My Best Friend Is My New Boss, And After I Broke Down, She Comforted Me In A Way I Never Expected

The afternoon light through the Auror Office’s high windows was the colour of dishwater, pooling on Harry’s desk like something spilled. He had been staring at the same parchment for twenty minutes, the ink bleeding where his thumb kept rubbing the corner. A memo, crisp and official, with the Ministry seal stamped at the top.

“All personnel will submit to a comprehensive performance review,” it began, bureaucratic and bloodless. His eyes snagged on the signature below: H. J. Granger, Head, Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

The ache started behind his sternum, a slow, familiar pressure, as if someone were leaning on a bruise that had never quite healed. Hermione. He hadn’t spoken to her since the night she’d slammed his office door hard enough to rattle the glass, her voice shaking with something between fury and disappointment. That had been fourteen months ago.

He read the memo again, slower. Mandatory. Comprehensive. Her new title sat in his mouth like copper. She had always been the smartest person in the room; now she owned the room.

A quill lay beside his hand. He picked it up, then set it down. The parchment crackled when he folded it, creasing her name.

Across the bull-pen, Robards laughed at something, the sound abrupt and false. Harry’s gaze drifted to the empty coffee cup ringed with brown. He thought of Hermione’s thumb the last time they’d worked together—ink smudged across the side, the way she’d worried it while she corrected his field report. She had smelled of parchment and peppermint.

He stood, the chair rolling back over worn floorboards. The memo stayed on the desk, corners fluttering in the draft from the corridor. Somewhere overhead, the magical fluorescents hummed, a sound that always reminded him of hospital corridors.

He told himself he didn’t care about the review. He told himself a lot of things.

Still, when he walked to the lift, hands shoved deep in robe pockets, the ache followed, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. The doors slid shut and his reflection stared back: green eyes flat, jaw tight, the scar pale against winter skin.

He wondered whether she had signed the parchment herself or dictated it to a secretary. Whether her hand had paused above the parchment, thinking of him. Whether she still bit her lower lip when she concentrated.

The lift descended. He watched the numbers change, each floor a small extinguishing.

By the time the brass grille opened, he had decided nothing. He stepped out, shoulders squared, and headed for the briefing room where the entire department would gather to hear Hermione Granger explain how they would be measured, weighed, and found wanting.

He did not look at the memo again, but her signature stayed behind his eyes, neat and unforgiving, the way she had once written his name in the margin of every homework they ever shared.

The briefing room smelled of disinfectant and stale coffee. Harry took a seat at the back, wedged between a junior Auror whose name he couldn't remember and the radiator that never quite worked. White walls, white ceiling, white light bouncing off the conference table's polished surface—everything designed to strip away comfort until only duty remained.

Hermione stood at the head of the table, blazer charcoal grey, hair twisted into something severe. She had grown into her authority the way other people grew into their skin: completely, without apology. When she spoke, her voice carried the same precision it had at seventeen, only now it shaped policy instead of essays.

"Field teams will submit weekly progress reports by Friday noon," she said, clicking through slides that glowed blue against the white screen. "No exceptions."

Harry watched her hands as she gestured—long fingers, nails trimmed short, the same hands that had once mended his glasses with a whispered spell. She didn't fidget now. Didn't hesitate. When someone asked a question about inter-departmental coordination, she answered without consulting notes, statistics rolling off her tongue like poetry.

"The Auror division," she continued, and her gaze swept over them without catching on his face, "will implement new evidence-handling protocols effective immediately. Auror Potter's team has been... inconsistent in their documentation."

Auror Potter. The words landed like a slap. She said it the way she might say 'Auror Robards' or 'Auror Chang'—all professional distance, no history attached. No shared nights in tent canvas, no fingers interlaced in the dark while Ron slept. Just another employee whose performance failed to meet standards.

He felt the junior Auror beside him shift, sensing tension without understanding it. Harry kept his expression neutral, the way he'd learned to do when reporters asked about the war. When Hermione's eyes passed over him again, they might as well have been looking at the whiteboard behind his head.

"These changes aren't punitive," she said, though her tone suggested they might as well be. "They're necessary. The Ministry cannot afford inefficiency."

Cannot afford me, Harry thought, watching her click to the next slide. The light from the projector caught the edge of her cheekbone, illuminated the small scar above her left eyebrow—faint reminder of fourth year, of a hex gone wrong in practice. He wondered if she remembered his hands on her face afterward, checking the damage. If she remembered anything at all.

The meeting dragged on. Protocols. Deadlines. Performance metrics reduced to numbers on parchment. Hermione spoke fluently in the language of bureaucracy, and Harry found himself studying the way her mouth shaped words he'd never heard her use before: 'operational capacity' and 'resource allocation' and 'strategic oversight.'

When she dismissed them, her voice carried the same warmth as the white walls. People filed out, muttering about paperwork. Harry stayed seated, watching her pack up her notes, waiting for something he couldn't name. She didn't look up. Didn't pause. Just snapped her briefcase shut and walked toward the door, heels clicking against tile, the sound sharp and final as a period at the end of a sentence he hadn't realized was finished.

“Potter.”

The word stopped him mid-stride, half-turned toward the lift. Hermione stood three paces back, a slim green file hugged to her chest. The corridor was empty now; even the echo of the last departing boots had vanished.

He faced her. “Ma’am?”

She winced—barely, but he caught it. “The Nott file,” she said, extending the folder. “Your progress reports are three weeks behind.”

Harry took it. The cardboard was warm from her grip. “I’ve been in the field.”

“Chasing moon-moths.” She tucked a flyaway curl behind her ear, the same anxious swipe she’d used at fifteen. Ink blackened the pad of her thumb; she must have been annotating before the meeting. “We need numbers, Harry. Names. Dates. Not—” She stopped, lips pressing flat.

“Not what I’m good at,” he finished.

Colour rose in her throat. “I was going to say ‘not sufficient for prosecution’.”

He opened the file anyway. Columns of figures swam. The numbers meant nothing; the smudge on her thumb meant everything. He wanted to reach out, wipe it clean, feel the familiar ridge of her fingerprint against his.

“I’ll get it done,” he said.

“By tomorrow.” She clasped her hands behind her back, shoulders squaring. “Robards wants it for the morning briefing.”

He nodded. The silence stretched, thin and brittle. Somewhere a ventilation charm hummed, stirring the hair at her temples.

“You could have asked me in there,” he said quietly. “In front of everyone.”

Her gaze flicked to the wall, then back. “I’m not in the habit of public correction.”

“Just private.”

She flinched again, sharper this time. “Don’t.”

The word landed between them like glass shattering. He saw her swallow, the small dip at the base of her throat that used to fascinate him in the tent when she read late, candlelight licking her skin.

“I’m your Head,” she said. “This is work.”

“Yeah.” He shut the file. “Work.”

She hesitated, then stepped closer, voice dropping. “The smuggling route you logged last month—cross-reference it with the 1924 import tariffs. There’s a pattern.”

For a moment the old electricity sparked: her mind racing, his instinct answering. Then she stepped back, the gap restored.

“Tomorrow,” she repeated, already turning.

He watched her walk away, heels precise on the stone, spine ruler-straight. When she reached the corner she paused, fingers curling once at her side—as if she might look back—but the motion died and she disappeared, leaving only the faint scent of parchment and the bruise of her absence throbbing in his chest.