The carriage shook as it moved down the busy cobbled street. The train ride from Boston to New York had been smooth and quick, but the moment they changed to the carriage and entered the streets of New York, both speed and comfort had changed. The noise heard through the window of the carriage was loud and piercing as people talked, shouted and screamed to or at each other. Carriages fought for space with trolleys and pedestrians, resulting in a jerky journey as the carriage had to stop short every now and then to allow other carriages to pass or to avoid running over someone.
Looking out of the window, Hermione and Ginny could see elegant brownstone buildings standing next to houses made of wood. Many of the houses seemed to have business on the lower floors, and everywhere people could be seen doing deals and exchanging money. Some of the houses, they noticed as they got deeper into the city, looked similar to those they were used to in Boston, some looked like houses you would only find in the poor quarters “ or so Hermione thought anyway. She had never been allowed into the poorer parts of Boston and could hence only guess at the state of the houses there. The cramped, small and dirty houses squeezed in between the larger brick buildings did however look a lot like the pictures she’d seen in news papers and books and it fitted her idea of what a poor house would look like.
They jumped as a man right next to their carriage started to yell and swear in a way that made both girls turn bright red. Judging from the way he jumped on one leg, scraping the sole of the shoe against the step of a house, he had obviously stepped into something you weren’t supposed to step on. Frowning, Ginny promptly closed the curtain.
“We’ll be there soon, I think,” she said with a slight smile. “I’d forgotten that New York could be so…”
“Lively?” Hermione offered.
Ginny smiled and giggled. “Lively,” she confirmed, bringing them both into laughter. “Don’t worry, Hermione. Charleston is nothing like this, and we’ll be here only for a couple of days. Just enough time for us to visit Madam Malkin’s on Broadway to be fitted for ball dresses to wear at Fleur’s season ball,” she said reassuringly.
“Don’t worry Ginny. It doesn’t displease me. A bit more chaotic than at home perhaps, but that’s… interesting,” Hermione replied.
“Hermione, you can’t fool me. I know you would have much rather taken the train straight to Charleston. But it will be worth the detour, I promise. Madam Malkin is the finest, and Mama already sent specifications and measurements ahead, so we only need to be here for the final fitting, and that won’t take long at all,” Ginny said, taking Hermione’s hand in hers. “Oh Hermione, I’m so happy Bill and Fleur invited us both to come, although I’m sure Charlie had more to do with your name being mentioned in my invitation than I did,” she giggled.
Hermione blushed, and looked down at her hands. In truth she too was thrilled about being included in the invitation, not to mention surprised at how easily her parents had agreed to the trip. As soon as they were reassured that she would be staying with the eldest Mr Weasley and his wife and that she would be travelling with Ginny in safe and respectable conditions, they’d happily agreed to her going. Of course, the fact that she would just happen to be in the same town as the only eligible, respectable Weasley son left of course didn’t make them less inclined to let her go. Especially not since she and Mr Weasley had been writing to each other for months now.
She was woken from her thoughts when the carriage suddenly came to a halt and the coachman yelled out to them that they had reached their destination. Gathering up the hems of their dresses, they got ready to leave the carriage “ Ginny first and Hermione second.
“Ginny, you’re here! Oy, George, get out here, they’ve arrived!”
Hermione heard him before she was even was out of the carriage. Mr Weasley was standing in the doorway of a large brownstone building that like so many others seemed to have a business of some sort on the first floor. He sported a wide grin on his face and his arms were outstretched as he stepped up to greet his sister with a hug. With a shout of joy, Ginny threw her arms around her brother and was subsequently spun around a few lapses before being set down on the ground again.
Mr Weasley put her down just as his brother came running out of the building behind him, greeting his sister with a shout and the same kind of enthusiasm his brother just had “ spinning her around several times before he too set her down again.
Hermione’s attention turned to Mr Fred Weasley as he approached her with his hand outstretched. The first thing she noticed was the stunningly magenta colour of his frock coat and vest “ a colour that would suit very few men, but that clashed so violently with Mr Weasley’s flaming red hair it nearly hurt your eyes to even look at him.
Smiling, she stretched out her own hand in greeting and bowed her head slightly.
“Mr Weasley, how lovely to see you again,” she said, wondering, slightly worried, if all Weasley men had such little taste regarding colour when they didn’t have their mother around to guide them in their choices.
“Miss Granger, welcome. It’s been too long,” Mr Fred Weasley replied, bringing her hand to his lips.
“Far too long,” Mr George Weasley, who had just reached them, interjected, pushing his brother out of the way and taking her hand himself. Suppressing a laugh, Hermione greeted Mr George Weasley as she had done his brother, noticing that he, too, was wearing the same type of magenta frock and vest that his brother was.
As Mr Fred Weasley slipped the coachman some extra money to carry their luggage inside, his brother showed them into the building. It was truly a store they entered, the walls of the room was lined with shelves filled with the most variant goods for sale. A large counter dominated the room, and a door behind it seemed to lead to the more private parts of the house.
“We closed today since the two of you were arriving,” Mr George Weasley said as he guided them behind the counter and through the door, where they were soon joined by his brother. The room was actually larger than the one they’d just passed through, and seemed to be some kind of store. Here too, the walls were lined with shelves which were filled with various goods and packages, as was the floor and a few of the smaller tables in the room. One bigger table was placed in the middle of the room, and judging from the amount of papers, pens and ink-pots present, this seemed to be functioning as a desk for both brothers.
Hermione jumped as a door in the back of the room, so hidden behind shelves and boxes that she hadn’t even noticed it before, swung open. The girl that entered was a tall and lean and proud-looking black girl. She was dressed in a simple day dress, much like the ones worn by Sally back home in Boston “ only this was of a much nicer fabric than Sally’s and had a cleavage which Hermione had never seen on Sally. It was also of the same magenta colour as the twins’ frock coats, and looked like it was quite unsuitable for shores around the house. Or so Hermione imagined Sally would say, had she seen the dress.
Unlike Fred and George Weasley, the girl looked quite fetching in the magenta colour. The bright colour complemented her dark skin well “ far better than it would someone with fair skin, Hermione realised. The girl looked taken aback for a brief moment before she smiled at them.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that your guests had arrived already. Should I show them to their rooms?” she asked, looking at the twins. “Sirs?” she added quickly, and Hermione was quite sure the girl was blushing slightly, even though that was quite hard to see with her dark skin colour.
“Sure, l“”
A loud cough from George Weasley caught Fred Weasley off. Glancing over her shoulder, Hermione could see the twins exchanging glares with each other, before Fred Weasley continued to speak.
“That would be lovely, Angelina,” he said with a casual voice. The girl nodded and smiled and gestured for Hermione and Ginny to follow her through the door she just entered. As she left the room and glanced back at the twins, Hermione couldn’t help but wonder if the rumours about Fred Weasley and his maid had been as ludicrous as she had first thought they were.
They were led into a narrow hallway and up an equally narrow flight of stairs. When they entered another narrow hallway, Hermione couldn’t help but to feel that this house had looked a lot bigger from the outside.
The room they were shown into was a lot larger than Hermione had expected when judging from the narrow hallways they’d just gone through. It had two windows overlooking the street and a large enough dressing table for both Ginny and Hermione to be satisfied. The two beds in the room indicated that Ginny and she would share, a fact that Hermione was quite pleased about. With so many new things to see and experience, it would be nice to have someone in your room who had been to New York before to share them with.
As Hermione looked out through the window on the busy street below, she felt a surge of excitement. She had never been in a place quite like this, and she felt quite sure that her parents would never have allowed her to come away, had they known about the accommodation. For Hermione, however, the mixture of people, the lively street below, even the noise penetrating the windows, all contributed to her mood and excitement “ and as long as the windows were kept closed, the stench from the street would never bother them, she reasoned.
She smiled as she picked a bed and sat down, watching Ginny finish off a conversation with the black young woman who showed them in “ Angelina, she remembered. The girl nodded to something Ginny had said, before she excused herself and left.
With a big smile, Ginny turned to face Hermione. “Dinner is in three hours, just enough time to change and get ready, and a carriage will be here to pick us up for our fitting with Madam Malkin early tomorrow morning,” she said happily, sitting down on the bed next to Hermione. “I can’t wait to see the dresses. Fleur has excellent taste and she is very good at describing what she wants,” Ginny continued, getting up from the bed as quickly as she sat down, rummaging through her trunk for a fitting dress to wear to dinner.
“Your sister-in-law? I thought your mother had sent the specifications for the dresses,” Hermione asked surprised.
Ginny pulled out a dress and laid it on the bed with a smile. “It hardly become creased at all,” she said happily. “That will do just fine for tonight. And yes, Mama was the one to send the specifications, but aside for the measurements, they were Fleur’s work,” Ginny explained. “She’s very particular to what one wears at her gatherings, especially at her annual ball.”
“I see,” Hermione said, rising from the bed, getting out a dress for herself “ eager to get out of the dusty travel dress she was wearing. She watched as Ginny rang a bell for a maid who could help them dress for dinner.
By bedtime, Hermione was exhausted. Dinner had been lovely, if simple, and with Ginny so happy about seeing her brothers for the first time in quite some time, Hermione didn’t have the heart to express her wish turn in for the night, knowing that Ginny would feel obligated to come with her as to avoid waking her when going to bed later. The late night combined with the hours spent travelling, had rendered Hermione quite fatigued as she dressed in her nightclothes and crawled into bed.
Yet, in spite of being more tired than she could ever remember being, Hermione couldn’t for the life of her fall asleep. If it was the excitement of travelling alone for the first time in her life, or the anticipation of seeing Mr Weasley again, or all the new impressions she’d received during the day, Hermione didn’t know. But whatever the reason, she couldn’t sleep.
As she tossed and turned in her bed, she started getting frustrated. The room felt stuffy and warm, and her nightclothes soon felt stuck to her body in a way that was completely uncomfortable. Had she been at home, she would have opened the window, but here the thought of the smell outside prevented her. Besides, even now in the late night she could hear the sound of people and carriages moving about in the streets, and opening the window would probably just wake up Ginny.
Not being able to stand the heat and the tension any longer, Hermione rose quietly from the bed. Silently she put on her a dressing gown, and slipped out of the room. She’d been shown a washroom further down the hall earlier, and if she could just splash some water on her face then surely she’d feel better.
Immediately upon closing the door behind her, she started to regret not bringing a candle. The hallway was dark and the only light came from a small window further ahead which the moonlight shone in through. Remembering that the washroom was somewhere close to the window, Hermione let the faint light guide her as she made her way forwards, and sure enough, she could soon step into the washroom.
While the room was as dark as the hallway outside, Hermione could still manage to find her way through the room by the use of her hands. When she returned to the hallway she still felt uneasy, but at least not quite as bothered by the heat. Still using her hands, Hermione started to feel her way back to her room. It was a bit more difficult now when she didn’t have the light from the window to go by, but her memory was good and the narrow hallway straight so she could feel her way forward with her hands without too much trouble.
She stopped when she heard voices from one of the room. She wasn’t exactly sure why she stopped, or what it was in the voice that made her sharpen her ears and listen “ the tone of the voice, or surprise that someone other than herself was still awake. The voices were hushed, but still they carried easily into the hall, one male and one female. Even without hearing them call each other by name, Hermione would have known who they belonged to.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Fred,” the young woman said, a sadness in her voice that couldn’t be hidden by a whisper. “I know it’s necessary, I’m not questioning that. I just didn’t expect it to be this hard,” she continued.
“I know, Angie, but we have no choice. Had it been just Ginny then maybe, but with Miss Granger here too“” Mr Weasley replied softly, his remark affecting Hermione more than it probably should. The two were not married, after all, and should most definitely not be alone together in a room after dark. Still, this was not a normal situation. The two obviously cared deeply for each other. Hermione wondered if they would have married if they would have been allowed to.
“I know that, Fred,” Angelina assured him. “It’s just… When I see you with your sister… She seems to be very important to you, and I would love to get to know her, and I know I never can. Not the way I would want to, anyway,” she said sadly.
Mr Weasley sighed. “I know, love,” he said simply. “I wish things were different too. Do you think I want to live like this? Sneaking into your room at night because I cannot have you in mine? Not being able to tell my own family about the woman I’ve fallen in love with? You do know that I love you, don’t you, Angie?” he asked, and Hermione could imagine him reaching out to touch her face as he spoke.
As she heard the young woman answer softly, Hermione started to walk again, a bit ashamed at having listened to a conversation that clearly wasn’t meant for her ears. Hurrying back as fast as the dark would let her, she crawled back into bed. Not that she could sleep any easier now than before.
She knew she was supposed to think that what Mr Weasley and Angelina were doing was wrong. They weren’t married, and the bible clearly said that you weren’t supposed to share a bed if you weren’t. Everything she’d ever learnt told her that sharing a bed out of wedlock was a sin, that it was something that God did not look kindly on; something that would render both parties in hell.
Still, in her heart, Hermione couldn’t stop herself from feeling differently. Mr Weasley and Angelina hadn’t chosen this themselves. They couldn’t marry “ the law wouldn’t permit it. Only because Angelina was black. The laws really weren’t fair.
Hermione couldn’t see what was wrong with two people being in love. She knew many people, even people that agreed and argued with her that slavery should be abolished, could see the why it was wrong for black and white people to marry. Yet for Hermione the thought seemed odd. Didn’t God create love? Didn’t Jesus preach it? So how could love ever be a sin? To Hermione that just didn’t make any sense.
Tired and feeling sleep finally coming closer, Hermione wished that Sally had been there. Sally would probably not agree with her, she rarely did in these cases, but she was nice to talk to nevertheless. She wondered if she should talk to Ginny about it, but quickly decided against it. What she had heard wasn’t meant for her ears. It would be best if she left it alone, and pretended not to have heard anything at all. She wouldn’t want Mr Weasley to get the impression that she was sneaking around eavesdropping on private conversations, after all.
When Hermione was woken by Ginny shaking her the next morning she felt as if she hadn’t been asleep at all. All through the morning she kept yawning, or fighting yawns as her body simply refused to wake up properly. If the carriage ride to Broadway hadn’t been as jerky and uncomfortable as their carriage ride to the twins’ home, she would have surely fallen asleep before they reached their destination. As they turned out on Broadway, however, all of Hermione’s fatigue seemed to vanish. This wasn’t like the rest of the city. In fact this wasn’t like anything she’d seen before.
The street was the widest she had ever seen, and even if it was just as crowded as the other streets, it didn’t seem as it was. There were more carriages than trolleys, and people had fancier clothes and the street was far cleaner. The buildings that lined the street were also far taller than Hermione could have ever imagined houses to be, and she found herself staring in awe of it all.
When the carriage came to a halt, and she and Ginny stepped out, Hermione couldn’t help but to turn and look around her. Not until Ginny pulled her arm, did she realise just how foolish she must look. With a slight blush she followed Ginny into the shop ahead.
The tinkle of the little bell above the door sounded throughout the shop as they opened the door. Once inside, Hermione realised that this too was quite different from her normal dressmakers back home. It was a large establishment with chairs to sit in while you waited and there wasn’t just one podium to stand on for the fitting there were two, just as there were two large mirrors in front of them, and two large dressing rooms straight ahead. One of the walls was lined with shelves and filled with fabrics and boxes of already sewn dresses.
A squat woman in a mauve day dress emerged from a door in the back of the shop only seconds after the bell quieted. The moment she saw Hermione and Ginny she smiled widely and hurried up to them.
“Miss Weasley and Miss Granger, I presume?” she asked merrily, not even waiting for their reply before she ushered them inside. “Your dresses have been ready for a few days,” she continued merrily while ringing a bell on the counter and offering them both to take off their outer clothing and hats and put their parasols in a stall behind the door “ all at the same time.
Two young girls entered the room from the back, with a curtsey and taking their outer clothes to be properly hanged up.
“I’m delighted to have been given the opportunity to sew such spectacular dresses as the ones Mrs Weasley commissioned, and the two of you must simply tell her that she has splendid taste,” Madam Malkin went on, while picking several boxes from the shelf behind the counter and double checking that they were the right ones. “I do believe it will be wise to start with the ball dresses, since they will take the longest time to fit,” she mused contemplatively and pushed the boxes in the hands of her two assistants.
“Start with? You mean there is more than one,” Hermione asked surprised, her question going unheard as she was shown into the fitting room with one of the girls, carrying at least four or five different boxes.
She didn’t have time to repeat her question before the young woman started to help her undress. With nimble fingers, the girl worked her way through buttons and lacings, surprisingly quickly freeing Hermione of her jacket bodice, chemisette and skirt, before she started to nimbly unlace her corset.
“You’ll need one made for the dress, Miss,” the girl explained in a singing Irish accent, when she noticed Hermione’s surprised expression. Hermione could see why, when the girl opened one of the many boxes to pull out the corset intended for the dress. The neckline was far deeper than any Hermione had worn before, and as the girl laced up the corset Hermione couldn’t help but to blush when she saw the cleavage it created.
Once the corset was securely fastened, the girl pulled out a big petticoat from one of the other boxes. She didn’t bother removing any of Hermione’s petticoats, however, but simply added the new one on top of the others before she turned around again to pull out the skirt from a new box.
Hermione was surprised to see that the skirt was white, an unusual colour since it was so impractical. Still, even without a mirror in the fitting room, she couldn’t deny that the skirt was beautiful and stylish. It had three wide layers of lace ruffles, with gatherings of small pink roses that together created an almost triangular line from bodice to the feet.
It was harder for Hermione to see the bodice without a mirror but it was low cut and left her shoulders bare in a way that she knew was stylish but that always made her feel very self conscious. Maybe she should ask Madam Malkin to raise the neckline a little, so that she wouldn’t feel quite so exposed.
When the girl told her that she was done and sent her out of the fitting room and on to the podium, Hermione was awestruck. The dress looked so much better than she could have ever imagined, and all thoughts of asking Madam Malkin to change the neckline vanished from her mind as she looked at herself in the mirror. The bodice was indeed low cut, and there were no real sleeves to speak of. Instead, two layers of the same fine lace that decorated the skirt were gathered around her bodice, giving the illusion of short sleeves, where there were none. One single gathering of flowers like the ones on her skirt was fastened on the bodice, making a simple but elegant addition to the dress.
“Fleur has exquisite taste, doesn’t she?” Ginny asked, making Hermione turn from her reflection in the mirror to her friend exiting the fitting room.
Hermione smiled and nodded as she watched Ginny move to the podium for her fitting. Ginny, too, was dressed all in white, although her dress had sleeves instead of the bertha* of lace that Hermione’s had, and were decorated with gatherings of daisies instead of roses. It also lacked the layers of lace but instead had several layers of beautiful white silk.
“I’m a bit surprised that they’re white,” Hermione said as Madam Malkin started to work on the hem of the dresses.
“That’s because it’s one of Fleur’s favourite colours,” Ginny giggled. “You’ll see her. She looks spectacular in white. That and light blue are her best colours and hence what she always wears at balls,” she continued, while admiring her dress in the mirror in front of them.
Hermione however was confused. “If white is her best colour, why are we dressed in white?” she asked. “Is this something she asks of all guests?” she then added.
Ginny laughed and shook her head. “Even Fleur couldn’t demand that,” she said, lifting her arm as Madam Malkin proceeded to adjusting her sleeve. “Only family are demanded to wear the same colour she is. It’s a French thing I suppose, or a Fleur thing at least,” she added with a smile.
“But Ginny,” Hermione said. “I’m hardly family.” She made a gesture towards the dress.
To her surprise Ginny’s smiled only widened. “Apparently Fleur thinks you will be before long,” she giggled happily, making Hermione turn positively pink.
“Ginny! You can’t just assume such a thing!” she exclaimed.
“Well Fleur obviously does, and she knows Charlie quite well,” Ginny responded merrily. “You would say yes, wouldn’t you?” she then asked.
“Well…I… I haven’t thought that far!” Hermione lied.
“Nonsense, Hermione!” Ginny said annoyed. “You’re the most thought through person I know “ of course you have thought of the possibility!”
“Well, yes I have,” Hermione admitted, by now a shade of pink that rivalled the roses on her dress. “But I can’t assume that it’s going to happen. What if things are different between us? What if your brother has changed, or behaves differently when in the south. Maybe he’s not at all the same““
“He’s my brother, Hermione!” Ginny interrupted her. “Don’t you think I would have noticed if he behaved out of character back home?” she said firmly, and if Hermione could have blushed any more than she already were, she was quite sure she would have. “You worry too much,” Ginny added with a smile.
Their conversation was interrupted when Madam Malkin announced that their fitting was done, and requested that they’ll go and take off their dresses.
“And then you, Miss Granger, can put on the riding habit,” she added, making Hermione turn and stare at her.
“A riding habit?” she asked Ginny, surprised.
“Charlie lives on a plantation. You didn’t fancy walking around it, did you?” Ginny asked. “I mean you have ridden before, haven’t you?”
“I have, when I visited my grandfather on his farm up north, I did,” Hermione answered. “But he died eight or nine years ago,” she added.
Ginny frowned. “So you haven’t ridden at all since you were thirteen or fourteen years old?” she asked.
“No, I can’t say I have,” Hermione admitted. “But I’m sure I remember how it’s done. Don’t worry about it, Ginny,” she said with a smile, entering the fitting room to try out the riding habit.
When Hermione and Ginny returned to the twins’ house, it was already late afternoon. Their dresses and other purchases would be delivered separately and so they both hurried upstairs to change into more suitable attires. Since she finished faster than Ginny, Hermione decided to go and see if their parcels had arrived rather than wait. Finding her way down the narrow flight of stairs she opened the door to the back room of the shop and stepped inside.
She was surprised to see that the twins had company. Sitting comfortably back against one of the chairs in the room was a black man with full lips and a broad nose talking to the twins. He stopped talking the moment he saw Hermione, but unlike most men she had met didn’t hurry to rise in her presence. Not until one of the twins gently nudged him did he stand.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Hermione said, knowing far too well why men stopped talking in women’s presence.
“That’s alright,” Mr George Weasley replied with a smile. “This here is Lee Jordan, one of our…”
“He arranges storage facilities for us,” his brother cut in as he seemed to hesitate.
“And the young lady is Miss Granger, from Boston, a friend of our sister who is also staying here at the moment,” Mr George Weasley added, addressing the man beside him.
“Did you need our help with anything?” Mr Fred Weasley then said, turning to Hermione.
“Did you say Granger?” the black man asked curiously, not allowing Hermione to answer Fred’s question. “From Boston?” he added.
Hermione looked at him with surprise and nodded. “Are you familiar with my family?” she asked surprised.
“Not I, but my father, I think, has worked for yours once or twice,” the man said. “Do you still have a maid named Sally Thomas?” he asked before she could reply.
“Why, yes we do,” Hermione answered. “She has been with us since I was a little girl,” she added. “Do you know her then?”
“She was a friend of my mother’s. Even lived with us for a short while when I was a child, before she married,” he confirmed.
“I’ll let her know you remember her,” Hermione said. “I’m sure she’ll be delighted,” she added. “And again,” she said turning to both twins, “I’m sorry for the interruption. I was just wondering if our parcels had arrived yet,” she explained.
“If they have, they’ll be in the shop most likely,” one of the twins replied. “Ask Angelina, she’s in there,” he continued.
Hermione nodded and gathered her dress as she made her way to the door on the other side of the room.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr Jordan,” she said courteously, before opening the door.
Behind her she could hear the surprised voice of the man she’d just met. “Did she just call me Mr Jordan?”
“Apparently our brother knows what he’s doing,” one of the twins’ voices replied as the door closed behind her, efficiently stopping her from hearing more as she stepped out into the busy shop, leaving Hermione to wonder what on earth that meant.
Taking up as little of Angelina’s time as was possible seeing how busy the store was, Hermione made her promise to send up the parcels as soon as they arrived. Angelina also showed her an alternative way upstairs so that she wouldn’t have to disturb the men in the back room.
If Hermione had been tired the previous morning, her fatigue was nearly overwhelming after yet another sleepless night. As their things were packed and made ready to go, Hermione didn’t have the energy for much more than to sit in a chair and pretend to read as her mind spun around.
With a yawn she wondered if overhearing things that weren’t her business wasn’t far too easy in this house. She had thought that the news of Mr Weasley and Angelina would have been more than enough, but the information she had overheard yesterday shook her even more.
It had been shortly after dinner, and Hermione had only left the sitting room for a short while to find the washroom. She had been surprised to hear Mr Jordan’s voice, as she thought he had left hours earlier, and when she heard Angelina’s heated reply to whatever he had been saying, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from listening.
Clearly they were having a rather heated argument, and while lost at first, Hermione had soon understood that the reason was that Mr Jordan did not approve of Angelina’s involvement with Mr Weasley. White and black shouldn’t mix, he said. It would go wrong and Angelina would be the one to take the fall when it did. Angelina had clearly not agreed.
“Fred loves me, he wouldn’t leave me!” she’d said angrily. “How can you even say such a thing? You like Fred!”
“I’ve never said I didn’t like the guy,” Mr Jordan replied quickly. “But what do you think he will do if you ever ended up pregnant? Marry you and raise the baby as his? Or leave you stranded in the street to save his own reputation?”
“He wouldn’t do that!” Angelina had argued.
“Oh really? You might want to ask that house guest, Miss Granger, about that?” Mr Jordan had replied, making Hermione nearly gasp, as she couldn’t for the life of her understand what she had to do with all of this. “But then she probably doesn’t know about her own maid’s unfortunate past,” he continued, making Hermione step closer to the door.
“What on earth has Miss Granger’s housemaid to do with me and Fred?” Angelina had asked, mirroring Hermione’s own questions.
“She, too, thought that she was loved. She, too, allowed her employer to enter her bed. It worked just fine, until the day she became pregnant and came crying at my mother’s doorstep when the love of her life kicked her out without another word. I was only two, but I still remembered the lesson,” Mr Jordan had said harshly.
This time Hermione hadn’t been able to cover her gasp, the idea of Sally alone, pregnant and abandoned, more than she could handle. Sally was always the calm one. The one to tell her exactly why it was a bad idea to leave propriety to the side, refusing to address Hermione by her first name only, even thought she had seen her grow up from the crib. Suddenly her reluctance took on a new meaning.
In the back of her mind, Hermione had heard Angelina protest, shouting that Fred wasn’t like that, that he wouldn’t do that.
“He might not be able to marry me, but he would take care of me and his child!” she had stated firmly.
“That would be even worse!” Mr Jordan had shouted. “Don’t you see that there are more important issues here than you and him? What do you think will happen if Fred and George are forced to close down their business, because Fred was reckless with you? How many people will be in trouble then? How many lives would be in danger if we can’t go on“”
“Leave me alone, Lee! I am not going to listen to another word you“”
Hermione hadn’t even heard the rest of what Angelina had said, hurrying away to the washroom, where she could lock herself away and think, her previous needs completely forgotten.
Even after an entire night’s turning and twisting in bed, Hermione couldn’t really accept what she had heard. She knew that Sally had arrived in the house only weeks after she had been born, and she knew that Sally had a child around the same age as she was, and hence must have been pregnant when she started to work for them. She had, however, always assumed that that son, Dean she thought his name was, had been Sally’s husband’s son as well. It had never occurred to her to ask when Sally had married Mr Thomas, and she had the feeling that even if she had asked, Sally would probably have lied to protect her secret.
Her thoughts were scattered when Ginny came for her, saying that the carriage that was supposed to take them to the station had arrived and was ready and waiting. Hermione nodded and rose, putting on a straight face as she went to say her goodbyes to Mr and Mr Weasley. Once safely in the carriage, Hermione’s thoughts started to wander again, and it took Ginny several minutes to get her attention.
“Tired?” she asked amused.
Hermione nodded. “I didn’t sleep very well,” she admitted with a smile.
“I know what you mean,” Ginny said consolingly. “It was the same thing for me the first time I was in New York,” she said as the carriage rolled onto the street and started its jerky ride to the station.
Hermione faked a smile, knowing that if Ginny had known what she did, she wouldn’t have said that. As she looked out the window at the crowded streets and the variety of people, she hoped that the rest of this trip would be free of surprises. Well, apart from one, that was. But then that wouldn’t be as much of a surprise as a wish come true, she thought as she allowed herself to concentrate on what might come instead of what had been.
*****************************************************
Pictures: A picture of the types of ball dresses I imagined for Ginny and Hermione can be found here for those that are interested.
*A bertha lining was the name of the type of lining described on Hermione, and shown in the above picture. It was extremely popular during the mid 1800s.Also the use of the word dress instead of gown is not a mistake. In all references I found, the term used has been dress “ which makes me assume that was the correct term at the time (as a reference those same sources talk of riding habits not riding dresses or riding gowns.)