
***
The Ministry sets her up in a flat near Oxford, just a few upstairs rooms with a flower box and a built-in bookshelf. She buys new clothes and a new skateboard and some geraniums for the flower box and sets the wards and doesn't go back to her old house.
Someone at the Ministry -- or more likely, Dumbledore -- arranges for her to have graduate-level access to the Bodleian, along with giving her the name of a research librarian to contact on her first visit. She makes it as far as the front doors before her guilt about the Hogwarts library overwhelms her, and she turns on her heel and flees. Her hands are still shaking when she gets back to her flat.
She gets a job unloading produce at the greengrocers because they'll pay her under the table and don't ask too many questions. She likes the way her body feels when she's working, lean and powerful and strong, and if she's not sleeping because of the nightmares, well, no one needs to know. After the fifth day of swiping her hair out of her eyes, the wrongness of the color becomes too much and she cuts it all off with the kitchen shears. She gets some curious looks at work the next morning, but she feels lighter somehow and concentrates on unbundling the kale.
It's only after she shows up on time every day for six weeks that the manager bothers to learn her name, but after that, he greets her every morning. He whistles Spice Girls while he's doing the books, and when he pays her he winks and tells her not to spend it all in one place. She catches his worried looks at the way her clothes hang on her, and sometimes he gives her a wrapped plate of biscuits from his wife. When he starts adding a few more pounds to her pay, she takes it without a word. Pride is one thing, but not being beholden to the Ministry is another, and she hasn't touched the money in her ever-replenishing magical safe deposit box for over a month now.
Her new skateboard sits, unused, on one of the empty bookshelves in her flat. Sometimes it catches her eye while she's having tea. She never finishes tea on those days, but she can't quite bring herself to put the skateboard away.
Her arms become toned from work as the months go by, and eventually she stops drawing her wand every time the wind rattles the windowpane at night. Around Christmastime, she gets a job with better hours and better pay behind the counter at the deli across the street. The owner has long dreadlocks and talks to customers about his trip to America in the '60s, but he leaves her alone and pays her in cash and free food. Her old manager comes in for a cold ham sandwich at lunch on Thursdays, and he still brings Hermione biscuits from his wife.
When spring arrives she plants flowers in her window box again. She comes to love the feel of dirt under her fingernails and sweat on her back from physical labor, and she finally begins to understand what Neville saw in herbology: it makes it easy not to think about the rest of your problems. She still carries her wand out of habit, even though she hasn't used it in more than a year. One November morning she forgets to put it in her pocket and doesn't realize it's not there until she's at work, and she spends the rest of the day terrified that an army of Death Eaters will overrun the deli. When the day passes with nothing more sinister than two old women fighting about cheese, she breathes a sigh of relief and vows never to forget her wand again.
Two days later she's running late, and when she returns from work she is shocked to find her wand still sitting on the counter - she hadn't reached for it all day. The next day, and the days after, she leaves it on purpose, and she's always a little surprised to make it home in one piece. It stays on the counter for a while, resting haphazardly among crumpled takeout receipts and stub pencils, until one afternoon she puts it in her nightstand and closes the drawer.
That fall there's a new boy at work who reminds her a little of Harry, but cuter. He smiles broadly and his green eyes crinkle and he finds excuses to bump against her. She ignores him until he doesn't smile at her anymore.
She falls into the rhythm of her days, and they slip by quickly. Years pass and she never hears from the Ministry; she never gets an owl. Sometimes she wonders whether they've forgotten about her or whether Voldemort finally won and killed them all, but she's too afraid of either possibility to find out for herself. So much for Gryffindor bravery -- but she stopped being a Gryffindor on the day she blew up Hogwarts. There are no Gryffindors anymore.
One day the skateboard catches her eye, and this time she swallows her tea without choking. She retrieves it from the shelf, brushes the dust off, and spins one of the wheels experimentally. It's still brand-new except for the dust, and she wonders what it would be like to skate again. Impulsively, she changes into loose jeans and a ratty t-shirt, then looks in the mirror appraisingly. No eyeliner (she doesn't own any) and no punk hair (though she still keeps it short), so she puts on the leather wrist cuff someone from work bought her as a joke and feels a little better.
Her heart thrums with excitement as she carries her skateboard the four blocks to the park where she's seen kids skating. It's late enough in the day no one's around, and she's glad to be free of any curious glances. She wobbles when she steps on the board for the first time, but the feel of it comes back to her quickly, and soon she's zipping along like it hasn't been eight years since she's done this.
After a few circuits around the park she tries an ollie and manages not to fall off, so she does a few more to make sure. The physical part is easy, but along with the muscle memory creeps in the less pleasant kind. The last time she did an ollie was the night her parents died, and now each jump brings its own special stab of pain. Her parents. Ollie. The dark mark floating above her house. Ollie. Obliviating Will. Ollie. Blowing up Hogwarts. Ollie. Dumbledore's look of pity, after. Ollie. Harry. Ollie. The years she hasn't seen Ron. Ollie. She skates on and on, ollie after ollie, until her legs ache and the memories don't and sweat soaks her shirt and stings her eyes.
"You've been doing that for, like, an hour. Don't you know any other tricks?"
Hermione turns to see a girl a little younger than her with long, shiny hair sitting on a nearby picnic table and smoking. The accent is American. Probably a student.
"Pardon me?"
"I said, don't you know any other tricks? 'Cause I think you've got that jump thing down."
"I don't see how that's any business of yours," Hermione says.
"Fine, whatever," the girl says. "I'm just saying you could use some variety, is all. You're pretty good."
"Thanks." The girl is irritating, but Hermione is ready for a break so she takes her board over to the picnic table. "Can I sit down?"
"It's a free country." The girl pauses. "Or maybe they only say that about the States. Do they say that here? Giles never tells me the important stuff."
"Who's Giles?" Hermione asks.
"No one." The girl takes a last drag and viciously stubs out the cigarette, crushing it almost beyond recognition. She laughs at Hermione's wide-eyed stare. "Someone from home," she amends. "He's British. Want a cigarette?"
Hermione wrinkles her nose. "I'd smell gross. Besides, it's bad for you."
The girl rolls her eyes and lights up another. "So, what's with the skateboarding?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you seem a little old for this. And your skateboard looks pretty new. Um, except for that cobweb."
"It's a long story," Hermione mutters, swiping the cobweb from the front truck.
The girl snorts. "They're all long stories. Usually with lots of badness."
All of Hermione's instincts are screaming at her to leave, but there's something about this girl... "I blew up my school," she blurts out. "A long time ago."
To her surprise, the girl just nods as if this piece of news isn't out of the ordinary. "On purpose? My sister did that once. Did yours have a giant snake?"
"No. I mean, yes, there was a giant snake when we were younger, but the last time was just a bunch of De- ...a bunch of people who wanted to kill us," she says. "One of my friends didn't get out in time."
"That sucks," the girl says, and blows a series of smoke rings while Hermione watches, entranced. "Did you win?"
"I don't know," Hermione says, scuffing her toe against the bench. "I thought maybe, but then they came back three months later and murdered my parents, so..."
The girl stares at her. "These people, the ones who tried to kill you. Do they have sort of ... bumpy faces? Or did you only see them at night?"
"They're not vampires," Hermione says. "Just ... people. Evil people."
"Oh. I can't help with non-demonic evil," the girl says dismissively. "Sorry."
"It's okay," she says. "Can I have a cigarette? I changed my mind."
The girl wrinkles her nose. "You'll smell gross, remember? Besides, it's bad for you."
"You're smoking," Hermione points out. "So it's bad for you, too. And I'm sitting next to you, so I'm already getting smelly being damaged by your second-hand smoke."
"That's different."
"Why?"
"I'm magical." The girl takes another drag. "Not real. They're not really bad for me."
"Whatever." Hermione rolls her eyes and picks up her skateboard.
"Go ahead and leave," the girl calls after her. "No one ever believes me anyway."
Hermione stops. "Fine. Convince me. How are you magical?"
"I just am," she says. "It's like Orlando Bloom's antennae. No one knows how they're magical. They just are."
"Orlando Bloom has antennae?" Hermione asks, puzzled.
The girl peers at her. "I thought everyone knew that."
"So you're telling me you're magical because you have antennae."
"Of course not, that would be silly. I'm the Key," she says, gesturing broadly with her cigarette hand.
"What kind of key?"
The girl regards her as if this is the stupidest question in the world. "The kind that opens up dimensional barriers between universes."
Hermione considers this. "Are there other kinds?"
"Nope. I'm the one and only. Well, once I knew this girl Raechyll who thought she was the key to finding celebrities' true life partners."
"Was she?" Hermione asks, sitting down again.
"Dunno. Our town got sucked into a giant pit before I could ask her about Elijah Wood."
They sit in silence for a while, and finally the girl hands her a cigarette. "I'm Dawn," she says.
"Hermione."
"That's a weird name," Dawn says. "Did your parents hate you or something?"
"Don't talk about my parents," Hermione says flatly. She turns the cigarette over and over in her fingers, trying not to think about them. "And besides, who names their kid Dawn?"
"Monks, I guess. It's not like they had a baby name book laying around."
"Monks?"
"I'm not real, remember?"
Hermione elbows Dawn in the ribs. Hard.
"Hey!"
"You feel real enough," Hermione says, grinning.
"I was pure green energy until they made me human," Dawn says primly. "I think I look pretty good considering I'm practically as old as the universe, don't you?" Dawn's smirk makes Hermione want to punch her in the nose.
"Do you really remember that far back?"
"Not really," Dawn says. "I'm trying to find out more about where I came from, but most of the texts have been lost. Plus there's the whole older-than-recorded-language thing. Giles got me access to the secret archives at the Bodleian, but everything good is in Sumerian, and half the time I can't even tell if a source is going to be helpful or not. It's taking me forever to translate."
Hermione gapes. "They have secret archives at the Bodleian?"
"Duh. It's only the most comprehensive archive of magical texts in existence."
"What kinds of volumes do they have? How many?" The words tumble out quickly, and Hermione feels a rising excitement that hasn't been there since Hogwarts. If the Bodleian had secret magical archives, then maybe that was why Dumbledore went to the trouble of getting her access, rather than handing her a so-sorry-your-parents-were-killed-and-you-blew-up-the-school-why-don't-you-read-a-book-instead consolation prize.
"Why do you care?" Dawn says. "You don't even believe I'm magical."
"There was a big library at my school," she says impatiently. "A magical one. Everything was lost." Her thoughts are still racing -- was she meant to have been working on finding a way to defeat Voldemort all this time? And if so, why hadn't someone gotten in contact with her to check on her progress? She briefly wonders if this means she's destined to be the Saviour of the Wizarding World, returning from her years in exile with the One Great Spell to Defeat You-Know-Who, and if that means--
"You blew up Hogwarts?"
She doesn't have any warning when Dawn punches her in the shoulder hard enough to make her teeth rattle.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Hermione yelps, clutching her arm.
"The only known copy of The Key of the Otherworld was in that library. It would have been nice to have had it when a Hellgod was trying to carve me up and feed me to the universe, but no, you had to go and blow it up."
Hermione's wand hand twitches. Eight years living with Muggles doesn't mean she's forgotten how to cast expecto gastropodia, and for the first time in years she regrets not carrying -- if she had, Dawn would be covered in slugs by now. That would be a beautiful thing.
Instead, she opts for what is undoubtedly one of the worst ideas of her life (other than that time she kissed Harry, which... ew). "I could come with you, you know. To the library. Translation spells aren't perfect, but it would make your research go a lot faster if you narrowed down your sources first," she says, wondering what the hell is wrong with her that she would sacrifice her day off to help this weird Muggle.
Dawn must think so, too, because her eyes narrow. "Why are you offering to help me? Do you want to blow that library up, too?"
"No," Hermione says. "I want to make amends. And I remember how hard it was to do research until I learned the translation spells." It isn't until she says it that she realizes it's true. She can't spend the rest of her life totally avoiding books, can she?
"Fine," Dawn says. "Tomorrow morning in front of the Old Bodleian entrance? Nine o'clock? The only way they'll let you in is if you're with me."
"Okay," Hermione says.
Dawn stubs out the rest of her cigarette and flicks the butt onto the grass, where the skateboard apparently catches her eye. "Hey," she says, "can you teach me how to use that thing?"
"I guess," Hermione says, tucking her cigarette behind her ear the way she'd seen it done by the kids from home. She tries to feel badass, but without the peroxided hair she knows it doesn't quite work. On the other hand, knowing that Dawn will be leaving the park with skinned knees and hands makes her smile.
"What?" Dawn says. "Why are you smiling?"
Hermione grins as she pictures Dawn falling on her ass. It's not slugs, but it'll do. "No reason," she says. "C'mon, it's easy. Stand on the board like this..."
*
After going so long without it, her wand feels bulky in her back pocket when Hermione arrives at the entrance of the Old Bodleian. Dawn is already waiting for her, standing there smoking with her hip jutting out and trying, Hermione is sure, to look as rebellious as possible. Whatever. Dawn smiles and waves when she sees her approaching.
"You look awfully chipper this morning," Hermione says.
Dawn puts out her cigarette, then shrugs and grins. "That's because I didn't go to sleep. It's easier just to skip the whole nasty getting-out-of-bed part."
"How're your knees and hands?" Hermione asks. "You got pretty banged up last night."
Dawn winces as she pulls up her jeans to show Hermione the scrapes. Everything has been cleaned, but the scratches are deep and look like they'll take a while to heal, and Hermione feels an unexpected surge of sympathy.
"My jeans are ruined and I don't think I've been this sore since we blew up Sunnydale," Dawn says. "You'd think it'd get easier by now, but it pretty much still sucks."
"I fell down all the time at first. If you want, I can fix those for you. They'll still be tender for a couple of days, but at least you won't have to worry about reopening them."
Dawn's nod seems somewhat skeptical, but Hermione is undeterred. She glances around to make sure that no one is watching, then quickly murmurs the spell, getting rid of a bruise on Dawn's elbow for good measure. "How's that?" she asks when she's done.
"Wow, you weren't kidding," Dawn says, examining her now-healed knees before stretching her limbs experimentally. "I can barely feel anything at all. Um, except for my arms and legs, I mean."
"Orlando Bloom's not the only one who's magical," Hermione says.
"If you're this good at fixing me, I can't wait to see what happens with the Sumerian." Dawn grins again. "All set?"
Hermione nods, then takes a deep breath as they enter the library. The books are not glaring at me, she thinks. The books are not glaring at me. She follows Dawn through several corridors and down a few twisty flights of stairs that wouldn't have been out of place in Hogwarts, and finally they arrive at the end of a narrow, dimly-lit hallway. Hermione touches her wand for reassurance, though Dawn does not seem at all intimidated by her surroundings. At the end of the hallway a cavernous desk looms beside impossibly large wooden doors. Behind the desk, a shriveled old woman hunches over a ledger.
"Name?" the woman says to Dawn upon their approach.
Her voice makes Hermione shudder, and she blinks a few times. This woman looks exactly like an older, wrinklier Madam Pince, though she doesn't seem to recognize Hermione.
"Dawn Summers."
The woman stares suspiciously at Dawn before examining the ledger and nodding. "Proceed."
Breathing a sigh of relief, Hermione moves to follow when the woman's icy hand clamps around her wrist.
"Name?" she repeats, addressing Hermione.
"She's with me," Dawn says quickly. "She's my... research assistant! To help with translating."
"No guests," the woman says. "Only persons authorized by the Council may enter. There is a reason these archives have remained secret, Miss Summers, and that is because our patrons do not speak about this place to those without access."
Dawn looks at Hermione despairingly. "I'm sorry..."
"No, go ahead," Hermione says, taking a few steps back and breathing a sigh of relief when not-Madam Pince releases her wrist. "It was a long shot anyway. I'll see you arou-- hang on. What if ... oh!"
"What?" Dawn asks.
Hermione turns to the woman. "Hermione Granger," she says.
The woman glares up at her, then stares down at the ledger. Her skeletal hand moves slowly over entry after entry as she methodically works her way backwards through the book.
"What are you doing?" Dawn whispers. "They'll only let you in if you're--"
"--Authorized!" the not-Madam Pince says. Her smile somehow manages to be more sinister than her glare. "Welcome, Miss Granger. We've been expecting you for quite a long while."
"Thank you, ma'am," Hermione says.
"You may proceed," the woman says. "And Miss Granger, I trust that detonating your school's library will be enough for one lifetime and that you will not attempt any incendiary magic within the confines of these archives, no matter what the provocation. Am I clear?"
"Yes, ma'am," Hermione says, aware that Dawn is staring at her. "Sorry, ma'am."
"Hmmm," is the only response from not-Madam Pince, who returns to her ledger as if they are no longer in the room.
"Last night you didn't know this place existed!" Dawn hisses as they walk toward the doors. "How did you get your name on the list? More magic?"
"Not magic," Hermione whispers. "A hunch. They gave me access to the library when I moved here, but I didn't know why until last night."
"And why is that?" Dawn whispers, tugging on the massive door, which opens silently, and stepping inside.
"I think I'm meant to save the Wizarding World," Hermione says in a low voice, following her.
Dawn quirks an eyebrow at her and opens her mouth to speak, but she's cut off by someone inside the reading room.
"Oh, do shut up, Granger," comes a disdainful voice. "Some people are trying to do research."
That voice... Forgetting Dawn entirely, Hermione rounds the corner and stops short. He's older, of course, and no longer looks like a schoolboy, but even surrounded by piles of manuscripts there's no mistaking the blond hair and pointy face.
"Malfoy," she says, surprised at how much viciousness she can still pour into that single word.
"Granger," he says neutrally. "It's about bloody time you showed up."
***
a/n: For annakovsky, who taught Hermione how to skate, and lalejandra, just because. This idea for this particular story began when circe_tigana asked existential questions, which just goes to show how dangerous they can be.
Life in a Vacant Lot (1/1)
HP/BtVS gen, PG
Summary: Hermione in exile.
Note: this takes place shortly after annakovsky's All Too Sweet To Last. It's probably a good idea to read that first, or you'll be wondering why Hermione has a skateboard.
***
The Ministry sets her up in a flat near Oxford, just a few upstairs rooms with a flower box and a built-in bookshelf. She buys new clothes and a new skateboard and some geraniums for the flower box and sets the wards and doesn't go back to her old house.
Someone at the Ministry -- or more likely, Dumbledore -- arranges for her to have graduate-level access to the Bodleian, along with giving her the name of a research librarian to contact on her first visit. She makes it as far as the front doors before her guilt about the Hogwarts library overwhelms her, and she turns on her heel and flees. Her hands are still shaking when she gets back to her flat.
She gets a job unloading produce at the greengrocers because they'll pay her under the table and don't ask too many questions. She likes the way her body feels when she's working, lean and powerful and strong, and if she's not sleeping because of the nightmares, well, no one needs to know. After the fifth day of swiping her hair out of her eyes, the wrongness of the color becomes too much and she cuts it all off with the kitchen shears. She gets some curious looks at work the next morning, but she feels lighter somehow and concentrates on unbundling the kale.
It's only after she shows up on time every day for six weeks that the manager bothers to learn her name, but after that, he greets her every morning. He whistles Spice Girls while he's doing the books, and when he pays her he winks and tells her not to spend it all in one place. She catches his worried looks at the way her clothes hang on her, and sometimes he gives her a wrapped plate of biscuits from his wife. When he starts adding a few more pounds to her pay, she takes it without a word. Pride is one thing, but not being beholden to the Ministry is another, and she hasn't touched the money in her ever-replenishing magical safe deposit box for over a month now.
Her new skateboard sits, unused, on one of the empty bookshelves in her flat. Sometimes it catches her eye while she's having tea. She never finishes tea on those days, but she can't quite bring herself to put the skateboard away.
Her arms become toned from work as the months go by, and eventually she stops drawing her wand every time the wind rattles the windowpane at night. Around Christmastime, she gets a job with better hours and better pay behind the counter at the deli across the street. The owner has long dreadlocks and talks to customers about his trip to America in the '60s, but he leaves her alone and pays her in cash and free food. Her old manager comes in for a cold ham sandwich at lunch on Thursdays, and he still brings Hermione biscuits from his wife.
When spring arrives she plants flowers in her window box again. She comes to love the feel of dirt under her fingernails and sweat on her back from physical labor, and she finally begins to understand what Neville saw in herbology: it makes it easy not to think about the rest of your problems. She still carries her wand out of habit, even though she hasn't used it in more than a year. One November morning she forgets to put it in her pocket and doesn't realize it's not there until she's at work, and she spends the rest of the day terrified that an army of Death Eaters will overrun the deli. When the day passes with nothing more sinister than two old women fighting about cheese, she breathes a sigh of relief and vows never to forget her wand again.
Two days later she's running late, and when she returns from work she is shocked to find her wand still sitting on the counter - she hadn't reached for it all day. The next day, and the days after, she leaves it on purpose, and she's always a little surprised to make it home in one piece. It stays on the counter for a while, resting haphazardly among crumpled takeout receipts and stub pencils, until one afternoon she puts it in her nightstand and closes the drawer.
That fall there's a new boy at work who reminds her a little of Harry, but cuter. He smiles broadly and his green eyes crinkle and he finds excuses to bump against her. She ignores him until he doesn't smile at her anymore.
She falls into the rhythm of her days, and they slip by quickly. Years pass and she never hears from the Ministry; she never gets an owl. Sometimes she wonders whether they've forgotten about her or whether Voldemort finally won and killed them all, but she's too afraid of either possibility to find out for herself. So much for Gryffindor bravery -- but she stopped being a Gryffindor on the day she blew up Hogwarts. There are no Gryffindors anymore.
One day the skateboard catches her eye, and this time she swallows her tea without choking. She retrieves it from the shelf, brushes the dust off, and spins one of the wheels experimentally. It's still brand-new except for the dust, and she wonders what it would be like to skate again. Impulsively, she changes into loose jeans and a ratty t-shirt, then looks in the mirror appraisingly. No eyeliner (she doesn't own any) and no punk hair (though she still keeps it short), so she puts on the leather wrist cuff someone from work bought her as a joke and feels a little better.
Her heart thrums with excitement as she carries her skateboard the four blocks to the park where she's seen kids skating. It's late enough in the day no one's around, and she's glad to be free of any curious glances. She wobbles when she steps on the board for the first time, but the feel of it comes back to her quickly, and soon she's zipping along like it hasn't been eight years since she's done this.
After a few circuits around the park she tries an ollie and manages not to fall off, so she does a few more to make sure. The physical part is easy, but along with the muscle memory creeps in the less pleasant kind. The last time she did an ollie was the night her parents died, and now each jump brings its own special stab of pain. Her parents. Ollie. The dark mark floating above her house. Ollie. Obliviating Will. Ollie. Blowing up Hogwarts. Ollie. Dumbledore's look of pity, after. Ollie. Harry. Ollie. The years she hasn't seen Ron. Ollie. She skates on and on, ollie after ollie, until her legs ache and the memories don't and sweat soaks her shirt and stings her eyes.
"You've been doing that for, like, an hour. Don't you know any other tricks?"
Hermione turns to see a girl a little younger than her with long, shiny hair sitting on a nearby picnic table and smoking. The accent is American. Probably a student.
"Pardon me?"
"I said, don't you know any other tricks? 'Cause I think you've got that jump thing down."
"I don't see how that's any business of yours," Hermione says.
"Fine, whatever," the girl says. "I'm just saying you could use some variety, is all. You're pretty good."
"Thanks." The girl is irritating, but Hermione is ready for a break so she takes her board over to the picnic table. "Can I sit down?"
"It's a free country." The girl pauses. "Or maybe they only say that about the States. Do they say that here? Giles never tells me the important stuff."
"Who's Giles?" Hermione asks.
"No one." The girl takes a last drag and viciously stubs out the cigarette, crushing it almost beyond recognition. She laughs at Hermione's wide-eyed stare. "Someone from home," she amends. "He's British. Want a cigarette?"
Hermione wrinkles her nose. "I'd smell gross. Besides, it's bad for you."
The girl rolls her eyes and lights up another. "So, what's with the skateboarding?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you seem a little old for this. And your skateboard looks pretty new. Um, except for that cobweb."
"It's a long story," Hermione mutters, swiping the cobweb from the front truck.
The girl snorts. "They're all long stories. Usually with lots of badness."
All of Hermione's instincts are screaming at her to leave, but there's something about this girl... "I blew up my school," she blurts out. "A long time ago."
To her surprise, the girl just nods as if this piece of news isn't out of the ordinary. "On purpose? My sister did that once. Did yours have a giant snake?"
"No. I mean, yes, there was a giant snake when we were younger, but the last time was just a bunch of De- ...a bunch of people who wanted to kill us," she says. "One of my friends didn't get out in time."
"That sucks," the girl says, and blows a series of smoke rings while Hermione watches, entranced. "Did you win?"
"I don't know," Hermione says, scuffing her toe against the bench. "I thought maybe, but then they came back three months later and murdered my parents, so..."
The girl stares at her. "These people, the ones who tried to kill you. Do they have sort of ... bumpy faces? Or did you only see them at night?"
"They're not vampires," Hermione says. "Just ... people. Evil people."
"Oh. I can't help with non-demonic evil," the girl says dismissively. "Sorry."
"It's okay," she says. "Can I have a cigarette? I changed my mind."
The girl wrinkles her nose. "You'll smell gross, remember? Besides, it's bad for you."
"You're smoking," Hermione points out. "So it's bad for you, too. And I'm sitting next to you, so I'm already getting smelly being damaged by your second-hand smoke."
"That's different."
"Why?"
"I'm magical." The girl takes another drag. "Not real. They're not really bad for me."
"Whatever." Hermione rolls her eyes and picks up her skateboard.
"Go ahead and leave," the girl calls after her. "No one ever believes me anyway."
Hermione stops. "Fine. Convince me. How are you magical?"
"I just am," she says. "It's like Orlando Bloom's antennae. No one knows how they're magical. They just are."
"Orlando Bloom has antennae?" Hermione asks, puzzled.
The girl peers at her. "I thought everyone knew that."
"So you're telling me you're magical because you have antennae."
"Of course not, that would be silly. I'm the Key," she says, gesturing broadly with her cigarette hand.
"What kind of key?"
The girl regards her as if this is the stupidest question in the world. "The kind that opens up dimensional barriers between universes."
Hermione considers this. "Are there other kinds?"
"Nope. I'm the one and only. Well, once I knew this girl Raechyll who thought she was the key to finding celebrities' true life partners."
"Was she?" Hermione asks, sitting down again.
"Dunno. Our town got sucked into a giant pit before I could ask her about Elijah Wood."
They sit in silence for a while, and finally the girl hands her a cigarette. "I'm Dawn," she says.
"Hermione."
"That's a weird name," Dawn says. "Did your parents hate you or something?"
"Don't talk about my parents," Hermione says flatly. She turns the cigarette over and over in her fingers, trying not to think about them. "And besides, who names their kid Dawn?"
"Monks, I guess. It's not like they had a baby name book laying around."
"Monks?"
"I'm not real, remember?"
Hermione elbows Dawn in the ribs. Hard.
"Hey!"
"You feel real enough," Hermione says, grinning.
"I was pure green energy until they made me human," Dawn says primly. "I think I look pretty good considering I'm practically as old as the universe, don't you?" Dawn's smirk makes Hermione want to punch her in the nose.
"Do you really remember that far back?"
"Not really," Dawn says. "I'm trying to find out more about where I came from, but most of the texts have been lost. Plus there's the whole older-than-recorded-language thing. Giles got me access to the secret archives at the Bodleian, but everything good is in Sumerian, and half the time I can't even tell if a source is going to be helpful or not. It's taking me forever to translate."
Hermione gapes. "They have secret archives at the Bodleian?"
"Duh. It's only the most comprehensive archive of magical texts in existence."
"What kinds of volumes do they have? How many?" The words tumble out quickly, and Hermione feels a rising excitement that hasn't been there since Hogwarts. If the Bodleian had secret magical archives, then maybe that was why Dumbledore went to the trouble of getting her access, rather than handing her a so-sorry-your-parents-were-killed-and-you-blew-up-the-school-why-don't-you-read-a-book-instead consolation prize.
"Why do you care?" Dawn says. "You don't even believe I'm magical."
"There was a big library at my school," she says impatiently. "A magical one. Everything was lost." Her thoughts are still racing -- was she meant to have been working on finding a way to defeat Voldemort all this time? And if so, why hadn't someone gotten in contact with her to check on her progress? She briefly wonders if this means she's destined to be the Saviour of the Wizarding World, returning from her years in exile with the One Great Spell to Defeat You-Know-Who, and if that means--
"You blew up Hogwarts?"
She doesn't have any warning when Dawn punches her in the shoulder hard enough to make her teeth rattle.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Hermione yelps, clutching her arm.
"The only known copy of The Key of the Otherworld was in that library. It would have been nice to have had it when a Hellgod was trying to carve me up and feed me to the universe, but no, you had to go and blow it up."
Hermione's wand hand twitches. Eight years living with Muggles doesn't mean she's forgotten how to cast expecto gastropodia, and for the first time in years she regrets not carrying -- if she had, Dawn would be covered in slugs by now. That would be a beautiful thing.
Instead, she opts for what is undoubtedly one of the worst ideas of her life (other than that time she kissed Harry, which... ew). "I could come with you, you know. To the library. Translation spells aren't perfect, but it would make your research go a lot faster if you narrowed down your sources first," she says, wondering what the hell is wrong with her that she would sacrifice her day off to help this weird Muggle.
Dawn must think so, too, because her eyes narrow. "Why are you offering to help me? Do you want to blow that library up, too?"
"No," Hermione says. "I want to make amends. And I remember how hard it was to do research until I learned the translation spells." It isn't until she says it that she realizes it's true. She can't spend the rest of her life totally avoiding books, can she?
"Fine," Dawn says. "Tomorrow morning in front of the Old Bodleian entrance? Nine o'clock? The only way they'll let you in is if you're with me."
"Okay," Hermione says.
Dawn stubs out the rest of her cigarette and flicks the butt onto the grass, where the skateboard apparently catches her eye. "Hey," she says, "can you teach me how to use that thing?"
"I guess," Hermione says, tucking her cigarette behind her ear the way she'd seen it done by the kids from home. She tries to feel badass, but without the peroxided hair she knows it doesn't quite work. On the other hand, knowing that Dawn will be leaving the park with skinned knees and hands makes her smile.
"What?" Dawn says. "Why are you smiling?"
Hermione grins as she pictures Dawn falling on her ass. It's not slugs, but it'll do. "No reason," she says. "C'mon, it's easy. Stand on the board like this..."
*
After going so long without it, her wand feels bulky in her back pocket when Hermione arrives at the entrance of the Old Bodleian. Dawn is already waiting for her, standing there smoking with her hip jutting out and trying, Hermione is sure, to look as rebellious as possible. Whatever. Dawn smiles and waves when she sees her approaching.
"You look awfully chipper this morning," Hermione says.
Dawn puts out her cigarette, then shrugs and grins. "That's because I didn't go to sleep. It's easier just to skip the whole nasty getting-out-of-bed part."
"How're your knees and hands?" Hermione asks. "You got pretty banged up last night."
Dawn winces as she pulls up her jeans to show Hermione the scrapes. Everything has been cleaned, but the scratches are deep and look like they'll take a while to heal, and Hermione feels an unexpected surge of sympathy.
"My jeans are ruined and I don't think I've been this sore since we blew up Sunnydale," Dawn says. "You'd think it'd get easier by now, but it pretty much still sucks."
"I fell down all the time at first. If you want, I can fix those for you. They'll still be tender for a couple of days, but at least you won't have to worry about reopening them."
Dawn's nod seems somewhat skeptical, but Hermione is undeterred. She glances around to make sure that no one is watching, then quickly murmurs the spell, getting rid of a bruise on Dawn's elbow for good measure. "How's that?" she asks when she's done.
"Wow, you weren't kidding," Dawn says, examining her now-healed knees before stretching her limbs experimentally. "I can barely feel anything at all. Um, except for my arms and legs, I mean."
"Orlando Bloom's not the only one who's magical," Hermione says.
"If you're this good at fixing me, I can't wait to see what happens with the Sumerian." Dawn grins again. "All set?"
Hermione nods, then takes a deep breath as they enter the library. The books are not glaring at me, she thinks. The books are not glaring at me. She follows Dawn through several corridors and down a few twisty flights of stairs that wouldn't have been out of place in Hogwarts, and finally they arrive at the end of a narrow, dimly-lit hallway. Hermione touches her wand for reassurance, though Dawn does not seem at all intimidated by her surroundings. At the end of the hallway a cavernous desk looms beside impossibly large wooden doors. Behind the desk, a shriveled old woman hunches over a ledger.
"Name?" the woman says to Dawn upon their approach.
Her voice makes Hermione shudder, and she blinks a few times. This woman looks exactly like an older, wrinklier Madam Pince, though she doesn't seem to recognize Hermione.
"Dawn Summers."
The woman stares suspiciously at Dawn before examining the ledger and nodding. "Proceed."
Breathing a sigh of relief, Hermione moves to follow when the woman's icy hand clamps around her wrist.
"Name?" she repeats, addressing Hermione.
"She's with me," Dawn says quickly. "She's my... research assistant! To help with translating."
"No guests," the woman says. "Only persons authorized by the Council may enter. There is a reason these archives have remained secret, Miss Summers, and that is because our patrons do not speak about this place to those without access."
Dawn looks at Hermione despairingly. "I'm sorry..."
"No, go ahead," Hermione says, taking a few steps back and breathing a sigh of relief when not-Madam Pince releases her wrist. "It was a long shot anyway. I'll see you arou-- hang on. What if ... oh!"
"What?" Dawn asks.
Hermione turns to the woman. "Hermione Granger," she says.
The woman glares up at her, then stares down at the ledger. Her skeletal hand moves slowly over entry after entry as she methodically works her way backwards through the book.
"What are you doing?" Dawn whispers. "They'll only let you in if you're--"
"--Authorized!" the not-Madam Pince says. Her smile somehow manages to be more sinister than her glare. "Welcome, Miss Granger. We've been expecting you for quite a long while."
"Thank you, ma'am," Hermione says.
"You may proceed," the woman says. "And Miss Granger, I trust that detonating your school's library will be enough for one lifetime and that you will not attempt any incendiary magic within the confines of these archives, no matter what the provocation. Am I clear?"
"Yes, ma'am," Hermione says, aware that Dawn is staring at her. "Sorry, ma'am."
"Hmmm," is the only response from not-Madam Pince, who returns to her ledger as if they are no longer in the room.
"Last night you didn't know this place existed!" Dawn hisses as they walk toward the doors. "How did you get your name on the list? More magic?"
"Not magic," Hermione whispers. "A hunch. They gave me access to the library when I moved here, but I didn't know why until last night."
"And why is that?" Dawn whispers, tugging on the massive door, which opens silently, and stepping inside.
"I think I'm meant to save the Wizarding World," Hermione says in a low voice, following her.
Dawn quirks an eyebrow at her and opens her mouth to speak, but she's cut off by someone inside the reading room.
"Oh, do shut up, Granger," comes a disdainful voice. "Some people are trying to do research."
That voice... Forgetting Dawn entirely, Hermione rounds the corner and stops short. He's older, of course, and no longer looks like a schoolboy, but even surrounded by piles of manuscripts there's no mistaking the blond hair and pointy face.
"Malfoy," she says, surprised at how much viciousness she can still pour into that single word.
"Granger," he says neutrally. "It's about bloody time you showed up."
***
a/n: For annakovsky, who taught Hermione how to skate, and lalejandra, just because. This idea for this particular story began when circe_tigana asked existential questions, which just goes to show how dangerous they can be.