A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Glad you like it so far :) Here's chapter 2 for you, and as always, Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. Enjoy!
Chapter 2:
"Briiing! Briiing!"
The visitor alert charm was triggered in Hermione's home as Draco Flooed into her fireplace. He stepped out and met with a brick wall blocking his way and a maroon colored chair on which to sit and wait. He heard shuffling on the other side of the wall.
"Granger?"
He thought he heard someone swear under their breath. "Um, hello," came the hesitant response. More shuffling followed.
"Not to be rude or anything, but why is there a great bloody brick wall in my way?" He asked as he sat himself down on the chair.
"Yes, sorry about that. Well. My flat is in a bit of a state at the moment. I'm just trying to, uh, tidy up a bit and I'll let you through. Just give me about 20 minutes and I'll-"
"20 minutes?" He shouted in frustration, jumping out of the chair. "Why the hell didn't you do this before I got here?"
"I was, um, doing some work?" She said lamely.
"It's Saturday. And we've no new cases." When she didn't answer, he spoke again. "Granger, did you forget I was coming or something?" Still no answer. He remembered belatedly why he was here in the first place, substituting for another. "Granger," He said more kindly this time, "Are you alright?"
"...No..." She stopped making shuffling noises.
"Just take down the wall and let me through." The chair and the wall vanished a moment later, and his eyes went wide at the scene that was revealed. There was glass strewn behind her, and all over the room were letters and clothing, halfway burned or shredded. One of the chairs was sideways with the upholstery torn part of the way off. Hermione stood in the middle of everything, holding several letters in her hand and looking very bad indeed.
"I...I told you I shouldn't be home alone right now," was all she said in explanation.
He started heading towards her, his shoes crunching on a bit of glass as he went. He wasn't sure what he was going to do -pat her on the back maybe?- but she was even more unsure of his actions, and took a wary step back.
"OUCH!" She cried out suddenly. She picked up her right foot and stared in shock as it bled freely where she'd stepped on a piece of glass. Draco gave a sigh of frustration, and upon reaching her, scooped her up in both arms and crunched his way across the rest of the room to where he assumed the kitchen would be.
Hermione looked at him in shock as he carried her and then carefully set her down on one of her counters. "Why aren't you wearing shoes? Really Granger."
"I wasn't thinking about the glass." She looked away in embarrassment as he held her foot in his hands, methodically checking for any more glass.
"Obviously." He performed a quick healing spell and the wound closed, leaving a thin red line behind, and then cleaned up the blood with a paper towel.
"Thanks," She muttered. Draco looked up from her foot and saw her face. It was tear streaked and slightly dirty, as if she hadn't washed it since yesterday. He realized she probably hadn't. She was wearing the same creme blouse she'd worn to their office, but paired with lime green lounging pants. He touched her hair gingerly, the curls going every which way. It might have been comical except for the look of sadness on her face. It changed to surprise when his hand brushed her curls though.
He pulled his hand away quickly. "You look like shit. Let's get you cleaned up."
"Oh, gee, you really know how to compliment a girl." She glared at him and hopped off the counter, wincing at the tenderness in her foot.
"You go and shower, I'll clean up this mess. What time do we have to be at your cousin's?"
"Not until 2, so we have a little over an hour. We can't just apparate there, you know," she explained when he raised his eyebrows at the amount of time they still had. "I had to take into account the fact that you'd probably stick up your pureblood nose at all types of muggle transportation and we'd have to walk a ways to the location."
"Well, my pureblood nose will just have to deal I suppose. We'll improvise." He started to head back to the living room where the mess was when she stopped him.
"Just clean up the glass," She said quickly. "Don't fix anything. I destroyed it for a reason." He nodded, and she went down the hallway from the kitchen to her bedroom.
He cleaned up the glass in a few minutes with a quick charm, but the room was still a mess. He started gathering some of the pieces of paper, and read a few lines.
'Dear Hermione,
I'm still in Cairo! Haven't managed to make it to Charlie's yet, but the wizarding community is great here! I saw some really cool sites, I'll send you the pictures soon. It wasn't the same without you though. How is it possible to miss someone so badly it hurts? I can't wait to see you, and I hope-'
The rest of the letter was charred beyond the point of readability. He could make out the words, 'Love, your Ron' at the bottom though.
They were all Ron's love letters to her, he realized. He felt a little guilty for having read the one, but, not so guilty that he didn't glance at a few others as he gathered them up. They were surprisingly thoughtful and caring. No wonder she'd been broken up after rereading them. He placed them all in a pile on her kitchen table and went back to gather her pictures. Many of them were in the frames from which the glass came from, but were otherwise unharmed. They looked sickeningly happy. The Hermione in one of the pictures kept sneaking a kiss onto Ron's cheek, and Draco could have sworn that the Ron in the picture looked a little bit annoyed. Or maybe that was just how he was feeling, looking at the picture. He took the pictures from their frames and stacked them all next to the letters. The chair he didn't know what to do with, so he sat it upright and transfigured a blanket into a green chair cover for it.
There were several trinkets that had been broken, he assumed by being smashed into the wall, if the dents were any indicator. They looked like souvenirs of some sort. He gathered the pieces of those and placed them, along with the letters and pictures into a plastic bag he found on her dining table. He didn't know what to do with the shredded clothing, so he piled it on Hermione's counter.
He went back into the living room to wait for Hermione, taking a seat in the newly covered green chair. Having never before been in Hermione's apartment, he took the moment to look around. It was unnaturally devoid of personal items, including pictures, but that was to be expected since she'd just chucked most of them at the wall. Otherwise, it was tastefully done up with maroons and earthy greens against cream walls and carpet. It was small, but anything would be small in comparison with Malfoy Manor, he concluded.
It was odd. He'd always imagined her as some eclectic cat collector, sitting at home crocheting doilies or something equally as boring. But now that he looked around, it was normal and orderly. He supposed it made sense, what with her work habits. He heard a "meow", and looked down to where an orange and mangy cat was rubbing his legs. Well, there were no doilies, then. The cat hopped in his lap, and he petted it while he waited.
"Malfoy?" Hermione had appeared in the doorway in a blue dress, he hair still hanging in wet strings around her face. "What are you doing in that chair?"
He jumped up quickly, dumping the cat to the ground and looked up at her. "Ah, see, I told you you'd have something in common with my grandmother! Same fashion style." This distracted Hermione from the chair and she frowned at the comment.
"I don't really have anything else. I, um...Well, I ripped my other dresses apart," she said, embarrassed. "Ron gave them to me."
Draco was somewhat shocked. "You couldn't have saved one and destroyed it after the wedding?" He asked sarcastically.
"I guess I wasn't thinking straight. Sorry."
"Well, you don't need to apologize to me." He glanced at her hair. "What are you planning to do with your hair?"
"No idea. ponytail?" She offered pathetically.
Draco shook his head, "Come on Granger, we'll fix it up. Then I'll take you to the manor and you can borrow one of my mother's dresses."
He started down the hallway, stopping at one of the doors at the end. "This your room?"
"Yes, but please don't go in-" She started, only to have Draco ignore her and turn the knob. He turned to her as they stepped in.
"Come on, I've already seen your living room, what could be worse?" He turned around and saw the room was covered in clothing. Most of the articles closest to him were her unmentionables.
"Not worse...more like, embarrassing..." She covered her face in her hands.
"Leopard print. That's pretty exotic for you, Granger," Said Draco, spotting it on the bed. "Too bad the Weasel's never going to see you in those again."
Hermione rushed over, grabbing the more outlandishly patterned things and threw them into her open closet door, slamming it shut.
"For your information, Ron has never seen me in those before. We, we were waiting." She turned away from him and crossed her arms. He wondered if she might start crying.
He gently pulled her by the hand into her bathroom and sat her down on the closed toilet seat. The blow dryer was underneath the sink along with several brushes and hair products, both muggle and wizard.
"Um, I'm gonna be honest here and say I don't really know what I'm doing." He brushed her hair awkwardly, unsure of how to detangle the mass of curls that were now starting to dry.
"I've never known what I'm doing," said Hermione in a defeated way. "This stuff usually works pretty well, but it smells funky." She handed Draco her sleakeazy potion.
"You know that this stopped being all the rage like 7 years ago?" He set it down. "maybe we should just go to my house right now."
Hermione looked at him in a panic, "Looking like this? No, I can't see your mother like this."
"She won't be there. Even if she was, you know my mother likes you fairly well." She shrugged in defeat and started to stand. He dragged her from the bathroom and towards the fireplace. "Anything else you'll need?"
"Purse," She said, and ran to grab it. When she returned, she had flung her hair up into a bun. "Alright, let's go."
"Crissie!"
Hermione stepped out of the fireplace at the Manor to hear Draco shouting for someone.
A house elf appeared with a pop. Hermione smiled upon seeing the tiny dress and cap the elf was wearing. She'd been to the manor before (Not counting the time during the war) for a Charity event Narcissa Malfoy had hosted. Lucius was still in prison, although on a much reduced sentence compared with his more devoted deatheater friends. With him out of the way, Narcissa had thrown herself into redeeming the Malfoy name. She had used the Malfoy money to help rebuild the wizarding world after the war, and Hermione had met with her multiple times. An easy friendship had sprung up, but Hermione was still secretly intimidated by her.
"Hello Master Draco, hello miss Granger!" Crissie and Hermione had spoken during the charity event. Hermione had been surprised and pleased to learn of the many changes in elf treatment now that Lucius was gone.
"Crissie, miss Granger needs help with her hair. We're going to a wedding in an hour, and we've got to get ready quickly."
"Yes, I is being very excited to help miss Granger with her hair!" She motioned for them to follow her up the grand staircase at the entrance way.
As Crissie did Hermione's hair, Draco brought in several selections from his mother's closet. "I've never been to a muggle wedding, so I've no idea what's appropriate. I just think this one would look great though." He smirked, holding up a shining slytherin green one that would come to the ground when worn.
"You would pick that one," she said as she rolled her eyes. "It's beautiful, but I think it's a bit much. Go for something more...outdoorsey or sundressy. But still formal."
He returned with cocktail dresses, each a slightly different style. One was sky blue, one was a bright salmon pink, and the last was slytherin green (He couldn't resist).
"That salmon one would be good actually. It might be a bit small in places though." Draco left and grabbed the shoes that went with it. When he returned, Crissie was putting all the products and appliances away.
"Crissie is being finished with miss Granger's hair. Is miss Granger pleased?" She'd done a loose up-do, arranging all the curls in a flattering way with a few strands hanging around her face.
"Yes, thank you very much, Crissie," said Hermione with a warm smile. She grabbed the dress and slipped it on in the bathroom next to the vanity where Crissie had styled her hair. It was a bit tight in the chest and hips (Narcissa was famous for her thin figure), so Hermione used her wand to adjust it. She took one more quick look at herself outside in front of the vanity, then slipped on her heels. "Alright, ready to go? We've still got about 30 minutes, we may still be able to stick with my plan."
Draco didn't answer for a moment. He was looking at her strangely, then said, "We forgot jewelry."
"Oh, you're right...I can floo back to my flat and grab some?" He shook his head.
"There's some here that will work fine." He left the room and returned a moment later with the most beautiful pair of diamond earrings Hermione had ever seen. They were large, but not gaudy. He stepped forward and put them on her. His hands were tickling her ear and neck as they worked, and she had to stifle a giggle, for that and for other reasons. Draco Malfoy was putting what was probably his mother's earrings onto her ears! A year ago, she never would have imagined this was where they'd be. She wondered if this "date" to her cousin's wedding would count as breaking the interoffice dating rule? Either way, they'd definitely overstepped their boundaries as coworkers 100 times over in the last 24 hours. He'd really come through for her, in his own bossy and insulting way. She smiled.
Before he could step back, she placed a hand on his arm and said, "Thank you, Draco."
They stood like that for what was just long enough to be deemed "too long", and awkwardly stepped away. "You ready then?" He asked.
"Yes, let's go." They walked to the front of the Manor and out of the gates where they could apparate. She grabbed his hand and they were gone with a tiny, "pop".
Hope you enjoyed this chapter! please read and review :)
