Disclaimer: The fine tapestry of plot and characters belongs to J.K. Rowling. I am merely pulling threads at will and weaving my own design in counterpoint to hers.
Chapter 6
Lupin’s Career Advice
After the last crumbs of the chocolate cake had been consumed, Hermione offered to help Lupin with the clean-up duties. He demonstrated the proper wand movement and then briefly touched the edge of one of the empty platters. The glass seemed to pool momentarily into a puddle before assuming the shape of an empty soda bottle.
“Now all you do is put the bottle in the crate among the empties,” finished Lupin with a grand flourish. “Complete recycling in a flash.”
“What happens to the leftovers?” inquired Ron, looking up from the moving photos that Tonks was animatedly narrating.
“They just get reduced inside the bottle,” explained Lupin as he touched his wand to a tray that still contained a few mangled sandwiches. He held up the resulting bottle, this one a light aqua hue, which displayed a whitish lump in the bottom.
“Will you be teaching this technique in Transfigurations this year?” Ron asked excitedly. “My mum would be beside herself!”
“It’s not actually my technique, Ron,” replied Lupin. “It’s part of the product offered by the witch who prepares the food boxes; simplifies clean-up outdoors.”
“I guess that would make her a green kitchen witch,” offered Hermione wryly, but the reference to Muggle slang was lost on Ron as usual.
As clean-up was completed in record time, a glow of contentment seemed to settle over the group. The golden rays of the late afternoon sun slanted through the compartment window as the train continued its long journey northward. Tonks had gathered Ginny and the boys to the other side of the table as she regaled them with still another outrageous tale of her summer adventures with Lupin.
Certain that she would finally not be interrupted, Hermione sat down on the bench next to Lupin.
“Can I ask your advice, Professor?” she ventured as she unfolded the letter from Fred and George and handed it to Lupin.
“Of course, Hermione,” Lupin offered kindly. “Let me see what we have here.” After carefully reading through the contents of the letter, he handed it back to Hermione. “Quite a generous offer, I would say.”
Hermione nodded, waiting for him to elaborate.
“I take it that you’re not in a position to accept at this time?” he surmised.
She shook her head. “I really want to finish my schooling and I can’t just abandon Harry right now. I ” both Ron and I ” have promised to stick with him for the remainder of the year…” She trailed off, uncertain of how much detail she should confide.
“And you don’t feel that this is a journey that Harry is prepared to make on his own,” he intuitively finished for her.
Hermione nodded gratefully and then continued, “But at the same time, it’s a generous offer as you said, and it certainly sounds like a job that would be fun to do.”
“Do you think that they may be willing to wait for you until you finished at Hogwarts?” suggested Lupin helpfully.
Hermione shook her head sadly. “They need someone right away with the new location in Hogsmeade and all.”
“I hadn’t realized that the novelty business was such a lucrative one, especially in these uncertain times.” Lupin’s gift for understatement was evident. “I suppose people do need something to take their minds off their troubles, eh?”
“They have actually been expanding their product lines considerably. Turns out that a lot of their products have proven useful to the Ministry of Magic. Ron told me that they received an exclusive contract for the Shield Hats they developed last year.”
“So, this explains why they are so keen on recruiting a witch of your talents. You are uniquely capable of thinking ‘outside the box’ in both wizarding and Muggle terms.” Lupin paused to reflect a moment. “And you are certain that this is a job that would appeal to you?”
Hermione nodded eagerly.
“All right,” Lupin considered as he folded his hands in his lap. “Often a job offer such as this can be seen as a preliminary offer. An opening bid in negotiations, so to speak. Make them a counter offer. Determine just what it is you are able to offer them, bearing your current commitments in mind, and see if that’s acceptable to them.”
“You mean, like ‘run it up the flagpole’?” replied Hermione.
“Exactly,” agreed Lupin. “You will have to try to keep me up with the latest Muggle slang,” he added in a whisper. “It’s the only weapon I’ll ever have with Tonks.”
Hermione agreed without hesitation. “It’s a deal, Professor,” she whispered back.
“Now when exactly were you to respond back?” Lupin inquired, pointing to the letter.
Hermione consulted the crumbled page once again. “They said I should launch my reply about the time the train passes over the series of tall bridges that span the river gorge. That way the owl would not have to fly as far to Hogsmeade. The train usually reaches that point about dusk,” she mused, appraising the slanting light coming in through the blinds.
“Then you have about an hour or so to draft your response,” concluded Lupin. “No one will think the lesser of you if you sneak back to your compartment. I will convey your regards to Tonks. When she finally comes up for air, that is.”
With a whispered word of thanks to Lupin, Hermione slipped out the door noiselessly. The last thing she heard was Lupin joining in merrily with the raucous laughter from Tonks’ storytelling.
Harry found Hermione leaning over the railing of the observation car as the first faint stars could be seen sparkling near the horizon. The last reddish glow of the sunset was slowing fading into the velvety violet of evening. They would be arriving at Hogwarts castle within the hour.
“I see you’ve already changed into your school robes,” he observed conversationally as he leaned on the railing next to her.
She nodded in reply, staring off into the treetops. “I was seeing if I could get a signal out here, but is seems hopeless.” She folded her mobile telephone into her robes.
Turning toward Harry, she continued, “I was hoping I could touch base with my cousin one more time before I pass through the gates--”
“--where everyone knows that electronics no longer function,” finished Harry for her.
Ron sidled onto the platform to the other side of Hermione. He, too, had donned his school robes and they flapped eagerly against the silver bars.
“What’s up, guys?” he asked.
“Hermione was just making a last ditch attempt to contact her cousin,” Harry explained.
“From the observation platform?” asked Ron incredulously. “I thought your cousin was a Muggle. How could you be sending him an owl?”
“My cousin is a Muggle and, no, I was not sending her an owl, Ron,” explained Hermione patiently. Her careful emphasis indicating that she was not willing to take any chances with Ron’s legendary jealousy.
She fished her mobile device from the pockets of her robes and flipped open the cover. The empty screen glowed eerily in the twilight. “Modern Muggles communicate using this device.”
Ron leaned in for a closer look at the alien technology. “So it works just like one of those mirror pairs that wizards have?” he observed.
Hermione nodded her approval and Harry noted that Ron was getting much more adept at understanding the parallels between magical devices and technology.
The reference to magical mirrors brought an unexpected pang, though, as Harry remembered the gift from his godfather, Sirius. The broken shards were still wrapped in newspaper in the bottom of his trunk. He wondered if the pieces could be repaired magically “ and then what? Where was the twin to the mirror? Was it secreted somewhere at Grimmauld Place where it could provide them with a view of what was transpiring within those walls? Could it still be possible to communicate with Sirius from behind the veil, even though his previous attempt had not been successful? All issues that he had shoved into the back of his mind, but perhaps the time had come to explore them further. He made a mental note that the properties of twin magical objects would be a good subject with which to begin his independent studies.
His thoughts were interrupted by a sharp cry from Hermione. In her excitement, she began to crane her body over the platform railing. Ron had already grabbed her by the sleeve of her robes and was entwining his arm protectively around her waist.
“Is that speck a return owl from Fred and George?” she cried, pointing into the treetops.
“So you accepted their offer after all?” asked Harry, his heart sinking unexpectedly.
“Lupin suggested I make them a counter offer,” she answered breathlessly. “That’s why I left the luncheon early. I had to draft my response in time to launch it from the gorge.”
The train rounded a bend in the track and offered the first spectacular view of the majestic Hogwarts towers silhouetted against the approaching twilight.
“Blimey, we’re almost there!” shouted Ron. “I’ll hold down the fort here, Harry. You’d better go change into your robes.”
Ron arched his ginger eyebrow knowingly, instantly reminding Harry of the fiasco that had ensued last year when he had not arrived at the gates in the proper school attire. No need to get house points docked this early again, Harry mused, as he dashed down the corridor to the men’s lavatory.
Harrry returned to a scene of utter chaos in their compartment. Hermione was jumping up and down excitedly while a huge barn owl flew circles over her head. Ron was standing up on the bench trying to catch the owl but only making it fly more erratically. Hedwig was hooting her disapproval from her cage below.
“Thank goodness you’re back, Harry!” cried Ron in desperation. “Can you please get this ruddy bird some owl pellets? It’s exhausted from trying to outrun a steam engine, the feathered fool!”
Harry chuckled at the way Ron’s eloquence always seemed to flower in moments of exasperation. The act of filling his hand with a generous mound of pellets lured the errant owl onto Harry’s out-stretched arm. It tilted its graceful head so that it could watch him with one luminous eye while it delicately retrieved the pellets with its curved beak. An impatient fluttering of its wings indicated that it was ready for its return flight.
“Any return message?” inquired Harry. Hermione looked up from the letter that her eyes were hungrily devouring for the fourth or fifth time. She shook her head to the negative. Harry allowed his arm to lead the way to the open platform where he watched the owl quickly disappear into the night.
Hedwig was still hooting mournfully when Harry rejoined the others. He quickly handed her a portion of owl nuts through the cage bars to soothe her wounded psyche. By Hermione’s expectant expression, he could see that she had been impatiently awaiting his return.
“Oh, Harry,” she gushed, “they accepted my counter offer! They’re going to allow us to do the product testing on a free-lance basis. You know, sort of like consultants. I even get to choose which products to test.”
“What’s this ‘we’ business?” Ron asked suspiciously. “Sounds like a lot of extra work to me.”
“Oh, Ron,” she implored, moving closer to him along the bench, “you know I’ll prepare all the reports. But I will definitely need help from both of you to test these items in practical situations. You will both be getting a portion of the salary,” she offered, holding out the crumpled parchment for them to examine.
Ron’s eyes widened appreciatively as he read the offer. Wordlessly, he handed it to Harry.
“How did you convince them to hire all three of us, Hermione?” inquired Harry skeptically.
“I simply explained that I planned to spend a good part of my time among the restricted section of the library,” she elaborated, “but that if it was field testing that they wanted, then adding the two of you into the mix practically guaranteed dangerous exploits and adventures.”
Harry laughed appreciatively at Hermione’s deviousness. Slapping the still glum Ron genially on the back, he assured him, “Don’t you see, Ron? She single-handedly got us an excuse to get outside of school grounds, a whole new arsenal of cool gadgets to assist us, and a bit of spending money on the side!”
“Well, if you put it that way,” Ron’s tone was beginning to brighten up. “I guess I could force myself to accept a salary from my own brothers.” Then as another thought hit him, he added, “You know McGonagall’s probably not going to like this.”
“Who says we’re going to tell her?” replied Hermione with a sly twinkle, her grin taking on a mischievous slant.
Harry Potter and the Hero's Lament by L A Moody
Chapter Notes: Lupin teaches Hermione the rudiments of compromise; Ron and Harry are recruited for an unexpected assignment.