Chapter 3: Be Alot Cooler If You Did

Three Days Later
13 June 2002

Hermione had of course been the height of grace when she accepted her promotion, not even emitting a single complaint when she was shown into the dusty office well on the other side of the building and several floors down from political news. She had every intention to shake Padma Patil's hand and congratulate her on her appointment—being the paragon of sportsmanship that Hermione so clearly was—but she had scarcely settled in (in fact, she was still coaxing her dittany seedling, a gift from Neville on her first day at the Prophet, which had wilted slightly from all the institutional lighting) before being informed by her editor, the too-chipper Halloran Meister Sherwood Dauntless, that her expertise was required elsewhere.

"Oh, yes, well, this is… lovely," Dauntless managed to say, half-stumbling over himself to raise a handkerchief to his face in poorly concealed disgust. "Marvelous improvement, isn't it? Vastly better than the savagery of the political bullpen upstairs, I'm sure—"

"The point, please, Sherwood," Hermione said without looking up from the dittany seedling, using the most interior and therefore brutally uncivil of his stupid three names.

"Yes, of course," Dauntless chirped, being at least 74% afraid of her and therefore beholden to the only percentage that presently mattered. (He had long been in her notepad as a loathsome and bewildering 46%.) "We were hoping you would cover the, er. The benefit concert this evening?" he asked, preemptively cowering as Hermione straightened from the potted dittany with a frown. "Perhaps you've heard about it? The, ah. Well, surely you know of Lily Moon—"

"The singer?" Or, more accurately, the Slytherin who'd gotten out of her O.W.L.s by virtue of some sort of rare strain of dragon pox and then popped up several years later pursuing a career as the next Celestina Warbeck, not that Hermione wished to rehash their entire history. She'd scarcely had a thought for Lily Moon over the past three years that wasn't, 'huh, so Lily Moon's not dead, then,' followed by 'Ronald, please desist staring at that poster of Lily Moon, people will think you're unhinged.'

Obviously, quite a lot had changed between then and now.

"Ah, so you know her," Dauntless said, looking relieved in a way that made Hermione want to curse the webbing of his toes or collapse part of the ceiling above him, lest he ever feel so foolishly safe from her enmity again. She didn't, of course (courteous as always) and he continued, "Excellent, then you'll conduct the interview with her for tomorrow's cover story. I believe The Gobstones are also scheduled to perform as the evening's opening act, so—"

"Wait, the assignment is an interview with Lily Moon?" Hermione echoed, stifling a rush of unpleasantness. Pop culture, honestly. Every time she thought she'd recovered from the slight of being pushed into intellectual obscurity, she felt a new, crippling wave of loathing.

"Yes," Dauntless said with relish, deciding to live in a fantasy world where he could interpret her tartness for pleasure, "and if you can swing it, with Bastien Queensbury as well. One of The Gobstones, as I'm sure you know. Astounding how well the lad can sell papers," he remarked, somewhat dreamily. "Though, if I had his hair—"

"But the Wizengamot is voting this evening on a new wave of post-war taxation policies," Hermione said, mildly infuriated. To think, five minutes had already gone by with each breath of it thoroughly wasted on the subject of popstars and boy bands. "The Prophet would rather run a silly fluff piece about Lily Moon? Don't you think its constituents have somewhat weightier concerns?"

"Well—" Dauntless looked pained. "There will be quite a long piece on the subject of taxation, of course. Patil is already getting t… well, the point is it's covered," he coughed into his hand, backing hastily away. "So I'll just owl you that press badge, then, shall I? Moon's people know to expect you after her set, so tallyho, carry on, best of luck—"

It seemed pointless to argue, and anyway, she'd have had to chase him into the corridor at the pace he was racing away, which would have been undignified. Instead, Hermione let out a heavy sigh, falling into her desk chair (personally charmed, of course, for maximum lumbar support; she'd looked a bit unseemly dragging it into the lift from her previous desk, but it had been worth it) and wrote out a message for Harry.

Be out late this evening, feel free to have supper without me. Hoping Dawlish doesn't keep you on patrol so late this time! Meet for breakfast in the morning? xx HJG

Luckily, her office contained a battered but usable Floo access, through which she charmed her note to Harry in the shape of a small paper crane. It returned to her shortly afterwards as a messily-constructed arrow, piercing the cover of her Fauntleroy's Elements of Style just after she'd placed it on her rickety bookcase.

I've got the midnight Knockturn beat yet again—make it coffee in the AM. yours in constant vigilance, HJP

Hermione sighed, taking a moment to pity them both (would she have preferred a horcrux hunt and a tent? Sometimes, yes) before finishing up the preparations in her office. With what little experience Hermione had with concerts—the only one she'd attended having been a Celestina Warbeck Christmas show that Molly had dragged them to when she and Ron had still been dating—she decided it was best to arrive early, wrapping up her cursory research about Lily Moon and heading out the door.

"Have a lovely afternoon, Gladys," Hermione said to her receptionist, who was not much use at all, though extremely difficult to get rid of. Hermione supposed what appeared to be a valuable administrative position was technically an amiable haunting, as Gladys had fallen asleep at her desk thirty years ago and woken to simply continue her scheduling tasks, but there were very few policies regulating employment contracts when it came to office-related afterlives. That, Hermione supposed, was Padma's job to investigate now, and soured slightly at the reminder.

"Goodbye, Herbert," Gladys croaked. "Will you be requiring anything else, Sir?"

"No, thank you," Hermione said, a bit concerned what Gladys might have meant, considering she seemed to have confused Hermione for a male employer with something of a lechery problem. "If any owls come while I'm out, feel free to transcribe the messages and leave them on my desk."

"Shall I tell your wife where you've gone?" Gladys asked, suspicious.

"I'm sure I can tell her myself," Hermione said firmly, resuming her path to the better-lit portions of the Daily Prophet offices and proceeding to the concert venue.

She was stopped in the foyer, however, when she noticed a familiar glint of red hair, holding her breath and hoping it was any of Ron's brothers—or even his mother, which was quite a dire hope indeed—rather than Ron himself. It was always so very confusing to be around Ron these days; on the one hand, Hermione missed his company quite a lot, but on the other, his presence seemed a bit… mocking. Perhaps that was merely her deflection when it came to their strained interactions, but it wasn't without just cause. Ron hadn't been especially pleased when she first voiced her concerns over their compatibility, and had blamed her in a tantrum that was nearly on par with the Crookshanks Debacle of 1993.

Nevermind that she had been right then, too.

It seemed as if every day Hermione went without the boast of some new paramour, Ron became increasingly smug. He had developed a new and upsetting expression of swaggery—a freckly bit of, See? I told you so—that Hermione found crucially irritating. It was clear Ron continued to find her concerns ridiculous despite her numerous pages of research and the various charts of data she had collected on George's findings (which, by the way, George had foolishly omitted from his presentation, for reasons she couldn't possibly imagine). In the end, Hermione simply couldn't stomach it. Ron was clearly waiting for her to admit her faults and come crawling back to him, and if there was one thing she hated to be, it was wrong.

Which she wasn't.

In more recent times, Hermione had successfully managed to avoid seeing Ron for an entire month, feigning ill when he and Harry met up for their weekly recreational quidditch league or being conveniently out of the house by the time Ron stopped by before work. Somewhere, she was sure, some law of post-relationship quantum gravity suggested she was overdue for an unpleasant altercation, and thus, she was relieved to discover upon second glance that it was actually Percy Weasley and not his younger brother in the foyer; appearing, as Percy often did, quite lost.

Having been blessed by the universe for another day, Hermione approached Percy with a bit more patience than she'd spared him in the Ministry corridor the last time she'd seen him.

"Looking for something?" she asked, and Percy jumped, startled for some reason at her presence as if he had somehow managed not to see her coming from several feet away.

"Oh yes, I… hello," he said, awkward as ever. "Miss Granger, what a pleasure. How are you?"

She and Percy had never been particularly close, given his rift with the rest of the Weasleys. Even prior to the war, they had always differed hotly on multiple topics of academic and political concern (most of which Ron hadn't even understood, instead letting his attention wander to the ceiling or to a sudden, mysterious need to help Ginny with the gnomes) and the two of them had tended to avoid each other since.

Still, at least his manners were better than Ron's. "I'm fine, thank you. Did you need something, Percy?"

"Oh, yes, actually, um—"

Percy reached up to beckon to the quill floating beside his diary. As he did so, Hermione's Pavlovian reflexes led her to catch a happenstantial glimpse of the inside of his wrist.

"—ah yes, here we are. Doge gave me the office number last week when we scheduled the meeting," Percy sighed, nudging his glasses further up on his nose as he frowned down at the page, "but for whatever reason, I've just been wandering in circles looking for it—"

"Didn't you hear Doge retired?" Hermione asked him vacantly, feeling a little jolt as she registered the percentage on his wrist.

92%. How had she never noticed that before? She supposed they didn't often speak to one another, and certainly she wouldn't have paid him much attention even if they had. It was purely coincidence she happened to notice, and while Hermione wasn't a believer in fate, she did strongly value probability. Chance was nothing to dismiss, and neither was a percentage like that.

She blinked, re-focusing as she caught Percy's frown of bemusement at her reply. "Oh, I'm afraid Doge might have played a bit of a trick on you," she lamented, returning her attention to the former Chief Ministry Correspondent's usual disappearing office tactic, which he had often employed when it came to negative reviews and annoying politicians. Or, in this case, an annoying bureaucrat. "You'll want to speak to Padma Patil, on the thirteenth floor."

"Oh." Percy's brow furrowed beneath his spectacles, which were actually quite nice on him; unlike Harry's glasses, Percy's were refined, un-crooked, and fastidiously maintained. Had he used a charm to keep the lenses so free of ungainly smudges? It certainly appeared so, and if he had, it might have been a custom enchantment, which was impressive. In Hermione's opinion, people regularly overlooked the difficulty of small household charms, which was why they were so often ill-kempt. True, Percy had blue eyes very like Ron's, but overall he looked a bit more like Bill, who was… Well, even Harry considered Bill attractive, Hermione recalled with an inward laugh, so that was certainly something.

Percy's face, upon closer inspection, was actually quite pleasing. Symmetrical. In fact, if he were any less squinty with dismay at realizing Doge was a slippery little bastard who'd retired rather than speak with him, Hermione thought perhaps Percy Weasley might be quite handsome. He'd had girlfriends at Hogwarts, hadn't he? She recalled Percy had been with Penelope Clearwater for a number of years, and Penelope was certainly no field mouse.

"Well, that's… hm." Percy distractedly ran a hand through his hair, which was remarkably full. No male-pattern balding or receding hairlines to speak of. Genetically speaking, very promising; that his hair happened to be red wasn't ideal, but was also mostly inoffensive, and anyway, it was probably a recessive trait. "I suppose I should—"

"Percy," Hermione interrupted, deciding to be spontaneous. "Is there any chance you'd like to have dinner with me this evening?"

Percy's blue eyes fixed on her with such intense deliberation she thought to ask him for a moment if he was in pain.

"You want," he began uncertainly, "to have dinner with… me?"

"If you've no other plans," Hermione said with a shrug, determining it a mostly harmless offer. "I suppose we could do with some catching up, couldn't we?"

"Catching up." His wary reply felt more than a little bit redundant. "I… well, I don't…" He shifted uncomfortably. "You and Ronald—"

"We've been broken up for ages," Hermione reminded him, determined not to bristle at the mention of Ron's name. "And anyway, what's the harm in one dinner? I'm sure Ron won't mind, and seeing as you're clearly here to speak with someone at the Daily Prophet…"

She trailed off with a reference to her press badge, letting him fill in his own conclusions to avoid having to confess aloud that she specialized in total inanity rather than important work, like politics or even—(shudder to think it, but still)—creative nonfiction.

"Ah. Well." Percy gave her something between a smile and a grimace. "I suppose nothing too traumatic could come from one dinner, could it?"

He seemed to be asking aloud as if some invisible third party might give him a suitable answer, but as far as Hermione was concerned, that was as good as a date.

"Certainly not," Hermione agreed, pleased. "I'll send an owl when I'm done with my interview this evening. A late dinner, in Diagon?" she prompted, and when he opened his mouth to confirm, she declared, "Wonderful. See you then!" she called over her shoulder, bursting through the Daily Prophet doors and inhaling the scent of possibility, ripe on the early summer breeze.

Draco had unwisely permitted himself to be talked into lunch with Theo, which still somehow managed to be a promising reprieve from a morning spent un-contaminating a local water source. (Some upstart youths, it seemed, had found it positively hysterical to flood their neighbors' homes with giggle potion. They happened to be correct in their hypothesis, as Draco noted in the report, though only in a very literal sense.) Given that he had little choice but to assume his afternoon would be equally filled with fatuity, he agreed to meet Theo at a small pub on the edge of Diagon and Knockturn, picking his way through the throngs of delinquents and transients to find Theo sunning himself from one of the cramped clusters of tables outside, sunglasses sitting low on his nose.

"This," Draco said, throwing himself into the seat opposite Theo's, "is not what I thought you meant by an afternoon of fine dining."

"Did I say that?" Theo drawled in reply, listlessly draping one long leg over the other before dismissing Draco with a wave of his hand, rings glittering in the too-bright sun. "Hm. Perhaps I was temporarily on leave from my senses."

"What, then or now?" Draco asked, glancing around in disgust. "What is this, patio furniture?"

"Well, none of the wicker chaises were available," Theo replied, dropping his sunglasses further and sitting upright to inspect the ale-stained menu sitting before him. "What do you think, a little agua fresca?" he mused. "Some ceviche, perhaps?"

"This place is called The Rutting Bull, Nott. I hardly think I can expect my agua to be anything remotely close to fresca." Still, better this than some other village teeming with miscreant wizard children, Draco reminded himself, adjusting his tie. He typically charmed it to rest crisply against his shirt (an enchantment he'd refined after years of inadequate Hogwarts wool-blends) but given the morning he'd already subjected it to, he didn't trust the silk not to dive away in protest.

"It's called transfiguration, you patrician cow," Theo sniffed, glancing up at the arrival of their waitress. "Yes, hello, we'll take the scotch eggs, two whiskies, and a plate of…" He scanned the menu doubtfully, determining with unrepressed disdain, "chips."

The waitress replied with a disinterested shrug, loafing away as Theo gave a lamentful sigh, nudging the sunglasses up on his nose.

"If you find everything here so reprehensible, Nott, there are far better places we could go," Draco reminded him, politely waiting until the waitress was out of earshot before demeaning her establishment with a grimace. In his experience, it was best not to invite malice when it came to the bearer of something he planned to ingest, even if he expected to do so grudgingly and without enjoyment. "Was this necessary?"

"Yes," Theo said, adding, "You know what they say."

"Which they, might I ask?"

"They, Draco, they. Location, location, location," Theo answered himself, "or, more accurately, position, position, position."

"Are you planning to invest in real estate?" Draco asked him drily, as the waitress returned with their whiskies.

Theo reached over, sniffing the glasses, and then, with a wary frown, tossed the whiskies over his shoulder into the nearby flowerbeds, flicking open the hinge of his fourth-finger ring. He poured out some vibrant enchanted substance, the source of which Draco did not know or care to ask, and slid the glass back to Draco.

"No," Theo said, finally deigning to answer the question. "Though, I can only assume I'd make a fine landlord."

"Why are we here, then?" Draco asked, raising the glass to his lips. It was clearly something of Theo's making, which meant another sip was out of the question. He coughed on the fumes of it, sputtering, "Please tell me this isn't about—"

"It's a red mark, Draco," Theo replied, downing half the contents of his glass in a single swallow as he referenced his recent run-in with certain Aurors who were Too Frequently (and too reverently) Named. "A stain on my pristine reputation."

"Your reputation is about as pristine as this is a legal substance," Draco sniffed, tapping the lip of his glass. "And you know as well as I do, Nott, I have no issue with you tormenting Harry Potter, but at least do it with some class. Or, if you're going to involve me, then do it at a venue with fewer," he began, and glanced around, grimacing again. "Elements."

"Easier this way," Theo said, shrugging. "Weasley already passed by with Dawlish," he explained, gesturing to the streams of people who had been trickling ambivalently past the pub, paying them no attention. "Apparently Potter's been relegated to the midnight watch."

"What on earth for?" Draco scoffed. "Even with so much inadequacy at stake it's hard to imagine Weasley being the preferable choice," he muttered, considering another sip of Theo's ungodly concoction before frowning, perturbed. "And if you know Potter's not going to be here until later this evening, what exactly are we doing here now?"

"Well, it appears we're not the only untouchables Potter's gone after in the last month," Theo remarked. "Evidently Dawlish finds his performance as an Auror to be… unsatisfying," he determined after a moment, "though of course they can hardly sack the savior of the wizarding world, can they? If you ask me the department's trying to sweat him out, like some sort of morally righteous fever. And as for your second question," he offered, draining the rest of his glass with his usual lofty indication of you'll get an answer when I'm good and ready, "surely you're aware the proper degree of 'disorderly' befitting my position is not something I can accomplish without adequate preparation. You know me, Draco. Can't abide a job half-done. Are you going to finish that?" Theo asked tangentially, gesturing to Draco's glass, and he rolled his eyes, nudging it forward.

"That's a lot of information you seem to have gathered about Potter over the last three days," Draco observed, watching Theo's fingers close around his glass. "Is this your latest fixation, then?"

"Fixation? No. It is, however, a marvelous hobby," Theo said. "You know how I like to keep myself busy with whimsical pursuits."

"Quite a bit of work though, isn't it? Intentional debauchery?" Draco asked him. "Usually you reserve your sinful tendencies for purposes of recreation."

"Well, I'm trying new things, Draco," Theo said. "It's called personal development, not that I'd expect you to know."

"Hang on. You're saying that I, the only employed person present, am incapable of recognizing growth?" Draco asked him, as Theo shrugged; ostensible confirmation. "And that is quite a charitable statement to begin with, mind you," Draco added, "as it declines to mention the obvious caveat that this is not remotely growth at all."

"You know, Malfoy, it's that sort of ornery unpleasantness which accounts for our incompatible half," Theo replied with a wag of his finger, and Draco, not wanting to be reminded that he could very well end his life with Theo Nott given the way everything was going, grudgingly allowed himself to be silenced.

Coincidentally, the waitress arrived a moment later with their scotch eggs and a pile of chips, which Theo waved a hand over the moment the plates met the table. In an instant, they were, as promised, a plate of ceviche, overflowing with fresh avocado and shrimp, beside which a basket of tortilla chips sprouted from something that looked suspiciously like woven gold.

"Thanks," Theo informed the waitress, sparing her the sort of smile that said he was planning to get arrested later, and Draco sighed, leaning forward to rest his arms atop the table as she waddled dispassionately away.

"You were lying, weren't you? About your compatibility with Potter," Draco clarified, and Theo made a very Theo noise of confirmation, somewhere between a scoff and a laugh to land approximately near Why, Mr Malfoy, surely you can't be serious.

"Of course. But the fact remains that I am a plague of which Potter is richly deserving," Theo replied, and while Draco thought it perhaps reasonable to point out that was still not a particularly good use of one's time, he remembered at the last second he was not dealing with someone whose time had many alternate expenditures.

Besides, before he could reply, Theo had already removed something from the inner lining of his pocket. "I don't suppose you want these, do you?" he asked Draco, sliding them across the table. "Zabini invited us to the Lily Moon benefit concert this evening, but I, of course"—a wave of a glinting hand in reference to the patio—"have other plans."

"Is Lily Moon still a thing?" Draco asked, glancing skeptically at the tickets. "I thought surely people would have noticed by now that her voice is wholly unremarkable."

"Oh, she's an atrocity live," Theo agreed, "but still, the tickets are difficult to acquire, or so Blaise assured me when he sent them along. Though, I can only assume he needs someone of our desirable repute to make an appearance for publicity purposes."

"Hm." Draco gave the tickets another long, surveying glance. "You expect me to go by myself, I suppose?"

"Don't you have some sort of inamorata these days?" Theo asked, and before he could stop himself, Draco grimaced. "Ah," Theo murmured, judging correctly that in this case, Draco's expression meant his most recent valuation of 44% had not been enough to secure the blush of romance for long. It certainly hadn't been enough to keep this particular blush from conveniently running into her estranged childhood sweetheart and deciding to move to Berlin to be with him on the basis of hormones (Draco assumed) in addition to their 95% match.

"Pansy, then," Theo suggested, sparing Draco the discomfiture of detail.

"I suppose." Pansy was, in order: a talented bedmate, a moderately adequate friend, and a horrific girlfriend, even for an evening. She was a woman requiring significant pampering, which accounted for one of Draco's top five rules for preserving casual relationships: never have sex with a woman whose non-carnal needs he felt obligated to meet. "Not ideal."

"Well, going alone wouldn't be the worst thing. Wasn't Lily Moon your first after-hours tryst?" Theo asked, chuckling with an air of already knowing the answer, and Draco shot him a silencing glare. "What? I'm just saying, surely the encounter would bring back only the finest strands of gawky adolescence. Ah, to be thirteen and discovering one's blond virility," he sighed facetiously. "Vats of that young Sacred Twenty-Eight blood rushing to the most godless of places, pale mouths suctioning with ardor—"

At that precise moment, thankfully, an owl perched on the edge of the table, giving a small, dignified squawk for Draco's attention.

"Ah, magnificent," Draco muttered with relief (blessed escape from Theo's unholy narration, at least) and also annoyance, reaching for what could have only been his next magical accident. "Duty calls, then."

"No go on the tickets, I take it?" Theo guessed, piling ceviche onto a tortilla chip.

DM: your attention requested at the address below in Surrey. Mild explosion; bring face mask and snail repellent. Cheers!

"No go," Draco confirmed, suddenly too exhausted by the prospect of his afternoon to even consider the possibility of socializing that evening. "Best of luck torturing Potter," he offered as a parting benediction, rising to his feet and tossing down a spare handful of galleons.

"Don't need luck. Raw talent will suffice," Theo assured him, popping a shrimp into his mouth and finishing the last of Draco's glass as Draco turned away with a shake of his head, disapparating back to the office to fetch his requested mask.

The members of the alt-rock wizarding band called The Gobstones included not only Dauntless' apparent idol Bastien Queensbury, whose carefully curated errant curl of brown-black spilled into his forehead with enough charisma to make fourteen teenage girls in Hermione's proximity swoon, but also Nigel Wroxton (tall, bass, bottom half of shirt shredded into bits), Gareth Pewsey (slightly shorter, drums, sleeves forcefully removed from shirt), and Arman Shettigar (average height, lead guitar, shirtless). Altogether they were a sight, and had Hermione any interest in them at all, she might have thought to ask Bastien why he felt it necessary to wear a satin blazer with tuxedo trousers if he did not intend to pair his formalwear with any other articles of clothing. She assumed the answer would have been "so as to better accent my crystal," which she did not foresee contributing to any sort of informative exposé.

Lily Moon, a remarkably waifish blonde who did not look as if she and Hermione could have possibly received the same education, seemed equally unimpressed by the presence of The Gobstones, which was a relief. She beckoned Hermione into her dressing room without so much as a word, relying on her staff to either predict her needs or read her mind as they hurried in their wake.

"Bastien's being a pill," were the first words out of Lily's mouth before Hermione could say anything, having settled herself awkwardly on a powder-blue sofa beside the eruption of Lily's flower-covered vanity. "Will someone get these out of here?"

That remark was directed at the nervous-looking man Hermione took to be Lily's manager, who quickly hurried away with the largest vase of fresh roses.

"Sorry," Lily said, sparing Hermione something of a tired glance. "I try not to encourage him."

Foggily, Hermione was aware Lily Moon and Bastien Queensbury had once dated. It was certainly not something she had committed to memory in any detail, but had instead accidentally observed from the cover of Molly Weasley's Witch Weekly during one of her early visits. It occurred to Hermione that knowing similar details of petty inconsequence was now her entire job, and she grimaced, which Lily took to be a sign of sympathy.

"It seems nice, you know," Lily said. "The flowers and such."

His band's lead single, too, or so the rumors suggested. "Isn't it?" asked Hermione, who had never received neither flowers nor love songs while she'd been dating Ron and certainly hadn't since they'd broken up.

"Well, it's just…" Lily grimaced. "Nevermind. Don't print that, please," she asked Hermione, who dutifully made a small motion to her quill.

"Truthfully, I don't see how flowers from your ex-boyfriend could possibly be considered pertinent," Hermione assured her, removing the excerpt of conversation from her transcripts. "Better, I think, to focus on something more relevant. For example, do you have any thoughts on the Wizengamot's taxation bills?"

"I'm terribly relieved you thought to ask her that," Percy said later, once Hermione had escaped the drudgery of popstar interviews and made it to dinner just before the respectable kitchens in Diagon closed and they were forced to go somewhere barbaric, like The Rutting Bull. "Public figures like Lily Moon have quite a broad audience, you know. It baffles me why musicians aren't more informed on current events."

After an awkward start, conversation between Percy and Hermione had been a delight, though that was really no surprise. 92%, after all, was a vast improvement on 80%. (And that wasn't even to address the issue of Ron's compatibility score—after all, how could Hermione have been expected to stay with him in good conscience when she was obviously so much better suited to his brother? Surely he would thank her for her clarity, someday.)

"Well, she hedged a bit," Hermione admitted, thinking back to Lily's ambiguous response before the interview had gradually turned to the subject of her album's UK tour. "Still, I thought it worth discussing. I certainly don't see how else the topic is going to get the coverage it merits in tomorrow's DP otherwise."

"I'm sure Miss Patil has plans to address it somewhere," Percy said, cutting into his steak as Hermione bristled at the reference to her colleague. Perhaps a lesser woman might have thought of Padma Patil as a rival or even a nemesis, but Hermione was, of course, not one of those. "Hm," Percy remarked with a furrowed brow at his dinner, "still a bit rare—"

"You were able to speak to Padma, then?" she asked him, schooling her voice into something passably neutral. "I rather thought she'd be booked for the day, given the suddenness of her promotion." That, along with what a lesser woman might have called its generally unmerited appointment.

"Actually, she was quite busy," Percy admitted, "but just after you left, Ronald arrived."

For the life of her, Hermione couldn't see how those statements were possibly related. "Ron, really?" she asked, ascertaining that she did, indeed, sound extremely normal as she began cutting into her filet mignon.

"Well, I'm sure you would know better than I would, but it was certainly a surprise to me," Percy said, giving his meal another scrutinizing look of opposition. "Ronald and I are hardly close but still, you'd think he'd mention it, seeing as we do work in the same wing of the Ministr-"

"Is he changing jobs?" Hermione asked, though the idea that Ron might suddenly take up a career in journalism was utterly laughable. True, she'd initially laughed at the idea of him as an Auror, too, but even the prospect of Ron submitting himself to danger on purpose made much more sense than his joining the Prophet. After all, she knew better than anyone that he'd never enjoyed writing at school. "Did something happen at the DMLE?" Hermione asked, as only some sort of conflict within the Auror's office could force Ron into what was surely his worst nightmare, even amid all his other irrational fears.

She continued the mindless task of slicing, theorizing Ron's possible motives. There was, of course, the distinct possibility he was still trying to subtly persuade her back to him, which was certainly within his playbook of passive-aggressive behavior. (See also: The Yule Ball, 1994.)

"Hm? Oh, I doubt it," Percy said. "I believe he was meeting Miss Patil for a late lunch. How is yours?" he asked her, frowning over at her steak. "I could fix it myself but of course that would be quite rude, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," Hermione said, having diced her steak into tiny pieces by then as she contemplated the incomprehensible clues Percy was feeding her. "You said he was visiting Padma? Was he asking her about me?"

"I really have no idea," Percy said, sounding bemused. "I didn't ask about their intended topics of discussion. I often try, you know, just for purposes of conversation, but I find people rarely entertain my efforts to facilit-"

"I have to assume they were," Hermione said with a frown. "Maybe he knows she got the Correspondent position over me," she murmured to herself, feeling a little miffed that Harry might have told him. "Though I don't see what he could possibly do about it."

"Oh, I believe he knows," Percy replied, having made the decision to cough a spell quietly under his breath. "He did arrive with some sort of pastry in hand," he continued, resuming the position of his fork, "so I assumed it was a celebratory occasion."

"What, like a cake?" Now that was baffling. Ron, for all he insisted otherwise, was an abomination in the kitchen. "For who?"

By that point, Percy seemed increasingly distracted, busying himself first with the placement of his steak on his plate and then, subsequently, with cutting it. "Hm?"

"Who did he bring it for?" Hermione repeated, remembering with a sinking feeling that if Harry had mentioned Padma's promotion, he had probably mentioned her own, too. Suddenly, Hermione felt a brush of irritation akin to the look on Lily Moon's face upon spotting the flowers from Bastien Queensbury. "If he thinks he can just win me back by bringing me things, he has quite another thing coming," she scoffed under her breath, and then glanced up at Percy, who was furiously avoiding her gaze. "Percy," she said, frowning at his odd behavior as he quickly shoved his fork into his mouth, holding up a finger for pause. "Is everything alright?"

He seemed to shovel at least two more bites into his mouth, which was… unusual, to say the least. Typically his sense of decorum outweighed everything else, though she supposed it was quite late. Perhaps he was merely hungry.

"Percy—" She broke off, resting a hand on his wrist to stop him from cutting himself another piece. "What's going on?" she demanded, and this time, Percy looked as if he might have preferred to choke on his mouthful of food rather than answer, but he forced a heavy swallow.

"My apologies," he said, still not looking at her. "I thought you knew."

That, Hermione thought, was not at all the beginning of a satisfactory answer.

"Knew what?" she asked, fixing her attention on the comforting 92% that glowed from Percy's wrist and wondering if it were only in her head that everything sounded so strange, as if they were suddenly immersed in water.

"I believe Ronald has been dating Miss Patil for the last month," Percy said, his voice alternately drowning out and emerging from a high-pitched, ringing sort of sound. After a moment to let the pressure in her head subside, Hermione took a long, slow breath, reaching calmly for her glass.

"Well, isn't that nice," she said, and at the table next to theirs, an elderly woman let out a yelp as her créme brûlée burst into flames.

Draco had been enjoying a lovely bottle of Chateau Lafite to pair with his usual evening of quiet insomnia and a nice camembert when the translucent stag came bounding in a second time, disrupting the pages of his book and warping, just slightly, the edges of his placid tranquility.

"Malfoy," came a growling version of Harry Potter's voice, "Nott's here. I'd tell you to come get him now—"

"Nope," Draco said, not looking up from the page as he took a sip of wine. "Shan't."

"—only I'm assuming you won't, so. Come by in the morning—"

"Eh," Draco said, turning the page. "Persuade me."

"—and for the record, I don't really care if it's convenient for you, since it certainly isn't for me. If you and Nott aren't going to take this seriously, I'll be forced to submit the case to the department for prosecution this time—"

"Nah," Draco murmured. "You won't."

"—but seeing as that would be a spectacular headache for absolutely everyone involved, I'd prefer it if I could just release Nott into your custody and then maybe, just maybe, one or both of you can manage to keep him from being a hellish prick in the future. Understood?"

As the question had been posed rhetorically, Draco didn't bother to answer.

"Good. See you in the morning." With that, the stag disappeared, and further down the hall, Draco heard the sound of the Floo roaring to life.

"Draco, are you home?"

Pansy's voice. It seemed there would be no further peace this evening.

"I'm sleeping," Draco called back, turning the page and taking another sip. This, of course, would not have stopped Pansy even on a good day, and it did not surprise him when she burst into the kitchen without even a trace of acknowledgement, pouring herself a glass of wine and raising it without hesitation to her lips.

"Well," she said, "for reasons I have no intention to explain, I'm going to need you to fuck me until I've forgotten almost every relevant detail about my life, most specifically this entire shit-laden week."

"Sounds healthy," Draco said. "Camembert?"

"Please," Pansy replied, and he slid the plate across the table to her as she collapsed in the seat beside him, morose. "You're not allowed to ask me any questions, by the way," she informed him. "You're just going to put your cock in me from a variety of strenuous positions in relative silence until I tell you explicitly to stop."

"Ah," Draco said. "I see."

Pansy lifted her glass, sighing in something that appeared to be frustration, and then took a long, probably overindulgent sip.

"The thing is," she said, "I met someone."

Under other circumstances, Draco would not have been so willing to entertain the prospect of conversation during an evening he had so obviously reserved for himself. However, as listening did not require him to perform any manual labor and potentially allowed for him to continue reading his book, Draco nodded.

"The problem is I loathe him," Pansy continued.

"You loathe everyone," Draco reminded her, and she sighed again, loudly.

"Yes, but this is different. I loathe him, really and truly, and for some reason he's—" She scowled, lifting her glass to her lips. "97% compatible with me."

At that, Draco glanced up sharply. "Don't tell me that matters to you now, too."

"Of course not," Pansy scoffed, though her fingers were visibly tight around the stem of her glass. "Not at all."

He waited.

"But," she said, chewing her lip as she eyed her glass, "say that I found him… reasonably attractive. And possibly a bit… charming. Not conventionally charming," she hurried to clarify, "because you know I hate the drudgery of dealing with so many self-satisfied imbeciles, but say he…" Another pause. "Say it's more that he intrigues me. And say he's not a total idiot. You know, the way all other men are just… completely and woefully incompetent."

"None taken," Draco said, which Pansy ignored.

"But say when I left, I told him I never wanted to speak to him again and in fact, I said I hoped his entire family came down with consumptive influenza."

"Not a real disease, but go on."

"And say," Pansy pressed on, "he told me that if I were really as smart as I thought I was, I'd do something about my current predicament aside from sitting by and letting a man without an ounce of my abilities rule over the rest of my life."

"Well, that's—" Draco broke off, frowning. "Wait, what?"

"And say I thought about slapping him or, alternatively, fucking him into the floor, but then say in reality I was so furious and astounded that I did neither of those things," Pansy said, beginning to look a bit distressed, "and instead, I saw him tonight having dinner with someone else across the restaurant where I was being bored into my grave by another insipid choice of my father's, and then say it occurred to me that if I don't ever speak to him again I might, in fact, die?"

Draco began to suspect he was losing the thread of conversation. "Pans, I don't think—"

"Well, he's right, isn't he?" Pansy said, launching abruptly to her feet. "I have been sitting in the background of my life for too long."

"Pansy, I don't underst-"

"I'm going to tell him right now that he can go and hang," she declared, and then stopped short, her expression hardening. "No. No, I won't give him the satisfaction." She drained the rest of her glass, giving Draco a long, furious look. "I can't fuck you right now," she informed him, "as I'm terribly busy. I have to come up with a plan for maximum emotional distress."

"No, stop, don't go," Draco said, pointedly flipping the page of his book, and she curled one hand into a fist.

"STOP TRYING TO CONTROL ME," she told him, before stomping in the direction of his Floo and disappearing, leaving him to enjoy what remained of his evening in solitude before making his way to the Ministry.

Draco passed a variety of newspaper stands—the headline LILY MOON SELLS OUT FIRST NIGHT OF UK TOUR blasted from the front page, which almost certainly hid a far more upsetting story about post-war taxation below the fold—as he went, picking up a takeaway coffee and arriving ten minutes after eight to find voices emanating from inside the Auror office.

"—n't tell me, can you believe it? Did you know?"

It sounded like mild hysteria, which was what Draco assumed Hermione Granger's voice always sounded like. He grimaced, recognizing the sound of her less-than-dulcet tones, but forced himself inside anyway, assuming (incorrectly) that she possessed enough presence of mind not to continue shrieking in his presence.

"—sorry, Hermione, I swear I didn't know. Listen, Ron and I don't really talk anymore either, outside of quidditch—"

"You work in the same office!"

"Barely," came Theo's gleeful voice. "Isn't that right, Potter?"

"Nott, I beg you, shut up. And Hermione, I'm telling you the truth," Harry said, sounding exhausted. "I agree, he should have said something, but I really didn't know. Maybe it's not serious, and—Oh, for fuck's sake," he said, spotting Draco in the doorway. "Malfoy, you're ten minutes late!"

"Twelve, actually," Draco replied with a glance at his watch, and then dropped his sunglasses to arch a brow at Theo, who was once again magically bound in place. "Was it worth it?"

"It certainly wasn't not," Theo said, gesturing with triumph to a frazzled and obviously sleep-deprived Boy Who Lived, and who was also currently the Boy Who Desperately Needed to Shower.

"Look, Hermione, just give me a couple of minutes, okay? We can do coffee as soon as I get these sign- fuck," Harry exhaled, rubbing at his eyes as he discovered his files empty. "Just… stay here, okay? I'll be right back," he told her, glancing at Theo. "And as for you—"

"Don't worry," Theo assured him. "I've devoted my efforts exclusively to your personal misery and haven't the time to inflict them on anyone else."

"Great, appreciate it," Harry said, jogging away as Draco rolled his eyes, falling into the vacant chair and giving Hermione a lengthy once-over.

She looked better than she had at Hogwarts, though that hardly required much to qualify for improvement. The lack of books was already helpful, as her primary aesthetic problem had always been her posture. Without that, she seemed… well, she seemed irate, really. He could hardly consider it a complimentary observation, but for what it was worth, rage wasn't an unpleasant color on her. Even with her hair pulled back and without even a speck of beauty charms or makeup, she remained not entirely unpretty.

"What?" she snapped, catching his glance and giving him one of those ball-shriveling glares she was so fond of doling out in excess.

"Nothing," he said, souring. For fun, and for lack of a better alibi, he directed his attention to her wrist. "Just admiring our atrocious 19%, that's all. Not to mention the fact that you're clearly still upset about Weasley," he registered, locating a sensitive spot in her hardened exterior and exulting in her instant fury. "You know what they say, Granger. You can't expect the ugly duckling to turn into a swan just because you ask it nicely."

"Nobody says that, Malfoy, and I wasn- wait." She stopped short, pivoting towards him so rapidly Draco had half a mind to back away from her. "Did you say 19%?"

"I'm not part of this," Theo lamented to himself, glancing piteously in the direction Harry had gone. "POTTER," he bellowed, while Hermione, for reasons completely unknowable, yanked unexpectedly at Draco's wrist, shoving his watch brusquely to the side and nearly overturning his coffee.

"Ouch, Granger, what the f-"

"Oh my god. Oh my god." She seemed suddenly overcome with madness, or something very like it. "This… this says 19%, doesn't it?"

"So?" Draco asked, swatting her hand away and retracting his own, safeguarding it against his chest. "You already knew that, Granger."

"No, Malfoy, it says nineteen percent," she said, brown eyes unreasonably wide. "One-nine."

He couldn't for the life of him understand what had gotten her so worked up. "Yes, Granger, I can bloody read—"

"It was 18% before, you smarmy ponce," she informed him, breathless, and he frowned.

"Maybe you're mistaken," he said. "In any event it hardly matters, does it?"

"I'm not mistaken!" He worried she was headed for another violent outburst and backed away in protest, covering his face just in case, but she had merely forced open her purse, summoning some sort of notepad and shoving it in front of his nose. "See?"

Terry Boot, 80%
New postman, 44%
Gladys, 32%
Woman at the coffee cart, 29%
Tourist outside the Ministry, 53%
Draco Malfoy, 18%
Priest or some other clergyman walking towards me on Tottenham (nice eyes!), 21%
Percy Weasley, 92%
Lily Moon, 42%
Bastien Queensbury, 33%
Nigel Wroxton (86% shirt), 13%
Gareth Pewsey (42% shirt), 67%
Arman Shettigar (0% shirt), 55%

"Percy Weasley, really?" Draco scoffed, attempting to turn the page and look over the other percentages. "And why would anyone keep track of this? Some strange woman at the coffee cart, are you mad?"

"It's for purposes of calculating means and medians and—and I certainly don't have to explain myself to you!" she trumpeted crossly, snatching the notepad from his hands before he could see (for purposes of personal satisfaction) what her compatibility had been with the ex-boyfriend in question. "The point is it went up, Malfoy, which isn't something I ever thought to consider! Of course there was a missing factor in George's and my calculations—it was always too easy, wasn't it?—it's TIME!" she half-shouted, and though Theo was unable to jump from where he was forcibly sitting, he looked as if he'd have liked to. "And if it went up with you," Hermione continued to Draco with an undisguised look of contempt, "whom I detest—"

"Oh, surely you can do better," Theo said, tutting with disapproval. "Detest, really? Seems too soft a word."

"How drunk are you?" Draco asked him.

"Only detestably," he sniffed, "so you see my point."

"—then surely it must have gone up with other people!" Hermione finished, her eyes now impossibly large by the time Harry reappeared, brandishing the paperwork for Theo's release.

"Alright, so, initial h-"

"Harry, I have to go immediately right now," Hermione said, expelling the sentiment all in one breath as Harry looked up, frowning. "I… hang on, just let me—" She leaned over, squinting at his hand. "Yes, okay, that's… hm. Well." She steadied herself, giving him a deranged sort of smile. "I just have to go, um. Talk to someone."

"Talk to who?" Harry called after her, forgetting temporarily about Theo amid something even Draco had to admit was a very understandable concern for his lunatic friend. "Wait, Hermione, please tell me you're not going to talk to R-"

"I'm going to talk to everyone," she said, looking positively elated. "Don't you see, Harry? TIME," she barked again, and then she darted out of the room before bursting back in, half-panting. "See you at dinner?"

"I really don't know," Harry said. "It's possible I may just die here."

"Excellent, around seven it is. See you then!" she called back, disappearing from the door frame as Harry turned back to Draco and Theo with a sigh, giving them both a wary glare.

"Just sign the papers and leave," he muttered, already a comfortingly familiar phrase, and Draco picked up a quill, rolling his eyes.

"You do realize you could just not arrest him, don't you?" Draco said, finding the line for his signature and sweeping the quill across the page. "He's essentially the same as a puppy, or a mentally incapacitated parrot." A page turn, plus a set of initials. "Nothing can be done about it, Potter." Another signature, another page turn. "You're simply wasting Ministry resources to put us all through the endless capricity of Theo's moods," he finished, signing DLM with his usual flourish.

"It's true," Theo agreed, hellish as ever. "And considering our perfect compatibility, Potter, you should simply admit that I've won and surrender to our inevitable autumn wedding before I decide you're simply not my type."

"You should, too," Draco sternly advised Harry, before clarifying with a shudder of revulsion, "The surrendering bit, not the wedding. The more you push this, the more unbearable you'll make him," he cautioned, having already sorted out as much from having to be dragged to the Auror offices a second time in less than a week.

"Well, if it's a matter of who can be more stubborn, I assure you, you will not win," Harry informed them both, accepting the papers from Draco and bending to aim his wand at Theo's face. "Now. If you want to continue pretending you live in a world without consequences, be my guest. Do you know what they call an Auror with no power or responsibilities except for keeping you off the streets, Nott?" he prompted softly, and while it was an idiotic question bound for an even stupider answer, Harry filled in the blanks for him anyway. "Your worst fucking nightmare."

Theo's mouth cracked into a broad, euphoric smile; the demonic kind, which couldn't have been good news.

"I'm going to ruin your life, Harry Potter," he said.

"Do it, Nott, I dare you," Harry replied without hesitation, and flicked his wand beside Theo's throat.

With that, the bindings on Theo's arms and legs were released and he stood, expectantly holding his hand out for his wand. Harry slapped it into his palm.

"Well, this is bizarre," Draco said, reaching for his coffee and rising to his feet. "Should I ask what happened last night, or…?"

"No need. See you soon, Potter," Theo said, picking up his sunglasses from Harry's desk and shoving them onto his face, swaggering unevenly away.

a/n: For orangepine, who makes me alternately laugh and sigh with joy, Gaeleria (and baby number 3!), and LaurelKing, who is onto my tricks. Chapter title comes from Matthew McConaughey's magnum opus, Dazed and Confused: "Say, man, you got a joint?" "No, not on me, man." "It'd be a lot cooler if you did."