Boston

The cap fitted her; Hermione's hair was bushy--always bushy, hardly anything else--and shorter than Harry remembered it last time he had seen her. He pushed his glasses further up his nose and brushed the imaginary dust from his suit. 'I'm looking for the editor of the Boston Globe,' he said: nobody answered. The large room full of cubicles full of people full of shit, staring at drafts of articles and photographs and talking non-stop on telephones with accents that confused the hell out of him continued to stare at drafts of articles and photographs and talk on telephones with accents that confused the hell out of him.

They were still full of shit, too.

'Speaking,' Hermione drawled. She'd picked up a Boston English accent.

'Hermione?' he asked.

The telephone rang. 'Harry--?' she asked; she picked the receiver up and barked into it. 'What is it?' There was chatter that Harry couldn't hear on the other end. 'All right all right Skeeter, I'll get on it. Yes. Yes, right away--' more chatter: Hermione rolled her eyes '--yes, yes. Shut up. I've got someone here that I need to talk to.'

She slammed the receiver back down. It rang again a few seconds later but she ignored it. 'Harry!' She laughed. 'What're you doing in Boston?'; Boston sounded more like Bawstan. She definitely had picked up the accent.

'Work--' he said '--for the Usual Crowd.'

She laughed. 'The Order keeping you busy?'

He shrugged. 'So-so,' he said, 'your baby keeping you busy?'

Hermione laughed and surveyed the printing press and the offices and the other jumble of people speaking very fast in a typical Boston drawl that nobody but a native would ever understand. She laughed again. 'Yeah,' she said, 'it is.'

Harry smiled.

'Ms. Granger--' a familiar voice broke into their conversation '--I need to get your opinion on...'

The voice stopped has Harry turned. He wasn't smiling, but then he wasn't frowning either. The chatter in the background was far away. Hermione raised an eyebrow. Colin Creevey leant against the opening to Hermione's cubicle; his mouth hung open. 'Harry?' he asked.

'Hullo Colin,' he said.

Hermione cleared her throat. Harry blinked and the chatter was suddenly as loud as it had been before; Colin closed his mouth and licked his lips and adjusted the strap of the camera case around his neck.

'You know each other?' Hermione asked.

They both nodded. 'Boarding school,' Harry said--'In England,' Colin added with a grin--

'Oh?' Hermione asked. 'That's nice. Colin, just drop the prints off with Rita, she needs them right away. I'm sure you and Harry can catch up later.'

Colin nodded and Harry turned back to Hermione. Colin's eyes still lingered.

Hermione raised an eyebrow but didn't say a thing. 'I've got a lot of work to get done, Harry,' she said, 'do you want to catch up over a drink? Dinner?--' she glanced at her watch '--...breakfast?'

There was laughter. 'Sure,' he said, 'you'll call me?'

She nodded and grinned. 'Ron will be happy to see you,' she said.

Harry smiled and walked away. The chatter rose and filled the room again, and there were definitely no unexplained silences at twenty minutes past the hour.