All belongs to JKR, what a beautiful place she created! I am but a smutty, smutty bystander. I removed the first chapter, I don't think it was working.

The file flew to her desk and unfolded itself. It must be the last of the day, caught up in the backlog. She picked it up with a small sigh. It was the end of the day and she had just cleared her desk. She glanced at her wristwatch. 7:05pm. The rest of her co workers had gone home an hour before. She preferred to go home quietly, without the hubbub of the usual rush to the floos. They had stopped asking her to join them for drinks within the first two months, and that was 5 years ago.

Sent from: Shaun Dibbler. Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Floor 4

Recipient: Ms Granger. Being division. Floor 4.

Case number: 8976952

Complaint of unregistered werewolf spotted in some town in the Midlands. No attacks or injuries, likely to just be a shaggy dog and a het up squib owling in. Please check and report back.

Address: Spinners End, Cokeworth (apparition familiarisation photograph attached)

-Shaun

Hermione let out a real sigh this time as she plucked off the photograph of a dark street of terraced houses. She'd never liked the word 'squib', and Shaun wasn't one with which to broach the subject of lexical choice. Idiot. She might as well go and check now, it was unlikely to be anything major, a shift in public perception towards werewolves had eased their transition into the mainstream of the wizarding world since Remus Lupin had been outed as a hero after his death. There's always one stick in the mud, though she thought as she imagined the elderly witch or wizard calling the ministry, eyes wide with mistrust at the sight of a too-large dog.

She stood and stretched. She didn't need to take anything with her, she would just apparate there and then go straight home. She looked more closely at the photograph and noted the weeds blowing in a breeze, the streetlight flickering over the streetsign, nodding slightly to herself when she felt she had the place memorised safely.

Leaving the office, she muttered 'nox' as she exited the department. Magical lighting didn't use electricity, but old habits die hard, and she had been raised to conserve energy as a child growing up muggle. She ambled over to the floo network. As she passed the fountain she frowned. They were still debating what to put there since destroying the pureblood fantasy statue of Pius Thicknesses' puppet term. She shuddered. Bad memories lingered in the atrium. She decided to take the phone booth up to muggle London to aparate. Some found the journey claustrophobic but the dark sliding of the walls seemed soothing to Hermione, she liked to see the layers of history on her way up. As soon as she got out of the booth, cold air jolted her lungs and she coughed in surprise. The temperature certainly had dropped.

Around the nearest quiet corner, she turned in place and felt the familiar constricting band at her chest as she winked out of London and appeared with a pop in Cokeworth under a streetlight. She gasped in shock as the frigid air hit her. Good Lord she had thought London was cold! Her breath clouded in the air and old snow crunched under her shoes as she checked her surroundings. Yes, this was it, just as in the photograph.

She carefully set off down the street, out of the light so as not to arouse suspicion of any muggles looking out of the windows. First she cast a silent homenum revelio spell, and was surprised to find only one being near to her, despite the many terraced houses in the area. It was a magic presence, though. It must be the caller, she thought. She picked her way over to the appropriate door and knocked. After a moment she heard shuffling, then a series of locks clunking. A man with a grizzled face and a mad aura of white hair opened the door.

'What d'ye want?' He snapped.

Hermione cast her ministry ID charm for the man. 'Hello sir, I'm here to respond to a complaint?'

'Bloody took long enough, I sent the owl this morning!'

'Sorry sir, we do try to respond as quickly as possible. Could you tell me precisely what you saw that disturbed you?'

'Big wolf, weren't it.' He said, gruffly

'Where was this, sir?'

'Over near the rubble, there, down the road, girl.'

'And what made you think it was a werewolf, sir?'

'The fact it was a bloody wolf, in England!' If the man rolled his eyes any harder he'd go blind.

Hermione took a deep breath and rattled off the werewolf characteristics, few that there were.

'Do any of those sound familiar?' She asked.

'Well. No. Might be it was smaller than that, eh? Maybe not so much wolfyness as all that… But it was a dirty great shaggy thing anyway! And ye hear all sorts these days. Werewolves as people, wanderin' round…' He eyeballed her defensively.

'I'm not sure what you've heard, sir, but this one doesn't sound like a werewolf… I'll go and have a poke about anyway for you, but honestly, I wouldn't worry sir. I'll owl you a letter about what I find, alright?'

The man looked barely mollified. 'Right then' he sniffed, and shut the door firmly in her face. As she walked towards the direction he pointed, she heard his numerous locks snick-snack back into place.

The rubble was at the furthest end of the road, where no lights worked. She could hear the muted sound of a river nearby. She carefully climbed the rubble to gain a better view. 'lupus revelio' she said quietly, just in case homenum hadn't picked something up. To her utter lack of surprise, there was nothing near. She flapped her arms at her side in a frustrated shrug. People, she thought uncharitably, are idiots.

She turned to fid flat ground from which to apparate, and at once felt her foot slip on an icy half brick.

'Shit!' she squealed as she fell, her ankle made a sickening cracking noise, her arm caught on something, and her head bounced once off another brick before she settled in a crumpled heap at the base of the pile.

Nothing moved for a solid minute. Then a ripple in the air preceded the sudden appearance of a tall, thin figure outside of the last house in the street. A single, deep sigh huffed into the air and crystallised into a single, heartfelt word.

'Bollocks.'