Alissa’s room doubled as a home office. Though the muggle liked to party a
lot, she had a work ethic that even Hermione respected. The laptop was situated
on a card table that, though neat, looked ready to fall over at any moment.
There wasn’t a stray paper in sight. Everything was in file folders, or computer
files.
For the first time in her life, Hermione thanked Draco Malfoy. It was the
first chance she’d had since moving in to go through Alissa’s business files.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything neatly labeled, “Top Secret Company
Materials.” The only folder that even remotely stuck out was plain looking
except for a tiny black sticker. Inside were reviews of employees up for
promotion. Hermione had a review in it. But that wasn’t what she was looking
for. She turned to the computer.
She hadn’t concerned herself with learning much more than typing during
school. But she’d graduated from Hogwarts over five years before. In her line of
work it was important to be able to get into muggle things the muggle way. She
could pick locks, hack into computers, use muggle cameras, and use muggle
torches as well as any muggle. The fact that she’d been a muggle for eleven
years of her life helped a lot.
SecureCo’s computers were bound to be harder to hack into than others. She
couldn’t use any magical shortcuts, it was part of their system. Somehow,
SecureCo had managed to make a security system that couldn’t be magically
tampered with. Any magic intentionally used on it sent up dozens of red flags.
It was her job to find out how they’d done it, and, if possible, destroy the
technology. Since it was still only used on company property, she had a chance
to sabotage it. If she missed her chance, all she had to do was give the
information to her employers, they would take care of the problem.
Once she got into Alissa’s computer files, she looked for something like:
Anti-Magic System. There wasn’t even anything named system specs. The computer was wirelessly hooked up to one of the company’s servers. There was nothing there, either. Which meant, as Hermione suspected but hoped against, that the company kept all of it’s important files in house.
Her work was done for the night. Or morning as the case was. If she went
straight to sleep, she’d get 6 hours. It sounded wonderful.
“Don’t go to sleep yet,” she told Harry, shaking him. “Stay awake until a
medi-witch can get here.”
He smiled, just a little, enough to give her hope, “You’re always so bossy.
Keep me awake. Have you seen Ron?”
She didn’t say anything for a moment, “I - I don’t know. I saw you first. I
hope he’s okay.” She kept talking, saying nothing until the medi-witch came.
When Harry was unconscious she went looking for Ron. She found him easily, blood
gushing from a wound in his stomach. “Oh, no, Ron.”
She brushed his carrot colored hair from his forehead. He was covered in a
sheen of sweat, and though he was still alive, he wouldn’t be for long. “Her-
Hermione?”
She continued stroking his hair, “I’m here.”
“It hurts.” A tear slipped down his cheek, “It hurts so much.” He touched her
hand that wasn’t brushing his hair. “I’m not going to make it, am I?”
“I don’t know.” A tear slid down her cheek, “I just don’t know.” But she was
crying. She started kissing his cheeks, his forehead, and ending on his lips.
They’d always loved each other, but because she’d been so dedicated to her
schoolwork nothing had come of it. She’d always thought that they’d be together
someday. And now she knew that someday would never come. “I love you, Ron. I
love you so much.”
“Mione, I love you more than anything. Don’t hate me for leaving you.” He was
fading fast. They only had a few minutes left together.
“I could never hate you, ever.” She kissed him again and again. Her arms were
around him.
“I love you,” he said and he died. The light faded from his eyes and he
stopped breathing. She kept her arms around him and sobbed into his bloody
robes. It was a long time before a medi-witch came and pried her off of Ron’s
cooling corpse. “I’m so sorry, Miss Granger.”
Hermione opened her eyes. The room was still dark. It was 4 AM. Though she’d
only been asleep for three hours, she wasn’t tired anymore. Dreams of Ron’s
death only lead to worse nightmares. She stood up, put on her robe, and walked
to the kitchen.
Alissa was sitting at the breakfast table drinking a cup of tea. “The waters
still hot,” she said, pointing to the stove. Hermione nodded. Alissa never asked
questions about Hermione’s strange sleeping tendencies. It was her best
characteristic.
“So, how did the date go?”
“Alright, I suppose,” she put her cup down. “He was nice, but a little to
strange for me. He wasn’t on his mobile at all. The entire night. Can you
imagine that? And he always looked at me when I talked to him. Like he was
listening.”
Hermione was lost. “And these are bad things?”
“If he wasn’t on his mobile, that means he isn’t important enough to get
calls at all hours. And if he’s not getting calls at all hours, how do I know
he’s really working so much. His attention was just creepy. He’s so
intense. And if he’s that intense after one date, I shudder to think what
could happen after more.” She picked her cup back up and took a sip.
“Then I suppose it’s good that you don’t develop anything with a stalker. It
would be horrible for you to end up with a man who cares about you enough to not
be interrupted on your dates, and who pays attention to you.” Hermione sipped
her tea.
“I’m glad you agree. It’s time for bed, I’m going to sleep. I’ll see you at
work.”
“Night.” Hermione knew it would be impossible for her to go to sleep again.
‘Life was so much easier at Hogwarts.’ She gave a little laugh at that.
Life hadn’t really been easier in school. Good and evil were just more strictly
defined.
She walked back into her room and grabbed a tattered old notebook. Walking
back to the kitchen, she sat at the table and started writing:
Due to the high-tech nature of muggle computer systems, I was not able to
access the system from here. When given the first opportunity, I will access the
information from my station inside the company.
She closed the notebook and opened to the page she’d been writing on. It was
blank. The device, called an Informant, was like the wizard’s version of e-mail.
When one wrote in one of the books, it appeared in a separate, matching book.
It’s first use was for gathering information from spies in the medieval days of
war. Now it was used by spies for other purposes.
As the sun rose, Hermione set out from the flat for a run around her area of
the city. Though she hadn’t been known for her athletic prowess in school,
things had changed. Her line of work had her running from the bad guys on
occasion, and a slow runner was a dead runner in her life. After running a
little more than five miles, she returned to the flat.
It was 7:30, Alissa, of course, was still asleep. Hermione got ready for work
and left again. As she was walking out the door, she heard Alissa get out of
bed. Alissa didn’t bother to mutter about her hate of mornings, she said it out
loud so Hermione received to full benefit of her wrath.
When she arrived at her office she was surprised to see the flames flicking
out of the third story windows. The people who had been inside were evacuated
and standing on the street. No one was hurt. Hermione asked one of her
colleagues what happened.
“There was a fire,” the man said, stating the obvious. “Something to do with
faulty wiring I think. It started in a file storage room, destroyed
everything.”
One of the executives asked everyone to gather round. “Because of this
accident, the building will be closed for the next week. All employees have been
given that time off, with full pay.”
Hermione didn’t bother to rejoice. She knew what Malfoy was after. The
question was, did he get it, and if so, who was he working from. And, did he
destroy all of the information on it?
She didn’t have any idea.
Alissa was walking down the hall when Hermione arrived at the flat. “Don’t
bother going to work today,” she said. “There was a fire and we all have the
week off.”
“Wonderful,” Alissa replied. “I’m going back to sleep.” They both walked back
into the flat. Alissa went into her room. When Hermione was sure that she was
asleep, she grabbed the Informant and wrote:
There was a fire at the main offices today. All of the paper files were
destroyed. I do not know if any files of the security system still exist. There
is a high probability that there are files in the computers. Because of the fire
all employees have one week off, I will be visiting a colleague in Switzerland
to gain more information.
She closed the book and hid it. Grabbing a bag and tossing clothes into it
she smiled. It had been to long since she’d seen her
friend.