"I'm definitely getting old," Hermione said to herself as she tugged her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. As she shifted in her chair before the fireplace in search of a comfortable position, her eyes flickered over the large portrait hanging just over the mantel. "Go on," she smirked. "Say 'I told you so.'" The smiling image of Harry said nothing. A gift from her old classmate, Dean Thomas, it was painted in simple oils rather than magical, moving paints. Nevertheless, there were times when Hermione could swear that the face in the cherrywood frame, like the Fat Lady in the portrait guarding Gryffindor Tower, could understand what she was saying. "You're entitled," Hermione went on as if engaged in conversation with the man in the painting. "You wanted to live down the coast in the Carolinas, where it's warm. But I insisted on Nova Scotia, to remind me of Scotland. And Hogwarts."
As if the name itself were an incantation, Hermione's eyes swung magically to her writing desk, upon the uncluttered surface of which sat a most curious paperweight. Though her bifocals were within easy reach, reposing in a pocket of the apron she herself had sewn while carrying her fourth (and last) child, Hermione's hands remained folded about her shawl. She had no need of physical sight to envision the object in question. Her mind's eye brought out every smallest detail of that treasured artifact with crystal clarity. A gift from Ginny Weasley on her first birhday following her expulsion from the magical world, it was a tiny replica of Hogwarts castle, complete to the smallest detail. Ginny had herself Transfigured it from a stone taken (with Dumbledore's permission) from the castle itself. In the more than six decades since, it never failed to bring a smile to her lips and a tear to her eye. A reminder of her carefree days (so her rose-colored memories blithely informed her) as a witch-in-training at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, its value was beyond price to her. She would not have sold it for a pile of gold the size of Cape Breton Island.
Hermione had but to close her eyes to see the whole of Hogwarts in all its splendor: The enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall; the Gryffindor common room with its warm friendly fire, and countless overstuffed chairs filled with chattering students; the classrooms, ranging from Snape's dank, chill dungeon to Trelawney's stifling, perfumed tower. The grounds, the forest, the Quidditch field, the lake, Hagrid's cabin, the Whomping Willow -- they were all as fresh in her mind as the day she last saw them. Graduation day. The day she began her life as a fully-trained witch. A life, as Fate would have, that would last barely seven short years.
"I still miss it so," Hermione whispered, her words swallowed by the silent walls of the living room where she and Harry had shared so many happy hours since their retirement more than twenty years ago. She turned again to the picture above the fireplace. "But I miss you most of all."
Harry was gone three years now. But his presence lingered, ghost-like. He was not a ghost in the same sense as the specters haunting Hogwarts. But there were times when Hermione could swear that he was lying in bed next to her, as he had for nearly seventy years. She could still hear his laughter, still see the smile that could steal the strength from her knees as it had when they were teenagers. She could still see those piercing emerald eyes, framed by an unruly head of raven hair. She could still feel his arms holding her, his lips kissing hers. She could feel Harry everywhere in this house. But most of all, she could feel his presence in her heart, where he would ever remain.
The walls of the living room were awash with photos, tiny windows to a past that had seen its share of hardship, but in which the good had outweighed the bad in a proportion which both had felt beyond their deserving.
Immediately to the right of the large portrait of Harry was their wedding photo -- or, to be precise, it was a Mugglized copy of what was originally a moving wizard photo. They were both so young then. Where had the years gone? In some ways, Hermione felt no different now than she had the day that photo was taken. But the Hermione in the photo had long, flowing chestnut hair, skin the color and texture of peaches and cream. The young bride happily clutching the arm of her new husband bore little resemblance to the woman in the rocking chair who clutched her shawl about her against the cool of the morning. The chestnut hair was now white as snow, and the face was seamed with wrinkles bought and paid for by a lifetime of hard work and no small portion of worry. But the eyes of the woman in the picture were undimmed in her mature reflection. And the mind behind those eyes, now as then, was sharp as a scalpel.
Though not a day went by when Hermione did not wish that Harry were still with her, that regret was never more keenly felt than today. For the first time in a decade, the entire Potter family would be assembled in a grand reunion. Ostensibly, they were gathering to celebrate Hermione's 90th birthday. Her actual birthday was still a month and a half away, but it was only during the Summer holidays that the widely-scattered branches of the family could uproot themselves and converge on Potter Castle en masse.
Harry's and Hermione's daughters, Gillian and Virginia Rose, visited fairly often. Both had migrated South to the States, married there, and their respective families had spread out from coast to coast. Much the same could be said for their youngest, Brian, who, though living in Victoria on Vancouver Island, made the pilgrimage across Canada as often as his schedule (and finances) permitted. With so many spokes in the Potter family wheel, not a Summer had passed in the last forty years but that one or another, either child or grandchild, popped in to visit.
James, however, was another story.
James Potter the Second, their eldest son and firstborn, had fallen in love with his parents' stories of England at an early age. Upon graduation, he had sought and obtained a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford. He planned to return, diploma in hand, but fate intervened in the form of a fellow student who swept him off his feet and shortly after swept him "down the aisle." He became a British citizen upon graduation, which both pleased and dismayed his parents. As James' roots became ever more firmly planted in English soil, Harry and Hermione saw less and less of him. He fathered three boys, who were themselves now married with families whom Hermione had thusfar seen only in photos.
But that long drought was about to end. Nearly every square inch of wall space, as well as countless albums in desk drawers and on cupboard shelves, was covered with photos of Hermione's grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But they were all growing so fast, changing from the faces in the photos into people who would be barely recognizable when they arrived. A veritible army of strangers was about to descend upon the Potter household. But this did not intimidate Hermione. She was prepared for such an onslaught as were few before her.
Among the framed photos on the living room wall were two documents which Harry and Hermione had prized over anything else in their lives.
It was Dumbledore's allusion to Molly Weasley, as related by Harry in a reflective moment, that inspired them both toward a career in teaching. In their fifty years in the Halifax school system, they had turned out uncounted doctors, lawyers, teachers, scientists, even a Prime Minister. They had made an unbeatable team, she and Harry. As a history teacher, principal, and superintendant of schools, Hermione had honed thousands of young minds to their absolute keenest edges. And in his own capacity as a physical education teacher and guidance counselor, Harry had given those students the strength of body and spirit to use their gifts for the greatest good. Looking at their framed teaching certificates now, Hermione would not have traded them for the Order of Merlin, First Class.
Upon their retirement, they had moved up the coast into an old stone house promptly dubbed Potter Castle by Hermione. It reminded her so much of her beloved Hogwarts that she insisted it not be "improved" with any modern trappings, such as wall-screen visiphones and satellite communication. An electric furnace was her only concession to practical modernity, but even then she preferred a crackling fire in all but the most severe conditions. A woodpile sheltered by an enclosed porch was always kept heaped high by visitors such as Ron and Ginny, and in case of emergency there was a magic hand-mirror on the night table, which Ginny promised to answer any hour of the day or night (especially now that Harry was gone).
The ocean view was breathtaking, but Hermione found the cool Summers increasingly discomforting. Harry had delighted in teasing her about it, relenting only when threatened with a night on the living room sofa (a threat which Hermione never carried out). But its abundance of bedrooms had proved their worth during many a family gathering, and before this day were over, the old homestead would be tested to its limits. When the letters of confirmation began to resemble the deluge Harry had described when his Hogwarts letters nearly buried Number 4 Privet Drive, Hermione looked at Harry's portrait and laughed, "Do you think I should owl Arthur and Molly? Maybe they can use the same spell on Potter Castle that's been holding up the Burrow all these years."
The slam of a car door roused Hermione from her reverie. She looked at the clock on the mantel. "Right on time," she said out loud, nodding at Harry's portrait. Rising from her chair, she walked to her desk and slid open the top right drawer. She paused, holding her breath, as her eyes fell on the contents of the drawer. Her hand dipped and rose swiftly before plunging into the pocket of her apron. She closed the now-empty drawer smoothy and turned toward the doorway leading to the kitchen. A screen door banged, and a man with brown hair and impish eyes entered the living room.
"Gran!" he exclaimed, wrapping Hermione in a warm hug.
"Harry," Hermione said, nearly choking on the name.
Harry was James' youngest son. Her Harry had flatly refused to name either of his sons after himself ("One Harry Potter in this family is quite enough, thanks.") Little did he suspect that his two sons were conspiring behind his back to ensure that their father's name survived in spite of his staunchest efforts to the contrary. Fate stonewalled Brian, whose efforts to produce a male heir yielded two daughters, after which his wife drew the line with a finality Hermione mentally compared to the one Professor Dumbledore had drawn around the Goblet of Fire. James had better success than his brother, but Harry covertly persuaded his son's wife to name their first two boys after her two grandfathers. But when a third son was born to James, no power on Earth could prevent him from naming the child Harry James Potter the Second.
"I'm named after my grandfather," James had reasoned, his emerald eyes twinkling, "so why shouldn't my son enjoy the same distinction?" As he had but few times in his life, the elder Harry was forced to concede defeat.
Harry's wife and three daughters spilled out of the kitchen, all of them wasting no time in smothering Hermione with tearful hugs. A loud clattering outside indicated that the two older boys were engaged in unloading the luggage from their rented van. As Hermione appraised her great-granddaughters now, she was only just able to recognize them. The youngest, Lily Anne, was all of five years old in the most recent photo in Hermione's album. The 15-year-old standing before her now was a striking contrast to that child.
"J will be here in a minute," Harry said. "Are you ready?"
Hermione nodded, patting her pocket, which responded with a crisp retort. "J", she knew, was actually Harry James Potter the Third. In order to avoid confusion with his father, his mother began calling their youngest son "Harry J." almost immediately. When his sisters were old enough to talk, they began referring to their brother simply as "J." The appellation stuck, and from then on, barring exceptional circumstances (such as moments of exasperation in which either parent would invoke all three names), it was the only address to which he would answer.
Hermione's only clear picture of J was that of a one-year-old. It was, she supposed, the price to be paid for living in the past. Before their retirement, their home in Halifax was fully wired with world-wide visual communications. Since relocating to Potter Castle, she'd had to rely on photo snaps to view her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She hadn't even a simple microdisc player on which to view stills, something every home in the world took for granted nowadays. Ever and anon Hermione would press for more photos, but the answer was always the same.
"He's a bloody whirlwind," J's mother would tell Hermione in telephone conversations. "Won't sit still for a simple photo."
"Can you put him on now?" Hermione would respond. "At least I can hear how he's grown."
"He's off with his mates," came the ubiquitous response. "He's always off with his bleedin' mates. Not that I'm worried, mind. Never a bit of trouble. And brilliant! Gets that from his great-gran, I expect."
Hermione smiled now, all a-tremble. Her long wait would soon be over. She wondered what he would look like now, at eleven. But why wonder, when he would be standing before her in two shakes of a centaur's tail? (She marveled that she could still think in terms of magical metaphor, after so many years. Old habits did, indeed, die hard.)
The screen door banged again, and Harry gave his wife and daughters a meaningful glance, whereupon they all kissed Hermione again and vanished up the stairs to the bedrooms. As Harry disappeared into the kitchen, Hermione heard him say, "Right, son. I'll go help your brothers with the luggage. Your great-gran is waiting. Go on in."
J. Potter walked into the living room, his manner cautious and studied. As her eyes fell on him, Hermione had to cover her mouth to prevent herself from crying out.
"It's true," she whispered. "Merlin's beard, it's true."
Hermione faltered, and J immediately rushed to her side and helped her to her chair.
"Are you okay?" the boy said with genuine concern. Hermione nodded. Her mind was racing like a North Atlantic hurricane. J's simple words, so full of love and concern, rang in her ears. The sound of his voice echoed through the corridors of her deepest memories, so like, yet so different from, the one she remembered from so long ago. J dutifully raced back to the kitchen to fetch his great-gran a glass of water, and in that respite, Hermione's mind turned inward, glazing over with a light that glowed as from the far end of a long, narrow tunnel. J returned, glass in hand. Hermione sipped the water slowly, her eyes never leaving her great-grandson's face. Very slowly, she nodded to herself.
Almost from the first day of their new Muggle life, Hermione had suspected that neither her husband nor her wizarding friends had been entirely forthcoming regarding the circumstances of her exile from the magical world. Nothing in her extensive reading had so much as hinted at any malady that would make one allergic to magic. The arguments presented were reasonable enough, but she could not dismiss the feeling that she was nevertheless the victim of some sort of grand deception. But if this were true, it was also quite evident that there must be a good and unselfish reason for it. Surely so many dear friends would not go to so much trouble on her behalf without just cause. Thus, though her curiosity burned inside her like a bellyful of raw bubotuber pus, she put it aside and counted herself blessed to be loved so deeply by so many.
For Harry's part, his devotion to her bordered on out-and-out worship. Yet, through more than sixty years of marriage, even Hermione did not suspect just how deep her husband's devotion ran. Not until that night, more than five years ago -- the night the dreams began.
She did not understand them at first. They were sketchy at the beginning, indistinct. And infrequent. She gave them little thought. But slowly, as weeks lengthened into months, the dreams became both sharper and more frequent. Hermione would find herself chained to a wall, naked and helpless. Certain details remained clouded, but Hermione experienced sudden sharp flashes of agonizing torture which sometimes jolted her awake in the middle the night with a cry on her lips and cold sweat on her brow. And in the darkness, both in dream and in heart-pounding wakefulness, a face hovered before her, ghostly, horrible, taunting. It was as if living hatred had been cast in human form. It was a face Hermione knew well, if only in distant memories. A pale, pointed face, with eyes like chips of ice above a slitted mouth curled in a sneer of unbridled malice.
Even in clear detail, all was mystery to Hermione. But not for nothing was she accounted the cleverest witch at Hogwarts in a century. Nor had eighty-plus years dulled the edge of her razor-keen mind. By Hermione's reasoning, mysteries existed for but one purpose: To be solved.
Hermione and Harry had always spoken freely of their life in the magical world, both amongst themselves and with their wizarding friends. But certain subjects, she reflected, seemed to have fallen into disfavor, gradually disappearing altogether from such conversations. Chief among these had been any slightest reference to Draco Malfoy. As she probed her memory, she began to realize that she could recall seeing no mention whatsoever of the Malfoy family in any issue of the Daily Prophet during the years when they received subscription copies by owl-post. The Malfoys, whatever stain might attach itself to their name, remained one of the most prominent families in the wizarding world. How explain, then, the total absence of the name in more than five years of their subscribing to the Prophet?
It was time, Hermione decided, to revive an old and time-honored battle cry: When in doubt, consult a book.
In this particular case, it was the archives of the Daily Prophet Hermione proposed to consult. This was quite easily done. Though Harry's faithful post-owl, Hedwig, was long departed, the Weasleys had seen that Harry and Hermione were never without a means to keep in touch with their old wizarding friends. Visits from wizarding friends being strictly circumscribed, letters became Hermione's life-line to the world she had loved and could never see again. Even now, the attic of Potter Castle was stuffed to the crossbeams with enough parchment communiques to build a bridge across the Bay of Fundy. Once every ten years, like clockwork, Ron and Ginny would appear on their doorstep with a strong, young owl to replace their present one. Unlike Hedwig, these had all been common brown owls. These, everyone reasoned, were less ostentatious than the snowy Hedwig, who had more than once drawn unwanted Muggle attention in the course of a delivery. Even to a wizard, one brown owl looked pretty much like any other. It was an apathy that would serve Hermione well now.
Using their owl, Hermone sent a letter to the Daily Prophet, passing herself off as a young witch doing research for a school essay. Using a small cache of wizard coins saved from Harry's vault for sentimental reasons, Hermione purchased back numbers of the Daily Prophet, their dates ranging from her mysterious blackout in Hogsmeade to her awakening in St.Mungo's nearly two weeks later. The headlines and stories in those papers bore little resemblance to the papers she had been given to read in her hospital bed during her convalescence. With the suddenness of an exploding Filibuster firework, the truth was spread out before her, complete with moving wizard photos. She read all about her abduction at the hands of Draco Malfoy, of Draco's death at Harry's hands, of Harry's trial and the sentence imposed by Dumbledore. From this, she was able to infer the rest.
It was obvious that her mind had been modified by a powerful Memory Charm. Only a very powerful Charm, she reasoned, could have blocked so terrible a memory. And she knew enough about such Charms to know that they could be broken down over time. Hermione flattered herself that her strong, ordered mind, fueled by magical blood, could have broken through even the most powerful Memory Charm in no more than ten years. And the result? She did not delude herself. She would have gone mad. Hubris notwithstanding, she knew this as surely as she knew the sum of two plus two.
"You gave it all away, Harry," she whispered one night as he lay sleeping in blissful ignorance beside her. "For me. I never thought I could love you more. It just goes to show that even know-it-all Hermione Granger Potter can learn something new."
With this knowledge in hand, the dreams were easily explained. Harry and their friends had carefully circumscribed all exposure to magic, limited their friends' visits to the shortest duration. But none, it seemed, had given due consideration to cumulative effects. Those two-hour visits once a month had added up over a period of more than sixty years, like tiny chips of wood nicked from a towering oak. Given enough time, even the dullest axe may fell the largest tree. In the end, the wall of Hermione's Memory Charm cracked, allowing her small glimpses of the horrors that lay deep within. Only the maturity of her advanced years had allowed her to withstand their impact. Had she experienced those same released memories sixty years ago, her sanity would surely have been forfeit.
Hermione never told Harry the truth. It would have served no purpose. Narcissa Malfoy was dead now. None remained who might wish to seek revenge against Harry -- or his family -- for Draco's death. Let the secret remain buried, as her husband and their friends had always intended that it should. It was enough that she knew. She knew as well that no woman had ever been loved so deeply as Harry loved her. He lived his last two years still believing that he was protecting her from herself. She would not steal away his peace of mind by divulging her knowledge. She could do no less for such a man as Harry Potter.
But even as Hermione contented herself with a job well done and a mystery solved, a tiny, nagging ghost remained in the back of her mind. One piece of the puzzle was eluding her, and though she entertained her suspicions, they remained unproven.
Until now. Now Hermione knew beyond all doubt that no man ever lived who loved a woman as Harry had loved her. He had loved her so deeply that he had taken as his own a son fathered by another man, begat in an act not of love, but of the most horrible violence imaginable. And though his own, true son came along shortly thereafter, Hermione never once saw Harry favor the younger boy over the elder. (And if Harry was guilty of favoring his daughters over both boys, had that not been every father's prerogative since the world began?) She had watched Harry lavish a lifetime of love on James, who, if not his own, was yet flesh of her flesh, even as was Harry through the sacrament of marriage. United by that bond, they were father and son in every sense that mattered. In Hermione's eyes, it was an act of love eclipsing a thousand times a thousand sonnets. Hermione did not know what she had ever done to deserve to be loved so deeply. Perhaps she would never know. But from this moment, and for the rest of her life, she would never doubt. Hermione smiled at her great-grandson, who was now sitting in a chair an arm's length away, and he reciprocated with a smile bright and warm as the the morning sun; A smile that illuminated a pale, pointed face with cool, grey eyes that peered fervidly from beneath a shock of thick, silver-blond hair.
"Thank you, J," Hermione said as she set her water glass aside. "Nothing to worry about. Too much excitement is all. It's not every day that I get to meet my great-grandson, after all." She smiled warmly, and was rewarded in turn by a smile that was as far removed from the man whose face he wore as the gates of Heaven were from the deepest pit of Hell.
Without warning, J's smile retreated, as if a discordant note had suddenly intruded on the harmony of his thoughts. His eyes fell slightly, and he began to fidget in a manner that nearly brought tears to Hermione's eyes. It was as if her own, departed Harry were sitting before her, again and evermore eleven years old.
"Something on your mind, J?" Hermione said invitingly.
"Um," J murmured. His hand was fumbling at his side, as if wanting, but not wanting, to slip into the pocket of his faded jeans.
"Do you have something to show me?" Hermione prompted gently.
J nodded. "Mum and dad said I should show you. I don't know what it means. But they said...they said you would." J dipped into his pocket and pulled out something that was crumpled almost beyond recognition. Embarrassed, J did his best to smooth out the abused envelope. It crackled as he did so, with a sound not of paper, but of parchment. A few flecks of red wax crumbled and fell onto the rug. J held out the envelope, upon which the name Harry James Potter III was written, in elegant cursive, in bright green ink. The morning light glinted from a gold seal at one corner of the envelope, casting in relief a large letter H.
Smiling brightly, Hermione reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out two envelopes which, allowing for the ravages of time, were virtual mirror images of J's. J leaped out of his chair as he saw the names written on the envelopes: Harry Potter and Hermione Granger.
"Better sit back down, sweetheart," Hermione said with a tinkle of musical laughter that seemed to steal at least eighty years from her aspect. "We have a lot to talk about."
Author's Note: My evil computer conspired to keep me from posting this finale. I won out in the end. I hope it was worth it as far as the readers are concerned.
Humble thanks to all who expressed some small measure of pleasure from reading this story. And after phoenixwriter's generous recommendation, I pray this final chapter did not disappoint. If it has a few holes, that's only to be expected from a simple fanfic scribe.
I have a few more stories waiting in the wings. The next one should begin next week, once I've knocked a few of the rough edges off. It's not as dark and depressing as this one, but neither is it fluff. In fact, it presents a Hermione of a type I've not written before now, one more in line with canon. She has elected to put her career ahead of romance, much to Harry's dismay. It's a post-grad story, with flashbacks dating to Fifth Year. It was written before OotP was released, and not hide nor hair of Umbridge is to be seen (praise Merlin!). I call it: But Not Forever.
Thanks again.