The (Slughorn's Potions) Office

“DON’T TOUCH!” 

Harry stands, open-mouthed, hands on his hips like an exasperated mother to Hermione’s right. Her hand is a millimeter away from barely touching the door to the break room. 

“Why?”

“Just because.”

Hermione squints, head leaning sideways. “Care to elaborate?”

“Germs?” 

“Germs?”

“No?” Harry brushes a hand through his hair, nervously tugging the strands. 

“No.”

“Can I tell you later?”

“You mean never?”

“That,” Harry nods, “would be optimal.”

“Fine,” Hermione relents. “I want a cuppa with citrus tea and honey, though.”

“In exchange for your compliance?”

“And my silence,” she agrees.

“That’s valid,” Harry answers. 

She steps away from the door when he steps towards it, a weird little dance, and she decides to let it go immediately, doesn’t matter, doesn’t care. It’s fine. Don’t stress. 

Sadly, her hearing is kinda good, so she’s still aware of the whispered, “You owe me for this, Ron! Hermione looked at me like I was weirdo,” when the door clicked closed behind him. 

Oh my. Those boys. They make not stressing almost impossible.

“Boss, can I ask you a question?”

Hermione stiffens. “...yes, of course.”

Fred leans forward, the chair he sits on makes a heaving noise, and lowers his voice to a whispery croak, “Is fraternization between colleagues allowed?”

“Ron and Lavender are literally dating,” Hermione points out, “so yes, in general it’s allowed. As long as it doesn’t negatively affect the workplace, I guess.”

“Ah,” he says, “Good to know.”

“Do I want to know why you’re asking? Are you planning on dating Neville? Because I have to tell you, he’s already almost in a relationship.”

Fred chuckles, “What’s almost in a relationship? Flirting? FWB? ONS?”

She doesn’t know what the last two stand for, but decides not to ask. “Let’s just say: his heart is taken.”

“Well, goody goody that I’m only platonically interested in the hobby florist type, boss.”

Hermione starts typing on her keyboard, but stops again, “Neville is a catch! He’s the nicest person here, and he’s full of love, and appreciates nature. You wouldn’t deserve him anyway.” The typing begins anew, before, “Who did you mean then?”

Ron and Lavender are dating. Harry’s with Draco. Bellatrix is all over Riddle. 

Hermione stops her thoughts, shakes her head, and puts her finger up in front of Fred’s face in a silencing motion, “Wait, don’t. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

Hermione is speaking to a customer. 

“Yes, they can be shipped to your partner directly.”

He’s asking a lot of questions, which would be tiring, but is not, this time around, because it’s mostly yes or no questions. 

“Yes, you can add a card to the shipment.”

He clearly didn’t read the FAQ on their site, but who cares, at least calls spice up the work routine a little, Hermione thinks.

Fred has been away, to make some more tea, for four minutes and 37 seconds now, which is the entire duration of the phone call. 

She’s finishing up, with a soft voice and some friendly, agreeing humming, when a shriek makes her flinch, quickly followed by Ron screaming, “MERLINS TITS!!” two octaves higher than usual. 

“Yes, exactly!” Hermione laughs, louder, to overtone the outburst, mostly, “If you have more questions, feel free to contact us again! Have a nice day!”

Click. 

Immediately: “Shut up, Weasley!” 

“Mate, everything okay?”

“Won-won?”

“Sorry! I’m f-fine, everything’s fine!” Ron croaks out, sounding nauseous, “It was, uhm, it was–”

George walks up beside his desk, sluggish, very relaxed, “Is that an itty bitty spider, Ronniekins? Did the little fur baby scare you?” He makes a faux-surprised expression.

Ron sputters, “Shut up! You did this, didn’t you?”

“Me?” George repeats. “I’m no spider whisperer, I can’t control where they go!”

“You’re such a bloody liar, George, you stupid tosser!”

“Do you kiss your Viktor Krum poster with that mouth?” George quips back.

“George!”

“Ronald!”

“Weasleys,” Riddle cuts in. “Be silent.”

“Slughorn’s Potions. Hermione Granger speaking. How can I help you?”

Hermione scribbles on her journal, the phone clenched between her cheek and shoulder, while her second hand grabs the neon pink marker. 

“Granger? Tell Potter to call me back in the next five minutes.”

“Malfoy?” She groans, annoyed. “Why are you calling me?”

“I just told you, Granger,” Draco replies sneeringly. 

She can guess the face he’s making right now. 

“Forgive me,” Hermione answers, exasperated and frustrated, “for thinking you had another, more sensical reason for calling me in the middle of work than to be a personified owl. I definitely forgot who I was speaking to. Obviously Draco Malfoy would use the office hotline to send personal messages to his boyfriend.” Mocking him. Impersonating his arrogant drawl, but of course, it goes in one ear and out the other. 

“It’s four minutes now,” Draco says on the other end of the line. “Chop, chop, Granger.”

She sighs, and huffs a cynical laugh. “You have his work desk number. If he’s not picking up the phone, call him there like always.” She changes the pink marker, takes the yellow one. 

“Been there, tried that,” Draco exclaims, so posh, so like his father, “duh , Ms. State-the-obvious.” Sometimes, sometimes, she really wants to hang up on him. 

“Then try again in ten minutes!” Hermione spits back, “Or write him a blasted mail for all I care!”

“It’s urgent, Granger!”

Deep breath in, deep breath out, deep breath in, deep breath out. 

“If it’s so urgent,” she tries to compromise, “tell me, and if I agree with you, I’ll deliver the message asap.”

“That’s private!”

Hermione stays silent, at her wits end. 

“Granger? Granger?? Granger! ”

She throws her hands in the air, “Fine! I’ll tell him, you baby! Has nobody taught you patience?” 

“Never heard that word before,” Draco replies, calm and cool and collected once more, that arse. “Thank you for your cooperation, Granger.”

“Don’t call me aga–” The line goes dead. 

That git. 

Hermione breathes through her nose, like a bull, nostrils flaring, before shaking her head, and yelling, against her better urges, “HARRY!”

Creevey is taking pictures of Fred and George for the employee section of the Slughorn’s Potions website. 

They are wearing little name tags on their dress shirts with their names, well, with their twin’s names to be honest and exact, as an insider joke, Hermione gathers, which she only knows about because she saw them switch while coming in to brew coffee. 

Creevey didn’t though. 

It’s harmless fun so Hermione keeps her mouth shut. 

After the deed is done, Fred and George high-five each other behind Creevey’s back, stoked, wearing silly grins with matching sparkling eyes, and Hermione smothers a grin. 

Hermione opens the audio file Slughorn sent her, and she wishes she didn’t. 

Shuffling, creaking, grunts, muffled voices are heard, quietly but loud enough to be audible, then Slughorn starts to speak. “Do you hear that, my friend? The youth of today has no sense of privacy.” His voice titters, petty and with an embarrassed undertone. “I ought to talk to the landlord – I seemed to remember him being a fine man, good standing, great manners, excellent style of fashion – surely he can’t know – these patrons with their pornograph– hem, right-out unseeming behavior at tea time, at that! No, that–”

Noisy rattling, muffled screaming, affronted shocked muttering, too loud and clear to be from neighbors, probably Slughorn himself. 

“Oh, OH–” Sudden louder shrieking. 

Hermione stops the file, mortified. Slughorn must have sent the wrong file. Again.There’s only twelve seconds left on the recording, and Hermione is certain, nothing could happen in that timeframe to legitimize the fact that he forwarded it to her. 

She just needs to get it over with, to be sure. As soon as she’s heard it, she can start the journey to completely, irrevocably erase it from her mind again. 

Thump, roar, thump, a voice, male, is heard, undetectable, then, female moaning, that turns shrill soon enough. “Yes, yes, it’s you,” the woman yells, muffled but understandable, “You! My king, my, ohh, Lucius, OHHH.”

CLICK. 

Hermione, bug-eyed and jaw-dropped, slowly lowers her headphones. It’s a sextape. Is it? Probably. Most likely. 

Of Lucius Malfoy? Possibly. He’s not the only Lucius in the city, but still. Slughorn must think so, mustn’t he, if he thought to deem it relevant to send his worker, Hermione herself, who only knows this, one, Lucius. Why would Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Malfoy have sex in the apartment above Slughorn’s? They have a mansion – Hermione has seen photos from Harry, and as far as she knows, they haven’t got another property in that part of the city, so why would the couple – oh god, Hermione doesn’t want to think about this, at all, –

Hermione sits up straight, horrified. Was the female voice even Narcissa?

OH MERLIN OH NO NO NO. 

NOO. 

Lucius is a pompous prat, an arrogant ass, a narcissistic foul and a privileged hypocrite all wrapped in one, but he loves his wife. He wouldn’t cheat. 

He would make a lot of mistakes, did some of them already from what Hermione knows from Harry and if the talk of the town is to be believed, but not this one. 

But she doesn’t know Narcissa’s voice, hasn’t ever met her, so she can’t 100% know. 

It’s none of her business, though, so she should let it go. Don’t stress. It’s fine. It’s not my deal - even if Slughorn tried to make it so by sending the thing in the first place. 

She should let it go. But. Can she? 

Damn you, Horace Slughorn!!

Hermione grabs a post-it-note and writes, passive-aggressively, email contact with Hermione only for strictly professional matters!, before standing up, opening the door to Slughorn’s office, walking briskly to his desk and pressing the post-it onto the middle of his computer screen so it can’t, under any circumstances, not be seen by him. 

She drinks another coffee. 

Bellatrix is on her fifth cigarette and Hermione knows that because Bellatrix takes the time to put the cigarette stump into Hermione’s personal work desk trash can every time she comes back from smoking downstairs. 

There are trash cans specifically for cigarettes in the designated smoking area, and still, still she does it. Hermione does not know what could have possibly made Lestrange hate her even more, but she fears the worst. 

Hermione writes back, via mail, to Slughorn, Is there a specific purpose for the recording you sent? Am I supposed to do anything with it? Greetings, Hermione. 

Riddle is having a telephone conference when Hermione comes back from the loo. 

“It seems that way,” Riddle says, at the moment, “but we’ll know after the two-month-mark.”

His legs are on his desk, very casually, while his right hand, in juxtaposition, makes a nervous mess out of his hair. 

He’s always such a contradiction, Hermione thinks. 

Riddle hums, softly, knowingly, and changes the hand that holds his phone, from left to right, and in the midst of the motion, their gazes lock, and Hermione’s heart pitter-patters, rabbit-quick. His eyes are mesmerizing. They swap back and forth between hers, searching, seemingly, for something specific in the microexpressions of her face. 

After a moment, a tiny curled-one-sided smile blossoms on his face, while he looks back at her, and it’s beautiful and addictive and makes her feel warm and happy, basking in the depth of his ocean eyes and the occasional, once in an eternity, blink-and-miss real grin. 

She sighs, fond and forlorn, a bit dreamy, and –

This is not how colleagues feel about each other, Hermione thinks, alarmed. 

Oh, bollocks. 

She drinks another coffee. 

Lavender is trying to do the calendar for the next couple of weeks, reschedule some things, trying to understand some notes the last temp made, and looking at Hermione with puppy dog eyes when she can’t decipher some of it. It’s cute, but she also furthers the stress. 

It’s fine, though. It’s alright. No worries. 

Hermione needs to make some time for meditation or yoga or breathing exercises or some extra sleep or anything chill and relaxing, at all, so she doesn’t burn out soon. 

But it’s fine. It’s not the worst, yet. 

The second toilet from the right in the rest room isn’t working quite right, which Hermione finds out when Neville comes out of the loo with an anxious frown. 

“I’m sorry, Hermione, I didn’t do anything, I’m sure of it! It’s just not doing the thing? I don’t know. I’m really sorry, Hermione.”

“It’s fine, Neville,” she responds with a slight smile, tired but friendly, “It’s not your fault. I will make a call and hopefully it’ll get done in the next few days. Thank you for telling me.”

“Yes, of course, Hermione,” he says, not meeting her eyes, sounding nervous. “I’m sorry, again, I know it’s a lot at the moment.”

Aw, sweet, sweet Neville. He’s always the first to know when Hermione is stressed. 

Luna and him fit well together in that regard, because she’s very in tune with emotions, too. Her own and others. Hermione hopes they become happy together. 

“Thank you for saying that. It means a lot.”

Hermione is on a coffee run, which doesn’t mean she’s going to get coffee in this case, but more so that she’s on a caffeinated high that makes her want to jiggle her leg excessively, to be frank, which annoys herself to no end. She blames the sex tape, and Bellatrix and the overall shenanigans happening today and yesterday. 

She makes tea for Neville, as a nice gesture, answers another two calls from customers about the website and the products, replies to Fred and George’s questions, and puts a paper with the words ‘not working’ on the door of the defected toilet, while trying to keep interactions with Riddle to an absolute bare minimum. 

Like a third grader. Just ignoring her problems. 

Turns out, heavily caffeinated Hermione is just as cowardly as decaffeinated Hermione, maybe even more so? Who would’ve thought. 

She’s just more hyper while hiding. 

Hermione makes a round around the office, a little sprint through the whole mapped-out territory, but it was bigger in her mind, and the whole tour-de-office only takes about three minutes, and her sprinting isn’t very fast, so that doesn’t speak for the size of it. 

Neville asked her if she was doing an office inspection, while she was at it, and Hermione was so tempted to agree because of the embarrassed shame curling in her stomach. 

She felt ridiculous, but she couldn’t stop the urge to move. Sitting still makes her vibrate out of her skin. 

She needs to go back to tea tomorrow, Hermione knows. 

Hermione rereads the mail she just got in her mailbox, just to be sure, just to be on the safe side, but that’s still what the mail said. It shouldn’t be, in the perfect world it wouldn’t be, but it was in this one. Hermione’s throat closes in, for a sec, in panic, overwhelmed, until her pragmatism and optimism wins over. No matter. It’s fine. It’s alright. Don’t stress. 

“Riddle,” Hermione blurts out, with a thin sheet of sweat on her forehead. 

“Granger.” Tom looks up, a black pen behind his left ear, and his glasses on. “Are we just testing our short term memory here or does this have a point?”

She narrows her eyes, in temporary annoyance, “Firstly, I thought we’re work friends now. Is that how you speak to them? –”

“I do,” he interrupts, smirking. “I would if I had more of them than just you.”

“-- secondly, yes. There was a new development in the Karkaroff-Krum-project.” Hermione slows down a bit, and clears her throat. “Uhm, the date of the first meeting that was scheduled for next week between us and them was changed, unexpectedly. It’s..sooner now.”

Riddle breathes out, already looking put out. He knows in what direction this is going, he just doesn’t know the specifics. “How much sooner ? A day? Two?”

Hermione wants to laugh or scream, one of the two, or maybe vanish, but neither seems appropriate. Shockingly, another impulse overshadows both and makes itself known: yearning to comfort. Him, specifically. 

She wants to take his hand, and hold it, and tell him, I’m here. I understand. It’s stressful and unfortunate but we’ve got this. Together, we’ll be okay. Together, we will be alright. 

Instead, she answers, ripping the band-aid off, “Tomorrow. Karkaroff mailed and canceled next week Friday. He pushed it forward, by a lot.” 

Riddle’s jaw ticks. “I’m not going to make you repeat yourself because I know I heard you correctly the first time,” he bites out, with clenched teeth, glaring at the wall behind her, “but for the unofficial record; if Karkaroff and Krum weren’t a package deal, I would recommend to kick him off this project and stop any further cooperation with him. Respectfully.”

He huffs and angrily wipes a strand of hair off his face, tension in his every muscle, and Hermione tries, with valiant effort, to curb the desire to reach out for him in this moment, but the urge is too great, and she steps forward, without further thinking, cautiously, and rounds the desk in a slow, but determined glide. 

She crouches down in front of him, making and holding eye contact, and takes his right hand in hers with gentle hands. Watching his expressions, every little one, saving them in her mind, so she’s sure it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. 

Touching is okay. 

Comfort is okay. 

“Okay,” Hermione repeats internally, and then out loud, warm, warm, warm, and relieved. “It’ll be okay.” Tom. I got you. I’m here for you, Tom. I feel the same. Together, “We’ll be okay.”

It takes a moment for her to realize, but Riddle doesn’t seem to breathe deeply, like he’s holding the air in, in, in, unconsciously, and his hand shakes a bit in her palm. His mouth opens and forms words but nothing comes out, he’s changed his mind halfway through. 

His eyes are stormy and intense, but not in anger, not in annoyance, those she recognizes, but instead, so different, so unusual, shifting into something unknown to her. 

Has he ever looked this way? At her? (At anyone?)

“Okay,” Riddle repeats, finally, simply, no predominant emotion in his voice, but Hermione doesn’t need to hear – she can already see it. His eyes tell. 

“If it’s with you,” he adds, “it’s okay.”

And Hermione thinks, my heart has tumbled out of my chest. 

We are not work friends, are we?

S. Finnigan: How do you feel about this big project with Viktor Krum?

T. Riddle: Cautiously optimistic. It could be a good opportunity for the firm. 

H. Potter: I’m a big fan of Quidditch, and Krum, naturally, so to be honest, I’m bloody stoked about it. I can’t wait to tell my boyfriend, he’s gonna faint, I’m sure. He’s dramatic like that. It’s a one in a lifetime kind of thing to work with the Viktor Krum. 

H. Granger: I feel well-prepared for the project, and I have heard great things about Mr. Krum, so I do believe everything will run smoothly and we will create something to be proud of. Something exciting for us, and for Mr. Krum’s fans. 

R. Weasley: I can’t bloody believe it! Bugger me, I know I’m not dreaming ‘cause George pinched me in the arm when Mione told us, but it’s – bloody hell.