That Dratted Hope
In the silence of the night, time stretches like taffy.
Hermione lays in bed with her eyes squeezed shut, damp skin sticking to the hotel sheets twisted around her.
The scenes of last year float and distort behind her eyelids like images in a warped mirror. She stifles a cry as the picture of Lavender Brown’s twitching body recedes.
She turns to her side, no longer wishing for sleep, but simply for darkness.
After an unknowable stretch of time, she finally rises. It is early, she knows without looking at the clock on the nightstand, an hour just at the edge of that narrow space where night gives way to morning.
It is early enough she isn’t sure that the complimentary breakfast is laid out in the lobby yet. For that matter, she isn’t sure that anybody else is awake in the hotel except her.
Still, Hermione pulls herself from the bed. She tugs the mangled sheets from around her calf and plants her feet firmly on the carpeted floor, allowing herself a moment to breathe before striding into the bathroom.
She turns on the shower and climbs in, sinking down to sit on the porcelain floor and wrapping her arms around her knees. The hot water sprays over her. Hermione sighs and lets her head drop onto her kneecaps, relishing the gentle burn of steam kissing her skin.
She sits in the shower until her fingers look like prunes. When she finally emerges, her back and chest blaze an angry scarlet, the heat leaching from her skin as she stands in the chilly bathroom air.
She scrubs her body dry and pulls on her clothes before snatching her wand and magically drying her hair. The curls spring to life as the jet of air reaches them, punching into the air as though hit by an electric shot. Hermione twists the strands into two tight plaits and looks in the mirror.
The girl looking back at her looks older than she ought to, with shadows under her eyes and premature lines etched into her forehead. Hermione frowns as she examines her face. A new and frightening thought bursts into her mind.
If she can find her parents and restore their memories, will they even recognize her?
She shakes the thought away, glancing back at the mirror. Her most distinctive features are unchanged. Her hair remains an untamable beast, just like her father’s when he waits too long between haircuts. Her eyes remain a deep, unrepentant brown like her mother’s. She still takes her tea black, and despises sheep’s wool sweaters that make her neck itch, and can recite the first scene of The Tempest from memory.
They will know.
She turns away from the mirror and walks to the door of her room. She takes out her wand and waves it, muttering under her breath as she checks the protective enchantments she cast the night before. The gentle light emanating from her wand hums idly, and Hermione knows the enchantments have not been altered in the night.
She doesn’t know if it would be considered paranoia or a reasonable concern for safety, her impulse to cast these enchantments even when hidden deep in muggle Sydney.
" Constant vigilance, ” the voice of Mad-Eye Moody growls in her ear. You never know where danger lies.
Hermione waves her wand again to remove the enchantments, feeling the deep, ancient warmth they had provided during the evening recede. She bends down and snatches her knapsack from its perch on the floor, tucks her wand in her pocket, and opens the door.
The hallway sits deserted, such that every one of Hermione’s gentle footsteps seems to echo around her. She flinches as the elevator dings to announce its arrival, and then again when it opens in the lobby.
She spots the man sitting at a table in the lobby as soon as she turns the corner, and would have guessed who it was even without the tell-tale red hair.
George hunches over the tabletop, eyes cast down. He does not look up as Hermione approaches, and as she gets closer she sees a quill clutched in his hand scratching over a creased piece of parchment.
Hermione reaches the table and pulls back the chair across from George, cringing as the metal legs screech against the floor.
George’s eyes snap up. His brows furrow and shoulders tense for a second, but then he seems to register that it is Hermione taking a seat across from him, and he relaxes.
“You’re up early,” he says in a light voice, folding the parchment in quarters and tucking it into his pocket.
Hermione scans George’s face as subtly as she can, eyes slipping from his rumpled hair to the shadowy stubble on his jaw. He looks haggard, though in better spirits than he had been when they parted ways the night before.
“So are you,” she answers him in what she hopes passes as a casual tone. “Were you hoping to be the first one in line for the hotel breakfast?”
George gives a brief snort. He glances up at her, blue eyes peering at her beneath a fringe of blond eyelashes. “I still can’t seem to sleep through an entire night,” he mutters. His eyes drop again to the table in front of him and he runs a hand through his hair, causing it to stand on end. “You know how it is.”
An egg seems to lodge in Hermione’s throat and she tries to swallow. “Yeah,” she says, her voice grating. “I know.”
Silence falls between them, broken only by the distant shuffles of the yawning woman sitting behind the front desk.
Hermione nods towards the quill still in George’s hand. “Were you working on something for the shop?”
George’s face darkens and he stuffs the quill into the bag by his feet. “Something like that,” he mumbles.
Hermione frowns and leans back in her seat. More questions form in her head, but she bites her tongue.
Quill and parchment securely stowed, George straightens and places his elbows on the table, propping his chin in his hand. Hermione watches as his face slowly clears, eyebrows unknitting and the lines on his forehead disappearing as though smoothed by an invisible hand. In a blink, he becomes once more the affable boy she knows.
“So what is the grand plan for today, Granger?” George asks, mouth curving into a buoyant smile. “Will we get time to learn even more about muggle real estate transactions?”
Hermione nods and rolls her eyes.
“Yes,” she says crisply, feeling her own shoulders relax as she explains again the different documents held in the archive and their roles in muggle society. George smirks across from her, and while a year ago that expression might have infuriated her, this morning it comforts Hermione’s frayed nerves like a balm.
The last remnants of nighttime horrors disintegrate around Hermione as she gives George a lofty look. He grins back.
In this moment they are simply two actors performing a scene they have rehearsed many times: each roll of the eyes perfectly choreographed, every sarcastic comment delivered without hesitation.
Hermione takes a breath and settles into her character, letting it consume her. It feels like slipping on a well-worn sweater, stretched thin in all the right ways. She knows this character, knows how to be her.
She wishes she could remain this distilled, stage-bound version of herself forever.
***
They eat breakfast as soon as the buffet opens, and then sink into a pair of armchairs in the lobby to wait out the hours before the archive opens. Hermione opens a guide book in her lap and ducks her head. George takes out his quill and parchment. Whether he pretends to work as she pretends to read, Hermione does not know.
At last, Hermione’s watch reads nine o’clock and she slams the book shut. Beside her, George stuffs the parchment and quill into his knapsack.
They apparate into the same side street as the day before and walk into the National Land Registry. A different woman sits behind the desk, and with a brief look Hermione and George assume their roles from yesterday. He goes to find a chair, and she approaches the desk.
Hermione’s stomach twists as she performs the Confundus charm again, and it does not untwist until she finds herself seated in a deserted reading room with a box of documents in front of her. She exhales as she pulls the box forward and picks up the first document, scanning the paper quickly for any sign of Wendell or Monica Wilkins.
They work quietly at first, accompanied by the shuffle of paper and muffled conversations outside the reading room. An hour after they arrive, Hermione pauses and watches as George reads a piece of paper in front of him, brow furrowed in concentration.
She cannot keep the soft smile from her face. “You’re rather good at this.”
He looks up, eyes landing on her as his mouth twists into a wry smile. “You seem so surprised by the fact I can read.”
Hermione laughs and shakes her head. “Not surprised. Just—” she stops and frowns. “Well, alright, I am a little surprised that George Weasley, troublemaker extraordinaire, is happy to sit quietly in a stuffy library for hours on end doing archival research.”
George quirks an eyebrow. “I told you yesterday, Granger. We did use the school library.”
“You told me that Lee used the school library.”
“Often at our direction.” George peers at her and cocks his head to the side. “You thought I was going to be completely useless here, didn’t you?”
Warmth invades Hermione’s cheeks. “Not completely useless.”
George smiles and shakes his head, turning back to the document in front of him. “I’m shocked you allowed me to come with you at all, if you thought I was so hopeless.”
Hermione rolls her eyes. “I just expected you to be more like Harry and Ron, that’s all. Neither of them ever had much patience for library work.”
“Too busy making mischief and fighting evil, I suppose?”
Hermione bites back a grimace and returns to her own stack of papers. “Something like that.”
“So why exactly did you spend so much time in the library, then?” George asks. “Rather than join the boys for their mischief making and evil fighting?”
“What do you mean?” Hermione frowns at him, setting down the once-again forgotten document.
George shrugs. “It just seems like for most of the time Harry and Ron spent getting into trouble you were locked up in the library. Why?”
“In case you forgot, I was actually with them for much of that mischief making and evil fighting,” Hermione says coldly.
“Of course,” George says, seeming to sense danger in her tone and retreating. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Hermione simply shrugs and returns to the paper in front of her. She scans the mortgage document for the borrower’s name and finds it at the bottom of the page. William Calhoun O’Sullivan. She sighs and sets the paper to the side, reaching into the box to find the next.
“I know you were with the boys when it mattered,” George says. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like you weren’t.”
Hermione nods without looking up. “Thank you.”
“You still didn’t answer my question, though.”
Hermione glares at him through her eyelashes. “What?”
“Why did you spend so much time at the library at school?” George asks, unfazed. “When there was no mischief to be made or evil to be fought, you were always there.”
Hermione shrugs again and tosses a plait over her shoulder. “I just liked it there, that’s all.”
“Why did you like it?”
Hermione groans. “You know how I just said a few minutes ago that you’re good at library research? I take it back.”
“Don’t avoid the question, Granger.” George leans back and stretches an arm behind his head, grinning lazily at her. “I’m dying to know what joys you found in the Hogwarts library that have eluded so many others.”
“Fine,” Hermione grinds out. She flicks her eyes over the paper in her hands and tosses it aside. “I liked it because people left me alone there. Happy?”
George frowns. “Why did you want to be alone so much?”
Hermione’s cheeks and necks burn as memories rush over her. Parvati and Lavender tittering every time Hermione revealed her ignorance of wizarding fashion and music; Draco Malfoy and his band of Slytherins calling her Mudblood every chance they got; the snide comments and lewd jokes that followed her everywhere after Rita Skeeter had published that hateful article claiming she had broken Harry’s heart.
“It doesn’t matter.” She chokes back the memories and blinks rapidly to quell the pressure building behind her eyes. “I just enjoy places that are orderly, and I like to read. Now can we please get back to work? We’ve been here nearly an hour and I’m only halfway through this box.”
George rolls his eyes and turns back to the box in front of him. “Sure, Granger.”
They work through the morning until George’s stomach growls so loudly they get shushed by a woman sitting across the room.
They walk across the street to buy sandwiches, assuring the archivist, who wears a different bow tie today, that they will not bring any food back into the library with them. He nods, but still looks inordinately relieved when they return twenty minutes later with empty hands.
Hermione sighs as she drops into her seat and pulls the box of records towards her. They have made their way to December 1997. At this pace it will likely take them the rest of the week to look through everything.
Hermione settles into her seat and begins to read, twisting a loose piece of hair around her finger. Across the table she hears George shuffle in his chair.
An hour later she comes to the end of the box.
“I’ll go see if I can get the next series,” Hermione says as she stands. “Are you almost done with that one?”
George peers into the box in front of him and shakes his head. “Nah, you go ahead.”
Hermione heaves the 23 November 1997 - 11 December 1997 box on her hip and walks to the reading room door. She finds the archivist in the hallway.
“All done with that set?” He asks, eyeing the box in her arms.
“Yes.” Hermione hands the box over to him. “We’d like the next, please.”
The archivist shifts the box and fixes Hermione with an appraising look. “If you don’t mind me asking, what is the topic of your research, Miss?”
“Er—” Hermione bites her lip. “It’s for my thesis. It’s on—er—ethnographic fluctuations—”
“Yes, yes,” the archivist waves a hand impatiently. “What is it you’re hoping to find?”
“There’s a couple—Monica and Wendell Wilkins,” Hermione hears herself blurt out. “I’m looking for any property records that indicate whether or not they settled in Sydney.”
She clamps her mouth shut and holds her breath.
To her relief the archivist does not insist on escorting her out of the building, nor does he threaten to call the police and report her for stalking. He merely nods.
“I suspected it was something along those lines. Very well. I can get the next box for you, but for your purposes, might I suggest you try the digital index? It will be much faster at finding records associated with specific individuals.”
Hermione stares at him. “Digital index?”
“Yes,” the archivist says absently, adjusting his grip on the box and turning away from her. “On the computers. Everything since 1992 was created digitally and will be listed, and we’ve been digitizing older records as well so they’re easier to find. Just use one of the computers in the reading room and select the Portal. You can search by name or by address.”
Hermione swallows and gives a jerky nod. “Oh—okay,” she squeaks. “Er—thank you.”
“Find me if you need any help,” the archivist calls over his shoulder as he walks away.
Feeling rather silly, Hermione returns to the reading room. She sees George look up at the door opening, and watches as he raises an eyebrow at her empty hands. Hermione catches his eye and nods towards the bank of computers at the front of the room.
The computers are mercifully unoccupied. Glancing at the woman sitting at a table in the middle of the room, the only other person near them, Hermione slowly fishes her wand out of her pocket. A quick flick, a whispered muffliato, and she hurriedly stows her wand away and takes a seat in front of one of the hulking monitors.
“What are you doing?” George asks quietly, slipping into the seat beside her.
“The archivist suggested we try using the digital index to find what we’re looking for.” Hermione hears the waspish tone her voice takes, and tries not to cringe.
George, to her relief, either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
“And you know how to use the—er—digital index?” He asks, eyes flickering between the monitor and Hermione.
Hermione bites her lip and looks down at the keyboard in front of her. “I’ll figure it out.”
She looks again at the screen, which seems to taunt her with its backdrop of a cresting wave. Gently, she prods the space bar of the keyboard with her index finger.
Both she and George jump slightly in their seats as the screen abruptly changes. It shows a taupe background and heavy blue text across the top reading “LRS Online Portal,” and several text boxes stacked below.
“Do you know how to use this?” George’s voice lands somewhere between awed and skeptical as he repeats the question. Hermione scowls at him over her shoulder, cheeks once again warming.
“I know enough,” she bites out.
Not entirely sure how to proceed, Hermione takes the mouse in her hand and moves it so the cursor blinks in the “Name” text field. She looks down at the keyboard, then glances back towards George.
“They’ve made a right mess of the letters on that thing,” George muses, peering around her at the keyboard. “They’re all out of order.”
“It’s because you’re meant to use a keyboard like this,” Hermione says, laying her hands overtop the keys to demonstrate. “The letters are laid out so the ones people use the most are the easiest to find.”
“Hm,” George frowns. “Weird. And you can just write words out like that?”
Again, Hermione feels her face flush. For the first time that day she wishes George were not with her, and that she had come to Australia by herself.
“Most people can. I—” she glances over her shoulder to ensure the woman behind them isn’t listening. “I’m not going to be a very good typist. Most people—muggles, that is—take a typing class where they learn how to use these.”
George nods slowly, gaze drifting towards her. “And you didn’t get to take it?”
Hermione shakes her head. “It’s offered in secondary school. I’ve seen computers, of course. But my parents didn’t get a personal computer for the house until last year, and by then I wasn’t really around much to use it.”
She bites her lip again and looks down at her hands still splayed over the glossy keys. She can feel George’s eyes on her, no doubt marveling at the irony of it, that she is a muggle born who doesn’t know how to operate a simple computer. A girl who has no experience with the most basic aspects of life in a world she supposedly belongs to.
“Well, I suppose we’d better go ahead and look for your parents, then,” George says. He straightens and tugs the keyboard from under Hermione’s fingers. Using his index finger, he types Wendell Wilkins into the text box.
Hermione holds her breath as George sits back.
Nothing happens. They wait.
George turns to her, eyebrows knitting together. “Why is nothing happening?”
Hermione leans forward and looks over the screen. She barely stifles a laugh as she realizes the problem.
“You have to click Search.” She bites her lip but can’t quite suppress a smile as she takes the mouse and drags it towards the Search button at the bottom of the screen. “You move the mouse until the cursor is where you want it,” she says, “and then you press the left button over here to make it go.”
George quirks an eyebrow. “These muggles just like to make things difficult, don’t they?”
“Please,” Hermione snorts. “Wizards aren’t any better. You should try writing with a quill and ink when you grew up using pencil. That was difficult.”
George chuckles, but falls quiet as the screen before them once again changes. They both lean forward.
Hermione’s heart rises into her throat as she reads the screen.
6 results found.
“Look at that.” George nudges her shoulder. “It worked like a charm.”
Hermione doesn’t reply, but stares at the six blue links sitting patiently, waiting for her to open them.
It worked. It had been that easy, all along. All she had to do was sit down at the computer and type in her father’s new name.
She takes the mouse and clicks on the first link. She squints and leans forward to read the fuzzy text on the screen.
“It’s not them,” she says after a moment, sitting back. “This is a deed from 1982.”
“Try the next one,” George shrugs.
Hermione goes back and tries the next link. And then the one after that, and then the one after that.
She heaves a sigh when she opens the final link and sees a mortgage document from 1989.
“No matter,” she mumbles, returning to the search page. “There could still be a record of them in here. It might be under Mum’s name, or under their initials. We’ll just have to keep looking.”
“Can you just keep putting for different words in here?” George asks, cocking his head to the side as he examines the computer. “Anything you want and it will look for it?”
“Anything you want,” Hermione says.
“What would happen if you just typed a letter? If you just put in the letter G?”
“I expect it would return every document that contained the letter G in the name, date, or address. And no, before you ask, I’m not going to try it.”
Hermione types her mother’s name into the text field and clicks Search. Two results appear.
“Absolutely mad.” George shakes his head. “I don’t know if Dad would love this or hate it.”
“I would think he’d like it,” Hermione smiles slightly. “Doesn’t he love—er—electronics?”
“Yeah, but, y’know—” George runs a hand through his hair, mouth twisting. “He gets nervous. He’s seen a lot of dodgy things through work, and after everything that happened with Ginny and that bloody book—”
Hermione shivers. “Computers aren’t like that,” she says. “They’re not pieces of people trapped inside a box. They’re just—screens that someone told to show certain things when given specific inputs.”
George makes a face. “Whatever you say,” he shrugs. “Though I have to admit,” he continues in a much lighter voice, “I’m rather impressed with these muggles and their inventions. I didn’t know computers were quite so interesting.”
“Your praise means so much,” Hermione responds dryly.
She clicks into the two records associated with the name Monica Wilkins. Both are from 1994. Hermione sighs before returning to the search screen again.
They search every variation of Wendell and Monica Wilkins they can think of. They search the names together in one long text string. They search for different spellings, in case of a clerical error. They even search for David and Miranda Granger, on the chance the memory charm had somehow broken.
Hermione types every version of her parents’ names she can think of, and opens every link, and returns to search again to no avail.
Nothing.
She finally sits back and pushes the keyboard away, a horrible burning pressure building behind her eyes.
“There’s nothing here,” she whispers, looking down at her hands. “We won’t find anything of them here.”
She pointedly turns away from George as she wipes a hand over her eyes. It all feels very silly, crying here in the National Land Registry.
She had known it was a slim chance her parents had stayed in Sydney. Had known it was an even slimmer chance they had bought property since arriving. But still, she had carried a small, burning hope tight to her chest.
That dratted, useless, intolerable, painful hope.
Hermione swallows and takes a warbling breath. If George hears or sees her emotional state he ignores it, busying himself with inspecting the buttons on the computer monitor.
Hermione had known it would take time to find her parents. She had known, had planned on, the task being a long one.
But as she sits in a reading room at the NSW National Land Registry, staring at the scattered tables, she starts doing the math. And the numbers make her want to both vomit and cry.
It took them the better part of two days to look through land records for Sydney alone. There will be other work to do to definitively rule out the possibility that her parents have stayed here. And once they do that—well, then they must get on with the work of visiting the hundreds of towns neighboring Sydney, and then on to the other major Australian cities. In each place, spending anywhere from a few hours to several days to ensure that there is no trace of Monica and Wendell Wilkins.
It could take months—years—of carefully combing through records to track her parents down.
The time had seemed small, insignificant, when Hermione had been running for her life with Harry and Ron. But now the days quickly adding up in her head begin to stack in front of her like bricks, sealing her away from her parents and from the life she had known with them.
She feels her chest tighten, her breathing quicken.
She needs to move. She needs to find them. She needs to go now . Every hour and every delay means another brick slipping into place.
George clears his throat beside her and Hermione grips the edge of the table, feeling her knuckles pop in complaint. She shakes her head in an attempt to banish the thoughts pressing down on her. Her chest pulses painfully, and she draws a deep breath, not caring if George or even the woman behind them can hear the rasping.
A scrape of a chair sounds beside her, and Hermione jumps when she feels a weight land on her shoulder.
“Hermione?” George’s voice floats somewhere behind her. Hermione turns, eyes wide, and finds him watching her.
His hand tightens on her shoulder, and his blue eyes rake down her face.
Hermione tries to speak, but finds her throat will not expel the necessary air. She merely takes another gulping breath and nods, leaning forward and burying her face in her hands.
George’s thumb presses into the base of her neck, rubbing gentle circles into the tense tendons. Hermione exhales, breath burning her chest.
She takes several more shaky breaths as George continues to knead her shoulder. After a minute, the heavy thoughts in her head part like storm clouds disintegrating into the wind, and she feels her chest begin to loosen.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles into her palms, crushing the heel of her hand into her eyes. “I’m being silly.”
“Don’t worry about it.” George’s hand releases her shoulder, and Hermione forces herself to sit up.
She blinks and peers around the reading room. George stands behind her, watching her with such obvious concern that Hermione has to look away, bile rising in her throat.
Selfish, she is so selfish. Forcing him to comfort her because it will take longer than two days to find her parents.
Her gaze sweeps around the room. The archivist, thankfully, is absent, but the woman at the table behind them stares unabashedly in their direction. Hermione catches her eye briefly and then turns away.
George appears in front of her, arms laden with his forgotten box of documents and her knapsack, his own bag slung over his shoulder. He gives her a tight smile and shifts the box so he can hold it with one hand, the other stretched out towards her.
“Come on,” he says as Hermione puts her hand in his and lets him pull her slowly to her feet. “Let’s get out of here.”