Paradise Lost
 
Chapter Two—Disappearing Acts
 
 
“You’re alone all the time--
Does it ever puzzle you?
Have you asked why
You seem to fall in love
And out again?
Do you ever really love?
Or just pretend?
Why fool yourself?
Don’t be afraid to help yourself!
It’s never too late…”
 
--The Stylistics (1971)
 
 
A small mauve wine stain was now on the white cloth tablecloth where Hermione had dropped the engagement ring.  Jack Calhoun studied that stain for a long moment, and she watched him.  Meanwhile, the audience at the Palladium Dinner Theatre clapped heartily, oblivious to the small-scale drama unfolding in their very midst.
 
He looked up at her with cool, slate grey eyes.  Because hers were relatively nondescript, Hermione always noticed eyes… it had been the first feature of his that had attracted her.
 
She couldn’t read the expression in them just now.  That was surprising.  Jack was usually an open book.  What she couldn’t discern with a glance, she could usually learn with a touch.
 
Yet this was a different matter entirely.  Hermione had no idea how Jack would take what she was going to tell him.
 
“I’m not sure how or where to begin,” Hermione confessed.
 
Jack smiled, but Hermione could tell it was forced.  Although she might not have been able to put a finger on Jack’s mood at the moment, she knew that her ambiguous response to his proposal had not been anticipated.
 
“Well, just start at the beginning, darlin’, continue on, and when you come to the end, stop.”
 
She took a deep breath.  “Right, that’s fair enough.”  Chewing her tongue, she weighed the two major revelations and made her choice.   “Jack, I’ve been married before.”
 
“I see.”
 
“It ended badly.  Very badly.  You see, it was a high profile marriage and…”
 
“Ah,” said Jack, seeming to understand.  “Would this be someone of international standing, or just locally famous?  Who was it?”
 
“Well, I’m sure you’ve never heard of him.”
 
Jack shook his head slowly.  “When I met you, Hermione, I was newly divorced after nearly twenty-five years of marriage.  You knew that.  Why would you be afraid to tell me that you’d gone through the same thing?”
 
Hermione sighed again.  “But it wasn’t the same thing, Jack.  I’ve talked to you and I’ve met Tara.  Your marriage failed because you found out you’d grown apart and no longer had anything in common.  You parted amicably and you’re great friends.  How I wish… well, things weren’t exactly like that for me.”
 
“Ah, I see.  Was there another woman?”
 
“Yes, there was.”  Hermione bit her lip, but was unable to leave off the other crucial aspect of the situation.  “To be fair to him, there was another man involved, too.”
 
Jack raised both eyebrows.  “You mean… you mean to tell me that… he was a homosexual?”
 
“That’d be bisexual, Jack, and no, he’s not.  The other man was his best friend… and you know, it’s taken me a long time to realize this, but in retrospect I was just as much at fault for my marriage ending as my ex-husband was.”
 
“Don’t tell me you slept with the guy’s best friend,” said Jack, obviously horrified.  “I don’t believe it!  I’ve never seen that side of you… you don’t have a vengeful bone in your body.”
 
Hermione swallowed.  “Well, he was my best friend too.  We all grew up together… went to the same boarding school, even.  We were extremely close and went through a lot together.”  She shook her head.  “We were too close.  It caused problems.”
 
“Tit for tat usually does.”
 
“I know that now.  We couldn’t seem to keep our best friend out of our marriage… in fact, we always used him as our buffer and our mediator.  For years I thought it worked.  And then all of a sudden it didn’t anymore.”
 
Jack forced a smile.  “Again, I’ll ask you to start from the beginning.  And then we’ll take it from there.”
 
So Hermione plunged into her story, full steam ahead.   With as much truthfulness as she dared without revealing the most essential part of her.  For how could she tell the story of her life without mentioning how her world changed when she got the letter from Hogwarts and the visit from McGonagall?  Or without telling how little she knew of what was in store for her when she first read the name “Harry Potter” in a heavy magihistorical tome? 
 
How could she talk about how she met her ex-husband and their best friend without talking of all the unique things that made Hogwarts the premier European wizarding school?  Or being rescued from mountain trolls and returning the favor by getting her rescuers out of the Devil’s Snare?  Of losing a good few weeks of her life because of a basilisk’s stare, and being restored by a screaming humanoid plant?  Of boggarts, icy Dementors, and hippogriff rides?  Of Summoning Spells and Sleekeasy and harsh, tentative kisses from one of the foremost players of a sport that she couldn’t even begin to explain to Jack?

She couldn’t tell Jack about the mystical Covenant or the silly Prophecies of the End or the MMRI or the Scourge or May Day 1998 or countless Remembrance Days and cozy Christmases at the Burrow… and all the many hours of lounging around her Chelsea home, usually reading a book, sometimes curled up in her husband’s arms… of sitting next to their fire, and seeing Harry’s head appear amidst the flames… saying he’d be over the next day… bringing stories from his travels with Sirius… news on exotic foreign broomsticks for Ron… a book for her… and all would be right with the world.
 
She couldn’t tell Jack about…
 
Anything.
 
I’ve been living in a dream world, haven’t I?  I’ve been so unfair to Jack… even if he is a Muggle and there is the Compact to consider he has a right to know…
 
“Let me see if I understand,” Jack was saying.  “You all grew up and went to this boarding school, and remained close even after graduation…”
 
“We don’t graduate from secondary schooling in England,” Hermione corrected.  “We just leave.”
 
“Okay, okay.  You began to date your ex-husband right before all of you left school, but before you married, you and the best friend had some sort of a fling that you never bothered to tell your husband about.  Am I on the right track so far?”
 
He makes it all sound so sleazy, thought Hermione even as she nodded.
 
“Then after you married, you were busy with your residency and then your practice, and he didn’t understand that… so he turned to this other woman, his co-worker.  Things happened and a child was conceived.  Am I still on track?”
 
“Yes, you are.”
 
“You found out.  You got mad… end of marriage.  End of story.   Okay, I got all that.  What I don’t understand still is two things.  Why did you leave afterwards?  And—I repeat—why didn’t you tell me in the beginning?  It explains so much about you.”
 
Hermione swallowed.  “Well, in our world… I mean, back home my ex-husband, along with me and my best friend are… well, we’re all sort of famous.  Everyone knows about us.  So the divorce was made very public and so was the child.  People were furious with my ex-husband and sided with me.  I found all the attention embarrassing.  I didn’t want public sympathy.  I wanted to be left alone.”
 
“Where was the best friend during all of this?   When things got bad between the two of you?”
 
“Right there with us, trying to help us work things out.  And then… well, it never became public knowledge, but then something that should have remained private and in the past was revealed to a group of our closest friends.”
 
“Your past fling with him?”
 
“Yes.”  Hermione hesitated, then plunged forward.  “Also the fact that he was in love with me--and had been for a very long time.”
 
It was now Jack’s turn to swallow--indeed, he picked up his wine glass and drained it dry.
 
Once he finished, he set it down and looked deep into her eyes.
 
“Was the feeling mutual, Hermione?”
 
She thought about this for a while before she spoke again.
 
“People assume that very close platonic friendships ought to turn into relationships.  And it is true that sometimes the foundation of a lifelong male-female friendship can be an initial attraction…”
 
“It was that way for me when it came to you,” said Jack with a smile.  In spite of herself, she blushed.  “Mind if I have some names?” said Jack.  “It’d be easier following you that way.”
 
“Oh, might as well.  Don’t see what it would hurt.  All right then, my ex-husband’s name is Ronald, Ron for short.  Our best friend’s name is Harry.  Just plain Harry in his case.”   She tried to remember the last time she’d said their names aloud--or anyone else’s in the wizarding world for that matter--and failed.  It was a strange experience.
 
“Ron and Harry.  Typical British guy names,” Jack laughed.  “Now I’m trying to run through all my mental British celebrity lists and place them with last names… go on.  Best friend wouldn’t happen to be the Prince, would it?”
 
Hermione chortled a little, in spite of herself.  “No indeed!  I said it was a celebrity matter, not a royal affair!”
 
“Just checking.”
 
“Right.  In the beginning, and for many years thereafter, neither of them saw me in a romantic light.  We were all just friends… how I wish it could have stayed like that forever!  Our differences caused the friendship to work, and it was all very balanced by the time we became teenagers.  During early adolescence, I was the odd one out because I was the lone girl, but by third year at Hog… I mean, by our third year in secondary I never felt that Harry and Ron were closer to each other than they were to me.
 
“Before we all became friends, when I was a little girl just starting at the school, I had this silly crush on Harry.  He was famous even as a little kid, and to be quite honest I think I was just as starstruck as some of the sillier girls I professed to hate.  Once I got to know him, however, the crush subsided quickly.  He was such a regular kid… but troubled.  Ron was easier to get to know--with Ron what you saw was what you got.  But you could never really know everything about Harry.”
 
Jack groaned.  “Oh, I see where this is going.  Tall, dark, and mysterious guys always get more skirts chasing after them than they deserve.”
 
Hermione laughed and shook her head.  “Oh, that didn’t come until later.  When we were little, Harry was a short, skinny kid who wasn’t all that mysterious.  The height came later, and so did the inscrutable manner.  But he does have dark hair, I’ll give you that…
 
“Anyway, so we grew up, and were relatively untroubled by all the precocious hormonal angst that Mug… I mean, American teens seem to be terribly cursed with.  Although somewhere deep down in the back of my mind, I felt that if somehow in the future I ended up with either of them, it would be him…”
 
“This Harry guy?”
 
“Yes.  Harry.”
 
Jack quoted, “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these—‘It might have been.’  Are you sure that sentiment is all past tense, darlin’?”
 
“Thanks ever so much for the nod to Whittier,” she said, the corner of her lip twitching.  “Anyhow, we were relatively untroubled until we were around fourteen, when Ron began to develop this crush on me.  Oh, it was so awkward at first!  Your crush ought to be someone you can admire from afar, like Harry’s first one… he was all dreamy-eyed about this older girl who didn’t even know he existed.   But I ate three meals a day with Ron, I had classes with Ron, and I spent all my free time with Ron.  So eventually…”
 
“He ended up being your first boyfriend.”
 
“Right.  It all happened so fast.  I can talk about my whole life with Ron in terms of ‘before I knew it’.  Before I knew it, I was good friends with him.  Before I knew it, I saw much more of him in the average day than I did Harry.  Before I knew it, I was his girlfriend… then fiancée… then wife.  It all seemed so very natural… before I knew it.”
 
“How did this Harry guy feel about the two of you being together?”
 
“Well, on the surface he always seemed to be thrilled about things.  But somewhere deep down I knew something wasn’t right… I could tell that he wasn’t exactly jumping up and down about it.  But I thought Harry didn’t care one way or the other about Ron and I until…”
 
“Until you ended up in his bed,” Jack reiterated, shaking his head.  “Darlin’, you ought to know enough about men to know that was unacceptable.”
 
“It takes two,” replied Hermione coldly.  “And Ron cheated on me three times.  The last and worst after we were married.”
 
“Have you ever asked yourself why?”
 
Her voice was still cold.  “There is never an acceptable reason for cheating, Jack.  Except of course that the cheater is a horrible scab who doesn’t deserve happiness.”
 
“Oh, come now, Hermione!  Neither of us are psychologists, but we are both health professionals.  Listen to yourself… don’t you think that your ex-husband knew you were in love with your best friend?”
 
“I was not in love with…”  She trailed off and sighed.  “Like I said, Jack, I just don’t know.”
 
“Yes, you do know.  From what you’re telling me, Ronald obviously felt that no matter what he said or did, he just would never measure up to Harry.”
 
“Right, just take his side, then!  You don’t even know the man!”
 
“No, but I see the look in your eyes when you talk about him, and the way you say his name… you’re very critical of Ronald, and yet you seem to be much less harsh in the way that you view this Harry character.  I feel sorry for your ex-husband in a way.” 
 
Despite his harsh words, Hermione remained calm and firm.  “Jack, Ron hurt me maliciously and intentionally.  Surely you’re not saying that your sympathies lie with him…”  She raised her wine glass to her lips.
 
“That’s exactly what I am saying.  As you spoke, I put myself in Ronald’s shoes.  Tara, as you know, was my high school sweetheart and the first girl I ever loved.  She only met Brad years after our divorce.”  Bradley, Hermione knew, was Tara’s husband of four years.  She and Jack had gone out on several outings with the other couple.  “I tried to imagine what I’d do and how I’d feel if I found out she’d slept with, say, Keith Dorset.  Or if you had, for that matter.”
 
Hermione nearly choked.
 
“You keep saying you don’t know how you feel, when I’ve never known you not to at least pretend to be an authority on any and every subject under the sun.  I think you’re trying to avoid the issue.”
 
“Do you?” she replied flatly, staring at him.  “And why exactly would I do that, Jack?”
 
“Because you don’t want to admit that you dated me under false pretenses.”
 
Hermione let out a deep breath.  “Jack, I love…”
 
“Don’t,” he commanded.  “Don’t make things worse by lying even more than you already have.”
 
She went cold.  “Jack, I’ve told you everything about my past relationships.  How dare you accuse me of lying?  I didn’t volunteer the information up front because it is irrelevant to what is between us.”
 
“Is it really, Hermione?  Then why are you still trying to change the topic?”
 
“Exactly which topic are you referring to?  There have been several.”
 
Frustrated, Jack threw his napkin down on the table in a gesture that was so Ron-like that it made her wince.  Yet her reflexes were still in tune to the motion… she grabbed his wrist just before he used it and the other to push away from their table.
 
“Jack, please don’t leave.  Please.”
 
Jack stared at her, then blew out a short, tense breath.  “When I proposed to you, I fully expected a simple ‘yes’, not to feel like a priest in the confessional.  You do know that, don’t you darlin’?”
 
She nodded, feeling the tears begin to sting her eyes.  He looked so crushed that she felt rather like a murderer.
 
“Don’t cry.  There’s nothing to cry about.  I shouldn’t have thrown your past into your face… I just envy both of those men, that’s all.  One called you his wife for a time and the other stole your heart.  I hope someday to repeat both feats… but it doesn’t have to be today.”
 
Hermione dabbed at her eyes with a cloth napkin.  “Really?”
 
Jack grinned, a trifle sadly.  “Darlin’, I’m not a young man, but I’m a darned persistent one.  And I’d be willing to wait forever, if I know in the end you’ll be my bride and my love.”
 
Their hands met.  Their fingers intertwined.
 
“I do care a great deal for you, Jack.  Thank you for your patience… for your strength… for your love.  And I promise you that someday soon I’ll be able to…”
 
Don’t make things worse by lying even more than you already have.
 
Just beyond their clasped hands, gooseflesh prickled Hermione’s arm.  Certainly the words were Jack’s, spoken by him just a few minutes before… and yet the voice was very different.
 
The voice was her own.
 
“Don’t make things worse by lying even more than you already have, Harry!”  She was breathless from all the running and crying she’d just done.  “How can I trust you when you don’t think enough of me to allow me to make up my own mind?”
 
There was the sweet pressure of palms curving over her shoulders, then the all-encompassing sensation of arms around her waist.  Then a whisper against her ear:   “I didn’t know how to tell you.  But we have to do this, you understand?”
 
One quick shove backwards and the pressure was gone.
 
“Don’t ever touch me again.”
 
Even as she tried to grasp the sense-bite, to hold it fast, to find out more about the gaping holes of her past, it all slipped out of her hands much as water flows through sifted sand.  Just like always.
 
“Darlin’?  Are you all right?”
 
Hastily, Hermione attempted to freeze her Grindylow-like thoughts and pack them away for further perusal.
 
“Jack, before we go on any further, marriage or not… there’s something else I need to tell you.  Not about relationships, either.  It’s about me.”
 
The corner of Jack’s lips twitched.  “I know.”
 
“You know?”  She was infinitely pleased.  This made things so much easier.  “How did you…”
 
“I don’t know what it is, but there is definitely something going on.  I can feel it when I touch you, even when I’m around you… are you ill?”
 
“Ill?” 
 
“Doctors are notoriously hardheaded when it comes to seeing to their own health.”
 
Not this doctor, she thought ruefully, rubbing her knuckles.  Despite the trauma she’d suffered only a few short days before, the skin was now as smooth and unscarred as the morning she’d left for Chicago.  She gave new meaning to the old Scriptural aphorism--Hermione Granger was a physician who could heal herself.
 
“I’m perfectly well, Jack.  Now please, if you would just…”
 
“What is it, then?  Are you pregnant?”
 
“Jack!”  Her voice was stern.  Her tone was firm.  “I most certainly am not!”
 
A shrug.  “You are still of childbearing age, Hermione.  It’s certainly not outside of the realm of possibility.”
 
It’s outside of that realm for me, she thought, recalling her own disastrous effort to conceive a few years back.  After her unborn child had died and her marriage had ended, she’d taken a personal vow of sorts.  The charm to sterilize only varied from the Contraceptive Charm in a few spots. 
 
“Anything’s possible, Jack, but it is neither probable nor true.  I am not pregnant.  Please, allow me to speak.”
 
He folded his hands.
 
“Well… you know that there are certain people with unexplained psychic abilities, right?  What do you think of that?  We’ve never discussed it.”  Because I’ve deliberately steered clear of all that, Hermione thought.  “I’m just wondering what you think.”
 
“I think that there is a logical scientific explanation behind all observable phenomena, whether we have the ability in the present to discern it or not,” he replied dryly.  “What are you trying to say, that you see ghosts?”
 
“Yes, I have.  But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”  This is it! she thought, experiencing the eerie prickle of déjà vu.   For hadn’t she bared her soul before and risked all?  “Jack, I’m a witch.”
 
Jack didn’t move a muscle.  His poker face didn’t change, either.
 
“So you’re a Wiccan?  Figures.  I always wondered why a good English girl always squirmed her way through the most Anglican services that these shores have to offer.  Also explains why you buy into that homeopathic mumbo-jumbo… so what, do you read Tarot cards?  Collect crystals?  Prance around naked on Midsummer’s Eve?”
 
“No, no.  I don’t practice Wicca.  I’m a witch.”
 
Jack seemed skeptical.  “Isn’t it the same thing?”
 
“No.  Wicca is a religion, a belief system.  It’s something that you can choose.  Actual witchcraft—our shorthand for feminine magical ability, I suppose--is as much a part of me as the color of my eyes, my height or my gender.  I didn’t have a choice in the matter… it’s genetic.  I was born a witch, Jack.”
 
It took a moment for Jack to absorb this information.  Hermione could tell that he was in denial.  She’d seen that same bewildered look on her father’s face… over twenty years before, when Minerva McGonagall had shown up on the doorstep of their orderly Headington home and delivered the letter that changed her life forever.
 
Hermione bit her lower lip as she waited for a response.  It was her one nervous habit, one that had cost her a fortune in snapebalm before she’d perfected her patented anti-chafing charm during her first year at Paracelsus.
 
Jack coughed, cleared his throat, and said:
 
“Darlin’, I think you had better go and talk to someone.  You’re coming undone… and I’d hate to see someone as young as you sabotage their career over something as silly as this.”
 
Hermione sighed.  “It’s pretty unbelievable, I know.  I’ve spent the past two decades of my life engaged in this insane attempt to rationalize the irrational… to find the source of what makes us different from everyone else on the planet.”
 
“Us?”  Jack uttered a dry, disbelieving laugh.  “So you’re not the only one with the power, huh?”
 
She felt a little prickle of fear.  John was a Muggle... John didn’t yet have a MagiCard.  In the pre-Grindelwald War days, anyone who revealed information about the wizarding world to an unauthorized Muggle risked a mandatory overnight stay in Azkaban.  Centuries before, during the height of the persecutions, any violation of the International Compact on Wizarding Secrecy was considered high treason… punishable by death.
 
“No, I’m not.  There’s a whole world of us, Jack.  We live on the edge of humanity, most of us preferring to avoid non-magical people and places where we attract attention to ourselves.”
 
“And you?”
 
“I was born to parents without magic.  I’m a bit different from most… always have been.”  She closed her eyes.
 
“Which is why you’re here now, right?  Caught between the two?”  She nodded.  “No wonder I couldn’t place your ex-husband and Harry… are they witches, too?”
 
She nodded, then shook her head.  “Well, the proper term for them is wizard… witch is the female designation, and wizard is used for males.  But the powers we have are the same.  Binding and hexing, charms and potions, transfiguration and flight… things like that.”
 
“So what, you just woke up one day and had these powers?  Or were you making your toys fly before you could walk?”  Jack had a smirk on his face that Hermione really didn’t like.  Instead of commenting on his mocking attitude, she merely answered his question.
 
“We are born with our abilities, but we have to be trained to use them most effectively.”
 
“Where?”
 
“There are special schools for this purpose.  The one that Ron, Harry, and I attended in the United Kingdom is one.  There are similar institutions the world over.”
 
Jack let out a deep breath.
 
“Hermione, you know that I have the highest respect for you.  Not just as the woman in my life, but as a doctor and as an intelligent human being.  And now here you are, asking me to believe the unbelievable.”
 
She nodded slowly.
 
“I’m a scientist.  A skeptic by nature.  So are you, by your own admission.  I don’t think I can buy what you’re telling me without proof… where’s the evidence that you’re a witch?”
 
“Evidence?”
 
“Sure.  Why don’t you do a magic trick or something?  Let’s see what you’ve got.”  The corners of his lips trembled.  Surely he wasn’t going to laugh at her?
 
“Oh, bugger,” she muttered.  Her wand was four thousand miles away.  She didn’t want to alert the Department of Magic… any magic done by an unregistered witch or wizard would be detected and certainly followed up.
 
Thwarting the DoM had been the easy part.  Other than her stunt in Chicago, she hadn’t done any real magic in nearly three years.   And magic, like any other ability, improved with practice and worsened without it.  The average adult witch or wizard never had to worry about getting worse, though… for the average adult witch or wizard spent the majority of their time in the wizarding world and had to use magic all the time.  Of course, she’d never been average…
 
“What sort of a trick did you have in mind?  I confess I am drawing a blank here and would welcome suggestions.”
 
Jack shrugged.  “I don’t know… why don’t you pull a rabbit out of a hat?”
 
Her glare spoke volumes.  “And just where do you suppose I ought to get a hat from?  Did you bring one?”
 
“Can’t you people just… oh, conjure up something like that?”  He snapped his fingers, and as the band played on, it was barely noticeable.
 
“We can’t always spontaneously generate things, Jack.  The laws of nature still impose some limits on us… and before you ask me to place someone in a box and attempt to saw them in half…”
 
“I’m trying to play along, darlin’… all right, let’s try this.   Why don’t you make something disappear?”
 
“A disappearing act… all right.”  Her eyes darted about the table.  Nothing remained other than the ring, the tablecloth, napkin rings, and the almost-empty wine glass he was holding.
 
Two blinks and a muttered word later, Jack’s hand and shirtsleeve was sopping wet.  With wine.
 
The glass was in Hermione’s hand, a few droplets of the Chianti clinging to the outside of it.
 
“What… how’d you do that?”
 
“I Summoned it.”
 
“How?”
 
“I just concentrated on it and willed it into my hand.  Quite simple, actually.”
 
“But you didn’t make it disappear.  I am well enough read on psychic phenomena to know that a growing number of people have telekinetic abilities that scientific theories explain… doesn’t mean they qualify as the next tick on the evolutionary scale any more than Einstein, Beethoven, or Michael Jordan did.”
 
“So you don’t believe me?”
 
“Belief doesn’t enter into this, Hermione.  It’s clear that you are not well... again, I’m worried about you, darlin’.  This sabbatical will do you a world of good, and we will get you all the professional help you need…”
 
His eyes widened with horror.  His head dived under the long tablecloth.  So did hers.
 
When they both surfaced, she was wearing her signature smug expression and he was redfaced and sputtering.
 
“Looks like I’m not the only one who needs help,” she said.
 
“Hermione, if you don’t give me back my pants and my… my…”
 
“Your drawers?”  She was holding back laughter. 
 
Jack was furious.  “Why, you little…”
 
“Well, you said you wanted something to disappear.  I was simply attempting to oblige.”  She winked.  “You have nothing to be ashamed of.  After all, what was that you told me when we first became a couple?  ‘I needed a double-X sized waist just to fit my wedding tackle in?’  I’ve never known you to miss an opportunity to show off.”
 
“Hermione!”
 
She stood up.  “It’s over, Jack.  Good-bye.”
 
Her last glimpse of him that evening revealed a man in distress, squirming uncomfortably in his chair in an attempt to get maximum coverage from a fine linen tablecloth.
 
 
**************
A day or so later… perhaps.
Sometime after midnight, but before dawn EST.
Druid Hills neighborhood--Atlanta.
 
 
Hermione spent the duration of the next day much as she had the day before—at home in the Druid Hills neighborhood of Atlanta.  It was the first place she’d ever lived that she could call completely her own.  She’d gone from her parents’ home to Hogwarts, then moved back home in the years between finishing school and her marriage to Ron.  Never once had she dreamed of living alone until she actually experienced it.
 
She loved every bit of her home, from the vine-covered latticework to the rose garden and vegetable plot in the back to the weeping willow in front.  She liked the freedom of cooking when she liked, clearing away only when she was ready, and wearing pajamas all day Sunday and eating breakfast in the middle of the night and letting herself drip dry after a shower while reading the New York Times Magazine or the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and eating an apple.
 
Although she could have very well afforded a housekeeper, Hermione cherished her privacy and solitude more than convenience.  Oddly, she found doing things without the benefit of magic satisfying.  There were so many moments that she treasured during those years in Georgia… tramping about her yard in overalls and gardening gloves, trowel in hand… the biting scent of Pine-Sol in a squeaky clean kitchen… even the warm pleasure of kneading dough for crust, something that no self-respecting witch would ever consider wasting valuable time doing.
 
She discovered that one doesn’t need a partner to dance when no one is watching.  Nor does one need an audience to sing or hum and whistle or chat or scream.
 
It was in that house that Hermione learned how to laugh again.
 
Jack had long wanted her to move in with him…he lived in a better neighborhood and had a much larger house.  He said he wanted hers to be the last face he saw as he fell asleep at night and the first he saw when he woke up in the morning.  But Hermione remained firm… she was enjoying the single life too much to trade it for a road she’d traveled before.
 
As much as she loved her home, she didn’t get much pleasure out of it that weekend.  She had too much on her mind.  Most of Saturday before her date with Jack had been spent in her bedroom… using her new Spider (the voice-activated Web application console that had replaced PCs a half decade before) to search the classifieds. 
 
On Sunday, she didn’t bother to get dressed or answer the phone or have any meaningful human contact at all.  She weeded her garden.  She made a prawn-and-lettuce salad in the morning that served as both lunch and dinner.  She blasted her new Ska Princess MP3 on the console and rearranged her sock drawer and spice cabinet.
 
But mostly, she sat down and stared into space a lot.
 
That night, Hermione’s sleep was troubled.  Yet upon awakening she could not recall her dreams.
 
During the night, a long shadow fell over her.  Unseen, gnarled fingers touched her cheek.  An invisible, heated gaze lingered upon her sleeping form with such unholy longing that she shivered in her slumber, pulling the covers around her more securely.
 
As she pulled, the dark shadow covered her hand almost completely.  It then seemed to hesitate, and for a moment hovered only inches away from her face… close enough to snatch her breath away. 
 
And a single ghastly fingernail traced a slashing line just above her throat.
 
Then it touched her brow, whispered “Soon, majesty… my time will come… soon…” and pulled regretfully away, baring fangs of smoke as it went.
 
Long before the first pastel ribbons of morning touched the city, all traces of the unsought shadow were gone.
 
 
*************
The morning after, 7:45 a.m. EST.
Druid Hills neighborhood--Atlanta.
 
 
Hermione had decided to make it a point to go in to the CDC much later that morning.  There was no point in going in on time.  All she planned to do was finish the paperwork for the Chicago case and clean out her desk anyway.
 
Instead of turning on the morning news as she usually did on Mondays, she decided to run a bath.  She was sure that the full import of the breakup with Jack would hit her sooner than later, and she wanted to be submerged in pearly foam when it happened.  There was something about bubble baths that she found extremely cathartic… especially if the bubbles were vanilla scented.
 
Vanilla had always represented comfort to Hermione… the smell of it, the taste of it, even its texture.  Her favorite ice cream flavor was vanilla, despite her parents’ urgings for her to try the more exotic offerings of the local Haagen-Dazs parlor.  Yet a vanilla cone always was enough to make her smile.
 
When she got older, she learned of other uses for vanilla, too.  As she sank into the bubbles and let the aroma soothe her racing mind, she remembered.
 
By fifth year Lavender and Parvati had the girls’ dormitory constantly smelling like a cheap French salon.  Their home brewed sweet-smelling potions were nearly as successful as Fred and George’s Canary Creams… but solidified Hermione’s dislike of artificial scent.
 
Just before the Scourge began, there had been an addendum to the usual Halloween feast… an evening hayride on horseless wagons across grounds resplendent with late fall color, followed by a glorious bonfire.
 
Hermione wasn’t planning on making it a big deal.  Yet all the older girls in the school saw it as a prime opportunity to show off new robes and jumpers and skirts and lipsticks and hairstyles and just act like… well, girls.  So Ginny had insisted on fiddling with her hair--“don’t get me wrong, Herm, it’s really very pretty straight, but if you just let me charm a curl or two in, and pin it up like this, maybe a bit of my Goldenrod Streaking Lotion-Potion as well… just wait, you’ll love it”. 
 
Then Anya Parker, a quiet and shy seventh year, had fashioned the most wonderful hair clips for all the Gryffindor girls out of leaves and acorns using a Preserving Charm.  Despite the fact that Anya was giving them away for free, Hermione pressed several Sickles into her hands.
 
“I’d much rather pay for this darling clip than that foul-smelling stuff my silly roommates are selling,” Hermione told her.
 
Lavender and Parvati were doing makeup for everyone in their room, and between all the giggling and gossip and the effort that not mussing her hair involved, Hermione was rather cross… she’d wanted to spend the afternoon doing a bit of pre-advance studying for the O.W.L.s., not hearing about clothes and manicure charms.  And especially not boys, who Hermione believed were not worthy of all the special attention they got.
 
“I’m dead tired of Dean,” Parvati sighed, letting something glittering and golden drip out of a flask and onto a sixth-year’s upturned face.  “He acts as if we’re married!  I can barely breathe… I’m thinking about breaking it off.”
 
“There’s nothing wrong with your boyfriend wanting to spend a lot of time with you,” said Lavender sagely, making Padma’s hair stand up in a swirled column.  “I think it’s perfectly normal.”
 
“Perhaps that’s because you and Seamus are practically married,” giggled Parvati. 
 
“Really?  Do you think so?  Is that what everyone is saying in the Common Room and the Great Hall?  I mean, we have been dating for six weeks, after all, but…”
 
More giggling.  Hermione groaned loudly and turned over on her stomach with her book.  Escaping to the common room wasn’t an option… before Ginny had found her, she’d nearly sat on Fred and Angelina, making out in one of the chairs before the fire.  How embarrassing. 
 
As she dashed away, she’d nearly run into Ron and Dean and Neville, who had wanted her for a fourth in their Exploding Snap game since Harry was nowhere to be found.  But she wasn’t in the mood for fun and games.  She wanted to get at least some studying done so that the weekend wouldn’t be a total waste. However, she hadn’t counted upon her room being turned into a beauty parlor.
 
“It’s a shame there are no really cute boys here,” lamented Eleanor Branstone, who although only a precocious third year always managed to turn the head of nearly every male at Hogwarts.  “I’ve told my mum that I’m rather surprised that no one has caught my fancy yet.”
 
“Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of good ones, Nell!” giggled Lavender.  “My Seamus, for example…”
 
“Yes, except for the fact that he’s yours.  He’s taken.  So is Dean.  So are the Weasley twins.  So are all the others anyone would ever consider.”
 
“Well, there’s Neville Longbottom…”
 
“Too short.  Too round.   And could you imagine trying to hold a conversation with him?”
 
“Ron Weasley… he’s cute…” 
 
Hermione looked up from her book and glared.  But no one paid any attention to her.
 
“Far too tall.  It’d be like kissing a bloody giraffe!”
 
Not to worry, Ron would never give any of you ninnies a second glance, much less kiss you, thought Hermione viciously as giggles rained down ‘round the room and she turned back to her book.
 
“Blaise Zabini…”
 
“Sure, he’s dead sexy, but what decent witch would ever date a Slytherin?  Her reputation would be compromised forever.” 
 
“Yes, you’re right… you ought to have heard the talk after that poor Ravenclaw fourth year went out with Draco Malfoy last Hogsmeade weekend.  Although if he ever looked my way, both rep and Seamus might have to be damned… at least for the afternoon.  He’s horrid, but he’s gorgeous.”  She shivered, and Hermione felt rather nauseous.  “Well, what about Harry Potter?  Surely you can’t find a thing wrong with him…”
 
“Of course not, but then, neither can the dozens of other girls who’d love to date him just to be seen with someone famous.  Or… befriend him.”
 
At the subsequent giggling, Hermione looked up and saw that more than a dozen pairs of eyes were diverted to her.  She also caught the challenge in Eleanor’s eyes. 
 
“So what do you say to all this, Hermione?  Surely you can give us some insight into the male character, seeing as you’re so tuned into it,” said Eleanor cattishly.  “I’ve heard a rumor that Harry’s seeing Cho Chang.  Is he really, or do I have a fair shot at him?  At least, I’m sure his taste doesn’t run to bossy little bookworms with no fashion sense, so I can count on you not to have any ulterior motives despite all the press last term to the contrary.”
 
Lavender saw the tension rising and intervened.  “Come, Hermione, a whiff of our new Love Potion No. 9  eau de cologne… all the girls have some… won’t you try it?”
 
Hermione appreciated her dormmate’s clumsy save and therefore didn’t say what she thought… that Love Potion No. 9 smelled an awful lot like the stuff her parents used to unclog their sinks with. 
 
“No, thanks.”
 
“Who are you going to the bonfire with?” asked Parvati.
 
“Now girls, don’t be nosy!” said Katie Bell, in the midst of giving a bog-mud facial and the most senior girl present in the room.  “I’m sure Hermione will manage to surprise us just as she always does.”
 
Everyone shrieked with laughter, then grew suddenly quiet.  Hermione groaned inwardly.  It had been nearly a year since she’d waltzed with Viktor Krum at Christmas, but between that and the Rita Skeeter articles she’d got no peace from the other girls. 
 
“No surprises.  I’m not going with anyone,” she said dryly.  “Didn’t know having a date was a requirement for participation.”
 
“Is Harry or Ron going with anyone?” Lavender asked.  “I mean, because if they aren’t, I know a couple of girls who are interested… if you could pass that on.”
 
She shrugged.  “Tell them if you want.  It’s not as if I care one way or the other.  They’re my friends.  Merlin knows I don’t own either one of them.”
 
“Yes, of course… now, just a whiff,” pressed Parvati, approaching the bed with her new fragrance. 
 
Hermione held up a hand in warning.  “Come one step closer, Parvati Sai Patil, and I will hex you from here to Hogsmeade.”
 
“Oh, stop being such a spoilsport, Hermione!  You were such fun during the winter holidays last year…”
 
“No, I’m not interested, really!  I have my own scent to wear.”
 
“Ooh, what is it?” asked Lavender.  “You haven’t been holding out on us, have you?”
 
Hermione allowed herself a small grin.  “Of course I have, don’t I always?  It’s a secret… but tell you what, I could use a slight touch of that lip gloss… you know, that really posh new one that goes from golden to silver to bronze to pearl.  Care to share?”
 
An hour later, they were all ready.  Hermione secretly thrilled at the look on Ron’s face when she met up with her friends in the common room before they went to dinner.  Ron seemed completely and utterly dumbfounded and she relished every bit of it.  It was unusual for Ron to be at a loss for words.
 
Harry grinned.  “Hi, Hermione… you look nice.”
 
“Thanks, Harry, so do you.  Hi, Ron,” she repeated.  “I’ve never seen that jumper before.  I quite like it… you ought to wear that shade of purple more often.”
 
His ears turned red.  “Uh, thanks… did you know you smell like baking?”
 
“I smell like what?”  She burst into laughter as the portrait swung open and they stepped out into the corridor. 
 
“Baking,” repeated Harry.  “Were you in the kitchens earlier on S.P.E.W. business?”
 
“Oh, that,” she said with a wave of her hand.  “Lavender and Parvati and some of the other girls were being silly, that’s all.  Nothing out of the ordinary.”
 
“And that has to do with you smelling like a tea biscuit because…?”  Ron was nearly recovered now.
 
“Well, they tried to attack me with that frightful perfume they’ve been selling to all the girls…”
 
“Yuck,” both Harry and Ron said in unison.
 
“Say no more,” said Ron.  “Much better to smell like a pudding than Morticia Bloodworth’s funeral parlor.  If you could do something about that stuff, every male in Gryffindor Tower over the age of twelve will thank you.”
 
Hermione smiled her appreciation at both of them.  And thanked the stars that Hogwarts was coed.
 
Nearly seventeen years later, the smell of baking enveloped her as she plunged into the warm water.  Like her mother had before her, Hermione favored natural scents… cinnamon and spice, milk and honey, and even the occasional faint berry note.  But her lifelong preference had begun with the bottle of vanilla extract she’d pulled from among her potions ingredients on that long-ago autumn day…
 
And soon tears dripped down her cheeks and disappeared into the vanilla-scented waters.
 
 
**************
 
Same day, approximately 11:30 a.m. EST
Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta
 
 
Hermione was finishing the last of her paperwork for the Chicago case in the library when Wayne Mallory walked in.  Wayne was a research fellow at the Centers who hailed from the great state of Idaho.  One of the few doctors on staff who was younger than she was, Wayne held both a Ph.D. in microbiology and a sweet slip of a wife who was working on giving him a third child in as many years. 
 
“Hello, ‘Mione, I had no idea you were back from Chicago,” he said in a chatty tone, sitting down next to her.  “How did it go?”
 
“Surely you already know,” she said a bit more testily than she’d intended.  After all, Wayne was a friend and would never say anything to intentionally hurt her.
 
“No, I didn’t.  Last I heard, you were in Chicago and doing a bang-up job on the case.”  Hermione wasn’t sure if “bang-up” denoted positive or negative news.  Even after three years in the States, there were still Americanisms that confused her.  “What’s cooking?”
 
“Nothing on this end, save my impending leave of absence.”  She threw a weak grin his way.  “Any idea what holiday spots are hot this time of year?  I’ve not had the chance to travel much on this side of the pond…”
 
“Neither have I, and I’m from this side,” said Wayne.  “But what’s this about leave?”
 
“Dorset’s giving me some time off from the EIS.”
 
“You’re kidding me.  This morning I ran into him and we were talking about you.  Never once did any of that come up… lucky!”
 
“I’m sure,” said Hermione, thinking of her not-so-nice meeting with Dorset the previous day.  The only things stopping her from phoning the EEOC with an inquiry about a sexual harassment suit were her British upbringing and the fact that she was attempting to maintain a low profile while in the States.
 
“You look like something heavy’s on your mind,” said Wayne thoughtfully.  “What’s wrong?”
 
“Nothing,” said Hermione quickly.  “How’s Linda?”
 
“Oh, she’s great,” said Wayne, brightening.  “Says once this one arrives, that’s it for us… I’m betting that I’ll be able to talk her out of it just as I’ve done twice before.”
 
“Goodness, what are you trying to do, Wayne?  Father an entire team on your own?”
 
“No, just investing in my retirement.  With the way Social Security is going, we’re going to need all the help we can get in our old age.”
 
Once back in her small office, Hermione considered the precarious stack of books she’d wheeled down from the library… technically, she wasn’t supposed to borrow them, but she and the head librarian had developed a symbiosis of sorts.  Mrs. Mercady, used to mild condescension from many of the upstart researchers who used her facilities, had grown to love the thoughtful young English doctor who viewed libraries as a second home.  So Hermione could always take whatever she needed back to her office to peruse in peace.
 
Under the halogen glow of a torchiere--the only source of light in the windowless room-- she reviewed the titles of the reference volumes and journals she’d picked out.  Nothing here was going to help her identify the source of the disease.  What she needed was lab time, and lots of it.  Perhaps she should ask Wayne about it before she went on leave and her secured access status was altered to reflect her new position…
 
A knock sounded on the door.  It was Norma Devine.
 
“Hello, hon… there’s been a delivery for you…”  The kindly, ample duty officer, whose looks always reminded Hermione vaguely of the late Rubeus Hagrid, was holding a wicker basket in her hands.
 
Hermione took it from her… and heard a purr…
 
“Autumn!” she said, lifting the ginger kitty out of the basket and holding her close.  “Oh, how I’ve missed you… you and your family.” 
 
There was a note too, in Devorah Holstein’s gentle handwriting.
 
Dear Hermione,
 
I hope  that this letter finds you well.  I would like to again express my gratitude for your dedication to your work, for your honesty, and for your compassion during our time of need.  You are a true mensch—never let the  cruelties of life get you down.
 
Autumn hasn’t been the same since you left.  She has been—and this may seem as strange to you as it does to me as I write it—acting as if she is depressed.  We thought it might be because of Levi’s death.  That may be indeed the case, but then we also remembered how much you loved her, saying she reminded you of a cat you had as a girl. 
 
Please accept Autumn as our gift.  We are grateful for your sweet presence during our darkest days.  Our door is always open to you—and always know that both your mother and your grandmother would have been pleased to see the woman you’ve become.
 
Shalom,
 
Devorah
 
 
She folded the letter and placed it back into the basket.  When Norma saw this, she continued speaking.
 
“Dorset wants to see you in the new conference room in five minutes… I ran into him on the way here, and he asked me to save him the trip.”
 
Autumn was climbing down her new owner’s knit shirt, obviously wanting to prowl this new domain, and Hermione obliged.  “Yes, well, could you tell him that I have nothing to say to him?  I think we both made ourselves quite clear during our meeting yesterday.”
 
“Tell him yourself,” said Norma matter-of-factly.  “I’ll see you in a little while.”
 
Hermione was surprised at Norma’s abrupt leavetaking.  Usually the duty officer would have stayed behind for a bit of a chat.  What odd creatures these Americans are, thought Hermione for the thousandth time.  Especially those of the Georgian variety.
 
She then debated on whether or not to see Dorset.  In the end, her gut won out… she wasn’t the type to start conflict, but neither would she run away from it.  Not showing up would signal to her soon-to-be former boss that she was intimidated by him… and she was not going to have him thinking that.  She wouldn’t give Keith Dorset the satisfaction.
 
After placing Autumn back in her basket, she returned to the library with both Autumn and books.  Explaining to Mrs. Mercady that she would return soon, she placed her parcels on the counter and made her way to the conference room.
 
It was dark.  The back of Hermione’s neck prickled.  What was he trying to pull?
 
“Dr. Dorset?”
 
“Yes, I’m here, Dr. Granger…”
 
Before she could back out or ask why on earth he was sitting in a pitch-dark room in the middle of the day, the lights were flicked on… the shades were opened… and there were bursts of confetti and balloons floating and noisemakers.
 
“SURPRISE!”
 
Hermione nearly had a heart attack.  For crowded into the conference room were a couple dozen of her favorite fellow EIS officers… Wayne Mallory, wearing a huge grin that matched Norma’s… Dorset and some of the other department heads and bigwigs… including Jack himself.
 
He seemed to be holding no anger about the night before.  He swept her up into his arms and kissed her in front of everyone…
 
Hermione broke away in protest.  “What’s all this, then?”
 
“What do you mean, what’s all this?” asked Suzanne Ling, one of the other EIS officers.  “You couldn’t have thought that the brilliant job you did on the Chicago case was going to slip by unnoticed.  It was worthy of celebration and more.”
 
“What brilliant job?” asked Hermione.
 
“Oh, stop being so modest, ‘Mione,” said Wayne.  “After all, you’ve just identified a brand-new infectious disease… and saved dozens of lives in the process.”
 
“Wayne, you’re making me nervous.  Whatever do you mean?”
 
“The X-Factor virus that was spreading at the Navy Pier Condominiums, of course,” explained Wayne.  “When you asked the building engineers in the copter to check the ventilation, not only did they discover that there was significant blockage on the infected floors, but tests of the dust sent back to the labs revealed an organism—half bacterium, half fungus—that seems to thrive in the filters under certain conditions.  Exactly as you said.” 
 
Hermione didn’t say what she was thinking.  If this was the case, then why didn’t we find traces of infection in all those samples we took in Texas?  This is all very strange…
 
“There’s been some teasing talk in the lab about naming it ‘Granger’s syndrome’,” said Wayne’s bubble-gum cracking lab assistant Kathy.  “I’m sure that talk will turn serious soon… tell me, how will it feel to have an actual disease named after you?  Isn’t that like so totally cool?”
 
“Yes,” said Hermione wryly.  “What an honor.  I’m sure I’m thrilled.”
 
Dorset was coming forward.  “Dr. Granger, as your immediate supervisor,  it is both an honor and a privilege to introduce you to the deputy Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Hugh Turner.”
 
There was a round of applause.  Hugh Turner was a balding, dapper little man who appeared to be in his early sixties.  His receding hairline made him appear rather like a monk, and his tonsure was as round and rosy as his bespectacled face.
 
But when Hermione saw him, she wasn’t repulsed.  Never that.  She was thrilled from head to toe.  Hugh Turner had been her Muggle mentor at Oxford… when she was in medical school around the turn of the millennium, Hugh had been Waynflete chair at Magdalen College. 
 
Hugh had been highly influential in her decision to practice Muggle medicine after finishing at Oxford, and not just mediwizardry.  Then during her divorce, he’d been instrumental in getting her the interview with the Centers.  Hugh’s passion for healing the whole patient was quite infectious.  He was noted throughout the United Kingdom for his commitment and expertise in the area of public health, and he often advised the various Royal Commissions and Working Committees set up by Parliament on medical issues. 
 
Like Minerva McGonagall, Hugh was more than a mentor… he was a friend.  Unlike Jack, however, Hugh’s guidance came with no strings attached.  For that she was grateful.
 
“Hugh!” she said, impulsively hugging him around the waist… or where his waist would have been if he’d had one.  “Oh, it’s so good to see you.”  Especially after the week I’ve just had, she thought to herself.
 
“Well, well.  Thank you, it’s always a pleasure to visit the Centers, and it is always good to see one of our own doing so well in the world.  I have been following your career, Hermione, and I must say that you’ve done rather well for yourself.”  She reddened, knowing that praise from Hugh was praise indeed.  “I came to offer you an opportunity I am sure you will not refuse, and here I find myself in the midst of a celebration.”
 
“This has all come as quite a shock,” admitted Hermione.  Still confused, but not wanting to admit that.  “Especially after the Tribune article, my arrest, and our meeting yesterday,” she said to Dorset.
 
The room went quiet.
 
“But the Tribune article was fantastic,” said Roy Rodriguez, another EIS officer.
 
“What arrest?” asked Jack incredulously.
 
“How could we have met yesterday?” asked Dorset.  “Correct me if I’m wrong, Dr. Granger, but didn’t your plane just arrive back in Atlanta this morning?”
 
Hermione looked from one stunned face to the other.  At a loss for words.
 
Then she realized something.
 
“What is today’s date?”
 
“Why, it’s Friday, of course,” said Hugh Turner.  “And thank God for it!”  Everyone laughed.
 
“It’s not Friday,” said Hermione.  “It can’t be.  It’s Monday.”
 
Silence again.
 
Jack was the first to laugh, followed by everyone else in the room.  Wide-eyed, Hermione realized that they all thought she was joking.  In the midst of the hilarity, she pulled Jack aside desperately and spoke in low tones.
 
“Jack, please tell me that we had dinner night before last.  At the Palladium.  There was a jazz concert, you asked me to marry you, and… and I told you some things about me that came as quite a shock.”  And caught you with your pants down, she said.  Well, make that gone.
 
“No, the tickets are for tomorrow night, dear.  And who told you about my plans?  Was it Keith?”  Jack glared in his friend’s direction.
 
Hermione was still in denial.  For it had to be Monday the sixth… her brain refused to register the fact that everyone else in the vicinity believed it was Friday.
 
“He told me nothing!  Jack, listen to me, please.”  She looked around and lowered her voice… from the knowing smiles she received from a few whose eye she caught, she knew the assumption was that she was whispering something lovey-dovey.  “I left Atlanta on the first.  I arrived back here on the third—Friday--three days ago in utter disgrace.  I was arrested in Chicago for meddling where they thought I didn’t belong.  And as for my supposedly finding this miraculous cure, there were no known survivors… it was just like the Texas case this spring…”
 
“What Texas case?
 
“Oh, don’t even try it!  I was there over a month!  I have proof… the lady involved sent me her kitten as a token of her gratitude even when I didn’t manage to save a single patient!”
 
Jack sighed and looked at her with great concern.  “Darlin’, I think you’ve been working too hard.  Of course there were survivors in Chicago… all thanks to you.  Those people were all given antibiotics and are now recovering.”
 
“Then I’d like to get names and contact information from the Illinois epidemiologist.  I’m sure a talk with Ralph Fox will clear all this up…”
 
But a booming voice behind her made her heart sink.
 
“Dr. Granger!”  Fox was there too, horror of horrors, with a huge plaster grin on his face and no trace of the patronizing chauvinism and sexual harassment she’d been subjected to a half week earlier… or was it only yesterday?
 
Or did any of it happen at all?
 
“As I’ve said time and again, I’m so pleased that you were the officer that the EIS sent,” said Fox.   “You’re sharp… with your observational skills, patience, and passion for fighting disease, you’ll go far in this field...”
 
Hermione left him behind and went over to Norma. 
 
“Norma… please tell me you brought a kitten to my office when you came to get me for the party just now…”
 
Norma was alarmed.  “Oh, no ma’am, I’d never do anything like that.  Everyone knows unregistered animals aren’t allowed outside the designated laboratory areas…”
 
“Shall we cut the cake now?” asked another officer.  “Or should we let Dr. Turner make his big announcement?”
 
“Excuse me just a moment,” said Hermione.  “There’s something I’ve got to check on.”
 
She slipped out of the conference room, then broke into a run, open lab coat fluttering behind her as she zipped down the corridors to the library.  When she reached the doorway, she had to grip it tightly and catch her breath.
 
Mrs. Mercady seemed alarmed.  “Dr. Granger, dear, what’s the matter?”
 
But Hermione’s eyes had darted past her to the counter.  She gasped when she saw the stack of books she’d left a few moments before… and no basket.
 
The elderly lady seemed alarmed.  “Dr. Granger?” she repeated.
 
“What happened to the kitten I left here a minute ago?”
 
“I didn’t see any kitten, Dr. Granger,” said Mrs. Mercady, seeming even more  alarmed.  Hermione looked past her and at the large-print daily calendar on her desk…
 
It was really Friday.
 
That was the last straw for Hermione.  She turned on her heel and walked down the hall blindly, hot tears streaming down her face.
 
 
*****************
 
 
She didn’t return to the conference room.  Instead she sat locked in her office, staring at the toothpaste-green walls.  The tears had dried quickly.  Much as she needed the emotional release, Hermione had learned long ago that crying did little to solve a problem.   During the war, she’d learned to detach from the horror… her smarts and skills were needed for the fight and the last thing she wanted was for her friends to believe that she was vulnerable and couldn’t pull her own weight.
 
The tears had come at the beginning and the end of her marriage too.  In the beginning, there had been weeping for joy… and at the end, there was pain and regret and shame.
 
Then came her mother’s death two and a half years before.  She still hadn’t recovered from that.  Hermione looked at the picture of herself and her mother that she kept on her desk always… she’d been around twenty at the time, and her arms were thrown about her mother’s neck as she peered over her shoulder.  Despite the fact that she was brunette and her mum was blonde, the physical resemblance between the two women was striking.
 
How I miss her, thought Hermione.  She’s the only Muggle in the world with whom I could share what’s been happening to me.  She’s the only one who believed me and loved me no matter what…
 
Caroline Granger found the lump in her breast in mid-2008.  Despite the fact that she was in a health profession, despite the fact that she knew much better, she didn’t think twice about it.  She’d found other lumps on several other occasions; those had turned out to be benign cysts.  She was far too busy with her practice, her lecturing at Oxford, and her life to worry about such a trivial thing.
 
By the time Caroline had finally gone in for a checkup late the following spring, she learned what she’d slowly begun to suspect… that it hadn’t been a cyst after all.  The cancer had metastasized to several organs, including her liver and stomach.  She was terminal.  When she was told how much more time she had and the odds of survival, she opted out of chemotherapy.
 
Hermione could almost hear her mother attempting to rationalize the irrational.    I’ll take something for pain when the time comes, perhaps… I don’t want to alarm Ted or Hermione… Ted’s heart is bad, he doesn’t need the worry, and my Hermione… she’s going through such a hard time right now with her marriage…
 
When she took the job with the CDC in September 2009, Hermione’s parents turned her move into a month-long holiday.  It would be the last they ever took together.  Hermione treasured those moments forever… flying into Boston, visiting Darice and her mother (who was Ted’s cousin), then renting a car and driving to Atlanta with tourist stops in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.  Hermione’s parents had helped her find her home… Caroline and Hermione had walked all over the property and planned out things.
 
“Will you have a trellis in the rose garden for your wizard and witch friends to use when they visit?” Caroline had asked.  She’d known that the trellis in back of the Chelsea house had been used as a portal for the ABFN and Apparation.  Hermione had always made a point to explain to her mother as much about the magical world as she could possibly understand.  Her father had been another matter entirely.
 
On that day, however, she’d turned and given her mother a hard look.  “I don’t wizard friends anymore, Mother.  You know that.  Now, no more of this.”
 
That had been the end of that.  Nevertheless, after her parents left, Hermione had gone to Lowe’s--a home and garden superstore roughly equivalent to the Sainsbury’s Homebase she’d grown up near--and ordered a trellis anyway.
 
She was forever grateful that she made the hard decision to travel home for Christmas that year.  After wrestling with her own demons, she’d come to the conclusion that Fidelius would keep her covered no matter how much she was being looked for… there was no way in hell that Draco Malfoy would break the charm, even for his wife… and her own parents would never tell.  
 
Hermione flew home… and stepped off the plane to hug a mother who’d lost nearly seventy pounds in four months.
 
Caroline Granger died ten days into the new year of 2010.  Hermione spent every possible second with her mother… even trying to stop the cancer at first with her hyperempathy.  When Caroline saw what her daughter was attempting to do, she was absolutely horrified, jerking away feebly and rasping at her to stop it.
 
“I am too far gone, love,” Caroline had said.  “I know what you are trying to do, and I want you to stop.  If you try and absorb this, it’ll do me no good and kill you too.”
 
Hermione had been in emotional agony.  “Mum, I won’t accept this.  I can’t.”
 
“You’ll have to.  I don’t want to you to bury yourself with me.  I want you to live.”
 
What sort of healer am I, really?  I couldn’t even save my own mother’s life.
 
She’d spent most of the first half of 2010 in a daze… and then came the summer and Jack, who’d betrayed her that night at the Palladium just like most men seemed to do.  She thought that Dr. Jack Calhoun would become her salvation.  Now he was turning into just another problem.
 
He couldn’t help her solve this.  No one could… at least no one else that she had left in the Muggle world. 
 
Should I contact Malfoy? she wondered.  There isn’t a fireplace in my home… Jack has one, but he’s never used it.  I don’t think he’d go for my building a fire in it in the middle of summer.
 
I’ve no idea where to purchase or rent an owl.  Ron won Circe in the divorce… well, actually, I let him have her.  Didn’t want anything I couldn’t carry with me.  But… how?
 
Then it came to her.
 
Incredimail.  It was how Malfoy communicated with his Muggle mentor Bill Gates, of course… and she had his Malfosoft Incredimail address just in case anything were to happen.
 
Just as she went to pull out her beetle-black Charlotte (a portable mini-Spider), she was interrupted by knocking.
 
“May I come in?”  The voice belonged to Hugh Turner.
 
“Of course!  Just one minute....”  Hermione stood up and in two strides was unlocking the door. 
 
Hugh looked around.  “Well, you’ve certainly come down in the world, Hermione,” he teased, eyeing the Oxford diploma and medical licenses that were nailed to the walls.
 
“Haven’t I?” she said with a weak smile.
 
“I’d expect nothing less from a pupil of mine,” he smiled.  Then the smile faded.  “You’re missing a party where you’re the guest of honor.  What’s amiss, dear?”
 
She sighed.  “Hugh, I’m not sure that this is the place for me anymore.”
 
“What, is it not challenging enough for you?  Are you clashing with your colleagues here?”
 
“I’m not sure,” said Hermione.  “I just have the feeling that it is time for me to move on.”
 
“Do you miss home, then?”
 
England.  Hermione hadn’t seen it in almost three years.  She hadn’t been overly nostalgic for it, either.  She no longer had close Muggle friends, seventeen years in the wizarding world had left her jaded, and she and her authoritarian father had never been close.
 
But in spite of herself, she nodded.
 
“Then I’ve an opportunity that you’ll not refuse.  It’ll take you away from here on a challenging project for two years.  Beforehand and afterwards, you’ll have the chance to travel home.  Are you interested?”
 
“Perhaps if you’ll share more, I just might be.”
 
 
*****************
 
August 3, 2012—take two
Palladium Dinner Theatre, again.
 
 
 
This time around, Hermione planned on being smarter.  She dressed differently to remind herself that she’d been given a chance to do things over.  In the time before, she’d worn a filmy pink dress and straightened her hair into a bun.  Tonight she wore a basic black sheath and bouncing curls.  She also traded in her mum’s diamond pendant necklace for her favorite string of pearls.
 
“Now that I’ve performed some of my own favorites and hit songs,” said Cassandra Wilson after the applause died down, “I’d like to do a tribute to some of the jazz greats of the past.  This one’s for Louis… Ella... for Bobby Darin, and for all of you.”
 
Hermione straightened up.  Obviously other things had changed in this particular time stream.  A prickle of fear traveled up and down her spine.  She couldn’t wait to talk to Malfoy about all this… she’d sent off her e-mail via the Charlotte late the day before.
 
How, then, was she going to respond when Jack popped the question this time?  How could she tell him about Hugh’s offer, an opportunity she couldn’t refuse?
 
How do you tell a man who believes he has your heart that you have other plans?
 
Oh, the shark has pearly teeth, dear
And he shows them pearly white
Just a jackknife has MacHeath, dear
And he keeps it out of sight…
 
“Hermione?  Are you all right?”
 
She blinked twice, then glanced in his direction.  Perhaps the song has changed, but the man hasn’t.
 
“Better now,” she replied.  “The concert is great, isn’t it?”
 
His hand covered hers.  He leaned over and kissed her cheek.
 
“Finish your wine,” he whispered in her ear.
 
“No thanks, not tonight.”  Hermione pushed the second glass he’d offered away.  It didn’t take much to loosen her inhibitions, and she needed her wits about her.
 
Oh, the shark bites with its teeth, dear
Scarlet billows start to spread
Fancy gloves though wears MacHeath, dear
So there’s not, not a trace of red...
 
Jack pushed it back towards her.   “No, you’ll want to finish it.”
 
She sighed.  “Don’t worry, I’m in the mood already.”  Or at least a mood, she thought.  “I don’t need any more to drink.  I had a glass of wine while at lunch today with Wayne and Linda Mallory.”  It was a half-truth at least; she’d had no wine but indeed had been with the Mallorys.  Hermione didn’t plan to spend an entire day alone in isolation ever again until she could figure out what happened to her.  The night before, her sleep had been broken often.  She’d kept waking up and checking the date-time stamp on the Spider.  “While we’re on the subject, Jack, have you ever considered that you drink far too much?”
 
“I’m no alcoholic, darlin’.”
 
“Perhaps not, but you never turn down an opportunity to imbibe.  It’s not healthy.”
 
He seemed floored.  “Just a moment,” he said, picking up her wine glass and the half-emptied bottle of Chianti. 
 
Hermione studied her nails as she snapped her fingers in time to the music in his absence.  Three tables over, a handsome blond who looked to be in his mid-thirties caught her eye.  He smiled.  She smiled back.
 
She looked away.  Cassandra Wilson was now caught up in her song and so was her entranced audience.  So was Hermione.  Just as that Armstrong song brought up memories, so did many, many standards.
 
Not only had they spent that Christmas listening to the album collection Arthur had bought for a song during an early VW2 foray into the Portabello Antiques Market, there were other times.  Shortly after the war her parents had held a  barbecue in her honor.  All of her wizarding friends had come, and so had all of her parents’ Muggle colleagues.  The result had been an occasion with many, many near misses, but one that had been lots of fun for all concerned.  The adults present chalked the antics of the younger set up to their giddiness… none of them had any idea of the ordeal they’d just gone through.
 
Hermione remembered everyone gathering in the living room after dinner.  Some of her parents’ friends had wanted to hear her play and her mother sing.  Soft-spoken Caroline had been blessed with an angel’s voice.  She remembered playing one of her mother’s favorite standards, “Why Should I Care?” and looking up, expecting to see Ron standing there, grinning with pride…
 
…and instead finding herself caught up in Harry’s haunted, lost gaze.  At the time, the oddness about him had puzzled her… it would be the last time she saw him before he went away to Avalon.
 
Was there something more I could have done?
Or was I not meant to be the one?
Where’s the life I thought we would share?
And… should I care?
 
And will someone else get more of you?
Will she go to sleep more sure of you?
Will she wake up knowing you’re still there?
Why should I care?
 
She snapped herself out of it.  Jack had been dead wrong in the time before!  She didn’t care about Harry Potter.  Or anyone else in that world, for that matter.  How could she when she planned never to see them again?  To be sure, she was planning to e-mail Malfoy about her situation, but that wasn’t the same as actually seeing him.
 
It was at that moment that Jack returned… with a tiny crystalline tray of after-dinner mints.  Hermione offered a weak smile in return as she took it from him.
 
“Jack, you don’t have to hide it in my wine or in this candy.  If you have something to ask me,” she said, finding the same ring she’d seen in the time before as a glitter amongst the mints, “just ask.”
 
He sighed, then nodded.  “You’re right.  After all, this is ‘take two’ for both of us, right?  Well, they say that love can be better the second time around, so…”
 
Hermione wanted to ask who the hell “they” were, and how they came to be experts on the matter.  She wasn’t sure if she’d ever been in love anyway, so it wasn’t like this was exactly a reprise for her.  Or the first time, for that matter.
 
Suddenly a terrible thought struck her.
 
I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before.
 
“Jack…”
 
“I love you, darlin’.  I want you in my life forever.  You’re pretty and you’re smart and I want to make this official…”
 
She took a deep breath.  “I can’t.”
 
His face fell.
 
“Well, at least I can’t right now.  Hugh’s offered me a job heading up a WHO research project at a new facility in Manaus… tropical infectious disease is what we’d be looking at.  It’d be for eighteen months at least.  I think I’m going to take it, Jack…”
 
“Manaus?  You’re not talking about Brazil?”
 
She took a deep breath and nodded.  “I’d start in December.  There’d be briefings and training modules back home at Oxford, so… I need to be all packed by the end of the month.”
 
“You’re not serious, are you?”
 
“Of course I am.  Jack, I need a change of pace.  I want a challenge.”  She cursed herself silently when tears filled her eyes.  “I want to go home.  I’ve not even seen where my mum’s buried yet…”
 
Jack nodded.  “Go.”
 
She dashed away her tears with impatient fingers.  “What?”
 
“I said go.  I wouldn’t dare hold you back.”  He took both of her hands in his and gazed at her with eyes full of longing.  “I want you to be happy no matter what, darlin’.  And when you’re ready, I’ll be here waiting.”
 
Hermione swallowed the lump in her throat.  Where was the sense of release she’d had when she’d made his trousers disappear in the time before?  Perhaps she ought to tell him again… about Ron… and about Harry… about magic, even.
 
Or perhaps not.
 
They ended the night in each other’s arms.  First gliding across the dance floor at the Palladium.  Then in his bed, between the sheets.  There was no lovemaking though.  No more tears, either.   At least not on Hermione’s part as she lay awake and wished with everything in her that she could go back to the time before.
 
 
*****************
 
She ended up going home a bit before one.
 
“I don’t like you leaving at this time of night, Hermione.  You know that,” Jack said drowsily as he watched her dress in the shadows.
 
“Yes, but I’ve got to get up early in the morning to run a few errands.  With you, the temptation will be to stay in bed half the day.”  She was exaggerating, of course… the sex wasn’t that earth-shaking.  Nevertheless, she’d learned the script at a young age.  What women were supposed to say.  What men wanted to hear.
 
Sure enough, he grinned.  “How do you know the temptation wouldn’t be to go to church?  After all, it is the first Sunday of the month and I’ve got to serve.”
 
“Oh?” asked Hermione with complete disinterest.  “I’m sure I’d be able to talk you out of it.  I certainly have before.”
 
“I know, you witch of a woman, you,” he laughed.  Hermione’s smile faded until she realized he was teasing her.  “No matter where you are in December, darlin’, I want to fly you in so you can spend Christmas with us again in South Carolina.  My mother really likes you.”
 
Ah, that’s the kiss of death, Jack.  I’ll never again marry a man whose mother has me mentally dressed and trussed and handed to her son on a platter.  I don’t care if the mother in question is witch or Muggle, fifty or eighty-five… I’ll not be the same fool twice.
 
She leaned over and kissed him.  “I’ll call when I get home.”
 
Home meant another bubbly soak in her claw-footed tub.  This time with curls up in a twist and candles all around.  Instead of her usual vanilla, she chose a variation on the theme… the bath salts were English lavender and the candles were freesia and gardenia.  There was an old Diana Krall MP3 spinning out of the Spider, and a damp washcloth rested over her eyes.  A cup of caramel-kissed cappuchino and a book rested on the tray that hung over the tub.  She hated to admit it, but if it came down to a choice between sex with John and her sinfully indulgent bath hour, on most days of the month Hermione would choose her soak.
 
Afterwards, she dried off and slipped into a floor-length, sleeveless linen gown.  She loved the feel of silk and satin against her skin, but only when the garment in question wasn’t meant to be slept in… both materials tended to be hot and combined with bedding and bed partners could be quite uncomfortable.  Hermione was really a cotton and flannels girl at heart, and the pale blue gown was one of the few items of sleepwear she owned… after all, that was what t-shirts and borrowed boxers were for, weren’t they?
 
The gown made her feel pretty and sensual.  Feeling shut in, she opened her bedroom windows wide, not caring that she was also blasting the air conditioning… August in Georgia brought unbearable heat even at night. 
 
Outside the neighborhood seemed quiet save a chirping chorus of crickets.  She sat down at her vanity table and began to brush the few remaining curls out of her damp hair.  It was nearly three o’ clock in the morning.
 
Hermione.
 
The brushing slowed.
 
Come to me, Hermione.
 
The brushing stopped.  She set the velvet-backed brush back on the vanity, listening.  When nothing more came, she shook her head, laughing at her silliness.  Then she lifted her hair from her nape, intending to tame it into a single French braid before she fell sleep.
 
At that moment, she distinctly felt a touch on her neck.  A caressing touch.
 
Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin.  She did jump up from the cushioned stool, looking everywhere.  When she saw nothing and no one, she debated on whether or not to palm the pistol she had hidden underneath the sweaters in one of her drawers.  She hadn’t wanted a gun, but since she was living alone Jack had insisted.  And taught her how to use it.  Perhaps he was right…
 
No.  She was being silly.  She was imagining things.
 
Shaking her head again, she sat back down and went to pick up the brush.
 
A hand covered hers.  An unseen hand.  Yet this touch was so tender, so non-threatening that Hermione was no longer afraid.
 
Come to me, Hermione…
 
She turned around and was caught up, melting into an unseen yet familiar embrace that made her feel as if she’d been lost for a very long time and had finally made her way home.  This was no callous intrusion.  Neither was it some sinister incubus.  This was breath and eyes and memory and knowledge and serendipity and fate all rolled into one.
 
There was time for neither questions nor answers.  Indeed, there was no place for words as her unseen lover’s mouth fused with her own.  As his hands clutched at the linen at the back of her nightgown desperately, hers slid up to bare shoulderblades that she could touch and not see… and yet she’d learned over the years that sight wasn’t everything. All she had to do was feel… to give in to this feverish, insane yearning…
 
He crushed her into his embrace, slipping strong fingers underneath the linen, tracing his signature upon her skin.  Her hands were just as impatient as they slipped up his bare back, then back down into his trousers… if she’d had her eyes open, she would have seen them disappear at the wrists.
 
Their bodies fit together like two adjacent pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.  One materialized and pliant, the other invisible yet strong.
 
She splayed her fingers and sent her dream lover soaring as she felt the hem of her gown rise over the backs of her knees… then at her waist… the small of her back… and then she forgot that there was such a thing as a nightgown. 
 
But her mind had many other things to be concerned about… such as directing her fingers to undo the top button and zipper of his jeans, and trailing her bare foot up and down his leg.  Their kisses became more frenzied, as if kissing was a new method of obtaining sustenance and sunlight after dark…
 
All of her was drowning in all of him.
 
And a strange breeze whooshed through the windows and blew all the candles out.
 
 
*****************
 
Just before dawn, the being that walked amongst the shadows came again.  More itinerant in its intent this time.  Determined to snatch the breath that had eluded it time and time again.  Its orders were clear… and those who sent it would not be denied this time.
 
The windows were open, so there was no need to Apparate.  It glided easily into the room, alighting in the crooked shadow cast by the weeping willow in the yard and the pines just beyond.  Once it got its bearings, its attention snapped to the bed.
 
She was not alone.  Its eyes narrowed when it saw the cloaked man who held her in his arms.  For the shadow walker, it was hate at first sight.  Puffs of steam came out of its nostrils… the man was not even asleep yet.  His mortal fingers tangled lustily in her majesty’s unruly hair as if she were some common strumpet and not the one they’d been searching for forever.  The creature opened its mouth in a silent scream… the meddler was not worthy of tasting the breath it had slipped in to steal.
 
She stirred and shifted in her sleep to face him.  He smoothed all the hair away from her forehead, then kissed it.  After lingering over her lips for a moment, he cradled her head against his chest and she seemed to settle back into slumber.
 
The creature turned abruptly away from the maddening sight and slipped back out of the window in a white-hot rage.
 
You think to shield her from her fate, meddler?
 
You’ve got another think coming.
 
Soon…
 
 
****************
 
Hermione awoke very late the next morning to an empty bed and a silent room.  Bright sunlight streamed through windows that were still open.  She sat up with a dreamy look on her face and a bittersweet pang at the back of her throat. 
 
She was alone.  Again.
 
Tears streamed down her face.  It had seemed so real, just as it always did.  As  vivid as her nightmares.  As inexplicable as the blip in time she’d recently experienced.  Yet it had all been nothing more than a fantasy, of course.  And why should she expect anything else?
 
Everything she’d ever loved, she’d lost.
 
Hermione slipped from her bed to close her windows and pick up all the candles.   Then she headed off to the shower, turning up the cold water on the tap and letting it splash her heartache away.  Wondering why she felt so unbearably icky and sweaty only a few hours after taking her last bath.
 
As she wondered and lathered, back in the bedroom a strange lingering warmth faded from the sheets and the tell-tale indentation on the spare pillow slowly began to rise. 
 
By the time she was clean, everything was back to normal… if such a word could be applied to Hermione.
 
For it was a devilish thing to be a woman.
 
More devilish still was being a witch in denial… and in grave danger.
 
 

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