Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Prompt: “I know this may be hard to believe, but I’m on your side.”
September 30th 2008, Ministry of Magic, Department of Law Enforcement
Mr and Mrs Granger had done a lot of things right when raising their daughter. Hermione had values, a good attitude to work, was emphatic if sometimes a tad misguided (case in point - S.P.E.W.). The Grangers were intelligent and well-meaning people. There was one thing that Mrs Granger failed to understand and Mr Granger did not realise until too late. Helen Granger was a petite, fineboned woman, wearing size 6 without any effort. She had despaired over her hair but never lost a thought about her size. Hermione had inherited the stout bone structure of her father’s family. At age 9 the girl was half a head taller than her mother, correspondingly heavier and, blessed with the clumsiness of a prepubescent girl after a growth spurt, despaired of ever being so effortlessly graceful as her mother.
Mrs Granger who, despite putting in lots of hours in the surgery, was a wonderful parent, but never had the time to realise that her daughter felt incredibly ungainly and ungraceful next to her. This feeling should have passed with puberty and growing into ones body but not so with Hermione. The girl went to Hogwarts wearing size 12.
During that horrible year on the run her size dropped to 8 while peacetime, late night study sessions and Molly Weasley’s cooking brought her up to 12 or 14 again. Now and then Hermione thought about the irony that her mother did not know her right during that time she looked very similar to her. But most of the time she knew that she had every right to be proud of herself and that, as a modern woman and witch, she was more than a fashion template. Yet, these lessons and hurts of ones childhood and youth keep popping up at inopportune times, which was why Hermione Granger presented a rather embarrassing picture to her office colleague Severus Snape this particular morning.
The witch was standing in front of her desk on which someone had pinned an article from the `Prophet´ with an unflattering picture of Hermion crouching down to pick up one of the younger Weasley grandchildren, hands on her buttcheeks, tears in her eyes.
Snape looked over her shoulder to read the headline - `Size of Brazil?´ He snorted inelegantly, “It seems the wizarding world has caught up with Bridget Jones. Finally.”
It was enough to bring her out of her stupor.
“You know Bridget Jones?”
They got along quite well usually but now he rolled his eyes.
“Obviously.” In a more serious voice Snape continued, “I know this may be hard to believe, but I’m on your side. It is of course much harder for women but I have been judged for my body from the scrawny, underfed child at primary up to `greasy, overgrown bat´during my time as a teacher.”
Hermione had a sneaking suspicion that he overplayed his own issues for her to get into `protect´mode, a ploy he had used before when she was in need of distraction. But she gladly played along.
“All right, let’s get that brief for Kingsley finalised.”