Fic; Beneath Your Window; Chapter 20//The Office
Title: Beneath Your Window
Summary: Hermione's life is turned upside down and she figures that the best solution is to run away from it all. What will happen when she realises that she's not the only one running from life?
Characters/Pairings: Draco/Hermione, Harry/Ginny makes an appearance
Genre: Romance/humour
Rating/Warnings: PG-13. Some swearing and mentions of sex, but not much else.
Word Count: 4479
(......)
Chapter 15//The Words
Chapter 16//The Twist
Chapter 17//The Date II
Chapter 18//The Change
Chapter 19//The Pain
Chapter 20 // The Office
Hermione pulled her curtains shut with a sour grimace, hoping the sun noticed just how menacing her glare was. A playful beam still found its way through a narrow opening and shone upon a small part of her patterned bedcover. She scowled. She scowled very menacingly. It was a superb example of a scowl.
Take that evil sunbeam for daring to mock me!
The sun was just breaking every universal rule. It wasn’t supposed to be a beautiful, sunny and surprisingly warm November day when you were all alone, bitter, heartbroken and thoroughly pissed off at life in general. That’s when you needed the dramatic thunder roaring overhead, merciless wind, harsh rain and lightening striking across the sky with crackling anger. It was supposed to match your damn mood, not remind you that the world hardly cared that your heart was no longer held together - not even by Gaffa Tape.
She muttered angrily to herself and left Harry’s guestroom to bask in the bloody cheerful sun. Ginny and Harry had already left for early meetings, but had left some coffee for her that she launched herself at with vigour. Blissful coffee. She sighed and sat down by the kitchen table, drinking the black piece of heaven in as large gulps as she could without burning a hole in her tongue. Taking a deep breath, she opened the Prophet and found her way to the advertisements, knowing it was time to look around for a reasonably cheap flat. When she ran off she had willingly handed Ron the other one, which was something she regretted deeply at the moment. It wasn’t like he deserved to get anything for free from her. She would have to bring that up the next time she saw him. It amazed her how the thought of seeing him again wasn’t nearly as frightening as before. She had no issues telling him off if she saw him again, whereas before she would run in the other direction if she saw as much as a flicker of red anywhere.
She circled a few ads and flipped through a few more pages in the Prophet only to stop and stare with her mouth hanging open. It seemed that the Daily Prophet was basking in her dirty laundry, so to speak. Yet another picture of Ron, this time accompanied by a gorgeous brunette, was on the gossip pages undoubtedly written by Rita Skeeter or one of her equally horrible heirs. She saw her own name written somewhere in the article she skimmed, but didn’t bother to read the context. It was probably something about her being dumped and thrown away like garbage, not to be seen since. Well. It was time to make an appearance and really give them something to talk about.
The prophet remained folded on the table, open at the page of the ads, as she swung a coat over her work robes picking up a dry piece of toast on her way to the Floo. She bit into the toast as she pulled her hair up into a loose twirl, and stepped into the fireplace. She removed her toast from between her teeth just long enough to call for the Ministry, and soon found herself in the busy Atrium on the 8th level of the Ministry of Magic. She went blissfully unnoticed in the crowd as she munched happily on her dry piece of toast, following the wave of people heading towards the 12 elevators. The months with Draco may well have been the best months of her entire life, but she knew she had missed work immensely. She just hoped she had work to come back to, considering her holiday had turned a bit longer than she planned it to be.
She pressed herself into an already full elevator, being the last person to make it before the doors slammed shut.
“Hermione?!” someone cried from the back of the elevator, and she turned to see Evelyn Barley from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement waving enthusiastically at her.
“Hey!” she greeted and smiled back.
“I’m so pleased to see you back. The girls and I have been so worried that you’d just disappear because of that stupid git.”
Hermione chuckled appreciatively, avoiding the curious glances from the rest of the people in the elevator. It stopped on the 7th level and many people stepped out, excusing themselves as they bumped into her.
“Oh no, I’m not that easy to get rid of,” she assured Evelyn, brushing some crumbs off her cloak. “I just needed some time off to sort myself out.”
“Good for you,” the blonde beamed, but then her smile faltered slightly when she made her way to Hermione in the front. “You know... Cyan dated him for a couple of weeks. Everyone thought she was being completely insensitive of course, but she was so star struck. I don’t get how she can do that when she knows you, and everyone who knows you know you deserve so much better.”
The expected sting of jealousy never came. She didn’t know if it even surprised her. She had been over Ron for a long time. Now if Evelyn came and told her that Cyan was dating Draco, then there would be hell to pay.
“It’s okey. Well, it is pretty inconsiderate of her, but I’m fine. Ron and I aren’t together anymore and I don’t want to be,” she assured Evelyn in a lowered voice, hoping that at least as few as possible were following their conversation.
“I’m glad you’re not still pining after him.”
Hermione nodded silently, and looked at her friend’s face, finding it almost surreal to be back. It was almost as if she never left at all, and that the past months were only a figment of her imagination. Except the steady pain in her chest told her it had definitely been real, and the bittersweet feeling of being back was almost a bit overwhelming. She said her goodbyes to Evelyn as the other girl stepped out on level 2 - the Auror Headquarters - knowing both Ron and Harry would be there, unless they were out on call.
She got out on the ground floor - the Potions Headquarters being underneath the ground for security reasons - and stepped through the hallway as she had so many times before. It was so familiar, but somehow it wasn’t the same anymore. But the hallways hadn’t changed, so that had to mean she was the one who had changed.
As the hallway lead into a large circular room with a high ceiling, she stopped right inside. A grin flickered across her lips as she watched the bustling activity, the cauldron’s bubbling and hissing, fumes rising towards the ceiling several feet over their heads.
She was...
“- Back! She’s back!” someone cried.
Hermione watched in bewilderment as four of her colleagues threw themselves into some kind of spontaneous victory dance. They jumped around in a circle, shouting and singing - at least she thought it was supposed to resemble singing.
“Oh Merlin has bestowed his merciful magic upon us,” Awon Locke cried, falling to his knees and raising his wandhand against the sky.
Hermione’s eyes were growing wide and her jaw dropped at the scenes in front of her, and she was almost knocked off her feet by Miriam who embraced her so forcefully it nearly hurt.
“Oh, sweet, merciful Merlin.”
“What in the world are you guys doing?!” Hermione exclaimed, completely baffled at the welcome.
“Merewood has been throwing one enormous hissy fit since the day you started your vacation,” her assistant Adam noted from his spot - which happened to be on a desk, and he was obviously interrupting his celebration to explain the matter to his employer.
“And he has absolutely no clue how this place is run. If anyone were in doubt about you being the real boss around here, they were certainly convinced now,” Miriam said, her voice muffled against Hermione’s cloak as she still clutched on.
“We’re so behind, and the other departments are getting mighty peeved. None of them are getting the potions they need on time because Merewood has no idea how to organize the workload.”
“The others are getting so mad at us that they won’t even eat lunch at the same table as us anymore,” Christy said darkly. “It’s been utter hell.”
Hermione blinked, and suddenly grew aware of the fact that the room seemed to be rather chaotic, and not at all like she usually ran it. Of course she had been aware that Merewood was only their symbolic head. She was the Potions Master, and even if he ran the department he really did notably small amounts of work. She had, however, thought he would actually know how to run it when her absence was imminent. That was clearly not the case.
She finally managed to pry Miriam off herself, and the room had gone from bursting with spontaneous joy to become eerily quiet. They all looked at her now, where she stood still rooted to the floor by the entrance. She took her cloak off and threw it onto a nearby chair, and then slowly pushed the sleeves of her robe up her arms.
Her colleagues cheered as she moved hastily towards Merewood’s office, but it was immediately drowned out as she entered and closed the door behind her.
“Finally decided to come back, did you, Ms. Granger?”
His voice was calm and slightly patronizing, but she did not let it stop her as she moved towards his desk.
“I hadn’t had a proper holiday since I started working here, and for some unexplainable reason I seemed to think you were competent enough to run the place while I was gone.”
Her tall supervisor, who looked somewhat decent considering his age, looked down upon her with a hard stare.
“Need I remind you that I am your department head, Ms. Granger?”
“No,” she answered, crossing her arms over her chest. “But for once I’m going to tell you exactly what I think about the situation, regardless of the fact that you are my supervisor. You are the head of the Department of Potions, Mr. Merewood, and yet you could not keep the department up to par for 3 months.
“The workroom is utter chaos, other departments are waiting for potions they should have received weeks ago and your employees are being ignored by the rest of the Ministry because they cannot deliver the merchandise. Which - I might add - is none of their fault, because the entire chaos starts in the lack of administrative control.”
She picked up a stack of papers and held it out for him.
“You haven’t even delivered the permission forms for potions that I know from experience should have been delivered at the beginning of this month. So you might be my department head, Mr. Merewood, but you obviously do not know how to run the department efficiently. So you may be angry at me for taking a well deserved holiday, but now I am back and I intend to straighten up this mess immediately.”
His eyes were hard as steel, and he turned to face her completely.
“Do remember the Ministry Charity Dance. It is of utmost importance that employees high up in the system make an excellent impression on the public and the media.”
His tone told her their conversation was over, and she was somewhat relieved. She had told him off - something she had longed to do for a very long time - and yet she had gotten away with it. Not that he seemed to have much choice, considering he was completely incompetent.
She grabbed the permission forms from his desk and left without another word.
“Listen up!” she shouted, grabbing the attention of all the workers. “We are severely behind and we have a lot of work to do. We will catch up, but we’ll need to work our arses off in the process.
“Adam and Miriam; I will need an overview of what potions are brewing already, what you’ve managed to send out during these months and what you still have left. Everyone else work on what you are already doing, and I will be back after I’ve filed all the permission forms.”
She left them all scurrying in all directions and headed back to the elevator with determined steps. Yes, the permission forms had to be filed with the Office of Spell and Potion Regulation. Yes, the Office of Spell and Potion Regulation was an office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. And yes, that was indeed where the Auror Headquarters resided. She almost cursed out loud. But she had to remind herself that she was back because she felt strong enough to handle it now. She wasn’t going to let him restrict her life. And she had to see him again someday, considering his family was like a second family to her and always had been.
The elevator brought her to level two in only moments and she was followed by a tail of memos as she left, holding her head high as she stepped through the hallways in her work robe, the Potions Master seal on her chest distinguishing her from the Law Enforcement employees. They knew her well here, as she very regularly had to drop off permission applications and of course since her famous ex-boyfriend and her even more famous best friend both had prominent positions in the Department. Normally she found it added even more respect to her name amongst them, but now it was only a source of unnerve as she felt herself being ogled from every office she passed.
Finally she found the Office of Spell and Potion Regulation and slipped inside, letting out a breath of relief that she didn’t know she had held captive.
“Hey, Eve,” she sighed, stepping up to the desk and put the large stack of forms right in front of the blonde who hastily looked up from her paperwork by the sound of her nickname.
Her mouth fell open as she saw the abnormally large stack of forms, and she eyed Hermione in sympathy.
“Merlin, I knew you were behind, but not this behind,” she breathed, taking the stack and put it on top of her already semi-large pile.
“Merewood is an incompetent arse,” Hermione told her dryly. “The entire department is in an uproar; with so many potions not delivered to their departments yet that I hardly know what to do with myself. And I haven’t even checked on the research section yet.”
“That man should’ve been sacked years ago. Everyone knows you’re the one keeping that department on its feet.”
“Well, unfortunately I can’t do much about it,” Hermione sighed. “I did give him a piece of my very frustrated mind after the initial chaos had settled.”
“Good. He should know that he can’t just prance around doing more harm than good,” Evelyn said firmly. “Maybe we can start sitting with your lot again now.”
“Yeah, what is that anyway? Refusing to sit with them at lunch?” Hermione said, allowing a smile onto her lips. “How very mature.”
“It started with someone being completely pissed off for not having the potions for their top priority project and it just sort of spiralled out of control,” she admitted with a sad shrug. “Maybe this stupidity can end now.”
“You’re bloody right it’s going to end.”
Evelyn chuckled as Hermione left the room and hasted down towards the elevators, knowing very well that her day was not going to be a very pleasant one.
Just how unpleasant it was about to turn she had been blissfully unaware of, but the realisation was dawning on her very quickly as an alarmingly red head nearly collided into her as it came propelling out of an office.
“Bloody hell, I’m so sorry... I need to start paying attention to my damn clumsy feet,” Ron growled, picking up the papers he had dropped in the process.
He looked up with a lopsided grin and she could see why the girls were easily charmed. She was as immune against his so-called charm as you could be, but the horrified expression that replaced his grin upon seeing the target of his apologies wouldn’t have charmed the silliest fan girl anyway.
“Shit,” he eloquently exclaimed, his eyes quickly tearing themselves from her and fell to the floor.
“Yes, ‘shit’ pretty much covers it,” she said dryly, inwardly cursing the universe, the cosmos, Merlin or whoever it was that controlled their unfortunate fates.
“You’re back,” he noted breathlessly - and rather unnecessarily.
“Yes,” she replied, nearly blown away by his amazing wit.
“Um... I hope you had a good holiday.”
Oh, crud. How she hated small talk.
She smiled sweetly.
“It was magnificent. I see you’ve been doing well too. Saw you in the Prophet just this morning.”
His telltale ears reddened furiously at this statement, and he shuffled uncomfortably.
“I was looking for flats,” she continued in a falsely cheerful voice. “You know... since I’m pretty much homeless.”
At the badly disguised bitterness his cheeks adapted the same colour as his ears.
“You could always...have my room at The Burrow, you know,” he said silently, daring to glance at her quickly.
She laughed at this, making him twitch slightly - clearly paranoid under the circumstances. The genuine quality of her laugh seemed to put him off guard.
“That really is very generous of you, but I think that’d be just as awkward as - oh I don’t know - this conversation.”
He smiled slightly at that, and as she began to walk away he let out a sigh, thinking he had been let off the hook.
“Plus I’m quite sure you need that room to store the poor girl you’re keeping on hold while you’re having your way with the girl from the Prophet.”
She grinned to herself as she walked away without a backwards glance, finding a sick pleasure in the fact that he didn’t even bother her anymore. But Holy Mother of all stupid things holy, that was awkward. She turned around as she entered the elevator, seeing him walk in the opposite direction. The doors closed, shielding him from view and she relaxed as she was brought down to ground level again.
----
It was a horrid day. When Adam and Miriam gave her the list over which potions were done and which were not even started, she realised the situation was even worse than she had thought. She spent the entire morning running around the potions lab shouting directions and checking on every individual potion, as well as trying to prioritize what was most important to get out first. She hadn’t had the time to think a single thought, and when lunch came she was so exhausted she didn’t even bother to go up to the lunch room
She brushed off her colleagues’ invitations to come for lunch, and sauntered into her own office which she hadn’t had the time to even look at since she came back. The oval room looked exactly like she had left it; organized and impersonal. She dropped a stack of mind-numbing paperwork onto her desk and closed her eyes with a sigh. Knowing the office at the back of her hand, she managed to make her way to her chair with her eyes still closed and flopped down into it, drawing her hands over her eyes.
She noticed the thoughts she had blocked out slipped into her mind together with a numbing feeling of fatigue. Merlin, she was so tired. It was too much. She hadn’t realised the department would’ve been run into the fiery pits of hell, and that she would be the one to bring it back on its feet all on her own. In addition to trying to get back on track she had been dealing with employees from other departments, angry and frustrated for getting their projects delayed due to the lack of the mandatory potions.
Giving a tired huff she bent forwards onto the desk and rested her head on her arms. Immediately, she felt something hard being pressed between her desk and her stomach. She looked up in confusion and eased a hand into her pocket. The item she held up before her eyes broke the last of her resistance against all the thoughts, and the image of a very blond head and a playful smile swam before her eyes. The image of him blurred even more when stubborn tears broke their way out from beneath her eyelids and slid slowly down her cheeks flushed from exhaustion. It was the curse detector she had put in her work robes when she packed her bags.
Oh God. Her body and her mind collapsed and she found herself giving wretched sobs, filling the silence of her office with sounds of grief. She was so tired - from working so hard, from meeting Ron, from trying to suppress the feelings of loss that threatened to overcome her. Her traitorous mind imagined long, slender fingers rubbing against her shoulders; strong, firm palms working on her shoulder blades; tender, comforting words whispered into her ear; warm, heavenly lips against sore spots where her neck met her shoulder. Her sobs stilled, but the tears ran more rapidly; silently. She should’ve never come back. She should’ve let Merewood wallow in the mess he made; she shouldn’t have been practically homeless. She shouldn’t have been so fucking alone.
She heard her office door open, though she hadn’t heard the knock, and she hastily dried her tears as she was resting her head in her palms as her elbows were propped up on the desk. Harry stood in the doorway, watching her intently as she ran her fingers across her cheek to dry them. He closed the door tentatively behind him and sat down in the chair right opposite her without a word.
“I’m fine,” she proclaimed, her voice quivering slightly from the tears.
“Yes, you look like you’re doing marvellous,” he said flatly.
She didn’t look at him.
“I heard you ran into Ron,” he told her quietly, and continued despite her efforts to stop him: “I know it’s hard. I really do, but you can’t let him break you.”
“I’m not upset because of Ron. I haven’t even thought about him since I met him, and meeting him was just awkward above anything else.
“I’m just so exhausted. The department is in such a mess, and I’ve been doing almost a week’s worth of work before lunch alone. And then I found this.”
She held out the curse detector for him. He took it, looking perplexed.
“It’s the curse detector I got from Draco for my birthday,” she whispered, fighting the tears again.
Harry put it down on her desk gently and sighed.
“I can’t believe I was so stupid to think you were crying over Ron. Of course you’re having a hard time being away from - err... you know.”
“It’s just so much at once. Look at this list, Harry, just look at all the work we haven’t done,” she exclaimed, thrusting the overview of their status into his hand.
Harry took the list and then gaped as his eyes roamed towards the bottom.
“Merlin’s beard, this is inhumane!”
“I know!” she cried, burying her face in her hands. “And I’ve had people from other departments dropping by to yell at me for not bringing them their potions on time, at the same time as I’m trying to catch up on everything at once.”
“Merewood should get his arse kicked,” Harry fumed. “He hasn’t done shit since you left!”
“I’m well aware. I thought they had actually gotten something done, at least, but he hasn’t sent off the permission forms, so the others couldn’t even start most of the potions. It’s actually easier to list what we have sent off, instead of what we haven’t.”
“You should figure out if you can have some help to catch up. Maybe someone extra can be hired for a few weeks,” Harry suggested, watching Hermione’s drawn face in concern.
“I don’t think they can do that, not when it’s seemingly our own fault. They can’t know - or won’t know - how incompetent that moron is, and that none of the employees have done anything wrong.”
“I’d love to help, but ... well, you sat beside me in Potions,” he said with a sad shrug, putting the parchment back on her desk.
She gave a small chuckle at that, and then took a deep breath to calm her rapid pulse.
“I’ll just have to work overtime. Can you tell Gin I’m sorry for not making it to dinner?”
“We’ll save you some,” he promised, and when she objected he proclaimed that there would be no discussion. “Speaking of which, I have a sandwich for you that I smuggled from lunch.”
“Oh thank you,” she groaned, taking it eagerly. “All I’ve had since this morning is a piece of dry toast.”
“You’re overworking yourself,” he stated simply as he rose from his seat.
She didn’t reply, knowing he was most likely right. He moved towards the door, and she put her sandwich down, looking at him as he opened the door to slip out.
“Harry...”
He turned, looking at her questioningly.
“Why did I leave?” she asked in a mere whisper, once again picturing slender fingers massaging her tense shoulders.
He gave a sad smile.
“I don’t know, Hermione,” he replied, looking at his broken friend where she sat hunching by her desk. “But they need you here, that much is evident.”
“Yes,” she replied slowly, “they need me here.”
The moment he closed the door her head fell onto her arms again, and she closed her eyes to just a second allow herself to dream about a faraway place, where they were having dinner in their pyjamas and the man she loved were bickering good -naturedly with her best friends.
Harry left the room, more determined than ever to fix this mess. Yes, they needed her here, but that didn’t mean it was fair. Hermione always put others first and he was beginning to realise how much that really cost her.
Ing//Hufflepuff
Summary: Hermione's life is turned upside down and she figures that the best solution is to run away from it all. What will happen when she realises that she's not the only one running from life?
Characters/Pairings: Draco/Hermione, Harry/Ginny makes an appearance
Genre: Romance/humour
Rating/Warnings: PG-13. Some swearing and mentions of sex, but not much else.
Word Count: 4479
(......)
Chapter 15//The Words
Chapter 16//The Twist
Chapter 17//The Date II
Chapter 18//The Change
Chapter 19//The Pain
Chapter 20 // The Office
Hermione pulled her curtains shut with a sour grimace, hoping the sun noticed just how menacing her glare was. A playful beam still found its way through a narrow opening and shone upon a small part of her patterned bedcover. She scowled. She scowled very menacingly. It was a superb example of a scowl.
Take that evil sunbeam for daring to mock me!
The sun was just breaking every universal rule. It wasn’t supposed to be a beautiful, sunny and surprisingly warm November day when you were all alone, bitter, heartbroken and thoroughly pissed off at life in general. That’s when you needed the dramatic thunder roaring overhead, merciless wind, harsh rain and lightening striking across the sky with crackling anger. It was supposed to match your damn mood, not remind you that the world hardly cared that your heart was no longer held together - not even by Gaffa Tape.
She muttered angrily to herself and left Harry’s guestroom to bask in the bloody cheerful sun. Ginny and Harry had already left for early meetings, but had left some coffee for her that she launched herself at with vigour. Blissful coffee. She sighed and sat down by the kitchen table, drinking the black piece of heaven in as large gulps as she could without burning a hole in her tongue. Taking a deep breath, she opened the Prophet and found her way to the advertisements, knowing it was time to look around for a reasonably cheap flat. When she ran off she had willingly handed Ron the other one, which was something she regretted deeply at the moment. It wasn’t like he deserved to get anything for free from her. She would have to bring that up the next time she saw him. It amazed her how the thought of seeing him again wasn’t nearly as frightening as before. She had no issues telling him off if she saw him again, whereas before she would run in the other direction if she saw as much as a flicker of red anywhere.
She circled a few ads and flipped through a few more pages in the Prophet only to stop and stare with her mouth hanging open. It seemed that the Daily Prophet was basking in her dirty laundry, so to speak. Yet another picture of Ron, this time accompanied by a gorgeous brunette, was on the gossip pages undoubtedly written by Rita Skeeter or one of her equally horrible heirs. She saw her own name written somewhere in the article she skimmed, but didn’t bother to read the context. It was probably something about her being dumped and thrown away like garbage, not to be seen since. Well. It was time to make an appearance and really give them something to talk about.
The prophet remained folded on the table, open at the page of the ads, as she swung a coat over her work robes picking up a dry piece of toast on her way to the Floo. She bit into the toast as she pulled her hair up into a loose twirl, and stepped into the fireplace. She removed her toast from between her teeth just long enough to call for the Ministry, and soon found herself in the busy Atrium on the 8th level of the Ministry of Magic. She went blissfully unnoticed in the crowd as she munched happily on her dry piece of toast, following the wave of people heading towards the 12 elevators. The months with Draco may well have been the best months of her entire life, but she knew she had missed work immensely. She just hoped she had work to come back to, considering her holiday had turned a bit longer than she planned it to be.
She pressed herself into an already full elevator, being the last person to make it before the doors slammed shut.
“Hermione?!” someone cried from the back of the elevator, and she turned to see Evelyn Barley from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement waving enthusiastically at her.
“Hey!” she greeted and smiled back.
“I’m so pleased to see you back. The girls and I have been so worried that you’d just disappear because of that stupid git.”
Hermione chuckled appreciatively, avoiding the curious glances from the rest of the people in the elevator. It stopped on the 7th level and many people stepped out, excusing themselves as they bumped into her.
“Oh no, I’m not that easy to get rid of,” she assured Evelyn, brushing some crumbs off her cloak. “I just needed some time off to sort myself out.”
“Good for you,” the blonde beamed, but then her smile faltered slightly when she made her way to Hermione in the front. “You know... Cyan dated him for a couple of weeks. Everyone thought she was being completely insensitive of course, but she was so star struck. I don’t get how she can do that when she knows you, and everyone who knows you know you deserve so much better.”
The expected sting of jealousy never came. She didn’t know if it even surprised her. She had been over Ron for a long time. Now if Evelyn came and told her that Cyan was dating Draco, then there would be hell to pay.
“It’s okey. Well, it is pretty inconsiderate of her, but I’m fine. Ron and I aren’t together anymore and I don’t want to be,” she assured Evelyn in a lowered voice, hoping that at least as few as possible were following their conversation.
“I’m glad you’re not still pining after him.”
Hermione nodded silently, and looked at her friend’s face, finding it almost surreal to be back. It was almost as if she never left at all, and that the past months were only a figment of her imagination. Except the steady pain in her chest told her it had definitely been real, and the bittersweet feeling of being back was almost a bit overwhelming. She said her goodbyes to Evelyn as the other girl stepped out on level 2 - the Auror Headquarters - knowing both Ron and Harry would be there, unless they were out on call.
She got out on the ground floor - the Potions Headquarters being underneath the ground for security reasons - and stepped through the hallway as she had so many times before. It was so familiar, but somehow it wasn’t the same anymore. But the hallways hadn’t changed, so that had to mean she was the one who had changed.
As the hallway lead into a large circular room with a high ceiling, she stopped right inside. A grin flickered across her lips as she watched the bustling activity, the cauldron’s bubbling and hissing, fumes rising towards the ceiling several feet over their heads.
She was...
“- Back! She’s back!” someone cried.
Hermione watched in bewilderment as four of her colleagues threw themselves into some kind of spontaneous victory dance. They jumped around in a circle, shouting and singing - at least she thought it was supposed to resemble singing.
“Oh Merlin has bestowed his merciful magic upon us,” Awon Locke cried, falling to his knees and raising his wandhand against the sky.
Hermione’s eyes were growing wide and her jaw dropped at the scenes in front of her, and she was almost knocked off her feet by Miriam who embraced her so forcefully it nearly hurt.
“Oh, sweet, merciful Merlin.”
“What in the world are you guys doing?!” Hermione exclaimed, completely baffled at the welcome.
“Merewood has been throwing one enormous hissy fit since the day you started your vacation,” her assistant Adam noted from his spot - which happened to be on a desk, and he was obviously interrupting his celebration to explain the matter to his employer.
“And he has absolutely no clue how this place is run. If anyone were in doubt about you being the real boss around here, they were certainly convinced now,” Miriam said, her voice muffled against Hermione’s cloak as she still clutched on.
“We’re so behind, and the other departments are getting mighty peeved. None of them are getting the potions they need on time because Merewood has no idea how to organize the workload.”
“The others are getting so mad at us that they won’t even eat lunch at the same table as us anymore,” Christy said darkly. “It’s been utter hell.”
Hermione blinked, and suddenly grew aware of the fact that the room seemed to be rather chaotic, and not at all like she usually ran it. Of course she had been aware that Merewood was only their symbolic head. She was the Potions Master, and even if he ran the department he really did notably small amounts of work. She had, however, thought he would actually know how to run it when her absence was imminent. That was clearly not the case.
She finally managed to pry Miriam off herself, and the room had gone from bursting with spontaneous joy to become eerily quiet. They all looked at her now, where she stood still rooted to the floor by the entrance. She took her cloak off and threw it onto a nearby chair, and then slowly pushed the sleeves of her robe up her arms.
Her colleagues cheered as she moved hastily towards Merewood’s office, but it was immediately drowned out as she entered and closed the door behind her.
“Finally decided to come back, did you, Ms. Granger?”
His voice was calm and slightly patronizing, but she did not let it stop her as she moved towards his desk.
“I hadn’t had a proper holiday since I started working here, and for some unexplainable reason I seemed to think you were competent enough to run the place while I was gone.”
Her tall supervisor, who looked somewhat decent considering his age, looked down upon her with a hard stare.
“Need I remind you that I am your department head, Ms. Granger?”
“No,” she answered, crossing her arms over her chest. “But for once I’m going to tell you exactly what I think about the situation, regardless of the fact that you are my supervisor. You are the head of the Department of Potions, Mr. Merewood, and yet you could not keep the department up to par for 3 months.
“The workroom is utter chaos, other departments are waiting for potions they should have received weeks ago and your employees are being ignored by the rest of the Ministry because they cannot deliver the merchandise. Which - I might add - is none of their fault, because the entire chaos starts in the lack of administrative control.”
She picked up a stack of papers and held it out for him.
“You haven’t even delivered the permission forms for potions that I know from experience should have been delivered at the beginning of this month. So you might be my department head, Mr. Merewood, but you obviously do not know how to run the department efficiently. So you may be angry at me for taking a well deserved holiday, but now I am back and I intend to straighten up this mess immediately.”
His eyes were hard as steel, and he turned to face her completely.
“Do remember the Ministry Charity Dance. It is of utmost importance that employees high up in the system make an excellent impression on the public and the media.”
His tone told her their conversation was over, and she was somewhat relieved. She had told him off - something she had longed to do for a very long time - and yet she had gotten away with it. Not that he seemed to have much choice, considering he was completely incompetent.
She grabbed the permission forms from his desk and left without another word.
“Listen up!” she shouted, grabbing the attention of all the workers. “We are severely behind and we have a lot of work to do. We will catch up, but we’ll need to work our arses off in the process.
“Adam and Miriam; I will need an overview of what potions are brewing already, what you’ve managed to send out during these months and what you still have left. Everyone else work on what you are already doing, and I will be back after I’ve filed all the permission forms.”
She left them all scurrying in all directions and headed back to the elevator with determined steps. Yes, the permission forms had to be filed with the Office of Spell and Potion Regulation. Yes, the Office of Spell and Potion Regulation was an office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. And yes, that was indeed where the Auror Headquarters resided. She almost cursed out loud. But she had to remind herself that she was back because she felt strong enough to handle it now. She wasn’t going to let him restrict her life. And she had to see him again someday, considering his family was like a second family to her and always had been.
The elevator brought her to level two in only moments and she was followed by a tail of memos as she left, holding her head high as she stepped through the hallways in her work robe, the Potions Master seal on her chest distinguishing her from the Law Enforcement employees. They knew her well here, as she very regularly had to drop off permission applications and of course since her famous ex-boyfriend and her even more famous best friend both had prominent positions in the Department. Normally she found it added even more respect to her name amongst them, but now it was only a source of unnerve as she felt herself being ogled from every office she passed.
Finally she found the Office of Spell and Potion Regulation and slipped inside, letting out a breath of relief that she didn’t know she had held captive.
“Hey, Eve,” she sighed, stepping up to the desk and put the large stack of forms right in front of the blonde who hastily looked up from her paperwork by the sound of her nickname.
Her mouth fell open as she saw the abnormally large stack of forms, and she eyed Hermione in sympathy.
“Merlin, I knew you were behind, but not this behind,” she breathed, taking the stack and put it on top of her already semi-large pile.
“Merewood is an incompetent arse,” Hermione told her dryly. “The entire department is in an uproar; with so many potions not delivered to their departments yet that I hardly know what to do with myself. And I haven’t even checked on the research section yet.”
“That man should’ve been sacked years ago. Everyone knows you’re the one keeping that department on its feet.”
“Well, unfortunately I can’t do much about it,” Hermione sighed. “I did give him a piece of my very frustrated mind after the initial chaos had settled.”
“Good. He should know that he can’t just prance around doing more harm than good,” Evelyn said firmly. “Maybe we can start sitting with your lot again now.”
“Yeah, what is that anyway? Refusing to sit with them at lunch?” Hermione said, allowing a smile onto her lips. “How very mature.”
“It started with someone being completely pissed off for not having the potions for their top priority project and it just sort of spiralled out of control,” she admitted with a sad shrug. “Maybe this stupidity can end now.”
“You’re bloody right it’s going to end.”
Evelyn chuckled as Hermione left the room and hasted down towards the elevators, knowing very well that her day was not going to be a very pleasant one.
Just how unpleasant it was about to turn she had been blissfully unaware of, but the realisation was dawning on her very quickly as an alarmingly red head nearly collided into her as it came propelling out of an office.
“Bloody hell, I’m so sorry... I need to start paying attention to my damn clumsy feet,” Ron growled, picking up the papers he had dropped in the process.
He looked up with a lopsided grin and she could see why the girls were easily charmed. She was as immune against his so-called charm as you could be, but the horrified expression that replaced his grin upon seeing the target of his apologies wouldn’t have charmed the silliest fan girl anyway.
“Shit,” he eloquently exclaimed, his eyes quickly tearing themselves from her and fell to the floor.
“Yes, ‘shit’ pretty much covers it,” she said dryly, inwardly cursing the universe, the cosmos, Merlin or whoever it was that controlled their unfortunate fates.
“You’re back,” he noted breathlessly - and rather unnecessarily.
“Yes,” she replied, nearly blown away by his amazing wit.
“Um... I hope you had a good holiday.”
Oh, crud. How she hated small talk.
She smiled sweetly.
“It was magnificent. I see you’ve been doing well too. Saw you in the Prophet just this morning.”
His telltale ears reddened furiously at this statement, and he shuffled uncomfortably.
“I was looking for flats,” she continued in a falsely cheerful voice. “You know... since I’m pretty much homeless.”
At the badly disguised bitterness his cheeks adapted the same colour as his ears.
“You could always...have my room at The Burrow, you know,” he said silently, daring to glance at her quickly.
She laughed at this, making him twitch slightly - clearly paranoid under the circumstances. The genuine quality of her laugh seemed to put him off guard.
“That really is very generous of you, but I think that’d be just as awkward as - oh I don’t know - this conversation.”
He smiled slightly at that, and as she began to walk away he let out a sigh, thinking he had been let off the hook.
“Plus I’m quite sure you need that room to store the poor girl you’re keeping on hold while you’re having your way with the girl from the Prophet.”
She grinned to herself as she walked away without a backwards glance, finding a sick pleasure in the fact that he didn’t even bother her anymore. But Holy Mother of all stupid things holy, that was awkward. She turned around as she entered the elevator, seeing him walk in the opposite direction. The doors closed, shielding him from view and she relaxed as she was brought down to ground level again.
----
It was a horrid day. When Adam and Miriam gave her the list over which potions were done and which were not even started, she realised the situation was even worse than she had thought. She spent the entire morning running around the potions lab shouting directions and checking on every individual potion, as well as trying to prioritize what was most important to get out first. She hadn’t had the time to think a single thought, and when lunch came she was so exhausted she didn’t even bother to go up to the lunch room
She brushed off her colleagues’ invitations to come for lunch, and sauntered into her own office which she hadn’t had the time to even look at since she came back. The oval room looked exactly like she had left it; organized and impersonal. She dropped a stack of mind-numbing paperwork onto her desk and closed her eyes with a sigh. Knowing the office at the back of her hand, she managed to make her way to her chair with her eyes still closed and flopped down into it, drawing her hands over her eyes.
She noticed the thoughts she had blocked out slipped into her mind together with a numbing feeling of fatigue. Merlin, she was so tired. It was too much. She hadn’t realised the department would’ve been run into the fiery pits of hell, and that she would be the one to bring it back on its feet all on her own. In addition to trying to get back on track she had been dealing with employees from other departments, angry and frustrated for getting their projects delayed due to the lack of the mandatory potions.
Giving a tired huff she bent forwards onto the desk and rested her head on her arms. Immediately, she felt something hard being pressed between her desk and her stomach. She looked up in confusion and eased a hand into her pocket. The item she held up before her eyes broke the last of her resistance against all the thoughts, and the image of a very blond head and a playful smile swam before her eyes. The image of him blurred even more when stubborn tears broke their way out from beneath her eyelids and slid slowly down her cheeks flushed from exhaustion. It was the curse detector she had put in her work robes when she packed her bags.
Oh God. Her body and her mind collapsed and she found herself giving wretched sobs, filling the silence of her office with sounds of grief. She was so tired - from working so hard, from meeting Ron, from trying to suppress the feelings of loss that threatened to overcome her. Her traitorous mind imagined long, slender fingers rubbing against her shoulders; strong, firm palms working on her shoulder blades; tender, comforting words whispered into her ear; warm, heavenly lips against sore spots where her neck met her shoulder. Her sobs stilled, but the tears ran more rapidly; silently. She should’ve never come back. She should’ve let Merewood wallow in the mess he made; she shouldn’t have been practically homeless. She shouldn’t have been so fucking alone.
She heard her office door open, though she hadn’t heard the knock, and she hastily dried her tears as she was resting her head in her palms as her elbows were propped up on the desk. Harry stood in the doorway, watching her intently as she ran her fingers across her cheek to dry them. He closed the door tentatively behind him and sat down in the chair right opposite her without a word.
“I’m fine,” she proclaimed, her voice quivering slightly from the tears.
“Yes, you look like you’re doing marvellous,” he said flatly.
She didn’t look at him.
“I heard you ran into Ron,” he told her quietly, and continued despite her efforts to stop him: “I know it’s hard. I really do, but you can’t let him break you.”
“I’m not upset because of Ron. I haven’t even thought about him since I met him, and meeting him was just awkward above anything else.
“I’m just so exhausted. The department is in such a mess, and I’ve been doing almost a week’s worth of work before lunch alone. And then I found this.”
She held out the curse detector for him. He took it, looking perplexed.
“It’s the curse detector I got from Draco for my birthday,” she whispered, fighting the tears again.
Harry put it down on her desk gently and sighed.
“I can’t believe I was so stupid to think you were crying over Ron. Of course you’re having a hard time being away from - err... you know.”
“It’s just so much at once. Look at this list, Harry, just look at all the work we haven’t done,” she exclaimed, thrusting the overview of their status into his hand.
Harry took the list and then gaped as his eyes roamed towards the bottom.
“Merlin’s beard, this is inhumane!”
“I know!” she cried, burying her face in her hands. “And I’ve had people from other departments dropping by to yell at me for not bringing them their potions on time, at the same time as I’m trying to catch up on everything at once.”
“Merewood should get his arse kicked,” Harry fumed. “He hasn’t done shit since you left!”
“I’m well aware. I thought they had actually gotten something done, at least, but he hasn’t sent off the permission forms, so the others couldn’t even start most of the potions. It’s actually easier to list what we have sent off, instead of what we haven’t.”
“You should figure out if you can have some help to catch up. Maybe someone extra can be hired for a few weeks,” Harry suggested, watching Hermione’s drawn face in concern.
“I don’t think they can do that, not when it’s seemingly our own fault. They can’t know - or won’t know - how incompetent that moron is, and that none of the employees have done anything wrong.”
“I’d love to help, but ... well, you sat beside me in Potions,” he said with a sad shrug, putting the parchment back on her desk.
She gave a small chuckle at that, and then took a deep breath to calm her rapid pulse.
“I’ll just have to work overtime. Can you tell Gin I’m sorry for not making it to dinner?”
“We’ll save you some,” he promised, and when she objected he proclaimed that there would be no discussion. “Speaking of which, I have a sandwich for you that I smuggled from lunch.”
“Oh thank you,” she groaned, taking it eagerly. “All I’ve had since this morning is a piece of dry toast.”
“You’re overworking yourself,” he stated simply as he rose from his seat.
She didn’t reply, knowing he was most likely right. He moved towards the door, and she put her sandwich down, looking at him as he opened the door to slip out.
“Harry...”
He turned, looking at her questioningly.
“Why did I leave?” she asked in a mere whisper, once again picturing slender fingers massaging her tense shoulders.
He gave a sad smile.
“I don’t know, Hermione,” he replied, looking at his broken friend where she sat hunching by her desk. “But they need you here, that much is evident.”
“Yes,” she replied slowly, “they need me here.”
The moment he closed the door her head fell onto her arms again, and she closed her eyes to just a second allow herself to dream about a faraway place, where they were having dinner in their pyjamas and the man she loved were bickering good -naturedly with her best friends.
Harry left the room, more determined than ever to fix this mess. Yes, they needed her here, but that didn’t mean it was fair. Hermione always put others first and he was beginning to realise how much that really cost her.
Ing//Hufflepuff