A Matter of Destiny

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 15^th 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.

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

Author’s Note: Thank you, everyone, who read and reviewed the first chapter. I hope this chapter satisfies. For those who were wondering, this story takes place in America; I’ve imagined Gleneden to be somewhere in upstate New York.

For HarmonyLover, who caught the “Pride and Prejudice” reference in the first chapter.

A Matter of Destiny

Chapter 2: The Start of a Friendship

Hermione left her cousin with a last smile and turned to walk back home.

She had heard that old Mrs. Cannady was doing poorly and so she had called on Mrs. Cannady with soup and a freshly-baked loaf of bread. She had stopped in to visit with Rachel on her way home as a matter of course, as Rachel lived just down the lane from Mrs. Cannady.

Rachel had welcomed her with her usual placid good humor and while Hermione was sincerely fond of her cousin and always enjoyed her visits, sometimes Hermione had to admit that visiting Rachel made her feel rather… isolated. Seeing Rachel in all her serene contentment, blithely absorbed in her baby and her family and her household, sometimes served to make Hermione very conscious of how very different she and her cousin were.

From her childhood, Rachel had dreamed of nothing more than to marry and have children and so she had. She’d never been particularly fond of school, doing passably well (never at either the bottom or the top of her class) and she had finished school with something like relief. She had married young Billy Wilder (so called to distinguish him from his father, old Billy) and had Tommy just over a year later and was now expecting her second child. And Rachel was happy, entirely content with her life, as she’d always been, an obedient daughter, an affectionate cousin, a fond wife, a caring mother.

Hermione, in contrast, had always enjoyed school, throwing herself into her studies with an energy and a dedication that had half-alarmed her Aunt Olivia and dismayed her Uncle Paul. She’d easily stayed at the top of her class and her teachers had all marked her as one who should go on to college—college! The very word had been enough to thrill Hermione, as college had seemed like an almost heavenly place where she would be free to study and learn to her heart’s content. And then—and then had come the blow. Aunt Olivia had, gently but firmly, told Hermione that she could not go to college. They did not have enough money to send her and, more than that, her Uncle Paul disapproved of too much learning for girls. Hermione had given in, knowing she had no choice. She had buried her acute disappointment and moved on with her life. She did not blame her Uncle; it was, as she’d always known, simply what he had been raised to believe.

But that had been the end of Hermione’s dreams—and her studies, at least officially. Unofficially, Hermione had taken to haunting Miss Gallatin’s bookstore, where Miss Gallatin also ran what passed for the local library. And with Miss Gallatin’s willing assistance, Hermione had continued her studies, as far as she was able, through various correspondence courses and by simply reading every book she could. It was not, as Hermione was sometimes very aware, the same as a college course and it was not truly a challenge—certainly not challenging enough—but it was something.

She wasn’t unhappy; her life was full and busy and she was truly fond of her Aunt and her cousin. But sometimes—only sometimes, usually after she visited Rachel—Hermione was conscious of some restlessness bordering on dissatisfaction. Her life was busy, yes, but it was also very narrow and very easy; there was no challenge in it. She wanted more.

Hermione sighed and then grimaced a little at herself for indulging in such foolish dissatisfaction.

And yet… On an impulse which she didn’t even bother to fight, she left the path and decided to take the longer way through the woods. Walking through the woods rather than staying decorously on the path was something she occasionally did when she was feeling rather too confined. In it, she could pretend she was somewhere else entirely, somewhere far removed from Gleneden, somewhere where there was adventure, perhaps even some danger.

She didn’t often indulge in fantasies—indeed, the practical, sensible side of her positively abhorred her bouts of fantasy-- but today, she felt just restless enough that she decided to be foolish.

She flattened herself against a tree before venturing a quick peek around its trunk, scanning quickly for any signs of the danger she knew was lurking. Saw nothing and darted over behind another tree, moving as quickly and as silently as she could.

She bent to peek out from around the tree—

“Miss Granger? What are you doing?”

She started and whirled around so quickly her feet got tangled up in her skirts and she would have fallen if he hadn’t moved with lightning-quick reflexes and caught her by her upper arms until she was steady.

She straightened, knowing she was blushing hotly—good Lord, what must he think of her! No one ever walked through these woods—except, apparently, him. Mr. Evans, who was studying her with a quizzical expression on his face.

At that moment, she could have happily curled up out of mortification, wished she were anywhere else but here—but wishes were futile.

She lifted her chin, assuming as much dignity as she could muster, as she stated, her tone as calm as she could make it, “Thank you. If you must know, I was pretending that I was hiding from some danger that was lurking out in the woods.”

He blinked and she waited for him to laugh but then, to her surprise, something flickered in his eyes, his gaze softening a little, and he said, quite solemnly, his voice lowering, “I don’t believe it heard us.”

It was her turn to stare at him. Why, he was... he was falling in with her pretense and without batting an eye.

He leaned to one side, peering around the tree and scanning the area with one quick, sweeping gaze, before he turned back to her. “It’s looking away from us at the moment. Let’s try getting to that tree over there.”

And before she quite realized she was going to do so, she took his advice—quite as if there was nothing strange about the situation at all and, picking up her skirts and her basket, ran as quickly and silently as she could.

He joined her after a moment and she blinked a little. Pretense aside, he moved very quickly and she had a fleeting impression that he was... almost accustomed to this sort of thing, to having to move silently in order to escape danger. Which was, of course, quite unlikely.

“I’ll provide some distraction and then we can make a run for it,” he said now and, after waiting for her small nod of agreement, he bent swiftly and picked up a stick and threw it, sending it hurtling into the air away from them to fall through the undergrowth with a quite satisfactory rustle.

He met her eyes and on one accord, they both ran, Hermione conscious that he stayed slightly behind her as if to shield her from the danger they were fleeing, until they reached the edge of the woods and Hermione slowed and stopped to catch her breath.

“I think we’re safe now,” Mr. Evans said with quite commendable gravity.

“Yes, I believe so,” Hermione responded, beginning to walk forward and trying, vainly, to regain her dignity after this bout of childishness. What had she been thinking?

She glanced sideways at Mr. Evans, who had fallen into step beside her quite naturally, wondering at him. He had not laughed to find her engaging in such a pretense, had joined her in her pretense with a willingness and utter disregard for his own dignity that she found almost incredible.

“It’s a lovely morning, isn’t it?” she commented, trying to sound perfectly cool, sober, and mature.

He glanced at her and their eyes met—and she abruptly found herself laughing at the contrast of her commonplace words in light of the past few minutes and he joined in her laughter.

She stopped laughing but a smile remained as they exchanged grins. And she realized at that moment that they were friends now. Really and truly friends—and it didn’t matter that they didn’t actually know each other and had yet to have a real conversation. They had become friends and the restraint that would normally color all their words and actions with other recent acquaintances simply wasn’t present anymore—could not be present.

Apparently, pretending to escape some fictional danger was something that two people could not do without becoming friends.

Mr. Evans smiled—a real, sincere smile and not just a polite curve of his lips. “Do you often engage in pretenses of this sort, Miss Granger?”

“Oh, please call me Hermione,” Hermione found herself blurting out, surprising herself a little, as she had become accustomed to introducing herself by her middle name, Jane. (When she’d first moved to Gleneden, her Aunt had kindly explained that she thought Hermione might seem like too exotic of a name and would she mind terribly being called Jane instead? Hermione had agreed and so, while Aunt Olivia compromised and called her Hermione Jane, just about everyone else in Gleneden knew her as Jane.) She still thought of herself as Hermione but she had grown accustomed to answering to Jane and introducing herself as Jane. And yet, to Mr. Evans, just her first name had slipped out as a matter of course. Odd—and Hermione could only assume it was somehow a product of this newfound comfort with him.

“And my name is Harry,” Mr. Evans responded. “Do you pretend often, Hermione?”

“No, I don’t but today, I was feeling a little restless,” Hermione answered honestly.

“Ah, I see.”

Hermione expected him to ask why she’d feeling restless but was pleasantly surprised when he said nothing more. And something about his very lack of curiosity made her suddenly inclined to tell him the reason. “It was because I’d just paid a visit to my cousin, you see.”

“Ah.” he paused and then added, a little diffidently, “I am sorry to hear that.”

“Oh no,” Hermione quickly assured him, belatedly realizing just what her cryptic explanation might have been taken to imply. “It is not that I do not get along well with my cousin. I am very fond of her; Rachel has been like a younger sister to me. It is only that... well, Rachel is a dear and very content... not to say complacent... in her life. She has never wanted anything more than what she has, a home of her own and a family. And seeing her sometimes makes me realize how very different I am.” Hermione stopped abruptly, stunned at how freely she’d admitted all this to Mr. Evans, who really was still a virtual stranger. And yet, somehow, he didn’t feel like a stranger to her. Somehow—irrationally—it felt very natural to talk to him so candidly. “I’m sorry,” she hastily added. “I must seem very petulant.”

“No, not at all,” he answered swiftly and she had the odd sense that he really meant the words, was not just saying them to be polite, as anyone else would have. “I--” he hesitated again and then finished, quietly, “I am fully aware of how difficult it can be to feel different from those around us.”

She looked up at him in some surprise, wondering if this was the cause of that melancholy she sensed in him. “Yes, exactly, to feel alone even when surrounded by people who care about you and whom you care about…” The words came surprisingly easily, given that she’d never before put those feelings into words.

“Yes,” he agreed quietly and said nothing more, his gaze fixed on the path beneath their feet.

They walked in silence for a little ways, a surprisingly comfortable silence. It was clear that Mr. Evans—Harry—was not one of those who felt the need to constantly speak and Hermione was glad of that.

They didn’t speak until the path narrowed and Hermione automatically switched her basket over to hold it in her other hand to allow her to hold it in front of her as they walked.

“What is the basket for? May I help you carry it?” Harry asked.

“Oh, it’s empty now. I’m just bringing it home after using it to bring some soup and a loaf of bread to Mrs. Cannady. I heard she was feeling poorly.”

“I don’t believe I’ve met Mrs. Cannady. Is she a relation?”

“No, she’s an old friend of my aunt’s. Mrs. Cannady hardly leaves her house anymore. She’s getting on in years and cannot walk as well as she used to. She does get lonely though, living alone as she does, since she lost her husband, and so I try to visit when I can.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Harry commented.

“No, not really. This is a small village, after all; we try to help our neighbors when we can,” Hermione demurred. “Mrs. Cannady lives just a few houses down from my cousin, so I always visit my cousin when I go to see Mrs. Cannady.”

“Has your cousin been married long?” Harry inquired, not as if he was particularly interested in the answer but because he was almost visibly forcing himself to make polite conversation.

“She’s been married more than three years now. Her baby son is a year old.”

“How nice.”

Harry fell back into silence after that as if he had exhausted his limited store of meaningless conversation and, unlike most people, did not feel particularly obligated to avoid silence. Or, she reflected with a small chill of her spirit, perhaps he simply didn’t care that some people might think him lacking in manners.

She glanced at him as he walked along to see that he had his eyes fixed on the ground, that hint of melancholy she’d noticed in him before now quite apparent. Whatever his thoughts were, they were clearly not happy ones. She felt a swift surge of sympathy and obeyed a sudden impulse by saying lightly, “I should thank you for helping me escape from the imaginary monster lurking in the woods.”

She was rewarded with a quick smile and a brief laugh that almost seemed startled out of him.

“You’re very welcome.”

Heartened at his response, she added teasingly, “It was quite heroic of you--” She broke off abruptly, startled at his reaction, the sudden blankness of his expression.

“I’m not a hero!” he denied with a vehemence all the more intense for how restrained it was.

Surprised and uncertain, Hermione could think of nothing to say in response.

He stopped walking, turning to her. “I- excuse me,” he blurted out. “I’ve just remembered somewhere I need to be. Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon,” Hermione responded automatically to the perfunctory farewell but he had turned away and was walking swiftly away from her before the words were fully out of her mouth. Hermione stared after Harry—no, Mr. Evans’ retreating back for a moment before she made herself turn and resume her walk. She could not think of him as Harry, never mind the sudden feeling of companionship she’d felt earlier—at least, not now, when his surprising reaction to her words and his abrupt departure both served as stark reminders that she really didn’t know him at all.

Clearly, her words about his being heroic, teasing as they were, had touched a nerve—his reaction so visceral that it overrode the sense of humor Hermione had already glimpsed in him. But why?

She didn’t know anything about him, didn’t understand him—but she wanted to. Not out of idle curiosity—although she was honest enough to admit that some curiosity played a part—but because he was an unknown, a stranger, in her world that had until now been all too transparent. He was a challenge, of sorts, in her life that had few, if any, challenges.

She wanted to know him and she wanted to help him—because one thing she did know about him already was that, whatever had happened in his past, he was not happy now. It was apparent in his expression and in his eyes and something about his gloom tugged at something inside her. She wanted to somehow ease the melancholy and the loneliness she’d already glimpsed in him.

She wanted to be his friend.

~To be continued…~

A/N 2: Part of this chapter may be considered a shout-out to my dear, departed college days—and to the Seven Sisters. Also, Hermione pretending the way she does might seem OOC for her and almost definitely is OOC for canon!Hermione (by which I mean the Hermione of Books 1-5, not the sudden idiot we got in HBP) but this Hermione has lived a much narrower life with very little outlet for her strength of character and this Hermione needs something or she’d probably have gone insane. Or at least, that’s what I say.

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

A Matter of Destiny

Chapter 3: Getting to Know You

Harry paused as he saw Miss Granger—Hermione-- sitting on the log where he remembered he had first seen her just days after his arrival here.

For almost anyone else, he would probably have turned around and continued on his restless wandering but instead he turned his steps towards her.

He had left her abruptly, even rudely, the last time they’d spoken a few days ago. He knew he’d reacted badly—stupidly—to her teasing words and he owed her something of an apology, if not an explanation, for that. And entirely aside from that, the truth remained that he liked her. She’d been openly friendly from the first and he was not so overburdened with friends that he could ignore that consideration.

He couldn’t explain why but even in the very short conversations he and Hermione had had, he’d been comfortable. He’d liked her. He didn’t think he was a particularly good judge of character; indeed, with his past experiences with people, he was inclined to think he was a very bad judge of character indeed. But in spite of his usual wariness around people whom he did not know—and many whom he did know—he felt inclined to like Hermione. He had felt comfortable with her in a way he could not remember ever feeling with anyone so swiftly after meeting them, not even with Ron, he thought, with the sudden throb of loneliness that always accompanied the thought of Ron nowadays.

There had just been something about her—and on the thought, he realized just what it was about Hermione that had appealed to him. It was her directness, her honesty. Her expression had been open and friendly, her eyes clear of any hidden motives or interest. He had seen too much insincerity, too much disingenuousness, in his life not to be able to recognize it, usually fairly quickly. Hermione had met his eyes directly, conversed easily. He’d liked that, even though he was conscious that he himself was not being candid, was guarding his own secrets closely.

He also appreciated that she had not shown any excessive curiosity, unlike the one woman in town who had introduced herself as Mrs. Sterling and unlike countless other people he’d met over the years. (He’d found that one of the things he hated most about his fame was the way complete strangers seemed to feel they had the right to know everything about him and had no compunction about asking him all sorts of questions, ranging from the mundane to the downright intrusive.)

Even here, so far removed from his own world that there were times he felt he had somehow landed on an entirely separate planet, he’d encountered curiosity, not because of his fame this time, but because in such a small village, everyone knew of everyone else’s business, accepted that as a matter of course and a way of life.

Perhaps it was his British reserve as well as his tendency to privacy but whatever the reason, Harry found the small-town curiosity utterly baffling, not to say rather irritating. After all, a large part of the reason he had chosen this place of all others to settle for any length of time was because he’d felt quite certain that, as remote as it was—and as Muggle as it was-- no one would have the slightest clue who he really was and he’d hoped that would mean he’d be left alone. Not so, he’d quickly found, on his first visit into the village to pick up some immediately needed supplies and found himself subjected to a veritable interrogation, if a generally friendly interrogation, from nearly everyone he spoke to.

In contrast, Hermione had not asked him anything about himself. She had not made any leading comments to elicit information. She had not flirted. She had only conversed and there hadn’t been a shred of disingenuousness in her manner at all.

He’d liked that. She was, he thought, probably the first person, the first young lady certainly, he had ever met who had treated him in so straightforward a manner. He had no doubt that part of that was due to her ignorance of who and what he was but he’d still found it refreshing.

To say nothing of the fact that he could count on one hand the number of young women he knew who would have admitted to pretending the way Hermione had. One hand—and still have four fingers left over. Just thinking about the way she had lifted her chin before making such an admission made him want to laugh.

He had become something of a misanthrope and a hermit in these past few years, Harry was aware, but he was conscious every day of an increasing sense of loneliness. He missed Ron; he missed the Weasleys; he even found himself missing Professor McGonagall, if only because she was one of the few people whom he trusted and who did not treat him like a hero. He’d realized that he was not meant, by nature, to be so solitary and he was lonely—alone by his own choice, but lonely nevertheless.

But the fact remained that, lonely as he was, he had no desire to return to England, to be Harry Potter again. Indeed, he positively relished being Harry Evans, relished the anonymity of being Harry Evans. In one sense, he even valued the friendly questioning he’d been faced with when he’d gone into the village because it had only reinforced the fact that he was unknown. No, he didn’t want to be Harry Potter again. And if Harry Evans was sometimes lonely, well, it was the price he had to pay.

Except… perhaps it wasn’t.

Maybe it was simply a result of his sudden impulse to go along with Hermione’s flight of imagination—a result of his own years with the Dursleys when he’d spent a fair number of hours pretending he was somewhere else—but he thought that Hermione could be a friend.

“Good afternoon, Hermione. We meet again,” he greeted her.

She looked up from her book with a small start that evidenced how engrossed she’d been. “Oh! Good afternoon, Mr. Evans,” she said, closing her book and hastily standing.

She looked rather flustered—and something about that amused him, made him feel a flicker of warmth in his chest, not because he liked knowing that she was uncomfortable but because he liked the fact that she showed it. It was rather refreshing.

“The name’s Harry,” he corrected her mildly. “I hope you don’t mind my disturbing you from your book.”

“No, not at all. I can read it later,” she said and then was silent as she resumed her seat.

He sat down on the log beside her, sensing her newfound uncertainty around him, a touch of diffidence which she hadn’t shown in either of their previous meetings. “I- I wanted to apologize,” he finally began a little awkwardly. “I was very abrupt in ending our last meeting and may have seemed rude but that was not my intention. I-I am sorry.”

He finally glanced at her and was relieved to see her smile. “You are forgiven but you needn’t have worried. I was not offended.”

“Thank you,” he said, pausing. He could have stopped right there; there was no real reason he needed to explain himself further but he found himself continuing, almost confiding, with an ease that amazed him. “I- I have known some true heroes and I would not diminish their bravery in any way by making any small claim to a heroism like theirs.”

“I understand,” Hermione said gently. “How are you settling in?”

“Very well, I think. I enjoy my walks through the woods around here.”

“Yes, it is lovely here,” Hermione agreed.

“Have you lived in Gleneden all your life, Hermione?” Harry asked.

“No, but I moved here to live with my aunt when I was still quite young.”

She lived with her aunt? He wondered where her parents were but he could hardly ask such a thing. But then, almost as if she’d sensed his wondering, she continued on.

“My parents passed away, you see, so my aunt took me in.”

“Oh. I am sorry to hear of your loss,” he said quietly, something inside him flinching. She had lost her parents too… And even though he almost never spoke of his parents, he found himself admitting, “My- my parents passed away as well, when I was just a baby.”

“I’m sorry,” Hermione murmured.

Commonplace words that shouldn’t have affected him and yet, they did. Warmth blossomed in his chest and he realized that no one had ever actually said those words to him over his parents. No one had ever given him condolences for his parents. Everyone he met who knew about his parents was more interested in commenting on his miraculous survival. No one seemed to remember that he’d also lost his parents, that he might miss them.

Hermione hesitated for a moment and then added, a touch of diffidence entering her tone, “I- I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been. I know I was fortunate that Aunt Olivia and Uncle Paul welcomed me as they did.”

Harry stilled, feeling something clutch at his heart at the words. She meant to be—she was being sympathetic, understanding—but at her words, he felt a pang of another emotion that he was ashamed to admit but couldn’t deny was something very like envy. He envied her. “Yes, you were very fortunate,” he managed to say, rather gruffly.

Their situations were similar enough, at least in this one aspect, that it only made the difference in how they had been raised that much more stark. He couldn’t help but compare their lives, or at least what he could guess of Hermione’s. They’d each lost their parents, had each been taken in by an aunt and uncle—but there, the similarity stopped. From her words both just now and previously, he could guess that Hermione’s aunt and uncle had been good to her, whereas his… She had experienced what he had only dreamed of in his miserable years with the Dursleys: having an aunt and uncle who were kind, who treated him like a family member. He remembered with a pang of remembered pain all the times he’d wondered why his aunt, his own mother’s sister, did not care for him, when he’d wondered what he’d done to be treated so badly. Yes, he envied her—and he was suddenly disgusted with himself. Was this the type of person he was, the type of person he had become, to react so selfishly to someone else’s good fortune simply because he had not had similar good fortune? He was, he realized with a stab of horror, reacting in the same fashion as his cousin Dudley had, whenever he’d learned of any other person having something he did not have. “I am glad to know it,” he made himself say—and he meant the words. He was glad to know it; he would not wish his own childhood on anyone else. He was not—would not let himself be—like his cousin.

There was a moment of silence. Harry could not think of anything to say, almost wished he could escape but forced himself to stay still. He’d already left Hermione so abruptly as to be rude once; he could hardly do so again. And it was certainly not her fault that the Dursleys had not been kind.

He said nothing more and Hermione turned to look at him, feeling a quick pang of sympathy at the sight of the already familiar brooding expression on his face. She hesitated, knowing she was about to pry, but unable to stop herself from asking, “Since you lost your parents when you were so young, where did you live?”

“I lived with my aunt and uncle,” he replied briefly.

“Oh.” She paused and then added, a little diffidently, “I- I hope they were as kind as my aunt and uncle were to me.”

He didn’t respond and from the sudden chill in the atmosphere, she realized that she’d made a mistake, should not have said what she had. She had the sudden impression that she had foolishly, in her own ignorance, rushed in where angels would fear to tread.

She had just begun to wonder if her blunder would make him stop talking to her altogether when he finally did speak, although the words were not calculated to relieve her.

“No, they were not kind,” he bit out, his tone abrupt.

She flinched a little at the bitterness in his voice, wishing she hadn’t said anything, even though she knew his bitterness wasn’t directed at her. She wanted to say she was sorry but hardly wanted to mention it again, did not want to remind him of her foolish words. And so she said nothing as she wondered what she could say to help, to somehow brighten his mood.

She felt a sudden surge of anger at his unknown aunt and uncle for their mistreatment of him. She didn’t know exactly how they had been unkind; she could only imagine it from his tone and from his expression now and that was quite enough to make her feel a flash of anger stronger than anything she’d ever really felt. However they had treated him, it had clearly crossed all bounds of decency and family feeling. How could they treat him so, when he’d lost his parents at such a young age, as he had said? She decided she quite hated his aunt and uncle already with a vindictiveness that surprised her.

Her anger was almost immediately drowned out in the flood of compassion she felt for him, at the thought of the orphaned little boy treated unkindly. He deserved better than what he had apparently received. She could not make up for his past unhappiness but, she resolved, she could be his friend now.

The silence lasted long enough for Hermione to begin to wonder if Harry ever planned to talk to her again but then he shifted and she could almost see him mentally shake himself out of his reverie.

He turned to her with a small smile that was clearly forced. “You seem to be very fond of books,” he said with studied ease. “I remember you were also reading when I first saw you here.”

Relieved at the change of subject and to one that was so dear to her, Hermione followed his lead gladly, giving a small laugh. “My being fond of books is an understatement. My aunt always says that I don’t read books, I devour them.”

“What are you reading now?”

“I’m actually re-reading ‘The Iliad’ by Homer.” If Harry felt any surprise at her choice of reading material, that was, admittedly, not of the sort generally approved of for young women, he didn’t show it.

“Ah. It has been years since I last read Homer but I recall enjoying both ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey.’ Which do you prefer, Hermione?”

“‘The Iliad’ undoubtedly,” Hermione answered promptly. “I confess that I’ve always found ‘The Odyssey’ to be irritating.”

“Irritating? That’s an odd word to use. Why is it irritating?” he asked curiously.

“I, ah, dislike what happens to Penelope,” Hermione admitted a little reluctantly. She was well aware that her opinions on this-- and on some other subjects-- tended to be unconventional, to say the least, and she wished she had not simply given her opinion of ‘The Odyssey’ quite so freely.

She hoped he would be satisfied with this brief explanation but he only gave her an expectant look and then said, with a slight smile, “After such an intriguing statement, surely you won’t be so cruel as to leave me in suspense to why you find Penelope’s fate so displeasing. Her husband returns to her and she is honored for her fidelity.”

Hermione relented to the gentle prompting and continued on, with deliberate calm. “I find it irritating that no one recognizes how intelligent Penelope was to outwit her suitors for so long and find her praise-worthy only for how she waited at home for her husband to return. No one, including Odysseus himself, seems to recognize her intelligence and her strength to do what she did.”

“Well, it must be admitted that intelligence and strength are not generally valued in women,” Harry said mildly.

The statement, mild as it was, was the spark to the tinder and Hermione felt her calm slip. “That is just the problem! I do wish people did not assume that women are naturally weak-willed and vapid, capable only of sitting by the fireside and sewing!”

Harry had a sudden mental image of someone telling Professor McGonagall, who could be quite as formidable as Headmaster Dumbledore had ever been, that she should only spend her days sitting by a fire and sewing and smiled involuntarily. He had little doubt that any person who was so foolish would end up thoroughly intimidated and quite possibly lacking a body part or two.

Hermione saw the smile and stiffened. She had forgotten how little she knew of Harry and it appeared that Harry, too, found the idea of a woman being intelligent and capable to be fodder for amusement only, as so many men did. She was a little surprised at the depth of her disappointment but it would not be the last time she encountered a man who thought so, she told herself, and there was no reason she should care so much to have encountered one more.

“I don’t find it at all amusing,” she said stiffly, her voice noticeably cooler.

Harry blinked and looked... confused? before the expression cleared and then was explained as he hastily said, “I wasn’t smiling at the idea that women can be clever. I was just picturing what would happen if someone ever told a former Professor of mine that she should sit by the fire and sew. My Professor could be very intimidating so anyone who dared tell her that would be very sorry for it.”

“Oh.” Hermione relaxed, unbending enough to smile a little sheepishly. “I may have over-reacted but I do find it irritating.”

“I can understand that,” Harry said mildly. “I have met enough clever women in my life-- and encountered far too many foolish men-- to believe that men are naturally any more intelligent than women. And the Professor I just mentioned was a force to be reckoned with, more so than almost every other man I’ve ever known.”
Hermione gave him a bright, approving smile, although she spoke lightly, “You can have no idea just how much my opinion of you has improved for saying that.”

Harry laughed-- and once again, Hermione was surprised at how much a smile changed his appearance, brightening his eyes and lending his countenance a disarming charm. “So, friends then?” he asked, holding out one hand.

She accepted his hand readily. “Friends,” she agreed, shaking his hand firmly before releasing it. “This Professor you mentioned, was she from your college?” Hermione was aware that a wistful note slipped into her voice at the word, college, but she couldn’t help that.

An odd expression Hermione couldn’t quite decipher flickered across Harry’s face and she wondered at it, but he answered easily enough and the look slipped her mind. “University, you mean? No, she was from the, er, secondary school I went to. I didn’t go to University; I was never exactly the best student,” he added with a self-deprecatory smile.

“Oh.” Hermione smiled slightly at his confession but the smile slipped as she confessed, “I’ve always wanted to go to college.”

“Why didn’t you? I would guess that you were a good enough student to go.”

Hermione tried to smile and make her tone light but was aware that she didn’t quite succeed. It may have been years but the disappointment she had felt was still present, still fresh whenever she remembered it. “My aunt and uncle did not have the funds and my uncle, at least, believed that higher education made girls ‘unfit for their proper sphere.’”

“I can see why Penelope’s fate would irritate you,” was all he said but his tone was understanding, and Hermione found herself inexplicably comforted.

She managed a real smile as she asked, “What was your school like? Did you like it?”

She saw her answer in his expression even before he answered. “Yes, I did. I- loved it,” he said very softly, his gaze fixed absently on the underbrush before them and she guessed that he was remembering his school. Then he blinked and added in a more normal voice, “It was a boarding school up north, and so I was away from my aunt and uncle’s house, and it was wonderful.”

“That sounds nice,” Hermione said, tactfully avoiding any mention of his implied confession of how much he’d disliked living with his aunt and uncle. “I always enjoyed school, enjoyed studying.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Harry rejoined rather dryly.

Hermione had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing, inordinately pleased to see the humor brightening his eyes and that Harry was comfortable enough to tease her. “I can’t imagine what you mean,” she said with exaggerated innocence.

“No? Even from our brief acquaintance, I would guess that you were always at the head of the class.”

“And so I was,” Hermione admitted. “I enjoy reading and learning new things so it was no hardship to me to spend my time studying.”

“My closest friend would question your sanity for saying such a thing.” Harry spoke lightly but there was an odd intonation in his voice at the mention of his closest friend that Hermione wondered at.

“I assume your friend is not inclined to spend his time reading.”

Harry let out a brief chuckle, as if amused at the very thought. “No, he is not. He--” Harry hesitated for a moment and then continued on, a little slower than usual, “he has many siblings so he has never had the opportunity to discover for himself what good companions books can be.” His tone altered in some indefinable way at this mention, oblique as it was, of his friend’s siblings and Hermione could only guess that there was some memory or emotion attached to the thought of his friend’s siblings that affected Harry so strongly.
“Your friend lives in England? You must miss him,” was her only response.

“Yes,” Harry agreed quietly.

“Is England as beautiful a country as I have heard?”

“I think it is but then it is my home country,” Harry answered, his tone light. “I am not an impartial observer.”

“I have always hoped to visit England one day. Where in England is your home, Harry?” Hermione belatedly remembered that Mrs. Sterling had complained that Harry had not even told her where in England he was from, and wondered if he would answer.

“My aunt and uncle live not far from Cambridge,” Harry responded after an almost imperceptible pause.

“I see,” Hermione said neutrally. She could not help but be aware that Harry, who had already admitted to not liking his aunt and uncle’s house, had still referred to it as “home” when asked. It was odd-- and while Hermione would normally have thought nothing of it, Harry’s fleeting hesitation made her wonder. But she would not pry. She would, however, try to tease. “I will have to tell Mrs. Sterling; she was so curious to know where you were from.”

She had to bite back a laugh at the expression that crossed Harry’s face at the mention of Mrs. Sterling. To say it was a grimace would have been an exaggeration, but it was clear that he wanted to grimace and was restrained only by the fact that it would have been ungentlemanly and discourteous. The struggle was visible and resulted in an oddly blank look.

“I only met Mrs. Sterling briefly but I could see that she takes an active interest in other people,” Harry temporized diplomatically.

Hermione smiled at the careful phrasing, even as she approved of his tact. “Yes, she certainly does.”

“I suppose you know Mrs. Sterling well.”

“Everyone in Gleneden knows Mrs. Sterling,” Hermione answered lightly. “And Mrs. Sterling certainly knows everyone in Gleneden.”

“I can easily believe that.”

“I call her the Town Crier,” Hermione found herself confessing. “She is always the best source of news about anything that’s happened in the village.”

Harry laughed. “How very fitting.”

“It is rather unkind of me, but the name does suit her.”

“It doesn’t seem unkind,” Harry commented, reflecting that Hermione’s definition of ‘unkind’ seemed much broader than his.

“Oh, but you see Mrs. Sterling is really very kind. She may be something of a busy-body, but whenever anyone falls ill or is otherwise in need, she is always one of the first to call with food or other offers of assistance.”

“That is kind of her,” Harry agreed, even as he thought that Hermione’s words revealed rather more about herself than they did Mrs. Sterling. Mrs. Sterling may have a heart of gold; he was not in a position to know. What was more clear to him was that Hermione had a strong sense of justice, wanting to be fair even to people like Mrs. Sterling, who, whatever her virtues may have been, was also quite irritating.

“How long ago did you leave England?” Hermione asked, changing the subject away from that of Mrs. Sterling since it was fairly clear that Harry was not particularly fond of the topic.

“It’s been four years now.”

“Four years!” Hermione exclaimed, surprised out of any reticence. Four years—when she had been imagining Harry had only left England a matter of weeks, at most months, ago when she’d imagined he’d decided to settle in America for the time being. She opened her lips to ask why he’d left England for such a long time but bit back the question, mindful of Harry’s clear reluctance to talk about himself.

“I wanted to see something of the world,” Harry explained briefly.

“Haven’t you returned to England at all in four years?”

“No. The- the opportunity to return never presented itself.”

It was not a particularly convincing explanation but Hermione refrained from comment. She believed him, as far as it went, but wanting to see something of the world hardly required such constant traveling that he could not return to England—his home—in four long years. No, an absence of four years with only the ostensible purpose of seeing something of the world spoke more of exile, an apparently-voluntary exile as it was. And the very fact that he had rented the Stuart place evinced some intention of settling in Gleneden for at least a little while and a lengthy stay in Gleneden was hardly consistent with seeing more of the world; if anything, staying in Gleneden indicated a desire to retreat from the world. There was more to Harry’s departure from England than that, she was sure.

“I quite envy you your travels; I’ve always wanted to travel,” Hermione responded instead. “Where have you travelled to?”

“I started on the Continent, naturally,” Harry began, beginning to describe where he’d been. He spoke fluently, clearly more comfortable with this topic than he was in talking about himself.

Hermione listened with interest, finding that Harry, while not being particularly eloquent, had a way of describing things that made them seem very real and noting that there were times he showed flashes of almost surprising wisdom, as well as flashes of the humor she’d already noticed. She listened and she responded, commenting and asking questions, and found that their conversation was not as one-sided as she might have feared, given her own circumscribed life. He may have travelled much more widely than she had but she found that her extensive reading served her in good stead, allowing her to do more than passively listen but to contribute as well. She may not have travelled herself, but her mind had not always remained in Gleneden, or even in the state; through her reading, her mind had journeyed to distant climes and distant times. And it allowed her to listen, to understand, and tell Harry things which he had not known.

And Hermione discovered a new joy, that of actually being able to talk about things she’d read with someone who could respond as an equal, someone who listened with interest that was entirely unfeigned, and who accepted, without a blink, that a girl might have such broad knowledge and might know more than he himself did. It was an almost unique experience in her life thus far, living as she did in tiny Gleneden, surrounded by people who did not feel it necessary to think beyond the boundaries of their small world and their narrow experiences.

Hermione had rather grown accustomed to feeling different but now, in Harry, she had the sudden odd sensation of having found a kindred spirit, of sorts, although she did not put the feeling into so many words, even in her thoughts. All she knew was that she felt remarkably at ease; entirely absent were the constraints which she usually felt around people early in their acquaintance, the care she took not to say anything to reveal her true self. Instead, she felt—and found herself behaving-- as if she and Harry had been friends for a long while, talking with a freedom which she had not experienced in years.

Time slipped insensibly by as they talked and Hermione’s first awareness of how late it was growing was prompted by the realization that the sun had slipped down until its rays were shining almost directly into her eyes, even through the canopy of the trees, and she came to a belated awareness that the afternoon was nearly over.

“Oh, I must be going. My aunt will be wondering what has become of me,” Hermione said with unfeigned reluctance.

“Oh, yes, of course. I had not realized how much time had passed.”

Hermione stood up, realizing anew just how long she had been sitting there when her muscles protested noticeably. “I truly enjoyed our conversation.”

Harry had stood up as well and he smiled slightly at the formal sentence. “As did I. We will have to continue it one day.”

Hermione smiled. “I’ll look forward to it.”

Harry fell into step beside her as she started on her way home, the conversation returning to more commonplace subjects as they walked before they gradually fell into silence. A silence that was, somehow, just as comfortable as their conversation had been, and which lasted unbroken until she reached the gate of her home.

“Goodbye, Harry,” Hermione said with a smile.

“Until next time,” Harry returned her smile, touching his cap in a courteous gesture, as he turned away.

“Ah, Hermione Jane, there you are,” Aunt Olivia greeted Hermione as she entered. “You must have gotten quite engrossed in your latest book.”

“Actually, no, I did not,” Hermione answered, entering the sitting room where Aunt Olivia was sitting. “I happened to meet with H—Mr. Evans, and we have been talking.”

“That’s nice, dear. It will be good for Mr. Evans to make friends in the village so that he will begin to feel more at home. Did you enjoy your conversation with him?”

Hermione smiled. “I did. Mr. Evans was telling me something of his travels.”

“That must have been interesting for you. You must invite Mr. Evans in for tea some day, Hermione Jane.”

“I will, Aunt Olivia. I believe Mr. Evans and I will become good friends,” Hermione said. She spoke casually but saying the words made her conscious of a sudden throb of longing mingled in with hope that now, finally, with Harry, she might experience a true friendship of equals.

Hermione was suddenly very aware that she had never truly had such a friend before. While she had been generally friendly with everyone in Gleneden’s village school, she had found that she could never truly be friends with them because there was such a chasm between their interests and her own. The other girls in Gleneden seemed primarily interested in clothing and gossip, neither of which Hermione had any interest in. And very few other people had any real interest in the world outside of Gleneden and the neighboring villages; the generally prevailing attitude was that anything outside of Gleneden’s immediate area was “foreign” and not much worth knowing about. Even New York City that was, after all, in the same state and not too terribly far away was spoken of as a remote location, and anyone who went there spoken of in the light of an intrepid traveler, venturing forth into a distant land.

Harry was, for the obvious reasons, very different from most Gleneden folk, and after their conversation, they were friends.

Yes, she really did believe—and hope—that she and Harry would become very good friends, indeed.

~To be continued…~