[Hermione]

[everyone_takes]

Not that she'd say it, but Kate felt sort of stupid about the whole trying to burn down the bookshelf thing. Having to spend the night in an IPD holding cell wasn't exactly her idea of a good time, especially given that the rest of the night had been pretty good. Something had happened to shift her mood, something between Harry and the bookshelf, but she couldn't remember what it might have been beyond the books themselves. There were bits and pieces of the party she still couldn't remember, but for the most part, everything else had come back to her.

Everything. That included acting like a complete asshole to Jeff when he'd just been trying to stop her from getting into trouble. Eventually she'd have to find him and apologize, not to mention thank him for what he'd done, but she wasn't ready for that just yet. It wasn't like Kate was a stranger to doing stupid shit, but usually the only people involved were her family members and even then, she tried to keep her trouble to herself.

Instead of finding Jeff, like she knew she should, she was distracting herself with the task of moving her things into the hut she and Marshall had moved to. The Compound had been nice enough, but she wanted a real door, something that could afford her a bit of privacy when she needed it. Not to mention that she'd missed natural light. The place was still sort of a mess, half her clothes on the floor and the furniture was pretty pathetic, but she was sure they could fix it up.

It didn't have marble counters or a heated pool, but it would be okay.

She was heading down the boardwalk with an armful of things when she spotted Hermione. "Hey!" she called, peering over the top of the pile, trying to balance the photo album from Alice in her arms. Hermione, at least, hadn't witnessed her shit fit from the rave and hopefully she didn't know about the whole night in jail thing either.

"Do you think you could give me a hand?" she asked, offering the other girl a grin. "This is the last trip, I swear I'm not trying to rope you into helping me move all my crap."

Comments

[everyone_takes]

"Hey, I keep holding out hope for the same thing, so let's pretend there's a good chance that middle-aged parents will show up," Kate said, smiling a little as she thought about what her mom and dad would make of the island. Max would probably adjust alright, as long as he knew she and Marshall were safe and he had Tara with him. Her mom might take a little longer, she'd probably spend a good chunk of her time being someone else, but she'd probably end up okay, too.

"God, my mom..." she trailed off and grinned, shaking her head. "I would love to see Harry meet my mom when she was Buck or something." Not T. Kate loved T most of the time, but she'd also seen what T had done with Jason. Harry probably wouldn't make out with Tara in a shed anywhere, but she didn't want to run the risk that T might at least try and make things super weird.

"T made out with my brother's not-boyfriend once," she said suddenly. "So maybe that'd actually be a really bad idea."

[cleverness]

"Let's," Hermione agreed with a smile, before falling silent to listen to the rest of Kate's tale. As far as parents went, Hermione felt that her parents would react in a manner that most people would probably have seen as almost alarmingly calm— she still remembered their reactions upon first spotting the letter from Hogwarts, lightly flabbergasted, but not afraid or doubting enough to keep Hermione from running off at such a young age to a boarding school that was relatively hard to keep in contact with. An island capable of pulling people from different times and universes seemed to be only a natural extension of what was already commonplace in her world, and with how much she'd always shared with her parents, they would adjust well, she thought to herself. No matter whether or not it was a fact she wanted to dwell for too long on.

"Though, yeah, I think... I mean, Harry's seen many strange things, he'd probably be able to manage well enough, but only after a time," Hermione grinned, fond. "We've seen people act contrary to their usual nature before, though more often than not, it's the result of a spell, which I suppose is easier to explain away. But he'd, he'd make a very earnest effort to get to know your mother, I'm sure. Harry's that type of person. I've no shortage of praise for him on the whole, seeing as how he's been my best friend for years."

[everyone_takes]

"Yeah, no, I know he'd do his best," Kate agreed, but for a moment she was thinking of Ben, of the shitty things he'd said about Tara. It wasn't like Kate hadn't been bitching about her at the time, but she was the only person who was allowed to call her mom crazy. That was just how it went, those were the rules she lived by, and the fact that Ben had been so happy to give her mom shit was a big part of why they hadn't gotten very far.

Plus, he'd been a total creep.

"These other guys I dated used to talk about getting me out," she admitted, smiling faintly. "Like I was stuck in some kind of personal hell. We would run away together and everything would be totally fine, blah blah blah, like they could solve all the world's problems. It was so ridiculous." It had never seemed to register with them that she hadn't needed to be saved. That she would need Gene to do it was such a totally ridiculous concept, too.

[cleverness]

"That's ridiculous," Hermione shook her head at once, brows furrowing in slight disbelief. Or, perhaps, more with the hope that Kate hadn't allowed herself to be subjected to that kind of treatment for long. "I think all of us need the occasional break from the status quo of our lives, and to have the chance to find reprieve for anything which may be putting pressure on us, but to suggest that you needed to be saved from the life altogether is simply... it's not his choice to make. At least, you certainly seem like the type of person who would realize if she was caught in an overly unhealthy position."

Letting out a soft breath between her teeth, Hermione shook her head again. "I would certainly have given such a man a piece of my mind, but... then again, I've never been particularly shy about doing that with anyone. It's certainly earned me my share of discontent peers over time."