When I was seventeen, I did something no daughter ever wants to do.
The sun hung low in the sky, casting a golden, late-summer glow across my parents' garden. Everything was washed in warmth, soft light spilling through the hedgerows and dappling the worn stone path beneath my feet. It should have been comforting. Familiar. But all it did was make the ache in my chest worse.
I should not have come back.
And yet, twenty-two years later, I found myself here again, drawn by something I could not name. Something that tugged at the edge of memory like a loose thread I had never managed to stop pulling.
I stepped carefully between the flowerbeds, my fingers brushing over rosemary and lavender, trailing across blossoms I used to know by name. The scent of freesia drifted up from the border near the wall, Mum's favourite. She used to tell me they meant trust and innocence. I did not know what I believed anymore.
The air smelt like childhood, but the memories were not gentle.
They pressed close, sharp and unrelenting. That summer, the summer before everything changed, lived just beneath my skin. Fear had coiled tight in my ribs. I had pretended to be ready. Pretended to be brave. But I had not been. Not really.
I remembered Apparating to the Burrow.
The sensation rose again in me, the twisting pull in my stomach, the crack of magic settling around me. I had landed in the Weasleys' garden, the scent of fresh soil and honeysuckle all around, the roses glowing red in the afternoon light. Normally I would have noticed. Counted the petals. Said something about pollination.
But that day, my thoughts were elsewhere. Heavy. Loud.
I had walked quickly to the door, my feet barely touching the grass.
Ron had opened it.
His face had lit up at first, but only for a moment. Then he saw mine. The colour drained from his cheeks, and his smile faltered.
"Hermione?" he asked quietly, uncertain. "What's happened?"
I had not answered straight away. My throat had felt too tight, as though the words were trapped somewhere deep inside. His hands had come to rest on my shoulders, steady and warm. He had always had strong hands. I had wanted to lean into them, to let them hold all the weight I was carrying.
But I could not. Not yet.
Inside, the Burrow was alive with noise. Dishes clinking. Laughter from upstairs. A faint burst of wireless music from Fred and George's room. I sat at the kitchen table all the same, my hands twisting in my lap, my heart hammering so loudly I could barely think.
"It's my parents," I said at last, barely above a whisper.
Ron went still. "Did something happen to them?"
My eyes met his. I needed him to see, to understand. "This might be the last time I ever see them," I said.
Something changed in his expression. A frown appeared between his brows. "What do you mean?"
I took a shallow breath. I had not planned how to explain it. "I obliviated them," I said. "I made them forget I existed. I gave them new names, a new life. I sent them away."
The words tore through me. They sounded wrong spoken aloud, fragile and jagged. Ron did not speak. His hands dropped from my shoulders slowly. Not in anger, only shock.
"I had to," I continued. "I could not bear the thought of them being tortured or killed because of me. I told myself it was the right thing, the only thing. But now…"
I blinked hard, refusing to cry again. "Now all I can think about is whether they are safe. Whether the spell held. Whether they would forgive me if they ever remembered."
The silence stretched between us.
"You think that Muggle family, the Montgomerys, was a message?" Ron asked quietly. "I read the article this morning."
"I do not know," I admitted. "But it felt too deliberate. Too cruel. They were good people. Kind. Just like my parents. And You-Know-Who does not need a reason anymore. If he finds them, if he knows, I will not have time to stop it."
People still ask why I did it.
Some say it was fear, that I could not bear the risk. Others call it an easy solution, a tidy little spell to sweep away the danger.
But there was nothing easy about it.
Not a single part.
I did it because I loved them. Because the thought of my parents dying, not from accident or illness, but because of me, because of magic, was unbearable. I could not live with that. So I gave them the only protection I had.
I gave them me.
I could not stop imagining it: Death Eaters turning up at the door, wands raised, using them to punish me, to punish all of us. They would not even understand why. They would just be gone.
But I have never once regretted protecting them.
And now, all these years later, I still remember every moment. Every breath. The chill of the wand in my hand. The subtle shift in the air as the spell took hold. The look in their eyes just before it changed, just before Mum turned to pick up her bag and said, "Today is so beautiful!" as if nothing at all had happened.
That nearly broke me.
During the war, I thought of them constantly. When we were cold, when the Snatchers were hunting us, when Harry sat by the fire looking as though he might fall apart, I thought of Dad humming along to the radio in the kitchen and Mum making tea in that chipped blue mug she refused to throw away.
And when I could not sleep, I cried. Quietly. Always quietly, so Harry and Ron would not hear.
When the war ended, I did not go to the parties. I did not wave flags or drink Firewhisky in the streets. I went straight to the Ministry. Straight to the Department of Magical Records.
I filed petitions. I searched through travel logs, spell tracers, and international security orders. I wrote to the Australian Magical Records Office almost every week. It took months.
But I found them.
A little house in Sydney, tucked near the coast. A garden. A quiet street. Freesias by the gate.
I Apparated to the edge of the road. I could not breathe at first. Their home was painted a soft yellow, with ivy curling around the posts and the scent of freesia drifting through the air. It reminded me so sharply of the garden from my childhood that I felt sick.
I walked slowly. Every step forward felt like a betrayal. What right did I have to come back?
And then I saw them.
Mum was kneeling beside the flowerbed, trimming the roses. Dad was crouched by the sprinkler, muttering under his breath in exactly the way he always had when something went wrong. They looked the same. A little older, perhaps, but peaceful. Ordinary.
Safe.
My chest ached.
Should I disturb this? Should I really ask them to remember everything I had taken from them?
Part of me wanted to turn away. To leave them be.
But then I remembered being six years old, curled in Mum's lap after falling off my bike. My knee had been bleeding, and I was crying so hard I could barely speak. She had kissed the top of my head and said, "No matter where you go, we'll find you. We'll always be your home."
I had to knock.
I gripped the gate, my breath trembling in my throat. When they looked up, something inside me broke. Mum squinted slightly in the light. Dad raised a hand to shade his eyes.
No flicker of recognition.
Only polite curiosity.
And I realised that this might be the moment that broke me again.
I forced a smile and stepped forward.
"Hello," I said softly. "I'm so sorry to trouble you. My name is Hermione."
Their expressions shifted, warm and welcoming, but there was no spark. No hint of memory. Just polite interest, a kind confusion.
It felt as though someone had reached into my chest and taken my heart, leaving only the echo of it behind.
My eyes dropped to the necklace around Mum's neck. It was still there, still holding the charm I had placed on it all those months ago.
This was it.
With a shaking hand, I drew my wand from my coat pocket. My fingers curled tightly around the handle, my knuckles white. I raised it slowly, barely breathing, and whispered the counter-spell.
Two strands of silver light shimmered from the necklace. They unravelled like threads, twisting gently through the air, and touched their foreheads just between the eyes.
They froze.
Mum gasped. Dad swayed slightly where he stood. Their eyes widened, breath catching. The light vanished.
A moment passed.
Then another.
And suddenly, like sunlight breaking through cloud, recognition spread across their faces.
"Hermione?" Mum breathed. Her voice trembled. "Is it really you?"
I could not speak. I nodded, tears falling freely, and stumbled towards them. Dad caught me first, his arms strong and certain, and then Mum folded herself around us both. The three of us clung together, shaking, breathless, as though we would never let go again.
The scent of her shampoo. The roughness of Dad's coat against my cheek. The sound of our sobs. Their hands, still the same, still safe. We held each other as if we could mend the years apart by holding on long enough.
"I'm sorry," I gasped, laughing and crying at once. "I missed you so much."
Mum kissed the side of my head. "We know, sweetheart. We know."
And in that moment, something in me, something I had not even realised was still broken, began to heal.
Now, all these years later, I stand in their garden again.
The freesias are blooming near the fence, their scent drifting in the late spring air. The ivy is thicker along the wall, and the paint on the house is newer and brighter. Yet the feeling is unchanged.
I close my eyes and breathe deeply.
In my mind, I see them laughing at the breakfast table, clinking mugs in the garden. Mum humming under her breath as she folds the washing. Dad reading the paper aloud in a voice just a little too dramatic. I see the girl I once was, bright-eyed, bookish, and full of plans, and the woman I became.
And I realise I never stopped being their daughter.
Not when I obliviated them. Not during the war. Not even in the years that followed, when we tried to rebuild what had been lost.
Because love, real love, the kind that endures through everything, does not vanish. Not with distance. Not with silence. Not even with memory.
It endures.
And when the freesias bloom, I remember.
Hope always finds its way back.
THE END