Blood of Mud, Wing of Bat

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Chapter 17: Balls

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The office directly next door to Hermione's at Sibyll & Co. belonged to one Dennis Belmont, Know-It-All Consultant. Belmont had been working for Sibyll & Co. since the day of its inception. While he was very knowledgeable on nearly every subject, his particular specialties were toys and games, fashion, entertainment, visual design, advertising, and writing.

However it wasn't Belmont's encyclopaedic knowledge of media and marketing that Hermione was interested in now, but his closet.

"Oh no!" exclaimed Belmont. "Stay away, you!" He got up and tried to shut his door, but it was too late. Hermione threw her weight against it and managed to block it open with the side of her foot.

"I only wanted to ask you a quick - " she began.

"Poppycock! I know what you're really after," said Belmont, his long salt-and-pepper beard quivering. "You want to measure my closet for storing those Knowitalls, don't you!"

Hermione winced. As a matter of fact, she was trying to find a new home for the Knowitall Balls piled up in her office. She'd come in to work early specifically to avoid anyone else while she accomplished her task, but for some reason every one of her coworkers was there early too. It was very suspicious.

Hermione tried to smile innocently. "Of course not, Denny, now why would you think a thing like -"

"Aha!" he crowed, and snatched something up from the corner of his desk. It was a 15cm tall cardboard cutout of Albus Dumbledore with a little stand attached to its feet and a cartoon word balloon sticking out of its mouth. The word balloon currently said: "Yes Denny, I am desperate to unload these six pallets of product from my office so I can get some work done!"

"What in the world...?" began Hermione. The words on the balloon changed to "What the devil?"

"It's new," said Belmont. "I just picked it up last week. It's a He-Says-She-Says charm. They come in all different famous wizards. They're just like a lie detector. Say something else."

"That's very cute, Denny, but I'm serious. I just want to talk to you for a second."

The word balloon changed again: "Quit dicking me around, Denny, I need to get rid of these Knowitalls and your closet is the biggest one!"

"Oh, fudge!" said Hermione in disappointment. "Forget it then!" She removed her foot, and Belmont cackled and slammed the door in her face.

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The day, Friday, had not started out well. For one thing, it had started out in a dustbin - quite literally.

The dustbin in question was full of rotten fish and it was located behind Segal's Roost. Actually, for a fly, a dustbin was quite an enjoyable place to spend the night. It wasn't the fact that she'd spent the night in the bin that bothered Hermione, it was her reasons for doing it.

Quite frankly, she'd done it because she couldn't decide which was worse between watching Draco Malfoy suffer through a Hogwarts Board of Governors meeting or going home to a furious and irrational Ron Weasley. After circling about in indecision for a while, she'd given in to the urgings of her Animagus form and gone to check out the enticing smells emanating from the back of the restaurant.

And there she had stayed, in an avoidance even more extreme than spying on strangers.

Hermione had always tended to avoid her problems more than she should. The trouble was, hiding from problems always led to worse problems. Like hiding in the loo crying all day, only to have a full grown Mountain Troll barge in on her and start smashing the fixtures with his club. Or, she supposed, like spending 5 months desperately pretending nothing was wrong with her marriage and then having Ron Weasley barge in on her client and try to strangle him in a public restaurant.

It was time to face the facts. There was something seriously wrong with her marriage. And she and Ron were going to have to discuss it face to face, in person, and with total honesty if they were going to be able to save things.

It was enough to make anyone want to hide in a dustbin.

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Daisy Bromfiedler giggled at Hermione from across the hallway. Daisy was Sibyll & Co's newest employee. In fact, she had only started a couple of days before Hermione went on vacation so they'd barely met. As Hermione turned to look at her, Daisy grinned evilly and made crystal-ball-using motions with her hands then pointed in the direction of Trelawney's office. Hermione took that to mean that Trelawney had used Divination to predict that Hermione would be in early today to try to get rid of the back-stock and had thoughtfully warned all of her other employees.

Hermione sighed. Thanks for the support, Sibyll, she thought.

In any case, there wasn't any point in trying to foist the balls off on Daisy. As the new person Daisy had the tiniest office. She was lucky to have room to keep the Knowitalls she needed for her actual work.

What Sibyll & Co. really needed was a few extra magical store-rooms that were bigger than the building's apparent external size. Creating them was certainly technically feasible; unfortunately, the landlord was a stickler for keeping the place unaltered and had specifically forbidden it.

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She couldn't really put a finger on exactly when she'd first become aware that Ron was cheating on her.

Oh, she'd always known that Quidditch players regularly cheated on their spouses, particularly while on the road. Buxom or well-hung fans flung themselves at Quidditch players of the opposite - or even the same - gender, in a display of worshipful exuberance that Hermione had never been able to equal even in her most emotional moments. But there had been a time when she somehow thought Ron never partook of such offerings.

She remembered a time when Ron's fan mail had been a family affair, with Ron and Hermione and the twins and Christopher all sitting around the Burrow's big kitchen table chatting and giggling, passing around photos and drawings, and answering the letters.

When had that stopped?

Not the first time a fan included a nude wizard-photo of herself. No, though Ron had been furiously embarrassed, Hermione simply furious, the twins convulsed in laughter, and little Christopher, who'd opened the letter, sitting there with his mouth hanging open in astonishment. No, that time Ron and Hermione had had an argument and Ron insisted he had no idea who the woman was, and let Hermione throw the photo into the fireplace. They still opened the letters together after that, and even let Christopher help. But by the time Jude would have been old enough to help, they didn't do that together anymore.

Now Ron was famous enough that his possible infidelity was a constant source of amusement to the sleazier media types. Hermione would not be at all surprised if her blurted exclamation from the day before - "Ron does not cheat!!!" - appeared as a minor headline in the Daily Prophet's People section today.

And Ron's fan mail accumulated in sacks, which he picked up unopened and took with him when he happened to come home.

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Hermione was still on the prowl for storage space when she encountered Pat Bofow, another coworker, in the tiny closet-like space that counted as the employee break room for Sibyll & Co. It was barely big enough for two people to stand side-by-side in front of a narrow table containing a combination coffeemaker and hot water dispenser, a little display rack of different kinds of tea, and a plate of Perpetual Pastries of dubious origins. The space underneath said table was taken up with packages of toilet paper and paper handtowels, because there was no place to store those in the company's miniscule loo.

Pat Bofow was a Know-it-All Consultant and her specialty was Muggle modern artifacts, quite an impressively broad topic. She was also a perky, cheerful person who had the exasperating tendency to try to stir up trouble.

"Welcome back!" beamed Bofow when she saw Hermione. "I heard you got stiffed with the Malfoy case. Rotten luck."

Hermione would be damned if she'd let anyone else at Sibyll & Co. know she'd been suckered into her latest assignment with the old you're-the-best-witch-for-the-job line, so she put on her biggest smile. "Oh, I wanted to do it," she exclaimed with false heartiness. "I'm really enjoying the challenge."

"Really?" Bofow stared at her in a combination of mock awe and genuine disbelief. "But isn't it dreadful to work with Draco Malfoy?"

"Heavens, don't be ridiculous, Pat. He's just like any other client," Hermione lied.

"But he's a Death Eater!"

"You shouldn't believe everything you read about celebrities," said Hermione. "Half of what the newspapers print is pure fabrication."

"I suppose," said Bofow. "Though in this case -"

"Anyway, if Trelawney considers him a legitimate client, then that's good enough for me," said Hermione firmly.

"When you put it that way," said Bofow. "But... I thought he hated your husband's family?"

Troublemaker, thought Hermione grimly. "Eh, well, there's hate, and then there's intense dislike," said Hermione tightly.

Bofow's smile faltered. "What do you-"

"Oh! I was meaning to ask you, Pat," Hermione interrupted with a sudden perky smile of her own. "I need to find someplace to put all those Knowitall Balls that are in my office. Don't you have some space behind your-"

"Look at the time!" yelped Bofow. She looked at her wrist, realized she wasn't wearing a watch, and hid her arm behind her back. "I have to run, I should have been back to work five minutes ago. Sorry, Hermione."

She snatched up her tea and scurried out of the break room lest Hermione somehow talk her into accepting 6 pallets of packaged merchandise for indefinite storage. But at least she wouldn't be asking any more difficult questions about Hermione's assignment for a while.

---

During her darkest moments, Hermione could admit that a good deal of her and Ron's problems were her fault as much as his. If you looked at it in a certain, twisted, way. Quidditch was his life, and yet she had never been able to take any more than a mild interest in it and had hardly ever tried to play it, only watched. Ron had invited her to go on the road with him, but she had felt her career and not boarding the kids too young was more important. And for a while, when he'd first stopped coming home as often, she hadn't always made a special effort to be home whenever he was. Looking back, that was a mistake.

Then again, looking back, there were a lot of mistakes. The first one being marrying Ron in the first place. It had just sort of happened, with Harry gone off to Auror Academy and Molly and Arthur anxious for Ron to marry so they could offer him the Burrow as a place to raise a family. Ron had been flush with excitement at landing a position with the Dartmoor Darts, a Cannons farm-team, and Hermione's new position at the Ministry Library still seemed like an adventure. And maybe that exuberance for life they'd both felt then had been partially reflected in each other. At least for a while.

Hermione still loved him, in a way, but she felt like she was loving from afar, as if he were any Quidditch star and not actually her husband. Just like a besotted fan, pining at pictures and the idea of the man but not really knowing him. And not really having any chance of ever calling him 100% her own.

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Hermione still hadn't found anyplace to put the back-stock by the time Trelawney rolled into the office around 9AM, quite late for her. Hermione suspected it was so that the others would take the brunt of Hermione's energy in attempted Knowitall Ball redistribution. If that was the case, it had worked. Hermione was sick of the Knowitall Ball problem and had temporarily given up on it. She was slumped in Trelawney's office because there was no place to sit in her own, not if she didn't want to climb nearly to the ceiling.

She heard Trelawney working her way down the hallway shrieking and hugging employees as she came. There were sporadic coughs and chokings indicating that Trelawney was wearing her personal censer today.

"Hermione, darling!" Trelawney beamed as she sailed into her office, trailing ribbons, gauze and sequins and generally polluting the environment with a cloud of patchouli and witch-lavender.

"Hello, Miz Trelawney," said Hermione.

"I've had a terrible time getting an owl through to you," Trelawney exclaimed. "Not one in twenty seems to be able to deliver."

Hermione knew this was because most owls couldn't find her when she was in her fly form, and those few who could find her couldn't figure out how to make their delivery. However, Trelawney did not know that Hermione was an Animagus. Nobody did, and Hermione wanted to keep it that way. She'd been taught the ability secretly by Rita Skeeter in return for releasing the reporter from an unbreakable jar many years ago. She'd never gotten registered. As far as she knew, Rita Skeeter was still the only soul who knew. At first Hermione had agonized about whether to register or not, despite her agreement with Skeeter, but not for many years now. She valued her freedom and her secret too much, and besides, she could go to prison for remaining unregistered for so long.

"Last night I tried to scry where you were," Trelawney continued, "but all I got was a picture of a big dustbin full of rotten fish. It was swarming with flies!"

"It must be a metaphor for something," said Hermione straightfacedly.

"I'm not familiar with any Divinatory metaphors involving dustbins," began Trelawney with great concern. "And usually they'd be associated with divining, not scrying. But certainly in the loosest terms it's possible. Perhaps it is symbolic of some sort of, of discontent you may have with your life situation...."

Hermione had to fight off hysterical laughter. It was obvious that Trelawney was making it all up based on what she personally knew of Hermione's life. "My life situation? Really? Whatever have I to be discontented about?"

Trelawney frowned. "Well, there's your marriage problems...."

Hermione waved that off. "Don't believe everything you read in the paper. It's just because Ron's famous. They'll say anything about him to sell a few more issues."

"Well, you have seemed unhappy lately. And you keep disappearing...."

"Do you think it's possible I'm suffering an intermittent loss of planar adherence?"

There was a pause while a horrified Trelawney considered the possibility. "My goodness, I certainly hope not!"

"Or maybe my actual existence is suffering a discontinuity. I've often wondered if I am spontaneously channeling dozens of different spirits one right after the other, though I can never remember what happens...."

Trelawney blanched. Of course she could never tell when Hermione was pulling her leg, and now was no exception. "My word! Perhaps you should get yourself examined by a para-medi-wizard."

"I'll think about it," Hermione promised. This might jump up and bite her in the arse later, but at least Trelawney was well off on the wrong track about why Hermione was so hard to get hold of.

"By the way, have you seen the Daily Prophet this morning?" asked Trelawney.

"No...?" said Hermione.

"Oh dear, well there's a rather distressing item in the People section about someone you know. I think you will be interested, though not pleased."

Hermione groaned as Trelawney handed her a copy of the paper. She was certain it would be an article about Ron, and how Hermione had made a fool out of herself at the restaurant with her plainly ridiculous protestation of his innocence. Those Daily Prophet reporters were everywhere, and a line that damning simply could not be ignored.

But when she opened the paper to the People section and scanned for the article in question, the expected headline did not meet her eyes. Instead, to her shock, she read this:

MALFOY SACKED BY MINISTRY
Our Ministry contacts report that Draco Malfoy, son of ex-Ministry official, convicted Death Eater and Azkaban inmate Lucius Malfoy, has been sacked from his position of Departmental Liaison by the Department of Supernatural Relations. According to several eyewitnesses, who asked to remain anonymous, the sacking occurred in the early hours of this morning after a terrific row during which Malfoy and Director James Patterson exchanged a number of highly personal insults. Shortly thereafter, Malfoy was observed packing his personal effects. The Daily Prophet has since received an official press release signed by Mr. Patterson confirming that Malfoy is no longer with the department. No reason was given. We were unable to reach Mr. Malfoy for a comment, but Wizard World News quotes him as follows: "It was five-thirty in the morning. I was tired. I might have said a few things I didn't mean. But still, after 22 years I would have hoped for a little more loyalty." Malfoy, long a Patterson supporter, has worked directly under him since Patterson was only a Head Clerk and is regarded as largely responsible for Patterson's successful climb through the ranks. When asked what his plans are now, Malfoy reportedly said "I plan on going home and getting some goddamned sleep."

"Oh no," said Hermione in horror. "This is all my fault! I encouraged him to ask for a leave of absence. He's really going to hate me now!"

"Some people are just born under unlucky stars," said Trelawney. "Draco is one of those people. He's had bad luck since even before he was born. It isn't anything to do with you."

"Somehow, I doubt he'll see it that way," said Hermione morosely.

"Well, it's probably for the best anyway," said Trelawney. "I doubt he'd ever have quit of his own accord, no matter how good it would be for Batwing."

"I hope I was right about it being good for Batwing," said Hermione. "Nobody else seems to think he will be able to run it even with my direction. Maybe I'm wasting both his time and mine. I just thought, that since there was no money to hire anyone else, and he seems to care so much...."

Trelawney placed her hand on Hermione's arm. "I'm sure you made the right decision, darling."

But Hermione was not so sure.

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