Disclaimer: I don't own anything. This is just a figment of my imagination
Chapter Eleven: HootHermione opened her eyes. She could feel a heavy hand on her waist and she giggled at the memories of the night before. They had gone for a drink and when they had finally started on their walk to his place it had been five hours later.
With empty stomachs and a headache coming on, they had stumbled up the stairs and crashed into his room with a lot of noise. They had spent the rest of their time awake kissing passionately until they had fallen into a deep coma.
She looked at the clock on his bedside table. It was noon already, she realised. She tried to sit up but had to move George's arm before she could get out of bed without him noticing. She walked over to the washing basin at the other end of the room and looked into the mirror above it.
Her hair was an even bigger mess than usual. And her nose was unusually red too, from all that sneezing, she supposed. Splashing some cold water in her face, she felt much more awake. George turned over on his side in the bed and slept on soundly.
Hermione smiled and tiptoed back towards the bed to try and find her own clothes. Casting off the t-shirt and boxers she had borrowed, she hoisted herself into her own pair of jeans. She slipped her purple blouse on and then opened the door.
She had actually never been in this part of the building before. She hadn't seen anything but the shop and its back room. A long corridor stretched out before her with several doors, inviting her to open them.
The first one turned out to be the toilet, the second one was locked.
'Probably storage.' She thought.
The final door she opened, skipping to doors on the way, led her into a small kitchen. She walked over to the fridge and took out a bottle of milk so she could pour herself a glass. The kitchen door opened behind her and she beamed at who came in.
"Good morning." She said cheerfully.
"H- Hermione?" he said confused. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, Fred. It's you. I thought for a moment you were George..." she said with a blush. "I, er, spent the night here..."
"Oh..." Fred said.
He walked over to the stove and lit a fire beneath the kettle of water. Hermione sat down at the table and drank her milk quietly.
"It's not what you think." She said suddenly. "We didn't-"
"You don't have to explain what you do to me." He said quietly. "It's none of my business."
"I know, I just...felt like explaining..." she said.
It surprised her how awkward she felt that very moment, talking to Fred about her and George. It didn't make any sense.
"Well...I'd better go and wake him then..."
She got up and left the kitchen, walking back to George's room quickly.
George still seemed to be in a coma. She forced back a violent sneeze and slowly bent down to kiss him. His eyes shot open the moment her lips touched his.
"Good morning." She whispered with a grin.
He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. "Morning, gorgeous."
"It's past noon. Fred's up already. He was quite surprised to see me."
"...'S none of his business, though, is it?" George said, hiding a yawn.
"That's what he said, too." Hermione grinned. "You know, I'd better go."
"Why! It's Saturday, you don't have class or anything, do you?"
She shook her head. "No, but I think it's best if I go home. Fred feels awkward about me being here and no one should feel awkward in their own home."
"Let me get dressed and I'll walk you out."
He threw his sheets aside and searched for his pants on the floor. Hermione turned around and looked away with a blush on her face. George noticed and grinned. Sometimes he forgot she was still a bit younger than he was and that she was also just a little bit more naïve than girls his age.
He slipped on his magenta robes and snaked his arm around her waist.
"You can turn around now." He whispered into her ear before he gave her a big kiss in her neck.
She giggled and turned around to kiss him.
"Come on, I'll walk you out." He said.
She walked out the bedroom door and down the set of stairs into the back of the jokeshop. She looked around at the stock they were selling. Some of it was not only funny, but really ingenious too. She smiled. During her school years she hadn't always appreciated their cleverness enough, but then again, probably no one had.
George unlocked the shop door and opened it just in time to let in an olw with the Daily Prophet. Hermione reached out and it landed on a cupboard near her so she could untie the paper. George looked at the grey sky outside and sighed.
"It'll be a slow day, today." He stated. "Not a lot of people go shopping with bad weather coming on."
He snapped around when he heard Hermione gasp loudly.
"No!" she said terrified. "It can't be..."
George walked over to her and snatched the Daily Prophet from her hands. A large photograph of an elderly man covered most of the front page.
"Lawyer found dead in office after accused-Death Eater sighting." He read slowly.
Hermione was keeping back tears and she was biting her lip. George turned to face her.
"Lawyer? Is this...that guy Hoot from your office?"
She nodded quietly.
"...Yes..." she whispered.
"He's dead?"
"I've got to go to the office...I've got-"
"I don't think you should go." George said forcefully.
"They might need me!" she said hotly.
"Someone died, someone was killed! What if more of those creeps are hanging back to do you in as soon as you show up! You're one of the reasons they're being prosecuted the way they are, Hermione!"
She snapped around. "Well, I'm going anyway. You may care about me, George, but that doesn't give you the right to tell me what to do. I'll see you later."
She dove under his arm and disappeared out the door before he could stop her. She felt a horrible little pang of worry start in the pit of her stomach. She hadn't meant to blow up like that, but now that she had, she felt guilty.
What if this would make George like her less? What if this tiff made him see he didn't love her enough to take that from her? And what to think about poor mr. Hoot. She just couldn't believe that someone would kill him.
When she arrived at the building, a crowd of journalists and curious shoppers blocked her way in. A ministery official spotted her behind a photographer and motioned her to come forward.
"Miss Granger?"
She nodded.
"Please go inside and wait there. We want to talk to all the employees."
She was pushed through the door quickly before a reporter could get her attention. She brushed her hair from her face and spotted Tess at her desk. She was holding a box of tissues, quietly handing a clean one to the teary woman next to her every so often.
"Morning..." Hermione said.
Tess and what turned out to be Vivian Kramer, looked up for a moment. Hermione had never seen Vivian this frantic. Her eyes were red and puffy, like she had been crying all morning.
"She's been like that ever since she came in." Tess whispered when Vivian blew her nose noisily. "I never thought she'd be this upset about his death..."
Hermione slipped of her jacket and folded it over her arms.
"I never thought about him dying anyway..." she said in a hoars voice.
Her nose began to itch again and she grabbed a tissue from the box Tess was holding. Tess looked at her for a moment.
"Tell me something...Are those the same clothes you wore yesterday?"
"...Yes...w- why?"
"I've never seen you were the exact same clothes two days in a row."
"I didn't sleep at my place." Hermione tried to say casually. "But what does it matter now?"
"It matters because it keeps my mind off things...It keeps my mind from thinking about Hoot." Tess said quietly. "It gives me something else to think about. I just can't get it out of my head."
"Ladies and gentlemen. Please take a seat and we'll be with each of you as soon as possible." Said the ministery official who had pulled Hermione inside.
He walked over to the three of them, his eyes locked on Vivian.
"Miss Kramer? Would you like to start? Anything you know could be useful."
"A- all I know is that this man Parkinson came in yesterday." She said in a hysteric voice. "He wanted us to represent him but I said no...He kept trying to persuade me, it was so threatening!"
"Calm down, miss." He said soothingly as she began to sob again.
"I saw him too." Tess said quietly when she noticed Vivian wasn't going to say anything more than she had done already. "He asked me if there were more lawyers in the office."
"Did you direct him to mr. Hoot's office?"
"No!" she said, sounding offended. "I was too scared to say anything! Hermione had told me she'd recognised him and-"
"Miss Granger, you recognised him?"
She nodded subdued. "I recognised him from a few years back when I went to Hogwarts with his daughter. She was in Slytherin, I in Gryffindor. Needless to say we didn't get along well."
"Do you remember ever seeing him in the company of known Death Eaters?"
She shook her head. "No, but his daughter dated Lucius Malfoy's son."
"And we all know they like to keep things in pure-blood circles." The official muttered before turning back to Tess. "How did he react when you didn't answer?"
"He- he said he'd find someone himself and then turned away and walked towards mr. Hoot's office of his own accord. That's all I know..."
He hummed seriously and wrote down every word. "And that's all anyone saw? We don't have much to go on..."
"Wait..." Hermione said slowly. "...I saw him come out of the office. He was angry because no one had wanted to accept him as a client..."
"That's more like it. It's very probable that he was killed because he didn't comply."
"What!" Vivian Kramer shreeked. "But I turned him down too! What if he comes after me next!"
"I don't think that's very likely. If he had wanted to, why not kill you at the office as well. We need more-"
"But I need protection! He might come after me, you don't know!" she continued shrieking.
The official placed his hands on her shoulders to calm her down. "As long as we don't have more information we can't offer you protection. All we can do is investigate this as thorough as we can and advise you to keep on doing your jobs as usual."
He turned around and walked into the middle of the room.
"That will be all for the time being. No one is to speak to the press about this, all communications with the media will be covered by us. Mr. Hoot's office will be off limits for now, but we will examine the files he had in his possession as fast as possible so we can return them to you, allowing you to continue your work. If anyone wants to contact me, I'll be at the Leaky Cauldron for the rest of the day."
Vivian ran after him, trying to clasp herself to his arm as he walked out the door.
"But surely you have one of two aurors to spare to guard me?" she said. "Perhaps just for the office!"
The ministery official rolled his eyes. He looked at the two men who had been helping him calm the press. They gave him a nod and gently took Vivian's arms and guided her back to her private office.
"Calm down, ma'am. We will be here for the rest of the day."
Hermione looked at her pale face as the woman walked by. The dark rings under her eyes told Hermione that Vivian Kramer had been up all night.
"Hey..." she whispered to tess. "Since when did they know about this?"
Tess took a minute before aswering. "Well, since just before closing last night..."
"That long? And no one told me?"
"It was his secretary who found him. The boy is still in shock. And Andersson hasn't been in yet, probably avoiding the press."
Hermione found it alarming to hear Tess tell her all of this in such a calm voice. She had expected her to be shaky or at least taken aback. She herself felt absolutely disgusted with the mere though of that poor man lying dead in his office for hours.
"Aren't you scared?" Hermione asked.
Tess looked away. "...I am. But I heard it all last night and...I've gotten used to this thought...already. I know it sounds horrible to say, but-"
"No, not horrible. Sensible. If we all start living in fear the way Kramer's doing right now...It'd be just like before Voldemort was killed. I never thought all those people would die back then, and yet I was able to accept their deaths more willingly than I can accept this right now..."
She felt her shoulders begin to shake and hid her face in her hands.
"It's alright...They'll get that man and fling him into Azkaban. Why he was dumb enough to add another death to his list, I don't know. But it's secured his sentence before the case against him could even get off the ground. You know it's true."
"...I'm not afraid." Hermione said all of a sudden as she let herself sink into her chair. "George didn't want me to go, but I wanted to be here so I went. He was afraid something would happen and I am not..."
Tess tried to find something to say, but all the words got mixed up in her mind so she decided to say nothing. She looked up when a man from the ministery tapped her shoulder.
"Miss Farlane? The minister sent these files back. They checked out negative."
"Negative?" she asked confused.
He gave a sympathetic smile.
"Nothing ties them to this incident. It's alright for you to get working on these again." He said kindly.
Tess took the files he was holding. He nodded curtly and left. Tess looked at what she was holding for a moment and then turned away from Hermione.
"I've got to get these to Kramer...She'll split them between her and Andersson."
Hermione nodded and rubbed her arms. "Sure..."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Vivian picked at her nails. She had been up all night, wand at the ready. That old man hadn't been killed for nothing. He had probably turned Parkinson's offer down just as she had. And now he was dead and she could end up just the same without help or protection from the ministery.
She nearly jumped whenthe door to her office opened. She jabbed her wand in its direction, causing a ferocious blast of heat to surge over Tess' head. The girl touched the top of her head top check if her hair had been singed.
"The ministery sent back some case files Hoot was covering." She said. "I thought I'd bring them to you."
"Y- yes. Fine, give them to me."
Vivian snatched them from the girl's hands and rammed them down on her desk.
"Now please go, I'm very busy."
Once the door had been shut on the way out, Vivian sat down and let her head rest on the surface of the desk. She had never felt so miserable in her life. She didn't care much about the old codger, even though she didn't think he should have died. But now her own life might be at risk too and no one was trying to help her.
She let out a sigh and lifted her head up so she could read the files she had been given. Perhaps reading them would get her mind off things.
'No...' she thought when she had scanned the first one.
'No.'
The second one wasn't much better, nor was the third.
'Ugh...I'll suppose I'll just give them to Greg. He loves anything that's boring.'
Suddenly her thoughts seemed to stop. She had just read a couple of very familiar names in one of the files. She scanned through it again.
"Jokeshop?" she muttered surprised.
Not at all what she had expected to come across...Though, if combined with the names, hardly something to raise your eyebrow about.
"Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes..."
This was a very pleasant discovery, one that would do quite well to keep her mind of things around here. A grin took shape around her mouth. This gave her an opportunity she hadn't thought she'd ever get again. The Weasley boys were in for a surprise. They had just been appointed a new lawyer.
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