Exotic Matter | Harry Potter for Grownups

Chapter Nine

Hermione has come to the end of her work. She's spent far too much time on the McGonagall entry, and she'll have to rush to finish editing the forty-three new entries that have come in from the other writers by the deadline. She also has to review the older entries and decide which need updating.

Her entry on Minerva is written, but it feels unfinished. She cannot help being disappointed at not having found out what became of Minerva, although she's insisted rather adamantly to all who would listen that it wasn't important, that the life Minerva McGonagall lived up through February 1999 was quite interesting enough to merit careful examination.

She lies to Neville, telling him she needs to confirm some minor genealogical facts, and asks him to ask Hannah if she would arrange a meeting between Hermione and Perdita Abbott, Hannah's cousin's widow and Minerva's great-niece.

Several days later, Hermione receives an owl inviting her for tea at Madam Abbott's in Godric's Hollow. It is the first time Hermione has been there since the fateful trip with Harry at the end of what the wizarding history books call the Great War, which has always irked her.

The town has changed since then. Where once there were well-kept half-timbered houses and small lanes, there is now a run-down high street with shops and restaurants that are mostly shuttered.

The Abbot cottage is also run down. The paint is peeling, and the garden is overgrown with weeds. The Perdita who greets her at the door is more than a decade younger than Hermione, but her hair is shot-through with grey, and when Hermione remarks on the changes in Godric's Hollow, she says, "Oh, yes. After the war—not the last one, of course, but the Great War—it got to be quite the tourist destination, back after that book came out and they did that film. Everyone wanted to see where that snake— Oh, I'm sorry. I'm afraid I forgot that it really happened to you."

Hermione is quite used to her life story being treated like a page from a historical novel.

"It's all right," she says.

"Anyway, the property values went way up, and more wizards moved in. Then, when the economy went tits up, they moved out again, mostly, and they haven't come back."

Despite the evidence of the Abbott family's falling fortunes, their tea is served by a house-elf, the first Hermione's seen in years. When the elf has deposited the tea things and disappeared, Perdita says, almost apologetically, "She wanted to stay. The rest of her family was killed in the reprisals just before Emancipation. I tried to get her to go to Hogwarts with the others, but she wouldn't. I pay her now, of course."

Hermione gives what she hopes is a genuine-looking smile, and says, "Thank you for inviting me."

"It's my pleasure. Though I'm not sure I can tell you any more than what's in the genealogy my father did, and it's all online."

"Yes, I saw it, he was very thorough. Actually, I was wondering if you know anything about Minerva's house? Some of her papers refer to a place in Islay."

"It came to me after she was declared dead." Perdita fusses nervously with the tea cosy. "I sold it three months ago."

"Were there any papers, any diaries?"

"There were some papers, but I'm afraid I disposed of them."

At Hermione's look, she adds, "I'm sorry, but they didn't look like anything—mostly receipts, some old tax forms. She was rarely there in the last years, so I thought everything important would be at Hogwarts."

"I see."

Hermione tries to hide her frustration, but it is apparently written across her face.

"I've done something terrible, haven't I?" Perdita asks.