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The Kindest Curse	By : Quillusion Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 4773 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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The Kindest Curse

by Quillusion

Chapter 5

Hermione was in to work early the next morning. It was Saturday, but the offices of UnRavel were still as busy as they might have been on a Monday; many of the firm's clients had full work weeks themselves, and UnRavel's CEO had quickly realized that Saturday hours would bring in a great deal of business. Consequently, Hermione had Sunday and Wednesday off- at least, this month.e cue cursebers ers took it in turns to do Saturday hours.

She sat at her desk shortly after eight in the morning, sipping a fresh cup of tea and contemplating the day's schedule. She had a brief catch-up meeting in ten minutes, after which she would finish filing the last of the paperwork from last week's cases, and then she had her first consultation of the morning at ten o'clock. After lunch she left the office to head to Knightsbridge to investigate a safe someone had cursed shut; then it was back at the office by three for another meeting on developing a one-hour break-while-u-wait simple cursebreaking service that would be run by the entry level cursebreakers. After that it was finish up the paperwork, then head home. Should be straightforward.

Except she couldn't concentrate on her paperwork. She doodled most of the way through the first meeting, covering her scratchpad with faceted images of diamonds and pentagons, anen hen had to cast a clarifying spell on herself to get through her paperwork. Two cups of tea did nothing but send her to the ladies' twice in the next hour. She barely finished before her first client arrived.

She was grateful enough to have the paperwork behind her that she found it a little easier to focus completely on the consultation; she was aided by the fact that the object of her study, a letter brought in by a befuddled witch from Luton, was rather interestingly charmed shut. The woman's husband had somehow spelled the letter so that it believed it contained a birthday surprise for his wife, and would not allow itself to be opened before her birthday (still three weeks away) or in front of her. The witch had tried everything she could think of to break the curse, without luck. As she had found it in his robe pocket with a pair of thong underwear which was not hers, she was naturally quite suspicious.

It took Hermione three minutes to get around the problem. She tricked the letter by isolating it in a small bubble of space, and then moving the time inside the bubble forward until the woman's birthday was past. The letter then opened quite easily.

"I thought it wasn't safe to move time forward," said the worried looking woman across from Hermione at the low table upon which the curse-breakers usually did their work.

"Normally, yes, that's true," said Hermione as she calmly cast a spell to unfold the sheet of parchment inside the opened envelope, tactfully turning it so that only her client could see what it contained. "But in this case, time nly nly moving forward inside this one-foot-wide bubble- not in the world around us. As there are no people, places, or events inside the bubble, we aren't changing anything, and as we ourselves are not inside the bubble, it's safe enough. There is, of course, the calculated risk that something might happen inside this little patch of space above the worktable in the next three weeks that would damage the letter- a fire, for example- but it's a slim risk, and we have charms set on the table to protect property in the event of a temporal collision."

Turning toward the opened letter, Hermione's client read its contents, and went immediately pale with rage. From the exclamations and invective which the angry witch couldn't contain after reading it, Hermione gathered that the woman's husband had been trying to conceal the contents of her father's will from her in order to secure half of her inheritance for himself, which event would have been finalized after the passage of her next birthday. Her younger brother would have inherited the whole and given half to the woman's husband; the two had apparently hatched a scheme between themselves. Given the look on the witch's face, she could almost pity them for their stupidity.

Hermione had her fee in hand and was alone in the room before a minute was up, the woman's thanks ringing down the hallway in her wake as she left for her solicitor's office. The cursebreaker smiled with satisfaction and reversed the temporal shift, restoring the letter to its usual state, and then Flooed it down to the doorman, who would hand it to the client who had forgotten to take it with her.

That had taken less than ten minutes; she still had fifty before her next appointment. She spent five of them writing up the case and filing it, and then sat down in the window seat to think.

The past 24 hours had given her more to think about than the past ten years had done. She wasn't sure what to make of most of it, but there were several things she felt quite secure in believing without nee need for further thought. The first was that there was something afoot, and that there was a good chance Voldemort was involveThe The second was that this was a challenge worthy of her skills, possibly even surpassing them. More research was in order, and on a large scale.

The third was that Malfoy no longer fit the pigeonhole into which she'd mentally poked him after the war without a second thought. Which wasn't to say he'd ever really fit in there to begin with.

She sighed and corrected herself. Not Malfoy. Lucius. She'd given him her word, and he had been wise to ask her for it; she might still be subconsciously trying to update her original ideas of him ifhad had not insisted that she throw them all out. She had been honest when she'd told him it would be difficult, however. She had had to make an effort throughout the evening not to interpret his every word with more skepsm tsm than was reasonably necessary. But she was at least managingdetadetach the wizard whose company she had so enjoyed last night from her memory of a classmate's father, cold and harsh and intent on destroying her and her best friend.

Her best friend. Harry. That thought brought her up short. Given what Lucius had told her last night, she wondered if she ought not to tell Harry Potter. Although, as she had accepted Lucius's commission last night, he was technically a client and the information he had shared was now confidential. She chewed on her lip a moment. She'd have to ask him if it would be all right, but she felt certain he would decline to inform Harry of any of this.

He did not, however, have the right to forbid her to ask Harry's opinion of him.

She scribbled a quick note and summoned an owl to deliver it. By the time she was done with her lunch, she had a reply. Harry and Deirdre had invited her for dinner at their home in Godric's Hollow.

"It's been four months since your last visit, Hermione," chided Deirdre as she took Hermione's cloak and hung it in the hall. "No one can rein Harry in like you can- you mustn't desert us like that for so long a second time."

"I wouldn't have done it a first time if work hadn't switched hours on us like that," Hermione said, hugging Deirdre and following her into the parlor, where five year old Jarius Potter was trying to convince Harry to let him try Harry's wand.

When the boy had been born, Hermione and Ron had both joked that Deirdre would have virtually no say in the name- and that Harry would not have much more. How they would be able to name him anything other than Sirius s was was incomprehensible. To which Deirdre had replied, with a gleam in her eye, that they hadn't been able to decide which name to put first, so they had merged them.

"We liked Jarius better than Simes," she had commented dryly, and everyone had laughed and toasted thebornborn baby.

"Just as well," Ron had remarked. "With a name like Simes, he'd never get a job as anything but a butler."

Jarius heard the voices in the hall, and as soon as Hermione was visible, he was up like a shot and running to fling his arms around her waist.

"Aunt Ione!" he cried. His childhood name for her had stuck around the family, and Hermione had gratefully accepted it in lieu of the dreaded 'Mione' that Ron had favoreEvenEven the redhead had picked up on the change, and she had been spared the less preferred contraction for three years as a result.

"Jarius!" she said, and swung him up and around. "Oof! If you get any bigger, I'm going to have to start using a charm to swing you round!"

"If you let me use your wand, I'll charm myself!" boasted Jarius, and Hermione laughed.

"I just bet," she said. "I hope you inherited your mum's knack for charms. Your dad took a while to catch on to the basics, you know."

"Naah- not Dad!" cried Jarius disbelievingly, running back to his father. "Please, Dad? Just let me try it once?"

Harry laughed as he came to hug Hermione and kiss her cheek.

"No, Jarius. Be patient. Good to see you, Hermione. Deirdre's right- it's been too long."

They moved into the kitchen, where Harry was grilling steaks on a built- in grill. He'd rebuilt his parents' home in Godric's Hollow, with a fuggluggle novelties built in; he even had a telephone. Hermione had also had an opportunity a year ago to savor the midwinter treat of a soak in their Jacuzzi tub. Deirdre had blushed when she'd remarked that it must get a lot of use in the cold season.

Hermione cut up vegetables to go into the salad while Deirdre helped Jarius put butter and garlic salt on slices of French bread. Harry set the table, and when dinner was ready they carried the food into the dining room and settled down to eat.

The talk was light, and Hermione relaxed a little in the familiar warmth of family gathered at the dinner table. She had never regretted being a career woman, but times like this made her resolve to spend more time with her friends and their families. Being an honorary Weasley and an honorary Potter was something best savored in person- and it was much easier than taking care of children of own own. Being Aunt Ione was something she could do with great gusto and minimal exhaustion. At the moment, the only requirement was to help Jarius cut his steakich ich she did without prompting to give Deirdre and Harry a few minutes to eat in peace.

"I like how you cut my steak," the boy remarked. "You make it into tiny little diamonds." He popped one into his mouth by way of illustration.

Damn, she thought to herself in amusement. There's no getting it off my mind, is there?
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The Kindest Curse