Proliferate

The bricks were charred. A hideous orange hue had been darkened, and Hermione considered it to be a silver lining to the war-torn city. Although she doubted this stylistic choice of decor would stay for more than a few hours. They had told her it was dreadful, but she hadn’t expected areas to be so…shattered. In a way, she thought London would become a sort of Pompeii with its rubble and fire, preserving memories and bodies for the future. Yet, the carcasses of fellow classmates were on full display for allies and enemies alike. There was nothing stopping you from seeing Billy’s rib cage on the right side anymore.

The homes and shelters didn’t tumble down in an obscurely graceful manner like the poets described, instead they smashed into thick layers of grime that would only irritate people in the clear up. Her split ends had gotten out of hand she soon realised, as the blaze crisped her strands after stepping a bit too closely to the open blaze triggered by a seemingly safe deterrent raid. 

The shelter was claustrophobic nowadays and her wand had been confiscated, buried under Billy’s dead weight somewhere. London wasn’t meant to be pleasant, especially during a war. But she couldn’t help but feel that the angular buildings that once stood were now worth reminiscing about. It certainly helped as the clouds of dust wafted through her, escaping into her ears, into her nose, into her mind. There were newly formed walls as red herrings, the type that drew attention to small dots in the sky past midnight with their vivid lighting. She supposed that it may have been like Pompeii, in some obscure way, with fire daunting and no escape.

The railway was bombed a few weeks back. The only comfort she had were bleak walls that had somehow survived each attack so far. Perhaps the building was so repulsive and hideous that even those who wanted to turn Britain to ash couldn’t waste their resources on it. 

Hermione wondered if in the future children would learn of the old enemy’s terrible living conditions, and how it was all for the best in the end. As they walked on the once rotten bodies with only bones left, a few feet below them. She never liked the other children, but it didn’t mean she wanted their bodies to become footpaths. No one deserved to be walked all over without a say in the matter.

She walked down the street, and while everything had physically changed and the feeling of being a stranger settled into her mind, the familiarity of the continuously cracked pavement that curved at the now half-missing gas lamp post filled her with a sense of much needed comfort.

Hermione enjoyed being alone during conflict. 

Her circumstances were not the best, however Hermione Granger knew that her current muggle predicament’s severity was far exceeded by that of another. Although two years above her within the school, she had never failed to acknowledge Riddle’s academic aptitude, going so far as to seek his revision materials in her second year exams. It was only by mere coincidence in her third year that a certain Selwyn brother had not cast a muffliato, and his strangely named ‘Lord’ had his muddied ancestry revealed.

Hermione had remained vigilant throughout the entire ordeal; if Riddle found out she knew, there would be far more severe consequences than the ones Selwyn faced a week later after Tom scoured his loyal subject’s mind. 

If Tom Riddle was less of a possessive monster when it came to marmalade at the breakfast hall, then perhaps Hermione would feel sympathetic. She once considered why he had such an inclination for an overtly sickly spread, however it was much like her to forget her own out-of-school circumstances and not consider his lack of nutrients in food, yet alone sugar. Tom Riddle had never suspected her. A fellow Slytherin, quiet for the most part and resourceful. She happened to be there at the right time, like many of his other fellow housemates. Hermione didn’t think he knew her name, and it was only upon retrieval during sleepless nights that Riddle did remember the mousy third (now fourth) year’s name. With her slightly suspicious lineage and high marks. 

When she began at Hogwarts, her preparation before attending the school had been wholly independent. A tragic accident, her parent’s death, resulted in a healthy inheritance. Which the orphanage did their best to not use for personal means - although Hermione knew her matron enjoyed her whisky and fire Sundays since she’d had her hands on the sum.

One visit to Diagon Alley made Hermione know her lack of a magical education was evident. She despised being uneducated and unprepared, it made one unbecoming according to her late aunt. Upon her second visit to the wizarding quarter of London, in a cloaked disguise Hermione exchanged shillings for knuts, and eventually galleons when she saw the fee for a wardrobe designed by Madame Mathilde Malkins the First.

 She proposed the notion of her lineage to be halfblood, her mother a French seamstress and her father a freelancing alchemist, both dying untimely deaths when conflict first arose only a few years ago. She had not discussed this with any teacher at Hogwarts, nor did she need to. It was true her father was a muggle alchemist of sorts, as he was a chemist. Her parents were both French, and it was mere coincidence that a British pureblood lineage by the name of Dagworth-Granger had ended with its last direct descendant passing of dragonpox during the epidemic before Hermione’s birth.

Her claim of magical blood would link to a broken house, one with no defence or claimants to its name, although there were many families in the north of England that used the name as their line of magic too. It was no secret the Dagworth-Grangers did anything to keep the bloodline male and pure, leaving sullied daughters and squibs to fend for themselves in the cities, far away from their country opulence. 

The week after Hermione had spent tirelessly slaving over magical lineage books and French witch etiquette directions, she was complimented by a minor member of the Greengrass household. Hermione never looked back to her muggle life until the summer and Easter holidays. 

It was coming to the end of August, and although the landscape was cold, London’s temperature was slowly on the rise despite the season’s end. Hermione’s venture through her war-torn bedsit was not an unfamiliar route, but an annual act of habit. She tried to ignore the crunching sound beneath her feet, and was thankful for the late afternoon dust that had settled in for the evening. Hermione didn’t want to see the tissue and bones of her once potential classmates. 

The trek to Diagon Alley was far more dangerous than last year’s, however the matron had refused to install a floo system in her room. It was a risk to the younger toddler who slept two floors down that was performing accidental magic at least four times a day. Hermione’s practice of magic was slightly more developed due to this guise provided by the child. Her repelling charms were beyond mastered, and in her current environment it was a more than homework.

Approaching the Leaky Cauldron felt dystopian. The exterior was nothing more than a few bricks of a boundary, and if any muggle tried to step closer than a few meters to the disguised door, they’d suddenly remember that their gas mask was still on the table at home. Even if they didn’t have a home anymore. Hermione took a few steps closer, until she felt a slight shudder-inducing sensation as her foot toed the boundary.

She had returned.