Life As It Is
Chapter 1, Home
A/N: Here's a random fic that came to me while reading the BEST book of all time (after HP) Pride and Prejudice, and listening to the Aida soundtrack. (And who knows how I got THIS idea from doing THAT.) Anyways, please read and review, if ya don't like it, please don't flame, and I'll continue with it if I get a positive response. (Not that I'm blackmailing you guys or anything…*wink*)
"Mommy? Are you awake?"
Hermione Granger slowly opened her eyes and managed a slight smile at the little boy in front of her, tousling his brown hair before pulling him onto her bed and tickling his stomach. The boy giggled heartily before escaping from her grasp and running out of the room, yelling, "Catch me if you can!" The 28 year old woman sniffed once and smiled slightly, before getting up out of her bed and walking to her closet, pulling out some jeans and a comfortable sweater and laying them on the bed.
She put them on while yelling, "Aidan! Can you come here please?" She was brushing her long curly locks as the five-year-old boy walked into the room. He sat on the bed and she smiled at him, coming closer and straightening out his shirt before taking a comb from her dresser and brushing it through his light brown hair. She stepped back,
"Well, aren't you a handsome boy?" He smiled slightly before standing up and hugging her around the waist, before looking up into her warm brown eyes and whispering, "Where are we going Mommy? I saw plane tickets." Hermione sighed and sat him down on the bed again, kneeling in front of him.
"You're a smart guy, I know. So try to understand this. You know how Mommy's been out of work for a while?" He nodded gravely. "Well, I can't seem to find a job. So we'll have to move. Do you understand?" Aidan's bottom lip trembled a bit before he said,
"We're leaving Georgia?" She nodded slightly before he whispered "I understand." Hermione hugged him to her before sniffling slightly and saying,
"I've been offered a job back in England, where I grew up. And I accepted it." The boy knitted his eyebrows before saying,
"Is England the place far away where they have accents like yours?" She nodded and he smiled.
"We can go there." His mother picked Aidan up and spun him around before they both fell back onto the bed with an `oomph' from Hermione.
"We'll be leaving in two days, sweetie. We should get our bags packed. Now can you go put in some toast for us while I make a phone call?" He nodded and ran out of the room as Hermione walked to her dresser with her lips pursed. She took her phone from the cradle and picked up a piece of paper, slowly pressing the numbers of the phone # listed and waiting as it rang. That dreaded ring seemed to go on forever, and then there was another, and another, before she heard the click and that low voice she knew so well saying, "Hello?"
Silence.
Again, "Hello?" Hermione breathed in a shaky breath before saying "Hi" in a hoarse voice, clearing her throat, and saying it again.
Then she heard that voice again, and it said, "How may I help you, miss?" She smiled wryly and said,
"Has it really been that long, Harry, that you can't even recognize my voice?" The woman heard him suck in a breath before whispering, "Hermione?" She laughed nervously.
"Alive and in person. God, this is harder than I thought it would be. Listen, I know I've been gone for a long time, almost ten years, but, I need a favor."
Silence.
"Uh…well…er…yeah, whatever you need." She sighed, relieved, and said,
"Can you pick me up from the airport in two days?" Again, silence. `Whoa, this is awkward', thought Hermione.
"You're coming home?" Harry asked in an amazed voice. She nodded before thinking and said "Yes, it looks that way." They talked for not too much longer, both felt the awkwardness, before Hermione said goodbye and they both hung up their phones. The woman sighed, and sunk into her bed, whispering to herself "How will I do this if I can't even talk to Harry?"
*Two Days Later*
The house had been already sold, Hermione got all her belongings together and prepared them to be shipped over to London. So two days later, the woman and her son were in a cab, headed to the airport. As they approached it, Aidan looked up thoughtfully and said,
"I wonder where they're going?" Hermione was broken out of her thoughts as she said, "Who, sweetie?" He pointed up to a plane heading out of the airport and said "Them." She smiled slightly at him and whispered,
"I don't know, Aid. Where do you think they're going?" He tilted his head slightly in contemplation before replying, with all the serious a five-year-old boy can muster,
"Home."
Many hours later, and after many failed attempts of sleeping with the hard airplane pillows and the course blankets, and eating the not-so-good food, their plane arrived in London. Hermione looked around the airport as they walked out, remembering a day almost ten years ago. And Aidan was in awe. She walked forward holding Aidan's hand firmly in hers as he looked around gaping, before she saw him.
He was standing leaning on a pillar, both hands in the pockets of his jeans and looking almost the same as he did the last time she saw him. When he turned his emerald eyes to the pair, he smiled slightly and waved. Hermione walked toward him nervously, Aidan was wondering who this stranger was. When they reached him, Harry stuck out his arms as Hermione let go of Aidan's hand and rushed into them, giving him a bone crushing hug like she used to, and forgetting, in the moment, that ten years had passed, and many things had changed. For now, she just wanted to be home.
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