Chapter Text
The snow had been falling for the past week and the cars on the street had disappeared under countless layers of white dust. Not a soul was usually to be seen outside at this hour, yet she kept looking through the window, waiting for something to happen, someone to arrive.
It had been a year since the war had ended. After spending pretty much all of her childhood fighting for the noble cause and most of all survival, Hermione Granger was now free but also lost. While some went back to Hogwarts to finish their educations, others went onto other adventures, focusing on their future. She, on the other hand, had decided to take some sort of “gap year”, to try to find her real self in the midst of all the legends and titles she had amassed over the years; “Golden Girl”, “The Brightest Witch of Her Age” and even “Mudblood”. So, as soon as the war had ended, she had packed her bags, broken up with Ronald Weasley, hugged Harry Potter goodbye and had started her own kind of adventure: hopping from one country to the other, writing her story, studying at her own pace for her NEWTs while learning to be on her own, to be just Hermione Granger, muggle-born.
She had arrived in Praha a few weeks ago, had found a small apartment near the old town square and had spent the first weeks walking around the cobbled streets, immersing herself in the culture, eating her weight in palacinky and trdelnik even though she knew the latter was not really a Czech food. The rest of her day was usually spent in small cafés, studying her NEWTs notes and writing away her memories and feelings in thick leather notebooks.
Spending days reading, learning and discovering was easy for Hermione. If the war had left something intact, it was surely her curiosity and thirst for knowledge. What was difficult in this “new way of living” was the nights spent alone, in beds that weren’t hers, crying for help while she fought battles already won. Casting silencing spells on all the walls of her rooms had become some sort of a reflex, not wanting to repeat the “Dublin episode”, where she had been evicted from a bed & breakfast because she had kept all the other tenants awake with her screams all night long.
Even though she knew that, thanks to those spells, nobody would hear her, Hermione had begun to fight against sleep, scared of the nightmares that would await her. She also had transfigurated an armchair to look and feel exactly like the one she used to love at Hogwarts and would reduce it to a portable size and take it with her, wherever she went. She usually would put it in front of a window and spend her nights sitting there, a book in one hand, a cup of tea in the other. Sitting on that chair weirdly helped with loneliness, although Hermione still kept contact through owls with pretty much all of her school and Order friends. Sometimes, she dreamed that someone she knew would come to get her up from that chair, that an old acquaintance would find her in her travels and show her a new life direction. However, she also had threatened every single one of them to not follow her anywhere or she would stop sending letters and letting them know where she was.
It was another of those nights, dark, cold and lonely and Hermione Granger could be found in her armchair in front of the window, reading the latest version of “Hogwarts: A History”. Praha was strangely very quiet at this hour of the night. The snow had already covered the footsteps of the thousands of people who had been to the old town square that day and the neighborhood looked abandoned. Staring outside at the sky, Hermione saw a white owl flying around and wondered if it was simply an ordinary owl or if there were wizards living down the street from her. She opened the window, letting the sharp cold air of winter hit her face while she bent over to take a better look at where the owl was going.
“Is it lost ? Why does it keep going back and forth ?” she mumbled to herself while the owl kept flying from one end of the street to the other. As soon as she said that, the owl suddenly took a left turn and flew towards her, as if it had recognized her voice, and perched itself on the window sill. Hermione and the owl were now almost nose to beak. Any other owl would have freaked her out, but this one strangely looked like Hedwig. “You look so much like her” she whispered while gently caressing the owl’s chin. “I know you’re not her so who are you ? Who sent..”
BAMM. BAMM. BAMM.
“Bloody hell, What the..”
Startled, she jumped from the armchair to her bedside table to grab her wand before heading towards her apartment door, still vibrating from the knocks on the other side. She knew the war was over, she knew her friends would not have come, especially at this hour of the night. Not knowing what awaited her on the other side, she took a deep breath, tightened her grasp around her wand and brusquely opened the door.
“I’m telling you this is not the right place!
- Damnit, Arya has us goi….
- Oh Hello, Granger.”
Before her eyes stood Theodore Nott, Pansy Parkinson and Blaize Zabini.
For a few seconds, the three of them froze on the spot while she stared, stunned, at each of their faces. Suddenly, she realized who they were and jumped backwards while pointing her wand at all of them and yelling:
“What the hell ? Why the fuck ar…
- She swears almost as much as you, Pans’.
- Explain what the three of you are doing here before I petri..
- Granger, we need your help.”
Theodore Nott had taken a step towards her, both of his hands in the air, putting his chest against the tip of Hermione’s wand, with an expression on his face that showed that he was ready to die for her help. Taken aback by his gesture, she lowered her wand, stared into his eyes and asked: “Why?”
“ Draco is missing and we believe you are the only person who can help us.”