The Birthday Girl

The Birthday Girl

On Margate Sands.

I can connect

Nothing with nothing.

The broken fingernails of dirty hands.

My people humble people who expect

Nothing.

la la

(T.S Eliot, The Fire Sermon (from The Wasteland, 1922))

It was with no small level of self-pity that Hermione Granger found herself celebrating her twenty-first birthday alone in a miserable Muggle nightclub. It was also with no small level of gratitude that she realised how lucky she was to have entered legal adulthood three years before without the lure of Muggle friends to drag her into these dismal cesspools of the human existence, not that she would've detested it any less then either.

She didn't know what she hated more: the flashing lights, the cheesy Eurovision-esque DJ up on the second floor who had no concept of keeping his trousers above his knees, let alone musical rhythm, or the ball-scratching lothario currently trying to worm his way into her pants. He was one of the pitiful benefactors of the ancient art of nepotism, it seemed - his father was a shipping magnate, and according to this idiot, who called himself 'Brendan', he worked in logistics, which essentially meant that he put things into boxes and then counted said boxes. Whilst being paid an exorbitant sum for it.

"So, like, I was finking that, like, youse and me could hook up or something," he said, waving a rum and coke in a very would-be nonchalant manner. "We could get a room or something and get freaky or whatever."

"Pardon?"

"Youse is hot, Harriet."

"Hermione." It was clearly time to upgrade her vodka and tonic to a Long Island Ice Tea.

"Whatever. We can get a hotel room, like the best one or something. I've got money so I could afford it."

"Maybe not tonight - see, I promised some friends that I'd meet up with them later on."

"Maybe your friends could come along, heh, like it would be hot, like."

She shuddered, feeling the sudden urge to scrub herself with a scouring cloth. An overwhelming desire to hex away whatever there was of his reproductive organs overcame her, and she clenched her glass tightly, biting down on a piece of ice to distract her mouth from uttering a spell which could be activated with the wand slipped down the leg of her jeans.

"So, like, what do you do?" He leant in so close while he said this that she could feel the alcohol burning away at the small hairs on the back of her neck.

"I work full time."

"Oh yeah, like in a little clothes shop or something?"

"No." She closed her eyes, meditating for a split second to regain her composure and prevent herself from committing a crime which would result in free accommodation at the local Muggle police watch-house. "I'm a secretary for a government department."

"Oh yeah? That's nice. You wouldn't get paid much for that, would you?"

"No. I don't."

"Oh." He drained the rest of his drink, and pulled her closer to him. "That's okay, cos I could always buy you whatever you like, if you'd be my girl, baby."

"It's all right - I have a boyfriend, I really shouldn't--" She left out at the end that she'd had a screaming match with said boyfriend two days ago which resulted in aforementioned boyfriend going quiet and heading 'over to a mate's place for a couple of days to sort things out'. More than ever, she felt regret and frustration, and even the mere presence of this cretin exaggerated how much she missed him.

"He won't know, baby, come on, I know how to please a woman. Come on, baby... come back to my place, baby..."

"I'm right." She checked the non-existent watch on her forearm, and raised her eyebrows until they disappeared into her bushy fringe. "Gosh, it's eleven already - I said I'd be meeting people at ten!"

"Don't leave me, baby - come on, I'll buy you a drink."

"No, I really ought--"

"Come on, baby! I need this!"

She pulled her arm out of his grip, and looked angrily at him, hoisting up the neckline of her top and wishing she'd worn something less revealing.

"Are you always this stupid, or is it just an alcohol inflicted problem?"

He threw his arm around her, and immediately she was suffocated by the strength of his cologne. "See, that's what I like about youse - you're smart and you use big words. I like big words too."

"Oh yes? What big words do you like to use?"

"Um..." He pondered, his eyes glazing over, and Hermione used his momentary use of cognitive processing to break free and duck into the relative safety of the moshing hoards. Not that she liked the ravers much more, as she found herself getting hit in the cheek by the glowstick hanging around the neck of a skinny white boy with purple hair. Ravers were living proof of the evolutionary notion that the weak and stupid would be picked off before they had the chance to breed another generation, thereby guaranteeing the decline of their existence, and looking at the dead faces and drug-fucked movements of those around her made her long for a much faster version of Darwinism.

Fuck this, she thought. I'm a quarter of the way through my natural life span and life sucks the big one this much already? Hell with this - I'd rather be in bed by midnight on my twenty-first than endure another second of this useless... fucking... irrelevance.

She pushed her way through the crowds, her feet getting trampled on in the impossibly high fuck-me shoes she was wearing, her toes numb and the skin on her ankles getting worn away. Breaking free of the last sweaty imbecile on the dance floor, she pushed her way past the throngs lining up to get in. She stumbled out past them, feeling constricted by everything attached to her - her jeans, her shoes (an ill-thought out purchase to wear to Ginny's eighteenth which had sat at the back of her cupboard for over two years), the strapless top clinging to her with sweat and struggling for a no-doubt humiliating trip south. She stumbled along the footpath, angry that her life had taken this turn, and annoyed that she wasn't drunk enough to have an excuse for stumbling.

la la

Every evening when he got off work, the first thing Remus Lupin did was shower. It wasn't that his work was physically strenuous, or even unhygienic (well, it was to a certain extent), but he felt himself so physically and mentally unclean that not even a one hour soak in scalding water with industrial strength soap would scrub away at the layers of filth that he felt accumulate during the course of a shift.

The first day he'd worked there he vomited out of disgust against the exterior wall of the premises, shameful that he'd sunk so low that of all the jobs in the world he'd had to accept a Muggle job of this nature. A Muggle job was bad enough for a wizard of any breed, but this line of work in particular was so reviled that even the Muggles themselves thought lowly of whomever would deign to this position. Though it'd taken many weeks to become desensitised to the clientele and his environment, it still didn't prevent the absolute shame he felt every week when Randall, the ratty little German-Singaporean owner, pressed a clammy bundle of Sterling currency into his hand - barely enough to cover rent, wolfsbane and food, and he long ago decided to forgo heating money in favour of alcohol to deaden the feeling of dread that filled his stomach each morning with the prospect of another day of work. He stepped out onto the pavement, grateful for the fresh air that smelled less of the dried semen of the store and laden with the heady smell of beer from the pub on the corner.

The usual crowd was out in force that night - the man with the miniskirt stretched tightly across his hips, the feminine eyeshadow not enough to draw attention away from the five o'clock shadow; the seventeen year old girls flashing their chests and sad eyes at him as he passed; the spaced-out zombies who reeked of urine and sweat, carrying every possession they owned with them in chequered canvas bags.

He'd long ago pulled away from the wizarding world when he realised he couldn't associate himself with the people who would classify people by how strong their blood ties were. It wasn't something he'd woken up one day and decided, but rather something that had grown like a pearl in an oyster for many years, the grit of it all irritating him until it built up into a hard, unbreakable little object of hatred and shame at his own heritage. He would never have fathomed, then, the absolute depravity of the Muggle world he would hide himself in; the community he found himself in was casteless in a sense, but it had it's own strange hierarchy. The vicious pimps and thugs were at the top of the food chain, the children who were doubtlessly abused and utilised by the pimps at the very bottom. It was a world where he fortunately didn't have a place on the feudal system, which was the only saving grace: comparatively, he was no worse than them, though that was nothing to brag about. Plain and simple, they couldn't judge him for being a monster without being hypocritical, and if there was one thing the people in the Grotto weren't, it was hypocritical. They had the same low standards for themselves that they held for everyone else.

Tonight was just the shitty culmination of an even shittier day, however, and obliteration would have to start from within. The pub on the corner was looking like an excellent choice - for one, it was never crowded on a Saturday night, and it was also dirt cheap, as a result of the push from the local sub-poverty economy. Enough to drink to vomit out every bit of his insides, and then he'd stumble home to scrub himself clean. Cleansed on the inside and out.

"Rough day?" Andy of the Pavement. Andy, who'd suffered bipolar for twenty years, and who hadn't received treatment in ten. He sat out the front of the pub, knew most of the locals by name, if not by face.

"I'll say."

"Saw police go into the shop Wednesday. What was that all about?"

"A customer wouldn't leave. He got violent."

"Yeah? He hurt you?"

"No. Damaged the stock. Not that I care about it. He could've set the place ablaze and I wouldn't have cared."

"True, eh." He tilted his head over Lupin's shoulder, nodding. "Blimey, she looks a bit lost, doesn't she? Not a regular around here I don't think."

He turned around to see an angry looking young girl in a pretty top and high heels stumbling along the footpath across the road, uncomfortable and frightened looking. Though her face was made up beyond the point of recognition, it was the sheer height and breadth of her hair that tipped off something in his memory.

"Hermione? Hermione Granger?"

Though he knew that she probably wouldn't appreciate being yelled at from across the street in the most dangerous part of London, he knew his district well enough to know that she didn't belong, and shouldn't be here. She turned around, confused at first and squinting in his direction. She raised her eyebrows in recognition, and glancing both ways, crossed the road to meet him.

"Professor?"

There was something distinctly seedy in meeting up with your former teacher in the red-light district on a Saturday night, and the awkwardness in her voice signalled it. He smiled what he hoped was his least seedy smile, trying in earnest to look like he himself was ill-at-ease and lost.

"What are you doing here?"

She scratched her head, looking away embarrassedly. "Just... I don't know, looking for somewhere to apparate home. Tonight's been a dead loss."

"Where are Harry and Ron?"

She bit her lower lip, and he immediately felt guilty for pressing the issue. "They didn't want to come out tonight. Exams tomorrow and stuff, I suppose."

"Right." She was still averting his gaze, and he felt awkward and stupid just standing around and not actually saying anything. "So, how are you doing?"

"All right, I suppose. It's my birthday today."

"Oh? Happy birthday. How old are you?"

"Twenty one."

It was only for a fraction of a second, but he caught a glimpse at how depressed she was with being out alone on her twenty-first. All his friends were dead, or in prison, for his twenty-first, and it was one of the most miserable nights of his life. "Happy... happy birthday."

"Yeah." She laughed a very, very fake laugh, and scratched her nose. "Great birthday so far."

"I was about to go in and have a drink here, I just finished work... would you like to come on in? I mean, I'm an old fart and all, but I wouldn't like to think that a dirty old man didn't buy you a drink for your twenty-first birthday."

"Look, it's all right, you don't have to--"

"No, I mean it. Come on. I'm not going to slip anything into your drink, unless you're into that kind of thing."

"You don't have to do it because you feel sorry for me, you know, I don't really care--"

"You're coming in. It's decided." He leant in close to her, whispering now. "There's a loo round the back where you can apparate out of here too, save you the cab fare."

She looked about apprehensively, peering in through the grimy windows. "All right. Just for a bit."

He pushed the door open, stepping aside to let her in. The smoke immediately overwhelmed her as the freshness of the air inside plummeted, and her eyes watered, her throat constricting as she coughed a little. A long bar lined the window, lit by green lampshades drilled into the window frames. A piano sat dusty at the far end of the room, the crackling lacquer punctuated by cigarette burns and a long scratch. A cigarette machine was the brightest source of light, which stood perpendicular to the Bar Proper - manned only by a stumpy woman with overdyed blond hair.

"Nice place. Reckon I might get married here," Hermione said sarcastically.

"I see you're planning on a flashy wedding then."

She laughed, despite herself. He strode to the bar, the blond woman looking over to him.

"Usual tonight?"

"Not tonight, thanks. What are you up for? My shout tonight."

Hermione squinted at the bottles behind the bar. Either the bartender was very fond of Pimms, or she didn't know how to mix anything else. "Vodka cranberry?"

"Fresh ou' of cranb'ry juice, love. Anythin' else yeh want?"

"Just get us a jug of Johnny and soda then," Lupin said as he fumbled through a tatty old wallet for a fiver. "We'll be over by the windows." He lead her over, weaving through a maze of tall tables and stools. "Sorry bout that. You will drink scotch, won't you?"

"Suppose so, haven't really had it much before."

"It's all right. Not very sweet though, as you can imagine."

"That's all right." It wasn't, really - as a typical female, Hermione hesitated to drink anything with less than forty per cent sucrose content. But a drink was a drink, and as long as it left her unable to remember the night it was damn near good enough for her. "So, you seen anyone from the Order lately?"

"Nope. Don't plan on it. Talked to Kingsley a bit on the train a while ago, but nothing much. How's everyone getting on?"

The jug was placed on the bar, two grimy tumblers set beside it. She pulled one of the glasses out from the other and poured herself one. "They're all right, I suppose. Hestia Jones is getting married in May to that David bloke."

"Oh, that's nice."

"Yeah, should be, they've got a rose theme, nice invitations and all. Oh, did you hear? They took Moody into Saint Mungo's a couple of weeks ago, they thought he'd had a stroke."

"Oh? How's he getting on now?"

"Fine. Just a panic attack." She sipped the scotch and soda, coughing a little as the Johnny burnt the back of her throat. "So what are you doing now, Lupin?"

"Not a lot, just work, mostly. Not keeping up with my correspondence, obviously."

"Hmm." She sipped it a bit more, feeling more and more awkward. "You work full time?"

"Yeah. You?"

She snorted as she recklessly downed the rest of her drink. "You want to know where I work? It's the pits, it really is. I work as the secretary for the Junior Undersecretary."

"Oh yeah? Who've they got now?"

"Draco Malfoy."

He looked at her quizzically. "No offense, but why on earth would he give you a job?"

"To lord it over me that he got a great job despite his terrible NEWT scores. It's horrible. Did you know that he spells 'legislation' with a J?"

At that, Lupin laughed, choking on his drink. "That's horrible! I'm so sorry for you Hermione. How did that little spiv get a job that doesn't involve the phrase 'would you like chips with that'?"

"I have no idea, I really don't. Do you have any idea how horrible it is to have an overseer who's uneducated, thoroughly unqualified and only got the job because his father apparently gives fantastic oral sex to a lot of important people?"

"No." He crunched down on a bit of ice, letting it swirl and dissolve on his tongue. "But I'm sure that a lot of Americans feel how you do."

"Pardon?"

"Never mind, it's a Muggle thing. You do realise that you're in a fantastic position to make a difference, however."

"How? I'm addressed as 'Mudblood' and 'Girl'. He won't even listen to me when I explain how to order stationery."

"You are in a prime position to slip poison into his coffee."

She raised her now-refilled glass, and he chinked his empty one against hers. "Mr Lupin, sir, you have no idea how much comfort that idea brings."

"Go on, you should do it, really. Even old Snape would cough up and give you some poison, or at the very least some drain cleaner."

"Yeah. Maybe I should ask him. Jesus, that would be perfect - my social life involving conversing with Severus Snape."

"You're excited already, face it."

She giggled, and poured herself another scotch. It went down far better a couple of drinks down the line. "Oh, I am."

"Perchance to dream, isn't it?"

"Abso-fucking-lutely." She cringed inwardly at her choice of words.

"You swore. Hermione Granger, swearing? I don't believe it if I ever saw it."

"I'm such a foul-mouthed hussy."

"You horrid child. Have another glass of Johnny."

la la

Further down the line that night, when the pitcher had been drunk and their moods at all-time highs, one of them (though neither recollected it too well) suggested that tequila shots were the order of the day, it being Hermione's twenty-first and all and a thoroughly horrid day to boot. The other must've acquiesced, because the old blond bartender (who was looking more and more ravishing by the minute) had dropped a bottle of the slightly yellowing liquid down on the bar in front of them, a pitiful little grub stirred up from the bottom.

"Is tequila meant to be so yellow, Lupin?"

"Oh, god no. This is just special tequila. See? Made in Guatemala. It's not even proper Mexican stuff. It's special because it cost me six quid, and it's special because you, missy, are a tequila virgin."

"You're horribly improper with your former student, sir. And is six quid cheap?"

"Hush. Criminally cheap. Now, here is the imperative question: are you a lime girl, or a lemon girl?"

She paused, exaggeratedly humming and herring. "Well, I don't know."

"Well, what do you have in your gin and tonic?"

"I don't know, lemon, I suppose."

"Well lemon it is. I'm a lime person, see? Now, grab the little salt jar - careful! I just poured that!"

"Oops!" She hoisted her top again, noticing that the heat generated from her alcohol consumption had produced enough sweat to drag her top down. "Sorry, sir."

"Don't call me 'sir'. Now, hold your hand out like that, flexing your thumb just a little." He manoeuvred her thumb back slightly, the tendons lining her snuffbox jutting out. He poured a little salt into the depression, the canister shaking with his impaired judgement.

"This might be the best birthday I've ever had, you know that? Harry and Ron are so boring, it's always a lager, or a cider, or a bloody rum and coke. No adventures. You'd think that pair would be raring for a bit of fucking variety every now and again, but no, they're boring as sin with their alcohol."

"If I lead the kind of life they did, I know I'd be doing shots far more often. All right - take the shot - don't be silly, it's not going to bloody kill you, girlie - all right. You remember the procedure?"

"Shot, salt, lemon?"

"Right. It can be varied slightly, whereby you have your lemon before your salt, or your salt before your tequila, but that's generally agreed by myself to be the best method. Ready?" With his left hand, he raised his own shooter, and she raised her own, looking a lot more apprehensive than he was. "Down the hatch."

She shotted, and immediately felt regretful. The tequila was strong, greasy and foul, and she immediately felt like throwing it up again. She dipped her head down to suck the salt off her snuffbox, and bit into the lemon, the sourness refreshing and comforting. Opening her teary eyes again, she saw Lupin chuck the sucked lime rind down onto the countertop victoriously. "Glory, Hermione. We will be vainglorious this evening, believe me."

"Glory being three shots?"

He opened his eyes in shock at her. "Three shots? My god, love, you are a virgin. This whole bottle had better be empty by the time we leave tonight, or else I'll be right disappointed in you."

"Join the fucking queue. Everyone else is."

"Oh? Why would they be disappointed in you? You're doing tequila shots. You've already earned a spot in my good books, and believe me when I say it's hard to do that these days."

"You know. Twelve NEWTs, head girl, and look at me, working as some shitty secretary for -hic!- a little spiv who got three NEWTs and not a whole lot of respect."

"Don't you remember what I told you all those years ago?"

"Not to trust homebrewed absinthe?"

"Well, apart from that. What I said about how you do in school meaning absolutely sweet fuck all once you get into the real world. At least you have a job three years out of school. I was on the fuckin' Wizard dole. That's pathetic. That's not even enough to pay rent in a dive on the East side. I couldn't live in fucking Slough on that kind of money. But why on earth didn't you go into further learning - like, I don't know, learning to be a healer, or even a bloody accountant? Anything's better than working as Malfoy's monkey."

"Well he wasn't my boss, originally, because -hic!- when I left school I had not one clue as to what to do with my life. My parents suggested I get a job, so I did, four months before Haddox was fired and Malfoy took over as Junior Undersecretary. And since then I still haven't figured out what I want to be, and I'm not up for wasting time to find out. Oh, why didn't I -hic!- listen to you then?"

"Because you're an idealist, love. That's a nasty habit to get into, idealism."

She giggled, only half-heartedly fixing her top this time. "Stop calling me love, you know. That's -hic!- sexual harassment, you know, I could have you done in."

"Sorry."

"And anyway, you are right, and I was stupid for not listening to you then." She picked up another shooter, a little less fearfully this time, downing it and shaking her head violently afterwards. "God, that's stupid. Who in their right mind thinks that you actually get a decent job with decent marks and an unblemished record?"

"Stupid people, that's who. Actually, I lie. It's the stupid ones that get the good jobs. The smart ones never get all-right jobs because they're too fucking critical of everything, and can see things for what they are, and people don't like that."

"What, independent thought?"

"Precisely." He picked up a slice of her lemon randomly, biting down into the juicy yellow tendons and wincing. "All right, cough it up. It's September. Harry and Ron aren't going to be studying for any exams. Where are they?"

"Ron's staying at Dean's and Seamus'."

"Why?"

"Had a fight last night. I don't know, I can't bloody even remember what we fought about now."

"Let me guess. He did something that you wouldn't have done simply because it was so obviously stupid, and his total lack of common sense was just an affront to you?"

She stared at him through the hazy atmos of the room. "How'd... fair enough. Yeah. He organised to go out with Dean tonight, completely forgetting about my birthday."

"Ah huh."

"I mean, why are people so stupid and thoughtless? It doesn't take a lot of effort to check a calendar or ask a question or something, you know, it's just so frustrating when--"

"--People don't think the way you do and do stupid stuff without thinking?"

She nodded. "Yeah, exactly. How do you--"

"You want to know something I've never told anyone before? All right, don't get offended by this or anything, because it's nothing bad, or anything, but when I first taught you back in the days, you shat me off so much, you really did."

A bit of breath caught in her throat, and she blinked. "I... why?"

"It wasn't that you were a bad kid or anything, or that you were stupid, it's just that as a teacher it was so frustrating to have a student try to dominate the class so much, you know? There were a whole heap of times where I just wanted to tell you to pipe down to let someone else speak, it was just... I don't know."

"Oh. Sorry."

"I haven't finished yet. I think I realised what the problem actually was when I quit teaching. I think that I saw so much of myself in you - you remember that night I told you that?"

She nodded weakly, feeling a little ashamed and humbled. "Yeah."

"And for some odd reason, that whole issue just stuck in my mind for ages until one day I got so pissed off at Sirius being a fuckwit that I realised what you must've felt. I get it now."

"Oh?" She leant forward, resting her head on her chin, her cleavage slowly worming its way out of the stretchy fabric. "You think you know me?"

"Well, not in that sense, but I can sort of get where you're coming from. See, you're problem is that you are smart. You're above everyone else in a phenomenal way, and the way you think just planes far above the norm. And that's were you get frustrated, because everyone else is so comparatively fucking stupid that you can't understand them, and you get frustrated, and you can't rise above it. Fuck, I was so similar to that when I was growing up, I was so bored and stifled that it was a breath of fresh air to meet people that were smart and sharp and fucking invigorating like James and Sirius. See where I'm coming from?"

She blushed a little, tucking a strand of hair back into the pin on the side of her head. "I'm not--"

"No, you are, believe me. And it's not that Ron or Harry are stupid either, because they're pretty with-it kids considering the shit they've had to put up with, but it's that you just can't tolerate anyone doing anything different to you because it's just not logical."

"I love them both, I really do, but... shit, you should be a detective. It's just... god, what am I going to say to Ron tomorrow?"

"Well, what do you want to say to him?"

"I want to tell him he's the biggest fucking idiot I've ever met, and that he needs to get his life into gear and stop mooching about and actually become a curse-breaker once and for all. But I mean... I don't want to hurt his feelings, or anything, I just--"

"Here's a suggestion." He poured a little salt onto a slice of lemon, and tore the flesh from the skin. "Don't tell him to get his life into gear. No matter how nicely you do it, it's not going to work for him, and it's not going to make you happy in the long-run either. It's his life, love. Just let it slide."

"But..."

"If he told you to get your life into order, what would you say back to him?"

"Probably tell him where he can get off."

"Exactly. So don't tell him anything."

Hermione sighed, propping her head up in her palm. "He'll never learn," she said quietly, bending a lemon rind in half and watching the oils pop from the tiny pores in the skin.

"My god, no wonder working for Malfoy is hell for you."

"It is." She reached for the bottle, her vision cloudy and her arms weak, and poured the tumbler she used for the scotch half-full of tequila. "Can I tell you a secret?" He nodded at her, and she sipped at the tequila, hardly tasting it, thought feeling it coat her tongue. "I... well, it's not that I've done anything or anything, it's just that I don't know if Ron should find out or not."

"Go on."

"Well..." She laughed, nervously. "It was just one night after work, I had to send off a couple of last minute owls and I was just running behind, so I thought it would be all right if I took them into... you know, his office, and... um.. he was there, um, with this other guy. Can't remember his name, he would've been in the year below us in Slytherin. And anyway, I dropped them on his desk just explaining how to sign them so he could send them off himself when he was done, and I turned to walk out..." She picked up her glass, and sculled the contents, her eyes watering and her throat constricting.

"What happened?"

"He told me to stop on my way out of the room, told me that there were new uniform procedures coming into place and that this other guy was the admin officer in charge of it, and that he needed to verify something. It was... um, well, he told me to walk over to him. So I asked him what it was about, and he said that he needed to check that... um.. fuck."

"You don't have to keep going if you don't want to."

"No, no, I think I need to tell someone, it's not that... um... he... well, he said he needed to check that I was wearing the regulation underwear, which had to be white and plain. And I said to him that it was none of his business, and he said back that it was or it was my job, so I told him that I was wearing white underwear, and he said that it wasn't enough that I say it, but that I had to show this other guy to verify it, and I said that I didn't think that was very appropriate and--"

"Stop."

"--he had me lift up my skirt and--"

"Stop." He slowly wrenched the glass out of her hands, moving the bottle out of her range. "When did this happen?"

"Last Tuesday. Because Tuesday we get in all the reports from the other departments and I need to owl them back with his signature."

"Have you told anyone else about this?"

"Like who?"

He leant in close to her. "Tell Ron. Or Harry. Or even Arthur Weasley. What he did... fucking..."

"What can they do? Arthur's on thin enough ice as it is at the Ministry - nobody else can fill his job, but his pay's been cut back so much that--" She lowered her head into her arms, sobbing heavily and not noticing that her top by now had finally slid down over her chest, revealing a fraying strapless bra. Lupin sighed, and leant in close to her.

"Your top, love."

She coughed, pulling it up and wiping her nose on her hand. "I've never felt so disgusting in my entire life."

"It's not your fault."

"Oh god--"

"You want me to give him what for, bit of a good old fashioned rough-up?"

She laughed, the laughter dissolving into sobs soon after. "I can't do it any more."

"Then quit."

She looked up at him, rubbing her eyes on a damp serviette nearby. "What? How, I--"

"Love, there's earning money, and there's dignity - dignity which you don't have at your job, and dignity which he never had in the first place. Believe me when I say that the latter is worth infinitely more than the former. You might be a bit broke for a couple of weeks until you find a new job, but you'll never regret it, I can assure you now."

"What if he doesn't give me a decent reference?"

"So bloody what?! He's Draco Malfoy - any wizard worth his salt isn't going to think much of what he has to say, and any that do... well, that's an indication that you probably shouldn't work for them anyway."

"I don't know..." She reached over for the bottle and her glass, but he pushed them further away from her. She crossed her arms, wiping the mascara from under her eyes. "It's not that bad, really."

"Hermione, there's a litmus test to determine whether you should quit your job. That litmus test is one question long - 'is your boss Draco Malfoy'? If you answer yes, then you should most definitely quit your job."

She started laughing again, not noticing her top slipping down again. "Yeah, well. I'll think about it." She looked into his eyes, biting her lower lip and tucking her hair behind her ear. "Thanks. You're good to talk to."

"Anytime, love."

la la

She was giggly and girly and silly - not the Hermione who soberly pressed her lips together harshly in disapproval at the slightest semblance of misbehaviour. This was that same Hermione, plus half a litre of tequila, minus half a tonne of self control, with the same nagging self-hatred, and it equalled a messy melange of a human being. She was now at the stage where she assumed that she could tell him everything and anything about herself, in part due to her previous confession and in part to her level of inebriation.

"You know I... shit." She picked up the little shot glass she knocked over, setting it down on the table but leaving her fingers to linger on it. "You know I fucked Harry a while ago?"

"Hermione, should you be telling me all this stuff now?"

"It's all right, most people know about it, even Ron knows, but it was before we got together, see. You know, just one of those one night things."

"Would you like a glass of water?"

"No, no, I'm right. He's not bad, you know - Harry, I mean - a lot of fun if you ask me. All these girls queuing up to be the famous Harry Potter's girlfriend, I didn't even have to do that--"

"No, I think you need some water. Barbara--" he called in the direction of the bartender, "a jug of water, ta."

"What about you, Professor..." She burst into a fit of giggles, swaying on her stool. "You got a girlfriend at the moment?"

"No, not right now."

"Oh." She sat up straighter, blinking a bit more in an attempt to flutter her eyelashes. "Why not?"

"Not really in the market, I suppose. Don't really want a girlfriend, and I don't have the opportunity to go out and meet many people."

"Oh. Well maybe you should, you know, because you're not ugly or anything. I bet there'd be tonnes of women out there just chomping at the bit to go out with you, you're a really good listener. Ron's not a very good listener, you know, he kinda just tunes out after a bit."

The bartender set the jug on the table, looking intently at Hermione. "She's lookin' a bit green around the gills, in't she?"

"She'll be fine, I've got her."

"Oh, bet you do," she said as she ran a dirty old rag over the bench in front of them. As she left, Hermione broke into another fit of giggles, staring over her shoulder at the older woman quite indiscretely.

"Are you all right?"

"What? Oh, god yeah, having a ball! Listen, thank you SO MUCH for inviting me out tonight, Lupin, I don't know what I would've done without you."

"Gone home and not told me lots of silly stuff, I'll bet."

"No, no, it would've been way worse than that!"

"I doubt it," he said as he sucked on the dregs of his ice.

"You know, you are kind of handsome, you know."

He stared at her, disbelieving and concerned. "Hermione, what are you talking about?"

She leant her chin on her knuckles, looking up at him. "You know. I think you're all right." She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. "What if it doesn't work out all right with Ron?"

"Think about what you're saying. You're drunk."

"You don't like me?"

"It's not that..." He grabbed at her chin as it plummeted toward the table, lifting it up to look her in the eyes. "You're my former student, and about fifty years younger than me to boot. You have a boyfriend, you're drunk, you're upset, and you're confusing commiseration with flirting. It has nothing to do with me liking you in that way or not."

"Oh. But do you? Come on, I won't tell."

"I'm not really in the frame of mind to like anyone at the moment."

"So does that mean--"

"That's as much as I'm going to say on the matter. It's nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me."

"Sorry."

"Don't be sorry."

"No, I am, I'm really, really--"

He caught her chin again as her head slipped from her knuckles, and lay her head down on the table gently. "Do you want me to take you home now?"

"No, no, too early."

"You're going to be really hung over in the morning."

"Doesn't matter. Don't care."

"You will then."

She blinked slowly, folding her arms and readjusting her head. "Have I embarrassed myself tonight?"

"Horribly. But I'm not going to tell anyone."

"Oh no, Lupin, I--"

"Shh. Settle. Everyone gets drunk and stupid, all right? It's not something that's uniquely Hermione Granger."

"Oh my god, what's Ron going to think of me?"

"I won't tell him a thing."

"Good." She pushed the little shot glass in front of her across the table, tipping it side to side as if it were dancing. "You haven't told me what you do for a job yet, you know?"

"What?"

"I've nattered on all fucking night about what I do, tell us about your job."

"Not a lot to tell, I just work at a shop doing counterwork, basically. Nothing very taxing."

"Oh? Whereabouts do you work?"

"Just down the road from here."

"Oh yeah, which place?"

"Oh, one of them, can't remember--"

"Bullshit you can't remember. As if you can't remember where you work."

"All right then, I don't want to remember where I work."

"C'mon." She wrenched her top upwards, pressing her arms in close to exaggerate her cleavage. "Tell us, I won't tell Harry or Ron or anyone."

"Are you all right to apparate back to your place?"

"Oh, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, I'm fine, I'm really fine. You're not leaving yet, are you?"

"It's getting a bit late, Hermione, I've been working since eight this morning."

"Come on, just a bit longer? So come on, tell me about your job, do you sell clothes, do you--"

He tossed a sucked piece of lemon to the bartop, and scraped his stool out. "It's getting late, I'm heading off, maybe you should think about apparating back to your place soon..."

She grabbed at him, her stool swaying precariously. "No, serious, why won't you tell me? It's not like I work at a place that's any better... I work for The Spiv, remember?"

He pulled away from her, walking towards the door. She slid off her chair, and followed him as quickly as her stiletto heels would allow her. "Why won't you tell me? Don't you trust me? I told you everything about me,that would be--"

"Hermione, would you stop, all right?" He grabbed her by the arms, keeping her at a distance from him. "You have no idea, you have no... idea..."

"It can't be all that bad." She hiccupped, and clung onto him. "You're -hic- you know, I think I really need a good shag. You know? Maybe that's just -hic- the case, don't you find--"

"Go home, Hermione, you don't want to know about it."

"Come on! Please? Pretty please? You're being awfully unfair, you know, it's my birthday, I've told you everything, don't do this--"

"Good night, Hermione." He turned on his heels and walked away from her, but she toddled toward him as fast as she could, clinging to the back of his shirt and protesting drunkly. "Why do you need to know? Will it make your life any better to know?"

"C'mon, just let me know, I haven't seen you or heard from you in so long and... don't be a fucking pussy about it, why aren't you showing me?"

"You really want to see where I work, do you?" He grabbed her roughly by the arm and dragged her out of the bar, not hearing her squeal in protest, not noticing that she was tripping over in her blistering shoes. "Fine. You can see all you like. All you fucking like." He pulled her about five hundred yards in silence, people on the street either trying not to notice her protests or too far gone to do so. She tripped a little, but he didn't let up, dragging her further until he stopped outside a dingy shop-front with blackened-out windows and plastic fringing hanging over a door frame.

"Do you want to go in there?" It was less a question than a directive, and noticing a condom wrapper on the pavement, she shook her head, fearful that she'd guessed the gist of his line of work despite the liquor coursing through her veins. "Come on. You wanted to see, you see." He released her arm, the patches of skin where he had clenched at her white and bloodless. He nodded in the direction of the door frame, a sick, resigned look on his face. She swallowed a lump of bile at the back of her throat and followed him into the darkness behind the plastic fringing.

The feelings that overcame her next were slightly foreign to her; she'd only felt them once before when she'd seen a strange woman leaving her house as a child; that weird, disbelieving horror that only comes from realising that your parents are only adults, only seedy, seedy adults, adults who are not acting in the way that proper parents should by not thinking of what it does to the children. Lit only by a dim blue bulb, the contents of the freakish grotto were revealed -

"You--"

He gestured around the room wildly. "Are you happy now? Would you like to know more? Would you like to know the details of how I have to clean out the viewing booths, or the condition of the magazines when they're returned--"

"Stop!" She staggered on her heels, and he reached out an arm, far more gently than before, to steady her, but she pushed him away. "This is disgusting, how do you--"

"This is the only job I can get. No wizard will hire a werewolf, and no Muggle company will hire anyone with my lack of experience. They don't care if I don't turn up to work of a full moon. I just walk in, stay, make sure nobody steals anything and they give me money for it."

"I want... get me out, please, get me out..."

He nodded a small nod, and headed her to the door. She pulled her top up as far as it could go, and wrapped her arms around her torso as if trying to deflect the vision of invisible men from her chest. He stepped out beside her, hands shoved into his pockets shamefully.

"I told you, Hermione. I told you that you wouldn't like it."

"Oh god.. oh... oh..."

"If it's any consolation to you, I hate it."

She looked at him, half desiring to pummel him with fists for showing him what he did, and half desiring to wrap her arms around him, as if that were enough to lessen the brunt of what he must've born daily. "Oh."

"Every single day I have to look at the absolute scum of humanity walking in there and leave with the foulest things. I have to smell these people who want nothing more to see people humiliated and degraded and shat on. I see people get into fucking fights about this stuff. It's disgusting. There's no art, there's no dignity, there's no love of fucking beauty or grace or goodness. All I see are filthy lonely people who are so unpleasant they repel everyone around them, and I feel sad and like I want to kill them at the same time."

She nodded, the wind blowing a piece of gelled hair into her mouth. She swept it away, avoiding his eyes which were trying to bore their way into hers. "How do you..."

He turned on his heels and raced back up the stairs, returning a few moments later with a thin paperback. Selected Poems, T.S Eliot - Faber Paper Covered Edition. "I read. I read every day I'm in there. I've read Dickens, I've read Austen, Pope, Milton, Joyce, Yeats. I've read everything I own twice since I started working here. I hide them under the carpet so the manager doesn't catch me."

"Couldn't you talk to Dumbledore, he could help--"

"I don't want pity. I'd rather a job like this than a job handed to me on a golden platter. It's degrading but I didn't have to degrade myself by getting it."

"You did!" She threw a weak punch at his scrawny chest which nonetheless caught him off-guard. "It's disgraceful! I... how... why do you do this? I can't even... oh God... oh God..."

Her knees wobbling, she stammered, and he grabbed her shoulders as she lurched forward. He pulled her over to a dirty bench outside the doorway, leaning her head between her knees.

"You... you were my... my teacher... and... and look what you're doing..."

He leant back on the bench, tilting his face to the sky and pressing his eyelids as closed as they could possibly go.

"Happy birthday, Hermione Granger. Fight, for God's sake, for everything you stand for, and for your dignity, and for the one you love, or you won't want to live to your next one."

la la

She woke up in a foreign bed the next morning, white walls surrounding her instead of the usual Greek blue she and Ron put up a few months before. Some time before crashing asleep she must've changed into a pair of loose shorts that definitely weren't hers, because her black jeans were lying in a puddle on the floor. She was alone in there, the other side of the less-than standard double bed neatly made, the sheets clean and well-laundered despite being threadbare.

She immediately felt something creeping up the back of her throat, and could see the colours swirling behind her eyelids. Though it was the vaguest of memories, he was right about the hangover part, and she lay as still as she could for as long as she could until the feeling behind her eyes and in her stomach passed to a somewhat tolerable level.

Slipping onto the floor, she winced when she touched cold wood instead of carpet. She reached for her jeans, shucking the shorts to the ground and struggling into the cool denim. Reaching for her hair elastic, strung onto a bedpost, she pulled her knotting hair into a slightly more civilised bun and opened the bedroom door quietly.

She was either too drunk to notice the night before, or they'd entered in total darkness, but his flat seemed much more forgiving than the places she'd been to the night before. Though her head was growing dizzy as it caught up to her motions, she noticed the little touches around the flat - no bookshelves, but rather stacks of paperbacks and hardcovers pressed between floor and ceiling like a weight-bearing wall; a kitchen with enamelled cupboards and an old set of cooking weights on the bench top; old tiles which were scrubbed so clean that the ancient mildew she could only imagine would have come with the flat was a mere grey in the grout. A green bottle that smelled strongly of nettle sat beside his sink, a measuring cup beside it. Wolfsbane. Looking out the kitchen window, she could see where he worked across the road from his flat, the exterior no less creepy in the early dawn light than it was with the pulsating blue ultra-violet glow. Her stomach had begun to catch up with her motion, and she knelt to the ground for a minute, closing her eyes and breathing deeply until she was able to open her eyes again.

Stepping into his tiny living room, she noticed him on the sofa: fully dressed, save for his shoes and belt, wrapped in a foetal position under an afghan rug, gnawing at his overbite in his sleep as though it were a loose thread. She knelt down beside him, in part due to her nausea gaining momentum, and she rested her chin on his ribcage, hearing his breath wheeze in and out of him tiredly. Suffocating on the smell of the rug, she slowly rose to her feet, deliberately inching towards the window. Pulling up the blind and pushing the window open, she knelt to the ground again, breathing the fresh air in deeply, when she noticed the bottle on his window sill. It was just an old liquor bottle - Bombay Sapphire Gin, if she could remember correctly - but it was the most beautiful thing she'd seen in the past twenty-four hours. It was the most exquisite blue, pale yet rich, and sticking out the narrow neck were a few old quills, the feathering oily from years of handling, the quicks blackened and blunt. His wand, dusty and unused, sat within the bottle, the end barely reaching the neck of the bottle, as if deliberately out of his reach. The bottle expressed everything he represented so concisely: poverty, beauty, practicality and alcoholism.

She turned back toward him, squinting in the rays of sunlight, abject pity filling her heart. She felt cruel for flirting with him, ashamed that she'd complained of so little, afraid she would, in twenty years, grow into the twisted thing he'd grown into. As she looked back out the window, the glass caught her reflection, and she could see the eyeliner and mascara etched into the fine lines under her eyes, her hair frizzy and untameable, and felt every bit as old and dirty and used as he did.

She was twenty-one years and a day old.

la la

It was nearly five o'clock the next Monday when she strode into the Undersecretary for Magic's office, carrying a beautifully calligraphied piece of parchment and a box of miscellaneous chattels. She threw the parchment down in front of the Undersecretary's pointed nose, and he frowned, his silvery blonde eyebrows narrowing into a V shape.

"Granger... what is the meaning of this?"

He held the parchment up, the words clear in peacock blue copperplate script. Dear Undersecretary, I resign as of this moment, and will not be paying attention to Clause 2B in my contract which stipulates the mandatory two-week-notice requirement. Sincerely urging you to fuck yourself, Hermione Jane Granger.

She shrugged her shoulders, unafraid of the consequences of her actions. "I don't really care much if you give me my severance package or not. Come to think of it, I don't think you can spell 'severance'."

"You... you can't... it's audit season coming up..."

"Well, I should imagine that one would have to figure out his own tax then, won't he?"

"You..." He crumpled the parchment tightly, tossing it at her. "Dirty... fucking... whore... leaving me..."

The paper hit her, and she noted with satisfaction how much she was pissing him off. "You know what, Malfoy, sir? There's earning money, and there's dignity. Dignity which I don't have here, and dignity which you never had in the first place. So I'm going to walk out this door in precisely thirty-seven seconds, and you're going to go to sleep tonight crying with your thumb stuck up your arse, upset because you now have to learn how to make yourself a cup of tea." She ignored the uncomfortable position of the box and how the fabric of her robes was straining against her shoulders: one sign of discomfort or a slip up in confidence would let him know he had a chance, and she couldn't allow that. She stood tall and proud, and turned on her heels, leaving him fuming at his desk.

Setting the box down in the hallway outside her office, she ripped her robes off her shoulders, a plain white blouse tucked into a knee-length black skirt underneath. Grabbing the box quickly again, she hastened her trip to the elevator, hoping to avoid his wrath. As the door opened to the atrium, she pushed her way through the hoards of tired wizards in black robes, feeling as though she were made of helium.

Fifteen minutes later, she found herself in a little bookstore along Vauxhall Road, perusing a shelf of classics. Smiling, she plucked a fat paperback from the shelf - A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. It was long enough that it would distract even the fastest of readers for at least a week, and lovely enough that it would make even the most depraved of environments bearable, even if only for a short time.

A gangly teenage assistant sidled up behind her, leaning over to look at her book choice. "Can I help you, madam?"

"What? Oh - no, I'm fine for now I think. Just choosing a book for a friend."

"Oh." He looked blank for a minute, bemused at the notion that people should put thought into what they read. "We have 'The Da Vinci Code' up the front, people seem to be buying that."

She shook her head, and rose from her kneeling position. "No, this is what I'm looking for. Thank you anyway, though." She handed him a freshly-exchanged tenner from her wallet, tapping her bitten fingernails against the countertop. "You must be so lucky to work around so many books?"

"What? Oh, yeah, I dunno, I don't read much."

"Oh."

He looked her up and down, raising his eyebrows. "Just a job, I guess."

She shook her head. "No, there's no such thing as 'just a job'. There's abject misery, and there's being surrounded by hundreds of books, and I know which one I'd prefer."

"They're just books, lady." He handed her the receipt and the book, a little more coldly than when he was trying to spruik to her.

"Ta." She hurried out, stepping into the throngs of London commuters who were desperately trying to make their way to the underground. Though they were rather tall, she was grateful for the thickness of her heel at this time, much more reliable than the spindly stiletto of her Saturday night shoes, and they lead her with minimal mishap to the Grotto, the nocturnal inhabitants arising and looking out into the dwindling twilight with bleary eyes.

The steps, with their blue light and smell of dried semen and beer, met her feet as she clambered up them, just a twenty-one years and two days old girl, dressed primly in a work suit and carrying a thick paperback under her arm.

end

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