The Welcome Home
Hermione had slipped away from her friends and dragged her trunk out of the platform and onto the Tube while Harry and the Weasleys weren’t paying attention to her. Dragging the trunk was certainly easier than it had been when she’d gone off to school in September – she’d grown a bit over the school year, and hauling her books all over the endless flights of Hogwarts stairs certainly helped with stamina. She’d yet to master the featherlight charm on her trunk – defying gravity was proving to be a stubbornly difficult bit of magic – but the wheels she’d transfigured and added to the thing in first year seemed to be holding up well enough. She got more than a few glares for taking up so much space on the tube, but she ignored it. Thankfully it wasn’t rush hour, and the trains were running promptly for her two transfers, but Hermione didn’t relish the idea of having to do it all over again in a few days to catch the portkey.
Some well-meaning lady attempted to pet Crookshanks in his carrier, and got hissed at for her trouble. After months at the electricity-free Hogwarts, she felt a bit of sympathy for the purebloods at the school. The noise, the smell, and the sounds of the London Underground were almost overwhelming. She found herself reaching for her wand automatically, jumping at the hiss of the doors opening, the cheerful announcements, and the squeal of the brakes.
With some trepidation, Hermione pulled out the packet of parchment that Professor Snape had given her, and glanced through it.
There were, as promised, the two one way Portkey tickets (with luggage inclusions of one trunk and one cat carrier), with instructions on accessing the Foreign Travel Office at the Ministry. There was a very formal looking piece of parchment with two ornate wax seals at the bottom next to the signature, written in Cyrillic script frist, and then German, which Hermione read, and looked to be a summer work visa to Bulgaria, organized through the Bulgarian National Committee of the International Quidditch Association. There was a pamphlet, in English, entitled “The Student Member’s Guide to the International Society for Spellcraft and Wardcraft”, and what looked to be the same pamphlet in German.
There were two letters, too. Hermione pulled out the first one and read it.
Dear Miss Granger,
Congratulations, again, on your scholastic achievements this year. You are an exceptionally dedicated and talented student.
I wish you all the best this summer. Madam Dobrenova is an exceptional witch, and it is a great credit to Hogwarts and our House that she has agreed to work with you this summer. I have met her in the past, and taken a seminar with her, and she was an excellent teacher to me.
Professor Snape will likely stop by to check on you in a few weeks, as I believe he has business in the area, as Madam Zheleva, the team healer, is an old and dear friend of his, and it is thanks to her that he became aware of this position. I believe that Madam Dobrenova’s regular assistant has recently become afflicted with spattergoit, which is why she was seeking last minute assistance.
Although I know it will be difficult to remain quiet about what you have learned this summer, I am certain that it will prove to be an excellent introduction to the practical implementations of advanced arithmancy, charms, magical theory, and runes. I suspect, if she sees what your teachers here at Hogwarts have seen, you will find a longer term relationship with her keeps you well-occupied in the future.
Please do not hesitate to owl myself or Professor Snape if you have any difficulties or further questions this summer, and of course, your parents may reach out to us if they have questions as well.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Professor of Transfiguration
Head of Gryffindor House
Deputy Headmistress
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
As Hermione finished the letter, she wondered about the vanity of framing such a thing, and if it wasn’t too vain, where she would keep it so Lavender and Pavrati wouldn’t laugh. Professor McGonnagall wasn’t one for effusive praise, but this letter was perfect. She couldn’t wait to show her parents.
The other letter was in German.
Sehr geehrte Frau Granger,
It began, and Hermione mentally thanked several childhood vacations in Germany, and her parents’ insistence on years of language tutoring as she mentally translated the rest. She’d taken some refresher lessons while at home, especially when she’d told her parents that French and German were the teaching languages of the two biggest magical schools on the continent and were therefore the most commonly used in European magical scholarship. Her parents had been thrilled to provide more German, French, and Latin lessons, as it was something from the Muggle world that they understood the value of, and they certainly were never ones to allow Hermione to slack off for a summer. They had been incredulously appalled at the poor pedagogy and inherent learning loss in summers where she was forbidden to practice magic, and therefore couldn’t keep up with revision for her school work.
Hermione realized she was procrastinating to avoid reading the letter, and forced herself back to it.
I am writing to extend you an offer to become my assistant this summer, as a member of the support staff for the Bulgarian National Quidditch team, conditional on an interview and some testing once you reach Bulgaria.
I have corresponded with your Potions professor, and your Head of House, and have been sent a copy of your transcript, and letters of recommendation from a few of your professors who assure me that, despite your age, you learn quickly and are hard-working.
I understand that you are fluent in both German and English, which shall be very useful this summer, as my own English has become quite rusty, and the British Ministry of Magic is rather notoriously insular and difficult to work with. I will provide you with an experimental charm I’ve been working on that will assist you in speaking Bulgarian, but I suspect my brain will balk at more language learning at my age.
The position will be located in Bulgaria from July 1st to August 9thand in England, for the tournament from August 9th oruntil the day following the final game, or Bulgaria’s elimination from the competition,with the first Bulgarian game scheduled for August 11th with the final game scheduled for August 22nd. Transportation to your home following the competition will be arranged by the Bulgarian National Team. The Bulgarian National Team will also arrange with the Bulgarian and British Ministries of Magic to remove the trace on your magic while you are under my supervision. A uniform, and any other clothing required for formal events will be provided by myself or the team.
While in Bulgaria, you will stay in my home in Plovdiv, and meals will be provided. We will commute using the Floo network to the stadium in Varna. While in England, accommodations will be provided with the team, within walking distance of the stadium, courtesy of the International Quidditch Association. Security at the stadium will be provided by the British Ministry of Magic, but will be reviewed by each member country.
While in Bulgaria, personal letters from your parents can be addressed to:
Uchenichkata na Iskra Dobrenova
ul. "Samodivi”12, Plovdiv, Bulgaria
and I encourage you to have them to send on any of your mail they receive at your house to that address.
Your pay will be 1 galleon per hour, provided weekly. Hours of work will vary based on the team schedule, with regular weekly hours of 36 hours per week. Overtime, at up to 16 hrs per week, will be paid at 2 galleons per hour. Books and other materials required shall be provided.
You will be responsible for assisting with warding the practice areas in Bulgaria and team members, and may be required to assist me with some theoretical spellwork and warding, as time and inspiration allows. Any workplace injuries will, of course, be treated by the team's healer, the fantastic Madam Zheleva, or by specialists at the Bulgarian National Magical Hospital in Varna, or St. Mungo’s in London. Compensation for any injuries in the line of work, will be as per the customary rates set by the ISSW.
An agreement of secrecy will be required prior to beginning work, which may be renegotiated annually, and shall expire 10 years after your last work for the Bulgarian National Quidditch Team.
I look forward to meeting you on July 1st.
And there it was, the closing. THE Iskra Dobrenova had truly written to her!
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
IskraEmilova Dobrenova
Hermione pulled out a scrap of parchment and a pen and carefully translated and copied the letter into English for her parents.
///
Her parent’s townhouse was only a five minute walk from the tube station, and Hermione smiled as she walked down the street, admiring a tidy garden here, a man being pulled down the street by three large dogs there. There was so much LIFE to Muggle London, the sort of life that couldn’t be replicated by magic. A horn blared behind her and she jumped. And, of course, there were some things she was happy to be well away from at Hogwarts.
It was past seven o’clock when she got home. Hermione let herself in with her key. She turned it the wrong way at first, she hadn’t even seen a key in her months at Hogwarts. She flicked on the lights – blessed ELECTRICITY! The house was silent, and it looked like her parents were still at work, so she padded to the kitchen and pulled out the take away menus from the drawer beside the fridge.
She called the number and ordered her favourite comfort food, lamb gosht, plus tarka dal for her vegetarian mother, and saag chicken for her father, chatting happily with Amarit, the owner of the restaurant about her return from boarding school. Amarit’s youngest daughter had been in Hermione’s class that last year before she went to Hogwarts, after she’d skipped a year for the second time, and in just under two minutes of rapid fire questioning (Hermione had watched the clock and timed it) Amarit had managed to ask enough questions to find out that she’d gotten top marks in her year and was going to Bulgaria for the summer for a summer job program, no, her parents weren’t home yet, and yes, Scotland was too cold, and the school was drafty, and had even clucked over how Hermione had fallen into the lake, which she hadn’t even told Ron and Harry about.
When the food arrived 20 minutes later, she paid Amarit’s middle son from the money kept in the menu drawer. He ruffled her hair, welcomed her back to London, and asked how her “prissy boarding school” had been, teased her about being too good to stick around London for the summer and having to go to summer school, and headed out again with a cheerful beep of his horn and a wave. She was touched to see Amarit had thrown in three of her famous samosas with “Welcome home, Hermeony!” scrawled on the lid, which she devoured immediately. Hogwarts food was good, but Amarit’s food was better.
It was nearly 9 pm, and Hermione was just finishing her lamb with a little help from her spoiled half-Kneazle when she heard a key turning in the door.
“Hermione, darling, is that you?” her mother called from the foyer.
“Mum!” Hermione yelled, running to the door. Her mother set down her purse and opened her arms, enfolding Hermione in a hug.“Oh, I’m so glad to see you home. Your father will be really late tonight – one of our groups is working on the details for a protest this weekend, but I left early, didn’t think it’d do for you to be home alone your first night - is that curry I smell?”
“Yes, I got you tarka dal, it should still be warm.”
“Wonderful, dear, thank you. Tell me, how was the train? Have you gotten your exam results yet?” Paulina Granger grabbed her curry and pulled up a chair across from Hermione.
“The train was long, as usual. Official results aren’t for a while, but it looks like I did really well! Professor McGonnagall has offered me an internship this summer, with one of the best wardcrafters in Europe. Britain’s hopelessly backwards about muggleborns, but I guess the continent is a bit better. Iskra Dobrenova is brilliant, I’ve read a few of her papers, and she’ll be doing the warding for a huge sporting event this summer in Britain.”
“Really, dear? That’s a fantastic opportunity!”
“It will mean I spend most of the summer away in Bulgaria, though, and I’ll have to leave in a couple of days.” Hermione watched her mother’s face carefully to check her reaction.
It flashed with a touch of disappointment, but then she nodded sharply. “Right, then. I will want all the details, of course, but I don’t think this is the kind of opportunity you can turn down. You can always write to us, just like you do from Hogwarts. I’ll be sad to miss you in France, of course, I think you’d have loved Alsace, but one doesn’t turn down these kinds of things.”
“I knew you’d understand,” Hermione said, reaching out and squeezing her mum’s hand. Hermione dug out the packet of letters and passed them over to her mother. Her mum stood and grabbed a pair of reading glasses from the counter (since when did her mother use reading glasses?), and flipped through the papers.
“Well, this seems quite settled, isn’t it, and a very good wage, too, if the exchange rate’s been consistent. You know I don’t much like the practice of unpaid internships.”
“How’s Dad been?” Hermione asked tentatively.
“Impossible, as usual,” her mother huffed. “And how about that – hippogriff, wasn’t it? - you were helping. How did that go?”
“Oh, uh, Buckbeak? We managed to find him a foster home right before the euthanasia date.”
“Oh, that’s fantastic, dear. I know you were worried. And your extra credit project, was that successful? I take it from your internship this summer that you no longer want to work for for the Ministry, improving the laws for magical creatures?”
“I’m not sure right now, Mum. I was given this opportunity, and Professor McGonnagall said that it would give me an opportunity to explore other careers before graduation, which is probably wise.”
It took almost more brain power than Hermione had at that moment to keep her story straight. She’d written home that Buckbeak was a hippogriff who didn’t fit into the herd at Hogwarts, and needed a home before the Ministry euthanized him, and she’d been doing which she’d discovered while she was doing an extra-credit project on the laws of magical creature control, citing a desire to join the Department of Magical Creatures Regulation and improve the lives of regulated species.
Werewolves, Sirius Black, time turners, and dementors had been conspicuously absent from her letters home about her very normal, very safe third year at her very studious magical school, which made talking about her year a bit tricky while exhausted with a full stomach at almost 10 pm.
Still, Hermione and her mum settled into a conversation about her year at school, while Hermione waited up, hoping to see her dad before bed.
Hermione had less to lie about this year, which made it easier. Without a several week absence in letter writing, she didn’t have to claim that she’d been overwhelmed with studying and forgotten to write, like she had in second year. Thankfully her parents didn’t always read her letters, so she didn’t think they’d realized just how long she’d gone without writing in second year.
///
By the time the front door opened again, Hermione, Crookshanks, and her mum had moved to the sitting room and were watching a movie her mom had picked up at the rental shop that week – Hocus Pocus, which made Hermione wonder what her parents really thought she was learning in school.
“Hermione!” her dad yelled from the foyer. Hermione jumped up from the sofa, dislodging Crookshanks, who squawked indignantly, and ran to greet her dad. His coat smelled like smoke, as she hugged him, so he’d been meeting one of their activist groups in a pub. Neither of her parents smoked, saying it was bad for the teeth. “Sorry I’m home later than I planned, those Tory plonkers in parliament are up to it again, the bill I wrote you about’s still being debated. Using teenaged parties as an excuse to restrict lawful protest. Major’s lost the plot entirely, George says, but I think he knows exactly what he’s doing. But you’ll help me and your mum this summer with it all, right?”
“Dion – Hermione’s going to be gone, she won’t be around to help you sod off on your responsibilities at the practice,” Hermione’s mum said, eyes flashing.
“What do you mean, Hermione’s going to be gone?” he said, turning to glare at his wife. “And I wasn’t sodding off, Paulina, I told Heather not to schedule me after 4 on Tuesdays.”
“Well, you skived off early, today, and left ME to apologize to your last two patients!”
“Never mind that, Paulina, what’s this about you being gone, Hermione?”
“I got a paid internship with a leading magical researcher for July 1st in Bulgaria,” Hermione said quietly.
“Bulgaria, you say?! That’s bloody marvellous news, Hermione. I’m right proud of you,” Hermione’s dad held his hand out, and Hermione automatically gave him a high-five, though it made her feel rather like he still thought she was seven, not fourteen.
“Thanks Dad.”
“Paulina, did you hear anything about the funding coming in for that children’s dental charity Len was working with? I had a patient this morning that needs work on a permanent incisor.”
“Len’s not said anything to me, have you given him a call?”
“Not recently, but don’t you play squash with his sister on Sundays?”
“I’m not interrogating a friend about her brother’s charity for one of your patients on a weekend, when you can pick up a phone and call, which is what she’d have to do, anyway.”
“Oh, piss off, Paulina. By the way, Peggy and Paul were most disappointed you didn’t make it to tonight’s meeting, or last weeks, either.”
“Bloody hell, Dion,” Paulina Granger cried, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “You’re going to guilt me for missing Tuesday pub nights with the criminal justice crowd when you’ve not been to our every second Thursday environmental group meeting since May?”
“Yes, when the justice crowd’s busy trying to stop an egregious assault on our rights, and we could use your expertise, I do blame you, Paulina.”
Each successive sentence from her parents was getting louder, so Hermione gave up any hope of rejoining the conversation. She’d talk to her father tomorrow.
She picked up Crooks and carried him upstairs to her bedroom, as her parents downstairs got louder and louder. She grabbed an old pair of pyjamas from the drawer, brushed her teeth, and threw herself onto the bed beside her cat, turning on the old stand fan in the corner to block out some of the noise.
As expected, her parents were in one of those periods again.
Not one of the loudly, passionately in love periods, where laughter filled the house, and impromtu trips to libraries and museums and historical sites were arranged, and they were embarrassing with their public displays of affection to each other. Not one of the cold and silent periods, either, where any whispered noise louder than the turn of a page seemed to echo.
From the looks of the most recent letters – each written by only one parent, full of capital letters and long winded tirades of betrayal - and what she’d seen tonight, it looked like her parents were in one of their loud, passionately furious periods, where doors were slammed, words were thrown like knives from opposite sides of the house, or spoken to their daughter, but really aimed at the spouse, and Hermione quickly memorized the opening hours for both of the closest libraries and the tube and bus schedule.
Paulina and Dion Granger loved each other, truly they did, but it wasn't always a comfortable love to live in the same house with. Hermione had no plans to ever fall in love, but if she ever did, it certainly would never look like that.
As she drifted off to sleep to the sounds of her parents arguing in the sitting room, a summer in Bulgaria sounded idyllic.