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“Er, Hermione,” Harry called, a note of something between amusement and disbelief in his voice. His friend, two armchairs over, didn’t even look up from her furious knitting.
“What is it?” she asked peevishly, counting stitches. “Damn! Dropped one again!”
“I really think you’ll want to see this,” he said, heaving himself out of his chair and coming over to her. He was beaming at her.
“I’d never really looked at it before,” he continued, offering her the heavy leather photo album she knew to contain the pictures of his parents. She glared at the lumpy heap of wool in her lap before setting it aside and accepting the book.
“What am I meant to be—” she began, but a single photo in the center of the page caught her eye immediately. “Oh!”
A beautiful redheaded girl, looking to be around fifteen, blazed up at her from the photograph. She was wearing a bed sheet that she had fashioned around herself like a larger version of a tea towel. On the front of the sheet, a hand-painted House Elf sported witch’s robes, its tiny fist raised in triumph. The girl herself was punching the air with her free hand; the other shook a large sign that read, “GIVE ‘EM HELL!” As Hermione looked closer, she noted that “HELL” was an acronym, with smaller letters filling in the blanks: “HOUSE ELF LIBERATION LEAGUE” was painted in a bold hand, the letters charmed to flash between red and black. In the lower right corner of the picture, someone had handwritten in green ink, “Lily ‘Give ‘Em HELL’ Evans, 1976”
Hermione looked back up to Harry, positively delighted. “This is wonderful,” she told him, grinning so hard that her face hurt.
“You can have that one,” he said, reaching over to slide the picture from the protective plastic. She quailed, shying away from the proffered photograph.
“Oh no, I couldn’t. Harry, that’s yours!”
Harry shook his head, and lightly pushed the photo into her hand. “You’re… I still think you’re mental for all this,” he assured her, nodding at the half-knitted hat. “But…I think you’re probably a lot like her, ‘Mione. I can’t think of anyone who deserves to have that more than you.”