A/N: Thank you to the following: pottersgirl91, kat6528, PapayaCrazy, nahimasgift, Tokyo no Ecchi, dwntwndanbrown, shadieladie, san01, tofuubeaver, Kuroumo, MarauderinglyMagical, imakeeper, aznqudditchchick, Shout, CardboardCreative, vagrantben, Emi-Bum, CareBearErin, animerocksjapanrocks, and slythringrl.

Thanks so much to you all, I was really pleased with the number of reviews for the last chapter. Enjoy this one and the many more to come...


Chapter 5 – Hermione's Break

In the room at then end of the Janus Thickey Ward, Hermione stood outraged with Draco Malfoy and her boss, Miriam. Things weren't looking up for Hermione because at the moment, Draco Malfoy was presenting a great argument. 'He should be a lawyer' Hermione thought. 'He's good at persuading, rich and snobbish, arrogant and above all, greedy and slimy just like one.'

Hermione rolled her eyes as Draco began telling how Kirsten had punched Draco's son in the face. He was making it sound as though he and his son had been doing nothing at all. Hermione crossed her arms across her chest and glared in the direction of the ceiling as Draco called Kirsten a demon child. 'You're one to talk... you weren't much better growing up and what is it you named your kid, Demianos!' Hermione thought bitterly.

"Hermione," Miriam sighed. "I'm afraid that I will have to ban Kirsten from the nursery for the next two months."

"But Miriam! What am I supposed to do when I don't have a baby sitter and I have to go to work!" Hermione protested as she threw her arms in the air.

"You should have thought about that before you let your child attack my son," Draco hissed arrogantly.

"She should have punched him a little harder!" Hermione growled in his face before storming out of the office.

She entered a room where Padma was sitting on a bed with Kirsten, rocking the child gently as she stroked her hair. Hermione walked up and Kirsten shuddered as she feared what her mom was about to say. But Hermione didn't say anything as she huffed and left the room.

"Where's mommy going?" Kirsten sniffled.

"I think your mum just needs some time on her own right now... To relax," Padma sighed. "How about helping me for a bit?"


Hermione entered her house after a thirty minute ride on the London subway. She walked over and dropped down on the couch, exhaustion running to every point in her body. How could things get any worse?

Hermione looked around the room and spotted a picture of her, Ron, and Harry. They waved to her and she frowned, getting up and laying the picture face down. It only served to remind her how badly she had screwed her life up at the moment. Here she was, the brightest witch of her age, and she was facing problems at work, not to mention she was a single parent. How had things gotten to be like this?

Then her eyes fell on something else on the mantle. It was an unmarked book that she knew very well. The story held on those pages was a sad romance, a short one too. Hermione picked up the book and sat down upon the couch, curling her legs up to her chest. She opened the book and propped it up on her knees, looking at the script design around the title. A Sweet Summer Romance: The Story of Hermione Granger and Oliver Wood.

Hermione smiled fondly as she flipped the page and saw Oliver's smiling face. He was in a picture with her, his arm wrapped tight around her waist and his other hand waving frantically. Behind them was a bright red hotel door with the golden number 409 on it. Hermione felt tears rush to her eyes and she closed the book, laying it aside.

She got up, moving to the kitchen to get herself some tea and Firewhiskey. She never usually drank, she felt it was bad. But at this moment, her mind couldn't handle the thoughts flying through it, and this was the only way she knew to get rid of them without a Pensieve. Hermione rose the cup to her lips, breathing deeply the spicy smell of her tea, her mind clearing slightly with the burning feeling from the alcohol.

She sipped for a short minute and then an idea came to her. She needed to get out of the house and go on a short vacation. She looked around the house and wondered where she could go before another idea came to her. She ran upstairs after taking a big gulp of her tea and began packing.

An hour later, Hermione came downstairs with a small bag and grabbed the hard cover notebook on the coffee table beside the couch before walking out the door. She stopped on the porch, pulling out her wand and looking around to check for her neighbors. They were nowhere in sight so she shoot a shower of sparks into the air and seconds later there was a large bang.

Before her was the large, triple-decker Knight Bus. Hermione ran down the sidewalk from her house and boarded the bus, handing Stan Shunpike a Galleon and grabbing a bed in the middle of the first level. Hermione looked to Stan who handed her her change and she sighed.

"Paris."


"Padma. When's my mum coming back?" Kirsten asked as she pushed the dinner cart down the corridor of the Janus Thickey Ward.

"I'm not sure, honey," Padma replied somewhat sadly. She felt so bad for Kirsten at the moment. "Wait here and I'll be back," Padma instructed before grabbing two trays and heading into a room.

Kirsten leaned on the cart and looked around the bright white corridors. It was seven at night and Hermione hadn't been there since one o'clock that afternoon. Kirsten sighed and looked to her left, seeing a man standing in the room at his window. He was staring out it like he was lost, a gold book in his hand.

Kirsten's brow furrowed and she grabbed a tray as she walked into the room. She sat the tray down with a little clank and the guy looked over his shoulder. Kirsten smiled at Oliver and walked over to him, turning her head and looking at the book in his hand.

"That's one of my favorite teams," she said as she noticed the bulrushes that were the Puddlemere mark. "And you're my favorite Quidditch player," she added bashfully.

"Quidditch player?" Oliver repeated. "Is that why I'm in this book?"

Kirsten's eyebrows shot upward on her forehead and she felt shocked. Oliver Wood didn't know who he was.

"Yeah," she laughed, figuring it was a joke. "You're the Puddlemere Keeper."

"Keeper," Oliver repeated to himself.

"Here... look," Kirsten said as she grabbed the book and turned to the page with Oliver on it.

Meanwhile, outside, Padma came back to the cart and saw Kirsten was gone.

"Oh no," Padma panicked as she looked around desperately. Then she spotted her.

Kirsten was in Oliver's room, sitting on his lap by the window, reading to him. Padma walked quietly to the doorway and saw that Kirsten had taken his food in too. She smiled and looked to Kirsten and Oliver. Wood was staring at the book as Kirsten read from it.

"Oliver Wood, the second youngest Quidditch player in history, is the Keeper for the Puddlemere team. He is one of the league's best and has said that he's always had a love for the game, even when he was younger," Kirsten read. "'I can remember playing with my dad and uncle," Wood – that's you – says. 'Quidditch was a big thing growing up in my family. Everyone played!'"

"My family?" Oliver said in an unsure way. "Where are they now?"

"Don't know," Kirsten sighed. "But you can come play Quidditch with me and Uncle Ron and Uncle Harry. Aunt Ginny plays some times too. I always try to get mum to play, but she never will. Says she doesn't like flying."

"Why doesn't she?" Oliver asked.

"She's crazy like that," Kirsten said as though frustrated with the thought of her mother's fear of flying. "I don't know why she wouldn't. It's great!"

"That good, huh?" Oliver said with a trace of a smile on his face.

Padma was about to interrupt them when something miraculous to her happened.

"I think I remember flying," Oliver muttered as though trying hard to remember.

Padma felt tears welling in her eyes as she smiled and backed silently from the doorway. She would let them finish while she finished delivering dinner to everyone.


Hermione sat on the balcony of room 409 of the hotel from the picture in Paris. She stared somewhat distractedly at the lights of the city, her eyes in the distance on the Eiffel Tower. She recalled her trip there with Oliver.

--Flashback--

"Where are we going, Wood?" Hermione laughed as Oliver jumped up from his seat at the little café where they had met only just the night before.

"You'll see," Wood grinned as he grabbed Hermione's hand and hailed a Muggle taxi. "The Eiffel Tower, please."

Hermione sat in the back of the taxi with Oliver, her heart pounding with every look he gave her. She had went home the night before and fell dreamily onto her bed with a sigh, falling asleep to nothing but good dreams of Oliver. She couldn't believe how fast she had fallen for him. Love at first sight did exist.

"C'mon," Oliver said about ten minutes later, throwing some Sickles at the confused looking driver.

Wood drug Hermione off to the tower and she realized what he was doing.

"Oliver, no," Hermione protested. "I don't like heights."

"Oh, c'mon... it's not that bad," Oliver pleaded. "I'll be right there and I promise you won't fall."

Hermione looked around the large open area and frowned as she reluctantly let Oliver shove her over to the tower. Before she knew it, she was staring down at Paris from scary heights.

"Let's get closer to the edge," Wood said as he grabbed Hermione's hand. She shook her head, her brown frizzy curls whipping her face as she did. "It'll be fine," he laughed.

Hermione followed him over and looked to the other side of the room inside the tower.

"Are you going to stand there like that or take in the amazing view?" Wood asked.

"I uh- um... think that I'll just um... stick with this," Hermione stammered nervously.

"Oh, for Quidditch's sake, Hermione Granger," Wood grumbled as he grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around. The view from the tower blurred before Hermione's eyes as her stomach dropped and she gasped.

Suddenly, her arms were around Oliver's neck and her face was buried in his shoulder.

"Get me... over- away from... edge," Hermione mumbled into his shirt as he stood there shocked.

"O-okay," Wood said as he fought of the urge to laugh again.

He walked her to the middle of the room and she shakily let go of him. He straightened his shirt and smiled somewhat.

"I guess dinner up here would be out of the question, huh?" he joked.

"Most definitely," Hermione answered fearfully as she stood frozen before him. "Can we go now?"

"Yeah," Wood said as he grabbed her hand for support and took her to the elevator to go down.

--End Flashback--

Hermione shivered and looked over the balcony. She was four floors up and felt not a bit of fear as she looked down. She never really feared heights after that night with Oliver. She owed him a big thanks for that. Hermione smiled as she stood up and went into her room, dropping down onto the bed and turning on the television.


By the time Padma had served everyone dinner, given them their medicine, and came back through to pick up the dinner trays, it was ten-thirty at night. She sighed as she knew she had another hour and a half before she went home. 'I hope you get here, Hermione... I don't know what to do with Kirsten' Padma thought desperately.

It was then that Padma decided that she needed to get Kirsten from Oliver's room so that she could give him his medicine and put him to bed. But when Padma entered his room, she saw that he was already asleep in the chair, Kirsten still in his lap. On the stand next to Oliver's bed was the vials marked with his name and his tray was empty.

Kirsten had apparently given Oliver his medicine and let him eat as she read him the rest of the book on Puddlemere. Padma looked around the room in uncertainty, wondering what she should do. 'Do I move Kirsten and wake Oliver up to put him in bed?'

"No," Padma finally sighed to herself as she grabbed Oliver's tray and took it out to the cart. She went back into the room and grabbed a blanket, tossing it over Oliver and Kirsten. She would just leave them there for now, at least until midnight anyways when she would come back and get Kirsten and take her home with her.


"Miss Granger! Your room service!" called a hotel employee through the door.

Hermione jumped up off the bed and went to the door, taking the bag that the guy had and giving him some Muggle money. She closed the door and sighed as she walked over to the bed. She curled back up under the covers and went back to her movie, pulling the contents from the bag.

She looked at the food and smiled, sitting it beside her on the bed. When she did, she sat it on her book. She quickly picked up the little box of Chinese and looked at the book. She turned off the television and opened the book, deciding to read.

A Sweet Summer Romance:

The Story of Hermione Granger and Oliver Wood

Written by: Hermione Jane Granger

July 28, 1997

Love is like magic
And it always will be.
For love still remains
Life's sweet mystery!
Love works in ways
That are wondrous and strange
And there's nothing in life
That love cannot change!
Love can transform
The most commonplace
Into beauty and splendor
And sweetness and grace.
Love is unselfish,
Understanding and kind,
For it sees with its heart
And not with its mind!
Love is the answer
That everyone seeks...
Love is the language,
That every heart speaks.
Love can't be bought,
It is priceless and free,
Love, like pure magic,
Is life's sweet mystery!

--Helen Steiner Rice

Hermione turned the page and smiled at the picture there. She flipped yet another page and began to read what she had wrote. It wasn't long before Hermione found herself asleep, the book upon her chest and Chinese boxes sitting on the nightstand next to her bed.


"Good night, Padma," Miriam called as she threw some Floo powder into the fire and then disappeared from the emerald flames.

Padma finished her time card and turned to the fireplace. She followed suit and grabbed some sparkling powder, throwing it into the flames. They turned green once more and Padma stepped into them, saying her destination and going home herself. But she had forgotten one very important thing. Kirsten.

The little girl stirred in Oliver's lap, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. She looked around the dark room and felt panic start to flare inside her. She turned to the person's lap who she was sitting in, shaking them by the shoulders.

"Mum," she whispered. "Mum... I'm scared. Turn on the lights."

Oliver groaned and peeked through the darkness. Someone was shaking him and he couldn't figure out who. Suddenly, he heard little feet padding about the room, and then a light flipped on. It blinded him momentarily, making him squint into the light as his eyes adjusted.

"Where's my mum?" asked a little girl across the room, standing next to his hospital bed.

"I-I uh- I'm not sure," Oliver muttered groggily as he rubbed his face and then got up from the chair, a book and a blanket falling to the floor.

"She's not coming back for me... is she?" Kirsten sniffled.

Oliver frowned as he saw the little girl rub her eyes furiously with the back of her hand. Had her mother really left her? 'No, surely not' Oliver thought as he walked over and picked the little girl up. He sat down on the bed, sitting her on his lap once more.

"Come now... stop crying," he whispered in her ear. "Everything will be fine. I'm sure that if you go to sleep, you're mommy will be back in the morning."

"Really?" Kirsten sobbed as she clung to Oliver's neck.

"Absolutely," he chuckled as he kissed the top of her head. What had made him do that? And why did he feel like it was his job to care for the child? Why wasn't he taking her to the front desk of the hospital and telling someone to find her mother?

"Can- can I stay wi-with you?" she hiccuped.

"Certainly," Oliver cooed as he stood up and pulled back the covers on the bed.

He crawled into bed, the little girl still clinging to him. He covered them both, Kirsten snuggling up to him. He felt a surge of pride and couldn't figure out why. Why was he so attached to this little girl? Whatever it was, he wasn't sure, but he did like her. A lot.

He hugged her to him and laid there, listening to her breathe. He smiled and felt his own eyelids get heavy. Soon he too was asleep. It was quite a sight to see. A little girl with light brown curls clinging desperately to a full grown man with light brown hair of the same color. One would almost mistake them for father and daughter.