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Hermione is never going to a strip club again.
She’s not entirely sure why she’s in this one, except with werewolves and vampires—legal in the States, and open about it, and she doesn’t know if she’ll get past how bizarre that feels—she figured there might be other witches and wizards there. There’s no clear community in St. Louis—they’re so spread out in the States there aren’t really permanent communities outside of New York; Washington, DC; and San Francisco, not that she can find at least—but she thought magic might go with magic.
Instead she’s sitting alone sipping on an obscenely sweet drink and watching a man take his clothes off.
He’s attractive enough, she thinks, though it’s always been brains and personality she cares about more than looks. Like Krum—he might have been attractive, but more than that he was nice and attentive at a time when nobody besides Harry and Ron paid much attention to her. It’s not particularly unpleasant, watching him take his clothes off. It just does relatively little for her.
And then he steps off stage and lopes towards her, his movements looking more animal than she’s seen any person ever pull off, and she presses cold fingers to the glass of her drink and hopes he doesn’t actually approach her. She doesn’t want the attention. She doesn’t want any attention. That’s why she’s here in the first place.
But he does, stopping right in front of her with one hand outstretched and all eyes fixed on them, and this close his presence is so strong this close, overwhelming, his eyes so purple, and she’s drowning, and she presses back in her chair and shakes her head. He gives her a smile before offering his hand to the person next to her, and she has to look away before she drowns in eyes.
Something off to the side catches her attention, and her brain says muggle and then bomb and then she has her wand out and Protego on her tongue as the whole world explodes.
The world is on fire when the explosion ends, except for their little portion of it, her chair and the chairs of the few people around her, the woman next to her and the dancer, who’s staring at her like—
She doesn’t have time for that, because there are people bleeding and dying around her (again), so she throws herself out of her chair, glass shattering on the ground, and heads to the nearest body. It’s a woman, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth and pulsing from the gash on her forehead, and Hermione crouches down next to her, moving the bachelorette sash out of the way to check her pulse manually because she hasn’t practiced the spell enough times to trust it in a trauma situation.
It’s thudding away, fast but strong, and Hermione nods to herself as she says, “You’re okay. I got you.”
The woman opens her eyes to blink at her, eyes cloudy. “Alex,” she croaks. “Where is my fiancé?”
Hermione traces her wand over the head wound, muttering a spell to stop the bleeding. She needs to practice doing these non-verbally. That’s what she’ll do when she goes home. And learn a bigger damn protection spell. “Was he near you?”
“She.” The woman’s voice is getting quieter. “She was next to me.”
There’s a woman sprawled next to her—there are a lot of women sprawled around them, in various stages of injured—and Hermione says, “I’ll check her once you stop bleeding.”
“Now.” The woman tries to push her away, feebly. “Check her now. Check her. Check Alex. Make sure she’s okay. Please.”
The cut seems healed enough that she won’t bleed out, so Hermione moves over to the woman she’s pretty sure is Alex. That woman’s pulse is a lot more sluggish, and she doesn’t react at all when Hermione touches her. Hermione didn’t see it at first glance, but her arm is almost severed from her socket, even worse than Ron’s when they—
She doesn’t have an Essence of Dittany, so she starts on the strongest healing spells she knows, trying to get it to the point where it won’t come off or bleed out. She’s a little concerned about messing it up for muggle medical treatment later, but better this person has some trouble with their arm later than dies now. Because if Hermione doesn’t stop this bleeding, she’s going to die.
She loses herself in her work, stopping the beeding in this woman and then the next, and then a man who she thinks is one of the dancers, and he’s healing faster than most of them but still bleeding profusely from his head, and he’s not reacting exactly the same to healing spells as the others, so she has a feeling he’s a werewolf. It’s nowhere near a full moon, though, so she’s not all that concerned.
She’s closed up most of his wounds when a piece of metal is jammed into the back of her skull, a voice demanding, “Move away from him. Now.”
“I’m helping him,” she says carefully, trying not to flinch as a door bursts open and people start streaming in. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Whatever magic you’re doing on him—”
“They’re simple healing spells, nothing more.” This woman knows about magic, so Hermione isn’t too worried about mentioning it. There are muggle police fanning around the building, though, so she slips her wand up her sleeve. “I’ll step away from him, but it will be difficult with your weapon on the back of my head. Additionally, the police are here, and they may not take kindly to you harming a civilian.”
The woman makes an irritated noise. “The police won’t stop me if they know you were threatening one of my people.”
Her people. That’s an interesting wording. “I was closing his wounds, not doing him any harm.” Hermione lifts her arms, slowly, to show that there’s nothing in her hands. “There are many injured here. Paramedics should see to them.”
“And yet you don’t have a scratch on you. Who are you?”
“Just a tourist.” Hermione stands, slowly, balancing so she doesn’t fall over on to the man. All around the room, authorities are checking on the people scattered around the room, moaning and writhing in pain or just unconscious. There are other people, too, people she thinks work at the strip club. “I’ll just walk out of here.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so. You—”
Someone bounds over, planting themselves next to the two of them. “She saved me.” The man from before. “Anita, she saved me.”
The woman makes a noise. “Nathaniel?”
“Right before the bomb went off, she pulled out a stick and said something, and the explosion didn’t hit us.” He crouches down next to the man. “Jason?”
“He’ll be fine,” Hermione says. “He’s healing quickly. I didn’t need to help it along that much.” Her wand is a comforting pressure against her arm. “Can I turn around or are you just going to keep talking to my back?”
The weapon retreats a little. “Okay, turn around. Slowly.” Keeping her arms spread, Hermione turns. The woman is dark-haired, short, with a gun pointed levelly at Hermione’s face. Her eyes widen. “Christ, you’re just a kid.”
Hermione’s temper flares, and she tamps down on it. “I’m old enough to have saved his life, and the life of that woman on the ground over there.” A paramedic is working on that woman now, lifting her up in a gurney. There is light from streetlamps streaming into the strip club, and Hermione can see a crowd outside the building. Damn. “I’d prefer to leave before facing a muggle interrogation, so if you wouldn’t mind—”
The woman scoffs. “You’re not going anywhere.”
A man appears next to them, so suddenly Hermione almost pulls her wand on him. “Ma petite, I suggest we move this downstairs.” Another man picks up the man on the ground. “Wicked, take him to his bedroom, have somebody tend to him. All entrances are to be secured—none other than those who are medical personnel may be allowed in, and I want the names of all those who enter and exit. We will find who did this to us.” He looks back at the woman. “Ma petite, please, now is not the time to do this in front of the authorities.”
The woman stares at Hermione for a moment, then holsters her gun. “Fine,” she snaps. “I want to know what the hell happened. And she’s involved.”
“We will figure it out, ma petite.” He looks at the man standing next to Hermione, the one she saved with the protego. “Mon chat, I am glad to see you well. I had feared.” He looks at the woman. “Shall we?”
They pick their way through the damage and the people—all of whom are ignoring them, likely because they have bigger issues, and Hermione had thought she would never be surrounded by this much death again. She had pledged to never be surrounded by this much death again. That was why they fought that bloody war.
They end up in a black-and-white room with blood red couches. Hermione is directed towards one of the couches, and she sits down at one end of it, crossing her legs in front of her and keeping her arms at her side. No need to spook them any more than is already the case.
The basement looks only mildly affected by the explosion; things have been knocked around, but everything is basically intact.
The woman paces back and forth in front of Hemione for a moment, then says, “You’re a witch.”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing here?”
Hermione considers making a snide comment about them having walked her down here themselves, but instead she controls her tongue and says, “I was watching men take their clothes off. Though it’s the last time I do that.” She offers the stripper a small smile. “No offense.”
The woman doesn’t seem to like that exchange, because she steps into the line of sight between Hermione and the stripper. “Who planned the bombing?”
Why does she think Hermione would know that? “No idea.”
“Who carried out the bombing?”
“A man. White, mid-30s, dark hair. He—” Something moves in her periphery, and she twitches, breaking off, barely keeping herself from palming her wand. It’s a man, a beautiful man, with hair and the most interesting glamour she’s ever seen covering one side of his face. It’s somewhere between a traditional glamour and a Disillusionment charm, shadows just this side of unnatural making it impossible to see his face. “That’s incredible,” she breaths. “How do you do that?”
The man blinks at her. “Excuse me?” His accent is French, with something behind it that makes her think Veela.
“The glamour on your face. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He gives an uncomfortable twitch, and the woman cuts in, saying, “We don’t have time for this. I want to know how you were involved in this.”
Hermione sighs, shoving back a recalcitrant piece of hair. “I have triage experience, and I was helping stabilize the people hurt nearest me. I had nothing to do with the attack, other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” As always. Not for the first time, she feels a wave of sympathy for Harry.
The woman’s eyes narrow. “How can you have triage experience? You barely look old enough to drink.”
Oh, Merlin. And she likely shouldn’t inform them that she isn’t actually old enough to drink in the States. “My school provided many learning experiences.”
“Like triage?”
“Ma petite,” the initial French one cuts in, “I believe that she was uninvolved in the attack. And we have larger matters to attend to. Shall we not release her so she can give her statement to the police.”
“Fine,” the woman says gracelessly. “She can go.”
“Asher, escort her out.”
The man with the glamour nods, gesturing for Hermione to join him. She stands and heads over to him, but not before looking at the stripper and saying, “I hope your friend is okay.”
He looks startled, then smiles shyly at her. “Thanks. And thanks for saving me.”
“Once they’re upstairs but before the man hands her off to the muggle authorities, he says, “The master is appreciative of your aid to his pomme de sang and others who were injured in the attack.”
Hermione shrugs. “It was the least I could do.”
“No,” the man says, “it wasn’t.” And then he gestures for her to go to the muggle police.
Before she goes, though, she asks, “Would it be possible for someone to let me know if the man who I was treating is okay? I don’t need details, but I’d just like the confirmation that he’s okay.” She had failed too many people in the past couple years. She wanted to know she hadn’t failed this one too.
The man stares at her for a moment, and she stares back because she is not really willing to back away from scary things just because they’re scary, and maybe Harry trained a little too much self-preservation out of her. Finally, he nods. “If you provide me a means of contact, I will see that you are contacted.”
Hermione rattles off a number, saying, “It’s a British number, but it works here.” The Floo network is unreliable at best transatlantically, and she was unwilling to be out of contact with Harry and Ron for that long. Ron’s still getting a hang of phones, but Harry has always been about as muggle as her, abuse not withstanding.
That finished, Hermione heads over to the police. The one who says she will be taking her statement is a woman, tired-looking in a way that Hermione recognizes, not from the war but from fifth year when Harry rarely slept through the night. She wonders if it’s nightmares or something else.
Unfortunately, the look the woman gives Hermione when she provides her name is one she recognizes from somewhere else, and she barely restrains a sigh when the woman squeaks, “Not that Hermione Granger.”
“You’re a witch, then?” Hermione asks.
“I—yes. I didn’t know you were in the States.”
Now Hermione does sigh. “That was rather the point. I don’t suppose you have a pensieve so I can just give you my memory of what happened?” She’s given dozens of pensieve testimonies since the end of the war, mostly to show whose side people fought on. For some unfathomable reason people believe her memories over most others’; memories are memories, and she and Harry and Ron shouldn’t need to testify in everything.
The detective shakes his head. “We don’t use pensieve testimony here.”
Of course not. Why would anything in her life possible be simple? But complaining about that won’t do any good, so she just recounts what happened, glad despite the discomfort that she has a witch so she doesn’t need to lie about what she did after the attack.
Once she’s done, the woman says, “I appreciate your help.” She hands Hermione a card with a few phone numbers on it. “Please let me know if you remember anything else. And, uh, from the world in general, thank you.”
Hermione nods. She’s so used to the adoration now, no matter how uncomfortable it makes her, that she feels irritation more than anything else. “I hope you’ll keep my presence here to yourself, as much as you can. I’d rather avoid the attention if at all possible.”
“We’ll do what we can,” the woman tells her, and it’s not as reassuring as she probably intends.
By the time Hermione gets back to her hotel, she’s exhausted, and the whole city is abuzz about the bombing. Despite the shield charm she has dust and no small amount of blood on her, and she heads straight for the shower.
It hits her fifteen minutes into the hottest shower she can stand that she just lived through another act of war, and she feels nothing. Or not nothing, but not shock or horror or any of those things she should feel. It has to do with growing up in a war, she thinks, even if she didn’t know it at the time. There is little that will shock her, these days.
Once she gets out, she considers calling Harry, but he needs another war even less than she does, and besides, he has Teddy.
She wouldn’t call Ron. They’re in love, but she doesn’t know how to love when not in the middle of war.
So instead, she pulls out one of the research notebooks she came with. The Unspeakables want her, and she’s considering it. She had thought about politics, being Minister of Magic by 30, but she’s an academic at heart, and after the past few months she can’t bloody stand politics or anyone involved with it.
Eventually, she thinks, she’ll want to teach at Hogwarts, but even though they would likely take her now, it’s too fresh. She can’t go back. Not yet.
--
Hermione wakes from a nightmare that leaves the word mudblood painted in jagged letters to her wand in her hand and the sound of her mobile ringing. The first is familiar, the second not so much, but she grabs it from her nightstand and puts it up to her ear, asking, “What?”
“Ms. Granger?” It takes her a second to place the voice on the other end, and then she realizes it’s the stripper from the previous night. He sounds tired. “I wanted to tell you Jason woke up. Asher would have called you himself, but, well, it’s daytime.”
Jason must be the last man she was working on, the one who seems to be so important, or at least precious. “I’m glad he’s okay. Thank you for telling me.” Her adrenaline is finally gone enough for her to lean back in bed and loosen the grip on her wand.
The man hesitates a second, then asks, “Would you like to come see him? He wants to thank you.”
Hermione hesitates. “I didn’t get the impression I would be particularly welcome there.”
“Anita’s just protective,” he says. “And nobody will mind if I bring you in to see Jason.”
Hermione considers saying no, but she does want to see if the man is okay, so he finally says, “Okay. I’ll be there in an hour.”
“Great,” the man says, then hangs up.
Hermione flops back down in bed, knowing somewhere deep in her heart that she will regret this.
The upstairs of the nightclub when she gets there, a dozen or so people that she can see through holes in the wall working on it, and she has the jolting reminder that rebuilding is so much harder for muggles. It’s unnerving to think she had forgotten that.
The stripper greets her outside, long hair pulled down into a braid over one shoulder, hands shoved in his pockets as he waits. He grins at her when she walks up, ducking his head a little.
It reminds her of Harry in a way that she isn’t particularly fond of, Harry in a room full of people he doesn’t want to notice him.
She didn’t know what abuse looked like at eleven. She lived with him for months. She’s a lot more familiar with it now.
But she’s gotten better about not blurting things out—a lesson hard fought and hard won—so she just follows him inside.
As they’re walking to the stairs, she asks, “Is any help needed to rebuild?”
He looks startled, then shakes his head. “It’s fine.” He hesitates. “What are you in town for?”
“Just getting away,” she says, lighter than she feels.
“I guess you weren’t expecting to get away to a bombing.”
“Not really, no.”
They reach a closed door, and the man calls, “You decent?”
From the other side of the door comes, “Am I ever?”
The man smiles, then says, “The woman who saved you is here.”
“Oh.” There’s a pause, and then he says, “Yeah, I’m decent. Or at least clothed.”
The man rolls his eyes, then opens the door, gesturing for her to walk in. She walks in, almost missing a step when she sees a man lounging in bed dressed in boxers and nothing else. He wiggles his fingers at her, shifting so the tight muscles on his stomach flex. But she’s used to George’s tricks and the half-dozen seduction attempts she’s experienced since the end of the war, so she only pauses for the time it takes to take one step, and then she’s walking again. “You look better.”
He puts a hand on his chest, scratching absently. “I always look good.”
“Not covered in blood, particularly, you don’t.” She looks him over, and she knows he’s attractive, but lean muscles and tan skin aren’t doing much for her. “Are you feeling better?”
“Fit as a fiddle, and just as willing to play yours.”
Hermione’s eyes narrow, but he’s not actually being aggressive, just flirting, so she says, “The offer is appreciated, but I’m taken.”
“I’m sure I can change your mind.”
She laughs, because if Vickor Krum couldn’t get rid of her crush on Ron, this man won’t be able to. “I’m sure you can’t.” She palms her wand but doesn’t show it to him, just in case he reads it as a weapon. “Can I do a diagnostic on you? Just to check that you’re healed up? I don’t know your philosophy on magic being used on you, but it won’t hurt you if you do it.”
He spreads his arms, then says, “Diagnose away.”
She points her wand at him, muttering a diagnosis spell that she learned when preparing to go on the run. She’s finding pain but healed injuries, which is frankly amazing, and healing she wishes they could replicate. “Brilliant.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Your healing, I meant.”
The stripper laughs, and she jerks, having almost forgotten he was there. Dangerous. She needs to pay more attention. “She’s got you there,” he says, and then the door opens behind them and he makes a noise. She spins to see the woman from the day before, looking furiously angry, standing in the doorway. He makes an unhappy noise from his throat. “Anita.”
“What are you doing here?” she demands, striding into the room, and Hermione moves, stepping between Anita and the stripper, wand low but ready. Anita stops. “What are you doing?”
“You’re not going to touch him when you’re angry.”
Anita’s eyes widen even as, behind her, the men start spouting off that everything is okay, that it’s fine, but Anita’s the real threat here, and Hermione knows what that kind of anger means. Ginny has a temper, now. She’s always had a temper, but the last time she slept in a bed with Harry she lost her temper and almost set the whole room on fire with her magic; Harry saved them because he’s Harry, but that kind of anger is explosive, and she won’t do this again. She won’t see that look in somebody’s eye again. She’s sick of it.
She’s sick of all of it.
Anita’s teeth bare, lips peeling back. “Move out of the way.”
“No.”
“Ms. Granger,” the stripper says behind her, and she really needs to learn his name, because right now she feels like she’s thinking of him the way that everyone thinks about Harry, a title that people see as more fitting to describe a person than a name. “Anita isn’t going to hurt me. She’s just protective. I promise.”
“A person I love lived in a cupboard for ten years because of protectiveness. I’m not particularly fond of that rationale.” She eyes Anita. She knows it’s dangerous to start confrontations with abusers when you don’t have a way to protect the abused, but she doesn’t think Anita is an abuser. She thinks she’s just angry, and possibly careless with her anger. “Why don’t you go outside, take a breath, and come back when you don’t look like you’re going to kill someone.”
“I’m not going to listen to a kid order me around.”
Hermione grits her teeth, takes in a breath, and then asks, “What did you hope to accomplish, furiously barging in here? For me to leave? I was invited here by someone who, as I understand it, had a right to do so. Did you intend to lecture him on the foolishness of inviting me? Did you intend to try to shoot me, as the hand twitching towards your gun implies that you want to do? In any of those cases, what does your anger accomplish, other than as a fear tactic? And if you’re just here to make him afraid, or me, I’m going to keep standing here.”
For a moment, Anita’s anger is still a living, breathing thing, and then it twitches, shifts, arcs out from her like wings to brush against Hermione’s skin like drowning lust and the push of Legilimency, and she is vaguely aware of the men behind her reacting, but if she lets her brain focus on them she will be lost, so instead she turns herself inward, into the walls of the library she built, brick by brick and book by book, in her mind, strengthening every Occlumency shield she has, and pushes back.
Time is suspended for a moment, tension hanging in the air like a pendulum about to drop, and then Anita blinks and the press is gone, along with her anger, and all that’s on her face is confusion. “What the hell,” she demands, “was that?”