Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all its characters and situations belong to J.K. Rowling. I make no profit from this story.

Annoyance in the Court

and the past knocks on your door

and throws stones at your window at four in the morning

- Shine, Anna Nalick

Part One

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Day 1

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Hermione was sitting in the stands of the Quidditch Pitch, watching Harry and Ron as they went through some extra drills before practice. She had brought her books with her but as yet she had not been able to bring herself to pick them up. Hermione knew that she should be working. It was halfway through sixth year and things were busy. She shouldn't be sitting here mooning over Ron. It was stupid and pointless and she had better things to do with her time. "See something interesting Granger?" drawled a voice behind her.

With a slight start she glanced over her shoulder and found Malfoy lounging in the seat behind her. Hermione scowled at him and ignored his comment. "Shouldn't you be off terrorizing first years or something?" she asked a touch of scorn in her voice.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her. "Bit touchy there Granger. You know, people have noticed how Weasel has taken to ignoring you. Is it because he's tired of you or are you just not good enough in the bedroom department?"

Hermione could feel her cheeks burning but she refused to let Malfoy get to her. "You're just jealous that you can't find anyone who likes you even a little bit. Now could you please leave? Some of us have work to do." She turned around with a huff and picked up a book from the pile.

Malfoy leaned closer to whisper a final comment in her ear. "He doesn't see you Granger. All he sees is your usefulness."

Hermione jerked awake as her alarm went off. She rubbed her eyes as she remembered her dream. She hadn't thought about that day in years. With a sigh Hermione rolled over to grab her wand from where it was vibrating with the alarm spell on her bedside table. As she hopped out of bed and shuffled into the bathroom, she tried to push the memory to the back of her mind. Why bother reliving old wounds when there was no way to change the past (not legally anyway). Hermione sighed again as she stepped into the hot shower. It was time to start another day.

Hermione smiled as she walked into the small office she shared with Luna Lovegood in Diagon Alley. It was a small organisation that they had set up together over the past year called Equal Rights for Magical Creatures (the ERMC for short). It wasn't what Hermione had expected to be doing after she had returned for her seventh year at Hogwarts after the defeat of Voldemort (Hermione understood how the world worked and while she was the smartest witch of her year, without NEWTs she wouldn't be getting any job offers). She had graduated from Hogwarts with Ginny and Luna and had immediately begun working with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, with the hope of changing it from the inside.

After a few years of attempting everything that she could within the Department (constantly being moved from Office to Office in the process), and growing more and more unsatisfied with the way the system worked, Hermione had realised that if there was ever going to be hope for change then she would have to set something up her way. She discussed things with Luna (who had turned out to be an avid supporter of animal rights to Hermione's amazement) and finally quit her job. Together, with help from Mr Lovegood and The Quibbler, they had set up the non-profit organisation and were now in the process of preparing their very first case.

Setting her things down on her desk, Hermione shook her head as she noticed that Luna was apparently running late again. With a roll of her eyes she pulled out the case file for Dipsy the house-elf. They still needed to find a lawyer before they could go ahead with the suit. But so far everyone from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had ignored them and refused to take the case. Hermione knew they were beginning to run out of options. After all, there really weren't that many practising lawyers that didn't work for the Magical Law Office.

Suddenly Luna burst into the office with a huge grin on her face followed by, of all people, Draco Malfoy. "Hermione, I have brilliant news," Luna announced. "I've found us a lawyer."

"That's great," replied Hermione. Before she could ask who it was, she was distracted as Malfoy shifted in his position at the doorway. "What's Malfoy doing here?" she growled instead. Hermione hadn't seen him since Hogwarts, but after her dream that morning she was in no mood to put up with him.

Malfoy smirked as he stepped forward to lean against Luna's desk, having found the opening he was waiting for. "I'm your lawyer," he stated smugly.

Luna was humming lightly, obviously pleased with herself, as she sat down at her desk. Hermione, meanwhile, blinked once, twice, three times and then shrieked, "You?" She couldn't believe this. Draco Malfoy, devil spawn, wanted to help house-elves? Not likely. It had to be some sort of joke.

Malfoy was still standing there with that smug, self-satisfied expression on his face. "Yes, Granger. Me."

"No way. I won't do it." Hermione looked past Malfoy to catch Luna's eye. "We'll find someone else because I refuse to work with Malfoy."

Luna's smile dropped as Malfoy snickered under his breath. "Shut it you," Hermione snarled at him. He raised his hands in surrender with an arch smile on his face.

Luna was thinking quickly, looking for a way to get Hermione to agree. "Draco do you mind waiting outside for a moment?" she asked politely.

Malfoy shrugged and moved back into the hallway, shutting the door behind him. Luna sighed as she watched Hermione, who had immediately begun ranting. "Luna, what were you thinking? Draco Malfoy. You want to hire Malfoy to defend house-elves. That's a contradiction in itself."

Shaking her head Luna pulled out her wand and cast a Silencing Spell on Hermione. "Okay Hermione, now just listen to me for a minute will you?" When she saw Hermione cross her arms in resignation she released a breath in relief. "Good. Hermione we don't have a choice here. We are never going to find anyone else to handle this case, we've already tried. And besides we don't have to pay him. He's offered to work for free."

Hermione raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth to ask a question. Luna waved her wand to take the spell back off. "For free?" Hermione was wary. Surely there had to be a catch somewhere. "Why would he be willing to work for nothing? And why would he even want to help us? It makes no sense."

Luna shrugged. "I didn't bother asking. I was too busy being excited that we had finally found a lawyer willing to take the case."

Hermione glanced down at the case file still lying open on her desk. She knew that Luna was right. With a sigh she stated, "Okay. But I'm not going to like this."

"You don't have to," Luna quickly replied as she went to open the door.

Hermione groaned to herself as Malfoy walked back in. When he glanced over at her she crossed her arms and tried to keep her tone neutral. "Just one question Malfoy. Why? That's it. I want to know why you would want to take this case." She wanted to know why he was taking the case for free as well but Hermione decided to save that one for another time.

"The publicity of course." Malfoy made it sound like she was an idiot for not figuring that out for herself. "Granger, this case is going to be huge. Nothing like this has ever been attempted before." He shook his head with a bemused smile. "There's a reason why you couldn't get anyone to take this. No one thinks you can win and no one wants to be involved with a failure. But if I win this it will be huge for my business."

"Of course, I should have known," Hermione spat out. "Draco Malfoy only ever thinks about how he can benefit from something." She held up a hand to halt his protest. "Okay, I give in. you're hired Malfoy."

Malfoy rubbed his hands together and smirked. "Excellent. Shall we get to work then?"

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Day 5

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Hermione stopped in her tracks as she spotted Ron at the Weasley family table. He was holding hands with a woman she didn't recognise and they were staring lovingly into each other's eyes. Mrs Weasley was standing at the stove and glanced happily over her shoulder at the two.

Ginny had invited her to stay at the Burrow during the Easter break as Hermione's parents were taking a trip to America. Hermione had felt awkward about accepting, considering she and Ron had broken up only two months previously, but Ginny had insisted that no one would care. And apparently no one did. Because apparently Ron had moved on.

Just then Ron glanced up and spotted her standing in the doorway of the kitchen. "Hermione," he said with a smile. He stood up and pulled the other witch with him. "Let me introduce you to my girlfriend Shelly."

"He is driving me crazy!" Hermione exclaimed. It was Friday night and she was having dinner with Harry and Ron at the Leaky Cauldron. Hermione took a sip of her butterbeer before continuing her rant. "Luna and I spent so much time and hard work getting that case file together, and then Malfoy comes in, takes one look at it and goes, sorry, not good enough. He walks into our office every morning as if he owns it, works with us for a couple of hours and then after assigning us work for the rest of the day, he disappears, claiming he has other clients to meet with. And it's only been a week! I don't know how long I can put up with him for." She stabbed her steak and kidney pie with her fork in frustration.

"I can't believe you're actually working with Malfoy," Harry replied, almost sounding amused by the situation.

"Why are you putting yourself through this?" Ron asked angrily. "It's Malfoy. He's a Deatheater and he's evil. You should stop this right now. He's probably going to sabotage the whole thing just so you fail."

Hermione let out an exasperated sigh. "He's not going to destroy the case. Malfoy said it himself, it's going to be high profile and so it's to his benefit to do his best if he wants to gain more clients. He just bugs me."

Ron looked like he was ready to continue arguing about it but Harry directed a quick kick to his shin before he could say anything. After another bite of her pie, Hermione glanced back up with a forced smile on her face. "So what's been happening with you two this week?" she asked chirpily. She really wanted to move away from the subject of Malfoy.

"I've got a date tomorrow night," Ron announced with a satisfied smile. Hermione's smile became even more forced. Even though she and Ron had broken up over three years ago, and she knew that she definitely had no lingering feelings for him, it sometimes still hurt to know that he had moved on so easily while she had had a grand total of five dates since their relationship ended.

"Really?" Hermione replied through gritted teeth. "What's she like?" Probably blonde, she thought with a hint of bitterness.

"She's really nice." Ron had a dopey smile on his face now. "I met her at work. Her name's Belle. We had coffee together yesterday and now we're having dinner."

"That's great Ron," Harry commented, with a quick glance at Hermione. Harry knew that she occasionally felt insecure about herself when Ron seemed to have a new date or girlfriend every few months.

Ron drained the rest of his butterbeer and stood up. "I'm going to grab another drink. Do you two want anything?" Harry and Hermione both answered in the affirmative before Ron headed towards the bar.

As soon as he was out of earshot Harry turned to back to Hermione and asked, "Are you okay?"

"Of course Harry. I'm absolutely fine." Harry just raised his eyebrows at her in response. Hermione rolled her eyes. "Okay, so maybe it would be nice to go on a few of my own dates rather than hearing about Ron's all the time. But that doesn't mean I need a boyfriend. I'm very happy as I am." Hermione fidgeted with her knife and fork before changing the subject. She always disliked talking about her love life. "So how are you and Ginny?"

Harry shrugged and took a sip of his drink. Hermione raised an eyebrow. "That good, eh?" she remarked.

Harry glanced over his shoulder and saw that Ron was still at the bar. "We've been fighting a lot lately," he finally said. "Not even over anything important really. It's just like, neither of us can do anything right at the moment."

"I'm sure things will be okay. It's probably just a bit of a rough patch and nothing more."

"Yeah, maybe you're right." Harry didn't look very convinced or reassured though. But at that point Ron returned with their drinks so Harry and Hermione both let the topic drop.

When Hermione arrived home to her tiny apartment she found that Luna had been by and slipped a note under the door. It read:

Hermione,

Draco came by after you left this afternoon. He says he wants to meet with Dipsy as soon as possible. He wanted to know if you could set a meeting up for sometime next week.

Also he dropped off a folder of paperwork that he said you need to look through before Monday. I slipped it under the door.

- Luna

Crumpling up the note, Hermione glanced down at the floor and realised that she was standing on a manila folder. With a scowl Hermione picked it up and started to flip through the papers inside. She narrowed her eyes at all the work that Malfoy apparently thought was too urgent to wait for Monday. He was doing this just to antagonise her, she was sure of it. Dumping the folder onto the table, Hermione went to fall into bed, determined not to think about Malfoy again until the morning.

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Day 8

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They had saved Sirius. They were the heroes.

So why was she sitting by herself in the girls bathroom at three in the morning thinking about the fact that she had slapped Draco Malfoy?

She remembers it felt good, felt right to slap him. She knew he deserved it. But she had never before resorted to physical violence. She had never needed to.

Why did Malfoy always manage to bring out the worst in her?

Hermione was less than happy to see Malfoy already seated behind her desk when she walked into the office on Monday. Apparently this really was going to be the worst Monday she had ever had. First she had woken up late after another dream about her past (and of course it just had to be about Malfoy), only to discover that there was no hot water and that there was a ladder in her last pair of stockings. By the time she had fixed these with magic Hermione had been even later. And now she had to deal with Malfoy. Brilliant.

"Granger, you're late," Malfoy smirked.

Luna, seeing the harried expression on Hermione's face, jumped in before Hermione could completely lose her temper. "Bad morning?" she asked sympathetically.

"You could say that again," Hermione replied. She turned to her desk again and dropped her briefcase on top of it, scattering the forms Malfoy had been working on. With her arms crossed over chest Hermione stared at Malfoy as he leaned back in her chair. Finally, through gritted teeth, she spat out, "Get out of my seat."

"But I like this seat Granger," Malfoy said in the most innocent voice he could muster. "It's so soft and comfortable, and look," he leant back further and kicked his feet up onto the desk, "I can even lean back and relax." Malfoy folded his hands behind his head.

Hermione glared at his feet and then directed her eyes back to his face. Malfoy had a feeling that if looks could kill then he would be dead and incinerated right now. "Move," growled Hermione. "Now."

Malfoy rolled his eyes and pushed himself out of the chair. Hermione was impatiently beginning to tap her foot. "Easy Granger. Keep your knickers on."

Hermione could feel herself stiffening up in anger as Malfoy stepped past her and dragged the spare chair to the other side of the desk. She forced herself to take a breath and try to calm down as she took her seat. Glancing past Malfoy, Hermione saw that Luna had ignored most of the staring competition and was off in her own world. Hermione shook her head, amused. As much as she loved Luna and knew that Luna could be quite perceptive (as she had been by trying to prevent Hermione from lashing out the minute she walked into the office), she really did spend so much of her time in her own little world.

Malfoy sent a glance over his shoulder to see what Hermione was staring at and let out an amused chuckle when he saw Luna's dreamy smile. But at least she was getting her work done, something that he and Hermione should also be doing. "Granger, do you mind getting your crap off my work? Because if we can't get your shoddy case in order then it will never go to trial."

Hermione only just managed to control herself as she shifted her briefcase to the floor so that Malfoy could reach his things. Without saying a word she pulled out the weekend work he had assigned her and pushed it across to him. He smirked and decided to rile Hermione up further, despite the fact that he could see that she was almost at her boiling point. "So did you manage to do this all right or will I have to fix it all again?" he raised his eyebrows at her with a condescending smile.

Hermione let out an aggravated scream. Luna looked up in surprise while Malfoy just watched Hermione. "You never change do you?" she hissed. "You're still the same arrogant, snide, conceited bastard that just lives to torment me. Well, you know what? This is my office. This is my organisation. And I'm sick of your 'I'm so much better than you' attitude." Hermione grabbed her purse and jumped up. "I'm going to get a coffee."

"You sure the caffeine won't make you even more tightly wound and snappy?" muttered Malfoy. He looked back up at her and could practically see the steam pouring out of her ears. Apparently she heard that last comment.

"Hermione, would you mind getting me a coffee as well?" Luna called out. She smiled, "Thanks."

She nodded and stalked out of the office. Luna directed her eyes back to Draco. "Is it really necessary for you to bait her? It's much nicer to be around her when she's not angry all the time."

"But it's so much fun," Draco replied.

Luna shook her head. "Do you want her to slap you again?" she murmured as she turned back to her work.

Draco's eyes widened and a hint of pink touched his cheeks. "Granger told you about that?"

"No. Ron did." Luna's dreamy smile had returned as she began to pay less attention to the conversation. "It's one of his favourite stories to tell."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Draco also turned back to his work at this point, when it became obvious that Luna wasn't going to say anything else.

By the time Hermione arrived back in the office she was in a much better mood. After giving Luna her coffee, she sat down feeling much more relaxed. She looked across the desk at Draco and graced him with a smile. Draco was somewhat unnerved by the change, even more so by the fact that she was actually smiling at him. That had never happened before. Draco didn't know what to say. An angry Hermione Granger he knew how to deal with, but a pleasant and polite one? He had no idea.

"I've set up your meeting with Dipsy," she told him. "She's going to come in on Thursday afternoon. That's the first chance she has to get away."

Draco nodded. "That's perfect. Because I've arranged a meeting with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for next Tuesday at ten o'clock."

Hermione frowned. "But I thought we were getting this case ready for trial."

"Come on Granger, I thought you were smarter than that. This will go to trial but we have to go about it the right way. Once we get knocked back by the Regulation Department, then we can appeal to the Wizengamot."

Hermione suddenly felt like an idiot and chose not to reply. Taking a book off her shelf, she opened it to where she had finished on Friday, and continued taking notes on cases that could possibly apply to Dipsy's. Draco was again surprised. Hermione Granger not continuing to argue and defend her point even after being proven wrong? Watching her from the corner of his eye he thought that maybe he wasn't the only one who had changed somewhat since Hogwarts and the war.