They can't avoid each other forever. Or rather, he can't avoid her forever. He rather doubts she's going to the same lengths he is. He's going to fucking ridiculous lengths.

He's made it a few months when he gets to the coffee line and sees Cho already there. She passes him the creamer before he can ask and turns to leave; he kicks himself mentally and says "Wait!"

"What?" she says.

He doesn't actually have anything to say. "Are you going to- to the match?" he says.

She gives him a frosty look. "I'm in the match." It's Experimental Charms versus Magical Law Enforcement.

Oh, right. MLE, which means Zacharias should avoid it like the plague. The Aurors are stuffed with people from his year or younger who don't have high opinions of him.

"I'll see you there then," he says.

She arches one eyebrow. He hopes she realises what a sacrifice he's making with this. As far as he's concerned he'd rather die than talk to Ron Weasley or Harry Potter. Though she'd dated Harry Potter once, so he's sure she feels similarly.

It's a close match, familiar in a sense. Cho, either spiteful or nostalgic, blocks Harry's motions the same way she'd done in third year- the year that the game against Gryffindor had been interrupted by dementors. Cedric had wanted the match rescored. Bleeding heart Cedric.

Harry gets the snitch though- stupid Aurors and their high-grade salaries and that top-notch broom- and Cho comes over to the sidelines, as the Aurors and lawyers cluster around chanting "MLE! MLE!"

"I thought you were avoiding me," she says.

"Where'd you get an idea like that?" says Zacharias, who'd started making coffee at home, Apparating straight to the transportation department, and frequenting seedier and seedier bars, just in case.

"I dunno," says Cho. "I thought for sure you were avoiding the Aurors."

"You have such a low opinion of me," says Zacharias, who had faked a stomach bug the one time the Aurors had needed something from his department, and hid in the bathroom until they were gone.

"Are you still going to snap at me if I say we should go get a drink?" says Cho.

Zacharias is tempted to, just to shake it up a bit, but he shakes his head. "You're paying though," he says, just so he doesn't come off as a nice person. "I'm a secretary, you're a research specialist and reversal agent."

Cho muses over that. "Alright," she says. "I'll put you down two drinks. Nothing fancy."

It's fucking ridiculous to haggle over a trip to the bar like this but Zach's not about to get less ridiculous. "I'll take it."