Emerald Eyes - HP one-shots

The Grangers

This story is from the POV of Hermione's parents starting from The Philosopher's Stone and ending at The Deathly Hallows. Follows canon

Sorry for the Month-long hiatus

Hermione's parents were filled with joy the first winter break Hermione had spent with them.

She had eagerly confided all the exciting adventures she had with her two new best friends, telling them about murderous teachers and mysterious packages, midnight adventures and three headed dogs, wizarding bank robberies and a man named Nicholas Flamel. They had been terrified for their only daughter, of course, but they were thrilled that she was fitting into the wizarding world so well. By the time she returned to them for the summer, they began to wonder if she was fitting in a little too well, though.

She had changed slightly in the short year they had spent apart. Hermione was more reserved, quieter, less inclined to chatter away unguardedly. As their daughter told them about the events surrounding Professor Quirrel and the Philosopher's Stone, they got the sense she wasn't lying to them, she was choosing her words cautiously, carefully toning down the danger she had been in, avoiding admitting to bits of rule-breaking she had engaged in.

If her parents were hurt by this mild form of deception, this was nothing compared to how they felt when she refused to spend Christmas with them in her second year at Hogwarts. Her letters, which had become slightly vague and evasive on some points, offered only weak excuses as to why she had to stay at Hogwarts. Hermione had learned to keep secrets. The worst letter of all, though, did not come from Hermione, but from Deputy Headmistress McGonagalls, telling them that their daughter had been Petrified in a freak accident.

"Don't worry though," the letter continued, while Hermione's mother clutched her heart and sank into a nearby chair. "A remedy is being prepared, and your daughter will probably be returned to consciousness by the end of the school year."

Probably.

They refused to deal with the terrifying implication of that one short word, instead insisting on making plans to go on a vacation in France the very day Hermione would return on the Hogwart's Express. "When Hermione gets off the train," they would always begin, as if there was no other possibility. As if their only daughter was not in the sort of danger no non-wizard could protect her from.

They were overjoyed when Hermione tumbled off the Hogwart's Express, pale, shaken, quiet, but very much non-petrified. Their vacation in France was wonderful, but tempered with sadness whenever Hermione visited a sight-seeing spot with only wizarding significance, the kind of place they could never see. They received a nasty shock at the end of the summer, though.

"You don't mind if I stay at the Leaky Cauldron by myself for a few days, do you? The Weasleys will be there, and I'll be perfectly safe," she had asked anxiously, and they had no choice but to allow her, and hope that this habit of spending the last precious few days of summer vacation away wouldn't turn into a trend.

It did.

The next summer, she talked eagerly about seeing the 'Kwidditch' World Cup. After enduring several weeks of this, her mother timidly asked where they could buy tickets.

"But I'll be going with the Weasleys, of course!" she had said innocently. "Muggles can't go the Cup!"

It was the first time she had called them Muggles, instead of non-wizards, or "ordinary folk." It was with heavy hearts and a strong sense of loss that they entrusted her into the care of the cheerful redheaded family who spun from the fireplace later that summer. They didn't see her again for almost two years.