All I Wanted

All I Wanted

by Keelie

Prologue

Hermione Granger was happy with her life, six years after Hogwarts. It wasn't exactly what she'd planned for her future, but she was pleased with the way it had turned out.

She owned Java Du Jour, a large, cozy, coffee bar-slash-bookstore located in Diagon Alley. It specialized in fancy-flavored drinks and Muggle books, and Hermione ran it with the help of two bookstore attendants (Damon Monhegan and Brad Nicholson) and the Caffeine Queen, Chantall Larson-Delgado, Hermione's American friend who managed the coffee bar.

She lived in a spacious, tastefully-decorated apartment over Java Du Jour with her Siamese cat, Roxy, and her tawny owl, Rose. She saw her best friends, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Seamus Finnegan, Dean Thomas, and Ginny Weasley often.

Harry was playing professional Quidditch for Puddlemere United. The team was made up almost entirely of Gryffindor alumni. Oliver Wood played Keeper. Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, and Katie Bell played Chasers. The Weasley twins owned Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, so they weren't playing, but the Puddlemere United Beaters, Elyse de la Torre and Jason Gandalf, were entirely capable. Harry was Witch Weekly's "Hottest Wizard Bachelor" for three years running but had yet to move past casual flings into a serious relationship.

Ron Weasley was in an Auror-in-training. Ever since Harry's (rather showy and spectacular) defeat of Voldemort in their sixth year at Hogwarts, there hadn't been too much demand for them. There were the occasional run-ins with smalltime witches or wizards practicing Dark Arts, but other than that. . . . it was still a good job for Ron, though. It taught him to channel his anger and had turned him into a finely-tuned, well-muscled machine. To everyone's immense surprise, last month he had announced he was dating Modern Witch columnist Padma Patil.

Ginny. Virginia Weasley, as she now went by, was a model for Gladrags Wizard Wear. In her fourth year, she'd gone from cute to beautiful and had outgrown her little crush on Harry. Now she was a sassy, charming almost-twenty-one-year-old and still one of Hermione's best friends. She, like Harry, had the occasional fling but didn't date exclusively.

Dean Thomas was actually playing Muggle football for his "dream team," West Ham United. He lived in a Muggle developement during football season and shared a flat with his best friend, Seamus Finnegan, during the off-season. He was practically engaged to a pretty Korean-American woman named Kristi Cho.

Seamus was-- Hermione fought the uncontrollable urge to laugh, as she always did when she thought of him-- the bass player in the wizarding band Bordering On Silence. He was featured in nearly every magazine catered towards teen witches and changed girlfriends more than most people changed shirts.

Yes, life after school wasn't at all what she had expected. . . . but it was enjoyable.

Hermione didn't know that a problem that could rip her entire perfect universe apart was lurking quietly just around a corner.