The clock ticks loud in the room.
Hermione stares out the window, absentmindedly picking at her nails for imaginary dirt. She feels eyes on her and knows she is being observed. Outside, a child chases a balloon in the playground while her mother stands close by. Hermione watches quietly as the wind picks up and carries the white balloon up and away. The child starts to cry as her mother rushes forward to comfort her.
Hermione looks away from the scene outside the window. The clock tells her she has ten minutes left to the session. The eyes have not left her.
"Sometimes I dream of-" — bodies falling around her, flashes of green light, Fred unmoving, eyes wide and glassy, Lavender twitching feebly — "- my teeth falling out." Hermione says and gives Dr Janet a tight smile.
The good doctor smiles back sympathetically. Hermione feels a little guilt seep in from the lie.
"It can seem scary," says Janet, "but that's a very normal dream. Tell me, are you feeling pressured from work? Perhaps you just recently had a project or a case that you felt you couldn't quite handle?"
"Something like that," says Hermione, which isn't entirely a lie. "I work with the regulation of... exotic animals."
"Do you mean like in a zoo?" asks Janet.
"No," says Hermione as she shakes her head. "I work for the government."
Janet makes a humming noise and jots down something in her notebook — the pen doesn't scratch against the paper like quill does. Hermione takes a deep breath and has to will herself to not go over and rip the notebook out of her hands. She fumbles for a pillow and squeezes that instead. Janet looks up briefly, eyes her hand-squeezing-pillow motion and bends her head down to make further notes.
An alarm rings suddenly. Hermione discreetly breathes a sigh of relief and releases her death grip on the pillow. She stands and busies herself with patting herself down of imaginary dust while she studiously avoids Janet's keen — accusing — gaze.
"I'll see you next week then, Hermione," says Janet before she leads Hermione out of her office. "I think we're making great progress."
Hermione stares at the files in front of her and wishes she was making great progress with them.
The ministry is always bustling, but thankfully her department is relatively subdued. Somewhere along the line, she's lost the ability to deal with large crowds or even small groups filled with strangers.
Hermione has never been a particularly sociable child, having always preferred books to people — books can't betray you, books can't tease you mercilessly about the state of your hair and teeth, books can't use you then spit you out with nothing more than a pat on the back for a job well done. Growing up in the midst of war and chaos did her no favours in that matter either. No, she'd much rather sit in her dingy little office, focusing on important work that matters.
Which is why it's frustrating that she has barely made any sort of headway with it.
Hermione hadn't really been lying when she told Janet she works with animals. But she can't very well tell the muggle woman her work concerns the likes of werewolves and things that go bump in the night. She'll be committed before she can so much as say 'magic is real!'
Hermione pinches the bridge of her nose and attempts to concentrate on the words in front of her. She releases a frustrated grunt when the ink begins melting into each other and the words seem like they're squiggling off the parchment.
She rubs her eyes tiredly.
The prejudice against werewolves is so ingrained in wizarding society that even trying to get them to acknowledge the most basic of rights for them is like pulling teeth.
It didn't help that one Fenrir Greyback has had his run during the war, terrorizing the community left, right and centre. Never mind that Remus Lupin died — futilely — for their cause. Hermione had barely managed to veto the ridiculous proposition that werewolves be made to wear magical collars akin to the electronic ones people put on dogs.
As if it isn't bad enough that people do that to dogs. As if werewolves are not human most nights of a month.
Hermione's stomach rumbles and she is reminded that she has missed lunch with Harry and Ron, opting to use the time for her therapy session instead. She's given them some tosh about needing to spend time in the Ministry Archives, an excuse that Ron had readily accepted considering his investment in the success of her latest project but not one that had been able to fool Harry at all.
He trusts her implicitly though and didn't question her real reason for shirking them. Hermione feels a little like she has betrayed that trust even though she knows it is silly. No matter what, Harry wants her safe and happy, this she knows. If that meant a day of missing lunch every week to spend an hour in session with a counsellor, he'd gladly let her go. Not that Harry knows about these meetings. She just didn't want him — them, all of them — to worry unnecessarily.
"Miss Granger?" A voice asks and Hermione startles, her chair crashing backwards to the floor as she leaps automatically into a defensive position.
—too slow, her reaction time is too late. She'd be dead on the ground many times over. Stupid for not paying attention. Stupid for allowing someone to sneak up on her. Stupid, stupid, stu—
"Miss Granger, are you alright?" asks the voice, effectively cutting off Hermione's train of thought and she slowly lowers her wand as she registers the person meekly peeking her head in at the doorway of Hermione's office.
"Sorry, Berenice, just a little jumpy today," Hermione says and at her secretary's sceptical look, she adds, "I missed lunch as well. It makes me a little jittery."
"Ah," intones Berenice, nodding knowingly and swings the door wider, stepping fully into the office. "I have an uneaten apple if you want. I was going to have it after lunch but they had chocolate pudding in the canteen." Berenice grins, unabashed of making what she would have deemed the 'sinful' choice.
Hermione dutifully chuckles as she pulls the chair upright and eases herself back on it again. "Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass on the apple."
"What do you need?" asks Hermione once she settles down and have arranged her papers in order.
"Here are the files you were asking for earlier," says Berenice as she hands over a thick stack of folders. Hermione takes them from her and starts to flip through them idly. "And one Mr Slava is asking to see you again."
"Slava?" Hermione asks, brows crinkling. The name isn't familiar to her at all.
"Yes, he's been asking to see you for a few months now, but it seems now he's been sending in his requests every day," says Berenice as she checks the notepad that she always carries with her. It's something that Hermione had introduced to her along with the muggle pen of which Berenice had taken to like a duck to water.
Hermione frowns. This is news to her. "A few months? Every day now?"
"Yes. I've been leaving the memos for you. Have you not seen them?" says Berenice, sounding a little miffed that all her efforts have been for naught. Hermione thinks guiltily about the piles of notes that she's shoved to the back of her drawer, having been too busy with one thing or another to pay much attention to them.
"It must have slipped my mind," waves Hermione dismissively, ignoring the indignant little huff from Berenice. "Remind me again about what he wants?"
"It seems he wants to talk to someone about a... vampire issue," says Berenice whose voice dropped into a conspiratorial whisper at the last two words. Hermione gives her an odd look to which Berenice waggles her eyebrows like she is indulging in a big secret.
"Send him to Gawain. Isn't he the one handling the... vampire issue," at the two words Hermione drops the volume of her voice into the same breathy whisper, "for now?"
"Yes, but I've sent him there before and he claims that Gawain is making things worse," says Berenice, her brows furrowing.
"I would love to help, but I can't. I really can't," Hermione gestures at the piles of papers and folders on her desk. Berenice's countenance grows sympathetic and Hermione nearly winces at that.
"Not to worry, guv'nor. I'll tell our Mr Slava that he'll have to contend with one Mr Gawain Robbins," says Berenice as she jots down the, frankly pointless, note into her trusty pad. She clicks the pen and clicks it again twice for good measure as she nods satisfactorily to herself.
"If there's nothing else, I'll be outside then," says Berenice, turning to make her way out.
"Actually, Berenice," Hermione says, stopping Berenice in her tracks and prompting the woman to tilt her head back at Hermione in question. "I'll have that apple if you don't mind." Berenice turns back and gives her a thumbs up before rushing out to grab the fruit for her boss.
The smell of roast and Yorkshire pudding hits Hermione's senses the moment she lets herself into the Burrow. Her mouth waters and her stomach loudly protests the paltry offering of an apple for the entire day.
Harry, who arrives just after her, gives her an amused glance which she blatantly ignores in favour of hanging up her coat.
"Hello, Hermione," comes an airy voice behind Harry and Hermione leans around him to see the owner.
"Hi Luna," says Hermione with a little wave. "Got dragged here by the ball and chain?"
"Oh, I don't mind," says Luna, a tiny smile on her lips as she stares vacantly at a point above Hermione's head. "Mrs Weasley makes lovely brussels sprouts. It's the only one the Snorbecks would consent to eat."
"The Snorbecks or you?" Harry ribs her good-naturedly. Luna only smiles her dreamy grin and declines to answer, though it is hard to miss the twinkle in those blue eyes.
Hermione can't help the grin that comes over her. It is unexpected — though, Hermione supposes that if anyone had bothered to look closely, it wouldn't have been a surprising matter at all — but Luna has been good for Harry, especially after him and Ginny had drifted apart. It isn't anyone's fault, not really. Ginny has her own share of problems. Everyone does.
"Oi, are you lot just going to stand around all night?" shouts a voice as its owner comes through the living room to lean against the doorway of the entrance hallway. "Some of us are starving!"
"You're always starving, Ronald," says Hermione just as Harry says, "When are you ever not hungry?"
The two best friends look at each other for a moment before bursting into giggles. Luna shares a chuckle before bounding past Ron towards the dining room saying something that sounds suspiciously like "roasted chestnut brussels sprouts" in a disturbingly reverent tone.
"She's barmy, that one is," says Ron, making a face at the idea that anyone could enjoy the revolting greens before turning an irritated glare at Harry and Hermione. "Then you two should be aware of the suffering you're putting me through."
"Merlin forbid you stop imbibing any sustenance for thirty minutes," says Hermione with an exasperated eye roll.
"Do you get Lavender to shove in bread rolls and kippers into your mouth while you sleep?" asks Harry, a finger tapping his chin as his expression turns serious. "Does she also work your jaw so you don't choke on them?"
A strange, snorting sort of noise escapes Hermione at that. Harry pats her back nonchalantly like he didn't just ponder Ron's night habits out loud.
"Yes, yes, make fun of the ginger twat, har de har," grouses Ron, turning towards where Luna had disappeared to previously and heading to it, leaving Hermione and Harry to share another amused glance before following.
Stepping into the dining room, Hermione is immediately engulfed into the warm embrace of Molly Weasley. An 'oof' sounds tells her that Harry too has been captured into a similar predicament.
Over the years, she has outgrown Molly Weasley by almost a head, but Hermione still dips her forehead into Molly's shoulder, loops an arm to her back and returns the hug. The smell of freshly baked bread that is Molly lingers long after she has released her.
"You're skinny, too skinny, Hermione dear," says Molly as she ushers them into their seats. "And Harry, you and Luna both, you need to eat more. I simply can't have the three of you being swept off by the wind."
As the Weasleys and honorary family members — though some chairs remain painfully empty — chatter noisily around the table, passing potatoes and sending gravy boats whizzing past, Hermione feels herself letting go. The worry and the tension that have written themselves into her, becoming a permanent part of who she is, momentarily dissipates, leaving a lighter Hermione behind. She relaxes — truly — for the first time in a long while.
Hermione knows that feeling of tranquillity to be true when she looks at Lavender Brown, seated beside Ron, and doesn't feel the usual stab of guilt.
A/N: To those of you who don't know, this is the prequel to Flesh and Blood and its continuation, the imaginatively titled Flesh and Blood: Extended. The former is a one-shot that inspired all this madness, and the latter is a continuation of the one-shot that I will be updating at the same week as its prequel. I highly recommend reading all three.
As always, be kind to authors and leave a review. Even a simple "I like it!" is enough to brighten any author's day.