Julian's Hidden Past

Character Growth

I definitely don't own any part of the Flash or Harry Potter, otherwise, I wouldn't be taking killer science courses this semester of college.

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Hermione collapsed into bed with a groan. It had taken her almost an hour to get Hugo to wind down for bed. She was just lucky Rose was away at Hogwarts, otherwise they would all still be up. Ron was always so much better at this than she was, if he was home then Hugo would've been in bed half an hour ago and fast asleep by now. Ron knew all the tricks of how to get the ten-year-old moving, having witnessed Molly get his brothers and Ginny in bed or having the tricks being used on Ron himself.

Hermione just didn't have that experience, being an only child and usually more than happy to get ready for bed so that she could sneak a flashlight into bed and continue reading, or the patience to learn the tricks without getting frustrated. Domestic motherhood was not her strong suit at all.

And that was why she had a job as Minister of Magic, something she was actually good at, and the reason why she wanted to get a good night's sleep before the long day of meetings she had scheduled for the next day. However, Hermione's conversation with her husband earlier kept replaying over and over in her head.

Before today, Hermione had known that Julian was living as a muggle, but she hadn't known just how much he'd changed. She'd assumed that his assimilation into the muggle world was just an acceptance of defeat and that he didn't care for muggles, it was just the only place he could find where he wasn't openly hated. She had been so ready to accept that he acted against muggles once Harry and Ron gave her the smallest opportunity.

But today just proved that Julian truly changed. Not only did he manage to pass as a muggle for years, but he had also grown to care for them, enough so that he was able to break the Imperius curse to avoid killing a muggle friend.

The biggest question keeping Hermione awake at the moment was that, if Julian changed this much, what about the other Slytherins from her time at Hogwarts, the ones that society just passed off as inevitably Death Eaters forever, despite the movement to disband the Slytherin stereotype for future generations of Hogwarts students.

After a long night of little sleep, Hermione walked into the office determined. She sat through her morning meetings, and while she tried to stay focus on what they were discussing, she kept getting distracted by the clock. Finally, it was lunch time, and instead of eating her usual packed lunch Hermione hurried out the door and into the street.

Just two blocks down the road from the ministry, there was a small bakery that was connected to a cosmetics shop. The bakery was fairly full, so Hermione chose to enter the cosmetics shop first.

"Well, I didn't know we were getting royalty in today," a voice remarked coolly. "I never thought I'd see the day Hermione Granger entered a makeup store, I'm just honored it could be mine."

Hermione looked over to the desk, where the shop owner sat leisurely in her chair, looking every centimeter the femme fatale she had always been. "Hello, Ms. Parkinson, or I suppose it is Ms. Goyle now," Hermione greeted.

"I know you have absolutely no use for aesthetic and all of this, but please tell me that even you can recognize that Pansy Goyle is a dreadful name, Ms. Granger-Weasley," Pansy said, rolling her eyes. "I was not about to ruin a perfectly good name for something as silly as marriage. I'm still Pansy Parkinson and Greg is still a Goyle, we appreciate our alliterations in this family. Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of a Ministry visit, Madam Minister?"

"Oh, um, I'm not here on Ministry business," Hermione replied hurriedly. Now that she was here, she wasn't sure how to broach the subject.

"If you were that eager to poke around our businesses, Minister, I would suggest trying next door, it's a lot more believable that you would be wanting to buy Greg's food than my makeup line. If you're not here to buy anything, and you're not here for Ministry business, you're encouraged to take your leave. I've paid my price for my choices in the war, I'm not about to be made to feel guilty again in my own store," Pansy explained coldly, and Hermione had half a mind to follow Pansy's instructions and just leave. It was silly coming here anyways.