A/N: And so the cycle continues…

"It's too bad, really," Harry was saying to her. "You were our last hope, the last lifeline of humanity, our walled, unbreachable fortress."

"What?"

"In the end, even you couldn't resist. Even you, Hermione, even you fell victim to Malfoy's charm."

"And don't forget my dashing good looks!" Draco threw in, smirking as only he could. Hermione smiled a little, and shrugged sleepily. "It's a travesty," she said. "The travesty of human fallibility."

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The Definition of Human Unreliability

In the LONG ANTICIPATED SEQUEL to The Travesty of Human Fallibility, we learn The Definition of Human Unreliability, as Ophelia's been kidnapped, Draco and Harry are on the run, and Hermione and Ginny are left to pick up the pieces. But guess who's here to help? "Just call me Mr. Wonderful," Blaise Zabini said smoothly, swaggering into the room. HDr, GWBZ

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Chapter 1

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"Bye, love," Draco said, kissing Hermione on the cheek, and she smiled shyly at him. The warmth that shot through her when he called her that was still unfamiliar and refreshingly welcome.

Walking down the path away from Malfoy Manor, she suddenly whipped around. He was still standing in the doorstep, watching her. She ran back to him, throwing herself in to his arms as he spun her around, both of them laughing.

Hermione felt like a teenager as she clung to Draco's neck and whirled around, giddy with emotion.

"I love you," she whispered breathlessly in to his ear, and turned her face up for his dizzyingly delicious, achingly sweet kiss, winding her fingers in his soft hair.

Finally, she drew back.

"Dinner at yours tonight?" Draco confirmed, his voice slightly deeper than normal.

"Sounds perfect," she coquetted, looking at him from beneath her lashes. "Ophelia is spending the night with her grandparents today."

"Oh, really?" Draco raised an eyebrow, although he had known perfectly well that Ophelia spent most Friday nights with Hermione's parents. "Whatever could you be insinuating, Miss Granger?"

Stepping delicately back on to the path, Hermione turned slightly so that her hair fell across her back, sliding along to the opposite side of her neck. She felt Draco's eyes trace the expanse of skin that it revealed, and took another half step away.

"Mr. Malfoy, you shock me. I was merely planning a light dinner, some wine, and," she paused, flicking her eyes up at him from beneath her lashes, "no, nothing else."

Draco took a step closer, following her. "Nothing else? Really? And here I was, thinking we had the night to ourselves…"

Hermione shrugged. "We could play checkers."

Draco barked a laugh, reaching out a hand to trace the line of her collarbone. "I can think of much…better…things to do..." His other hand snaked around her waist, sliding up the front of her shirt before she could pull away.

He pulled her lips to his with one hand, his thumb tracing patterns on her stomach with the other.

"I have to go to work," Hermione whispered against his lips.

"Be late to work," he replied, knowing she would say no.

"Okay," she gasped. "But don't get used to this. It's only because I was going to be early—"

"Granger?"

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

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Hermione stumbled in to work, barely late but not her usual hour early, and Ida noted (smiling to herself) that her hair was not in its usual impeccable bun. As a matter of fact, it hung rather loosely around her head, and her cardigan was buttoned incorrectly.

Ida hid a smile behind her hand as she gave Hermione her coffee and a stack of files. "Healer Granger?"

"Yes, Ida?" Hermione asked distractedly, running a hand through her hair.

"Um, your cardigan looks a little haphazard," Ida said delicately.

"Shit," Hermione swore, quickly re-buttoning it. "Do you suppose everyone noticed?"

Ida laughed. "No, not at all," she lied. Yes, she laughed to herself. You're dating Malfoy.

Calming, Hermione smiled. She sighed to herself, taking a long sip of coffee. "So, what have we got today?" She asked her assistant, pulling the stack of files towards herself.

"An emergency surgery this afternoon," Ida said. "A halfblood wizard, Fritz Montgomery, was found by his daughter under some combination of inexplicable curses early this morning…he's still under diagnostic examination."

"What?" Hermione barked. "Inexplicable curses? How?"

"He had a small house in Essex, he was living alone…Not much background, but the daughter was coming in for a visit, she lives in London. They're calling it an attack," Ida finished, passing Hermione the specific file. Hermione leafed through it.

"This is crazy stuff," she whispered, hissing through her teeth. 'I haven't seen curses like these since the Death Eaters."

Funny, she reflected to herself, how ten years ago felt like a lifetime away.

She continued looking through the file, scribbled in some other Healer's atrocious handwriting. "You say the diagnostic team is still working? This is just the initial read?" Ida nodded. "Alright, get me that file second as soon as it comes. Oh, and Ida—transcribe it? This is difficult enough to read without having to decipher the handwriting. Okay…" Hermione mused. "No research today…patients?"

"No departmental meetings, although the Ministry mentioned they might be sending over a member of the new funding team…" Hermione smiled to herself. "Funny how Mr. Malfoy suddenly resigned like that," Ida mused. "Apparently he felt that he couldn't quite be impartial. Anyways, my friend in the department said there's talk that he'll regain his position as Ambassador in America—"

Hermione choked on her coffee. "What? B-but," she took a deep breath, "but I heard he was miserable at that job! He got fired!"

Ida shrugged. "Who knows. There's so much politics involved in any Ministry position…"

Hermione rubbed her forehead, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. Instead, she continued leafing through the files. "Oh! Speaking of Mr. Malfoy… Ah, here he is. Mr. Zabini. Haven't seen your file in a few days, whose care has he been under?"

Ida dashed to her desk, grabbing a clipboard and returning, examining it. "Um…Zabini has been under the care of Healer Alumen in the Intensive Care Ward. The reason he's been returned to your supervision is—"

"I have it right here. Oh dear, I'll need to consult Jim and hm, um, oh, damn, tell Liam he'll have to come as well. This is going to be…tricky."

"Alright…" Ida blinked. "I'll notify Healer Ford right now and we'll have to see when we can fit in to Moore's schedule."

"Perfect," said Hermione, standing up. "I've got to go see Sarah quickly," she waved a scrap of paper on her desk that was apparently some kind of note. "Then I'm going to go look at Zabini. I'll be back in an hour for Jim and then hopefully Liam will be able to see me before this afternoon…" She trailed off, already running for the door.

"Hermione?" Sarah Wallace dashed up to her before she could reach the other woman's office. "Things are improving! All of the patients who suffered from the blood transfusions are recovered, with one exception, and the patients are actually doing better because of the blood. I, I actually wanted to talk to you about the possibility of expanding our repertoire—"

"That's what I'm here to talk to you about," Hermione said brusquely. "Walk with me? I've got to go see Blaise Zabini before Jim comes over. I need a couple consultations on what to do with him. I think I'm fully briefed, but Alumen's been on the case since I worked with these patients, and Merlin knows what he's omitted from the official file."

Sarah shook her head. "He needs to learn why paperwork has a function in the world."

The shared a laugh over mutual painful experiences due to Alumen's deficiency in the paperwork department. "So," Sarah began, "apparently Malfoy attempted to have me fired because of Zabini's illness. Liam told me that he protected me, but I guess it was a close thing."

Hermione winced. "Merlin, what a prat! It wasn't your fault, Zabini had huge blood loss and you were attempting to help in whatever way possible. We're Healers, that's what we do—make high-risk decisions in tense situations, and hope they work out because we're better informed than civilians."

Sarah smiled gratefully at her. "Oh, good, I was so worried you'd be mad at me."

"Why?" Hermione asked, surprised.

"Because, you're d—" Sarah cut herself off abruptly, turning bright red. "Oh, uh, because, uh, it was a, um, dumb oversight," she stammered.

"Oh for Merlin's sake!" Hermione cried, throwing her hands in the air and narrowly avoiding throwing her files as well. "Does everyone and their pregnant sister know that I'm seeing Malfoy!?"

Sarah turned, if possible, even more red. "No-o," she began.

"It was a rhetorical question," Hermione snapped. "Now if you wouldn't mind filling me in," she said, gesturing to the file as they continued to walk.

As Sarah Wallace briefed her about blood doping procedures integrating magical and muggle medicine techniques, Hermione absently taking notes as they walked towards Alumen's office, she wondered how everyone had somehow found out about her blissful private life.

"Thank Merlin for the weekend," she muttered to herself, looking forward to a peaceful Friday night and then a leisurely Sunday with her parents and Ophelia.

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She hadn't been his secretary of two years for nothing. He could tell something was off as soon as he saw her face. Tuesdays, Draco decided, were never a good day.

"What is it, Erwin?" Draco demanded, striding in as he had done every day since the beginning, and imperiously grabbing his coffee, taking a swig and then slamming it down again.

"Two things," she said dryly, calmly mopping up the spill that he had left.

"Merlin be damned! Does this office door ever work properly!" Draco shook his door aggressively, tried the key again, and was reduced to kicking it. "We need to get spelled locks, Erwin!" He shouted. "I cannot deal with this, I'm already running late!"

"Mr. Malfoy," Erwin walked slowly to the door and gently jiggled the handle, opening it with a creak. "If you want an antique bamboo door and specifically import it from Singapore, where everything made before the 1600s has inherent magical resistance spelled into its every inch, you simply cannot have it both ways. Perhaps if you were not consistently fifteen minutes late to work, you would not feel so pressed for time that keys appear inefficient."

Draco huffed angrily, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Ophelia's daycare woman always talks my ear off for three hours, and this morning Fee herself was vomiting everywhere, Hermione is taking her in to St. Mungos." He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm going to leave early to go meet them there, Hermione usually takes Tuesdays off now anyways so it's not a big deal that she's missing work…" He trailed off, realizing he was talking only for his own benefit. Erwin had returned to her desk outside his office.

"Erwin!" He barked, removing his fedora and tossing it onto the rack next to his desk. "Why is it so damn hot in here!"

"Possibly because it is mid-August, Mr. Malfoy, and temperatures tend to reach their highest around that time of the year."

"You would think it would make a difference that we were magical, and could possibly have the ability to cool the buildings we work in."

"Yesterday, Mr. Malfoy, you declared that it was strange you were required to wear a sweater in your office during midsummer, and requested that I file for removal of all cooling charms in the building. Stella has already been in earlier this morning to complain."

"Well, file for re-installation immediately," Draco snapped. "This is ridiculous."

There was a loud noise outside the office, and then Erwin's head appeared in the doorway. "Mr. Malfoy, you have a floo call."

"Who is it?" Draco snapped, flinging himself out of his chair to walk to the floo room across the hall.

"Ms. Granger."

He jogged the last few steps to the door Erwin held open, hurtling in front of the fireplace.

"Malfoy?" Hermione's voice sounded strained.

"For the last time, Hermione, how long will I have to ask you to call me Dr—" he cut off abruptly upon seeing her face.

"Leave," he said to Erwin over his shoulder. She exited quietly, shutting the door, and Draco lay down on his stomach in front of the fire, eye-to-eye with Hermione.

"Ophelia had acute heart failure, induced by an abnormality with the aorta," Hermione said in her calm healer's voice. "That sort of abnormality is only seen in children born with an arrhythmia, or people who have been poisoned."

"Ophelia's heart has always been normal," Draco stated.

"Naturally I would have had that checked upon her birth," Hermione confirmed. "I am, after all, a healer, and that sort of thing can be easily fixed to prevent situations like this."

Time seemed to freeze for a moment between the two would-be parents.

Draco found that his voice was momentarily gone. "She'll be okay?" He managed huskily.

"She'll be fine."

He stood, brushing himself off. "I'll go to the nursery. See who she's been in contact with the past few days, start there. I'll meet you at the manor, and we can start interviewing the elves and where we've been buying our food from. I should have been more careful about all this."

Hermione's eyes crinkled, with some combination of relief, joy, sadness, and exhaustion. "See you soon." And then she was gone.

He walked quickly back to his office, beckoning Erwin in as he passed her desk.

"Get in here, what's going on right now? I have to leave again, a family emergency, so let's make this quick." She stood up, walking to the doorway.

"Two things, Mr. Malfoy." She paused, and he nodded.

Erwin held up a fancy invitation dripping with white ribbons. Even from behind his desk, Draco could make out the bright gold script. "It's a wedding invitation," she said dryly. "For the spring marriage of Ronald B. Weasley and Lunasalle L. Lovegood."

Draco choked on his coffee and then somehow still managed to burst into laughter. "A spring marriage? That's a good one. What in the world do you suppose I should get them as a wedding gift?" He grabbed his fedora, jamming it onto his hair.

"The other memo, sir, is of a different tone." Erwin stepped forward, sliding a piece of paper across the desk to him.

He raised an eyebrow. "I don't know if I can handle any other tone right now."

She shook her head. Draco grabbed it, quickly scanning its contents.

"Erwin," he said, looking up. "What does this mean?"

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