Never Been Better

A quill sat precariously in her hand, and the parchment that lay on the table had every inch covered in her neat, lopsided, handwriting. She lit her wand; the parchment was bathed in the warm glow of light. Dropping her quill, she placed one hand upon her temple and began to rub it slowly, easing away the tension of the day.

It had been a long one. Working in the Department of Law Enforcement was never an easy job, especially when there were difficult cases to tend to. Today had been in one of the lowest courtrooms (Hermione suspected it was the one that Harry had his trial in, all those years ago) and a well-known Death Eater had been interrogated. Hermione had looked into the face of Antonin Dolohov and had seen nothing but a cold-blooded murderer who was responsible for the death of her dear friend, Remus Lupin.

It had brought all the horrid, terrible, memories of the war flooding back. Those memories that she had, for years, tried to hide at the back of her mind. Those memories that she had desperately tried to replace with happy ones. She sometimes wondered if there was a way of erasing that time from her mind but realised, even if she could, she would never want to.

She bit her lip absently and stared at the transcript for a few moments longer. The problem with Dolohov was that he was obviously unhinged; that’s why, five years later, they were finally having his trial. This was one of the most spectacular cases Hermione had been part of to date. A Daily Prophet report on it was issued daily to the world who wanted to be sure that these people would be locked away for eternity.

When she looked at that man she thought of his beating heart and realised it represented all the beats that Remus would never have. The beats where his heart would thud as he saw his son take his first steps, or say his first words.

“Hermione?” asked a voice.

She jumped in her seat, spilling her pot of ink all over her desk. She clapped a hand to her mouth, and turned to the voice. Harry’s head had popped into her fire, and there was a look of pure worry upon his face

“What’s wrong?”

“James fell off his toy broom.”

“Harry, how many times have you done the same?”

“I never had to see me looking like that, did I?”

Hermione rolled her eyes slightly at the note of hysteria in his voice and wondered if he’d ever stop being the over protective parent. She shook her head at her husband and grinned slightly. Things were looking up; the family would be brought back to Earth eventually, as James had shown, but right now Hermione was floating upon a cloud.

Things had never been better.

“I’m coming home,” she said finally.