Hermione

LaBibliographe: You're so right about JKR's portrayal of Ron. Thanks for pointing out some omissions in my last installment! I've filled in the blanks. Tonks in not dead in my AU. She makes a brief appearance in a different story.

sheherazade: Thanks for passing on my name!

catysmom: Sorry I've been slow.

amsev: You weren't alone!

Damiana: Glad to "meet" you! Hang with this...I have some ideas I'm getting to.

StarKneazle: I haven't seen "Hedwig". It was just too good a reference to pass up.

*

Hermione entered her cubicle and lit the thick candle on the corner of her desk. The whole office was lit by candles floating in mid-air. Several wizards shared the space with her.

Brant Walker had wind-blown blond hair, disarmingly candid blue eyes, and a cat-like body. Hermione avoided him. She knew about his bet with another handsome wizard, dark-haired Laurie Hughes, about how many witches they could shag before Christmas.

Then there was Philomena Potts, an aging witch whose regal nose and gray-streaked bob proclaimed a former handsomeness. She sat on the Wizengamot. Hermione knew her to be a fair, if harsh, judge. Philomena’s imperious ways had caused her to run afoul of several Ministers for Magic, which led eventually to her losing her private office and being forced to share this windowless space with low-level Ministry employees such as Hermione.

Deep in a corner was Simon Putnam. He had clean, even features and a helpful air. Hermione didn’t know him well, but found him pleasant.

“Hermione Granger,” said a high-pitched voice. Hermione started and nearly upset her inkwell.

Peering over the edge of her desk with fist-sized eyes was Dobby.

“Dobby is sorry. Dobby didn’t mean to startle Hermione Granger,” the elf said. “Winky cannot come today. Her is still not sure about HECL.” The house elf looked ashamed. He was wearing five pairs of socks, each pair rolled down to reveal the pair beneath, a chartreuse waistcoat that Hermione recognized as coming from a Muggle dress-me doll, and a pair of enormous white boxer shorts with the words “I’m feeling lucky” embroidered across the front. At first, Hermione wasn’t sure she saw the words correctly. She leaned forward to view them more closely, and her necklace swung free of her robes.

“Where is Hermione Granger getting that ring?” Dobby asked in a strange voice.

“Fr—" Caution shut Hermione’s mouth. “I can’t say,” she said in alow voice, looking at her office mates. “Have you seen it before?”

“Dobby has seen it,” the elf said reluctantly.

Hermione could only stare. “How did you see it?”

The elf squirmed and looked around. “Dobby has no master now. Dobby can tell. But Dobby cannot tell,” he said.

“You can tell,” Hermione urged.

“Dobby cannot,” he repeated. “Not here, Hermione Granger.”

Hermione thought he looked darkly in Brant’s direction, but it was hard to tell. The others sat in his general vicinity. Brant riffled one hand through his hair and pretended to keep reading a huge volume of wizard law. Philomena glared at Hermione and made a tapping noise with her quill. Just beyond her, Simon was scrawling what appeared to be a long grant application on a roll of parchment.

“I’ve drafted this regulation to present to the Minister of Magic,” Hermione said finally. “Will you read it and tell me what you think?”

“Dobby cannot read, Hermione Granger, and besides, the Minister of Magic is—“ he shuddered convulsively and whispered—“Imperiused.”

“I know,” Hermione said crossly. “But he doesn’t care about house elves, does he? So he might still approve something.”

Dobby only stared at her with his lantern-like eyes.

“Well, here’s how it reads,” Hermione said. “Whereas the house elves live in a state of abject servitude and whereas they must put their masters’ needs above their very lives and whereas—“

“That’ll never be approved,” came a booming voice.

Hermione’s head snapped up. Philomena Potts was glowering at her. “No one will approve that regulation. We need house elves,” the aging witch said with finality.

“All the same—" Hermione began.

But Philomena flicked her hand at Hermione. “You have no idea what you’re proposing. Wizardkind must have elves. You only got this job because you made nice to the Weasleys. You should go back home and study law.”

Old bat, Hermione thought. Nothing will make her happy except feeling superior to others. She gave Philomena a thin smile and said to Dobby, “Let me see you out.”

Once in the corridor, Hermione tapped Dobby’s shoulder and said, “Follow me.”

She led him through what appeared to be solid wall into a tunnel only as high as Hermione was tall and just wide enough for them to pass single file. Floating candles lighted their way. Hermione ran her fingers over the wall, and when she came to the spot, she said, “Alohomora.” A door opened, and she led Dobby into a bare but serviceable room equipped with a desk and chairs.

“The Ministry won’t give me a better office, but they have all these unused ones about,” Hermione groused. Dobby took a seat gingerly. “Now, please tell me, Dobby. Where did you see this ring before?”

Dobby turned his enormous eyes on her again. “Once, Hermione Granger, my master took me to a place called Spinners End.”

Hermione felt herself jerk forward.

“Dobby’s master took him,” the elf continued. “Dobby’s master was going away. Dobby’s master had a friend. The friend needed help from a house elf. Dobby’s master told him to serve his friend as if he were Dobby’s own master.”

If Hermione had been on the edge of her seat before, she was positively holding her breath now. “What was this friend like?”

“Master Snape was a good master,” Dobby said soberly.

“Oh, Dobby! You’d say that ab—"

“Master Snape was a good master,” Dobby repeated doggedly.

“Good how?” Hermione couldn’t help asking.

“Master Snape was pleased with Dobby’s work.”

“He can’t have been nice,” Hermione protested.

“Dobby cleaned and cooked carefully for Master Snape. Master Snape was pleased,” the elf insisted.

“All right,” Hermione said, feeling puzzled. She wasn’t sure she had ever seen Snape truly pleased. “But what about the ring?”

Now Dobby looked fearful. “Dobby saw it in the wormhole.”

“What’s that?”

The elf tried for several minutes to explain it, but finally he said, “Dobby is sorry, Hermione Granger. The house elves just calls it the wormhole—the place between times and places. Dobby was cleaning Master Snape’s house and found it.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Hermione asked apprehensively.

“Dobby does not know, Hermione Granger. Dobby could not touch it, could not get close to it. Dobby would feel an invisible wall each time he tried to touch it.”
“Is it bad?”

Dobby shuddered. “Dobby only knows it is very powerful, Hermione Granger.”

Hermione sat back. Clearly, there was nothing to be gained by pressing Dobby further. She took him back outside the Ministry to the phone booth, from which he promptly Disapparated. Hermione lingered a moment in the graffiti-smeared booth, observing the huge dents in the phone, which appeared to have been made by a large, blunt object. Two frightening prospects yawned before her. She had to get a dress for the Yule Ball and endure seeing her ex-fiance and ex-boyfriend, both of whom bore deserving grudges against her. She would have to look dignified and even content, happy, while attending the Ball on her own. And after that, clearly, she would have to visit Malfoy Manor.

She turned in place and looked up at Diagon Alley and located Madam Malkin’s. With a sigh, she trudged toward the shop.

Madam Malkin was pinning a voluminous purple creation on a plump, middle-aged witch when Hermione walked in. Madam Malkin, her mouth full of glittery pins, nodded in Hermione’s direction as she walked in. “…and I want it higher. Higher!” commanded the plump witch. “You aren’t doing it right!” Hermione walked toward the back of the shop so as not to hear the witch any more. She reminded Hermione of Philomena Potts.

The sale rack was in the back, and Hermione began rifling through it with no high hopes: a black robe with silver tinsel hanging from it on pulled-out threads, something pea green in crushed velvet, a cheaply made orange number that plunged to the waist…

“I have to look good, but not too good,” Hermione thought. “I just have to blend in and hope that no one notices me.”

…another black robe but this one with two blue circles centered over each breast. Hermione winced. A loud red robe with white lace drooping in the neckline and sleeves, a white robe gathered into a bustle in back with a huge bow affixed over the bum, a burnt-sienna robe with fake jewels winking gaudily across the bust… Hermione felt herself groan. Why were robes made for the very young or very tasteless?

“This one, dear?” someone said.

Hermione looked up. One of Madam Malkin’s assistants was holding out a carefully tailored number in forest green. Without letting her hopes get too high too fast, Hermione said, “How much?”

“Fifty galleons.”

Hermione felt her heart sink. She could afford it, but it was twice what she had hoped to pay for a robe she would likely wear one time. She looked at the assistant, a tough-looking old witch with a jaded expression on her face. Hermione gave her a pleading look, but the assistant tightened her mouth and said nothing.

“All right,” Hermione said reluctantly.

She went up to the front of the shop and allowed Madam Malkin to move around her, pinning, adjusting and from time to time, issuing orders (“turn,” “bend to the right,” “lift your arms”). Madam Malkin at last waved her wand, and the dress altered itself to specification, and Madam Malkin popped it into a some kind of protective wrapper.

Feeling relieved but somehow empty, Hermione strode back out into Diagon Alley and Disapparated to her flat. She put away the new robe. Crookshanks rubbed her legs, to Hermione’s surprise. She hadn’t seen the cat for months. She suspected some other young witch with a more interesting life and a better class of cat treats and drawn the animal’s attention. She petted Crookshanks, gave him some food, and pulled out A Magycal Hystorie of the Malfoy Familie.

Now all she had to do was wait until dark.