Now Revised from Chapters 1-12. 'Cause you know, grammar and continuity are quite important to me.
A/N: Hey guys haven't posted a story in a while, as we know I do not own any characters or basic ideas— that belongs to the great J.K. Rowling. And I must add that I'm a broke college student, therefore, money is not something I have. This is my first attempt at a HP fic. Feedback would be great…as far as the other chapters I hope to make them longer but this was just an intro to what's going to happen. Thanks so much.
Chapter 1: At the Glorious Age of Twenty-Four
At the glorious age of twenty-four, I, Hermione Granger can truly say that my life is thoroughly boring. Perhaps I should explain myself a bit more. You see, at the age of twenty-four, I have stumbled upon these three realizations: One, your work cannot simply beyour life. Two, you cannot hide from the fragmented relationships that you help create—thus the doom of a terrible romance is inevitable and for a while, life ceases to exist. Three, the expectations on yourself and others can be shattered but one must not shun themselves out from the world that betrayed them and live solely on their own.
It is because of these three reasons, my life is blatantly dull. It's not to say that my life was always dull, back in Hogwarts my two best friends and I found loads of things to keep our lives interesting. A yearly adventure, if you will; adventures such as these created physical obstacles and put restraints on our friendship. But of course, we managed through dangerous adventures and adolescence. Harry and Ron were both quite content where their lives were headed.
In the end, Ron and I started out as a couple but quickly realized we were not meant to be a match. Our personalities collided far too much to be conducive for either of our personalities. He's since been on a bumbling road of quite a few interesting relationships but we're closer than ever in our friendship. I know of all his exes it was a girl by the name of Lizzie Shaw whom he loved more than anything else. I rather liked her but Lizzie decided the UK was too small for her and moved to Australia where some relatives lived. Harry and Ginny had dated as well but that quietly ended three years ago although they lived together in a flat near High Street Kensington. Ginny was now seeing Lee Jordan who the best friend of her twin brothers, I loved the girl but dating your brother's best friends was a road to disaster in my opinion.
As far as jobs were concerned both of my best friends went for the career of auror and it was Harry who chose it as a profession, while Ron along with Hogwarts' alumni, Oliver Wood have been coaching the Puddlemere United Quidditch team together for three years now. I, on the other hand, had many career opportunities to consider, not taking one but three N.E.W.T.'s exams, passing all three with flying colors. (The only way I was allowed to, mind you, was with the help of then Professor McGonagall.)
In the end, the profession I chose was to work with the ministry, landing a job as the advisor to the minister. For five long years, (since I held the position) I drowned myself into my work. Recalling the days when Fudge was in office and so many things had gone wrong, I wanted to set the ministry's reputation right. My job was to observe to any threatening situation, no matter how miniscule and if it seemed important enough to be dealt with swiftly—then I was to report to the minister myself. Once that was out of the way I was to see to it that these situations were handled, over the years I have been given more leeway from the minister to deal with cases on my own. It is only when I find the case so severely out of my hand that I will ask for input. It was a system that had worked well for us during my time with the ministry.
By the end of my five year run, the current Minster of Magic, Minerva McGonagall—yes that same McGonagall decided it was time for a change. She'd had me running around with so many threatening situations that one day she sat me down for a one on one "girl chat" as she described it, which truthfully, scared me a little. She was known to be quite professional, and a "girl chat" did not seem very professional.
"Hermione, I am aware that you have worked for me dutifully for five years tackling all sorts of horrid "threatening situations" and I am very grateful for the well executed work that you do because we haven't seen so much peace prior to You-Know-Who being taken out of power." She said her eyes earnest and excited.
"Yes, Minerva—but I do not understand what my work has to do with err—girl chat?"
"My point being, that you have dedicated yourself to this job and I feel that you need some recognition and perhaps assistance with the workload," she offered.
"You don't think I can handle the workload?" I said by then my eyes had grown wide.
"No, you misinterpret me. I know you are perfectly capable to handle the workload; it's just that with so many different situations to handle, I'm afraid I haven't left you with a life of your own. You are young; you shouldn't drown yourself in work all the time. I'm offering you the chance to have someone to help you with your duties and work, to work as your equal. Though, I will be honest with you, no one contends with you position, you built it and you earned it."
"I suppose you are right, Minerva. Perhaps I do put too much of myself into work," I said sighing heavily.
"Precisely, with that in mind—I will start holding job applications for the assistant to advisor of the minister, then hopefully, after you teach them how the job is done I can have two advisors, then you can have more holidays and more time to work on specific cases."
Patting my knee, she composed herself and transformed back into her professional self and left me to attend her three o'clock meeting. I couldn't help but sigh heavily, surely she already found out how much of a ruddy time I am having with my social life so she decided to dumb down my workload. This was a month ago. But I'm getting ahead of myself…
My social life had turned into a disaster a year before—well not technically but a string of events started that chartered my way up to my present situation. I had met a man by the name of Jonathan Rowe, at the local wizarding jazz tavern across the street from my flat. I had come in exhausted from my feeble attempt to find out whether or not goblins were conspiring against the wizarding community which I thought was rubbish from the start but could not aquire sufficient evidence to throw it out. He seemed nice enough and bought me a drink…yes Hermione that alone should have told you to stay away.
Jonathan seemed very nice, mildly exciting and very bookish—yes, you would think my perfect match. Unfortunately, our similarities were too much, in fact, that once Jonathan and I became serious, we fought constantly. He thought I poured too much time into my work, while I thought his new hexing experiments were completely rash.
We got engaged after seven months together, though I had a pitfall feeling in my stomach the moment I laid eyes on that rock, I still agreed. Sometimes, I think I must have been under some sort of enchanted effects to reason with why I agreed. I think deep down I felt that with my whirlwind life at the ministry it was hard enough for me to date. I had a string of bad luck after Ron and I broke up. It was even harder for men to date the advisor to the minister. You would think it would be because I have so much power but in fact I'd learned after a few bad blind dates it's usually because they've got some kind of experiment lurking in their basement that the ministry would revoke from them or they have some very shady business deals. By business I mean black market magic, mind you. I still shiver every time I remember that I let Gin drag me to a round of speed dating at the Leaky Cauldron before I met Jon. I'm sorry I'm getting off track, back to my horrible engagement—Harry and Ron were both skeptical but supported me nonetheless and after three more months of dealing with Jonathan's constant bickering; I wanted to call a quits.
What I didn't know was that Jonathan had already done so, to a legal degree. You see, the night Jonathan and I got into a fight (the night before our break-up) he had decided to take his mildly exciting side to a new extreme. He met his ex-girlfriend (also an ex fiancée) for coffee and they had the ludicrous idea of getting married. Three hours later, at some cheep Vegas-style knock off, the two were married…while Jonathan and I had not officially broken up. He had the audacity to say he would come home later, and that we would fix things then! What I found out later…and by later I mean a week and a half later is that two months into our engagement he began cheating on me with that floozy and knocked her up. I'd have a few choice experimental hexes to use on that cheating bastard if I saw him again…and any side effects that he would experience would not be bothersome to me in the slightest.
Obviously, we broke things off when I found out about what he and his now wife, appropriately named Annette Nicole, did the previous night. This caused a sway of my social life because Jonathan and I had many mutual friends whom we shared. Being pained and not wanting to deal with some sort of public confrontation either with him or his new wife, I decided to leave those mutual friends behind. Really, I mean how thick could the great Hermione Granger, one of two best friends to the great Harry Potter who lived to tell the tale of the war against Voldemort not know her bloody fiancée was pure scum.
Of course, I still had Harry and Ron but things are hard when your two best friends run around the damn globe for a living. Ron with his Quidditch and Harry with his auror-seeking adventures; they phoned me everyday and even offered to beat the living snot out of Jonathan but it was no use. My ego had be too severly bruised to do anything about it at first, it's not until now that I'm livid with anger. Most of all, I'm embarrassed and livid at myself for allowing this to happen to me. Quite the fool, really. And so this is how the present situation presents itself, my learning at the age of twenty-four that all the things I had once valued are not as valuable once tarnished.