Author's Note: This one-shot is a sort of prequel, companion piece to my other story Love and Other Misfortunes, although I have endeavored to make it stand alone from the larger work.
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Hermione Granger was sitting in the warm sunshine on the grass outside Hogwarts. The heat of the unseasonably warm spring day was seeping into her skin and no one was disrupting her steady progress through the pile of books she had just checked out of the library.
Her neck was growing slightly tense from looking down onto the page and she tried to lift her head to twist and relieve it.
Her head was stuck.
She tried again.
She seemed to be, lodged against something.
She tried turning and couldn't do that either. There was, she realised, a sharp corner digging into her back. She tried reaching back to find it and found... a wall of some sort.
"You know, Granger, the fact that everyone says you live in this office doesn't mean you have to prove them right."
Draco Malfoy's drawling voice invaded her thoughts like an unexpected bucket of ice water.
Her eyes popped open and she found herself curled up under her Ministry desk. Draco Malfoy was casually seated in her chair, with his feet on her desk, folding origami and smirking down at her.
She scrambled out with as much dignity as she could manage.
"I hope you aren't planning to bill the Ministry for that nap." He noted, as his eyes skimmed from her head to her toes, as though he were cataloging every wrinkle and rumple of her clothing, the dreadful state of her hair, her ragged nails, and general appearance of dishevelment.
Hermione tried to straighten and decided not to correct him by admitting she had actually been there all night.
Her neck was in agony. She rolled it and it made such a loud crack that Malfoy actually flinched.
"When did you get here, Malfoy?" she inquired groggily.
"A few minutes ago, I believe we had a meeting. Although, how is it that no one mentioned the Ministry was instituting casual Mondays?"
Hermione froze. She was in muggle clothes in her office.
"Oh, bollo—" she started to curse and then clapped her hands over her mouth when she realised Malfoy looked about ready to burst out laughing at her. He really didn't need any new material with which to taunt her.
"I fell asleep here last night when I got back from Scotland," she admitted.
"And how are the lochs this fine February?"
She shivered. A wizarding water park company had been endeavoring to forcibly evict a huge colony on selkies residing in one of the Scottish lochs. It was completely illegal but everyone in the Ministry had been turning a blind eye to it until it reached Hermione's desk in the legal branch of the Department of Magical Creatures.
She'd had to drop everything and go there in order to go stop it and had spent the entire weekend, chest deep in freezing water, acting simultaneously as a legal defense and translator (since no one on the eviction crew considered merfolk worthy of communicating with.)
It had been brutal and Hermione wasn't sure if she would ever stop feeling cold. There were severe limitations to what warming charms could do.
"I got it resolved," she said shortly.
"You better have," Malfoy grumbled. "After the way you derailed my weekend. If I'd wanted to be a Ministry hack I wouldn't have bothered being born the handsome and eligible heir of a wealthy estate."
Hermione rolled her eyes.
"I'm sure wizarding world will find it within itself to forgive you for skipping this weekend's play or concert or whatever it was in order to plaster your face across the society pages again next week."
"Been looking, have you?" He quirked an aristocratic eyebrow at her.
Hermione snorted.
"Hardly. But it seems to be the only thing Parvati does at times."
She reached back and rubbed the nape of her neck. The tension that radiated from there never seemed to subside and falling asleep under her desk had not improved things.
She'd lost an entire weekend because it seemed that no one else in the Ministry was interested in enforcing the law when it came to the rights of Magical Beings. She couldn't understand the indifference. Why was wizarding society so eager to always shove individuals into categories of otherness that made them undeserving of basic rights and protections?
The amount of work already on her desk was enough to make her feel ill but she forced herself to ask "Did you want me to take over the rest of the transformation zone appraisals?"
Draco had happened to stop in at her office on Friday and found her in an absolute state. She'd just found out about the selkies and was trying to wrap up all her work before heading out. She'd managed everything but appraising potential werewolf transformation zones. She had been planning to do it over the weekend.
Albert Runcorn, as Wizengamot oversight head of the Department of Magical Creatures, had abruptly called another committee hearing regarding Hermione's primary reason for working at the Ministry: the Werewolf Rights Act. He'd accused her of under-estimating the cost of creating werewolf transformation zones. Hermione was required to show that there were at least ten sites well below her budget proposal. Runcorn had demanded specific numbers and that she include a proposed contract with the prospective sellers and a price estimate on warding the designated areas; which meant that she would need to survey the entire property line of each one in order to calculate the exact type of wards needed.
She'd been given six days to complete it without any extensions on the rest of her workload. She'd thought she could manage it, assuming sleep was unnecessary, until the crisis in the Scottish loch had landed on her desk.
She'd been near tears.
The transformation zones were a key leg of the WRA legislation, failing at the hearing would have endangered the entire WRA. But according to the last census there were over a thousand selkies residing in that loch. The merfolk were extremely territorial and rooted to their body of water. They couldn't be simply moved. Even if it didn't result in a full-on battle, the trauma would have killed hundreds of them, especially the merbabies, who were highly susceptible to shock when introduced to new water. The eviction would have been genocide.
Then Malfoy waltzed in. He lobbied at the Ministry on behalf of Malfoy Holdings. Apparently in the most recent draft she'd misspelled 'werewolf' as 'werewoof' once. He had found it so amusing that he came all the way to the Ministry just to taunt her about it.
After throwing a fit that she was going to Scotland at all he'd demanded she hand over the transformation zone appraisals to him. She'd been skeptical but there wasn't anything else to do. She tried to make sure he understood exactly what it would entail and he'd just glared at her, snatched the scroll of parchment out of her hands, and stormed away.
She was sure he couldn't have finished it all in two days but she hoped he'd taken it seriously enough to have done at least a few.
"You doubt me still." He sighed with a flick of his wand. A pile of thick scrolls of parchment suddenly appeared on her desk.
Hermione gaped. There were at least fifteen.
"You finished it?" She squeaked.
"I told you, your selkie rights campaign derailed my weekend," he grumped. "Nineteen of them better be enough to satisfy both you and Runcorn."
Hermione felt ready to cry with relief. This—was beyond all her expectations. She'd hoped to have at least twelve options to present. She would have hugged Malfoy if she weren't sure it would horrify him and result in getting hexed.
She unfurled a parchment to look over the numbers.
"How on earth did you manage this?" she marveled.
"Because, unlike you, I am familiar with the concept of delegation," he snarked.
"How many people did you make work over the weekend?" she inquired.
"Only a handful. Land surveys are actually not a speciality of Malfoy Holdings. I had to do most of it myself," he whined.
"I hope you paid them well," she said severely, unfurling another scroll to inspect the numbers written out in Malfoy's unfairly perfect penmanship.
"Of course. Merlin forbid that anyone perform unpaid overtime unless they happen to be named Granger." He rolled his eyes. "After the WRA passes I am going to demand my father give me at least a month on a beach with women who actually know to comb their hair. You look a fright. I'm going go need therapy to recover from finding you under that desk. I thought you were a vagrant."
Hermione felt her cheeks grow hot. It wasn't as if she cared very much about her appearance, but having Malfoy constantly informing her of how excessively unattractive he found her was enough to wound even her shreds of vanity.
"Yes. Well, standing chest-deep in a loch for two days while it's snowing and having to dive under to speak mermish every few minutes is not exactly conducive to good hair or one's general health. It's not as though anyone there wanted me, so they went out of their way to make it as difficult as possible," she said stiffly. "I'm sorry I offended your delicate sensibilities when you came, uninvited I might add, into my office."
He stared at her silently for a minute while she continued review his work.
"Go home, Granger," he said at length.
"I can't," she ground out. "I have twelve cases from the DMLE to review."
But—she felt so tired and cold. Although she'd scourgified her hair upon emerging from the loch she still felt as though there was algae in it. She'd dragged herself back to the Ministry rather than going home last night because she'd been worried about what other things might be happening that no one would care about except her.
"None of those case reviews are due until Wednesday. If you stay here today and work you're going to risk failing at the committee hearing tomorrow and jeopardise the entire WRA. Go home, Granger. The Ministry can survive a day without you pulling a twelve hour shift."
"It's not the Ministry's survival I'm worried about," she retorted, inspecting another scroll.
Malfoy hissed. She could feel his growing irritation with her.
"No. But you should care about the WRA's."
She ground her jaw. Trust Malfoy to always go for the throat.
"I do," she snapped. "But unlike you and your exclusively monetary interest, I don't have the luxury of only caring about werewolves."
"Then have Parvati owl you if something comes up. I mean it, Granger. Go home or I will stun and levitate you there myself." His tone was clipped. "I'll finish up the appraisals for tomorrow and get the business grant brief completed. But I will not let you destroy our work out of obstinance. And, when you're no longer exhausted to a point of near incoherence, I'll expect you to thank me for it. Now, go home."
Hermione's fingers itched to slap him.
He was such a rude, arrogant, controlling git. If she didn't know deep down that he was right about tomorrow she'd hate him. But he was right, she couldn't afford any mistakes at the committee hearing.
It was just—so hard to rely on anyone.
Every time she handed off even a little of her workload to someone else it seemed like Runcorn got them reassigned to a new branch in the Department. Malfoy was the only one who hadn't disappeared—and he was only there to make money off her.
"Fine," she agreed, putting his scroll back onto the desk.
The angry expression of his face eased and his eyes became mocking again.
"Now. Was that really so hard?" he drawled.
She glared at him, gathering up her things. She hated letting him win.
"You know, it's really too bad you never care about anything but money, Malfoy. You could actually be a fairly decent person."
"Would that I could. I wonder, what would you think of me then?" He smirked while vanishing the scrolls into his pocket with a flick of his wand.
She blinked at the question. She wasn't sure.
"As it happens," he continued, "there are other things I care about. They just happen to be things you are utterly incapable of appreciating." His voice was unsettlingly suggestive.
"And I'm sure I never will," she said, shooting him a pinched expression as she turned to leave her office.
When she pulled the office door open and walked out accompanied by Malfoy, Parvati looked astonished.
"When did you get here, Malfoy?" she gasped. Hermione habitually arrived before Parvati did.
"I let myself in when you were distracted practicing that new beauty charm of yours." he informed her snidely. "You should look into a bigger mirror. I could have smuggled in a quidditch team without your noticing."
Parvati flushed and busied herself with filing.
Hermione studied her unreliable assistant for a moment.
"I'm going to go home for the day, Parvati," she finally forced herself to say. "I need you to owl me immediately if anything comes up. Can you do that?"
"Sure," Parvati shrugged.
"Then I'll be going." Hermione sighed and turned to look up at Malfoy.
"You'll really take care of everything?"
"Have I ever let you down when it comes to the WRA?" he inquired coolly.
"No." She wasn't sure why it felt like such a hard thing to admit.
"Then I won't tomorrow either. Lay down the weight of the world for a minute. We've all survived quite well without you."
She eyed him with uncertainty for a moment and then turned away, heading for the atrium.
She'd never wanted a bath so much.
oooooooooooooooooooooo
Draco watched Hermione's slowly retreating figure.
He'd known his weekend would end up being hell the moment he noticed her panicking through the bond. Using an eraser charm to put a spelling error in her WRA draft had been a sufficiently petty excuse to come to the Ministry and find out why.
He wished Runcorn and the selkie eviction team slow deaths.
He sighed and headed home. He had flown his broom along the properly lines of forty different locations before he'd found enough that would suit. And then he'd added some extras to ensure Granger wouldn't find it necessary to go survey any more when she returned.
When he'd gotten back, at some ungodly hour last night, he'd realised she was back from Scotland and unconscious within the Ministry.
That had worried him.
Then again, everything in Granger's life had a habit of worrying him, even before he'd gone and unintentionally bonded himself to her. Utilizing the Veela magic meant to coerce him into mating with her simply made it easier to know when the situation was serious.
He'd found her in her office, passed out with exhaustion under her desk, shivering violently. After dropping his cloak on her and casting several warming charms she'd finally stilled, and—he'd stayed.
He couldn't seem to drag himself away, even though he was sure it was extremely creepy of him to be sitting there, watching her sleep. He'd already made himself irredeemably creepy for having spent the last two years doing what could only be described as stalking her emotional state. Getting to be near her for once without needing to verbally spar with her—he hadn't realised how desperately he craved that.
So he'd sat, through the night, renewing the warming charms when they wore off, and trying and failing miserably at not staring at her the whole time. Wondering if he was going to survive long enough for them to pass the WRA together.
The unbound Veela magic was steadily killing him.
He was running out of time.
He only wanted to last until the WRA passed in the hopes that, by some miracle, he could convince her to quit the Ministry afterward. He was sure she'd work herself into an early grave otherwise.
Her obsessive work tendencies kept her so stressed she never managed to notice how he seemed to conveniently appear at every crises; and while he couldn't deny that he'd gladly seize almost any opportunity to insert himself into her life—it worried him.
What would she do to herself, when he wasn't there to help her anymore? He couldn't understand why no one else seemed to worry about how overworked she was.
Standing in his room he mused over the problem as he downed one potion after another. A libido tamper. A warming potion. A fever reducer. A vile tasting general purpose bonding relief draught.
As they settled in his stomach he noticed that their effects seemed—faint. If they were losing their efficacy it meant he'd need to double them all again. Although—eventually, regardless of quantity, they wouldn't work at all, and that would be the end of him.
He turned away with a sigh. There was a twisted irony in helping Hermione Granger save magical creatures while dying from being a magical creature.
He only hoped she would never come to appreciate it.