Harry straightened the paperwork on his desk-at least, he pretended to straighten them in the hopes that when Hermione dropped by for lunch his lecture on the informality and clutter of his workplace would be only half as long. He chuckled ruefully. When would Hermione learn that he and Ron weren't really the 'organization' type? They hadn't done it for their OWLs, surely they wouldn't do it as Aurors. But she never did know when to give up. He was brought out of the wanderings of his mind by a sharp knock at the door-three knocks, to be precise.

"Come in," he called, and smiled when he saw a head of bushy hair emerge from the doorframe. Hermione looked tired-there were bags under her eyes, hardly unusual with the way she worked herself half to death-but she was smiling fondly at him. Her eyebrows pinched together when she saw the state of his desk, but at Harry's apologetic look she shook her head and just muttered, "When will you boys ever learn?" and leaned in for a hug. He laughed; truly, he'd never had a friend who could make him feel both quite so guilty and quite so loved at the same time.

"Ah, Hermione, you know we'll never change." She shot him a challenging smirk in response as she hung her cloak on the peg behind the door.

"If you've dotted your i's and crossed your t's..."

"Merlin, Hermione, if you buy me another homework planner, I swear I'll put in a word with Kingsley to get you on suspension..."

"Honestly, Harry, Kingsley wouldn't put me on probation even if you are Head Auror and The-Boy-Who-Lived-to-Have-a-Messy-Desk."

"He might if I made him listen to that planner," he muttered, and Hermione giggled.

"I might have been a little excessive about the OWL prep," she admitted rather sheepishly.

"Aha! Alert the Prophet! Floo the Quibbler! Hermione Granger has just admitted to being 'a little excessive' about matters of a studying nature!"

"Oh, stop that, Harry, I thought I was here to have a nice lunch."

He sighed. "I suppose I must be cordial to you, otherwise you'll tell Mrs. Weasley that I haven't been eating enough and I'll have to deal with all of them in my office. Which, as you may have noticed, is not nearly big enough for that kind of a family gathering."

Hermione laughed again, her eyes a little soft.

"We do miss you, Harry, promise you'll be at the Burrow for the next Sunday dinner?" Harry's shoulders slumped in defeat.

"You know I miss seeing you all-but the workload is too much for me to be taking off weekends. We're working on a case with the MLE right now, smuggling illegal potions, we think it might have gone international-" here he paused to resume pushing some papers about "-actually, I wanted you to have a look at this, rather tricky case-"

"Harry." Her voice cut across his. "What are the rules of lunch?"

Adopting the affected expression of a well scolded schoolchild (it was alarming, by some accounts, how much Hermione could resemble McGonagall when she wanted to), he responded, "No work at lunch. No going over cases. I have to eat at least two vegetables and one protein. You're not allowed to read or discuss your research."

"Otherwise..." she prompted.

"Otherwise we'd never eat."

"Good Harry. Have a...actually, I'm not quite sure what's for lunch today, it was Ginny's turn to make them. I think it might be pot roast," she said, holding up the two metal containers, turning them this way and that in the candlelight. Harry shrugged.

"Food is food." This announcement was accompanied by a well-timed growl of his stomach, which only further encouraged him to tuck into his lunch. It was indeed pot roast, and excellently made. Mrs. Weasley had made sure that all of her children had learned the basics of cooking before leaving her household, and it seemed that everyone except for Ron and Percy had her knack for it. Ginny had even thrown in a flask of tea for Hermione and one of pumpkin juice for him, which made him smile. He did miss the Weasleys, although seeing Ron and Hermione at work had made the separation easier-but he had responsibilities as Head Auror that were difficult to ignore. Next week, he promised himself, and wrote a mental note to put it on the calendar later.

When he and Hermione were about half done with lunch, he interrupted their silent streams of thought.

"So, if we can't talk about work, I suppose we could discuss office gossip?"

Hermione smirked. Clearly, this had been a question she'd wanted him to ask since she'd walked in the door. This in and of itself had raised Harry's suspicions; after all, Hermione was not one for gossip, especially after her experience with Rita Skeeter. Still smiling, she looked up from her lunch and swallowed the mouthful of food she had been chewing at the moment.

"Haven't you heard? There's a new Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries."

"Really? Is it Cho's cousin, you know the one-Ravenclaw a few years ahead of her?"

"It's Malfoy."