It was a warm, slightly breezy day. Nearly a year had gone since the end of Voldemort's reign and one Hermione Granger was sitting outside a café in Hogsmeade flipping noncommittally through the jobs section of the Daily Prophet.

Yes, our heroine, the smartest witch Hogwarts has seen in over a century, one of Harry Potters' best friends… was unemployed.

She had been working as an auror, but this came to a close when she had a rather large fight with her boss… Ron Weasley. He had wanted to go to the next level in their 'relationship'- she had not. She hadn't even thought there was a relationship- other than their friendship- but it seemed that too was now over.

So she quit her job, and here she was, nearly a month later, eating carrot cake and sipping lemonade. That was until two shadows fell over her table; and it with these two shadows that our story begins.

Hermione turned yet another page, frowning as two silhouettes formed across her small table. She raised her head, eyes dragging over a pair of light blue jeans, and black slacks, closely followed by two white dress shirts, both immaculately tucked in.

"Hello Hermione"

She moved her gaze to two familiar faces. Both had taught her (although she had never liked one much, and completely adored the other), and both she held in the highest regard.

"Remus! Professor Snape!" she exclaimed, standing up to hug Remus, and awkwardly shake her ex-Potions Master's hand. "How are you both? I haven't seen you two since…" she trailed off. Since the end of the war- The final Battle.

Had it really been that long? Almost a year? A year since Remus lost Tonks, since Percy, Flitwick, Oliver and Katie and the many others who had had their lives violently ripped from them?

Hermione mentally shook her head, and came back to the present.

"Please, take a seat." She said, motioning to the two empty chairs across the table.

"You're not expecting Potter or Weasley?" Snape asked as he roughly pulled out a chair and sat in it, his left eyebrow rising slightly.

Gods he hadn't changed a bit.

"No, I am not expecting Harry and…" she trailed off again, before continuing. "I'm not meeting anyone." Hermione finished. She knew the change in sentence hadn't gone amiss by the two men sitting across from her. They were to smart for their own bloody good, those two.

"What's wrong Hermione?" Remus asked, even as Snape gave a slight shake of the head.

Hermione looked away. No use trying to lie to them- Snape had occulemency on his side, and she didn't want to lie to Remus.

"I quit my job at the ministry."

"Why on earth did you do that?" Remus seemed genuinely surprised.

"Considering her reluctance to speak of Weasley, I should hazard a guess at him being the reason." Snape said, mockingly rolling his eyes.

Hermione nodded. "He... thought that we should... we argued, over a rather... petty topic, which for some reason he found significant. So I quit."

It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what she was talking about, and as both Remus and Snape were much smarter than a rocket scientist, they had it figured it out in a matter of seconds.

"I am sorry to hear that Hermione."

Snape snorted. "You shouldn't have had to work under him in any circumstance- he has half the talent, and even less of the brains you have."

Hermione met her ex-Professors dark eyes.

"By Merlin I think that was a compliment."

He glared. "It was nothing of the sort- it is not hard to have more talent and brains than Weasley- even Mr. Longbottom came through in the end, were as the freckled faced moron you used to work for has only become more obnoxious and gangly."

Hermione couldn't fault his reasoning, but secretly thought it was still a compliment.