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She felt his eyes on her as she pushed the small tomato around her plate for a second lap.
“Right well, enough about me then,” she glanced up with a soft smile, head tilted to the side as she took in the light blush that spread over his freckles at being caught staring. Again.
Eyes wide he chuckled, relaxing back into his seat, “Sorry, there just seems something different about you today. I can’t put my—” he elbowed Harry who had been looking over her shoulder for the last five minute without any tact whatsoever. “Harry, back me up, somethings different with ‘Mione, right?”
Clearing his throat Harry ran a hand through his hair, eyes darting back over her shoulder, before landing and look at her. He watched her for a moment, eyes darting back and forth between her own, then taking in the high bun on her head, the sensible outfit she wore as an Archivist, even staring at the hands fidgeting with the canteen fork.
“I mean really, you two. You saw me yesterday! What could be different about me today that you didn’t notice yesterday at lunch?” Hermione huffed, unnerved by Harry’s intense stare and the highly inappropriate way in which her brother stared at the respectable cut of her sweater.
“It’s her chest, she’s suddenly more.” Harry nodded once before taking a bite out of his lunch, smirking at the way her eyes widened.
“Harry James —”
“No, no, and not that I am looking, Hermione, but he’s not wrong. You just seem - more somehow.”
Chugging the water from her bottle down in one swallow, the plastic squelching against the wooden tabletop before she patted her lips dry with the napkin, and slowly pushed herself away from her two oldest friends, eyes narrowing the longer their eyes followed her.
“I suppose I will see you two tonight. No theatrics. I will not put up with a party as frivolous as last years especially with an uptick in Unspeakables raiding the Archives forcing me to cancel my week off.”
As she turned, trash in tow, to go back to the largest collection of magical texts second only to Alexandria, she heard Ron’s remark as Harry hushed him, a small grin on her face. “Still mental that one, who wouldn’t want to party for their 25th?”
Making her way to the rarely used steps, knowing how crowded the lifts were mid-day and unwilling to put up with the stares she’d been attracting since the end of the war, she shifted her shoulder against the creaky wooden door. With a huff, the door shifted open and she slipped through the small space, cursing when her arse slowed her down. Who would have thought her pencil-like form would sprout outwards the older she got. Helene, her mother, had been the least curvacious woman Hermione had known, and she had expected nothing to change. However, a year after the war ended and a month after she officially graduated top of her class at Hogwarts, she had started to notice the changes.
It was small at first, her hips had widened just enough to barely fit in her school skirt - a fact she had only known about when she thought it would be witty to dress up as a schoolgirl for a Samhain/Halloween party her and Pansy were putting together.
From there, and exactly a month after her heavy break-up from Ron, she grew an entire size in her chest. She had gone to her family physician, Muggle first, to confirm that she was not, in fact, having issues with her thyroid, metabolism, anything that would create all these new shapes her body now made. Instead, she was stamped with the perfect bill of health and sent on her way.
Ron still bemoaned how she had broken things off right before her more womanly form had begun to drown her in new attention. The same type of attention she had seen others give women like Lavender, ‘Vati, even Luna. Never her. Had she had the inclination or time she would respond to the second looks even wearing grey slacks and a modestly cut sweater garnered her. Instead, she begged Kings to allow her more time to hide away amongst the stacks of the Ministry. Rome wasn’t built in one day after all, and if the war had taught her anything it was that she couldn’t hope to change anything if she didn’t understand where these archaic laws and beliefs stemmed from.
And it wasn’t like the more immediate complexities of purebloods versus muggle-borns was to blame. There was something else, some tension that had to be recorded, had to long be established and threaded through the laws, the motions, the lost legal cases and overturned decisions. And once she found the weakest point, she would slowly begin to snip away at the system until she had the pieces they needed to move forward to restitch for a better tomorrow.
She had been surprised at how easily she had gotten to do what she wanted. There was so much pressure, after all, being her, as she entered the workforce. But she had stubbornly pushed aside all expectations and dragged her heels in until she got what she thought she wanted.
Kingsley had Hermione in his office every fortnight to start — he had created this position for her after all so she showed up, ready to hear him casually remark on the various open positions that existed and that could exist at her say so. As the first year buried in books, notes, and proposal drafts shifted into the second though, the meetings bumped up. Most meetings now were more tea time breaks, where he could loosen his tie so to speak while they gossiped about the going ons of the Ministry, especially when his assistant, Margarite was able to drop some nuggets of gold before leaving them to their peace. But she had a feeling today’s meeting in an hours time would be more career-focused than she was ready to answer.
Leaning against the wall for a moment, regretting these ridiculously high heels she had shoved her feet into as some sort of sick peace offering between Pansy and herself, she rubbed at her temples as she prepared herself. Before she could relax with her mentor cum friend, she was due for another meeting with dark blue robes, hoods firmly shrouding their faces to nosey on-lookers, and so many questions she was really unsure just what Unspeakables did.
It wasn’t like she didn’t know their visits were two-fold. Kingsley had admitted his fervent desire for her to find a place within their ranks more than anywhere else, but if she did that than who would rewrite the laws, how would all the knowledge she had spent the last two years cataloguing, isolating into tight compartments within her mind, and keyword saving be used?
But for now, before the part shmooze, part attempted acquisition of her knowledge, Hermione simply wanted this piercing headache that had woken her prior to her alarm to go away. She had been drinking extra water, took both a headache potion as well as a muggle aspirin with no success. She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised that the boys were looking at her differently today. She definitely felt more bedraggled, more exhausted, more unlike herself today that she had in the past few years. And what a day to feel like crap, the same day that she was turning 25.
With a deep sigh, Hermione continued on down the stairs. Pausing briefly at the door to her floor before she pushed her way out into the very quiet, typically abandoned floor of the Library and her archivist haven. She waved idly at the young something-or-other that had started working a few days ago — he wouldn't last long. With a huff, Hermione threw her sweater off, walked to the back of her door and donned her light blue robe, squishing her nose up at the cleavage that was now obscuring her passage to a clean clasp of her front buttons. She had just resized this robe a week ago. She thought her body was done going through the changes necessary into her adulthood, yet her chest continued to expand.
Just as she set the pot to boil, bringing out a few biscuits from under her desk, and laying out all of the notes she had taken from her most recent dive into more obscure Magic, there were 3 sharp knocks at her door.
Hermione let her hands run the length of her torso, taking a deep breath in, squeezing her fists over her lap and then releasing the breath with a smile adorning her face as she waved her hand to open her door. Her smile was modest as three unspeakables entered her office and began to make themselves comfortable in front of her. She had learned early on that formalities were only ever exchanged after the initial staredown between Unspeakables and herself were properly observed. So she was rightfully shocked when the last unspeakable to enter bypassed his companions, stopped beside her and placed an air kiss over her wrist. With the same confident movements, he dropped the hood of his robe and the boyish grin of Theodore Nott stared back at her. She bit the inside of her cheek to avoid the groan that wanted to escape. So schmoozing first then . Taking her hand back she considered the small blessing here. At least she was aware of what she'd have to endure for the next 20 minutes before they could get down to business.
However, a glance at the invisible clock above her door confirmed they had less than 20 minutes to schmooze and so knew it was on her to cut to the chase. “Mr. Nott, thank you for the greeting?” Her statement came out more like a question, a more genuine gracing her features at his raised brow.
“I have somewhere to be in less than 40 minutes and as we have all learned early on, each meeting seems to have more questions than answers. I figured I’d help you get to where you need to be. Mr. Nott, thank you again for the new set of books—” her eyes cut to the box of untouched books that Nott had sent to her for her ‘birthday’. However, as he was the newly appointed Chair of Personnel for the Unspeakables, she also knew he would go to many lengths to have her change her mind. “They are lovely and I am certain I will get to them after the various other sets of tomes I have been receiving from your Department for the past year.” Nott had the grace to bite his lip and slide into the last open seat across her desk.
“Right then, Mr Coolidge, I can only assume you are joining us today because the past four attempts that Mr Nott’s team has made to recruit me have continued to be unfruitful.” The man had the decency to drop his own hood, light brown hair littered with grey sat perfectly atop the aged face of one of Kingsley’s oldest friends. He was well built, tall with a firm frame, and gentle blue eyes, but she knew from personal experience how incredibly honeyed his tongue could be. Had seen him work his way through crowds, pockets steeped with promises of donations and relics that would otherwise remain safely in the bowls of Gringotts.
He sent her an unapologetic shrug as she continued. “In response to what I am sure are wonderfully worded descriptors of the benefits of joining your team, I will only say, as I have continued to say, that now is not yet the time. I have quite a few projects for various departments in the Ministry I am elbow deep in, and I quite enjoy my ability to flitter about these stacks without unresolved mysteries nipping at my heels. That is not to say that once my original project is concluded that I will not seek to apply—” at the scoff from the final hooded figure in the room her voice sharpened. “Yes, apply. It may not matter to your teams, but I don’t quite care who I am, what my name is, or what accolades may proceed me. I earn what I receive not because of my name, but because of how I present myself into each opportunity. I will not simply assume I have any position waiting for me—” her hand lifted as Nott made to speak, “—even if that is exactly what I may want.
In conclusion when I am finished down here or when Minister Shacklebolt boots me from my hidden stacks, I will consider what positions are available and apply accordingly. If that means I submit my name to your teams for consideration so be it. But until such a time, I would kindly request we spend the remaining”—her eyes cut back to her analogue clock—“37 minutes on this not so insignificant matter of unprecedented magical depletion.”
The men shifted before her and she made a show to flick her wand into her hand from its wrist holster and prepared tea for herself. They all knew she could have done that wandlessly, the increase in her magic had been another startling change in the past few years. Another anomaly no one could properly explain.