The Best Mistake

Chapter Eight |Hermione Granger and the Week of Wilful Ignorance

Roughly Four Weeks Later

Hermione's eyelids drooped and fluttered as she stared at the parchment in front of her, seeing the words but comprehending nothing. She'd read this paragraph thrice now, but the information just wouldn't stick. Highly unusual.

While her lack of focus was certainly due to mild exhaustion in her estimation, that was nothing she wasn't used to. In fact, Hermione had done some of her best work in times past when pushed to her limits.

Maybe her twenty-four years of age were finally catching up to her? Hermione snorted to herself at the ridiculous notion. By all accounts, as a witch with her whole life ahead of her, she hadn't even entered her prime, but all she wanted to do at the moment was change into something comfortable, curl up on her couch with Crooks and a wooly blanket in front of the telly, then doze the afternoon away. A nice cup of tea wouldn't be an unwelcome addition, either.

With a sigh, she decided on the tea, but then she'd come back refreshed and keep working. Hermione had spent the entirety of this lovely Sunday morning finalizing a piece of centaur legislation she meant to petition to the Wizengamot next week, and she needed to have it finished today. There could be no lazing about, not today, and not in the foreseeable future.

For the past four weeks, she'd been so consumed by her job that she had very little time for anything else. Between monitoring apothecaries around the country, chasing leads on Dolohov and Greyback's location, tactfully avoiding any sort of communication with both Harry and Malfoy except for work-talk, checking and fortifying her own wards, and researching Nundu Horn and its usages, she'd gotten behind on her advocacy work, and this particular amendment needed to be handed off to Luna and the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures by Friday.

She yawned into the back of her hand—a sign that she'd need the tea sooner than later. Rolling up the parchment, she pushed back her desk chair with a screech against the hardwood floor and stood. Tossing the roll onto the top of her to-be-read pile, she made her way to the kitchen, stretching her arms over her head as her joints gave a few satisfying cracks.

Before she could turn on the kettle, her floo roared to life, and out popped the smiling face of George Weasley.

"Greetings, Grangy," he crooned, two fat dimples appearing in his cheeks as his smile widened. She sighed, knowing that George was perfectly aware that she loathed when he called her that utterly ridiculous nickname. He was cross with her, but she couldn't imagine why, as she hadn't seen him since Ron's wedding.

Hermione, exhaustion weighing heavily on her shoulders, slumped onto her sofa. "What is it with you Weasleys insisting on interrupting my tea time?"

"Skip it. Mum is insisting you come to Sunday Dinner.

George, never one to wait to get permission, walked out of her floo looking ever the nouveau riche business mogul he was. A sharp, tailored burgundy suit graced his tall frame, and he'd pulled back his shoulder length red hair into a low knot, tendrils falling around his face in roguish whisps.

The golden ear he'd designed for himself caught Hermione's eye, as it often did when his hair was pulled back. George often insisted that the device worked like any normal ear, but she knew him, and therefore, very much doubted that.

"I can't today," Hermione insisted, as George sat down in the armchair across from her, leaning back and propping one ankle on her coffee table. Crookshanks, disapproving of this display, jumped off the arm of the sofa and fled to her bedroom with an annoyed yowl. "Please send my regrets. Perhaps in a few weeks?"

George's eyes danced with humor as he watched the cat flee the room. "Oh, come on, Crooksie! Don't you miss your Uncle Georgie?"

"You know he doesn't."