Talking Meme: Adult Hermione Headcanons!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HERMIONE!!
(Technically, a little bit belated, just as I am technically a little belated in posting this on the 19th. However, it's still the 19th in all the other U.S. time zones.)
upupa_epops requested Adult Hermione Headcanons, which was so much fun.
+ After Kingsley Shacklebolt becomes headmaster, Hermione makes sure that he offers the house-elves the same wages that Dumbledore did. The majority might refuse and disdain the idea, but she ensures that they at least have a choice in the matter.
+ After finding her parents and before returning to Hogwarts to do seventh year and take her N.E.W.T.s, Hermione takes a short sabbatical from the wizarding world to reconnect with her parents. She can't cut herself off completely from the wizarding world, of course, not right after the war (and what would Ron and Harry do without her?), so she still sends/receives owls, but she limits her communication to just close friends and professors. She spends the summer visiting her extended family and taking care of her parents, helping them readjust to their lives and trying to be the daughter they (finally) remember.
+ She introduces her children and nieces and nephews to all her favorite muggle movies growing up, and whenever something Big and Exciting comes to the cinema in the summer, she gives them the option of going.
+ She guest lectures at Muggle Studies classes.
+ She and Viktor Krum keep up regular correspondence (well, this is technically soft canon, if you take JKR's word, which I do), and she attends his wedding in Bulgaria. Ron is very grumpy about it, until she reminds him that Krum getting married means he definitely is not interested in her.
+ Unpopular Opinion: You know that JKR interview with Emma Watson about Hermione and Ron needing couples therapy that stirred all the controversy a few months back? Welp, I totally buy it. I'm too much of a romantic to think that Hermione and Ron would ever divorce, but I would absolutely believe that they had marital problems worthy of therapy. I never fully bought their romance, especially in the later books; I love Ron dearly, but he can be a huge jackass, and I really don't think his level of sensitivity/maturity is, well, evolved enough for them to sustain a relationship? Don't get me wrong, I love Ron, he is my third favorite character because he's Ron, but I was always very uncomfortable with the viciousness with which he treated Harry and Hermione when he was mad at them (GoF/DH and PoA/HBP, respectively). And Hermione is not the most patient/understanding person when it comes to humor/dicking around, even inoffensively. I think at its most basic, my problem boils down to: they seem like they're meant to fulfill the "opposites attract" trope, but I rarely felt like we saw how they reached a happy medium between their extremely different personalities. Since the books are from Harry's POV and we're not privy to their relationship outside of him, I give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it was more functional off-screen (especially in OotP when Harry is depressed and not being a very good friend).
What I'm trying to say is, I have no problem head-cannoning that Hermione and Ron have marital problems. I think it's really telling that even 19 years in the future, Ron apparently lies to her (when he admits to Harry that he Confunded the muggle driving examiner); now I've never been married, but I'm prettttty sure that's not a healthy sign.
+ At the end of the day, Hermione and Ron love each other and work through their issues.
+ So Rose and Scorpius should totally be a thing y/y? Because there's nothing funnier than the thought of Ron and Draco being forced to shared grandchildren and continuing to try to hex each other even when they're decrepit 120-year-olds, y/y?
When Hermione learns that Rose has befriend Malfoy's son, warning bells go off in her head, but she believes in not blaming the son for the sins of the father too much to tell Rosie not to see him anymore. She keeps as close an eye on the friendship as she can while they're at Hogwarts (Neville gets many a would-be-casual query in their letters), and she tells Ron that he's not to try to prejudice Rose against Scorpius.
When Neville writes Hermione that he saw Rose and Scorpius holding hands in the hall outside class, she feels a swooping sensation in her stomach and her heart leaps into her throat. The rug stays under her, though; after a moment, she realizes that somehow, part of her always knew this was going to happen. At that moment, Hermione makes a vow to herself that no matter how much she dislikes Malfoy, she'll never hold what he did to her against his innocent son.
When Rose nervously introduces Scorpius to her parents, Hermione tries to be as friendly and welcoming as can be. Thoughts of how Molly welcomed Hermione into the Burrow are never far from her mind. She coaxes, reasons with, and threatens Ron and Harry into behaving themselves around Scorpius as well. They do, grudgingly (Harry with a little more graciousness). Hermione also takes it upon herself to invite Astoria to lunch, the first step in building a fragile bridge between the older generation. They meet in an Indian restaurant in Diagon Alley. Hermione tells Ron she probably won't be more than an hour; they end up chatting until the start of the dinner hour.
Scorpius always seems a little petrified around Ron, but he gradually relaxes in Hermione's presence. Years later, after he and Rose are engaged, he asks Hermione if he can speak to her alone, and then he thanks her for always welcoming him and says, voice trembling, how sorry he is for what his family did to her. Hermione hushes him before he can finish and hugs him fiercely and realizes she can't remember when she stopped thinking of him as a Malfoy and started thinking of him as her son-in-law.
Many, many years later, the wheelchair duels between the fathers-in-law are epic. Hermione referees.
IDK where the fuck that all came from. Please pardon the feels.