zebiks.cc 
The thought made Harry sick. Or was it his stomach? Harry hadn’t realized how hungry he was. They finally reached the cafe and ordered sandwiches. When Harry asked after Hermione, Ron’s face went quite pale.
“I’m not sure. She started a project for the Department of Mysteries and I haven’t seen much of her since.”
Harry nodded. He knew from the two previous projects Hermione had worked on for the Department of Mysteries that Ron’s statement was all he was going to get on the subject. Merlin, that was probably all Ron even knew and he was engaged to her. “I saw Gin made it on to the provisional national team,” Harry said through a mouthful of ham sandwich.
Ron dropped his drink. “What? Where?”
“The Prophet had it yesterday morning.”
“No they didn’t,” Ron frowned. “They’re announcing the team tomorrow.” Harry wasn’t sure how he could be mistaken. “Maybe it was a list of potentials,” Ron finally offered.
Harry’s frown deepened and he stared at the table. The article was in his pocket in his dirty pants back at his flat. “Maybe.”
Something crept into his mind just then. Harry put down his sandwich and sat back in his chair. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking something odd was happening to him, but he couldn’t put his finger on what exactly it was. Ron interrupted his thoughts.
“I know you’re worried about this Zivantus case, but you should leave it to the professionals, Harry.”
The simple implication that Harry wasn’t up to the task unspooled his anger. “I am a professional! I’m an auror just like you, just like them.” Harry realized his voice had risen, and tried to rein himself back in. Quietly, he pointed out, “Besides, they’d rather chase down flimsy leads like Archie Eversworn than actually try to solve their case.”
Ron shoved a chip in his mouth. “I spent a lot of time with them this morning. They’re not as daft as you’d think.” Harry sent him a look he hoped showed his disbelief. “Alright, Harry. Why don’t we go to the hotel after lunch and check it out? I have access to the crime scene.”
“No,” Harry winced. “There’s no reason we need to see that horrific mess again.”
“Well is there anything else, maybe something they missed?” Ron offered.
Harry shook his head, but then it occurred to him that something had gone wrong with the warding system, something unexplainable, and it happened around the same time that he saw himself on the fourteenth floor. “Maybe there is.”
Hermione Granger hid behind her copy of Enchanted Hedgery and Why Building Well- Trimmed Walls Led to the War. For many countless reasons, she was finding it increasingly hard to finish the award-winning text. For starters, the Ashtyl Hotel Bar and Lounge was blasting the obnoxious defunct boyband Jinxes & Joes. It was also the middle of the afternoon and yet the establishment overflowed with tipsy witches and wizards, all attempting to speak over the others.
Most especially though, Hermione’s attention was drawn away for the very fact that Draco Malfoy sat five tables to the left, at the bar, huddled in deep conversation with Pansy Parkinson. Hermione took a deep breath and repeated her new mantra in her head: I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul as the pull of something cosmic tugged her in his direction.
It was no use, she knew, to try and fight it. But she still wasn’t quite used to the new reality that her autonomy was compromised. She peered around the cover of the book and stole a look at Malfoy. He looked mostly the same as the last time she’d seen him, apart from a residue of exhaustion evident in his wrinkled clothes and dark under eye circles.
“May I offer you a refill?” the waiter towered over her. Hermione uttered a small noise of surprise.
She shook her head and ducked back behind the book.
“Would you like to order some food? An appetizer perhaps?”
“No, I’m fine, thank you,” she hissed. She tried her hardest to give the man a look that said Leave me alone or I’ll hex you into next week. It must have worked because after she pulled her beanie down farther, he’d left to check on another table. She settled back in and returned her gaze towards Malfoy.
He and Pansy sat facing each other, their shoulders almost touching as their faces leaned forward in a give and take of whispers. They had a familiarity only showcased between the best of friends or lovers, and Hermione kicked herself as her curiosity peaked, wondering what exactly they were to each other. She let out a disgruntled sigh of frustration, suddenly willed with the notion that she should be doing something else. This is ridiculous, she thought. She didn’t have to do it.
No, another version of her voice echoed. She didn’t have to do it. Her previous line of thinking flashed across her mind and despite all her usual logical notions, Hermione let herself indulge in the fantasy that she could control what was happening to her. Maybe if she brewed the Potion for Dreamless Sleep with better precision, or added some sort of counterpart to stop sleepwalking. And maybe if she found a quiet, secluded place, far from anyone, she might be able to stop the drive to match lovers together from rising up and taking over her every thought.
It had started with the two men assigned to her when she woke on the fourth floor of St. Mungo’s after a routine inspection of Pandora’s Box went horribly wrong. Hermione had opened her eyes, and it was as if a new world had blossomed. When she looked between the two of them, Healer Redmance and Cursebreaker Humblebud, all Hermione saw was caged potential, the invisible hands of Eros beckoning the unity of lovers.
“You two love each other,” she said, and then threw a hand over her mouth in horror. She managed to keep her newfound romantic zeal at bay long enough for them to discharge her. It didn’t stop her from noticing the way Redmance made Humblebud laugh, or the lingering look of longing on the latter’s face. She’d smiled and thanked them for their help, wondering what on earth had really happened to her in the Ancient Room.
It didn’t end there. After being released into Ron’s care, she spent a few days held up in their cottage. For the first time in her life, Hermione couldn’t find solace or comfort within the pages of a book. Not even Hogwarts: A History. Instead, her gaze was drawn to the commotions outside, the neighbors going about their days. Those interactions which some might find trivial, or ordinary, even Hermione herself before the Pandora incident, she suddenly studied with an insatiable rapture.
“Ron,” she began at breakfast the next day. “Did you know Mrs. Brambleboot orders take away from the deli down the lane?”
Ron brought over a cup of tea for her and shook his head. “Doesn’t surprise me. We order from them almost twice a week, they’re bloody brilliant.”
Hermione grinned, “Yes, but not once has old man Rogers delivered ours.”
“So?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Ron scrunched his face. “That the oldest bloke I’ve seen in recent memory doesn’t often do their deliveries?”
“They’re meant to fall in love,” Hermione concluded.
“Have you gone mad?” Ron shoved a biscuit in his mouth. Hermione handed him a napkin while he chewed. “Katherine Brambleboot’s a widow. Her husband died of dragon pox years and years ago.”
“Yes,” Hermione stared at him. “So marrying once means you can never fall in love again?” It was strange that she didn’t see a shred of Eros’ potential in Ron. But then again, she didn’t see any when she looked at herself in a mirror either. There were a few others, she’d noted, who didn’t register in her mind as potential matches. But the widow and the old deli owner, now they were a perfect match if she’d ever seen one. Ron shook his head and gave her his usual You’re absolutely right face and continued shoving biscuits in his mouth and washing them down with tea.
Hermione remembered that morning so vividly, almost as if she’d watched it happen from outside herself. A part of her held such an aversion to meddling or even commenting on the romantic affairs of others. But some sacred, small sliver of her psyche had awakened with the curse. Hermione knew it was Eros causing her sudden ability to see love all around.
She barely recognized her voice when she walked into the deli and told old man Rogers that Mrs. Brambleboot’s favorite flowers were hydrangeas. She could hardly believe she waited by the window for hours to see him hobble down the widow’s walkway and knock on her door, an overflowing bouquet of blue and white flowers in his arms.
And Hermione couldn’t honestly believe she felt such pure, unabashed joy at the small, innocuous smile that lingered on Mrs. Brambleboot’s lips, and the brightness that filled her eyes when she saw Rogers blush.
She managed to tame her giddiness by the time Ron returned home from work, only to be swept up in something else entirely. She suddenly noticed the little gestures he did for her, subtle touches of tenderness and care. The way his finger wrapped around one of her curls when he bent over to hand her a cup of tea. The towel left folded over the tub for her when she went upstairs to take her bath. And when she went to bed, she leaned over, and waited as Ron put down the morning’s Prophet to grasp her face. The moment their lips met she burned with the spark of something a thousand times greater than what she’d felt that afternoon watching her matches fall in love.
Eventually, she was able to quiet her drive to match people together. But over the course of the next month, it would flair up at random times and draw her in. So much so, that she’d dream about the couples whose potential she saw. That’s when she took the Potion for Dreamless Sleep and ended up sleep walking into to the Brightlawn Commons in her night dress, searching out the seamstress and the junior auror who had made eyes at her.
Hermione felt imprisoned by the curse, hostage to its drive to bring love to those who otherwise were without. She debated with herself over the very nature of the curse, if its inherent power lessened the ability of those involved to consent to conditions. But it wasn’t as if she was going around dosing people with Amortentia. She could merely see things they couldn’t and rallied for their happiness by trying to enlighten them. But was love truly the biggest gift she could give? Was it really love’s potential she saw between two individuals or merely the peak of passion woven with some complex idea of compatibility? What of knowledge, and history, and proven actions? What did Eros really know?
She looked back up from behind the book and watched as Malfoy laid a comforting hand on Parkinson’s. Eros hasn’t been wrong before, Hermione rationalized. Her dreams had led her here, and part of her questioned it, but the heart of her knew it was real. She’d found one half of her next match.
Now, she just needed to find Harry.
“Sableton, we have a development.”
Icarus chanced a glance at his partner with little hope that what would follow might not test what was left of his patience. But to his surprise, McLaggen was blushing. “What?”
He turned away from Malfoy and the woman at the bar and followed McLaggen’s line of sight. From where they had perched in the kitchen, they had a good view of most of the lounge out the order-up window. It had been an odd experience watching Malfoy embrace the raven haired woman and then proceed to comfort her. McLaggen indicated that he’d recognized her as Pansy Parkinson. It appeared now as if McLaggen had recognised someone else.
Icarus squinted and tried to get a better view of the woman in question. She wore a black beanie over most of her head and sat hunched behind a large, green book. “Is that—”
McLaggen breathed, “Hermione Granger.”
A sudden ruckus in the kitchen stole their attention, and Icarus turned in time to see Draco Malfoy draw his wand and aim it at them.
“I know you’ve been following me, and I’m getting dreadfully tired of repeating myself; you are wasting your time.” Malfoy scowled.
