Ron!" Hermione giggled, "I'm going to be late!" Ron was wrapping his arms around his wife, dragging her back down onto the bed.

"But I'm on holiday!" He groaned, jokingly, wearing only a grin.

"Ron, I need to go to work," Hermione tried to be firm but she couldn't help a smile from creeping onto her face.

Again she tried to button her blouse, hoping this one-a fourteen rather than a twelve- would button shut.

Ron appeared to have arrived home just in time for her belly to explode outwards. She had grown so much over the long June weekend that everything was becoming outgrown. There were stretch marks clawed across her body like purple tears, or thick veins, or the stripes on a tiger.

"I want you here, I've got a lot more shagging to catch up on," he grinned, ducking the smack which was aimed for the back of his head.

Hermione stood slowly from the bed, aware her head would spin if she did it too quickly. She pulled on a pair of black leggings, then draped her deep plum coloured robes over her shoulders where they hung to the floor.

She stepped into a matching pair of sensibly high heals and grabbed a brush from the bedside table. Ron shuffled into his tartan pyjamas and stood from his side of the bed.

Hermione raked the brush through her hair, a horrendous scraping sound following each stroke. Hermione paused to look at the brush, sighed and began to brush again.

"What's wrong?" Ron asked with a mouthful of Hermione's morning digestive.

"Oi!" She replied, snatching it off him, "that's meant to stop me feeling sick!" Ron shrugged,

"What's wrong is my hair is still falling out." She grumbled.

"Wait, I think I've skipped something here, why is your hair falling out?" Ron finished his mouthful of biscuit.

"Because of the hormones going through my body due to the baby, I read about it,"

"There's a surprise," Ron teased, narrowly dodging another slap.

Hermione quickly grabbed the car keys from Ron's side of the bed, gave him a quick but thorough kiss, and headed down the stairs.

She was slightly late to the office, having had to stop to throw up her digestive biscuits, and felt slightly agitated when she finally reached the door to her office. To add to her annoyance, the office labelled head of magical law enforcement was already open. She was preparing to shout at the person who had helped themselves to her office when she caught sight of the mass of messy black hair and the round glasses joined by a very distinguishable lightening bolt scar.

"Harry!" She smiled, dashing over to where he sat on the corner of her desk.

"So it's true?" He grinned, eyeing her stomach. Hermione nodded- surprised he had even seen her stomach but unlike the unobservant boy Harry had been, the young man Harry couldn't take his eyes off her belly.

"Hermione," he began and she knew she was going to hear something she didn't want to.

"You do know twins run in the Weasley family?"

Hermione laughed, allowing her hand to fall onto her large stomach, giving it an affectionate pat.

"But!" He started again, "the minister wants to see you- as soon as you arrived he said."

Hermione nodded, confused, she hasn't a clue what the minister would want her for- possibly to discuss her maternity leave, and Ron's paternity leave.

"Hermione," Harry added, as she turned to leave the room again.

"I'm really happy for you-you and Ron, about the baby."

"Thanks." She smiled, turning to leave the room.

"Close your door on the way out!"

Huh, Hermione thought, who did he think he was shouting orders in her office.

As she walked along the corridors to the lift she couldn't help but think, the ministry had changed so much in the past few years. She remembered the muggles-normal people like her parents- stuck in living stone in the middle of the large hall.

So much has changed, and she had helped those changes. Her

Promotion a few years ago had been more than she had ever imagined she would achieve working for the ministry- especially given the way that muggle-Borns such as herself had been treated no better than the Nazi's had the Jews. She had helped reach a goal from her fourth year at Hogwarts, a goal to help house elves find equality, accept employment rather than slavery. She had helped the recognition of Giants as people also, that those half-bloods like Hagrid and Olympe Maxime were not 'bad' and 'born evil' as some would have them believe.

She thought back to the day she had been promoted. She had thought Harry had phoned ahead, told Ron, because when she got home there had been a romantic, candlelit dinner waiting for her. It had turned out to be one of the best days of her life. Once they had finished eating, Ron- who had eaten very little for him- settled at her side on one knee and proposed. She had thought the dinner was to do with the promotion when in fact Ron had known nothing about his wife becoming the head of magical law enforcement.

She smiled at the memory, becoming second in command to the minister- reaching that level of responsibility- it had never happened to someone who happened to be a muggle-born and a girl.

After the war the ministry had been entrusted into the hands of Kingsley Shacklebolt although he held the position only two years. He handed his mantle to an old head of magical law enforcement, to a man who had been a member of the order towards the end of their fight against Voldemort. This was Hans Popplewell.

Hans was an old man, in his four hundreds at least, but he was clear headed and confident. He was positive and had strong beliefs that the wizarding world could survive the wars, could stay hidden from the muggles and remain happy.

Hermione liked the old man, he was exactly what they needed.

Hermione opened the latch on the front of the minister's office door. The small latch about head height contained a small eye ball, one which was all-seeing. It reminded him of Mad-eye Moody, her defence against the dark arts teacher from so long ago. The brown eye, which looked almost rubber it was so fantastical, swirled in a circle, it's Iris deflating and inflating in size like a camera lens trying to focus.

The eye looked straight into Hermione's own pair. It let out a sort of chirp sound and then a click sounded and the door opened slowly.

Where the door was plain Hermione had expected the innards to be something similar to Dumbledore's office. She had been waiting for a Tardis-like room full of the extraordinary and fanciful, wonderful objects and spectacular specimens of nature.

She was very disappointed.

The office was so like the one her mother had in her childhood house that it was uncanny.

There was several bookcases lining the whole of one wall, a large plain window on the back wall and in the very back corner between the bookshelves and the window, sat a small desk and two chairs.

The desk was so plain and ordinary it could have come from ikea, the chairs were those large comfy type you see in doctors' surgeries.

On the desk was a mass of papers and parchments, a tray of quills made from feathers ranging from wren to macaw to bald eagle.

There was no sign-other than the quills- that this office belonged to a wizard. There was barely any sign it belonged to anyone at all and he had used so little of an enormous room it seemed as though the room was scaring him.

The wizard himself, Mr Popplewell, was nothing like his room. He had a long beard which was greying and looked more like dirty cobwebs than hair, it was tied into three long plats which fell to around his waist. He almost reminded her of a Viking until she took in his clothes.

He wore a set of dress robes in a putrid, bile-coloured, green. They were too long so bunched at the wrists and the draping sleeves were dyed the colour of carrot soup.

He did wear a warming smile.

"Come in Mrs Weasley, it is Weasley isn't it?"

"Actually sir, it's Ms. Granger, I kept my name when I married."

He smiled nodding softly,

"I see. I also see you are expecting a baby," he paused before continuing more hesitantly,

"When are you expecting its arrival?"

Hermione presumed he was trying to make conversation, but surely if he was wanting to speak to her about her maternity leave then he should have known these answers.

"Not for another four months minister, forgive me, but do you not already know that from my maternity paperwork."

He chuckled,

"No, I'm afraid it's no longer my job to grant you that leave. You see Hermione-may I call you Hermione?"

She nodded, sitting in the chair indicated to her.

"I'm an old man Hermione, I am nearing five hundred and I believe it is time to retire. We need a new minister."

"But sir, you fought with us against Voldemort in both wars. You have the knowledge of dark magic, the strength of magical ability, you are exactly what we need."

The minister nodded, seeming slightly pre-occupied as he searched in a drawer on his desk.

"I agree Hermione, our country needs someone who knows the people, who is compassionate, clever; brave. The ministry needs a strong leader."

He withdrew an ancient wooden box, a box so old its hinges appeared to be made of bone or antler. The lid was opened and he drew out a leather wand holster. From inside it he pulled the wand. It was made of yew, carved with ancient Celtic symbols, symbols of the pagan world where all British magicians had originated.

The wand was something that-naturally- Hermione had read about. It was made from a branch of the oldest know tree, so old and so sacred to ancient pagans that the muggle population knew nothing of its existence.

The wand had been handed from minister to minister since the organisation began. It was powerful, known to pick the ministers personally. It would never function for a minister it hadn't picked.

When the ministry was taken from Fudge it was thought the wand had gone with him, thought it was destroyed as it would never have accepted the dark wizards who took power.

Hermione was delighted to see the wand, thrilled that this ancient tradition had managed to survive the second war.

Then it made sense.

He was holding out the wand; holding it out to her.