The Italian Job

Chapter 2:

INTERDEPARTMENTAL MEMO

From: Auror-in-Charge H. J. Potter

To: H. J. Granger, Department of International Wizarding Affairs, Diplomatic Security Liaison

Date: Friday, 8 July 2005

Time: 8am

RE: Additional Safety Protocols for Florentine Delegate

Ms H. Granger,

Per a conversation with Head Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt, the services of an Auror-approved Freelancer have been secured to supplement the security and diplomatic details assigned to the aforementioned visitor.

Identity of said Freelancer is classified, only revealed on a need-to-know basis.

Standard protocols, including proper counter-phrases will apply.

Please be advised that an additional accommodation will need to be secured for the Freelancer and said accommodation must be on the same floor of the same non-wizarding hotel.

Please contact me if you have any questions or cannot fulfil any of the previously listed requirements.

Thank you for your co-operation.

H. J. Potter,

Special Auror-in-Charge

Anyone else in the department, their response to an all-too-formal and rather imperious memo would be to craft an equally formal reply. On occasion—if stories told in the loo, at office parties, or traded at the water-cooler were to be believed—the affronted party might even go so far as to enclose the return memo in a Howler.

Hermione, however, never one for the limelight nor to be one to do anything ‘so typical’, didn't.

All day, his door was swung open. Every single woman within a five-floor radius of Harry's office offered to 'be the one' to help him heal his 'broken heart', that she'd be so glad to listen to him; be someone he could just unload all of his hurt and let him cry. After all, according to what Hermione had told them, he'd just been thoughtlessly chucked by someone he considered to be The One and was too heartbroken and morose to ask for the help he so, in her words, desperately needed.

Thoroughly amused, Ron hung about his office throughout the afternoon, just to bear witness to the steady flow of female empathizers. Not to mention that he wouldn’t miss out on the sudden influx of baked goods, obviously made or fetched during lunch hours, and cups of tea and coffee that accumulated as the afternoon progressed.

Harry cradled his head in his hands and, much to Ron’s mirth, groaned long and loud. 

“Mate, just wait until she realizes what you’ve done!” Ron leaned back in his chair. He dipped a spoon into a container of Fortescue’s ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ flavored ice-cream. He licked the spoon clean before using it to point at Harry’s sorry arse. “You really stepped in it this time, Harry.” 

Harry nodded his head. He really did step in it, but he wasn’t sorry that he had. The stakes were just too high. 

A Ministry maintenance elf popped into his office. The elf set three different packages on his desk and, with a polite bob of his head, vanished. 

Why couldn’t Hermione have just sent a Howler?