Dear Hermione

Dear Hermione,

That Krum better be thanking his lucky stars that I'm not in Bulgaria, or else he would in several bits right now. I can't believe he did that to you, Glinda, but it sounds like you handled the situation pretty well. I'm sorry things didn't work out, but sometimes they happen for a reason, you know? Argh, even trying to put a bright face on this makes me mad. Ce Krum est un débile egoïste salaud.

Anyway, moving on. Brittany is beautiful. Denise hasn't been getting on so well after she ate a funny escargot, but Claire and I have been all over the Carnac area. These stone avenues I was telling you about are even more amazing in person! Yesterday we drove to Locmariaquer and saw the Er Grah, the Faery Stone. It's more than twenty metres long, and before an earthquake a few centuries ago, it stood upright. Brilliant!

Well, I have to go. Quoting Dad, "keep a stiff upper lip" and don't let this bloke get to you.

Love,

Antigone

+X+

Hermione stared blearily at the parchment, the quill feeling uncomfortable in her sore hand. She was already three inches over the ridiculous requirement on her Potions essay and she hadn't even mentioned the draughts made from the moly. As she started a brief paragraph on the plant's magical properties, she began to hear one of Antigone's songs getting stuck in her bonce. It was especially annoying because Hermione only knew half of the tune, and even less of the words. Irritated by the invisible distraction, she tried to sing it out of her system. "Keeping a brave face in circumstances is impossible..." she mumbled, trying to remember if moly roots were black and the flower white, or the other way around.

"It's tragic...laid down on your side, too easy in the dark...you're soaking wet in my head...." Instantly, Hermione was reminded of the time with Krum and regretted singing it out loud.

She blinked and refocused on the parchment, and noticed that her last lines were sloppy and out of alignment. Sighing, she replaced the cap on her inkbottle, rested the quill on top of the essay, and took a deep stretch in the chair. She looked through her open window, at the flowerbeds on the edge of the garden, and was just considering taking a stroll outside, when an odd but strangely familiar sound filled the house: the ringing of the blower.

Hermione had to think for a second where the nearest was located. She so rarely used one at home and, obviously, never at school, that she wondered how she had left Joshua a few days ago with the gesture requesting a call. She remembered Antigone having an extension in her room, and rushed in and hurriedly picked up the black cordless beneath the Circe poster before the telemachine picked up the connection.

"Hello?" she asked into the blower tentatively.

"Hi, this is Joshua Clarks. Is Hermione there?"

"Speaking."

"Hey! How are you doing?"

Hermione scowled at the phone but smiled inside.

"Quite well, considering I was just dumped by a rising Bulgarian Quidditch star," she said irritably. Suddenly, her stomach fell magnificently and she clapped her hand to her mouth. Joshua was a Muggle! She turned bright red and tried to avoid Circe's piercing eyes.

"A what star?" came the reply from the other end.

"Bulgarian. That fellow I had lunch with," answered Hermione, gritting her teeth and desperately wishing she could Disapparate. "Never mind me, how are you?"

"I'm fine, as usual. You sure you're okay, Hermione? You sound...majorly stressed."

"Just an essay for holidays."

"You go to a tough school?"

"Yes," she responded, desperately trying to get his focus off her.

"Yeah, St. Petroc's isn't exactly a stroll in the park, but at least I didn't get a lot of work. What's the name of your school?"

"St....Margaret's." It was the name of Antigone's secondary school, and Hermione was starting to sweat.

"Where'd you meet that Romanian chap?"

"Bulgarian. Um...at school. Can we not talk about him right now? I was sort of doing the essay to not think about him."

"Oh, of course." There was a silence on the other side of the connection, and then a little laugh. "You know, dating Eastern European guys you meet at an all-girls school is really just setting yourself up for disaster."

Hermione flopped onto Antigone's bed.

"Gneh, Joshua," she said feebly.

"Don't worry, Hermione. I don't care where you met the slug. If he was stupid enough to dump you, I don't want to talk about him. So, how have you been? What's new, in the past couple years?"

She drifted out of Antigone's room, tactfully informing Joshua about her female classmates and professors while avoiding anything even remotely magical. It made for a very short and very boring summation of four years. "And you?" she finished.

"Oh, boy. Not anything, not anything at all. I finally got the teeth straightened, and Mum finally let me wear contacts. I go to this little tiny boy's secondary on the other side of Devon, and get pretty good marks, and I've got some friends, and I play rugby, but really, that's it." He stopped for a second, and then added, "We sure don't sound like the lives of the party, do we?"

Hermione laughed, her first real bit of sunshine since the dreary clouds of Krum. "Joshua, it doesn't sound like you've changed one bit on the inside."

"You have, somehow, but I can't put my finger on it."

"If you only knew," thought Hermione.

"Do you think you can break away from your essay long enough to pay a visit to your dear old mate?"

She was at her desk again, looking out the window towards the shrubbery that separated his and her gardens.

"Sure, why not? I'll see you down at the creek."

+X+

"Look, a newt!" Joshua jumped into the shrunken creek, dramatically chasing a small, slimy amphibian as if it were made of gold. The newt waddled with amazing speed into a small hole in the stream bank and Joshua gazed after it with a hugely fake hurt expression. He crossed his arms and with a big lower lip he turned back to Hermione. "He doesn't like me!" he wailed.

"With a face like yours, who could?" Hermione grinned.

"Ah! My heart! A hit below the belt, for sure." He climbed up the embankment and emerged on Hermione's side, trainers coated in mud.

"Your Mum's going to kill you." Hermione pointed to his feet.

"Nah, these are my old rugby shoes. To tell you the truth," he added, looking at their new clay-brown coloration, "I think it's an improvement."

Joshua's newt extended a careful neck out its burrow and, seeing no brown-haired, unruly teenage boys hopping about, cautiously emerged.

"Your friend is back," announced Hermione, pointing at the amphibian.

"'She turned me into a newt!' 'A newt?' '...I got better!'" Joshua mimicked some sort of movie or television programme Hermione could only vaguely recall. He looked at her, waiting for her to laugh, but she just shrugged. "Aw, c'mon! You remember 'Holy Grail'? 'A witch! A witch! We have found a witch, might we burn her?'"

Hermione turned red again, hoping he wouldn't notice, and forced a laugh. It struck her again that Joshua was just a Muggle, and to him, witches were funnily dressed people from folklore centuries ago. "Yes, of course. Monty Python."

"Classic stuff. Course, Dad thinks it's rubbish, but he's a pet shop owner, so what does he know. There's a lot of stuff about pet shops in Flying Circus, you know. Like the fish license thing, and the dead parrot sketch -"

"-'He's not pining, he's passed on!'" Hermione suddenly remembered.

"I knew you didn't forget it!" Joshua broke into a huge smile. "Remember when we'd watch the videos in our cellar whenever our parents weren't home?"

"Oh, how couldn't I?" She recalled walking home from school with Joshua, and on all but the rainiest days, they would be in his house watching the old classic movies and programmes that they adored but their parents thought too "mature". Then, at ten to four, they would quickly clean up whatever messes they had made eating snacks in front of the telly, and Hermione would race home and start her schoolwork just as her mum came through the door. A whole other world away...all this before that letter had arrived on the doorstep one fine summer day, quite like the one they were experiencing then.

"So, what are you doing this summer?"

"Nothing, really. I went to France all last summer and I never really got a chance to 'decompress' from H- school. So this year I'm pretty much staying home." She mentally slapped herself for nearly saying "Hogwarts". "And you?"

Joshua shrugged. "I'm going to a rugby camp in August, but I still have all of July to do nothing. That's what summers are made for, huh?"

"Just as long as you aren't doing nothing in autumn, it's all right." There was a little beat of silence, in which they watched the newt go upstream in search of food.

"Hermione!" Her mum's voice drifted through the garden and down to the creek where she and Joshua stood. Hermione looked at her wristwatch and saw it was time to wash up.

"I have to go," she said to Joshua.

"No problem." He smiled and jumped to his side of the creek. "I'll see you around!"

"See you." Hermione waved to him, and then made her way through the foliage and up the hill to her back door. Suddenly, there came a terrific splash, and through the shrubbery, she saw Joshua jump up from the creek bed. He emerged in her garden, his front slick with mud, and his hands caged and raised triumphantly.

"I got the newt!" he shouted.

"You're a loony," answered Hermione, shaking her head and smiling.

"I am not a loony! Why should I be tied with the epithet 'loony' merely because I have captured a newt? I've heard tell that Sir Gerald Nebardo has a pet prawn, called Simon. Furthermore, Dawn Palethorpe, the lady show jumper, had a clam called Stafford...."

Hermione closed the door behind her, laughing both at and with the muddy boy in her garden.

+X+

Dear Tiggy,

I'm glad to know things are going so well. Tell Denise to get better soon! I can't find anything about those stone avenues in my books - you know which ones I'm talking about - so even I wonder just what they're there for. I sort of miss France, but I haven't been home for so long in so long (hmm, rather poetic) that it's like a five-star vacation.

Just one complaint - when will Mum stop experimenting with the vegetables? If I have to eat one more aubergine-asparagus dish, I might see it a second time if you know what I mean. At least you're eating blueberry crepes, my favorite. I'd ask for some bouillabaisse, but I don't know how well it keeps, and I can imagine it would be very gross if it goes bad.

Do you remember Joshua Clarks, the bloke behind us I used to spend all the time with? He and I have been seeing each other a lot recently. He's still a nutter, but he sure is funny! It's hard to tell at this point, but I think...hmm, I think I might be the littlest bit interested in him, if you know what I mean. Basically, the years have been good to him! Is this a rebound thing? I hate to say it, but I have really no idea what I'm getting into whenever I start thinking about boys.

Well, not wanting to keep you from your vacation, I'll talk to you later. Thanks for being here on paper.

Love,

Glinda