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“We have a problem,” Harry announced as he slid into her office, closing the door firmly behind him.
“What kind of problem?” Hermione asked with a frown, looking up from her paperwork.
The Daily Prophet landed on the desk in front of her. Staring up at her from the front page was her own face with a fixed, polite smile. Hermione squinted at the photograph. It appeared to be from a charity ball that she had attended with Draco Malfoy because Harry was in St. Mungo’s with spell damage. The headline blared out at her:
War Hero Hermione Granger’s Soulmate Discovered! Missing Member of the Black Family Found!
“What?” Hermione frowned up at Harry and waved at the paper. “What the blood hell is this, Potter?” Harry rolled his eyes at her.
“Draco is rubbing off on you,” he muttered. Hermione snorted in amusement and opened her mouth to reply, and he raised a finger at her. “Don’t,” he snapped.
“So…,” Hermione drew the word out slowly and carefully spread out the Daily Prophet on her desk. “My soulmate? That was the most interesting thing this rag could think of to put on the front page?”
“Your enemies will be very interested at the very least,” Harry muttered.
“My enemies?” Hermione laughed. “You make me sound like a movie villain.”
“You are very good at what you do,” Harry pointed out. “And you happen to do it for the Int'l Magical Court, which means that there are people all over the world that actively want to hurt you. Your soulmate is an easy target.”
“What does this mean?” Hermione huffed and smacked at the article below her picture. The Hermione in the picture scowled up at her.
“All they have right now is a name,” Harry explained. “Jacob Black.”
Hermione blinked in surprise. “And their first thought is that obviously he’s a member of the Ancient and Noble House of Black?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Harry shrugged helplessly and leaned against the wall. “As a barrister for the IMC, you were required to submit to a battery of tests and precautionary screenings. One of those was for your soulmate, in case of extremis. All of your paperwork was kept in a sealed, warded file.”
“Not so much,” Hermione said drily with a pointed look at the newspaper on her desk. “What do you think I should do?”
“I think we need to find your soulmate and do everything we can to protect him,” Harry replied. “As far as we know, he’s some poor Muggle wandering around completely defenseless. We can make sure that he’s warded and safe. It’s the least that you owe him, whether or not you believe he exists.”
“He exists,” Hermione muttered. She poked at the papers in front of her and then looked up at Harry. “I mean, they informed me that I had one, and they asked if I wanted to know the person’s identity and I politely refused.” She chewed on her lower lip and stared at the newspaper. “You know how I feel about this kind of thing.”
“I know,” Harry said quietly. He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. “He doesn’t even need to know we’re there. A quick in-and-out strike team. We confirm identity, ward the hell out of his house, place of work, and figure out how to put protection spells on his person.”
“Especially if he’s a Muggle,” Hermione agreed. She nodded slowly. “Okay. I get to be on the strike team, right?”
“Of course,” Harry huffed at her and rolled his eyes. “You, me, Draco, and Neville.”
“Right.” Hermione sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. “How should we do this?”
“I think you should do a Seeking,” Harry suggested after a moment. “But I would wait to do it until you’re within the safety of Grimmauld Place.”
“Fuck,” Hermione groaned. She glared at Harry across the room. “When I find out who did this, I’m nailing their arse to the wall.”
“I’ll help, sweetheart, you know that,” Harry promised. He ran a hand through his hair again. “Draco is absolutely livid. He’s been on the Floo all morning to every lawyer he knows so that he can file some kind of injunction against the Prophet.”
“Have I ever told you that I’m madly in love with your husband?” Hermione asked with a cheeky smirk. Harry snorted.
“Almost every day,” he retorted drily. “It’s starting to hurt my feelings.”
“Poor baby,” Hermione cooed at him. “Go home and let Malfoy comfort you. I’ll swing by tonight with Neville.”
“Why not now?” Harry demanded with a frown.
“I’m going to have to talk to my boss and make arrangements. All of my current cases are going to need to be examined. This is a concerted effort to manipulate the International Court system,” Hermione pointed out.
“True,” Harry admitted reluctantly. “Right. I’ll see you tonight.”
“It’s very… green… isn’t it?” Draco muttered as he looked around their new home for the next couple of weeks.
“Well, you should feel right at home then, shouldn’t you Malfoy?” Neville teased with a smirk.
“Shove it, Longbottom,” Draco snarled.
“You two are ridiculous,” Hermione huffed at them. Then she turned to Harry. “You ready?”
“Are you sure this is how you want to do this?” Harry muttered. He waved a hand in the air. “It seems a little… unfair.”
“Don’t be silly, Harry,” Hermione said with a little sigh. “The poor man is a Muggle. He’ll have no idea who or what I am. I highly doubt that he believes in anything remotely like a soulmate.”
“Are you sure he’s not a cousin?” Draco asked curiously. Hermione rolled her eyes at him.
“Just because he drives a motorcycle around doesn’t make him related to Sirius Black,” Hermione protested.
“I suppose so,” Draco agreed.
“Come on, Neville,” Hermione said with a wink. “Let’s go destroy this car.”
It was simple work to crash their car into a tree, pretending that they had swerved to avoid deer. The local sheriff didn’t even blink at their cover story—he’d nodded along and winced in sympathy before directing them to Hale’s Auto Repair. Hermione had smirked all the way there.
“You need to be careful, you know that, right?” Neville demanded as he held the door open for her. A little bell announced their entrance.
“I am always careful,” Hermione said stiffly.
“We’re just worried, Hermione,” he grumbed at her.
“I know,” Hermione murmured.
Standing behind the counter was a huge man wearing a shirt that appeared to be straining across his chest and biceps. He vaguely reminded Hermione of Marcus Flint, but his teeth were perfectly straight and his eyes were a golden color that Hermione had never seen before. His shirt claimed his name was Emmett. Something about this man made her magic thrum the same way it did when she was in danger. Hermione took all this in during a quick glance and then looked over her shoulder at Neville who gave her a short nod.
“Welcome to Hale’s Auto Repair,” Emmett greeted them. “How can I help you?”
“Good afternoon,” Hermione replied with a bright smile of her own. “We’ve had a spot of bother with our car, and the local sheriff directed us your way.”
“You’re the red audi,” Emmett said, his golden eyes widening in surprise. “Jacob’s taking a look at your car right now.”
“Lovely,” Hermione murmured. “Should we wait here, or should we just leave our contact information with you?”
“It shouldn’t be that much longer,” Emmett promised. “He’s just doing an estimate. If you want to take a seat, I could grab you a cup of coffee.”
“No thank you,” Hermione murmured after a quick glance around the shop.
After a few minutes, Emmett left the front of the shop for the back. Hermione took another quick glance around the shop and then pulled out her notebook and a fountain pen to work on an arithmantic puzzle that Luna had sent her in by Owl. Neville picked up one of the Muggle magazines and began to flip through it.
“Hermione, what in Merlin’s name is a summer fling?” Neville asked curiously. “And why would I want a bangin’ beach bod for it?”
“What are you reading?” Hermione demanded.
“Cosmopolitan?” Neville held out the magazine to Hermione. She sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Oh for the love of—a summer fling is a casual sexual arrangement between two parties usually for the span of the summer. It is understood between both parties that once the summer is over, the sexual relationship ends,” Hermione explained. She glanced at the article that Neville was reading and her lip curled. “And you certainly don’t need to worry about your body. The last time you were sparring without your shirt on three trainees accidentally walked into walls.”
“Huh.” Neville took the magazine back and frowned at the article.
At that moment, a man walked out from the back wiping his hands off on a rag that he stuffed into the pocket of his coveralls. He was easily as big as Emmett, with broad shoulders, a wide chest, and arms that stretched his coverall sleeves. Sun-bronzed cedar skin and thick black hair that was pulled away from his face made Hermione’s mouth go dry. He had a strong jawline that Hermione had a sudden urge to lick.
“Not a member of the Ancient and Noble House of Black,” Neville muttered to Hermione.
“Decidedly not,” Hermione muttered back.
Did her soulmate have to be so bloody beautiful? It seemed like an awful taunting by the universe, to show Hermione her soulmate when she couldn’t have him. Not that she wanted him. He was a Muggle. If she started raving about magic and soulmates he would run screaming in the other direction.
The man froze when he turned to look at Hermione and he stared at her with wide eyes for a long moment. Neville arched an eyebrow at her and Hermione shrugged helplessly.
“Erm, hello?” Neville tried cautiously. The man blinked slowly.
“Sorry,” he rasped. He cleared his throat. “Sorry,” he said again. “I’m Jacob. You’re the red audi, right?”
“It’s Hermione, actually,” Hermione said drily. “And this is Neville.”
“Hermione,” Jacob repeated a dazed look on his face.
“And Neville,” Neville added with a smirk. Jacob blinked again.
“Right,” Jacob muttered. “Uh… well… do you want the good news or the bad news?”
“The bad news,” Neville and Hermione said in unison.
“The bad news is that it’s going to take me about three weeks to get the parts I need to fix your car,” Jacob said and shrugged helplessly.
“And the good news?” Hermione asked with an arched eyebrow. A dull flush spread up Jacob’s neck.
“The damage isn’t as bad as it could have been,” Jacob explained. “I should be able to fix your car, no problem.” He offered them a bright smile that made Hermione weak in the knees.
“That’s great, mate,” Neville said with an answering grin.
Fumbling through the paperwork was easy enough. Even if Neville stood to the side with a smirk of smug amusement on his lips as Jacob meticulously wrote down all of Hermione’s contact information.
“Address?” Jacob asked.
“Oh, well, let me give you my London address and the hotel that we’re staying at in town,” Hermione replied hesitantly.
“That would be cool,” Jacob said with an eager smile.
“Perhaps you could recommend a good place to eat?” Hermione asked after they finished filling out their paperwork.
“The BBQ place is okay,” Jacob said and rubbed the back of his neck. “You can get some good seafood in La Push, if that’s your thing.”
“La Push?” Hermione repeated with an expression of polite interest.
“The Quileute Reservation,” he explained. “It’s, uh, about twenty-five minutes away.”
“Perhaps after the car is fixed,” Neville suggested.
“Oh, uh, I could take you there,” Jacob said to Hermione with an earnest expression on his handsome face. He flushed again. “I mean, if you wanted to.”
“Our Hermione’s a huge fan of seafood,” Neville said quickly before Hermione could even open her mouth. She narrowed her gaze on Neville’s face and frowned at him. “She was just saying that she wanted to try some seafood on this trip.”
“I have tomorrow off,” Jacob offered with another bright smile. “I could show you around if you want.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Neville said with smirk. “What time do you want to pick her up?”
“I can arrange my own dates, thank you very much Neville,” Hermione hissed at him. Neville shrugged and looked at her innocently.
“I’m not stopping you,” Neville protested. “Go ahead and finish arranging your date, love.”
“I hate you,” Hermione snapped at him. Neville’s lips twitched. Hermione put her hands on her hips and turned to face Jacob again. “Well? What time should I be ready?”
“Is eight okay?” Jacob asked hopefully.
“Yes, that should be fine,” Hermione agreed.
“Okay,” Jacob said with a smile.