Nostalgia and a Minister
Hermione Granger was standing in the living room of her childhood home. A lot of her spare time had lately been spent wishing that she would be able to call it home again some day soon. She looked over at the empty fireplace of which no flame had been lit in a long while, it brought back memories of snowy winter nights spent watching the television with her parents or curling up on the sofa with a good spell book. Her right hand fell from her folded arms to her new wand (Chestnut, ten and a quarter inches, dragon heartstring core, bought from the recently re-opened Ollivanders Wand Shop in Diagon Alley) and she whipped it out of her jeans pocket. She pointed it at the empty fireplace and thought very hard the word "Incendio!" and flames sprouted from the tip of her wand, igniting the old coal in the fireplace giving the room more warmth, not though she needed it as it was early July. Hermione had gotten very good at non verbal spells.
She left the living room and moved down a hallway once filled with photographs and rare artwork, now empty, moving towards the kitchen. Thoughts of muggle photos reminded her that photos could move in the wizarding world when developed in a certain potion, and you could also have a nice chat with a portrait. Whilst in the kitchen she had flashbacks of helping her mother or father cook dinner. Hermione had never been a good cook, anything that she had ever cooked either came out burnt, stayed frozen or both at the same time, so she had mainly helped by fetching things. The thoughts of cooking and fire mixed together in Hermione's head and she thought of every birthday she spent in this house in the years before Hogwarts; how she would blow out the candles in the cakes her mother would bake her. Of course Mrs. Granger's cooking would be considered pitiful to that of Mrs. Weasley, whose house she was staying in, the same house that her recent new boyfriend, Ron, lived. She had had a crush on him for a while which she now thought might have been sort of obvious to a selective few (pretty much everyone who ever saw the two of them together before).
Hermione walked back down the hallway and made her way to the stairs, she walked up them and into her parent's old bedroom. She pushed her masses of bushy, brown hair behind her ears and out of her eyes which stared at the empty shelves once filled with trinkets, souvenirs and books. Her parents were very intellectual people (for instance Hermione had been named after a character in a Shakespeare play) and, if anyone had ever met Hermione, they would know that this was something that she had inherited gravely. She remembered the posters of diagrams of teeth and fun facts about enamel loss and tooth decay, her parents had been dentists, they always made sure that Hermione brushed her teeth at least four times a day (Once after every meal and once before going to sleep) because,
"You can never be too careful." Her father had always told her. Of course she always did after the tooth horror stories they used to tell her. She missed her parents very much. Before she went, Ron and her best friend, Harry Potter went hunting for Horcruxes (and successfully, resulting in Harry's defeat, and the death, of Lord Voldemort, the most powerful dark wizard of all time), she modified her parent's memories to stop them from getting tortured for information. They now thought that they were called Wendell and Monica Wilkins whose life ambition was to move to Australia, which, of course, they did, however they didn't know tat they even had a daughter, now it was only a matter of finding them.
Then she walked on to her own old room with a single tear spilling down her cheek. It was joined by a few more when she saw her empty room besides from her old bed sitting there, gathering dust, lonely and surrounded by vacant space.
Hermione's nostalgia was then interrupted, before she was able to break into a full on sob, by something that jumped through the window glass, without smashing it, and landed on her bed. It was a small, silvery dog, to be exact; it was a small, silvery Jack-Russell terrier which she recognized as Ron's patronous charm. Then the Jack- Russell terrier spoke with Ron's voice.
"Hey sweetheart, n'ah, I can't really pull of sweetheart can I, anyw- Oh stop laughing George, anyway, you're there again aren't you, didn't I tell you to stop going there because you'll just get here crying again," Hermione had come from this house crying for the past four days now, "Mums served up lunch, better get here fast before Ginny scoffs the whole lot- OW! Ginny that really hurt, go AWAY! I'm trying to talk to my girlfriend!" She let out her first giggle in many hours, "Well, bye then, I lo- I mean, um, see you soon."
The Jack-Russell then evaporated into silver vapor and faded away. Hermione made her way down the stairs and back to the living room and looked at the same fire that she, herself, had created, for the second time she whipped out her wand and muttered under her breath the incantation,
"Aguamenti" and a jet of water gushed from the tip of her wand and extinguished the flames in the fireplace and she stuffed her wand back into her jean pocket. When she reached the front door she realized that there was no point in opening it. She closed her eyes and focused with all of her might on the burrow and gave a little spin on the spot, she had dissapparated.
She opened her eyes and was staring up and down at the magnificent Burrow and realized something strange, she was much taller than usual. She found her answer when by looking down and she noticed that she noticed that she was standing right on top of the Weasley's chicken coop. Her legs jumped to the ground before she realized what they were doing and the rest of her body followed, she walked through the gate of the chicken pen and past a few gnomes on the way to the Burrow's kitchen. Huge amounts of sandwiches, sausage rolls, scotch eggs and all manors of homemade savory products which were no doubt made by Mrs. Weasley and were no doubt delicious.
At the long table there sat: Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Percy, George, Ginny and, Hermione was pleased to see, Harry and Ron. She sat down at the empty place setting opposite Harry and next to Ron and they all tucked in (she was right, the food was delicious). For a while the three of them sat eating in silence, just knowing that two of her favorite people in the world were with her was comfort enough. Finally Harry broke the silence and spoke,
"Cheers for teaching us how to do that talking patronous thing, I'm sure that will come in handy for messaging you quickly whilst you're at Hogwarts this year." It was true, Hermione had decided to finish her seventh year of Hogwarts to get all of her N.E.W.T qualifications. Ron then spoke through a mouthful of quiche,
"I' 'as c'me 'n u'ful, I u'd I' ho'ay."
"What on earth did you just say Ron?" asked Harry sounding a tad bit disgusted.
"Oh, he said: It has come in useful, I used it today." Translated Hermione who had become an expert in translating what she liked to call: Ancient Ron's.
Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were sitting in the living room of the Burrow, full from a very satisfying meal; Hermione was in Ron's arms and Ginny in Harry's. They were all watching Ron snatch and return light from an oil lamp with Dumbledore's deluminator (a device of Dumbledore's own making which resembled a cigarette lighter). Mr. Weasley then burst in all of a sudden looking slightly scared and blurted out almost too fast for humans to understand,
"Minister for Magic here, now, and needs to talk to you!" Mr. Weasley stepped aside (when doing so knocked off his horn rimmed glasses onto the floor and bending over, squinting, trying to find them and, once doing so, stood up straight and official looking) to reveal the large, black man that they all knew as Kingsley Shacklebolt, before the Minister was Kingsley it would have come as more of a shock to have him in the house, but as Kingsley was a friend to the family, it was no stranger than having an aunt or uncle round for afternoon tea. The only slightly shocking part of Kingsley's sudden appearance was that his hand was resting on the shoulder of none other than Neville Longbottom, a very dear friend to them all.
Hermione was surprised to see Ron rise up to bow at Kingsley's presence but sat down embarrassed after everyone else in the room (even Kingsley himself) sniggered at him.
"I admire your, oh, let's say… loyalty, Mr. Weasley," started Kingsley in a booming sort of voice, "It is actually you, Mr. Potter and Mr. Longbottom here that I desire a chat with, Miss Weasley, Miss Granger and Arthur, would you mind giving us some privacy." At this, Mr. Weasley, Ginny and Hermione all left the room and closed the door behind them,
"What do you think he wants to talk to them about?" Ginny was the first to ask out of many who wanted to.
"I don't know." Replied Hermione, "Maybe some sort of special job for the Ministry." after suggesting this though, Hermione thought that why would they ask Neville to do such a thing and not Hermione, that is, if it were true. Harry, Ron and Hermione were like the three musketries, they were inseparable.
"Oh, I bet it's exciting, well, I hope it is" said Mr. Weasley.
"As long as it's not dangerous, right Arthur?" said Mrs. Weasley who, no-one had noticed, was in the same room.
"Oh yes Molly, of course." Replied Mr. Weasley, Hermione noticed his smile start to fade slightly. For the next five or so minutes they argued about what they could be discussing, they covered everything from returning an overdue library book to being hired as dragon tamers g the cure to hiccoughs.
Soon enough, Kingsley, Harry, Ron and Neville emerged from out of the living room doorway and Kingsley was the first to speak,
"Thanks for greeting me into your home Arthur and Molly, the house is looking lovely as always, however I'm afraid that I must bid you all good day." and Kingsley dissapparated.
"Well what did he want to talk to you about?" asked Hermione, grasping Ron's shoulders trying to shake an answer out of him but it was Neville, who answered,
"They want us to join the Ministry as aurors after our success at the Battle of Hogwarts" he said proudly.
"What did you tell him?" Ginny asked Harry enthusiastically but Ron butt in,
"We're not mad, we said no of course." Everyone looked at him shocked, "Just kidding, w-we said yes!" then Hermione wondered why she had not been asked to be an auror, sure she was going to complete her seventh year, get her N.E. and lead what will go down in history as the great house-elf revolution, but still, an offer would have been nice as all
She had no time to dwell upon this however because before she could worry about school, N.E. or platform nine and three quarters, she had an errand to run… in Australia.
