"And under whose name is the reservation, please?" asked the hostess, licking her finger and paging through the restaurant's appointment book impatiently.

"Harry Potter, as usual," said Hermione, feeling rather short next to the blonde giantess, who plucked a pencil out from behind her ear and stabbed it at the appropriate time slot--seven-thirty.

"You're twenty minutes early," the hostess observed.

"I like to be sure I'm on time," Hermione explained, and felt somewhat ridiculous when the hostess did not refrain from rolling her eyes.



"Well, follow me, I suppose," she sighed, pulling out two menus and leading Hermione to one of the back booths in the cozy Italian restaurant Hermione had selected for her dinner with Harry. "I'll let Mr. Potter know you arrived more than on time," the hostess added dryly, as Hermione slipped into her seat, and then she vanished in the direction of the kitchens.

It was a pity how rude the staff here was, thought Hermione as she opened her menu, because the food was divine. Italian was Hermione's favorite cuisine, and she always chose this particular restaurant when she and Harry dined out. It was a Muggle place, which meant she'd had to change her money at Gringotts, but it was worth the hassle. Even the finest gourmet restaurants in Diagon Alley couldn't measure up to Muggle cuisine; there was something to be said for food prepared without magic.

Harry swiped a hand on his face. The mantra he kept repeating in his head was 'One more month. One more month,' but it really didn't seem to be making anything better. Most of the other trainees had gone into the Auror program during the war because they'd seen it like signing up to defend their country, or what they saw as their 'country'. In reality, they weren't ready for the job and weren't doing well. His classes were boring, so many people asking stupid questions. One of his fellow trainees still couldn't perform a full corporeal patronus.

He pushed open the door to the restaurant they went to almost every other week. He nodded at the hostess as she looked up and smiled at him. He held a hand up when she went to talk. He'd already spotted Hermione and walked her way, passing the girl silently. You'd think, after two years of coming here, that she'd stop trying to get his phone number.

He smiled, pulling off his jacket and sliding into the booth. "What looks good?" He grinned, grabbing his menu. He already knew what he'd be getting. He got it every time, and didn't see it changing.

"I'm doing well, thanks for asking," Hermione teased, wrinkling her nose in Harry's direction affectionately and flipping through the menu she already knew by heart. The day's specials were printed on a cheap paper leaflet, and she read them aloud, concluding with stuffed calamari. "That looks good, but I'm more in the mood for comfort food," Hermione sighed, rubbing her tired eyes wearily as she set the menu down. "It's been a long week--and it's only halfway through!"

Harry nodded, sitting back in his chair and setting the menu down on the checkered tablecloth. He surveyed her. She did look tired, her eyes slightly dimmer than they usually were. "Tired?" He didn't like it when she looked stressed. He liked to know his friends were doing well, were happy, and while she didn't look in anguish, she didn't look happy.

"Incredibly so," she said. "Work is--exasperating. Dr. Hamlin refuses to consider using Muggle methods in our work on the wizarding gene! And the magical world is so behind in the scientific fields, Harry...it's just a nightmare. Before I can even do any of my work, I have to figure out ways to turn Muggle devices and methods into wizarding ones...which is not my job! And I've been covering Valerie's shifts at Flourish and Blotts because her mother is ill, so I'm not getting enough sleep, and..."

She stopped abruptly, and looked across the table at her best friend. Who was she to complain? Harry looked even more tired than she was, and stressed, too; the worry lines in his forehead that she was used to seeing popping out occasionally seemed to have made themselves a permanent home. Reaching across the table to give his hand a gentle squeeze, Hermione said, "I'm sorry--forgive me and my ranting...how are things at your end? You don't look at your best, either."

"You wound me. I am the picture of masculine lust." He smiled thinly before squeezing her hand again, and Hermione smiled back, the corners of her mouth twitching in appreciation of Harry's good humor. "I actually have no idea what you're talking about, but I can arrest this Hamlin fellow if it'd help." He looked up at the waitress as she appeared with two waters and a basket of bread sticks. They both gave their orders, Harry ordering a bottle of red wine to go along with their pastas.

Hermione eyed the price of the wine before handing her menu back to the waitress, and shook her head slightly. She wondered why Harry bothered working at all, with the small fortune his parents had left on his hands! Not that she didn't understand the need to work; Hermione felt the same way about learning. She knew most of her friends who had been brought up in magical families couldn't understand her desire to continue her studies after Hogwarts...but Hermione simply couldn't be happy without studying one thing or another.

"You can't arrest my boss," Hermione laughed. "I'd be out of an apprenticeship! Besides, he's a genius, even if he is stuck in his ways. I'll just have to start getting creative..." She crunched noisily on a bread stick, only just now realizing how hungry she was.

Harry took a sip of his water before continuing. "I think if you stopped staying up late studying, that would help you be less tired too. You work at a bookstore, Hermione. It is really not necessary to study on your off work hours as well."

"Employees are discouraged from reading while on duty," Hermione parroted, mimicking her manager at Flourish and Blotts, who had an obnoxiously nasal voice. "We're not being paid to sit around and do personal reading!"

Reverting back to her normal tone of voice, Hermione met Harry's eyes seriously. "Now, enough of that silliness--you've managed quite cleverly to dodge my question, but I won't be dissuaded. How is Auror training going?"

Harry rolled his eyes dramatically, sitting back in the booth, crossing his arms over his chest. "One more month. That's how it's going. One more month." He sat forward, putting his chin in his hand. He felt more comfortable at this table in this quaint little pasta restaurant than he had all week. "My teachers are ridiculous. They don't know what they're talking about. It's not arrogance, I promise. You would be better at teaching stealth and tracking than them. Seriously."

"I doubt that," Hermione replied. "But I don't doubt you would be. I did suggest you start the D.A. back in school for a reason." She plucked another bread stick from the basket and spoke as she nibbled on it, adding, "You're just incredibly talented, Harry. So it's frustrating for you to be in a class with a bunch of average wizards who don't know their Confundus charms from their Impedimentas. But like you said, just one more month, and then you'll be free."

He sighed, reaching forward and grabbing a bread stick as well. He chewed thoughtfully on the end of it. "I really don't know how they got such good Aurors so far. Tonks, Moody, Shacklebolt... I think they were just lucky. The people I'm training with are dunderheads, to use one of Snape's phrases. Complete and utter dunderheads."

Hermione laughed out loud at Harry's use of "dunderheads." Memories of Snape's dungeon classroom came rushing back to her, and for a moment she stared dreamily into the distance, remembering their Hogwarts careers with a touch of nostalgia...despite all that had occurred over those years. Then she returned to Harry's comment.

"I think Aurors are probably born, not made," Hermione stated, waving a hand in Harry's direction to indicate that he was clear proof. "And to be honest, your teachers are probably prime examples of that old saying 'Those who can't do, teach.'"

As she spoke, a young couple entered the restaurant together, and were seated at a nearby table. The woman, whose outfit left nothing to the imagination, let out a high-pitched giggle at something her boyfriend had just said. It was perhaps the most annoying laugh Hermione had heard in years, and she rolled her eyes in exasperation, snapping the next bread stick in half with a viciousness that she obviously would have liked to direct towards the young woman rather than at her innocent bread stick.

"Speaking of which, Harry, Witch Weekly would love to know: how's your love life?" Hermione drawled, holding out half the bread stick like a crumbly microphone. Her eyes crinkled with laughter at the corners, though she tried desperately to maintain the desperate, frenzied expression worn so often by the paparazzi.

Harry reached out and grabbed the bread stick from her hand, scowling at her. "No comment." He took a bite of the bread stick, shaking his head when she laughed. "I could ask the same thing about you. How would you like that? You're in the papers just as much as I am, now. I'm sure they'd all love to know if the war heroine, Hermione Granger, has found a man for herself."

"The war heroine Hermione Granger has not seen a single man besides a ninety-eight-year-old geneticist with white hairs poking out of his nose and ears in almost three weeks," Hermione replied with a sigh, conveniently leaving out her awkward date with Ron the night before, which she felt no desire to tell Harry about. She had a feeling Harry might suspect the two of them were attempting to start their relationship up again, but Hermione never disclosed that sort of information with Harry; she always felt guilty about leaving him the odd one out of their trio.

With delight, Hermione's eyes lit up as she noticed a waiter walking briskly in their direction, with two plates of steaming pasta in his hands.

"Oh, thank Merlin," she gushed, ignoring the waiter's confused look at the strange exclamation, and digging right into her dinner. "I haven't eaten since this morning, and I am starved!"

Twirling spaghetti around her fork, Hermione shook her head and remarked pensively, "It's ridiculous how much the press seems to care about that sort of thing. I tried to convince this one reporter to write an article about the research I had published in a Swedish medical journal a few months ago, but all she seemed to care about was whether or not it was true that I was pregnant with Ron's son!" Hermione snorted ungracefully, her thoughts flickering to last night's awkward encounter with the man in question. "I wonder what she'd have to say if I'd told her Charlie Weasley was coming to stay with me for ten days next week! Probably that I was having some sort of...illicit affair...with both him and Ron," she muttered, cheeks reddening at even the thought.

Harry's eyes narrowed. "Why is Charlie coming to stay with you?" Harry thought of Charlie as a brother, he did, but this Hermione. Hermione. "Do I need to threaten him to keep his hands to himself?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Hermione snapped, a little too forcefully.

"He's been called to help out with the Welsh dragon reserve," said Hermione carefully, focusing her eyes on her plate rather than on Harry. "Something about dragonpox...I don't know. In any case, he didn't want to have to stay at the Burrow, with Molly breathing down his neck, and I can't say I blame him. So he knew I had a flat of my own, and asked if he could spend a week to ten days on my sofa, and I said yes. Nothing suspicious, I swear." Hermione gave Harry a wide smile, cursing her inability to hide anything properly and Harry's keen observational skills. Stealth and tracking indeed!

Harry snorted. It'd be interesting to see how Ron reacted to that bit of news. The blush that was crawling up her neck made him wonder how much truth was in her statement. Mostly about it not being anything suspicious. "Mmmhmm."

Hermione bit back the urge to tell Harry all, knowing that everything she said would most likely end up being reported back to Ron, which in turn would lead to Ron appearing on Charlie's doorstep in Romania, screaming bloody murder--even though there was really going on worth screaming about. Nothing at all, Hermione reminded herself firmly. She was overreacting, and over-thinking the situation, as usual.

He tucked into his pasta, savoring the meat. The protein good after a long day of training. "I went into the Three Broomsticks. It's back open, did you know?" He'd mourned when he'd heard the news Rosmerta had fallen in the war. Seeing it open made things a little better in his mind.

"No, I had no idea. That's wonderful!" Hermione gushed, glad for the change of topic. "We should pick a date and meet everyone out there for drinks sometime soon. I haven't seen anybody lately, I've been so busy with work. Wouldn't that be fun?"

She was more than halfway done with her pasta by now, and still eating. With anyone else but Harry, Hermione might have been embarrassed by the way she was wolfing down her food, but with Harry, things were different. He was a best friend and a brother all rolled into one--her truest companion since she was twelve-years-old. Harry didn't care what her hair looked like, or about the spots on her chin, or how messily she ate her spaghetti, and Hermione was grateful for a friend like that. She felt as though they were in short supply these days. Being a "grown-up", Hermione reflected, was hard.

"Meet everyone like who? Ron?" Harry finished his pasta, using a piece of bread to sop up the rest of the sauce on the plate. He popped it in his mouth, talking around it. "Unless you've been holding out on me, I'm not exactly sure who this 'everyone' is you're referring to." He swallowed, wiping his mouth with the napkin.

"Oh, I don't know--have you heard from Luna or Ginny, lately? Or even Neville. I feel like we're all so busy with our new 'careers' and 'adult activities' that we never see our friends anymore. Remember when all we used to have to do was go down to breakfast, and everyone we knew or cared about was already there, eating their bacon and eggs? I miss that, a little. Now I eat dried cornflakes by myself. Unless you count Crookshanks."

"I actually haven't talked to Ginny in a bit. I know she moved in with Luna, but she's been working so much lately we haven't had time to meet up." It was odd, knowing what he knew about Ginny and being completely comfortable with her still. He'd tried really hard to keep their break-up from actually breaking them up. Ginny was family. Albeit family he'd seen naked, but family. He couldn't not be friends with her anymore than he couldn't not be friends with Ron.

"Yeah. Maybe we could all go there on a weekend. The new owners are nice. You remember the MacDougals, right? Mac was in our year in Ravenclaw. Her older brothers were in the Order. We lost Connor." He still remembered that day. He'd really liked Connor, and his death had come as a bit of a shock. They still hadn't found who'd killed him.

Hermione swallowed the last of her spaghetti, and nodded solemnly. She only remembered Mac vaguely, as she remembered most of the other girls in their year, with the exception of Parvati and Lavender, with whom she'd shared a dormitory. Hermione had never been good at befriending girls, which meant most of them were only names and faces, if that, in her brain, which was over-crammed with other information to begin with.

"Well, maybe Mac will give us a round of drinks on the house!" Hermione suggested cheerily, trying to wipe the suddenly gloomy expression off Harry's face. She cast a glance at the scar on his forehead, mostly covered by his messy hair. Hermione had stared at that scar so many times that it felt like an extension of herself--a blemish she wore on her forehead, not his. But it was Harry's--Harry's scar, symbolic of the weight he'd carried on his shoulders throughout the war, and would continue to carry for the rest of his lifetime. She gave him a wistful smile, and reached out as she had at the beginning of the meal to squeeze his hand reassuringly. She marveled at how much smaller her hands were than his.

Their waiter strolled by, and Hermione met his gaze; he arrived promptly at their table, and Hermione chirped politely, "Could we have the check, please?"

"Certainly," the waiter replied briskly, and he turned on his heel and left.

Harry pulled a few Muggle notes from his pocket, holding up a hand when Hermione started to reach in her purse. "You know, we do this every time. There is no way I'm letting you pay. This argument is getting old, Mione. Seriously. I'm paying. You know how stubborn I can be." He set the notes on the end of the table, basically having the cost of their meals memorized. It varied every once in a while, depending on whether they got desert, but for the most part, he always knew how much to bring.

Hermione sighed in frustration, but stuffed the money back into her purse. There was no use playing the "but-I-waited-in-the-exchange-line-at-Gringotts-for-hours" line; she had tried that before and failed miserably. Instead she thanked Harry, and then gave a deep, bone-shuddering sigh, folding her arms on the table and resting her chin on them, just for a moment's relaxation.

The waiter came and picked up the money, and Harry leaned forward, studying Hermione. "You know if you need to get some down time that you should just ask for it, right? If you need a break, someone will understand. They have to. We deserve one."

"The same goes for you, and I don't see you asking the Aurors to just let you skip training...even though I'm sure if you asked they'd make the exception for the illustrious Harry Potter," Hermione pointed out. "We both expect too much of ourselves to give ourselves breaks. We're hard workers, Harry. We're not built for the celebrity lives of leisure everyone expects us to lead, now." She pursed her lips at the thought, and gathered up her things, slipping on her coat to keep her warm from the increasingly chilly autumn weather.

They walked out together, and stopped outside the restaurant. Hermione smiled warmly at Harry, and reached out to wrap him in a hug, inhaling his familiar scent, which clung permanently to his jacket.

"I love these dinners, you know," she told him. "It's so wonderful to be able to see you. Especially someplace where the press won't snap pictures and start rumors about our secret love affair. It's so wonderful to just...just...see you." For once, Hermione was at a loss for words, trying to express the contentment she felt when she spent time with her best friend. She bit her lip as she smiled, trying not to get overemotional, which she hated.

Harry squeezed her back, his face lost in the sea of her hair. There was so much of it. Everyone had always been so mean to her about it, but he thought it was one of her best features. Besides her intelligence. And bravery. And loyalty. And a million other things that had kept him alive and breathing these last five years. "We'll have to do it more often. Hey, maybe you can even come to Grimmauld Place and I can try cooking for you."

Hermione guffawed at that one, and the tears that been threatening before now spilled out as tears of laughter. "That would be an experience!" she giggled, wiping her eyes. "One I'm certainly up to trying, however," she amended, once she had recovered herself. "A true scientist never passes up the chance for any experiment."

He pulled back, wincing at her expression. "Yeah. Maybe not." He grinned, pulling her into another hug. "Yeah. Maybe I'll just have Dobby cook us something and we'll be all set." He pulled back, sighing. "Same time next week? Maybe we'll both have gotten some sleep by then, yeah?"

"One can only hope," Hermione teased. "And yes, of course, same time next week. Maybe I'll even branch out and give the stuffed calamari a try!"

She stood for a moment looking at Harry, resisting the urge to fix his jacket collar or push his glasses up his nose (neither of which would have been out of character for her), and instead just smiled at him, before standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and wish him goodnight.

She looked around quickly for Muggles and, seeing none, gave Harry a quick wave, and then, with a pop, Disapparated, vanishing in the blink of an eye.

Harry sighed, sticking his hands in his coat pockets and turning. He could go for a walk. He didn't mind the chill.


Summary: Hermione and Harry meet for their semi-weekly dinner. How cute are these two? Super cute!