The Web Of Love

"Then that would be all from me. Any questions?" Hermione wondered as she finished her tour of St. Mungo's. She only went to work today for two hours early in the morning to show their new colleague around the hospital. She showed and explained everything necessary to her, and now the mediwizard who has a shift started to train her. 

“I don't think so. Thank you very much for your time," the young black-haired woman thanked her.

“It's been a pleasure, if there is anything you need to know, ask the healer you're on shift with today. You'll see that everyone here is nice," she assured her with a smile before saying goodbye.

She left the building with glee. She hadn't even had time to have her coffee in the morning, so she was looking forward to having it now with Ginny, who was willingly babysitting Charlie. Hermione had a hunch that she would be even more interested in her nephew than she had been now when she was pregnant, which she didn't mind one bit. She was glad that her son had so many loving people around him. Especially, when she and Blaise were no longer together. As soon as he told her he wanted a divorce, Hermione's first thought was of their son. Even though the whole situation hurt her immensely, she knew that it must not affect Charlie in any way. He was barely two at the time, and needed loving parents, even if those parents clearly didn't love each other anymore.

"Hermione?" an unfamiliar voice called out, snapping her out of her thoughts.

The brunette quickly got her bearings, and her eyes fell on the black-haired young man. “Tom! Hi," she blurted out in surprise.

The Quidditch player paused for a moment before shaking his head in disbelief. "I guess Ginny didn't tell you about it."

"She didn't tell me about what?" Hermione didn't understand, although she was slowly guessing what it was about. This situation literally screamed Ginny.

"That today is the perfect time for us to meet. She told me you're only going to work for a short time and that she'll babysit your son so you'll have the day off," he explained, scratching the back of his head nervously.

"Yeah, that sounds like Ginny," Hermione sighed. She would have to sort this out with her friend later

"Look, if it doesn't suit you, we can leave it for another time," he offered her a way out of it, which she greatly appreciated.

And she was going to take this way out with pleasure, but then she told herself that it would be impolite. It wasn't his fault that Ginny hadn't informed her, and since he'd gone the trouble of coming here… "Well, right now I'd easily curse someone for a good cup of coffee," she said with a small smile. At least she'd get it over with so she could cross out one item off her imaginary list, the next item was dinner with Draco, which she was trying to put off as much as possible.

"In that case, I know a great place," he smiled, offering her his arm. 

"Ginevra Molly Weasley Potter," Hermione yelled as soon as she stepped out of the floo.

  "Time to go play with Uncle Harry," Ginny announced to Charlie, leaving him alone with Harry.

Her husband gave her a knowing look before turning his full attention to his nephew. Ginny didn't worry too much about it and went to the kitchen where her friend was already waiting for her. It's not the first time she's done something like this, she can handle Mione even with her eyes closed. 

"So how was it?" she asked curiously instead of greeting.

"Is that really what you're going to tell me?" Hermione wondered, though she really shouldn't have been surprised. "You said you'd get back to me about this, and instead Tom's suddenly waiting for me in front of St. Mungo's!"

Ginny waved her hand at it as she poured her friend a glass of water. "If I discussed it with you in advance, you would just try to get out of it or get unnecessarily nervous, so really you are welcome."

Hermione glared at her. "I won't thank you."

"You don't even have to," the redhead laughed. "Now share the details."

“Ha! You would like that, wouldn't you? And you know what I'm going to do? I won't tell you anything!" Hermione laughed for a change. She knew it was the only way to get back at her friend.

"Come on!" Ginny whined. "You know the best relationships always start unexpectedly! Just remember school."

The brunette looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "And what exactly am I supposed to remember, if you've forgotten, he divorced me."

“Good point, but before you got divorced, you had a great relationship, didn't you? I remember very well how happy you were before things changed in some strange way. Oh, and Blaise was here this morning by the way,” she said as if to inform her what she had for breakfast.

"Was he?" Hermione blurted out in surprise as her ex-husband didn't know Charlie would be here.

Ginny nodded. “He wanted to play with Charlie for a while before work. He was at your place first, and when he didn't find you there, he found out that Charlie was at our place from your schedule on the fridge," she explained.

And Hermione's heart skipped a beat. "He's a great dad," she said with a huge smile on her face, concentrating on keeping the door, which led to thoughts of how it was possible for them to fail, closed.

"Hm, you want to know how he reacted when he found out you were out with Tom?"

“Ginny! Please tell me you didn't do it just to see his reaction," Hermione almost shouted. Of course, she wanted to know if Blaise was jealous, but was too afraid of the answer. Respectively, she forbade herself to think that he might be jealous because then their divorce would no longer make sense at all.

"Of course not, it was just a bonus," she said with a small smirk. "Listen, I'd really like to get involved in your relationship, but I truly don't want to interrogate and trouble you anymore, so I decided to put it behind me, like you two. Blaise is a great guy, but I don't want you to wait forever for him to pull his head out of his ass and realize his mistake. I want you to be happy, so please, how was it with Tom today?” she asked again hopefully.

Hermione wanted to protest at first. She wanted to tell her that she definitely wasn't waiting for Blaise to realize something. She didn't wait for him. She just couldn't go on and that's exactly what she had already told her, so it was somewhat pointless to repeat it to her. So she decided not to deal with it and instead gave her the answer she had been asking for. "Actually, it was pretty cool, but when you brought it up, I told you that I would go with him, but only as a friend. And that's exactly how I took it today. Just two friends who went for coffee."

"For now," Ginny smirked, though she really had a different opinion. Blaise had been a bit annoyed when she'd informed him that his ex-wife was on a date with Tom, which confused her a little, but didn't surprise her. She'd suspected all along, that he still loved her, and even though it had been almost a year, she started to believe again after this morning that they still had a chance, but as she told Hermione, she was not going to get involved anymore.