The Confectionary Chronicles || HP/SPN

Lollies and Loki- CH7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Hermione's life in Fraserburgh had lifted such a weight off her shoulders. It wasn't a paradise, though she sometimes privately thought of it as such. As someone who'd lived in London all her life, day to day life in a small fishing town was a jarring change.

There was no school, for one– homeschooling had certainly been something that took time to adjust to, though she did enjoy helping explain the lessons to Leana and Angus, sometimes even Jeanie and Alex too. The family barely used the car, not that there was any real need in such a small town; everywhere she went, Hermione had to go on foot. The meals were often simple, easy to cook large quantities for a lower cost, with most of the ingredients often coming from the garden or the ocean (she was getting so very sick of fish), nothing like the fancy dinners her mother liked to make or order in. There was no bookshop or library to waste away hours in, not that she had any hours to waste– Aunt Iona did not believe in idle hands.

She'd never been expected to help out around the house in London, only to keep her room neat; here, she and the other children were given a list of chores each day, ranging from scrubbing floors to cleaning the chicken coops, from weeding the garden to mending rips and tears in clothes– in the few short months she'd spent in Fraserburgh, she'd been more physically active then in her seven years in London.

So it wasn't a paradise, no, but Hermione loved it anyway. She loved the wildness and freedom of the other children, who ran around barefoot and dived fully dressed into the ocean without care. She loved the independence that came with being able to roam around town without needing adults to supervise. She was even growing to love the smell of the ocean breeze; salty, a hint of seaweed and, when the boats were coming in, fish.

But most of all, she loved her cousins. The Macleods were all so welcoming to her, a stark difference from some of her other cousins in Fraserburgh, the ones from Helen and Iona's brothers who thought she was strange and saw her as an 'outsider' and were always telling her that she didn't belong, that she should go back to London.

Hermione knew that the fact she generally preferred books over the company of people confused other children and that her intelligence was also well above that of others her age. It set her apart, isolating her from her age group, but while the Macleod children didn't quite understood either, they were still as protective of her as if she were their sister; it was a special brand of childish logic, that they were allowed to playfully tease her but if anybody else dared try then they'd rain hellfire down on them– and that almost wasn't even an exaggeration.

Hermione would sometimes bring a book down to the wharf to read while the others played and swam, usually the ones in English so she didn't have to bring a translator too, though she was getting much better at her Gaelic with Uncle Arran's lessons. The other children didn't understand why she'd want to read instead of play and, like always, some of them were cruel about it, calling her a 'freak' amongst many other choice words– it certainly wasn't anything she hadn't heard before, nothing she wasn't accustomed to. What was different, however, was that now other children rose up in her defence– and it wasn't just the Macleod children either.

With the help of Jeanie, Leana, Angus and Alex, children around her age with both actual social skills and a willingness to teach them to her, Hermione had managed to do something she'd never done before– she'd made friends, realfriends. Friends who chased down the one boy who'd snatched her book from her and grabbed her precious copy of 'Hogwarts: A History' right back off him. Friends who threw handfuls of stinking seaweed and rotting fish-guts at anyone who dared call her names (which Hermione honestly thought had to be worse then raining down hellfire, because they reeked). Friends who laughed with her and played with her and told her she was brilliant and thought she was weird, yes, but that it wasn't a bad thing.