Chapter Text
I was having trouble with the 2024 prompts...so here I am in 2025
This was supposed to be a one shot...and today I'm working on the sixth chapter of--maybe--ten. *sigh*
Prompt:
“I have a problem.”
“Only one?”
“I have a problem!”
Harry burst into her tiny office and Hermione didn’t look up from one of the lower peaks of her paperwork. “Only one?”
Her oldest friend pulled a face and slumped into the chair on the other side of her desk. A stack of parchment hid him. His hand moved—
“No!”
A spark of a spell pinned his fingers to the air and Harry squawked. “What the fu—? Hermione?”
“I have a system,”she muttered. “With the amount of a paperwork that piles on my desk, I’m recreating the Alps to keep track. Do not mess with Mont Blanc.”
Harry blinked, his fingers still pinned. He blinked again. “Okay… Not the only one with a problem, then.”
Her eyes narrowed on him. She pulled her chair out, finite’d the spell on his hand and whipped her wand to scrape his chair across the floor. Only mere inches from her desk in the cramped space. But yes, away from her desk…and the square peaks of her Alps. There was method to her madness. She eyed the varying piles and held back a wince. Perhaps…perhaps, she’d been secreted away in her tiny office for too long.
She drew in a breath and the musty cabbage stink caught in her throat.
Yes, far too long…
“What’s happened, Harry?”
“It’s Draco.”
Hermione held back a groan. She did not want to be trapped—yet again—in the drama of his relationship with Draco Malfoy. The war had been over for two years, and almost from the moment when the dust settled on Hogwarts’ grounds, Harry and Draco had been… It wasn’t a relationship. They rage-fucked. Or declared themselves soul-mates. Only to fall out later that afternoon…and cycle back to the rage-fucking.
“Harry…”
“We’re bonding.”
Hermione stared at him. A thousand replies chased through her thoughts.
Really?
Is that wise?
Are you sure?
Fisting her hands in his robes, yanking him to his feet and shouting “Are you insane!” into his face.
Instead, she shoved down the bubbling rush of panicked emotion and asked, “Why is that a problem?”
Harry pulled another face. His hand slashed the air. “Because…what do I know about pure-blood bonding customs?”
She stared at him, her lips pressed together and waited for his very few brain cells to collide and offer a spark. He stared back. No. Nothing. He expected her simply…to know. The muggleborn witch. The witch thrown over almost instantly by the only pure-blood wizard she'd wanted to show any interest in her.
Hermione pushed down the old pain.
She’d thought, after the kiss, and the brief handholding, that they—that she and Ron— were…together.
She was about to lie to Harry. She did know about one bond. One she never spoke of…because it was a girlish hope. And that wasn’t her, was it? Still…her heart had squeezed at the thought of sharing the Seven Kisses with Ron. Something Lavender had waxed on about. The most ancient of bonds, according to Witch Weekly.
But the fame—instant and rapacious—that came with defeating Voldemort had dragged Ron away before even the First Kiss found her hand. And prettier, less…strident witches than her were suddenly all over her very-much-former-boyfriend like virulent dragon pox.
“I don’t know much about pure-blood customs, Harry.”
“But…”
And then he stilled. Had her quiet statement broken through his wild storm of worry? Had those braincells finally…bumped?
He sagged in his chair and offered her a wry smile. “Sorry, “ he pressed his hands together, “I am. Honestly. I expect you to be my very own Encyclopaedia Magi.”
She huffed. “Try Etiquette, Protocol and Manners by Echo Culpepper. It was updated in 1753, so…about as modern as the wizarding world gets. Basic, but a place to start.”
Harry snorted. “Some light reading?”
She gave him a tight smile. “I read it in the first months at Hogwarts. I wanted to fit in.”
Harry scrubbed his hands over his face and groaned. “I am such a selfish shit.” He fisted his fingers in his ever-messy hair. “This thing with Draco it takes over me.”
“You’ve always been obsessed with him.”
His laughter was sour. “I have, haven’t I?”
“Talk to him, Harry. Ask him what he wants. Something big. Something small. The…the…” She couldn’t admit to knowing about the Seven Kisses. She couldn’t. “Work it out…between you.”
His head dropped and he groaned. “Yes, that would be the adult thing to do, wouldn’t it?”
“Shame you’re both still hormonal little boys, then.”
His gaze snapped to her and found her smirk. He gave another groan. “I can’t deny it.”
She offered him a reluctant crumb about the Seven Kisses. “I do know that certain bonds…blend your magic.” She waggled her fingers at him. “So choose wisely.”
Harry paled. “Really? Fuck. I’ve had enough of leeching another wizard’s magic, thank you very much.” He shuddered. “No, we’re picking a bond that’s less…invasive.”
And Hermione suspected he knew that it wasn’t the same as him echoing Voldemort’s skills, but knowing and accepting were two very different things. She couldn’t blame him for being wary.
His mouth twitched and his shoulders straightened. “Now that I’ve picked your brain and threatened to…topple your work”—he winced at her parchment-covered desk—“Seriously, Hermione, you are over-worked and grossly underpaid.” His lips pressed together. “And before you ask, whatever they’re paying you is not enough!”
He blinked. Twice. “As I was about to say, come to lunch. I’m paying.”
So not the Ministry canteen, which was free to staff.
It was tempting.
Not to sit by herself, with the eyes of more than one wizard raking over her. Hot and lecherous and totally unwanted.
And the wizard she wanted those looks from didn’t—
Hermione cut out any thought of that fantasy.
“Yes. I will. Thank you. Yes.” She stood and a flick of wand sent her chair back behind her desk. She frowned at the haphazard piles of books on the shelves on the far wall. She did still have her copy of Etiquette…there. She pulled it free and a slim volume fell with it.
“The Marriage Manual. Pacts, Pledges and Promises. I don’t remember buying…” She flicked over the stained black leather cover and frowned. “Augustus Belby.” She huffed. “From the family that defeated Lethifolds and invented Wolfsbane.”
“Marriage is a dangerous business.”
“With you and Draco, undoubtedly.”
Harry grinned at her. “Can I borrow…?”
She narrowed her eyes and her knuckles whitened on the hold of the two books.
“Or…we can look over them at lunch?”
“Acceptable.”
Hermione warded her office. Not that she guarded any great state secrets, but others liked to…meddle. She was too serious. Too focused. even as a lowly cog, her willingness to put in the time, made others look bad.
Her thumb rubbed at the odd stain on the front of the slim marriage volume. No one realised that she had nothing else. Besides Harry, other friends had fallen away. Caught up in the rush of lives and relationships. And she, she had her towering paper Alps.
She did need to make an effort to get out more.
“I don’t remember this book.”
Harry stared at her. “You…” He laughed. “Are you truly Hermione Granger? Or a polyjuiced stranger?”
She slid him a glare. “Funny. It’s stained and the binding is loose.”
Harry slipped a hand to her elbow and steered her along the wide, green-tiled corridor. “Food,” he muttered.
She wasn’t listening.
The press of gold into the leather was cracked, spider-thin and missing completely around the second ‘M’. It didn’t make sense Any book she bought—any—was subjected to a series of repair spells she’d half-wrenched from Irma Pince. Her books were immaculate.
She eased open the cover and found foxing—foxing!—on the flyleaf.
“This is not my book.”
Harry shook his head. “A present, then? Or someone stole in and had the unmitigated gall to stash a book on your bookshelf.” He pressed the back of his hand to his forehead. “Merlin forfend!”
He wasn’t thinking, but she didn’t push it. Had he forgotten who they were? Their fame within the wizarding world…and how not every witch and wizard agreed with the outcome of the war? And the fact that another misplaced book had drained his former girlfriend and almost made him a light snack for a basilisk.
How long had the book been in her office? Who had put it there? She focused, and yes, there was a…feel to it. A slip of unknown magic.
Her heart squeezed. Fuck…
She eased a silent ward—two—over the book, coating it in sealing magic and dropped it into one of the deep pockets of her Ministry robes.
There was one wizard who would take her concerns seriously.
And if her belly did an insane little flip-flop, well that was simply worry about the danger of the book, wasn’t it?
Nothing else. Nothing at all