ok let me just say that i'm having a hard time writing the flipside right now so i wrote this instead and i hate it so much please forgive me i don't know what this is

notes: really bad hamilton references, gross and choppy writing style, BYE

disclaimer: i don't own hp, jk rowling does. i'm not making money from this, only tears because it's such a shit story ok bye

The world ends on a Saturday and Draco Malfoy doesn't fucking need this right now, because, fuck if he's already tired as shit from the stifling office party he had attended the night before in order to appease his father.

"Wake up!" Blaise shouts the second he answers the call and Draco groans at the wonderful joys post office drinking has to offer him in that particularly horrid moment.

"I would suspect that I'm already awake if I'm able to answer you." He says dryly, rolling across his rumpled sheets to put on a shirt.

"Yeah, okay. Good morning, Draco. Fine day isn't it, Draco? It's wonderful to hear your voice first thing on a Saturday, Draco." Blaise says in a shrill voice.

Draco snorts.

"What is it, then?"

It takes Blaise less than a millisecond to inhale a steadying breath before he blurts out an entirely complex situation to him in an impossibly un-complex manner.

"She's back." He says.

And Draco stops breathing altogether.

He doesn't need to hear her name in order to figure out who it is.

He strategically formulates a plan that would put the makers of Home Alone to shame and stumbles into the blinding light of Barnes & Noble, charmingly unshaven and wearing last night's clothes.

The plan was simple:

Go to her work.

Find her.

Talk to her.

Win her back.

It was fucking genius.

That was how he knew that she would hate it.

It had been months since he had seen her last, at one of his father's large intern parties for the Times, which evidently, turned out to be a disaster involving one too many drinks and a fumbled stream of 'pregnant? What the fuck?' etc, etc—barely reaching five foot one in her heels, bushy hair pulled back with multiple pins, soft brown skin with spatters of freckles and blemishes, standing uncomfortably in the far corner near the over decorated Christmas tree.

A year if you thought about it properly.

He spots her rearranging a pile of stuffed animals and she looks—

She looks different.

Her hair is startling shorter, reaching the top of her shoulders and her clothes, once bought from the Salvation Army are replaced with a drab cashier uniform.

She's fucking beautiful.

He slowly walks behind her and all thoughts of his carefully pieces plan falls apart when he gets close enough to touch her.

"Hermione." His voice sounds raspy and stilted in the dusty air.

Her hands freeze in a bundle of elephant toys and he can hear her sifting through her thoughts, one by one with careful precision.

She turns around to face him and he almost laughs at how much taller she had gotten since Christmas.

Almost.

"Draco." Her voice is short, and courteous. Disappointed.

She appraises him through thick strands of her hair, and Draco stares back because fuck, he missed her more then he had ever realized before.

"I—" He struggles to string together a coherent sentence and swallows the growing lump in his throat. "I'm about to change your life."

Something flashes behind her eyes and he can tell that she's about to say something, do something, punch him, or kick him, or—

"Fuck you." She hisses, and he can see tears brimming in her eyes.

Well, fuck.

Right.

Right.

He opens his mouth to say something again but snaps it shut with regret.

Okay.

But then—

Then.

She says:

"Then, by all means, lead the way."

And he stares at her.

And she smiles.

The next intern party is filled with much less fumbling and more fucking, if he puts it quite bluntly.