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Ministry of Magic, London — 2025
Hermione Granger, Minister for Magic, had endured many absurdities in her career — departmental coups, goblin strikes, and one memorable incident involving enchanted computers chanting union slogans.
None, however, compared to the bureaucratic brilliance of being accused, with utmost civility, of insufficient humanity.
First she’d been rumoured to be a secret moderator on a long-defunct fan forum called Portwand, then an undercover Ministry algorithm, and now, apparently, she was an AI. At this rate, the next logical conclusion would be that she was three raccoons in a trench coat.
The accusation arrived by memo — unsigned, of course, because courage rarely survives official stationery — routed through the new Department of Magical Authenticity and Digital Integrity, a subcommittee created to “ensure reality compliance in the digital age.”
The charge?
That one or two — or perhaps all — of her posted hobby fictions, seven finished pieces and one ongoing story shared over the course of a few weeks, had somehow been classified as an “alarming burst of productivity.” In truth, most had been completed ages ago and merely required a final polish and a triple read-through before she deemed them fit to post. Apparently, careful editing and punctual follow-through were now considered suspicious — or, worse, inhuman.
Apparently, someone on HowlerHub had flagged it between a Quidditch betting thread and a Kneazle appreciation forum, sparking an investigation.
Now, according to the memo, the Minister herself was to undergo an Authenticity Audit.
Hermione, having briefly considered shutting down her page on The Independent Pensieve decided instead to brew an extra-strong cup of tea and await her assigned investigator.
When Harry Potter appeared in her doorway twenty minutes late, he was balancing a half-eaten banana, a rolled-up report, and the expression of a man who had already given up pretending the day would improve.
“Minister,” he said, mock-formal, ducking his head. “I’m here to determine whether you’re real.”
“Excellent,” said Hermione, without looking up from her parchment. “Because at the moment, I rather doubt it myself.”
He shut the door, grinning. “You’ve caused quite a stir, you know. Whole office is in on it. Ron’s running a pool on whether you’re secretly an enchanted computer.”
“Lovely,” she said dryly. “Did he assign odds?”
“Three-to-one against. He’s convinced no machine would tolerate my company for this long.”
She allowed herself a smirk. “Wise of him.”
Harry grinned. “Luna disagrees, actually. She says you might be a sentient quill who got tired of bad grammar and worse handwriting and decided to live as a person instead.”
Hermione raised an eyebrow. “And what did she say after that?”
“Oh, something very Luna,” he said, smiling faintly. “‘People forget that patterns don’t make things unreal. Some writers just hum the same magic through everything they touch. You can always tell it’s them — that’s how you know it’s alive.’”
Hermione huffed a quiet laugh. Only Luna could make an accusation of artificiality sound like poetry. The absurdity of it all almost made her forget why he was here. Almost.
Harry perched on the edge of her desk, despite the chair waiting dutifully beside it. His hair was neatly trimmed, though a single rebellious lock insisted on defying gravity to remind everyone who he used to be. The beard became him far too well; even bureaucracy, it seemed, couldn’t make him less handsome.
The Head Auror’s uniform suited him: crisp lines, polished boots, the quiet authority of someone who had learned to live with both duty and himself. The years hadn’t dulled him; they’d refined him, drawing his boyishness into something composed, assured, and, Hermione had to admit, distractingly good-looking. And he was her husband — this maddening, steady, wonderful man who still looked at her as though she hung the moon and stars.
“Let’s see what the Department of Magical Authenticity and Digital Integrity has to say, shall we?” he said, unfolding the memo. “‘The subject’s prose demonstrates suspiciously clear emotional logic, balanced rhythm, and a statistically unlikely number of em-dashes. Additionally, sentences display Uniform Structure, often adhering to a predictable rhythm of subject, verb, object — with a concerning absence of sentence fragments, rhetorical questions, or the stylistic chaos characteristic of genuine human writers.’”
Hermione pressed her lips together. “I’ve been using em-dashes since primary school. The local librarian practically raised me — she considered punctuation a moral virtue.”
She scanned further down the parchment, brow arching. “‘Often adhering to a predictable rhythm of subject, verb, object,’” she read aloud. “Heaven forbid anyone write a sentence that actually makes sense.”
“They’ve noted that too,” Harry said solemnly. “Under suspicious habits.”
“Naturally. Wouldn’t want to risk sounding too much like a human and not a very polite robot.”
“They’ve marked that as your origin of deviance,” Harry said lightly.
Hermione blinked. “So coherence is now a red flag? I suppose clarity’s next on the list.”
“Apparently,” Harry said. “They seem to prefer their authors emotionally incoherent and grammatically unstable.”
“Well,” she said drily, “perhaps I’ll submit a few incomplete sentences next time — just to reassure them I’m capable of human error.”
He flipped the parchment over. “‘Minister’s writing displays unnaturally consistent diction and—’” He squinted. “‘—keyword optimisation metrics.’”
“Keyword optimisation,” she repeated, deadpan. “I’m a certified SEO specialist, Harry. Precision isn’t a crime.”
“Apparently it is,” he said, scanning the next paragraph. “‘Further indicators of artificiality include: deliberate Editing and Revision, demonstrable Reading Breadth, and measurable understanding of Tropes and Genre Conventions. Subject’s work also reveals extensive Research Skills and a disturbingly consistent Voice and Style.’”
Hermione arched an eyebrow. “So, in essence, they’ve accused me of competence.”
“Apparently so. The Ministry prefers vagueness; it’s harder to audit.”
Hermione exhaled, setting her quill aside. “Do they honestly think a machine wrote that story?”
“Well,” Harry said, pretending to think, “seventy-nine chapters and exactly eighty-thousand, three-hundred sixty-nine words is a suspiciously human number. Too ambitious for an algorithm, too long for sanity.”
She threw a balled-up parchment at him. “I write to relax. Most of those stories have been sitting on my computer journal for years — drafts, notes, fragments. It’s hardly a grand conspiracy.”
Harry caught it one-handed, reflexes as quick as ever, and grinned. “Seeker instincts. Still got it.”
Hermione rolled her eyes, though her mouth twitched. “Show-off.”
“Mm,” Harry said, lips quirking. “A decade of secret manuscripts tucked away in your files. Very reassuring.”
Hermione shot him a look.
“Sure you do,” he said mildly. “Some people garden.”
“They should try crafting dialogue with rhythm,” she replied. “It’s meditative.”
Harry grinned, flipping through his notes. “There’s also mention of ‘implausibly authentic romantic subtext.’”
Hermione blinked. “That’s the point of romance, Harry.”
He nodded solemnly. “I told them as much. They replied, and I quote, ‘Unverified emotional nuance may indicate simulation.’”
She laughed, an unguarded, genuine sound that softened her whole face. “Merlin’s beard. The Ministry has finally declared empathy an unnatural phenomenon.”
“I’d call that progress,” he said. “At least now it’s official.”
She leaned back, regarding him. “So, what happens next, Investigator Potter?”
“I’m to ask you a series of standard questions to verify your humanity.”
“By all means.”
He adopted a mock-interrogator stance, flipping open a small notebook.
“Question one: Do you experience spontaneous emotion?”
Hermione raised an eyebrow. “Frequently.”
“Question two: Have you ever written a sentence for aesthetic rather than functional reasons?”
“Every day.”
“Question three: Do you, Minister Granger, possess the capacity for irrational attachment?”
She smiled faintly. “That depends on the subject.”
Harry looked up then, eyes meeting hers — steady, amused, fond. The humour between them thinned into something quieter.
“Question four,” he said softly. “Would you like to elaborate?”
Hermione held his gaze. “No.”
He hesitated, then added with a crooked grin, “Question five: Do you love me?”
“Harry!” she said, half-scolding, half-laughing. But then she looked at him — really looked — and her voice softened. “I love you more.”
Harry’s grin widened, a little dazed, a little love-drunk. “Good,” he murmured. “Just needed that on the record.”
She reached for her tea, a faint smile still playing on her lips. “You realise this entire process is absurd.”
“I’m aware. But they’re serious about it.” He lifted another parchment. “They want a written statement. I could summarise our findings.”
“Oh, please do.”
Harry cleared his throat dramatically. “‘Subject displays coherent syntax, stable affect, and demonstrable capacity for sarcasm. Emotional realism: verified. Artificial generation: negative. Additional notes: exhibits above-average cognitive diligence, shows habitual evidence of thinking before speaking, maintains moderate caffeine dependency, demonstrates a regrettable fondness for bananas, has a documented tendency to channel professional frustrations into creative writing, and—’” he glanced up at her, eyes gleaming “—is, by all observable evidence, irrefutably in love with the investigator.’”
Hermione chuckled. “You’re insufferable.”
He leaned closer. “You missed me last week.”
She looked up, trying for stern and failing. “I was in Geneva, Harry.”
“And yet,” he said, that same teasing softness in his voice, “you sent me six emails about the state of the Auror budget.”
“That’s called leadership.”
Her voice softened. “And yes… I did miss you. Every day you’re not with me.”
“That’s called affection disguised as micromanagement.”
Her cheeks flushed despite herself.
“Next time,” he murmured, grin tugging at his mouth, “just bring me with you — as your bodyguard, husband, or even your coat-bag carrier. I’m flexible.”
She huffed a laugh. “Are we still conducting the audit?”
“Oh, absolutely,” he said, pushing the stack of reports aside. “I’m just… expanding the methodology.”
He cleared the remaining clutter from her desk — memos, quills, a stack of pamphlets titled Responsible Reality in Modern Magic. The movement was casual, efficient, but there was a deliberate calm in it — tidying away the noise of the world.
“Harry,” she said carefully, “this is highly irregular.”
“So is accusing the Minister of being imaginary.”
He stopped, hands resting flat on the newly cleared surface. The air between them shifted, still dry, still amused, threaded now with something quieter, more certain. He parted his knees slightly, a quiet invitation, and she stepped closer without a word. His hands found her waist, holding her protectively, drawing her in until the space between them disappeared.
“I read all seventy-nine chapters,” he said quietly. “Every word.”
Hermione froze. “You what?”
“I had to verify authenticity. You understand.”
“You… enjoyed it?”
“I loved it,” he admitted. “Because it sounded like you. Clever, steady, a little infuriating. And because halfway through I realised you’d written it for the same reason you do everything — to make sense and get lost in the world you love.”
Her throat tightened. “And what did the Department think?”
“They think you’re a complex algorithm.”
“And you?”
Harry smiled. “I think I’ve been in love with you since before algorithms were invented.”
The words hung there—simple, unadorned. Impossible to deflect with wit.
Hermione exhaled, long and slow. “That’s not in the report.”
“It will be,” he said softly, his breath warm against her temple. “Noted under addendum.”
She let out a shaky laugh, then whispered, “Thank you. I know it’s ridiculous, but for a moment… I actually felt awful. Wondered if maybe they were right — that I’d somehow done something wrong just by caring too much, writing too clearly. They didn’t even talk about the story itself, not what worked or didn’t. Just… called it artificial. I’d have preferred proper criticism over that.”
Harry’s hands tightened gently at her waist. “Hey,” he said, his voice low and certain. “You’ve spent your whole life proving that thoughtfulness isn’t a flaw. Don’t start doubting that now. You write like you live, Hermione — with heart, with intent. That’s what makes it real.”
She looked up at him then, eyes bright. “You always know what to say.”
“That’s because I’ve had years of practice,” he murmured, smiling.
He lifted a hand to her chin, tilting her face up until her eyes met his, and then he kissed her — a kiss that spoke of shared mornings, late-night laughter, and an unspoken ease built over decades. It wasn’t just perfect. It was theirs: thirty-four years of friendship and twenty-three years of loving and choosing each other, every single day.
No AI could have replicated that — the warmth, the history, the quiet pulse of something profoundly real, with all its messy, human nuance.
When he finally drew back, he rested his forehead against hers and whispered, “Case closed.”
Hermione smiled against his mouth. “And the official verdict?”
He brushed a stray curl from her cheek. “Utterly, incontrovertibly, beautifully brilliant human.”
Outside the office, a bewitched memo paused mid-flight, stamped itself Filed and Final, and drifted away.
Inside, the Minister and the Head Auror stood surrounded by neat piles of nonsense, not a care in the world and nothing left to prove. She’d go on writing anyway — for herself, and for whoever fancied a read.
– FIN –