The days within those first weeks after the four Weasley brothers left for New York were like a game of two halves.
The working hours were full and blurry. The workload not being met by Ron especially, meant that reassignment had to take place in order to ensure everything was done. Will and Becky had been called on to help with the set-up of conferences, which piled extra archival duties onto Helene who temporarily returned to full-time hours. All over the castle, staff adjusted to new roles, without being given a plausible explanation for half the Weasley family suddenly disappearing off on an extended holiday with their aunt, which created tension and unease.
Hermione miserably batted off continuous questions about the whereabouts of the brothers and their anticipated return which was exhausting amidst attempting to reorganise what was left of her team.
On top of this, frantic recruitment of temporary staff was needed to plug the gaps they were unable to fill and Hermione, Sylvain and Harry spent long days interviewing and hiring, often working into the night to complete the required paperwork.
Still, the hours she wasn't at work were worse. At the time, not keeping communication open between her and Ron had seemed like the right thing to do and she knew that it probably was, really. But the plain truth was, it hurt not to hear from him. She had thought she was saving herself from hearing about all the events he was attending and the people he was meeting.
In some ways though, her imagination was worse. Not knowing meant anything could be happening and Hermione's brain had quite the flair for creative thinking set, as it was, to look for problems and pitfalls at every turn. It sometimes took substantial physical effort to quiet her mind when she was home alone in the early weeks, so it was preferable, in many ways, to be working.
She and Harry had developed a routine; they would have coffee together after she met with Haroon, to lay out a plan for their day and talk over the bigger picture. Despite the circumstances and the fact that many of her curating responsibilities were being neglected, Hermione found herself enjoying the elevated responsibility.
Harry started inviting her to family meetings, which were happening much more frequently, as though the Weasleys were pining for the losses from their ranks and closed together more tightly to compensate. The family had voted against Ron, Percy and the twins dialling into the meetings in case it annoyed Muriel, and it was a smaller, quieter affair without the most boisterous Weasleys in attendance.
Hermione quickly established herself as a valuable, productive participant of the conversation. Harry even thanked her for bringing a completely different perspective to the table and lamented not having thought to invite her sooner.
The day after her second attendance, Harry visited her in her office and set a yellow 2-way radio on the desk.
On seeing the delighted surprise on her face, he grinned. "You've earned it. Can't be a stand-in Weasley without one. And I've missed having someone to talk to."
Hermione was slightly embarrassed by how proud and powerful she felt wearing the radio attached to her belt, how included. It was such a small gesture but it felt monumental and one of her first thoughts was how much she wished she could tell Ron.
These longings weren't usually persistent- she could talk herself out of them fairly quickly or, failing that, distract herself with something else. In fact, there were only two incidents that had really cut deep.
The first was something she should have seen coming and didn't, because she wrongfully told herself that if Ron and his brothers were in New York, then nothing they did would be visible to her.
She had taken to filling up her water canister in the kitchen again, finally feeling she had turned a corner with Mag. The previous week they had conversed- actually had an entire conversation- in the courtyard while they fed a few of the cats that were lounging around. Admittedly Hermione did most of the talking and Mag mainly nodded sagely but it was a pivotal moment. Mag was defrosting.
When she entered the kitchen on that dire day, Kate was standing next to the table holding a piece of paper. Around her crowded a few of the staff, including Mickie and Helene. When Helene saw Hermione she called to her to come and look.
The paper was a horizontal printout from an online magazine article. It was a photograph that covered nearly the entire page and Kate had printed it in colour so each face and detail was clear.
"I follow this website on Instagram," Kate was saying, "It covers all the main events of the American social season. I've been watching for them for weeks!"
The Weasley brothers were standing in a mixed group. Muriel was positioned between Ron and Percy and next to Percy were Clemmie and Carl Noth. They were outside, behind them a cerulean blue sky. Everyone was in shorts and t-shirts apart from Muriel and two other older women who wore long-sleeved sun dresses and wide brimmed straw hats.
Hermione felt something pummel the centre of her chest in response to the photograph, though she couldn't drag her eyes from it. Ron looked handsome, if a little distracted, and Clemmie looked predictably pretty in a white halter-neck and jean cut-offs.
Hermione could feel her back teeth starting to grind against the inside of her mouth. Just as she was about to step away, Mag came up behind her and looked at the photo over her shoulder.
"Where was that taken?" she asked Kate.
"Some sort of charity auction," Kate replied vaguely, squinting at the page. "I cut off the caption, I think."
Hermione felt Mag glance briefly at her before looking down again at the photo.
"Ron looks miserable," she said with finality before turning back to what she was doing. Hermione felt herself smile the tiniest bit.
The second incident was during a Saturday afternoon lunch break. She had taken to working almost every Saturday, despite Harry's objections, ostensibly because it was the only time she had to catch up on everything she let slide during the week but also because it felt better to work. That day had been beautiful so, after a long, tedious session with her reference books, she decided to walk into town to get lunch.
She rarely visited Slieve, if at all. It wasn't the nearest town to her home and it was too small to cover anything but basic necessities. She had remembered though, that Fred raved about the bakery and its sausage rolls and decided to see if he was to be proved right.
From the scent emanating from the paper bag in her hand, she concluded he probably was and she walked quickly, suddenly starving and ready to eat.
Waiting at a crossing, she looked across the road at a small teahouse, painted a cheery lilac with a row of window boxes planted with jewel coloured flowers. In the window of the teahouse sat Miss Farraday.
Hermione smiled. Since Ron's departure, she had made a special effort to be more present in the areas the public frequented most, such as the castle's café. In a way, it felt like she was taking care of Ron's regulars, overseeing them and ensuring they were okay while he was gone.
She had even built up a tenuous confidence with Lilibet, who had started bringing her parking meter concerns to Hermione. It was the most unusual part of Hermione's day but that Lilibet entrusted her with something she considered so important pleased Hermione.
Miss Farraday and Mr. Chapman were two of her preferred regulars and she often stopped by their table to chat to them on her way through. She had also, after some initial reticence, started sharing pleasantries with Mrs. Cotter and Lavinia when she saw them, though Miss Farraday remained her secret favourite.
Miss Farraday was eating cake with a fork and talking animatedly to her companion. Then she reached over and brushed the front of his jacket in her familiar way and Hermione realised with a start that the man she was with was not Mr. Chapman.
As the cars slowed to a stop and she made her way across the road, she watched Miss Farraday and this new man- in tweed jacket and jaunty hat- deep in discussion, laughing merrily. She tried to catch the older woman's eye as she passed the window but Miss Farraday was much too involved in her conversation to even register her presence.
As Hermione walked back up towards the castle, she felt her mood buoy with excitement; Ron would be so pleased with himself when she told him he'd been right all those months ago about Miss Farraday having more than one gentleman friend. He would rib her forever about it of course, but she wouldn't mind- she could let him have this one.
Then, as abruptly as her heart had filled with excitement, it became leaden with the knowledge that Ron wasn't just back at the castle, waiting for her to rush in and make him laugh with her news. He was on the other side of the world, doing God knows what with God knows who.
It was a gloomy thought, one that threaded her whole body through with sourness. The feeling lasted as she returned to her office and made herself a coffee and as she ate her sausage roll.
She ruminated on the timing of such an event. Ron had been gone for almost three months at this point and she had been doing okay. She'd been making it work. It didn't seem fair to be hit suddenly by a wave of misery at his absence.
And the magnitude of the misery felt undeserved as well. It seemed wrong, in Hermione's mind, to miss someone as much as she missed Ron. Her rational side reasoned that they had barely started to work out the logistics of their newly changed relationship when he had left, no matter how pretty and reassuring Ron's words had been that day in his bedroom.
I mean, could we even have been considered dating at that point? When no-one even knew?
Questions like this plagued Hermione, who liked unequivocal specifics and found it unnatural to operate within the grey areas of life. And it was for this reason that her brain did not like, did not wish to engage with, the knowledge that Ron's absence hurt her and that she missed him. Yet, she did. Very much.
Another arena Hermione chose not to operate in was Fate. Throughout her life, there had been occurrences that some would have considered pre-determined or fortuitous but that she herself was happy just to call good timing. The problem with Fate was that to believe in the good stuff, you also had to take the bad.
The Ottery job, for example, appeared as she was considering her next career move and it had brought her here, to Ron. But if that was destiny, then it must also be the case that his being taken from her was meant to be, and that was not such an easy sell.
Still, it was difficult not to see the cosmic timing of the email that arrived in her inbox just as she was swiping the pastry crumbs from the sausage roll into the wastepaper bin. It was from a recruitment company, a digest of all the jobs they had on offer this month that she might be interested in. Hermione couldn't recall when she would have signed up to receive such a thing but, instead of immediately deleting it, something made her open it.
The first post in the list caused her to pause and click again for further information. She read through the job description twice before sitting back in her chair.
To the side of her computer sat a desktop calendar she had received for Christmas, reminding her it was already June. In a few, short months her post would officially end. Ron and Harry had speculated on what they would do at that point but there hadn't ever been a clear path forward. They wanted her to stay but how they achieved that was not simple.
Until this point, Hermione hadn't really seriously considered where to go from here and, truthfully, hadn't really wanted to. It was as though she had gotten caught up in the Weasleys' notion of everything working out in the end, no matter what you did. But while this was a sweet, romantic way of viewing her predicament, it could very well leave her unemployed.
Something more unpleasant to consider, was what her working situation would be like when Ron returned from America. Would things between them have changed and could she operate under those circumstances if they had? And what if there was another woman in tow?
Hermione completed the online application form with this single thought glowering in the front of her mind.