The Grey

Chapter 1: The Book That Started It All

A/N: This story began as part of a Hermione Granger Big Bang fest, but then summer rolled around, and I was finding it hard to write. This is a winter story to me, it just feels like something that needs to be written in the fall/winter. I have several chapters completed and plan to have this story done by early 2019. .I don't have a set update schedule on this but expect about once a week or so.

This story is rated M for language, themes, and sexual content. Please be advised.

Also - this story has an ambiguously happy ending.

Beta'd by the lovely msmerlin. Thank you for your work on this!

If you loved this (or hated it) let me know about it in a review! Find the aesthetic for this story on my tumblr: crochetawayhpff or my Facebook Shan Crochetaway.

Update! Many, many thanks to LaBelladoneX and her daughter for helping to make the Irish translations not straight from Google Translate. I'm terrible about telling people that I use Google Translate because I just forget, but I did, and it was all wrong and LaBelladoneX kindly PM'd me to help me correct it. So many thanks to her! Also, apparently I was calling the language the wrong thing too, so my apologies there as well.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

~0o0~

There is so much grey to every story — nothing is so black and white.

-Lisa Ling

~0o0~

Chapter 1: The Book That Started It All

~0o0~

October 2021

~0o0~

Hermione Granger-Weasley coughed and waved her hand in front of her face as the dust settled from the giant tome she had set onto her desk. It was the last book from a collection that had just been donated from the Selwyn estate. She'd been saving it for last, since it was the biggest, and couldn't wait to dig her fingers into it. Hermione had been working as a researcher in the Department of Mysteries for the last nine years, moving to a lower stress department after her divorce from Ron. The Ministry had rooms full of texts and artifacts both donated and confiscated, and not nearly enough manpower to go through them all. It was just Hermione and her boss, an elderly man named Aggie Corvin.

Aggie decided on the priority of projects, leaving Hermione the best part, in her opinion. She read every book, examined each artifact and decided whether it was worth going to the Ministry archives. Some aspects of her job were really boring, for instance even if she knew the book was already in the archives, Hermione had to compare the texts to make sure they were actually identical. That part she hated but had created a spell to make it go easier. Her favorite were well-known texts that were annotated by hand. Sometimes the annotations were enlightening, most often they were snarky and gave Hermione a good giggle.

She thrived on books like the one in front of her. It was old, at least a few hundred years, there was no identifying text or marks on the cover or binding, and she was sure she'd never seen one like it before. Which meant, it was probably an undiscovered text. She smiled as she ran her hands down the cover. She'd already checked it over thoroughly for any traces of dark magic; there were none. The book hummed pleasantly under her fingers, as magical books tended to do. It made her even more excited.