You are always one decision away from a totally different life.

It was Tuesday afternoon and Hermione was angrier than she had been in a long time. She had sat through three meetings that morning, all about the up coming Conference, it was long, and it was dull and had tripled her workload. Seeing as Britain would be hosting this year's meeting, her department was in charge of the logistics for the arrivals for the various heads of states and their lodgings. The department had known for months they would oversee the lodgings but had yet to find an appropriate sight for the events. Percy had put Hermione in charge of this task, which was no small feat. How was she supposed to figure out what to do with seventy-five people by the end of the week? She didn't care what Malfoy had said about Kingsley trying to keep her here. She was going back to New York. The second meeting covered the gala the Ministry was to host on the final evening of the conference. It was to take place at Hogwarts, to show the rest of their world that Britain was indeed healing from the aftereffects of the war. It would also give the 6th and 7th years at Hogwarts a chance to rub elbows with some of the most important people from around the world. Yet again however though the location had been decided on for weeks the planning of it all had yet to be started. Percy had also added this to her to do list. Finally, she had a sit down with Harry and Kingsley about the preparations for the wizard army if the Confederation approved it. Seeing as she was to head to Hogwarts in the next few days, she was asked if she would talk to the Head Mistress about using Hogwarts for training ground's over the Christmas Holiday. Finally fed up with what seemed to be a never-ending list she gathered to courage to broach the subject with Kingsley.

"Sir with all due respect, I am not sure I can get this all done before I leave for New York at the end of the weekend." She said with what she hoped was a pleasant smile.

Kingsley sighed and looked at her with a bit of pity. "Hermione, I am not sure getting back to New York so quickly is in the cards. We have a lot going on here at the moment."

Her heart sank. Malfoy had been right; they weren't going to let her leave. "Sir, I am the liaison with the American's."

"And you have a done a fine job indeed with coordinating with the Americans, but I need my best people here working on the events that are to take place here." Kingsley said kindly.

"Why did you let me go in the first place? If you were only going to allow me to stay for a short time?" she was angry, and she knew her temper was showing but she didn't care.

"I thought getting away for a bit might be beneficial for you, but I can't let my best person be wasted on just the American's. We have a lot of ties around the world that need mending, you have done what was asked of you there, and now we need to turn our attention to other things. Besides our relationship with the American's is in good standings, I think we can scale back our presence there."

Hermione looked to Harry for some help, she got none. He looked at her with a bit of pity which told her that he had known about this for some time. Her anger getting the best of her "Well if that is all for now, may I be excused?" she said. It wasn't really a question and both men knew she was at her tipping point.

"I received an owl this morning from Mr. Malfoy, his meeting with Healer Smith went well and he is moving forward with looking for office space. Seeing as he doesn't want to be in Diagon Alley that only leaves Muggle London. I was hoping, that since you are more familiar with the area than most you would accompany him this afternoon to look for premises. I don't have to remind you of how much we need this business for Britain." Kingsley said in a tone in which left no room for argument. That stupid, stupid little ferret.

Her second day in London was back to a very rocky start, it was now just after one and Hermione was making her way towards the first showing of an office building not far from Charring Cross. It had started to snow which only fueled her anger; she was already late. As she rounded the corner of the street, she saw Malfoy and a muggle woman who seemed to be waiting outside of a nondescript building chatting. When he caught sight of her, he smiled but it faded when he saw the look on her face. He would be in for it when they were out of earshot of Amber he knew.

"Amber this is Hermione Granger." Draco said once she had reached the two.

"Lovely to meet you Ms. Granger." Amber extended her hand to Hermione which she took before plastering a fake smile.

"Same, shall we?'" Hermione said wanting to get this over with.

"Yes, this the first of three building's I have lined up for this afternoon. I think this fits all the requirements that Mr Malfoy has a laid out."

"Lovely." She ignored the silent questions Malfoy was trying ask with just a few glances. She didn't trust her anger at the moment and didn't want it to spill over, not while they were in the presence of a muggle.

The offices space was large, three floors of the same mundane office space one would expect from a building such as this. Magic would of course be used to transform whatever space was eventual picked, it would come down to location more than anything else. When Amber had stepped away to make a phone call they were finally alone, she rounded on him.

"Why I am here? I told you yesterday I wasn't your lacky."

"I thought that since this was your idea, that maybe you would have some interest in where I might set up shop."

"I don't have time for this, do you have any idea how much work I have to get done for the Ministry?"

"A fair bit I would imagine." He said with a smirk. Her irritation rose at that stupid smirk.

"A fair bit? I must find lodgings for seventy-five people, not to mention planning a party. On top of everything else my normal workload requires."

"What do you think of this place?" he asked changing the subject.

"This is the opposite side of London from St. Mungo's, and very close to Diagon Alley, which you didn't want to be in." they could still see Amber who was still on the phone about twenty feet away. "The building next to St. Mungo's is for sale, why not there. The Ministry has been concerned what kind of Muggle might buy the building, if you were to buy it, I think it would make a lot of people more comfortable, besides then you would be close to the hospital."

"It's not large enough." Draco said sticking his hands into his pockets.

"Magic could fix that."

"I don't know." She could tell he was uncomfortable being so close to where every day witch's and wizards traveled daily.

"Look I know that you want to stay out of the prying eyes of other's, but that building would be prefect. Besides people don't have to know that it is you. The ministry can keep that information private." He gave her a skeptical look. "A lot has changed since you left."

Amber hung up the phone and made her way back to them with a smile "So what do you guys think?" she asked kindly.

By five o'clock they had been able to get into the building next to St. Mungo's and take a tour. Draco had been right it was much smaller than the first building that they had looked at over near Charring Cross, but it was nothing magic couldn't fix, and the location was prefect. Even if Draco didn't think so, besides if he didn't want her opinion, he shouldn't have requested she come a long in the first place. When they left Amber, she was already working on getting the building under contract so they could start the process of turning it into what they needed. When they were back out on the busy London street, he turned to her.

"Can I buy you dinner as a thank you?" he asked the sun was already starting to set over the city.

"Do you like sushi?" she asked. Some of her anger had started to fade away as the afternoon slipped by. She knew it wasn't his fault that Kingsley wanted to keep her here. It wasn't his fault that the number of things that needed to be done for the upcoming conference had yet to be started. Even though the last thing she had wanted to do this afternoon was to come look for an office space she knew that here in London she was the closet thing he had to a friend.

"Can't say that I have ever had it." He mused; he knew what it was but had never actually ventured out into the muggle world in New York to try it.

"Well my favorite place is just around the corner from here."

"Lead the way."

….

It was Friday which meant that in less than twelve hours Finn would be arriving in London, and Hermione had yet to figure out the best way to tell him she wasn't going back to New York, or at least not the for seeable future. Ginny thought she should have fought Kingsley a little harder on the topic if it was really that important to her, and Draco thought it might be good for her to stay in London for a while. Nothing tested a relationship more than time and distance. Hermione thought this was strange advice, because really what did he know about it? The fact remained she had to tell him, and she wasn't sure how.

Besides having to deal with some of the finer details of the upcoming conference, she also had to deal with finding a new flat, seeing as she had let her flat go when she thought she was going to be in New York for more than a few a months. It was a real shame too because she had loved that place, and it had taken her ages to find something that was affordable, in a good location and wasn't a complete dump. Draco had told her she was more than welcome to stay at the small brownstone his family owned in the city while she looked but she hadn't taken him up on the offer, it was a little to weird. Deciding though that the Leaky Caldron wasn't suitable for Finn's visit she had checked out of the small inn and into The Chelsea which wasn't to far from Buckingham Place. She thought it was prefect for a romantic weekend, and she hoped that after a fun full packed weekend the news of her not returning with him would be less of a blow. All week when they had talked, she had tip toed around the fact, and wouldn't agree to any plans back in New York.

She still had to get through the rest of the day first and it was going to be a doozy. The wizarding world in Britain had very little in the way of accommodations for large numbers of people who didn't reside in London full time. Draco had offered to house the delegation at the Manor, but Hermione had quickly vetoed that idea. Voldemort's lair hardly seemed appropriate, not when they were trying to show the larger wizarding world that they were not the same as they once were. Even if his mother had completely remolded the manor from top to bottom and it was now hardly recognizable as the once dark and stoic house it once was.

Seeing as most of the weeks meeting where to be held at the Ministry of magic the lodging's needed to be close by, this was a request Kingsley had made and it was reasonable. However, the question remained where. She had thought about renting out a muggle hotel for the week, but the logistics of how they would be able to do it become way to daunting. Even if they could rent one out, the amount of memory charms that would be needed to make the staff completely unaware of what was going on around them made her head hurt. Besides she had had her fill of memory charms. And then it came to her, and she wondered why she hadn't thought of it before.

After viewing several office buildings with Draco, it was clear, all they had to do was rent out an abandoned office space that didn't see much muggle traffic, magic would take care of the rest. It was prefect, and Kingsley had given it his seal of approval. As luck would have it there was office space not far from the visitor's entrance that was going to be prefect. Her first meeting of the day was with Amber the muggle realtor who was helping her set up the whole thing, next week they would be able to start work on getting it ready.

Seeing as she wasn't in any hurry any longer she had pushed off her visit to Hogwarts, thinking that Finn might want to see the old majestic school she had owled Professor McGonagall to see if she would be able to meet them over the weekend, she was still waiting on her answer.

All and all it had been a long week, and she was ready for it be over. She watched the clock as time slowly creeped by waiting for six o'clock to arrive. The one thing she wanted more than anything, and the one thing she feared all at the same time was to have Finn standing in front of her, but time was a funny thing, it never slowed down when you wanted it too, and it wouldn't speed up either.

Author's Note: I know I suck! I am sorry it took me three weeks to update. I did post three chapters to make it up to you in the hopes you will forgive me. Life has caught up with me, and I have been playing catch up. Thanks to all of you who are keeping up with this story. Till next week.