Written By PBMAXCA
The night closed in around her.
While sunset triggered most people her age to head for the hotspots on the Sunset Strip or out to house parties in Malibu or the Hollywood Hills, that evening Hermione only had one thing on her mind. Home. She needed a good glass of white wine and a moment to contemplate life. It was a rare occurrence that she got that chance, so the idea of having a free evening to do so made her as giddy as she had been the first time her school colleges had taken her to the Muggle adventure land called Disneyland.
She'd bounced on her toes as she unlocked the door. One thing she'd always hated about Los Angeles, well rather any big city was all the locks. She▓d grown up in London and they▓d had locks on their doors, but they▓d been able to get away with not locking up every inch of their home whether she'd been at home or not. Now the only comfort she had was that she had a great security firm and somehow had lucked out living in a house that happened to be next to where the president of a private security company lived. He checked in on her every so often even if it was just a wave from the porch next door.
Inside the house she dropped her bag near her home office, and moved through towards the bedroom, dropping her school uniform of slacks and sleeveless sweater into the dry cleaning pile before she donned a pair of baggy sweat pants and a t-shirt. Maroon and Gold still were her favorite colors despite being years away from having to wear them at Hogwarts. She grabbed the matching sweatshirt, dragging it on the floor behind her as she walked back down to the kitchen to check her messages.
"Hey hun," the first message said, "I know it's your chill night tonight, but call me later if you get bored or lonely. I'm hanging out with Robbie and Ted, but it should be an early night."
She nodded at the message then pressed the message button again. "Hemione," George's voice hadn▓t lost any of the British/Scottish accent he was born with. "Just wanted to check in with you. I think that Ron is going to skip the wedding. Well I don't know if that really is going to happen, but he hasn't mentioned it and I know it's coming up. I don't want you to stress out about it, but I think you should call him and see what's going on."
With a sigh Hermione abandoned the messages, slapped a smile onto her face and moved to where the wine was cooling in the fridge. She waved a hand and the door opened and the bottle flew out, the cork popped and with another wave a glass came out from a cupboard. She knew that she probably shouldn▓t be using magic outside of school grounds, but it had been a long day and she wasn▓t sure she had the energy to do it the Muggle way. She waved for a box of crackers and looked out the door to the back porch. The sky was the most gorgeous shades of orange and pinks and the water mirrored the sky. She should have pulled out the camera. She'd once taped a sunset. She'd given it to Ron for Christmas the year that he'd spent all that time in Romania visiting his brother when one of the dragons had gotten a little out of control and injured his brother.
Glass of wine in hand, she moved back towards the office, looking quickly through her bag for the latest batch of parchments she needed to grade before she moved away from her normal workspace, choosing to spend time on the porch, bringing along a rather long report to read but knowing that it wasn't work that would get done that night. The sun was just hitting the waves, leaving enough heat in the air for her to be able to sit down, put her feet on the railings and enjoy the view. Considering how hard she worked to payoff the house having to pay with Muggle money instead of the wizarding form, she sure hadn't gotten enough use out of the amazing back porch.
It wasn't the most important jobs in the world, she wasn't saving lives or anything to that extreme now that Valdermont had been taken care of, but she was good at what she did. She'd worked as a teacher▓s aid for almost ten years for Hogwart▓s with a short stint at Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. She'd then been the first person to volunteer for long hours that came along with setting up an American version of Hogwarts in the Southern California high desert area.
Truthfully it was a wonder that she had any kind of a social life anymore, but somehow she managed everything. For the longest time she'd been jet-setting to wherever Ron had been. She'd somehow worked it into her schedule to meet with clients in whatever city he happened to be in. He▓d been traveling tons with the Magical Law Enforcement Squad. It was amazing how he▓d gone from misfit to what consistituted as a police officer, but crazier things had happened over the years. Mostly it was trips to New York, Miami and Orlando, a few the Nashville, all big cities where magic could be done and not noticed by most Muggles. She tended to work long days, party long nights, and do her "homework" on redeye flights.
And then there was Ritchie. Despite all the various things that Ron said about the situation, Ritchie was the one person in her life that encouraged her to have chill out nights like the one she was having that night. She'd met him by chance, something that everyone always had told her would happen, that she'd find him when she wasn't looking for him.
She'd been up at the reception desk on a wet Tuesday afternoon and had run into him, literally. He was a reporter from the Daily Prophet doing a report on the new school and when she▓d dropped her umbrella they▓d both reached for it and hit heads. The rest had been history.
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