Disclaimer: I do not own HP.

I would like to thank Bone Hammer, my beta, for her work on helping me improve this story. She's done an excellent job with everything.

Hermione Granger walked down the corridor of St. Mungo's, holding a cup of coffee in one hand and carrying a small stack of files in the other. It was nine in the morning and already it was snowing outside and she had been called to several rooms in the past two hours. She was tired and hungry. Entering her office, she dumped the papers on her desk and sat down in her chair, taking a sip of coffee before looking over the first file with limited interest.

She looked up when someone knocked at the door. Rachel Conway, Hermione's trainee Healer, came in.

"Yes?" Hermione asked. Rachel frowned.

"We have a situation down in the children's ward. They need you," she said.

Hermione grabbed her Healer robes and followed Rachel out the door; an agonizing scream hit Hermione's ears as soon as she entered the children's ward . The two picked up their pace until they hit one of the emergency rooms. Entering, Hermione was surprised to see so much blood all over the floor. She ran over to the group of Healers surrounding the bed.

"What's going on?" she asked. One of the other trainees looked up.

"Female, age seven. Bleeding from her stomach and vomiting. Cause unknown."

Hermione frowned, taking in the little girl for the first time. Her eyes were closed in pain and her blonde hair was plastered all over her face with some white filmy paste. Hermione pointed at it.

"Do you have an analysis of what that is?" she asked. The trainee shook his head, scribbling down notes from the Healer that was in charge, a large, hefty man by the name of Timothy Benguard. He was barking out orders when he caught sight of Hermione.

"Granger! Over here," he called. She made her way over to the other side of the bed, eyes still on the poor wretch writhing in pain.

"Any idea what happened?" Benguard asked quietly. Hermione shook her head; eyes travelling down to the girl's bleeding stomach.

"Some new curse?" she suggested. Benguard shook his head.

"We checked the wound. It wasn't done by any wand," he answered. Hermione frowned and looked up at the man.

"A creature?" she whispered. The man nodded.

"We've had two other cases like this, but they haven't been as bad. We haven't actually figured out how to stop the bleeding."

"What about the film on her face?" Hermione asked, moving out of the way as Rachel tried to soothe the small girl.

"We're checking that right now. At the moment all we can guess is that it's just saliva from what ever attacked the poor thing."

Hermione looked up at him. "What do you need me for? I don't work with children," she said. Benguard turned to her.

"Yeah, but you do specialize in creature wounds and I hear you're a favourite with the Aurors."

Hermione blushed. "I specialize in creature wounds, but I need to know what creature I'm dealing with. I've never seen anything like this before."

Benguard turned to one of the Healers and told him something. The Healer nodded and left the room. Benguard then turned back to Hermione.

"I'll talk to the Head Healer of your ward and see if I can get you down here to take a look at the other two patients," he whispered before moving off to the bed where they had finally gotten the girl to calm down, though the wound was still bleeding. Hermione sighed and walked over as well.

---

It was almost lunch and Hermione's stomach was growling. She found herself standing in front of one of the big window, holding her purse and watching the snow fall as she waited for the clock to turn. She had been in that emergency room for hours, trying to figure out what had happened to the little girl. Her mind wandered to the girl's parents, who had been waiting outside, clinging to each other. Benguard had been much help in that department. He was the Head Healer of the Children's Ward, an intimidating figure but incredibly funny and great with children. She could still remember the look that flooded their faces when Benguard had told them that their daughter was not getting any better. Hermione wiped her eyes, trying to think of something else. A small smile teased her lips as she watched some small children throw snowballs. The sight reminded her of the Burrow and how much she missed everyone. She hadn't seen many of them lately. Suddenly everything went dark as fingers went over her eyes.

"Guess who," came the deep voice. Her heart skipped a beat and she smiled.

"I don't know. Who?" she asked, feeling her heart start to pound as lips tickled her neck and ear playfully.

"Guess," the man whispered.

"Harry?"

"No."

"Fred?" she guessed, smiling. The man let out a sigh.

"It's never any fun with you," he whispered before letting go of her. Hermione turned around and raised an eyebrow.

"Well, besides Harry, you're the only one who feels that the need to breath down my neck is the only way to play around."

Ron rolled his eyes, throwing an arm around her shoulder and leading her down the hall.

"I'm taking you to lunch," he said as they walked down the stairs.

"Ron, I'm still on duty," she told him. Ron looked down at his watch then snorted.

"Yeah, for like two more minutes. I think the world of Mungos can run perfectly fine without you for the next two minutes," he snickered, as they exited the building. Hermione immediately scooted closer to him, the cold hitting her fast.

"Ron, I left my coat up in my office," she scolded. He rolled his eyes and took off his own cloak, handing it to her.

"There, happy?"

She looked at him and shook her head. "Now you're going to freeze. Why don't you just let me nick upstairs for a moment and get my coat then we'll go?"

Ron shook his head. "No. Let's just go, 'Mione before my arse freezes off," he grumbled.

"I don't want you to freeze. Here, take your coat and I'll go upstairs and get mine," she insisted. Ron rolled his eyes.

"Damn it, Hermione. Let's just go. Besides, for the brightest witch of her age, she's sure forgotten the use of simple warming spells," he pointed out, taking out his wand and muttering the charm. Hermione gave him a not so nice look that clearly said 'smart ass' before walking off down the street. Ron looked up at the sky in exasperation. They hadn't seen each other in weeks and already they were fighting again. He followed her into a small café; they found a seat and began looking at the menu. Hermione finally looked up at Ron.

"Why'd you want to take me to lunch?" she asked. Ron shrugged.

"I've been busy for the past few weeks and I heard you and Harry came here last week. I wanted to see you, that's all," he said before looking back down at his menu. Hermione couldn't help the butterfly feeling in her stomach when he said that. He had wanted to see her. Smiling to herself, she scanned the menu before finding what she wanted. After they ordered, Ron leaned back in his seat and observed her.

"How are you?" he asked. She rolled her eyes.

"Tired. I've been in the children's ward all day. Not that I would mind, but there have been these attacks. Some sort of creature's been attacking children."

"Really?"

Hermione nodded. "We can't identify it yet, but we're trying. It was hard seeing that little girl's parents, not knowing whether their daughter was going to survive or not. You should have seen them when Rachel told them she was okay."

"Rachel?" Ron asked curiously. Hermione rolled his eyes.

"We haven't seen each other that long? Rachel's my trainee," Hermione explained. Ron nodded. "What about you? Anything interesting happen?"

Ron snorted. "Yeah right. I've been tracking this creep… don't give me that look, 'Mione," he added when seeing Hermione's glare. "I've been tracking this guy for a while. He's been breaking into several homes and stealing cats from the owners. We finally found out that the guy's been breeding illegal creatures. I've been doing paperwork for a week."

Hermione laughed as he explained more about the case. Ron couldn't help but watch how her lips would curl into a smile every time he said something funny, and he wanted to see it more. He wanted to see more of Hermione, but lately the both of them had been so busy they hardly had time to go out for a drink or something. After they got their food, there was a momentary silence in which Ron took the time to observe her more carefully. She had circles under her eyes and her hair was up in a messy bun, with strands falling down in her face. Hesitating at first, he reached across the table and tucked a curl behind her ear before letting his fingers rest on her cheek for a moment. Hermione froze, unsure of Ron's action. They stared at each other for a moment, Hermione's eyes questioning and Ron's blue eyes searching. He then removed his hand and went back to his food, his ears growing red. Taking a deep breath, Hermione decided to act as if it was nothing, continuing to eat her food and occasionally glancing up at him. She was about to say something when someone called her name.

"Hermione! Hermione Granger!"

She looked up to see a man waving at her. He turned to the people he was with and seemed to tell them to take a seat before he headed over to them. Hermione racked her brain for a connection and it came when she saw him up close.

"Alex! Alex Benguard! That's you," she exclaimed, standing up and giving the man a hug. Alex held her out at arms length observing her carefully.

"I can't believe it's you. What has it been, two years? Three?" he asked excitedly. Hermione smiled.

"At the least. We haven't seen each other since training! Wow! You look good. What do you do now?"

Alex grinned back. "I work outside of St. Mungo's. I keep contacts between St. Mungo's and other hospitals," he answered. "What about you?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I'm here at St. Mungos. Actually, I'm working with your father. Does he know you're here?" she asked. Alex shook his head.

"Not yet. I just got in. I have a business meeting right now, but afterwards I was going to go and see him. Is he still the big softy?"

Hermione giggled. "As always, but how long are you staying?" she asked.

Alex shrugged. "I'll be here for a while. I have several meetings that are spread out, plus I get Christmas vacation."

"Ahem."

The two turned to see Ron, standing and smiling politely. "You going to introduce me, 'Mione?" he asked. Hermione went completely red under his gaze and turned to Alex.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Alex, this is Ron. Ron, Alex. Alex and I used to take courses together before I got a job here at St Mungo's, " she explained. Alex smiled.

"She was the smartest witch I'd ever seen," he said. Hermione's eyes grew and she blushed, shoving him lightly.

"You were pretty good yourself," she said. Alex rolled his eyes and shook Ron's hand.

"Nice to meet you. Hermione mentioned you quite a bit back in training. Said you were an excellent Auror," he said. Ron nodded, giving Alex a tight lipped smile.

"Funny, she's never mentioned you," he replied rather rudely.

Alex raised his eyebrow. "Really? Hermione and I were actually quite close during training," he shot back with a smile.

"And you two haven't spoken in two or three years? Doesn't seem like much of a relationship."

"When Hermione mentioned that you were an excellent Auror, she didn't mention that you were trying make up for your lack of humour."

"At least I have one."

"That's not all you have," Alex muttered.

"Excuse me?"

"Are you hard of hearing?"

"No, but you seem to like to talk a lot. So why don't you go back over there and talk to your little friends."

"I don't believe I came over here to talk to you."

"No, you invited yourself over because you're lonely."

"If I'm lonely, I'd hate to imagine what your nights are like."

Hermione felt completely awkward and embarrassed. These two men had just met each other and already they hated each other. And judging by the way Ron was staring at Alex, if she didn't do something quick, the two would probably fight out their trivial issue. She turned to Alex.

"Look, I don't want to interrupt your meeting, they look like pretty important people." She grabbed her purse and pulled out a piece of paper. "Here's my address. Floo me."

Alex broke his glare with Ron and nodded, smiling. "Will do. Maybe we can get together for coffee or go out to dinner," he offered. Hermione smiled and nodded. Alex turned to Ron. "Nice meeting you, Ron," he said with a broad smile before going back to his table. Hermione looked over at Ron, whose eyes were still on Alex.

"Hey… should I ask what that was about?" she asked carefully, though she already had a pretty good idea.

Ron blinked and glanced down at her before turning to sit down. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?" he asked. Hermione frowned and watched him as he began to pick at his food, making violent stabs at the chicken. He was muttering to himself and Hermione caught alarming words such as knife, pole and other obscenities she'd rather not repeat.

"I wouldn't know…" Sighing, she went back to her own food.

He has completely lost focus. He'll be in a rotten mood for the rest of the day, she thought.

After an uncomfortable silence, Hermione looked around and spotted a clock. Biting her lip she stood up, attracting Ron's attention from his uneaten food.

"You're going?"

She nodded, pointing to the clock. "My lunch break is over," she said, handing him his coat. He shook his head.

"I'll walk you over," he whispered. She watched as he slam some money on the table and then they walked out. Hermione kept on glancing over at Ron, who had his fists shoved in his pockets and his ears were red. When they reached the entrance, Hermione took the coat off and gave it to him.

"You're freezing," she whispered, watching as some people passed by. Ron shrugged.

"I'm okay," he responded, looking outside. She reached up and touched his ears.

"Your ears are cold, Ron," she said with a small smile. He looked down at her and smiled.

"I'll be fine once I get back to work, besides, I'll just use a charm," he said. "I'll see you later, okay?"

She nodded and gave him a kiss on the cheek before whispering, "Thanks for lunch." With that, she turned and walked off towards the front desk. Ron watched her leave for a moment before taking out his wand and preparing to Apparate. He'd have to check up on this Alex Benguard when he got back to the department.

"Well?"

Hermione looked up to see Rachel standing at her door. Hermione frowned.

"Well what?"

"Did he ask you out?" Rachel asked, coming in and closing the door. Hermione looked confused.

"Ron and I are just friends," she said. Rachel rolled her eyes.

"Not Ron. Alex. Did he ask you out?" she corrected. Hermione frowned.

"How do you know that I saw Alex?"

Rachel shrugged. "A friend of mine was in the café that you and Ron were in, and saw you talking to Alex Benguard. Now. Did he ask you out or not?" she asked impatiently. Hermione looked down at her hands.

"No, he didn't. I gave him my Floo address and he said we should get together some time. Besides, I'm not about to accept a date while Ron's around."

Rachel frowned. "Why? You do when Harry is."

Hermione shifted awkwardly in her seat and fiddled around with the papers on her desk. "Ron's different."

"How? He and Harry are your best friends, how could he possibly be different… unless…"

"Unless what?" Hermione asked, looking up. Rachel's hazel eyes searched her face.

"Unless you like Ron," she said simply. Hermione puffed up.

"I do not like Ron. He's my friend," she said hastily. Rachel held up her hands in defence.

"Ok, ok! You don't like Ron. My mistake… well if there's nothing holding you back, you should definitely go out with him. I mean, he's a hottie!"

"Rachel!"

"What? I'd sleep with him."

"Rachel. You know I'm not like that," Hermione hissed. Rachel rolled her eyes.

"Yeah well. All I'm saying is that if you're interested in seeing him again, you should do so before some other woman does," she said as she got up. Rachel opened the door and glanced over her shoulder. "That is, unless your infatuation with Ron is stopping you."

Hermione watched as the door closed. She looked down at her papers, her mind in confusion. She groaned and rested her head on the desk.

"I do not have an infatuation with Ron!"

A/N: Trust me, it gets much more interesting!