Hermione Granger quickly strode down the grey hallway as she desperately tried to place her unruly locks into a bun. She had hastily thrown on a red blouse with a pair of black trousers she had salvaged from underneath the mounds of dirty laundry she had yet to do.
The previous night, she had stayed up longer than she had intended trying to finish her thrilling novel. The blasted, yet beautifully written, book had compelled her to finish it, thus causing her to wake up late for her debriefing on her new assignment.
"Granger, you're late," Lloyd barked with a frown when her frazzled figure rounded the corner.
"I know, I am terribly sorry, I was caught up in an event last night." Hermione replied trying to keep her reason vague. She would have been mortified if her boss knew her genuine cause of tardiness.
"I expect better, now get inside."
Hermione opened her mouth to retort however her boss had already turned and left, leaving her to shamefully enter inside. Her body suddenly halted when her eyes drew upon the blond wispy hair of Draco Malfoy.
"Malfoy? " her voice resonated inside the office.
He merely turned around before cocking his right eyebrow up, skimming his eyes over her. Hermione couldn't decipher the brief emotion that flitted through his eyes.
"What is she doing here Lloyd?" Malfoy asked, training his eyes on the man behind Hermione.
Hermione inhaled sharply, she despised that fact that he had ignored her as if she was not worth his time. He would never be worth her time, nor did she want to be worth his time but she would not stand to ever be neglected by anyone.
"I am here for my debriefing Malfoy. I'm assuming your petty brief must be finished with Lloyd so please see yourself out." She gave him a smirk.
Malfoy's mouth opened to retort but was cut off by Lloyd.
"Actually, he hasn't missed his debriefing. We were waiting for you." Lloyd corrected.
"What?" they both exclaimed.
"Yes. You are both assigned to the same mission. This case needs the best two operatives to ensure that it will be done with the best care."
Hermione blinked at Lloyd with disbelief before she started to argue how inappropriate and unacceptable this arrangement was.
"You know how much we hate each other, the results will be disastrous!" She exclaimed as her fist collided with the desk at such a preposterous idea.
"I hate to say this, but I agree with Granger, Lloyd. The outcomes will not be desirable," Malfoy stated with no trace of disdain towards her, surprisingly.
There was silence for five seconds. Hermione was a little slack jawed at Malfoy's comment. Malfoy was Malfoy and a Malfoy who was even remotely civil to her was a foreign concept. After the war, Harry had testified on Malfoy's behalf which left the blond with a chance to salvage what was left of the Malfoys' reputation. And indeed he and his mother had mended those broken pieces well enough to have the public sing praises on the charity work and changed mentality the Malfoy's had implemented. But as much of a changed man Malfoy had become, Hermione had had very minimal contact with him and she couldn't help but put on a defensive front. That's what she had done for majority of her school life when he chose to make an appearance and shutting down her instinctive response would prove difficult.
"I know the past between the two of you, but should I remind you that you are both adults now and are expected to act professionally." Lloyd concluded, handing out the mission brief to both of them which effectively ended the argument.
Malfoy intensely stared at Lloyd, as if having an unspoken debate with him. However one look from Lloyd halted his stare and he grudgingly began to flip through the pages.
Hermione reluctantly sat down in the chair beside him. After realizing there was no winning against Lloyd, she too began to skim the first page until a choking sound interrupted her.
"There is no way in hell I will work with her." Malfoy stated in a deadpan voice.
Hermione sent him a glare as she began to form her retort which was sadly cutoff by Lloyd.
"You don't have a choice Malfoy and neither do you Granger," Lloyd concluded firmly with a hint of annoyance in his voice now.
Hermione's brows furrowed together. She didn't understand Malfoy's abrupt comment...was there something in the brief that elicited such a reaction from him? She flipped through a few more pages before Lloyd disrupted her, and asked for her attention which she gave with a tinge of embarrassment for being caught out like that.
"Now, in short form, we recently discovered that the Severance was stolen from our classified location at the Britain Museum of Magical Arts and was smuggled to America. From what we were able to track, Gavin Malcolm was the last to be in possession of it. He is a wealthy man in Honolulu and I need you two to attend the Gala he is hosting in his Mansion since our research team last caught a trace of it there."
"Why would anyone want to steal that?" Hermione blurted. It was quite absurd, why would you steal something that in the end caused human extinction?
"We have not gained enough information to form the reasons behind Malcolm's motives but right now, the most important task is to retrieve it from his possession, before it really does cause harm." Lloyd replied.
"He could have stolen the Severance to merely just create a threat." Malfoy voiced.
Hermione turned her head at his statement, secretly a little impressed at what he said. It was an extremely likely possibility and she would have praised whoever had thought of it. But not Malfoy.
"We are currently investigating that prospect and we will contact you about any relevant developments. Otherwise, the precise details are in the brief, both of you are dismissed."
Both of their mouths opened one last time to protest against him but their feeble attempts were cut off when Lloyd gave them the look and pointed towards his door.
Hermione loudly huffed before screeching her chair backwards and rushing out of the room to avoid any conversation with her new partner.
As she reached her own office, her logical part of her brain finally kicked back into motion and scolded her for her childish behavior towards Malfoy. In a partner mission, the first step was to talk out all the details before anything else and she had diminished that part.
He can read it himself, she decided.
Hermione plopped into her chair and cast open the folder with all the information she needed.
Her eyes flitted through the situation and with each sentence, her eyes widened. Who would be idiotic enough to steal such an old artifact, putting everyone and themselves in danger? Or a better question, how were they able to smuggle such a guarded artifact in the first place?
Her thoughts shuffled back to her adventures when she was young, knowing that the Ministry always had one too many loopholes in their high efforts of protecting such things as ancient as this.
She flipped to the last page that outlined her identity for the mission. Hermione felt herself almost choke.
Underneath her faux name, Angelina Maxwell, she had a spouse, David Maxwell...
Not ever did Hermione think that she would have to be bound to such an incorrigible man, be it faux or not. With the amount of times she had seen him, which consisted of passing each other in the hallway on rare occasions or catching a glimpse of each other at social events, she did not know much about the new and improved Malfoy.
Hermione sighed deeply and was utterly terrified for a mission for the first time.
Anything could go wrong with Draco bloody Malfoy as her partner.