First off, I'd like to say thanks to all my lovely reviewers! Sam, CrimsonTears93 (I'm glad you liked the way it was broken up, cause I wasn't entirely sure if it worked or not!),Firelily's Dragon, Lion3ss (I'm not a huge fan of his either, as you might be able to tell), and Rose Mitzkah (btw, I tried to make more space between the lines). Thank you so much for telling me what you thought, it really means alot to me. Hope you guys like the new chapter, even if it is a little short.
Chapter 2: For the First Time
For the first time in her life, Hermione was going to be living by herself. Maybe she was a bit late at it, older than most when they set out truly alone. She'd lived with a pack of girls whom she hadn't been completely fond of for nearly seven years. And then she had stayed at home with her parents, simply because it was comforting and she thought that starting a brand-new job would be stressful enough. She'd been right about that. And then things had gotten somewhat serious with Ron, and she let herself be talked into living together. She wasn't ever going to do that again. She'd lived with him for almost three years. And now she was finally going to be living completely by herself. She was excited. So excited, in fact that she went out and bought a total of eleven new books. Hermione told herself that she'd earned them, and living by herself, she had enough money for them, so why not? And then she told herself that she'd make it a rule to only stop in a bookstore once a month, so she wouldn't go bankrupt.
Her parents helped her move, because she really didn't have many things to move. They were even letting her take some furniture. Everything that had been in her bedroom at her parents' house was now in her bedroom at her new flat. Her father gave her a chair from his small study, and she used it in the living room with the other three chairs that she'd picked out when shopping with her mum. Anna Granger had insisted on giving her daughter the small table that was now in her dining room/kitchen, as well as a few chairs to go with it, of course. It was a little battered, and it had a few nicks here and there, and Hermione loved it to no end. She didn't have a television, but she did have a small gas fireplace as the focal point in the living room. The first night, she roasted marshmallows by herself and read by the fireside. It was her favorite spot in her new home.
After the first two weeks, she told herself it wasn't plausible to keep eating out or at her parents' house. Of course, she knew how to cook, and she did it well enough, but she never remembered liking it all that much. Hermione was never quite sure just how much food to make, how much food Ron would want to eat, and often she found herself with too little or too much. And then there was the whole decision of what to cook at all. So for her first meal, she made a simple dinner. A special chicken recipe that Ron hadn't particularly cared for, so she hadn't made it again after the first time. It was her mothers' recipe, one that Hermione knew by heart. What a surprise it was to her when she found herself softly singing while throwing the marinade together. After that, she took to playing a CD or the radio to sing along to. It was then that Hermione discovered she liked to cook and bake for herself. She loved making pies and cookies more, and she found herself trying out new recipes on Sunday afternoons when she had nothing better to do.
A month and a half after she moved in, she had her first guest that wasn't a family member. Sasha, a girl that Hermione worked with, wanted to celebrate with Hermione about her second promotion in a matter of months. So she had invited Sasha over, not realizing how much she wanted her to like the flat until an hour before she was due to arrive. Sasha had loved it, and generously expressed her pride and happiness that Hermione was really moving forward with her life, while she joked about being a lowly secretary. She'd blushed and said it was no big deal, but Sasha was good friend to Hermione, her best friend, and didn't let Hermione get away with being so modest about the whole thing. Hermione anxiously let her sample the latest experimental batch of cookies and afterward, Sasha had demanded the recipe so she could make her own any time she wanted, and Hermione glowed with pride.
With only herself to look after, Hermione really had been spending more time on her work. It had always been her real passion, besides reading that is, and she was finally coming closer and closer to the job that she'd wanted since halfway through her sixth year. It seemed forever to Hermione until she would reach where she wanted to be, but even she knew that she was rapidly coming closer. Most of her co-workers would say that it was the result of her becoming a workaholic, but Hermione was certain that wasn't true. Sasha said it was because they were jealous of Hermione's brains and Hermione secretly thought it might have something to do with the fact that she'd always been more at home and friendly with the secretaries and overworked girls who a lot of others in the Ministry took for granted. Of course, Hermione tried not to care too much, and consoled herself with the knowledge that if everything went to plan, she would soon be a member of the Department of Research of Magic. Truly, she thought she ought to thank Harry. If it wasn't for him, she didn't think she'd ever have realized just how much she enjoyed researching and learning about every single kind of magic that there was. Hermione laughed now when she remembered how worried she'd been about choosing a job, because she was interested in so many different things, and she knew she could do anything. Now, in the Department of Research of Magic, she would learn about any and all kinds of magic, and she'd be paid for it. She almost thought she should be a little worried about herself, because Hermione had realized long ago that she was basically obsessed with things that she thought she shouldn't be.
Not surprisingly, she was thinking of work when she rounded a corner and was jolted out of her thoughts so quickly she thought it a wonder she didn't have a headache. Directly across the street was a man she avoided like the plague. Normally adept at weaving her small frame through crowds, she bumped several people on the sidewalk by suddenly stopping. What was he doing around here? As far as she knew, this was strictly a muggle neighborhood, with the exception of herself. Of course, she had seen him flit about her dream department a few times, had heard his name float about the office. Then again, she thought, seeing him or hearing of him was completely different than having him suddenly standing on a corner waiting for the light to change not a block away from her house. Shuffled by the crowd a bit, she moved to stand against the wall of a building, out of peoples' way. Wondering briefly what he was doing around here, she stopped herself, just as she had stopped her curiosity of him in her youth. The light changed, and suddenly he was surging closer to her, just like the rest of the crowd. Questioning herself even as she bent her head and turned into the wall a bit, she released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding when he passed right by her. After all, the trendy hat and relaxed muggle clothing she wore hardly fit within his image of her.
As she continued with her walk towards her parents' home, Hermione found her mind preoccupied with him now, instead of work. Finding it annoying, she tried to stop herself. After all, she'd done it plenty of times when they'd been at Hogwart's. Of course, to really ignore her thoughts of him, she'd had to admit some time ago that she was indeed curious of him. She always had been. She wondered about him occasionally, even as she ignored him at school and avoided him after it. He was, after all, steeped in one of the things that she found incredibly interesting. And that, she'd managed to convince herself, was the only reason she was curious about him. After all, he was dangerous, simply because he made her curious; simply because he was steeped in a magic that she found extremely fascinating, even if she was disturbed by her interest. Because really, what other logical reason did she have to occasionally think of Draco Malfoy? Shaking her head as she passed the flowers her mother was constantly attending, she shoved him from her head without much difficulty. After all, Hermione was hardly so presumptuous to assume he was in her neighborhood on a Saturday morning because of her. Greeting her parents, she figured that was the end of that.