"Misses are you okay?" Booky timidly asked as she made her way back into the room.
"Oh I'm so sorry Booky!" Hermione gushed over to the tiny elf. "We have lots of work to do, we have to get this whole office space in order but if you'd like to take one of your two breaks now you can go ahead and do that."
"Oh no Booky told Missies I like working for Misses I don't need a break!" squeaked the tiny elf.
"That quite all right Booky I'll let you off an hour early with pay then." Hermione stated.
"Umm Granger, can I have a private moment over here please?" Draco asked.
Hermione shot the blonde a dirty look. She hoped he wasn't going to be constantly interrupting. None the less she walked over. "Yes?" she whispered.
Draco leaned in close and whispered, "Granger, you can't actually mean to tell me you hired that elf on the Ministry's pay roll?"
Hermione gave him a stern look and took a deep breath in. Uh oh Draco recognized this position from Hogwarts, she was about to live a lecture. "I'll have you know Draco that this is exactly what our department is all about, equality and safe working conditions for all magical beings. Every magical species deserves to be treated fairly. We are going to set the standards that the rest of the world will follow."
Draco sighed loosened his tie and sank on top of the old desk. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He could already feel the stress piling up. "You know there are bunches of old purebloods who will love nothing more than to see us fail if they got wind on this department."
"Well then they can bring their equality concerns here, since we'll be dealing with as well." Hermione said in a threatening tonne. "And I'll gladly give anything thick prejudiced pureblood like you, a reality check."
That last comment stung a bit. Nice to know what she thought of him, Draco thought to himself. I guess he shouldn't have been surprised. "This is no joke Granger." He warned her.
"I guess we just won't fail then." She replied.
The rest of the morning was spent in silence and hard work. With the help of Booky's elf cleaning expertise, they had the walls and book shelves restored, the wooden doors strengthened and the floors cleaned to reveal a beautiful shiny marble finish. All they needed now was a good coat of paint and some Ministry furniture.
Hermione finally broke the silence to discuss the layout of their new department. The space was an L shape. When you walked in all you could see was a large wooden desk, to the right was two large windows overlooking London and the remaining two walls were covered in book shelves.
"I'm thinking of keeping this room closed off like this instead of knocking down this wall," Hermione explained, "Either Booky or one of us can be here to greet clients, visitors and employees and these beautiful Victorian bookshelves can house all of our books and policies once were done with everything. We can create pamphlets and books for visitors to take with them to make sure they have all the guidelines they need to enforce."
Draco proceeded to follow her as she went through the arched passageway that led to the longer part of their L shaped office. Hermione went to ramble on how she wanted to keep more private filling cabinets, a couple desks, office supplies and storage back here. She walked all the way down to the end of the narrow space and reached to open the door. "Hmm I wonder where this leads," Hermione said.
Before he could warn that it leads to Potters stupid exit poll she was already tripping forward.
Instinct took over and Draco quickly grabbed her by the Hips and tossed her back into the office so she wouldn't fall down five floors. Instead he took the fall himself. As he was being knocked around the small shoot he quickly wondered why he seemed to be developing Potters hero complex, especially around the mighty book worm. However there was not enough time to think things over as he roughly grabbed onto the poll just in time for a safe landing. He stepped away from the poll with all the dignity he could muster and looked around to find himself in the Ministry cafeteria.
"Oi Malfoy!" A saucy red haired women with horrible impeccable timing walked over, "Where's my husband and brother? Don't you dolts usually lunch together?"
"Listen Red," she scowled every time he called her that, "I don't know where they are cause not only did I just save your furry headed female friend from breaking every bone in her body but I bloody took this fall down the pole."
"You're the one Hermione has to work with?" The red head gave a very Slytherin smirk, "Interesting."
Draco rolled his eyes. He quite liked the little Red and their bickering. She worked in the Ministry as head chef in the cafeteria and she had grown on him over the years. More like he had grown on her.
On queue Hermione came running out of the lift and over to them, can't be that hard to spot bleach blonde and flaming red hair in a crowd.
"Oh Malfoy I'm so sorry!" Hermione said while she began inspecting him, fixing his collar, checking his head for bumps. Draco stood their perplexed for a moment. He wasn't used to this kind of attention not even from his own mother. "Are you okay? Do you have any cuts?" Hermione rambled on while she continued to grab and prod his face for a closer inspection. Draco grabbed both of her hands in his but that didn't stop her from rambling on.
"Granger I'm fine." He said but she was still apologizing over n over and rambling something about workplace injuries being horrible for the new department.
"Granger..Granger.." Draco tried again however she continued to rant about her department meaning to be injury prevention not causing injuries.
"Hermione!" He shouted. He had never called her by her first name before and it effectively captured her attention. "I'm fine don't worry. I'm sorry I should have told you about Potters stupid exit poll."
They were both silent for a minute. If anyone would have told this story without witnessing it no one would believe. Hermione fussing over Draco and Draco apologizing was just unheard of. They both looked down to find they were still holding hands and quickly jumped apart.
"Interesting, very interesting," Ginny said causing both of them to blush and storm away.