Something about these two won't leave me alone. I promise I will try to update my other stories as soon as I possibly can. Until then, let me know what you think of these two.

It's set 6 years after the final battle of Hogwarts. Hermione and the trio returned to do their 7th year, although it was a highly abbreviated version. Fred did not die. Ever. Anywhere. Just assume this to be true in any fic I've written unless explicitly stated otherwise. AU, and obviously follows the EWE school of thought.

My fics aren't going to contain a lot of Ron bashing or emo characters. They have been through hell and every single one of them will be shown to be dealing with it in their own way. This is in no way reflective of how I assume everyone deals with grief. This is simply how I picture my versions of these characters to deal with them.

Please do review and let me know what you think

UNSPEAKABLE

Unspeakable.

She thought the day would never come.
She must have been the first of her kind in years to have the kind of scores she did.
The thought was empowering.
It wasn't that muggle-borns never made it into the ranks of the most secretive and most respected members of the magical corps. It was simply because it was usually much harder for them to learn to sustain the kind of magic that others were used to from birth.

Regardless of blood status, the course was not something the faint hearted could ever attempt to deal with. In 5 years they managed to combine the 3 years Aurors spent training in Magical Law Enforcement, and the 4 years it took Healers to pass their Mediwitch/wizard exams.
The powers that be had decided there was no point in sending their most elite into the field if they were going to be hindered by injuries like broken ribs or a badly cast spell. They all needed to be fully capable of caring for themselves without needing medical attention except in the most dire of cases. On a much darker note, some of them felt that having a working knowledge of the body enabled one to hit hardest at the weakest point.

The very fact that this was considered, spoke volumes of the brutality the magical world had borne witness to, during the short brutal war that saw the final downfall of Lord Voldemort. The Unspeakables were always considered 'cool' by the Aurors, or most of the wizarding public.
Even when they struggled to suppress a slight shiver at the aura of power these individuals gave off.
Some of them even kept their identities hidden. From friends, from family, from everyone. All for the sake of safety. They went through life pretending to be a ministry drone in some small, dusty, office, out of sight and usually forgotten, all the while using their tremendous skill to make sure their world would never have to suffer the likes of Voldemort again.

Hermione smiled to herself.
Thanks to that brilliant bit of spell work she and her course partner had come up with, they would never need to do that again. They called it the 'Non Vides' because by the time they had done with it, they were far too exhausted to even contemplate thinking of a fancier name. They had modified a simple glamour charm to accept a Notice-Me-Not charm.
The spell allowed for the individual to immediately take on very basic features.
Since it was a glamour, they were never impeded by their adopted forms' physicality. They moved and felt, exactly like themselves. Their hair usually took on a shade of indetermined darkness, witnesses would never be able to clearly recall if it was black or brown. It was the same with their eyes. And their distinguishing facial features took on a smooth kind of appearance.
They turned into absolutely unremarkable looking people.
Nothing to make them stand out. Nothing that would make them noticed. And absolutely Nothing that anyone could remember them by.

The advantages this gave them over polyjuice were so numerous that Hermione and her partner had both been given commendations by the Minister, secretly of course, because of the lives it would undoubtedly save. The spell would hold until the caster, and ONLY the caster removed it, of their own free will. The spell itself was imbued with old magic to counter the influence of someone being Imperiod to remove it.
It held through even if the wearer was knocked unconscious, or lost concentration. Her partner had been adamant that they add that to the spell. He knew how something like the Cruciatus could affect someone's ability to focus. He had been a double agent during the war, and had gleaned this kind of knowledge first hand. It was mind-boggling that the two of them had finally begun to tolerate one another long enough to work together.

She stood from her chair where their graduating batch of 8 had just received their credentials, privately, from the Minister of Magic; and cracked her neck. "Keep doing that Granger and one day you're going to actually break your fool neck," drawled a lazy voice from behind her.
"Speak of the devil," she muttered.
He offered her nothing but a quizzical look in return. "So, now what?" he asked, when it didn't look likely that she was going to say anything.
"Now nothing," she replied, "we go home and enjoy a relaxing week off, and report for whatever it is, bright and early, next Monday morning."

He looked pensive.
"A whole week off? Just like that? Doesn't that strike you as being vaguely suspicious? After the way they cracked the whip these past few years?"
She had to agree with his suspicions, since identical ones had kept her awake for close to the whole night before they graduated.
"They couldn't lie to us. I spiked the tea with Veritaserum," she admitted. "They really do mean to let us have an entire week to ourselves."

Ignoring the gleeful expression of the tall blond beside her, she started to walk towards the entrance of the room.
"You spiked their tea? Goody-Goody Granger has joined the dark side," he cackled. "My years of winning you over to my cause has finally paid off. You are now a... wait a minute," he interrupted himself. "How did you know you wouldn't get us too?" he asked, eyes full of curiosity.
Rolling her eyes, she retorted, "Because you and I are the only ones here who drink nothing but coffee you idiot."
"Ahh" he deadpanned, realising he should have thought of that before.
They were trained to notice these things.
Insignificant things. Small miniscule things that didn't matter to anyone else.

"Anyway, Granger, what are you up to now?" he asked, sidling up to the girl making her way to the Atrium. "You know, I haven't the foggiest. It's the first time in years we haven't had something or the other to get done, or submitted, or due, or..."
"Yes, I get it, I get it," he interrupted. A slow grin dawned on his face. "Fancy a turn at the training room then?"
She stopped abruptly and turned to face him.
"Now? Why?" she asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Think about it Granger. No holds barred. No instructors to keep an eye on us. We can finally figure out who wins."
Her answering smile didn't bode well for the tall intimidating man before her.
"Let's go then Malfoy."

(In the training room)

Harry and Ron, Aurors for 2 years now, were heading back from their weekly department meeting, when they heard two junior trainees rushing past them in the opposite direction. "Oi, Johnson," Ron called as the brown haired boy ran past. "Where's the fire mate?"
"Unspeakable duel in the training room," the boy shouted as he skidded around the corner. Harry and Ron paused, looked at each other, and then took off like the hounds of hell were at their feet.

Unspeakable duels were things of legend around the Ministry.
They very rarely used the Ministry training room, but when they did, very few were ever privileged to watch one. They were usually accompanied by no less than 4 trainers, all retired Unspeakables themselves, and apart from the 2 duelling, the others sat around and either watched or glared at the Aurors or other interlopers. The draw was in the fact that when they duelled, they weren't limited to just magic.

The boys didn't know this, but this was another brilliant idea from the morass that was the brain of Hermione Granger.
Back when they had been partnered up in training, she and Malfoy had struggled through insulting each other for a month straight, until they realised they needed to grow up and let childish grudges go.
Draco had already made amends for his taunting Hermione's blood, and he had even been willing to take Veritaserum to prove to her that he had never truly hated her for her blood. He had a part to play, and he played it well.
Hermione on the other hand, couldn't have cared less about his stance on her blood status. They hated each other for much more basic reasons. Draco couldn't stand the fact that she couldn't be arsed to find a hairbrush, or even bother with her personal style, and Hermione hated him for the snobby, bullying bastard he could be.

Time had healed wounds much deeper than theirs, and it took them almost their full first year to realise the reasons they had been paired for training.
They were equally matched in the brains department, their wand work was almost equal, Draco beat Hermione by a hairsbreadth in Potions, and it was the reverse in Charms.
Transfiguration found them pretty fairly matched, but when it came down to something like a duel, there was no one who could match the pair. They were formidable opponents, and despite the fact that all in their training batch duelled against the others, they refused outright to duel either Draco or Hermione.
They were far too good, and far too scary.
On one of their marathon study sessions, Hermione had idly asked Draco how come she had caught him off guard when she had punched him in their third year. "You didn't use magic," he replied, without thinking. "You didn't raise your wand so I didn't think..." and he trailed off in awe. Looking into her wide eyes, he knew she was on the same wavelength as he was.

The result was that the Unspeakables now didn't just duel with magic. They were the only department sent off ministry property, to Muggle Martial arts schools, to be taught. This was why Unspeakable duels were such spectator sport.
They used a combination of Muggle Martial Arts, combined with some serious offensive magic. Something the Aurors were now beginning to imitate, but on a much smaller scale.
As Harry and Ron turned into the large airy room that Aurors used for training and demonstrations, they noticed a pair facing off in the middle of the floor. They wore matching clothing.
Black trackpants, and sleeveless black t-shirts.
Nothing flattering about the clothing, except it seemed to clearly define the physiques of two individuals who had obviously been training for years. Nobody knew either of them, but knowing the Unspeakables, they were probably testing some new sort of magical disguise.

Harry settled onto the bleachers and began to watch the two in front of them.
The male was tall, he could make out that much. At least 6 feet. Broad in the shoulders, but not bulky. There was no wasted movement at all. Everything he did seemed to lead seamlessly into the next move. He had dark hair that was short, and lay carelessly over his forehead, seeming to get in his wary, watchful eyes.

The petite female faced him, wearing a small smile to counter his expressionless visage. She had waistlength dark hair, bound back into a single braid, and seemed to mirror every move the man across from her made.
Where he was calculated and cool, she moved with all the grace of a lithe jungle cat.
They hadn't started yet, just facing each other across the floor and studying the other's movement. Only then did Harry notice the holsters with wands strapped to their left fore-arms.
He was about to point this out to Ron, when the red head excitedly informed him that there were no trainers present.
No teachers. No supervision.
Which meant that these two were graduated Unspeakables, about to duel.

A hush grew over the crowd when the two at the center of attention stopped studying each other and turned to face the crowd. The man scowled, which made Harry think that he was probably young, but when he speedily rectified his expression back to one of nonchalance, it made him think that maybe he wasn't all that young. The girl ignored all of this, and turned to face the now silent watchers.
"We're going to duel. Practice only. There will be non-verbal magic used. If you stay you might get hurt. What you choose to do is not our problem."

With that she turned abruptly to face her opponent, who smirked at her in a way Harry thought was strangely familiar. Just then a cheeky Muggleborn Auror trainee waved his wand to allow a famous soundtrack from a recent action movie to play.
The girl laughed, while the boy rolled his eyes, and then they began.
He strode forward, reaching her in 3 quick steps and reaching for her neck, when she spun and dropped to the floor, kicking his legs out from under him. He immediately righted himself, not landing on his back for more than a second. And it went from there, spinning, cursing, kicking, pivot, a spell, a punch, a hex, followed by a wrist throw.

They fought for what seemed like hours, but in reality couldn't have been more than 15 minutes later, when the fight ended by him holding his wand to her throat, and grinning in victory, only to realise, by her sly grin, that she in turn had her wand pointed directly under his sternum, right at his heart.
Conceding that it was a draw, they both withdrew, and bowed to each other. Only then did the absolute silent crowd break out of their shocked awe and begin to applaud. The partners grinned at each other and then took a facetious bow before walking out the door, her cracking her neck as they did so.

"Where have I seen that before?" wondered Harry to himself as he left the room with Ron.
"We're going to be late for dinner with Mione if we don't hurry mate," Ron told him.
"Yeah," said Harry absently, "Let's go" before leading the way to the Leaky Cauldron, where they had their fortnightly dinner with their best friend, and heard all about her job at the Ministry library.

Well ?
Hated it? Loved it?

Anything?