Divination for Skeptics Preview

a/n: And now, for something totally different—a preview of my new WIP, Divination for Skeptics.

Diagon Alley, London
14 March, 2001

Hermione spotted Harry at the front of the room, slunk so low in his chair with his arms folded that he appeared, from a distance, to be napping. She rolled her eyes fondly, nudging aside one of the other press correspondents and falling into the empty seat beside him, poking him awake.

"Ouch, bloody Christ, I—oh, it's you." He sat up, yawning. "What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" she retorted, fussily moving his arm aside and inspecting his badge, which read EVENT SECURITY. "Security?" she echoed, scoffing aloud. She raised a brow in reference to the exceedingly tame audience, which consisted of no more than twenty other journalists and reporters. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," Harry replied with a reluctant indication of agreement, settling the badge back against his shirt—which was, per usual, atrociously wrinkled. Hermione glanced around, confirming that no one from Witch Way was watching before casting a quick, silent charm, pressing the fabric smooth and then, after a moment's hesitation, tucking the tails neatly into his trousers.

Harry scarcely noticed, raking a hand through his unruly hair and turning to her with a frown, glancing narrow-eyed at her own press badge. "This is what the Prophet has you covering?" he asked, surprised. "I thought you were a Ministry correspondent."

An unpleasant reminder, but it had been bound to come up. "Recently, I've been… reprimanded," Hermione confessed, lowering her voice. "It appears Minister Shacklebolt didn't care for my last exposé, or so my editor informed me when he banished me to the meaningless swamp of—" She broke off, repulsed, before admitting, "Human interest pieces."

Harry chuckled. "Well, you did specifically say that anyone who agreed with the Wizengamot's plan for modulated creature reform had fewer convictions than a mimbulus mimbletonia and the frontal lobe of a decapitated spider."

"So?"

"So, I assume Kingsley didn't care for it," Harry mused, "seeing as he authored the bill."

"If he wasn't prepared to handle criticism, he shouldn't have gone into politics," Hermione replied, pursing her lips. "And anyway, we were talking about you, not me. What's a war hero and star Auror doing supervising an unremarkable press conference?" she asked him, considerably doubtful. "I can't imagine there will be any assassination attempts. Or even mild havoc."

Harry shrugged. "Crowd control is part of the job," he replied, sounding as if he'd been recently reprimanded himself. "Apparently it's the best place for my particular… enthusiasm."

Hermione winced. The last time Harry and Ron had been on duty in Knockturn, Harry had caused something of a highly public scene, chasing and disarming a man he thought to be under the Imperius curse who, it turned out, was merely intoxicated, and on his return from what a less polite person might call a brothel.

That, and he had also been the son of a prominent and none-too-pleased Warlock.

"I think Harry just gets a bit worked up, that's all," had been Ron's subsequent commentary to Hermione, revealing their supervisory Auror had evaluated Harry in the incident report to be, quote, 'unproductively paranoid.' "A Dark Lord was after him for most of his life, wasn't he? And nobody ever suspected anything back then, so I guess it's not that surprising that he overdoes it sometimes, really. Either that, or he's just bored," Ron added conclusively around an overlarge bite of sandwich, at which point Hermione prompted him to chew, for heaven's sake, with his mouth shut.

Ron's final thoughts on the matter were that Harry would get used to it, eventually. "S'easy," Ron said, referring to the daily functions of a newly-minted Auror. "Which is probably what he hates."

Hermione wasn't surprised to hear Harry wasn't adjusting well to civilian life. Adherence to authority was a difficult thing to re-learn (or, in Harry's case, learn), particularly after everything they had been through.

"Well, still. It's quite a good experience, isn't it?" she asked him in reference to his event security post, pitching her voice to its most optimistic. "Maybe they just think you're well-suited to spotting trouble before it starts, hm?"

Harry gave her a doubtful look. "Thanks, Hermione," he said, "but I don't think—"

Above them, the lights dimmed.

"Oh, hush, it's starting," Hermione said hastily, nudging him with relief and conjuring her quick-notes quill.

a/n: In which: Hermione obsessively consults a spreadsheet. Theo repeatedly gets himself arrested. Harry works too many night shifts. Draco tries to be left alone; fails disastrously. On the bright side, they're all in agreement that this is 100% George Weasley's fault.

The full first chapter, should you choose to pursue it, is available to follow now. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy!