Hermione stood before the mirror in her small bathroom, putting on her make-up. She pulled the mascara wand away a moment and looked at herself, studying her features curiously. She, for some reason, had been thinking about her school years today, and she realised that she did look very much different than she had then, but she wasn’t complaining, since the changes in appearance had all been good changes.

She looked older now, prettier she thought, and her hair was better, too. It was still curly, but it wasn’t nearly as frizzy. She actually liked it for once in her life. She was taller, too. Although she had been rather short in school for most of school, in her sixth and seventh years she had shot up like a weed. She was just an inch shorter than Harry was, now, and that was saying something. Neither of them were nearly as tall as Ron, though, who was the tallest.

She put her mascara wand down, still looking at herself. That reminded her; she hadn’t talked to either Harry or Ron in a while, not since at least September. She made a mental note to herself to owl them sometime soon. She put that away in her mind, and then finished putting on her mascara.

Finishing up her make-up, she went into her bedroom, and sat on the bed, pulling on the sheer stockings that had been lying next to her on the bed. As the buzz of the bell reverberated through her house she quickly slid her feet into her black shoes, and grabbed her coat and her keys, hurrying down the stairs and to the front door. She opened the door, and smiled.

"Hi, Matt!" she said to the man in the doorway. He had a mop of dirty-blond hair that fell into the cutest blue eyes Hermione had ever seen. She tried not to sigh. ‘Wow,’ she thought.

"Hullo, Hermione," said he, giving her a smile to make any girl go weak at the knees. "You look wonderful."

"Thanks," Hermione said. "You don’t look so bad, yourself."

"Well, of course not," Matt smiled. "Shall we go?" he asked.

"Yeah," Hermione answered distantly, slightly taken aback by his somewhat conceited comment.

She didn’t mind that Matt was a muggle, nor did she mind that they were going on a pretty Muggle-ish date. When she had met him in the coffee shop that Monday, he had seemed like such a nice guy, plus he was incredibly handsome, reminding her a little of Gilderoy Lockhart, only her age, and very available for dating. She wasn’t about to pass up this sort of opportunity.

They walked down the sidewalk in the chill October air, their breath hanging in clouds, and their heels clicking on the asphalt wet from rain. Matt went on about his work, and Hermione stayed silent, not quite sure if she could add to the conversation. The question would come soon when he would ask what she did for a living. When he finished explaining his job –he worked at an advertising agency –Hermione knew that was when he would ask.

"So, Hermione, what do you do?" he asked. Hermione cringed inwardly, quickly trying to make up some stories.

"I… work," she said lamely, and at that point she wanted to slap herself.

"Well, yes, but where do you work?" Matt asked, slightly nonplussed.

"I’m a dentist!" Hermione blurted, unaware of exactly where that had come from. Well, she knew about dentistry from her parents, so she wouldn’t seem like a complete moron if he asked her any questions about it.

"Really? Fascinating!" Matt exclaimed, smiling. "I’ve always wondered what that would be like."

"Well, you know, not very interesting. Stick your fingers in peoples’ mouths all day and then take their money," Hermione said, albeit a bit stupidly, noticing that she sounded like a complete imbecile. Matt laughed, and so she forced a fairly nervous laugh, herself, but she still had the feeling that he thought her a real idiot.

‘Great idea of a first date, ‘Mione, making a fool of yourself in front of a completely hot man,’ she told herself sarcastically. ‘He’s probably just thought of you as worthless now, except as a vagina.’ She cleared her throat uneasily and then asked, "So, where are we going?" Ah, good, a nice subject that didn’t allow for nearly as much embarrassment as the last.

"I dunno. I thought we’d go to dinner, maybe take in a show, or go for a walk and just talk, I suppose." He shrugged. "Whatever you want to do after dinner is fine, but I have special reservations. Don’t ask what they are though, because I want it to be a surprise," he added.

"Sounds good," Hermione said, inclining her head a little.

"Sounds very good," Matt smiled, glancing at her. Hermione smiled, too, because that’s obviously what he was expecting her to do.

‘My, this is going to be a long night,’ she thought.

Dinner was in an extraordinarily overpriced restaurant, and yet it was an incredible experience, with exquisite food, waiters waiting on you hand and foot at every minute, not to mention a marvelous desert, and extremely good wine. Hermione had to say, though, that by the end of dinner she was a little numb, having had to listen to Matt droning about his life for at least an hour and a half.

‘Gods, I didn’t know someone could be so happy talking about themselves,’ she thought, as she stared at him blankly, pretending to be engaged in whatever the hell he was talking about. Needless to say judging by her vacant expression, it was not exceedingly interesting. ‘I mean, just the idea of talking to someone about my entire personal life gives me the jitters. Maybe it’s just because I’m shy, though.’

After dinner, they did end up going for a walk in the park, gazing at the sky, and Matt still talking about himself. Hermione was officially no longer having a good time. Of course, she had at first been honored that he would do what she wanted to do, compromise a little, but then she realized what a pompous narcissus this man had actually turned out to be. It nearly made her ill to think that she had once believed him to be attractive.

She glanced at him, and then back at the scenery. Well, he was still very attractive, but she was extremely turned off by his lack of interest in anything but himself.

They were walking by a small pond, now, and sat down on a park bench overlooking the moonlit waters. A few ducks were sleeping close to the rushes near the bank, their heads tucked under their wings, and looking positively adorable. Languidly, Hermione wished that they were awake so she could feed them instead of listening to this stupid prick all night.

"So, why don’t you tell me about yourself?" she heard him ask. She turned to him in surprise. Could it be? Was this self-loving jerk finally paying attention to the beautiful woman he was with? She then realized she hadn’t answered his question, and so did.

"Well, I went to a boarding school for a good deal of my childhood, and had to friends who got into loads of trouble, and I got the best marks and was both a prefect and Head Girl," she said.

"Wow," Matt said, smiling that disarming, debonair smile again. "I’m impressed."

"So were my parents, but then, they’d always expected me to succeed," Hermione shrugged. That was true enough. Her parents, both being dentists, had decided that since they were both extremely intelligent people, their intelligence genes simply had to be passed on to their pride and joy, their little girl.

Then, a thought occurred to Hermione. Matt didn’t know about wizards. ‘Well obviously,’ she thought. But he wouldn’t know what Hogwarts was. Well, naturally he wouldn’t. What was she going to tell him, though, since he didn’t know about her school?

"What boarding school did you say you went to?" Matt asked, and Hermione froze. Oh, dear. Again, she thought, she couldn’t tell him she’d gone to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he’d never believe her. What was she going to do?

"It was… in America," she lied spontaneously. ‘What did I say that for? Why Me?!’ she thought despairingly. She knew a little about America, having visited cousins there, once, but she didn’t know much about any of the American Wizarding schools. She knew they existed, though.

"Oh? That’s amazing! And you never developed an accent?" asked Matt, interrupting her musings.

"No, actually. That’s the strange part. You would think that after so long there, I would have started sounding like one of them, but no. It didn’t happen," Hermione said, shrugging. "I might have gotten a little lilt because of it, but I’ve been here at home for a while now, and I think whatever might have been there’s disappeared by now."

"Hmm," Matt said, still staring at her. "You know, Hermione, you look awfully lovely in this light."

Hermione blushed, averting her eyes and shoving her hands in her coat pockets shamefully. "Thank you," she said softly. ‘Well, he certainly knows how to give a compliment,’ she thought. ‘Merlin, it is very cold out here,’ she suddenly realized. She shivered.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Um… cold, is all," Hermione said uneasily.

"Oh, well, I can fix that," Matt said, smiling again, and wrapping his arm gently about her. ‘Too close,’ Hermione thought immediately. ‘Why did I go out with him again?’ briefly flitted through her mind.

Later that night, they were on her doorstep, and he stood above her, still smiling that charming smile of his, but now it did not make Hermione all warm inside as it once had. Now she just felt ill.

"Goodnight," Hermione said, smiling fleetingly.

"Goodnight, Hermione," Matt replied. He suddenly took her by surprise, kissing her on the cheek, and then smiled that sickeningly disarming smile of his. He told her goodnight again, saying that they should do this again sometime, which Hermione definitely knew they wouldn’t, not if she had anything to say about it.

"Um, yeah. I’ll call you," Hermione lied again. How many of those wicked things called lies had she told this evening, again? "See you, then," she added, and disappeared inside.

"God, what a stuck-up, half-witted ass. I never want to see that man again," she told her kitten, Soot, who was lounging lazily on the couch in the parlor. Soot stared at her blankly. "Gargh. Men." Hermione, shaking her head, walked upstairs, promising herself that she would never again put herself in such a totally uncomfortable situation. She wondered if Muggle guys always were this wrapped up in themselves, or if it was just the stupid ones. She sighed wearily. It had been a long night, hadn’t it?

***

Two days after her botched date, Hermione sat in her office in the Ministry of Magic Headquarters, which were carefully hidden near, but not quite on the banks of, the River Thames, disguised as an abandoned warehouse and immaculately protected with all sorts of charms and wards.

Hermione worked for the Department of International Magical Cooperation, doing everything that nobody else wanted to do. She was the one who got stuck with the mountains of paper, translating and cataloguing and who knows what else.

On the other hand, though, there were others that were deeply abhorred by certain bored witches, who shall remain nameless, certain people who went gallivanting off and playing ambassador in France and whatnot. ‘Damn that Eglantine woman. The only reason she’s got the job she has is she’s a bloody harlot that can barely keep her clothes on in the presence of important Ministry officials,’ Hermione thought disgustedly.

Hermione knew that it was the smarter, more business-like one who deserved the job and that sort of person was certainly not Maria Eglantine. It was Hermione Granger. So, knowing this, she had set up an interview with Percy Weasley, who had just recently become Head of the International Magical Cooperation. Luckily, he wasn’t stupid –although he was a bit irritating –and she knew that he would realize that she was better for the position than Maria was. Oh, she hoped to God that she would get the job.

‘In fact,’ Hermione thought, looking at her watch, ‘I ought to get going.’ Her interview was in about five minutes, and it would take time to go up to the third floor on the Levitator, a wizarding version of an elevator.

"Now," she said aloud. "Where are my materials?"

She looked around on the top of her desk, where she was sure that she had put them. Yet the small pile of papers, including a copy of her resume, a list of references, and a few other parchments, was gone. She opened the drawers in her desk, and rummaged through each of them, coming up with nothing. It was then that she began to panic.

Thinking that she had perhaps mistaken the papers for one of the reports she had worked on recently, she began searching the file cabinets. After fruitlessly searching the files for a few moments, she looked at her watch again. She was about ten minutes late by now. Hermione felt even more awful at that, almost like crying. Then she heard a knock on the doorframe. She looked to the open door.

Percy Weasley stood in the doorway, his shoulder supporting his lithe form against the frame, and his features showing his mild displeasure, but with a fragment of a wan smile curving his lips in greeting. His eyebrow quirked slightly as he looked at her, in a mix of irritation and a slight question. It was obvious what that question was. What on earth was keeping her?

"Oh! Hullo, Percy. I am so sorry. I seem to have misplaced my papers," she said. "Please, please let me reschedule, won’t you? For a friend?"

"Hermione," he said, in a vague warning tone. "You could have informed me when you first misplaced them, and then begun your search."

"I know, but I panicked and –" Hermione stared at him, and then realized that Percy Weasley had made his first joke, because he was smiling. "Oh," was all she could manage, for the shock of Percy having actually developed a sense of humor. Maybe being a dad helped a guy become humorous, even if most jokes made by dads weren’t extremely amusing.

"Don’t worry. Of course I’ll reschedule for you. Christmas is next week, so it’ll have to be after that. Is the seventh of January all right?" Percy asked.

"Yes. Oh, thank you!" Hermione exclaimed. "You don’t know how much this means." She gave him a brief hug, and then thanked him again. "Oh, thank you so much."

"Anything for my little brother’s best friend, and a fellow prefect," Percy said.

"Really? That’s sweet of you," Hermione said, smiling.

"I suppose," Percy said, shrugging. "Well, it’s nearly six, now, and it’s Emma’s birthday," he added, glancing at his own watch. "I had better be getting home. I owe her a teddy bear."

"What happened to her old teddy?" Hermione asked.

"Jack had an –er –accident with Lucky," Percy said, referring to the large golden retriever that he and Penelope owned.

"Oh, dear," Hermione said sadly, but she laughed a little. Percy smiled and shook his head.

"And Emma, needless to say, was a little perturbed," he said.

"Well, any four-year-old would be," Hermione said seriously. "But, anyway, don’t let me keep you here. Go home to your family."

"Bye, Hermione," said Percy. "Unless you’d like to come to Em’s birthday?"

"Nah, I think I’ll pass," Hermione said. "I have work to do, anyway."

"All right," Percy said. "Good night."

"You, too," Hermione said cheerfully. Percy went back to his own office, presumably to gather everything up before departing, and Hermione closed her door, leaning against the frosty glass pane in the center, and feeling not-so-good. She wasn’t sad or anything, she just didn’t feel well, and she wasn’t ill, either. She was just… down.

The fact was, even if she had managed not to totally screw up today, since she had another chance, she still felt awful because by having been unprepared, she didn’t look nearly as good as she might have in the sense of being right for the job. It wasn’t as though Percy didn’t know quite well that she was very right for such a position, but Hermione was a perfectionist, and she wanted to look good, even to people who knew already that she was good.

She gathered the papers that she had been working on into her leather satchel, and with an admittedly rather mournful sigh left her office, locking the door behind her. She walked down the hall and out of the building –she was on the first floor, and glad of it.

She had never much liked the Levitators, which consisted of a platform that was held up by magic and was commanded to go up or down with a spell, instead of having a button pushed. Now, Hermione trusted magic to some extent, but she wasn’t so sure about having nothing but a spell holding her more than five floors above the earth. To tell the truth, the very thought of it gave her the willies. It didn’t help that she had a fear of heights.

Walking home, she looked at the evening sky and felt so incredibly small compared to its vast, red expanse. She had always marveled at the loveliness and the enormity of nature, the burning sunset being her favorite of all of nature’s beautiful, and fairly show-offy, displays.

A few pigeons fluttered up in front of her as she walked along. She could have simply apparated to her flat, but for some reason she had the urge to walk home, and sort of experience Muggle London, something she hadn’t done in what seemed like forever, but was really just a few years or so. That was still a long time, though, considering that she used to think that Muggle London was the only London that there was.

Even after she found out about Diagon Alley, she had thought that that was the extent of Wizarding London. Apparently she had been wrong, for there was actually a number of places similar to Diagon Alley, but Hermione had long decided that there was no other place in the world exactly like Diagon Alley.

Hermione passed a fair number of people as she walked, glad she had dressed in pretty usual Muggle garb, a long, black leather coat, a light, white jumper under that, and a pair of slightly faded denim jeans. Had she dressed as she did for special occasions and sometimes for work, in wizarding robes, she would have seemed completely mad, but she knew she already was completely mad. She wasn’t quite willing to show off that fact, though.

As she walked, she looked around, smiling faintly at some of the sights she saw, such as a little child walking with her mum, or two lovesick teenagers walking hand in hand and paying attention to little else other than each other. She felt suddenly slightly lonely. She didn’t have anyone to go home to, her parents were far away, living near Glasgow now, and she had no real boyfriend or anything. She sighed, shaking her head. She didn’t need anyone else.

Finally reaching her flat, she opened the door, and walked inside. She smiled as she entered, having always loved this place since she had first seen it. It was a quaint little place, with light yellow walls, a good deal of dark-wood furniture, and dense, white carpet that she loved to curl her toes into when she wasn’t wearing shoes.

Sighing and finishing her overlook of her home, Hermione hung her coat on a hook on the wall. She entered the small parlor and flopped down onto the soft, white couch cushion next to a very sleepy Soot, who stretched and yawned before looking up at her with wide, green eyes. The black cat stood out starkly from the white cushion. She looked down at him, and smiled, idly stroking his black fur for which he was named.

She had gotten Soot just a few months ago, having gone without a cat for a very long time. Crookshanks had run away in her fifth year, and she had looked high and low and all around for him, but never found him, concluding that he had been eaten by something in the Forbidden Forest. She felt awful about that, but knew it couldn’t have been changed after it happened.

So, almost six years later, she saw Soot in a Muggle pet store, and had absolutely had to get him. He had been a bit of a runt, unwanted by anyone, the shopkeeper had said. This was something that made her reach out to the poor little neglected kitten.

The cat currently winked at her, and she winked back, smiling. She had been wrong about having no one to come home to. She had Soot. She patted the kitten once more on the head, and then picked up her satchel from the floor, stood, and walked across the room to her desk. Her work wasn’t going to be done on its own.

Before she could do much of anything, though, she heard a tapping at the window. She went to the window and pulled up the shades, finding that there was an owl there. She opened the window and let the creature in out of the cold, and then quickly closed the window before the winter air crept in.

Hermione took the letter from the owl’s leg, and the bird fluttered to the back of one of her armchairs. She absently went into the kitchen and found a bit of meat for the owl, all the while looking at the letter.

The address was written in green ink, and when she turned it over she saw the seal of Hogwarts on the back. Intrigued immediately, she went back into the parlor and gave the owl the piece of meat, freeing her hand to open the envelope. She quickly tore the envelope open, and then took the letter out. Unfolding it, she scanned the contents curiously.

Hermione’s expression showed interested surprise. That was curious, no one staying at Hogwarts for Christmas. Perhaps it was the fact that there was no Dark Lord about, and people were happier, allowing for going home for Christmas more often. And parents weren’t murdered; there were no children like Harry to stay at Hogwarts.

Hermione remembered that in her days at Hogwarts, or her later years there, nearly no one had gone home for Christmas, probably because of Voldemort’s reign. Parents were dead. Children had nowhere to go.

Now, though, everything was just peachy, even if there were some rumors, but everyone ignored those. Hermione had such relief, now, such a sense of security. She found it insanely fabulous, and she hoped she never had to live through anything like Voldemort again.

This invitation was an invitation to revisit her past, some of the bad, Draco Malfoy for example, but mostly the good. She missed her school, especially some of her friends, other than Harry and Ron, that is, since she talked to them a lot. No, she meant friends such as Neville Longbottom, Seamus Finnegan, Parvati Patil, and Lavender Brown, among others.

All of the Gryffindors in her year had become extremely close to one another during Voldemort’s reign of terror. McGonagall’s words were right: Gryffindor house was like a family. Perhaps it was because they all wanted someone to lean on, and also because the values of being polite and kind seemed more important in those times, allowing for everyone to become closer friends.

Hermione had realized at that time that life was so much easier when people were nice to one another. It would be wonderful to experience something like that again, even for just a few days.

And it would let her get away from this hell that her life was quickly becoming. She would see Ron again, and she had to admit that she missed him a little. Hermione had dated him in sixth year, though somehow that attraction seemed stale. Still, she could use a bit of a refresher in her love life. She cringed at the memory of that muggle, Matt. She didn’t need guys like that. She needed nice guys, preferably wizards, and Ron fitted both qualifications.

She nodded finally to herself, and wrote a quick reply. Attaching it to the owl’s leg, she let the bird out into the night, and then closed the window again. Here, she allowed herself a little shriek of joy, more of a shrieklet really. She was going to Hogwarts!

But she didn’t know what would happen to her there.

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