Chapter 4

-oOo-

"Good morning to you too." Hermione's smile was as insincere as Linda O'Donohue's faked delight when the former swirled around in the corridor on level seven to talk to her.

The whispers had been getting on Hermione's nerves since Wednesday. They had started as she returned to work from the weekend, but she had developed a thick skin. It was more a sense of righteous indignation, really – the most exciting thing she had been doing lately was plotting to equip the Ministry with what would have passed for modern technology in the Nineties. Hermione did not think that the introduction of photocopiers merited grown adults whispering in the corridors as she was walking by.

Once she had thoroughly embarrassed O'Donohue, Hermione dismissed the Ministry gossips from her mind. She was having lunch with Draco, and he was bound to talk about something that was actually interesting.

The lunches continued, as did the whispers. Hermione considered asking Draco if he had noticed, but decided against it. As a man who went from being a Death Eater to an employee of the reformed Ministry, the sort of gossip she had been the subject of was probably only a whisper in the wind.

It was odd, but Hermione couldn't tell whether the murmurs abated or increased when she was with Draco. No matter how she tried, Draco's face and whatever they had been talking about overrode any recollections of their surroundings.

In retrospect, she probably should have spent a little more time worrying about that.

When Hermione entered the Ministry canteen on Wednesday the 16th of October, she could tell something momentous had occurred. A quick look at the pile of newspapers at the cash register revealed that nothing more sensational than a new product line being launched by Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes ("Get stuck into the winter with snow powder" with "Used At Customer's Own Risk" in very small print at the bottom).

It was internal, then. Curious.

For the first time in a few weeks, nobody seemed very interested in her. Hermione strode to the cake counter, determined to enjoy the peace and quiet for a while some other unfortunate sod had their time in the limelight and found her usual table.

Ron was only fifteen minutes late when he joined her. "Carrot cake! I haven't had that in ages!"

Hermione pulled to plate closer towards her. "You'd better start queuing up then, don't you think?"

"Come on, just a little bit. Or I won't tell you what really happened down at the Department of Mysteries. You can make do with the official version, just like everyone else."

"Is that what everyone is talking about?"

"Yes, haven't you heard anything? I was there." Ron laid it on thick, even with his mouth full, taking full advantage of Hermione's temporary surrender of her plate. "The wards on the Brain Room were up for renewal and it's always done by an Auror, so I was down on level nine. Always gives me the willies, but there you go."

"Yes, yes," Hermione urged him on. "Scarred for life, I know."

"I was! Here, I'll show you, you can't have forgotten –"

"Ron!"

"It went down a treat at the Leaky last weekend. And it's not like you haven't seen my chest before –"

Hermione moved quickly to cut him off. "I don't need to see your battle scars, I was there when you got them. Will you tell me what happened, now that you've polished off my cake?"

"McLaggen went it to see Malfoy, which was strange in itself. What business would an Administrative Officer from the Department of Magical Games and Sports have with the Unspeakables? Unless they're trying to invent a Disappearing Snitch or something –"

"Very suspicious. Then what happened?" Hermione was in no mood to listen to Ron rambling about Quidditch.

"Well, then McLaggen left –"

"When was that?"

"Oh, after fifteen minutes or so – the door to the Death Chamber was right spooky to ward, I can tell you that."

Hermione discovered she was sitting at the edge of her chair and shuffled back a few inches. It was probably for the best that Ron believed her keen interest in his tale was purely because it was juicy gossip even by Ministry standards.

"Then what? Someone was talking about 'the storm' in the queue for coffee – what was that about?"

"Well, Malfoy went back to his office or whatever they have down there. Must be right up his alley, I bet they could set him up with an actual dungeon if he wanted –"

"Ron!"

"Yeah, well, nothing happened for a good while. I was actually thinking I might even get out for lunch for a change, the wards were going so well, and then I started feeling a bit chilly."

"If only you'd had a jumper," Hermione mumbled, rolling her eyes.

Ron ignored her pointedly and ploughed on: "Then I noticed it had started to snow."

"What? And what about Malfoy?"

"I'm getting there, aren't I? So I was in the Brain Room, up to my knees in what I thought was snow, when I reckoned it would be a good idea to see if it was happening anywhere else. I went back to the Entrance Chamber, which was full of people. It was hard to hear what anyone was saying over the wind, but everyone saw Malfoy leave on his broom."

"On his broom?"

"He's actually a decent flyer – he just made it through the door before Upshott sealed it, despite the conditions."

"But why? Did everyone else make it out?"

"Yes, of course. It stopped when Malfoy left. As soon as someone thought to look at the snow it was pretty obvious."

"The snow?" Hermione repeated, even more confused.

"Turns out the snowflakes were charmed to spell out 'Fuck you' when you looked at them closely. They didn't need me to confirm Malfoy was a bit cheesed off with the terms of his employment, so he upped it and left. They had to fumigate his office after finding his letter of resignation."

"But – Where – It just doesn't make sense!" Hermione almost wailed.

"It's a good story though, isn't it? That charm on the snowflakes was quite clever. Wonder if George could do it if I showed him my diagnostics, they're all melted now but I did a quick spell before..."

Hermione abandoned Ron to his meanderings, happy for once not to harass him about the conflict of interest that came with combining his work as an Auror with WWW. She was worried about Draco.

Very worried.

They had gone for lunch together the previous day, and he had been perfectly normal. Their new, better understanding sat between them, still too fragile to acknowledge openly, but it had been there. It had, Hermione reassured herself. She would simply send an owl to Draco, and then –

Well, he would explain what was going on and then they could take it from there.

The owl returned, the letter it carried unread. The second owl didn't fare much better, while the third must have been disorientated and did not return until after several weeks.

Hermione built herself up to try a Floo call, only to hit a brick wall literally as well as metaphorically. She tried the normal post – if any part of the Malfoy estate was known to Muggles, her letter was sure to find its destination, give that 'Draco Malfoy' wasn't exactly a popular name, but to no avail.

She was contemplating to corner Pansy Parkinson as a last resort before asking Andromeda for help, but neither option was appealing.

Ron interrupted her deliberations one morning at Grimmauld Place. Harry and Ginny had been not appeared so far this morning; either they were still asleep, or the reinforced Silencing Charms still held. Hermione preferred not to dwell on their whereabouts too much and had pounced on the Sunday papers Ron had brought from his raid to the corner shop.

"These Muggle papers weigh a ton," Ron complained as he drained his can of Red Bull. Having finally mastered Muggle money when he started to earn his own, he had developed a bit of an addiction after nights out. Hermione wasn't going to point out the drawbacks of caffeine-based drinks when it got her complimentary newspapers.

"There's a lot more Muggles to write about in the world than wizards, you know," Hermione observed absently as she read the headlines. Budget time wasn't any more fun for Muggle ministers than for wizards.

"I know one thing they won't know about, anyway," Ron said. "Guess what Tracy Davis told me last night?"

"What – that she's going out with Terry Boot?"

"Nah, that was later – not much point hanging around talking to her once she told me that, was there?" Ron had much better taste in women these days – hard-as-nails Tracy Davis and he made an odd sort of sense.

Hermione hoped Terry Boot would be given the boot soon. Hur hur.

Her internal debate whether cheering Ron up would be worth making a truly awful pun was cut short by Ron continuing his story.

"No, it's about Malfoy actually. And Astoria Greengrass, if you remember her."

Hermione had been feeling pleasantly numb, her hangover taking the edge off the world, but now she felt like someone had poured molten lead down her spine. Her mouth was opening and closing but no sounds were coming out – thankfully, Ron didn't need much encouragement.

"Tracy said they're getting married."

Hermione found her voice at last. "What?"

"Don't shriek, my head is really sore. That's what she said. But here's the interesting thing: apparently, Malfoy just called over to the Greengrass castle or whatever they live in and proposed. Just like that."

That made no sense. Not that any of the first parts of the story did either, but even so.

"Astoria accepted?" Hermione asked, trying hard to sound only politely interested. It came out with a wheeze, so she probably failed.

"Obviously. Listen, I know what they're like, the old families – Malfoy is loaded and as pure-blood, as they come. Plus he's rehabilitated now, too. Astoria can marry him and do whatever she likes for the rest of her life, as long as she has a son or two. Why do you think Parkinson was so keen on Malfoy at school? They all know there's only a handful of people they can marry to keep the bloodlines pure, it doesn't come as a surprise."

"I know that, do you think I've lived under a rock since I was eleven," Hermione snapped. "I don't understand why he would do it, that's all."

"Who knows why Malfoy does anything? Maybe he had an early midlife crisis or something." Ron seemed to notice the state Hermione was in for the first time. "Why do you care if Malfoy gets shacked up with Astoria Greengrass, anyway?"

It was a fair question, and it deserved a fair answer.

That, and she was barely holding it together enough to remaining sitting up, never mind coming up with a halfway convincing lie.

"Because I love him," she said. The words sunk awkwardly into the cheerful prints adorning the refurbished drawing room, where no doubt Draco had been brought in his Sunday bests as a toddler.

"Well, fuck."

"Yes, that would just about sum it up. Now, excuse me while I go off and tell him."

"How is he supposed to avoid getting engaged to other people if you don't even bother to let him know? Who's got the emotional range of a teaspoon now?" Ron asked in a long-suffering voice.

Hermione could not answer – she was already Apparating to Andromeda's.

It was too late to worry about being embarrassed about asking how to get to Malfoy Manor – all she wanted to do was to see Draco and talk to him. She was a bit hazy on what would happen next, but it would definitely be stuck in the morass of doubt and uncertainty that constituted not seeing him.

A little embarrassment had never killed anyone, surely?

Two Apparitions, one lengthy Floo call conducted out of her hearing and several hours of waiting in immaculate drawing rooms later, Hermione found herself knocking on the door to Draco's study.

Before her courage failed her, she threw the door open – at the same time as Draco said:

"Come in then, if you must – Granger!"

"The last time you saw me, you called me Hermione." It slipped out before she could close her traitorous mouth.

Draco brushed the hair out of his face with a wary hand – one could have fit a weekly shop into the bags beneath his eyes. "Surely you agree this is closer to the natural order of things."

"You mean where you don't reply to my letters?"

"Where you live your life and I live mine, and never the two shall meet."

"That's bollocks, and you know it – we even work in the same place."

"Worked," he pointed out, but Hermione was reaching full steam ahead and wasn't going to get derailed by petty details.

"We went to school together, we fought in the same war, and we have at least some friends in common. Your mother saved my best friend's life. My best friend saved your life – several times. You'd better come up with a more convincing argument than that."

"Very well. In all the aspects of our personal lives, we are irreconcilably different." If Draco was wheeling out the six-syllable words, she must be getting to him.

Good.

Hermione couldn't remember anything that had hurt as much as Draco standing there pretending they were as good as strangers, not even her parents stripped of their memories – at least she had done it to save their lives, no matter how presumptuous her seventeen-year-old self had been thinking she knew what was best for other people.

A flicker of a thought suggested she should follow that thought to its conclusion, but Hermione was in too much of a hurry to demolish Draco's argument that she dismissed it.

"Whereas you and Astoria Greengrass, whom you didn't even bother speaking to when she was standing next to you at the Ministry Christmas party, are soulmates?"

Draco inhaled quickly, his nostrils flaring. "She and I share an understanding of our role in the world, and we have been bred to similar values."

"Hopefully these no longer include the oppression of people like me," she mumbled.

"Hermione!"

She raised her eyebrows. "It's a fair comment, don't you think? Especially considering that you've spent the last few months finding out that the world is full of Muggle things vastly superior to their wizarding equivalents. Forgive me for finding your Damascene conversion a bit lacking in plausibility."

Hermione did a quick mental check – she was still holding it together. That had only been four syllables, five at the most.

"Yet here I am, about to get married to Astoria." Draco rested his arm on the mantelpiece, but the Lord of the Manor look failed to take away the sad cast around his mouth.

"You're looking so happy, too," Hermione said.

"Yeah, well, I have to get married at some stage. I may as well get it over with."

"That does sound a bit more plausible, actually."

"Thank you." He bowed politely, already moving towards the door, no doubt to hold it open for her so she could be escorted out. Maybe it would have worked on someone who had been brought up like they lived in an Austen novel. It definitely didn't work on Hermione.

"What did McLaggen have to say, then? Judged on his normal level of intercourse it was probably nothing interesting, but I'm willing to stand corrected."

Fortunately, one of the many, many ways Draco was nothing like his father was the way his emotions showed across his face.

For a moment, there was sheer panic. Then, the bland Malfoy mask slipped on, but his eyes were still darting around the room like a house-elf uprising was being mounted from the interior walls.

"You would have to ask him, how am I supposed to know?"

"Oh, I will, believe me – I just wanted to ask for your version first. At least it won't come accompanied by excessive spitting."

There was a brief moment when their eyes met, brimming with amusement, and Hermione felt a staggering sense of relief. It was still Draco in there, she just had to coax him out.

"He simply shared his views on the current political situation. Namely, that it would be better without me being involved in any managerial capacity at the Ministry." Draco brushed an invisible piece of lint off his impeccably starched cuffs.

"This would be the man you called "an affront to blundering idiots everywhere, bringing their good name into disrepute" last week? That's who you decided to listen to?" She could hear her own voice getting shrill, but she didn't care.

"Even a blind Niffler finds a silver spoon. Eventually."

Hermione paced around the room, her robes snagging on furniture as she swept a path where there was room only for exquisitely embroidered tablecloths.

McLaggen, McLaggen... He seemed to be popping up everywhere recently – only last month he'd been trying to get her to dance with him at the war memorial ball (Draco and she reluctantly had agreed to one, in exchange for the committee to drop a number of more offensive proposals pursued by various factions in the Ministry).

There was something about McLaggen, other than his persistent inability to accept a 'no' without being hexed first...

"The bastard!" she shouted so loudly Draco must have feared for the crystal on the mantelpiece.

He concealed it well, though. "The Niffler?"

"McLaggen, you idiot!"

"I thought he was the idiot?"

"Don't play dumb! What did McLaggen tell you he would do if you didn't resign from the Ministry and stopped meeting up with me?"

Draco's face turned so pale she was concerned he would faint.

"Never mind," Hermione said, as gently as she could manage. "It doesn't matter what he said, because he is an idiot. And a bastard. You're neither, as it happens, and that's why I would be distraught if you listened to him. What am I supposed to do if I don't have you to talk to?"

"Distraught?" He looked up from under his eyelashes, head still tilted down towards the Axminster carpet, and if Hermione hadn't been quite sure she was in love with him before it would have been enough to push her over the edge.

"Indeed." Instinctively, she took a step forward and then one more, until they were so close she could feel the heat of his breath. She had to look up then, to be able to see his face.

"If you change your mind and start living in the 21st century rather than the 18th, I would like to propose a somewhat different arrangement than what you have with Astoria. One with love, but no marriage – at least not to start with. What do you think?"

Draco swallowed loudly and backed away.

Hermione tried very hard not to feel like her world was crashing down around her shoulders.

"You're offering me everything I could ever want on a silver plate," he said, his voice hoarse. "Don't think –"

What this situation needed was less drama, Hermione decided. "Why don't we sit down and you tell me exactly what McLaggen said?"

Draco's legs folded and conveniently deposited him in a comfortable-looking armchair. Hermione picked one of the more delicate chairs lining the wall. Draco must be expecting visitors occasionally; he had at least five of them.

"McLaggen said," he began, "that I wasn't remotely good enough for you. Which I can hardly dispute."

"Draco!"

"He also informed me that any hint of a close relationship with me, however platonic, would be the death knell for any political ambitions you may have. The rest was mainly reflections on my past and does not need to be repeated, given that you were there most of the time."

A glint in his eye had replaced the flat-out despair from earlier; it gave Hermione hope he wasn't an irredeemable dunderhead.

"In the unlikely event that he is correct this time, I will point out that I will not let prejudice dictate my life, now or ever. If the Wizarding world can't deal with the two of us being together, it will simply take a little bit longer to drag it, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century."

"You say that a lot," he said, standing up again and taking a determined step towards her chair. "What's so great about the 21st century?"

"You're in it," Hermione said, and by the time she was back on her feet, she was in his arms.

"I'd better not kiss you until I've spoken to Astoria," he told her hairline.

Hermione whispered in his ear: "Then you'd better hurry, or I'll self-combust!"

Draco disentangled himself so quickly she barely had time to notice him spinning around before he had Disapparated.

"I fear you look rather dishevelled," a disdainful voice announced and Hermione almost drew her wand before she realised it was only the mirror.

"I had better fix that before he comes back then, hadn't I?" she replied, amusement and relief and sheer happiness making her giddy. "Or he may not make me even more dishevelled."

The mirror only sniffed in response.

THE END