Disclaimer: All the characters you recognize belong to JKR; Gleneden and the characters you don't recognize are mine.
Author's Note: Another foray into the AU realm, this time taking place in the late 1800's (late Victorian age).
A Matter of Destiny
Chapter 1: A New Neighbor
The day that Hermione Jane Granger's life changed forever began as any normal day. Certainly Hermione herself had no expectation of how her life would change that day, but change it did.
Hermione tugged loose the ribbons of her hat as she entered the house, glancing around for her aunt. "Aunt Olivia, I'm home."
Her aunt's voice emerged from the sitting room. "Oh, Hermione Jane, did you manage to find the ribbon I asked for?"
Hermione put her books down on a side table before going to the sitting room. "Yes, Aunt Olivia. I'm afraid that Mrs. Pennifrew was out of that particular shade so I had to get the closest one to it."
Olivia Summers looked up from her embroidery to smile at her niece, before she took the offered ribbon and studied it. "Yes, this should do just fine. Thank you, dear. Did you get new books?"
Hermione smiled at her aunt, affection warming her tone at her Aunt's habitual question, symbolic as it was of her aunt's unceasing attempt to support, since she could not quite understand, her niece's love of books. "Yes, Aunt. Miss Gallatin even said that she expected another shipment to arrive soon."
"Won't that be nice for you?" Aunt Olivia smiled before returning her attention to her sewing.
Hermione slipped out of the morning room and gathered her books up to take to her bedroom, which was up the stairs and at the end of the corridor.
Hermione put her new books down on the little shelf which served as her bookshelf and paused for a moment, looking at them. She would have some time to begin one of them but she suddenly could not decide what she felt like reading.
She was, unaccountably, filled with an odd restlessness and moved over to the window, opening it to look outside.
Even now, so many years after she had first arrived here, she always marveled at how one could look out and see only a vast expanse of trees with no rooftops or clearing to be seen.
The village of Gleneden, which they lived nearly on the outskirts of, was in the opposite direction of Hermione's room window and so her view was unimpeded by any sign of civilization.
She remembered how very small and provincial Gleneden had seemed to her when she had arrived here in the summer before her 15th birthday. Then, she had been numb with grief and shock at how quickly her life had been turned on its head after the sudden deaths of her parents and the arrival of her Aunt Olivia to take her to live in Gleneden. The little village of Gleneden, with all its inhabitants knowing of her situation and offering their kindly-meant condolences had jarred on her with her instinct for privacy and being accustomed to the anonymity that came of living so close to a city.
Since then, she had grown to be quite fond of Gleneden, able to appreciate the very stability and security that came from living in a place such as this where time seemed to flow on much the same, unimpeded by changes from the outside world. And if there were times when she still felt as if she would be stifled by the sameness of it, as if she were existing in a sort of half-life so far away from the rest of the world-it was not very often and she tried not to think of it too much.
Her Aunt Olivia, her mother's sister, and her Uncle Paul Summers had been all that was kind, welcoming her and treating her much as they had their own daughter, her cousin Rachel. Uncle Paul had died three years ago though, while Rachel was now married and expecting her second child before the end of the year.
And Hermione thought, she would stay here, with Aunt Olivia, growing older with every passing season with little to show for it.
It was not a bitter thought. Hermione had long since resigned herself to it. She was very fond of her Aunt Olivia and was too sensible not to realize that her chances of finding a husband were very slim at the age of twenty-four, especially as she had never had an admirer and had no claims to beauty, unlike Rachel, who had been a pretty child, a pretty girl and was still a very pretty woman.
She sometimes had the odd feeling that this was not what she had been intended for, that somehow, she had been meant for more than this. She could not help the thought, at times, when she realized how differently she thought than the rest of the inhabitants of Gleneden, how differently she felt. Perhaps it was from her early years and childhood spent so close to a city but she could not be satisfied with the narrowness of Gleneden life. She always wanted to know more, wanted to learn what she did not know, explore and discover and challenge herself. She vaguely felt-although she did not put it into so many words, vanity not being among her faults-that her intellect, her curiosity, the strength of her character meant that she had originally been destined for a different life.
But those were idle thoughts, useless, foolish thoughts and Hermione was too sensible to indulge in them for long. She was not unhappy; she knew she had been fortunate to have such a loving aunt and uncle to take her in when her parents had died and she did love her Aunt Olivia and was eternally grateful to her.
The sound of a distant knock on the front door roused Hermione from her reverie and then she suppressed a grimace as she recognized the voice of Mrs. Sterling. Mrs. Sterling was the village busy-body and what she didn't know about the inhabitants of Gleneden was hardly worth knowing. She was a kind enough person but Hermione, at least, found her rather tedious. (Privately, whenever Mrs. Sterling had been particularly so, Hermione referred to her as the Town Crier, but then chided herself for the meanness of the name.)
But she stood up to go down, knowing Aunt Olivia would expect it.
Mrs. Sterling was in the middle of a sentence when Hermione entered and only nodded in response to Hermione's murmured greeting. "… rented the old Stuart place. He came to the village today and told Mr. Lovett about it. Apparently it's a young man and he seemed to want the isolation of the place and took it on the spot."
"A young man?" Aunt Olivia repeated.
"Yes. His name is Harry Evans or so he says, but how are we to know since he didn't say a word about his family or anything. He's English, Mr. Matthews said, and very dark but beyond that, I don't know anything."
"It is rather odd for a young man to be willing to settle in such an out of the way place. Why, he'll be miles from his nearest neighbor," Aunt Olivia commented, betraying some curiosity.
"I know. And it will be too far for anyone to call on him," Mrs. Sterling said, sounding very disgruntled.
Hermione suppressed a smile, wondering if this Mr. Evans had any idea of his narrow escape from having to run the figurative gauntlet of Mrs. Sterling's questions.
"Well, he will need to come into the village occasionally to buy supplies," Aunt Olivia comforted.
This did not seem to entirely satisfy Mrs. Sterling, unsurprisingly. Hermione listened idly, not much interested in all honesty as she rather thought it sad that this Mr. Evans, whoever he was, could not move into a house he had legally rented without all this speculation and curiosity.
She supposed she would meet this Mr. Evans at some point; Gleneden was too small a place to avoid it. But beyond that, she hardly cared, turning her thoughts to those of the errands she would need to take care of that day. Her best dress had a tear in it that would need to be mended before Sunday; it was time to air out the bedding in the spare bedroom; she should continue working on the baby clothing she was making for her cousin Rachel, and so on…
With all that, Hermione quite forgot about the advent of this mysterious Mr. Evans.
But as it turned out, Hermione would be one of the first people to see Mr. Evans.
A few days after this, the weather was so fine that Hermione took her book outside to read for a while. She made her way over to a spot which she had privately claimed as her place, a little ways into the woods that marked the edge of her Aunt's property. The log of a fallen tree served as a bench of sorts and Hermione had spent many happy hours there in contented peace, with only a book for company.
Hermione opened the book and settled into luxurious perusal of it but it wasn't very long before she heard a rustling noise and looked up to see the figure of a man passing through the clearing.
He was unfamiliar and Hermione realized that this must be the Mr. Evans whom Mrs. Sterling had mentioned.
He paused briefly as he saw her, but only touched his cap in a quick gesture of greeting before he moved on, his stride soon carrying him out of sight towards the direction where Hermione knew the old Stuart place was.
Hermione watched him go with idle curiosity. The one brief glimpse had been enough for her to see that he was quite nice-looking, in spite of his glasses. His hair was black and just a shade longer than was normal for most Gleneden young men and looked decidedly untidy. He moved like a young man and looked young enough at first glance but for some reason-Hermione couldn't help but wonder if she was being fanciful-her lingering impression of him wasn't youth but age. Something about his expression, the look on his face, seemed to say that his life had not been an easy one and young as he might be in years, in experience and in troubles, he was far older than his years.
She wondered what might have happened to him but dismissed it in favor of her book.
But the thought returned to her the next day when Mrs. Sterling returned, quite bursting with the need to tell her news while Aunt Olivia betrayed mild curiosity.
"I've seen him, Olivia, Jane," she announced dramatically before she'd sat down.
"Seen who?"
"Olivia! Seen that Mr. Evans of course. He came into the village to get some supplies from Mr. Lovett's when I had gone to buy some more sugar and I saw him. He was quite curt to me when I introduced myself and would not say a word about his family or where he was from in England or anything. He seems quite suspicious to me," Mrs. Sterling went on, leaning forward and lowering her voice as if to impart a secret. "He must have an unhappy secret, I'm sure. He looks like he's harboring some terrible guilt which would explain why he's chosen to live here, miles from anywhere."
"Come now, Cecilia," Aunt Olivia chided mildly. "Surely you're being unfair to the young man. Perhaps he simply likes to be left alone. That is not a crime."
"No, it isn't," Mrs. Sterling admitted with an air of making a great concession, "but truly he does look like a man guilty of something. He did not smile at all and his eyes really gave me something of a chill. And besides, if he is not hiding something, why did he refuse to answer any of my questions about his past?"
This was rather clearly a rhetorical question and so neither Aunt Olivia nor Hermione responded. That lady, indeed, seeing that her speculation was not going to be encouraged, moved on to other subjects with only a "We'll find he's hiding something, just mark my words."
Hermione dismissed the warning as just more of Mrs. Sterling's ill-concealed suspicions concerning a young man whom she knew nothing about and she was beginning to wonder if Mrs. Sterling could find some other person's life to be interested in. Hermione could not find endless speculations about a stranger's life to be particularly fascinating.
She would remember the passing thought within a few days when she met Mr. Evans and spoke to him.
Hermione was walking home from the village, having gone to perform an errand for her aunt, when she saw Mr. Evans walking toward her, his eyes fixed on the ground as he strode along. He was clearly lost in thought and so it was, perhaps, inevitable that he nearly walked directly into her before stopping with something of a start.
"Oh. I beg your pardon. I was lost in my thoughts," he apologized.
Hermione smiled politely. "It is no matter, Mr. Evans."
He seemed to be on the verge of leaving again but her use of his name stopped him and he looked at her again, seeming to recollect his manners. He smiled, a little tentatively. "I see you have the advantage of me, Miss--"
Hermione blinked, suddenly-much to her own disgust-- having to scramble for her wits. When he was not smiling, he was simply passable but when he smiled, he showed a quite disarming charm-and he had the greenest eyes she had ever seen in a human face. It was really his eyes that so threw her off balance. She had the sudden odd sense that she could see everything she needed to know about him in his eyes… And then she blinked and dismissed that utter foolishness. "Hermione Jane Granger."
"Miss Granger, how do you do?"
"Very well, thank you, sir. Welcome to Gleneden. I hope you're finding it to your liking."
"It is certainly very lovely around here," he offered politely before glancing down at the parcels she was carrying. "Allow me to help you with those."
"Oh, no, it's not-" Hermione began but before she could finish, he interrupted her.
"It is no trouble."
Hermione gave in, smiling. "Thank you, Mr. Evans." She could not in the least understand what Mrs. Sterling had seen in Mr. Evans that made her suspect him of anything. He certainly seemed perfectly friendly, if a little reserved, to her. If anything, it was only proof of what Hermione had always suspected, that while Mrs. Sterling could be kind-hearted towards those she knew, she was also inherently biased against outsiders and, moreover, assumed that anyone who was not as forthright as to satisfy her own curiosity, must automatically be hiding something disgraceful. Although, Hermione noted, trying as she usually did, to be scrupulously fair, Mr. Evans did have something of an air of melancholy and of mystery about him when he was unsmiling and she already knew that he had not smiled once while he'd been enduring Mrs. Sterling's interrogation.
He took the parcels from her. "Lead the way, Miss Granger."
"It is really not at all far," Hermione said as they started walking. "I am quite capable of carrying them myself. My aunt would not have asked if she had not known it."
"Allow me my moment of gallantry," he said with a flicker of humor in his tone and in his eyes.
And Hermione was surprised at how young he looked and sounded at that moment. Although she had, at first, guessed his age to be somewhat over 30, she quickly revised her estimate to make him closer to her own age. She suddenly thought, with an insight that would have surprised her had she known how accurate it was, that he was probably not truly given to melancholy in his original temperament but that his life had made him so. She felt a flash of sympathy that, unconsciously, made her tone soften. "It's very kind of you."
"Not at all," he demurred.
Commonplace words, all, and certainly neither of them said anything more significant in the few minute walk but Hermione found herself surprisingly comfortable, at ease. It was remarkable, really, given that Hermione had never been one to make friends easily but somehow, this Mr. Evans did not seem like the complete stranger he was. She could not explain it, hardly even put it into words in her thoughts, but she had the odd sense that she had known him before, even as she dismissed it as foolishness.
"Here we are," Hermione said as they reached the gate of her aunt's home. "Won't you come in? I'm sure my aunt will be happy to make your acquaintance, give you some tea or a cool drink of some kind."
"No, I won't intrude with no notice but it was nice to meet you. And here are your parcels, safe and sound," he added, handing them over to Hermione.
"Thank you."
"Good day, Miss Granger."
"Good day."
He smiled and lifted his hat and then strode away. Hermione watched him go, her smile fading to be replaced by the beginnings of a frown. She had not noticed it before since his hair beneath his cap had been covering it but when he'd lifted it, the movement had revealed his forehead and she'd seen a very oddly-shaped scar just off center, a jagged line that looked rather like a lightning bolt. How very curious. She'd never seen a scar shaped like that before and wondered how he'd gotten it.
A lightning bolt-shaped scar… Yes, certainly curious. What could have caused such an oddly-shaped scar?
Hermione paused just before she entered the house, suddenly amused as she gave a soft, wry laugh. Perhaps there was something of the man of mystery about Mr. Evans, after all.
~To be continued…~
A/N 2: Before you ask-and as you'll find out, Harry is still Harry and at least the main outline of his life has been about the same.