all characters belong to JK Rowling

Chapter 3: Three o'clock and it's time for St. Mungo's

Arms folded, grimace in place, foot propped up on a chair in front of her, and in a lobby full of hurt and sick patrons, Hermione Granger sat without preamble at St. Mungo's Hospital. To say that she was not a happy woman would have been an understatement. She was miserable and it was all Draco Malfoy's fault! Yes, she totally blamed him for everything.

The last two hours had been a nightmare. First, she was minding her own business, getting ready for what she had assumed would be one of the most important meetings of her life, when she was thrown for a loop by a little girl locked in the bathroom.

Why was the little girl locked in the bathroom? Because of Draco Malfoy! Therefore, she blamed Draco Malfoy for everything!

Then she ran all the way to the top floor of the museum, again, assuming she was late for her 'important meeting', and she found out that her previously important meeting was really a 'pointless meeting' with none other than the very same person who made her late: Draco Malfoy! Again, she blamed Draco Malfoy for everything!

She was late for her meeting with Draco because of Draco's insensitivity to a little girl, and her meeting was pointless because it was with Draco. It boggled even her massive mind! The only thing that didn't confound her was one very important point: she blamed Draco Malfoy for everything!

Last, but hardly least, he broke her toe! He dropped a large, glass sphere on her foot; caused her pain, and then he carried her here to St. Mungo's. Once more, she could directly blame Draco Malfoy for both breaking her toe and for causing her undue embarrassment by carrying her here!

Draco carried her here! Carried! In his arms! All the way down the hallway of the museum, in front of her coworkers and the patrons of the museum, through the Floo, to St. Mungo's. She was fairly sure he even copped a feel! He sat her down in a chair, told her to behave, (as if she was a five year old child, or a cocker spaniel) and then he even had the gall to pat her on the head before he pulled a chair over, placed her injured foot upon it, and then continued to walk away.

Where he was now was anyone's guess. She looked around the packed intake lobby at the wizarding hospital and she cringed. The place was unusually busy. She was probably going to be here all day. There was a banquet tonight to honour the new owner of the museum and she was probably going to miss it because Draco Malfoy dumped her here in this lobby and left her! Of course, now that she knew the banquet was to honour him, she no longer cared to attend. Who should she blame? Draco Malfoy.

Earlier, when Hermione told that sweet little girl, Gretchen, that it was her philosophy in life to blame everything and anything bad that happened on Draco Malfoy she was joking, but now she really felt it was an edict that she would live by for the rest of her life.

Her foot hurt. She was filling out unnecessary paperwork, (why did they need her middle name?) and what was more, some poor man with an eyeball hanging half out of his head was staring at her…with his good eye. She shivered. She felt this had happened before.

A healer in green robes walked over to her and said, "Are you my patient?" She looked up, somewhat confused, glanced around the crowded lobby, but then nodded. The man smiled. "Let's get you into a room and have your toe looked at, Mrs. Malfoy."

Hermione was aware that several people who were here before her turned to stare at her. Even the man who had one eyeball hanging out, and could only stare at her with the remaining one, stared at her. Hermione said, "I'm pretty sure all these people were here before I was. I think the man with one eye might still be waiting to be seen from the last time I came to St. Mungo's. Please, take one of them first."

"That's alright, someone will see to them soon," he said. He motioned to an orderly with his head. The other man levitated the chair she was sitting in off the floor and began to move it down the hall. The healer followed beside it and said, "I'm your husband's private healer."

"Wait a minute," she said, looking around for Malfoy, "did you say, 'my husband'? Oh goodness, you did. You called me Mrs. Malfoy earlier and because I'm still in shock over the events of the last two hours, my mind only just now processed that unflattering assumption. There's been a dreadful mistake."

The man smiled, patted her hand as she floated in the air beside him and told the orderly, "Put Mrs. Malfoy right there."

"I'm not Mrs. Malfoy!" she barked.

Draco was sitting in the room waiting for her. He patted the gurney and said, "Please place my wife right here."

"Your what?" She glared from Draco back to the orderly who was physically lifting her from the chair to place her on the gurney. Draco stood directly behind her.

"I'll be right back, Mr. Malfoy," the healer explained to Draco. He walked out of the little room behind the orderly.

Hermione pulled on Draco's sleeve to force him to stand beside her, instead of behind her, and she said, "Do you want to explain to me why that man is under the presumption that we're married?"

"Gladly," he spouted. "You see, there was a brawl at a Quidditch match tonight, some people are so barbaric, don't you know, and as you may have been able to tell, the intake area is full. If you had to wait for an average public servant, nobody healer to wait on you, you would have sprouted roots out there, your wait would have been that long."

"OH MY STARS!" she exclaimed. "Get on with it! Why does that man think you're my husband!"

He smiled. She was so passionate when she was irritable. It was how he remembered her being in school. Not passionate, really, but highly and frequently irritable. He wanted to kiss her just now, how insane was that? Instead he finished his story. "As I was trying to say before you so rudely interrupted me, when we first arrived, I told them to get my personal healer in here for my employee who hurt her toe, and they contacted him, but he said he wouldn't come for my mere employee, so I lied and said you were my wife, and he came, and now here we are."

He held out his hands, to imply, 'ta-da' and then shook his finger at her. "And don't you dare go and tell them the truth and make a liar out of me!"

"But you are a liar!" she pointed out.

"So? Lying has made me what I am today," he said proudly.

"And what is that? A Liar?" She sighed. "Draco, there are people out there who were here before me, and some of them are seriously hurt! One man had only one eye! One eye! It was ghastly! His other eye wasn't completely gone, but it was merely hanging there, being all disgusting!"

Draco made a funny face and said, "Yes I saw him, and I agree he was indeed disgusting. I think he might have been here the last time I came." He sat on the gurney next to her long, beautiful leg, and looked at her swollen, black and blue toe. It was hard to have lurid thoughts about her legs when her toe was bruised and broken.

"Does it hurt?" he asked, reaching out to touch the top of her foot.

She jerked from his touch. "Yes, but let's not change the subject. I shouldn't get special treatment. It's not right."

He waved his hand in her face. "Oh, what would you know about right and wrong? All you've ever done is right, so you have no way to gage the degrees of wrongness," he argued.

Her mouth opened in shock and she said, "Your theories on right and wrong boggle my mind! Perhaps you're so used to being evil and wrong that it's just seems right to you, but believe me, lying is still frowned upon by most people. You lied to get me in here quicker."

"And that's the truth," he mocked. "I shalln't argue morals with you right now." He frowned. "My propensity for being a practiced liar was used for good this time instead of evil, and this is the thanks I get."

She saw his point. She didn't particularly want to wait hours in the lobby, her toe was turning black, and she did have to host the banquet for the ungrateful git tonight, so she finally said, "Fine. Thank you. However, I wouldn't think the wife of Draco Malfoy would have to wait so long. Where is that damn healer?"

Almost an hour later, he took her back to her office. He offered to help her home, but she insisted that she still had work to do before the banquet tonight. The healer gave her two potions after he healed the small fracture in her big toe. One was a minor form of 'skeletal-grow' and one was for pain. She had always hated taking medicine, ever since she was young. She hated the taste, and the way it made her feel. She agreed to take the one to mend the toe, but not the pain medicine.

Draco pocketed the pain medicine right before they left.

She managed fine without being carried this time, with the aid of a cane and the wizarding equivalent of a cast, which she would only have to wear for a few hours. Draco followed her to her office. He walked in right behind her and she asked, "What are you doing in here?"

He ignored her rudeness and looked around. The office was small, but tidy. She had books everywhere, not that, that surprised him very much. She had many personal belongings around the office. He picked up a picture on her desk and then placed it high on a shelf on the wall, face down. It was of her and the two idiots commonly known as her best friends. He didn't see a picture of a 'significant other'.

She sat in one of two chairs that flanked a round, oak, work table, pulled out a file and asked again, "Draco was there some reason you came in here with me?"

"I own this place now, you know," he stated the obvious. "It might behoove you to be nice to me." Draco watched as she kicked off her good shoe and accio a small step stool toward her for her foot. Her leg was slender and she had beautiful ankles. He never recalled finding women's ankles attractive before, and he especially never recalled thinking anything about Hermione Granger was attractive, but he couldn't help his errant thoughts. Today was a day of surprises for both of them. She was surprised that he was her new boss, and he was surprised at how fetching she had become since school ended.

He sat in the chair next to her, picked up a file, and began to read it. She could hardly tell him to stop, since as he said, 'he owned the place' now, and the file was about a recent exhibition she had hoped to bring to the museum. It was a collection of rare artifacts that were from the Hogwart's Founder's era.

He leaned back and continued to read. She turned to him slightly, and under lowered lashes she stared at him for the first time today. She really looked at him. He was lean, with slight muscles, and his body looked long and relaxed in the chair next to her. He reminded her of a cat of some type. She had always thought that, because he seemed agile, and lithe, and she imagined that he might have a wicked tongue that was slightly rough. She smiled at that last thought.

His hair was longer than he used to wear it in school, slightly over his ears, a bit long in the front. She watched the way his eyes flickered over the page. He had absolutely beautiful eyes. The colour was like silver.

She felt a strange attraction to him that made her outwardly wince. Ugh! She did not have a crush on him, did she? How could she have a crush on someone whom she intended to blame for every bad thing that happened for the rest of her life?

He glanced at her when she moaned, threw the report on the table and said, "What's wrong? Are you in pain?"

She expelled a long breath. Hell yes she was in pain. Her pain was with herself because SHE DID HAVE A CRUSH ON DRACO MALFOY! And whose fault was it that she had a crush on Draco Malfoy? HA! Draco Malfoy's fault!

Finally, she said, "I don't feel well. I may not be up to hosting the banquet tonight. I hope you understand." If she wanted to be honest, the task she wasn't up to facing was being this close to him a second longer! She felt as if she wanted to sink into his side, place her weary head on his chest, and confide in him all her problems, and tell him what a rotten day she had, because of him!

Draco narrowed his gaze and took her pain potion from his pocket. He held it out to her and said, "If you're in pain, take this. I brought it with us, but you simply have to come to the banquet tonight. The new board of governors will be there, and it won't bode well for the museum if the curator isn't there."

"Even if it's the fault of the owner and new president that she won't be there?" she bemoaned. Let him think she meant because of her foot.

"Listen, Granger, I'm a little bit sorry for what happened, but it can't be erased, and if you truly value your job, you'll take this potion and shut up." He meant every word. He dropped the vial in her lap.

She looked indignant, as only she could look, and she threw the small, brown vial back at him and said, "A bit sorry? You're a bit sorry? No, you're not sorry. Don't lie to me, even though it is what you seem to do best, furthermore, how dare you threaten to fire me because you broke my toe! You know, you really should have told me you bought this place Malfoy."

"What difference would it have made?" He tossed the vial back in her lap. He knew that if he had told her, she would have quit, and for some reason, he didn't want her to do that then, and he didn't want her to do it now.

"It would have made a big difference, because this is my whole life, and I might not want you in it!" She threw the vial back at him. It bounced off his chest and landed in his lap. He picked it up and squeezed it hard.

"Well, excuse me for messing up your life! That's all I ever live for, is to mess up your life, and the life of others! Isn't that what you all think?" he accused.

She rubbed her face with her hands and said, "Frankly, yes. When I told your goddaughter that it was my philosophy to blame every bad thing that's ever happened in my life on you, I meant it."

"You told Gretchen what?" he shouted. "Why in the hell would you say that to a child? I know you and Potter always acted like you thought that, but I still can't believe you would tell my own goddaughter, the flesh and blood of my best friend, that! That's unconscionable, Granger, but then again, you think only the worst of me, and you always have!" He took her hand, held it tightly in his own, opened her fingers with his other hand, and deposited the pain medicine in her palm.

The feel of his hand on hers made her stomach lurch, in a good way, which she thought was bad. She placed her foot on the ground and pulled herself to the edge of her chair. With her hands on the table she said, "I'm going home. I'm in pain, and I think I quit." She placed the vial of medicine on the table in front of their chairs.

He took the blasted vial of potion, removed the stopper, and threw the cork across the room. "Sit down, take your pain potion, and shut up," Draco said. He had heard enough of her insults to last a lifetime.

"Don't tell me to shut up!" she barked. "And I told you," she began, pushing the brown vial with the potion away from her, spilling some on the table, "I don't need it. I told you, my toe isn't even in pain. The only pain I'm having is a pain in my arse called Draco Malfoy!"

"Compliments like that are what I live for, Darling," he mocked. "Why be so brave and courageous? Just take the bloody potion!" He pushed the potion closer to her.

"NO!" she pushed it away again.

He took her hand in his and said, "If you touch that potion again, I won't be responsible."

"For what?" she shouted.

"This!" He pulled her from her chair all the way over to his, so that she was awkwardly on his lap. He held her hand tightly in his, her palm facing him, and he lowered his head, while raising their joined hands. Her eyes were wide in shock. Then, he placed a kiss right in the middle of her hand. For the first time in her whole life, Hermione Granger was speechless.

Hermione gasped. Just when she needed to keep her wits about her, her 'wits' were elsewhere, because she desperately wanted him to kiss her lips, not just her hand. While she considered that wayward thought, he placed the vial of medicine back in her hand.

She decided not to push her luck. She opened her mouth, tipped back the vial, and drank it all in one drink. "There!" she shouted.

Now he gasped. He took the vial from her hand and said, "Why did you do that, you crazy witch? That was enough medicine for the whole night! You were only to take a teaspoon!"

"Well, you didn't tell me that did you? You pulled me over to your lap, and practically forced me to take the whole thing!"

"Oh, Granger, seriously, what did you do?" Draco shook his head. He reached up and touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers.

Shivering under his touch, she said softly from his lap, "May I get off your lap now?"

He looked at her tenderly. "Hell, Granger, if you die from an overdose, you'll blame me for that, too." He smiled tenderly at her. Merlin, she was so pretty.

She cringed slightly. "Please, let me up."

"Why?" he asked slyly. He rather liked her on his lap.

"Ah, Draco, I think you might really want to let me get off your lap," she urged.

He smiled wider and leaned closer to her. His nose skimmed her cheek and nuzzled her hair. She smelled so good, like honey and wine. "I asked you why should I? I like you here."

"Because, I think I'm going to be sick," she said quickly.


Coming up at four o'clock:

"That's the nice woman who helped me earlier, Daddy," Gretchen said to her father.

The good looking man with the sandy blonde hair grinned, looked down at her as she lay on the floor, and declared, "Well, I remember you. Hello, Hermione Granger. What happened to you? Why are you on the floor? Are you drunk?"

She looked up from her place on the floor and said, "Oh, geesh, this is embarrassing. I'm not usually on the floor in the middle of the day."

"But today's special, right?" he joked.

"No, today's been one of the worst days of my life. You see, I blame Draco Malfoy for all of this," she explained.

He laughed and said, "That's been my philosophy in life as well."

Gretchen looked down at Hermione, her hair falling over her features like a curtain, and she said, "You and Daddy have that in common, Hermione. You both blame Draco for everything! You should ask Daddy to be your date for the banquet tonight."

Hermione looked up at the pair and stammered, "I, well, you see, I, um, well."

"What she's so ineloquently is trying to say, people, is that she already has a date for the bloody banquet! And she's on the floor because I dropped her, though it was completely an accident!" Draco protested from the doorway.