Chapter Text
The Granger household in Hampstead was a quiet place. Not the kind of gentle, comforting quiet, but the sort of silence that gathers dust in corners and creeps beneath doors.
It was too large for one person and far too hollow for Hermione, who had taken to sitting in the kitchen most mornings, a half-cold mug of tea at her elbow, unopened books stacked beside her, and a cat she hadn’t named curled up on the sill.
Her parents were still in Australia, still unaware they had a daughter at all. What was supposed to be a reversible memory charm had turned into a regret she would likely carry for the rest of her life.
She remained alone in London, with more time than she knew what to do with and feeling adrift.
Her friends were moving on. Harry had taken a position with the Auror Office, and though he visited twice a week, it was always with that quietly pitying expression he didn’t quite realise he wore.
Ron had gone off with George to help rebuild the joke shop, their friendship now a fond but faded thing that neither of them could quite revive.
Ginny was training with the Harpies, and even Luna had found purpose in some distant Scandinavian expedition.
As for Hermione, she had returned to Hogwarts for her final year, of course. But only partially. Letters from McGonagall had been kind and accommodating - correspondence work is perfectly acceptable, under the circumstances - and so she stayed home, safe but lost.
It had been Harry, one rainy Thursday afternoon, who first mentioned the programme.
“You’re not the only one feeling like this, you know,” he’d said gently, sitting on the settee in the front room, biscuit in hand. “The Ministry set something up. Well, not the Ministry proper, more… off the books. For people who’ve been through the war and don’t know what to do with themselves anymore.”
Hermione raised an eyebrow. “Therapy?”
“Not quite. More like written support. Anonymous correspondences. You send a note - how you’re feeling, what you miss, that sort of thing. And people reply. Or don’t. It’s all done with enchanted parchment. You never know who you’re writing to. No names. No addresses. Just… words.”
She had scoffed at the time.
But Harry, unruffled, had left a small stack of instructions on the coffee table before he went. He didn’t mention it again.
Three weeks passed.
Three weeks of increasingly grey mornings and tea gone tepid before the third sip.
It was in a moment of quiet desperation, or perhaps just boredom, that she found herself pulling the enchanted parchment towards her.
She didn’t think too hard before writing. That was the point, wasn’t it? Raw honesty.
ENTRY #197 — 3 August, 2005
I never know how to begin things anymore.
I suppose that’s the point of this programme - saying things without worrying about the proper form - but I’ve never been very good at mess.
The truth is, I feel stuck. Not in a dramatic way, just quietly unmoored. The sort of feeling that’s hard to describe because it doesn’t leave marks. It just lingers.
My friends are all off doing something meaningful. They’ve found momentum again, and I seem to be the only one standing still.
Books help. They always have. I don’t mean escape, though that too. I mean something like communion. When a sentence expresses what you thought only you had felt, and suddenly you’re not quite as alone.
I suppose that’s what I’m hoping for. That maybe this note will land somewhere, and maybe someone will understand.
—H.
The parchment glowed faintly once she set it down and then disappeared - to a vault of similar confessions, maybe.
And then, silence. As expected.
By the end of the second week, she had nearly forgotten the letter, dismissing the whole thing. But on the evening of the fifteenth day, she returned home from a walk to find a single slip of parchment on her dining table.
ENTRY RESPONSE TO #197 — 19 August, 2005
H.,
There is something quietly arresting in your note - something unguarded and therefore rare.
I will not pretend to know your exact loneliness. But I recognise the shape of it. You described it perfectly: not a wound, but a kind of stillness.
I have lived, for some time now, at a certain remove from things. Perhaps not unwillingly at first, but distance, once established, is difficult to breach.
Your phrase - communion - struck me. It is a word not often used anymore, and yet it captures the strange intimacy between reader and writer, doesn’t it? I have found moments of it, I think. In old works, at places where the author seems not to care if they are liked, only understood.
If you feel inclined to write again, I would read your thoughts.
Respectfully,
—M.
Hermione sat for a long time with the letter folded between her fingers, staring at nothing.
Something in her chest shifted.
She took up her quill.
Dear M.,
I wasn’t expecting a reply, let alone one like that.
You write in a way that reminds me of the books I read as a child. Not childish books - just the ones that made everything feel heavier and more beautiful at the same time.
I don’t know what sort of life you’ve lived. But something in your words made me feel steadier for a moment. That’s not nothing.
You mentioned reading old works. I’m curious - do you read muggle literature at all? I’ve always loved both worlds, but lately it’s the muggle books that hold me. The magical ones are so certain of themselves. I don’t trust certainty anymore.
I recently reread T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. I didn’t understand them when I was younger, but now there’s something oddly comforting in the way he circles grief and time without pretending either can be resolved.
I’m not sure why I’m telling you this. Perhaps I just wanted to say thank you. It was good to feel seen.
—H.
H.,
I was not, until recently, a reader of muggle literature. The encouragement to do so was limited by the company I kept.
But solitude has a way of softening certainty. I have, this past year especially, begun seeking unfamiliar voices. I do not always understand them, but I find that oddly freeing.
You mentioned Eliot. I confess I knew him only by name. I found a copy of Four Quartets and began reading. I have not finished it - I find it demands stillness which I am not always capable of. But the opening lines reminded me how rarely we allow ourselves to speak of the past without wanting it forgiven.
Might I ask - if you were to suggest something further, what would it be? You needn’t curate on my behalf, but I admit I’m curious to know what else has stayed with you.
Respectfully,
—M.
Dear M.,
You’re the first person who’s ever written to me about Eliot and meant it. I’m glad it found you. The Quartets do require stillness, though I suppose that’s part of what they offer, too.
You asked what’s stayed with me. I had to think carefully. Not just about what I love, but what might be meaningful to someone learning that world for the first time. Here’s a strange little mix I ended up with:
- Prose: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. It’s quiet and devastating, and says more in its silences than most novels say in monologues.
- Poetry: The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin. It’s provincial and bitter and tender all at once. He writes like someone trying very hard not to admit he cares.
- History: Postwar by Tony Judt. A vast, elegant account of the twentieth century in Europe. It doesn’t flinch. Some chapters I had to put down and walk away from.
That’s probably too much, but you asked. And it felt good to assemble.
I’ve been reading more attentively since your last letter. Looking for things I might want to share. I hadn’t realised how much I missed that.
Yours,
—H.
H.,
I began with Ishiguro. His prose is almost cruel in its restraint. I finished it in one night and found myself walking the room after.
You were right to call it quiet and devastating. You were also right that silence can speak. I found myself remembering things I thought I had successfully buried. Not all of them pleasant. But not all unpleasant, either.
Larkin is next.
Thank you, not just for the books, but for the act of offering them. There’s a kind of intimacy in shared reading I had forgotten was possible.
On another note, have you been following the Ministry’s recent proposal about magical archives? I imagine you might have some thoughts. Personally, I find their sudden passion for “truth management” both unsurprising and utterly transparent.
Yours sincerely,
—M.
Dear M.,
I’m glad you found something in the book, even if it stirred difficult memories. I always think that’s a mark of literature worth keeping - it doesn't let you pass unchanged.
I have been following the Ministry’s proposal. I read the draft with a sinking feeling. “Truth management” is a good phrase for it. Or perhaps “truth laundering.” I understand the instinct - after a war, there’s always pressure to clean up the narrative. Make it simple, noble, digestible. But history that flat is dangerous.
There was a time when I thought I might go into magical law. Be one of the only women rebuilding the structures that collapsed. And I’m still considering it. I’ve been reading up on comparative law between magical and non-magical systems, and there’s more overlap than I expected. Muggle theory often has more nuance when it comes to rights and reform. We tend to assume we’re more advanced simply because we can conjure furniture.
Forgive the rambling. It’s been a while since anyone asked what I thought of current events. I’d forgotten how much I care.
Thank you.
Yours,
—H.
Miss H.,
You need not apologise for speaking with passion. It is the most welcome kind of rambling.
Your observations on the archives were exact. Sanitised history is worse than no history at all. It builds a society unable to detect its own rot.
And yes, you are right. The muggle legal tradition is rich in ways ours is not. We prize power over precedent; they, process. I suspect your impulse toward justice would find sharper tools there.
If you are truly considering the Ministry, may I offer something potentially useful? Long ago, in another lifetime, I spent time working with the Department of International Magical Relations. Not the pompous surface roles, but the policy mechanisms underneath. I still remember the networks. I could, if you’d like, sketch a map of influence for you.
And on a less noble note: I attempted poetry again. Larkin this time. “They fuck you up, your mum and dad...”
Is that meant to be funny? Because I did laugh. Which, I admit, startled me. It’s been some time.
Yours sincerely,
—M.
Dear M.,
I laughed aloud reading your last line. I think my cat was alarmed.
Yes, it is meant to be funny. Larkin was famously miserable and wry - one of those people who wouldn’t be caught dead admitting to sentiment, but wrote with this deep feeling underneath. It delights me that he surprised you.
And I would love that sketch, if you’re truly willing. I’ve been reading in the dark, in a sense - theories, models, but with no sense of how it plays out in actual governance. It’s not knowledge easily shared, I imagine.
Also, about your comment on sanitised history and society not being able to detect its rot - that one’s going in my notebook. I have one for sentences that make me sit up straighter. It grew since we started writing.
Warmly,
—H.
The mornings had changed.
Not in any obvious way - the weather still did what English weather always did in September. The house remained too quiet and the kitchen clock annoyingly loud.
And yet, she found herself rising with a slight curl of anticipation in her chest now.
Sometimes she thought she could sense the letter before it appeared - a shift in the air, or perhaps just her own mind reaching.
The letters were stacked beneath a glass paperweight on her desk. The handwriting was elegant and precise. She hadn’t recognised it, though part of her had tried.
She’d stopped trying.
It didn’t matter who he was - she assumed it was a he, from the tone he was using, from the shape of the calligraphy.
He was simply M. A mind in the dark, like hers.
Their letters had deepened into a kind of intellectual intimacy.
And gods, he was brilliant.
He had begun sending her annotated diagrams - webs of political influence inside the Ministry, each accompanied by commentary. It was the sort of thing no textbook could teach. She had spent hours over them, drawing connections in her own notes, astonished at the structural clarity of it all.
He was, she suspected, someone who had once lived very near the centre of things. He never said so but the dry authority in how he described bureaucratic mechanisms left no doubt.
And then there were the theatre reviews.
She hadn’t expected that. It had started when she mentioned she'd seen a muggle production of Julius Caesar on her own, and found it unexpectedly moving. He had responded by recounting a memory of attending the same production on a different night. He described a certain overzealous supporting actor as delivering his lines like a man trying to seduce a mirror. It had taken her by surprise - the humour in it, dry and precise.
She hadn’t laughed like that in months.
It stayed with her. It wasn't just the wit - it was the sense that he'd wanted to make her laugh, and had done so without breaking the solemn, private space they’d made between their letters.
Now, the discussions had expanded. He asked after her reading regularly. She was learning his tastes.
She was beginning to wonder if this man, whoever he was, understood her better than most people who’d seen her face.
And still, she hadn’t asked.
Dear M.,
I can’t help it - I have to write, even if it’s only been a day.
I attended a panel yesterday, hosted by a few Muggle-born rights groups and some junior Ministry researchers. Nothing grand, but something real. They were presenting early findings from a report on land inheritance law and blood status - how certain parcels of magical land are still protected by 18th-century magical lineage clauses. I knew it in principle, but the scale of impact was staggering.
Do you ever have the feeling that what you knew academically was only a shadow of the thing itself?
I left furious. But it also gave me hope. We are naming it - that’s a start.
I’ve been thinking of you, oddly enough. Of our last conversation - your thoughts on moral inertia, and how easily societies are lulled into forgetting the roots of their laws. I’ve begun to believe that the inverse might be true - that healing demands attention.
I hope I’m not overwhelming you. I just thought you’d understand.
Yours,
—H.
He folded the letter slowly, with the kind of care one might give to a precious instrument.
The parlour was silent, as always. He looked out the window, where the sun was beginning to lower over Wiltshire. He had spent years surrounded by wealth and art, but this - this hush after reading her words - was the only thing that felt remotely like beauty anymore.
He had forgotten that feeling.
The absurd thing was that he hadn’t even wanted to write that first note. The correspondence programme had been advertised in a quiet little editorial in The Daily Prophet. A Ministry-sanctioned initiative for the psychological reintegration of war-impacted witches and wizards. Lucius had rolled his eyes. But the line that followed caught at something. For those who feel the world has moved on without them.
That felt oddly accurate.
He hadn’t intended to write anything, of course. Merely to see what people were saying in these little missives thrown into the void.
Then came hers. A brief note. She had written about feeling unmoored after the war, about solitude as a kind of drift. He had almost dismissed it. But then she mentioned books - and he was utterly unprepared to see his own feelings described by another hand.
So he wrote. Cautiously, formally. Simply to say: I read what you wrote. It resonated.
She had responded. And in the weeks that followed, their letters had deepened into something more complex than he could have anticipated.
They spoke of literature first. Of muggle writers. She recommended him Eliot, Dickinson, Woolf. He admired the way she described them - sharp, unsentimental, probing. When she called Woolf’s To the Lighthouse a portrait of loneliness disguised as routine, he’d murmured aloud, Yes, to the empty room.
She never boasted about her intelligence - in fact, she often seemed shy - but it shone through regardless. And she asked difficult questions. About governance. About ethics. About how institutions fracture beneath the weight of tradition. She made him think in ways he hadn’t for years.
And now, he realised, there was a shift. He no longer read her letters solely as a curiosity. He read them like a man starving. As if each parchment contained something of vital importance - the only voice that reached into the vacuum of this house, where his son never visited, from where his ex-wife had moved to the Continent, and where he, Lucius Malfoy, sat day after day among the ghosts of his own making.
He had committed so many sins of pride, of silence, of cowardice. But in this quiet correspondence, in the company of a brilliant woman who did not know his name, he felt alive again.
He wanted to know who she was.
It was dangerous, of course. The whole premise of the programme relied on anonymity. But he could not help it.
He began scanning her letters again, looking for clues. Education. Familiar allusions. Something that might betray a name, a house, a face.
He wondered if he had met her. If their paths had crossed in some formal corridor, or a Ministry hearing.
He feared the day she would ask him his name - and the day he would want to tell her.
For now, he picked up his quill. And began again.