This story started out as a contribution to the 2017 HP Horror Fest on LiveJournal, but unfortunately someone claimed the prompt before I remembered to do it. Felixfvlicis' version was excellent ('Hiraeth' on AO3), but I still wanted to write my own story. Eventually, I got around to completing it as part of the WIP Big Bang on LiveJournal – fests are great motivators...

As always, I owe a debt of gratitude to my wonderful beta Híril, who somehow puts up with my random use of commas and vagueness with good grace. Any remaining mistakes are my own – please point them out if you notice any.

Chapter 1

-oOo-

"Has Ferret Boy finally had enough?" Ron pulled out a chair opposite; even in the deafening din of the lunchtime crowd the screech set Hermione on edge. "Haven't seen him around for a while – did he leg it while he still had the use of all his limbs?"

"Very funny, Ron. Draco is away on business – I thought he told you he wasn't coming to the quiz on Thursday?" Hermione looked dubiously at her Caesar salad – in her experience, lettuce leaves shouldn't spring back when prodded with a fork.

Ron plonked down his BLT sandwich on the table. He got the same lunch every day. Any hints about the benefits of a varied diet was countered by Ron asking if they had seen the state of the hot food the Ministry considered suitable for its employees.

"Yeah, but I thought you had plans or something," he said. "Malfoy usually has some decent-sounding excuse, and then I find out he was doing something soppy with you instead. Harry and Susan are hopeless with politics, we need him on the bloody team."

Hermione didn't even bother offering to help – the intricate rules of the Auror pub quiz were a mystery she hadn't bothered to explore, but she knew outsiders were strictly banned. "In this case it can't be helped – he's doing something for the Malfoy estate."

"Like what, giving the house-elves new socks?"

"How would I know – do I look like a Malfoy to you?"

"You'll be one soon." Ron didn't need to point to her engagement ring to remind her, and she rushed to correct him for the umpteenth time.

"I will be married to one soon, you mean. I have no intention of ceasing to be Hermione Granger."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Not this again. I only have twenty minutes for lunch, I don't have time for the whole lecture."

"Don't make stupid comments, then." Hermione stuck out her tongue, immediately losing any high ground.

"The-Boy-Who-Was-Late." Ron didn't even look up from his sandwich. "Didn't think you were going to grace us with your presence today."

"A bit rich, coming from someone who disappeared from the interdepartmental meeting during the tea break and never came back," Harry said.

"I have cases!" Ron had opened his bag of crisps, so his rejoinder was a bit muffled.

"What do you think I do all day, play Fantasy Quidditch?"

"How was the interdepartmental meeting, anyway?" Hermione asked.

"Did you weasel out of it as well? Am I the only person who goes to these things?" Harry screwed up his face in an effort to remember, while taking a giant bite of his sandwich.

"I have cases too, you know." Hermione's cases were sometimes the same as Harry's, only further down the line. His report writing had improved since Hogwarts, although she recognised his tendency to use minimal referencing. Hermione was training in Magical Law – referencing was practically her hobby.

"That reminds me, what's happening with the Hobart case? Is it coming up next week? Only I've got night duty on Tuesday..."

The conversation drifted into shoptalk for the rest of their lunch break. Hermione walked back to her desk feeling uneasy. It wasn't Ron's poor eating habits or the distinct possibility Harry might fall asleep in court that worried her.

Something else was niggling at her, refusing to come into the open.

The unease was still there as she pushed open the door to their empty flat, kicking aside the day's post. Living with Draco Malfoy meant any Muggle letters were for her – you wouldn't catch a Malfoy doing something as prosaic as signing up for the electricity bills (admittedly, mostly because they only had a nebulous idea of what electricity was).

Draco's letters were gilt-edged affairs, delivered by snooty owls. Hermione got charity newsletters and bills. Library fines, too – she must remember to return the books to the Muggle library this weekend, or they would probably have her hung and quartered if she darkened their doors again.

She sighed and picked up the letters, stacking them neatly on the table in the hall before shuffling to the kitchen, morosely inspecting the state of the fridge.

Draco, despite being an Auror, which apparently was the hardest job known to wizardkind, usually managed to knock off in time to go to the supermarket. Hermione couldn't remember the last time she had made it further than the corner store. It looked like she would be paying an eye-watering markup for a tin of beans tonight again, unless she had the patience to wait for a takeaway.

Only complete losers Apparated to their parents to raid the fridge.

Maybe she was too tired to eat – the vague feeling of disquiet had morphed into lethargy, and lifting her arms and legs suddenly seemed like a labour of Hercules. A good night's sleep would set her right, and she was bound to have an owl from Draco by the morning.

Hermione listlessly lifted the spoon, but as soon as her lips touched the beige substance she grimaced and put it down again.

There had been no owl anxiously pecking the window to be let in when she woke up.

Unaccountably, they had run out of cereal, too. She had found an ageing box of Weetabix at the back of the cupboard, but when it came to it she couldn't bring herself to eat it. Breakfast in the Ministry canteen wasn't much better than lunch, but it was hard to ruin cornflakes.

Sighing, she poured out the unappetising mess in the sink – presumably intended for people who thought porridge was too exciting in the morning.

Last night she hadn't even unpacked the case notes she so optimistically had brought home, so gathering her stuff for work didn't take long. All that remained was to make herself presentable, and she could Apparate in.

Draco's abandoned toothbrush next to hers in the bathroom made Hermione stop in the middle of taming her hair, standing forlornly with the hairbrush in her hand.

He had been gone for three days now, without a single word.

They weren't the type of couple to sit in each other's pockets – not like Hermione's colleague Luke, who seemed to spend most of his breaks writing to his girlfriend on a piece of enchanted parchment. Despite working in the same Ministry department, Draco and Hermione didn't even meet up for lunch most days – between shifts and court appearances she was lucky to catch one Auror out of Ron, Harry and Draco on any given day.

It was a relief to know Draco had told his parents months ago they were going to get married – at least she didn't need to worry about his absence being some twisted attempt at abduction.

Hermione had seen enough of Lucius Malfoy over the years to expect anything, but according to Draco, he had barely reacted to the announcement that more than fifty generations of pure-blood Malfoys were coming to an end. No one expected him to turn up for the wedding, but Hermione still held out some hope Narcissa might.

She had chosen Draco over Voldemort when Harry had seemed almost entirely defeated – at least she loved her son more than anything, no matter what blood prejudices she still held.

The fact that Draco had apparently been dispatched on some family business indicated his transgression had been forgiven – or at least that his parents had decided there was nothing they could do to prevent it.

Some Slytherins – Blaise sprung to mind – may have seen the chance to welcome a war heroine into the family an opportunity to associate oneself with the new regime, rather than the old one.

No one could accuse the elder Malfoys of inconsistency, at least.

Hermione had watched Draco going from cocky Inquisitor to haunted Death Eater, all the while being true to his sulky self. After the war, he had mostly seemed confused, disappearing from her radar. He had turned up at the Ministry, filing field reports for Hermione and the other officials in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.

The Ministry did not turn up its nose at an opportunity for free labour under the War Crime Probation program, but when it came to actually getting a job, Draco had soon found he was beating his head against a brick wall. Having witnessed the ravages of the war on the non-human sentient population of the wizarding world, Hermione had been disinclined to sympathise with his plight.

What did he expect, a pat on the back and a medal for being an incompetent Death Eater rather than a good one?

Grudgingly, she had been forced to admit Draco had not seemed to expect anything. He had simply filled out the application form for the next vacancy and sent it off, only to receive a rejection letter by return owl.

A sunny day in March, stuck in the dusty offices of the Being division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, curiosity got the better of Hermione and she popped down to the archives. Malfoy was there as usual, so she just asked him straight out.

"Tell me, Malfoy: why the triumph of hope over experience? Why do you keep applying for any job going? Surely, you don't actually need a job." The Malfoy fortune had been relatively untouched by the war, a fact that did not endear the Malfoys to the general population.

"Now that the great Hermione Granger deigns to speak to me, everything will be different." Malfoy didn't even look up from his filing. "If only I could change my house affiliation retrospectively, I would be made."

"You never seemed to be bothered about nepotism when it went your way." Hermione remembered the endless references to 'my father' at school, and felt an unwelcome pang of sympathy. No matter how repellent, Malfoy had been a boy who looked up to his father, only to find he didn't measure up in any conceivable way.

"I don't throw back in your face what you did at Hogwarts, so maybe you could extend the same courtesy to me."

A burning shot of adrenaline had Hermione open her mouth to inflict as much damage as possible, before sense prevailed.

"I think most people would agree that the list of things I did that are still worthy of being thrown back in my face is a bit shorter than yours," she said more mildly than intended.

Malfoy looked up briefly for the first time, with surprise rather than scorn on his face. "That may be so. Still, I never resorted to knitting to reach my ends."

Perversely, Hermione was getting irrationally curious about what exactly he was hiding. "Now you're just avoiding the question. Come on, it can't be that bad."

"Fine." Malfoy slammed down a handful of manilla folders on his desk. "Pursuing the traditional career path in my family hasn't exactly met with unalloyed success. I've decided it's time to try something different."

Despite her best efforts, Hermione was impressed. "Well, good luck with that."

"It hasn't been a stellar success so far, either." Malfoy swept up his folders and set off down the row of bursting bookcases, holding several centuries' worth of division paperwork.

Hermione was left staring at his back, cursing her tendency to fight battles no one else considered worthwhile.

The power of nepotism was frightening when one was on the receiving side. Hermione merely pointed out that discrimination based on crimes committed when the witch or wizard was underage was quite illegal, not to mention likely to attract exactly the sort of unflattering press coverage the Ministry wanted to avoid. The official she had been pointed to stumbled over the words in her haste to convey that the matter would be looked into urgently.

Making her goodbyes, she wondered if this was how Lucius Malfoy had felt in his heyday.

She was convinced she was merely nudging the Ministry along to do what it should have been doing anyway, but wasn't that what he would have thought as well? Hermione felt more comfortable once it occurred to her that Lucius Malfoy would never be found second-guessing himself – even after Voldemort's comprehensive defeat, he preferred to barricade himself at Malfoy Manor and pretend the rest of the world didn't exist.

Which made it even more surprising that his son was choosing a rather different path for himself.

Hermione was intrigued enough to visit the archiving section more often, until Malfoy caught her red-handed.

"You've already checked out all Dubois' population reports from the thirties. Please don't tell me I'm your latest project, or I might just have to slit my wrists quietly behind the Miscellaneous locker."

Hermione couldn't remember the last time she had blushed, which made the tell-tale heat in her cheeks even more embarrassing. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm just trying to do my job – it's hardly the crime of the century to forget I already had all of Dubois in my office. Somewhere."

"Nice try. I'm afraid your suddenly poor organisational skills fail to explain this." He pulled out a piece of parchment and Hermione squinted to read it at an angle:

"We are pleased to announce your acceptance to –" Disbelief made her temporarily mute, but then her voice returned with a vengeance. "The Auror training programme? They're taking you on to become an Auror?"

"Surprised, Granger? Be careful what you wish for, and all that." He sneered at her, rolling up his parchment again like it was something precious.

Being a Gryffindor, Hermione sought refuge in absolute honesty. "I didn't think Harry would take you on. Or that you even wanted to become an Auror – you realise it isn't exactly a desk job?"

"Oh no, are you serious?" he moaned theatrically. "I love it so much here, too."

Hermione had assumed Malfoy's surly appearance had more to do with losing the war than disliking his job, but she was willing to concede both reasons may contribute. That wasn't her main issue, however. "Not to put too fine a point on it, it's a little bit like giving the children the key to the sweetshop as well, isn't it?"

"If you could stick to one metaphor it might be a bit easier to translate your question to English, but I'll give it a go. I take it you're referring to my ever so stylish tattoo?" Malfoy shook the sleeve of his robe back to expose the faded grey area on his arm. If he was playing for effect, he was going to be disappointed – even when it had been black, his Mark had failed to scare Hermione.

"I was thinking about your relations, actually – how many of your aunts and uncles have been on their hit list? Even Sirius was the most wanted in Britain at one stage, if I remember correctly."

He snorted. "You're forgetting Cousin Nymphadora – being an Auror is virtually a family tradition."

"Except her mother was blasted off the family tree before she was even born. Come on, surely you must have a better reason than that."

Malfoy gave her a long stare, filled with so much loathing she almost took a step backwards. "Or what, you'll tell them to pull the offer?"

"Or nothing." Hermione held her ground, meeting stare with stare. "I'm just curious. Plus, I'm hardly the last person who will ask why Draco Malfoy decides to join the Aurors, so you can see it as practice."

The look of dismay on his face was almost comical.

"Come on – surely you must have realised Rita Skeeter will be all over the news? Not to mention the other people on the training programme. Unlike Rita, you'll probably want to be on speaking terms with them."

"Fine," he told her between clenched teeth. "Perhaps you can give me marks?" Draco jutted out his chest – it didn't go very far – and raised his chin so he was looking down at her at an angle. Hermione recognised the pose from his mother (minus the chest bit).

"Joining the Aurors is the best way I can think of to make sure the same fuckwittery doesn't continue in the next generation. Thanks to my upbringing," he casually tapped his left arm, "I also happen to have a thorough grounding in the Dark Arts."

Hermione stared at him. He was tall – well, taller than her – and blond, and his chin was definitely pointy. His accent was so posh consonants randomly got lost when he was speaking, and he was even paler than the rest of the Ministry staff. It was definitely Draco Malfoy who was standing in front of her, unless Polyjuice was involved.

"You know," she said when she couldn't stay quiet any longer, "you might actually pull it off."

"That means a lot coming from you," he said, perfectly serious.

Hermione lip quivered until she couldn't help herself and burst out laughing, and against all expectations Malfoy joined in. She couldn't remember seeing him look so happy since he had been on the Inquisitorial Squad.

Draco raced through the admittedly abbreviated Auror training program and emerged as the first Malfoy Auror in recorded history.

Hermione ran into the new recruits at the Leaky Cauldron. She recognised Perkins from Hogwarts, saw the gaggle of purple robes and copious amounts of alcohol being consumed, and remembered the day's headlines from the Daily Prophet had announced that the third batch of Auror recruits since the war were graduating today.

Harry had not said much about Malfoy – perhaps there was too much history. Once having shared a common room with Perkins had not prevented him from moaning about her lack of attention to basic spells, preferring the more exotic option, but Malfoy was different.

Still, Hermione wondered how he had got on.

She tried to spot him in the crown but failed – the noisiness of the group initially disguised there were only a dozen or so of them, and due to his hair Malfoy was usually easy to find. Pushing past the Aurors she tried to fund Seamus, whom she was supposed to be meeting, but there was no sign of him.

Given that she was fifteen minutes early and Seamus usually was late for everything it was hardly surprising, so she picked a table in the corner.

"Drowning your sorrows alone, Granger?" someone said in her ear as she was trying to bring her gin and tonic back from the bar without splashing half of it on the way.

She spilt half of it on her robes before she realised who it was. "On the contrary – I might even raise my glass to you." Swallowing most of what was left, she did, only to find him clinking his wine glass against hers. "A word in your ear, Malfoy – I think there's a law Aurors have to drink beer, not wine."

"You'd better tell my colleagues – they made Tom bring out the tequila half an hour ago." Malfoy nodded to the bar, where someone was racing through shot glasses like they were going out of fashion. "They make me feel middle-aged, and I'm not even thirty yet."

Hermione looked at the fresh faces currently cheering on the shot drinker to finish the line and tried to imagine herself in their place. Even if the war hadn't happened, she didn't think she ever would have climbed onto the bar to lead the chorus singing "A Wizard's Staff Has A Knob On The End" at the top of her voice.

Malfoy cut her ruminations short. "Don't think for a minute that I'm trying to say we're the same, because I know what you lived through is in no way comparable to my experience," he told his wineglass. "It's just –"

"They weren't there, in the thick of it," Hermione said quietly. "Unless you were in the war, you can't understand what it was like." During her final year at Hogwarts, there had been an invisible wall between the fighters who had survived the Battle of Hogwarts and the rest of Gryffindor. It had been harder to gloss over when they lived in the same quarters; Auror training must have brought the same proximity.

"Exactly." Malfoy cast her a relieved glance, and Hermione giggled. "What?"

"It just struck me this is possibly the first time you've ever agreed with me."

"Don't get too used to it." Malfoy's smile was crooked.

"Hermione, me oul' flower, how are ya?" Seamus didn't even notice someone else had been sitting next to Hermione as he came barging in.

"Drop the leprechaun act, Finnegan – you're late. You only talk like that when you're trying to get away with something." Hermione was annoyed, but she wasn't quite sure if it was with Seamus, Malfoy or even herself.

"Ah, come here, now – sure, I'm only a piddly twenty minutes late. Terribly sorry I am, too," he added quickly as Hermione's eyes narrowed.

She didn't see Malfoy again that evening, Seamus' colourful renditions of his love life keeping any passers-by away from their table.

He didn't go away – somehow, Malfoy had inveigled himself into her mind and become a permanent resident somewhere at the edges of her consciousness. She noticed him at the Ministry, where she passed him in the corridors several times a week. He intruded on her precious free-time, too – even when she had queued patiently for her favourite table at the bookshop-cum-cafe near her parents and curled up with a pile of new books, she kept wondering about Malfoy.

The enigma turned out to be her undoing.

Hermione was constitutionally incapable of it, no matter how many times Ron and Harry implored her to leave well alone, and the puzzle of how Draco Malfoy had gone from snivelling coward to – to something else was too fascinating to pass up.

That she didn't quite know what he had turned into made even more interesting in a post-war world where a staggering number of people claimed to have been sleeper agents for the Order of the Phoenix when they haven't even heard about Grimmauld Place.

At least Malfoy had the guts to admit he had been wrong – or had he? For some reason it seemed very important that she should find out.

If he could change, despite being born into pure-blood prejudice, there may be hope for the rest of the wizarding world. Having lived through one war already, Hermione was not keen on repeating the experience in ever-shortening cycles. Something had to change, and she had far rather people did it themselves for the right reasons than because they were forced to.

To be continued next week