Chapter One
Twenty Seconds
Hermione sipped her tea and tried not to throttle Ginny for her senseless meddling yet again. Adjusting her position on the couch, she glared at Ginny's shameless smile and began to start explaining the reasons as to why her ingenious plan was doomed to fail.
"First off, this really is too short of notice, I have plenty of-"
"Such as what?" Ginny interrupted, "What do you have to do tonight that would directly interfere with you having a nice reunion with an old housemate that needs your help?"
"Well, if you must know," she started racking her brains for some conceivable excuse as to why she couldn't go tonight, "I- I have paperwork that needs to be completed immediately!"
"Hermione, paperwork was meant to be put off for situations such as these. Please? It's one evening and he really needs you!"
"Really Ginny, it's only been two weeks since Ron and I-" she began again, only to be disrupted by an unexpected apparition to her left.
Speak of the devil, and he shall appear it seemed.
"Hey, 'Mione, have you seen my newest broom? I thought I had left it here somewhere because I can't find it at my place." Ron said smiling crookedly at her.
"Ronald," she started sighing in frustration, "I am in the middle of a discussion right now. Why on earth, would I know where your broom is? I not only don't fly, but I also don't give a flying hyppogriff about where you keep your belongings! But I assure you that it's probably no longer here!"
"Jeez 'Mione," he said in an exaggerated voice, "No need to be so hostile! I just couldn't find it and decided to check here. But hey, while I'm here, I wanted to ask you something! Tonight, since I'm sure you don't have plans, I wanted to offer you a second chance to fix things with me, go out to a nice restaurant. I'll even pay, I know I have a better salary than you do anyways," he said leaning against her kitchen island and stealing an apple from her centerpiece.
She was about to refuse his offer when Ginny decided to remind her brother of her presence.
"She can't," Ginny said cheekily, "She already has plans with a better man."
Hermione cringed, and closed her eyes briefly to brace herself for the oncoming storm. Today wasn't the day she wanted to deal with this by any means. Timidly opening her eyes to the silence greeting her, she saw Ron staring at her white faced. Shocked speechless, it seemed, until his face began to regain color as he recovered only for his face to turn an almost Gryffindor red with an expression to rival even the fiercest lion.
"Now Ron," she started, "I haven't-"
"What does she mean, you have plans with a 'better man'?" He shouted at her, "Who is it?"
"Well, Ronald, not that it's-"
"You common slut! How dare you start seeing other men just days after we've broken up! Whoring yourself out as soon as you get the chance to," His voice rising in volume, "I won't allow it!"
"I will have you know, Ronald Weasley," She spit, magic fizzing around in the air as her anger escalated, "that I am a rational independent woman and I will spend my time with whomever I choose, whenever I choose to and you will have no part in either of those decisions! As to the matter of tonight, I am busy! As to address the issue of your broom, I suggest you check the interior of your posterior because based on your current behavior it seems that must be where you left it!" She ended screeching.
Ginny who had been watching in the background, suddenly burst into a deafening fit of laughter and started crying hysterically at her suggestion. Hermione let loose a smug smile and the crackling air around her went flat as she looked into the depth of Ron's cruel brown eyes.
He grabbed her arm and tugged her close to him.
"I hope you know," he whispered bringing himself next to her ear, "that no one else is ever going to want a cold hearted pretentious bitch like yourself."
Hermione froze.
"I mean, look at you. Frizzy hair, pasty skin, used goods. What do you have, your brains?"
He leaned closer, "Any man would rather take a half witted bimbo rather than a mind like yours any day. Besides," he said his lips on her ear, "I only stayed as long as I did out of pity. I'm glad you broke it off, you never truly satisfied me anyways."
He pushed her away, turned his back and apparated away as Ginny wiped her eyes and her laughing fit abated. The exchange had lasted less than twenty seconds, but left her feeling as though it'd lasted minutes longer. She tried not to let the words settle in, it was best not to dwell on such things.
She bent over to pick up the apple he'd dropped when he started yelling and picked up her wand from the coffee table to change to wards so he couldn't apparate back in. Then she turned back to Ginny with a painted on smile and said;
"Why not," trying to sound chipper, "it's only one night. It couldn't do much harm!"
"That's the spirit!" said Ginny embracing her, "you'll show him exactly what he's lost!"
More than a few hours later after much prepping and more than a little hesitation, Hermione found herself outside of the Leaky Cauldron wearing heels that were going to kill her sometime that night, either from the pain of wearing them, or a strategically placed crack in her path. She was wearing her most flattering red satin dress and she'd even gone to the trouble of visiting a muggle store and picking some very risky undergarments at Ginny Weasley's persistent pestering.
Feeling quite ridiculous and a bit ashamed of how much effort she had put into her appearance she wobbled up to the entrance of the bar in the unnecessarily high strappy heels that she'd borrowed, (also at her previously mentioned friend's insistence) and half walked, half stumbled over to the bar where she was to meet her date.
In her haste to put some distance between herself and her hesitant thoughts, she found herself sitting alone a whole half hour before the agreed meeting time. Positioning herself more comfortably in a shadowed corner of the bar, she took heed of Ginny's advice and ordered two shots so that perhaps she would be more relaxed when he finally arrived. With the a shot of fire whisky burning a molten path down her esophagus, she decided to review all of the information she had gathered about her old house mate.
While once a scared timid boy, Neville Longbottom had finally grown into be quite the man. He had shed his round boyish physique and acquired a tall, lean frame that had even made the cover of Witch Weekly sometime last month. Not only was he handsome, but he had also made a small fortune paving the road for new cutting edge medicine using his natural talent in herbology. He even took it a step further and made some of his magical remedies available to the non magical communities of the world and consequently made twice the profit, or so the magazine had gushed. It had finished off pronouncing him today's most eligible bachelor.
After reading the article, Ginny had taken it upon herself to visit Neville at his office. She might have embellished the story a bit, but she claimed that there were dozens of attractive women all dressed in various states nearly busting down the front door.
The only way she had been able to get in was by forcing her way through the crowd to his very dishevelled appearing receptionist who "very nearly threw a stapler at her for even approaching her desk!" The only way Ginny had survived the crazed older woman was by waving her press pass (from the Quidditch magazine she reported for) at the woman and claiming that she needed a statement from Mr. Longbottom about his old schoolmate Ronald Weasley.
Taking the second shot Hermione found herself unintentionally thinking back on her ex fiance.
He was the keeper for the Chudley Cannons these days, and much to Hermione's dismay, she couldn't go a day without hearing something from someone about his latest win, or his, "rugged face that just begged to be lavished" or "his flaming red hair that looked perfectly bedraggled all the time". Mostly from co workers and envious women she'd met on the street, even while they had been dating. She didn't bother to tell them that he spent more time and effort on his hair than she did in a month, or that his rugged face was just a mask to hide his blatant lack of character and intelligence.
"No," she thought to herself chiddingly, "I'm not here to dwell on my ex."
Forcing herself to focus back on recalling her friend's tale, Ginny had explained how she had eventually infiltrated Neville's office to find him slumped over a microscope examining the magical and non magical properties of some species or plant or another.
"At the sight of me, Neville practically sprinted across the room and embraced me! He spoke relentlessly about how thrilled he was to see a familiar face, especially one as luminescent as mine," Ginny had related to her, although that was probably one of her embellishments.
After they had exchanged pleasantries and caught up a bit, Ginny had breached the subject of what had brought her into his office. She had suggested that he do something to get rid of the "blonde gold digging bimbos" that plagued his office by being seen on a date with an attractive past housemate of his. After assuring him that she was indeed still with Harry and mentioning Hermione herself, he "let loose a smile that practically split his face in half, and nearly blinded her in its brilliance" and he had agreed wholeheartedly with her scheme. Neville stated the next time he was free, a Friday almost two weeks later, because he was on the verge of another break through and had a few meetings to attend.
Ginny having had set the date and agreeing on her behalf had kept this entire exchange from her until hours before the said arrangement. Which is what she had been explaining the moment before Ron had arrived in her living room. Apparently, Ginny had done all of this the day after she had dumped Ron and had decided not to tell her in advance because she didn't want her to, "overthink everything and come up with some seemingly logical but convoluted reason to not go catch up with an ex classmate and maybe have some really nice sex with one of the most wanted men in Britain afterwards."
The whole thing was insane, and she was going to firmly object to her friend's crazed plan until that buffoon had had the audacity to appear in her apartment.
Letting loose a frustrated sigh and signalling the bartender for another shot, she glanced up at the clock again and saw that it was now thirty minutes past the time that Neville was supposed to meet her there.
"Actually, make that two." Hermione said to the bartender.
And she downed both within seconds, wondering to herself where in the wizarding world her date was that could possibly interfere with him appearing punctually for their present reunion.
Neville Longbottom rubbed his eyes tiredly as he tried to focus on the sample of mandrake root that might possibly be the key to preventing wizards from being influenced by the Imperius curse, but finally giving up and sighing in frustration as his vision became glazed over again. He was under a strict deadline for the Ministry whom had wanted viable samples by the next months time due to some large scale Aurora mission that was "top secret but of the utmost importance" the success of which depended on his research being finished.
Stepping away from the Mandrake root samples he put his head in his hands and tried to rub moisture back into his dry, probably red, over exhausted eyes. Finally glancing at his watch as his hands fell, he realized with a start that it was five minutes until his pre arranged meet with Hermione was supposed to take place.
Flying into a panic, he threw his white lab jacket unto its proper hook and nearly fled his lab by the front door, but came to his senses in time to release the know before it was turned.
Ever since he had gotten lost in his work and blew off that date with Lavender Brown, she had made his life a living hell. One would think that a really nice description of him and a picture of his face on the cover of Witch Weekly would be a really poorly planned way to exact revenge upon a fellow like himself, but it wasn't. In fact, it was quite ingenius on her part, and he often found himself wondering if she'd been sorted into the correct house.
After that issue had been published, every available single witch in magical England had been vying for his attention. Dream come true, right? Wrong. He couldn't get anywhere without being overrun by a flock of crazy eyed females looking to win his attention by confessions of love, various impressive feats, or by publicly debasing themselves by promising lewd things or wearing the most absurd outfits.
None of them really knew him, but they knew he had money and influence in the Wizarding World, and that was enough for them.
Not that it hadn't been a tad entertaining at first, in fact he had met a plethora of interesting people. A lawyer that was also a gymnast in her spare time, a priest who claimed that she could "enlighten" him if he agreed to come away with her to a remote location for an interminable amount of time, and even a very interesting man who offered to show him a wand the likes of which he'd never seen before. To which he replied that he already had a wand, and wasn't interested in anyone else's.
It got exhausting quickly though. He couldn't leave his office by the front door, couldn't go to his favorite restaurants, walk in the park, visit friends, shop for groceries, he couldn't even go home without encountering a few women or the occasional man thanks to Lavander's posting of his address in the fine print at the bottom of the article.
This would be his fifth week living in a hotel suite, ordering pizza, and sneaking out the back door of his office as he was now. That's why he had been so ecstatic when Ginevra Weasley had offered him a simple and painless solution to his current predicament.
Hermione Granger, brightest witch of their age and pretty damn attractive to boot. She'd always been kind to him at Hogwarts, helping him with potions, tutoring him when he needed it. She had really only stunned him that one time first year, and he had had it coming, provided the circumstances.
This date had come at a convenient time, he admitted to himself, but that wasn't the only reason he had agreed to it. He could picture himself with her, they were friends before, they could hold a good conversation and she was the sturdy reliable type that he could count on in the long run.
Speed walking to the apparition spot in the back alley behind his building, he was seconds away from flashing to his hotel room, changing into a nice suit, and finally gaining back some of the normalcy he'd lost in a perfectly respectable woman.
That was until a noise caught his attention.
Walking toward the source, he glanced behind the dumpsters and all thoughts of Hermione Granger were extinguished in one fatal moment.
Draco Malfoy hadn't even planned on being in town that night. He was supposed to be at a business meeting in Italy, but the wizards had called it off last minute.
So he was stuck, with absolutely nothing to do, on a Friday night. That simply wasn't acceptable. Usually, he would go to some posh bar in a different city and seduce a few beautiful women into bed with him. However, tonight he wanted a challenge which is how he had found himself walking into the Leaky Cauldron alone.
Occasionally, he had a wingman of some sort, it used to be Theo, but as of recently he had settled down with a Greengrass of some sort. Daphne? Astoria? He wasn't sure, he ceased to care the moment Theo had told him he was keeping her company one night after her cat died and eating chinese food instead of coming out with him. People were so unreliable.
Blaise Zabini had taken Theo's place but he was prone to disappearing suddenly and unexpectedly. It had gotten to the point where Draco had quit questioning him and Blaise would just accompany him whenever he saw fit.
Walking through the enterance, he took in the scene in front of him. What was before an old hole in the wall bar had undergone some renovations, there was better lighting, new tables and silverware and a new kind of crowd. The Leaky Cauldron was not what it used to be in his younger years. It was a hot spot now for a variety of travellers and exotic women just passing through.
Standing against a wall near the entrance, Draco scanned the room for his target settling on a woman with wavy black hair in a red-violet satin dress that betrayed a playfullnes bust was elegant enough that she didn't look to be the desperate type. Honing in on his target, he took note of her drink and ordered a duplicate for her plus one for himself. Barely even glancing at the bar he took the drinks and sauntered over to her table like he was God's gift to all of womanhood. Which he was, just to clarify.
The woman glanced up at him as he offered her the drink and smiled seductively. He just knew he'd be taking someone home that night.