"The Details"
"The Details"
Fandom: Harry Potter
Timeline: Set between books 6-7
There's a quiet battle of wills during summer break, as Hermione struggles with an impossible decision, and Helen Granger struggles to find out what's bothering her daughter. I've chosen Helen and Hector for the Granger parents' names (why not?).
Pairing: Hints of R/Hr, a tiny nod to D/Hr (because I couldn't help it)
Rating: PG
When Hermione climbs into the back seat for the drive home, her mother knows that something’s wrong. Helen Granger is used to prepping herself with aspirin tablets on the ride to the station before listening to her daughter’s latest adventures in the wizarding world, but finds she‘s not so much in need of them on this trip.
Hermione first gives them a rundown on her friends - both Harry and Ron were fine, stars on the Quidditch team, dating girls in their House. Helen’s a little sorry to hear about that - she’d quietly hoped that her daughter would fall for the scruffy-haired boy with the strange scar on his forehead. The gangly Ron she’s less approving of, and of course, that’s the one that Hermione seems to be more inclined to. At least Ron broke it off with the other girl, she intuits.
Her exams follow after that - subjects that Helen tries to understand, but more often than not, just nods her head and smiles. Helen expected this, though - at some point, she knew her daughter was brilliant enough to take on subject matter far above Helen’s head. Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Defense Against the Dark Arts - certainly not what she expected her to study, though.
When Professor McGonagall had arrived at their doorstep with news of what Hermione actually was, she imagined her daughter’s life as a misty sort of fairy tale, learning to enchant mops and chairs, brewing up potions in her cauldron. Instead, Hermione is learning how to defend herself against vampires, has befriended a half-giant, and, just last summer, finally admitted with a quiet sort of pride that she can immobilize and stun a wizard from a good distance.
After this initial exposition, though, Hermione seems to deflate, slumped against the car door, half-listening to her father’s diatribe on his presentation to the Dental Professionals Association. Helen catches glimpses of her daughter in the rearview window. She doesn’t look relaxed, just keeps scanning the skyline while making the appropriate noises.
“Hermione, dear, are you all right?” Helen turns around in her seat to face her daughter, and that’s when it hits her. Hermione is no longer a girl - she’s become a young woman. Always more mature than most, her eyes carry more weight than Helen can remember being normal for her age.
Those eyes now dart away, return to her mother well-masked - or did she imagine it? “Our headmaster died, Mum,” she says quietly. “You remember me talking about Albus Dumbledore? He passed at the end of the year.”
Helen remembers the energetic old man with the crooked nose, smiling back at her in Hermione’s strange newspapers. “Oh, Hermione. I’m so sorry. How…” she trails off.
Hermione looks to the other side for a split-second, and now Helen knows she isn’t imagining things. “In his sleep, Mum. We went to his funeral right before leaving Hogwarts. It was…beautiful.”
Helen waits for more details, but Hermione looks down into her lap.
“He was so kind to us,” Hector breaks in from the front of the car. “Dubbledore and that Professor McGonagall. Kept thinking they were trying to drag you off into a ruddy cult, Hermione, but he set us right. And look where you are now.”
Hermione is silent, and Helen wonders at her daughter’s lack of insistence on correct pronunciation.
“He was the greatest wizard I’ve ever known,” she replies quietly. Tears glimmer in her eyes, but they don’t spill.
Helen waits for the rest of the details to spill from her Hermione’s lips, but they don’t come. She’s about to press further, when Hector pulls into the garage.
“I’ll give you a hand with your trunk, Hermione,” he begins, but Hermione springs to action, pops out of the car.
“No need, Dad,” she replies, brandishing her wand with a flourish. “The restriction against underage wizardry doesn’t apply to me anymore! I can perform as much magic as I want so long as Muggles don’t see. Excepting you two, of course.”
Helen stands aside as she observes her husband, enthralled, watch their daughter magically lighten and float the trunk up the stairs, Crookshanks unhappily perched on its top.
The fairy tale had ended. Something has happened to her daughter, and she’s going to find out what.
***
Hermione’s not sure where to start. It’s not like there’s a manual out there for how to pack for a magical war or quest.
She’ll need a bag, inconspicuous in size, vast in carrying capacity, and light as a feather to carry. They may sell such things in Diagon Alley, but that’s no longer the safest of places for persons like herself. Camping gear, she might be able to borrow from the Weasleys. Clothes - she could pack a few for herself and for Harry and Ron, once they’d joined up at the Burrow. Food would present a more difficult challenge - they’d need it fresh, and she probably wouldn’t be able to carry an entire grocery worth of non-perishables in something the size of a purse. It’s far more important to take the books on Horcruxes - much harder to find those along the way than a few granola bars.
There are other considerations - what books to take? Histories of Hogwarts and of the wizarding world would be best if their intention was to go Horcrux-hunting. Anything that could possibly lead them in the direction of one of the artifacts was a clue to be eliminated or utilized. Unsure of what would be useful, she spends mornings and evenings thumbing through her collections, marking pertinent passages and transcribing them into notes to bring along. Though her access to the Hogwarts library is now unofficially over, Hermione made sure to nick several volumes from the library, along with Professor Dumbledore’s collection - Madame Pince will be horrified if she ever finds out.
Digging into her savings account, she also makes quick work in beginning a large batch of Polyjuice potion - her father complains about the smell until she conjures a fan to blow the offending clouds out a window. She passes it off as a project for Potions class, and even promises to let her parents try a sip. Unable to explain more potions, she decides just to send away for several options to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes (getting an earful from the twins in letter form). Transfiguring her hair blonde and changing a few facial features, she apparates quickly one evening to Hippocrates Dungo Apothecary in Diagon Alley, purchasing the (hopefully unnecessary) medical supplies from the dizzy old pharmacist himself.
Finally, she practices her spellwork like a madwoman, accidentally tearing up one of her mother’s rosebushes with a Stinging Hex, Stunning insects in mid-flight, and even daring to try the Imperius Curse on a few unlucky beetles. She’d succeeded in commanding them to waltz across the garden stoop before the disgust at her own actions takes over, and she releases the curse, feeding them a bit of banana as an apology.
More than once, she thumbs over the materials for a Calming Concoction, her anxiety rising up and claiming her from dawn to dusk. Her dreams are troubled, and more than anything, she wishes she could talk to someone frankly about what’s going on.
Her mother watches her with a furrow in her brow, concerned. Hermione has always confided in her, even the things she thought her mother would never really understand. Thing is, stress for exams at Hogwarts is the same as it would have been anywhere else. Trouble with friends? The same. Her mother always knew.
And now, she can’t.
Hermione digs her fingernail into the page beside the Calming Concoction, drawing a small groove in the page down the list of ingredients.
The strain is becoming noticeable, and she snaps at herself to look like the old Hermione. The Hermione who would recite magical history for her parents to hear their wonderment at the thought of goblin battles and duels of witchcraft actually happening, who would share moving pictures of her friends and in the Daily Prophet for their perusal. She’s part of a place that they have always thought harmless and whimsical, and now she needs to block the harsh realities of that world from them.
Late at night (more like early in the morning), Crookshanks nuzzles into the small of her back as she stares at the window, looking blankly at the full moon. Somewhere, she knows, Lupin is docile and maybe curled up in the same way beside a contented, pink-haired Tonks, and the thought makes her smile. Just as quickly, though, her mind wanders to thoughts of Fenrir Greyback, and what he must be doing right now.
She leaps out of bed. She has details to attend to.
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