summary: he wants her; she wants him. they're both too stubborn to give in to their desires. their friends take action.
"Hermione, guess what!" Ginny burst through the door of her friend's office.
The brunette didn't even look up. "What?" she asked, still scribbling away on her notes.
"Draco Malfoy's back!" Ginny squealed and did a little dance. Hermione's head had snapped up at the sound of her childhood nemesis' name. The redhead whispered behind her hand, "I heard he's even hotter now than he was when he left!"
Hermione's face was oddly blank. "Okay," she replied. "Look, Gin, I'm so sorry — I'm swamped. Meet me at my flat at six; we can have a chat."
Ginny looked a bit put out at having been dismissed, but grinned at her friend and waved as she walked out. "I'll bring wine!" she called over her shoulder.
The door shut behind her.
Hermione immediately dropped her head to her wooden desk with an audible thunk. The pain didn't even really register. Draco Malfoy was back. He was back, and she would be in deep shit if he ever found out.
•
She left early that evening. Her head hurt — and not just because of how hard she'd hit it against her desk. It was a pressure behind her eyes, a throbbing in her temple.
Kingsley let her go with a worried look. It wasn't like Hermione to ask to leave before closing — in fact, he often had to plead with her to quit at the normal time. She looked wan and overworked when she'd stumbled into his office at three in the afternoon. Her eyes took in everything and nothing, her cheeks looked sunken in, and her shoulders slumped in a way that he knew wasn't natural. She had so much energy all the time that he was concerned for her health. Not wanting her to get sick, he gave her permission to go home early.
As Hermione made her way down the corridors of the Ministry, people moved out of her way left and right. She supposed she looked a bit like a zombie — like she wasn't quite all there. She got in the lift with two women and an old man, and rode all the way down in silence. Then she walked outside, breathing the rapidly cooling autumn air in deeply, and spun on the spot and Disapparated.