Chapter 1: A time to drink

If ever there was a time to drink, it was now.

Hermione had just been asked to be the maid of honor in Ginny's wedding. Under normal circumstances, being asked to stand beside your friend of over 10 years on her wedding day would be an exciting honor, but today, it just made Hermione want to slam her head into a very solid surface.

Repeatedly.

Fortunately, by this point, Hermione had gotten very good at hiding her personal feelings when it came to weddings. So she had done what was expected. She had immediately accepted, and then proceeded to talk to her friend for over 2 hours about wedding plans. She had smiled, listened with interest, and had even given a few good ideas. That was all for Ginny.

But now, as Hermione sat alone in her usual corner booth at her favorite muggle bar, she was finally able to stop pretending. She just needed to let it all go; she needed to decompress. As she nursed her first drink, she thought about how guilty she felt that she had such negative feelings towards weddings. It's not that she wasn't happy for her friend. On the contrary, she was very pleased that Ginny would finally get to be Mrs. Harry James Potter, just like she had dreamed about since she was a small girl. And she was, of course, very glad that Harry had found someone that loved him for him, not for his scar or notoriety. Yes, Harry and Ginny were a wonderful match.

And so were Ron and Luna.

And Neville and Hannah.

And Lavender and Seamus.

And Pavarti and Dean.

That's right. Hermione was in not one, not two, but five weddings within the next year. The constant flow of wedding planning and dress fittings were no help in her attempts to forget her seemingly unending state of un-attachment. While her friends had been dating and falling in love, Hermione had spent the last three and a half years waiting, filling her time with work and books.

It was at this thought that Hermione ordered her second drink.

After the Final Battle, she and Ron had desperately tried to make a relationship work, but too much had happened. Ron had lost a brother, and they had both lost friends and mentors. The world was not the same; they were not the same. So after almost 4 months, they amicably ended their romance. It was surprising how quickly and easily the two had reverted back to platonic friendship. But Hermione supposed that maybe it was so easy because that is how they were meant to be all along: best friends.

Hermione decided that it was time to concentrate on settling herself into a nice, calm, post-war life. She returned to Hogwarts in September and completed her 7th year. While she knew that no employer in the magic world would turn her away because she didn't complete her schooling, she did not want a job because of her name, her involvement in the War, or her friendship with The-Boy-Who-Lived. She wanted to earn it. So she worked very hard and passed all of her NEWTs with flying colors. Upon the completion of her schooling, Hermione settled into a small flat near Diagon Alley, and started work at Flourish and Blotts. She knew that she could have gotten any job she wanted in the Ministry, or anywhere else for that matter. But the books made her happy. She loved coming to the bookstore everyday and letting the hours fly by as she sat among the millions of books of all topics, which she had carefully arranged according to a system of her own design. She especially loved when a young person would come in and begin to scan the shelves with a gleam in their eye that showed a thirst for knowledge of every subject. It was not a fancy job, but it paid well enough. And best of all, the bookstore was peaceful, which was exactly what Hermione needed after spending the first 7 years of her life in the wizarding world in anything but peace.

However, the abundance of peace and quiet that she had craved so long also came with a downside that Hermione had not expected. It gave her plenty of time to think; it gave her plenty of time to get lonely. It was easy for Hermione to see the differences between her own love life (or lack thereof) and the lives of her friends. As young adults do, Hermione's friends began to rapidly pair off in the year or so following the Battle. Harry and Ginny, who had been dancing around each other for longer than they both realized, grew closer together as a couple while the world around them healed from the horrors it had seen. Neville, who had also gone back to Hogwarts to retake his 7th year, struck a fancy with the pretty Hufflepuff, Hannah Abbott. The two began a relationship just before completing school. And best friends, Lavender Brown and Pavarti Patil, ran into fellow Gryffindors and best friends, Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas, at the 1st Annual Celebration Ball in honor of the one year anniversary of the defeat of Voldemort and the end of the War. Lavender and Seamus became immediately inseparable, and not long after, Pavarti and Dean began dating.

It was less than six months after the 1st Annual Celebration Ball when Ron grabbed Luna and unexpectedly kissed her after seeing the Chudley Cannons beat the Falmouth Falcons, putting the Cannons in the top 5 teams in the league for the first time in over 100 years. After a lot of blushing on Ron's part, the pair had ultimately revealed that they had both fancied the other for a while. In the beginning, many people were surprised at the match, but through time, everyone began to see why they were perfect together. Luna was exactly what Ron needed, and vice versa. Ron was happier than Hermione had ever seen him. She was glad. He deserved happiness.

Hermione's luck in love was pretty much non-existent on the other hand. In the three and a half years since her separation from Ron, she had been on only a handful of first dates. There had been no second dates. It was not that Hermione did not want to find love and settle down, it just seemed that love did not want a thing to do with her.

Thus bringing her back to her usual corner booth of her favorite muggle bar, and her third empty glass.

She briefly considered ordering just one more drink, but ultimately decided that she did not think walking home, alone and drunk, was a very good idea. As she pulled out her wallet to pay her tab, she noticed that she had an unread text message on her cell phone. She kept it with her at all times, even in the wizarding world, as it was a constant means of contact with her parents. Recently, Harry and Ginny had also purchased muggle cell phones to use to communicate with each other and Andromeda Tonks, who moved into the muggle world after her daughter's death while Teddy went to live with Harry.

Hermione unlocked her phone and checked the text message which she realized was from Ginny. She wanted to know if Hermione would like to come over the next day and have a full day of wedding planning. Honestly, the idea sounded absolutely repulsive to Hermione and caused her to once again have the desire to slam her head into a solid surface. Ultimately she decided that the wooden table-top would do just fine, and she roughly laid her head on the cool hard surface. She sat there for a few moments, not wanting to lift her head because it would mean she would have to deal with the outside world. However she knew that long term she could not stay like that, or the bartender might think that she had passed out.

Just as she was about to lift her head, she felt a presence walk up and stand in front of her booth. She was fairly certain it was a man, and she was even more certain that she was not in the mood to hear cheesy pickup lines from random strangers in a bar. She wondered if she kept her head down if the stranger would leave.

"Rough day?" a smooth, deep male voice asked with a chuckle. "Why don't you let me by you another drink and you tell me all about it?"

Crap.

Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes, and began to lift her head, avoiding looking up at the man and trying to gather her things. "Thank you so much for the offer, but I really need to…. GEORGE?"

Standing in front of her was none other than George Weasley and his trademark smirk.

Hello everyone. I am really excited for this story. I have some great plans for it. I will hopefully have an update soon, but until then, let me know what you think of the first chapter. Thanks so much!

Always,

Kay

PS. I own nothing. Obviously.