DISCLAIMER: the only thing I own are the plot and the original characters of this story, everything else you may recognize belongs to J.K. Rowling. My only profit is my personal entertainment and hopefully yours.
WARNINGS: pureblood!Hermione, OOC, rated M for sexual encounters, language, mentions of violence; modern.
This fanfiction comes with dedicated website: godisawitchfic dot tumblr dot com. You can also find me as slytherinsauce on both tumblr and pinterest with more content dedicated to this story.
Author's notes: hello! Down below is a new chapter for you to read, which I really hope you will enjoy. Something that's been known to me since day one comes to light now, and I'm really curious to see what you guys think of it (or if you had thought about this happening). Without further ado, I'll leave you to it! I'm thinking of squeezing another update in before Christmas, but in case I don't I hope you'll have wonderful holidays wherever you are and whatever you're going to do.
32.
PRESS
.
" they throwin' shade 'cause they see me on top
tell that bitch to pull up, I'ma send you the drop
press, press, press, press, press
cardi don't need more press
kill 'em all, put them hoes to rest
walk in, bulletproof vest
(…) ding dong
must be that whip that I ordered "
(Malfoy Manor: grand dining room – Wiltshire, England;
October 21st, 2003, around 20:10 p.m.)
Lucius, Narcissa and their granddaughter were missing the weekly dinner the Nott twins usually ate in their home.
Draco had sold Theo some excuse about the pair going to the opera, but Hermione knew he simply wanted to confront him about what she'd recently shared with her brother without his own parents being present.
If only she'd had had a single instant alone with him, the witch would have probably thanked him for the gesture: she wasn't sure she was ready for the older Malfoys to know about her involvement with Draco, though she imagined Narcissa to have her fair share of suspects by now.
It was better to keep them in the dark for a little longer.
One thing was Pansy and Theo, or even Harry, knowing about their liaison, and another was the couple who'd brought the man she was shagging into this world.
"Don't be so jumpy, Malfoy", she tried to dissipate the tension, gesturing at her brother. "I told you he was cool with it".
The three of them were sitting at opposite sides of the gigantic table, very far from one another, and Draco looked as if he'd swallowed a toad.
"If you're talking about your relationship then yes, I'm very cool with it", Theo chirped. "However, I don't appreciate being kept in the dark as if I'm some child who's gonna throw a fit".
At that he eyed his blond friend quite blatantly.
She guessed it was about the talk they'd had had in Nott Manor which she wasn't supposed to have eavesdropped, and stepped back from the conversation so that they could talk things through, focusing her attention on the telephone in her hands, instead.
She had a new message and two unanswered calls. Three days after giving the order, her guy in Knockturn Alley finally had something for her.
He claimed to have found some thrown out copies of the newspaper she'd mentioned and asked where they could meet so that he could hand them over. Quickly narrowing down her options to the following morning, Hermione sent him a short reply with a time and a place before locking the screen and putting her phone down, on one side of her still empty plate.
Draco and Theo seemed to be making their peace.
"…I felt bad keeping it from you, but I would have felt worse if she broke up with me just because I told you", the former was apologizing.
The latter waved him off. "It's okay, mate. Just don't make it this bloody complicated the next time".
Draco winked at her. "The whole point of not screwing this up is that I'm hoping there won't be a next time".
His line came out cheesier than he'd probably intended, but Hermione's heart started racing anyway.
She didn't care if she looked dumb.
She wanted to smile at the amazingly peculiar man who'd been sweeping her off her feet for quite some time now, so that's precisely what she did.
Their dove-eyes stare off was interrupted by her brother.
"EW!", he exclaimed, though he sounded amused rather than bothered. "Too soon!"
Hermione moved her gaze from Draco's face, and she flashed Theo a smile that was too sweet to be even remotely authentic.
"But how, my darling brother, didn't you just say you're not a child?"
Then she blew Malfoy a kiss, making sure her expression was as sappy as it possibly could, to which her sibling replied by covering his eyes.
"Very mature, mate", the blond smirked.
"Well, would you cut me some slack here, Draco", Theo protested. "I missed the stage of her life where boys started hitting on her and I jumped in to preserve her honour".
The witch narrowed her brows, but before she could intervene and set the record straight (I could defend my honour alone very well, thank you very much) a loud "Pop!" echoed through the room and their plates were magically filled with slices of honey glazed duck.
It was one of her brother's favourites dishes, and a staple of Saturday dinners here at the Manor.
Hermione liked it very much too, besides she didn't have lunch today and she was starving, so she threw herself into her meal, temporarily disregarding the conversation still unfolding at the table.
"Yeah, sure. 'Cause I can totally picture a fourteen year old you going after Victor Krum with the purpose of kicking his ass", Draco chuckled.
Theo seemed torn between laughing along and get offended, so he just elegantly flipped him off before turning his attention to the plate in front of him. His fork was almost touching the delicate glaze when he looked up again with a pensive face.
"You're right. I can't picture fourteen year old me doing that, either. I think it was my best moment from fourth year was when he accidentally photobombed us", he said, referring to the tradition Pansy had forced upon her group of friends back then, which consisted of taking a picture of the entire Slytherin class of 1991 the last day of school every year.
In 1994 a world famous Quidditch player had happened to walk by at the right time, and his presence in the picture, with his surprised and distorted face, had really been the highlight of an otherwise dull and depressing year at Hogwarts for Theodore.
"I bet you still have it", Draco said.
Having sedated the chasm in her stomach, Hermione's attention returned to the two wizards, who still had to touch their plates while hers was already empty.
"I'd love to see that picture", she chimed in.
"You can bet your ass I still have it".
(Nott Manor: tea room – somewhere in Dorset, England;
October 21st, 2003, around 23:00 p.m.)
Nobody could have predicted the path that evening was destined to take.
The odds (statistics even) were absolutely in the favour of a pleasurable experience coming out of their gathering – three people who cared about each other wining and dining and talking about whatever – yet good old Ms. Luck seemed to have other plans.
A harmless and light-hearted conversation had opened Pandora's vase, and what had happened, unluckily, couldn't be undone.
It wasn't long after supper when the trio decided to move the party from one ancestral home to another, and it was roughly nine p.m. when they landed on the white marble of the main parlour, some more swiftly than others.
They came to Nott Manor to retrieve the infamous picture of Victor Krum photobombing Theo and the others, but more than half an hour passed before any of them remembered it. It was Hermione.
Theo left the room with the bottle of Dragon Barrel Brandy they'd been drinking held tightly in his hand, shouting his promise to return soon with the photo on his way out, while Draco and Hermione managed to smuggle a good five minutes make-out session on the sofa.
The only reason the blond Slytherin was there could be found in the substantial amount of wine he'd already downed over dinner, which seemed to have miraculously sped up his recovery process, but she was grateful for the one-on-one time nonetheless, no matter how scarce.
It hadn't been since he'd woken up and the two of them had talked in his hospital room that they'd had some actual time for themselves, and she was starting to miss him.
More and more often she thought about the day she was supposed to return to Australia, if not permanently at least more often and for longer periods of time, but since it crashed her heart every time, once more Hermione decided to post-pone the issue.
She kissed him harder. "I'm so glad you're getting better", she confessed out of the blue, giving Draco only the time to smile at her before her lips crushed on his again.
By this point her crotch area was grinding on his, and under normal circumstances it wouldn't have taken much else for the couple to bring things to the next level; unluckily for them, though, Theo was probably on his way back to the room with the infamous picture.
Punctual as a clock, her brother returned less than a minute later and with a huge, black box he needed both hands to hold up.
"I couldn't remember in which album it was", he hiccupped, and only now Hermione noted how the Dragon Barrel Brandy dangerously struggled to keep balance on its surface. "So I took them all. Well, mine at least", he shrugged. "I locked everything else in the dungeons. Well, everything that belonged to him".
With unsuspected dexterity the dark-haired wizard managed to set the box down on the coffee-table, and then, as if he didn't have a single care in the world, he sat on the sofa, not too far from where she was still on top of his best friend.
Theo cleared his throat and smirked. "Whenever you guys are ready".
She made a mental note for the future: her brother was a lot more amicable and overall accepting when he was drunk; next time she had to deliver bad news, she was going to make sure he had a glass of something heavy in his hands.
Climbing down from Draco's lap, whose cheeks were prettily flushed though she couldn't tell if it was the alcohol or it had been her, she took ownership of the portion of cushion between the two Slytherins, and quickly opened the box.
Before she could do anything, Theo snatched the albums lying at the top and set them aside. "Those are from way before Hogwarts", he explained, indicating four thick envelopes. "It has to be in one of the others. You'll probably recognize it because at the time I gave it its own bloody page".
As an adult man he seemed embarrassed of the way he'd been such a fangirl about Krum back in the day, so Hermione couldn't pass on the opportunity of twisting the knife in the wound.
"If only I had known how much you loved him, I would have told him to take you to Yule", she teased.
"A true Cinderella story", Draco piped up.
She eyed him suspiciously. "I can't see you as the Cinderella type".
He shrugged. "Adhara loves that crap".
"Are you two lovebirds gonna help me or not?", Theo interrupted the exchange. He'd already gone through one of the less voluminous albums.
They set out to work in friendly silence, but none of them got lucky at first try. Or the second.
Besides from the occasional comment about one embarrassing picture or the other they were proceeding rather quickly, and it wasn't long before the box was halfway empty.
Theo very seriously declared it was time for a break and poured three fresh glasses from his trusted bottle of Dragon Barrel Brandy.
Hermione finished hers completely before opening her third photo album. The cover on this one was a charming light blue, and it opened its sequence with a picture of a beautiful infant Theo smiling at the camera.
Instantly realizing that the picture she was looking for couldn't be here she was about to put the album down and discard it for later view, but one more glance at the picture compelled her to turn the page.
Again. And again. And again.
Then it happened. Her eyes fell on an extremely familiar face.
Why the fuck had been her muggle piano teacher invited to Theodore's first birthday, and why had he been the one cradling the birthday boy?
She turned another page.
What was Mr. Boyer doing in Nott Manor, acting as if he owned the place?
"Oh shit".
She must have spoken rather than thought, because instantly she felt crowded.
"Is everything okay?" Theo. "Oh. Oh".
"What's up, Granger, have you seen a ghost?" This was Draco.
"How appropriate of you to phrase it like that".
Hermione had always known truth could be a bitter pill to swallow, and her experience supported the theory, but the one she was facing right now still managed to play quite a number on her.
It seemed like it was inevitable for people she trusted to let her down.
"I can't fucking believe it!", growled Theo, fuming. "I knew he was a massive jerk but this… THIS goes beyond every fucking limit".
She could second that. The same rage and disappointment ran through her veins, too, only in her case it took the shape of icy cold silence.
The last words she'd spoken had been among the hardest of her entire life, and she was regretting them immensely: she could ignore a thought, but not a statement, and especially not one like that.
I've met him.
Her encounter with Cantankerus Nott, however, hadn't been a touch-and-run deal like the one with his wife Anastasia: the latter had simply showed her face once, spoke mysterious riddles she wouldn't have thought about for many years to come and disappeared in the very depths of her memory.
Her husband was a different matter.
If the deceased wizard really was also Brennan Boyer, the man who'd given her piano lessons for years, and indeed he was, then he'd had an influence on a very young and very impressionable Hermione that was anything but lightweight.
He'd helped shaping the person she was today, he'd given her advice about things she hadn't had the courage to discuss with William and Jane.
She was feeling sick.
A detail in Cantankerus' letter popped back into her mind. Something apparently trivial, but that she now knew to have had a very precise meaning.
"Where do you keep his painting?"
Chances Theodore had burnt it were extremely high, and she wouldn't have blamed him if he did.
(Nott Manor: the dungeons – somewhere in Dorset, England;
October 21st, 2003, around 23:45 p.m.)
It turned out their father's portrait had managed to survive the bonfire made of his possessions which his son had lit up as his first formal act as Lord of Nott Manor.
Theo had removed the canvas from its spot on one wall of the man's personal study, the one behind the giant desk, and after dropping him in the dungeons he'd slowly but surely proceeded to gradually forget all about its existence.
The fact he hadn't had enough balls to burn the last trace of his father from the face of the earth didn't mean he was ever going to be ready to confront him.
However, his sister didn't seem to share his opinion, and arguing her way through the last half an hour Hermione had convinced him to finally face his fear.
Here I come, dad – he thought.
Draco was trailing silently behind them, a victim of the circumstances: there wasn't much he could say that could sound even remotely helpful, but at the same time he was forced to stay and see what was about to happen, because there was a distinct possibility either one of the Nott siblings would freak out epically very soon.
"You don't have to come if you don't want to", she said as her right hand touched the handle of the heavy wooden door. "But I really need to do this".
Theo nodded. "It's ok. I guess it'll be easier if we do it together".
The wizard stepped into the dungeons holding the Dragon Barrel Brandy as a weapon, but no one said a word about it.
Nine-hundred-and-fifty-two days of eternity had been more than enough for Cantankerus Nott to make up his mind and realize he absolutely despised it.
Unlike his wife, who was taking a nap in the canvas next to his own, her beauty expertly captured by the fingers who'd painted her, those at the perimeter of his left hand, the late head of house Nott was not a quiet soul.
He hadn't said a word when Theo had finally returned to the Manor after the war and removed him from the wall, nor he'd given any sign of being a wizarding painting in the first place: for all his son knew, Cantankerus' self-portrait could not answer if asked a question.
He'd stood still and watched him consume himself over his last letter, demanding repeatedly he'd tell him where to find his sister, and very soon his son had stopped coming.
Anastasia had stayed by his side through all of it. Given a choice, she'd decided to remain with her apparently motionless husband and spend the beginning of her eternal rest in the Manor's dungeons, depriving herself of the company of her very son.
Theodore had been categoric: she'd asked her to choose between himself and his father, and oddly enough she'd said goodbye to her child.
His wife still refused to tell him why.
It seemed tonight was as good a time as ever to find out.
Steps echoed from a distance before the handle was turned and the door opened for the first time in two years.
The first thing he heard was Theo's voice, which sounded more mature than he remembered. "I know you want answers, Hermione, but I'm afraid that pleasure is not available to us. The man painted himself a muggle portrait".
He was followed by a feminine sigh and a patronizing tone he'd long ago stopped hoping to hear ever again. "There's no way such a narcissist would miss the opportunity to haunt this world from his grave".
The one about to come was a now or never type of moment, and Cantankerus threw himself right in the middle of it with his old aplomb.
"I'm afraid your sister's right on this one, son".
He'd waited for them to come closer and now that he could finally take a look at them, after years of imagining whom they were destined to become, it didn't matter that they both hated him and that this first time was probably going to turn into the last and only one.
Just seeing them side by side, in a way his foolish and youthful mistakes had never allowed, filled the late Lord Nott's heart with invaluable joy.
His daughter hissed. "You".
The hatred in her eyes Cantankerus had seen it before in Theo's, and to some extent in Anastasia's ever since they'd been reunited in painting form after his death.
He tried to ignore her reproachful look, or the way it hit right where it hurt the most, but his son had a faster reaction.
"I can't believe you did this to her", he accused. Only now did the dead wizard realize there was a third person in the dungeons, and briefly he wondered what Lucius' son could be doing in his house at such a late hour. "You were always the worst kind of father a child could have, but after everything you put our family through, I always thought that it was losing your daughter that broke you. I never suspected you were rotten inside to begin with".
Theo made a pause, taking the time to let his words sink.
He was always so dramatic.
"She was right there!", the current Lord of the Manor shouted. "The entire time! I thought she was dead… I thought- I thought I had killed her. But she was right there!", he repeated, his voice dropping an octave.
His face was red, and a vein ran through the otherwise silky surface of his neck. In his right hand he brandished a bottle his father immediately recognized, with which, gesticulating, he cleaved the air up, down, right and left.
"I did what was best for her", Cantankerus said.
It was probably the one-hundredth time he'd repeated himself that just today. Truth was that year after year, as Eloise grew up far away from home and he'd seen his family falling apart, it had become more and more difficult to convince himself that he had, indeed, made the right call on that fateful night, more than twenty years ago.
Regrets were an awful thing to carry on one's shoulders, and the wizard had many of them, some heavier than others.
"It's my prerogative to be the judge of that", Hermione chimed in. "And no, sir, you did not. But that's not why I'm here".
Her father heard her, and deliberately decided to ignore her: there were so many things he wanted to know and, he suspected, very little time to get his questions rolling.
"Eloise", he called. "I'm very happy to see you".
"The feeling's obviously not mutual", she replied, her face a mask of indifference.
If over the years he hadn't grown to know her as well as he did, Cantankerus would have thought she couldn't care less about the little reunion.
On his left side, Anastasia began to stir.
"Cantankerus? What's going on?", his wife asked, opening her eyes and slowly metabolizing the scene unfolding in front of her.
She had given up hope so long ago, and before she could realize it was her children who'd came to the dungeon, Anastasia Nott had started crying.
"Mum".
Tears were piling up in the corners of Theo's eyes, too.
"My boy…", she trailed off, uncertainly, as her gaze turned to Eloise. "He found you".
There was a happiness in her voice which her husband had all but forgotten, and it rekindled the flame in his heart, hearing again such a sound after so many years of cold stares and silence.
At last, his family was reunited.
Only its members seemed to be rolling for two opposite teams, and his own, he feared, was made of a single person: himself.
"I call bullshit", Hermione said. "Really, I don't have time for this".
"Hermione!", Cantankerus scolded in the same way he used to when rehearsing at the piano she'd miss a note just before the end of an otherwise perfectly executed piece. "Control yourself, for the love of Merlin".
She pretended not to hear him. "Coming to see you was going to be my last resort, but discovering I was trolled by the only adult in my childhood of whom I still had a good opinion accelerated the process", she confessed. "I only have one question for you. Can you think of anyone who had a personal vendetta against you or this family?"
"That's a very specific question", he replied. "Care to elaborate on what's happening?"
"Honestly, I do not. Just answer the bloody question".
Cantankerus pondered his options: on one hand he could carry the conversation his way and risk for it to end immediately, while on the other he could go along with whatever she wanted and buy himself some time.
He decided for the latter.
"When I died many people were still holding grudges. I'm afraid it'll take me some time to put all the names together", he confessed.
"Make your list, I'll send someone to write it down two days from now. Have a lovely night".
And with that Hermione turned their back on the paintings, whispering something in her brother's ear before marching to the back of the room, where he grabbed the young and still silent Malfoy scion by the arm.
"It was, umh- Goodbye, Mr. Nott", Draco jabbered. "Nice to see you, Mrs. Nott", he greeted Anastasia, whose tears seemed to be diminishing. "I'll call you tomorrow, mate", he said to Theo.
Cantankerus' eyes focused on their intertwined hands as he watched them leave the room. He turned them to his son, reproachfully.
"How long have they been seeing each other?"
Theodore took his sweet time to reply. "Very soon after I was finally reunited with my sister", he supplied. "And that would be right before the beginning of summer. This year. With no thanks to you, of course".
Nott Senior couldn't believe his ears.
"Two years? It took two years?", he boomed. "I am very disappointed in you, son".
"Cantankerus", growled Anastasia in warning.
Theo waved her off. "I'm sorry but I don't give a fuck", he replied, suavely, looking his father straight in the eyes. No trace was left on his face of the tears he'd just shed. "Yes, it took me two years to finally get a hold of her and it was only a lucky guess. Right after the war she went to Australia. She lived there for five years".
His mother brought her hands to her mouth. "What have we done?"
"You royally fucked up the lives of not one but two of your children", their son answered, even though he wasn't supposed to have heard the question in the first place. "And you knew it all along", he turned to Anastasia. "How could you know he was so close to her and still let me believe she was dead? That she had died so that I could live?"
"Don't speak to your mother like that", Cantankerus reproached, and for a moment he thought of all the times he'd slapped him in the face for not talking appropriately to his mother.
"You don't understand, Theo", Anastasia said, looking a little more determined. "We did everything that was in our power to protect you and your sister. Unluckily, things didn't go as we planned them".
"Luck has nothing to do with what happened to us. He made his choice", he accused, pointing an accusatory finger at Cantankerus, "and you, mum, you stood by his side and not ours".
"You weren't there. You don't know what happened to the people who turned Tom Riddle down", Anastasia murmured, repeating an explanation she'd pronounced many times before, when she was alive.
It was the same her husband had given to her.
"Uncle Euriphides survived both wars by staying neutral, funding the Order of the Phoenix and raising two daughters. Anything along this line is a lie you're telling yourself because you don't want to admit you were wrong".
They didn't know how to argue with that.
Theo smashed the Dragon Barrel Brandy bottle on the dungeon's floor and looked down at the many glass pieces on the ground before smirking in his parents' direction.
To Cantankerus he now seemed way more sober than when he'd entered the room.
"Ricochet will be visiting you in two days to collect the list", was Theodore's farewell.
When the door slammed on its hinges, on his left side Anastasia started to cry once more.
Cantankerus wanted to die again.
(The Leaky Cauldron – Diagon Alley, London, England;
October 24th, 2003, around 17:55 p.m.)
The pub was crowded and didn't smell its best that Tuesday afternoon, filled as it was with Quidditch enthusiasts and Ministry's employees in desperate need of their happy hour.
After the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade, the Cauldron had decided to make a subscription to MagiTech and stream Quidditch games to attract more customers, and though he couldn't begin to understand the technology behind it, Tom the owner was really glad he'd followed the advice of his youngest waitress, Hannah Abbott, because it had worked splendidly.
Perhaps it had worked too much, or at least that was Hermione's opinion.
The drinks were slow to get to the table, and conversation was almost impossible to carry in the general chaos.
Leave it to Zabini to pick up a place – she thought.
Her right hand was resting on the bowl of her wine glass, while her attention sporadically shifted from Pansy's wedding planning to Ginny's adventures with the Harpies.
The red-headed had returned from Wales that very morning, and the group was currently waiting for Harry and Ronald to show up after their shift.
They'd agreed on a quick Butterbeer before dinner, but the two Aurors weren't arrived yet and a bottle of wine had been consumed already.
Leave it to Pansy and Ginny to be responsible adults.
Her Mirror rang in the back pocket of her high-waisted mom jeans, and she picked it up to see she'd gotten a text from her brother.
Father still refuses to give Rico the list. The bastard said he will only give it to one of us. I'll go get it tonight after my date with Luna.
Hermione quickly typed her reply on the touchscreen and pressed the send button only seconds before a heavy hand squeezed her shoulder.
GG. I owe you you, Theo.
Harry and Ron had finally arrived, and while the former greeted his girlfriend with a very open-mouthed and explicit kiss, the latter surprised her by occupying the seat next to him.
"Long time no see", he joked. "How are you doing, Hermione?"
Ronald's kindness was unexpected but welcome, yet it seemed odd.
He hadn't been very welcoming ever since she'd returned, but perhaps he'd worked on his issues and was now ready to turn over a new leaf.
Maybe he was just worried after her last rendezvous at the DMLE.
The death of Grinder Smith was something nobody had managed to wrap his head around. Things didn't add up.
"I haven't slept much tonight, but overall I'd say I'm doing pretty fine for my standards", she replied, over-sharing just so that she could set the foundation of a proper conversation. "How are you doing? How's Lavender?"
"We're both a little unhappy with our jobs lately, but we're managing to cope", Ron said. "Nothing a little trip during the winter holidays won't dissipate".
"Are you planning to celebrate Christmas away?", she asked.
The holidays were a pretty big deal for the Weasleys, and it sounded strange to hear Ron talking about spending them somewhere that wasn't the Burrow.
"I think we need a little time on our own, if you know what I mean".
Surprisingly, even though they had entirely different lives and she'd just recently entered a relationship while Ronald was married, she did.
Reading between the lines of the things he actually said had always been Hermione's specialty when they were younger, but right now she couldn't afford the luxury to pry into his private life, not when they were having the first apparently nice conversation since forever.
He turned away from her just to order himself a FireWhisky.
"Have you decided where to go, yet?", was all she asked when he returned his attention to her.
"I don't know. Somewhere with the sun and a nice beach. Maybe the same place of our honeymoon", he replied.
His face darkened a little as they were both hit by the realization that she didn't know where that had been: she hadn't gone to his wedding.
"Sounds like you have a plan", Hermione forced a smile, trying to forget about the other elephant in the room: the torch which, according to Harry and then Ginny, Ron had held for her once upon a time. "Next on my list is Cuba. Or Iceland. I haven't decided yet. But the sun and a beach sound nice".
"Nothing's written in stone yet". His expression lightened up a little when the waitress returned with his drink. "I wouldn't put it past Lavender's new boss to force his employees to work on Christmas, too. That man's a beast".
"I thought she left WitchWeekly because The Prophet was better?"
When she'd bought the paper as a gift for her brother, Lavender had been even faster than Rita Skeeter in consigning her resignation letter.
Back then she'd brushed the information off as irrelevant, but now she realized why things between Ron and her had been so awkward.
"She left because you bought her place of work on a whim. It made her and many others feel as if their jobs were a joke", he said.
Hermione didn't particularly like the patronizing intent behind his words, but for once she decided to ignore it. "That's right. I bought it on a whim. But Theo is doing a great job with it, and the numbers are on his side for now. In any case, I'm sorry I made your wife uncomfortable. I had no idea she worked there".
"That's because you went from being my best friend to knowing nothing about my life", Ron grimaced. "But we can't fix this mess if we don't talk to each other. I guess I'm just tired of being angry at you all the fucking time".
"Not the finest declaration of peace, but I'll take what I can get", she chuckled. Raising her glass to knock on Ron's, she invited him to drink with her, but halfway through her second sip of wine her phone rang again, this time from the table, where the screen lighted up and showed a preview of the message she'd just received.
This time it wasn't from Theo.
The doctor said I'm almost fine, but that I'll need to be getting a lot of attention in the next few weeks. Jokes aside, sex's a green light, too. Have fun with your friends, sweet legs. ;) I'll see you tomorrow.
"Blimey! Is that Malfoy?"
Cat was out of the bag and, surprisingly, it felt extremely nice.
For once, Ron had reacted very politely to unwelcome news, and though he clearly wasn't the couple's biggest supporter, he hadn't voiced his disapproval or tried to change her mind.
Presented with a fact, the youngest Weasley son had been considerate and even classy, only grumbling a little while giving Harry the money he'd won by being right about the unexplainable pair falling for each other.
Under normal circumstances she'd have called The-Boy-Who-Lived out for betting on something while having information the opponent ignored, but Hermione really hadn't wanted to ruin a moment that was flowing so smoothly: if there was one thing she knew about Ron, it was that he absolutely hated to be left out; she remembered distinctly the many times in the past where he'd lashed out on them for such a thing, and she really wasn't sure her present self could experiment one of those situations and still be friends with him by the end of it.
Besides, she couldn't be the only one who'd evolved and changed.
Five years was an awful amount of time for not seeing one of your allegedly best friends.
Truth was, without Harry acting as a connection between them, Hermione wasn't sure she would have even talked to him again after their first train ride to Hogwarts.
Anyway, sitting at a table without worrying about a mouth-slip exposing her affair with Draco was nice, and the witch was thoroughly enjoying herself.
The Quidditch game had ended with a smashing victory from the Falmouth Falcons, who'd dominated over the opposite team, the Kenmare Kestrels, whose members had been left with only the option to crawl their way back to Ireland, tail between the legs and all the usual jazz.
They were officially at the end of UK's championship standings.
The match itself hadn't been particularly eventful, just a couple of nice Quaffle passages and a good catch by the Falcons' Keeper.
The English players had won out of sheer luck with the snitch literally jumping in the arms of their seeker, but it was fine with her: the ten Galleons she'd bet with Theo had just turned into a hundred.
On top of that, many people had left the pub the moment the whistle had signalled the end of the game, so the air was much more breathable now.
"Can't wait to see the first dramione fight", said Ron, air-quoting an expression he'd picked up earlier from Pansy.
He seemed quite keen on never letting Hermione hear the end of it.
She rolled her eyes and pouted in Parkinson's general direction, looking for some mercy, but her best friend smirked evilly.
"Harry and I got six months of jokes", she chirped, eyeing her nails with peculiar interest. "It's your turn now".
"And they never stopped for us", Blaise chimed in, indicating himself and Ginevra.
"And they never will if you don't stop selling it as something casual", Harry countered.
"Not everybody wants to get married before their thirties and stop living", laughed Ginny, sipping on her Butterbeer.
"Whatever", Hermione huffed. "I'll just Silencio you all and be on my merry way".
"You're such a dictator", Harry snorted.
She laughed. "Take it or die as you leave it if I'm such a dictator".
"He'll just cheat his way out of death like he did the last time", Ron added. "And the time before. And the one before that".
It was an old inside joke for the members of the Golden Trio. And also the universe's sign that, perhaps, a world ruled by Voldemort really wasn't meant to be.
Or so they liked to think of it.
"Expelliarmus is a perfectly decent spell", said Ginny. "If you're a first year student".
The-Boy-Who-Lived raised his hands in defeat and looked hopefully at his fiancé. Quite obviously, Pansy didn't budge this time either.
"Or post-memory-charm Gilderoy Lockhart".
"I surrender", he smirked. "It may not be the strongest move in a wizard's arsenal, but it got the job done, didn't it? So bow down and kiss my ass, bitches".
Ron got up only to have the pleasure to slap him on the back of his neck. "You're drunk, mate".
"Shove it, Weasley. I've just finished a fourteen-hours shift. I have the right and the duty to be high".
"Just don't call people bitches, perhaps", Pansy reprimanded. "That's my thing".
Hannah Abbott, who was working at the Leaky Cauldron as she tried to figure out what to do with her life, chose that moment to return to the table with a couple more drinks laying on top of a silver tray and a check which she gave to Blaise.
Paying her what was owed for the table's bill up until then, and leaving a very generous tip, the wizard invited Ginny to gather her stuff as they were already late for their dinner reservation, and after a quick goodbye the duo left the pub.
The waitress stared at the golden coin in her right hand. "He does know my family's rich, right? Just because we've mixed with Muggles doesn't mean we're poor".
Hermione couldn't stop herself from laughing. Of course someone whose ancestors had been part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight would find a good tip offensive.
"I don't think he even knows who you are", Pansy said, her black eyes sending daggers at poor Hannah as she impersonated her overly-protective self.
"He just thought he was helping a young witch out. He probably didn't recognize you", Harry tried to make it better.
"I don't care, guys, really. I was joking", the blonde witch shrugged. Placing the spare Galleon on top of Zabini's coins, she took out her working apron and occupied the chair Ginny had just left vacant next to her brother.
"Let's drink this one out", she proposed. "My shift ended thirty minutes ago, anyway".
As a former member of Dumbledore's Army, Hannah Abbott had been accustomed to gravitating around the Golden Trio, and the old friendship (or beginning of one) had been easily rekindled.
Especially when Pansy left early to go check on something at her boutique.
Apparently the blonde Hufflepuff witch was finally getting over the end of her relationship with Neville, and was now eager to throw herself back into the dating scene.
"It's not that I'm looking for someone. I just want to, I don't know, put on a nice dress and do something fancy. Unfortunately all my friends are anything but fancy, so that leaves finding myself a date", she was saying. "It breaks your heart two times if the person you're losing isn't just your lover, but your best friend, too".
"It's been six months now", Ron noted. "Can't you just ask him if he'd like to be your friend again? Obviously, I know nothing about the way you two broke up, so I'll just leave it at that, I guess. I believe Neville actually mentioned something, but unfortunately I don't usually pay too much attention to that kind of talk".
"Ron Weasley and feelings, ladies and gentlemen", Harry proposed a toast. "Although I also think you should just talk to him".
"I will give it some thought", Hannah said, though she didn't sound particularly hopeful. "I said some things I'm definitely not proud of. I should at least apologize for that. What comes after that is up to him".
"You were his best friend, too", intervened Hermione who unlike Ron had actually listened to Neville's thoughts on the matter. "If you're truly sorry and apologize for whatever it is that you said, I think he'll be willing to listen to you".
The blonde gave her a small smile. "Enough of that. I didn't join your table to make your evening depressing".
Harry improvised a tune by flapping his fingers on the table. "Let's see. Tomorrow I get my first day of rest in two weeks", he shared in a dreamy voice, but his expression suddenly darkened. "Which I'll spend doing independent research. God, being an Auror sucks".
"But the paycheck's nice, in case you're considering the idea", added Ron.
"I was before I started working here. You have no idea how many of your lot come here to forget about the world when they leave the Ministry. It doesn't sound like the kind of life I want for myself", Hannah replied. "But I am considering an internship at St. Mungo's on January, just to learn some basics and see how I like healing. I'm still very unsure, though. Besides, for some reason, I really love it here. Tom's a wonderful boss".
"You were good at Arithmancy, weren't you?", asked Hermione. "Maybe you could take an advanced course and start from there. If you become great I may have a job ready for you".
"That's very nice of you, but I can't see myself locked up in a library ever again. Studying with the purpose of a job it's one thing, I don't think I could endure doing it just for heck of it ever again".
"You just haven't found something that really makes you passionate yet", the Gryffindor replied. "And don't force yourself to date if you're not interested. I happen to enjoy a lot of fancy stuff, I could totally do with the company of a woman that's not crazy from time to time".
There was a moment of silence, which Harry broke with his laughter.
"Pansy says, tell her she's the one who's crazy", he chuckled. "She also adds… Middle finger emoji, middle finger emoji, middle finger emoji".
Hermione abruptly turned in his direction. "How could she…?"
"I texted her", the Boy-Who-Lived supplied. "It feels as good a time as any to remind you that you're the one who gave me this thing and that it would be bad press for you to be seen smashing something you're trying to sell to people".
"I'd never do that", she defended herself as Hannah giggled somewhere on her left. "Besides, I never said I'm not crazy myself. I just meant that sometimes it's very beneficial to cancel some of the craziness out by hanging around someone who's balanced".
"Ginny's going to love this", said Ron, eagerly picking up his own Mirror to send a message to his younger sibling. "She says you have an ungrateful ass. No middle finger from her, though. Just a knife".
"I see now where you're coming from", joked Hannah. "We can totally use each other. I'll be as balanced as you'll want me if you manage to get me out of the house every once in a while".
"Let's start with next week. How would you like coming to the afterparty of my company's launch on the thirty-first?", Hermione asked as she picked up her bag, which had been hanging on one side of the back of her chair and produced the small envelope that contained the invitation for the event.
"That's for the room that will be accessible only to a few trusted guests. We shan't be more than fifty-something people". She handed Hannah the envelope. "Since Neville will be there, and he checked the plus one, feel free to find yourself one as well. I'm afraid I can't be your date for that".
"Thank you, Hermione", the blonde said. "I'll have to ask Tom if he can change my shifts for next week, but a co-worker owes me one, so it shouldn't be a problem".
"I really don't understand what the fuss is all about with this party", Harry sighed. "Pansy is obsessing over her dress. The sequins, the taffeta, the whatever-the-fuck-that-colour-is-called. I've seen it so many times I've even learned how to write the name of the designer. She's Russian. They have a different alphabet!"
"I just pretend to listen nowadays. It works in most cases. A little nod here, a seemingly opinionated question there, and just a tiny little bit of spirit of observation", Ron joined. "Lavender can talk about make-up for hours. I swear I really tried to keep up with the pace when we first got back together, but that stuff point blank confuses me".
"Not a mighty mind if it gets fooled so easily", Harry mumbled. "To me it's not that it's confusing, mate. It just bores me. Besides, I prefer how she looks naturally".
Hermione laughed at him.
"I'll let you know that Pansy's no make-up makeup look is just beneath twenty-five minutes", she said. "I also know for a fact that you like that dress a lot. Or are you lying to her?"
With that she picked up her phone and showed Harry the screen after opening up her chat with the Slytherin witch.
One thing could be said for sure about Hermione Granger: she did know how to hold a grudge. In other words, she was vengeful.
But not when it mattered the most. Harry was sure of that.
The-Boy-Who-Lived cleared his throat. "I never said I don't like the dress. The dress is great and she looks great in it. I just don't like talking about it".
"Fair enough", Hannah conceded. "But it's best if I go home and take a close look at some shop windows on my way there, before I start talking about dresses too and bore you out of your mind, Harry".
The witch finished her drink and raised from her seat, saying goodbye to the Golden Trio with hugs and kisses on both cheeks.
"It was good to have you at the Cauldron today", she greeted them.
Then she left to retrieve her purse and coat from the staff's room and waved at them with a big smile on her way back out.
Ron was the first to break the silence.
"Why didn't we hang out more with her?"
Harry shrugged and turned to Hermione. "I guess we were too busy to think about normal teenager staff".
"Speak for yourself", the witch corrected him. "I'm merely antisocial".
(The Leaky Cauldron, outside area – Diagon Alley, London, England;
October 24th, 2003, around 20:40 p.m.)
Only by sitting by himself in a crowded bar had he realized just how stupid his plan of action for the day was.
He'd decided to follow the group based on the fact he knew two very important pieces of the chessboard were going to be present at the same time.
With the help of magic, spying on them shouldn't have been this damn hard, but every spell he'd tried had been bounced back in his direction by an invisible Shield Charm of exquisite perfection, and just the cover provided by the many Quidditch fanatics in the room had protected him from disgracefully blowing up his own.
And completely ruin his professional life.
People always made the mistake of underestimating him, and today proved to be no different: the spell had not failed once in protecting them, that much was true, but no one had bothered to check on it even once, meaning his attempts had gone unnoticed.
Which was lucky for him and exposed a welcome weakness in his opponents: despite everything that had happened since the beginning of summer and the way the Scarlett Order was slowly but surely buying its way into society, Harry Potter and his sidekicks behaved as if they were untouchable.
It was something that could work in his favour, and the wizard made a mental note so that he could remember to report it later.
His work as what muggles would have called a double-agent occupied so much time it was like he was working full-time jobs, but he was sure that in the end odds were going to be in his favour.
Nonetheless, wearing a hoodie and pretending to be reading a paper for the past three hours had done dreadful things to his nerves, and his no-booze policy had slowly shifted into a just-one-more-glass-please one.
Something finally seemed to be moving when Zabini and the Weasley girl left the pub. Customers were finally either leaving the Leaky Cauldron or retiring to their rooms, and without being noticed he'd managed to snitch a closer table for himself.
He still hadn't been able to magically pry into their conversations, but at least he'd picked up on something with his very Muggle-born ears.
Then the cute waitress had joined them at the table, which had made her all the less desirable in his eyes, and things turned back to plain dull as she poured out her heart for them.
The girl clearly had issues.
He wasn't going to pass up on the opportunity to exploit them.
The last bit of their conversation had been particularly interesting, and surprisingly clear; it offered the Order a chance to do something spectacular.
When the waitress left her seat and went to get her things, the wizard quietly deposited enough Sickles to cover his bill on the table, and rushed to the nearest exit without looking back.
It was close to the wall that connected Diagon Alley to muggle London that Magnus waited for one Hannah Abbott to leave the pub.
"I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm fairly new to this part of the city. Would you mind if I asked where's the closest place that sells something against this horrible heartache I have?"