Unspoken

Hermione Jean Granger stared into the bathroom mirror. The boring, bushy-haired girl from the photo frame stared back at her, face older and hair somehow even more untamed than it had been then. There were some nice things about her new body - her skin seemed clear and her eyes were an intriguing dark shade of brown. Her teeth were nice and straight and white - probably due to the amount of dental hygiene equipment in the bathroom. (Were her parents dentists or something? Who needed that much floss?) But her frame was rather slumped, accentuating her shortness, as though the old Granger had spent way too much time hunched over a desk.

She tried pushing her shoulders back to see if that gave her any more height, but she winced as all the bruises from the night before screamed at her in protest. There was a particularly garish bruise along her cheek bone, yellow and purple against the tan of her skin tone. She knew, rather than remembered, that a salve of murtlap essence would assist in the healing process but hadn’t found any in the flat. There was surprisingly little in the bathroom. No potions other than a few vials marked for menstrual cramps. Some shampoo. No conditioner, which was a crime with hair like this. A brush covered in brown, frizzy strands and half-used bar of soap that smelled like peppermint. More importantly for the moment, no makeup. 

Hermione quickly cast a glamor charm on the more visible bruising until the face that reflected back at her didn’t look as though it’d been through a pub fight. While she still felt like a Plain Jane, she supposed a lack of any accessories or skincare meant she didn’t need to worry about making sure she was matching Granger’s everyday look.

Magic was convenient. She may not remember attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Whatevery but the lessons her previous self had hammered into their brain seemed to have stuck. She felt a great deal of satisfaction that the simple flick of the wrist could open the wardrobe doors before she even reached them. If she wasn’t so wound up about what she was about to do, Hermione would have enjoyed using her “new” powers much more. 

Per the second letter, Hermione was about to head to Gringotts, the Wizarding Bank of London to retrieve a set of further instructions and magical items that Granger, as she kept thinking of her previous self, had not dared to keep inside the flat. The goal, the letter had pressed, was to get in and out as quickly as possible. This meant leveraging her name and her position within wizarding society - still not explained though Granger kept implying she was some kind of big wig - to grab the goods and get home. 

“I am Hermione Granger. My name is Hermione Granger.” she practiced aloud as she perused her clothing options in the wardrobe. She had no idea how Granger had talked. Was she formal? Authoritative? The bland black robes and skirts, with the freshly pressed white button shirts shouted PRUDE. Okay, so there were some reasonably nice maroon cardigans and a pair of modest black heels that didn’t look too bad but surely there was something in here that had personality beyond that of an office drudge.

Rifling through, Hermione finally dug out a pair of black slacks, one of the button down blouses with slightly billowy sleeves that looked like it hadn’t been worn before and the heels. Throw a robe over that and she should look put together enough to be taken seriously. She had to play the part of Granger today, after all, not Hermione.

No one could know she lost her memories.

“What do you think? Do I look like a Hermione Jean Granger, ready to take the wizarding world by storm?” she announced to Crookshanks. The orange tabby had kept vigil during this whole preparation from his spot on the bed. He met her gaze for several moments and then gave what she took to be an approving swish of his tail. Well, that was some relief. She scratched under his chin and sure enough, the fluffy monster closed his eyes in pleasure and rubbed ever so slightly against the palm of her hand. Hermione leaned down and whispered, “Glad to have you with me. Makes me feel a little more brave.”

She was too nervous to eat any semblance of breakfast before this outing. Even if she had been, though, Granger has been a little shortsighted on stocking the fridge for her successor. In the back of one of the kitchen drawers had been a menu for takeout, some muggle paper money in the desk, and there was an old wired phone attached to the wall, but there would be time for that later.

All that was left now was to take the Floo directly to Gringotts. Granger had explained that typically one would take the Floo into an establishment like the Leaky Cauldron then make their way through Diagon Alley to the bank. Security and all that. However, and this was very little known amongst the wizarding community, the goblins had one single fireplace connected to the Floo Network that they used for clients who had paid for its use to get in and out of the bank with a certain level of discretion. It had been installed in recent years and Granger had paid handsomely for it for this very reason. 

You shouldn’t encounter anyone other than the goblins when entering this way. They insisted this entrance was the best way to ensure privacy, an extremely exclusive perk that very few can afford, she had written. 

Taking a deep breath, Hermione grabbed a purple string purse that had been tucked away in the bedside table as well as the wand and placed herself in front of the pristine fireplace in the main room. This time she noticed the little pot of sparkling powder and smiled to herself.

There were going to be so many new things to experience.

------

I never want to experience that again.

Hermione coughed out a mouthful of ash she had unexpectedly breathed in as the green flames had whisked her away faster than she could have anticipated. She braced herself with one arm against the white marble walls of what she could only presume was Gringotts’ private waiting room and gasped for a breath of air. What a vile way to travel! Never again. She was going to learn the regular way to Gringotts even if she got lost in Diagon Alley ten times over. 

“Ah, Ms. Granger.” a raspy voice intoned behind her.

She sucked in another quick breath before turning and settling herself up on her heels, shoulders back. Calm. Calm. You’re Hermione Jean Granger, the witch reminded herself. There is no one here to see you or judge you other than this goblin and… a wizard.

Shit.

Inwardly she seethed at her bad luck. It was either that, or the goblins had lied about how many people had access to this so-called exclusive vestibule. But outwardly she smiled hesitantly over at the unexpected man with a soft good morning and a nod. 

The man was about her age, she guessed (realizing that she didn’t know her own age), and stood straight backed and confidant in what she could only assume was a luxury cut black wizarding suit, the velvet tails just floating inches above the floor and his glossy leather shoes that had nary a scuff on them. He was tall, his athletic frame easily more than a foot higher than hers, and certainly more than a few feet taller than the squat green goblin hovering at his side with a jeweler’s glass affixed against one eye. His skin was pale, his hair almost platinum, but it was the eyes that struck her and sent a thrill of panic down her spine. The silver irises stared at her appraisingly, her smile not returned, a hint of a frown lingering on his lips. Hermione tried not to worry about whether or not she was in some kind of mortal danger, as Granger kept insisting she was.

This was a bank , for Godric’s sake. 

“Ms. Granger, we were not expecting you this morning.” the goblin intoned, a slight frown to match his client’s. 

“My apologies. I wasn’t aware an appointment was required to have access to my vaults. I thought that the use of this Floo entry was to permit discreet access at any time I wished?” Granger had not said anything about needing an appointment in her letters so she was making presumptions here. If she had influence, as the letters kept claiming she did, it was in her best interest to use it, certainly?

The frown went a little deeper. “Well, certainly, yes, but as you can see, Mr. Malfoy has arrived slightly before you this morning. I must ask that you please wait here until I can summon another to attend to your needs. Mr. Malfoy, I apologize for the interruption. I’ll return shortly with your cart, if you could please wait a moment as well?”

He nodded and the goblin disappeared through an arched doorway without waiting to see if she was okay with it. She was most certainly not , not with the man with the viper-like eyes watching her as she tried to figure out how Granger held herself. They both waited in silence for some little time until he drawled, “I didn’t take you for the type of witch to pay for luxuries like private admissions, Granger.”

Hermione flinched at the tone of his voice and the way he used her surname. 

They must know each other.

Double shit.

“And what else would I spend it on?” she asked coolly with a sincere desire that answering him with a question would turn the conversation away from any need for her to speak. 

“Obviously not your wardrobe.” His gaze lingered pointedly on the pair of non-designer heels and she clenched her jaw behind a smile. His tone was haughty and the sneer even worse. 

Damnit, what had the goblin called him? “Why are you here this early, Mr. Malfoy?”

He barked out a laugh, turning so he could converse with her face to face as he leaned against a marble bench. “Mr. Malfoy, is it? How formal, Ms. Granger. And I’m not sure it’s any of your business either. You are certainly not going to tell me why you are here. Must you question everything and everyone as always?”

A flush crept up her neck and Hermione hoped beyond hope that her glamor spell was keeping a lid on it. As much as it rankled, he was correct - she wasn’t about to tell him what she was here for. Hell, she didn’t really know what she was here for.

The panic was creeping back in again.

“I apologize.” she stated, taking in a breath to steady her nerves with a deep hope that it seemed as though she was sighing with impatience instead. 

The words appeared to surprise him; his person went very still and he stared at her. “You… what?”

“I apologize. I spoke out of turn. I am displeased with the wait.” To give herself credit, she was thrown off by having to wait in a room with an unknown man when her predecessor had warned her to get her things and Floo home because of the yet unspecified dangers lurking about.

“I accept your… apology.” He kept staring at her but thankfully remained silent after that point. Must to her discomfort, Malfoy’s eyebrows remained knitted together slightly in a perplexed fashion and when his goblin returned to summon him through the enchanted archway, he gave her a long, lingering glance over his shoulder.

Several long passing minutes later, an equally grouchy goblin named Fulcrump came to check her credentials, then led her through the entryway as well. The magic in the archway tingled as she walked under, something like a magical metal detector. Not that she could remember ever having gone through one of those, either.

So many places and things danced around in her mind, both magic and “muggle.” It was like recalling chapters out of a textbook she couldn’t remember studying. 

With a wheezy “If you please, Ms. Granger,” Hermione followed Fulcrump into a battered old cart and tried not to gawk as it sped quickly underground on an equally battered railtrack. Granger had given her a brief run down of what to expect of the bank from the interior of the vault to the attitudes of the goblins. Apparently there had been some previous incident involving her predecessor that had left a sour taste in the mouth of England’s magical banking community. Not sour enough to refuse her gold, apparently, but it accounted for the less than enthusiastic service.

It seemed like no time at all until Fulcrump was halting their cart and grumpily opening the side door to admit her out onto a cut stone platform. The vault he opened was not at all what she had expected to see - while she knew how many sickles made a galleon, it was a whole other thing to see the piles and piles of galleons awaiting her. The unembellished flat had not given any hint of this kind of wealth or luxury. Granger was loaded. Like, swimming pools of gold rich.

Strike that. She was rich. With thoughts of filling the desolate kitchenette back at the flat, Hermione gathered a good number of galleons into the purse - and still there was so much gold left - and looked around. Nothing here but coins.

“I’d like to be taken to my other vault as well, please.” she told Fulcrump as she returned to the cart. He paused, squinting at her darkly but eventually nodded and whisked them away even deeper into the caverns. 

The vault they pulled up in front of was smaller but the door had no lock. She stopped, uncertain as Granger had not mentioned needing any spell key, but Fulcrump took no notice as he stepped forward and ran a boney finger down the length of the iron door. 

There was no gold here. On a small marble outcropping in the middle of the vault were two large briefcases of brown leather that looked like they might be dragonhide, and nothing else. The first was astoundingly heavy. She nearly dropped it on her foot as she pulled it down. The case jingled with the sound of bells as she maneuvered into the small opening of the purple purse that Granger had promised had an extending charm on it. It took a moment but she was eventually able to get the case in and settled against a corner of the purse’s extension charm. Something in that briefcase was fragile but she wasn’t sure what. The second was not quite as heavy at least and she wiggled that one into a corner as well.

Everything, all the information she had been left with, was now stored in her teeny beaded bag. Hermione stood in the doorway of the empty vault, feeling small and alone. 

Slightly more anxious than she had felt while waiting in the private room, she asked Fulcrump to take her back, post haste.

-------

Hermione materialized with a puff of ash that spread out from her feet onto the carpet. She gagged and kept from spitting onto the floor, instead opting to wipe her mouth with the sleeve of her clock. 

She had made it back through the Floo without any more non-goblin encounters and the dread soon faded away in the more familiar surroundings of the flat. She chucked the ugly heels off to a corner and settled the purple purse in the middle of the coffee table. The witch perched on the edge of the couch and stared at her prize.

The answers. Some answers, at the very least. 

Something nudged her hard in the small of her back and she jumped forward only to see that Crookshanks had snuck up on her and was waiting, impatiently, on the couch. He mewled loudly, as though to say, Get on with it, woman!

“Right, right. I can do this. I can do this…”

It was harder getting the suitcases out than it had been to put them in. Once arranged next to one another, she reached out and undid the clasp on the heavier of the two cases. The inside was lined with red silk with a lion motif embossed in a slightly darker red tone. Along the top portion were dozens of pockets, many cradling a glass vial that swirled with silvery substance. Each one was corked with wax and the wax had been stamped with a number. There were at least a dozen, possibly more. Some of the vials clinked like chimes as she opened the case to its full position and considered the large stone basin housed in the bottom half.

A pensieve.

“You clever witch, Granger…” she breathed, running her thumb along the runes of the pensieve. She may have lost her memories, but Granger had obviously thought to save some. It would be like watching a movie of someone else’s life - was it someone else’s life or was it hers?  - but depending on which memories she had chosen, this would help Hermione continue the charade of being Granger at least for some time more. 

The second case was filled with scrolls numbered in Granger’s handwriting, starting with #3 and so on and so on. Pushing some of the scrolls aside revealed some brown paper packages. There were five, each with a little kraft paper label sporting an inscription. The first of these was the smallest package and read “Gryffindor Prefect Pin.”

Crammed in on the side was a thick purple planner with dozens of colorful tabs with names and events scribbled on each. She could see “Hogwarts,” “Harry,” “Ron,” on the first few with some others like “The Second War” and “Ministry of Magic” further along. Every page was filled with a cramped handwriting - Granger had clearly tried to impart as much knowledge as possible in this notebook before her passing.

Or was it disappearance? Erasure, maybe?

Hermione pulled the planner out first, thumbed through it, admiring the small photographs and charts within before settling it in her lap and grabbing the scroll with the #3 penned along the side. The seal took a couple of tries to open with the wand, but eventually the scroll unfurled in front of her.

Hello again.

Congratulations on making it through your first foray into Wizarding London. I hope that the cost of the private Floo was worth it.

By now you may have opened the second briefcase, but in case you have not, I have selected and preserved some of what I consider my most important memories for you. Some of them are from my childhood, important moments in my life that you may need to maintain your identity as Hermione Jane Granger. There are not as many as I had planned to provide. The process of selecting and retrieving the memories became painful for me after a turn as I started to acknowledge how much I am going to lose. Hopefully, what is here may suffice, and if it does not… after I stopped capturing memories, I turned instead to writing the letters in this suitcase. These letters also include all the information I collected as I tried to figure out who did this or why this will happen, but in the end, that puzzle is up to you to solve as well. 

I also left a few items for you with the letters. Although I am quite sure that there is no chance of you recovering my memories, some whimsy overtook me and I thought, maybe one or two of these items might spark a sense of nostalgia in you. 

The purple planner is the second best thing I thought I should leave you. I’ve made notes about different places I have been, people I have interacted with, especially with regards to my current employment within the Ministry of Magic. 

Ah, yes, you work at the Department of Mysteries as an Unspeakable. Congratulations again! Your position pays considerably well and your position is that of Under Secretary of Mysteries for Grants and Research. Not only are you the head administrator for the division, you liaise with several of your counterparts in other sections of the Ministry. You are privy to many, many secrets because of your position as overseer of all the projects currently conducted by DoM. (Please do take to calling it “dom” as no one is quite so asinine to keep stating the department by the full name while at work.) Secrets I have outlined here for you so that when you return to work - yes, you are going into work - you will not be caught unaware.

Most of your work is reviewing the processes and procedures of research projects and ensuring they comply with the standards and laws set by the Wizengamot and the International Confederation of Wizards, though you step in quite a bit to assist with financial disbursement and new project approvals. I am unsure as to the status of your administrative assistant - my last left a few months ago and I do not know if or when I’ll find time to replace him for you. If not, I recommend that it should be one of the first things you do once you get into the swing of things - Secretary Painswick is overly ambitious and tends to pile a number of ridiculous project proposals on your desk on an almost daily basis. 

You should not need to worry about running into any close acquaintances while at work. The Department of Mysteries is only accessible to Unspeakables and the Minister of Magic. Especially if you keep my normal hours of 6am-10pm, you are unlikely to run into anyone in the lobby area you would be expected to know on a deeper level. Even so, if you have time, if it is a weekend when you are reading this, I recommend skipping straight to the back of the planner and reading the portions on your job first.

It was Sunday, as she recalled, if the little calendar on the desk was up to date: November 6th. Hermione ran her hand along the spine of the planner in her lap and flipped to the back tab that said “Department of Mysteries.” This was definitely one of the larger portions. Sections folded outward from the page with names of projects and their leaders. One page even had a little pocket with flashcards regarding protocols and passcodes. She glanced at the little clock hung on the wall over the kitchenette and wondered if she had enough time to read this all before Monday morning, then turned back to read the last bit of the letter.

I cannot state enough how much danger you are still in, despite having made it this far. Keep your wand at hand at all times. Don’t accept invitations out. Stay at home or at work as much as possible. I sound like an overprotective mother dragon, but the culprits I think are likely to be behind this cannot strike at you in those locations. Just keep your head down and you should be fine. “We” aren’t much of a social butterfly anyway.

Stay safe.

Sincerely, Me