Amanda watched her friend cross the room and she wondered if the mystery was finally going to be solved.

Her friend Hannah was walking from desk to desk in their company's 'war room', where most of the employees resided without even the benefit of a cubicle, slapping contracts into in-boxes with increased vigor. It had everything to do, Amanda knew, with the tall red headed young man trailing behind her, arguing to her back. Despite Hannah's best efforts to ignore him she slapped her workload with increased intensity with each passing desk, startling each coworker she passed.

Amanda had been waiting for this, really, ever since earlier in the week when she and Hannah had been standing by the copier in the main lobby chatting. They had been chatting until Hannah stopped abruptly in mid sentence to jolt her head sideways at the receptionist's desk. She'd heard the man at the desk arguing with Rose, the receptionist.

"I repeat," Rose said exasperated. "There is no one who works here by the name of Hermione Grainger."

He was tall, with vivid red hair and a lanky frame. When he spoke it was with an English accent that seemed to get squeakier as he got more agitated.

"I have it on very good authority that she is here," he insisted.

But Amanda was less interested in what they were saying then in Hannah's reaction to it. Every ounce of blood in her face seemed to have drained to her feet as she stared at the young man.

"Hannah?"

And then the copier started shooting sparks behind them. Hannah didn't seem to notice. In fact, it looked as though she didn't seem to notice anything else in the world except the red-haired fellow at the desk. She took a step toward him at the time Rose was threatening to call security.

"Hello, Ron." She said quietly.

The young man jerked his head up at the sound of Hannah's voice. He had almost the same reaction to her as she had to him. The receptionist started to babble some sort of apology but he walked away from her as if her existence didn't matter to his universe any more.

"Hermione?"

Amanda, also completely forgotten, watched as Hannah's back stiffened at the name.

"I haven't gone by Hermione in some time," she replied.

But he was busy looking her up and down with mouth hanging open in astonishment.

"You've changed," he finally muttered, which seemed strange to Amanda. She'd worked with Hannah for the better part of three years and she looked the same to her as the day they met. Glossy brown hair that she mostly kept in a knot at the back of her head, soft brown eyes, always sharply dressed, always professional.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Hannah replied sharply.

The young man, Ron, seemed to realize he'd insulted her and he gave his head a shake to get back on track.

"I mean, you look really good, and you have an accent now."

She seemed more agitated the longer he talked.

"Why are you here?"

That shook him out of his wonderment. He straightened his back and his expression immediately sobered.

"I need you. Uh, we need you. You know—"

Hannah tossed her head and abruptly headed back toward her office.

"What could I possibly do?" She said. "I have not been involved in that world in some time."

She reached her door when he said: "Harry needs you."

That stopped her dead in her tracks. Behind her Ron was standing looking like every muscle in his body was tensed, waiting for her answer.

"What do you need?" Hannah finally replied but instead of looking pleased he looked like he wanted to put his fist through a wall.

The week that followed had just been bizarre.

Hannah was known to be intensely private. Amanda had asked her to join she and her coworkers for lunch and other events for nearly a year before she ever excepted. But Amanda had kept asking because there was always this sadness and loneliness to Hannah that surrounded her like a cape. And when Hannah did go out with them she always seemed to have a good time but she never volunteered information about herself and above all, she never talked about her past. There were bets on how she was in the witness protection program that didn't seem quite so silly when Ron showed up.

He came to work with her every morning, despite the fact that she looked intensely miserable because of it. He followed her wherever she went in the office and whenever he spoke she usually shushed him when someone else was around. People could hear arguing from her office almost constantly and Hannah would get extremely agitated when he would call her by some strange name. Her usually pleasant attitude turned to strained and withdrawn and whenever anyone was bold enough to ask her who Ron was she'd snap: "an old friend from school" and no one asked any more.

But as Amanda watched her crossing the war room she was pretty sure that Hannah had finally reached her limit. And sure enough, not two seconds after the thought crossed her mind Hannah swung around on Ron and just lost it.

"I'm disloyal?" She shouted loud enough for everyone in the room to stop what they were doing and watch what was going on. "Don't you dare."

"You should have stayed," Ron shouted back.

"How could I?" She said, and the contracts in her hands slipped out of her hands into a pile on the floor. "You broke my heart into a thousand pieces!"

Ahhh, Amanda thought. Mystery solved.

"I broke your heart?!" He shouted back, appalled. "You fell in love with my best friend!"

Far from being taken aback or looking shocked Hannah rolled her eyes. Oddly, the papers at her feet started to swirl around her feet like they were caught in a small whirlwind.

"Not this again."

"You can't possibly deny it. Not now."

"Ron, you and Harry were the best friends that I ever had. I loved you both. But I never felt about Harry the way I felt about you. You were the only bloody prat that didn't believe it." When Ron opened his mouth to reply she shook her head and in her anger she started slipping back into the English accent that she thought she'd banished. "And if I was so madly in love with Harry then why didn't I just run into his arms when you chucked me out? No, I left the bloody country!"

She was shaking with anger as she stomped across the paper on the floor that had stopped it's strange swirling. She had just reached the door when the lights flickered.

"I know about Jamie," Ron said in a voice that didn't sound like his own.

And Hannah stopped where she stood and it felt as though the world went completely silent.