Ginger hair, family crisis, a note about a murder? Hermione could only hope this is was all some big coincidence.
AU: Hermione Granger is an aspiring editor at a publishing company in England when her boss assigns her to meet a new author in London. On the train, though, she finds a note that shocks her and makes her miss her stop. She's forced to unload at a new train station, miles away from where she was supposed to have her meeting, and Hermione's life is changed forever.
It's been a while since I've done this, so Fanfiction treat me well maybe?
Review, plalease!
Hermione's foot tapped listlessly against the floor of the train, and she cast a glance at her watch. The small gold face gleamed in the mid-morning sunlight, reminding her that because of the train's earlier delay, she was fifteen minutes late for her business meeting. Sighing, she determined there was no sense worrying about the delay or her degree of lateness. She'd already called to apologize for the disturbance in the company's strict schedule she would be causing. There wasn't much more she could do than that for the moment.
Dragging a hand through her mossy brown hair, Hermione maneuvered forward in her seat to retrieve a magazine from the seat ahead of her. A cool blast of air blustered against her cheek, and she flushed, straightening. She nibbled on her lower lip, and she flipped through the glossy pages. "Harry Potter's got a new girlfriend, yeah?" She mumbled, shaking her head.
"That's an old magazine actually," the girl beside Hermione piped up. She had a pale face and white blonde, rod straight hair, and her expression was slightly dreamy She wore a polka dotted blouse and white trousers, and she gestured to the front cover.
Hermione shrugged a shoulder. "Oh," she said softly, lipping the page. She really didn't care about Harry Potter or any of the other drama intense celebrities idolized in the pages of this (and the other) magazine. Harry Potter'd never done anything to contribute to society beside be born into a family with money, and somehow that escalated him to the height of society.
"What's that sticking out of your magazine, Miss?" The blonde questioned, and Hermione cast an off handed glance toward the girl.
Hermione found herself wishing she hadn't initiated contact at all - though to be fair, she'd never intended for her comment to cause this conversation about celebrities in magazines or whatever we were talking about. "This isn't my magazine," she replied tiredly. "It was in the seatback."
The blonde nodded once and pointed a pale finger toward the slip of paper sticking out of the bottom of the magazine. "Peculiar, isn't it?"
Hermione shrugged, because she didn't care. She merely wanted to get to her meeting with the greatest amount of grace. To appease the girl, though, she fingered the slip of paper from the bottom of the magazine and pried it from the pages.
The paper crinkled underneath her fingers, and she sighed, dusting her fingers through her hair. It was folded in half, so she unfolded it carefully. In messy scrawl, someone had written, "Hello, my name is Ron Weasley, and I am in love with a girl named Lavender Brown. Things just got complicated, though. I killed her." The scrawl tapered off, and the paper was torn at the edges.
Hermione frowned down at the slip, holding it in her pale hands with a moment of quiet contemplation. Surely it was a joke - only a joke. "Oh, I forgot," Hermione managed. "This is mine. This is my magazine." The lie was feeble, but the blonde girl seemed no longer interested. She'd dissolved into the colorful book in her hands without another thought.
Hermione held the slip of paper in her hands, biting her bottom lip. She'd heard that name before. Ron Weasley and Harry Potter were the terrors of her freshman year. She'd been sent off to boarding school at fifteen, but after a year of Ron and Harry's torment, her parents finally caved and let Hermione come home.
The thin paper was rough against Hermione's palm, and she groaned softly. She'd hoped to never hear Ronald Weasley's name again after her short time at Hogwarts. He'd been infinitely worse than the Harry Potter situation. Ginger hair and a high school crush could kill a girl's self esteem, and Hermione'd taken the train from Hogwarts at the end of that year with little to none left. Years later, seeing his name carved into the crumbling paper in front of her, Hermione's heart skipped a beat.
The train hissed with life, startling Hermione from her thoughts. Ron Weasley, a boy she'd craved for a tantalizingly long year, was suddenly back in her life. His face was a fixture in her mind, wild and redheaded, doe eyed smile and all. A master of disguise, a lover, a murderer, apparently. More likely, the note was no more than a very morbid joke, but Hermione couldn't refrain from imagining the boy in a pair of striped pajamas standing over a gory dead body. He was still fifteen in her memory, seated in the common room of their dormitory with Harry Potter. They teased her mercilessly, but Ron's hands were bloody. Lord, why had she been attracted to him in the first place? Ronald Weasley was the not so smart, not so sly guy that didn't have any thoughts, and yet Hermione spent an entire year wishing he would want her. Wishing she could run his fingers through his ginger hair, wishing she could smile endlessly at him…
"Miss? Where are you going?" The blonde asked Hermione, and Hermione looked up again. She glanced down at her watch with a lifted eyebrow. Her mini mental meltdown had lasted alot longer than she'd planned for it to last. In fact, it'd been a good twenty minutes, and the train ride was only meant to be fifteen minutes longer.
Hermione blinked, slamming the magazine back into the seatback where she found it and shoving the piece of crumpled paper into her pocket. "King's Cross. I need to get off at King's Cross."
The blonde frowned, and her pale eyebrows pinched together. "I think they just stopped at King's Cross, Miss."
Panic spread through Hermione's chest. She couldn't be later to this meeting. Actually, she couldn't miss this meeting. With her luck, this would kill her chances at getting the promotion she'd been working day and night to achieve, and she couldn't let this ruin everything for her. Especially not because of Ronald Weasley.
Hermione grappled on the ground to gather her beaded suitcase from the floor. It was her mother's favorite suitcase from college, and then she gave it to Hermione when she went away to college, but she continued to carry it when she got her job at her favorite publishing company. Okay, to be fair Hermione didn't so much work there, but she did run to and fro ordering lunches and refilling coffee cups while the big guys in suits published pretty novels and edited messy manuscripts.
It wasn't until yesterday that Hermione realized her boss actually knew she existed, because before that she was pretty sure Mr. Pretty Boy Malfoy with the slick blonde hair and misty gray eyes actually thought his soy lattes actually materialized on his desk unprovoked. Yesterday, though, Mr. Malfoy stepped out of his blank slate of an office wearing his signature pressed white dress shirt and black slacks - no tie, that would be too pretentious - and beckoned me into his office.
"Miss Granger? Can I speak to you for a moment?" He called to Hermione from the doorway, and she scrambled from her desk. She'd been carefully stacking the paperwork she'd spent all morning shuffling when he emerged from seclusion, and Hermione hoped he didn't think she'd been goofing off.
She stood, quickly adjusting the yellow sundress she'd worn to work that day. She picked up her clipboard, nuzzled it into her arm, and then hurried into his office. The click clack of her slingback heels thundered through the office, and she blushed at the noise. She always hated the counterproductive sound the heels made against the hardwood office floor, but her not-so-steady boyfriend told her that the heels made her look professional, so she wore them. "Yes, Mr. Malfoy?" She stood near the door, noting the time on the wide clock on the wall. Only an hour of sloshing his coffee for today - just one more hour, sixty minutes, three thousand and six hundred seconds.
"You've been working here for two years, right?" The question struck Hermione, but she managed a single nod. Yes, two years and three months of him, his greasy hair, and his weasley smile. "I think it's time I give you a little more responsibility, don't you?"
Hermione blinked, stopping short. The question sent a nervous thrill up her spine. Maybe it was her time. Or maybe this was all just some joke. She hesitated. "Sir?"
He nodded. "Sit down, Miss Granger," he directed, and she did. Her doe eyed smile peered up at him, confused, and he walked around his desk to sit on the edge. The chair in front of him was made of cold leather, and it was less than inviting to Hermione's bare legs. "I would like for you to travel to London tomorrow." He reached behind himself and pulled out a manila folder with a slimy smirk. He handed the folder to Hermione, and she flipped it open slowly. On top of the stack of papers was a glossy train ticket. "You'll be meeting an author - a peppy little ginger thing. She's got a finished manuscript I would very much like to get my hands on, but I can't afford to leave the office tomorrow. I'm meeting with the big dogs tomorrow at three, and there is no guarantee I would be back by then." He paused, looking at Hermione thoughtfully. "I want you to make this girl happy, Miss Granger. This might just be your big break."
Then he'd shuffled Hermione out of office in shock. Later that night, Hermione sat across from her boyfriend, Neville, at the kitchen table in her apartment. She poured them both a glass of wine, and she sighed. "What will I wear? What will I say?"
Neville lifted a spoonful of peas to his mouth. "Malfoy said make her happy. Just be yourself. It's a girl, right? Spunky young thing, I would guess. It is probably good Malfoy is sending you instead of himself. He's kind of...skeevy," Neville claimed, laughing at his own joke. "As for what you should wear...nothing too sexy," he teased, and Hermione barked a laugh. "You should definitely wear one of your cute little sundresses. I vote the red and white one. Not intimidating but friendly."
Hermione sighed, taking a long drag from her wine glass. "Neville, please be serious. I'm worried about this."
Neville exhaled softly, reaching up to untie his tie. "I'm sorry, Hermione, but you shouldn't be worried. You're good at your job. You're going to charm the pants off of this author." He laughed. "Hopefully not literally."
Hermione laughed halfheartedly. "That gives me so much confidence, Neville," she answered softly. She pulled her hair into a messy bun, and he lifted an eyebrow.
"Come here, then, Hermione. I'll help," he answered, opening his arms to Hermione. She nodded slowly and stood to climb onto his lap. Neville smiled. "That's my girl," he whispered, slipping his arms around Hermione's waist. "Now, don't worry about tomorrow, Hermione. All jokes aside, you're going to be great." Then he'd kissed her, and they finished their meal. She'd set her red and white sundress out to wear the next day, hung it up on the back of the door, and climbed into bed with him.
Now, Hermione wished she could reset the clock five hours to when she climbed out of his bed and start this day over. She hustled through the chairs to one of the attendants. "Excuse me, but I need to get off at King's Cross."
The attendant looked up from where she was stacking cups. "King's Cross? We already stopped at King's Cross, ma'am. Just a few minutes ago… you'll have to wait for the next stop."
Hermione frowned at the woman in the pencil skirt, but she nodded tiredly. This mistake was obviously her own fault, and her stomach turned with the realization. She might lose her job because of this, but she definitely won't get the promotion. "Yes ma'am. Thank you."
Hermione turned to sit beside the blonde girl once again, replacing her suitcase on the ground once again. "I can't get off until the next stop," she mumbled to the blonde girl who managed a small smile.
"That's my stop actually," the blonde girl replied. "About an hour from King's Cross, though."
Hermione exhaled, pulling her phone from her pocket and speed dialing our favorite author. The dial tone made Hermione feel as if she might faint, but seconds later a soft voice answered. "Hello?"
"Hi, this is Hermione Granger. I'm so sorry, but I've missed my stop. I'll be in London as soon as possible, though. I'm sorry about this," Hermione exclaimed in a rush.
The girl on the other end of the line paused for a moment. "That's actually perfect, Miss Granger… a rather large family crisis has come up and I need to deal with that."
Hermione exhaled sharply. So, she was lucky. Mystery author had a family crisis. That might just save her. "I'm sorry to hear that. Would you like to reschedule for tomorrow morning, say nine?"
Another pause, but shorter this time. "That would be perfect. I'll call Mr. Malfoy, and tell him things are going well, so you need to stay a night?"
Hermione nodded, inwardly thanking the girl for her understanding. This entire mess made her tired, so she leaned back in her chair. "Wonderful. Thank you so much. I'll contact you a little later, so we can pick a location. I hope everything is resolved with your family quickly."
"Thanks… I hope so too." The girl sounded nervous, and Hermione couldn't help but wonder what was going on with her. "Talk to you later."
The line went dead, and Hermione's hand went to her bag, pulling out the note. Her fingers slid across the words, tracing the name and all the words involved. Ginger hair, family crisis, a note about a murder? Hermione could only hope this is was all some big coincidence.
Reviews would be cool, thanks.