At first Hermione did not recognize her surroundings, due in part to the fact that the glare of the afternoon sun was
reflecting from some unnamed surface directly into her eyes. She turned her head, blinking until the spots dancing in
her brain had faded so that she could see clearly again. When she turned about once more, this time shading her eyes
with her hand (careful not to dislodge the hood of the Cloak), she gasped. She found herself standing in the midst of
Hogsmeade, and the surface which had blinded her was nothing less than the storefront window of Honeydukes Sweet Shop.
Squinting now, she could see the sign for Zonko's Joke Shop in the distance, and beyond that the painted board
bearing the legend The Three Broomsticks.
What in the world is Harry doing in Hogsmeade? Hermione thought distractedly. But she brightened suddenly at the realization that, as nearly everyone in the wizarding village knew Harry on sight, it was highly unlikely that he was here under what might be considered questionable circumstances.
Her fears thus allayed, Hermione was overcome by an unexpected tide of emotion at finding herself in this place after more than a year. It was here where some of the most treasured memories of her life were centered. She vividly remembered her first official date with Harry: Butterbeers at The Three Broomsticks, followed by a visit to Honeydukes, an hour of window shopping along the main street -- and, ultimately, in the shadow of a deserted doorway, their first kiss. Thinking back on that magical moment now, Hermione could still taste the Pepper Imps on Harry's lips (not that she had needed any enhancement of the fire kindled that day in her heart).
Hermione had not realized until this moment how much she missed the little wizarding village. It had been her grandest dream (aside from the enduring one of someday being Mrs. Harry Potter) to live here for the rest of her life, just her and Harry in an endless state of wedded bliss, never to be parted from Hogwarts, whose magic had nestled forever in a young girl's heart with the promise that anything she wished could -- and would -- come true.
Unfortunately, reality found a way to burst that particular dream bubble. As the only all-magic settlement in Britain, Hogsmeade was, of necessity, restricted by stringent codes and laws to prevent it growing so large as to attract Muggle attention, by which its very existence might well be threatened. The entire village was, of course, protected by powerful Muggle-repelling spells, similar to the ones safeguarding Hogwarts and its surrounding grounds. The one time Hermione had brought her parents to visit, on Christmas last, it had taken her a full four days to weave a counter-spell around them, without which they would have been unable to aproach to within a mile of the outermost cottage without succumbing to the irresistible urge to turn around, go straight home, and forget that such a place as Hogsmeade even existed.
Just as with Hogwarts, the protective spells had to be placed around every inch of the village's perimeter and reinforced regularly. The larger the perimeter, the more (and stronger) spells required to accomplish the task. Thus, the size of Hogsmeade had been strictly circumscribed for centuries, a policy made all the more poignant as the Muggle population of Britain (and Scotland in particular) swelled until it must ultimately encroach upon the very limits of an island which could in no wise grow to accommodate its increasing population.
So it was that Hogsmeade found its evolution arrested in the interests of its very survival. No house had been built in Hogsmeade since the late 19th century. Added to this was the timeless tradition by which virtually any habitation, from the grandest manse to the humblest cottage, was handed down from one generation to the next, century upon century. As a result, no newcomer (save merchants who dwelt apart and Apparated to work at need) had joined the ranks of Hogsmeade's population since the middle ages.
Sighing wistfully at what might have been, Hermione reluctantly closed the back door of her memories and returned her attention to the matter at hand. What was Harry doing here? The simplest way to answer that was to find him, and for that Hermione needed look no farther than the third finger of her left hand.
Lifting her hand underneath the Cloak, Hermione concentrated, and her ring tugged her hand about so that it was pointing directly at The Three Broomsticks. "He's probably come to visit Hagrid," she told herself with a smile as she dodged the few pedestrians passing by and wended her way toward her destination. "We haven't seen him in ages."
Hermione's stomach jumped involuntarily at this thought. There were far too many old and dear friends whom they had been neglecting of late, she reflected with no small pang of guilt.
Hermione slipped into The Three Broomsticks easily, finding it only sparsely inhabited. Checking her watch (a graduation present from her parents, complete with calendar and an alarm buzzer so that she would not be late for important meetings), she saw that it was past 1:30, which meant that the lunch crowd was long since departed, leaving the pub as she found it now, nearly deserted. This made finding Harry child's play. He was sitting in a booth in the corner farthest from the door -- their booth, Hermione realized with a start, where in days gone they would hide from friend and foe alike and retreat into their own little world, if only for an hour at a span. And -- her stomach did a backflip -- he was not alone.
Hermione's heart leaped into her throat as she spied a head of curly blond hair perched atop wizard's robes of a shocking violet she had not seen since the days of Gilderoy Lockhart. Would Harry dare share their booth with another woman? In her present state of mind, Hermione might have found cause to question the presence of even so innocuous a companion as Lavender or Parvati -- neither of whom, she realized with yet another guilty twinge, had she seen for at least four months.
But her fears, imagined or otherwise, proved groundless when the blond head turned about to reveal the face of Justin Finch-Fletchley as he signaled to Madam Rosmerta with his empty wine glass. She provided a refill of a pale liquid Hermione gathered to be elderflower wine, and Justin turned back to Harry, who was sipping from a glass of iced pumpkin juice. Hermione smiled as she approached the booth on cat feet. They had come to know Justin quite well in their later years at Hogwarts, first in shared Herbology classes (Justin was in Hufflepuff), and later in their secret D.A. meetings in their unforgettable fifth year.
But even as she slid into the unoccupied booth next to them (sitting behind Justin so as to see Harry's face), something began to gnaw at Hermione's brain. For all their shared classes, Justin had never been more than acquaintance at school. He had not even been invited to their wedding, which had been a small, intimate affair held in the Weasleys' back garden at the Burrow. What purpose could Harry have for meeting with Justin now? And why so far from London, where she knew Justin was currently living above his offices in Diagon Alley?
Suddenly Hermione felt a cold dart of dread lance her heart like a spearpoint of goblin-forged steel. For she had just remembered that, although she had not seen Justin since graduation, she had heard his name any number of times in recent months...in conversations with Ginny and Molly Weasley in their once-frequent get-togethers at the Burrow. It had been a major topic at her last visit for Ron's birthday.
Following his graduation from Hogwarts, Justin had been licensed by the Ministry to practice as a wizard solicitor. He had gone to London and promptly found premises just a Knut's throw from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. One of his first clients had been Penelope Clearwater Weasley, who had retained him to represent her in her divorce proceedings against her husband, Percy. It had been front page news in the Daily Prophet for a solid week, and for good reason. The wizarding world's attitude toward marriage was medieval in the extreme. The bond between a husband and a wife was held sacred, and all measures were taken to ensure that divorces were extremely difficult to procure. In furtherance of this, they were also prohibitively expensive; no doubt the cost of such dissolutions alone preserved many unions that would otherwise have fallen apart in anger and haste.
Using his pull at the Ministry, where he had been employed since graduation, Percy had circumvented the financial angle by clever means, citing numerous precedents involving past employees where fees were waived for one reason or another. He further congratulated himself in that he had arranged for none other than Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, to preside over his case. He reasoned that she, being a fellow Ministry employee, would naturally favor one of her own, where an impartial magistrate would feel no such inclination. To his horror, Madam Bones herself signed the dissolution papers, upholding Penelope's claim of "spousal neglect" and declaring for the record that Percy's single-minded ambition left little room in his life for "secondary concerns" like a wife and a home. Hermione could remember Molly's despairing comments (in the days when Hermione was a frequent visitor at the Burrow) on her son's endless overtime, shaking her head sadly how Percy's relentless drive to succeed resulted in his forgetting -- or worse, disparaging -- such trifles as his wife's birthday, and even their wedding anniversary.
Hermione's thoughts instinctively jumped back to Harry's birthday last month. It had been a truly marvelous weekend, giving her a memory she would cherish forever. But -- what if Harry's birthday had not fallen on a weekend? What if it had come on a Tuesday or a Thursday (as it inevitably must in future)? Would she and Harry have enjoyed that magical liaison in her friend's cabin by the loch? Or would they instead have dined quietly at home, perhaps made love ritualistically in the cramped sameness of their little flat, after which she would have turned over in bed on the grounds that she needed a full night's rest in order to be at her peak at work the following morning?
Hermione felt sick. Was Harry meeting Justin for the same reason Penelope had met with him months ago? Desperate to know, she leaned as close as she dared, striving to catch Harry's every word. As she peered over the back of Justin's seat, she saw Harry flipping through a sheaf of official-looking papers, nodding from time to time as he glanced at the tiny print written on the crisp parchment pages. When Justin spoke, in was in a low, conspiratorial voice, and Hermione held her breath as she perked her ears for every word.
"Does Hermione suspect anything yet, Harry?"
"I don't think so," Harry replied as he patted the papers into a crisp stack and tucked them into an envelope, which he slid across the table at Justin. Justin pulled a briefcase from beside him and placed the envelope inside. He then drew his wand and tapped the lock of the briefcase, sealing it magically, even as Hermione had done a hundred times with her own bag when carrying sensitive, job-related materials. "But I don't know how long I can keep it from her. She's not the cleverest witch in a century for nothing, you know," he added with a pale smile (a guilty smile, Hermione wondered?). "She's bound to figure it out before too long."
"It was a good idea for us to meet here rather than at my office," Justin said. "London's a big place, but Diagon Alley is still too close to the Ministry for our purposes."
"That's what I thought," Harry said. "Hermione might have popped in to Gringotts and spotted us coming out of the Leaky Cauldron."
"From what you've told me," Justin said as he sipped casually from his wine glass, "she's so busy with her job, she wouldn't know if Merlin rose from the grave and played Seeker for the Wimbourne Wasps. I think we're safe enough. The funds have been secured, I take it?" When Harry nodded, Justin smiled, "Good. I found a notary in Kent who's agreed to 'misplace' his records for a bit -- for a small compensation, of course. By the time he sends the Ministry their copies, I'll have filed the originals," he patted his briefcase to indicate the contents within, "with the appropriate parties. Once that's done, we can rest easy. It'll be a done deal."
"Maybe you can rest easy," Harry said, staring into his glass as he swirled it so that the ice cubes made a muted clinking sound. "I don't like going behind Hermione's back."
"It's not like we have a choice," Justin reminded him. "Working at the Ministry, she'll know what we're doing before the ink is dry on the parchment. This is the only way. And in the end, it's all for the best."
"I still feel uneasy about it," Harry said. "I have to keep making up these stories to explain my absences. I don't like liars, and I especially don't like myself for lying to my wife, no matter the reason."
"You'll only have to keep it up for another month," Justin said bracingly. He again patted his briefcase meaningfully as he added, "Trust me, in the vernacular of the BQL, we've got all the hoops covered. There's no way the Quaffle's getting in. I may be new at this, but I haven't lost a case yet."
"I was told you didn't miss a trick in the Weasley matter," Harry said without looking up.
"I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt," Justin said quietly. "Percy brought it on himself. If he'd put his wife and his home ahead of his career, he'd still have a wife and a home, wouldn't he?"
Harry nodded. "It's still sad, y'know?"
"Yes," Justin agreed, sipping at his wine with lowered eyes. "It's always sad when a marriage ends." There was an awkward silence that was broken when Justin cleared his throat and said, "Do you have the time, Harry? I never liked wearing wristwatches, and I left my pocket watch in my other robes this morning."
"It's -- " Harry began, raising his left arm to look at his watch, " -- bloody hell! It's nearly two! I'm going to be late!" Harry jumped up, slapped four Sickles on the table, paused, then dug his hand back into pocket.
"I'll take care of the tip, Harry," Justin grinned. "I reckon I can afford it on what you're paying me. Off you get. Don't want to keep your lady friend waiting, do you?"
Harry turned a distinctly Weasleyish shade of red. "What makes you say that? I never said -- "
"Off you get," Justin repeated with a laugh. "I won't breathe a word. Solicitor-client privelege, you know."
Still blushing scarlet, Harry dashed out into the street and, as Hermione watched through eyes burning with tears, Disapparated.