Summary: Hermione takes issue with the newest Ministry-appointed Obliviator. [EWE, Hermione-centric, Dramione]

You remember too much,
my mother said to me recently.
Why hold onto all that?

And I said,
Where can I put it down?

—Anne Carson, from "The Glass Essay"

Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee

Chapter One

It was a wet, gray November afternoon in London, and the rain hadn't paused its steady marathon pace in over thirty-six hours. Five blocks from Victoria Station, unperturbed by the wind and the rain, a sullen-looking fat brown owl rapped its beak on the glass of an apartment window three stories off the ground. Inside, clad in only a navy sweatshirt and boxers despite the late hour, Harry Potter shuffled out of the the kitchen in his sock feet.

The owl rapped again. Harry stuttered to a stop in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, a ceramic plate stacked with cut up apples and cheese held limply in his left hand, a lidded plastic cup of milk in his right. He closed his eyes and cursed.

From her seat on the well-loved faded green couch, Hermione covered her face with the tattered ends of her overlarge white knit sweater and let out a low, frustrated breath.

The owl locked eyes with Harry and rapped another time. The noise wasn't so much of a tapping as it was an insistent, repetitive scritch, scritch on the cloudy glass windowpane, setting the hairs on the back of her neck on end.

A short silence followed. Objectively, Hermione knew it lasted less than a handful of seconds, but it felt much longer for its familiarity.

Another beat passed, and then: "I am so sorry, Hermione."

"I just — really, Harry?" Hermione said, the thin wool of her sweater partially muffling her words. "Again?"

She leaned back against the couch, her weight shifting the plush cushions and prompting a seemingly endless number of books and charts and scrolls of haphazardly stacked velum to tumble into her lap and over onto the floor. Her research fell onto the scraps of metal pooled around her feet. Miscellaneous spools of copper thread, hardy iron nails, and metal door hinges, once sprawled in a state of chaotic order, were now obscured by parchment.

Hermione peeked through her sleeves at the mess and groaned.

She allowed her head to plop against the back of the couch, her eyes once again covered by the sleeves of her sweater. "You said, Harry. You said before Ginny and I spoke with Andromeda last week. I confirmed it with you twice."

Sprawled out on the rug by the fireplace playing with Hot Wheels racecars and miniature self-hovering Firebolts, the nearly three year-old Teddy Lupin giggled, then coughed. Wisps of wavy hair changed from deep auburn to sandy blond.

Scritch, scritch.

Harry grimaced. Still clutching the plastic sippie cup of milk, he made an unconscious sweeping motion at his forehead, managing to brush the thick, overgrown fringe out of his eyes for a moment before it stubbornly resumed its place. "I'm not happy about it either, Hermione. I was looking forward to today, too, especially after all the unwelcome additions around the office. And Merlin knows I haven't been able to spend enough time with Teddy, but it's this new fucking —"

"Language!"

"— case. I can't—"

Scritch, scritch.

Wincing, Hermione lowered her arms and looked around the living room, avoiding Harry's eyes. Scattered, disjointed sheets of parchment surrounded her chosen section of the living room like the remains of a particularly horrific crime scene. Her own neatly-written, well-researched notes mixed indiscriminately with archaic scrolls on tax law, the Wizengamot, inheritance rituals, and numerous other equally old parchments riddled with legalese and purposefully complex obfuscations. They were all so simple, so similar in their aims.

"Go on and open the window," she sighed, her eyes still fixed on the floor. "That owl isn't going to go away until you take the notice, so you might as well just do it and get the poor thing out of this rain."

Frowning, Harry moved to the window, setting the cup and plate on the wooden breakfast table with enough force that Hermione worried about the state of the porcelain. Pulling his wand out of his sweatshirt's front pocket, he moved it in a quick, fluid pattern, disassembling the thick layer of wards with practiced ease. Bill had set them up two years ago. Hermione had only occasionally tinkered with them since.

Once Harry had the message in hand and a nip from the sullen owl, he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and read. His eyebrows rose, and Hermione knew what that meant even before he paused midway through the letter to let out a sharp something that sounded suspiciously like a harshly whispered "fuck." After another not-so-gentle nip, Harry scratched out a quick answer on the notice and sent it back with the owl.

Hermione rose from the couch. Sliding the oversized sweater sleeves up her thin arms, she began to tidy the mess around her with sharp and efficient movements, allowing her anger to cut through the pressing weight of her tired muscles.

"Look, Hermione," Harry started, his cautious words well-practiced steps. "I know you had things you wanted to do today. And I know you don't like taking Teddy with you—"

"It's not a matter of me liking to take Teddy with me, Harry. Don't say it as if I hate spending time with him. I just can't, not with what I need to do today."

"But you can. Andromeda said, remember? She took Tonks everywhere at Teddy's age."

Hermione bit her lip. And that wasn't quite the point, was it? But Hermione wasn't sure she wanted to argue this out again when he clearly didn't understand. Coffee only provided her with so much energy.

Her fingers ran through her short curls in rough, erratic movements, a nervous habit so old she couldn't pinpoint its origin. It was so easy to forget about her recent haircut, the one where she'd impulsively decided to chop off inches and years of thick brown hair in one go. The combing gesture, once familiar and now so foreign, suddenly made her feel like she'd just walked up to the top of a staircase, sure there there was another stair left, and instead discovered with a sickening, stuttering moment of emptiness that there wasn't.

"Fine. It's that I shouldn't," she said less quickly than she should have, her eyes flitting to the oblivious toddler playing by the fireplace. "He's a Metamorphmagi, in case you've forgotten, not to mention a two-and-a-half year-old with a cold, which is enough to handle to begin with, and I have to go by the library before dropping off my notes at Kingsley's office, register for a stop at UCL, go to the hardware store, Tesco, and maybe M&S, and — and —" she paused, flustered, finally stopping for a breath. "Half of my errands are in Muggle neighborhoods. It's irresponsible for me to take him."

Harry made a helpless gesture with his hands. "Well, Ginny's still in France with the Harpies, and I can't just take a toddler into Auror headquarters with me."

She set her jaw, locked eyes with him, and didn't respond.

"I guess I can always floo Mrs. Weasley…?" his voice trailed off, and he scratched his head slowly.

Hermione exhaled. "No," she said, "It's fine. I'll figure something out."

"Oh, Hermione, I seriously owe you," Harry said, crossing the room to lift a distracted Teddy in a hug. "If anything goes wrong, which it won't, by the way — not after last time, because we've learned about the hat — you have Tilly. She said to send her a Patronus direct next time. Not that there will be a next time, mind you."

"I know that."

"I don't understand why you insist, though," Harry continued, giving her a look. "You really are the most competent witch I know."

"Yes, well." Hermione picked up a stack of papers and waved her free hand. "Kingsley needs this research on the Wizengamot by close of day. Where are you going? Should I even try to wait?"

"You know I can't say, however much I might want to. Man, this would've been so much easier if... I'll be back as soon as I can," Harry said, placing Teddy back down on the rug. "But no, don't wait."

Standing still, she allowed Harry to surround her in a quick, tight hug and press a kiss to her forehead. "You're the best, Hermione. I can always count on you."

"Need any help, miss?"

"Hmm?" Hermione responded absently, the fingers of her right hand gently skimming along a row of brass doorhinges displayed at the hardware store, checking the smooth, cool metal for signs of magical residue. It took awhile for the words to register. "Oh, no. I'm fine, thanks. Just browsing."

The teenage assistant, a very tall sixteen or seventeen year-old boy with light brown skin and thick dark hair gave a sweet smile that went beyond obligatory courtesy. "Well, if you think of anything, miss, please let me know. I'll be happy to help."

Hermione forced the corners of her mouth upwards into a sluggish smile. She desperately wanted a coffee, but she didn't think the he could help her with that. Manners were manners, though. "Thanks," she said, craning her neck up to look him in the eye. "I'll keep that in mind."

The younger kid nodded, but instead of walking back to the front of the store, he lingered, his eyes gravitating to the toddler resting on Hermione's hip. The little of Teddy's face that showed through layers of winter clothing was unapologetically dirty. Snot streamed down his sniffly red nose. Crusty bits were lodged in the corners of his eyes. His lips were dry and cracked, and though Hermione loved him fiercely, she wondered again how anyone could ever want such a little terror of their very own.

She knew there must be something wrong with her, though, because the sight of Teddy — dirty and sickly and gross though he was — made the boy's face soften.

"Aw, what a little darling."

"... Thanks," Hermione responded, awkwardly cocking the hip Teddy rested on. The rubber of her gray wellies rubbed against her feet, chafing her heels each time she shifted her weight. She could've forgone the cumbersome shoes and cast a few household warming and water-repellant charms on her feet, but that would've been entirely too conspicuous in this neighborhood. No Londoner worth their salt would go outside without proper rain boots and outerwear in weather like this, so Hermione and Teddy dressed the part as well. She just wished Harry had remembered to do the washing so she could have worn some appropriate socks.

The teenager reached out to touch Teddy. What his aims were, Hermione didn't know — pet him, maybe? — but she jerked Teddy out of reach. The teenager's hand lingered in the air where Teddy had been seconds ago, his fingers outstretched. A shocked expression crossed his face before he quickly covered it with a sheepish smile.

After moving her body so that she shielded Teddy from view, she checked to make sure all of his hair remained concealed underneath his tiny black cap. She breathed a sigh of relief when she discovered the hat was indeed still there. She'd put a sticking charm on it not thirty minutes ago, but one could never be too careful. The toddler in question gripped the wool of her sweater tightly with his stubby little fingers.

"Sorry," she said in a clipped voice that didn't sound very apologetic at all. "He's contagious."

At that moment, as if on cue, Teddy sneezed, then grinned, snot bubbling out of his nose.

The clerk laughed, his attention focused on Teddy, and anxiety simmered under Hermione's skin as she wiped Teddy's nose with the handkerchief in her pocket. Plucking a brass hinge from the shelf at random, she dropped it in the boy's still outstretched hand. His hand dropped a few inches at the heft of it.

"I'd like this one, please."

He stared at the metal object strangely for a few moments. "Yeah, uh, no problem, miss. Come up front. I'll ring you up."

She hadn't had a chance to check it over properly, so there was a possibility she would have to come back and get another one, but right now she really, really didn't care. She handed over a few notes, declined his offer of a plastic bag, and exited the store.

Immediately, a chilly, wet gust of air buffeted her overburdened frame, the cold cutting through to her skin like a curse. The freezing rain hadn't let up, it seemed. With winter in London, there was the possibility it never would.

Hermione huddled under the overhang of the store, a toddler in one hand, a ludicrously heavy metal doorhinge in the other, and her saving grace, an umbrella, stuck in her altogether too small beaded handbag.

She weighed her options.

After a second, she lowered Teddy to the ground gently and pulled out her bag. But no, she couldn't put the hinge there; that would defeat the point. As she struggled to fish out an empty bag without the use of her wand and without stuffing her hand more than wrist-deep inside, a mangy orange cat with a pinched face walked out from the covered alley next to Blake's Hardware. The hideous wiry beast was skinny and matted and looked entirely too much like Crookshanks for comfort.

Oh, and that was a gift from the universe she didn't need right now. She exhaled deeply. As the cat strut past, careful to avoid the rain, it raised its tail and gave her a haughtily dismissive look.

Yes, definitely like Crookshanks.

Naturally, Teddy lunged after it.

She managed to pick Teddy up before his little legs carried him far, pinprick raindrops striking her neck and hands. Luckily for her, his cold made him too tired to walk fast or struggle much. It didn't stop him from whining, though. Or crying.

"Hush now, Teddy," she whispered, pleading, as she pulled him back under the overhang, frustrated at her absolute inability to make him cooperate. She rocked him back and forth, his back awkwardly pressed against her front and his limbs kicking and jerking out in all directions in a weak but effective protest. She needed to calm him down before even thinking about going into Tesco. She just didn't have the slightest as to how to do that.

Mrs. Weasley would never have had this problem.

"Hey! Miss!"

Hermione whirled around. The gangly clerk from the store approached her with quick, determined steps, a wide black umbrella in his hand. Hermione mentally chided herself and felt frustrated exasperation seep into her pores. Of course. That's where the umbrella was. She couldn't have very well put it in her tiny beaded bag like normal, now could she?

Teddy chose that moment to give her stomach a good kick with his red rubber boots, but after that his crying calmed down to manageable sniffles. Relieved, she put what she hoped looked like a comforting hand on the top of his head, firmly grasping his hat, and waited for the clerk to approach.

"You forgot your — Jesus Christ," the teenager paused, his eyes widening. He looked confused and curious and more than a little horrified. "What's wrong with his face?"

Oh. Oh no.

Hermione closed her eyes and held her breath. She didn't want to look down at Teddy. She really, really didn't.

She steeled herself and looked.

His hair was concealed underneath the beanie. His lips were still dry and cracked, his eyes still crusty. His nose, though. His nose was feline. There was no other way to put it. Pinched and furry, it looked exactly like the stray cat that'd just passed them. Like Crookshanks.

The toddler smiled at her, and his whiskers twitched.

"Oh, Teddy," Hermione whispered, her voice shaky. "You learned a new trick."

The sodden alley stank of garbage and piss and something she'd rather not name. After fifteen minutes of waiting, Hermione was convinced that all the Scourgify's in the world wouldn't remove the pungent smell. Teddy hadn't liked it at all, that was for sure.

After moving the Stupefied hardware store employee into the alleyway, casting Muggle-repelling, Notice Me Not charms, and a partial shield charm to keep them out of the immediate rainfall, not to mention sending out her translucent Patronus with a message to Tilly, Hermione slumped to the ground. The ridges of her spine pressed against the cold, grimy brick wall, and she grimaced.

She pulled out a book from her bag. What else was there to do? Holding it loosely in her gloved hands, she tried not to think about the poor kid sprawled out unconscious on the wet asphalt, pitifully wedged between the filthy green dumpster and the wall.

But Hermione was never very good at not looking.

She'd covered the boy with a well-worn blue blanket, dried, warmed, and softened the ground underneath him with a spell — quick work; seconds, really — but it didn't do much to make her feel better. She wondered what kind of person she'd be if it did.

Five minutes passed. Then another five.

Teddy complained.

The rain continued.

She tried her best to distract Teddy with a copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: An Illustrated Guide for the Young Magizoologist. After a minor adjustment period, he took to that pretty well. Content to just flip through the pages and look at the pictures, Teddy lingered over his favorite magical animals, drawing clumsy fingers overtop illustrated Nifflers and Hippogriffs and Kneazles, making the noises he associated with each animal, then glancing up at her for approval. His catlike features had faded away some time ago, but when she bent to look down at him or kiss his cheek, she still found her eyes gravitating to the center of his face.

Hermione stared blankly at the book she'd been working through this week, an old text on metal-extinguishing magics. What good would it really do her, though, when things like this kept happening?

Her eyes wandered, looking and not looking at the boy to her right.

Tilly should have been here by now. The witch may have been well over a hundred, but she was great at her job and always responded within minutes. The hardware store wasn't very big. The other employees were bound to have missed the helpful, gawky teenager by now. There was no way to explain where he'd gone in a way his manager would approve of, and every chance of him getting fired.

Her stomach churned at the thought as she banished away another stream of water flowing from the main road into alley.

It was necessary. It was necessary. It had to be done.

She closed her eyes.

The gunpop of apparition sounded, jerking Hermione out of her stupor, and she jumped to her feet. Her wand was out and drawn in microseconds. She swallowed, and a lump of air pushed its way down her throat. Her hands shook. She couldn't get them to quiet on their own, so she brushed them against the rough denim of her jeans and gave a hollow, self-deprecating laugh.

God, she thought, it needs to stop feeling like this.

"Took you long enough, Tilly."

She looked up. And no, that wasn't right.

Hermione couldn't see well, her vision obscured by stormy shadows and encroaching doubt, but she could see that whoever had just apparated into the alleyway was definitely not the diminutive Tilly Toke, current Head of the Department of Magical Catastrophes.

"Hello?" Hermione squinted, trying to make out who exactly it was. A man, she thought, someone tall.

"Hello?" she called again, louder this time. "Bill, that you?"

The man straightened his shoulders. He muttered something lowly, then advanced toward her and into the light.

It was three years ago again.

"Malfoy?" Hermione asked, mouth gaping.

Scenarios and memories flew through her head so rapidly that all Hermione could catch were a barrage of broken flashes and figments.

If she wasn't careful, she could slip, she knew that — except it wasn't slipping so much as being pulled.

Memories, oceans, riptides reached out with filthy, eager fingers to drag her under, to cover her with water so cold and so black that no matter how strong she kicked and turned and cut with her arms, she couldn't see, couldn't move anywhere but down, couldn't even breathe because that was just another way for the water to get in, to claw through her mouth and nose and eyes and mind —

Hermione took a deep, purposeful breath. Her lungs inflated with frigid November air. It took active, conscious thought.

She exhaled.

She hadn't seen him since the battle, that was all. Last she'd heard, he was on house arrest with his mother, confined within his godforsaken hellhole of a home for an undetermined period. Hermione'd been content to let him rot there, assuming "undetermined period" was just Ministry-speak for forever.

Acting like he hadn't seen or heard or been affected by her presence at all, Draco Malfoy continued walking forward with a stiff back and a pasty face so rigidly neutral it bordered on blank.

Except he wasn't walking toward her, not exactly.

Hermione stepped forward. "Malfoy, stop," she said, emphasizing her words with a thrust of her wand.

Malfoy paused.

Her eyes narrowed and lips thinned. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

Malfoy regarded her with cold distance. His grey eyes swept from the bottom of her cheap Primark wellies to the four inches of curly hair practically standing straight off of her head. Though his mask never slipped, his haughty gaze clearly said she was just as he remembered.

Mudblood.

"I'm trying to get to the muggle, Granger. So if you please," his said, his phrasing polite and intention anything but.

The store clerk? She looked at the gangly boy lying on the ground, his chest slowly rising and falling underneath her old blue blanket.

No. That was unacceptable.

"Are you kidding? In what world do you think I'm going to let a Death Eater come at a helpless kid with his wand drawn?"

Draco scowled, his wand arm twitching at his side. He opened his mouth and then closed it.

"Don't even think about it, Malfoy," she said. Her grip on her wand was so tight she thought she felt the wood strain. "I'm serious. You're not touching him."

He ignored her, which wasn't really a surprise. His eyes didn't roll, his face didn't move, but it might as well have. Hermione swore she could feel the infinitesimal shift in his body as he rocked over and forward and onto his toes.

What happened next wasn't a decision.

Her wand pointed upward, then slashed down in an arc of light, her wrist moving in an intricate twisting pattern. This time, her hands didn't shake in the slightest.

Protego Maxima. Fianto Duri. Repello Inimicum. All thought in quick succession, all cast nonverbally.

They were etched in her, those protective charms, and they flowed from the tip of her wand like muscle memory, forming a solid, seamless barrier. She felt sweat creep down the back of her neck, and her legs ached from where she'd unconsciously locked her knees. But blueish white light flared around the kid and Teddy too, and satisfaction at her casting eased some of the tension inside her. The shield was there, and it was strong. Hermione looked at Malfoy's face — strained, like something between a sneer and a grimace — and had no doubt of that.

He closed his eyes. "I don't actually have to physically touch the muggles, you know."

She looked at him, disgusted, and said nothing.

"Take down your wards."

"You need to leave."

"Granger, it's not like you to be purposefully obtuse. Take down your wards. I have to do this."

A wellspring of shame rose in her gut, the liquid emotion a familiar flood.

"Not on your life."

A muscle throbbed where he clenched his jaw. He was maybe two meters away from her at this point. "Now that's a bit excessive, don't you think?"

"You need to leave now, Malfoy, before I summon the Ministry. I won't tell you again."

"The Ministry?" he choked, incredulous, his words colored with dark amusement. "Oh, this is great. You mean to tell me Potter didn't say?"

"Harry has nothing to do with this. I'm running out of patience."

But he continued, nearly within armsreach now. Hermione extended her wand until it hung perpendicular to his sternum. He outwardly seemed unperturbed at the threat — no, the promise — but she noted his jaw was still tightly clenched, and he was no longer only loosely holding his wand.

He looked at her again — examined her.

"I'm really going to have to spell it out for you, aren't I?" he asked. "You called my department. In essence, Granger, you called me. I'm a Ministry Obliviator."

"You're lying," she said.

He scoffed. "If only I were. Now, you are free to learn how to properly cast the Obliviate charm and pass the certification exam yourself like every other Wizarding citizen," he said. The words pouring from his mouth were dispassionate and level, but condescension rolled off him in waves. "However, until you do, your incompetence is on me. So I would very much appreciate it if you lowered your wand so we can go about this case in a civilized—"

"Fuck off," Hermione spat, tightening her grip on her wand. "Tilly is our Obliviator."

"Obliviator Toke is in St. Mungo's," Malfoy said, eyes flashing. "I'm in charge of her usual cases while she's on leave."

"I —" She stopped as his words registered. But then Malfoy swaggered forward, and her anger boiled over again. He was lying. He was.

"I don't believe you. Stop. Malfoy, I said stop!"

Malfoy walked to the side, skirting around her wand like it was an inconveniently placed piece of furniture in an overcrowded room. The space between Malfoy and the unconscious teenager dwindled rapidly as he moved about, surveying the entirety of her blue dome, looking like he was about to have a go at it.

Her spells were good. She knew they were. But it had been awhile since she'd cast them, and they weren't grounded on anything. It was possible Malfoy could take them down. And there were spells he could cast, dark spells, that would cut right through the barrier.

Hermione leapt in front of him.

She could feel her body practically vibrating with energy, and apparently Malfoy could feel something too, because he jerked back at her sudden appearance, then leaned back further still. At six feet, he was nearly a head taller than her. Her muscles were tensed, her heart thumped wildly in her chest, and she felt hyperaware in a way she hadn't in ages, conscious of the icy wind rustling through her hair, the soft scratch of wool against her skin, and the minutia of the clean-shaven man before her. Her magic coursed through her. She looked him straight in his grey eyes, noting how quickly his apathetic mask slipped, crashed, then shattered altogether. She raised a challenging brow.

He didn't like that very much.

"I'm not going to touch the blasted muggle, you twit," Malfoy said, glaring down at her, leaning forward this time, seemingly forsaking control altogether. From this close, she could see the past few years had been kind to him in many respects — his features were much less angular, his skin less sallow and sunken — but Christ, when he spoke like that, his entire face twisted. "Get out of my way."

"No." Her eyes narrowed. "I don't believe you for a second."

Furious and frustrated and damn near apoplectic, Malfoy looked like he was torn between counting to ten and tearing her in half. It was an interesting thing, watching his composure break so completely, not unsimilar to Teddy in a tantrum.

"Granger, why else would I be here? Just get out of my way, you —" He very visibly bit back a curse. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and made a last ditch effort to regain the pieces of his stoic front. With agonizing condescension, he started to speak. "Holding up this process is a flagrant violation to the International Statute of Secrecy. If you continue to —"

"I'm not moving."

"Merlin, Granger, if it makes you so fucking upset, I'd suggest not doing whatever the hell you did to require this Ministry-mandated obliviation in the first place," he growled. "Now move."

Hermione glared at him. From inside the barrier, Teddy started to cry.

"Move," Malfoy said. He leaned over her now, his body mere inches from her own. His white blond hair was slicked back with painstaking precision, and his tall frame had filled out considerably since she'd last seen the bony, pointy thing. This close, she could feel the magic roll off his body, could feel it crawl over the surface of her skin, unwanted and unwelcome. The hair on the nape of her neck stood on edge at the physical intimidation, but she held her ground.

Somehow, impossibly, she leaned in closer. "No."

"If you keep this up, I don't care how close you are to Potter, I will summon the Aurors, and they will fine you accordingly. Now get out of my way."

She glared at him instead, feeling an intoxicating rage going back years.

Malfoy exhaled through his nose. "Granger, the Aurors will come."

"Let them," Hermione hissed. "Harry will be down here in a second — "

"You clearly have no clue what's going on —"

"— and you'll be the one —"

"— you blasted know-it-all, because if you did you'd know —"

"— explaining how you got ten feet within —"

"I fucking work for Potter!" he yelled, throwing up his hands and taking a step back. "Damn you to hell, you stupid, stubborn girl." He thrust his right hand inside the inner left pocket of his robes, nearly ripping the seam of the fabric. A beat later, something small and compact was flung at her chest.

It bounced off her breastbone, making a hollow, vibrating sound only she could hear, before falling to a puddle at her feet.

She didn't drop her gaze. She stared and stared as his words caught up to her.

No.

"My identification," he said, as she wordlessly summoned the object to her hands. He was electric and terrifying, and she could hardly register him through the thrumming in her ears. "Not that it fucking matters."

Hermione's thin fingers closed around the damp black bifold I.D. in her hands. She looked down and scrutinized it, but distantly, as if she was looking through a pensieve. The fingertips of her right hand unfolded the leather and ghosted overtop his credentials. The embossing, the signature, the pulsing magical seal... it was official. He hadn't been lying. Draco Malfoy was a Ministry-appointed Obliviator.

Her world reeled.

The spell faltered.

Wide-eyed, she took a step back and covered her mouth with her hand, as if to hold in a soundless cry. There was no way the Ministry of Magic would let a known Muggle-hating convicted Death Eater become an Obliviator.

Hermione shook her head, hand still over her mouth.

No, of course they would.

The revelation hit her like a punch to the diaphragm, and all that energy she'd built up didn't just crash, it vanished altogether, leaving her hollow and dizzy.

When she looked up, it was over. In a span of seconds, Malfoy had pushed his way through the faltering shield and ruthlessly, efficiently wiped and reorganized the order of things in the poor boy's head.

"It's done, Granger," he said, crouching almost comically far from the kid, carefully avoiding even the possibility of physical contact. "The Muggle won't remember ever meeting you. It'll be just like you never existed at all." Malfoy stood, brushing nonexistent wrinkles from his black robes. Teddy screamed, and Malfoy grimaced. "If I could only be so lucky."

Oh god. This wasn't happening. Her mind was spinning and things were tangling and this wasn't right.

A hairsbreadth from frantic, she focused on Malfoy. "Who hired you? Who—"

"Look, Granger," he said with an acerbic tone. In one lithe motion he stalked forward, taller than she'd seen moments ago. He narrowed his eyes. "I don't have time for this shit—"

"But how—"

"No. Your precious Potter can put up with your hysterics. Some of us have jobs to do." And with that, he plucked his I.D. out of her fingers, turned, and apparated on the spot.

AN: Thoughts, questions, and comments may be submitted to the Ministry for review. Responses will be given with 5-7 business days.

(No, but really, what do you think?)