Disclaimer: I do not, sadly, own any part of the Harry Potter universe! Katherine is all mine but sadly that's it.
Edit: I put up these stories just to see if people were interested! Now that at least a few are I'm fixing the format of them! When I wrote them they weren't designed to go online! Thanks to all who read these before I fixed them!
Waking up the next morning, Katherine felt refreshed, something she hadn't felt in long time. She was surprised that she didn't wake up in the middle of the night from the reoccurring nightmare that she'd been consistently having. Last night was the first night she hadn't had one in months. Glancing at the clock she saw that she needed to get ready for her meeting with the minister so she shook off the feeling that even thinking about the nightmare brought and got ready to go. She apparated to the ministry at 8:45 but when she got there she was surprised to see none other than Draco Malfoy standing there. Considering it took her hours the night prior to get him out of her head, Kat was not happy about Malfoy's mysterious appearance.
"Malfoy, what the bloody hell are you doing here?" She called out angrily.
Draco was lost in thought standing outside the minister's office. He was still trying to puzzle out why the minister had insisted on a meeting. All he had done was offer a suggestion. He was still trying to figure it out when a sharp voice yelled down the hall
"Malfoy, what the bloody hell are you doing here?"
Trying to not appeared flustered, he glanced down the hall to see who had yelled at him. "Ahh Herondale, I was just thinking that if there was one person in the whole world I wouldn't want to see, it would be you." He drawled out.
"Please, we everyone knows you hate Weasley more than anything." She retorted.
"You'd have to be more specific. I mean, I knew you were dense, but there are an excessive number of Weasleys." He said with a smirk. Expecting a loud explosion to burst from anyone from Gryffindor, he was surprised when she smirked before replying "Malfoy you shouldn't insult yourself. If I'm dense, what does that make you? I mean, you and I both know that I was 2nd in our class and you were stuck in measly little 3rd place. And besides, I know that there are plenty of Weasleys. There's Bill, Charlie, Percy, the twins, Spawn of Satan and Ginny."
Amused at her term for the weasel he asked her "I know that Weasel got into a huge fight with everybody but I thought all had been forgiven, isn't that what you Gryffindors do?"
Raising her eyebrows she simply said "Well, I've never been a very good Gryffindor have I?"
Falling into silence because he didn't know what to say, he settled with observing her. She's got a good mask, like either an upper-class pureblood or a Slytherin mask. Interesting. And I never really notice but she's looking good. Like really good. She's a Gryffindork remember? Goodie two shoes, member of the Order of the Phoenix. Hexed you plenty of times during school. If I remember correctly she and Weaselette once scored so many goals that it didn't matter that you finally beat Potty to the snitch. They still won. Yes but.. Brought out of his musings by the minister inviting them in, he tried to compose himself as he walked in the office.
"Umm excuse me?" Kingsley asked while clearing his throat slightly to get Malfoy's attention. Smirking at Malfoy's obvious discomfort at being caught off guard, Kat schooled her face into staying professional and returned her attention to the minister sitting in front of them.
"No offense Kingsley but why are we here?" Kat bluntly asked.
Smiling, Kingsley began to tell them why he brought them there. "Well you see, I was leaving work yesterday. We had had a couple of incidents involving cursed artifacts and it got me thinking. They're everywhere. Doing no good and people will either use them, on purpose or accidentally and people are going to get hurt. While getting ready for the ball, I thought 'we need to keep it small and out of the public's view. It won't do if everyone thinks we're coming after all of these artifacts. People will just hide them.' So I started to think about people I could ask to do this. It would be dangerous and very secretive and I'd need the smartest people we have. With those criteria I came up with two people I wanted to do this. Then what else happens, but both the people I want for this job, come up to me during the ball to recommend creating a team to go after dark artifacts."
Although he obviously wasn't finished, Kingsley stopped talking to let them take it all in Glancing at Malfoy thinking it strange that he would make that recommendation to the minister she found him assessing her about what was most likely the same thing. Raising an eyebrow, she turned back to the minister and summarized
"So you want me and Malfoy to travel around the world collecting and eliminating cursed artifacts?"
"Correct Ms. Herondale."
"I've already put together a research team to identify possible objects, and they would research to find out as much beforehand so you could go in as prepared as possible. We just need you to be the team in the field. I understand that this is a lot of information to take in. Please feel free to think about it."
Recognizing a dismissal when they heard it they walked out of the office together. Deciding she needed to speak to Malfoy about it, she stopped Malfoy with her arm. "Excuse me, you can get your arm off of me." He sneered at her. "Please, don't flatter yourself Malfoy. I wanted to ask you a question."
"You could've just said that."
"Please, you would've just ignored me."
"You're probably right."
"Whatever, so obviously we both thought that this whole thing is a good idea or we wouldn't have brought it up to the minister. I want to do it. It sounds interesting, it would be dangerous and fun. But I need to know if you're doing it. I won't do it with an incompetent wizard.."
"Incompetent!" Malfoy sputtered.
"Let me finish. So if you're not going to do it, I won't either because I don't want to risk getting stuck with someone incompetent.."
"I knew it, you just want me because you need someone who can save your incompetent arse." Malfoy said with all his usual arrogance.
"Merlin, do you know how to not interrupt people? So what I wanted to ask is, can you work with a blood traitor?"
Upon uttering those last two words, Malfoy's demeanor went from casual to irate. His body tensed and he stalked forward until he was practically nose to nose with her.
"Don't pretend to think you know me Herondale. You don't know anything about what happened. You and your precious order. You know nothing about what it was like." Malfoy whispered in a threatening tone.
Although she tried to not show it, she flinched slightly and Malfoy quickly took a couple of steps back as though he had been burned. Confused, Kat looked at him and saw what could've been a hint of shame in his eyes. But before she could ponder it further he turned, quickly called back "I'll tell the minister that I'm doing it." And then he walked away.
