Chapter 4

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A/N: Still don't own anything! I know that my version of the characters is a little lighter than most, but I think it's important to remember that when graduating Hogwarts, they're only 17 or 18. They've been through a war and some incredibly serious stuff, but I have to believe they'd still get a little silly sometimes. Plus, things will get more serious down the road. Ok, enough of that. Enjoy the chapter! Thanks for the reviews! Also, sorry for the weird dots - I can't figure out how to incorporate blank lines into this text editor, so am using the dots.

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Although Hermione wanted to become friends with Draco, she figured he probably needed a cooling off period first, so she did not object when he spent the rest of Sunday in his room, only emerging to use the restroom and retrieve his dinner. On Monday she headed straight to work without waking him up. It was a good thing she did too, because she had a lot of work waiting for her. Several former Death Eaters were claiming that they had been under the Imperius Curse for the bulk of the war and were thus appealing their convictions. To Hermione, this meant mountains of paperwork. Although she had often exceeded the page limit on her essays at Hogwarts, she was now growing to appreciate the merits of brevity.

After working all morning, Hermione took a break and leaned back in her office chair. She caught her reflection in her office window and realized how haggard she looked. Pulling out a small mirror, she examined the damage. Hair: Frizzy. Makeup: Gone. The poppyseed muffin this morning had been delicious, but had left behind a few seeds in her teeth. As she tried to tame her hair and pick the seeds out of her teeth, she heard the worst sound she could possibly imagine – Oliver Wood's footsteps. She had to triage and decided the seeds had to go. She plucked the last one out, threw the mirror in her desk drawer, and hoped against hope that Oliver found frizzy hair attractive.

"Hermione, do you have that file on Thorfinn Rowle?"

"Ummm… yes I do! I'm sure I do!" She wasn't at all sure she did, but she hated to disappoint Oliver. In her enthusiasm to find the file, she knocked over a tall stack of papers which scattered all over the floor of her office.

"How stupid of me!" She reached down to scoop up the pages and, in the process, knocked her tea straight onto her blouse. Could this get any worse? She began muttering to herself and searching for anything she could use as a towel. Before she could make any more of a fool out of herself, Oliver held up his hands.

"Hermione, stop! Use your wand for goodness sakes!" Oh, that. Suddenly remembering that she was, in fact, a witch, Hermione retrieved her wand from her desk and with a couple quick spells, she had cleaned the tea from her blouse, reorganized the spilt papers, retrieved the file Oliver wanted, and surreptitiously flattened her frizzy hair. At least one good thing had come of this fiasco.

She handed Oliver the file with an embarrassed smile. Clearly uncomfortable, he nodded and quickly backed out of her office.

Hermione sat back in her chair and exhaled a large sigh. How was it possible that she had never received less than top marks on every single assignment she had handed in at Hogwarts, that she had always read twice as much as everyone else and often memorized key passages, that she had spent more time in the library than the rest of her house combined, and she still couldn't get through a simple conversation with an attractive man?

Her afternoon passed with no further interruptions and at 5:00 she flooed home, exhausted and only faintly worried about what terrors her houseguest had in store for her.

She arrived home to find Draco at his usual perch, shouting letters at the Wheel of Fortune puzzle. When he saw Hermione, he instantly stopped and stood to retreat back to his cave. Hermione had had enough of his aloofness and silent treatment, however.

"Hold up, Malfoy." Now she paused. What should she say? After a moment of hesitation, Draco rolled his eyes and continued to his room.

With nothing to say, she gave up and let him go, sighing as the door slammed behind him.

The last thing Hermione wanted to do was cook dinner, but seeing as some stupid wizard had decided a long stupid time ago that wizards couldn't make stupid food with stupid magic, she reached in the cupboard for a pot.

Draco sat in his room, stewing. He really wished she had come home five minutes later – now he would miss the bonus round.

He wasn't really sure why he wasn't talking to her. He wasn't really mad at her. In fact, he had intentionally sat in the living room when he knew she would get home, just to storm away from her.

She just didn't get it.

It's not like an afternoon with the Weasleys was going to change the views his parents had drilled into his head for eighteen years. No waffles from Molly could suddenly convince him that, aww shucks, he'd just love to make some ginger-haired friends.

As he sat in his room pouting and thinking of more Weasley insults, the noise from the kitchen grew steadily louder.

Draco heard Hermione's exhausted and angry pot-banging in the kitchen and for a moment, considered helping her. He thought better of it, however, and decided to stay in his room. Soon, the sounds of an angry knife chopping onions made their way to his room. He had just picked up a book when a small scream and a loud crash from the kitchen caught his attention. Before he could rethink his decision, he ran out to the kitchen.

He found Hermione on the floor of the kitchen, surrounded by chopped onions, garlic, and tomatoes, the cutting board a foot away from her knee, where it had fallen. She sat rocking back and forth, clutching her thumb and muttering obscenities.

"Granger, please. You are a witch, surely this isn't a big deal." That was the second time today she had forgotten her ability with a wand. Realizing this only increased her frustration. She angrily pulled herself to her feet and grabbed her wand from the counter. Continuing to mutter obscenities, she paused only to mutter a quick healing spell and set the kitchen to rights with a wave of her wand.

"Ok, executive decision," Draco began, "You – couch. Now. No arguing!" He steered her toward the couch and sat her down. He went back to the kitchen and continued with what Hermione had begun. Hermione wanted to protest, but she was just so tired… and the couch was so comfy… and whatever he was making smelled heavenly.

Although Draco would never admit it, he enjoyed cooking. He knew it was considered servants' work (or house-elves', in his case), but to him it was reminiscent of potions. He loved figuring out which proportions and quantities to add to sauces and how to make each ingredient yield its boldest flavor. Ever since he was young, he had snuck down to the manor's enormous kitchens – without his parents' knowledge, of course. The house elves had been skeptical at first, but when they saw his true passion, they were only too happy to provide him with ingredients and room to experiment.

Hermione had planned to make a simple pasta dish with a sauce made of garlic, tomatoes, and onions. He continued with her basic agenda, but set to work adding different flavor profiles and textures to the sauce.

When he finished, he brought Hermione a dish and joined her on the couch. They ate in silence, both tired and satisfied with their plate of food.

When Hermione had cleaned her entire plate (and seriously considered licking the bottom), she set it on the coffee table and leaned back into the couch.

"Draco that was perfect. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that."

Draco was instantly caught off guard. He couldn't remember the last time he had heard words of gratitude, because he… well, because he never did anything for anyone else. Before letting Hermione see his reaction, he scooped up their plates and headed to the sink.

He had never washed dishes before, but it couldn't be that hard. He had watched the house elves and Granger do it plenty of times. He fiddled with the taps until the water was just right and found the bottle of soap Hermione used. As he cleaned the dishes, he found himself enjoying the process. He had spent so much of his life being taught to destroy, to ruin, to make things messy – it actually felt nice to make things clean. When he was done, he dried the dishes with care and set them gently back in the cupboard.

Cleaning the dishes had felt so fulfilling that suddenly Draco couldn't stop. He picked up a sponge and set to work on the counters. Then he realized that the floor was rather messy after Hermione's spill and reached for a broom.

After Draco had been gone for about ten minutes, Hermione's curiosity got the better of her and she headed out to the kitchen. She couldn't believe what she saw: Draco Malfoy, cleaning. CLEANING! Cleaning her kitchen!

"Draco… you didn't have to do all of this," she began.

"Yeah well, maybe I just don't want to live in this dirt hole," he retorted with a scowl. He wasn't sure why he responded so angrily. Her house wasn't really dirty at all, but he couldn't bring himself to tell her just how much he had enjoyed cleaning her kitchen. When Hermione had been out in the living room, he had carefully set the broom back in the cupboard, but now that she was watching, he threw the mop back haphazardly, pretending like he didn't care.

Hermione wasn't at all sure what to make of what she saw. She could tell that he was covering up for something, but didn't know him well enough yet to know what. Still, cleaning her kitchen for her had been an act of kindness, which was a big step (and finally something she could record in her progress journal!), so she decided to try to initiate some fun.

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Three hours and nearly an entire bottle of firewhiskey later found Hermione and Draco giggling on the couches in the living room, shouting "A! Final Answer!" and "Ask the audience! Ask the audience!" at the television.

After the best shows were over and the paid advertisements had come on, they turned off the television and introduced a new activity.

"Ok Graaaaanger," Draco slurred, "Here's the game. It's like Millionaire but BETTER!" He shouted the last word, drunkenly trying to emphasize his excitement.

"I ask you questions and you have to answer them and then you do that to me and I have to answer them," he hurriedly explained, tripping over the last words. "And you get lifelines! We have to have lifelines. Ok… we'll keep phone-a-friend. We can't very well have an ask-the-audience because," here he started to giggle loudly, "there is no audience!"

At this, Hermione started to giggle too, and poured a bit more firewhiskey in her glass.

"I know!" she shouted, "Instead of ask-the-audience, we'll add a tell-a-lie option! One of your answers can be a lie. But only one! Otherwise I'll knooooow." There was, of course, no way to tell how many times Draco lied, but he drunkenly assented and she drunkenly believed him.

Somehow, rules mattered more when intoxicated.

"And instead of 50-50," continued Draco, "we'll add a new question option, so you can drop one. Ok, so here we go. We each ask questions and then we answer them and we have a phone-a-friend, a tell-a-lie and a drop-a-question." He said all of this very fast, but Hermione nodded enthusiastically.

"We'll do rock-paper-scissors to see who goes first," Draco proposed. Hermione continued to nod.

After three tries of rock-paper-scissors, during which neither cast a legitimate gesture, they decided to give up and just let Draco go first.

"Do you find me," he cocked an eyebrow, "attractive?"

Well, it looked like she'd be using that lie right off the bat.

"Hell no, Malfoy, I'm not that drunk. Ok, my turn. If you had to make out with any professor at Hogwarts, who would it be?"

Malfoy wrinkled his nose and thought about it. "Well, I think we can safely rule out Flitwick and Slughorn. Oh and Sprout. And Grubbly-plank! And I don't even want to consider McGonagall. Hmmm… I bet Trelawney has a frisky side, I'll take her."

Hermione made gagging sounds that quickly dissolved into giggles.

"Ok Granger. Who do yoooou want to make out with?"

That was an easy one. Before he even finished the question she shouted "Oliver Wood!"

"Oliver Wood Oliver Wood Oliver Wood!"

She set down her drink and stood on her couch and screamed again "Oliver Wood Oliver Wood Oliver Wood!" When she looked over at Draco, she found him laughing so hard he could barely breathe.

"That nose-whistling, stuck up, prat of a keeper? Oh Granger, you sure know how to pick 'em."

Now Hermione needed to come up with another question. Her eyes caught his arm and before she could think twice, she asked "Did that hurt? When you got your Mark, I mean."

Draco got quiet for a moment, holding his glass with both hands and looking intently at the amber liquid it contained. Then he looked up at her and, staring at her intently, responded "Like a bitch."

His next question caught her off guard. "Are you a good kisser?"

"Well, for that, I guess I better phone a friend!" Hermione giggled and reached for her cell phone.

"Who are you calling? Krum's a little long-distance, don't you think?"

"Nooooo…. I'm calling Ron! We kissed once!" Hermione's gagging at Draco's Trelawney comment couldn't even come close to the faces he was making now.

Hermione returned to her excited perch standing on the couch, bouncing slightly.

"Ron! You're there!... Yes, I know it's late but I need you to tell Draco if I'm a good kisser or not….. No he's not asking because he's interested, he's asking because it's a game!... Here, I'll put you on speakerphone."

She fumbled with the buttons for a moment, but eventually Ron's tired and angry voice filled her living room.

"This is ridiculous, Hermione! I want to go to bed! I thought I only had this mobile thing for emergencies!"

"Ok you're on speaker! Now tell him!"

"But Her-"

"Tell him!"

"Fine! You're a good kisser, ok? Can I go to bed now? This is ridiculous. Maybe you should be in bed too!"

Normally she'd get angry at Ron for lecturing her, but she was too drunk and proud of her kissing abilities. She hung up on Ron before even responding and started to jump in circles on the couch singing "He said I'm a good kisser! He said I'm a good kisser! He said I'm a"

Before she could get to "good," she spun slightly too enthusiastically and with a shout, found herself crumpled on the floor. Draco hurried over, but was laughing too hard to offer any real assistance.

Alcohol numbs all pain, and although Hermione was sure she'd be feeling it tomorrow, she couldn't stop giggling.

"Maybe Ron's right. We do need to get to bed."

They sat on the floor in silence for a moment, before picking themselves up and retreating to their separate rooms for the night. They didn't say "goodnight," which Hermione found odd once she had shut her door. She walked back out to the living room to tell him goodnight, but then thought twice about it and stumbled back to her room.

As soon as she had closed her door, Draco returned to the living room. He wasn't sure why he had come back, but he felt like he should have said something to her. The evening had been so nice – so peaceful. It was one of the most enjoyable he had ever spent. Standing in her living room now, though, staring at her bedroom door, he decided he should just leave it at that.

So he headed back to his room and closed his door. "Goodnight, Hermione," he said quietly. Across the apartment, at the same moment, Hermione said thoughtfully "Goodnight Dra-"

Then she ran to her trash can to vomit. Damn firewhiskey.