Chapter 2
"Dear Harry and Ron (and Ginny, if you're there at Number Twelve),
I've finished my first week on the new job and lived to tell about it!
The Regional Ministry Offices here are certainly less impressive than the Ministry in London. We're housed in part of what used to be a small shopping district in an abandoned storefront. It's rather reminiscent of St. Mungo's, actually, but without the ugly female dummy in the window. Beyond the receptionist's space, one side of the suite holds two small offices and a break room. The Walk-In Clinic takes up all of the other side. Needless to say, it's not what you would call fashionable digs. No soaring atrium or fountains here!
My co-workers are pleasant enough. Sondra Foster is our receptionist, barely seventeen and only on the job for a month herself. She's sweet, but as ditzy as they come. Her mother nixed any plans for her to attend Hogwarts when you made it known that V. was back at the end of fourth year, and educated her at home. Which may be why Sondra only managed two O.W.L.'s and two N.E.W.T.s. (I saw her personnel record). Unfortunately, she's a bit in awe of me, which is rather annoying.
So is Clare Stringfellow, the semi-retired Auror who's based here. Do you know her? I suspect that she may have been good at her job back in the day, but her biggest claim to fame (from what she told me) was processing the Death Eaters from Voldemort War One before they were sent to Azkaban. I think she felt she had to impress me, bless her heart. It appears that being semi-retired in a Regional Office is probably the best situation for her.
On the other hand, Dex Davies, the mediwizard assigned here, doesn't appear impressed by me in the least (thank goodness!). He's older, tough as nails, and a self-described Adrenaline Junkie (that's a Muggle term for someone who loves risk-taking, Ron). Besides working at the walk-in clinic here in the building, he works some weekends doing First Aid at Quidditch matches. I suspect Ginny probably knows him.
If the people here heard about my fall from grace in Magical Creatures, they've not mentioned it. Hopefully I can make a fresh start without drawing attention to myself! There are only two families in my service area who have House-Elves in residence, so hopefully my notoriety will go unnoticed. I certainly don't plan to call on them, tempted as I might be.
I think I've found a place to live, at least temporarily. Cokeworth is definitely a town of two faces. It has the aura of a place that's fallen on hard times, but there are still nice areas around (which brings to mind your Mum, Harry). There's a large movement here of people buying the run-down homes and spiffing them up – gentrification, I believe it's called. Clare refers to them as urban pioneers trying to take back the bad neighborhoods. In fact, she has a nephew who's doing just that. He's a Squib, poor guy, who works as a Muggle builder, and he's been hard at work on his own place for a while. But he's leaving in a few days, going to work on a construction project in Devonshire for three months, so he'll be out of his house here and is looking for a renter to house-sit for that time. I'm going to see the place tomorrow, so I may pop back to London afterwards and tell you all about it.
As for my actual job, it's been rather undramatic so far. Sondra screens visitors and directs them to either Clare, Dex, or myself based on their needs. I've taken care of one woman who wants to sue Ollivander's for selling her a supposedly defective wand, another who has questions about her property taxes, and a nice older gentleman who needed help finding his lost dog, of all things. I was able to refer the two women to the correct Intake Reps in the proper departments at the Ministry and spare them a whole lot of red tape. As for the man with the lost dog, I had him come back with one of the dog's toys and used the dried saliva as the basis for a variation of the Point-Me charm. Needless to say, I could hardly use Accio on the poor animal, not to mention the problems that would result if Muggles saw a dog flying through the air. Anyway, I found the dog and reunited him with his very happy owner. There were others, as well, but no one with what you might call earth-shaking problems.
I know what you're thinking, that this work doesn't sound like something I should be wasting my time on. To some extent, that's true, but my co-workers tell me that the week was unusually slow all around.
I'll close for now and hopefully see you in person tomorrow to tell you about the house I may be renting.
All my love,
Hermione"
…..
I found the place easily enough.
The street was called Spinner's End, and the house was the second from the corner. The neighborhood, as Clare had warned me, was certainly was depressed, but there were bright spots everywhere. Nearly a third of the row houses were in the process of being rehabbed, some nearer completion than others from the look of it. Others sat vacant. The sounds of hammering and sawing were definitely in the air. At the end of one block, a sign in a store window announced, COMING SOON: COFFEE CARTEL. And although I did spot a small group of less-than-savory looking teens loitering about, there were also perfectly normal-looking people walking their dogs and chatting with neighbors. I stepped up to the door of Number Three and knocked.
"Hello!" A burly young man with sandy blond hair flung the door open. "Hermione?"
"Yes. And you must be Gavin Stringfellow."
"The same." He pumped my hand vigorously, nearly crushing it. "Please come in and have a look 'round, won't you?"
"Thank you." I stepped inside, resisting the urge to rub some feeling back into what remained of my hand.
"How are you liking Cokeworth, then? You were in London, Aunt Clare said. Quite a difference between here and there, eh?" Gavin shoved his own hands into the front pockets of his jeans.
"Quite, although it's easy enough to pop back to London if need be."
A strained smile crossed his face, and I remembered too late that Gavin Stringfellow was a Squib. Popping back and forth to London was a skill unavailable to him.
"So this is your house," I said, looking all around the place in an attempt to divert the conversation from his lack of magical ability.
"It is." A note of pride crept into Gavin's voice. "Bought it two years ago. Dreadful wreck, it was. Some of the floorboards rotted clear away, plumbing gone in the kitchen… Here, let me give you the tour, although I must warn you that it won't take long. It's just a two-up, two-down, after all."
"It looks like brand new," I commented, gazing around the sitting room. "It smelly freshly painted. Pretty little fireplace..."
"Finished up the plasterboard and painting in here a week ago," Gavin said, looking pleased with himself. "The fireplace, by the way, hasn't been cleaned yet, so I don't think you'll want to attempt a fire."
I smiled at him. "Being as it's almost July, I don't think I'll be wanting one anyway."
"That's all right, then. Furniture's kind of— I dunno—basic." Gavin grinned sheepishly, waving a hand toward the very mismatched and worn furniture in the room. "Bachelor pad and all. Sorry."
The furniture had indeed seen better days. There was a lumpy green couch, a director's chair, and a wooden crate doubling as a coffee table. Still, it didn't matter; I'd only be renting for three months. "Not to worry. I lived with two single guys in London. I'm accustomed to the lived-in look."
"Your friends, right? Harry Potter and the other one? The ginger?"
I nodded. Poor Ron; he really was always consigned to being Harry's ginger friend. He'd finally made peace with it, for the most part.
"Aunt Clare told me all about the war. About Harry and you, and all the things you did."
I wasn't about to allow Gavin a stab at hero worship. "We did what we had to in order to fight and survive," I said flatly.
"Sure. Wish I could have done something, though. Fight like you all did. Aunt Clare was pretty terrified of Voldemort, even with her being an Auror and all."
"Believe me, you were better off out of it." In the corner of the room, I spotted three guitars and some amplifiers. "Are you a musician?"
"Sort of. I dabble. Play with some friends on occasion. That's why I really wanted someone to watch the place while I'm away. I've got a lot of money sunk into all my gear."
"I'm sure." I moved toward what was obviously the kitchen, Gavin trailing behind. "Oh, this is nice."
The kitchen had fresh white cabinets on one wall; there was a relatively new stove and refrigerator in place, along with a microwave—"A man can't live without a microwave," Gavin joked—and a small table for two.
"The usual scrap of a yard out the back," he pointed out. "I've got a grill out there, and you're welcome to use it. I grill a lot in good weather; it's a change from the microwave, you know."
I stepped outside and looked around the space.
"Is that storage?" I asked, pointing to what seemed to be a shed.
Gavin took one look at me and burst out laughing. "You've not spent much time in neighborhoods like this, have you, Hermione? It's the loo."
I stared at him in horror. "It's—I have to— "
"Is that a problem?" he asked, all innocence.
Words failed me.
"The original loo," Gavin amended, eyes twinkling at the expression on my face. "Not to worry. Any of these places that have been fixed up have all the modern conveniences. I divvied up the second bedroom and put in a regular bath. You'll see it when we go upstairs."
"So… people aren't still using these, are they?"
"Could be, but not likely. Forget what they say about the good old days; they weren't so good for everybody."
I thought about Harry's mum and her parents. Had the Evanses lived nearby? Surely they had an indoor loo. If not, perhaps that accounted for some of his Aunt Petunia's dour disposition.
"Let me show you upstairs," Gavin offered. "I'm afraid that while the new loo is functional, it's not completely done. Haven't finished painting and tiling and that sort of thing. Actually, there's not even a door on it. And as for the bedroom, I haven't touched that at all yet."
I turned to go, when something caught my eye: the faintest shimmer of something above the wall separating the yard of Number Three from that of Number One. Was that a ward? Here? I walked over to the wall and tentatively waved a hand over it; immediately, I felt my hand being pushed back toward me. But Gavin was a Squib, so how…?
"Gavin…"
"Yeah?" He'd been about to go back inside, and now paused in the doorway.
"I feel some sort of magical barrier here, like a fence. Did your aunt put that up for some reason?"
"Don't know anything about that. I can't feel magic, you know."
I'd reminded him of his Squib status again; I sighed and followed him into the kitchen.
"Look, I'm really sorry. I don't mean to keep reminding you of things you can't do," I said.
"It's okay, Hermione. I've been around witches and wizards all my life and nobody gives it a second thought." Gavin shrugged it off. "I'm used to it. I think it probably bothers you more than it bothers me. Any anyway, I've got a lovely Muggle girlfriend, so that means I don't have to explain anything to her about magic. I'd rather have her than any silly wand right now."
I smiled. "She sounds like a lucky girl. What's her name?"
"Brenda. I'm thinking I might ask her to marry me when I get back from the Devonshire job."
Gavin led me upstairs. The sight of a fully functioning indoor toilet was a joy after contemplating how residents used to cope. And while the room was clearly unfinished, the toilet flushed, the sink and shower worked, and that was all that counted.
"The front bedroom," Gavin announced, leading me into the largest room on the first floor. I haven't had a chance to finish the walls in here. A few breezes might get through, but it should be comfortable enough for you this time of year. There's no closet yet, I'm afraid."
He indicated a clothes rack on wheels, standing in front of the window. I rolled it away from the window to peer outside.
"Sorry," he put in guiltily. "I don't have drapes up. I used to have a blanket nailed over the window in the winter, but it fell down and I never put it back up again. I just push the clothes rack in front of it for privacy."
"No problem." A few seconds of wandwork would take care of that, I thought. And then as I glanced down to the street, I noticed the girl.
She looked to be a teen, and was walking slowly—almost too slowly for a normal passage down the sidewalk—and trying to study the house next door without being obvious about it.
"What's she doing?" I wondered aloud. Gavin came to peer over my shoulder.
"It's the oddest thing," he said. "I've noticed it for a week or so now, a couple of girls doing the same thing. They just walk back and forth for a while as if they were hoping someone would open the front door of Number One and talk to them."
"What's the attraction?"
"No idea."
"Is the house occupied?"
"Yeah. At least, I think so. Most of the time it seems like it's vacant, but lately I've noticed some lights on."
"Strange."
And while we continued to watch out the window, the girl disappeared around the corner—only to reappear moments later, walking back the other direction, but across the street. And again, she was surreptitiously studying Number One.
"So," Gavin said, breaking into my thoughts, "what do you think, Hermione? Think you'll want to rent the place? I hate leaving it vacant if I'm gone for three months. The neighborhood's a lot better than it used to be, but I don't want some punk breaking in and stealing my guitars and my sound stuff."
"I'll be happy to rent it, Gavin. It's perfect until I find a more permanent residence."
We settled on a ridiculously low figure for rent.
"You don't need to sign a lease or anything," Gavin assured me. "In fact, you could just give Aunt Clare a check each month. She'll see that it gets into my account."
We shook hands on the deal. This would work well, I thought. The three months would give me time to look around Cokeworth and find a nice place to live once Gavin reclaimed his home at the end of September.
