Copyright: What elements of this story that I own, and are not the property of anyone else, are licensed
CC-BY-NC-SA. That means that you can take anything in this story, up to and including the whole thing, and use it
however you like, as long as you promise me three things:
1. You will link back to me (preferably to my author page)
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Today's prompt: 'Describe your character's happiest memory.' You may not feel like this qualifies, but I very much do. This one takes place not long after chapter 3.
I got a request to explain exactly what the hell I'm doing with this story. So here it is:
There's a list that's been going around Tumblr called "30 Days of Character Development." The idea is that every day for 30 days, you post a response for one of your made-up characters to a question from a standard list. What I'm doing is taking that list, and writing short vignettes answering them for Hermione. That's really what this story is: a series of vignettes. They all take place in the same universe - the same timeline, if you prefer - but they take place at varying times in Hermione's life; I'm not arranging them chronologically because I'm not always entirely sure where they'll all fall in the chronology.
Hope that cleared some stuff up, and I hope you enjoy the show!
Come on Potter, Harry Potter berated himself, She's your best friend; what's the worst that could happen?
Harry was pacing up and down in the main foyer of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. One of the benefits of being Harry Potter, and also being best friends with the Director of the department, was that he could get much further into the inner workings of the Ministry than most civilians. One of the downsides of not being an employee of the Ministry, though, was that he could not quite go everywhere - not even The Chosen One was exempt from that rule.
So he was waiting for his dear friend Hermione Granger, Grand Exalted Chief of the DRMC, to get out of one her seemingly endless meetings so he could treat her to lunch and, hopefully, get a positive answer to a question that had been burning brightly in the back of his mind ever since she had broken up with the last swine who had dared call himself her boyfriend.
Ah but there was Hermione now, waving to the secretary as she exited the imposing double doors of her sanctum. Hermione Granger had done very well for herself in the years following the war, climbing the ranks of the Ministry and making some huge gains for all of magical kind: elves, goblins, centaurs, even muggleborns; and only last year she had been put in charge of the entire department, the youngest Director in Ministry history at the tender age of 31.
Hermione grinned brilliantly at the sight of him, and Harry wished he felt half as good as she looked. He knew that he needed a shave, and a bit of a longer shower than he'd had that morning, but his schedule kept him too busy for much personal care - these weekly lunches were sometimes all he could carve out of his week; such was the life of a Healer.
"Hey Harry." Hermione greeted him, and he could hear the smile in her voice as she pulled him into a hug. "Sorry I'm late; Wizenmoot elections are coming up, and Pius is all over me about background checks."
"Tell me about it." He told her, grateful for the distraction. And she did.
***
Hermione talked his ear off for their entire lunch, but Harry didn't mind; she had an exciting job, and these were exciting times for her, coordinating a representational government for a dozen different sentient species across the country.
In all honesty, Harry was bored stiff by the conversation. Magical politics were not an area he could hold his mind on, which helped explain why he had turned down every offer to get into the game. But he listened attentively, nodding and encouraging in all the right places, partly because it was Hermione and partly because he didn't really want to have an opening where he would have to speak. It wasn't that he didn't want to - he did, more than anything in the world right now - but he was scared of how she would react, scared that his words wouldn't be right.
But his opportunities to stall were running out. "I'm sorry for talking so much." She apologized shyly as they approached her apartment door. Harry waved it off with a grunt. "I really enjoy these lunches, Harry; I wish we could do them more often."
"Yeah."
Hermione frowned. "Harry, is anything wrong? You've been a mood ever since we got back to the Ministry." Harry shook his head, lying terribly to his best friend. "Okay," She replied, clearly not believing him, "If you're sure. Same time next week?" Harry nodded, and Hermione turned to her door with a smaller smile than she'd worn when they met an hour earlier.
"Hermione?" Harry called out suddenly, girding up his courage. She turned immediately. "Do you…I mean, would you like to…go out with me? Sometime?"
Her face lit up, and it sent Harry's heart into the stratosphere. "I'd love to."
"Cool." He could feel the stupid grin spreading across his face, but he didn't care. Until he suddenly did, and it vanished. "You know that I'm asking you on a date, right?"
She laughed. "Yes, Harry; I know."
"And you're still saying yes?"
"Yes, Harry; I am."
The grin returned. "Cool. Saturday?"
"Saturday is good."
"Cool. Bye Hermione!"
"Bye, Harry."
As soon as he heard the doors close, Harry punched the air in triumph, totally unaware that a certain brunette witch would do almost the same thing when she closed the door to her office.