Isolation

28. Angel

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Contrary to popular belief, the infamous monument that stands tall in Piccadilly Circus is not a statue of the Greek God, Eros.

When Hermione had stumbled across an old Victorian text in The London Library referring to it with another name, she had naturally been intrigued and given herself a little research project to pass the time during her summer holidays before fourth year. It had originally been a statue of Eros' brother, Anteros, but had been renamed 'The Angel of Christian Charity' for some time, before being changed back to Anteros. Despite this, almost every tourism guide, signpost and local Londoner - be them cockney or otherwise - still call it 'The Statue of Eros.'

When she'd returned to Hogwarts, she had told Harry and Ron about her findings and they had predictably been indifferent, but she had scolded them every time they'd called the monument its incorrect name, and they had eventually grown tired of her lectures on the importance of appreciating its true title. Ron, for some reason, had had a little difficulty with the name Anteros, and he'd kept mispronouncing it, 'Antross,' which had only irritated her more.

Somehow, they had compromised, and they had started calling it 'The Angel of Christian Charity' - for at least that had been its name at one point - and then that had simply been shortened to 'The Angel.'

The Angel in the Circus.

She had been born at exactly half four in the morning, a detail she was surprised Harry and Ron had remembered, but perhaps they really had been listening between the eye-rolls and blank expressions.

She had to give the boys credit. The destination was cryptic with their inside joke, and Piccadilly Circus would be busy enough with London's constant bustle for them to go unnoticed at that time, but not too busy to get disorientated.

After throwing all her belongings into her charmed bag, including all the books she had yet to read and all the notes she had scribbled in the last week, she had whispered a goodbye to Crookshanks and told him to behave while she was away. It had barely passed midnight, so she sat in the kitchen for a few hours, fidgety with anticipation and drumming her nails against the dining table, always checking the time.

A watched clock ticks slower.

When it was almost four, she jotted a quick note to Tonks and Lupin, apologising for her absence when they woke up and promising to be careful. As a precaution, she charmed her hair a light blonde, a few shades darker than Draco's, and fixed her woolly scarf to veil the lower part her face, just below her nose.

With a final glance at that bloody clock, which read ten past four, she took a deep breath to ease the odd bundle of nerves in her stomach, and walked out the door. She padded across the dew-licked grass until she felt a shift in the air which indicated she had gone beyond the Wards, and then she Apparated.

.

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Sleep was an evasive bastard.

There had been too many revelations in the last week. It was almost as if his body and brain were still trying to accept his separation from Hermione, and were too dented by the impact to really absorb this new environment and the people in it. Maybe he was simply rejecting this Granger-less reality.

He didn't know. It didn't matter.

Nevertheless, he had passively observed the routines and conduct of his old classmates and his Aunt, if only because there was hardly anything else to do. He had learned that this wasn't Andromeda's main residence but a safe house, and she was constantly returning to her home, usually with Bulstrode, who seemed to have quite a good relationship with his Aunt.