A Ray of Light in the Sea of Darkness

Hermione woke up the next morning, groggy and vaguely recalling the previous evening's events. She smiled as she thought of the dinner she had with Ron, Dean, Seamus, and Lavender. Her stomach filled with bitter hate as she recalled her meeting with Snape. And then the hate was replaced by sadness as the depleted face of Luna Lovegood appeared inside her, as if permanently etched on the backs of her eyelids.

Hermione moaned and rolled over in bed. She stuck her face in the soft feather pillow. "Lovely pillow," she mumbled into it. "Soft, tender pillow. I can tell you anything, can't I? I'll start by telling you how badly my head hurts..."

"Hermione?" A hoarse voice filled Hermione's ears. She rolled over again, opened her eyes, and squinted into the sunlight. It took a second for her eyes to focus clearly on the speaker. "You were talking to your pillow," said Ginny.

"Yeah," Hermione said awkwardly. "I do that sometimes."

"Well, you can come downstairs if you like. There's bacon and eggs."

"Thanks, I'll be right down." Ginny left the room and Hermione couldn't help but notice that Ginny looked very exhausted. Hermione pulled herself out of bed and changed out of the nightdress she borrowed from Ginny's drawer and into the dress from last night. She went to the bathroom and washed smeared makeup off of her face and then walked down the stairs to breakfast.

The kitchen was already bustling. Ron was walking around the table pouring coffee, Ginny was putting a wide assortment of chipped plates around the table, Mrs. Weasley was taking a pan full of bacon off the flame, and Mr. Weasley looked like he was attempting to make toast.

"Well if it isn't our little ray of sunshine!" Ron said, jokingly. "How are we this morning?"

"Dreadful!" Hermione moaned dramatically, throwing her arms in the air. "Curse hangovers!" She smiled and took a seat beside Mrs. Weasley.

"How was the banquet last night?" Mrs. Weasley asked. "Arthur and I had to leave after the service."

Hermione started to say, "It was nice," but was cut short by the sound of an explosion

"Damn fool toaster oven," Mr. Weasley was muttering. "What a bloody stupid invention..."

Mrs. Weasley was out of her seat in a second. Water was spouting from the end of her wand and pouring on the ancient rummage sale toaster oven that had caught fire. "And what exactly were you trying to accomplish, Mr. Muggle?"

"I was just making toast," Mr. Weasley said, innocently.

"Toast, eh? I'll show you toast!"

"Here, Hermione," said Ginny, dishing eggs and bacon onto Hermione's plate. "Have some breakfast."

"Did you eat?" Hermione asked Ginny.

"Not yet, I'll have the next set of eggs that comes off the stove."

"What time did you get home last night, Ginny?" Ron asked through a mouthful of bacon. "Because we got home pretty late and you were still out..."

Ginny sighed wearily. "I just got home an hour ago. I haven't been to sleep."

"An hour ago?" Mrs. Weasley abandoned her husband and the toaster and rounded on her daughter. "What were you doing out until six in the morning?"

Ginny put her hand up. "No, Mother," she said. "I was with Luna."

"Oh," said Mrs. Weasley. She sat down again and the expression on her face turned from anger to concern. Ron and Hermione stared at Ginny, waiting to hear what she was going to say next. Even Mr. Weasley stopped cursing the toaster oven to listen to Ginny.

"She attempted suicide for the second time in three months. I took her to St. Mungo's. She's all right, physically, but emotionally, she's a train wreck."

"We should invite her over," Mrs. Weasley whispered. "I think she's alone most of the time." Ginny nodded. "So sad."

Across the table, Ron cleared his throat. "Erm, Hermione, while you were asleep my family invited me to join the Order of the Phoenix."

"Good for you, Ron!"

"And we all think you should be in the Order as well."

Hermione was taken by surprise. She was genuinely happy that Ron was in the Order, but she didn't exactly want to be in it herself. "Me?" She asked. "You want m-me to be in the Order?"

"Yeah," said Ron, beaming.

"I don't know. I have a family and a job and -"

"We're not asking much," said Ron, rather disappointedly.

"Look Ron, I'm really busy with my alchemy. We're actually working overtime right now at the lab, and I don't think I'm being fair to my daughter."

All the Weasleys stared at her. Then it was Ginny's turn to speak, "You saw Dumbledore sick in bed. You saw Luna. If we ever needed you in the Order, it's now."

"And it would be better if we had another alchemist on our team," put in Ron. "All we've got is Snape, that bastard."

"Ron!"

"Sorry, Mum." Then Ron turned back to Hermione. "Well? What do you think?"

Hermione thought a moment. "It's a difficult decision to make. I haven't heard of the Order in so long, excepting articles in the Daily Prophet. I've been away from all of this - all of you. Is it fair?"

"It's more than fair," said Mrs. Weasley. "It's essential. We wouldn't ask you if we really didn't need you."

"I -" started Hermione. "I'm tired."

Ginny spoke softly. "There's a meeting next week at the Headquarters. Mum's the secret keeper now, so she can tell you where that is. Could you just come to that one meeting? And after that, you can make your decision as to whether or not you want to stay with us."

"That's fair. All right. I'll come to the meeting."

Ginny hugged Hermione as tears of weariness swelled in her eyes. "Thank you Hermione. You don't know how much this will mean to wizardkind everywhere."

After breakfast, Hermione said goodbye to the Weasleys and Aparated back home to her family. She entered her large house, the exact opposite of the Weasleys', through the kitchen door and saw Jeffrey sitting at the table with her six year old daughter Tatyana. "Mummy!" Tatyana shouted, leaping from her seat and running over to Hermione. "Where did you go?"

"To Hogwarts. There was a memorial service for Harry Potter. Remember me telling you about it?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Where did you go all night?" Jeffrey asked.

"Well...it got late," said Hermione. "I went to Ron and Ginny's. You met them yesterday."

"Oh yes. Nice people."

"Yes. Well I'd better go upstairs and wash, so I'll be down in twenty minutes."

Hermione walked upstairs and locked herself in her bathroom. She found some headache potion in the cupboard, drank the entire bottle, and turned on the water for a bath. She had a lot to think about. The Order of the Phoenix, she thought. I'm going to be right in the thick of it all over again. Here I feel so safe, with my husband and my daughter and my job and my friends... She took off her robes and eased into the hot water that was foaming purple. But something seems to be...missing...

Hermione closed her eyes and let herself become immersed in a whirlwind of nostalgia and memories: She was at the Order of the Phoenix Headquarters. It was midnight and rain was pouring in sheets outside. Hermione sat at the drawing room window, her seventeen-year-old face pressed against the glass watching the rainfall. Luna Lovegood sat opposite her, twisting a ring nervously around her finger as she watched out the window as well. She could hear the scuttle of feet walking a floor above her and the hum of voices conversing in the kitchen the floor below. When she was very tired she left the window for the kitchen. In the kitchen were hundreds of people, all running about frantically, writing and sending letters, combing Daily Prophets for hidden information, sewing, cooking, inspecting wands, examining pensieves, operating Dark Arts detectors of all sorts and kinds; it was just overwhelming.

"Hermione, go help Susan and Hestia with the owls," Remus Lupin instructed, as soon as he spotted her head in the door. "They just keep coming; we don't know what to do with them all!"

As she crossed the room she heard bits of conversation going on around her. "Rita Skeeter's coming for an interview in an hour," she heard Molly Weasley tell Nymphadora Tonks. "She wants to get it in the early edition of tomorrow's Daily Prophet."

"If anything happens, there will need to be an early, early edition of tomorrow's Daily Prophet," Tonks replied nervously.

"Well if anything does happen, we're ready for it." She turned her attention to Hermione who was now removing a letter from a barn owl's outstretched leg. "Is that letter from Dumbledore, dear? We haven't heard from him in almost two hours and I'm getting worried..."

Perhaps it was the soothing fragrance from her bath that seemed to put Hermione in a sort of trance as she recalled these seemingly bygone events. As Hermione lay in her bath, safe and at peace, she thought to herself, maybe that's what I need; that overwhelming excitement that I can only get from the Order. She got out of the water and put on clean robes. Feeling much better and very refreshed, she descended the stairs to rejoin her family. And Ginny even said they need me...

It was night and Hermione was lying awake bed, thinking, thinking about the decision she had to make. Around midnight, Jeffrey walked in the room. "Hello, Herm," he said, seeing that she was awake.

Hermione smiled up at her beautiful husband. "Hi Jeffrey." She looked at him again and realized just how beautiful of a man she had the privilege of being married to. He looked back at her and possibly had feelings that reflected hers for him. She continued to stare at him and within seconds realized that she was feeling hot and very aroused.

Jeffrey caught on quickly. He picked Hermione's wand up off the bedside table. "Want to do the spell?" Hermione took her wand and put the soundproofing charm on the door. "We wouldn't want to wake Tatyana," Jeffrey said, sliding into bed.

"No we wouldn't," Hermione started to say. She fell over her husband as he got into bed and began kissing him deeply. He reached up slowly and, with a gentle hand, started to remove her clothes.

"I love you," he said, but his words were muffled because Hermione kissed him still more passionately. They threw the covers off the bed as they came together in love. Breathing heavily, Hermione gave herself up to her husband. She let herself become fully engrossed in the act, releasing all of the overwhelming emotion she had let build up inside of her during the past day.

And then, as suddenly as it had started, it all stopped. "What's wrong?" Jeffrey asked.

Hermione sat up in bed and pulled the covers over her half-clothed body. "I," she started, but found she didn't know what to say.

"You're distracted, aren't you?" said Jeffery, climbing out of bed and pulling his shorts back on. "You're still thinking about that memorial service. And that bad guy." Fully dressed again, he faced his wife lying helplessly in bed. "The Dark Lord's not going to come and get you here, Honey," he said.

Thoughts raced frantically around Hermione's brain. He might come get us here, she thought, frantically. And you're a Muggle and I'm Muggle-born! And I can help get rid of him. I can't just lay here with you and leave my friends, my people to do it all on their own. They need me, and I need you, Jeffrey. I need you to protect me. I need you to love me. I need you! These are things she would like to have said. Instead, she threw herself onto the floor and burst into tears.

"Calm down, Herm," Jeffrey tried to say, but Hermione would have none of it.

"You'll never understand!" she shrieked. "You have no idea, no idea what it's like!" She continued to scream and shriek with her eyes closed, pounding the floor in anguish. When she opened her eyes, Jeffrey was gone. Exhausted and shaking, she crawled back into bed and cried herself to sleep. When she woke the next morning, Jeffrey was not in bed beside her.