Chapter 4: What a Day

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, JKR does.

I wasn't usually the type of person to be late. But ever since things had gone astray in my life six years ago, with Ginny's death, I stopped caring so much. I ran a few blocks then dashed into an abandoned alley where no one could see me and apparated to The Daily Prophet. I don't think muggles are very accustomed to seeing people disappear out of thin air. Much to my disappointment Jerry was sitting in my chair, his feet on my desk, pointing to his watch. He looked up at me almost smiling.

"Oh wow, you are only fifteen minutes late this morning. It must be a record." His face turned serious. "I know you have been through a lot Ms. Granger, that is one of the reasons I hired you. But that does NOT excuse you from making it to work on time." he pounded his hand on my desk causing me to jump.

---

I had waited two damn months for that red head to come back. I had stayed at the Weasley's, probably imposing on them, although they say I wasn't. I hadn't worked; I had barely slept, and rarely even ate. The only thing I really did do was cry. Ron said he needed to find himself, but I didn't think he had meant it! What did he need to find? He had me, he had his family.

"Hermoine dear." I heard Mrs. Weasley knock on my door with a shaky voice. Suddenly I felt ashamed, I wasn't the one who had lost a child, well lost two children in a sense. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were. I wiped away my tears quickly before sitting up in the bed they had let me stay in.

"Come in," I muttered trying to sound normal, as if everything was okay.

I hadn't noticed until now, when Mrs. Weasley walked in, just how much she had been affected by all the things going on since the war. Her hair seemed to have grayed slightly and she was much more slim than she had been before the war. She sat down next to me on my bed putting an arm around me.

"Oh Hermoine, I can't stand to see you like this. I know how you feel dear. You are always welcome here, but maybe if you were to go get a job and get out on your own a bit you would feel better. You wouldn't be reminded of Ginny, Harry, and Ron so much." I saw her close her eyes as she mentioned all of my friend's names, and her children's names (for she considered Harry her child too). I knew I couldn't stay here anymore and I was glad Mrs. Weasley had talked to me, gave me the extra push.

"Yes Mrs. Weasley, I know, I will be leaving tomorrow." I reassured her, even though I knew I was the one who needed reassurance.

So I left to go look for a job. I took many job interviews of different occupations that I could have succeeded in easily, yet I blew them all. I was so stupid! I would always forget what I was going to say and stumble over my words in the interviews. Probably because I was thinking of other things and not what I was trying to tell the interviewer. My last choice of a job had been The Daily Prophet, and that's where I found myself one day.

"Ah yes, you must be...Ms. Granger," a tall man, probably ten years older than me was looking down at my resume. "It says here that you were one of the brightest witches at Hogwarts, why would someone as intelligent as you want to work here?" I was slightly taken aback by this question, was he bashing his own newspaper?

"I don't know, I suppose because I couldn't work anywhere else." I wanted to hit myself on my forehead, I had done it again, answered before I thought through what I was going to say.

"Well I do like honesty. Most of the time that is," he chuckled mildly. "And why can't you work anywhere else?"

Dear lord, I found myself spilling out everything to him. About Harry fighting Voldemort (he knew of this of course), about Ginny's death, Harry's death, and Ron's departure. Then saying how I always said the wrong things when in an interview, prime example being today. You don't tell an interviewer this I kept thinking; he must think I'm crazy. Yet all he did was shake his head.

"You are nine-teen and you have gone through all of this?"

"Y-yes," I responded quietly.

"Then I guess you really need this job?"

I shook my head up and down quickly.

"Be careful there you don't want to hurt your neck," I blushed deeply. "Then you've got yourself a job."

"Wait. What?"

"I said you've got a job. But you better write well for me, I'm expecting a lot from you."

I must have thanked him twenty times before he shooed me out of his office telling me to show up tomorrow morning at 8:00 o' clock sharp.

---

"I'm so sorry Jerry," I really meant it to, he had stuck his neck out for me and I never did one thing for him in return.

"You have been working here for almost five years and I think you have been on time a total of five times. You are one of my favorite reporters, this is however your last chance!" he got up from my desk chair and walked out of the room briskly.

"Yes sir," I called after him quietly.

My friend Jeni walked into my office with a frown. "I heard what happened," she muttered in that high-pitched voice of her's.

"Who didn't? He's so god damn loud," I fell into my chair behind my desk with a flop. Jeni was the only other one besides Jerry and the Weasley's who knew about everything I had gone through. "Oh Jen what am I going to do?"

"Show up for work on time?" she giggled a little before receiving a glare from me. "How about you and I go out tonight, just us girls?"

"Oh Jen...I don't know, I'm awfully tired."

"That's bull, you're just anti-social," she walked over and poked me in my side making me jump. I smiled; you had to give it to her, she did try. She was always trying to make me feel better, and even comes close to succeeding every one and a while.

"Ok Jen, but we can't stay out too late."

"Hermione, it's Friday!"

"Yeah yeah what ever, now leave before I get fired for not working hard enough." I stood up and pushed her out of my office before sitting down to hopefully finish my article.

I worked hard on my article for nearly five hours, emerging from my office with numb fingers. Jeni was always so critical of how long it took me to write a single article, this one had taken me months and it still wasn't perfect yet. I guess that's what Jerry liked about me, everything I wrote had to be perfect or it wasn't done. Of course I wrote smaller articles on the side though. I walked out of my office to see Jeni clearing off her desk for the day. She was a petite girl, with dark green eyes and blonde hair with big bouncy curls. My guess was she slept in rollers every night, how else could her hair be so curly? She turned to me right when I reached her desk and smiled telling me that we were going to have fun.

A night out couldn't be that bad, could it? But boy was I wrong. We apparated to a club called "W&W" also known as: Witches and Wizards. Oh how very creative I thought to myself. The club was dark except for the red lights shining down on the dance floor. It wasn't too tacky I suppose. We sat down at a table near the back of the place, me ordering a butterbeer and her a fire whisky. I have no idea how she can drink that stuff, one glass of fire whisky for me and I would be out like a light. I even recall getting a little woozy on butter beer once. I guess my body just doesn't take well to alcohol, not that I cared; I didn't think drinking was very smart anyway.

"Oh this is real fun," I yelled sarcastically over all the noise.

"Yes, just us girls talking," Jen remarked, grinning.

"We could talk at one of our houses and I wouldn't be deaf by the end of the night either!" but she didn't seem to hear me.

A tall handsome man was walking over and he asked Jeni for a dance, and she left with out even asking me if I minded. I finished my butter beer and got up to walk home. When Jeni finds a man that she likes, that really all she cares about for the first week or so of her relationship with them. I selfishly found myself hoping that whoever that bold and handsome guy was, he wouldn't want to date Jeni. Then maybe I wouldn't have to go through not talking to anyone for a week. So immersed in my thoughts I didn't notice someone walking toward me, and neither did they because he ran into me.

"Watch where you're walking!" I said barring my teeth so as to keep my temper down. I was clearly not in the best mood.

"Twice in a day. Wow," I looked up to see Ron standing there looking down at me. Great, what luck I thought sarcastically.

"I have to go Ron, move," why was I being such a prat? He stepped out of the way and I jogged out of the club just wanting to get some fresh air. I heard the door swing open behind me again and someone walked outside.

"Mione?" It was of course Ron.

"Don't call me that," I spat rudely

"What's your problem? You've changed so much."

I spun around to see him standing right in front of me, our faces so close that our noses were nearly touching. I was full of rage. "Excuse me? Did I just hear you right? Maybe I should be the one asking questions. Like hmm...how about why didn't you ever come back Ron?"

"There was nothing to come back to," my face fell, so that was the reason. All those night I had spent trying to convince myself that he really didn't want to leave me, were an absolute waste. I could have just asked him why he didn't come back; he didn't find it very difficult to say he didn't care for me. "I talked to Harry the morning I left and he said I should leave for a little bit."

"A little bit is not five years Ron...whoa wait! Do you think that's funny?"

"Do I think what is funny?"

"Harry was dead a week before you left, you know that. You didn't even bother to show up for his funeral."

His features softened totally ignoring what I had just said, "Oh yes and Ginny says hello by the way."

Oh my god, he really had gone mad. My face screwed up in a look that probably portrayed all the emotions I was feeling; anger, confusion, and sadness.

"Ron?"

"Yes she says hello and that her and Harry are getting married," he wasn't joking, he was absolutely insane.

"Shut up! Its not funny," tears started to fall from my eyes. Just then Jeni burst outside, probably wondering where I was. When she saw me crying she ran over to me quickly wrapping her arms around me.

"Hermione, are you okay? Who is this?"

"He's no one," I didn't care that Ron flinched at this, clearly hurt. "Let's go."

And with that Jeni and I apparated to my apartment.

A/N: In this chapter, I tried to portray how messed up Ron really is. Well thanks for reading- let me know what you think in a review :)