Chapter Text
It was 2004, it had been a few years since the war and Hermione was running through the rain trying not to be late for work. She had been out drinking with Ginny celebrating, Ginny’s quidditch teammate Elnora Quick had been selected to play for England at the next quidditch world cup. So Ginny of course invited her husband and brother and everyone expected Hermione to come too. The golden trio, war heroes but they weren’t as close as they had once been. After the war, the break up and the wedding things got hard for Hermione. They had become family, brothers, in-laws, husband, wife. That didn’t happen with her and Ron. Yet everyone one seemed to think that it was all fine, that Hermione was just as included as before but she felt more alone than ever. Like her invite was an after though, given because everyone else was going and not to leave her out but she was never originally apart of the plan. “fleur, mum and me are going shopping Wednesday you should come” or “Me and Ron are going to the cannons on Saturday you should come” she was added to plans not ever ask to make the plans or even asked if she was free. It was not sometime that she could complain about, how completely mad would that sound: “the way you are including me in all your plans doesn’t make me feel included” what a bonkers thing to be upset by.
She push the door open to her office (in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures) She was working on legislation to help House elves . She had 3 goals a bit different from s.p.e.w back in the day:
- House elves should be paid for work as minimum elf wage
- Her department should have the ability to investigate cases of abuse and remove elves from households as needed
- Elves should work no more than 8hours a day, must have 2days off a week and can not be expected to be on call 24/7
Was this the freedom for all elves she actually wanted? No. but was it a start? Yes.
There was a letter and a copy of quidditch daily on her desk. Hermione in an effort to get closer to Ron and Harry again had started reading it to keep up with their favourite sport but they never seem to notice that she was a fan now. Ron would try to explain plays to her or tell her the names of the players and she would let him know that she already knew but she just came off as a know it all and he would stay “you treat quidditch like you treat a school quiz mione”. The letter was new though, it was tied to the paper with a green ribbon and had a wax seal that she didn’t recognize with the letter M in the middle. As she opened it she smelt new parchment.
That was not what she expected when she opened that letter, she couldn’t believe that this is what Malfoy was choosing to do with his time. In what world would he care about the welfare of house elves, he grew up with them surely, he of all people would have the same opinions as Ron; “Well, the elves are happy, aren’t they?” Ron said. “You heard old Winky back at the match . . . ‘House-elves is not supposed to have fun’ . . . that’s what she likes, being bossed around” He really did have the emotional range of a teaspoon but maybe Malfoy didn’t. She got out new parchment paper and wrote a reply.