Chapter Ten – Alone
Disclaimer: Own nothing, am paid nothing, don't sue
See A/N at the bottom please.
Alone"How long are you posted in London for?" Percy's wife Sophie asked Hermione over the kitchen table. It seemed that the unspoken rule, which Hermione had seen put into place at the Weasley's on Christmas evening when she had been there for the first three Christmas days after graduating, had yet to die. The men were in the sitting room, drinking, playing chess or cards while the women sat talking in the kitchen, preparing the buffet tea. At about seven o'clock the two groups would merge together in the sitting room, food would be served, gifts exchanged and the adults would sit up late into the night talking, playing games and catching up. It had been almost six years since Hermione had been a part of it.
"Until next October. I'm training the latest intake of Auror Highers up the second level," Hermione replied, chopping cucumber for the salad she and Sophie were making. She liked Sophie. They had always got on well. Sophie, Percy and the children had come over to New York with Fred, Mary, Josh and Anne to see Hermione in the summer. It was also Sophie who had persuaded Percy to apologise to his family after the fall out they'd had when Hermione was in her fifth year at Hogwarts. Although she'd never said how she did it, Hermione suspected it had something to do with Sophie wanting her children (Ralph, six and Dorothy, three) to grow up knowing their grandparents.
"So no more adventures and under cover operations for a year Hermione?"
"Nope. The people at the top seem to think that everything has calmed down enough to send three of us chasing our Training Honours," she replied, tipping the content of her chopping board into the salad bowl, which began to toss the salad.
"Do you even need them? I still haven't got mine. I bet if they've got your lot working on them it will be my lot next." Sophie worked with the Aurors in the British Ministry of Magic but had taken a more office based post when she found out she was pregnant with Ralph. She had always insisted that now she had children she never wanted to go back to being a patrolling Auror. She had told Hermione when she had asked Hermione for advice that she couldn't bear the thought of something happening to her and her child growing up without a mother.
"I don't think we need them but the three of us who've been sent to do them have an idea why we've started them. Do you remember Brian?"
"Yeah, he was the guy who lived down the hall from you in New York."
"Yeah, well, the three people who've been sent after the Training Honours just happen to be me, Alanna and Brian."
"And you, Alanna and Brian were the ones behind the Norway demise, weren't you?"
Sophie said, working out what Hermione was getting at.
"Exactly. Alanna is convinced this is a sort of delayed, forced sabbatical that's being covered up with the excuse of Training Honours."
"And I take it that you, Alanna and Brian aren't happy about it?" Sophie smiled. She'd known from Fred that Hermione hadn't been happy about the arrangements.
"I wasn't at first but, although I'm a bit homesick, I like it now. Brian's loving it but Alanna can't stand it. She'd constantly asking for a transfer to either Canada or London to at least be with Brian or me."
One of the reasons why Hermione liked Sophie as much as she did was the fact hat they were both in the same area of work. Although Hermione's work was of a much higher status, more dangerous and more active, she and Sophie were both qualified Aurors and, although the Honours Aurors, Auror Highers and Auror Higher Elites could get were of different levels and different contents, they were still basically the same thing. Sophie and Hermione could talk for hours about their work because they understood each other and each other's work so well.
"Is it wise having three of our best on leave from their base when Damien was never caught?" Sophie asked.
"My thoughts exactly," Hermione smiled grimly.
***
'Albus DumbledoreMinerva McGonagall
Severus Snape
Remus Lupin
Ruth Hemingway
Anton Eval
Draco Malfoy
Alanna Cistern - contacted. Awaits more information.
Evan Sterling - located. Awaiting confirmation of arranged contact time.
Lavender Brown – located.
Hermione Granger – located.
Harry Potter – located'
Twenty-eight year-old Draco Malfoy stared at the list he had created for Dumbledore. He still had a lot of work to do. He had even been working through Christmas afternoon to locate people. The two hardest people to find happened to be the two people he knew were going to be the hardest to work with. Potter and Granger, as far as he knew, still hated his guts, thought him a Death Eater and were undoubtedly not going to trust him. Just lovely.
Potter and Granger. From what he had gathered, they hadn't seen each other for six years. Six years. After the Death of Ron Weasley and Potter's attempted suicide they had been inseparable. After the defeat of Voldemort he was almost prepared to say they were practically one person. Their names became moulded together. PotterandGranger. HarryandHermione. There was never one without the other. They both did the same Auror and Auror Higher course, lived together and many people had expected them to work together. If Draco hadn't known better he would have thought that they were a married couple. But then something happened. Something nobody seemed to know anything about. Something enormous happened, something big enough to rip them apart when it seemed that nothing could.
That was six years ago. Hermione had since moved to New York and had become 'the best of the best of the best', to quote a Muggle film, to become known, to the Defence, as one of the most powerful witches in the world and one of the greatest enigmas the side of the light possessed. And Potter had quietly moved to Japan for a year, returning aged 22 and one the best trained Auror Higher's that the British office had. And now, because of Damien Gerrard, they were about to be thrown back together again.
However, the biggest question in Draco's mind was not 'how will they react?' but 'what tore them apart?'
***
At eight o'clock at night the children were all asleep in bed, exhausted from the day, and the adults currently residing in The Burrow were settled in the sitting room. There were eleven of them: Arthur and Molly, Fred and Mary, George and his fiancée Alice, Percy and Sophie, Bill and his wife Claire and Hermione.
"I'm serious, you have to come to New York, all of you, I've got the room and the kids will love it," Hermione insisted looking around at everyone in the room. The conversation had moved onto Hermione's New York life.
"When are you going back?" Claire asked. Claire, Bill's wife happened to be a second cousin, or something similar, to Sophie. Though their relationship was distant, they still looked alike. They both had the same, straight dark hair, small, doll like nose, and the same blue eyes.
"Monday. I'm there for New Year and then I'm coming back on January 4th."
"If you say you're going to the Time Square party I'm going to be so jealous," laughed Alice.
"Okay then, I won't say it," Hermione grinned.
"Oooh, I'm jealous!" laughed Alice, swiping her long blonde hair back out of her face. "Can I come too?"
"If you want. I meant what I said, you're all welcome anytime, just give me an hour or so notice beforehand. And you'd need to make sure I'm in New York first." She added as Alice's eyes lit up and she turned to George. George looked between Hermione and Alice, knowing exactly what Alice was about to ask.
"We'll talk about it," he told her, smiling a smile that told Hermione she had guests for New Year.
Looking at Alice and George smiling at each other, and then at Bill, sat with Claire leaning comfortably against him, as he spoke, it began to hit Hermione that she was the only one in the room who wasn't part of a couple. Looking around she noticed that all of her friends seemed completely happy, sat with their other halves. Looking around Hermione suddenly felt very alone.
She hadn't been in a relationship since last March. She had been seeing Richard, a Wall Street genius with no idea she was a witch, for six months when it had all ended. It hadn't been a bitter split, they just decided it wasn't working, that it wasn't meant to be. In the last month things seemed to change. They rowed, they made up, they rowed, they made up and eventually they got sick of it and they decided to call it a day. That had been the last time Hermione hadn't been alone, it that sense.
To say she didn't miss it would have been a lie, she realised, as Bill began relating a story about one of his American adventures Hermione wasn't really listening to. She had told herself she was okay being alone, that she had friends and that life was great. Until that moment it was the truth. Hermione was happy being single, she was happy with the way her career was going, happy with the company of friends. But suddenly she felt very alone.
Laughter somewhere far away told her that Bill had finished his story and she was snapped back to the present and out of her thoughts. Fred was now speaking and Hermione could hear the sounds of the last birds outside through the open front door down the hallway.
"And then he-" Fred paused a minute, turning his head towards the door leading to the hallway, "What was that?" he asked.
"What was what?" Molly asked, looking at her son strangely.
"I heard something outside, like keys," Fred said, rising in time with his brothers to his feet. Before they could leave the room there was a knock against the open front door and a voice Hermione hadn't heard for a very long time called down the hallway:
"Hello?"
***
Ta da! What does everybody think? I hate to leave it there but I'm going to just to be mean.
Right, about my lack of updates. As some people may have worked out, the timing of my updates seems to follow the timetable of the British Educational System. Well, I've not seemed to have any time to work on this story during term time and so I'm left with the holidays to work on this story. (One year left! One year left! One year left until I leave school properly and leave home!) Sorry!
Thank you very much to everyone who has reviewed. A big hello to Dracis Tran, my 50th reviewer. (About the classroom scene: it didn't really have a purpose, it was just an easy way for me to introduce Ruth and Anton.)
Thank you again to everyone who has reviewed.
The next bit shouldn't be long!
J