Fated: Chapter Three

Disclaimer: Only the plot is mine. The characters, setting, and everything else belong to JKR.

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Hermione rubbed her eyes with her hands. She could feel a headache coming on, brought about by spending too many hours pouring over the latest piece of legislation proposed by her division in the International Magical Office of Law, looking for loopholes that would allow companies to cut down precious trees to make wands and brooms.

Not that she minded the wands so much. They were rather necessary for wizards to use magic, after all, and besides it didn't take much wood to make a wand. One tree was easily enough to make hundreds and hundreds of wands. The same couldn't be said of brooms however. Quite frankly, while she appreciated that many wizards were fond of flying and of Quidditch, she didn't see why broom manufacturers had to come out with new models every single year. She thought it would make more sense for them to retrofit old models and reuse what materials they could. Unfortunately the broom companies didn't see things her way.

It was unfortunate that the broom manufacturers had forged an alliance with the wand makers of the Wizarding World to defeat the conservation bill before her in any way possible. She shook her head in disgust, remembering how one wand maker after another all came forward to claim that if stricter limits were set upon the harvesting of magical forests, then wand prices would rise exponentially. She had been livid that day for that argument ignored the simple truth that there were more than enough spare wands in the world. There were at least two spare wands for each and every wizard and witch on the face of the planet.

She sighed deeply. While it was regrettable that the wand makers had decided to side against them on this proposed act along with the broom manufacturers, she would have had the same work to do regardless. The method through which the Wizarding World enacted new laws was byzantine and arcane, and there was literally no one who fully understood it. The worst part about the whole process was that clerks in various offices could add changes to any particular bill without them having to tell anyone about those changes being made.

She shuddered as she remembered what had happened to the Paperwork Reduction Act they had tried to push through last year. Somewhere along the way some officious bastard had added a zero to the text of the bill, thereby letting all departments keep up to one hundred copies of the same document. That had effectively gutted the bill. Drew Irving, the kind elderly wizard who was her boss, had found out about that disastrous change at the last minute, and the two of them had had to scramble kill the bill they had spent so many hours working on.

Hermione reached up and brushed away the lock of hair that had fallen in her eyes. She glanced up at the clock and decided she had earned herself a break. Besides she figured that a cup of tea might help her concentrate.

She got up and stretched before trotting over to the break room. Inside a small crowd of gossiping witches lingered around the table, but Hermione just ignored them. That group had learned long ago just to leave her alone; any prodding on their part to get her to divulge any tidbits about her friends wouldn't end well for them. She took out her mug and placed in it one of the bags of tea her office supplied, then headed over to fill it with hot water. A few minutes later, her tea was done. She threw out the bag and reached for a spoon so she could add her milk and sugar.

That was when the hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end.

"Good afternoon ladies," came the smooth voice of Draco Malfoy. "Might any of you be able to tell me where I can find Drew Irving?" he inquired charmingly after her boss.

Hermione had to bite back a groan as instantly all of the other witches in the break room jumped up and started fawning over the pointy git. She risked a look behind her and what she saw made her want to swear. Malfoy was leaning against the door frame, effectively cutting off her only avenue of escape. Involuntarily her fists clenched when she saw Malfoy flirting with all those other witches.

I simply mustn't hex them, she chanted silently to herself. I must not hex them. I must not hex them. Think about it Hermione! They're doing you a favor, really, by keeping his attention off of you. Suddenly she was possessed by a jealous rage that she just could not contain. She simply could not let the situation stand as is. Before she knew it, she was stalking towards the door.

"Excuse me," she said snootily to the small gaggle blocking her way, "but some of us actually have work to do around here." She narrowed her eyes and glared at the twits, effectively cowing them into silence.

Unfortunately that didn't work on the bane of her existence.

"Why Granger," Malfoy drawled, "how unpleasant it is to see you, as always."

"Likewise," said Hermione with a toss of her head. It didn't seem right that even though she had long lost any hope of her mate even tolerating her, every time she confronted him, another small part of her died. But thankfully she had habit to fall back on, and so she was able to give as good as she got without shedding any tears before him. She frowned as she realized that he was still blocking the door. "Since it appears that you failed to understand me the first time, could you please move? I have no wish to spend any more time in your company than absolutely necessary."

"Likewise." Malfoy's voice was as frigid as ice. "Be that as it may, however, I do need to find Drew. So as much as it pains me to prolong this unwanted encounter, I'm afraid I have to ask if you know where your boss is."

She rolled her eyes. She supposed she had no choice but to answer, if she wanted to get out of this situation with a shred of pride remaining. "He has a meeting until four today, but he should be back in his office after that," she stated.

A smile spread across Draco's face. A soft gasp involuntarily crossed Hermione's lips as she was struck yet again by just how handsome her mate was when he was truly happy about something. It was dreadfully silly but some small part of her was celebrating that it had been her who had brought that smile to his face for once. She quickly quashed that thought, summoning her iron will so that she could regain her mental composure.

Thank Merlin for small miracles that Malfoy didn't realized what sort of an impact his smile had on her.

"Excellent," said Malfoy still beaming. "And here I was thinking that I was too late, that I had missed him for the day. I'll go and wait for him. If you'll excuse me, my dears," he said with a nod at the witches huddled on the other end of the break room. He turned and left, with nary a word of thanks for Hermione. If she was looking for any gratitude from him, then his smile would have to do.

But that was par for the course. Relieved that she had escaped relatively unscathed, she fled towards the sanctuary of her office. She immediately threw herself into her work, desperate for the distraction. She focused on the words before her and pushed her roiling emotions to the side.

A knock sounded at her door. Hermione looked up to see her boss entering. She began to rise to her feet, but he gestured for her to remaining sitting as he took the seat across from her.

"Working late again?" Drew asked her.

She blinked. She took a glance at the clock, and her jaw dropped open. "Oh!" she said. "I hadn't realized it's this late. I was going over the forest preservation bill to see if I could find any loopholes."

"And did you?"

She shook her head. "No. Or at least not yet. I was thinking that perhaps we shouldn't describe the metes and bounds of the protected areas by using longitude and latitude. It's too easy for a scrivener's error to change those numbers."

"An excellent suggestion," he said approvingly. He then scratched his head and a sheepish expression crossed his face. "I must say I am glad to find you still here. Though I do worry about the hours you sometimes keep," he added with a wag of his finger. "Don't you have a new kitten to take care off?"

"Yes I do." Thinking of Shadow made her smile. When she had first thought about getting a new familiar, she had worried about leaving it home alone and so she had asked for permission to keep it at the office for a couple of weeks. It turned out that such permission was not needed for Shadow instantly had made herself at home in Hermione's flat.

"And how is your new cat doing?" Drew asked. "And why haven't I seen her, for that matter?"

"Oh she's at home. I tried to take her in yesterday but she didn't want to leave. Too comfortable on my bed, I suppose. So I didn't force the issue," Hermione explained.

"A wise decision, I'm sure. But to get back to my original reason for seeing you, young Mr. Malfoy paid me a visit earlier today."

She sat up straight in her chair. "Oh? Is something wrong?" she asked. "He did seem to be in a rush to find you."

"Ah yes, but to give me good news this time around. It does make for a nice change," said Drew. "Apparently young Draco was talking with his parents last night about the difficulties we've been facing when it comes to preserving magical forests. A good thing he did that too, for Narcissa, his mother, came up with a positively brilliant idea."

"Oh?"

"Yes, yes. Narcissa Malfoy suggested that the Malfoys could start a new foundation—I believe Draco referred to it as the Malfoy Foundation for the Preservation of Magical Environments or something like that. The foundation would take in funds from various interested parties and use those monies to buy up lands to keep them pristine, effectively keeping them out of harm's way."

"That's great," said Hermione. She gestured to the parchment before her. "Does that mean that we won't need—"

"Oh no, no. We would still do our best to push forward that bill and others. This is just another means of attack, so to speak. Our efforts will be complimentary," he explained. "So we will do our best to change the rule of law to improve conservation efforts while the new Malfoy Foundation will channel the energies and resources of the private sector to do what we cannot."

"I see. That way we're not putting all our eggs in one basket," Hermione said.

"Exactly. It'll also help with strategy, I think. We can negotiate knowing it's safe for us to make concessions because the act won't be the end of conservation efforts." He nodded his head sharply. "So apparently Draco's had his attorneys working on drafting the necessary papers to start such a foundation, and he'll contribute the funds needed for start up. It should be completely set up before the week is over. His mother is going to pitch in as well. I understand that's she is very excited about the idea of hosting gala event at Malfoy Manor to announce it to the world."

"A gala?" Hermione repeated. Warning bells went off in her head. She didn't like where this was headed.

"Yes, a gala." Drew coughed nervously. "We're all to attend. There's more to that actually, when it comes to you."

"Somehow I was afraid you'll say that," Hermione muttered.

Her boss continued as though he hadn't heard her. "Normally I understand that Narcissa would have one of her friends help her plan a big even like this. But seeing how we're to work with the new foundation to advance our cause, she thought it would be a good idea to have someone from our department to fill that role and help her plan everything. That way we can have a sort of unofficial liaison. That's part of the reason why young Draco was here, to see if I could get someone to volunteer for the task. Almost immediately I thought of you and—"

"You volunteered me, didn't you?" Hermione asked forlornly. She felt like burying her head beneath her hands. She couldn't believe this was happening to her. Bad enough that Malfoy had the tendency to show up in her department in the first place. But for her to have to visit his home on what was likely to be a weekly basis—for one brief moment, she would have rather been sent to Azkaban.

"Yes, yes. Now don't look at me like that, Hermione," he admonished her. "Think of this as a learning experience. Narcissa Malfoy is a talented organizer in her own right, and it would do you good to acquire some of her skill set. You'll find, I'm sure, that a few words said in the right place can do more for your cause than all the laws in the world."

Hermione sighed. It didn't look like there was any way for her to get out of this one. "Al right," she said. "So when am I supposed to meet her to talk about putting together this ball?"

"Tomorrow," came the reply. "Two o'clock in the afternoon at Malfoy Manor."

"Brilliant," said Hermione. She discreetly pinched herself, hoping against hope that this was all just a bad dream, but to her dismay, she didn't wake up.

Her boss narrowed his eyes at her. "You will go, won't you? It would be an embarrassment for our department for you not to show up especially with everything the Malfoys have done to help us."

"I understand." She smiled wanly. "Don't worry, Drew. I've never shirked a task simply because I don't like it."

"Good. I was hoping you wouldn't disappoint me. Now go home. It's far too late for you to be here." With that, he made a shooing motion, then left.

Hermione allowed herself a full five minutes to feel sorry for herself before she started packing up for the evening. It was too late for her to be here, especially after the awful day she had had. Once she had tidied everything up, she made her way through the hallways and to the lifts so she could Apparate home.

"I hate my life," she announced loudly as she appeared in her living room. She tossed her bag into a nearby chair and stalked over to the kitchen. She opened her fridge, which was full of food for once seeing how she had gone out shopping with her friends last night. She plucked an apple from the crisper and then headed over to the sink to give it a wash. Savagely she bit into the apple. The apple was fresh and crisp, and she found its crunch to be soothing.

A soft meow sounded from the floor. She looked down to see her kitten looking hopefully at her. "Oh! I'm sorry, Shadow! You must be starving." Hermione put down her half-eaten apple onto the counter and walked back to the fridge to get some milk. She poured a small amount of milk into a bowl, setting it down on the floor so Shadow could drink from it. Her cat looked at the bowl, then looked at her, and then sniffed haughtily, as if to convey her displeasure with the meal set before her.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know. That's not nearly enough for your dinner, seeing how you're a growing kitten and all. But that's good to start, don't you think, until I can get a tin of tuna open for you?" Those words seemed to mollify her cat. Hermione reflected that Shadow was already too clever for her own good.

Reaching into the cupboard, Hermione took out a tin of tuna. Then she thought the better of it and took out two more. Cheesy pasta with tuna sounded like a good idea for dinner to her as it was easy to make but still comfort food. She needed comfort food like that after the day she had.

A little over an hour later, Hermione was to be found in the living room ensconced on her sofa, a bowl of pasta sitting on the end table beside her as she read through the latest romance book she had bought. It was escapist fantasy, she knew, but it was nice to read about witches being pursued by the wizards of their dreams rather than what she had to face. She sighed softly to herself. It was too bad that she would never know such bliss.

"Hermione? Hermione? Are you here?" a voice called out from behind her. Hermione leapt to her feet, surprised that anyone was trying to floo her this late. She turned around to see that Ginny's head had appeared in her fireplace.

"Ginny!" she said. "One second. I'll be right there." She immediately went over to crouch before the fire to make it easier to speak with her friend. Not for the first time she wished that Ginny would use the phone like Harry did. Talking over the phone was much more comfortable than crouching in front of her fireplace and it didn't startle her half as much when the phone rang.

"So what is it?" she asked as she settled down before to the fireplace.

"It's nice to see you too, Hermione," said her friend with an eye roll. "Where have you been? I've been trying to reach you for ages."

"At work," she replied simply.

Ginny grimaced. "I guess I should've expected that. Harry said that I should just go ahead and owl you, but I thought that might be risky. You don't always open the post right away, and so I thought it better to let you know in person that I've a date set up for you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? So soon?" Hermione blinked. She hadn't anticipated her friend working that quickly on finding a wizard to set her up with.

"What can I say? When you're good, you're good." Ginny grinned broadly, thoroughly pleased with herself. "And the best thing is that Harry likes the bloke so we don't have to worry about my dear husband scaring him off."

"So can you tell me who he is? Or is that supposed to be a surprise?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, it's Oliver Wood. You remember him, right? He was dead impressed with that spell you used back on Harry's glasses during that one match in the rain. So you don't have to worry about first impressions; you've already made a good one," said Ginny. "And as I said, Harry likes him and thinks he's a good, upstanding wizard. Which means I can trust him enough to make it a double date—you and Oliver, and me and Harry. It'll be dinner then a movie."

"Sounds grand." Hermione couldn't summon up much enthusiasm for the proposition. It appeared as though Ginny had arranged the whole evening as a way to let Hermione get her feet wet before the redhead really started looking for someone who would suit her friend. Hermione did remember Oliver from school, and while he was nice enough, describing him as Quidditch mad wasn't very accurate at all. The boy had practically lived and breathed Quidditch while he had been at Hogwarts.

Ginny shook her head. "I can tell what you're thinking, you know. You're thinking that you're going to be bored to tears since the entire table will be talking about Quidditch."

"You mean it's not?"

Her friend motioned with a hand as if waving the issue aside. "Of course there's going to be some talk about Quidditch. And I know that Oliver will probably talk about it more than you would like. But Hermione, the only wizards who are as interested in Quidditch as you—which is to say not at all—are old and decrepit and at least a half century older than you. Besides Oliver has the most charming brogue. Honestly I could listen to that man read a dictionary."

Hermione looked skeptically at her friend. She still wasn't convinced that this was a good idea, and she couldn't help but wonder if it was too late to call things off.

Ginny evidently recognized that look as the next words out of her mouth were ones of rebuke. "Hermione, please. Just give him a chance. That's what he's doing for you. Oliver remembers you spending hours in the library, but he's coming to dinner tomorrow night with an open mind. Who knows? You might just hit it off."

She couldn't deny the truth of her friends' words. It was only fair for her to give Oliver a chance. From what she knew of him, he was a good man. While he wasn't the one fate had chosen for her, that didn't mean that they weren't compatible. All things considered there was some possibility that they would be good together. She crossed her fingers. She hoped that would be the case. It would be nice to have someone; it would be nice not to be so lonely, if only for a little while.

"So when are we meeting and where?" Hermione asked. "I don't believe you ever told me that."

"You're right. I didn't. I can't believe I forgot the most important part," Ginny stated. "We'll meet up at our place at seven." She looked critically at her friend. "Should I owl you a reminder at six to make sure you're not working late?"

"Oh no. Don't worry about that. I have a meeting at two, and I'll go straight home after that to freshen up and all." Hermione rolled her eyes as she thought about the meeting she had with Narcissa tomorrow. "Goodness knows I won't feel like working after dealing with a Malfoy," she muttered to herself.

"Malfoy did you say?" Ginny's ears perked up. "What's wrong? Has he been bothering you again?"

"It's far too late to go into such a long story," said Hermione. "I need to get some sleep otherwise I'll be—"

"As grouchy as a bear tomorrow," Ginny finished for her. "All right then. You go and get your beauty sleep. I'll just nag you about this when I see you tomorrow."

"I can't wait," Hermione replied dryly. She was perfectly serious. She couldn't wait until Ginny started pestering her tomorrow about the whole fiasco with the Malfoys because that would mean she would've survived her meeting with Narcissa.

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Author's note: Another week, another update? Pretty amazing, isn't it? As always reviews would be ever so much appreciated.