The Details - Parts V and VI
"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
Normally, it takes a day’s worth of arguments to draw Hermione out on a clothes-shopping expedition, but she’s uncharacteristically docile. They take the Tube over to Tottenham Court Street, selecting a few random women’s clothing shops.
As they examine the more formal wear, Helen observes that Hermione isn’t very interested in actually shopping. As she chatters on about studies, talking only in the broadest of terms while they’re out among Muggles (a term Helen has some trouble accepting), her daughter is really doing her best to keep them in the backs of stores that they enter, keeping one eye to the windows.
Was she afraid of running into someone here?
Hermione has an inordinate fondness for blue, and it’s a good shade on her, Helen thinks. Unfortunately, she’s ignoring several fetching dresses because of this. That’s what she’s here for - pulling her daughter back from any unwise decisions. A good thing, too - Hermione’d been set to go on an A-line gown that did nothing for her figure.
“Hermione, dear, you’ve got such a lovely figure,” she tells her patiently, watching her daughter evaluate herself in the dressing-room mirror, noting with dismay that her daughter‘s wand is sticking out of her purse. “Don’t be afraid to show it off.”
“I’m just trying to think about what’s appropriate at a wedding.” Hermione fusses with the sleeves of the citrus-colored dress she’s wearing, completely unsuitable for her complexion. “I don’t want to show too much. Most of the people there will be wearing dress robes.”
Helen feels her patience begin to slip. “Should we go to Diagon Alley, then?”
“No,” Hermione pouts at her image in the mirror, the resemblance to a five-year-old more present than ever, in Helen’s eyes. “I’m Muggle-born, and I want to emphasize it there.”
“I don’t know exactly what’s appropriate where you’re going,” Helen replies, obligingly using their euphemisms for the Wizarding world in public. She finds the term Muggle slightly offensive, even on her daughter‘s lips. Couldn‘t they just say non-magical folk? And why did Hermione want to make a stand instead of blending into the crowd of wizards and witches? “I do know, however, that that dress makes you look like a cream puff.”
Hermione’s face drops, and Helen raises it with a finger under her chin. “Get this thing off,” she said, unzipping and unbuttoning the fastenings, helping her step out of it without crushing the stiff crinoline under the skirt. Hermione immediately reached for the next one on the hook, a pale blue number, but Helen seizes her daughter by the shoulders and turns her to face the mirror in her underthings.
“Look at yourself,” she says, touching her daughter’s waist, feeling the unnerving presence of ribs pressing against her skin. “Hourglass figure. Gorgeous skin. Beautiful teeth. Legs that go on forever. Hair that‘s gotten heavy enough to stop being bushy and run more to curls.” She pauses, nudges her daughter in the shoulder. “A chest and arse that makes more than one fellow stammer.”
“Mo-om!”
She smacks her daughter on the arse lightly. “Let me pick one. No, trust me, and see what I mean.”
Helen steps out of the dressing room quietly, glances around the racks of gowns for cocktail parties, teas, formal occasions. She’s swimming in a sea of jewel-toned chiffon, satin, silks, trying to picture her daughter in one of them. Some girls would look at this like a feast - to Hermione, she knows, it’s intimidating.
Her eyes catch on a fetching little gown the color of spring violets. Floaty material, a subtle amount of cleavage, an emphasis on the waist - not witch material.
Helen’s fingers pause while fingering the fabric. Witch. My daughter’s a witch. It was easier, she knew, to think of Hermione as a skilled conjuror, an enchanter, a potions-brewer, charming in more than one sense. The word witch carried so much other weight. There were subtle politics around this going on in Hermione’s world, she knew - but she had a funny feeling that Hermione was concealing the extent to which these politics affected her.
She should really write to the Headmaster - but then she remembers that he’s passed. Hermione hasn’t said another word about it since she came home. Helen hadn’t realized until recently how limited her access was to her daughter’s world, and just how much Hermione was going it alone.
Checking the size on the tag, she brings it back to the dressing room. Hermione’s face goes a bit rigid.
“Mum, you know I’m hopeless in purple.”
“This isn’t purple,” Helen said relentlessly. “It’s lavender.”
Something about statement this catches her daughter’s attention, sharpens her focus, and she lets Helen help her don the gown without complaint. Helen smoothes the fabric around her daughter’s waist, then stands back to admire the effect, hand over her heart and smiling at how well Hermione has blossomed out.
Hermione cracks an odd smile at her own reflection. “Too subtle for him to get the message. I wonder if that’s a good thing or not.”
Helen decides not to ask. There are too many mysteries about her daughter nowadays.
***
Sometimes, sitting alone in bed at night, poring over the charm again and again, Hermione wishes she could talk to Draco Malfoy.
Not that she thinks they’d get very far in conversation. Even without the whole Pureblood-Mudblood caste issue hanging between them, they’re both very stubborn people, and it would take a lot to drag any worthwhile conversation out of him. Like a good Potions experiment, though, she wonders what he would be like to really argue with. He’s quick with a retort, she’s good with a parry and thrust, they‘re both at the top of their class - if they could refrain from name-calling, he might actually have something interesting to say about this.
Oddly enough, of all the people at Hogwarts, he’s the one whose situation she can most relate to. The few other Muggle-born students have mostly been able to get themselves and their families out of the way, convinced that the danger posed by Voldemort is real and will come for them. Others, with pureblooded or half-blooded families will be aware of the danger and have taken their own precautions and defenses.
Hermione’s parents still regard the Wizarding world as not particularly powerful. Those troubles were far away, belonged to other people, wouldn’t reach them. She knew they felt they could still protect her from most things.
Draco’s parents walked right into the heart of that danger, thought they would be safe under the wing of the dragon, would in turn protect their son. Voldemort turned right around and held their lives hostage to their son’s efforts. Believing that they could always stay on the winning side of history, they’d doomed their son to a terrible choice in order to protect his family.
Hermione remembers the desperation in those keen grey eyes during the last year, the circles bagging the normally taut lines of his face. She hadn’t believed Harry’s theories, but she could tell that something heavy was weighing on Draco, so much so that he forgot to be horrid to her - not that he was ever nice to begin with. Still, she could see the new maturity in his eyes as he knifed, shark-like, through the throngs of students at Hogwarts. She looks in the mirror some mornings and sees the echo of Draco’s struggle etched in her own face. Can I do this to protect them?
He tried. Got all the way to the very moment…then could go no further. Even to save himself and his family, Draco Malfoy could not become a murderer.
She wonders what he’s doing now. Have they tattooed him? Is he helping to kill innocents - willingly or not? She wonders if he’s as frightened as she is - and realizes that he is, and probably more so.
Can she do this? Can she afford not to?
The specter of Gilderoy Lockhart haunts her waking hours. Smiling vacantly, signing autographs to those visiting St. Mungo‘s, as if the motion was so locked in his muscles that even his blank brain could remember it, he was without a hope of remembering who he used to be. The family whose memories had been obliterated for the Quidditch Cup, muttering vaguely about Christmas after so many charms had been performed on them. Hermione shuddered at the casual regard those in charge had had for the disrupted lives of the Muggles.
It can go so horribly, horribly wrong. She needs laser precision with this charm, not the usual regard for Muggles’ lives, routinely given with all the meticulousness of a shotgun blast. So many intricate details, so little time to understand the web they create.
She can’t bear to do this to them, to rob her parents of what is so intrinsically a part of them - what makes up their very selves. They’d always been a unit of three as long as she could remember - Mum, Dad, and Hermione. Now she must make the break complete, in order that they can all continue on.
Her friendship with Harry is the big strike against them - otherwise, they could possibly scoot by, unnoticed. Thanks to Rita Skeeter (though she doesn’t doubt that the Death Eaters would miss this detail even without Skeeter’s help), her association with him is well-known. Where she is, he is certainly somewhere nearby. Hermione does not regret her friendship with Harry in the least - knows that she needs him as much as he needs her. It does, however, mark her with a bullseye - and those she loves.
Even without Harry’s friendship, The Daily Prophet is beginning to hint at dark things in store for Muggle-born witches and wizards. Hermione’s knows - if Voldemort gets control of the Ministry, the Muggle-borns will be systematically rounded up. Hermione would have had to deal with this sooner or later, and if she’s going to go off Horcrux-hunting with Harry and Ron, she needs to do this soon.
Hermione’s thoughts break off as a flash of silvery white light surges toward the house. She fumbles for her wand on the nightstand before realizing that it is a lynx Patronus - belonging to one Kingsley Shacklebolt. A bit embarrassed, even though it makes no difference to the Patronus, Hermione raises the quilt over her to her shoulders, over the thin straps of her nightgown, as it approaches.
The lynx drifts through the walls to the foot of her bed, where it perches regally, looking at her. Crookshanks hisses at the intruder and leaps off of the bed. Hermione has only time enough to cast a quick Muffliato before the Patronus begins to speak.
“Good evening, Miss Granger. I have been informed that you wish to help the Order transport Mr. Potter to a safe house before his birthday -” when Harry’s veil of protection would run out, she knew - “It is extremely likely that someone will be killed in this attempt, and I wish you to know the risk you will be running. Ronald Weasley informs me that you are more confident upon a thestral than a broomstick, so this will be our mode of transport from the Dursley household to the safe house. Please be at the Burrow by noon on July 25. Please reply via Patronus - Arthur informs me that you are quite good at it.”
With that, the Patronus abruptly vanished. Crookshanks returned to paw at the diminishing vapor until he lost interest.
Hermione searched once more for a good memory - she wasn’t sure if thinking about the same memory each time would diminish its joy, and therefore its power. She steps away from the Wizarding world in her thoughts, recalls scuba diving as a child with her mother and father beside her, heart racing in joy at seeing the bizarre creatures beneath the sea. Good enough.
“Expecto Patronum!” she calls out, watching her Patronus take shape, winding and bobbing through the air in a transport of joy. Crookshanks, more used to this apparition, watches intently with his bright little eyes.
She summons the Patronus forward. “Good evening, Mr. Shacklebolt. I understand the risks, and I am ready to help the Order. Thank you for agreeing to my use of a thestral. I will be at the Burrow on the appointed date. Expeditus Patronum - Kingsley Shacklebolt!”
The Patronus speeds off, and Hermione decides that talking herself into sleep is no good - she’s got details to take care of. The list that’s sat in her bedside stand is pulled once more into her lap - so many things she’s got to make minute changes to, and can’t afford to leave out.
Getting up from where she sits stiffly on the bed, Hermione catches a glimpse of herself darkly in the mirror, could swear she sees a pair of grey eyes glittering with resolve and fear behind her. There really is no choice, she knows, and spares a brief hope that Malfoy manages to take his family and leap clear of all this mess in the end.
Hermione, however, now has a deadline.