Chapter 29
Chapter 29:
I should be here. I should be here. The mantra played over and over again in Hermione’s mind with increasing urgency. The Burrow during the Holidays was busier than usual and the Weasley family just kept expanding. It’s not that Hermione didn’t love them dearly, she did, but had a small feeling in the back of her mind for the last few year, a small voice that whispered, “They moved and you haven’t, you don’t belong here”. The small voice has been steadily growing and growing. Individually she carried on well with everyone, but collectively, it’s become too much. She found herself thinking back to all the Christmass she has as an only child and quiet but how dotting her parents were, she missed them this time of year the most. Christmas was her dad’s favorite holiday, he’d decorate what seemed to be the entire house in popcorn and cranberry strings which her mother loathed, but she’d love her father enough to tolerate the yearly nuisance of cleanup.
She often lost herself in reverie about what her parent’s life in Australia was life, she’d made a point to stop checking up on them because it had caused her too much. She made it so that she didn’t exist to them so she must make so that they never existed to her. Her mind healer from years ago urged her that wasn’t quite the healthy thing to do, but it did not matter in the end.
Ginny’s keen eye always spotted Hermione at the exact moment her thoughts drew her from the moment and she was on her in an instant.
“Tell me you’re not bothered by Ron’s fiancé”
“What?? Of course not, she’s lovely, Ginny! I’m happy for them.”
“Best be, no sense hashing up ancient history. He’s my brother and I love him, but seriously Hermione I never understood how you liked him” Ginny said with a laugh in her voice.
Hermione often wondered the same, she and Ronald couldn’t be more different. It never made sense, she did mean it about his fiancé. She was a lovely girl from Ireland who worked at the Department of Mysteries. They met when Ron was assigned guard for a fortnight after the Aurors busted a huge Dark artifact trafficking ring. Hermione would never begrudge his happiness. Though she never could manage to find any of her own.
“Have you worked out your mystery benefactor?” asked Ginny as she sipped on mulled wine.
“Don’t get me started on that, I have to figure out who it is soon. If these gifts are of illegal origins I could be in massive trouble.”
“what’s that about illegal activity mione” Harry drawled in a clearly drunken state as he came to grab hold of Ginny.
“Nothing Harry, you better stop drinking and have your hearing checked” Hermione has only told Ginny about the mystery gifts that kept finding their way to her desk, she had no excuse to why she kept it secret, but a part of her felt that must do so. Out of an abundance of caution, she said. Before Harry can ask any more questions George zoomed through the room on his latest invention, a scooter, Hermione didn’t have the hard to tell him that his “ingenious idea” to patent a vertical travelling broom had a rather similar muggle counterpart. Molly yelled across the Burrow for him to go outside and George simply said.
“Mione come try out the latest model, it flies higher and faster, please please try it, they gits tell me it looks mad, but I’ll be the one laughing all the way to Gringotts when I start selling these.” George had grown into quite the mad scientist look since losing Fred. The only times he smiled was when he was showing off a new invention, and Hermione could never resist.
They extracted herself from Ginny’s side and went outside to try the flying broom scooter or as George called them, much to her amusement: Hoovers