Harry checked the perimeter one last time as he took down the wards then went back up the narrow alley and apparated back to the Ministry. It was nearly five, and the atrium was starting to get crowded as people began to clock out for the day. He waited for an elevator that was full when the doors open and that he rode up alone and filled as soon as he stepped out onto the second floor.

There was a reception desk with three or four clerks staffing it right across from the lift, the offices of Misuse of Muggle Artefacts and Wizegamot Administrative were on the left, and the Auror's took up the right, at least on this floor. They also had the holding cells on the lowest level, offices in International Magical Cooperation and Magical Creatures along with a lot of informal liaise positions in other departments. The higher up you got as an Auror, the more you ended up working with other departments, and politicking and schmoozing. The Senior Aurors who were good at it were few and far between, and when Harry did eventually get promoted, he knew without a shadow of a doubt, he would not be one of them.

Harry headed straight for his little cubical desk, absent-mindedly nodding to the other aurors he passed who were leaving for the day or clocking in for the night shift. He pulled out the form he hadn't finished filling out, more crumpled than folded and had to do several flatting charms on it to get most of the wrinkles out. He knew better than to try an ironing charm unless he wanted his report to be singed at the edges.

"Harry! Lucky catching you!" Ron said jovially.

Harry didn't look up, focusing on finishing up the last few boxes so he could sign off on the whole mess.

"You're usually long gone by now," Ron went on, stopping by Harry's shoulder, "Thought you just had a standard Muggle Exposure."

"It was," Harry said, "We still on for dinner tonight?"

Ron nodded, "Yep, I was gonna pick up some Indian food on the way."

"I'll wait so's I can tell you and Hermione at the same time," Harry said, messily signing his name and standing back up.

Ron took out his wand and tapped it on Harry's badge, turning it back into auror robes, "For how much you complain about the muggle uniform, you sure leave it on quite a bit."

"Oh, shut up," Harry groused, "I just forget."

"Yeah, right," Ron said.

Harry rolled his eyes, let his pace match Ron's as they headed back to the reception desk where Harry dropped off his and Malfoy's forms with the desk clerk there.

"Hey, Lewis was it?" Ron said, leaning on the other side of the counter.

"That's me," A scrawny looking bloke with glasses said, looking up from a mess of files he was attempting to organise.

"I heard you just transferred here. How do you like it so far, better than that stuffy old Patent Office by far, yeah?" Ron said.

"It's certainly more exciting," Lewis said, "But most things are more exciting than patent applications... unless it's from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes."

Ron grinned, "Too true. But you ought to stick with the Aurors anyway."

"Maybe," Lewis conceded, "But my friend Geoffry asked me to transfer to Magical Creatures and work with him so-"

"Damn," Ron said with mock dismay, "Friends beat out excitement every day."

Lewis grinned, "I do like it here though. Top of the list."

"Brilliant. I'll take that. Have a good one, yeah?" Ron said with a wave.

All the receptionists waved and said goodbye, Ron being the sort of generally good-natured sort that he made friends easily and could charm an acquaintance with a grin and bad joke.

"What was all that?" Harry asked as they rode the lift down to the atrium, "Do you really care if he puts in for a permanent transfer to our department?"

"I suppose not," Ron said with a shrug, "I just want people to use it, it was Hermione's work, the whole one-week trial transfer and just making it easier to transfer between departments. If it does well, it'll make it easier for her to get other proposals approved."

Harry smiled, "You're such a sop, mate."

"Maybe a bit. I just like a happy Hermione best," Ron said.

Truth was Hermione worked in the Wizegamot's administrative office right across the hall from the Aurors, but she could reliably be counted on to always be an hour late, excepting holidays and birthdays. That and she usually wasn't in her office, seeming to work mostly out of the little libraries and walls of filling cabinets that every floor had, when she wasn't chatting with various officials on just about every floor but her own.

They flooed over to Diagon Alley and picked up some Indian food to go and took it back to Ron and Hermione's flat. It was still had that slightly sterile feeling that comes from not being not having been lived in very long. It hadn't been taken over by the knick-knacks and clutter of life though there were signs of it, photos stuck to the fridge with magnets, books piled on the side table, a magazine left open on the coffee table and an abandoned pair of socks, likely Ron's, underneath.

Ron put the food on the table, flicking a warming spell over the cartons and then dropping onto the couch.

Harry sat on the other end, "Working on anything interesting? Or do they have you running errands with the rest of the Juniors?"

Ron shook his head, kicking off his shoes and propping his feet on the scuffed up second-hand coffee table, "Glad to be well out of it, thank you very much. Being the most senior the Juniors has its perks. I've been combing the books of a few Potion shops under suspicion of smuggling."

Harry grimaced, he had hated learning arithmancy and accounting during their training, but Ron had somehow taken to it like a fish to water.

Ron went on, "Thing is, I don't think it's potion smuggling so much as money laundering. Old Leon told me how to spot it on the last case he put me on. I need to finish up combing through the other shop ledgers to make sure, and of course, figure out who is putting the money in the shops to launder it."

"I suppose it's good you're on the case, better than me anyway," Harry said.

Ron grinned, "You're always more of a fan of the big raid at the end."

"Yeah," Harry said, "Turns out there's not many of those. I don't know if I'd have been as excited to be an auror back in school if I had known it was mostly paperwork."

"And standing around," Ron added.

"And standing around," Harry agreed.

"Still a good job though, and I don't mind this sort of paperwork. It's like chess or..." Ron frowned in thought. "well, it's more like finding each piece one at a time and trying to figure out where they went on the board and then when you've got enough of them then you can see the game."

"Sounds more like a puzzle than chess," Harry said.

Ron shrugged, "I like it either way."

-

-

There was a pop of apparition from the bedroom, and Ron sat up with a frown.

"What-?" Harry said pushing himself up for slowly.

Ron held out a hand, "Just give it a minute. Hermione only apparates into the bedroom if it's been a bad day."

"Should I go then?" Harry asked.

"If you want to, but I think Hermione would rather see you than not," Ron said.

Harry nodded, and when Ron got up and started setting up the table for dinner, he went and helped. By the time they both sat down, the food steaming gently and smelling fantastic, the bedroom door cracked open, and Hermione silently emerged. She had changed out of her work robes into soft pyjama bottoms and a baggy t-shirt that was probably Ron's by the size.

She sat beside Ron and sagged against his shoulder.

"So, what happened?" Ron asked.

"Don't want to talk about it," Hermione grumbled, glancing across the table, "Hi, Harry. Sorry, I'm in a bad mood today."

" S'alright," Harry said around a bite of lamb curry.

"You never want to talk about, 'Mione, but you always feel better after you do. It's just gonna build up and burst out of you later anyway," Ron said.

Hermione sighed, "Why do you have to know me so well?"

"I don't know, I suppose for the same reason you know me so well," Ron said.

"Cause you've known one another since you were eleven?" Harry said with a tinge of sarcasm.

Ron looked at him flatly, "Or cause I love her to bits."

"Ugh," Harry said, rolling his eyes, knowing full well he walked right into it.

"I love her so much, mate," Ron went on relentlessly.

Hermione smiled a bit which only encouraged him.

"She's my stars and heart and, err, the pearls of my... eyes? Heart? Nah, I used that one already."

Hermione laughed and sat up a bit straighter.

"Light of my life! That's the one!" Ron said.

Hermione smacked his arm lightly, "Cut it out."

Ron leaned close and whispered something in her ear that made Hermione look hopelessly embarrassed and fond.

Harry held his tongue because he really didn't want to hear anything more, especially if it involved blushing.

Ron grabbed a carton of food, "You want the tikka or the veg curry?"

"Veg- well, is it mild?" Hermione asked.

"No," Ron said, scooping out the vegetable curry onto her plate, "I learned my lesson last time. I ordered medium heat."

"Thank you, it looks wonderful," Hermione said.

They ate, a little pool of silence filling up between them. Harry always wished Ron and Hermione had a wireless, just some sort of noise in the background. Eating in silence always made him a little nervous, but Ron was relaxed, even looking like he was going to have a bit of fun.

The fun came when Hermione suddenly put down her spoon and pushed her plate away from herself, "I'm going to have a bit of an outburst now."

Ron nodded, and Harry watched as Hermione took her open hands and smacked them repeatedly and loudly on the table, accompanied by a yell of frustration that all in all sounded like a mix between what you hear at night alone in the forest right before you die and the despairing wail of five-year-old who has just dropped their ice cream cone on the ground.

Hermione panted as her hair, a messy halo of curls, settled down around her face.

"Feel better?" Ron asked.

"A bit," Hermione said, she looked at Harry with an apologetic smile, "I'm not allowed to get angry at work. If you do, they ask if you're menstruating. And I'd rather be frustrated than condescend to."

Harry nodded silently. Back in school if they told Hermione to calm down when she was angry, they risked being swarmed by birds or having a carrot shoved up their nose. Unfortunately, the Ministry didn't approve of that sort of thing and might decide you didn't need the job they'd so graciously given you.

"Was it Sir Suirup again?" Ron asked.

"What?" Harry said with a laugh.

Hermione nodded, "The Sir is a preference, he's not been knighted no matter what he likes to think, but he's one of the committee heads that approve proposals."

"But his name," Harry insisted.

"I think his full name is, Sir Salas Suirup?" Hermione said, "Do you-"

Harry cut her off with a laugh, "That's his name?"

Ron raised an eyebrow, "A lot of wizarding families have weird naming traditions."

Harry shook his head, "No, no- It sounds a lot like parseltongue-"

Ron sat forward, "What's it mean?"

"Uh, well, the best translation I can come up with would be..." Harry grinned, "Fart-eater."

Ron clapped his hands together, cracking up as Hermione snickered.

"Oh, how am I going to keep from calling him that to his face!" Hermione said.

Harry shrugged, "I mean, you already are in parseltongue."

"Fart-eater," Hermione said, breaking into giggles again.

"So what did old Fart-eater do this time?" Ron asked, cleaning out the last of the tikka masala.

Hermione frowned, "I swear he's out to get me. Every time I propose something, he nitpicks it until he finds enough things to convince the rest of the committee to reject my proposal."

"But the interdepartmental transfers were so good!" Ron said.

"That's the problem," Hermione's spoon pushed around a lonely lump of swede around her plate.

"What? How is that a problem?" Harry asked.

"I'm- I'm upsetting things," Hermione said, "Everyone's always telling me to slow down, to take a break, that I'm making everyone else look bad. They say it like they're joking, but they're not."

"Oh," Harry said. He had gotten that a lot too, been told to calm down, told that things would change eventually.

"I just- I don't know how to slow down!" Hermione smacked the table again, "I want to make things better! I want to help, so the war never happens again, but they're always pushing back!"

Both Harry and Ron had heard plenty about the Wizengamont since Hermione had got the job.
She had started on the bottom like they had, as a Minor Aide, which was little better than a glorified secretary. In the three years it had taken Harry and Ron to finish training and actually start in the field, Hermione had worked like blazes to get promoted to Research and Administration.
In Research she could help put together proposals for the Wizengamont's various committees, from potential changes to how the Ministry functioned all the way up to new Laws. At first, she'd been confined to researching proposals made by Wizengamont members and the more senior staff, but with tenacity, hard work, and a lot of requests, she was allowed to create a proposal. That had led to the new interdepartmental transfers which, according to Ron, were the best thing since sliced bread.

"So... he rejected your proposal?" Harry hazarded a guess.

"Worse," Hermione pointed her spoon at him, "He's trying to make me look stupid."

Ron whistled under his breath, "That is- You're practically famous for being the smartest witch our age and he thinks he can try to make you look stupid?"

"Yeah, well... he's going to, probably," Hermione muttered.

"What?" Ron's eyebrows shot up, "Spill it, I need to know everything."

Hermione shook her head, "I should clean this all up." She started stacking their plates and Ron took them away.

"I'll do it," Ron said.

"But you bought it and set the table-"

"You can owe me one," Ron said.

Hermione rolled her eyes with a fond smile as Ron got up, wand drawn to begin directing the garbage into the bin and the dishes to the sink. Harry sat back to avoid getting smacked by a plate or a soggy sauce covered carton.

"Okay so the basic gist of it goes like this," Hermione said, "I brought a proposal to do a study of muggle oblivations, to see if there's any link between the increase in oblivation rates and the increase of dementia in the muggle population. Easy, right? Just interview muggles who have been oblivated, talk to our own healers that deal with oblivation, collect a bunch of data, analyse it, write a report on the findings. It's very simple."

"I mean, I couldn't do it, but if you say it's simple then, sure," Harry said.

"Fine, not simple, but at least a very standard study. The sort we do all the time," Hermione sighed at him and went on, "Of course, Fart-face couldn't leave well enough alone-"

"Fart-eater," Harry said.

Hermione wasn't listening, too caught up in reliving the fury all over again, "He was asking his stupid, inane, never-ending questions and for some reason, he wouldn't let go of what would happen if there ended up being a connection. How we couldn't possibly stay hidden from the muggles without obviation, and I said, not everything required it to begin with and that the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee could be expanded- so he said-"

Harry's eyes widened, his mind leaping ahead of the conversation.

"-That there was no point in doing a study if the alternative didn't work and the committee would create a new department to test my idea," Hermione threw up her hands, "which isn't what I said at all!"

"A whole new department?" Ron said, turning away from the sink, a plate clattering back into the soapy water without supervision.

"Now they're all calling it my new department, and there's no way it won't fail," Hermione said. She groaned and slid down in her chair, "They named it the Liars Department," she said in dismay, "and Fart-face set it up personally. I'm so entirely fucked."

Ron jumped, "You swore."

"Oh, shut up," Hermione said.

"I'm not being- you only swear when things are really bad," Ron said.

"I do not-"

"Do you know who's in the-," Harry hesitated, it was such a bad name, "the Liars Department?"

Hermione shook her head, "I only know the name of it, and I only know that because Fart-face so kindly came by my office to tell me about it today."

"Could you fix it? Make it work somehow?" Ron asked.

"I don't know," Hermione said, "It's not my department, and I have no say over it even though it's supposedly my idea."

"Couldn't you take it over then, if Suirup keeps saying it's yours?" Ron suggested.

Hermione's face screwed up in thought, and she finally shook her head, "No. If I tried, he'd convince the committee I was interfering with their work or meddling or... something else. I'm just a researcher, I don't have any real power," she folded her arms on the table and dropped her head into the middle.

Harry watched Hermione, torn about what to say but wanting to help somehow, "Well... the uh, the guy from the Liars Department did a good job today, so maybe it won't be too bad?"

Hermione sat up, "Wait. You saw them, him? You worked with him? Who? Did you know him?"

Harry sidestepped the last question, if Hermione knew it was Malfoy it would only make her feel worse, "It was today's muggle exposure. He told the shop owner that it was all caused by a gas leak, but I think the guy ended up thinking it was a government cover-up... or something."

"Or something?" Ron said.

"I couldn't tell if the shopkeep thought the suspect was escaped from a hospital and the government was trying to cover it up or was like some sort of mad science experiment-"

"That the government was trying to cover up?" Ron said with a grin.

"The gas leak explanation isn't bad," Hermione said, "but the rest of it is just irresponsible."

"It worked, didn't it?" Ron said.

"That's not a good reason!" Hermione protested.

Harry watched them banter back and forth but mostly stopped listening.

He mentally replayed the meeting with Malfoy in his mind. He had acted like he was going to be fired at any minute. Had Malfoy known about Fart-eater's plan? Was he part of it? But that didn't make sense, what was in it for Malfoy? He had acted like he wanted to do the job, but someone else was going to take it away. Maybe there was a deal between Fart-eater and Malfoy that would lead to a better position down the line, and he was just pretending to care about the job.

This wasn't just about Malfoy anymore, not with Hermione's job mixed up in the mess. Harry would get to the bottom of it.

-

a/n: Thank you for reading!♡ Comments are adored♡♡♡