Chapter One

Hermione sighed as she tossed the letter into the growing pile. Ronald and his incessant letters were becoming quite bothersome. She leaned on her elbows on the scattered desk in her unusually messy office.

It was three years after the war and Hermione was steadily working her way up the Ministry Hierarchy. At first, when they'd offered her a place as the Understudy of the Wizengamot, she'd accepted happily, thinking she'd be offering input on the cases and studying the laws. Naturally, when she'd been informed she'd only be a type of secretary, refiling old cases and managing the mail to the members of the Wizengamot, she'd been furious, even going so far as to bring it up to Kingsley.

After all he'd done for the Order of the Phoenix had reached the press, Kingsley had been a natural choice for the next Minister of Magic. He had, however, nothing better to offer her but an apology. It seemed that though Harry and Ron had been allowed into Auror training after the war, she just didn't have enough schooling to prompt immediate placement into a high-ranking Ministry job.

After three years of back-breaking work, she'd finally promoted- sort of.

Instead of organising, she was now working on pulling any and all files that would have to do with any of the Wizengamot's cases. While still remedial, it was something.

However, when she'd returned home to tell Ronald the good news, she was confronted with one Lavender Brown wearing an extremely smug smile on her doorstep. It turned out that Lavender had never forgiven her for the incident in fifth year, choosing to believe that Hermione had stolen Ron from her, using the love potion debacle as her chance. Further, during all of Hermione's late nights at the office, Lavender had wormed her way back into Ron's life- or rather, his bed.

When Lavender told her what had been going on, letting Hermione peruse her memories in a Pensieve to be sure, Hermione had reacted in the exact way Lavender had wanted: she kicked Ron's sorry arse to the kerb. Ron, however, didn't react the way she wanted. All she had wanted was for Ron to look at her the same way he had in fifth year, but instead he was horrified, breaking off all contact.

That was three months ago, and Ron's continuous efforts to win Hermione back hadn't stunted in the slightest.

That is, until this happened.

It seemed that during all their...excursions, Lavender had gotten pregnant, hence the letters. Ron had chosen to do the honourable thing and marry the girl. While he didn't want too large a family, he had always wanted one. This was his chance to have a doting housewife raise his children while he was off saving the world one last on-the-run Death Eater at a time, something that he must have realised he could never have with Hermione.

And while Hermione had been over the sordid ending to her love affair almost as soon as it had ended, she did not think she was required, under any circumstances, to attend the wedding of her past lover and the woman he'd basically left her for.

As always, Ron was unable to see her side of it and desperately wanted her to come. She'd told him that there had never been a chance for the rekindling of their romance, said the flame was burning out anyway, reminded that he would soon have a wife to be faithful to, but he refused to recognise that he could not make her fall back in love with him the way he thought she'd once been.

Sitting in her too-small, stuffy, and poorly lit office, she wondered if she'd ever been as in love with him as she thought she'd been, or if she'd always been more in love with the idea of him.

She was pulled from her melancholy thoughts at a light rapping on her doorway, having left the door open as she usually did. She smiled, "Hullo, Harry."

His normal easy-going grin was a tad forced as he held up a page of parchment. "You get one too?" He asked without preamble.

Hermione's smiled dropped off altogether as she glanced back down at where she'd tossed Ron's latest invitation letter. "Harry, just because Ron and I can't work it out doesn't mean you and Ginny-"

"Stop Hermione. We've been through this before. It has nothing to do with you and Ron and everything to do with Ginny and I. We would have never worked."

Though she could see the tightness in his eyes and knew he was lying, Hermione nodded her head anyway. Everything had been tense at first when she'd broken it off with Ron, though even his family understood her decision.

But when Harry had taken her side of things, it all got a bit harder. Hermione and Ginny had never been close friends. They merely knew each other by association so it wasn't a problem for Hermione that Ginny couldn't stand to look at her anymore. It was a problem for Harry. He'd been furious with Ron for what he'd done to Hermione, refusing to talk to him for several weeks, a feat made more impressive due to the fact that they were partnered in the Auror Department now. While eventually he'd bridged a cool camaraderie with his once best friend, it'd hurt Ginny to see Harry and her brother not getting along. It all started with a small riff in their relationship- Ginny attending Sunday dinners alone, and Harry spending Sundays holed up at Hermione's- but it'd eventually grown too big for them to handle.

Ginny could not accept Harry's choice in friend; Harry could not accept Ron's choice in behaviour.

Eventually Harry had moved himself and little Teddy in with Hermione- it was the least she could do seeing how she blamed herself for the whole thing- and Ginny had gone running back to Dean Thomas.

The press had a field day.

"-'ione. Hermione! Are you even listening?"

Hermione looked up from where she'd been staring at her desk. "Sorry, I must have been somewhere else. What?"

"I said Teddy's sick. I really can't leave him with Andromedea with how her health has been. It's enough that she looks after him all day while I can't."

"That's alright Harry. I'll bring home take away."

"Chinese?"

"Always," she grinned. "And Harry?" He turned back from leaving, "You can go to the wedding. He was your best mate; you should be there. Don't mind me."

Harry grimaced, his glasses sliding down his nose as he did, "You know I would, Hermione, but I don't think I can face Ginny…" The 'with Dean' went unsaid.

"I understand. Tell Teddy I said to feel better."

He smiled as he left, shutting the door behind him. He always forgot that she liked to keep it open, at least giving her the illusion of space. She sighed, started to get up to open it, and changed her mind, sitting back down. She stared at the tome on her desk, History of Marriage Laws it read. It was at least two thousand pages of dusty, boring history, and she had no idea why the Wizengamot would have any interest in it anyway.

She sighed again, wondering when the day had come that her heart had stopped beating with excitement at a piece of the past like this. It must have been a sad one, the day Hermione Granger lost her love of books.

A/N: Guys. Okay so I just found this draft, and I looked back on GoogleDrive. I started this fic literally at 12:27 am on January 7, *2015*. Four and a half years ago I started this fic and I just read through what I've got and it's a fic that I thought I read and I've been like "Damn, I cannot find that fic I liked so much! I wonder how it ended..." for years. Reading it was like when you go through your attic and find toys from your childhood that you'd forgotten about and all the memories just come rushing back.

WELL. I guess I get to decide how it ends now lol. As a sidenote, it probably won't end the way I originally intended, if I can piece it all back together to pull an end out of it anyway. We'll see. There was also a note attached to the line, "Harry, just because Ron and I can't work it out doesn't mean you and Ginny-", where I said, "I tried to think of a way to keep Harry and Ginny together, I've always loved them, but with Harry choosing Hermione's side of things, I just could see a way for it to work." And I actually really don't like them together in the movies because she was written so poorly but I guess they worked in the traditional sort of story romance in the books. Anyway. No clue what's going to go down with all that yet. Maybe send me ideas? We can make this a tag-team effort since I really don't remember what's supposed to happen through all this.

Anyway! Let me know what you think! And can we just appreciate the last line one more time? "It must have been a sad one, the day Hermione Granger lost her love of books." Like damn, I just broke my own heart?

For now,

Faceless

PS In case you're here from Hands, I *promise* I will never forget about that fic, or stop it. I'm working on the last chapter and it's an epilogue spanning actual years, rather than writing a sequel with the super short chapters that seem to piss you guys off more than anything lol. The last chapter alone, so far, is like the length of a quarter of the fic. And hey, if you're not here from Hands, go check it out; it's p chill.