Chapter One
A/N: Right now the plot isn't finalized yet. I'm just going with the flow. I'd just take my own sweet time to reach the end, and I'm not quite sure what The End is. But anyway, enjoy! (I might convert to a Harry/Draco shipper, so, who knows?)
Oh and Harry Potter belongs to me. Right. We all know that's not true, so what's the point of saying that it doesn't belongs to me?
She got up rather painfully in the morning.
Her usual morning routine. She dragged herself to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, combed her hair… it was like some kind of routine that she couldn't erase from her mind. She wondered if her life was destined to be this routine, this predictable, this boring forever.
She walked to the kitchen, and unconsciously made two cups of tea. As she was pouring in the sugar, she suddenly stopped. An image of Ron's dead body came into her mind.
She dropped the sugar on the floor, and hastily poured away the second cup of tea, while trying to ignore the tears welling up in her eyes.
Every morning she makes this mistake.
Hermione used Apparition to go to work. She ended up a few hundred meters from her workplace. Cursing her apparition and determinedly ignoring her tears again, she started to work. It was no use Apparating. She would probably end up at home.
Somewhere between her workplace and that few hundred meters, Draco Malfoy was walking alone, lost in thoughts. They met soon after.
"Hermione." Draco said in some surprise. Hermione ignored him. Draco noticed she looked like she had been crying.
Hermione couldn't remember when Malfoy had renewed the use of her first name. Despite her teary mood she felt some surprise. Malfoy had been calling her Granger or Mudblood for as long as she could remember.
She decided to reply. "Malfoy," she answered curtly.
Hermione and Draco continued their walk in silence.
They reached Hermione's workplace. It turned out to be Draco's new workplace as well.
The ride up in the lift was silent as well.
Hermione was thinking about what Ron. But no matter what she couldn't allow herself to miss him. Even though she had learned that missing someone was not by choice. She felt a pang somewhere in her heart and a wave of emotion sweep over her.
"Hermione?" Draco's voice rang into her thoughts. She snapped out of her daze. She had reached her floor. And so had Draco.
Suddenly a thought went through her mind. "You wouldn't be the person I'm interviewing for the new position, would you?" She asked. Draco smiled.
"Well, actually, yes," he said and gestured for Hermione to step out of the lift first. Hermione couldn't help it. She smiled, for the first time in days, at the irony at it all.
"Hey," Ginny greeted Hermione quietly. Hermione nodded and hunted around for something to say. She hadn't seen Ginny been like this before, until the war came and took Ron and Bill away.
Ron.
Hermione stared at Ginny's red hair.
Draco cleared his throat.
Hermione snapped out of her daze again. "Er, hey, Ginny," she said. Ginny didn't seem to hear her. Hermione swallowed, then nodded to Draco. "Er, my office is this way, follow me," she said quietly.
Draco followed Hermione and tried to pretend that he wasn't observing her. The scene he had seen earlier on was one that he had never seen, or even envisioned, before. He felt a stab of guilt. He hadn't thought about his father in months - he simply didn't wish to. And now he had been reminded by Ginny, by Hermione.
Hermione's office was well-furnished but it lacked something. Even Draco, who wasn't exactly the greatest at designing, thought it lacked something. It lacked a rather homely feel, he thought. He had completely no idea that a homely feel was completely opposite of what Hermione had in mind.
Ron.
The same image flooded into her mind again. It wasn't right of her to think of Ron at a moment like this, when she was at work. It was just not allowed. She was Hermione, after all. She just did not mix work with her personal life. And Ron was her personal life.
"Hermione?" Draco said softly. Hermione stared at him again. It was completely out of character for him to call her by her first name. And she felt ashamed for letting him catch her daydreaming two times so far. And it was only nine. Hermione didn't daydream.
"Draco?" Hermione inquired.
"Y-Yeah?" Draco replied. He had the feeling he was going to get it for interrupting whatever she was thinking of. Probably Ron.
"Do you really want this job?" Hermione resisted the urge to smile.
"Y-Yeah," Draco stuttered again. Shit.
"Then from now onwards, you'd call me Granger."
Draco expressed how he felt with a single word. "Huh?"
"And I'm your new boss, so you listen to everything I say," Hermione replied.
Draco broke out into a smile. Hermione smiled back.
It was the beginning of something that resembled a friendship. Between the most impossible two people ever.
Janettelle: HELLO! My friend, Michelle's computer is down so I've helped to upload and edit the first five chapters. SO if you do notice anything weird, it's probably due to the difference in our writing styles.
Now be nice and review!