Cold Feet

Treacle not withstanding, to anyone looking in on the outside, Hermione’s life was pretty much perfect at that moment in time. Not only was she getting married to a wonderful, handsome, caring man who also happened to be the most famous person in Wizarding Britain and a genuine hero, she was one of the rare people she knew who didn’t dread Monday mornings; she loved her work.



After Hogwarts, she had attended the Magical University of South England in Coventry, graduating – of course – at the top of her class, just as everyone expected. After that, she began work at the Ministry. She followed the usual path, from lowly office drone who had to make the teas and coffees, up the career ladder until she had an office of her own.



Just before Harry’s Eiffel Tower proposal, she was headhunted by the newly founded Wizarding television network – a Muggle idea the Wizarding community had taken and adapted for themselves – to co-produce a talk-show. The show was to be called ‘Let’s Talk.’ She knew that the job wasn’t nearly as reliable or well paid as the one she had at the Ministry. But something convinced her it might be the right moment to take a leap into the unknown. Though she had been quickly climbing up through the ranks in the Ministry, the Wizarding World could be intensely chauvinistic when it came right down to it, and though Voldemort was dead, bigotry towards someone of Muggle birth was still not unusual. Some people – namely, old Wizards who were set in their ways and their thinking, yet still wielded a lot of influence – still refused to see Hermione was anything other than a lowly Muggleborn who had sneaked her way into the halls of power when she should be making the coffees. She had a feeling her glass ceiling was looming. In fact, she had a feeling she was already smearing that glass ceiling with the copious amounts of Sleek-Eazy she used these days. She took a new position and a new career.



‘Let’s Talk’ was great fun from the very beginning. The new gang all started on the same day, which really helped foster team spirit. They were all enthusiastic and hardworking, and were soon putting together a show that was gradually, by word of mouth, becoming the morning show to watch among British wizards and witches; Hermione knew they had made it when she got into a cab one day and her taxi-driver started talking about it. When he struck up a conversation about an item that Hermione had produced a couple of days before, she could have kissed him.



It was a very fast-moving job. The hour-long show went out live three mornings a week and there was rarely any time to congratulate themselves on a good one before they had to start all over again. As soon as each show ended, they would have a meeting to discuss what should feature on the next one and launch straight into finding the guests who could offer an expert opinion. Sometimes, the issues they confronted were serious; sometimes, far from it. During Hermione’s time at the show, ‘Let’s Talk’ had covered everything from the tenth anniversary of Voldemort’s death to the threatened demise and bankruptcy of the Comet brand of broomsticks, which had fallen on hard times. Everyone had walked through those studio doors, from singers to freedom fighters, war heroes to an old bearded wizard who had been hauled before the Ministry for flying on his broomstick from Land’s End to John O’Groats naked. And yes, he came to the studio naked, too – an even less appealing sight to Hermione than her fiancé in treacle and feathers.



A few days after Harry’s Quidditch club debacle, a new Ministry study into single parenting was released. The results were astonishing. For decades, divorce and single parents had been regarded by the wizarding population to be a Muggle affliction. After all, divorce had always been rare among wizards and witches, because in the old Binding ceremonies of yesteryear, magical marriages had involved a very ancient and powerful ritual in which the souls and magic of the couple were bound, making it impossible to reverse. This tradition was still practised among the wizarding aristocracy, but recently, the less affluent and more broad-minded majority had taken to the easier, more practical and lot less permanent Muggle style of marriage which involved a simple ceremony and a piece of paper with the couples signatures on. They had even done a show on it a few weeks back. But these new statistics were surprising: it seemed the number of young magical children starting Hogwarts who lived with only one parent had soared. Wizarding England, however, still seemed to be ignoring this ever-increasing percentage, still with the assumption that single parents were a Muggle problem. These single parents were expected to go out to work, and yet, there were almost no childcare provisions in the Wizarding world to help them juggle jobs and a home life. After all, the Ministry hardly had a system in place to hand out benefits for single mothers, not like in the Muggle world. Those few childcare places that did exist were so expensive, the gap between money earned and money spent, in order to be able to earn, had shrunk to such an extent, it hardly seemed worth leaving the house in the morning anyway. The Daily Prophet and all the other newspapers had covered the study and the dilemmas it revealed. It was front-page news, pending the next professional Quidditch player’s indiscretion or former Minister of Magic’s revelations. They really couldn’t afford not to cover it themselves.



“What we need is something that examines single parenting from a new angle,” said Elle North, Hermione’s boss.



Hermione had no doubt that exactly the same conversation was being had in fifty television show production offices throughout the country afternoon, be they wizarding or Muggle.



“Single mothers: what kind of shoes do they wear?” asked Ray Williams, the office funny boy. It was a running joke that Ray would include shoes in every proposal he made at the show meetings. Apparently, it was all girls ever talked about.



“A sensible new angle,” tutted Nancy Morris, the show’s beautiful presenter. She always tried to be stern with Ray, but a smile was never far from her lips when she spoke to him. In some ways, Ray used his boyish good looks in their oestrogen-run office - the three top-ranking people running the show were women – like a male version of a big-breasted girl flashing her cleavage on a City trading floor. He could make Nancy flirt like a teenager, though she was technically old enough to be his mother. At least, she assumed Nancy was old enough to be his mother. She had a very mature resume, but her porcelain-white skin was still as smooth as a baby’s backside and she laughed like someone who had never been hurt.



“Everyone assumes that a single parent is a mother left by a feckless man,” piped up Nathan Young, their other trainee. If Ray was class clown, then Nathan was definitely class geek. He pushed his glasses further up his nose in a manner a little reminiscent of Harry and squinted through them expectantly as he waited for them to respond.



“That sounds good,” Hermione said. If not entirely original. Still, there were only two flavours of single parent, weren’t there?



Elle nodded.



“Single fathers and their shoes?” Ray muttered.



They all ignored him.



“Single fathers works for me,” Nancy shrugged.



It would work for Hermione, too. That close to lunch, she just wanted to get out of the office and into a sandwich.



“Right. A lone father it is,” Elle said. “Pending any better ideas.”



“Single shoes?” said Ray.



They continued to ignore him.



“Nathan, perhaps you could start by making some calls to any single parent organisations,” Hermione suggested.



Nathan, as usual, was way ahead of the game. “Oh, I already did that.” Hermione caught Ray rolling his eyes and reflected on how scarily similar Nathan was to herself back at Hogwarts. “I’m waiting to hear from a couple of men who should be available at short notice.”



“Great. Let me know as soon as they get back to you,” Elle nodded.



“Will do.” Nathan made a note before going off to fix them some coffee and shine his halo.



Once again, Ray found himself in the humiliating position of researching the smaller, more lightweight part of the show. He was set to find someone to talk to them about yet another calendar made up of nude pictures of unlikely models. They’d had the naked old witches, naked Aurors and naked Hogwarts teachers (okay, so maybe not Hogwarts teachers – the idea of Snape in the buff made Hermione feel nauseous, even if it was for charity). This time, the nude models were all professional Quidditch players, raising money for St. Mungo’s. Strategically placed broomsticks and Quidditch gloves kept Hermione from finding out whether the rumour was true that serious Quidditch players put bananas down their boxers. It was surprisingly disappointing when Ray announced, after some light research, that it was true: professional Quidditch players did put bananas in their underwear. But only the skins. Between their buttocks. To stop chafing.



“Can we use the word ‘chafing’ on our show?” Hermione wondered aloud.



“I’ll look it up,” said Nathan brightly.