For Tika (halffictionalprincess). Happy fic exchange! :) - Monthly July One-Shot Exchange

Pairings: Draco/Hermione

Genres: romance, humor, friendship

Prompts: (dialogue) "Do I look like I care?", (action) falling down

Their first meeting at the Ministry of Magic happens purely by chance, and neither of them come out of it particularly wanting to see the other again.

"Oh. Er, Malfoy."

"If it isn't Granger."

Hermione, uncertain whether she should frown, brush past him to the lift, or - heavens forbid - talk to the prat, attempts some sort of half-smile that turns out like a grimace. Malfoy, on the other hand, makes no other move than to lock his eyes upon hers and she finds that she can't shake off their intense gaze.

In some way, she feels obligated to speak to him; she's never turned down a chance to catch up with anyone from Hogwarts before.

So even though he's Draco Malfoy - and practically no one has seen him in ages - and she hated him back in school, she says politely, "How are you?"

He doesn't oblige her with an answer, but his eyes are still fixed on hers, almost mesmerizingly so. They're more grey than blue, she realizes. She'd always thought the opposite, if she thought of them at all.

"Well. I've got to go. I've, er, got a meeting."

She isn't sure whether she's supposed to wait for him to say something or not, as Malfoy doesn't seem to be half the talkative person he once was.

But he, in a tone that's almost careless, drawls, "Granger, you're a terrible liar."

Hermione lets out an unamused laugh while she mutters under her breath, "Do I really look like I care?"

She raises her voice to say audibly, "Is that so. Well, then, what brings you to the Ministry?"

Malfoy frowns at her, an expression she finds gratifying because he finally resembles the arrogant bully he was at Hogwarts. "Mind your own business."

"Of course. My sincerest apologies." It comes out unnaturally spiteful.

"Well." Malfoy shifts his position and she notices that he's holding a folder in his hands. "I'm going to be late, so move."

(His eyes haven't wavered from hers. She thinks she can detect some green in them now - not Harry's shade of green, but a mintier one, almost chartreuse.)

"By all means, leave," she says rather waspishly. It's really something for him to call her out on making an escape before rudely proclaiming that she's holding him up.

Malfoy lets out a long breath. "Interesting that we should meet again."

Hermione purses her lips. "You're not that great of a liar either."

His lips form a smirk as he brushes past her to who knows where for who knows what. Everybody knows that Draco Malfoy hasn't stepped a foot into the Ministry since two years ago, after Harry had killed Voldemort once and for all, and Hermione can't help but wonder what he's up to now.

She watches him leave as she steps into the lift but mutters, "Good riddance."

(For some reason, she can't shake those grey-blue-green eyes out of her head.)

"You won't believe who I saw today at the Ministry," announces Harry. The three are having dinner at the flat that he and Ron shares, and even before he's finished speaking, Hermione gets the strange feeling that she in fact does know.

Since Ron's mouth is too full of lasagna to make coherent sounds, she obligingly asks, "Who?"

"Malfoy."

Hermione, who expects this, only nods knowingly, but Ron doesn't, and his jaw drops open to reveal all the food in his mouth. "You 'aw 'alfoy? Tha' gi'?" He swallows hard and says, astonished, "What was he doing at the Ministry?"

"The funny thing is, Harry, I saw him too," says Hermione. She frowns, remembering his smirk and (infuriatingly) the precise color of his eyes. "Still rather immature, I thought."

Harry tilts his head and, though it looks like it discomforts him, says, "Well, you'd be surprised how convincing he was for his job application."

Hermione's is the jaw that drops now. "He was applying for a job at the Ministry?" She remembers the folder he'd been holding.

"Not was. Is." Harry looks truly pained as he adds, "It looks like he might get it."

"Bullshit!" Ron says loudly, voicing Hermione's relative thoughts. "Why the ruddy hell would the Ministry give someone like Malfoy a job?"

Hermione winces. "Well, they gave one to Theo Nott, remember? And that was only six months after the war."

"Daphne Greengrass too, though I suppose their family wasn't as involved in the Inner Circle."

"Still," barks Ron, waving away these two pieces of information, "this is Malfoy we're talking about."

"True," says Hermione, but Harry's already shaking his head.

"He was very convincing. I talked to Kingsley, and he's thinking about letting it happen." He wrinkles his nose and his glasses shift upwards. "Even I was convinced that he might've changed, except as soon as Kingsley turned away, Malfoy said something about the Auror business plummeting since I became Head."

Hermione and Ron both know better than to assume that such a comment would bother Harry, but Ron still spits out, "That manipulative git."

"There's people who wouldn't like it if he started working at the Ministry," says Hermione, stabbing a piece of pasta with her fork. She twirls her fork and eyes the ridges of the pasta. "But I suppose a good chunk wouldn't mind, either."

At this, Harry nods. "You know, I wouldn't be surprised if he got it after all."

Harry had not specified exactly what position Draco Malfoy had applied for, but it takes only a week for Hermione to find out on her own that he is joining her department.

"Have you heard?" asks her neighboring worker Alina as Hermione arrives at work on Thursday.

She sets down her folders and bag. "Heard what?"

"There's a new person in our department. He just came in today."

As this isn't a particularly uncommon event, Hermione just nods until Alina continues, "They say his name is Draco Malfoy."

This catches Hermione's full attention, and she freezes with her hand clutching her quill. "What?"

"Didn't he go to Hogwarts as well? Did you know him there?" Alina had been homeschooled and therefore saved from ever having to be acquainted with Malfoy thus far.

"Yes, I did. He's here?" Hermione asks incredulously. "The Department of Magical Law Enforcement?"

Alina nods and suddenly leans in with a mischievous smirk. "I hear his looks aren't so bad. Refined, at least."

Hermione scowls and slams down her cup of coffee. "Working here! But he does anything but follow the rules! What is the Ministry thinking, employing him of all -"

She cuts herself off, distracted by a familiar head of platinum blond hair as it enters the room behind Preston Crawford, the head of the department. Then suddenly, Draco Malfoy's eyes are somehow fixed upon her brown ones, and she can practically see the colors swimming in front of her, she remembers their shades almost disturbingly well -

"I can't believe it," she says, yanking her eyes away from Malfoy's smirk. She crosses her arms as she tosses herself into her chair. "I can't believe this."

Alina only smiles at her and says, "Well, chances are that his cubicle won't be near ours. Unfortunately."

"Believe me," Hermione says darkly. "That's a good thing."

Some strange, unwanted force must be acting upon her, because Draco Malfoy is moved into the cubicle five down from Hermione's. Out of the fifteen empty cubicles in the room (only two of them remotely close to Hermione and Alina), he has to be assigned to the one closest to her.

So when she sees him later in the day as she walks up the steps in the Atrium, it's with haste that she attempts to leave before she has to engage in another unpleasant conversation with him.

Unfortunately, this doesn't work in her favor at all. Hermione's foot catches on one of the steps in her hurry, and she topples forward, her hands just quick enough to keep her from smacking her face into the ground.

Her wrists immediately ache, but nothing can be worse than the amused drawl of a voice behind her. "Clumsy as ever, aren't we, Granger?"

She barely contains her growl. "Shut up, Malfoy."

Hermione springs to her feet and dusts off her robes, nodding at the passing wizard who asks if she's okay. Malfoy, of course, doesn't ask her that, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

In fact, he doesn't speak to her at all. This is why Hermione remains blissfully unaware that he's still trailing behind her until she enters a lift and he steps in next to her.

"Oh Merlin," she mutters as she glares at him and shuffles to the other side of the lift. The gate shuts, and they begin to zoom backward and down in silence, until Draco suddenly turns to give her a strange look.

Hermione ignores it for the first minute, but when they've reached the first floor and he still hasn't looked away, she barks out, "What?"

All of a sudden, his hand lashes out and forcefully pulls her chin up. His hand, firm and strong, forces her to stare up at the ceiling.

She's too stunned to do anything at first, but when his nails begin to dig into her skin, she croaks, "Malfoy -" and promptly kicks him in the shin.

He leaps backward and swears at her, disorientated only for a moment before resuming his stiff position as if nothing happened.

Hermione furrows her eyebrows as she rubs her chin and stares at him from the corners over her eyes. "Well?" she demands after a moment where she composes herself. "What was that for?" He neither replies nor looks at her.

This continues in a similar fashion until the lift finally clangs at their destination. Level 2. Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

He glares at her, his grey-blue-green eyes hard but not quite cold. "If you must know," he says contemptuously, "I was seeing if it was still there."

Hermione raises an eyebrow in irritation as she steps off the lift after him. "What, exactly?"

But Malfoy is apparently done speaking with her, because all he does is says, "It is," before leaving her to lift a hand first to her mouth in realization and then to the scar that will always remain on her neck.

Bellatrix's knife - the same that had killed Dobby - made the slash across Hermione's neck. It is thin and no longer inflamed as it had been for the first months, but no magical treatment can make the scar disappear. Hermione suspects there had been some Dark substance on the knife that made its marks permanent.

She watches Draco enter the bustling department with her hand still pressed to the scar. This is has to be what Malfoy had been looking at, but why would something that happened years ago still be relevant to him?

She finds it all too odd to comprehend, and even odder that he should remember that her scar even exists.

The next day, as she leaves the building, Malfoy taps her shoulder. (She knows it's him because the prat's been following her since she left her desk.)

"What?" she snaps without turning.

"You got that scar from the Manor."

He says it as a fact, not a question, and Hermione realizes that he really has remembered what happened a few years ago.

She nods tersely and continues to walk at a brisk pace.

"From Bellatrix," he says from behind her.

The air around them has turned hot. Hermione can't shake off an uncomfortable feeling that inches up her arms and winds its way around her neck. Why is Malfoy bringing this up if he knows it's true?

There's such a long stretch of silence between them that Hermione would wonder if he has left if not for the sound of his feet slapping against the ground behind her. And then, in almost a mutter -

"Even as a mudblood, you didn't deserve it."

She stops in her tracks and turns in surprise. When he sees her looking at her, Draco immediately musters up a scowl and adds, "Considering the circumstances at the time."

Hermione blinks at him.

He hasn't really apologized to her, not that she needs him to. He's only implied that he remembers, and he is still uncomfortable with what happened to her ages ago. It doesn't mean anything other than that he is human after all.

And it will take weeks until she starts seeing him as someone she could learn to like. It will take months before Draco will want to trace his finger on her neck for a completely different reason. It will take years before either realize that they both want more - they always have, never mind that it had been for the complete opposite emotion back in Hogwarts.

But for now, it's enough that Hermione just nods at Draco and forces out a small smile.

And it is all due to a chance meeting at the Ministry.

I'm kind of obsessed with the idea of a permanent scar on Hermione's neck (since the 'mudblood' scar was only mentioned in the movies). I can't help but find myself referring to the scar more and more in my fics. Sooooo expect it in the next Entwined in Time chapter, for any of you reading it! ;)

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this :)

xo Summer