A gift for TycheSong...keep your head up, girl.
"No no no, wait! Please hold the—" Hermione watched as the red phone booth sunk below the pavement, knowing it would be another eighteen and a half minutes before it would return, "—phone booth. Damn."
She was late for work today, which was highly unlike her, but Crookshanks, the dear, had vomited in the pair of shoes she'd set out last night, and she hadn't realized until she'd gone to slip them on this morning. The associated scolding, clean-up, and subsequent outfit change had had her bolting from the flat with just a few minutes to spare. And she might have made the phone booth, too, if she hadn't had the misfortune of being stuck behind the slowest walker she'd ever encountered. By the time she'd been able to scoot around the woman and her triple-wide pram, she'd had to run full tilt to the booth. Which she'd missed, anyway.
A strange ache spread through her chest, almost as though it was warm and then cold. She really needed to refill her anti-anxiety medication at the apothecary, but that would require another trip to her Muggle shrink, and she simply didn't have the time. Or the funds, actually. The odd sensation continued, and Hermione rubbed a hand over her heart. It came away wet. Glancing down, she realized what the peculiar feeing was. Her fast and furious run had earned her a giant coffee splash down the front of her new silk blouse as well. "Bloody, fucking, buggering hell," she mumbled to herself, examining the damage. Yep, the shirt was irrevocably ruined. Neither magical nor Muggle remedies had yet to quite figure out how to successfully remove coffee stains from silk. And she'd just splurged on this, too.
"Shaping up to be a great day," she muttered as she eyed the empty phone booth balefully. She took a careful sip of the hot coffee, figuring she might as well enjoy what was left of it. No doubt she'd need the caffeine boost sooner rather than later. She immediately spat the mouthful out, however—no cream or sugar. Disgusted with herself, her cat, her coffee, and her life in general, Hermione crammed the paper mug into the nearest rubbish bin.
Twenty minutes later, Hermione was rushing down the hall to her office, hoping to get in and make herself look busy before her boss did his morning rounds at 8:37 on the dot. Why he bothered to do a desk-check was beyond her; she was fairly convinced the man hadn't so much as lifted a finger in the past two decades that he had been the head of the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. It had only been once she'd started as a junior-level policy writer in the year after the war that the department had seen any forward momentum.
Of course, she didn't like to pat herself on the back too much. She knew that much of that momentum had been a personal favor from Minister Shacklebolt, on Harry's request. Still, she was proud of the work she'd accomplished here, and proud of the progressive achievements they'd made in the treatment of beings, beasts, and spirits alike. It was a decent job, and she excelled at it; if she occasionally felt slightly less than fulfilled, well, who could blame her? After all, nothing would ever compare to hunting down the Horcruxes of a deranged megalomaniac. Or so her St. Mungo's therapist had told her.
Wincing, she stuffed her purse into a desk drawer and flopped into her chair, shoving her unruly hair back out of her face. She hadn't had the time or the funds to see the St. Mungo's Healer lately, either. There was no help for it, though—Hermione Granger would persevere. At least her career and her love life were on track. Surely those two successes were enough to keep her from backsliding into the depression that had hung over her head after the war?
And speaking of her love life...she quickly penned an invitation for lunch to her beau, Jackson Welleson. He worked in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, and he was considered quite a catch. Not that Hermione cared what other people thought, because she didn't. Or she tried not to, anyway. She couldn't help but feel the teeniest bit smug whenever she was out in public with Jackson. He was ruggedly good-looking and his native Norwegian accent only added to the appeal. The past three months with him had been some of the happiest she'd known. Smiling like a loon, she sent the purple bit of parchment winging off to his office.
"Oh! Um, Hermione. Hey. How—how are you?" Lisandra Markel, Hermione's office mate, a Slytherin who had been just a few years ahead of her in school, stopped abruptly just inside the door.
"Well, this morning was off to a bit of a rough start, but overall I think it'll be alright," Hermione replied.
Lisandra seemed to relax and she smiled tentatively at Hermione. "I'm so glad you aren't too torn up. Let's grab lunch sometime, yeah?"
Hermione nodded, a bit befuddled by the girl's peculiar answer and quick flight from the room, but she didn't dwell on it too much. She waited, tapping her fingers on her desk, hoping that Jackson was free today. She'd been out sick for a good deal of last week and she was desperate to see him. She checked her watch and saw that it was already 8:43—goodness. She must have just missed Dolby Dolper, her boss, by the time she'd gotten in. Drat. Now she'd have to find an excuse to go to him in his office and make it seem like there was a pressing reason, other than making sure he knew she was present and working. He never stepped foot into "the hive", as he called their working space, except for his twice-daily desk checks.
She shuffled some papers around on her desk and then an idea came to her. She had a batch of reports that were due back from the Dark Creatures section—she'd go round those up and hand them over to Dolby herself. Of course, it wouldn't be pleasant—the head of the Dark Creatures section was none other than Severus Snape. After his miraculous recovery and flamboyant resignation from Hogwarts, he'd come to the Ministry, intent on tracking, and in some cases hunting, malignant creatures. He was bloody good at it, too. In the three years since the war, he'd managed to find and dispose of no less than twenty-seven snakes that Voldemort had attempted to use for nefarious purposes before finally "getting it right" with Nagini. Hermione shuddered to think what his day-to-day consisted of. Thankfully even her most frustrating day with the Wizengamot was nothing compared to lurking in the dankest, dirtiest corners of Great Britain.
Snape was hardly pleasant on his best days, but Hermione had worked hard to cultivate a semi-cordial working relationship with him over the years. The key, she'd learned, was to come for what she needed, and then get out. Generally, though, if he was in the office instead of out looking for dangerous creatures, his outlook was set to 'grumpy'. Sometimes she'd bring a peace offering with her—a cup of coffee (the good kind, not the Ministry swill), a new journal (not Potions, thank you), or a juicy bit of misfortune being suffered by one of Snape's detested contemporaries (reserved for when she needed to ask him for a large favor). Today, though, she was fresh out of all three. She steeled herself for the confrontation and just hoped that he was in a decent mood this morning. Unfortunately his only assistant was a bumbling, reedy Hufflepuff who had volunteered to work for free, so most days in the office found Snape in quite a foul mood.
She was on her way out the door when a purple piece of paper came zinging at her. Hermione snatched it out of the air, opening it to Jackson's familiar scrawl: Sorry. Can't. Hermione frowned. That was awful terse of him, wasn't it? Vowing to stop by his cubicle after her other visits, Hermione chucked the paper in the recycle bin and headed off to find Snape.
It took the better part of forty minutes before she caught sight of the tail of a black robe whipping around the corner. Jogging to catch up, Hermione cursed her bad luck. Nothing was going right so far today, and her mad search for Snape was just one more nail in her proverbial coffin. To top it all off, she had barely run into another living soul on the whole level. It was almost as if the department had been vacated. Even once she'd found a lower-level intern, that person had stammered a response and fled. Honestly, it was the strangest thing.
Rounding the corner, she saw Snape moving at a fast clip up ahead. "Severus!" she called, running as fast as she could in her heels. "Severus, please, wait!"
She thought she only imagined the way his shoulders stiffened, but at least he did slow down. Panting as she caught up to him, Hermione grabbed the stitch in her side. "Bloody hell. What's the rush?" He didn't deign to respond, so Hermione took a moment to catch her breath as she matched her stride to his reduced one. "I've been looking for you everywhere."
"What a coincidence," he intoned. "I've been avoiding you everywhere."
"I'm sorry?" she gasped.
"You heard me." He paused and eyed her blouse. "Interesting fashion statement."
Hermione frowned now, choosing to ignore the remark about the coffee stain. Sure, it wasn't as if they were bosom buddies, but usually he at least treated her with a modicum of tolerance. Not outright dismissal.
"Uh, okay. Well, I was wondering if you'd had a chance to review those reports I sent two weeks ago? I need to get them over to Dolby for—"
"I sent them to Miss Markel."
"You—but why? Those were my reports."
Snape stopped in his tracks, and Hermione nearly plowed into him. "Isn't it obvious?" he asked.
"Isn't what obvious? You know, I've had about enough of everyone's foolishness today! First Lisandra is downright weird, then Jackson canceled on me for lunch, and then the spotty intern down on level four was less than helpful—what's going on?"
"Oh, dear. You don't know," he drawled, his eyes alight with glee. Then he exhaled sharply. "For shame. As much as I would love to fill you in, I think Dolby is best suited for that. Come along."
"Fill me in? On what? Have I been—oh, gods, have I been reassigned?" Hermione shuddered at the thought. Now more than ever there was a dearth of wizards willing to work for the Ministry, so people were shifted into different departments all the time, whenever there were severe staffing shortages. Heaven help her if she ended up in the Magical Games department or something equally atrocious.
Snape just shook his head. She could tell he was waging war with himself, because his mouth opened and closed once before he picked up his pace again, steering them ever more quickly to Dolby's office.
"Please just tell me!" she begged, placing a hand on his arm. "You've no idea how bad this morning has been already—"
Apparently Snape decided to lose the war with his conscience. "You're being sent to the Centaur Office, so to speak," he told her. One corner of his mouth quirked happily.
"WHAT?!" Hermione screeched. The Centaur Liaison Office had been set up when the Ministry was first established, but to date no Centaur had ever utilized it. Everyone in the Ministry knew that was slang for being sacked. "I can't be fired! On what grounds? I was only ten minutes late today!"
But Snape just shook his head and kept walking. Hermione fell in behind him, fuming. She didn't trust herself to look at the gloating expression on his face and not try to hex it off. Another few minutes and they were at Dolby's office. Snape knocked on the door, and their boss opened it a crack.
"Oh. Severus. It's you. Come on in—" He pulled the door open wide and only then caught sight of Hermione. "Oooh. And you've brought Hermione. Erm...best if you came back later, dear," he told her.
Hermione shouldered Snape out of the way and marched into Dolby's office, planting her hands on her hips. "No! Not until you tell me what's going on!"
Dolby glanced nervously at Severus and then back at her. "Yes. Well. I was rather hoping you'd received my owl...?" At his hopeful look, Hermione shook her head no. Dolby's face fell. "Ah. Well. Must have crossed your path coming down here, I sent him out to arrive at your place no later than 8:04..." He trailed off and began to pace. Hermione's worst fears were confirmed—there was nothing Dolby liked less than working, except for delivering bad news.
"Mr. Dolper!" she barked.
"I'm terribly sorry, Miss Granger. But we have to let you go." Dolby wrung his hands together and tried to look sympathetic. Hermione thought he just looked constipated.
"But why? Is this because I was out last week? I have a note from the dispensary at St. Mungo's; I was diagnosed with dragon pox and couldn't be around anyone—"
"No, no, dear, this has nothing to do with absences. Ministry policy states that each employee has fourteen and one-third sick days to use as they deem—"
"I know the policy! I revised the policy!" Hermione fumed.
"Yes. So you did. I, ah, forgot about that." Dolby nodded.
"So? Is it my job performance? Because I can do better. I'll work overtime—"
Snape snorted and Hermione shot him a scowl. She'd nearly forgotten he was even still here, witnessing her utter and complete humiliation. Just another personal low on a day of lows, she told herself. Sacked in front of your academic idol...
"Actually, Miss Granger, it's a bit of—of the opposite problem."
With difficulty, Hermione pulled her attention away from Snape's looming presence and back to Dolby. "I don't understand."
"Well, dear, you see, you're just a bit too—passionate."
"Too passionate," Hermione repeated woodenly.
"Yes. Some of the creatures have filed complaints. Seems they haven't much appreciated their new 'freedoms' as it were. Of course we have been very honored by your hard work over the past two years—"
"Three. I've been here three years. Coming up on four, actually."
"Regardless, the complaint pile has backed up to a point now where even I can't ignore it any longer. But here, don't look so downtrodden—on behalf of the RCMC department, may I present you with this plaque in honor of your diligence."
He fumbled around on his desk before producing a dusty plaque and handing it to her. Hermione wiped off some of the grime and squinted at the inscription. "This isn't even my name."
Dolby flushed a bright red, then stabbed his wand towards the plaque, which now read To Hermine Gardner. Beyond annoyed with the entire situation, Hermione chucked the plaque at the trash bin. It bounced off the rim and hit the floor with a satisfying clang. Deciding to just accept her fate for now—at least until she could plead her case with Kingsley—she crossed her arms and glared alternately at her former boss and Snape. Her former professor was grinning like the Cheshire cat now, and it made Hermione's blood boil. Or perhaps it was a different feeling entirely, because she was fairly certain he'd never directed a smile at her before, and it was doing funny things to her insides... No. No, it had to be anger. She would not accept any other explanation. But she did need to get the hell away from him. "At least I'm still getting a severance," she snapped, brushing past Snape to exit the suddenly-too-hot room.
"About that," Dolby began, but Hermione held up a hand for him to stop.
"Let me guess. Ministry coffers are nearly empty after the war, and pensions are distributed based on seniority?" When Dolby merely nodded, Hermione huffed out an aggravated breath and stormed out of the room, refusing to make eye contact with Snape as she did so. At least this meant she wouldn't have to cross paths with him anymore, even if the occasional verbal sparring match with him really fired her engines. No, she was better off now—she was free to find a job she loved and she would no longer have to bribe her coworkers to help her with coffee and Transfiguration journals.
She started down the hallway and heard Snape calling her name. She picked up her pace and beelined for the lifts, hoping to get away from him. As an afterthought, she made a rude hand gesture at him, more amused than angry when he only laughed. Yes, that felt much better.
Then he replied, "Not if you were the last female on Earth, Miss Granger."
Being rejected by Snape? Worse. That was definitely worse.
Hermione took the lifts up to Jackson's level, hoping to catch him alone for a moment to find out why he couldn't grab lunch with her today. Maybe they could kip out for a short break mid-morning, instead. As she approached his cubicle, she suddenly remembered that she needed to pay her annual subscription to Transfiguration Today. She was halfway back to her office when she shook herself. She needed to see Jackson. Returning to his floor, she strode towards his cube again, only this time she thought she might have left her coffeemaker on at home, and she'd better pop in and check so that her flat didn't burn down. This go-round she only made it as far as the doorway before she snapped out of it.
Knowing there was a powerful repelling charm in place, Hermione held her wand to her temple and focused on her goal—Must. See. Jackson. Then she approached his desk slowly, carefully, her goal centered in her mind. She must have made it through the barrier, because the next thing she knew, she could hear sounds coming from Jackson's designated space.
Sex sounds.
She frowned. Something just wasn't computing here, and she was going to find out what it was. She marched into his cubicle, not even thinking to disguise her approach, and stared at the display before her. Even with her own eyes on the scene, it just didn't make any sense.
Jackson. A curvy black-haired witch. Both half-naked and shagging frantically on Jackson's normally pristine desk.
"Jackson?" Hermione's voice sounded like it was coming to her from far away. Both her boyfriend and the witch whipped around to stare at her, and Hermione tilted her head in confusion. "What are you doing?"
The girl laughed. "Merlin. If you have to ask then I guess I know why Jackson's come to me for—"
"That's enough, Petra." Jackson backed away and hurriedly stuffed himself into his trousers. He grabbed his suit jacket and tossed it over the girl. "I'll see you tonight, alright?" he murmured to her.
Hermione watched, fascinated, as the girl shimmied back into her panties and smoothed down her skirt before blowing Jackson a kiss and sashaying from the cubicle. It was like watching some horrible trash on the telly—it was okay to gawk, because it wasn't happening to you.
"Hermione?" Jackson asked, his voice laden with concern.
Except it was happening to her.
The pieces crashed together with frightening clarity. "Don't bother," Hermione said, waving him off when he made to come closer. "I suppose I ought to be grateful that I always insisted on magical and Muggle protection. Seriously, Jackson, be careful with that one—she looks like she might have a bit of the doxy-pox. Left untreated, it'll make your testicles shrivel up and—"
"Stop! Please, gods, Hermione, stop. Petra's a nice girl. You just, uh, surprised us."
"No kidding." She stared at Jackson, noticing for the first time the way his placating smile didn't quite reach his eyes, and the way his hair was styled just so to look like it hadn't been styled at all. And when he'd tossed his jacket at Petra, Hermione had noticed it wasn't even actual chimaera wool, as he liked to claim, but a simple alpaca blend. Fake, fake, fake. She ought to have known better. She turned to leave, and Jackson called out to her.
"I am sorry, you know. I didn't mean for you to find out this way."
Hermione goggled at his arrogance. She glanced over her shoulder at him. "I'm just glad I found out at all," she ground out, suddenly thankful that she'd been sick last week and they hadn't had sex in far too long. She didn't care for the thought of sharing.
"Well, I'll see you around, yeah?" Jackson asked cheerfully, re-buttoning his shirt and straightening his tie.
Hermione didn't bother to look back this time, merely gave him the same rude hand gesture she'd given Snape.
One of the overhead lights flickered and then went out, casting her lonely table in the Ministry cafeteria into shadow. Spread across the tabletop was a visual history of her past ninety minutes: it had started with a single brownie, the crumbs of which had been dusted over to the edge. Then had come the giant fizzy drink, slurped down and refilled—twice. Then the lemon custard, the treacle tart, the baker's dozen of pumpkin pasties, and the grand finale—a full shepherd's pie. To offset the sweetness, naturally.
Hermione glared at the offending detritus, trying to Vanish it all to a rubbish bin by sheer force of will. No luck. Then a darker shadow crossed her already-dim airspace.
"Hermione? Blimey, what are you—" Ron's voice.
"Not now, Ron." Harry slid onto the bench opposite her, bending down to peer into her face. "I think Hermione's had a bit of a rough go."
Hermione laughed mirthlessly, and Ron tentatively joined Harry on the bench, looking for all the world like he'd rather be anywhere else.
"Having a rough go is getting a paper cut right on your wand hand," Hermione said flatly. "Spilling coffee on your new blouse, being late to work and subsequently getting fired, and then being dumped by your boyfriend—as he boinks another woman, might I add—that's a damn bloody fucking shitty day," she snarled. "Oh! And I can't believe it—I nearly forgot that Crooks vomited in my favorite pair of heels this morning. Ha, ha, ha."
Ron and Harry exchanged a worried look. Hermione couldn't blame them—she was starting to scare even herself.
"Why did you even come in?" Harry asked. "Surely someone would've packed up your work things. I offered but Dolby told me not to worry about it—"
"Hold on." Hermione slapped both hands down onto the table, knocking a tart wrapper to the floor. "You knew?" She looked from one friend to another. "You both knew?! Ugh!" She threw her hands in the air before laying her head on the table and mumbling to herself. "This bloody hellhole. Everyone and their mother finds out a person's been sacked but can they be arsed to actually let the person know? Nooooo. Leave it to a bloody owl. Wankers."
"I don't think Mum knew," Ron offered in reply. "Although I can't say for certain because she did have Percy over for Sunday dinner last night, so—"
"Shut up, Ron," Hermione sighed. He compiled and they sat in silence. Eventually the boys stood to go, and Harry patted her sympathetically on the back.
"Chin up," he whispered as he passed her. Hermione wanted to smile, honestly she did, but all that emerged was an awful baring of her teeth. After they were gone, she closed her eyes and wondered what was wrong with her.
It could have been five minutes or five hours later, Hermione wasn't certain, but she snapped awake when someone rapped her rather more firmly on the shoulder than was entirely necessary.
"Cafeteria's closed, miss. Time t'go."
Hermione looked up to see an elderly janitor staring at her with his lone eye. She started to sit up but something yanked at her hair and she stopped. She attempted to loosen the strands from wherever they were caught, but she couldn't find the source. She tried to straighten again, only to howl in pain when her hair pulled at her scalp.
"What the—"
"Looks like it mighten be glued down," the janitor offered helpfully.
"So unglue it," she snapped, determined that someone had played an awfully cruel prank.
"Cain't," the janitor said lazily. "'m a Squib. Asides, it looks like it were dried to that puddle o' puddin'."
Hermione felt the ends of her hair with new perspective, and realized the man was right. While she slept, some of the pudding had melted and drained out of the cup, pooling around her hair—and then hardening. The string of curses that left her mouth then had the janitor blushing by the time she was done.
"'ere, now, none o' that. Ol' Red'll get ya loose," he soothed. Hermione whimpered when he extracted a large, rusty pair of scissors from a pocket of his coveralls.
"No, no, I'm sure I can—"
"Ain't no spell's gonna free that mess," he replied, calmly shuffling around the table to her other side. "Now hold still. I ain't want t'poke ya."
Hermione pushed back the feeling of complete and utter defeat as the first snips reached her ears. She would not fall to pieces over her hair. Hermione Granger was not the type to rely on looks for her self-worth; if she secretly took pride in the bushy mass out of vanity's sake then this would be the perfect opportunity to rectify her shallower side of nature. When Red was done, he stepped back.
"Ain't so bad," he pronounced, which somehow only made Hermione feel worse. Could he even see her with just the one eye? Tenderly, she touched a hand to her hand, gasping when she felt the very shortly shorn locks.
"Thank you," she managed, rather stiffly, to Red; she gave the table one quick glance and then moved away before she could do something ridiculous like stuff all the long curls into her pocket for re-gluing to her head later. As ideas went, it certainly wasn't her worst, was it?
Yeah. It was pretty damn bad. She sighed.
Hermione took a long, rambling route back to the lifts. It was unlikely that she would have reason to be back in these Ministry halls any time soon, and though she hadn't always loved it here, she was going to miss it, just a bit. It was nearly nine o'clock when she finally boarded a lift and prepared to head home. She was halfway between levels two and three when the lift came to a grinding halt.
"It's the end of the day here at the Ministry of Magic. Please be well!" a chipper voice sing-songed into the lift.
"What?" Hermione punched the numbers on the control panel, trying to get the blasted thing moving again. But it didn't budge. "What do you mean, the end of the day? The whole place just shuts down?" Hermione waited for some kind of response, but none came.
Then the lights turned off.
"Fucking fantastic," she muttered, scrubbing a hand over her forehead. But that only served to remind her of her new haircut, so she let her hand drop. Lighting her wand, she assessed her options. One—send a Patronus to someone for help. Two—try to magic her way out of the lift. Seeing as she'd already been at someone else's mercy for enough of the day, thankyouverymuch, she decided to figure her own way out. But none of her spells worked on the ancient lift system. And when she gave in and tried to send a Patronus, her otter bounced around the interior of the lift for a few moments before standing in front of her and stating "Message Undeliverable" before disintegrating.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" Hermione kicked the lift grates as hard as she could, resulting only in a shooting pain up her leg. There had to be a way out. She remembered picking locks with a hairpin when she was a child, so as a last-ditch resort, she jabbed her wand into the small space between the grates and tried to wiggle it. She heard a clicking sound and bent to her task, beginning to sweat. Apparently the ventilation system turned off at night, too.
Her wand slid another inch deeper into the grates and she thought she was making progress. Just one more twist, and then—
Crack.
Her wand snapped in half.
Staring at the piece in her hand in disbelief, Hermione sunk to the floor. Her wand—her trusty wand—the wand that had chosen her when she was eleven, learned every spell right along with her, defended her and her friends against unlimited amounts of peril—broken. Like a meager pencil. Grief poured through her, and all her frustration and humiliation from the day finally caught up. She sobbed hysterically in the dark of the lift, made unaccountably sadder by the thought that she owed Harry an apology for being so cavalier when his own wand had broken in Godric's Hollow.
Eventually the tears ran out, and she wallowed on the floor of Ministry lift number fourteen, hoping fervently that Death would just come and take her.
A/N: The line "I've been avoiding you everywhere" is from The Princess and The Frog.