The Unwinding
CJ Wellington
Chapter One
The lights were off when Hermione arrived at the small two-story flat she called home. Crossing the entry way, Hermione walked into the small single-window study. She shrugged off her jacket and scarf, laid them both over the back of the corner leather chair and turned on the standing reading lamp next to it. The room was engulfed in a soft yellow glow from the copper-coated lamp shade. "I should go to bed." Hermione mumbled to herself as she stepped behind the desk and settled into the worn, high-backed chair that used to belong to her father. It was a quarter to eleven and she had been up in business mode since before five that morning. But Ron had been gone visiting his brothers for the last few days, so if she was going to make any reasonable progress on her ever-growing pile of paper work she might as well do it then, while he was not around to distract her.
Hermione conjured herself a mug of coffee, braided her curls away from her face, and withdrew the first envelope out of her shoulder bag. The Ministry had just passed a law on the Mistreatment of Magical House Creatures and currently it was her job to shift through tickets to determine which offenders needed to be brought in on further charges or marked down for a misdemeanor. Accidently locking a House Elf in a closet for a few hours was a small incident in comparison to having ones magic bound so that they cannot protect themselves from their owners.
An hour into her paperwork, Hermione rose and decided that her judgement would be better in the day light. Her coffee had done nothing to reenergize her and consequently she had just startled herself awake after dozing off and almost smacking her forehead on the desk. Waving her wand, her paperwork flew neatly back into her bag and the empty coffee mug disappeared from sight – leaving only a clear, polished wood desk behind. She yawned loudly as she left the study and climbed the stairs to the second floor where she and Ron slept. Or lately, where she slept.
The room illuminated as she entered, a carefully organized bedroom greeting her. The queen sized bed to her left was neatly made with dark sapphire bedding, the nightstand was clutter free except for a small lamp and her beloved Hogwarts: A History, to her right two doors were closed as she left them every morning – one leading to the bathroom, the other to a closet that now housed more of her clothes than Ron's. She knew every time he went home to visit his family he secretly took another load of clothes that he didn't intend on returning. "You are being ridiculous." Hermione spoke out loud as she stared at the door that lead to the closet. "It really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone." She shook her head of the sad thoughts and dressed for bed – her alarm would be waking her sooner than she liked it to.
#
With only four hours of sleep, Hermione was showered, dressed, and on her way back to the Ministry for another long day of shifting through tickets. When she pushed through the doors of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Hermione was met by a crowd huddled around the latest edition of The Daily Prophet. "What do we have here today?" Hermione asked as she drew nearer to the crowd. Seamus, who was now an Auror, turned and greeted her with a small smile. "Another attack it seems, in the States this time. The muggle papers are calling it a wild animal incident but the Prophet is insinuating that the attack was done by werewolves, maybe those who used to run with Greyback."
"Greyback? I haven't heard that name in quite a while – wasn't he killed during the Battle of Hogwarts?" Hermione unbuttoned her jacket as she spoke of the werewolf who had sired the late Remus Lupin.
"His pack scatted after his death and have been relatively quiet for the past few years. It is odd that they should choose to now start wreaking havoc – and over in the States too, blimey. I really don't want to be the person who has to travel over there to meet with the US Wizarding Consulate."
"Actually, it shouldn't be odd that they would choose now to resurface. Next spring will be the five year anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts and we already know that there has been whispers of a Dark Rebellion. Greyback's pack sided with the Death Eaters during the battle, so it wouldn't be farfetched to think that they were gearing up for battle again. Were there any casualties during the attack in the States?"
Seamus shook his head. "No, but numerous were bitten – we will know soon if they have been turned. It will be a full moon in two weeks."
"Right, well unfortunately this is not my area of focus at the moment, so I will leave it to you Aurors and I better head off to my cave of paper work before Lathrop sees me out here chit chatting." Hermione inwardly groaned when she dropped the name of the current Department Head – Bartholomew Lathrop was decent fellow, and Hermione usually got her way when working with him, but he was a big stickler for 'chit chat' in the workplace.
"I should do the same. Tell Ron hello for me, you two should come over again for dinner, Lydia would love to talk with you more about your family; she is fascinated by muggles."
Hermione gave Seamus a tight smile and said that she would relay the message to Ron when she saw him. After bidding the rest of the Aurors goodbye, Hermione moved towards the back of the wing and into her corner office. She had the perfect view of the Thames – even if it was bewitched to look that way. For four years she had worked in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and getting her law passed that protected magical house creatures had earned her the special office space. It also earned her more responsibilities and time spent in the office. That was another topic of discussion that always led into an argument between her and Ron. Not that he wasn't busy with his Auror dealings but rarely did he have to spend outside hours working on cases. Hermione suspected too that the fact that she was gaining more attention than him when he was doing more field work than her was beginning to irritate him. "Well he just needs to shove off." Hermione growled. She roughly pulled the paperwork out of her bag and slammed it on her desk, sending a few stray sheets flying across her room. "Dammit."
"A little irritated this morning, Hermione?"
Hermione looked up to find Harry standing in her door way. "Just running low on tolerance for idiocrasy."
"Ron?" Harry asked, but his eyes gave away that he knew the answer.
"We got into another argument, before he left to go visit George for the weekend." Hermione huffed and sat down, resting her chin on the palms of her hand.
"Let me guess, you are spending too much time at the office and not enough time at home with him?"
"Yes."
"Well, if it makes you feel better, all of us will be spending more time at the office in the coming months."
Hermione looked up and pushed back into her chair. "You read the Prophet too?"
Harry nodded. "This is the second 'wild animal' attack in three months, and Ron told you about the letter we intercepted at the border between England and Ireland."
"Someone was sending out a recruitment but you couldn't decipher the location or the reason for it. Parts of the letter were written in a language you weren't familiar with. Ron told me a bit of it a few weeks ago but hasn't spoken of it since."
Harry crossed the office and sat down in one of the leather chairs. "We were finally able to decipher the language – the words were recorded onto the page. As in, the paper spoke to you; sort of like a howler but not quite so aggressive. They had to speak the printed sentence in Latin in order to trigger that actual message."
"Latin? Who knows Latin in modern day conversation?"
"The Dark Rebellion has been using bits of it intermixed with standard English when they send messages out, thinking that since it is a dead language no one will be able to understand what they are saying, or doing. They have also been communicating via riddles, I hate riddles."
Hermione laughed. "I wish I was doing that, instead of this." She pointed to the pile of papers that were not so neatly scattered across her desk.
"That is actually what I came to talk to you back. Lathrop is putting together a new task force to focus on the Dark Rebellion. Since you have knowledge in dark magic and fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, he has asked me to ask you if you would like to join." Harry crossed his arms and relaxed into the leather chair.
"Does Ron know that I have been asked to join the task force?"
"He was the one who suggested it."
Hermione was taken aback. "Why in Merlin would he suggest me to be on the task force? He practically rejoiced when I told him I was going the political route instead of the Auror route like you two."
Harry shrugged his arms. "It is beyond me why Ron does what he does but he suggested you; said that you would be a great asset to the team."
"Well, if Ron is on board with me joining the team then I am good with it as well. Merlin knows that I am tired of looking over tickets and would rather be doing something else with my time." A wide smile crossed Hermione's face. "I thought when I joined the this portion of the department it would be more action-oriented – like I would be in and out of the court rooms and out on the streets helping people. Not stuck in my office till all hours of the night shifting through complaints and tickets. Even tracking down underage wizards doing magic would be more interesting than this. After my law passed it was like everything came to a halt and I was pushed aside – my brain not needed any longer."
"Your brain is definitely needed here, Hermione. And who knows, maybe after we squash these people who are trying to bring back the days of Voldemort we can come back and be at a higher level than we are now. No more paper work for you and no more answering house calls for me." Harry brushed his hands across his jeans and rose from the chair. "When is Ron returning from George's? Ginny said George had a wild weekend planned for them."
Hermione shrugged her shoulders. "Hell if I know. Ron rarely tells me what he is doing anymore, not that I am around much to notice when he is home."
Harry's eyes softened as he stared at his longtime friend. "Things haven't gotten any easier have they?"
"No." Hermione's voice dropped to a whisper. "If anything, things have gotten worse – we've grown more distant."
Almost a year ago Hermione had come to Harry with her doubts and concerns about the future of her and Ron. She had watched how Harry and Ginny had grown closer after the Battle of Hogwarts while she and Ron just seemed to drift apart. She hoped moving in with one another would help combat the drifting but it only spotlighted how often they weren't in the same room together. When Harry and Ginny got engaged a few months ago, things went from bad to worse. Everyone had thought Ron would propose to Hermione before Harry to Ginny but Ron didn't seem interested in moving forward after they had made the jump to living with one another. Ron argued that a piece of paper wouldn't change anything. Hermione disagreed.
"You do know that if you choose to leave Ron, you will still be one of my very best friends. Maybe it is best that you two separate for a while. Honestly, it might make both of you happier – go back to the way it was before. You haven't been happy for a very long time, have you Hermione?"
Tears bubbled up in the corners of her eyes and her chest heaved. Moving swiftly, Hermione rose, skirted around her desk, and threw her arms around Harry's neck – burying her face his in shoulder. Hearing his support for her happiness caused some of the stress to lift from her shoulders. She hadn't realized how much she had needed to hear that from him. It was true that she was terrified that Harry would side with Ron if she decided to walk away from the relationship. The thought had crossed her mind more than once.
When her tears subsided, Hermione withdrew from Harry's embrace. She wiped away the streaks with the back of her hand and smoothed out her blouse. "I needed to hear that, thank you Harry."
"You are my family Hermione, you not being with Ron anymore won't change that." Harry took a deep breath and shoved his hands in his slacks.
"What about the task force…will it make things awkward if we aren't together anymore?"
"If Ron wants to make it awkward then I will speak to him. We are adults now, we can handle situations such as these."
Hermione nodded. "Right."
"Besides, Ron will be too busy griping about having to work with Malfoy than the fact that your relationship is fizzling out – no offense."
"You don't mean Draco Malfoy, do you?" Hermione leaned back against her desk.
"Unfortunately, Yes. Lathrop has been working with him to gain more information about the Dark Rebellion since Malfoy still has some ties with the Death Eaters and other followers of Voldemort. He claims to have renounced his own believes in Voldemort and is fully committed to the Ministry but he is still a snake in my eyes." A frown crossed Harry's face as he spoke of their old classmate. Hermione had heard that after the Battle of Hogwarts, Draco and his family laid low but his name had resurfaced about two years back placing him in France where he joined the Ministry of Magic there as an Auror.
"I hadn't realized that he was even back in England." It made Hermione nervous to have someone join their task force that they had a dark history with. He had been in the room that night Bellatrix had scarred her. He saw the pain she had been in and did nothing to stop his Aunt. Hermione shook her head of the memory but rubbed her arm where the letters had now faded to white lines, almost gone but not quite yet.
"Lathrop said he put in a transfer about six months ago, his mother got sick and he wanted to be closer to her during her treatments. Haven't heard any news on his father though. The jury's still out on his location – I'm sure he will stay in hiding until he dies in a hole somewhere."
"Harry!"
"He is a terrible person Hermione, you know that. If Voldemort was still around Malfoy would be just as bad as his father but I'd rather work with him than Lucius. I take back what I said earlier, he isn't snake. He could have killed Dumbledore like he was ordered to but he didn't."
"Alright, alright. If anyone has cause to hate him; that would be the muggle born in the room."
"Technically, I was raised by muggles so I could be called that as well."
Hermione leaned forward and swatted at him. "Shut up Potter, don't you have house calls to make? There aren't any drunk wizards that you need to go arrest for spouting off magic out in public?"
"Not yet, but I am sure there will be a telephone call soon. Let me know how it goes with Ron."
"Will do."
Harry leaned in and gave Hermione a kiss on the cheek before turning on his heel and leaving the office. And having not been officially released from her paperwork hell, Hermione returned to her desk and settled in for another long afternoon; a hard evening waiting for her when she returned home to face the man she used to be in love with.
-CJW