With a hot mug of coffee in one hand and a bundle of keys in the other, Hermione walked briskly towards her bookstore's entrance. The morning sun barely began to pierce through the night air, and yet here she was, ready to begin the day and get some early work done. After fumbling through each key and pressing one into the lock, she finally entered, flipped the "Closed" sign to "Open," and began shedding the multiple layers she wore that morning.

She pulled her knit beanie off her head, freeing the mass of curls tucked beneath, and surveyed her shop. It was small, perhaps a passing customer would even call it cramped, what with the books overflowing from the shelves onto the floor in towering stacks. Yet, this was all hers.

To the wizarding world, her name meant one part of a madman's fall. She was the Brains, the Golden Girl, the Muggleborn mastermind who helped a hero achieve his destiny. Her name and her purpose were wrapped up with two others. She loved those two others, always would, but in the years after the war, she found that she needed something of her own. Realizing she'd probably not find that on the Diagon Alley side of the Leaky Cauldron, she tried venturing through to the Muggle side about a year and a half ago.

Since then, Hermione had built a successful small business, populated with the thing she'd always understood and that understood her best. She and Crookshanks also owned their own flat a few blocks down, where her Muggle neighbors smiled politely in the hallways and didn't ask for an autograph or a photo.

She ventured back into wizarding London for the usual get-togethers amongst friends and commemorative social affairs amongst ministers and magistrates. For the most part, however, the brightest witch of her age lived comfortably in peace. Her mentors called it a waste, her friends called it a phase, but she just lived it.

The morning quickly slipped away in a steady stream of inventories, reorganizing the seasonal shelves, and directing the handful of morning customers towards the right section or the right book. Around noon, she made a dash next door, where an old proprietor named Joseph sold sandwiches in a shop family-owned since the War. Their war, Hermione would tell herself, not ours. And yet, it was hers as well, as she reminded herself a moment after that thought crossed her mind.

She ripped through the wax paper and bit into the sandwich, while she strolled back to her own shop. As she glanced up from her meal, she noticed a customer waiting at the door and quickly picked up her pace.

"I apologize," she said, once she reached the door and began fumbling for the keys again. "I just popped next door to pick up a bite to eat. Let me just get this open for you."

Hermione felt the woman silently turn behind her, and from her reflection in the door's glass, Hermione noticed the woman's height - a few inches taller than herself - and her long blonde hair. The reflection triggered something in her memory, but then the lock clicked back. She pushed the door and held it open. Then, when the woman passed her without a glance and entered the shop, Hermione recognized her new customer.

She stood frozen in the doorway, watching as Narcissa Malfoy glided through two shelves and almost disappeared amongst the stacks. If it weren't for the cold winter air rushing through the open door, Hermione might've remained there longer, but the frigid temperature bit her back to life and set her in motion.

Like her days creeping through forbidden corridors and restricted sections, Hermione stepped softly and soundlessly across the front of the shop and towards the register. She kept her eyes trained on where Mrs. Malfoy had disappeared, even though she could only hear the clunk of her heels against the aged wooden floor. The beat of her steps rapped a curious tattoo upon Hermione's spirit, placing her in an odd trance behind the register.

Five years. It'd be five years this Easter since that night at Malfoy Manor. It seemed a lifetime ago, but the years proved it only lied a moment away. Then, this woman's appearance in her shop, in her new life, pulled the gap back together again - the gap between that Hermione and this one.

She remembered her cold voice, in its clipped aristocratic tones. "I saw her picture in the Prophet! Look, Draco, isn't it the Granger girl?"

Hermione shuddered at the memory, then her mind flooded with all the horror that came after. She still woke in the night from vivid dreams, where it seemed as if once again Bellatrix Lestrange's cruciatus curse burned through her bones or her knife carved into her skin.

She unconsciously rubbed her forearm, where her own Dark Mark lied. In the years after the war, she wore it proudly as a reminder of what she'd fought and won against. Since her move to Muggle London, however, she hid it with long sleeves or blazers, fearing the questions such a scar would inspire and refusing to glamor it away from her skin.

Hermione suddenly heard her customer's heels against the wood again, crossing a short distance and stopping.

She should tell her to leave. Walk up to her, and say quite simply that her money - Muggle or wizarding or otherwise - was not welcome here. She felt her blood heating at the thought and braced herself for the kind of encounter she once relished, a Gryffindor's pride coming face to face with a Slytherin's shamelessness.

With one foot around the counter and on her way to confrontation, she stopped at the memory of another night spent in a pureblood home.

Ron, Harry, and she were gathered at the Weasleys' kitchen table, all dressed in black. Fred's funeral had just ended, but Hermione and Harry remained with their friend and his family in their grief. At one point, Ron muttered about the unfairness of it all. Fred was buried, while so many villains still remained.

"Like the Malfoys," he spat. An awkward silence hung in the air, and Hermione could only look downward and gently squeeze his hand. Ron looked towards her, his eyes understanding her small gesture of comfort, but then they darted towards Harry in betrayal after his next words.

"She saved me," the Boy Who Lived muttered.

"Oh bollocks, Harry," Ron burst out. "She didn't do a damn thing for you. She did it only for Draco. She's a Slytherin through and through!"

"Or a mother through and through." None of them had noticed Molly's entrance, and yet she stood behind Ron, having apparently heard of whom they were discussing.

When Hermione turned toward Mrs. Weasley, she noticed a shadow pass across her face in the wake of her words. Hermione remembered thinking of the war's many ironies, especially in its final moments. In order to protect their children, a Slytherin mother saved a life, while a Gryffindor mother extinguished one.

Hermione's eyes locked with Mrs. Weasley's, and it seemed almost as if she were thinking the same. She passed through the kitchen in silence, pressing a kiss to Ron's head on her way.

Hermione was called back to the present when a hardcover book snapped onto the counter in front of her. She looked at the book - Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Then smooth light grey gloves were pulled off and placed on the counter, revealing hands pale as alabaster. She was real. She was here. This wasn't a memory. Hermione looked up.

The older woman's eyes immediately registered shock. Hermione knew this woman was renowned for her icy reserve, acquired through her birth and training in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Yet, she seemed to have the same reaction to Hermione that she herself experienced upon first recognizing the new customer.

Hermione moved toward the book and checked its price. "This will be 10 pounds," she said and stared back at this woman, who'd been an accomplice in her own trauma and her friend's rescue. Rather than a cold-blooded gaze, she was met instead with a questioning one, still moving through the stages of surprise.

Shaking herself free of it finally, she began rifling through her wallet. Hermione heard the chink of galleons against sickles, then finally the swish of pound notes. The blonde slid a ten pound note towards her, still in silence. Noticing her complete inability to grasp the situation emboldened Hermione.

"A little light reading?"

The woman's head tilted slightly at the question, and one eyebrow lifted almost imperceptibly.

"It's for my nephew," she replied.

Hermione wondered for a moment, then realized she was speaking of her grand-nephew. She'd heard from Harry that the two remaining Black sisters had reconciled.

"He'll enjoy it," Hermione whispered, while sliding the book into a paper parcel, folding its edges, and handing it over. "Thank you for coming in, M-"

"It's Ms. Black now," she cut in, as if she regularly had to clarify this.

"Yes, I know, Ms. Black." Then, almost as if the phrase came bursting from within her, "I saw your picture in the Prophet."

The arrow landed, and Ms. Black seemed to tremor physically at the impact. She tried to muster a sneer, but it didn't work. Instead, she hastily picked up her gloves, draping them across her purse, and moved toward the exit. Hermione noticed the long emerald-colored wizarding robes peeking from beneath her coat and trailing behind her.

As the entrance door closed shut, it swept the woman and her robes out of the Muggle shop. Its owner stood stock-still for a few moments, until a smug smirk began to spread across her face.