Pasta con Reality

Chapter 7: Pasta con Reality

The Ministry Dining Area was crowded at nine in the morning. Since the inception of Flexi Time – a notion blatantly stolen from Muggles, Hermione knew, yet accredited to Rufus Scrimgeour – the room was busy at almost any hour of the day as witches and wizards came and went. She was faced with either talking loudly over the buzz of conversation, or casting Muffliato if she wished to avoid being overheard. Hermione chose the latter.

"You're joking." Harry stared at her, a disbelieving frown on his face. "Snape was actually nice to you?"

Hermione nodded. "Believe it or not."

It was yet another bitter pill for her friend to swallow, she thought. Harry hadn't been pleased when she came to him with the results of her research and proclaimed Severus Snape to be a war hero. His long-ingrained dislike of the Potions master was not something with which Harry Potter would easily part.

Harry looked as though he were hoping to discover that Hermione was teasing. When that failed to materialize, he managed a humorless laugh. "Next you'll be telling me that he's vastly misunderstood. You sound just like Hagrid, swooning over a herd of dragons."

"I don't suppose that your view of him is colored just a bit?"

"My parents are dead because of Severus Snape, Hermione. Do you honestly expect me to run up and give him a hug? Or maybe ask that a statue of him be erected somewhere in Diagon Alley?"

"Oh, honestly, Harry! All I did was say that he was kind to me when I was –"

"– hung over, yeah." Harry couldn't resist a grin. He'd been incredulous to learn of Hermione's experiment with alcohol and told her flat out that she'd deserved what she got.

"Anyway, that's all over with. I'm never overindulging again," Hermione told him, her cheeks flaming.

"So what did Snape write in his comments, anyway?" Harry apparently decided to have mercy on his friend and drop the subject.

Hermione had been toying with her tea cup, and now, startled by the abrupt question, she pushed it aside. "I can't tell you that, Harry. It's private."

"Private? He wrote comments that you plan to publish in a book, and you consider them to be private?"

"They're not something I would publish as-is. I would have to incorporate the information in various places in the book," she said, waving her hands about for emphasis.

"Then," Harry said with exaggerated patience, "were there any bombshells that you would have to incorporate in various places? Any heretofore unknown revelations?"

"I can't say."

"You're not going to tell me anything, are you?"

"Harry, there's nothing to tell. I only meant that I have to re-read everything Snape wrote, and a lot more than just one time."

Harry shrugged. "I just wondered if there was any good dirt."

"You're just looking for more reasons to hate him."

"I don't need more reasons to hate Severus Snape, Hermione. I have more than enough already."

Hermione glared at her friend. She rose swiftly to her feet and turned to go. "You're being unreasonable, Harry."

"Why are you so eager to defend him? What's in it for you? Just because the man didn't turn tail and run when you were throwing up your socks, he's suddenly eligible for sainthood?" Harry stood as well.

She started to tell Harry that he was being a total idiot, but something stopped her. Why did she suddenly feel empathy for Snape? Hermione struggled to find a response.

"I don't know. Maybe... maybe because he made the wrong choices and has tried to correct them. Maybe I'm a little more sympathetic to people who make the wrong choices now."

Harry's mouth was set in a thin line. "If you're trying to equate the choices Snape made with your marrying Ron, you can forget about it, Hermione. Besides, you two loved each other, and you know it."

Her eyes were suddenly moist. "Yes. We loved each other. But it wasn't enough. And I don't know why, Harry."

"What about your parents? What did they –"

"I haven't told them yet," Hermione admitted sadly. "I'm going to their house for dinner tonight. I was planning on it then."

* * *

Lawrence Granger was the cook of the household. Several years earlier, a broken wrist had knocked him out of his dental practice for two months. He'd spent his recuperation period watching cooking shows on the telly and becoming inspired to attempt Great Things. Julia Granger was more than willing to let him have the run of the kitchen. For her, cooking was a necessary evil, something one did to stave off starvation. In Julia's considered opinion, there were two groups of people – those who loved to cook and those who preferred to eat – and God had placed restaurants on the earth to allow the former a place to indulge in their passion, thereby benefiting the latter. She was the first to admit that her kitchen skills were barely passable and that Hermione had survived from infancy by purely magical means.

"Hello, darling." Julia and Hermione exchanged hugs just inside the front door of the Granger home.

"Hi, Mum."

"How's work?"

"Busy."

"Oh? What's the latest project?"

It had not escaped Hermione's attention that her mother, out of long-standing habit, had glanced behind her, as if expecting to see Ron standing there. "I'm working on a trade agreement with China," she said. "Chinese wizards are not accustomed to dealing with our import restrictions."

"Bureaucracy is a wonderful thing, isn't it?" Julia's interest was fully back on her daughter once more.

"I suppose. What's for dinner? Is Dad experimenting again?"

"Yes. An Italian dish... He even made the pasta himself with that machine I gave him at Christmas."

"I'm sure it will be delicious." Hermione slipped her arm around her mother's waist, and the two women walked down the hallway to the kitchen.

"There she is!" Brandishing a spoon, an apron-clad Lawrence Granger leaned away from the stove to kiss his only child on the cheek.

"Hello, Daddy. It smells good in here." Hermione perched on one of the stools at the breakfast bar, across from where her father was working. She glanced around the kitchen of her childhood home, trying to resurrect memories as her eyes swept the room. The old dining suite had been replaced two years ago, most of the appliances, within the past twelve months. Everything suddenly struck her as very modern, very professional, and very foreign. Change, she thought unhappily. Everywhere I look, there is change...

"Thanks, sweetheart. It'll be ready in ten minutes or so." Lawrence stirred a pot of sauce with the spoon he'd been holding. "How are things?"

Julia affixed him with a meaningful glare, and Lawrence added lamely, "At work, I mean?"

Hermione nearly smiled. Her parents were evidently trying to avoid probing into the situation between her and Ron. It was kind of them, but unnecessary, given the news she needed to break this evening. "Look, before we sit down to dinner and everybody tiptoes on eggshells and dances around the issue, I need to tell you this right off: Ron and I have decided to get a divorce."

Her mother opened her mouth and closed it again, while her father simply went back to stirring his pot.

"I went to see him in France over the weekend," Hermione continued. "He's very happy there, and – well – we decided that we wouldn't be getting back together."

"I see," Julia murmured.

"Whatever you think is best," Lawrence said evenly.

Silence fell, and the only sound was that of the spoon scraping the sides of the sauce pot. Hermione looked from one parent to the other. She'd expected a deluge of criticisms and unsolicited advice, and was prepared to argue her case against all sorts of objections. This quiet acceptance was unnerving.

"Is that all you have to say?" she demanded in amazement.

Julia regarded her daughter with a look that said Given her druthers, she'd be happy to accommodate her by arguing the point. "You're an adult, Hermione. If this had happened five years ago, things might be different. When you and Ron separated, your father and I discussed the possibility that this could be the outcome, and we decided to trust you to make the right choice. If you believe that this is the right course for both you and Ron, then so be it."

"You were expecting us to fight it, weren't you, darling?" Lawrence put in.

"Well, yes, but –"

"But what?" her father prompted gently. "Do you want us to tell you that you've made a horrible mistake?"

"Have I?" Hermione looked beseechingly at her father.

"You tell me, love."

She crumpled inside. There had been no need, during the war years, to look for comfort and direction from her parents when making choices. As Muggles, Julia and Lawrence would have been offering blind advice. They had taken her heavily edited revelations with equanimity, always encouraging Hermione to use her instincts and her intelligence. But this was about marriage, a topic with which they were intimately familiar. Surely they could provide her with something...

"You two have been married for so long," she pointed out, her voice quivering. "Why did it work for you and not for me?"

Julia and Lawrence exchanged glances.

"I don't know the answer to that," Lawrence said quietly, leaving his pasta sauce and leaning on the counter with both hands. "Maybe there isn't one. Not a tidy one, at any rate."

Her mother took the stool next to hers. "People change, Hermione. Whether married or not, people change. And sometimes they go off in totally different directions."

"I know that, Mum, but do you really think Ron and I have changed all that much?" Hermione argued.

"Maybe," Lawrence said, "that's the problem."

Hermione frowned at her father, puzzled. "I don't understand."

Lawrence Granger was silent for a moment. "Hermione, I don't quite know how to say this without it sounding a bit insulting. We love Ron, we always have. He's wonderful, always treated you well. It's just that I've sometimes wondered what you two had in common. He's a sports fanatic, you're not. His reading is pretty much limited to the sports page in the newspaper, while you read anything and everything you can get your hands on. You're involved in high-level negotiations between your government and foreign countries while Ron is –"

"– a simpleton?" Hermione finished, scowling.

Her father cast a beseeching glance at his wife, and Julia leapt into the fray. "Not at all, Hermione. You know your father didn't mean it in that sense."

"In what sense did you mean it then?" Hermione demanded.

Lawrence's shoulders tensed as he fixed his daughter with a direct gaze. "You're very bright, love. Very bright. Ron is not, although he's talented in his own way. The two of you are so very different, that if it hadn't been for the fact that you and Ron were good friends for so many years, we would have thought that you'd chosen to marry the wrong man."

"That's ridiculous," Hermione sputtered. "Just because our interests are varied, that doesn't mean that we have nothing in common."

"Of course it doesn't," her father continued. "But are seven years of shared school adventures enough on which to build a marriage? Perhaps if you'd had children, things –"

"Please, not again. Don't say 'things would be different'."

"But they would," Julia interjected. "Parenthood bonds the husband and wife together, by nature of the fact that it's a shared experience. What has bonded you and Ron together during your ten years of marriage?"

Hermione opened her mouth to say that plenty had occurred to create a bond, but the painful truth was that her parents had a good point. The greatest link that she and Ron shared was their time at Hogwarts. She buried her face in her hands. "I don't want to think about this any more. Can we just have a pleasant meal without second-guessing the past?"

"Of course." Lawrence returned to his pot of pasta sauce.

Julia donned an apron. "Shall I make the salad?"

Hermione watched her parents buzz around the kitchen, intent on their tasks. She had to hand it to her father, she mused; the man wasn't reluctant to speak his mind. Lawrence Granger's frankness had allowed him to ask the hard questions when her Hogwarts letter came, and he hadn't retreated in fear as some Muggle parents did. His own openness had given Hermione the courage she needed to enter the world of magic unafraid.

Had she and Ron always been so very different that it hadn't mattered until now?

There was, Hermione knew, a tiny corner of her mind that admitted to occasionally bemoaning the fact, over the years, that Ron Weasley wasn't her intellectual equal. It was by no means an indictment of Ron's intelligence; it was simply an established fact, going all the way back to their first year at Hogwarts. If she had to choose again – presuming that eventually, she might find someone and remarry – what sort of man would she choose?

"How's the book coming?" Julia's voice interrupted her daughter's thoughts.

"Fine. Professor Snape returned his comments on my summary," Hermione said, wrenching her thoughts back into the present.

"I thought he wasn't going to help you with it."

"He wasn't willing to be interviewed. He did agree to review it for me."

"That's nice," Julia commented. "What is he doing now?"

"He's self-employed, but I don't think he earns much money," Hermione told her, trying to put the best spin on Snape's circumstances. "And he's been made into a pariah of sorts. I'm hoping that perhaps my book might bring him greater acceptance in the wizarding world."

Her mother smiled at her then, a self-satisfied sort of smile that spoke of pride in her daughter's efforts to make the world a better place.

"How soon will you be sending it off to a publisher?" Lawrence wanted to know.

"Oh. I don't know. I still have a lot of work to go."

"Well, one of these days I expect to attend your first book-signing: Hermione Granger-Weasley, renowned –" Lawrence halted in mid-sentence, his face reddening. "Damn it all... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to –"

"It's all right, Dad," Hermione said, trying to smooth things over.

"Will you be – dropping the 'Weasley' from your surname?" Julia looked almost embarrassed to ask the question.

"I suppose. I hadn't really given it much thought."

Lawrence seized the saucepan, gave it one final stir, and emptied it over a large bowl of pasta. "All right, ladies, no more long faces this evening. We are going to have a first-class meal tonight, eh?"

"Yes, Dad," Hermione answered obediently, a small smile on her face.

"I've almost finished here," Julia said, then glanced up sharply from the salad to her husband. "Lawrence, you were planning on serving that Cabernet Sauvignon with dinner, weren't you?"

"Glad you reminded me." Lawrence Granger wiped his hands on his apron and headed for the refrigerator. "Hermione, a glass of wine with your dinner?"

"No!" she blurted. "I mean – I really don't care for any. Just water, please."

"Are you feeling well?" Julia inquired.

"Fine, Mum. It's just that I – I overdid it with some wine not long ago, and I'm really not too anxious to repeat the experience." Hermione felt her cheeks begin to flame.

Lawrence chuckled. "Overdid it? You? I've scarcely ever seen you take a drink."

Hermione turned even redder. "I was depressed over Ron, and I thought I'd try to get drunk, just to see what it was all about."

"Learned your lesson, did you?"

"A very painful lesson." Hermione recalled Snape, handing her a flannel, a glass of water. Snape being kind.

"Well, experience is the best teacher, I always say," Lawrence announced, carrying the bowl of pasta towards the dining room. "All right, ladies – dinner is served!"