Chapter Two

Little had changed about the Burrow over the years save the number of wellington boots haphazardly jumbled about outside the front door and the weather. With a faint popping noise, Hermione Apparated nearby the River Otter and took stock of the familiar surroundings as she followed the commotion to the paddock behind the garden with a large leather satchel on her arm. Several red-haired figures were flying high just below the treetops, but as she passed through the sweet-smelling apple trees, a sweaty blur landed beside her and hurriedly pulled her into a hug.

"Put me down, Harry!" she gasped out, chuckling as she swatted her friend on the arm. "I'm an old lady today, and I don't need a dislocated shoulder before lunch."

"Yes, I quite forgot! Entering your golden years; I suppose I should have bought you a tatted shawl today... or would you prefer one of those large hats that Neville's Gran used to wear? A vulture atop yours, shall we? Or a blackbird?"

Hermione responded by merely punching him in the shoulder. "Git. You know you're right behind me on this march to the grave. Well, then, I'll need to chat with some people who can't possibly comprehend how old I am. Where are the boys and Lily?" she asked as the others finally noticed her arrival and waved furiously from the air.

"It's true..." Harry began, considering his children. "James might tell you you're five years old, but he also might tell you you're a million. For whatever reason, it's his new favourite number and he's got no conception of time... or space, for that matter. Even you, Hermione, would impressed by the number of healing spells I know now."

"And use on a regular basis? And here I thought James and Al were both little gentlemen."

"Little gentlemen with little brooms, little spans of attention, and little coordination. They're all in the house with Molly either napping or playing," he replied, finally answering her question. "Their mum's delighted to be rid of them for a few hours so that she can come out here and remind her brothers why she's the Weasley with the Quidditch fans." Ginny was already zooming over as her husband bragged about her athletic prowess, and she threw her arms around her friend when she reached the pair on the ground.

"Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday, Hermione! We'll all be inside in just a minute after this round to wash up for lunch. Mum's in the kitchen and she's been talking about your visit for days – please go in for a chat before the others arrive." Ginny hopped back on her broom as Harry took off, then pointed to the worn duffle, asking incredulously, "Are those all of your things?"

"It's all I need to get settled," Hermione replied, gently patting the leather as she further explained, "Undetectable Extension and Shrinking Charms, you know."

Ginny rejoined the others in their game above, leaving Hermione to retrace her steps down through the overgrown garden, beside the small pond filled with croaking frogs, and around the meandering chickens to the front door.

Molly flung wide the door just as Hermione set down her bag and raised her fist to knock. "Hermione, dear, I'm so pleased to see you! Happy Birthday and do let me find a spot of breakfast for you before we all start on lunch." She whisked the young woman into the house and into another embrace as Hermione sighed deeply and allowed her body to release the tension she hadn't realised she'd been holding.

Her arms still wrapped tightly around Mrs. Weasley's shoulders, she spoke quietly into the woman's greying hair. "Thanks for having me, Molly. It's good to be back."

"Back for good, if I understand correctly?"

"Yes. Back for good this time."

Molly held her out at arms' length, looked her in the eye, and nodded firmly. "Good."

She turned back to the range, and Hermione spotted the worn kitchen clock's lone arm pointed to 'Time to Make Tea.' "We've all missed you terribly, and you've grown much too thin since your last holiday." She resolutely stared at the batter bowl as she began stirring away, carefully keeping her voice low. "And how are Wendell and Monica Wilkins doing these days, my dear?"

Hermione smiled warmly. "Wendell and Monica are doing quite well, thank you very much. It's spring there now, so the garden is just starting to come into its own. Monica's expanded her pot plants this year, although the ladybirds are out in force. Of course, whenever anything dies she explains that she's left her green thumb in England and declares that she could've had it growing with just a bit more rain."

"What do they think of your move back home, dear?

"They tell me they'll miss their favourite English neighbour. I forever won their affection for remembering to bring them jars of Marmite and packages of proper biscuits when I traveled back and forth. And Wen..." she broke off abruptly and took another deep breath, slowly closing her eyes. "Wendell told me I've become a very good friend to them both. He made me promise before I left that I wouldn't work too hard since he thinks I won't have anyone here to force me to relax."

Wiping her floury hands on her flowery apron, Molly turned to Hermione and patted her hand. "Well, dear, I shall hold you to that. Saturday lunch, every week, come whenever you're free. You know you're family here."

Hermione's acceptance into the Weasley clan had ostensibly been secured with the arrival of a monogrammed jumper during her school years, but she had never fully appreciated it until her first Christmas after the war, the first holiday her parents had asked her not to spend with them.

In the aftermath of the last battle, she and Harry and Ron had all moved into Grimmauld Place together, leaving alternately to attend funerals and memorial services, help with the cleanup of Hogwarts, and retreat into Muggle London to the cinema for a much needed laugh. They had been inseparable for the first month, taking meals at the same time and even sleeping in the same unused sitting room on transfigured camp beds, but eventually they had learned to spend time on their own without falling apart. Harry had disappeared with Ginny for stretches of time to no-one-knew-where, Ron had spent hours with George in the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes storeroom doing no-one-knew-what, and Hermione had analysed materials for her trip leaving for Australia no-one-knew-when. Following Harry's quiet eighteenth birthday party at the Burrow, the boys had left for Auror training and Hermione made her move. She had gathered a week's worth of clothes and arranged for a Portkey to Melbourne to retrieve her parents and bring them home safely.

Finding Wendell and Monica Wilkins had not been a challenge, but eliminating the new memories she had given them had proved a difficult problem. Although none of Hermione's professors at Hogwarts (or even her Muggle primary school teachers) ever could have impugned her for a lack of preparation, the wide gulf between preparation and practice left her unable to find a working solution. She hadn't Obliviated her parents. That would have been more within her grasp, but even that would have included guesswork on her part. No, Obliviation wouldn't have worked to get them out of the country. They would have lost a bit of their lives, sure, but five minutes Obliviated? A day? A week? That would have accomplished nothing. The Drs. Granger would still have been residing at home, peaceably running their dental practice with those same persistent worries about their extraordinary daughter niggling about in the background. Instead, she had suppressed their memories of her and anything that would connect them to England – their names, friends, and neighbors – and she had planted new memories over the originals. It was just as though she had planted new tomato bushes over an old patch of cabbages after a thorough tilling. She had studied for several weeks before initially casting the Memory Charms on her parents, performing magic well beyond the expectations of a Hogwarts classroom, and had hoped that she would be able to return when the danger had passed. She had hoped that she would be able to till up the garden one final time to return the cabbages she had earlier destroyed. The trouble was that the new memories seemed to develop lives of their own, growing and changing beyond that which she could recognize or even clearly differentiate from some aspects of their original memories. When she had delved in slyly to recover their originals, she had quickly learned that the results of her hasty spell work were beyond her skill to repair. Her tomatoes were an invasive species that she could no longer control.

Although she hadn't expected to have any difficulties, she had quelled her worries and caught her prearranged Portkey home to England seven days later and had begun making arrangements for a longer relocation to solve this problem, knowing with certainty that she would commit her time and energy into seeing her parents healthy again and confident that she would find a solution in no time. She had allotted herself one month to set things in order. In that time, she had devoured all the books she could find on the Magic of Memories. After having scoured the collection at Grimmauld Place and the Hogwarts Library (with special permission from Professor McGonagall), Hermione had read everything she knew existed on the subject. She had learned everything from the theory behind creating and eliminating memories (there were arguments between two camps as to the effects on children and the elderly, but a stable consensus about nearly everything else) to the history of Obliviation (beginning with the first Ministry Obliviator active in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, a woman named Mnemone Radford with eleven children who created the spell to allow them to get along again after arguments). Her free time had been spent relaxing with Ginny at the Burrow, babysitting Teddy so that his grandmother, Andromeda, could get some sleep, and trying to cajole Harry and Ron into talking about their feelings with the war. She had also offered her testimony on behalf of Draco Malfoy during his trial before the Wizengamot and accompanied Neville to St. Mungo's to visit his parents, where she had learned that Professor Snape was recovering from the attack by Nagini in an induced coma in the farthest room of the closed ward. After saying her tearful goodbyes to those she knew and loved, she had packed up her things and caught another Portkey to Australia. This time, it was a Portkey without a prearranged return.

Five months of creative spell work later, Hermione hadn't made a dent in their mental battlements. Three years of accelerated Muggle university study, four years of medical school, one internship year, and several residencies in Neurology later, Hermione still hadn't progressed beyond their outer walls. In the meanwhile, she had moved into their neighbourhood and struck up a friendship with the couple, but when she had asked to spend her Christmas holidays with them that first year during a momentary loss of emotional restraint, they kindly encouraged her to spend it with people she knew back home. It was all quite well-intentioned – they simply couldn't fathom why a young woman would choose to spend her holidays with a couple she barely knew when she had family and friends back in England.

That Christmas had found Hermione in inconsolable tears on Molly's doorstep. When she had returned to her own across the globe a few days later, she had discovered a small fruitcake bundled in ruby cellophane with a note attached from the Wilkinses: 'Happy Christmas, Hermione!' Portioning it out sliver by sliver, she ate it alone at her kitchen table every morning with tea until it was gone. It had lasted through the third week of January. Happy Christmas, indeed.

Every Christmas and every birthday had been spent at the Burrow since.

Later that day, over two dozen people were squished around the mismatched tables placed end to end in the yard: Arthur and Molly Weasley, Andromeda Tonks, Bill and Fleur and their three blondes, Charlie, Percy and Audrey (with two in tow), George, Ron and Susan (and Rose and Hugo), Harry and Ginny (plus three), Luna Lovegood, and Neville Longbottom. Already heavy laden with plates piled high with Molly's morning tasks, the shorter table groaned as an enormous cake with thirty candles was levitated over and set in front of Hermione (much to the delight of her godson, Al, sitting on her lap at the time). The merry crowd sang and chatted and laughed the afternoon away in idleness until Charlie asked Andromeda, Bill, and Harry after Teddy's first few weeks at Hogwarts.

"He likes his house, then? And classes?"

"Seems to love it," Harry said, digging into a large slice of chocolate layer cake. "Following in the family footsteps, of course, like so many have done before him. His first letter was filled with a blow by blow of the Welcoming Feast and a detailed description of the common room from the portraits to the cosy chairs. I'm just glad he didn't send the password by owl."

"I think he'll take well to Herbology and Potions," Andromeda added. "He likes to make things and see things change before his eyes."

"He's friendly with the boys he dorms with, although he says there aren't as many first years there as usual," Harry continued. "And I performed my duty by him and his teeth, warning him off Hagrid's baking when they have tea together."

The others had heard all the Ministry gossip and read all the articles in the Daily Prophet about the Sorting Hat kerfuffle and Professor Sprout's outburst, so they quickly filled Charlie and Hermione in on the details. Hermione was pulled out of reflections on her own Sorting by a lively debate between Bill and Neville.

"Here's the thing, though, Neville..." Bill was saying. "You aren't a Gryffindor. You're a Hufflepuff."

Neville sputtered out his surprise and began to protest when Bill cut him off. "No, hear me out. I'm not saying that you aren't brave, Neville. Don't ever think that. I watched you pull out Sword of Gryffindor from the Hat, I heard you openly defy Voldemort, I know you fought Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries as a fifth year..."

"...And you protected all of us during that terrible year at Hogwarts," Ginny interjected.

"...Yes, and when you sliced off Nagini's head in battle, I actually stopped fighting and cheered. Stupidly cheered, Neville, with a Death Eater's wand at my throat." Bill tempered his enthusiasm as he continued on. "What I'm saying is that at the core of it, you're a dedicated, hardworking fellow. Day in, day out. Put in the work that people don't always notice. Just and loyal, as the song always says." He gave Neville a meaningful glance. "You take care of your own. The incredible thing about you is that you take care of everyone else's, too."

"Why can't a Gryffindor be just and loyal, Bill?"

"Why can't a Hufflepuff be brave, Neville?"

"Why do you insist that my 'brave Hufflepuff' trumps my 'just Gryffindor'?"

Hermione joined the argument. "It seems safe to say that the members of each house assume that their strongest character trait trumps all others."

Bill and Neville both fell silent and turned to examine her as she continued.

"Most Gryffindors assume that bravery trumps everything else and believe that if someone else is brave enough – no matter what else they may be – they'll be sorted into Gryffindor. Ravenclaws assume that intelligence trumps all and believe that if someone is smart enough, they'll be sorted into Ravenclaw." She rolled her eyes, saying, "Trust me on that one. I had Ravenclaws questioning my house affiliation more times than I could count."

Bill sighed. "You're probably right, Hermione."

"Aren't I right about everything today? You may have bested me in sheer number of O.W.L.s, Professor Weasley, but I believe the Birthday Girl is always correct," she retorted blithely. She looked around at both men. "Do you think there has to be a choice? Can't one be both?"

Bill merely harrumphed. "Perhaps, Hermione... perhaps. Perhaps not." He thoughtfully considered the young man beside him. "Neville, I could be wrong about all of this. I think the Sorting Hat gets it wrong fairly frequently. But the reason I'm more likely to think you're a brave Hufflepuff is that you're lacking most of Gryffindor's less admirable qualities, which somehow never make it into the song. It's because you're not a hot-headed Gryffindor like Ron or Charlie. You don't run on overconfidence like Percy or even intuition like Harry or George. You think things through, and you're more than willing to wait for concrete evidence when it's necessary. I'm not saying that either Ron or Harry are completely Gryffindor in their behaviour either, but I do think the Hat made a mistake with you."

At this, Neville spoke quite deliberately. "Actually... It didn't... it offered me Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. At the time, I had my grandmother's voice ringing in my ears, saying she was disappointed that I would never be as courageous as my parents. The Hat was encouraging me towards Hufflepuff... but I chose Gryffindor instead. I made the choice. If anyone made a mistake, it was me."

"Maybe the mistake was in giving an option," Bill offered quietly.

"The most important thing to remember is that it's not actually any better to be a Gryffindor than a Hufflepuff," Arthur added from the head of the table, which had fallen suspiciously quiet as the others snuck glances at the only Hufflepuff seated among them. Susan was clearly listening to every word as she defiantly smoothed down Hugo's mop of hair, but she was avoiding eye contact with all of her in-laws. "I dare say every house has its unfounded prejudices against every other. It just takes time to remember to see someone for who they are rather than for their house."

"I learned quickly enough, didn't I?" asked Ron before leaning over to kiss his wife. She rapidly turned the colour of her husband's hair and playfully batted away the friendly hand that was creeping up her leg under the table.

"That's certainly true, Arthur." Andromeda patted Ron on the back as she left to help Molly tidy up. "Although it becomes more and more obvious the farther removed you are from the house politics of your youth."

"Pomona was right to be upset," Arthur responded grimly. "I just hope Minerva takes it seriously and figures out what went wrong."

Ginny piped up again, this time with a mischievous look of feigned sobriety,"You know, Neville, you would have had a lot more time with Hannah early on if you had chosen Hufflepuff instead."

Neville's blush crept up past his ears as he suppressed a shy smile. "Oh, shut it, Mrs. Potter."

"Of course, she's quite brave as well," Ginny continued on, a bit more somberly. "I couldn't believe it when she returned during that last battle. And after her mother had been killed by Death Eaters..." She shook off the gravity of her words, determined to return to light-hearted matters. Her grin began to blossom wildly as she needled Neville, "And her smile is like sunshine, and she smells just like buttercups, and furry woodland creatures flock about when she starts to sing..."

That night after presents had been opened and dishes tidied away, Harry, Ginny and Hermione each carried one of the little ones in their arms when they took the Floo Network back to the Potters' cozy home. Hermione and Harry climbed up to the boys' room on the second floor, tucking Albus and James into their beds after swapping their grubby clothes out for pyjamas and removing their mud-caked trainers. Ginny set Lily down in the bassinet in the nursery, and Harry went down to start a kettle for tea. He was rummaging through the cupboards for biscuits when Ginny finally emerged.

"Accio digestives!" she called, and a half empty roll of biscuits flew into her open hand.

The three friends prepared milky cups of chamomile as they settled down at the small table.

"Hermione, I'm so thrilled you're moving home. Fleur and Susan are lovely, but I've missed having a sister on the same continent."

"Doesn't Audrey count?"

"She's... fine, I suppose, but she did marry Percy. I thought that having kids would loosen them up a bit, but it seems to have moved them along that spectrum in quite the opposite direction. What I really need is for George to finally marry Angelina. They've been together now for four years, and I have no idea what's taking so long... although she might be waiting until she retires from Quidditch to get married. Then perhaps we'll see them both around more often."

"Well, I'm afraid you'll be seeing quite a lot of me until I decide where to live," Hermione conceded. "I should be out of your guest room in a few short weeks, if all goes according to plan."

"Nonsense, Hermione." Ginny waved her hand as she reassured her friend. "You can stay as long as you need or would like. The boys are thrilled that their Aunt Hermione will be living with them for awhile, and Lily... well, she..." As if on cue, a faint whimpering began upstairs. Ginny stood up, tea in hand, and headed up. "I'll just go check on that."

Harry had been purposefully nibbling on a single biscuit throughout this exchange, but as his wife left the kitchen, he asked the one question that had been on his mind all day.

"Hermione... You know I love you and I'm happy you're here. I know you've... well, lost yourself a bit to all this work for your parents and your job as a Healer..."

"...Doctor, Harry."

"Right... doctor." He had the good sense to look a little sheepish at his forgetfulness. "Wow, and I was raised by Muggles. Old habits die terribly hard, don't they?"

"Yes, Harry, I believe they do."

"Right... so... I was just wondering... what prompted you to move back now?" His eyes were warily asking another set of questions entirely: Will you leave again in a few months? A year? Am I getting my hopes up too high about having one of my best friends back?

Hermione squared her shoulders and looked into her friend's eyes. "Yes, Harry. I'm sure I'm back. Really, truly back. I promise. As for why I'm back now? Well, I've made a lot of progress with my research – more than I would have expected. But I've hit a roadblock that I can't get past while I remain in Australia. I want my work to be above board, but the kinds of things I'm working on now... I couldn't take them any farther there."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I think I've told you that I'm using some Muggle technology to examine some health problems that St. Mungo's would be tackling here. It's fairly limited, as the principles about using electricity in a Magical environment still apply. I don't want to bore you with the details, but I'm basically using different kinds of scans to look inside people's brains to identify damage and figure out how to treat it. I've got a... Muggle way inside the mind. But in order for what I've studied to be really helpful for both Muggles and wizards, I need a Magical way inside as well."

"And?"

"I'm sure with your work you're aware of different laws and standards in other countries. In some ways, Australia is much more progressive than England. But in other ways, it's a much more conservative country..."

"So how does that impact what you're doing?"

"Here we have... how many Unforgiveables, Harry?"

"Three." He smiled impatiently. "You know this, Hermione."

"The Australian Ministry of Magic has declared five."

"The Cruciatus, the Imperius, the Killing Curse, and...?"

"Occlumency and Legilimency. They're considered too dangerous to use and the mind is too delicate a thing to breach. The assigned punishment is a lifetime sentence if you're caught as an Occlumens or a Legilimens."

"Now I see... so you've returned to learn how to become a Legilimens? That could take some time, Hermione. It may be legal here, but it's still a skill highly regulated by the Ministry. Regulated for good reason, I might add."

"And yet you never registered when you began studying Occlumency."

"Well, we were at war and I was under orders from Professor Dumbledore. There was never any reason to register me, anyway. I was rubbish. I probably would have been rubbish even if Dumbledore himself had taught me, but lessons from Snape..."

"...Professor Snape..."

"...Professor Snape, then. They were a disaster. Trust me when I say that I never possessed any skills that should have been registered. I assure you, he would agree."

Here it is, Hermione thought. It's now or never, I suppose. She had learned long ago to keep any talk of her parents or her medical work to a minimum around her friends. It wasn't that they didn't trust her, per se, but they never knew how to respond... and their hesitation registered palpably with her. She knew they worried, thought she'd put her life on hold and didn't know how to get it back on track. They thought she should have continued on with Ron, perhaps, and married him sometime after that very public kiss she'd bestowed upon him during the final battle. They thought she would be working in the Ministry to advance the cause of the less fortunate, perhaps, such as taking up the plight of the house-elves or work to eliminate the remaining anti-Muggle legislation that was tucked into centuries of accrued documents and laws. Of course, perhaps they didn't think any of that... perhaps that was something she was hiding from herself? Would I have done things differently? Should I have? At this point, it didn't matter. She was here now, and she was here with a purpose.

"That's just it, Harry... I need to find Severus Snape."