Matriculation, 1999
It really was as gorgeous as the books had led her to believe. Awestruck, Hermione stood still in front of the Radcliffe Camera, looking at the yellow stones that towered above her. It surely did not have any of the enchantment that her first day at Hogwarts had had, but she knew that for a Muggle-built building, it encapsulated an indescribable magic for anyone who saw it, and she tried her best to feel it. She brushed her hands over her skirt to straighten her sub fusc before the ceremony, and felt a tinge of sadness as she thought about how different this matriculation was compared to her Hogwarts one - oh gosh, she had to stop thinking about Hogwarts! That was a different life now. She had to leave that world, it had cost her too much, the Battle had cost her too much.
Tears started to prickle behind her eyes, and she blinked a few times to will them away. Not today. Today, she would be happy. Today, she would mark the first day of her new life. Today, she would have the first taste of what her life would have been like if she had never received that damned letter. She fixed the black bow that held her unruly curls together - in this world, she couldn’t use magic to tame them - and eventually made her way over to a group of students that she knew to be from her college. She was greeted cordially by the others in their black and white outfits, and she smiled politely, shook hands, smiled more, repeating “Hermione Granger, Magdalen, History and English, pleased to meet you” more times than she could count. Any further questions she dodged with a well prepared story. Where had she gone to school? Oh, not here in the UK, no, she had gone to a small and unfamiliar school on the continent; but yes, she indeed has a British accent because her parents are from the UK and she had spent her childhood here; but no, they couldn’t make it here today. Each time her statement was met with a ‘What a pity they’re not here!’, she could feel her smile getting more and more strained. Her cheeks hurt at the end of the whole ordeal, and the day had barely even begun.
What for her peers might have been the happiest and most memorable day of their life so far, all went by in a blur for Hermione. Utterly exhausted, she kicked off her shoes as soon as she entered her dorm room, and let herself drop onto her bed. No canopy beds here, no red velvet, no golden embroidery. Her black robes had felt uncomfortable today, but she did not have any energy left to take them off now. Especially the absence of her wand in her robes had felt odd; she had had to give up her wand to the Ministry before she went to the Muggle world. Although she had a fair command of wandless magic - which she also wasn’t allowed to use here - , it still felt like part of her was missing, and she felt vulnerable. The only thing that helped Hermione feel a little at home here were wooden accents in the room and her small book case. The Improprer Use of Magic Office had cleared a few books for her so that she could take them with her, but even so, she dreaded the thought that this would be her home for at least three years. She rolled over to her side and glanced over at her copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which was now stripped of all magical qualities, such as the moving illustrations of the beasts, and also prefaced by a disclaimer that “The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.” Such bollocks! Hermione wished she could rip that page out, but the Ministry would have her neck for it, and she knew any frustration was of no use.
Defeated, she rolled back to lay on her back, and glanced at the empty ceiling above her. She imagined the shooting stars she had charmed into her canopy during her final year at Hogwarts above her. They had helped her fall asleep when the images of the war had appeared at night. Now, she had nothing to distract her. Only an endless sea of beige was looking back at her. She decided to trace the pattern of the paint, studying any irregularity in the brushwork. She discovered three little dried up splatters of paint right above her bed. A trio, Hermione thought. Something warm and wet slid down her cheekbone and slid past her ear into her hair. After a day of holding it in, there finally was the first tear. She closed her eyes, and tried to think about the things she would like here. The library, the…
She didn’t get any further than the library. And even so, she could not shake the thought that she would always prefer the library where she had spent her formative years, some times in the company of Harry and Ron, other times rummaging around the Restricted Section by herself, and most often tucked away in a corner, studying for her O.W.L.s or reading books for her own pleasure - and development, of course. The best thing about the desk she always sat at was that she could overlook the main area of the library, without anyone ever seeing her. She would see Madam Pince’s lovestruck glances at Filch every time he walked into the library, she had seen Luna comforting Neville as he broke down over his upcoming O.W.L.s, and she knew exactly which students dog-eared their books. Another image popped into Hermione’s head: Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson sneaking between the moving stacks on several occassions, to make out where they thought no one could see them. But Hermione did see it. And each time, Hermione would stick her nose even deeper into the book she was reading, her eyes sometimes peaking above the edge to see whether they had left already. She tried to shake the image off of her inner eye, instead choosing to think back on watching Ron helping Ginny with her studies in the library. It made her feel a little better.
As she was losing herself in a mix of nostalgia and self-pity, she heard a knock on the door. A voice that she was sure she had heard sometime this morning echoed through the hallway: “Oi Granger, we’re heading for a pint, you in?”
“I’m good, thanks, maybe next time”, she shouted back, vehemently wishing the guy at her door would go away. There was no response, but she also didn’t hear any foot steps leading away from her door.
“I said I’m good, thanks!”, Hermione repeated.
“Yeah yeah, heard ya the first time”.
Hermione sat up in her bed and glared at the door, and if someone would’ve been there with her, they would’ve sworn her eyes bored straight through it. “Then why are you still there?”, she huffed.
“I’m not leaving until you come out.”
Blimey, this insensitive wart! Couldn’t he tell she needed some time to herself? She swayed her legs over the edge of her bed, and did her best not to stomp as she made her way to the door and flung it open, immediately firing off a tirade - albeit in a hushed voice as not to disturbed her floor mates.
“Listen here, I do not know who you are, but I told you no. Now please excuse me, and have the decency to sod o-”
As she raised her gaze to look her assaillant in the eye, she stopped. Before her stood a bloke with dirty blonde hair and a familiar grin, looking at her expectantly. “To do what, Granger?”
“William!”, Hermione shrieked. And she started crying. All the exhaustion of the day, of the past few months as she had been preparing for her transition to the Muggle world, of all the paperwork she had to clear with the Ministry, of the whole late admissions process at Oxford, it was clawing at her throat, desperate to find a way out. As her shoulders were shocking hysterically, a set of arms wrapped around her.
“Hush now, it’s alright, sorry, I didn’t mean to push you so far”, he said soothingly, before untangling the hug and placing both his hands on her shoulders to look her in the eye again. “You’ve gotten sensitive, Granger”, he joked, flashing her the same annoying grin as before, his green eyes twinkling mischievously. She weakly slapped one of his hands away from his shoulder, and he removed the other, too. Her red, puffy eyes stood in stark contrast with her crossed arms, which she had crossed as tight as possible to form a harness against any type of vulnerability. It was strange to see William again. He was at least a foot and a half taller than when she had last seen him, his jawline had become more defined and he had grown into his nose. But at the same time, everything about him still looked the same, from his eyes to his lips to the mole on his cheek.
“How did you know it was me?”, she asked in a stern tone, partially to hide the guilt that she hadn’t known it was him. Surely, she must have seen him at some point today, but she hadn’t registered it at all.
“Oh please, how many Hermiones do you think I know? And I could recognise that bird’s nest on your head from a mile away.”
She wiped her tears with the back of her hands and the first hint of a smile crept onto her lips. “Touché. What brings you here?”
“Biochemistry. For the rest, the same as you, I would hope. Getting a degree at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, making friends for life!”. As William said those words, he laid a hand over his heart for dramatic effect and adapted the poshest accent he could.
“But you were supposed to go to Cambridge”, she said breathlessly, shaking her head. “That was our agreement, Will. You would go to Cambridge, I would go to Oxford. You would do science, I would do humanities. You would look better in light blue, I would look better in dark blue. You would-”
“Yes, there were a lot of things we had agreed to do, Granger”, he said flatly, studying the shoelaces of his Oxfords. “But that was before you left.”
His words felt like a punch to the gut. She nodded and bit her lip, thinking of how she had left behind her childhood friends the minute that Hogwarts letter had fallen onto her doorstep. After discussing it with her parents, they agreed the easiest thing would be to tell her friends she would move to a boarding school abroad, and let all contact cease somewhat naturally. And aside from that one holiday in France with her parents, she hadn’t returned to her old life at all. Perhaps because she thought she would never have to be back in this world again. She had felt so much more at home in the Wizarding World… But here she was, standing in front of William Firth, her first academic rival - and most importantly, her first true friend.
William interrupted her pondering with a question that cut in all the wrong places: “Would it really have been so hard to send a letter to London every now and then? I mean, how busy could your life in Zwitserland have been?”
Hermione’s heart ached, and she so desperately wanted to tell him the truth. All of it. She looked away for a second, regaining herself in record time. “You’re right, I messed up. I was just so whisked away by my new life that I forgot-”
“That you forgot all about your old friends.”
“Yeah.” She sniffed her nose, it was still runny from her outburst earlier.
“Yeah. Okay.” William was quiet for a second, as if carefully choosing his next words. He inhaled, as if he was to say something, but then changed his mind and kept quiet, giving her a look she couldn’t quite read. He turned on his heels, his Scholars Gown fluttering behind him. “Well then, Granger, I’ll be off. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
“Will, wait”, she heard herself saying.
William did not turn back, but at least it stopped him from walking away. “What?”
But she didn’t know, she hadn’t thought about what to say now, she just knew she didn’t want him to leave. She wanted him to stay and talk, and she wanted to explain everything to him. Maybe that was exactly what she should’ve said, but she felt her throat closing again, and swallowed thickly.
“You know, I was so happy to see you at the ceremony today”, William said, still not turning to meet her eyes, his shoulders tensing. “And I imagined this moment so many times. You coming back, us meeting again.” He paused for a second.
“And all this time, I was naive, no, stupid enough to think that there would be a logical explanation. Something, anything, that would make me understand why you abandoned me - not just me, but everyone, Hermione!”
She flinched at him raising his voice at her, and for some reason, William using her first name felt much more distant than her last name. Panic rose in her throat, oh god, she wanted to tell him, she wanted to tell him so bad, because then, he would have the explanation he so needed to hear, the explanation she so needed to tell.
“But maybe, there was just nothing else to it.” He forced his shoulders down and rolled them to release the built-up tension, his eyes still fixed on the dim lit hallway in front of him.
“I’m sorry, Will”, she managed to utter. She shook her head as she looked at his back, at his black gown. Her eyes started feeling heavy with tears again. “I am so sorry.”
“Yeah, it is what it is. I’ll see you around”. William walked down the hallway of the dorms, not once glancing back. Hermione was left standing there in her doorway and she helplessly watched on as he walked away, feeling even more lost than this morning.
She took a deep sigh and stepped back into her room, closing the door behind her and praying that no one in the surrounding rooms had been there to hear this conversation.
Once again, she laid down on her bed, still not bothering to take of her sub fusc. This time, when she looked up at the ceiling, she saw not only the faces of her friends at Hogwarts, but also of those at Gospel Oak. Hermione thought herself lucky to be so exhausted from the day and all the emotions it brought; she feared that otherwise, it might have taken a very long time for her to finally fall asleep.