A Time For Heroes

Anisky

Story Summary:
She had always been proper. Collected. But Hermione should have known she couldn’t keep it up, not when her life falls apart and all of Wizarding Britain is watching and taking pictures. The problem is, she's not sure she ever learned what it was to live. Hermione/Penelope

Chapter 05 - Interrelation

Posted:
01/26/2011
Hits:
35
Author's Note:
So, I'm posting this rather belatedly. Obviously, it's AU now, and non-DH compliant.


Chapter 5: Interrelation

Hermione could feel her heart beating. Her eyes darted from one parent to the other. They weren't joking.

"What?" she managed finally, stepping over the glass to get her wand. She pointed it at the broken glass and exclaimed, "Reparo!"

That done, she turned back to her parents, looking at their serious faces. She shook her head. "No, no, there is no wayI haven't told you."

"You've never said anything about a war, Hermione," her mother confirmed after a brief hesitation.

"Remember, Lord Voldemort? The Death Eaters?" She looked back and forth between them in disbelief and slipped back into her seat without bothering to get water. "I know I told you about them, they thought that Muggleborns shouldn't be allowed in Wizarding society?"

"I think you mentioned something about that," her mom admitted after a pause, "but only occasionally, and you never said anything about a war."

"Voldemort," her father's eyes were narrowed in thought, "wasn't he the one your friend Harry defeated as a baby?"

"Yes, but he came back at the end of my fourth year. I must have told you, that's why I didn't go to school for most of my last year." Hermione couldn't believe that her parents didn't remember. Could someone have Obliviated them? They must have. But why?

She thought back, trying to remember the conversations in which she told them, and realized that nothing came to mind.

"Your fourth year?" her father cried angrily. "You've been involved in a war since you were fifteen?"

"Well, yes, but--"

"Wait, you didn't go to school for your last year?" her mother interjected.

"I went back at the end and fin--"

"And you never told us?" He interrupted her furiously.

"I thought I had!" she protested.

"You don't forget to tell your parents that you're in a war, Hermione," her dad said icily.

It was true. She knew he was right.

Yet somehow, she had.

Hermione looked down at the table, nibbling at her lip. "I was afraid you'd take me out of school," she admitted.

"And you don't think that's our right as parents, to decide what's best for our fifteen year old daughter?" This came from her mother. She spoke quietly, but Hermione vaguely remembered that her mother was quietest when she was angriest.

"I was at Hogwarts, it was the safest place I could be," she tried to explain to them, "if I went home I'd just be an easier target, and you'd be in more danger."

"Why didn't you explain that to us, then?" her father demanded. "Did you think that we can't be reasonable? That we wouldn't understand? What, because we don't have magic we aren't intelligent people who can think and understand a situation?"

Hermione gaped at her parents. "What--of course not!"

"Then why didn't you tell us?" her mother asked softly.

She looked down at her hands. "I don't know," she told them finally, "I--I really thought I had by now. I guess I just assumed that since it was such a huge part of my life, you must have known about it."

There was a very long pause.

"We don't really know about anything in your life, Hermione," her mother said eventually.

She had no idea what to say in response. It was just painfully true.

"I really thought I'd told you," she repeated helplessly.

When she looked into her mother's eyes, she already knew what they were all thinking: That was the worst part of all.

Hermione swallowed, her throat feeling very dry. She got up again to get that glass of water, then sat back down at the table, looking back and forth between her parents and trying to figure out what to say. Unfortunately, they seemed similarly speechless.

"So, um..." she tried.

Suddenly, there was a strange chiming sound, and Hermione grasped her wand and jumped up from her seat. She held the wand up in a defensive position, looking around wildly.

Her mother lightly touched her arm and gave her a reassuring, though somewhat alarmed, look. Her father drew a small silver thing from his pocked and looked at it. He flipped it open after a moment, and the chiming stopped. He held it up to the side of his face.

"Hello?" he asked.

Hermione sank back into her seat, blushing hotly at her paranoid reaction. It was a telephone. A--a mobile phone, she thought she faintly remembered hearing them called. She'd seen Muggles use them before. They had become popular in the late nineties, and she hadn't spent more than a few days in contact in the Muggle world since before that.

"Yes... okay, thank you for letting me know," he spoke into the phone, and then snapped it shut and looked up.

"That was just the office, letting me know that my nine o'clock on Monday cancelled," he told them.

"Oh," Hermione squeaked. She slid her wand back into her pants uncomfortably and tried not to think about how bright red her face must be. "Well. That's good."

"So, er, any wars going on now, sweetie?" her mother asked in a heartbreaking imitation of normal familial small talk.

"Ah, no," Hermione hastened to assure her, "there's been peace for about five years, now, Harry defeated Voldemort in our final year at Hogwarts."

"The one you didn't attend?" her father asked, looking over his glasses at her.

"I went and finished it," she said.

"How were you Head Girl if you didn't go?" her mother asked.

"Well, Professor McGonagall was a member of the Order..." Hermione trailed off as she realized that her parents had no idea about the Order of the Phoenix. "Well, the Headmistress knew about our mission and, well, either we would succeed or all of us would die, so either way there was no reason not to let me remain Head Girl."

"And what would have happened if you'd died?" her mother asked softly. "Would we even have been told?"

Hermione was about to assure her that of course they would have been told... until she remembered her second year, when she'd been Petrified, and the school never told her parents. At the time, she, in her thirteen year old thoughtlessness, had simply been relieved that she would not have to have an argument with her family about whether or not she could go back to Hogwarts.

Now, as an adult, she had to admit that it was awfully strange, and terribly insensitive to the parents of Muggleborns. Were her parents right? Did even the good guys think of Muggles as too silly and inconsequential to be informed of the safety and lives of their magical children?

I don't, she thought furiously.

Do I?

Would the Order have informed her parents of her death? She was suddenly less than sure. And if the Death Eaters had won... if her parents were lucky, they might receive her mangled body one day, but more likely they would simply never hear from her again.

Her parents stared at each other, correctly interpreting their daughter's silence.

There was really nothing else to be said.

She stayed with her parents for most of the day, because she had not been there in so long that a visit of only a couple hours would be incredibly rude. Yet to sit around, trying wildly to grasp at some subject that could be discussed, was so stressful that she could not shake the feeling that her parents spent the day waiting for her to leave.

She hated herself for the rush of relief she felt as she Apparated out of her parents' house.

It was early, but she did not want to deal with anything else that day. Yet despite her exhaustion, Hermione couldn't fall asleep; her stomach was just too tied up in knots.

With a sigh, Hermione got out of bed and headed to her bathroom. She rummaged through her potions cabinet, only to discover that she was out of sleep potion. That was strange; she thought she'd bought more than enough to last the month.

So Hermione left her bathroom and went to the kitchen. She took out a glass, intending to have a glass of water. When she opened her freezer, however, she caught sight of the bottles of alcohol Penelope had left earlier that week.

A dependency on alcohol was the last thing that she needed just now, Hermione told herself fiercely. She decided that she would give all of it back to Penny when she came over the next day... and then poured herself about the equivalent of three shots of vodka.

Yet it undeniably calmed her anxiety. She went back to bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

"So what did you do then?"

It was Sunday, and Hermione was having lunch with Penelope. She had just related the story of the fiasco at her parents' house the day before.

"What can you do, really?" she asked with a helpless little half-smile. "We just sort of made uncomfortable small talk for the rest of the afternoon."

"So they didn't have any more questions about the war?"

Hermione shrugged. "It's in the past, there didn't seem much point in telling them everything, from start to finish, as though it were a book or something."

"Still, they must have been curious."

"With everything that happened, I think they'd rather not know, at least not just then. Knowing the details would only make them feel worse."

"Wow." Penelope shook her head incredulously. "How does that happen?"

"I don't know." Hermione forced herself to stop biting her lip. It was really getting quite tattered lately; it looked very unprofessional. "I just never talk to them, I suppose. We aren't involved much in each other's lives."

"I just can't imagine." Penelope shook her head again and took a sip of tea.

"Are you close to your parents?"

Penelope nodded. "Very."

"Aren't you Muggleborn? I mean--with the Basilisk--"

"My parents are a Muggleborn witch and wizard," Penelope explained, "but they don't really have any more contact with it than you do. So I grew up in a completely magical setting, but purebloods still consider me Muggleborn."

Hermione blinked. "I have no idea why, but for some reason I never really considered that scenario."

"Yeah, most people don't," Penelope laughed, "I'm not sure why."

"So do you know your grandparents?"

Penny shrugged and brushed back a lock of hair that had gotten in her eyes. "I see them occasionally. I don't know I ever thought about their being Muggles when I was little. They were just, well, old." She smiled sheepishly.

Hermione laughed briefly. "I know what you mean, actually."

"So." Penelope set down her teacup and sat up suddenly, looking very professional. "I came to answer your questions about astronomy."

Hermione nodded and stood up. "One moment," she said as she headed over to her bookshelf.

Penny twisted in her seat to see where the other woman, who gathered "The Sky Is Not Flat", of course, and also a small pile of parchments.

"What are those?" Penny asked, gesturing to the parchments.

"I made notes." Hermione sounded a little embarrassed; after all, she'd read the book for leisure on a day off from work.

But Penelope just nodded, looking as though it were the most natural thing in the world. "Great. What do you want to start with?"

Hermione shifted through the pages covered with her small script as she went back to the kitchen to sit down across from Penny.

"Well," she began as she sat, "the book went pretty in depth about the structure of the sky, the way that some of the stars we see are displaced only a few years by the speed of light, and some are millions of years, and they're all mixed in together--the sky has never actually been the way we see it-"

"Yes, I know." Penelope smiled good-naturedly, and her eyes twinkled in amusement.

Hermione blushed as she remembered that this was Penelope's job. "Right. Well, Al Phagamma very briefly touched on one phenomenon, when we think we see two stars, but it's actually one, because there's something actually bending the light?"

"Yes, black holes," Penelope confirmed, "their gravity is so strong if light actually enters them--goes past what we call the event horizon--it can't escape the gravity. But outside the event horizon, the gravity just bends it away."

"The event horizon... what exactly is that?"

"Well, in a black hole, it's the point where it's absolutely impossible for any matter to escape. In general, it's a word we give any divider for which anything on the inside--'inside' isn't necessary, we just use it to specify that the sides aren't exchangeable--anyway, anything on the inside can't cross over to the outside, and anyone on the outside can't know what's going on inside. Anyone on the outside can't know because--"

"Because since light can't escape, the lights of any image can't escape, so seeing anything inside is impossible?" Hermione finished.

Penny nodded. "Yes."

"Without magic, the present is kind of like an event horizon," Hermione pondered. She played with her hair for a moment as she considered that, but it did not seem to immediately lead anywhere exciting. "That's very strong gravity."

Penelope agreed.

"Time works differently depending on how much gravity there is," Hermione continued, "even Muggles have noticed that the higher the gravity, the slower time moves."

"And that the faster one is moving, the slower time moves." Penelope paused. "Do either of those have anything to do with the magical methods of time travel?"

"No." Hermione responded automatically, but right after she said it she scrunched up her face in confusion. After a moment of hesitation, she amended her words. "Well, I don't know. We're back to the problem that we don't have much of a bridge between magic and Muggle science. For all we know, it could be based on the same principles, but as we don't know what those principles are..."

She trailed off as she saw the other woman grinning widely.

"What?" Hermione asked. "Does the total incoherence of our entire paradigm of understanding amuse you?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, yes." Penny was fiendishly amused at Hermione's dismay at the inconsistency of the universe. "But I was actually smiling at the thought of how much fun it would be to start hacking at some of this for real."

"It would be so interesting," Hermione sighed wistfully.

Penny raised an eyebrow and leaned over across the table. "What incredible luck, then," she said softly, "that it's our job to figure out just this sort of thing."

Hermione's eyes widened in comprehension, and delight began to tug at the corners of her mouth as well.

Hermione was gratified to find the records she requested already on her desk when she entered her lab Monday morning. They were late, and she shouldn't have had to argue about them at all, of course, but at least they were there.

She shrugged off her cloak, then headed over to the pile of files on her desk, perusing the one on top. It was very standard; in the year 1265, a man named Mortimer Atkin killed his future self who had travelled back in time, no contradiction involved. As he had not realized that it was actually his future self that he had killed, the incident had been incorrectly classified for twenty years. It was only properly identified as a time travel related death when the man disappeared in a time turner accident, and a family member recognized the picture of the man he'd accidentally killed as actually being himself. It was all very routine and self-consistent.

Hermione flipped through the other records as she made her way to her desk, trying to find the troublesome ones. As she leafed through the parchments, a small yellow note slipped out from between two pages and drifted to the ground. She frowned and bent over to pick it up.

Her jaw dropped as her eyes fell on the handwriting--it was not simply familiar, it was her own! Hermione remained crouched on the floor as she read the short note several times.

Dear Hermione (it said),

Don't write this letter, nor send it.

Sincerely,

Hermione

"Oh, no way," she murmured in astonishment. Still stunned, she picked it up and stood up again. She read it again, and took the last few strides to her desk, dropping the rest of the records heavily on its surface.

"I am not that sadistic," she told the note sternly, waggling her finger at it.

The note just sat there in her hand without any reaction to her words. Hermione was not surprised by this, as sitting there without reaction is generally what small inanimate pieces of paper are apt to do, even when they're spacetime paradoxes.

Hermione sat down at her desk and stared at the little yellow scrap of paper. While the note seemed ludicrous right now, if not flat-out offensive, it was not out of the question that her future self might have sent this note as part of an experiment she was conducting.

Itwas also possible, she reflected, that it was a prank on the part of some disgruntled employees of the records department, though she was inclined to doubt it. Oh, though difficult, it was certainly not impossible to charm a quill to duplicate her handwriting with enough accuracy that she would recognize it as her own. That wasn't the issue.

It was just that she didn't really think that anybody in the records department was this creative.

Either way, it was a puzzle and also possibly a clue, so she put it in her pocket to discuss with Penny and her colleagues later, and turned her attention back to the Ministry records. Then she put her materials in order for the day, and made her way to the front office, where she and Penelope were planning to speak with Mr. Harris about arranging a joint research project on the relationship between gravity and time travel.

Penelope was already waiting there for her, and she noticed immediately that Hermione was disturbed by something.

"What's wrong?" Penny asked after one look at her friend's face. "Has something happened?"

"I'll explain later." Noting Penelope's alarmed expression, she hastened to assure her that it was a work-related problem, nothing to do with her home life (what little of it she had nowadays).

"Mr Harris is free now," Liatris announced.

Penelope and Hermione thanked her politely, and they went into their boss's office.

"Hello, Hermione, Penelope." Mr Harris looked slightly surprised at seeing the two of them entering his office together, but he folded his hands and looked at them attentively. "What can I do for you?"

Hermione was not nervous about this meeting; Mr Harris was a good boss. Most of the Unspeakables had enjoyed camaraderie with each other, and Mr Harris clearly thought that they received quite enough grief from the (inept) rest of the Ministry. He always tried his best to shield them from the harsh realities of bureaucracy so that they could live in their world of intellectual inquiry.

He was a bit like a very formal father, really, trying to allow his children to enjoy their games uninterrupted by the real world, as if they were innocent children instead of brilliant scientists and playing instead of conducting research.

It wasn't that much of a stretch, really.

"Hermione and I were hoping to collaborate on a project," said Penny.

Mr Harris nodded, and indicated that she should continue.

"We're interested in the connection between high gravity and time distortions," Hermione explained, "I need Penelope's expertise in black holes, high density stars, the path of light, and so on, and she needs my knowledge of the properties of time."

"Okay, sounds fine," Mr Harris said, "the two of you can use Penelope's lab, there's an extra office right next door, if Hermione doesn't mind moving that is?"

"No, not at all!" Hermione squeaked.

"Can you have a description of what methods of research you will use on my desk by this time next week?"

"Oh, yes, definitely," Penelope assured him.

"If you're stuck on something, just give me a report of what you've been trying and what your problem is," he told him.

"I'm sure we'll have plenty by then," Penelope reaffirmed.

"Wonderful!" He flashed them a brilliant smile. "Anything else?"

They shook their heads.

"Well then!" He clapped his hands and rubbed them against each other. "Why don't the two of you get to work!"

They thanked him again and exited the office.

"Well," Penny said as they walked down the hallway to Hermione's office--or rather, her old office--"I expected that to take longer than three minutes, to be honest."

"That was ridiculously easy, wasn't it?" Hermione marveled.

Penelope helped Hermione move all of her stuff, despite repeated assurances that it wasn't necessary. Several hours later, Hermione put the last of her files in order, and they were ready to begin their new project.

The two women put their heads together and began to hypothesize in earnest.

Several weeks later, Hermione noticed an owl waiting for her when she arrived home at her flat around one in the morning. Staying at work into all hours of the night had become routine; her research with Penny was so fascinating that they found themselves pausing for dinner each note only to realize that it was already midnight, and most of the Ministry was deserted.

The owl pecked at her window, clearly impatient, and Hermione realized that it had probably tried to deliver the note earlier than this without luck. She opened her window, and once the owl was out of the darkness she recognized it as Ron's new owl, Cannon. She gave it a treat as she took the letter; it gave her a disgruntled look and hooted once before it flew off.

Hermione opened the letter, and with a guilty flush she realized that it had been written over a week ago. She'd promised to spend time with Ron, then had disappeared. She'd completely forgotten.

Hi Hermione,

I hope you're OK. I miss you. Come by to visit. I've stopped by your
flat a few times but you're never there.

-Ron

Hermione sighed. Well, it was certainly too late to visit today. She'd just make sure to leave work at a reasonable hour and visit him then to apologize like crazy. After all his effort to maintain their friendship, it was really terrible of her to ignore him like this.

So she begged off work at 5 pm the next day, smiling guilty at Penelope as she explained the situation. She Apparated straight from the Apparation room of the Ministry to right outside of Ron's door. She took a deep breath and knocked.

The door swung open.

"Hermione!" Ron exclaimed. He looked happy to see her, though his eyes darted back and forth nervously.

Hermione was too wrapped up in guilt to notice. "Oh, Ron, I'm so sorry," she told him as she paced through the door and towards his living room, "I meant to come by earlier, I've just been so wrapped up in..."

The word 'work' died on her lips, as she looked around the living room and saw Harry and Ginny sitting together on the couch, Harry's arm around her shoulders.

"Oh," Hermione said uncomfortably. "Hi."