To Love Life Again
Chapter One
Existing…
This was Ireland, not the busy city of Dublin or the pleasant buzz of Waterford, but these verdant hills and broody cliffs descending to cerulean waters; the Ireland of legends, myths, music and magic. It was easy to forget here, yes, she could see that now.
Parents were wise creatures, weren’t they?
But at the moment, Hermione couldn’t believe that. Even Mrs Weasley, who had become a second mother to her.
How could they send her here?
How could they think this quiet wild paradise of hills would make her forget about Ron? You more easily did that when you were up to your neck in paperwork about Dark wizards, right? Or when you were filing treasure after treasure for the bank. Or when you were investigating file after file of unusual Charm accidents for the hospital. Or all those at the same time. When you did all that plus take care of an ailing cat, you simply didn’t have room for your mind to think about the fiancé you’d lost five years ago.
“Grief is like a drunken house guest, always coming back for one last goodbye hug.”
She’d read that in “Bag of Bones”, a book by an American Muggle, Stephen King. Sitting here, driving through the little village of Ardmore, looking for her grandmother’s cottage through a mist of tears, Hermione nodded her head as if saluting Mr King for his brevity. How true it was. Grief never did leave her.
As though sympathizing with her, Ireland’s sky opened up and let pour.
“How nice,” Hermione murmured to Crookshanks, who sat beside her on the passenger seat. She wiped her eyes and then stroked the cat. “Now if I don’t get lost”if I’m not already”I’ll likely end up driving over a cliff, and voila! I’ll be with Ron.”
Crookshanks let out a short mrowl, disapproving her sarcasm. Hermione smirked at him, scratched his ears one last time and flicked on the wipers. She squinted and eased the car along on the street.
She saw cottages, like flowers standing together, quaint and pretty. She saw shops, a little post office and a bank. She was in Muggle Ireland, where her mother’s mother grew up. Harry and Ginny had honeymooned here; right at the cottage Hermione’s grandmother had left. And now it was her turn for a vacation. But she’d only gone here to make her parents and Mrs Weasley happy and to stop Ginny from badgering her to take time off from work.
“What am I going to do there?”
“Nothing. Simply nothing. You’ve been doing too much; try to be a hermitess for a change. You’ll love it there. It was so beautiful…”
“Do you want to come with me?” she had asked, keeping a straight face, knowing what Ginny would answer.
“Don’t be silly. Besides, even if Harry allowed me to go, I’m always sick nowadays.”
“Oh, Ginny, are you”?”
“Yes, I think I am.” They squealed and hugged. “So go on to Ireland and just take a break. When you get back, you’ll baby-sit.”
That had sounded wonderful. She packed her bags (No, Ginny actually did). She’d hole up here for the whole six months of her sabbatical, and then return. Just that. She made no plans of what she’d do here (they had forbidden her to), except read. Yes, that would be nice. Three quarters of what she packed were books she had bought but didn’t get the chance to gobble. She smiled at the thought of what Ron would say to that. And then she grimaced.
“He’s dead, Hermione. Killed by Bellatrix. It wasn’t your fault. At least you were both happy before he died. Engaged, right? And he’d be disgusted with you if you don’t get on with life. So don’t mop around again. Get yourself together.”
She nodded again. She had mastered that mantra for the past five years. Only that and routine had kept her from rotting away in some armchair.
She stopped the car.
The rain was now falling in sheets and if she continued to drive, she might hit something or somebody or go right down a cliff. She could make out hedgerows to her right, and to her left, there was nothing, just the rain and the sound of the surf. She wasn’t even sure if she was still in Ardmore or had already begun climbing to Faerie Hill, the hill where her cottage was waiting. Her mom had cautioned her not to venture there alone. She was to stop at MacElroy’s, the inn owned by some of their far kin, and stay there for the night if she arrived late. And then the next morning, one of the MacElroys could accompany her to Faerie Hill. It seemed odd that Harry and Ginny didn’t just give her precise directions to the cottage. But then, of course, Hermione doubted if they even remembered MacElroy’s, much less the way to the cottage. They had been in their honeymoon after all, Hermione couldn’t help smiling.
The smile didn’t reach her eyes, though. No one had been unfeeling enough to say so, but Hermione now was only a shadow of Hermione before when there was still a Ronald Weasley walking and talking and grinning in the Wizarding world. She looked at herself in her rearview mirror. She looked the way anyone would look after crossing the sea (she’d gone by Muggle air transport) and driving in the rain (she didn’t want to Apparate either), all the while revisiting memories in her mind. Happy memories tainted otherwise by the fact that that was all they could be”memories.
She considered just cruising along until the wheels of her rental Volvo just left solid ground and flew through space.
Hermione Granger Died of Car Accident in Muggle Ireland
It would be an odd obituary. And embarrassing. She survived the Dark War only to fall down a cliff. She could almost see Ron chiding her in the afterlife. She grinned and grimaced again. Merlin, she was perhaps going mad.
She took her wand from the inside pocket of her coat.
“MacElroy’s. Point me.”
Her wand swiveled and pointed to her right.
“Oh, is this it?” She looked at the hedgerow.
She eased the car out of PARK and crawled forward, squinting through the rain at her right. She saw a break and turned in with a sigh of relief.
She had to visit a bathroom rather badly. She grimaced again.
Her umbrella was packed in one of her suitcases. Another grimace.
She looked around the car for something she could transfigure and came upon the plastic map in the well beneath the emergency break.
“Nice umbrella you got there, colleen.” She could almost hear it, as she pointed her wand at the green map.
“I’ll be right back, Crookshanks. No use taking you out in the wet if this isn’t even MacElroy’s. I just need to pee.”
She opened her car door, shook open the map umbrella and ducked under it. The rain was starting to amaze her. It fell thick but quietly, not raging. Just the sort of rain that would turn the world into a burst of colors the next day. It was February twenty-eighth, and spring was already full steam ahead in Ireland as always.
Something rattled in the wind. Hermione jumped and yelped and looked in amazement at the little building beside her. If she wasn’t so neurotic these days she would have sworn it appeared out of nowhere. The sign that swung daintily by the door said The Green Dragon. The carved and painted dragon eyed her with majestic hauteur.
Hermione squared her shoulders, took hold of the door latch which was also a carved dragon, and went in. At least, she could ask for directions. At most, she could ask to use the loo.
“Well, bless my soul. Who might this fair maiden be, come out of this fine drizzle and into The Green Dragon?”
Hermione looked at the old man behind the bar and couldn’t help smile.
If he had a long beard and wasn’t so round, he would have reminded her of Dumbledore. He did so anyway, with his twinkling blue eyes. His hair was brown and as bushy as hers, silver at the roots by the side of his ears. He wore a purple apron embroidered richly in green with Chinese dragons, their long bodies and tails interlocking and forming intricate knots.
“Are you lost then, my dear?”
Hermione gave herself an inward shake and approached nearer the bar. There were no other customers, the booths and tables were all empty, and for that she was glad. “Oh no, I’m not lost”well, I’m looking for MacElroy’s and””
The blue eyes twinkled more at the mention of MacElroy’s. “Are you, now? It seems only yesterday when another such as you was looking for it. You two are very much alike. Would you like a drink, mavourneen? And will you tell old Blenkinsop Waterbut your pretty name, please?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr Waterbut”my name is Hermione Granger.” He nodded; he was already fixing her a drink. It was, Hermione saw, hot butterbeer with lemon and cream. He was a wizard. Harry and Ginny had not mentioned The Green Dragon, had they?
“And where are you coming from, and what is your business with MacElroy’s? Not prying, my colleen, just friendly chit-chat. There, please to drink your sour buttercream, it will do you good.”
“They’re far kin of mine, though we haven’t met before.” Hermione sipped her drink. It warmed her insides apart from being maddeningly delicious. “I come from England, here to stay at Faerie Hill cottage for a while. The MacElroys are supposed to bring me there.”
“Faerie Hill Cottage! Are you related to Maude Alice?”
“Maude Alice Fitzgerald, yes, she was my grandmother.”
“Ah, your grandmother. Well, I wonder if you are sweet like her, and warm like her and…wise like her.”
“You knew my grandmother?” Hermione was stirred that her beloved grandmother, her beloved Muggle grandmother, had been friends with a wizard.
“Why, yes, we were friends. Quite close friends. How could we not be, when one night when she met me outside the door, she told me I would marry a lass of my own kind, with fair hair and gray eyes? And there was my Lilias, with her fair hair and gray eyes, and we had many lovely chiliads together before…before this pub was bestowed upon my hands.”
Hermione was dumbfounded. She looked at her companion. He twinkled at her, seemingly aware of what she was thinking, and amused by it. Chiliads. A chiliad was a thousand years. How oddly he spoke.
“The good people whispered to Maude Alice’s ears. That’s why I’m not surprised now that her kin is a witch. And you being her kin, the good people might also whisper to you. When they do, see that you listen.”
Hermione just nodded, though her brain reeled. She didn’t even notice that her glass was full again. She had sipped it to half while Mr Waterbut talked, but now she drank it to half again. Her grandmother had been a Seer. She was drinking in a Wizarding pub and talking with a…well, he must be a wizard”she could think of no other being who could live chiliads. And she thought she will have to hide her wand while here.
What else would she find?
“You have expressive eyes, Hermione, just like your grandmother. How are you? I’ve heard of your name, of course. You have a fame that would always precede you just as my belly always precedes me.” His eyes watched Hermione closely and radiated warm sympathy. “How are you, mavourneen?”
Hermione looked away. He wanted to talk about Ron, and she couldn’t. She couldn’t. Still. She smiled at the diamond-shaped panes of the window, running with soft rain that looked like tears. “I’m alright, Mr Waterbut. The war’s over, and”and I could ask for nothing more, except”can I use your loo?”
“Certainly, certainly, my dear.” He raised a flap at one end of the bar and came around and put an arm around her shoulder, gave her a little squeeze. “Through here.”
Hermione thought he would go right in with her to the little powder room. But he opened the door, turned on the light and nudged her in gently.
Hermione took several deep breaths and sank onto the cushioned toilet seat, biting her lip and wishing she had her sour buttercream there to drown her persistent tears. They were pushing up her throat and out her eyes again.
When she felt alright as what her ‘alright’ was nowadays, she stood up and straightened her hair and clothes. She looked at her reflection in the carved mirror in the wall and grimaced. “I should go to bed.”
“Yes, dear. Sometimes, it’s the best and easiest escape,” her mirror replied.
Hermione scowled. “I’m not escaping!” she huffed. Without giving the mirror a chance to answer, she went out the door.
Mr Waterbut was waiting for her at one of the tables, drinking a small firewhiskey. He stood up when she saw her. “The rain has stopped. No saying it won’t start again, though. MacElroy’s is just straight up this road, my dear.”
“Thank you very much, Mr Waterbut. I was refreshed.” Hermione opened her purse to pay for her drink, but Mr Waterbut took hold of her hands and closed her purse.
“The drink’s on the house. For welcome,” he said with a smile.
“Thank you,” Hermione said again. And because he reminded her of Dumbledore, and was a completely charming old man besides, she kissed him on his wrinkled cheek. His eyes danced merrily. Before Hermione could approach the door, he put a hand on her shoulder.
“For some reason, we all tend to hang on to something we know we have to let go of. It’s like…we’re afraid to lose something we don’t really have. We think we’d rather take that, rather than have absolutely nothing…But Hermione, the truth is this, to have something halfway is even more torturous than not having it at all.”
Hermione stared at him. And then she was startled to feel tears down her cheeks. She brushed them away hastily and nodded at the old man, muttering a goodbye, or maybe she only muttered gibberish; she couldn’t tell, and she didn’t care. It was only when Mr Waterbut touched her again on the shoulder that she realized she had rushed to the loo instead of to the door.
“Oh,” she muttered, and then grinned to cover her mortification. Mr Waterbut laughed out loud. “Don’t go running away again, Hermione, you might end up somewhere nastier than a loo.”
His laughter was infectious. In spite of her previous confusion, Hermione laughed. They went on laughing as he walked her to the door.
“Goodbye, Mr Waterbut, and thank you again. For rescuing me from the loo, too.”
“See that you come back, mavourneen.”
Hermione smiled. Her vacation wouldn’t be exclusive to reading, after all. She could spend time with this old man, her grandmother’s friend. He jangled her nerves with his words awhile ago, but she felt comforted at the same time. She’d been rocking in a dinghy for so long. Now she might have found a harbor.
“I will.”
~*~
She walked slowly toward the dark shape of the building. The ground rose, and she was glad of the pebbles scattered underneath her feet. Otherwise she’d be sliding in slush for certain.
Not a second had passed after she thought this when someone grabbed her around the waist. Her feet left the ground momentarily, but before she could scream, she bumped against a little woolen blue bundle whence a small red head peeped.
“Are you alright?”
She was disoriented, the umbrella dropped to her feet and bobbed like a giant green poppy. She looked up at the man who had grabbed her. His blonde hair was dripping, and there was panic in his gray eyes.
“I”yes…thank you. I’m looking for MacElroy’s. Why did you””
“I’m Andrei MacElroy, and it seems you’ve found us. But you were walking to the cliff, Hermione, did you know that?”
“What? I”” Why was he looking at her like that? “Of course, I didn’t know. If I did, I wouldn’t be walking this way”” Did he call her by her name? She was about to ask when, suddenly uncomfortable looking straight to his gray eyes, she looked down, and caught sight of the little redhead again. “Oh goodness, why did you bring your baby out?”
“Well, he climbs up and out of his crib if he has a mind to, and there was no one in the house to leave him to, and here you were about to walk to your death, so I really had no choice but to grab him and run and grab you, too.”
“Won’t he be ill?” Unconsciously, she had moved closer and was tugging at the baby’s woolen hood to make sure it covered him.
“No, no, Ron’s hardy. I’m the one likely to catch ague.”
Hermione faintly registered his grouse but gasped at his first words.
“Ron?”
“Yes, yes. Stop staring like a goose. Come on then, to the house””
She stared at the baby with his fluff of copper hair. What kind of coincidence was this? Coming to Ireland and being rescued from a cliff by a man with a baby named Ron, a baby with red hair and blue eyes like Ron?
She stumbled upon a step, jolting her back to reality, and she realized they were already at the door of MacElroy’s. She tore her eyes away from little Ron.
“I”I left my cat in the car.”
“He’s snug and dry then, and we’re not,” the man said wryly. What was his name again? And very grumpy for an Irishman. “Go inside. I’ll go and get him.”
Hermione nodded, still shaken. And then, as if Merlin was intent on turning not just her legs to jelly, the man gave her the blue bundle.
“Here, hold Ron for me for a second.”
He went back out in the rain, leaving her holding the gurgling, bright-eyed baby. Her heart was drumming so hard in her chest she was amazed it didn’t scare him. No, he just looked at her and then grabbed a lock of her hair.
“You’re a sweetie,” she chuckled. “You’re aptly named.”
She kissed him, and for the first time in five years, her heart felt light.
~ * ~
He’d been expecting her, so his shock was long past even before she boarded the Muggle plane to Dublin”except if you counted his jolt when he saw her walking under the map umbrella to the bluff. He thought she was”no, that was ridiculous. When he told her where she’d been heading she looked surprised enough for it to be a lie. Still, he knew she took Ron Weasley’s death hard. Harry and Ginny had told him as much when they met here. He believed it right after he saw her face.
He knew that look, because he himself still wore it at times.
That look came from loss, sorrow, guilt.
All of which he thought he had more license to feel than she had.
After all, she had just lost a loved one, and through no fault of her own.
While he…he had killed his own aunt, had forsaken his own parents, and had brought about the death of Dumbledore (Not in that order. But in that order of egregiousness (Killing Bellatrix was least of his sins. The harridan had had it coming to her).
His chest tightened at the thought, even now, six years later.
But like Hermione, he had done all he could to bury the past. She immersed herself into work; he immersed himself into family.
He laughed at himself sometimes, but that was really it. It was the thing he’d lacked all his life. Just being with people”really being with them, not treating them as inferior or bossing them around, but accepting them and being accepted in return, whether or not he had money and status (what status now? Haha…). The Order gave it to him. First, at Headquarters after they found him, and then, here in Ireland, after they’d won the war.
Someone could have knocked him over with a quill when he discovered that his grandfather Abraxas had an uncle who was a Squib. A Squib immediately disowned when he had not received a letter from Hogwarts. He had been Obliviated, given the name MacElroy, and transplanted here in the fishing village of Ardmore. True to his Malfoy blood though, he had prospered, and had passed down this noble pub and inn from son to son.
Five years ago, with a little memory charm as well, another Malfoy had been welcomed in Ardmore by Patricia MacElroy Duffy and her daughter and son-in-law, Kathy and Jack Ryan. They were glad cousin Andrei had come, because as long as there was a MacElroy in Ardmore, the pub would continue its legacy and the sea would not lose its bounty.
That was his story. And if things went as Harry and Ginny had planned”they couldn’t be more blatant at their ridiculous matchmaking scheme”Hermione might be pleased to hear it. Pleased to the point of giggling and gawking at him for seeking and living with his Squib relations. He shook his head. No, the Hermione Granger he knew wouldn’t actually do that. She’d go to her room first, certainly. He need not worry of mortification.
He looked around. When he was sure no one was looking, he brought out his wand and summoned the cat and Hermione’s luggage. The cat came yowling out of the car door, but immediately quieted when he clutched it gently to his chest. The three matching burgundy suitcases landed neatly side-by-side at his feet. Too neatly, in fact, that he wondered if they were charmed to act that way. How exactly like Hermione Granger. He smirked. Ron “ probably little Ron to her”seemed to have gotten all her attention after she found out his name and that was just as well. At least, inside the pub there were divans and sofas ready if she fainted when she recognized him.
Cut it out. Who are you, that you think you’d make her faint just at the sight of you?
He opened the door cautiously…She was rocking with Ron, the little red head close to the brown one, and it took his breath away. Her eyes were closed, she looked peaceful” quite near beautiful. Whatever Harry and Ginny said, they had neglected to mention that Hermione had come a long way from being the bushy-haired, bossy know-it-all who glanced at him alternately suspiciously and pityingly while he lived with them at the Order Headquarters.
He didn’t know how long he stood staring by the door, but he jumped and Hermione jumped when she saw him as she stood up at last from the rocker. Then she smiled and put a finger to her lips. He felt himself smiling back and watched her as she sort of glided over to the crib near the hearth. With more grace and expertise than he’d seen in either Aunt Patty or Kathy, she laid down the baby gently. She didn’t move away, but just stood there and smiled at the sleeping infant. And then, as if she couldn’t bear it anymore, she bent down and kissed the baby on the nose.
When she straightened up again, she turned to him grinning.
By this time, he had moved nearer the fire as well, trying to be as casual as could be, while the thought that now she could see him properly fluttered around in his stomach like a frenzied moth.
A second passed and it happened.
She didn’t actually scream or faint, but she dropped onto the ottoman beside Ron’s crib and clapped a hand to her mouth before more than a squeal came out.
It pleased him.
It meant she still remembers”
“Draco Malfoy?”
To Love Life Again by lucilla_pauie
Chapter Notes: Disclaimer: Two good reviewers, sfhpfan and Daydreamer, had reminded me to put this in. Thanks, guys.Nearly everything Irish in this story, the setting, the names, are taken from Nora Roberts's novel about the Gallagher siblings, "Jewels of the Sun".
I am not Irish, not even European! So please just smile indulgently when you see some mistakes (like, I hope I am right that Spring begins to arrive by the end of February,hehe). Whew! Someday, I'll go there.
I promise though, that the plot is mine. And the name Blenkinsop Waterbut is a product of Jan's (MagicalMaeve) creative juice of course. While the rest of the characters and names are regeistered trademarks of WB, bought from our dear Jo Rowling, who is right now cooking up DH for us in her cauldron.