Real Life (The Chosen Ones And Girls Who Lived Remix)
She and her Muggle cousin got along well, though of course Hermione could say nothing -- nothing more than the vaguest truths concerning Hogwarts, for even Diagon Alley wasn't safe anymore. Certainly nothing about the war. When Marie's parents came to visit during the summer before Hermione's seventh year, Marie brought along her Buffy DVDs, because the strangeness of the school "reminded me of you, and that odd school of yours".
She played along and giggled when Marie giggled at first, and she privately wondered how it was that the students at Sunnydale could be so completely oblivious. She lay awake that night, and could not decide if that would be better or worse, and knew that it would be better for them and worse for her.
When they watched more the next day, she watched as the lanky boy with the bad jokes and worse clothes kissed the beautiful girl who dressed well in a closet, and she thought of red hair and pale blonde in the Quidditch supply closet. She watched the pretty teacher's neck snap, and the bright and burning question rose within her once again -- whatever happened to giants when they died? She saw the witch in hospital, and her werewolf boyfriend at her side, and the curse scars on her stomach ached and she wondered what it might be like to have a calm musician werewolf boyfriend, and if he would smoke magically-grown or -enhanced weed, or just the regular kind.
As the blonde girl killed her lover who was good, then bad, and good again at the last second, she wondered if the Boy Who Lived would live, and wished that Malfoy would go from bullying to brooding with a few Latin words.
Hermione and Marie watched the DVDs, and Hermione knew that she would not know peace, even if she was not real.