Chapter Text
Prologue
Hermione
Hermione stared at the letter. Chewed on her lip, then stared again. It sat on the wooden table in her flat (the one with the wobbly leg), the black ink on the parchment creating a kind of permanence in her mind. It was the final knell. This letter solidified her commitment, reminding her that there was no return to the life she had built for herself.
Though, in a manner of speaking, this was a return. Ten long years she had spent abroad, doing anything she can to become something other than Hermione Granger, the Golden Girl, the Brightest Witch of Her Age. But now, she was going home. Or at least, what used to be home.
FROM THE OFFICE OF THE HEADMISTRESS, it read, and she chewed her lip again. Bile bit at the back of her throat, and she briefly considered transfiguring herself into a nun, or perhaps one of those American circus performers, and running away into obscurity forever. Unfortunately for Hermione, she had never been any good at juggling.
The conversation she had with Neville Longbottom replayed in her mind. Of all the friends she had made (and lost) during her time at Hogwarts, Neville, strangely enough, was the only one she retained. Perhaps it was his his mild tempered optimism that kept him in her life. Perhaps, it was because he didn't ask questions.
“I know, it’s a lot to ask…” she remembers his voice as it spoke through the spelled two-way mirror. At the time, fear and revulsion prickled at her skin. But time and age had mellowed the once theatrical and dramatic reaction she may have had, and Hermione found herself sympathizing with her oldest friend. And she had never known Neville to be the sort to get her into any kind of trouble.
One year, minimum commitment. Hogwarts would be implementing a new combined Muggle Studies and Magical History course, compulsory for all year levels.
The population of young wizards and witches was growing, and the school was aiming to become the forefront of combined muggle and magical literacy. Or, so Neville said. Hermione thought of her old Muggle Studies professor, Charity Burbage, swallowed by Nagini, and shuddered. Apparently, Hogwarts had not implemented another professor in the subject since. There was a part of Hermione that was rather defeated. All this time, and things still hadn’t changed very much. After all, if she took the position, she would be the only muggleborn on the faculty. What a bleak outlook on wizarding life, and exactly why she left Britain in the first place. Or at least, one of the reasons.
On the other hand, Hermione was furious. How could they not have continued Muggle Studies at all? It had only been around since 1930 to begin with. To go ten years after the Battle of Hogwarts, such a defining and devastating event seemingly without learning a single thing? Well, Hermione wouldn’t stand for it. She may have lost much of her love for the magical world, but she still had her sense of justice. And her passion for trying to make things right.
And it seems old habits died hard that way. She found herself being roped into Neville’s request and accepting a position as the new professor at Hogwarts, all revulsion be damned. And as she stared at the letter from the Headmistress, her old professor Minerva McGonagall, she attempted to swallow down the acid on her tongue. After all, they had stayed. She was the one who ran.
“Aw, Crooks…” she crooned. Her half-kneezel familiar sauntered onto the table, causing it to wobble back and forth. He looked up at her with his chartreuse eyes, wide like saucers. She’d hate to have to move him again, after all, he didn’t take well to extensive floo travel the first time.
She looked around her cluttered, but homey flat in Boston with a sense of trepidation. It was a quiet, lonely life. But it was all she had. It was safe. Neville had assured her that Hogwarts was safe, too. But then again, so did every other adult in her childhood and that was after a troll nearly killed her in the girl’s loo.
That night, she began to pack up her flat. Everything, the entirety of the last ten years of her life into two maroon colored trunks, spelled to house infinite space. And as she did this, Hermione reminded herself that she was in fact, not a child anymore. She was 28 now. A grown woman by all measures, and she was no longer afraid of things like trolls and monsters.
The floo travel would be long, she thought. At least three transfers. She would have to shrink the trunks down, so she could carry Crookshanks. She thought idly about her old friends, and wondered if anyone would even bother to reach her, now that she had decided to move back. In truth, she really didn’t want them to. A naive part of her wished she would never have to see them again, and could start this new chapter of her life in the same ignorance and peace as she did in the states. But she knew that was a fool’s thought. The Wizarding World was small, Wizarding Britain, even smaller. Only about twelve-hundred wizards and witches lived in the combined United Kingdom and Ireland when she had left home, and as far as she was concerned, that may as well have been twenty.
She finished packing, and stared again at the letter, now held aloft in her hand.
