Hermione's Secret Diary
Disclaimer: You know already. This chapter is inspired by the movie "The City of Glass"
To flamers: I don't take kindly to flames so back off, if you know what's good for you.
Chapter 1: The Accident
31 December 2003
11.50am
23 year olds Harry and Hermione were going to the Trafalgar Square in Harry's car, looking forward to the countdown, which was taking place there. They drove past a couple of children who were wearing festive hats and waving their balloons around excitedly. They were singing words like "Ten green bottles hanging on the wall and if one green bottle should accidentally fall, there will be nine green bottles hanging on the wall..."
"I wonder if we will get children like that." said Hermione, sighing.
Harry just grinned at her and concentrated on his driving. Hermione smiled back and looked at her watch.
"Harry, you better hurry up, there're only ten minutes left until countdown."
"We'll make it, no sweat." said Harry and speeded up, but slightly because it rained earlier.
"There, up ahead!" said Hermione, pointing excitedly at the huge crowd far away, near the Houses of Parliament.
"See, I told you we'll make it." said Harry, smiling at her. "What do I get for being so smart?"
Hermione smiled back and gave him a kiss on the lips. Harry quickly turned back to his driving. "Okay, now all we have to do is to find somewhere to park."
He could faintly hear the people at the Trafalgar Square counting down to the year 2004.
Ten, nine, eight...
Harry turned the steering wheel to his right and to his horror; his car was turning a bit too fast.
"Um, Harry? Don't you think you are going too fast?" asked Hermione.
"I know!" said Harry and he slammed the brakes but due to the wet road, his car was hard to control. The brake lights flashing madly.
Seven, six, five...
"Harry, mind the kids!" yelled Hermione, looking at the children in front of the car, who screamed and ran out of their way.
Four, three, two ...
As fast as possible, Harry turned the steering wheel to his left. With a screech of tires, his car fishtailed wildly and barrelled out of the road.
"ONE, HAPPY NEW YEAR!" yelled the crowd happily. Fireworks were exploding in the air, celebrating the arrival of a brand new year. But their loud cheers and noise were soon punctured by a loud CRASH.
People turned around to see what had happened. And soon all of them went silent at the sight. Near a tree was the car. It was overturned, its wheels still turning slowly. The Big Ben had struck twelve, but no one was paying attention. Some of them ran to the car to take a better look.
"Somebody call an ambulance!" someone yelled.
A man coughed as the car exhausted smoke and he was engulfed by it. He lay himself flat on the road to see if the passengers were okay.
"Oh my..." he muttered.
He saw the woman had her head lying on the man's chest. The man's head was bleeding heavily and his eyes were open slightly. The woman had a line of blood at the corner of her mouth and her eyes were closed.
It was clear that both of them were dead.
The next morning, at the Burrow, Ron Weasley came down for breakfast. He took the newspaper from his owl Pig's beak (which was too small for the newspaper) and sat down at the table. He took his coffee and took a sip before looking at the Daily Prophet's front page.
He nearly choked on his drink. "What!"
Mrs Weasley frowned at him. "Ron, don't drink and read at the same time."
"Mom, it's Harry and Hermione!" said Ron, standing up and showing his mother the front page:
THE-BOY-WHO-LIVED DOESN'T LIVE
The first fatal car accident in this year happened at 12 midnight in Muggle London. Harry Potter (23), who was used to known as The Boy Who Lived, and Hermione Granger (23), wife of famous Quidditch player Viktor Krum, died at the Trafalgar Square, where the year 2004 countdown took place. Their bodies have been taken away by the Muggle police. For more details, see page 3.
Then there was a picture of the car wreck and pictures of Harry and Hermione near the article.
Mrs Weasley stared at the article for a moment. "Rubbish, it's not them."
"But it is, it is! Look, Mom, don't you recognize their faces?" asked Ron, practically pushing the newspaper to his mother's face.
"Shut up, it's not them!" said Mrs Weasley, glaring at him.
"But it is!" insisted Ron. "We have got to go to London right now."
Mrs Weasley looked at him and shook her head weakly. "This is not true and I'm not going!"
Ron sat uncomfortably at the New Scotland Yard traffic department as the policeman stared at him across the table. After spending years growing up with his Muggle-born friends, he had more or less known how to behave in front of a Muggle, but this one kept on staring at him. He looked down, was his attire too weird for one?
"So, you're saying that the deceased gentleman who is with the woman in the, um, tragedy, is not her husband?"
"Yeah," said Ron. "What's the problem with that?"
The policeman didn't answer. "So who was he then?"
Ron was just about to answer when a female voice said, "He's our friend."
He turned around and saw his sister Ginny and her husband, Neville Longbottom.
"Ginny? Neville?" asked Ron in surprise.
"Talk later, Ron." said Ginny quickly.
"Are you Mr Krum, the decreased woman's husband?" asked the policeman.
"No, he's Longbottom, my husband." said Ginny.
"That bastard thinks his Quidditch practices are far more important than his wife." Neville muttered.
"What?" asked the policeman.
"I mean he's too, um, upset to come." said Neville, correcting himself.
"Will someone tell me what's going on?" asked the policeman.
Ron rolled his eyes. "Look, Mister. The man and the woman were our classmates. We were friends back in Hog- I mean, high school, okay? You understand? That's all."
The policeman looked at him. "I don't think they were just friends in school, young man."
"What do you mean, they weren't just friends? Of course they were..." said Ron impatiently.
"Um Ron..." started Neville.
"We checked on them before you arrived, Mr Weasley. And we discovered that they had a house here in London under their names."
Ron blinked. "A house? Under their names?"
"I was going to tell you that later, Ron." said Neville.
Ron stared at him. "Do you know something else, Neville?"
"Later, Ron, later..." said Neville, giving a glance at the policeman.
Ron turned back to the policeman. "Sorry, I didn't know that."
The policeman just made a noise, and then he lowered his head under the desk, reaching for something. He took out two plastic bags.
"Their personal belongings." he said simply.
He gave them to Ron. Ron opened them and his heart went cold at the sight of his two best friends' belongings. "You have mixed them up." he muttered.
The policeman didn't hear him.
Ron sniffled and took out everything to sort them. Ginny and Neville leaned forward to look. There were Harry's wristwatch (the glass was broke), Hermione's purse, Harry's leather wallet (that Ron gave him a few years ago) and a gold bracelet (probably Hermione's).
"You may take the bodies home after the autopsy, or you could have them cremated here in London. But it will be far less complicated and everyone will be less miserable, if you the bodies cremated here in London but it's up to you." said the policeman.
Ron was not listening; he was looking at the inside of Harry's wallet, which had a picture of Hermione herself.
"We think we will take them back after the autopsy, thanks." said Neville quietly.
"Okay, Neville, what's going on? How do you know that they had a house under their names here?" asked Ron once they were out of the station.
"I'm Harry and Hermione's lawyer, of course I know." said Neville.
"What else do you know?"
"Um...they, um..."
"What?"
"They had a joint bank account in Gringotts." said Ginny.
Ron looked at the both of them in surprise. "Wait, how come I don't know anything about this?"
"Harry told me not to tell anyone." said Neville quickly.
"Then why did you go and tell Ginny?" demanded Ron.
"I didn't! Hermione did." said Neville.
"They wanted to keep this matter as low as possible." said Ginny. "That's why they didn't tell you."
Ron felt slightly hurt that his two best friends had actually kept this matter from him. He thought that he could tell them off the next time he saw them but then he realized that both of them were dead.
A few weeks later
At Harry and Hermione's funeral, Mrs Weasley cried the hardest; she was sobbing and howling as the two coffins were being lowered into their graves.
Ron's twin brothers Fred and George were very quiet that day. They were wearing identical black suits and dark sunglasses. As Mrs Weasley cried, both of them went to support her in case she collapsed.
Ron gave a glance at Victor Krum, Hermione's husband. He was wearing black robes and his face was expressionless. He didn't give any indication that he was upset about his wife's death. As the coffins were being buried, he turned away and started to leave.
"Hey, where are you going?" asked Ron, putting his hand on his shoulder.
"Quidditch practice." said Krum.
"Your wife's funeral has not even over yet and you are already leaving for a practice?" said Ron in disgust.
"At least I come, didn't I?" he said in his gruff voice. "Now let go."
"You are so cold," said Ron, his hand leaving Krum's shoulder. "I don't know why Hermione would marry you in the first place."
Krum just left without a word.
When the funeral was over, Neville came to Ron. "Hey Ron, want to go to Harry and Hermione's house with us?"
"What for?"
"To sort out their stuff."
"Who else is going?"
"Ginny, Lavender, Fred, George, Angelina, Alicia, Katie and Oliver."
"Fine. You know where it is?"
"Yeah."
Harry and Hermione's house was situated in a quiet place in London. It was a semi-detached white house, surrounded by natural landscape.
"Looks neat." commented Katie.
"Yeah, even I haven't been here before." said Neville as he opened the oak door with the key.
"Where did you get the key from?" asked Fred.
"Police." said Neville simply and opened the door.
"Whoa." said George when they saw the interior.
They went in and looked around. "They had great taste." said Ginny in awe.
The walls were white, which brightened the area dramatically. The low-lying TV console ("I didn't even know they watched TV" said Neville.) and coffee-table were designed in clean, simple lines that promote an air of serenity. The TV console also doubled as a bay-window seat, and those sitting there could get a perfect view of the natural landscape beyond the full-length clear glass windows. The dinning area was next to the stairs, with a full-length mirror to enhance the illusion of space. The stairway was yellow in colour.
Fred and George went up the stairs.
"Hey, where are you going?" asked Ron.
"Upstairs, to explore." said Fred and grinned.
Ron rolled his eyes; it was typical of Fred and George not to keep solemn for the whole day. He followed his brothers upstairs and they opened the first door of the corridor.
George whistled at the king-size double white bed in the room. "They actually slept on that."
They entered the room and while looking around, Ron spotted a framed picture of Harry and Hermione on the bedside table. Harry had his arms around Hermione and she was smiling. Ron wondered whether she smiled like that when Krum had his arms around her.
Fred looked up and went "whoa" at the ceiling.
"What?" asked Ron and looked up as well.
The ceiling was midnight blue, decorated with stars and it looked like it had the whole universe on it.
"Hey, look what I found!" called George.
Ron looked and saw George holding up a thick red book with a gold lock on it at the desk near the window. But the owner didn't lock it. It was stuffed with letters as well.
George looked at the first page. "It's Hermione's diary."
Ron raised one eyebrow. "Hermione's?"
George nodded. "Her first entry was on her birthday 2 years ago and her last entry was on the day before she and Harry died. I'm going to show it to the others." he said and ran out before Ron could stop him.
Fred and Ron followed him down the stairs and saw the rest sitting at the sofa, looking at something.
"What are you guys looking at?" asked Fred.
Ginny looked at her brother and held up a photo album. Ron looked and saw pictures of Harry and Hermione.
"Found them in under a table." said Ginny.
"We also found these." said Oliver Wood, holding up a beautifully decorated board, with photo stickers of their deceased friends.
"Well, I found this." said George, showing them the diary. "Hermione's diary."
"Oh my." said Angelina.
"Read it, George, maybe Hermione wrote down how did she and Harry get all these. I mean, she's married to that Krum guy, why did she do all these stuff with Harry, not Krum?" said Alicia.
"Okay," said George, opening the book.
"Hey, you can't do that. You should respect her privacy, even though she's already dead." said Ginny and Neville nodded in agreement.
"My dear sister and brother-in-law, don't you two want to know how these things come about?" asked Fred, pointing at the board and the photos.
"Um, well..." said Ginny. Neville was silent.
"If you two don't want to hear it, you may leave." said George.
They didn't move.
"Look Ginny, Neville, we are just curious about why Hermione was together with Harry, even though she was married to Krum. Maybe the diary will tell us why." said Lavender.
"Cover your ears if you want to, you two. I'm reading it." said George and looked down at the first page.
The gang except Ginny and Neville moved closer to George as if he was going to tell a story. The couple hesitated for a while before moving in as well.
"Thought that you two would give in." said George, grinning.
"Just read it already." said Ginny, slightly frustrated at her actions.
"Okay, here goes." said George, clearing his throat. "September 19th 2002. Dear Diary, it has been a week since Viktor and I moved back to London..."