AU after HBP.

It had been two years since the final battle and Hermione was not surprised by how different things were but by how much the same they were. Although occasionally people might point her out on the street more often they simply walked on by. She didn't have an exciting and adventurous life but a fairly ordinary one as a staff writer for the Daily Prophet. It was strange after it all finished how quickly things went back to normal. It wasn't the world that had changed it was you and people went on just as normal, being born, falling love and dying. Dying… she hated that word. Sirius, Dumbledore, Neville, Remus, Tonks and Ron. She missed them all but especially Ron, she felt so alone sometimes without either of her best friends. She had known it would be different after school when they would no longer see each other every day but she had envisaged them all living close and still spending a lot of time together however after the final battle Harry had left. She didn't begrudge him, after all he had been through much more than she had and could not even have pretended to live a normal life. He had taken a job with Meg; she had been called in by the Ministry when things were too difficult for the Aurors to deal with. She was sort of an international peacekeeper without the peace. She and her people went all over the world looking in the dark places no one else wanted to go and making sure that the boogie man never got near enough to the cupboard to jump out. Hermione was glad that Harry was with her, she know that Meg could supply whatever it was Harry needed to keep himself going. The only thing she didn't like were the infrequency of his visits, only three or four a year really wasn't enough. And Ron… well she wouldn't see him ever again. She went down to his grave on his birthday to place flowers but that was it. There were the Weasley's of course; Molly had her down as often as possible. She would have made it a weekly thing but Hermione couldn't bring herself to go and see so many people who looked like Ron every week. Two years hadn't quite been long enough to erase that sharp tang of grief whenever she went into the Burrow.

The headquarters of the Daily Planet was a large Georgian building in white stone in an older part of muggle London. The front of the building and the reception were both impressive but as soon as the security guard got your pass and let you through the wall it was an old rickety building which looked as if it hadn't been modernised since the printing press had been invented. Hermione thought that it was probably reasonable to assume that it hadn't.

'Ah Miss Granger' Spike Simmons was the sub-editor and he made sure that all the boring little bits of news that needed to be included in the paper every day (i.e. the ones Hermione wrote) got written. 'I need you to go down to the Ministry, there's a situation brewing with Bulgaria, something to do with imports of pumpkin juice, and I need you to get the details, a quote and the give me 100 or 500 words depending on what you find. Then Sam'll meet you in Diagon Alley and get the basics for a feature we're running next week on Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, it'll be about the ingenuity of the products, the success of the business and …' he waved his hand vaguely 'human interest stuff.' After that come back to the office and you can write up some copy before we go to press.' And with that he promptly turned towards his next task expecting Hermione to do as she was told.

She set off up a back stairs toward the tiny office she shared with three other staff writers. None of them were in the office often as they spent so much time chasing around after people. However they all dumped their stuff every morning and then spent the last couple of hours every day hurriedly putting together whatever pieces needed to be written.

Aileen had obviously been and gone, the huge purple coat with its bright blue fur wrap hung on the coat stand. Mark did not appear to have been in, he would probably be getting his assignments now. Hermione loved this little office and the people she worked with. Often they would go out to a bar after the paper went to the presses and discuss anything and everything, from the latest faux pas made by the Minister for Magic (…caught kissing woman who was not his wife sources say the couple were spotted in Lucifer's on Knockturn Alley…) to the newest single from the Wonderful Warlock's (…with their smooth style and flawless tones if this is anything less than a hit it will be a truly unexpected travesty…). It was nice to find people who you could talk to at work and although none of them were especially close if they had thought about it they spent as much time with each other as with anyone else.

After dumping her brief case and umbrella Hermione went in search of Sam to set up a time to meet in Diagon Alley and then apparted down to the Ministry. It was fairly easy to do everything she needed to there and she arrived in early. She went and got some ice-cream while trying to write up the story. She decided it wasn't really very interesting and warranted only 100 words although she wrote one at 500 as well in case they were short in the business section. A couple of minute's later Sam apparted in and the set off toward the Weasley boys shop. Hermione didn't expect to meet then there, they would be far to busy and this was only a trip to test some products and take some pictures.

They went in to the place which was more like a fairground than a shop with rides winding their way through the shelves and small explosions going off left right and centre. Hermione could see the café that had been installed for the adults and a few booths selling sweets to the kids. She remembered taking Fred and George to their first fairground, they had been enchanted but she hadn't expected them to take their new found love this far. She smiled; it was lovely seeing all the small children running about so happily. This was an extended part of the business which sold toys; the actual joke shop was next door. She and Sam fought there way across to the cash desks trying not to trip over any of the merchandise or the children. She finally got over to the pretty girl at the cash desk who had huge brown eyes and pretty brown hair tied up in a ponytail. Hermione felt a slight sense of jealousy, she might look that good all the time if it wasn't for the glasses and the hair and her complete inability to care for long enough to put on make-up or even clothes that matched.

'Excuse me we're here from the Daily Prophet. We're doing a feature on the shop and I wondered if it would be alright to take some pictures, talk to some customers?

'Em, well I guess. I'll have to tell one of the managers you're here though.' The girl said as if unsure what to do about such a request.

'Of course that's fine my names Hermione Granger and this is Sam Puffet if they want to check on us ok?'

'Sure'

'Well we'll just get started then.' Hermione gave the girl a smile and started working.

It took quite a while for the news of the reporters to reach George Weasley. For some reason no one could find the manager to tell him about the reporters so after a while it was decided that George should be told just in case. He wasn't really very concerned; Lee had set up the feature: he now ran the business side of things to allow Fred and George to concentrate on experimenting. It was really only an afterthought that made him ask the reporters names.

'Hermione Granger and Sam Puffet' his secretary had replied. And so now he was on his way down into the shop because if he didn't his mother would be annoyed with him for not doing so. It was a mark of how well the Weasley boys had been trained that it didn't even occur to George that his mother would never find out.

Hermione had just made a round of the toy shop and was heading through to the joke shop. She had collected a few fairly useful quotes for the article (…Amy Johnson (aged 9) said 'I like the teddy bears best the way they can really give you hugs back and the colours and they're dead soft…Mrs Rebecca Samuels comments, 'The shop is a joy come true, it's as if someone's really sat down and thought out what its like to take two five year olds shopping and then has tried to make it all a little easier.'…) she passed through the bead curtains and got the shock of her life when she saw one of the twins coming out the back room. That was where they kept all the good stuff. The joke shop was full of students from Hogwarts on their summer holidays. Hermione panicked for a minute and wondered if she could escape before he saw her. She really couldn't face any of the Weasley's - not today so soon after the second anniversary of Ron's death- but it was too late. She saw he had spotted her. He was looking quite grim and as he came closer she saw it was George.

At school it had never occurred to her that there was any sort of difference between the twins but now she knew George was the serious one, relatively speaking, he had been a lot quieter since the final battle while Fred was still as excitable as ever this. Fred was married now with a son. While most men calm down and mature after the have a child Fred had definitely got worse. Hermione didn't know how Angelina managed but Fred seemed to drag her along with him. He had even convinced her to have kids early, he had said it was a Weasley tradition and everyone thought she would never go for it but then she had and now they had a beautiful boy called Thompson.

'Hi George' she said shyly as he approached. Something about the new George intimidated her. She didn't feel so effortlessly superior around him as she had once done.

'Hermione, I hear you're here to do the feature on the shop.'

'Only to do the ground work you know customer quotes, test the products…' Hermione trailed off as she saw the familiar grin light up George's face. 'Oh no, there is no way..'

'Come on Hermione, who better to show you how the products work than their inventor?' Hermione groaned she knew that there was no possible way that George was going to pass up a chance to use her as a guinea pig. At that moment Sam came through the curtains.

'I'm just going to take some more pictures of merchandise then I have to go to court to cover some stuff there 'kay Hermione?'

'Fine Sam just leave what you have on my desk.' Hermione sighed.

'Who's the guy?' George asked.

'That's Sam our photographer he got sent on assignment with me.'

'Are you and him…?'

'Are we what George?' Hermione turned to him confused. She had never expected that sort of question from one of the twins.

'Come on, you're like my little sis Hermione, I have a right to ask.'

'No you don't George Weasley.'

'Hermione we all worry about you I mean have you even dated since…?' Hermione lowered he head but not before George saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes. Mrs Weasley always wondered why Hermione was reluctant to come to the Burrow whenever invited. George knew it was because no one felt the need to give her privacy and so she was always asked uncomfortable questions. It must be like rubbing salt on open wounds and now he had done it too, he felt guilty.

'Come on Hermione, I promise no tricks.' he said giving his most charming smile. It would have been impossible to resist. Hermione didn't want to resist. Although it hurt to be reminded of Ron it was also nice to be around someone who knew what was going on in your head.

George smiled and grabbed her Hermione's hand pulling her through to the back of the shop. 'Ok what do you want to see?'

Hermione's jaw had dropped, she stared around her.

George grinned at her response, 'Yeah this is where we bring girls when we want to impress them, not that I want to impress you, I mean I do, but not like that.' George looked at Hermione and was glad to see she hadn't seemed to hear. The room was pretty cool, filled with bottles of coloured liquids and various parts of machinery. There were shelves all round the walls and in the centre was a huge wooden work table laden with ongoing experiments. It was like the laboratory of some nutty Professor in a muggle film although George wasn't aware of that.

'This is so cool' Hermione stated wandering around looking at all the odd stuff. She turned round to look back at some shelves and her bag caught on a bottle. It fell and broke.

'Oh God George I'm sorry.' Hermione said while bending down to retrieve the broken shards. 'That's alright things are always getting broken in here, that's how we've come across some our best products.' George had walked over to help clear up the mess so they both got a noseful of the fumes from the potion. 'Hermione quick get away!' George pushed Hermione back 'What…?' Hermione stuttered as she fell back onto the floor 'George Weasley if you had something dangerous in here I swear I'll…' 'Its not precisely dangerous it's just a lust potion' seeing that this didn't particularly comfort Hermione George began to assure her 'But you need to be attracted to the person to begin with and it needs to be mutual. You're not attracted to me are you?'

'Well no I guess not.'

'You guess not? It couldn't be that I've exercised the Weasley charm on you could it' George said grinning at her.

'No of course I'm not attracted to you.' Hermione said with more force than she meant to.

'Alright, alright I get the picture' they looked awkwardly at each other for a minute and then burst out laughing.

'Come on I'll take you out for lunch' George offered and off they went to find somewhere to eat.

Oooooh can you guess what's going to happen next? Come back next week for the next thrilling instalment. (yes that's right I've decided the only way I'm ever going to finish a fanfic is if I write it all before I post. I'm a genius. :D)