Chapter 1
Friday, 1st April 2005
It’s quite exhausting, isn’t it? Being in love with someone who doesn’t love you back. Someone you have to see every week at work. Someone who has been a prominent figure in your life since you were 15. 10 years is a long time to love someone without them feeling the same way, even if a portion of it was unbeknownst to you. Oh, and do you know what makes it even worse? When that someone just so happens to be Kingsley Shacklebolt, Order of Merlin First Class, and the British Minister for Magic. The ultimate untouchable bachelor, or at least untouchable to Hermione, anyway. Untouchable because as the Minister he is her boss, and unfortunately, even in 2005 dating your boss is frowned upon. Besides, how do you even tell your boss you have feelings for them?
‘Excuse me, Minister Shacklebolt, do you have a moment to talk about the fact I’ve been harbouring feelings for you for the best part of a decade?’
Ah yes, that would go down well. Wouldn’t be awkward at all.
‘That’s terribly inappropriate, Hermione, we really should be working”.
___
It had just gone past 7pm on a Friday evening, almost all other ministry employees had gone home for the weekend, and yet Hermione still sat in her office within the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She had recently been promoted to Head of the Department after her enormous efforts to rid it, and other departments, of any lingering bias and prejudices held towards many Magical Creatures still apparent after the war. She had been chewing on the end of her quill, staring in the direction of her personal floo ever since Kingsley had stopped by some hours earlier to ask for her opinion on the final details for the annual Ministry Dinner. They were to celebrate the 8th anniversary since the end of the Second Wizarding War at the end of the month with a small ball within the Ministry’s atrium. This year’s anniversary landed on a weekday so the Ministry had decided to celebrate on the last Saturday of April instead.
Every year was the same. Hermione did not particularly enjoy the events, but rather found that they were quite tedious. Unfortunately, however, as she is considered a great hero from the war, not to mention a high ranking ministry employee, they were exceedingly difficult to wriggle out of. She had tried to avoid going a few times, but was always wrangled into promising she’d attend by Kingsley himself.
This evening, Hermione and Kingsley had sat in her office and chatted away lightheartedly for a while before the clock on the mantelpiece had caught Kingsley’s eye. He’d jumped up quickly, making apologies and promising to catch up with her again on Monday. He’d explained that his mother had set him up on a date with yet another young, eligible witch, much to Hermione’s dismay. She frowned as she realised this was the 5th date in just over a month. It seemed that his mother had finally put her money where her mouth is and made it her mission to set him up for marriage before his looming 40th birthday in August. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you looked at the situation, the first 4 had all proven to be wastes of his time. Hermione could only secretly wish that the trend continued, although she always felt guilty for thinking such thoughts. She did want Kingsley to be happy after all, she would just quite like him to be happy with her rather than some other more fortunate girl.
Throughout all of their conversations, Kingsley himself had never come across as worried about potentially being an eternal bachelor before, although it appeared that in his mother’s eyes it would be the end of the world. Hermione had met Mrs Zola Shacklebolt a few times over the years at various Ministry events; she had even voiced her fears to Hermione in passing. It always seemed to come from a good, albeit misguided place. Zola was a loving mother, but, from what Hermione had noticed, could be rather overbearing, especially when the topic of her only son not being married yet was broached. What kind of respectable family would they be if their oldest son did not go on to produce an heir to continue the family name, she had asked Hermione once before.
However, Hermione had noticed that Kingsley seemed to enjoy the freedoms that being single provided him. He’d mentioned on occasion how it meant that there is no one to complain about his dedication to his job - being Minister for Magic is a very demanding position after all. There is also no one to nag him for not picking his clothes up off of his bedroom floor, not that his house elf didn’t sort that sort of stuff out for him anyway. And there is no one to complain when he’s late home day after day, often after losing track of time during what was supposed to be a quick chat with Hermione. She certainly couldn’t complain about being late home on these occasions, she had no one waiting for her to return home either. Besides, why would she complain when she gets to spend hours talking freely with the handsome and intelligent man with such a charming voice?
Just last week Kingsley had sent her a memo asking her to come to his office when she finished for the day. She had arrived at his office at 6pm sharp and they had discussed the latest proposal to be looking for Ministry approval from her department. Although the conversation had started off work related, it soon turned to the topic of the failed date that he had been on the weekend prior. The woman had been 7 years his junior, tall, blonde, and just a little bit vapid. When Kingsley had tried to engage her in discourse about the current state of the political climate within the Wizarding population of the South Americas she’d had absolutely nothing to add. Kingsley had found her dull, which made Hermione internally smile in glee. Could you imagine going on a date with the Minister for Magic and not being able to hold a political conversation? Kingley’s date had been more interested in talking about her knowledge of muggle Brazilian waxes than the massacre in San José de Apartadó that had been linked to a Columbian dark wizard back in February. Hermione had scoffed and laughed along with Kingsley as he recounted his ordeal. It wasn’t until it was past 8pm that they both realised the time and, to Hermione’s chagrin, were forced to bid each other goodnight, taking turns to return to their respective homes through his private floo.
These late evening chats had become a theme since Hermione was awarded her own office back in January, something which Hermione enjoyed more than she was ever going to admit out loud. They had begun to take it in turns as to who’s office they had their chats in. The pair had grown closer than ever over this time, and Hermione would never willingly give up time spent with Kings, even if it did eat into some of her working day. If she could not be one of the women to date him, then she would remain a friend to him instead. A sounding board for when a difficult issue arose, a level headed voice of reason when his mother set him up on yet another “infernal” date as he liked to put it. She knew that she would never be one of his dates for quite a number of reasons.
Firstly, who would want to date someone they knew as a pubescent, frizzy haired, and occasionally unstable teenager? Not Kingsley Shacklebolt, that's for sure. She was definitely still a little unstable from time to time, but she’d matured a lot in recent years. She was less anxious, had much better emotional control, and she definitely was not as uptight as she once was.
Secondly, she knew she wasn’t quite as traditionally beautiful as the other witches he’d dated, however, at the age of 25 she had blossomed into quite a striking young witch. She’d managed to figure out how to work with her curls, rather than against, and though she was still on the shorter side, what she lacked in height she made up for in other areas. She had certainly filled out more in all the right places, which meant she always looked great in whatever outfit she put on.
Thirdly, there was the more important issue of his mother. Hermione knew Zola’s high expectations of the wife that Kingsley was to take. Zola expected a perfect wife to create perfect children and keep a perfect home, and Hermione certainly wasn’t in a rush to procreate the day after their wedding, nor did she have any inclination to stop working at any point in the next 40 years at least. Zola would also probably have something to say about their 14 year age gap.
Hermione sighed. She knew she had the potential to be an amazing partner to Kingsley, they compliment each other well and challenge each other intellectually. They proved this over and over in their little chats like earlier this evening, but she also knew that it was a relationship that would be doomed from the beginning, so she was wasting her time even pondering it.
Hermione finally snapped out of her musings and let out a short gasp when she noticed that she was now covered in ink from her quill. Grumbling to herself, she cleared up the mess with a quick scourgify and packed up her desk for the weekend. She meticulously filed away her parchments in her magically extended desk filing system, closed her ink pots, lined up her quills, vanished the long since gone cold tea from her mug, and breathed a sigh of relief. She was glad to be going home for a quiet weekend alone. The first and last for a long while.
With the 8th anniversary ball coming up, her weekends were filled up with family dinners at the Burrow, visiting her parents at their house, and shopping trips for formal wear with Ginny. She shuddered at the thought. Shopping was definitely not her favourite pastime, unless for books of course. She found she could never quite find clothes in the Wizarding world that suited her style, but Ginny was reluctant to let her shop in the muggle world for a ministry event without her. The words ‘You’re not thinking of wearing that are you?’ would forever haunt her as she looked at dresses in muggle London. It appeared that although Ginny was all for the more daring cuts, she was definitely not a fan of the colours or sequins found fashionable in the 2000’s.
Standing up and walking to the floo, Hermione looked around her office one last time before turning off the lights and locking her door with a wave of her wand. She stepped into the fireplace and with a flash of green flames the office was left empty.