Chapter One: Prologue
Hermione brisk walked down the hallway of the Spell Damage ward. Her head was buried in the reports in her hands, her eyes never left the paper. If this had been anyone else, they would have surely crashed into something by now, but 3 years of working in St Mungo's gave Hermione the ability to dodge and swivel through the mass of people without having to raise her head.
"Healer Granger." She heard someone call out, their breath staggering and all gaspy.
It didn't take her long to recognize the voice of the trainee working under her. She believed her name was Roana Zabini.
She paused to allow her to catch up.
When the panting girl reached her side, Hermione once again began to plow through the busy hallway.
"Weren't you just behind me?" she asked as she stifled through her files, looking for Periwinkle's file.
"No ma'am, you lost me on the Magical Bugs floor." her words came out in pants.
Hermione snorted softly.
"It took you two floors to catch up with me?"
Hermione had been running around all morning, and clearly it was taking a toll on her trainee. Surely enough, it barely took Roana a second to complain.
"Miss, my feet are hurting, I guess I wore the wrong shoes."
Hermione briefly looked down at the girl's feet, 3 inch heels.
"Clearly." She mumbled as she finally turned into her office, she didn't bother taking a seat, immediately moving over to her file cabinet.
From the corner of her eye she watched as Roana looked desperately over her shoulder, eyeing the plush seat that was placed in front of her desk for patients.
Hermione shook her head at the 18-year-old's laziness. But she didn't want to force her to stand all day.
"Look dear, why don't you go and get me some tea from the Visitor's tearoom. And while you're there you can take a seat and relax. I'll give you twenty minutes." Hermione offered.
Roana gave her a big grin, clearly pleased with the idea.
"Thank you." was her rushed reply, before she practically flew out of the room.
Hermione found herself raising a brow at her quick exit.
"If she walked that fast in the first place then we wouldn't have this problem."
Lavender, her old time friend and now secretary, chuckled softly,
"She was wearing heels on her first day as your trainee. Merlin how long did she last?"
"She made it past the first floor, but lagged on the second." Hermione murmured back.
"When did she catch up?" Lavender asked as she stood up and walked over to her friend.
"The fourth floor."
"Incredible, she is even slower than that Chuck Mason guy, and I didn't even think it was possible."
"Well," Hermione stated, "He wasn't wearing heels was he?"
Every single trainee in St Mungo's always had to begin by being Hermione's tag along for a week. They all had the intelligence which had been proven through exams, so St Mungo's way to test their persistency and stamina was by latching them onto Hermione's side.
If a trainee could survive through Hermione's usual work day for seven days, St Mungo's felt that it would guarantee that they would excel in the hospital.
Not many of them could.
"What are you looking for?" Lavender asked.
"Periwinkle's file." She replied as she sauntered over to her desk to look for it.
"Oh, I kept it in your first drawer." Lavender stated as she snapped her fingers, "You left a bit early yesterday, and you took the cabinet keys with you by mistake, so I just dumped it in there."
Hermione was a research healer so a lot of her day was spent going over cases which were closed and claimed impossible to heal. She hardly met with patients unless they needed her help on busy days.
"So," Lavender started as she leaned against her boss's desk.
Hermione groaned internally, she knew that tone.
"Yes, Lavender?" she asked hesitantly
"There is a party at the Weasley's on Friday. Are you going to come?"
Yup, there it was the question.
"Lavender," Hermione moaned, "You, out of all people know how busy I am these days."
"Come on." Lavender cried in return, "It's been two years since you've actually shown up to one of our group parties. Everyone misses you."
Hermione averted her eyes, uncomfortable with the topic.
There was a reason that she never went for Weasley get-togethers. It was just too –mushy.
Hermione could deal with hanging out with her friends in small groups. She still met up with Ron, Harry every Saturday for drinks, and she met up with her female friends every Wednesday for lunch. But, she couldn't deal with couples, just seeing them enjoying what she knew she would never have was too much for her to handle.
At such gathering Hermione was always the odd ball. Everyone had their husbands or wives, fiancés, steady partner, or steady 'room mate'. All of her childhood friends had a significant other, and it hurt to see them all so happy, when she could never be like them.
"Please Mione, it's New Years Eve, you'll have fun."
"Oh yeah," she said sarcastically, "Lots of fun."
She could just picture it. The minute the clock struck twelve, everyone would turn to give their partner a kiss, and there she would stand. Alone.
This was not the first time she had to decline a party. The Weasleys got together a lot, and Hermione found herself fighting with Molly, Ginny, Lavender, and Luna quite often over this very debate.
"Look, I just won't have fun. You know how I am. So why don't you just go enjoy yourselves, okay?"
"Do you consider us boring Hermione?" Lavender asked sounding appalled.
Hermione winced softly,
"I just don't want to celebrate." She admitted.
"With us, or you don't want to celebrate at all?" Lavender questioned.
"It's just another New Year that I get to ring in alone." She muttered.
Immediately she clapped her hand over her mouth. She wasn't supposed to let that slip.
Surely enough, Lavender gasped in shock, and glared at Hermione.
"That's why you're not going to come? Are you kidding me! You're not coming because you don't have a date!" Lavender asked incredulously.
Hermione blushed.
"Is that why you've been avoiding all our parties?" she asked as she leaned forward.
"No..." Hermione muttered.
"Mione, you have not, and never will be the third wheel. You know that don't you?"
"Of course I do." She assured, "At these type of parties I'm always the 41st wheel, or the 53th wheel. You know how packed the house can get with couples."
Lavender groaned, "Hermione that's not true, but if you want I can hook you up with some---"
Hermione interrupted her.
"No thanks," she muttered, "Besides I have to be at work that day anyway, it's the busiest day in St Mungo's."
Lavender went to talk again.
"No, honestly drop it! I have to get going anyway, I should probably assist the healers down in the potion production room. They will need a lot of sober up potion."
"Hermione..." Lavender growled.
"Just send Roana down there when she gets here." She called as she stepped out of the office, "And you can drink the tea. Bye!"
Once out of her office, Hermione sighed in relief. She had just barely gotten out of that, pleased she made her way over to the potion's lab.
Inside Lavender growled to herself, "Ooo, this is so not over Granger."
Grabbing some floo powder she made her way to the fire place.
She was going to call in the reinforcements, Hermione would definitely not listen to her, but she had her back ups !
"The Burrow." She called out, smiling wickedly when Molly's face emerged through the fire.
"We have a problem mum." She began.
"Oooo that Hermione." Molly hissed as she slammed her fist on the table.
Luna, Fleur, Lavender, Ginny, Angelina, Penelope, and Molly were all sitting around the dinner table.
Lavender had just informed them of what she had found out this afternoon.
"I cannot believe she would think that !" Ginny cried in outrage.
"Doesn't ze know zat zit is imposible that she can be ze third wheel in zis family?" Fleur asked.
"Apparently she doesn't." Angelina chimed, frowning softly.
"I don't even know where she got such an absurd idea from. That silly Hermione, she may have book smarts, but right now she is looking pretty dumb." Molly said with a shake of her head.
"Well its true, isn't it? I would feel left out as well if I didn't have Fred." Luna stated.
Everyone turned to stare at Luna with shocked eyes.
Luna just blinked and stared back.
They had all came together to find a way to get Hermione to come to the get together's. They all felt so angry at Hermione for not coming because she didn't have a date. But they never actually thought that she could have actually felt left out.
"Do you really think so?" Molly asked as she took a seat, "Do you really think that she doesn't feel like part of the family?"
Everyone was silent.
"Haven't I always made it quite clear that she is like a daughter to me?" Molly wailed as her eyes started to tear up.
Ginny sighed,
"Aw, mum I don't think it's like that. If she just gets a date I'm sure she'd be fine."
"Well, she has horrid taste in men." Lavender piped, "Hermione does date, but the type of men she hangs around with would never fit in with the family, and she knows that. I guess that is why she would never bring them over."
"Any boy that she would bring would have a hard time fitting in. The family is already so tight." Penelope stated.
Everyone sighed in defeat, this was all true. They had come together to find a way but it seemed that there was no way that they could bring Hermione to their parties.
"Isn't there any single men in our family?" Luna suddenly asked.
Everyone's heads snapped up.
"Yes I suppose so." Ginny replied, "Why?"
"Well, if the man we get her together with is already in the family, then we won't have to worry about him fitting in, right?"
Molly grinned, "It's a good idea. But most of the single men in our family don't even live in England."
"And mum, half of them aren't even coming for New Year's. Who is single , part of the family, and here for New Year's ?"
Suddenly the door swung open and Charlie ambled into the room his eyes trained on the kitchen door.
When he felt all of his female family staring at him, he slowly cocked his head in their direction.
"Something wrong?" he asked carefully.
He did not like that strange glint that was in their eyes.
"Charlie, dear. Sit down." His mum demanded in a sugar sweet voice.
Charlie gulped softly, and took a seat making sure to sit on the edge so he could bolt if necessary.
"Perfect." Fleur gasped.
Charlie could have sworn that he felt his left eye twitch.
"For…….what?"
Wow his throat was dry.
"Charlie, love. Can you do your mum a favor?"
Oh boy.
Author's Note:
Well here it is Chapter One. What do you think, should I continue the story?
Any way here is a quick question to hear your opinion my great readers !
Poll Time:
Should Charlie agree with the plan? [to get together with Hermione.]
A. Of course he should, Charlie has such a laid back attitude, I'm sure he'd have fun with this.
B. Nah let his family shove him into it. It would be fun to see him get bullied by a bunch of girl. HeHe!
Read and Review, please!
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