My Cheating Heart

Moving Closer

Hermione Granger entered her temporary office at St. Mungo's with great determination, focus, and excitement. The lead that she and Irie have thought about during her rest period will finally be tested today. The rest of the healers and employees in the wizarding hospital were both surprised and genuinely happy to see her. Of course, since she had a new haircut, some people would give her a second look just to confirm if it was really her. She received a lot of compliments for her new hair though which is quite flattering, even if she only did it as a means of self-preservation.

She left the penthouse really early since she was too excited to start testing. Hopefully, they could find a way to fully heal the children by the end of the week. It is moving closer and closer to Christmas soon. No child ever deserves to spend the season of giving and the most wonderful time of the year stuck in the hospital because of illness. It would be the greatest Christmas gift she and the rest of the healers could ever give to the children – for them to be well again before Christmas Eve.

As she entered her office, she carefully cleared her desk and placed the box which contained her newly purchased microscope at the center. Afterwards, she summoned the Chemistry books from her trusty beaded purse. She summoned a couple of thin flasks that will be used in storing the extract that they will be testing.

Since she was one hour and thirty minutes early for daily rounds, she decided to just spend some time reading how to process extraction and to understand the molecular structures of the combination of certain elements, especially the volatile ones. I do hope the team will be able to understand the dynamics of whatever it is I plan to do. While chemistry shares some similarities with potions and alchemy, there are still very significant differences...

After thirty minutes of reading has passed, and her parchment now filled with notes, her concentration was broken by a knock on the door.

"Yes? Who is it?", she called out. Her eyes are still glued on the book.

"Chief Healer Granger, this is Auror Thomas. May I come in?", a baritone voice called out.

"Sure, Auror Thomas", she replied. The door opened and a tall dark man in auror robes entered her office.

"Good morning, Hermione. It's good to see you well", Dean greeted.

"Thank you, Dean. I assume you've been assigned to be part of the security team for this week?", she said with a smile.

"Yes. Auror Potter assigned me to lead your security task force today", Dean replied.

"Task force? And just how many are there?", she asked with an eyebrow raised.

"I am afraid that it is confidential information Hermione", it was said with a sigh.

"I see", she said with a nod.

"Here. Auror Potter asked me to give these to you. He says that you should eat all this", she was handed a takeout bag from a famous restaurant and one bag filled with Honeyduke's finest chocolate.

"Thank you for handing these over, Dean. I don't know why you allow Harry to bully you into running errands though", she snorted.

"Oh no. Harry bought them. He just asked me to hand them to you. He is so paranoid about the threat to you that he personally bought the food himself. We're also tasked to check everything being sent to you, especially the gifts and letters from well-wishers when you were hospitalized", the man confided.

"Hmmm... I see. Well thank you so much for all your help, Dean", she said with a smile. He gave her a nod, before he gently closed the door.

Hermione inspected the food that Harry had sent over. He even bought coffee. There was a note attached so she picked it up.