Month 1 – The beginning
Month 1 – The beginning
It has been five years since the end of the war. Harry’s defeat of Voldemort brought the wizarding world back from the chaos that the war created. The Golden Trio have navigated through the end of the war with dignity and lots of difficulty. The wizarding world was good at judging what they didn’t know to be the truth. Rita Skeeter caused them more harm than good as they traversed the fame of victory over the Dark Lord. They fight for the rights of other’s less fortunate during the war and start to mold what they want the new wizarding world to be. They find solace in their friends and develop a family from their school buddies, who also all develop their own forte’s to help mold a new and brighter wizarding world in Britain.
Ron and Hermione tried, but failed at a romantic relationship, as well as Harry and Ginny. They all decided to stay friends and their couplings, while short (only lasting the summer after the final battle), bonded them as a tighter knit group.
Harry and Ron did not complete their final year at Hogwarts and navigate to Auror training as was offered to the them. Hermione declined the invitation to become an Auror and joined Ginny in returning to complete their final year at Hogwarts. Ginny gets an offer to be a starting chaser in the Hollyhead Harpies directly after school.
Hermione decides during her final year at Hogwarts to go into mental healing. After the battle, she wasn’t able to restore her parents’ memories and discovered that the original spell she cast was too powerful. She’s determined to better educate herself on all things of the human/magical brain so that she can help others in their mental maladies. Choosing to get a mastery in healing after Hogwarts, she also works to get a muggle degree in mental health as well. Choosing to futher her muggle education to get a PHD. She kepts busy as she does both at the same time and barely has time for a social life.
None of the Slytherins join the final year at Hogwarts. In fact, none of the most popular from the same year as the Golden Trio have been seen in years. Harry, Ron and Hermione testified on behalf of several of the Slythern’s during their trials, most notably, Draco Malfoy, saving him from being imprisoned, as well as his mother and several of his friends. While not many take notice, Hermione has always wondered what happened to them and checks Azkaban records every few months.
A small group of DA (Dumbledore’s Army) consisting of Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, Ginny and Cho grow closer throughout the years. On the fifth year after the war they decided they needed to meet on a regular scheduled basis. Due to their demanding schedules they all decide to set aside the third Tuesday of each month to catch up on their lives. They settled on meeting in a new pub in Diagon Alley, called Merlin’s Beard. It wasn’t very popular, and thus was its appeal.
Harry often teased Hermione about her crush on Ron during their school years and both of the Weasley’s teased Harry about his crushing on both Ginny and Cho at one time or another. Their openness about their previous feelings helped them all become closer. Neville had been Mad for Luna during the war. They tried, but it ultimately became more comical the harder they pushed it. So as this story begins, they ALL were decidedly single. Treating each other almost like brothers and sisters. It was unlikely that anything could disturb the peace that they had begun to enjoy in their little group.
Upon their nineth month of meeting, they found that the pub was not as empty as they were used to. They took up at their normal table at one end of the pub and began their routine of catching up. An hour in, Ron got up to get a new pitcher of beer when one wasn’t brought to their table. Halfway to the bar, he stopped abruptly and dropped the pitcher, shattering it in several pieces, then brandishing his wand. Immediately their whole table was at his side. Harry and Hermione, prepared with their wands up. Even though it had been years since the war, instinct always took over. Looking in the direction Ron was frozenly pointed, they understood why he reacted as he did. Across the pub was a table of five staring back at them. All snakes, named Draco, Pansy, Blaise, Theo and Astoria. The smaller group of Slytherins stood slowly, approaching the larger group. The difference between the two groups was that the snakes remained wandless.
Hermione took in the smaller group of Slytherins. They each wore traditional outer wizarding robes. Each impeccable and well maintained. As they moved closer, she saw jeans. Draco Malfoy was wearing jeans. Muggle jeans. Quickly scanning the rest of their rag tag group, she deciphered that they all wore mostly muggle clothing with a few pieces of wizarding clothes mixed in tastefully. All were clean shaven, and she noticed several visable tattoos on Draco, Pansy and Theo. Astoria wore glasses and Blaise had a pair of sunglasses atop is head, even though it was dark outside. Hermione tried not to stare too intently, but her curiosity was peeked. She felt herself lowering her wand slightly.
“Potter.” Draco said emotionless.
“Malfoy.” Harry smirked, narrowing his eyes.
They all stood silent for several minutes. Slowly Draco started to raise his hand. Stepping back, Harry raised his wand slightly. Finally realizing what Draco was doing, Harry was stunned into confusion. Draco was holding out his hand for Harry to shake it. Not knowing what to do, Harry remained stunned, almost like he’d been cursed.
After several long seconds it was Neville that stepped up and took Draco’s hand. Draco’s face morphed ever so slightly into a relaxed smirk. He shook Neville’s hand and began to attempt to address the whole group.
“We heard you all met here once a month. We were not sure what day and when. We’ve been coming here at random days for the last six months trying to catch you.” Stammering, he was clearly struggling to continue, finally releasing Neville’s hand. The DA group’s faces showed their growing puzzlement.
What is he getting at?, thought Hermione. But she had the patience to make eye contact with Draco and nod her head, raising her eyebrow to encourage him on. She fully lowered her wand and he caught her slight movement, giving him the nerve to continue.
Clearing his throat and gathering his courage he spoke slightly louder than he was planning, “We wanted to extend our deepest apologies for the part we played in the war and our remorse for our actions has been and will always be part of our everyday lives.” The speech must have been rehearsed several times, but Draco shook his head as if it was entirely inadequate, furrowing his brow in frustration with himself. His companions started nodding slightly, lessening their stances to be more relaxed. Neville and Ginny stood side by side, standing strong as they had during the year the Carrow’s tortured them at Hogwarts. Cho was silently scrutinizing everyone and taking in all of their reactions while Luna hadn’t stopped beaming. Hermione had noticed that Luna never raised her wand, simply placed her hand gently on Harry’s bicep. Ron’s face was covered in a scowl. Although they all had slightly varying reactions, Hermione’s groups’ wands started to lower completely with Draco’s words.
Stepping forward, Theo extended his hand to Harry, smiling at him in an un-Slytherin like manner. Harry looked down at his own hand as it rose to grasp Theo’s. Theo smiling even bigger, asked if they would allow them to join their group and buy them a round of drinks. Ron, being the most skeptical, had the deepest scowl on his face. He insisted on accompanying Theo to make sure he didn’t poison the pitchers. All the Slytherins jointly, and silently decided to take the first glasses and start to sip. Not to be pompous, but to prove that their intentions were genuine. Finally, the rest of the group filled their glasses and started to sip. The awkward silence permeated the atmosphere for what felt like hours.
It was Luna who broke the silence, “Well isn’t this nice,” in her gentle, authentic manner. This brought forth a throaty chuckle from Blaise, and Ginny giggled at her friend’s belief of it being truly nice. Luna’s smile broke the tension of the group, excluding Ron and Draco. Both loosely keeping their guards up.
Neville was the next to speak and break the following few seconds of silence. “You all have really been coming here for the last six months, hoping to catch us?”
Pansy was the one to answer this question, “Yup. We decided a couple years ago that we needed to make amends from the war and even before while we were at school. We’ve been working together to make a list of who we wanted to reach out to. The HOW has been the most difficult part of our plan. Kind of like the muggle 12 step plan for alcoholics.” All the group who came from non muggle homes, looked to Harry and Hermione to translate.
“The 12-step program for muggles who are recovering from addiction lays out, well…. 12 steps for the persons who are addicted to help them in overcoming their addiction. One of the steps is to make amends with those whom they have wronged during the worst times of their addiction.” Hermione said, almost clinically, as if she were reading from a textbook.
Cho stammered, “How the hell do you lot know about a muggle 12-step recovery program?”
It was Astoria who cleared her throat.
“After the war, we were all encouraged to learn more about the muggle world. There were programs set up to help us reform. They were loosely called the Muggle Education Mandate.” Holding up her hands to quote the last three words. “Most were forced to attend who fought on the dark side. That’s how we first formed our little group. We were all the ones who volunteered to attend the programs. The ministry wanted to teach us more about why….” Clearing her throat again, “Voldemort’s views on blood supremacy is what led to the war.” Looking at the others in her group, she continued on after they all nodded. “For the first couple of years we read books and attended the programs, but we still didn’t fully understand. So, we all came up with a plan to leave the magical world and live amongst muggles. We didn’t have a time frame of how long we were going to do this, but we rented a couple of flats close together in muggle London. At first it was horrible. We didn’t use our wands, or any magic. In fact, it was torture, truly. But as the months went by, we started to learn.” Looking at Draco, she giggled, “The first time we went into a coffee shop, Draco tried to pay with galleons and the barista looked at him like he was bonkers.”
All the DA’s eyes turned to Draco expecting a scowl from him. Hermione audibly gasped when she saw his grin as he looked down at his shoes.
“Yes,” he started, “That was one of the most embarrassing moments. None of us had thought to exchange our magical money for muggle money.” Draco scoffed, still not looking up, reveling in the memory he now felt a fondness for.
Hermione shook her head.
“So how long did you live like muggles?” Ginny asked.
“Um… 2 years….” Blaise said, queuing a chorus of gasps.
Hermione looked at the one person’s reaction she wanted to see the most. Ron’s expression turned from a scowl to childlike curiosity. Smiling, she relaxed in her chair.
Pansy reached in her pocket and pulled out a cell phone. She started scrolling through it like it was second nature, not noticing the reactions from the other group. Turning it around to the other group, she showed them several pictures of the Slytherins as if they were tourists in muggle London, but they were more mundane. To a muggle, it would look like they were a group of college students romping around the city and enjoying everyday life. Harry laughed so loud, as he grabbed the phone and started flipping through all her pictures. Pansy laughed and pulled the phone back gently, “Watch it Potter…. Some of those pics are private…” winking at Harry. This caused the whole group to laugh together. The tension that had permeated the group just an hour before had almost dissipated.
Sitting up straighter, Draco cleared his throat again. He had obviously been appointed the leader. “We hope that we can form an understanding with you all. We know that we can’t change what we did. But please, forgive us. We don’t want to overstep and overstay our welcome into your nightly plans. Thanks for hearing us out. We’ll leave you to your night and hope to see you cordially again soon.”
His statement was so abrupt that it shook Hermione and she looked at Harry, then Ron. They each looked at the others in the DA group. The unspoken bond she shared with these two men allowed them to communicate in a way no one else could. The rest of the group caught on and they all nodded their heads. As the Slytherins began to gather themselves and start to leave, Hermione quickly jumped up.
“Would you all like to join us next month? We meet every third Tuesday here at 6 o-clock.” Smiling, she held out her hand to Draco.
Looking at her hand, he slowly moved his eyes up to meet hers. The darkness she had seen so many times before dissolved from his grey eyes, as if a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. Taking her hand, he accepted it with a nod. As the Slytherins started to leave, Astoria smiled, and Pansy smirked, surprised at how well that went. Blaise put his arm over Draco’s shoulder, as Draco looked down at his feet with a small grin on his face, and Theo waved goodbye as they left. Hermione watched intently as Draco took a deep breath and gently threw his head back, as they walked out the door.
“Bloody hell, that was…… terrifying, then confusing, then more confusing, then exciting…. Oi, bar keep! We need a couple more pitchers here, pronto, please!” Ron exclaimed. Turning to the rest of his group, they all started laughing.
Luna declared emphatically again, “Well, isn’t this Nice!”