Chapter 6 - Spinning Around
Hermione Granger was spinning around. Quite literally. She inwardly smiled at how her body was mimicking what her mind was doing, even though she was now feeling a little dizzy. The reason for her spinning was her luxurious office chair.
When she had arrived in her office for the first time there had been the standard Ministry of Magic chair awaiting her behind her standard Ministry of Magic desk. She had been told she could transfigure the chair into any shape that she preferred but she had politely declined and had used the office chair as it had stood for a week.
Her colleagues were confused as to why she had kept the chair as it was, but they didn't know that as soon as she had got home that evening she had phoned her Dad and asked him to order her the same chair that he had in the house office.
Ron teased her about being in love with a chair, at which she rolled her eyes and told him not to be so ridiculous. But she did admit that sitting in her chair could calm her down when she was stressed. Which is what she was, and that was the reason why she was spinning in her chair.
As her chair took her around to her desk once more, she looked at the clock above her door and noted that it was twelve minutes past nine. She was waiting for the inter-departmental post to arrive, and with it, the results of her requested investigations.
'Is the post on it's way, Gerald?'
'Memo, Owl or Interdepartmental, Miss Granger?'
'Interdepartmental. Memos were awaiting my arrival, and I received two letters by Owl twenty minutes ago, but I'm still waiting for the results of the searches I requested from the archives.'
'Oh! Yes, I remember, I was with Richard last night as he read your request. I left him as he was about to start so it will definitely be in the post when it arrives. Hmm, let me go and see if I can spot the delivery boy.'
'He's not a boy, Gerald, he's nineteen!'
'Is he? Looks about fifteen to me!'
Hermione chuckled to herself as Gerald left his portrait. She started spinning on her chair again and turned her mind to her tasks for the day. It was then that she heard a knock on her door.
'Come in!' she called and heard her door opening.
She continued to spin until she was facing her door then stood up quickly. She walked towards the interdepartmental postman and had to stop briefly before she walked into the wall. Her chair spinning wasn't always the best thing to do, as she did get quite dizzy from it. She blinked a couple of times and smiled to try and cover what had just happened.
'Reports for you, Miss Granger,' the tall blond haired boy said with a cheeky smile.
'Thanks, Andy,' she replied.
She turned back to her desk and hurried around it. She had untied the string around the folder and discarded it before she had sat down and she hurriedly glanced over the parchment.
'Oh! Well, that makes things…easier?'
…
'Arse! Where the hell are you, you bugger?'
The tinny rendition of the embarrassingly cheesy pop song continued to torment him as he tried to find his mobile phone.
'This coat doesn't have that many pockets!' he exclaimed.
The song continued and he was starting to attract a couple of glances as people walked past him. He continued to search, but after one last grunt of frustration he sidestepped into an alleyway between two shops, pulled out his wand and summoned his phone.
'Accio phone!'
The solid black device flew out of a pocket he was sure he had checked three times, landed in his hand, gave a flicker and then died.
'Fuck. Jasper, you know magic and phones don't mix.'
He stowed his wand away before walking back out into the street. He held down the 'on' button on the small phone and was relieved to see the screen light up and show various logos and pictures before searching for a signal.
After pressing a few more buttons he was listening to the dial tone as he rang whoever had phoned him. He didn't recognise the number, but it wasn't unlike his twin brother to have lost his phone or borrowed someone else's, and the last time he ignored a number he didn't know, his brother had ended up in hospital for three days before the family found out he was there.
He recognised the voice on the end of the phone after a simple 'hello', but he didn't want to embarrass himself. His favourite saying ran through his mind: Presumption is the mother of all fuck ups!
'Hi, I just had a missed call from this number.'
'Jasper?'
'Yeah, is that Hermi- I mean, Miss Granger?'
'You were correct the first time, it's Hermione. I haven't called you at a bad time, have I?'
'No, I just couldn't for the life of me find my phone, then I summoned it by magic and it didn't like that one bit.'
'Ah, no, if I get annoyed while on my phone it starts to crackle and, well, I have had to replace more than one. I'll leave it at that!'
Jasper laughed.
'Anyway, I was just ringing to ask if you were free to come in to see me this afternoon at all.'
'Oh! Yeah, that's fine, er, no…yeah, that's fine.'
'Are you sure? You sound a bit uncertain.'
'Yeah, I'm sure. I was just trying to remember if I had anything on this afternoon, but I don't, so it's fine. What time do you want me to come in?'
'Well, I'm out on my lunch at the minute but I'll be back at the office soon, give me fifteen minutes to walk back, any time after that is okay.'
'Nice one, I'm just in Kilburn, on my way back to the centre of town, when I've found somewhere inconspicuous to Apparate from.'
'Yeah, that can be fun sometimes, especially when it's chucking it down.'
'Tell me about it. Anyway, I'll see you in about twenty minutes.'
'See you then.'
'Bye.'
'Bye.'
Jasper pocketed his phone in his jeans pocket before straightening his jacket. His frantic search for his phone and his wand had left him looking a little dishevelled and he righted the situation before carrying on down the street.
He looked around him and sighed when he saw the street really was as busy as he thought it was. Remembering the night before he turned and recognised the dodgy kebab shop they had stumbled into last night, instantly felt a little queasy but remembered that, on exiting the shop, his friend Felix had lurched to the left, disappeared from site down the side of the shop and emptied his recently purchased food, out of his stomach onto the floor.
Turning his nose up at the thought of being reintroduced to his friend's deposit he took a deep breath, and took a running jump down the small alley, hoping he had landed far away from the offending material and praying that he hadn't just landed in it and was about to go flying.
Thankfully his footing was secure and he jogged a few steps down the small space. He took a quick look behind him to make sure no one had followed him down the alley, looked ahead of him before closing his eyes and concentrating on where he wanted to apparate to. He opened his eyes and started to turn on the spot but as he turned he noticed there was someone standing directly in front of him.
He could feel the unmistakable compression starting from the impending apparition and didn't want to splinch himself, so shut his eyes against whoever was standing and staring at him and concentrated on his destination.
The compression ended and he was relieved when he felt no searing pain in his limbs and he checked that he still had all ten fingers. He wiggled his toes and was satisfied he wasn't losing any. It was only then that his thoughts returned to whoever was in the alley with him, who hadn't been there a second earlier.
He shrugged and started walking, someone may have just apparated into the alleyway as he was leaving, if he was using it for some covert apparition, then other people would do too. There was no point in looking for anything sinister in it. It's not as if he had been attacked or jinxed. It was just a coincidence, that was all.
Nothing more than a coincidence.
…
He watched as she walked in front of him. He noticed her shoulder bag bouncing lightly against her hip as she moved. Her hair, pulled back in a loose ponytail high on her head swayed with each step she took.
As she picked up her pace to catch one of the already open lifts he did the same and managed to slip inside before the golden gates closed.
'Fourth please,' she said to the Ministry Official who was standing nearest the panel of buttons mounted on the wall.
'Sixth,' he said with a nod.
He stood behind her and watched as she ate the last mouthful of her food. She closed the lid of the carton and put it in her bag.
The lift announced the names of the floors in its silky voice and as they reached the fourth floor she moved towards the front of the lift.
He watched as she stepped out, and just as the doors were starting to close, he quickly exited the lift.
He walked in step with her, so to not alert her to the fact that there was someone following her and kept far enough back so that she wouldn't sense he was there.
She took the right turn half way down the corridor but he didn't follow her. He saw her walk half way down and then unlock the second door on the right with her wand. She went in and shut the door behind her.
He took another look around and set off back to the lifts.
As he was walking through the Atrium he looked up through the small crowd of people in front of him. He panicked when he saw a man behind them, looking slightly nervous as he made his way through the Ministry building.
Not wanting to be seen by the man he brought his hand to his face and scratched at his hair, obscuring the view of his eyes. He jogged through the Atrium to the fireplaces at the far end. As he stepped into the fireplace he took a quick look towards the lifts and watched as the man waited patiently for the next one to arrive.
He grabbed a handful of Floo powder and disappeared from the Ministry in a flash of green flame.
…
'I'd tell you the kneeling before me isn't necessary, however, I have to admit I like it. But I digress. Do you have a progress report for me, Jonathan?'
Siona stood above him, as he had fallen to his knees in front of her without her direction.
'I do. He is in place and I have chosen my moment. May I request one extra week to put my plan into action, my lady? I feel it would make the deception all the more believable if I wait one more week before implementing it.'
Siona took a deep breath.
'Rise.'
Jonathan got to his feet but kept his head bowed.
'I told you what would happen if you failed me.'
'With all due respect, my lady, I have not failed you, everything is in place, I just feel-'
'Yes, yes I heard your reasoning for waiting longer than I would have liked.'
She looked at him and stroked her hand down his chest. She rested her fingertips over his heart and pressed down on where she knew his scar was. She felt him brace himself against the pain. The tattoo she had branded him with grew and stretched up his skin, until she could see the top of it reaching between the material of his open collar.
She took her hand off him and seemed to bring herself out of a trance. The tattoo disappeared from view.
'I'm not happy, Jonathan, but I trust your intelligence so I shall allow this to go on longer for another week. However, I will not grant you any more time, and should this plan fail, you will know exactly how angry and disappointed I am in you. I suggest you don't allow that to happen. For your own sake.'
He nodded his head.
'I will not fail you.'
She nodded and he left the room.
The door closed and she took a deep breath.
'Patience, Siona. Perfection takes time. Everything will happen when it's meant to.'
Apologies for the longish wait for this update, I've been working on various things and this has been shoved to the back of the queue, which I didn't really want to happen, but I don't really want to force my muse on this because I've worked so hard on what I've done so far. If you could let me know what you think of this installment it'd be much appreciated.
In November 2006 me and Solstice Muse co-wrote a Ron/Hermione fic and we've finally got around to posting it on here. It's over on Solstice's profile and is called One Last Chance. She wrote all chapters which are in Ron's point of view and I wrote all those in Hermione's point of view, each chapter alternates, Shari's odds and I'm evens! It's called One Last Chance so go and have a read if you fancy something a little bit confusing to read! :)
Step ;) xxx