Chapter Three

"Mhmm, yeah no, I completely agree with you. Mrs. Waters is just stirring the caul- pot. You need to be ready for your next meeting. Because mark my words, that cow is going to try and run against you for chairwoman."

Coming up to the slate painted door of Golden Fire Solutions, Hermione peered into her office window finding Lavender away from her desk. Silently swearing as she continued to listen to her mother vent about Mrs. Waters — a decidedly unpleasant woman who sat on the London charity board with Martha Granger — she reached her foot out and tried to knock for help.

"…and you're never going to believe this, Hermione: she actually had the nerve to say that she was only trying to help because she knows as a, 'modern career woman with my own little practice,' that I don't have the time to plan the Spring Opener without a co-chair. As if this isn't my sixth year doing it. Can you even believe that?"

Indignant on her mother's behalf, she cried, "No she did not!"

"Yes! I mean honestly, every single one of us is at least over fifty, her and I in our sixties. Don't you think we're all just a little too old for all this petty nonsense."

"You're not old, and if I didn't know for a fact that you were over sixty, I would think you a liar. You hardly even look to be over forty."

Even without seeing her, she knew her mother was looking away from whatever she was doing as she bashfully replied, "You're far too kind, dear but I thank you anyways. You make an old woman feel young again."

"Nonsense, you are not an old woman. And I know many others would agree with me. Especially that silver fox of a pediatrician in the office suite across from you. Didn't he ask you out to dinner next week?" she teased, giving up and carefully turning to slump against the brick of the building.

Giggling like a schoolgirl, her mother responded, "Well yes, actually he did. But I just don't know… Do you think it too soon or inappropriate? I mean Sam did only pass three years ago and Todd is young enough to be my son."

"If you had him when you were sixteen, sure," Hermione laughed. Turning serious at the reminder of her father's untimely passing and how hard her mother had taken it, she said, "Sam would want you to be happy, Martha. It would kill him to know you're still waiting as if you expect him to come home from a business conference on orthodontics any minute now.

"Go to dinner with Todd. He's a nice man who will show you a great time and having known da- Sam before his passing, he will know to be extra slow and gentle with wading into things with you. And if he's not, screw the train, I'll be on the next flight to London so I can kick his arse up and down Lincoln for all to see."

"You're a sweet girl, Hermione. Excuse me, woman. Let me not be unknowingly patronizing by calling you a girl as if you were my child. I'm very thankful to count you amongst my closest and dearest friends. Even if you're young enough to be Todd's daughter and therefore my granddaughter," she laughed. "Now go on to work, I've kept you long enough. I'll see you in a few weeks and tell Lavender I say, 'hi and that she and Blaise better be ready for the amount of shopping and spoiling I've already done in preparation for my first grandbaby. The clothes in the shop window were just too precious to pass up.' Kiss, kiss, love."

"I will. Kiss, kiss," she replied, adding, "mum," once she heard the line click dead.

After the war had ended and Lavender had been released from Saint Mungo's, she and Hermione having already lost everyone the year prior, had spent the summer experiencing an Australian winter tracking her parents down while the rest of Wizarding Britain mourned and rebuilt. When they found them living in a little coastal town at the end of May, the girls had set up in a flat down the street from their practice and spent all of June recouping from the war as well as slowly beginning to insert themselves into the lives of Margaret and Simon Greystone — Martha and Samuel Granger as they had been known in England. Working in tandem with the specialists of Sydney's equivalent to Saint Mungo's, Hermione had been able to unlock and retrieve most of the memories she had hidden away from her parents prior to going on the run. The only thing they had not been able to successfully blend together was Hermione, the fellow British muggle expat with Hermione, their daughter who had magic. Not wishing to risk damaging their minds and untangling all of their remarkably successful work, she had put a halt to further attempts, completely removing what she had once only hidden away, and accepted that being a pseudo-daughter to the Grangers was better than not having them at all.

Leaning over to check inside her office again, Hermione grumbled as she examined everything she was juggling. Her mobile — which she only possessed to stay in contact with Martha — was still pressed between her shoulder and her ear, her purse held in place at the crook of her elbow by a stack of files that easily came in at ten pounds before the office's owl had dropped the morning's post over top her arms adding another few, and precariously clasped between her hands from the awkward way she was carrying everything else was a drink carrier filled with coffee as well as a bag of breakfast sandwiches that hung dangerously from one of her fingers.

Deciding it was worth the risk as her toes began to grow cold in her heels, she went to whisper a spell to aid her in getting inside when a toned forearm reached out to take some her burden and open the door saying, "Look, a damsel in need of saving. How fortuitous that I should be crossing her path this dreary morning."

Laughing at his exaggerated chivalry, Hermione gave a dainty curtsy and played along, "Why thank you, kind knight. I don't know what would have become of me had I been left in such a state," ducking under his arm as she stepped into her office.

Coming out of the kitchen with a steaming mug of coffee greedily clasped between her hands, Lavender looked like a child who was caught with their hand in the cookie jar as she shouted, "It's my first cup, I swear!"

"Sure it is," Adrian chuckled, placing their mail onto her desk. "First cup here at the office is more like it."

Showing off the drink carrier from the overpriced but no less delicious global chain down the street, Hermione tempted, "I got the eggnog latte you like."

"Gimmie," Lavender screeched, discarding her earlier coveted mug and rushing her. Looking over the still Christmas themed paper cup, the blonde eyed Adrian and said, "We already told you, no."

"Actually," he corrected, pulling out their letterhead from inside his suit jacket. "Your exact words were, 'not for all the gold in Gringotts will we take on that STD infested sack of hippogriff shite you call a friend.'"

"Exactly, no. So what are you doing here?"

"His job," Hermione grumbled. "Come on Ades, you can do right by your client and come beg me in my office. If I find your speech satisfactory, I'll provide you with a list of alternatives."

Just as they had begun to navigate around her blonde friend who was still glowering at Adrian, their floo flared to life and before the green flames returned to that of a normal fireplace, Blaise was on him, saying, "No! No way in hell. Unless you're here for another reason, get the fuck out, Pucey."

"Pucey? Really, Blaise? We played for Slytherin together; I kept you and Hermione out of Azkaban and the media; We host bloody poker nights every other Thursday while the birds get their nails done. We're mates."

"Not if you're here for Flint we're not."

Groaning as he took Hermione's hands in his, Adrian gave her a charming pout that would have had every woman up and down the brightly colored, historic street tossing him their knickers as they gave into whatever he wanted.

Dropping to his knees, he begged, "Please, love. For me? I never ask you for anything but he needs you. Everyone else who has started up after you, is a poor imitation. You're the only one who can handle him."

Shaking her hands loose, she replied, "Adrian, I can't. I hate him."

Pulling her back by her hips as she tried to walk away, he agreed, "And you have every right to, what he did to you was fucked up. I never thought Marcus could have been like that, at least not with you. But this is business, Hermione. Surely you can set aside your personal history for business."

Taking him by his elbows, she prompted him to stand back up. Shaking her head as she fixed his suit jacket, she said, "If it was literally anyone else I could. But not him, Ades. I can't give him the dedication my clients deserve. Not when I want to find his biggest competition for the National Team and help him drive the final few nails into the coffin of Marcus's career."

"Not even if I wipe the slate clean?"

"No, not even then."

Lifting his hands out, he conceded defeat by saying, "Well, I tried. If I can't get you to take him on by calling in all the favors you two said I earned from getting your cases thrown out of court, he's truly hopeless. Can I at least get the names of the other fixers? If you can even call those bumbling fools crisis managers."

"I'll owl them to you with our best recommendations before the end of the day," Lavender interjected.

Heading for the door, Adrian turned back and asked, "And what about dinner? Can I ask you out for tonight? Or should I wait a few days so you have time to forget seeing my attempt at groveling for Flint?"

Thinking about what she had just told her mum on the phone and what Blaise had said the other day, Hermione smiled as she couldn't help but roll her eyes at his timing and said, "Yeah, dinner would be great. Send your owl with where and we'll return her with the list."

Coming back to kiss her cheek, he beamed, "Wonderful," before electing to use their floo over their front door and the Apparition spot down the block.

Following Adrian's departure, Hermione and Blaise listened to Lavender recap the morning's news and gossip. To the outside observer, the blonde appeared to be nothing more than a bubbly secretary but in truth, she was their eyes and ears across Britain. The witch had a vast number of reliable contacts that spread from newspaper and magazine employees to other secretaries and personal aides to hairdressers and waitstaff. Add in her uncanny ability to get people to spill their secrets to her and nothing occurred in Wizarding Britain without Lavender being one of the first to hear of it. Then after asking her to draft letters offering representation to a select few who would need it ahead of the afternoon's news cycle and dividing up their current cases, Hermione sequestered herself in her office.

Forgoing the professionalism of working at her desk since her morning was clear of visitors, she stepped out of her heels and curled up with her coffee and files on her couch. Twisting the warmth of her cup back and forth in her hands and breathing in the peppermint laced mocha smell, she tried to fight the regret that was settling in at accepting Adrian's dinner offer. It had been a standard practice between them over the last few years that she had recently extracted herself from. He would ask her out to dinner, sometimes to the cinema for a new film or a show and she would agree. They would have a lovely evening, chatting over good food or laughing over drinks as they recounted their favorite parts of what they had seen. Then he would begin to see her back to her flat and depending on how far away they were, he would either fall into bed at hers or if his flat was closer, she into his.

It had always been companionable and easy between them, their dynamic absent of the regular expectations for more. At least it had been. Late last fall, one of their dates had been progressing as usual, the two of them walking the nearly empty streets of the magical part of Edinburgh when they had crossed a news stand. Never passing up a fresh edition of Witch Weekly or any other media publication, she had stopped to purchase their latest magazine and had seen Marcus front and center. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence given his lifestyle, but the particular cover story — rather the picture that served to catch the attention of passersby — had been one of the most memorable. Not to the readers at large but to her. It had been the first time someone had managed to get a clear shot of what he had been tattooed with that summer: sprawling angel wings that arched and curved over the broad stretch of his shoulder blades, reaching down his tapered back, the ends of the final feathers grazing the top of his bum.

For the second time in the ten years since he had left her, hope that she had thought long dead, kickstarted within her chest. Like his return to Montrose to play for a team he had discounted before her, the tattoo shone with meaning. He had always called her angel or made allusions to her having the grace and heart of one, often telling her she was the voice of reason and confidence on his shoulder. Even the cottage he had purchased was off a Gaelic named street called, Sgiathan Aingeal — Angel Wings. Seeing the picture, she had abruptly ended her evening with Adrian and had seen her own self home where she spent the rest of the night talking with Lavender about what to do. And when the morning had come and she had decided to put aside her pride and reach out to him after a decade of mutual silence, her heart was shattered once more when the morning issue of the Daily Prophet arrived with a photographic recounting of Marcus's wild night in London that had ended with him drunkenly stumbling out of a club with an equally intoxicated witch who happily and blatantly had her hand down the front of his trousers.

Realizing she had at some point switched her coffee for the promise ring she wore around her neck and under her blouse that day, she dropped it as if it had burned her and went to remove it. As always though she couldn't commit to the action. In one form or another, she had worn it for ten years and any attempt to forever shut the door on her past by discarding it left her feeling naked. And it was at the reminder of that inability that she pulled her mobile back out and called her mum to amend her statement about needing to go out with Doctor Todd. If she couldn't even fully let go of the memory of what she and Marcus had once shared, she had no business pushing her widowed mother into dating.

Per the norm of her single, career driven life, Hermione worked nearly right up until she was due to meet Adrian for dinner. Swearing as she heard one of the nearby bell towers chime the half hour, she shot up from her desk jostling the side and knocking over an unsecured ink well. With a frustrated half scream, she waved her wand over her desk clearing the mess as she hopped around to get back into her heels. Though Edinburgh was a small city, she didn't have a second to spare if she didn't want to be forced to meet him still in her work clothes.

Leaving her work out and unfinished, she grabbed her purse and scurried across her office, her smooth bottomed shoes causing her to lose traction as she skidded out into the reception area, berating herself for her tardiness. If it was work related, she was the most punctual person any of her friends and clients knew. Personally though, she was a train wreck. She was that friend that always needed a fifteen minute grace period when expected anywhere or to be lied to about what time they were meeting up. It was especially true if she was to be there right on the heels of the end of her work day. Without doubt, her perpetual tardiness was her worst flaw and one that drove her even crazier than those she left waiting. However at twenty-six she was sure she had tried every tactic in the book for better time management to no avail because no matter what she did, she was still habitually late.

"Where's the fire?" Blaise chuckled from his office where Lavender was perched in his lap nursing a cup of tea.

"Pay up love, told you she'd be late for Ades."

"Ha ha, very funny," Hermione snarked, rifling through Lavender's desk for a lip gloss that would be better suited to the evening than her own neutral pink. "Can we save the jokes for tomorrow?"

"Upstairs bathroom," the blonde provided helpfully. "I took the liberty of popping by your flat this afternoon to pull out a few outfits for you to change into."

Dashing into Blaise's office, she roughly kissed her friend's cheek, declaring, "You are hands down the best friend a witch could ever have. Blaise, she's a keeper; don't muck things up with her."

"Don't have to tell me twice," he agreed, hugging his wife closer to him as he finished up his paperwork for the day. "Accidently knocking her over on my way to the pitch for practice was the second best thing that's ever happened to me. With you caving to my sad puppy pining and getting us back together being the first."

"And don't you forget it," they both replied.

Leaving her purse and shoes behind in her friend's office, she took the stairs two at a time. The small corridor on the second level only had two doors, originally being one large, open room; one for their war room and one for the full bath she and Blaise had insisted on being added during the renovation. Lavender had initially thought them mad for the concept but the number of times that they had worked through the night had made it worth it.

Over at the rack that her garments had been hung on, Hermione quickly flipped through the small selection trying to figure out what exactly was appropriate. Normally she didn't put extra thought into what she wore with Adrian. They both knew where things were headed. So as long as her legs were freshly shaved, her knickers matched, and everything below was tidy, she had never much cared what he thought of how she looked over dinner. However, if she was going to possibly see if what Blaise had said about Ades wanting more with her was correct, she felt she needed to detach herself from their casual history and treat him as she would any of the other blokes she had attempted a first date with. And that meant what she wore over her knickers needed to impress just as much.

Settling on a white form fitting wrap dress with long sleeves and a plunging neckline as well as a v-cut hem across her thighs, she stripped off her work clothes and tied her hair back for a quick shower. In and out before the water in the old building even had time to fully reach her set temperature, she was back before the mirror twirling her wand through her hair so her curls fell in loose, swaying waves. With a few extra layers of mascara and a darkening of her eyeliner, she called everything else good as she dressed and exchanged her heels for her grey, suede, riding boots.

As she had gotten older, Hermione had grown to love the powerful femininity that came from wearing high heels. The sharp point of the heels and the powerful click as she walked, helped her manifest her confidence so that she could command a room and those around her, holding their attention long enough to believe that while young and in an unheard of field, she was more than capable. For a date with a wizard as tall as Adrian though, she wanted to take full advantage of the height difference. It was something Marcus had possessed in spades back when they had been together being over a foot taller than her. And the way she had felt tucked into his side or when his hand would swallow hers while holding it, had molded her preference for men who were at a minimum half a foot taller than her. It was the only real physical attribute she had any tencidy to lean towards.

Heading back down the stairs, she popped in on Blaise and Lavender once more to bid them good night and collect her purse. Shrugging into her Kelly green peacoat as she stepped outside and locked up their office, she hailed a passing cab content to use the few extra minutes it would take to be driven over Apparating herself to the restaurant to settle the gnawing pit in her stomach. She wasn't sure what was causing the ominous feeling and if she had been on her way to meet anyone other than Adrian, then she would have canceled on them, electing to listen to whatever warning her body was giving her. As it was, she was meeting someone she had been out with and to bed with countless times. He was familiar; he was comfortable; he was safe and safe meant she was free from the risk of getting hurt.

Arriving at the little restaurant that was squished between two much larger ones, both overflowing with customers seeking tables, she paid the taxi driver and stepped out into the growing evening mist. Thanking a gentleman who was patroning the same hole in the wall establishment for holding the door for her, Hermione followed he and his companion down the narrow corridor, snagging a coat hook as she passed. At the end of the tight fit, the hall opened up into an intimate dining room whose dozen or so tables were arranged in a circle around the open kitchen.

"Good evening, miss. Are you meeting someone or do you have a reservation?" the young hostess asked her with a kind smile.

Spotting the back of Adrian's golden blond head on the other side of the kitchen, she responded, "My date," pointing in his direction.

"Oh wonderful, I'll take you right over to them."

"Them?" she asked, thinking she misheard but following anyway.

With each step the dread in her stomach grew. Her normally cool and steady hands turned sweaty with a tremor taking up residence in her fingertips. And as they circled the kitchen, a bottling of adrenaline collected along her spine as her knees seemed to forget how to work. Internally scolding herself for being so nervous after she had fought in a war, she took a deep breath that got lodged in her throat when her eyes landed on what her body had been trying to warn her was coming.

"Here we are, enjoy," the hostess, prompted though her words fell on ears that had turned deaf under the sound of rushing blood as not only Adrian rose from the table at her arrival, but Marcus too.

Both wizards towered over her as they simultaneously went to pull out her chair, Marcus standing even taller than his friend. In a navy bespoke suit — the only kind a wizard of his size and stature could wear — with several days of growth along his jaw, and his hair swept to the side with a trace amount of product, he looked like a luxury endorsement campaign come to life. But it was the familiar spark in his blue-green eyes and the beginning sign of crinkling at their corners as he said her name that made him devastating to look at.

Stripped naked of her work clothes and her heels that she wore like battle armor, she was vulnerable. Unexpectedly standing in his presence after ten years was like being a wild animal caught with its underbelly exposed, a position she had never wanted to be found in again. And if she had only listened to the blaring warning of her intuition instead of being painfully stubborn, she wouldn't have been.

Taking a step back from the table as she fought the urge to curl her arms around herself as he appraised her like a work of art, she spoke around the tightness in her chest.

"No."

"Hermione, please just listen," Adrian pleaded, breaking the spell Marcus effortlessly casted over her, blinding her to anything that wasn't him.

"No," she repeated, taking the opening of his voice to begin her retreat. "I already told you, no. I will not do it."

Coming around the table, his long legs bringing him to her faster than she could run, Marcus laid the full weight of his punch colored smile that had been threatening to appear on her. However before he could speak a single syllable, she held her hand up and firmly repeated for the fourth time, "No!" the sharpness in her voice drawing the attention of the surrounding diners.

"Come on, angel. Hear me out; for old time's sake."

At the sound of the endearment so easily falling from his lips, what little control she still possessed over the crashing wave of emotions that were swirling to life inside her snapped. Snatching a cocktail from a tray that a waiter was bringing over to another table, she threw it up into his face, not caring as some of it splashed back at her, dampening and staining her white dress.

"Fuck you!" she snarled, pointing at Marcus. Then turning her wrath on Adrian for having bulldozed through her one boundary, she added, "And fuck you twice, Ades," setting the glass down on the dumbfounded waiter's tray.

On her way back around to the front of the dining room, she called out to the restaurant's customers, "Dinner tonight is on them, so order whatever you please and be obscenely generous when tipping your wait staff," stomping down the narrow hall, wishing again that she had on her heels so that her angry steps echoed back to them as she snatched her coat and went back out onto the rain slicked streets.

Dashing down the first alley she found, Hermione hardly gave a proper search for muggles before she was turning on her heel, the booming crack of her emotion fueled Disapparition getting drowned out by the sound of a car horn. Landing out back of her flat, she wrenched the door open and raced herself up the stairs as she heard a second crack announcing Adrian's arrival or worse, his and Marcus's.

With little thought of what she would be doing at work the next day as an insistent knocking started on her door, she stuffed a random set of knickers into her purse along with a pair of distressed skinny jeans and the first blouse and blazer she could find. Then, unsure if she truly heard two voices in the hallway or not, she opened her window and fled down the fire escape wishing not for the first time since she had moved in that she had picked a building with working fireplaces so she could be connected to the Floo Network.

With a second equally loud crack, she left the alley of her flat and landed harshley on slippery gravel. Finally feeling as if she could breathe again knowing no one but Lavender and Blaise could find her, she walked up the leveled path to the welcome sound of rushing water. Pushing the red rose colored door of the hidden cottage open, she dropped her purse on the entry table and made her way to the loft bedroom, stripping out of her clothes, and flicking her wand at the radio as she went. And as if she wasn't suffering enough having finally seen Marcus again and forgetting every scathing comment she had envisioned she would one day say to him, her radio mocked her by playing last year's recurrent hit, We Belong Together.

"The night is already utter shite," she muttered, justifying her next actions to herself as Mariah Carey sang out:

So I turn the dial, tryin' to catch a break

And then I hear Babyface, "I only think of you"

And it's breaking my heart

I'm tryna keep it together, but I'm falling apart

Going over to the loft's closet, she knelt on the floor and removed the loose floorboard she had kept upon remodeling the home that for a single night had held the dreams of her happily ever after. Pulling out a rather large and plainly adorned box — tears already falling down her face — she removed the lid and put on the quidditch jumper with a faded Slytherin green number five on the back and the fraying name Flint in silver stitching above it that was inside. Taking the box back down to the living room, she curled up in the window seat with a glass of wine — the rest of the bottle within easy reach — ready to self inflict even more pain upon herself as she sorted through the dozens of notes, scores of photographs, pressed and dried flowers, and an old, discolored journal; all of it just like the house and the ring, relics from when she believed a happily ever after with Marcus Flint was possible.

AN:

The song playing on the radio is We Belong Together by Mariah Carey.