Chapter 53

Despite being dead tired from the nightly events, Hermione was already up at 6:30 to review her notes. She wanted her divorce to go as smoothly as humanly, or rather bureaucratically, possible and if Ron was willing to sign right there, she would be officially divorced by the end of the week.

She was meeting her soon to be ex-husband at 10:00, so at 9:45 she chucked everything in her briefcase, smoothed down her black pencil skirt and apparated to the Ministry.

After dropping her files off at her office, she hurried to conference room 3.94 for her meeting with Ron.

"Blaise?", she asked when she saw him sitting on the waiting seats in front of the conference room, "What are you doing here?"

"Morning Princess", he greeted, neatly folding his newspaper, "I'm waiting for you."

He looked as fine as he ever did, dressed smartly, yet professionally in his dark purple robes.

"Well, what can I do for you?", she frowned, "I don't have much time though, Ron can be here any minute."

"It's not what you can do for me", he commented, putting the newspaper under his arm,"It's what I can do for you."

"That's really kind", she said, crossing her arms, "But I told you I won't need a..."

At that point Ron rounded the corner, an elderly man in expensive looking robes right behind him.

Ron ignored her completely and walked into the conference room.

Great, classy as ever.

"Madam", the wizard greeted, "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Destin Redfire, mister Weasley's solicitor."

"Nice to meet you", she said befuddled, "This is my solicitor, Blaise Zabini."

It was an impulse decision, something that was very uncharacteristical for her, but when she saw his slimy smile turn a little sour, she was glad for it. Clearly, he wasn't expecting her to have a defendant.

"Shall we?", Blaise said, holding the door open with a confident smirk on his face.

She walked in, her brave face not faltering when she looked at Ron who was sitting in the chair across the table with a scowl on his face and his arms crossed.

"What's he here for?", Ron asked, pointing at Blaise.

She rolled her eyes. Honestly, she couldn't stop herself. Actually, she hadn't even tried, if he'd been polite enough to greet them at the door like a normal person, he'd have known.

"I'm Hermione Granger's solicitor", he answered, ignoring Ron's impolite tone and the fact that the question wasn't directed at him.

"Weasley", Ron corrected him.

"Pleased to meet you", Blaise answered, pretending not to understand, "Blaise Zabini."

Ron started to turn red already and they hadn't even started yet. Hermione had to bite her cheek to stop herself from laughing.

"Right, now everyone's acquainted", she said, pulling out her files, "I've prepared a..."

"Excuse me for interrupting you Madam", Ron's solicitor said with a greasy smile, "But this is not how this works."

She frowned and glanced at Blaise, who just lifted an eyebrow and stared intently at Mister Redfire.

"As the, how shall I put it, leading party, you can not make any demands", he said, his smile getting wider when she frowned angrily at him, "Before you've heard Mister Weasley's conditions."

"I see", she said primly, turning her gaze at Ron, "Let's see then."

"Indeed", Redfire answered, handing her a stack of parchments.

"As you can see on page three...", he started, but she held her hand up to silence him.

"I'd like to start at page one", she said, her eyes already looking the document over, "And I can read for myself, thank you."

"But if I just may...", he tried again.

She held her hand up to silence him. She had no patience for these games, whatever his intentions were. If they wanted her to sign off on anything, she was going to read it all, including the fine print.

When she was halfway through, the man wanted to interrupt again.

"Madam will be ready in a minute Sir", Blaise cut him short this time, "She's a fast reader."

He started to get a tiny bit nervous when he saw her knuckles turning white with tension and her mouth set in a tight line, her frown growing heavier page after page.

"So, let me see if I understood this correctly", she said primly, handing the document over to Blaise like it was the local newspaper. "You want the house, alimentation, a monthly allowance and our children during school holidays?"

"Not all of the holidays", Ronald dared to answer foolishly, "You get two days during Easter break, not Easter day itself obviously, and an entire week in July."

"How... Considerate of you", she answered him.

Blaise saw her struggle to keep her voice even. This was not going to be good. He saw her hand twitch towards her wand. Nope, this was going to be bad. Very bad. Oh so damn bad...

"Mister Redfire assured me that this is a very good proposal, you know, with you working such long hours at the Ministry", Weasley continued a little defensively. Maybe he wasn't entirely ignorant.

Hermione's glare turned to the man in question and he did have enough common sense to flinch back a little before he caught himself.

Blaise, as entertaining as this could become, decided that he needed to diffuse the situation then and there. He was her solicitor after all and he took his job very seriously.

"Thank you for your time gentlemen", he said before Hermione could start her verbal, magical and perhaps even physical assault on them. "We will discuss this and provide you with an answer by tomorrow."

Her head snapped towards him and he nodded confidently. She analysed the situation for a moment and decided, against her own judgement, to follow his lead.

"That was all", she said, flicking her wand to open the door, making her intentions very clear.

She knew she should stand up, but she just couldn't bring herself to be polite to that parasite.

"We look forward to your answer", Redfire answered, his slimy smile back firmly in place.

Ron looked like he was going to say something, but he was directed out by his solicitor.

"Right", she said, slamming the door shut.

He was sure that it had hit Weasley's back and he watched her fortify the privacy wards that were already standard on each meeting room in the Ministry.

"You better have a damn good plan Blaise", she fumed. "Where do we start?"

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Note: I feel like I need to repeat the note in chapter 1, so apparently, I'm going to say it more than once. Updates will be very slow and highly irregular. Covid is not helping any. Next chapter could be in a week. Or a month. Or more. I'm writing when I can and lately, that really isn't often (I wish it was).

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