The collection of stuff around her astounded Hermione.
All those years of living on next to nothing and I still accumulated boxes and boxes of what can only be described as stuff.
It was easier now that everything she owned was in one room instead of spreading around a house.
Focus Hermione! There is a way to find that cursed thing, whatever it is.
She slowly turned around and let her vision slide out of focus. She asked her mind to find the answer. Finally, it came. She didn’t tell anyone what happened when she did this. It was all brain power, racing through all the possible solutions to the problem her mind compared and considered alternate solutions until the best solution was the only one left. She would extend the basic Accio spell to find the object with the curse embedded in it.
Every witch collected stuff which had rune sets built into it to do all sorts of magic. There are mirrors that talk back and give you makeup tips. Garment bags that clean and repair ball gowns and formal wear so that it looks new when it is needed again. Mixing spoons that stir the sauce until it is just right.
What she needed now was an object which had a Hate Enchantment embedded in it. She knew what the rune set was most likely to be. One had been found in her old wand.
The Arithmancy was written out. The spell was derived from the Arithmancy. Hermione cast the Accio spell.
Her favourite hairbrush flew to her hand. It had been a gift, given to her by Molly Weasley during her sixth year at Hogwarts. There was no occasion. It was spontaneously given to her after she had reconciled with Ronald Bilious after the Lavender Brown episode.
Spontaneous! What a joke; Dumbledore enchanted the hairbrush and ordered Molly to give it to Hermione. He would not allow the smallest risk that Hermione would throw off all the other enchantments and distract Potter from the path Dumbledore had pre-ordained for him.
The hairbrush did not have to be burned. The hairbrush did not have any other rune sets embedded in it. Hermione could reverse the spell and remove the embedded rune set. The runes were erased. The burning hatred for Potter did not diminish. That could take weeks or months to die away. It had taken ages to stop thinking of Ronald as the sparkling delight of her life and start referring to him as Bilious.
--ooOOoo--
The seasons were changing. Potter Manor was located in a happy corner of England that had a few more days of summer and then a few more days to harvest and make hay.
As a gentleman farmer, Harry did not work on the harvest or make hay. He would get in the way. His farm managers hired professional harvesting teams. Harry fed the horses and the various penned animals. He was learning about horses and ponies. Lily was an expert rider compared to Harry. She could take Nellie around the training jumps with confidence. Harry had been toying with ideas about setting up riding programmes for Hogwarts students. The wealthiest magical families might have a few horses, but the vast majority did not. Mundane children had more opportunities to learn about horses and riding than young magicals did. This was not about finding Olympic Games quality riders. It was about widening the world view of magical children and then eventually the wizarding world in general. Sports and recreations like horse riding were more likely to break down ancient prejudices and closed minds than trying to win heated political arguments.
Harry helped Lily groom Nellie after the morning ride. Lily needed a step ladder to reach Nellies ears, mane, and withers.
Harry: “Are you still looking forward to going to Hogwarts?” Harry asked.
Lily: “Yes! I want to go.”
Harry: “You won’t be able to take Nellie with you. Students can take pets, but they must be an owl, a cat, or a toad. I know that Ronald Weasley took his pet rat but that was something that he was allowed to get away with. I don’t think that he ever had permission to keep Scabbers with him. Rats are natural prey for owls and cats so his life would always be in danger.
The thing is that Scabbers was the animal form of an Animagus, the Death Eater Peter Pettigrew. Hermione had her half-Kneazle cat Crookshanks at Hogwarts and Crookshanks was always aggressive towards Scabbers. I should have taken notice of Crookshanks rather than supporting Ronald. Kneazles and half-Kneazles are uncanny judges of character and are aggressive to untrustworthy people. Crookshanks knew that Scabbers was dangerous, and I allowed Ronald to persecute Hermione for nearly all of our third year until Pettigrew was unmasked. That was one of many mistakes I made about Hermione.”
Lily: “Where is Crookshanks now?”
Harry: “He was a good age before Hermione bought him. That was more than twenty years ago. They live a long time compared to domestic cats. I don’t know how old he was, I guess that he has passed away,” Harry said.
Lily: “Hugo doesn’t talk about any pets, so I guess he has gone.” Lily considered. “Can I have a Kneazle to go to Hogwarts with me?”
Harry: “You can have a half-Kneazle. There are rules about keeping full Kneazles because of the way that they attack people they don’t like. If every untrustworthy wizard was banned because a Kneazle attacked them there would be very few wizards allowed anywhere.”
Lily: “Are there many untrustworthy wizards?”
Harry: “That depends.”
Lily: “Depends on what?”
Harry: “That depends on how hard you push them. Most people go through life and never have to make hard decisions. Not everyone has to fight for their life, even once. Even fewer have to fight for someone else, someone they don’t even know. Then, on the other end of the range of humanity, a lot of people can’t be trusted to not steal something if no one is looking.”
Lily: “You had to catch people who did that, didn’t you?”
Harry: “Yes. It got very small and petty in the end. Rich wizarding nobility arranged the law to allow them to steal and I wasn’t allowed to stop them. There is another law for poor people.”
Lily: “Are you a noble Daddy?”
Harry: “No! If anyone tries to call me Lord Potter, I stop them. Uncle Leo really is nobility. That is because his father was a Viscount and a Baron. My father and mother were Mr and Mrs Potter. A lot of wizards called themselves lord whatever because they own vassals, who are like slaves.”
Nellie was made comfortable in her stall. Her feeder was filled, and her waterer was checked.
Harry: “It’s cold! Let’s go in for something warm.”
Lily: “I’m going to miss Nellie when I go to Hogwarts.”
Harry: “Maybe something could be done about that.”
Lily: “What?”
Harry: “Maybe we could start a horse-riding program at Hogwarts. There is plenty of room there. Building some stables would be doable. Horse riding trails can be made to go around the castle and the lake. I’m thinking of sponsoring a plan for students who want to learn to ride and take care of horses. It wouldn’t be big. Maybe ten horses and two grooms to look after them. Students who have their own horses can have them stabled with the riding school horses. We will keep the horses here for the summer holidays. I would like to have summer holiday riding camps here at the manor.”
Lily: “How will Nellie and the other horses get to Hogwarts and back again?”
Harry: “The Hogwarts Express carries students on the first and the last days of term. It also runs on other days. It has a few passengers, mostly it has freight and parcel wagons for Hogsmeade and Hogwarts. It can take horse transport wagons so that the horses will arrive the day before or after the students. There can be four horses in a special boxcar and a groom to take care of them. The freight wagons are picked up from a hidden siding outside of London, we can use a horse float to get the horses there and back.”
Lily: “I love you, Daddy!”
--ooOOoo—
Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes was booming. This was a joke in itself. The joke shop continued to make money and George would never let it decline. The real money came from the new technology branches. These businesses were separate from the joke shop but often shared shop fronts. The Second Wizarding War gave business opportunities that the twins did not ignore. People were desperate for ways to hide from Death Eaters and snatchers. W.W.W. supplied cunning and innovative ways to hide. The most popular device was magical and sold as a joke item but when put to serious use a family could disappear from a house that was being attacked and reappear, unharmed miles away. The device sold by the twins did not use the floo network or apparition; they were Vanishing Rooms.
The Vanishing Rooms were based on the old Vanishing Cabinet that Draco Malfoy had repaired in the Room of Requirement to allow Bellatrix Lestrange and the other Death Eaters into Hogwarts.
To make a Vanishing Room, you bought a charm from W.W.W. and stuck it to a door in your house. When you wanted to vanish, you went into that room and shut the door. Then you touched the charm. Then all you had to do was open the door again and step out somewhere else, usually another house with a matching charm on the door.
The Weasleys made Vanishing Rooms simple, reliable, and highly profitable.
After the war, W.W.W. introduced mirror phones. These were developments of the matching mirrors originally made by Harry’s father and Sirius Black. George unravelled the secrets of the mirrors and turned them into the wizarding equivalent of the mundane cell phone.
Mirror phones were absolutely banned at Hogwarts and very popular among younger wizards once they graduated. The wizarding world would never make W.W.W. into another Apple, but the steady rise of the mirror phone was assured.
The W.W.W. partners finished their monthly review of sales and their discussion of future developments. It seemed that no matter how much money Harry spent, the piles of gold in his vaults grew even bigger. George and Harry shared their usual lunch of sandwiches and cups of tea. As his wealth grew, Harry’s tastes became even more simple.
Harry: “George, have you heard what Hermione wants to do with her house?”
George: “She doesn’t seem to talk about it. She has a big research project going on. She has also visited Hogwarts; she might be taking on a job there.”
Harry: “That sounds good. I hope it works out for her.”
Harry: “If she isn't going to move back to her house, I might buy it from her and put it into the social housing group. We still need more housing.”
George: “She won’t sell to you. You still stink, I’m afraid.”
Harry: “I’ll get one of my anonymous lawyers to deal with it. No names need to be mentioned.”
--ooOOoo--
Healer: “So, you are still saving people, and taking on other people's burdens.”
Harry: “I can’t help it. It’s what I want to do.”
Healer: “I don’t think that it is an obsessive-compulsive thing. You are in control, and you are not endangering your ability to work the way you want to with your other businesses. Is that right?”
Harry: “Yes, I think that is right. I still don’t understand my attitude toward Ginevra. I know that at first and for a long while I was under the Amortentia Love Enchantment, but I was gradually throwing it off. I know that when I last touched that wand it hit me as though the enchantment was fresh.”
Healer: “That seems to be what happened. What are you concerned about?”
Harry: “From my point of view, I think that I was trying to make our marriage work. I talked to Ginevra, I discussed everything with her, and we made decisions together. She seemed to agree with moving to the manor and making a new life for the children there.
The children loved it at the manor. They all said that they liked having me around instead of working all the time which is what I was doing when I was an auror.
Now, I find out that she hated it. It was the exact opposite of what she wanted.
In my secret thoughts, I knew that the old feelings were gone, but I thought that we could make something new.
That seems to have been just not good enough.”
Healer: “Harry, you have been doing everything you could have done to make your marriage work.
What you were doing was exactly what you should have done. You worked for years as an auror and then you took your seat in the Wizengamot. That seems to have been what your wife’s plan was for you.”
Harry sadly nodded.
Healer: “Then, you worked out for yourself that you should not be any kind of political leader. There was no effort from the other side to accept that life as a political leader would have endangered your sanity.
Let me give you one explanation of how marriage is supposed to work. This may or may not help you. There are lots of opposing opinions to my theories.
In Western society, it is accepted that a couple should be ‘in love ’ when they marry.
Anyone who has the feelings of being ‘in love ’ is actually suffering from a mild mental illness. It is called Obsessive-Compulsive Neurotic Disorder with romantic delusions. It happens when the brain is overworked and there is too much stress. This is a little bit of brain damage.
In your case, the disorder was caused by the continual impact of Amortentia Enchantments.
If you can escape from the overwork and stress and enchantments, then the brain can recover. Then you discover that the feelings of being ‘in love ’ have disappeared. You are no longer ‘in love ’. You are no longer brain-damaged.
If in between being ‘in love ’ and recovering from it, you have got married, then you have a decision to make.
You can demand a divorce if you can, or separation, and then start again.
The other choice is to do what you did.
You start again with your spouse and make friends with them. Anyone can make friends if you work at it.
Then you develop common interests. Children can help a lot with that.
Then, out of that, a mutually caring relationship will develop. You have to work at caring for each other and supporting each other. Some people refer to it as the ‘Friends to Lovers Thing’.
That is what the vast majority of couples who stay married end up doing. They tell little lies about having the old feelings of being ’in love ’. They may or may not know that they were a little bit crazy when they ’fell in love ’.
Where does intimacy fit into this? Intimacy can be there all the time. You will enjoy intimacy with your spouse when there is trust and respect and intimacy is not being used as something to bargain with.”
Harry: “Crumbs! Let me think about that.”
--ooOOoo—
“We are having guests for dinner tonight,” Fleur announced. “The new evening wear I bought for you will get its first showing. It will be wonderful for you.”
Hermione looked horrified. “I’m staying in my room!”
“You are coming to dinner!” Fleur said firmly.
“Why! I’m not ready to meet people.” Hermione was now terrified.
“It is not anything threatening. My guests are friends and friendly family. I will not tell you who they are. It will be a pleasant surprise.” Fleur gave a small smile. “There will be no eligible gentlemen. I am not trying to set you up with anyone. My guests are two happily married couples.”
Hermione chewed her bottom lip.
“Very well! I will dress up and come to dinner.” The look Hermione gave to Fleur said that there had better not be any funny business.
--ooOOoo—
The hour arrived. The first guests came into the Entrance Hall from the floo. The gentleman was Charlie Weasley. He was dressed in wizarding-style evening wear. Hermione had never seen him so dressed up. A lady entered after him. She was beautiful. She had long black hair, olive skin and dark eyes.
Hermione watched her move into the room and greet Fleur. She was a Veela. Her graceful movement and almost supernatural beauty were undeniably Veela.
The lady turned to Bill who gave her a formal bow.
Hermione was next in line. “Hermione, may I introduce Anna Weasley? She is Charlie’s wife and my cousin.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Anna. Um! Er! How long have you and Charlie …”? Hermione stopped.
Fleur and Anna giggled like schoolgirls.
“About a month, we married at my family home in Romania.” Anna smiled brightly.
Charlie approached Hermione. “I must apologize for the secrecy. My family did not react well to the news that the second son wanted to marry a Veela as well as the first.”
Hermione frowned. “By family, I assume that you mean your mother.”
“I’m afraid so. We didn’t invite you to the wedding because, well…” Charlie glanced at Fleur.
“Because I told Anna that you were having a lot of trouble after Ronald’s passing and that we should not bother you,” Fleur responded. “I’m sorry if that sounds rude. You were in a delicate state.”
“I was not in a delicate state,” Hermione replied in a slightly insulted manner. “I was three-fourths crazy. I’m much better now. I’m at least fifty-fifty. That also explains that weekend when most of the Weasleys vanished at the same time. I didn’t mind, I caught up with my reading in my rooms.”
The next guests arrived. They were Viktor Krum and his wife Elena. Elena was a classic blue-eyed silver-blonde Veela beauty. Hermione knew that Elena was Viktor’s wife and that she was a Veela. Viktor was just as famous in the quidditch mad wizarding world as he was when he was revealed as the Durmstrang Tri-Wizard Tournament champion. Elena was even closer to the Veela ideal of beauty than Fleur.
Viktor smiled brilliantly at Hermione the moment he saw her. He walked up to her, took her hand, and bowed over her knuckles in the traditional old European manner.
“My dear Hermione, I am delighted to meet you again after all this time. Please! Allow me to introduce my wife, Elena.” Viktor took Elena’s hand and drew her to Hermione. The ladies shook hands. Elena was obviously delighted and amused at how the normally reserved Viktor was behaving.
Fleur approached Elena and embraced her and kissed her on both cheeks. Elena returned Fleur’s greeting kisses and turned to Anna, they also embraced and kissed.
Fleur smiled at Hermione. “Here you are seeing an all-too-common occurrence in Veela society. The three of us are cousins, two or three times removed. We have been meeting at family events since we were little.”
The evening progressed with pleasant conversation on many subjects. Charlie was happy to talk about issues which he never discussed at The Burrow. He was full of interesting detail about Wizarding international relations as was Viktor.
Charlie gained his knowledge and experience from his position at the dragon reserve. The business of protecting the world from dangerous magical creatures such as dragons needed the continual balancing and rebalancing of commitments from magical governments.
Viktor had graduated from quidditch to international big business. His family was immensely wealthy. Viktor had been trained to take over from his grandfather and father at the head of several billion galleon businesses. The Veela ladies joined in the conversations and showed a wide range of knowledge and opinions on many subjects. Hermione was fascinated and delighted. She had never had such stimulating table talk at Hogwarts or since then.
She knew that her early opinions of Viktor were wrong. His conversations with her at Hogwarts were limited by his lack of English language, not his intellect. In the year following the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Viktor and Hermione had carried on a long correspondence. Viktor and Hermione discussed magic, politics, literature, and music. Viktor revealed a wide knowledge of muggle culture and arts which Hermione missed dreadfully in the isolation enforced by living in the wizarding world.
When Hermione and Ronald had become a couple, Ronald demanded that the letter writing be stopped. By the time Hermione met Viktor at Bill and Fleur’s wedding, Hermione was cut off from Viktor.
Hermione decided to show some of her long-suppressed mischievous nature. “Charlie! Tell us how you proposed to Anna. I can tell that all the Veela allure is at rest here at the dinner table. However, when you were single, you must have had to fight your way through a throng of admirers to get to Anna.”
The Veela and their husbands were highly amused.
Fleur answered. “Darling! You need a lesson in a Veela's life.”
There was a burst of happy laughter.
Anna began her lecture. “Hermione, you are quite right, in social situations, we Veela must somehow tolerate the amorous attentions of a mass of men. In a week a young attractive Veela can get a dozen marriage proposals. If we let our allure flow, then it can be hundreds.
This is why we cannot take any notice of marriage proposals.
Yes, we may be the centre of attention at parties, but if we want to begin a meaningful relationship, we have to do something different.
We must work out what sort of person we want to be connected to.
I wanted to make a relationship with a man who I would marry. I had to search for the man. To do that, I enlisted the help of my family. We collected the names of all the eligible men, and we colluded to knock out the duds and also-rans. Two of my co-conspirators are here at the table.
I already had the highest recommendation from Fleur concerning a certain Weasley man. We looked through his reports from our spies and he won the selection process.
It was then up to me to propose to Charlie. That is the Veela way. It is all anti-romantic.
First, I had to convince Charlie that he wanted to get married. What a job that was.”
Charlie laughed. “What finally convinced me that I wouldn’t end up like Dad, living under Mum’s thumb, was this. Anna told me to look at Bill. Don’t think about anything else, just look at Bill and Fleur. I then worked out for myself how different married life could be.”
“That was very well done, Charlie. A brilliant decision.” Viktor was delighted.
Elena was carefully glancing at Hermione, who was obviously becoming less happy as the conversation continued.
Elena: “Let’s talk about something else. Do you have any plans for the future Hermione?”
Hermione: “I’m talking to the people at Hogwarts. I might be offered a teaching position there.”
Elena: “Oh! Excellent! What subject areas are you considering?”
Hermione: “I am going to do Arithmancy. I could do Ancient Runes as well, but I want to major in one subject. I have my own consulting work in Arithmancy and there are projects of my own I must complete.”
Viktor: “Back to Hogwarts, I have many great memories of my time there. I am very happy that Elena found me and didn’t let me get away. She gave me a classic Veela proposal, and I surrendered straight away. I realized years before that my hopes for getting your attention were doomed. By the time we left Hogwarts, I was determined to try to win your favour, Hermione.”
Hermione: “That was very flattering, but I had no such thoughts.”
Viktor: “I had my hopes, but I could see clearly who had your attention. He was Mr Harry Potter.”
Fleur: “Are you certain about that Viktor?”
Viktor: “Oh! Yes! I invited Hermione to the Yule Ball, and she accepted. That was a victory. I quickly found that it was an empty victory. Nearly every conversation I had with Hermione at the ball and afterwards ended up concentrating on Harry. Hermione wanted to talk about almost no one else.”
Hermione: “I didn’t really. Did I?”
Viktor: “You did! I was determined to improve my English and make a better impression on you. I kept inviting you to take long walks around the lake so that I had time alone with you to try out my new vocabulary and grammar. You seemed to be happy to help me with my conversation, but it always came back to Mr Potter.
I even asked Harry about it. Before the third task, we were invited to look at the maze. It had just been planted. Harry and Cedric were so angry seeing their quidditch pitch being ploughed up like that. On our way back, I asked Harry to speak to me privately. That Bagman person wouldn’t leave Harry alone. We managed to get away from Bagman and I asked Harry about his relationship with you. I told him that you talked about him all the time. He said that you were friends, nothing more.
Then we found that Crouch man. I was knocked out and there was never a chance to talk to Harry again.”
Charlie: “Our sister Ginny used to carry on about Hermione and Viktor having a passionate affair.”
Hermione: “HAA! HAA! HAA! I let Viktor give me a chaste kiss on my cheek, maybe twice. That is not an affair.”
Viktor: “I wrote many letters to you, and you wrote back. I enjoyed that very much, but you firmly resisted all my attempts to get us to meet again. Eventually, you told me that you were nearly engaged to Ronald and that there would be no more letters.
That did not seem right to me. I didn’t see why you had to stop writing to me.
I certainly didn’t understand your choosing Ronald.
That seemed very odd.”
Hermione: “It was very odd. I was placed under more than a hundred enchantments aimed at keeping me away from Potter and attached to Bilious. The person who did that was Albus Dumbledore together with his henchman Severus Snape.”
Elena: “Bilious?”
Bill: “Ronald’s full name was Ronald Bilius Weasley. Bilius is an old Latin name. A Weasley boy was lumbered with it at least once in a generation.”
Hermione: “Slytherin girls added the ‘o’ to make Bilious. A Slytherin girl, who is now a great friend of mine, doesn’t refer to him by any other name. I have embraced the habit. Sorry Bill, Charlie, he was your brother.”
Charlie: “He was also an embarrassment, and not only because he supported the Chudley Cannons.”
Viktor: “Why did Dumbledore do that?”
Hermione: “Dumbledore had his own plans for Potter. I was going to upset those plans. During the year after the Tri-Wizard Tournament, I was obliviated, and enchanted to hate Potter, and I was given the equivalent of Amortentia keyed to Bilious. I have only just escaped from those enchantments. My mind is still a messy place.”
Fleur: “I’m sorry Hermione, I didn’t mean for all of that to come out.”
Hermione: “Don’t worry. I want people to know more of the truth. It’s better than letting everyone think that I’m odd for no reason.”
--ooOOoo—
Bill and Charlie were in the downstairs games room. Bill had a full-size snooker table set up there. The Weasley brothers always challenged Bill to snooker matches each time they visited.
The challenges were done. Bill won them all. They returned to the music room where the rest of the guests were gathered.
As they entered, they saw and heard something that remained with them for a long time. Viktor was playing a cello and Hermione was playing the piano. They were playing a duet. It was a long arrangement of Beethoven’s “Für Elise”. The dinner guests were enthralled.
When they finished Hermione jumped up and twirled around on her own.
“That was amazing! I haven’t played since I lived at Mum and Dad’s.”
For the first time in many years, her eyes were sparkling.
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