Chapter Text
Later, it will seem strange that the person who instigated the entire thing was Remus Lupin. Quite unwittingly, of course, but it was his idea, after his friends in New York learned that their housesitter backed out. A couple, two men, one wizard and one Muggle, both professors at one of the universities there. They were due to leave for a semester's sabbatical at Oxford—and two weeks beforehand, their housesitter, full of apologies but lacking anyone to cover for her, took off for California.
At first Hermione declined, when Remus phoned. She'd never even been to the States; why would she want to go there by herself for six months? "Think it over," Remus had said in his mild way, and then Tonks had stolen the telephone from him.
"Go on, girl, do it! You don't have to stay the whole time; they have friends there who can go water the plants and get the mail. Take someone with you! Have a fling!"
"But I don't know anyone in New York," Hermione protested.
"Exactly," Tonks had said. "You don't know anyone, and no one knows you. No history. You're just a pretty girl having her summer in the city."
Hermione bit back an I'm not pretty.
"I don't have to stay the whole time?" she said.
"No. I'll give you a Portkey; you can come back when you wish. Just go have some fun." Tonks's voice had softened. "You deserve to have some fun, after all this. Why do you think Remus rang you?"
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
It's a foggy July morning when Hermione meets Ginevra at Remus and Tonks's flat in North London. It's Ginevra now, not Ginny, not since last fall: "That's a child's name," Ginevra had said defiantly, standing in the rain in Sofia, Bulgaria, where Harry, Hermione, and Ron, on the hunt for Voldemort, had tracked a group of Death Eaters, and where Ginevra had tracked Harry, Hermione, and Ron. "It's a child's name, and I'm not a child, and if you fools think you're going on this ill-conceived quest without me, you can think again."
Hermione remembers looking at Harry and Ron, and thinking that the issue of a name was the least of the problems the appearance of Harry's ex-girlfriend and Ron's little sister would cause.
Tonks gives them each a Portkey in the form of a spectacularly ugly handbag, dull olive green with orange sequins. "This way there's not a chance you'll carry it around by accident—can you believe these hideous things?—but you should be able to find it easily. They're set to your parents' houses." She also gives them Muggle-style keys for the front door—"But Nigel spelled the locks to open for both of you, so Alohomora should suffice." She hugs them both. "Have a wonderful time. Be good—no, what am I saying? Be bad! Misbehave terribly!"
"Honestly, Tonks," Hermione says, though she can't help a smile. "I'll just be glad to have some time to read."
"Oh, come now. Misbehave just a little. Just so you can say you've done it."
Hermione wonders if what happened with Fred and George counts as misbehavior, and concludes that it does—while the activity itself might not, partaking in that activity with identical twins most certainly counts. But that's a minor infraction, in the scheme of things, especially now that she knows what it means to commit a major one. Something unforgivable. I've misbehaved more than you'll ever know, she thinks, then pushes the image out of her head. The nightmares are bad enough. She doesn't need to think about this during the day.
"We'll do our best," Ginevra says. "Ready, Mione?"
They hug Tonks, put their hands on their Portkeys and on their suitcases, and count softly to three. There's the familiar feeling of being pulled by one's belly button—
—and then they're in the quiet, shadowy room, somewhere they've never been.
Hermione hears Ginevra say, "Lumos," but she just goes around and turns on the lights instead.
"Wow," Ginevra breathes.
It's a gorgeous, airy flat, all creams and blues. It feels alive, oddly, in the way that old houses do, in the way that 12 Grimmauld Place did—but this house feels joyful, inviting, happy to have occupants to shelter and protect. Hermione rests her hand on its wall, and maybe she's mad, but it's as though the spirit of the house is smiling, telling her she's welcome.
They're standing in its foyer. There's a kitchen right in front of them, not enormous but big enough to have space enough to move around and still have room for a small table. The furniture in the living room is modern but comfortable-looking: a long, low, white couch; several overstuffed chairs; a telly; a coffee table as well as a proper dining table; and, of course, rows and rows of bookshelves. Hermione can't wait to explore them. But first they shove the curtains open, filling the flat with light; they open the windows. There's a little garden out back in the tiny fenced-in yard. It's perfect.
They use Mobili ("Mobilimpedimentia!") to levitate their luggage upstairs. There are two bedrooms: a larger one at the back with an enormous sleigh bed, and a smaller one at the front, with a smaller bed but bright with sun. There are ceiling-high bookshelves and a desk so old Jane Austen might have sat at it.
"I like the front room," says Hermione.
"Good," says Ginevra, "because I like the back." And she moves her suitcase into it, shucks off her shoes, and installs herself cross-legged in the middle of that huge bed, smiling and looking for all the world about eight years old. With her newly short hair, Ginevra looks a great deal different from the girl Hermione is accustomed to knowing—although judging by the various Weasley reactions when Hermione went out to Ottery St. Catchpole to deliver Crookshanks into their care, so does she.
She cut it a week after she got home. After the last battle, after Harry woke up, Hermione went back home to Northampton for the first time in more than a year. The last time she'd been at her parents' house was for the Christmas holidays her sixth year at Hogwarts; after that, the war had taken hold and hadn't let go until Hermione, on a soft, breezy May morning, had stood weak and gasping (but she had stood) and stared down at Voldemort's twisted and very, very dead body on the floor of what had been the Three Broomsticks. And even then it was only a partial release: The war hadn't ended for Hermione (or Ginevra, or Ron) until Harry, two weeks later, had woken up in his bed at St. Mungo's and asked for Chocolate Frogs.
They'd taken him back to the Burrow, where (despite his and Ron's decidedly unmarried state) he had slept in Ron's room—in some ways as though it were no different from any other visit in previous years, and in other ways completely different. Hermione stayed three weeks, until Harry was completely well and whizzing around out back on his Firebolt. And then the offer from the Tutshill Tornados came through, and Hermione felt she could leave without guilt. They were all safe; Harry would be doing what he loved best; both he and Ron would be living with the one they loved best; and if Hermione had to watch them snog one more time, she was going to put that Firebolt through one of their heads. And so home to Northampton she went—to the extent, at this point, that it could be called home.
She'd planned to do nothing but sleep once she got there, but she hadn't counted on the war: the nightmares. And so she spent her days and nights reading; eating supper and watching telly with her mother (her father was rarely home after the first token couple of days); and reacquainting herself with the use of things like washing machines and computers. While poking around on the World Wide Web (something taken for granted in the Muggle world but almost entirely new to her), she ran across a picture of a pretty actress with a chic cap of short curls. Hermione had tugged a hand through her own hair, printed out a picture of the actress, and the next morning Hermione went to a hair salon in town. It's the shortest her hair's ever been. It's not, of course, as stylish and chic as the actress's, but that's why she's a film star and Hermione isn't. She's just glad to have her hair under control and out of her face for the first time in her life.
Ginevra's hair is also newly short, but it doesn't look as though she got it professionally done; for that matter, it doesn't even look like a Molly Weasley special. It had been a long, loose, leonine mane (it always reminded Hermione of portraits of the young Queen Elizabeth I, with Ginevra's light hair and dark eyes); now, honestly, it just looks as though Ginevra took a pair of scissors to it, and not particularly carefully. Hermione understands the desire to get rid of vast quantities of hair, though Ginevra's was gorgeous and Hermione's was awful, so the motivations had to be slightly different. But it's a time-honored female way of marking transitions, an exterior symbol of an interior change. She just can't imagine why Ginevra didn't at least let her mother do it; if nothing else, the cut would have been even.
Hermione toes off her own shoes and flops down across the sleigh bed, with its acres of crisp white duvet. "What do you feel like doing?" she asks. "We should go to the grocer's at some point, but we don't have to do it now."
"Let's have a walk around the neighborhood," Ginevra suggests.
The street is as perfect as the flat: tree-lined, with a row of townhouses (including the one they step out of) on one side and a park on the other. They make note of their address: 325 East Tenth Street, number 1. They're between avenues A and B.
The park is Tompkins Square Park, and they walk through its stately greenery, which is populated by a large number of considerably less stately people. Dogs run in little penned-off areas set aside for them; a group of Hare Krishnas clang by (Hermione starts, but Ginevra doesn't, possibly because growing up in the wizarding world has accustomed her to large, noisy groups wearing robes); people lie on the grass and sleep and talk and kiss and read.
The other side of the park is less picturesque than the street where they're staying, but it's all interesting. They see old men playing dominoes, listen to raucous political debates (Hermione explains to Ginevra what a president is, and that the United States has one, and that he's neither very popular nor very bright), hear music float and pound from cars as they pass. There's the jangle of rock, the compelling beats of hip-hop, the spice of salsa, all combining with the sounds of the people on the streets to make a new, separate music. Ginevra looks overwhelmed. Hermione feels the energy like a tangible thing, so much of it that it seems to want to lift her into the air and let her fly.
They pass an HSBC bank, and Hermione remembers a practical concern: She needs to take money out. She drags Ginevra with her, and Ginevra cocks her head as Hermione inserts her card into one of the ATMs. She's got a good bit of money, from a variety of sources: Some of it is her savings, amassed carefully from years of birthday and Christmas gifts. Some of it she talked her parents out of: Long ago, before anyone except officials in the Ministry of Magic knew she was a wizard, her mother and father, back when they still spoke to each other and to her, set up an account to save for her university education...and another to pay for her wedding. Most of the university account was spent on Hogwarts, since university-level education doesn't exist in the wizarding world, but the wedding account remains untouched. She pleaded with her parents to let her use the money as she chose ("I'm never going to get married—the bloke I thought I'd end up with left me for another bloke!"), and finally her mother gave in. (If her father had an opinion on the matter, he wasn't home to tender it.)
And then there's the Gringotts vault opened up in her name—from the Ministry, "hazard pay."
Well, that's certainly one way to look at it.
Before Hermione left for the States, she Apparated into the nearly deserted Diagon Alley—rebuilding has started, but it's slow—and emptied the Gringotts vault, converting everything to pounds sterling and then going into Muggle London to deposit it into her HSBC account. It's much, much more than she'll need, but it's her money and she wants to have access to it.
Now, across the ocean in the East Village of New York City, Ginevra stares at the computerized screen as Hermione inputs her secret code. (It's Ron's birthday; she reminds herself to change that forthwith.) "How does that…that machine know your name?" Ginevra asks when Hermione's full name appears. Having never seen an ATM before, Ginevra has no idea that it's incredibly bad form to stare over someone's shoulder as they look at their accounts.
"It's connected to my Muggle bank," Hermione replies as she asks for a hundred dollars.
The money spins out into Hermione's hand. Ginevra takes one of the twenty-dollar bills and examines it. "So you give this to someone, and they give you your money?"
"No. You took Muggle Studies, silly. This *is* money."
"But it's just paper."
"That's how Muggles do things." Hermione puts the money into her wallet and gets her card back. She wonders how she'll explain credit cards. "They don't use gold except to wear."
"Oh." Bemused, Ginevra hands back the twenty. "But what if it gets stolen, or burned?"
"Gold can get stolen, too. Anyway, Muggles do more or less what wizards do: try to get it back."
It's got on towards lunchtime, and they find a café to have something to eat. It's full of people talking, eating, working—alive and vibrant the way Diagon Alley used to be before the war. Hermione has a plate of pasta with eggplant and mozzarella, and a glass of iced chai so spicy she can taste the cardamom and black pepper. It's all delicious.
Ginevra eats half a sandwich—not much, for the girl who usually finishes off all her own food and that on her neighbors' plates besides—and gets her own glass of chai after trying Hermione's. "So what are we doing now?" she asks when they're finished.
"We're going shopping," Hermione pronounces.
"For what?"
"For clothes."
Ginevra gives her a Look. Ginevra is very good at Looks. "Why? And since when have you cared about clothes?"
"I haven't had new clothes since my fifth year at Hogwarts. There have just been too many other things—life-and-death things—to pay attention to. But now that there aren't, necessarily—" Hermione shrugs. "We're in the most fashionable city in the world and we have the exchange rate on our side. I'm just suggesting that we put that to use, is all."
"Oh. Well, you go. I'll explore the neighborhood some more. Or something."
"No, you should come with me. Your mother gave me some money before we left. She wanted me to keep it as a surprise." This isn't exactly a lie: Molly Weasley had given her a bit of money, intended to cover food for Ginevra. Hermione hadn't wanted to take it, especially since the Weasleys were caring for Crookshanks during her absence, but Mrs. Weasley had insisted. Hermione did convert it into pounds during her stop at Gringotts before she left, but she hadn't decided what finally to do with it.
"There's enough for some new clothes and spending money," Hermione goes on, though this has branched definitively into the territory of lying, even with the exchange rate. But Ginevra, obviously, has only the faintest of concepts about how Muggle money works, and while she'll see the numbers on the tags, they'll mean nothing to her.
Hermione finds the papers in her bag: Before leaving England, she went online and printed out the addresses for some shops in New York.
She's been looking forward to this.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
"It's strange," Ginevra says later, musingly, as they're looking through a rack of dresses at a store called Anthropologie. (The misspelling bothers Hermione; she can't see any good reason for it.) Hermione doesn't think she'll buy anything here; even with a favorable exchange rate, it just seems ridiculous to spend two hundred dollars on a cotton dress. "This is so different from shopping at Diagon Alley."
"Do you like Diagon Alley better?" Hermione asks.
Ginevra scrutinizes a blue-and-white striped dress with a sailboat motif emblazoned throughout. (Sailboats? Hermione thinks. Really, who thought that was a good idea?) "I don't know. I suppose it depends...Well, if you're in Madam Malkin's and you need something, she can show you precisely where it is and you don't have to search until you find it. But everyone knows what you buy. If you go into the apothecary and ask for something strange, everyone knows. If you buy your robes at the second-hand shop, everyone knows that, too." There's no extra inflection in Ginevra's voice when she says this, but Hermione can't help wondering if she's thinking back to her own several years of second-hand robes. "Here, I don't think anyone cares. If you want to buy ground-up newt's eyeballs—or whatever the Muggle equivalent might be—or a tarty dress, no one will look twice."
"Do you want to buy a tarty dress?" Hermione can't help asking. "There are some very cute boys in New York, after all."
Ginevra glares at her. "No. And I don't want anything with sailboats on, either." She returns the offending garment with perhaps more force than is strictly necessary.
"This shop's overpriced anyway," Hermione says. "Let's go somewhere else."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Once they get somewhere sailboat-free, Ginevra loosens up and delves into the shopping with an carnivorous enthusiasm similar, Hermione thinks, to her Quidditch playing. They find some sleeveless shirts that nicely set off Ginevra's light brown eyes and strong Chaser's shoulders—and some skirts and shorts that Hermione thinks would flatter Ginevra's curvaceous figure, but Ginevra shoots them all down, opting instead for two pairs of combat trousers, baggy and with lots of pockets, a pair of khakis, and a pair of jeans. All are intended for men, and in order to fit them over her hourglass hips, Ginevra has to get them so many sizes up that you can barely tell there's a girl under there. But Ginevra seems to like how they look, and when Hermione opines, "They seem a little loose," she just shrugs and says, "They won't fit otherwise." Which is true, but not the point Hermione was trying to make.
Hermione does buy a pair of the combat trousers—they seem very practical, and they are comfortable—though in something closer to her own size. Everything else, though, is ridiculously, unquestionably girly: A yellow dress with spaghetti straps and a low neck that sets off collarbones Hermione never realized she had. Another in gingham, which does make her look a little like something off the American prairie, but it's so cute that Hermione gets it nevertheless. Something in black—this is New York, after all—sleeveless, with a surplice neck and an empire waist. Some of the same shirts that Ginevra got, a pair of jeans, and two pairs of shorts: one canvas, the other denim. (She tries to talk Ginevra into some shorts, what with the heat, but Ginevra holds firm in stubborn Weasley tradition; she does, however, relent enough to agree to what are apparently known as capris.) New knickers—she's neither five nor eighty-five, and she's old enough to have things in pretty colors and with lace and that her mother didn't pick out. And, finally, shoes for them both: canvas trainers, red for Ginevra and blue for Hermione; and sandals, brown and oddly sensible for Ginevra (they look like gigantic, high-tech fisherman's shoes), and black for Hermione, strappy and with a heel high enough to be interesting but low enough to walk in.
Satisfied that they both now have some clothes that aren't falling apart, Hermione declares them done. For today. She informs Ginevra that more may be forthcoming, depending on what needs they may have as they make their way around New York.
Ginevra rolls her eyes, but doesn't actually seem to mind all that much.
It's fine enough outside that they walk back to the flat, rather than Apparating. (Ginevra's not licensed, of course, but Hermione and Harry taught her over the course of three weeks after she caught up with them, staying on the outskirts of Sofia until she could do it without splinching.) In other situations, they could use Mobili for their purchases, but that would attract some unwelcome stares here in Muggle New York City. So they carry them by hand, walking through the streets like any two young women who have gone shopping on a sunny summer's day.
They come across the amicable melee of Union Square, passing shoppers, protesters, and more dogs. There's a market going on, and they stop to peruse. Despite their location in the middle of the city, the food for sale—fruits, vegetables, bread, honey—smells earthy and fertile. Hermione looks over to see Ginevra leaning perilously close to a bushel of green apples, her eyes closed, breathing in the scent. Hermione sneaks in around her and takes three.
They buy apples, pears, spinach, pumpkin bread, cheerful red tomatoes bigger than one of Hermione's fists. They taste maple candy for the first time; it's pricey but so good that Hermione buys half a pound of it. She buys a bottle of maple syrup, too, bitingly sugary; and clover honey from a beekeeper who's driven down from the north. Scones and what Americans refer to as biscuits for their breakfast; blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, fresh and burstingly sweet when Hermione puts one in her mouth. A soft, braided bread that the baker—she's come in for the day from a few hours west of here, leaving her home before first light, she'll return around midnight—calls challah. She recommends it with butter and honey. There's a dairy farmer with a stall a few meters down. Hermione buys fresh, pale butter, churned yesterday, and some sinfully sharp cheese. The challah might be too sweet for that, so she buys a loaf of sourdough bread. A pot of jam made from peaches; she can already taste it against the tang of the bread.
Now, she thinks, I've finished.
"Good Lord," comments Ginevra, "I certainly hope so."
"Don't gripe: You'll be eating this, too. Do you want anything else?"
"I think you bought out most of the market, Mione."
Ginevra takes a few of the bags from her, and they set out in the direction of their flat, cutting through the square and all the people milling about, resting, reading, talking, arguing, living. They move to one side to let a woman through on the walk: She's in athletic clothes, running at a steady pace—and the expression on her face is one of such transcendent calm as Hermione has never seen. She smiles brief thanks at Hermione and Ginevra, and Hermione stands still for a moment, a little stunned at the force of that tranquility.
It turns out that she's not finished. They pass a sport shop, and Hermione drags Ginevra inside. "I need a running costume, please," she tells the shop assistant. It's more of a production than she anticipated—they measure her stride, question her regarding her present running regimen (nonexistent, as she's never done it before in her life), take her weight and height. They outfit her with shoes, a pair of running shorts, and a brassiere that costs considerably more than Hermione would have guessed. "Trust me on this one," the assistant says. "You don't want to go without a sports bra. I'm not saying you'll end up with breast-inflicted black eyes...but I'm not not saying that, either." Ginevra, who has been remarkably patient throughout this entire process, snorts with laughter.
Half an hour later, Hermione has everything. She has clothes for her body, food for her belly, and, she hopes, a way for her spirit to achieve something even vaguely approaching the encompassing peace that she saw on that woman's face.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
It's still early enough when they get back to the flat—and their lunch was big enough—that Hermione decides to try a run for the first time, before supper. She hangs up the new dresses—they'll wrinkle otherwise—but leaves everything else in bags except for the running clothes. She removes the tags and changes quickly, then goes downstairs to wash the water bottle they gave her at the shop. She glances through the copy of Runner's World magazine that they gave her as well. She's not sure what a good distance is for a beginning runner, and she made this decision so impulsively—for perhaps the first time in her life—that she didn't have a chance to research it first. Perhaps the magazine will be helpful. The woman on the front cover is blond and smiling and exceedingly fit, wearing nothing but a bra (albeit a generously cut sport bra similar to the one Hermione has just put on—nevertheless, Hermione has a tee over hers) and a pair of tight running shorts that show off her sleekly muscular legs to good advantage. Hermione's not sure she'll get good advice from this magazine if it's intended for people like that—the shorts she bought come to midthigh, thank you very much—but the shop assistant had said that most runners subscribed to it.
She pages past an article with the headline "Training for a short race...or just a daily run." That sounds like what she's looking for. She doesn't want a marathon, just something to clear her head. She skims the article. It suggests that a short race is five kilometers, or—she calculates—about three miles. The article isn't very interesting, despite the glossy pictures of various athletic individuals—there's a lot about protein. Hermione could not be less interested in protein right now. It's rather a surprise to her, this impatience—she's usually the type to read everything (Hogwarts: A History, for example) before jumping into something new. But everything is new today—this city, this country, this continent, this flat, her clothes, the maple candy she bought at the market—and she just wants to run, to leave the old behind and run through the streets of this new city. She has a jolt of understanding about Slytherins and their snake: the desire to shed one's old skin and taste the air with something fresh and tender and new.
"I'll be back!" she calls to Ginevra, and steps outside.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
She does stop to stretch first—they were very clear at the shop about this necessity—but then she's off. It's getting into early evening, but still full daylight, the sun a rich buttery yellow, the air warm and velvety without smothering.
She becomes conscious of her body in a whole new way: Her feet in their new shoes as they strike the pavement. Her heart, pumping blood through her veins and arteries, rich with iron and oxygen, nourishing her cells as they work. Her lungs, working quickly, taking in air and expelling it, fueling her labor as she makes her way down Avenue B.
It's twenty blocks to a mile, she remembers reading, and she's still going strong after half of that. Avenue B turns into Clinton Street, narrower and quieter, lined with watchful, overhanging trees. The blocks stretch longer here, and she's not sure how to count them. She's panting when she gets to the intersection with Grand Street; it's crowded with shoppers perusing the grocers' outdoor displays, so she turns around, goes back up one block, and heads west on Broome Street, which is smaller but less packed with masses of humanity. She's definitely winded when she gets to Allen Street, and she stops to have some water and catch her breath. Then she turns north on Allen and soon finds herself a block from the flat. This doesn't feel quite far enough. She has some more water and walks the next few blocks up to Fourteenth Street, where she runs east, then circles south again and back to the flat. She collapses on the stoop, feeling exhausted but accomplished. She drinks the rest of her water and then Alohomoras herself inside for a bath.
She and Ginevra have bread and cheese and berries for dinner. Later, in bed, Hermione falls asleep immediately—the first time in months she's been able to do so.
She wakes up from a nightmare at around three in the morning and goes into the hall to use the loo and splash water on her face. As she's returning to her bedroom, she hears noise from Ginevra's room—it sounds, Hermione thinks, like what was probably coming from her own bedroom about ten minutes ago. She knocks on Ginevra's door, and when there's no answer, pushes it open, calls up a soft witchlight, and makes her way over to the bed to shake Ginevra gently.
"Ginevra. Gin. Wake up. You're having a bad dream."
Hermione always wakes up thrashing and fighting, but Ginevra's lying stone still. The only movement is her head, which whips back and forth on the pillow.
"Ginevra!" Hermione repeats, louder.
"No! No!" Ginevra says, and then wakes up. She stares at Hermione as though she's a stranger—and then, her breath coming in sharp pants, curls on her side into a ball as though making herself as small as possible.
Gingerly, Hermione puts her hand on Ginevra's shorn hair. "Gin, are you alright?"
There's no answer.
"Would you like me to bring you some water?"
"No." Ginevra's voice is muffled. "Would you...would you just stay, please?"
"Of course." Hermione climbs onto the enormous sleigh bed, and while Ginevra doesn't fall asleep, her breathing becomes significantly less panicked, and it's as though Hermione can feel her relax from three feet away.
Hermione doesn't want to tell anyone about her own nightmares—and, more specifically, what they may indicate—but she's read that it's good for people to talk about bad dreams. "Do you...do you want to tell me about it?" she asks.
"No," says Ginevra.
"Okay," Hermione says, because what else do you say to that?
She doesn't get back to sleep, and she's not sure that Ginevra does, either, but they pretend, at least, to rest peacefully for the remainder of the night.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Their first day in New York was sunny, with a pleasant, velvety warmth in the air. Their second day, when they venture out, feels like being smothered with a boiling-wet towel.
"Oh my God," gasps Ginevra. "It's England set on parboil."
They make it down to the Tenement Museum—barely—and afterwards, though there are still a number of things Hermione would like to see today, all they can think about is finding more air-conditioning. Hermione's about to suggest that they find someplace to unobtrusively Apparate back to the flat. But Ginevra says, "We should go in there." She nods toward a small sign lettered in plain black block caps—with flames around them. The sign reads Abyssus Abyssum Invocat.
"'Hell calls to hell,'" Hermione translates.
"I think it's a pub."
"That seems appropriate somehow. Especially in this weather. But will they let us into a pub here?"
Ginevra shrugs. "Why not?"
"The drinking age is twenty-one here."
Ginevra rolls her eyes, concisely expressing her opinion of American and Muggle laws both.
"Well," Hermione decides, "it's four in the afternoon; I don't think they'll be fanatical about asking for identification at this hour. And all I want is something with ice in anyway."
She pulls open the door—which looks like iron, and is correspondingly heavy—and the room they enter is blessedly dark and cool.
There aren't many people inside: a barman with a patch over his left eye; a pretty, dark-haired woman talking to him; two other men, one extraordinarily tall, both extraordinarily nice to look at, slouching on stools and arguing good-naturedly alternately with the barman, the woman, and each other. A few other people are scattered at tables; they all seem to be refugees from the heat. There's a song playing low on the jukebox: Screaming Jay Hawkins, "I Put a Spell on You." Seems appropriate, indeed.
The entire foursome turns and looks when Ginevra and Hermione come inside. It's a little intimidating, but no one stops them, and they take a table toward the back. "I'll get us drinks," Hermione says. "What do you want?"
Ginevra's eyes are closed in an ecstasy of climate control. "I don't care as long as it's cold."
Hermione goes back up to the front, conscious that she's being watched, and not sure why. Yes, her new dress is very cute—she's wearing the black one—but it's not that cute, and neither is she. But the dark-haired woman is examining her with interest—almost with recognition, though Hermione knows she's never seen this woman before. So is the shorter of the two men (who is not short—it's just that the other one is so inordinately tall), though his interest is clearly quite different.
Hermione ignores them both and says politely to the barman, "Good afternoon. May I have two Coca-Colas, please?"
The barman's smile is friendly, his features (despite the eyepatch) even and pleasant to look at. The dark-haired woman is still looking at her, and finally Hermione looks back in that way New Yorkers seem to.
The woman starts, as though she's been pulled out of a reverie. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare. You just look weirdly familiar."
"It's all right," Hermione says. "But I've never been to America before, so unless you've been to England, there's no way we could have met."
The woman shakes her head. "Never been to England. Are you here on vacation?"
Vacation. Holiday. Escape. Refuge. Whatever. "Something like that."
"I'm Faith," says the woman, putting out her hand, startling Hermione.
Americans really are friendlier, she thinks. She shakes the woman's hand and says, "Hermione. And that's my friend Ginevra, back at our table."
"Hermione and Ginevra," says the man who's been looking at her. "Those aren't names you hear every day."
"I was named after a character in The Winter's Tale."
"With all due respect to your parents," says the taller man, "that character seems like an odd choice to name your child after."
"You mean because she gets accused of adultery, dies, and then is magically resurrected?"
"Well, and there's the theory that the character was an analog for Anne Boleyn."
"I'm guessing my parents didn't know that. They're dentists; I think they were just trying to prove they were as erudite as anyone else."
The barman sets two glasses on the table. One is taller, and obviously contains Coca-Cola; the other is smaller, its contents clear but for the cucumber (Hermione is baffled) that garnishes it. "I'm sorry," she says to the barman, "but I didn't order this."
"I think you'll find that you like it better," he answers. "Try it, and if not, I'll bring you a Coke."
The other three are watching her with undue interest. Hermione gives them that look again (the New York look, she thinks) and tries the drink.
It tastes like it looks: crisp, clear, and cold. The cucumber slice, as unlikely as it may seem, is a perfect complement to what she realizes is a pungent gin. She glances back up and sees the barman smiling.
"This is really good," she admits. "What is it?"
"Hendrick's gin and tonic. With cucumber, the way it's supposed to be served. Do you want to keep it, or should I get you a Coke?"
"I'll keep it," she says. "Thank you." But honesty compels her to add: "I'm not twenty-one, though, and I think that's illegal here."
"I don't see any police. And after what you've been through, you've earned that and more."
Hermione's hand freezes on the glass and she stares back at the barman. "What are you talking about?"
"Your war," he says. "It's over. You should enjoy yourself, now that you can." He turns back to his bottles and glasses, and Hermione reaches into her bag for a twenty-dollar bill. Without looking back at her, the barman holds up his hand. "Put that away. Drag your friend over and sit with us, and I'll consider it payment."
Ginevra doesn't require dragging, but she does stand back a little. Hermione introduces her; the barman, it turns out, is Xander ("With an X," he specifies), the spectacularly tall man is Sam, and his brother, the one who's been looking at Hermione, is Dean. Ginevra shoehorns herself into the space between Hermione and Faith, which leaves Hermione talking to the two brothers.
Though Hermione has spent the better part of the past seven years in predominantly male company, she's discovering quickly that it's one thing to accustom oneself to boys (Harry and Ron) and quite another to be the focus of the attention of two men (Dean and Sam). Sam's attention, at least, seems fairly similar to what she's used to, though he's brainier than Harry and Ron; Dean, though, watches her in a way that she's seen men watch women but that she's never experienced for herself.
She's also never sat in a bar in New York City wearing a cute sundress and sandals, drinking a drink meant for adults, and she thinks that may make a difference.
As they talk, Hermione concludes that it wouldn't be fair to say that Sam is the smarter of the two. That's the role they both play, and it's true that Sam seems to be the more educated, but there's fierce intelligence burning in both of them. Sam is more open, but also more analytical; Dean is, behind his cultivated laziness, watchful (even wary) and observant. He looks relaxed; she suspects that he's not. And she wouldn't have thought of this prior to the war, but she suspects that he's armed, probably seriously. Probably they both are. She's not sure what gives her this idea, except that they have a level of vigilance that previously she's seen only on people who were prepared to fight for their lives.
"So how do the two of you know each other?" Dean asks. His eyes are green, visible even in this muted light, but less emerald (as Harry's are) than a leaf turning before the fall; his short, mussed hair (though Hermione suspects that it has been mussed quite deliberately) is a very dark blond, not quite a true brown as his brother's is. They do look alike, but it's subtle: something in the cheekbones, the lips, and the eyes, as well as in the intelligence and the matched intensity, and the way they seem to function entirely symbiotically, bickering, touching, finishing each other's sentences. It's rather like watching Fred and George, actually, and it makes Hermione smile.
"From school," she answers Dean. "Ginevra is—was—a year behind me."
Dean eats an olive from a small bowl that Xander's set out. Hermione has never seen this perfectly normal action look quite so pornographic before, but, then, it's difficult to look at Dean's lips without wanting to run one's thumb across them. Good God, she thinks, horrified, where did that come from? She pushes it immediately out of her mind. Just because there have been, er, developments in the relatively recent past, is no reason for her to become a pervert.
"You graduated?" Dean asks—blissfully unaware, she hopes, of her contemplations in his direction.
"No. I—I should have finished this past June, but I—" She pauses. She's never had to explain this before to anyone but her parents, and she did that by letter. "I left at the end of last year. Ginevra and I both did. Because of...events."
"The war that Xander mentioned," Sam says quietly.
"Yes. It's not something you would have heard about."
Faith interrupts. "Look, I don't mean to get all caring-and-oversharing here, but let's just put the cards on the table. You guys are totally witches, right?"
Ginevra nearly spits out her Coke.
"Yes," Hermione says. "Are you?"
"How do you know you're a witch?" Dean asks. "Are you sure you're just not really into pentagrams?"
"I'm quite sure, though I'm not clear what pentagrams have to do with it. I can demonstrate for you, if you like."
"Awesome!" says Faith. "And no, I'm not a witch—I'm something else. I'll explain after your demonstration."
"Put down your drink, please," Hermione says to Dean. He looks at her as if she's mad, and she repeats the request. He complies, though his face remains skeptical—and then she murmurs, "Wingardium leviosa," and he rises three feet in the air.
"Jesus fuck!" he bursts out, though he sounds more surprised than angry or frightened. After the initial shock seems to pass, he settles his hands in his pockets, looks around, and says, "Hey, Sammy, I'm taller."
"Yeah, because a witch levitated your sorry ass!"
Dean points at him. "Don't you go getting ideas."
Ginevra pulls out her wand, aims it, and repeats the charm. Gently, without a drop spilled, Dean's beer ascends next to him.
He takes it, raises it in Ginevra's direction, and drinks from it. "Thanks."
"You're welcome. My brothers tell me that a man should never be separated from his beer."
Hermione doesn't say, "Finite incantatem." She's started to lose the habit of speaking spells out loud, now that it's no longer necessary. She thinks with a pang of her wand sitting in its box back at the flat—beautiful and utterly useless to her now, but she can't bring herself to get rid of it. Dean floats back down to his stool and lands without a bump.
"Do you believe me now?" she asks.
"I'll never doubt again. Nor will I ever question a witch." He takes another drink and looks at her directly. "I'm guessing that little piece of work is the least of what you can do."
Hermione remembers the wave of power as it hit her, passing from Voldemort through Harry and into her. She didn't expect to survive it—and when she did, afterwards, during the two weeks that Harry was unconscious, when she couldn't even Accio her shoes in the morning, she concluded that the surge of alien, unnatural magic must have burned out her own.
It was better news that you might think.
And then Harry had woken up, and that surge, that wave, had hit her again.
Only this time it stayed, and now Hermione Granger's a girl with too much power and not enough nights without terrible dreams.
"I'm still figuring that out," she answers, which isn't much of an answer at all. She looks at Faith. "I don't mean to be impolite, but what are you? Now that we've given our demonstration."
"Just like I haven't heard about your war," Faith says, "you probably haven't heard about mine. I'm a Slayer."
"Not like the band," Dean interjects, and Sam elbows him. Dean elbows him back.
"As in, a person who slays things?" Ginevra asks.
"As in, a Slayer of vampires. And sometimes demons, and a bunch of other fugly-ass things that go bump in the night. And yes, vampires exist—"
"Oh, we know," Hermione says. "But they're not all bad. Weird, but not all bad."
Faith looks at her. "Have you ever met one?"
"Only briefly—at a Christmas party at school a couple of years ago. Not many of them live in England—Romania, mostly."
"How in the hell," Dean asks, "did you manage to meet a vampire at a Christmas party?"
"We were both invited."
"Just what kind of school did you go to?"
Hermione and Ginevra look at each other. "It's a long story," Ginevra finally answers.
Dean shrugs. "You want to tell us, we got time."
"Maybe you should put your own cards on the table, Winchester," Faith suggests.
"Oh. Yeah, sorry." He waves his hand at his brother and himself. "We're hunters. In the demon sense, not in the get-drunk-and-tie-a-deer-to-the-hood-of-the-car sense."
"Are there...many demons to be hunted?" Ginevra asks.
"There's kind of a main one that we're focusing on," Sam says. "But we hunt other things, too."
"If it's supernatural and it harms people, we go after it," Dean adds.
"So what falls under that category?" Hermione wants to know.
"You name it, we've probably hunted it. Ghosts, poltergeists, skin-walkers, wendigos."
"Pagan gods."
"Shtrigas."
"Killer trucks."
"Cannibal rednecks."
"Do I even want to know?" Ginevra asks.
"No," Sam says. "Definitely not."
"It's hotter than Satan's balls outside, and we got air-conditioning and a bar full of people with stories," Faith says. "What say we tell them?"
Over beer (the Winchesters), vodka and cranberry (Faith), another Hendrick's-and-tonic (Hermione), and Coke (Ginevra and Xander, because he's working), over spicy soup and fragrant dumplings ordered from across the street, over the course of the long afternoon and into the evening, they do.
Note: There is a DVD commentary for this chapter here.