Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns all Harry Potter related.
[AN]: This first chapter is mostly words not where they would be actually talking. There is some of it, but not all of it. For this one I just wanted to give the concept of what would be happening to both Harry and Hermione.
Chapter One: The Confrontation
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It was the end of November almost and London was experiencing cold, rainy days. People were coming out with umbrellas at hand and whatever else they needed for the entire day. As the rain was coming down in London, a woman about 25 years old was standing in a building just looking out her office window. The water droplets against the window made her look like she was made of water dots. But the woman on the other side of that window sure knew how to handle a Book company.
Hermione Granger, now 25 years old and working for her own Book company, she looked older and sharper than before. Though, the past had left her scars to remember forever and memories to cherish till the very end for her. Hermione itched the backside of her hand where she had a very light scar from the war. She looked down at it and wondered where everyone she knew was.
She hadn't heard from Ron in 2 years seeing as how he found a good place to work outside of London and Harry...that was a completely different story altogether. She hadn't heard of him since they were 17 years old, right after the war. No letters, phone calls, nothing. Ron hardly knew where he was either. Hermione had a feeling the Ministry set him up to do something stupid and not come back to the real world.
A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts and the door clicked open.
"Ms. Granger?" her assistant, Paula DeJoure, asked in a curious voice.
"Yes, Paula?" Hermione said, turning around to face her.
"I have some more orders for you to confirm so that we can definitely ship out the books."
Paula walked to her desk and placed a beige, file folder on top of a stack of papers. With that done, she left the room, closing the door behind her.
Hermione sighed and looked at her desk. Her life had no more real happiness in it anymore. She would sometimes go home, work till midnight, fall asleep at 2:00 in the morning and start the day over again. She wanted all that to change. Her parents' weren't making the best of it for her. It was stress that was overtaking her life and she didn't want that.
Hermione walked over to her desk and sat down in the fine, leather chair she had. She opened up the beige file folder that Paula left and looked through the information of what certain books some companies, or schools, wanted. That was her life story at the moment. Giving people the books they wanted. She promised herself that she didn't want to do this for the rest of her life.
-
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
The large clock on the wall, its face showing a collection of stars and twelve hands pointing in various directions. The cramped cubicle was filled with the sound of the clock counting out the seconds, so loud in the silence that it seemed they would shake the papers from the small desk. Dozens of files and loose forms were scattered across the wooden surface and a few violet envelopes were stacked on the floor beside the squat leather chair where the office's occupant sat. The man sitting at the desk leaned his head into his hands, his long fingers slipping up into his tousled black hair. Emitting a sigh, the man tilted his bright green gaze upwards and his attentions lingered on the clocks surface.
Still not time, he thought in exasperation, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.
For the past eight years Harry Potter had been slaving away in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic, deep within the Department of Mysteries. He had been forbidden contact with any of his friends or those he had grown to see as family. With a wistful smirk, Harry glanced down at a photograph perched on the corner of his desk, barely visible behind a stack of paperwork.
Lifting the frame, he brushed his thumb across the glass surface. Beneath it he saw a younger rendition of himself, surrounded by the two people he held dearest to him. On one side, a tall and gangly red-haired boy, a lazy smile on his freckled face. On the other side was a young woman, her bushy brown hair pulled back as she laughed at the camera, a book held comfortably in her left arm.
Harry laughed distractedly as he gazed down at the moving portrait, the three youths gazing up and laughing in return. Oh those joyful years he had spent at Hogwarts with his closest friends always by his side. Near him until the end of it all. If there was one thing he regretted it was his inability to maintain contact with these two but truthfully that had been part of the reason he had taken this job.
A loud knock on the door made Harry jerk his head upward. "Potter?" a deep voice asked.
"Come in," Harry returned, gesturing his wand at the door, which swung open. A tall man entered, bowing his head so as not to collide with the doorframe. He smiled vaguely at Harry as he dropped into the chair opposite the cluttered desk.
"Nearly time to go, I see," the man said, glancing up at the clock.
"Are you sure you really want to leave the Department of Mysteries? You have done us a wonderful amount of help, it will be a tremendous loss to see you go."
Harry smiled half-heartedly. "Sorry, Bridger, I just can't stand being cooped up in this hell hole any longer," he said with a laugh. "I've spent more time than my mind truly needed. I wasn't one of those people made to be lock up. I need freedom, fresh air…"
"And your friends?" Bridger asked, glancing at the portrait in Harry's hands.
Harry looked down and nodded.
"Well then, it was a pleasure working with you. Remember your blood oath to tell of nothing that you worked on here, it would be a pain to see your name in the obituaries, dear boy."
Harry grinned, standing up and extending his hand. "It was a pleasure working with you as well," he said, shaking the older man's hand eagerly.
He looked up and felt a great leap of excitement to see that the end of his shift had officially come.
"And now, I am free to return to the real world."
Without further ado, Harry grabbed up his belongings and headed towards the door. Leaving the revolving entrance hall, Harry made his way into the lift and from there he left the Ministry for the last time via the visitor's entrance. He was free to enjoy the real world and he wanted to enjoy it fully.
Harry stepped from the broken telephone box and into a rainstorm. Smiling at the feeling of the rain on his skin, Harry left off his coat. While he had felt rain over the years, as a free man it suddenly felt far better. Harry began walking along the busy road, glancing up at the businesses he passed with his green eyes wide. He couldn't wait to get home and send an owl to Ron and Hermione, simply to know that for the first time in years he was free to talk to them. He hoped desperately they wouldn't be too upset with him to want to communicate.
Harry paused, glancing at the building nearest him.
It was a bookstore.
Thinking suddenly of Hermione, Harry turned and walked inside, glancing around at the enormous stacks of books that filled the room.
That's what I'll do, Harry thought triumphantly. I'll get them both gifts. I can get Hermione one of these books, she'd love that.
Harry began browsing the shelves but had no idea where to begin. Casually his gaze drifted over a box that stood against a wall, presumably full of books to be shipped. His eyes stopped suddenly on the label and he felt for a moment that his heart had stopped.
"Impossible," he breathed aloud, but the proof was all too clear on the label.
Turning and heading towards the back of the building he saw the administration desks and he stopped in front of a young secretary.
"Excuse me," he said and gave a distracted smile as the woman looked up at him. "The manager of this business, is it truly a Miss Hermione Granger?"
"Yes," the woman replied, looking hesitant.
Harry's smile grew.
"Would there be any way for me to get in to see her?" he asked hopefully. "I'm an old friend and it would really mean the world to me."
He flashed her his most charismatic smile, praying that the woman would give him the chance he needed. He wanted so desperately to know if the woman who ran this business truly was the young studious girl he had grown up with.
-
Hermione was tapping her pen against the form that was right in front of her at the moment. She sighed heavily and looked over at the clock.
"Only four more hours," she muttered to herself and looked back down at the piece of paper.
She had lost her place where she was reading. Each and every form had its own description of the book, but sometimes for her it was painful just reading it; her eyes scanning every single word, every single sentence. To get it done faster she just scanned through it and signed her name at the end that the book was alright to be shipped to that specific place. A rumble was heard outside and she looked over at her office window. It was raining harder than ever now and she was worried if it was going to be impossible to apparate through that mess.
All of a sudden her phone beeped with a flash of red light on one of the buttons. Hermione noticed it was Paula and she pressed the `Talk' button.
"Yes, Paula?" Hermione said looking over at her phone.
"There is someone here who wants to see you. It's an old friend of yours apparently."
Harry stood anxiously beside the secretary's desk as he listened to their conversation through the small speaker attached to the phone. He listened to the voice, looking for similarities between this one and the one in the dregs of his memory, but there was too little to go on.
Hermione formed her face into a confused expression and shook her head slightly.
"Which friend are we talking about here?" she asked curiously.
"Well, um, he really doesn't want me to say."
That description really didn't help but she was hoping it was a client of hers from a long time ago who she hadn't of seen in awhile.
"Alright whoever it is just let them through."
From there Hermione turned off the `Talk' button and leaned back into her chair. She looked over her desk and her eyes landed on a picture frame. She shrugged and moved forward to pick it up. It was a black frame with three young people in the picture.
She closed her eyes and she could just hear their voices in her head from the last time she had seen them. Before she got too emotional about it, she placed the picture down quickly and frowned slightly. She didn't know where Ron was at all after the two years of not talking. Harry was a completely different story altogether.
Paula in the meantime smiled over at the young man who was waiting at the front of the desk.
"She says you could go and see her, but I am warning you that she may be a bit crabby."
"Thank you, ma'am," he said, inclining his head to her and giving her another grin.
Through the years he had slowly grown into the same smooth, charismatic smile that his father had once proudly bore, although lately he had little cause for showing it.
Paula guided him over to a brown door behind the desk and opened it up for him to go through.
"Her office is straight down this hallway and from there take a right. You can't miss it."
Harry walked through the doorway and entered a narrow and pristinely clean hallway. He trod cautiously, as if afraid that his presence was dishonoring to this place. The walls were decorated with things that would commonly be expected on the walls of a business; pieces of artwork in dulcet tones, portraits of important people smiling, occasionally an inspirational saying accompanied by a photograph on framed posters.
From there she watched the young fellow disappear beyond the doorway and closed it shut. She hoped Hermione would be completely surprised by who was coming to visit her.
Hermione had her head down on her desk. She wanted to go home so badly it wasn't even funny. Today was not her work day. It was one of those days where she just wanted to be alone with her books and nothing else. Now she had someone coming into her office who she hardly even knew.
"Go ahead and make yourself a book company," she scoffed and rolled her eyes. "What was I thinking?"
Once he had reached the end of the hall he turned to his right and saw a short passage leading to a plain wooden door. As he drew nearer, Harry noticed that a small plaque of dark colored plastic, much like the plaques on the door of a doctor's office, had been fixed to the wooden surface and declared out `Hermione Granger' in large, solid letters.
Harry lifted his hand to the knob but then hesitated. He suddenly became extremely self-conscious, realizing that he must look like a homeless vagrant. His jeans and shirt were soaked and wrinkled, matching his soggy shoes which were worn far beyond their years. In his other hand were his coat, also drenched, and a small knapsack that contained his few personal belongings he had taken from his office.
The normally messy black hair was clinging to his forehead, hiding the lightning scar, and he touched his cheek and discovered that it was coated in stubble, remembering that he had forgotten to shave that morning.
Still Harry couldn't fight the urge to find out if this woman was one of his best friends. Lifting his hand purposefully once more, Harry took a breath and rapped on the door.
She heard a loud knock on the front door of her office and lifted her head up from her desk. Hermione ran a hand through her soft, wavy curls instead of the bushy hair she had before. Thankfully over the years it finally decided that it was just out of style.
"Come in," she said loudly and rearranged her desk so everything looked alright and neat.
Hearing a call of entrance, Harry grabbed the knob and slowly pushed the door open to reveal a quaint and comfortable office. However as he stepped in, his eyes were not surveying the room; they had become fixed on the sole inhabitant of the room.
Standing behind her desk in an impressively cut suit, her tamed brown curls lying around her face, was a young woman he had not seen in nearly a decade. She seemed to be staring at him with as great a shock as he felt staring back at her. For a worrying moment he wondered if she was shocked to see such a battered looking man in her doorway or if she truly did remember him.
Shifting uncertainly under her blatant gaze, Harry reflexively ran his fingers through his hair. "Er...Hermione, hi," he managed to say.
[AN]: Hopefully I did well for the first chapter. I want to hear some reviews and I feel horrible for leaving you guys there without her full reaction.
Better things will come. =]
Please review and tell me if it was worth the reading!
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