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5. First-times
It’s the first time both Draco and Scorpius finally agree to leave the confines of her parents’ house and venture into the warm brightness that is a typical December day in Sydney.
They’ve been here over a month, but they’ve yet to embrace their new home with any enthusiasm. Scorpius is moody and difficult, and Draco spends his days brooding. She knows both her husband and her son are pining for their old home, their old life. But the Malfoys are no longer welcome in wizarding England, and really, she knows the move to Australia is the best thing for all of them. Her head tells her the decision they made was the most rational one, though her heart feels otherwise.
It’s a week to Christmas and she finds it strange to celebrate the festive season without the wintry chill that usually accompanies it, but Hermione is determined to enjoy this change. The weather is one of the many things that make Australia so vastly different from England and all that ties them to it, and she, for one, wants—needs—to make a fresh start.
Her mother’s neighbour introduces herself to Hermione the moment they walk out the front door and into the warm sunshine. Her name is Angela Hansen, and Hermione thinks it’s the perfect name for such a sweet-faced woman. Angela is accompanied by a grim-faced, red-haired man with a military bearing, but who is quick to grin and possesses a firm handshake. He has a name to match—Hercules; Herc for everyday.
They are Muggles.
In line with her philosophy of embracing new things, Hermione is determined to like them immediately. They are of similar age, and, like most Australians she’s met, easy-going and friendly.
But it’s the Hansens’ little boy who quickly catches Hermione’s attention. He looks to be about three years older than her son, with bright blue eyes and an even brighter smile.
A quick whisper from the older boy has her son bending over Chuck Hansen’s cupped hands.
She sneaks a peek: a tiny green frog sits quietly on his palm.
And Chuck Hansen manages something neither she nor Draco has been able to since they left England: coax a small smile from her son.
Even Draco manages to shake off his melancholy at the sight.
It’s the first time she feels with her heart that they've made the right decision in moving to be with her parents in Australia.
4. K-Day
The telly is tuned in to a delayed telecast of a football match in England when the news hits: San Francisco is reeling from an earthquake measuring approximately 7.1 on the Richter scale.
Hermione’s mum makes an inarticulate sound of sympathy, but her dad just grunts something about it being horribly bad luck on the Yanks before he impatiently taps his fingers on the remote control. Hermione knows he doesn’t appreciate any interruption to the match between Everton and Aston Villa. Despite having moved to Australia, her dad is still very much a Toffees fan.
Certain that the telecast will resume anytime soon, Hermione almost misses the sight of a great, hulking monster literally rising up from the waters beneath the Golden Gate Bridge as it flashes across the TV screen behind the newscaster.
Her dad drops the remote and they all watch in disbelief as the monster rips the famous bridge apart within a matter of minutes before wading towards the city of San Francisco.
She spends the rest of August 10, 2013 with her family, glued to the TV, watching what would later be seared into the minds of humanity as K-Day: the day the portal to the Anteverse opened, and what some call the beginning of the end.
3. 2 September, 2014
She loses the love of her life the day the kaiju emerges from beneath the waters of the Pacific and attacks Sydney.
It lays waste to the city’s environs and suburbs as it lays waste to her life. She shoots curse after curse at it, not caring about the Statute of Secrecy, not caring whether Muggles might know her for a witch, but the beast just shakes aside her Avada with ease: a flimsy arrow glancing off a shield.
And Hermione can only watch and rail helplessly as Draco's life bleeds away—blood, so much blood, too much blood—amid the streaks of kaiju blue.
It takes the Australian military three days and two nuclear missile strikes to kill the kaiju everyone comes to know as Scissure, but at the expense of half the city and Draco’s life.
She spends the days after the funeral swallowing her grief, trying to be strong for her son.
She spends the nights curled up on Draco’s side of the bed, breathing in the rapidly fading scent of him.
She finds out later that Angela lost her life during the very same attack that took Draco away from her, and she wonders if Herc feels as she does: hopelessly lost; trying to navigate a never-ending sea of pain and sorrow without a compass to guide her to a safe harbour, or any sort of salvation.
2. Fractions
Relying on that well of strength and determination that saw her through those months on the run when she was younger, Hermione manages to get on by through the years after Draco's death.
She lives for her son.
She knows Scorpius needs her more than ever, and conversely, she needs him near her too. They never leave Sydney, joining in the efforts—Muggle and magical alike—to rebuild the city.
Though the pain has lessened over the years, she still feels at times as if part of her died along with Draco. She wakes up hoping to hear his voice, the weight of his hand on hers, feel his comforting presence by her side. And sometimes, she relives that awful day again, dreaming of deep red blood running in rivulets through the bright kaiju blue.
In the aftermath of such destruction, survivors stick close to each other and the Hansens—as scarred and as fractured as Hermione and Scorpius—become part of their family. Herc is not Draco and she is not Angela, but the boys seem to cling even more to their friendship and somehow, they each manage to fill in the cracks left behind by their dead.
1. Wall of Life (and Death)
They say that when you lose a child, it is the worst sort of loss.
It is true.
Losing Draco left a big, gaping hole in her heart, but in losing Scorpius, she loses part of her soul.
Scorpius never stood a chance the day the kaiju break through the Anti-Kaiju Wall surrounding Sydney. Just as her spell work and curses could not save Draco all those years ago, no Protego was strong enough to shield her son from the massive crumbling blocks of steel and concrete that gives way beneath the horrific swipe of the kaiju's talons.
When the Pan Pacific Defense Corps finally send in Herc and Chuck with Striker Eureka to take down the beast, it is already too late for Scorpius, and too late for Hermione. She feels as if her soul has been brutally torn away from her and flung deep into the abyss of death itself.
She doesn’t even murmur a protest when Chuck, his face wan and weary from the battle and the news of Scorpius’ death, takes her away from Sydney.
She folds her sorrow into herself, boarding the flight that will take her and what is left of her family—Herc, Chuck—to Hong Kong.
0. Operation Pitfall: 12 January, 2025, Hong Kong
The countdown clock ticks ominously as Hermione sinks her teeth onto her lower lip, worrying the flesh.
It’s been close to an hour after both Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka have left the Shatterdome, and she waits with bated breath together with the rest of the world for what could be the start of a new era, or the final chapter cementing the end of humanity.
When the news comes in that Striker Eureka have failed to release the nuclear bomb into the breach, have failed to seal the opening to the Anteverse, she feels the last flicker of her life draining away.
Herc, Chuck—
Her vision fades to grey as she topples to the floor.
+1. New Era
When she comes to, it’s to Herc’s face above her, his eyes red-rimmed and his face grey with pain.
She feels a spark of utter relief that quickly turns into the bitter taste of fear when she does not see Chuck with him.
She does not need him to tell her what happened. He knows she’s a witch and with shaky hands, he hands her her wand. She grips the slender piece of wood and whispers the right spell, diving into Herc’s mind.
Perhaps it is a side-effect from all those hours in the Drift, but an array of memories and feelings buffet her from all sides, as if Herc is projecting all he could not say out loud to her: the Marshall taking Herc’s place as Chuck’s co-pilot because of his injured arm, the pain in the arm itself, Chuck’s memories, fragments of Chuck himself—warm and aching familiar— and she feels the raw, aching wound in Herc when the signal indicator for Striker Eureka goes offline.
She wants to pull away from Herc, pull away from the feeling of having all that is near and dear to her cruelly ripped away again—Draco, Scorpius—but she also feels a kernel of hope within Herc as he replays in his mind how Gipsy Danger succeeded where the other jaegers failed.
The breach is closed.
And when they finally bring Mako and Raleigh in to the Shatterdome amidst the cheers, Hermione, for the first time in a long time, allows her heart to feel hope again.
Fin.