With a languid stretch and a squeaking moan, Hermione roused from her slumber and blinked the sleep from her eyes. It was nearly eight in the morning, and Hermione, ever the early riser, had slept in three hours past her normal waking time. Life as a Ministry of Magic employee was strenuous and required long hours. Hermione, however, was Hermione Jean Granger, and she was nothing if not overachieving. She regularly put in ten or more hours of overtime each week, working from seven in the morning to well past seven in the evening. The one luxury she allowed herself was an extended lunch. As the long-standing Head of the Committee to Promote Non-Human Welfare in the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, she had some freedom to make her own hours and set her own deadlines. She oversaw several subcommittees, including one of her creation, the Committee to Promote Elvish Welfare, an outgrowth of her pet project of old, S.P.E.W. Thanks to Hermione's diligence, working and living conditions of magical beings had vastly improved. Working closely with Charlie Weasley, she had more than doubled the size of dragon and centaur reserves in the UK.
All of this hard work had brought her to the pivotal moment in her life she was currently experiencing. At the age of twenty-nine, Hermione had been offered two paths in life. The Spanish Ministry had requested that Hermione come to Madrid in order to help overhaul their own Department of Magical Creatures. On the other side of the coin, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had offered her a lucrative position in their administrative offices, liaising with their counterparts across the globe. Alternatively, she could choose to remain where she was with the DRCMC.
As a result of her work ethic, Hermione had accrued several weeks of paid leave. She had been strongly urged by her superiors to take some time to mull over the decision. She had no more than two weeks before her decision had to be handed down, and Hermione had never taken decisions such as this lightly. Thus, as she woke on that Monday in August, she had a difficult choice to make. But first, she was going to have some breakfast.
Wrapping herself in her worn dressing gown, Hermione yawned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Padding down the hallway in the late summer morning, Hermione was careful not to wake Padma Patil, one of her two housemates. Padma worked the overnight shift at St. Mungo's ward for Spell Damage as a resident Healer. Although Hermione and Padma had little to do with each other through most of their school careers, Hermione had been put in touch with her several years ago by a mutual acquaintance. Hermione had been looking to let some space in her home, inherited from her parents, and Padma had been looking for an affordable home away from the bustle of London. The two had a friendly, if not overly intimate, relationship and got on well. Padma was a wonderful housemate, very tidy and considerate, and due to her schedule, the two women hardly saw each other during the week.
Hermione had a much closer relationship with her other housemate, Terry Boot. Like Padma, Terry had been a Ravenclaw and hardly interacted with Hermione. However, Terry had joined the Ministry as a junior aide not long after Hermione, and the two had bonded over their shared worries and aspirations, and had tried their hardest to keep each other from overworking themselves in the early days of their careers. Terry had moved in a little over a year ago, after his longtime friend and roommate, Anthony Goldstein, had succumbed to an aggressive and incurable disease that had the Healers baffled. The war had left lasting damage in much of the wizarding population, and it was assumed that Anthony had contracted the disease at some point during the war. As a half-blood, he had received ill treatment by the Death Eaters running the Ministry and Hogwarts, and had never fully recovered. Terry had been by his side throughout the entirety of his decline, and had become a little more reserved in the aftermath of the tragedy.
Knowing Terry was at work, Hermione was much less careful of making noise as she passed by his room. Hermione occupied the master suite, which was once her parents, while Padma slept in the former guest room. Terry had moved into her childhood bedroom. Padma and Terry shared the hall toilet, while Hermione had a private bath.
The downstairs had recently been redecorated, in true wizarding fashion. An undectable extention charm had been used to expand the living quarters to incorporate a second den and a library that doubled as Hermione's office. The kitchen had been expanded to include a walk-in pantry and a large island workstation, and it was on this workstation that Hermione was pleased to find a pot of coffee, still fresh and warm. A note lay on the table, and Hermione recognized Terry's scrawl.
Herms,
Enjoy the coffee, made it just before leaving. Be proud, it has taken me well over a year to master the art of java-brewing. Working a half day today, Floo me and we'll grab some lunch before I come home.
Love, Terry
Hermione chuckled and greedily poured herself a mug of the rich brew. At almost thirty, Hermione had been dependent on caffeine for going on fifteen years. Terry had become quite adept at working the Muggle percolator, though the dishwasher still baffled him.
The kitchen cabinets provided little in the way foodstuffs, the sparse cabinets reminding Hermione that she hadn't done the shopping in nearly a month. However, the communal shelf in the icebox contained a dish of aloo mattar, one of Padma's family's special recipes. Padma made it about once a month, when her sister came to visit, and they always made leftovers to last a week. The Patil family had migrated to Britain when Padma and her twin sister Parvati were only infants. Her father had been a lawyer in Mumbai when he met her mother, an aid worker with AID trying to generate funding for a housing project. Varun and Nishi Patil were fantastic cooks with a deep sense of family. They often sent care packages to Padma and her housemates, and these parcels often included exotic spices and delicious candies that fascinated Hermione, who had never traveled to Asia. Padma was a fantastic cook, however, and Hermione always took the opportunity to indulge in her spicy creations, no matter the time of day.
With aloo mattar warming in the oven, Hermione rifled through the morning edition of The Daily Prophet, the wizarding newspaper that had been working diligently over the last ten years to rebuild its image as a legitimate news source. Although the rag had its moments, it was still largely a jumble of gossip and the occasional investigative piece, interspersed with Ministry-approved blurbs. Scanning the headlines, Hermione grew weary of the drudgery of celebrity life. Although her own person had largely melted away from the public eye, there was still the occasional piece rehashing her history. Today was one of these days, with a short article on page eleven with the intriguing heading, "Will Granger Be Running To Spain?". Scanning it, Hermione received a shock. Ron Weasley, her former lover of eight years, had announced his engagement to Susan Bones. The journalist who had written the story was trying to create a scandal, no doubt. The news of Hermione's job offers were hardly a secret, but Hermione had not expected her job offers to be drawn into the discussion of Ron's love life. The two had parted amicably almost four years ago. A steady acquaintance had emerged in the aftermath of their ruined relationship, but they rarely exchanged more than a few words at any given occasion. They were friendly, but were no longer friends, though Hermione was not certain that the development had much at all to do with their failed attempt at romance. Their friendship throughout their formative years had been volatile and prone to disruption, and Hermione had always wondered if their friendship would fizzle out without Harry or romance to cement them.
Truth be told, Hermione rarely saw Harry anymore, though they remained good friends. As the youngest Head of the Auror Department ever appointed, Harry was incredibly busy. He and Ginny Weasly, Ron's youngest sister and Hermione's dearest friend, had wed nearly eight years ago. Their oldest son, James, was nearly five years old. Their other children, Albus and Lily, were four and two, and while James spent most of his day at primary school, the younger two were a handful for the the fiery witch. Hermione occasionally babysat in the evenings, but she hadn't seen Ginny one-on-one in months. At twenty-seven, Ginny had settled into motherhood with grace.
The article, however, was a bit of a shock. Hermione and Ron hadn't had their names connected in the news for a fair while. She knew he had been seeing Susan, but had no idea they were that serious. The article was typical drivel, conjecturing that Hermione would choose to accept the job in Spain because she was fleeing reminders of her failed relationship. Eight years of her life had ended without any thought of further commitment, but Ron had proposed to Susan after scarcely eight months of courtship. The Prophet journalist was hoping, no doubt, to draw Hermione out and either catch a scoop on her love life (thinking Hermione would find it necessary to back up her indifference to Ron's news) or a whiff of what Hermione was doing professionally. As a Ministry employee, and a war hero to boot, Hermione had always been under scrutiny, and the upcoming change in her career would have resounding effects in the international wizarding community.
Tossing the paper aside with a snort of laughter, Hermione removed her leftovers from the oven and tucked in. After breakfast, she decided, she would find an old favorite on her packed bookshelves, and while away the morning.