Secrets

Hermione had only been home for two days before her father called her into the sitting room after dinner.

"Hermione, your mother and I have recently decided that having my surgery below is simply not healthy for a young girl. In light of this, we have decided to make some changes. I will be moving my practice to a different location and will be supplementing the added expense by taking on a paying apprentice."

Hermione's eyes widened with surprise and a relief she couldn't hide. She wondered if this sudden new decision had anything to do with the fact that no one in the household, or even her Grandmother's seemed to have noticed her teeth.

"Ah, lamb. I can see you are pleased with the idea," her father remarked. "It will be some time before we can get things situated, and so your mother and I have decided to send you on holiday in Devon until we can make the needed changes around here."

"Devon? Are you talking about Aunt Alice?"

She looked over at her mother and found her smiling. Hermione's heart thumped in her chest. Her mother's older sister was, by far, her favorite relative. An eccentric of the highest order, Aunt Alice had been married off to an older man who was so happy with his young bride that he'd died quickly to reward her and left her a good bit of wealth and property in his will. Alice had never married again to show her thanks for such a magnanimous gesture.

"We will be rather sad to have you gone," said her mother, "since we only just got you back after so long away, but we think it for the best."

"I admit, I'm not happy to be away from you so soon, but I would love to go. I haven't seen Alice in years. I do so love Otterwold."

"And go you shall. Your mother will take you shopping tomorrow, and then Monday next, we will get the two of you on a coach for Ottery St. Catchpole for the summer."

"Thank you!" She jumped up and ran around the table to hug her father tightly.

The coach bounced heavily as it turned onto a well-rutted road, jarring Hermione out of the partial doze. She reached up automatically and adjusted her bonnet before pulling at her Spencer, trying to get some air. She wanted to take it off, but the loathsome cretin sitting across from her was the reason she had put it on after the first stop. The way he stared at her budding décolletage had made her distinctly uncomfortable. It had taken some time to get used to the change from her high-necked school uniform to the low-cut muslin gowns she'd grown up in again. She'd taken to wearing her mother's lace fichu, tucked into the front, to try and undermine the style's determination to show off more skin than she was ready to. Even that hadn't been proof against leering.

Her mother woke up with a start and looked around blinking. She gave her daughter a wry smile and swiped delicately at the bit of drool on her lip.

"How much longer?" her mother asked her quietly.

"Almost there. We just turned onto the Stoatshead road."

"Marvelous news. I do love my sister, but I so hate to travel."

"Can you not spend the summer as well?"

"No. Just the week. I want to help get the surgery in order for the move, and your father has asked me to help him chose a new location."

Hermione nodded and looked out the window again at the rolling landscape, dotted with apple orchards and wheat fields.

Half an hour later they rolled into Ottery St. Catchpole. Hermione was grateful for the hand that helped her down, as she wasn't sure she wouldn't simply fall out of the carriage. She went and sat on the bench perched along the low stone wall of the small inn while her mother directed their luggage down from the top of the coach.

The town was rather small, but highly pleasant, featuring the inn and a church with a nicely laid-out churchyard on the north end of the square and, to the south, a blacksmith, farrier, harness maker and wheelwright. Heading out of the center to the north east were more shops, with a bookseller, a draper, the post, and one or two more shops if she remembered correctly. She hadn't been here in over two years.

She loved it here. Aside from her former home in Pearheath, this was the place most often thought of to fend off her darkest moments.

The summer sun felt warm against her skin, and after the coach had loaded back up and headed on to the next town, she finally shrugged out of her Spencer. They didn't need to wait long before a landau pulled into the square with a team of unmatched horses. The driver hopped down, and Hermione got up from the bench and bobbed to her Aunt's old coachman, Pete.

"Hello, Mrs. Granger, good teh see yeh. And look at this mite, not so small anymore, are yeh? Come, come. I know yehs tired after all that jouncing. Lemme get yer things up off the ground here, and we'll have yeh home in a jiffy. Mrs. Perthwit is in a right state waiting for yehs, she is."

Twenty minutes later and Hermione was alighting from the carriage in front of a stately house, with a long graveled drive lined with chestnut trees and glorious fields spreading out to the hills on either side. There was a walled garden to the east side and a glassed-in conservatory to the west. It had once belonged to a wealthy country squire, but had been bought by her aunt's departed husband when that family had fallen on hard times and sold off the unentailed properties.

Mr. Perthwit, a nabob who had made himself quite the fortune in the East Indies, had spent many years improving the property before he had finally decided that the last thing it needed was a pretty young wife to adorn it.

The front door flew open, and a loud cry of happiness announced Aunt Alice. She was in her late thirties and wore her age well. Still a very handsome woman; she wore a whimsical, silk turban over her curly, blond hair, that matched her deep burgundy silk gown. To Hermione, newly aware of such things, it was cut shockingly low but had a high, stiff collar that fanned out behind her neck. Hermione thought she looked splendid.

"There you are! There you are, my darlings! Helen! You look absolutely fetching in that frock." She opened her arms wide. "My dearest sister!"

"Only sister, Alice," her mother replied with a droll laugh, giving her a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Regardless, you are my favorite person, aside from this young girl beside you. Hello, Hermione, welcome back to Otterwold. My dear child, you have grown! And look how pretty you are! I told you she would grow into those teeth, Helen. You only needed to give her some time!"

"I have no idea what you are talking about. Her teeth are fine, always were."

Hermione froze for a moment, as Alice gave her sister a quizzical look.

"Indeed," Alice said finally. "That is what I always said. It is of no matter. Come in! Come in! I have tea and cake waiting for you, and then we shall get you both to your rooms for a proper lie down." She wrapped her arms around Hermione's elbow and walked them up the wide front steps. "I have so many splendid things planned for us this week. I'm having a lawn party tomorrow and have invited only those neighbors who can hold meaningful conversation. After that, I shall take you both around the countryside, and we shall picnic in the park. I have a few more things on the list, but I thought I would let you dictate how the rest of the week should go, Helen, as this is such a short visit for you."

The week went quickly. The garden party was, to Hermione's surprise, quite fun. The parson's children, Fredrick and Henrietta Janssen, were a year older and a year younger, respectively, and very welcoming. They were new to their parish, and so Hermione had never met them before. Fredrick was a dead shot at lawn bowl, and Henrietta admitted to a quiet passion for cricket. The other children were all younger, and Hermione had a pleasant time chasing them around in an endless game of hide and seek in the rhododendron garden.

Every morning, she would ride out with her mother and aunt, through the pasturage on her aunt's property and into the Earl's park. The Earl was apparently never in residence, keeping to either London or another of his homes, but his property was kept in immaculate condition, and riding through its old trees and across the splendid ornamental bridges was pure pleasure.

Eventually, the time came to see her mother off, and Hermione was conflicted by how much she would miss her and how grateful she was not to be returning to London herself. She'd been away from her parents for an entire school year, and yet seemed overly willing to not see them for the summer. The guilt put her out of sorts.

"There you are. I should have known I would find you here," Alice said upon finding her in the library. "Come, this isn't good for you. Not the reading, mind, I highly approve of that, but this maudlin countenance. You will find the summer will pass soon enough, and then you will be back with your family again." She walked over and plucked the copy of Shakespeare's, The Tempest, out of her hands, marked the page with a feather she pulled from her hair turban, and closed it.

Hermione admired Alice's crazy collection of turbans. The biggest reason being that they had the same head of wild curls, but Alice had liberated herself by cutting them all off and slapping her turbans on to hide the fact. Hermione thought that was a deliciously wicked thing to have done.

Holding out her hand, Alice said, "Come with me. I have a secret to show you."

Hermione uncurled herself from the chair and took her hand with a smile. Her aunt folded her hand around her own arm and patted it as she led her out of the library.

"You come from a long line of blue-stockings, child. Blame it on your father, as I blame it on mine, and my mother blamed it on hers. The women in our family are too smart for our own good and have been overindulged by our fathers. With the exception of my own husband, God rest his soul, we have always attracted men who valued our intelligence, and then spoiled their daughters shamelessly when they saw it had passed to another generation. The weight of our intellect demands support; however, the weight of society demands discretion. Thus, we are smart in secret. Having a secret can be a good thing, Hermione. Holding onto a mystery about yourself can see you through the darkest times. I will show you mine, so that in the future, you can have an idea of how to construct your own."

She led her up the stairs, toward her own rooms.

"Mr. Perthwit, may he rest in eternal peace, broke with tradition. All he wanted was a beauty. I actually had to work rather hard to infuse myself with the tittering insipidness that he found so charming. I did so well at my dramatics that he indulged me in any way I wished. My one wish was a private chamber of my own. This is where I keep my secret.

"Even after his passing, bless him for his timing, a mere eighteen months after our union, I kept it a secret. I know I didn't really have to, but I wanted to. It became part of the fun."

She walked across her large and well-appointed bed chamber to a small door. "In here is my secret self. This is where I hide when life gets a little blue. Go on, open the door."

Hermione gave her a quizzical smile, unsure what she would find beyond the small door. She turned the knob and pulled. When she saw the inside, she gasped. She stepped in and whirled in a small circle before looking at her aunt with a bright smile.

"This is amazing!"

Her aunt clapped her hands in delight. "I knew you would approve!"

Hermione looked around again, at the hundreds, if not thousands, indeed, there might even be a hundred thousand, specimens of insects pinned inside frames, displayed under glass, covering the walls of the surprisingly large room filled with sunlight streaming in from the windows.

"How long have you collected insects?"

"Oh, it must be almost twenty years. I thought them fascinating as a child, but it wasn't until Mr. Perthwit, may he rest in peace eternally, told me I should find myself a hobby that the idea came to me. I have no doubts that he intended something more along the lines of drawing or painting."

"This is simply marvelous!"

"I know! And it is ever so much more than a hobby now. I am actually a recognized authority on the subject of local population variants. I've had several papers published, and at least once a year I am asked to give a lecture to the Royal Society."

"How exciting! What is that like?"

"Oh, I never go. They would probably have a fit of the vapors if I did. I publish everything under a pseudonym. They think I am a man." She laughed and walked over to the neat desk in the corner and picked up a paper she had been working on and handed it to Hermione. "No, I just write the lecture and send it off, and they squabble amongst themselves as to who gets the honor of delivering the speech for me. You see, Mr. Alistair Perth, is of delicate health, after his forays into the Hindu Kush as a young man." She giggled like a little girl. "I've made myself an entire biography. My alter ego is quite the distinguished gentleman. I've left instruction with a lawyer in London, that upon my death, my entire collection will be donated to the Royal Society along with the truth. I only wish I could hang around as a ghost and haunt them to drive the point home."

She took her paper back and laid it on the desk before sitting down and arranging the folds of her morning dress fastidiously.

"My mother's passion was mathematics. Your mother's was teeth, of all things. I doubt they ever told you this, but it was Helen that fired John Granger's interest in the subject. I am only sorry they reached such a level of success. Now she has to hide. It cannot be easy for her." Alice waved a regal hand. "That is neither here nor there. The point of this little expedition to the hidden reaches of Otterwold is to show you that you're not alone. You are not so singular as to be entirely misunderstood. You are young yet; there is plenty of time to find your own passion and create your own secret, but when the dog does bite you, so-to-speak, know that in our family, it is perfectly normal.

"The trick is in choosing your partner. Either find a man you can share your secret with, one like your father and mine, who will not just take pride in, but adore, your mind, or find one who is nearly decrepit and already suffering from an affliction, like my dearest Phillip, rest his soul. Those are your only two options. Do not marry for love alone, and do not marry a healthy man out of practicality, or you will either starve or wither. You are the captain of your own ship, Hermione, but the currents are always against you."

Alice rose up from her chair. "Enough. That is all the advice on that subject you shall ever receive from me. I wanted to jolt you out of your melancholy, not dictate how you should run your life when you are merely twelve years old."

"You have done both with great success," Hermione reassured her. "In fact, if I could count on your absolute discretion, I would share with you the fact that I already have a secret."

Alice sat back down in her chair with a delighted smile and pulled a stool out from under a bench and patted it. Hermione sat down and folded her hands in her lap nervously.

"You have my utter discretion. I give you my solemn vow."

"I would need one. In fact, it would be rather mandatory. You see, my secret is of such strangeness as to be easily dismissed, and yet, the consequences of my telling you would be severe if you were to ever let it slip."

Alice's smile faltered and her face became serious. "You have my word. But I think you ought to tell me right now. I admit to disliking the idea of a child your age carrying a secret that sounds more like a burden. Are you in any trouble, Hermione?"

"No! No. It's not quite the way it sounds. You see, I'm a witch."

Alice looked at her for a long time without blinking. "I'm afraid I don't follow," she finally said.

"I'm magical. I can do magic. I know it sounds fantastical, and it probably makes me sound like a candidate for Bedlam, but it's true. The school that I go to is not a finishing school for young ladies and gentlemen; it is a school where we learn how to control our magic and train to use it in all manner of ways."

Hermione squirmed under Alice's piercing look.

"Your teeth," she finally said. Hermione sagged with relief and nodded vigorously.

"There was an accident of a sort, and my teeth were all broken. They fixed them with a spell, but... I think they thought they were doing me a favor. I asked one of the teachers to put them back the way they were. I could never explain this to anyone, let alone my parents. Instead, my teacher seems to have... Well, I don't know what he did. But my parents, Cook, Mrs. Crabtree, even Lady Granger, Charles, her other maids... None of them noticed anything. You're the first."

Alice sat back in her chair and blew out a breath.

"Do your parents know?"

"No. I've not the courage to tell them. I have reason to suspect that they would be less than pleased."

Alice nodded slowly, looking out the window to the hills beyond.

"Hermione... When you were a child, a babe really, you did something I've never been able to forget. Your parents were off on their morning ride, and I was walking with you in the field. A butterfly came and danced about your face. When it flitted off again, you were quite upset, as most children are. However, not a moment later, an entire cloud of butterflies came up from every part of the property and swarmed us. I was actually rather terrified, and I ran with you back into the house with this hoard of parti-colored Lepidoptera on my tail." She pressed her hand to her bosom. "Your parents refused to believe me with an almost violent insistence. I was always rather suspicious of that."

Hermione's eyes went wide. "They say that we're supposed to come into our magic young. But my one experience that I can remember, I was about seven, resulted in such shame that it seems I managed to drive my magic away. That is, until last year. I came to the attention of the school after an episode of uncontrolled magic, and they sent someone off to collect me. Their kind hides from the world, ever since the witch trials and the burnings."

"Well, they're rather smart then, I say. However, I suspect your parents already know on some level. I won't counsel you in this, but take that into account. Having this sort of secret isn't particularly healthy."

"True, but it is better than being sent off to an asylum or burned at the stake."

"Pshaw. As if I would have even allowed that. Can you show me some magic?"

Hermione pulled her wand from the pocket she had sewn into her skirt and waved it in the air, causing a cascade of sparks. Alice clapped her hands together and marveled.

"That's all I can really show you, actually. Underage witches and wizards are not allowed to use their magic anywhere but at school. They have ways of knowing when we do, and I would get into a lot of trouble."

"Wizards... That sounds so... delicious, actually. Can I meet one?"

"I promise, someday. But I don't know any well enough to invite them to tea anytime soon."

"Surely we could invite a friend from school to spend some time?"

Hermione squirmed on her stool and looked down at the floor. "I don't actually have any."

"Oh." Alice gave her a look filled with too much understanding to be comfortable. "Come, let's retreat to my boudoir and order up some tea. I want to hear all about your school and why you don't seem to have any friends."

After that they developed a habit of retreating to Alice's research chamber in the afternoons where Alice taught her an enormous amount about insects, and Hermione showed her the spells in her school books and could study without fear of discovery.

For the rest of the summer, they never mentioned either insects or magic outside of the confines of Alice's rooms, with the singular exception of that first night during dinner, when Alice tossed her fork down onto her plate with a huff and said, "Muggle. What a wretched word. I don't particularly like being termed a Muggle."

Hermione had giggled into her lemonade.

For the rest of the summer, she spent her time reading, riding, walking, strolling, and even painting a bit. She had lunch at least once a week with Fredrick and Henrietta, and they became fast friends. She wandered across the countryside on long, rambling walks, and thoroughly enjoyed her time.

Aunt Alice found a way to see magic. At the end of Hermione's summer visit, she'd packed her things as well and personally took Hermione back to London. They made a side trip to The Leaky Cauldron and, with the help of Mr. Tatterwing, went on through to Diagon Alley, for the express purposes of outfitting Hermione for school. Certainly not just to satisfy an overcurious aunt.

Alice was speechless during the entire time it took to exchange currency at Gringotts, and Hermione was hard pressed to keep her from purchasing a copy of Holometabolous Insects, and their Uses in Potion Making, explaining for the fifth time the Statute of Secrecy and its accompanying penalties.

Alice pouted, but gave in when she realized that the alternative was having her memories tampered with.

They had lunch in The Leaky, simply because Alice needed to chatter desperately about everything she had seen before she could hope to keep a straight face in front of Hermione's parents. When luncheon was finished, Hermione jumped up from her chair and barreled into a man behind her.

"Oh! Forgive me! I'm terribly sorry..."

Hermione's apology died in the face of the look of pure malice she received from Mr. Malfoy. He stared at her as if she had spit on him, and then his gaze slid over to her aunt and only became ruder.

He turned to his son and said, "Come, Draco. I see the quality of the establishment has fallen to an all new low when they will let anyone in. Let us take ourselves elsewhere."

Draco laughed at his father's remark and gave Hermione a sneer as well. The two of them stormed away.

Alice put her hand on Hermione's shoulder and drew her close. "Is that one of your purebloods?"

"Yes. If you listen to Draco, the purest."

"I find I'm rather more comfortable being a mere Muggle now," Alice quipped with a smirk. "Come. Let's get your things together and get you home. Your parents have been waiting long enough."

They gathered Hermione's packages and books and turned to find yet another wizard staring down at them.

"Hello, Professor!" Hermione smiled widely at seeing her teacher once more. "This is my Aunt, Mrs. Phillip Perthwit. Alice, this is one of my teachers, Professor Snape."

"How do you do, madam?" he said, with a distinct lack of warmth.

"Very well, indeed, sir. We've just been to fetch Hermione's new school things."

"How fascinating," he replied with a condescending sneer. "Miss Granger, do take care. There are reasons we have rules." His black eyes slid from Hermione to her aunt and back again before he turned and left without further word.

They watched him billow out the back door and then made for the front quickly.

"Another pureblood?"

"I believe so, yes."

"I'm not sure I entirely like these purebloods."

"I'm sure that's fine, since they have no use for us either. But I will say that Professor Snape isn't like the rest."

"You can't tell that by his manners."

"No, that much is patently true. He does have some, though. You should have seen him the night he arrived to pick me up. Father was in full Granger-mode, and the professor set him down with amazing skill."

"I would have liked to see that. I do love when your father goes Granger. In fact, I would love to see your professor go toe-to-toe with your grandmother herself. I'd even pay to see it."

Hermione giggled as Pete helped her up into their carriage. "I would as well."