A/N: My first serious attempt at non-expository writing after a long time. Obvious disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling, and I'm just having a go at some of her characters (also my formatting is probably pure shit, so feel free to flame me for that).
Chapter One: Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration
Hermione wakes to the sound of birds. It isn't nearly as enjoyable as she'd imagined.
Sod off, you bloody harpies, she thinks, and turns her face defiantly into a pillow. After five more minutes filled with cheery chirping, however, she is forced to surrender and sits up, blinking hard in the rosy light of dawn. The simple, familiar wallpaper of her bedroom greets her, painted muted shades of pink and orange by the summer sunrise, and she decides then that rising early might not be completely abysmal. Of course, it doesn't stop her from mentally cursing the winged abominations outside her window into oblivion - though the wandless, drawn-out muggle expletives she's fond of in situations like these aren't any better than soggy cardboard at destroying much of anything.
"At this point I might as well get ready," she says finally, exasperated, and looks around.
Her eyes quickly find her robes from the night before, lying in a crumpled heap on a chair by the door (but not yet too wrinkled to wear again, she reasons). A few feet away on the corner table, she sees the pile of half-completed reports due on Wednesday, sitting neatly next to three empty firewhiskey bottles and a vase of bright daisies. Then she squints blearily at the clock on the wall. Six eighteen. Far too early to be getting up.
"Bloody birds," she mutters, and glances off to her right, where she is not completely surprised to see a broad, tanned back half-concealed by her crisp sheets. The man it belongs too is still asleep, his chest rising and falling in time to his soft, even breathing. She feels bad waking him.
"Sorry," she murmurs, nudging him softly with her elbow. "Could you pass me the clock?"
"Sure thing," comes a sleepy voice after a bit, and a toned arm passes over a single, vividly green alarm clock. She switches off the alarm and slides out of bed, absentmindedly pushing her nightgown back onto one shoulder.
Hermione is halfway through her bathroom routine when she remembers that she is in fact a witch. The realization triggers a hasty, unproductive search over the countertops for her wand, but seven opened cabinets and a few overturned towels leave her just as wandless as before. Just as she begins to pout, frustrated with her own lack of organization, she has an epiphany.
"I'm an idiot," she says, toothbrush in one hand, and tiptoes back into the bedroom. "It's in my robes." Sure enough, a quick rummage through her clothes yields the familiar feel of vine in her fingers, and she moves a bit faster through her typical morning preparations with magic. She summons her bag, the reports, and, after some consideration, a yellow sundress with whispered accio's, letting her belongings fly themselves unhurriedly to her. The contents of her bag organize themselves with a single tap of her wand, she slips on the dress, and less than ten minutes later she stands by the front door of her flat, ready to leave for the day.
"I'm heading off now," she calls, slinging her purse over one shoulder, and looks again at the wall clock. Six forty-two. "Will you be alright waking up by yourself?"
"Of course," the man replies groggily from her bed, waving her off. "Go on."
She nods, slips into a comfortable pair of flowery shoes, then turns on the spot and disappears.
Whitehall is pleasantly empty when Hermione arrives, her hair slightly ruffled by the unavoidable winds of apparition. After a slight readjustment of her dress, she sets off for the entrance to the Ministry of Magic at a brisk pace, quickly passing by several branching alleyways and arcades.
Unlike many of her colleagues, she looks completely comfortable in muggle clothing, and none of the ordinary people opening shops or strolling about notice anything out of place about the young woman striding purposefully toward Downing Street. They had no way of knowing, of course, that the bag she's carrying has roughly the volume of a small bedroom, or that concealed in her belt is a wand of ten and three-quarter inches, housing dragon heartstring and the absurd capability to turn the nearest streetlamp into a flock of geese.
"Good morning," she says cheerily to an unassuming florist as she approaches the usual, bright-red telephone booth, and steps casually inside. She dials 62442 into the weathered payphone without having to look, and in moments the phone box is descending quickly into the ground, unbeknownst to the muggles beginning their day above.
"Oh bother," she says suddenly, glancing into the cavernous expanse of her bag, "I've forgotten my robes." Then the door opens and she steps out into the atrium of the British Ministry of Magic, where already dozens of witches and wizards are making their way to offices and meetings in the artificial sunlight gleaming from a large, entirely non-functional skylight overhead. Bright, colorful streams of paper airplanes glide purposefully across the wide, open lobby, looking to Hermione like great schools of tropical fish, and across the vast hall twenty-four access lifts begin moving up and down as the day's employees start steadily trickling in. Where two years earlier an enormous statue engraved "MAGIC IS MIGHT" had stood, a simple, golden fountain quietly bubbles, refracting ribbons of light all across the dark blue stone of the atrium. Hermione, unfortunately, has no time to take it all in, for immediately a single violet plane breaks free from the rest and flies swiftly over to open in her outstretched hand.
"Minister would like to see you," the memo reads shortly, and she sighs in irritation.
"As if I'm his lapdog," she snaps, annoyed, but heads off toward the lifts regardless.
Harry Potter sits languidly in his office, eyes closed and feet propped up on a polished hardwood desk entirely too expensive for his tastes. All around him, whirring and puffing in the morning quiet, are dozens of delicate, gleaming silver instruments that send strange, smoky shapes spiraling up to the ceiling. They look somewhat out of place away from the office of their original owner, but well-cared for - as if someone made sure to always keep them polished and working properly. The room's other pieces of furniture, on the other hand, are far more practical - a varied collection of different styles chosen more for comfort than anything else.
"A visitor has arrived to see you," announces a disembodied voice abruptly, and the Boy who Lived starts awake, his hand already clutched instinctively around his wand.
"Oh," he says, regaining his bearings, and lets out a long sigh of relief when he remembers where is. Then he stands, smoothing creases from his purple robes. "Let her in."
The voice does not respond, but one of the double doors is pulled open and a woman in a brilliantly yellow dress walks into the room. In her hand is a single purple ministry memo.
"Hermione," he says in greeting, already pouring his friend a cup of tea from a floral teapot. "It's only seven! I didn't expect you to come in so early."
"Neither did I," she replies dryly. "Birds wouldn't be quiet this morning." She accepts the cup gratefully and sits down in one of the comfy armchairs arranged carelessly by the false windows.
"You slept here again?" she asks, raising her eyebrows at the blanket covering half of his desk, and takes a sip before adding, "Nice tea."
"Yeah, couldn't really help it. Kingsley had me up until four with diplomacy meetings for the triwizard tournament this year. You wouldn't believe how many people I had to talk to just to get ahold of one crummy dragon - "
"We're having another one of those? Given the circumstances of the last, I'm a little reluctant to believe that's a good idea." Hermione takes another quiet sip, one eyebrow raised in doubt.
"That's what I thought, but Kingsley and a lot of the other European wizards on the council were insistent on some kind of celebratory games," Harry replies, looking suddenly very tired.
"Harry, I still don't know why they had to drop this ridiculous job on you. You weren't trained to be minister at Hogwarts. You're going to work yourself to death!"
"You know full well how ridiculously unpopular the ministry was after the war, Hermione," he says, dropping heavily into a seat across from her. "It was one of their only options. It's not like I'm alone, either. Kingsley's an incredible adviser, I've got the whole Order for support - "
"Alright, alright," she interrupts, throwing up her hands in surrender. "I won't bother you about that today. You know I'm just worried about you, Harry."
"...Worried enough to do me a favor?" He smiles wryly at her, looking for a moment much less like a tired young minister and much more like the reckless boy she had gone to school with.
"No," she says, groaning, "But yes. What do you want me to do?"
"Well up north in Scotland, we've confirmed a small group of -"
"Stop right there," Hermione interjects. "Where's Ron?"
"Somewhere in Romania with Charlie, doing a different favor for me, but why does it matter?"
"Harry, I'm not an auror! I can't just go running about capturing infidels for you!"
"Infidels is an interesting way to put it," Harry answers, bemused. "But wait - were you asking about Ron because -"
"Harry, don't even start. We broke up almost a year ago," she says primly, giving him a pointed look over the top of her cup. "I asked about Ron because he's actually an auror, and I'm sure he would do loads of this stuff for you."
"Well, that's why he's in Romania right now," Harry responds good-naturedly. "But what's this I hear about a certain quidditch player you may or may not have confunded in your sixth year?"
Hermione turns scarlet. Ginny and her enormous mouth, she thinks angrily.
"We're all adults now, and I'm free to fraternize with whoever -"
"Fraternize? Is that what they're calling it these days?" He dodges a playful swat, laughing, and continues, "He did hit me over the head with a beater's bat, you know. Is he still - "
"An overgrown, arrogant prat? Only sometimes. He's gotten loads better, if I'm being perfectly honest." Harry leans back in his chair, yawning, and Hermione looks out a window at the simulated sky. "I don't really know what I want from him yet, though, or what kind of relationship it is."
"Well, just let me know when you've planned the wedding for, so I can hopefully be absent."
"Oh, honestly!"
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding!" He pauses, looking tired again. "If you're actually worried about me, though, I'd sincerely appreciate your help with this favor, Hermione," he says soberly. She scowls and puts her cup down on a nearby table a little too loudly, her face lined with obvious frustration.
"I'm not an auror, Harry. I'd really like to help, but this just isn't my area of expertise."
"You're not an auror, Hermione," he admits seriously, and looks levelly into her eyes. "What you are, however, is an extraordinary witch, an incredible cursebreaker, and the woman I trust most in this world. If I'm asking a favor, it's because I know you're capable of pulling it off."
She breaks away from his gaze and stares at carpeted floor for a long time, deciding. The minutes tick by and dozens of serpentine smoke-trails form and dissipate over their heads, their silver creators whirring dutifully away on their tables.
"You've gotten a little better at flattery, Harry," she says finally. "What do you need me to do?"
Harry beams at her, pulling a thin, crisp stack of papers from his desk briskly and passing them over. She flips through a few pages of the brief report, already occupied with absorbing as much of the material as possible.
"We've gotten reports of lingering death eater sympathizers grouping up around the country. As much as I'd like to put the whole ministry to work in properly rooting them out, we're still a mess with internal affairs, and if the public finds about even the smallest degree of death eater activity now, a full two years after the war, it would probably push back trust in us for another decade."
"So you're having your friends and the Order of the Phoenix deal with these problems off the grid," Hermione says slowly, speed-reading through a section titled Northern Scotland. "I guess that makes sense."
She pores over a detailed map drawn in enchanted ink, with different annotations gradually forming and scattering across the illustrated landmarks. Harry, seeing it, chuckles.
"Our information networks aren't bad at all, at least," he says, and Hermione nods her assent, now carefully examining an alphabetized list of suspected sympathizers.
"So where am I going? Who's coming with me?"
"The only confirmed location not already being dealt with right now is a bit north of Hogwarts, and I think you'll have another auror with you. She should be waiting in one of the offices on…" Harry looks over his shoulder at a notepad on the table behind him. "...level two. Office 212."
"She got here before seven?"
Harry yawns again, rubbing his eyes.
"Yeah. She gets here around six every morning. Really diligent worker. There's a portkey prepared for you two that should get you very close to the targets - and don't worry. The ones left at this point are nowhere near as dangerous as the death eaters we dueled at Hogwarts."
Hermione scoffs and stands, dropping the report into her bag.
"I'm not worried, Harry. You should get some more sleep before you get dragged into another meeting or something. Wish me luck!"
He smiles sleepily at her.
"You, Hermione, don't need luck."
"Wow, you've really been working on the flattery lately."
She waves goodbye and strolls outside, pulling the doors closed softly behind her.
"Office 212, was it?" she mutters to herself, then wanders off in the general direction of the lifts.
Soon enough, she is walking down the rather dark hallway toward office 212, stopping every now and then to peer at the little plaques on the walls holding the room numbers (her navigational skills are exceptional, even in the labyrinthine ministry). 212 happens to be the very last room on the right side of the hall, and Hermione pulls the door open without knocking.
"Oh, it's you," She says, surprised. The office is small, neat, and very old, and there, leaning casually against a faded green chalkboard, is Cho Chang.
"Hermione," the Chinese girl replies, blinking. "We haven't talked since - well, I don't think we've ever really talked at all." Hermione laughs at this and takes a seat in the wooden, straight-backed chair positioned right by the door.
"You're probably right - ugh, this is a bit of a dusty place, isn't it?" She swipes a finger across the desk to her right and looks at it. A thin, gray layer of dust stares indignantly back.
"Luckily it's not my office," Cho chuckles, stepping away from the board and squinting at the twenty or so books arranged on a squat bookshelf along the wall. She pulls one titled Twentieth Century Magic Law: Basics and Application from the shelf. Hermione, of course, had already read it several months ago - and hadn't been particularly impressed.
"But really, Hermione, I didn't know you were an auror!"
"I'm not. I just happen to know a bloke who asks for tons of favors," Hermione answers, busily siphoning dust from the nearby surfaces into an ashen ball with her wand. "I've been feeling like some kind of special aide to the minister lately."
"And here I thought you just loved work," Cho says, watching amusedly.
"And here I thought you of all people would be up on a broom somewhere instead of at the ministry, flying for the Tornadoes or the Harpies," Hermione counters. She waves her wand once, and the surface of the ball instantly becomes as smooth as glass.
"Well, I actually did for a bit, but I felt like kind of a slag."
She snorts loudly and almost drops the dust-ball, but battle-born reflexes and a hasty levitation charm save her lap from dusty demise. Cho, meanwhile, flips pages far too quickly to be actually reading.
"Why's that?"
The book snaps shut (Good riddance, Hermione thinks. Terrible piece of work).
"I mean, there I was, showboating around in the air, but the war had just ended and people were missing homes, loved ones, families - It was fun and all, but I felt terribly guilty the whole time."
"Wow," Hermione says seriously. "And I was just complaining about Harry asking for favors. They put the wrong girl in the golden trio."
"Oh come off it," Cho replies. "I never said I was any less of a slag now."
Hermione glances at the portkey lying harmlessly on the desk in front of her, but the dented tin can shows no signs of movement or change.
"I think I'm doing this all for Harry," Cho blurts suddenly, and Hermione looks up. Her ball floats aimlessly behind her head, now roughly the size of a fist.
"I used to think about Cedric all the time, when he died, and Harry was there and I tried to use him to fix me - and then I started thinking about Harry instead, because he was alive and he was still fighting, and even though we fought I believed - "
"He has a fiancee, Cho," Hermione interrupts, wand pointed in subtle warning.
"This feeling isn't anything good enough for me to even try," Cho says bitterly, her eyes now firmly fixed on the portkey. Hermione lowers her wand and clutches one end of the can loosely, her expression unreadable. Cho touches the can's rim lightly.
"Why are you telling me this?" Hermione asks after a minute, and Cho's eyes meet hers, filled for a moment with an emotion she cannot identify.
"I don't know."
Then there is an invisible hook pulling somewhere behind her navel, and the office dissolves into a blur of color and sound.
It takes Hermione a moment to recognize where they've landed. When she does, her first word is "fuck" - followed by a string of colorful curses learned from plenty of poor role models.
"CHO! WHO MADE THIS STUPID PORTKEY?!" she roars, snatching her wand from her belt and throwing up a shield charm moments before a nasty decomposition curse can rot her face.
The girl next to her shrugs, wand already out and skillfully deflecting spells with countercurse after countercurse. Unfortunately for the two girls, upon arriving they had instantly been surrounded by a circle of twelve hooded figures hellbent on ending their lives.
"EXPULSO!" Hermione shouts, her wand aimed at the ceiling above, and the figures scatter as large pieces of masonry crash down from above. She rolls behind a pillar, narrowly avoiding a stray killing curse, and takes a quick breather. There are more death eaters than she'd expected in the dark, musty chapel, but not too many for her and Cho to handle - their aim is far from perfect, and green flashes spark almost at random across the room.
"Portkey right into the middle of battle," she gripes, running a hand angrily through her hair. "Who's the ministry employing these days?"
Then Cho comes rushing into the alcove, her hair and robes looking singed but looking overall none the worse for wear. She conjures an elastic band and ties her hair up quickly into a high ponytail, wand clenched in her teeth.
"Look," she says, "I know I said some weird things back at the ministry - but right now we just have to focus on the twelve maniacs trying to kill us."
"I have no problem with that," Hermione answers honestly, and as if on cue, a masked man emerges from the darkness immediately ahead, wand gripped tightly in gloved hand.
"I've got you now, mudblood filth," he snarls - Hermione casts an instinctive protego - and Cho blasts him instantly off his feet with an almost comical reductor spell.
"Actually, I'm a pureblood," Cho says sardonically, stepping lightly over the groaning obstacle.
"You're quite a bit cooler than I remember," Hermione comments, creeping slowly from behind the column. Emerald light twinkles off in the distance in a way that reminds her of stars - if stars were green and killed you instantly. She takes a quick look to the right, then sprints along the pews, crouched low for cover - the stream of avada kedavras continues across the room like a deprave firework show.
"Euclidus," she murmurs, and a three-dimensional miniature model of the chapel coalesces in her hand, composed entirely of muted blue light. A wave of her finger sends the hologram rotating slowly over her palm, and minuscule red dots blink into being in one corner.
"All in one place? Excellent." She walks slowly along the wall, her eyes trained on the moving dots on her display. The cluster of death eaters are only a few meters away when they abruptly scatter - and Cho comes sprinting into view, eleven cowled men thundering after her down the narrow cloister, firing off curses wildly into the walls.
"Sorry!" Cho pants, slowing to a stop next to her. "I backed right into them by accident."
"Don't worry about it," Hermione grunts, already twirling her wand in a rapid circle.
Two broad walls of stone are conjured into existence on either side of the group, closing off the slightest chance of escape, and Cho materializes a gleaming shield right in front of them with a quick flick of her wrist -
"Resilio," Hermione says simply, and a white streak of light leaps from the tip of her wand over the barrier, splitting immediately in midair. Jinxes scatter uselessly across their shield as the spell splits eight more times, filling the corridor with rebounding, ricocheting beams and striking all eleven men unconscious before a single one can break through Cho's defenses.
Cho finally vanishes the shield when the last offshoots of the rebound curse sputter off into nothingness. Hermione takes a step toward the decidedly lumpy pile of bodies.
"Well, that went loads better than I expected," she says, poking the hood of one man's head with her wand. "I half expected to hit myself in the face and die in an embarrassingly stupid way."
"Nah, that was brilliant, Hermione. You took care of that almost superhumanly fast," Cho reassures, and takes a piece of the collapsed ceiling from the ground. "Portus." The rubble glows blue for a brief moment, then returns to normal coloration and sits ordinarily on her palm. She turns it over once and drops it onto the cool stone below.
"I'm going to take these friendly blokes back to the Ministry and then Azkaban - do you think you could find the other one from earlier? I can deliver a report, too, if you want."
"Yeah, I'll take care of the other one," Hermione replies. "And don't worry about that; I'll be around the Ministry for the rest of the day doing office work for the DMLE anyway." Cho smiles gratefully at her before stooping to push the bodies on the floor into contact with the portkey. Then she straightens up, slides her wand into her robes, and extends a hand.
"Well, goodbye, Hermione," she says shortly. "I'm really sorry if I made you uncomfortable earlier - it was out of should probably just forget I said anything."
"It's not a problem," Hermione answers sincerely, another Euclidean charm already rotating right at eye level. A single red blip lights up in a distant corner. "Goodbye, Cho."
They shake, and Cho vanishes with the ridiculous cargo of eleven unconscious death eaters. Hermione stares at the sudden emptiness for a few moments, her spell glowing a dim blue above her, then turns and walks off into the dark alone.
The wood echoes hollowly. Cormac sighs and knocks again.
"Hermione," he calls, letting his bag slide onto the ground. "Are you in there?"
There is no answer, and no light from underneath the door. He sighs again.
"Bugger. Where are my keys?" The door to the Hermione's flat was, of course, immune to the Alohomora charm, and had several automatic defense measures enchanted into its very being. Cormac would not soon forget the time he and Hermione had returned at four after a night of admittedly heavy drinking - they had been a little rough with the doorknob, and were found half-naked, stunned, and disarmed on the doorstep the next morning. Their neighbors had all found it very funny; it had been a rather embarrassing week for both of them after that.
Cormac fishes his wand out of his pocket, shaking his head to banish the unpleasant memory from his mind. He points it carefully at his bag.
"Accio keys." After a moment, the bag jiggles pathetically.
"ACCIO KEYS, I SAID," he snaps with a fierce jab of his wand, but this time bag remains completely immobile. "Oh, for crying out loud - " He swipes his hand in a brisk semicircle, glaring at his belongings grumpily. He does it again, and again -
"I SWEAR THAT'S THE RIGHT HAND MOTION," he says loudly, just as Hermione spins into existence right behind him. She raises an eyebrow critically.
"What the hell are you doing, Cormac?"
He looks over his shoulder, embarrassed face slowly turning red.
"I couldn't find my keys," he admits meekly. "I was trying to summon them."
Hermione laughs, pushing him aside to unlock the door.
"Have you never tried that before? You can't summon things from inside a bag like that. Stops the crazier fans from just nicking your stuff whenever they want," she explains, leading him into the apartment and flicking on the light.
"Makes sense," he says. She nods and drops her purse on the counter. He kicks off his shoes (Hermione immediately magics them neatly onto the shoe-rack).
"Well, how was your day? You block dozens of goals or something?"
"Actually," he answers, raising one arm, "I broke a few fingers today." He flaps his hand limply at her as proof, and she grimaces in clear disapproval.
"Where did your team's Healer learn how to be so phenomenally bad at her job? The residual bruising on this is horrible." Hermione grabs his wrist and rolls up his sleeve impatiently, unaware of the wide smirk plastered across his face.
" Here, let me just - " She does a complicated kind of twirl with her wand, and touches it briefly against his skin; in a few seconds, the purple bruises splotched messily over his knuckles turn red, then pink, then disappear completely. "I don't know how she's being out-healed by somebody working in magic law."
"Well, nobody's as good as you, Hermione," he says, grinning, and she finally looks up at him.
"W-what? Why are you making that face?" she asks, her eyes immediately darting away to a random spot on the wall. His smirk grows steadily wider.
"You're just so cute when you're worried about me," he rumbles, and without warning his arms wrap tightly around her, bringing her face, now bright crimson, dangerously close to his own.
"So cute," he repeats at a whisper, and she freezes in place like a deer in headlights.
Then she is squirming as frantically as she can to escape his grasp, but it's futile (though Cormac is in fact quite glad that Hermione's wand is not in her hand); his grip only tightens.
"C-cormac! Let me go or I'll - "
He releases her instantly, laughing. She burns him with a reproachful glare.
"Sorry. Couldn't help myself," he says apologetically, and flashes her a pearl-white smile. He turns and busies himself making a cup of tea over the gleaming sink, humming quietly.
"As if," Hermione huffs, her cheeks still noticeably flushed. "And make me one too."
Cormac reaches into the cupboard overhead and rummages about for another mug.
"Wait - you want the one with roses or the ones with peonies?"
"Um, roses - it's right in the front over there."
"Got it."
Two teabags drop into the black kettle with quiet plops, and he starts a small fire underneath with a silent spell. He is still humming when he notices her slumped tiredly against the counter, so he turns back to her and pats his shoulder lightly.
"Rough day? Need a friendly shoulder to lean on?"
"You're too bloody tall for that," Hermione complains, but he gestures at the sofa in the next room instead. It's beige, leather, and comfy, but stained subtly in places where ice cream and pasta sauce hadn't been removed in time.
"Not if we're sitting."
"Fair point, lead the way."
"Alright, up you go," Cormac crows, and before Hermione can even protest she is again in his arms, this time in a flawless bridal carry. She glowers up at him, too tired to do anything but resign herself to fate and consent to being held like a rather grumpy cat.
"Don't go all limp like that," he says. "You look like you've died." Hermione scowls. She did not look dead, thank you very much.
"I look amazing," she counters.
"Yeah you do," he says, doing a little wolf-whistle, and she rolls her eyes so hard that it seems her retinas might detach at any moment. Any snarky comeback, however, is lost in a shriek of girly surprise when he tosses her abruptly onto the couch.
"Average ride," she says dryly, now a crumpled heap atop the cushions. "Two stars out of five."
"Alright, tell me everything," he prompts, ignoring her rating completely, and drops down onto the seat next to her. She doesn't bother moving, so he lifts her legs amiably and scoots in.
"I'm gonna give you the abridged version, because I'm too exhausted for anything more than that," she starts, and he nods in leisurely agreement.
"Well, first of all, Harry just had to ask another favor - "
"You could just say no, you know," he interrupts. She launches a kick at him, but it misses by about a kilometer and she grunts in frustration. He simply lifts her leg back up onto his lap.
"Quiet. Let me talk. Harry gave me another death eater hunt and I have no problem helping with something like that - it's always good to make sure the country's safe for everyone, and it's not like I was duelling twenty Bellatrix Lestranges at once - but Merlin am I tired. The capture itself was really quick, sure, but the transfer paperwork for Azkaban and the interrogations? Took absolutely ages. Then, of course, I had to start my actual DLME work late, and there were just mounds of forms to go through. Busywork nightmare."
Cormac nods sympathetically, his finger tracing gentle circles over her knee.
"And wait - the worst part was probably the actual hunt, because some positively daft Ministry fool set the portkey to take us right into the middle of a bloody death eater get-together - "
"That's actually one of the stupidest things I've ever heard."
"I know. I've half a mind to find out who's responsible and have them fired immediately, before they actually get someone killed next time - " She pauses, then sits up to face him.
"Do you know Cho Chang?"
"Cho who?" he asks, still busy drawing arbitrary shapes on her skin with his finger. She sighs.
"Cho Chang. Year above me at Hogwarts. Ravenclaw. She said she was a professional quidditch player for a while?"
"Name sounds familiar, but it doesn't ring a bell," he says, shrugging. "I don't remember every girl who fancies me." At this, Hermione cannot suspend a look of complete and utter disbelief.
"Cormac, why would she fancy you?"
"All the girls fancy me," he responds proudly, and he flexes one arm as if to somehow show proof. She gapes open-mouthed at him.
"Yeah? How about sixth-year me? I was just all over you, wasn't I?"
He balks and hastily resumes his soft massage.
"Those were dark days, Hermione," he protests. "Fighting a war can do a man a lot of good."
"Clearly," Hermione mutters, "or you wouldn't even be allowed in here."
"I won't contest that," Cormac answers smartly, and she rewards him by not kicking him onto the floor. "I'm Cormac 2.0 now."
"Well, anyway, Cho was with me for the hunt, and she was a little, well, a little queer."
"Hermione! Just because she's not attracted to men doesn't mean she's any weirder than you or me. I personally quite enjoy - "
"Cormac!" Hermione shouts, but she cannot completely hide her smile as she bludgeons him fiercely with a white, furry pillow. If anything, she liked Cormac because he had become increasingly lighthearted in recent months - he could usually have her smiling after even the most tiring days at the Ministry.
"I give! I give!" he yells, his hands up in a clear sign of surrender, and she lets her fluffy weapon fall onto the carpet. "I repent for my hilarious sense of humor."
"It was actually kind of the opposite of that, though. She started telling me how she felt about Harry, and I didn't let her say much because it was getting a little uncomfortable. I mean, there's no way she'd try to interrupt his relationship with Ginny, because that's ridiculous - he's Harry Potter - I just don't know why she would tell me all that."
Cormac opens his mouth as if to say something, but is promptly interrupted by a shrill, keening whistle. They both look through the doorway into the kitchen.
"That'll be the tea," he says, standing. "I'll get it."
"Oh shite!" Hermione groans suddenly, throwing her hands up in the air, and he gives her a confused look, already walking back with two steaming mugs.
"What is it?"
"You haven't eaten! We both got home late and you're probably starving, but here I am talking my arse off - here, I'll make you something."
"It's not a problem, Hermione," he replies firmly. "I can get something a little later."
"No, you don't have to go to the trouble of - ugh, I wish I could just conjure something up! Gamp's law is so - so stupid! I mean, I can make birds, I mean, whole functioning creatures out of nothing, but I can't summon up a single cooked meal? What if I like eating live birds? Would it be impossible then?"
She storms over into the kitchen and seizes her wand. Cormac raises his eyebrows, but flattens himself against the wall to let her pass.
"And what if I was an animagus like Professor McGonagall? If I could transform into a cat that eats mice, would I be unable to transfigure rodents?"
"Hermione," Cormac says, avoiding a violently piercing jab of her wand as she paces furiously back and forth over the threshold.
"And I can make water, and wine," she continues, staring angrily into the floor. "So what about soups or savory beverages? Magic is so -"
"HERMIONE! Look!"
She finally comes to a halt, looking both embarrassed and completely spent.
"Sorry. I got worked up thinking about something from a long time ago," she admits, the forest of dean stirring darkly in her mind, but Cormac shakes his head.
"No, look," he says again, pointing, and she glances past his finger at the countertop, where there is suddenly a steaming plate of golden-brown roast turkey.
"Wha - I - how?" she manages weakly. Something like an involuntary shudder runs through her body, half excitement, half fear, and they both look uneasily at the perfectly cooked bird before them - a bizarrely innocuous violation of one of the most basic of magic laws in existence.
"I broke Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration...just like that?"
"Well, more importantly," Cormac begins, his hand propped thoughtfully under his chin, "Does edible underwear count as food? Because I've always wondered."
And for the second time that night, Hermione beats him savagely into submission with a pillow.
A/N: Wow! 6K words of nonsensical buildup and about five seconds of mildly plot-relevant substance! In any case, I have general plot figured out for this thing but not a lot of romantic / lesser details cemented. Feel free to make suggestions or criticisms!