CHAPTER TWO

The next morning Hermione got up to an otherwise empty flat. Ron had not come home last night. She supposed he was with George still, and she hoped they were both ok. Somewhat in a daze she showered and dressed all while pondering what had happened last night, wondering when would he come home, and wondering how she could fix this huge mistake she'd made. Would Ron even forgive her? Calling him useless was the worst thing she could have done and she knew it hurt him badly.

Hermione stumbled into the kitchen and reached for the coffee pot before realizing that Ron hadn't been there to make her morning coffee. She also realized that her breakfast wasn't laid out for her like Ron always did. "Oh well," she thought to herself. "I'll just get something at the Ministry."

After arriving by floo, Hermione headed toward her office to drop off her stuff before heading to the cafeteria. At this point she really was missing her morning coffee and was looking forward to the caffeine. The ministry coffee was pretty terrible, but she was willing to ignore that just to get the caffeine fix. She also thought she'd pick up a bagel or something to eat as well. What she really wanted was one (or two) of Ron's scones that he made routinely. It was amazing how good they were and how quickly he could pop them out fresh in the morning. Alas, it was not to be today.

Hermione greeted her assistant Emily as she opened her office door. To her surprise and amazement, there on her desk was a large steaming cup of coffee and what looked like two freshly-made strawberry scones. She walked over and took a sip of the coffee and realized it had been doctored just the way she liked. Cream, but not too much, and sugar, but again, not too much. She smiled to herself as she eagerly bit into the first scone.

"Oh, Merlin, these have got to be from Ron, they're so good," she said out loud to no one. "So, good."

Then she noticed the folded piece of parchment under the plate holding the scones. Picking it up she read:

Useless? Who's useless? I knew you couldn't even make your own coffee or breakfast.

R

Underneath was just "R." Not "love, Ron" like all the notes he'd ever left before. Just "R."

Suddenly the scone and coffee didn't taste as good as they had. She needed to find Ron and apologize and fix this. And fix this now. She also had to fix her relationship with those two department heads she'd had dinner with last night.

As she was just about to leave she realized that today, Friday, was the morning of Minister Kingsley's weekly staff meeting. She couldn't miss it so she reluctantly plodded down to the conference room. She sighed and recognized it would be at least two hours before she could see Ron or those two old-school ministry officials.

As soon as the meeting was over she started down the corridor to the Auror offices and immediately ran into those two department heads. Hermione stopped suddenly and smiled at the two fuddy-duddies. These were the two she had failed to convince to support her planned legislation. She was horrified as she hadn't had a chance to think of a new strategy to get them on her side.

"Good Morning, Mr. Farnesworth, Mr. Dobson. How are you this morning?"

Both of the gentlemen responded with a pleasant "Good, Morning, Ms. Granger. We were just on our way to see you."

"Really?" responded Hermione completely confused by their upbeat and positive attitudes. When she left them last night they had been sullen and totally negative about her proposals. Why the 180 degree change?

"Yes, absolutely," replied Farnesworth. "We wanted to come tell you personally that we now support all the changes and legislation that you are proposing."

Hermione was shocked. "Oh my! That's wonderful!" Hermione reached out to shake both their hands. "I'm so pleased. I wasn't sure you would agree. What made you come to this marvelous conclusion?"

Farnesworth and Dobson smiled at Hermione before Dobson continued, "We had a wonderful meeting this morning with your amazing young man, Mr. Weasley. He explained all that had transpired last night and apologized for missing our meeting. He then convinced us that we needed to be open to new things while still staying true to our history and traditions. Mr. Weasley's status as a war hero and a member of the Sacred 28 gave his arguments a large amount of credibility. Not only that, Mr. Weasley was quite persuasive in his own right. Not only was he passionate about the proposals, he also was quite passionate about the one who had created them. Mr. Weasley is quite smitten with you, Ms. Granger."

Farnesworth and Dobson both gave knowing grins at Hermione, and all she could do was blush and stammer out, "oh my yes. My Ronald is quite wonderful."