Fic: ‘The Wisdom of the Years’ (Hermione, G, DH spoilers)
Title: The Wisdom of the Years
Author:
akissinacrisis
Characters/Ships: Hermione
Summary: Twenty-six years later, Hermione wonders if she made a mistake.
Rating: G
Word Count: 275
Warnings: DH spoilers
Disclaimer: JKR’s. Not mine.
Notes: Am using completely British punctuation for once, rather than the curious hybrid I usually go for.
The Wisdom of the Years
For twenty-six years, Hermione believes that she did the right thing. It made sense at the time, it made sense just afterwards, and it still makes sense twenty-six years later. Given her options, it was the best thing she could have done. It very probably saved their lives.
But when she’s forty-five, and her parents start to lose their minds, she can’t help but wonder.
It's just the little things. Her mum buys herself new glasses, before finding her old, supposedly lost ones, in her pocket. Her dad tells the children the same anecdotes every time they come and visit, until even Rose finds it hard not to fidget. It’s bearable, it’s just old age, and heaven knows she and Ron will probably end up like it in forty years, but still. She realises, for the first time, what the true purpose of siblings is, and wishes for a few as fervently as she wished for them in her childhood.
Ten years later, they throw her father a birthday party, and he smiles benignly throughout it, only occasionally pausing to ask whose birthday it is. ‘Goodness! Mine? Really?’ he asks. Hugo rolls his eyes and Rose smiles sadly.
Later in the evening, he leans across the table to Hermione. ‘I’ll tell you a secret,’ he whispers. ‘Something I've never told anyone before. I expect you think that dentistry is all I wanted from life, but no -’ He stops and lets out a wheezy chuckle, seemingly to himself. ‘I have always had a secret little desire to go to Australia.’
She doesn’t tell Ron.
It probably isn’t her fault. But it might be.