A/N: A few of you knew this would happen, but I'm hoping it catches most of you by surprise! Also, I'm warning you right now. Next week, I'll be putting chapter 19 up on Tuesday, but I will NOT be putting up 20 until the FOLLOWING Tuesday so that I can post chapter three of What Best Friends Are For. And also because I don't want chapter 25 to go up on it's own one week. It's driving my nuts thinking about it. Anyway...
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EIGHTEEN
Hermione had allowed herself to wallow for the rest of Saturday night. She knew that if she got it out of her system, she could work on putting it behind her in the morning. It was exactly what she did upon waking up to a text from Ashton asking if brunch was still on. She had confirmed without hesitation and went about getting ready. Their time together even extended until after dinner and not once did he ask her about the night before. He was smart enough to know that regardless of how it went, she wouldn't want to talk about it.
Monday made her anxious, but as the day wore on, her nerves settled. It had hurt to see him from across the Ministry and she could tell he felt it too, but they both went their separate ways. It made it easier to pretend that nothing had ever happened between the two of them and for the first time in weeks, she was able to concentrate on the case.
However, that didn't last long as Wednesday, Draco had cracked a huge lead. As a result, Robbards put everyone in teams of four. Not surprisingly, he put her with Harry and Ron. She knew that Draco would be their fourth as the three of them had been at the forefront of this particular project since it had come across their desks a few months prior. It was much easier to pretend when she was alone in her office rather than in Harry's with the four of them working in awkward silence. A tension that didn't lessen as the rest of the week flew by.
She kept her eyes on her half of Ron's desk, trying her best to ignore the way the three of them, mostly Harry and Ron kept looking back and forth between her and Draco as well as themselves. It wasn't until Ron sat back and spilled his ink all over the table, that Hermione spoke more than three words for the first time that week.
"Ron! You need to be more careful! Or start charming your stuff so when you do bump it, it won't spill," she snapped as she hurriedly cast charms to clean the mess before it stained.
"Sorry, Mione. It was an accident. Lighten up, will you?" He shrank in his chair when she lifted her gaze to glare at him.
"I think we've done all we can for this week. Why don't we all go to the Leaky and get a drink?" Harry suggested. "Merlin knows we all need one."
Hermione turned sharply to stare at the wall over Draco's head, finding the time closer to the day getting out than she had expected. "I'll pass, thank you," she said, gathering her things to head back to her office before leaving for the day.
"A no for me as well," Draco replied, the sound of his voice making her pause for a second.
"Really you two?" Ron whined. "Come on! I would say the two of you need one more than we do."
Draco's gaze slid her way and she couldn't help but meet it. She swallowed hard and straightened up, smoothing her blouse. "Don't push it, Ron. I think I've quite had enough of you lot for the week. Excuse me," she said, moving towards the door.
She made it to her office without tripping over herself or running into anyone else; a feat in and of itself as she let her mind wander. So engrossed in her own thoughts, she stopped short at the sight of Ashton propped up on the edge of her desk with a smile on his face. "Busy day?"
She let out a heavy sigh and placed her things on her desk before leaning into his embrace. "Busy week," she muttered against his chest. "Did you have another meeting today?"
"I do."
She pulled back with a furrowed brow. "It hasn't happened yet?" she asked, looking at the clock to confirm the time. "It's a little late to-"
He silenced her with a quick press of his lips over hers. "You're my meeting for today," he replied, smiling against her lips. "Though I suppose our meeting is more of a date."
She let out a laugh and shook her head. "I should hope so. Otherwise this is wholly inappropriate for a meeting," she said as she withdrew to organize her office so she wouldn't come back to chaos first thing on Monday morning. "Where are we going?"
"Nowhere you'll need to go home and change for," he said, knowing that was why she asked. "Unless you want to, of course."
She glanced down at herself. "No, this is fine. Nothing a little magic can't freshen up."
"How much do you have left to do here?"
She smiled as she gave a few flicks of her wand and watched everything settle into place. With that, she grabbed her beaded bag from the drawer of her desk and shrugged. "Nothing now."
Ashton smiled as his arm slid around her, his hand pressing gently at the small of her back as he guided her out. As he started to tell her about the meeting he had had earlier in the day, they made their way to the lifts. It was after they had stepped into it that someone called for them to hold it. When she looked up, it was to see Draco and Astoria sliding into the compartment at the last second.
There was a moment where she was face to face with Draco and she couldn't breathe. She stared up at him, her heart hammering against the confines of her chest. She forced herself to look away, but not before she saw the way Astoria looked between the two of them. She swallowed hard and sucked air between her teeth as she dropped her gaze to the floor.
The next real breath she took wasn't until she was stepping out of the lift and away from the people inside of it. As Ashton reached for her hand, she felt herself relax. Without missing a beat, he continued the story he had been telling her before they got into the lift and walked out of the Ministry for the night.
It was the following Tuesday that the boys had left her behind in the office while they went to get lunch. It was a mutual decision. She was lost in reading through reports and Harry and Ron had known better than to even try to disturb her. When Draco had tried to invite her along, she smiled when she heard her friends try to shuffle him out without interrupting her. She knew they would bring her something back or when she found what she was looking for in the reports she would join them.
However, her concentration was broken with a soft knock to the partially open door. She looked up and did a double take at the sight of Astoria. She straightened in her seat, cleared her throat, and set the report on the desk so she could stand. "Astoria, right?"
The younger witch smiled brightly and cocked a perfectly sculpted brow. "You don't have to pretend you don't know who I am, Hermione."
She cleared her throat again and returned a nervous smile. "Sorry, I just don't believe we've met before."
"Why would we have? I was two years behind you and you had your hands full with Harry and Ron if I recall."
Hermione couldn't help but smile at that. "Malfoy's down at the cafeteria with Ron and Harry to get lunch. I'm sure you can find-"
"I'm not here for Draco."
"Oh," she replied, her heart racing. "Can I help you with something?"
"I came here to take you to lunch,"
That was leaps and bounds away from what Hermione thought she would hear as well as wanted to hear. She had been dreading this from the moment she saw Astoria looking at her and Malfoy in the elevator a few days prior. "I can't. I'm sorry, I-"
"If the boys can break for lunch, so can you," she said with that smile still on her face. "Come on, my treat," she added, turning to leave the office.
Hermione sighed and followed her out, tugging at her clothes as she went. They were silent on the way to the lobby and didn't speak again until they were settled in the little café in Diagon Alley after travelling by the Floo network. Once they had ordered, she turned to Astoria to finally break the silence. "Astoria, I'm sorry. I had no-"
"I don't want your apologies, Hermione," she interrupted. Hermione felt the urge to run, but her legs refused to obey. "I should be the one apologizing to you." She paused for a second and smiled again. "Actually, Draco should be, but he's taking far too long for my liking."
The breath she was holding burned her lungs until her body forced it out. "I'm sorry, what?"
Astoria studied her for a moment and then frowned. "He'll be cross with me for telling you this, but I saw the way you looked at each other in the lift. Both of you are being stubborn and I want to help. I feel a tad bit responsible for what happened." She took a sip of her drink and settled back in her chair. "Though not as responsible as Draco considering he should have told you from the get-go."
"Astoria…"
"Let me start from the beginning," she said, pleading with her dark eyes. "You need to hear this."
Hermione took a deep breath and gave a slight nod. "Okay."
"Pureblood tradition often includes arranged marriages. With the Sacred Twenty-Eight, sometimes the contracts are drafted the moment an heir is conceived. That's what happened with my family and the Malfoy's. Only, it was supposed to be Daphne, not me. None of us knew about it until recently.
"One day my parents invited the Malfoy's over for dinner. Apparently it had been decided that was the night they were going to announce the contract to the both of them and put it into motion." A sly smile spread across her lips as if she was about to spill some juicy gossip. "It was so quiet at the table until Daphne laughed so hard she cried. She nearly passed out.
"Turns out, she had already eloped with Theo Nott a year prior and didn't tell anyone. I was hurt that she didn't tell me, but I forgave her instantly when I saw the look on my father's face. My mother was distraught as well and Narcissa just shrugged and said it was an outdated practice anyway. But you know Lucius."
Hermione snorted and shared a knowing looking with Astoria.
"The next weekend I found myself being escorted to tea with my mother and Narcissa, something I go to often, so I wasn't suspecting anything. But my father was already there with Lucius. When Draco walked in, I knew he had been just as caught off guard as the rest of us. Our fathers reworked the contract so that I was the one to wed Draco. Our mothers immediately started fights with our fathers and Draco just escorted me out of the room.
"It was adorable, really, the way he tried to let me down without offending me. I let him ramble for far too long, thoroughly enjoying the compliments. He told me right away that he was seeing someone; someone that he hoped to have in his life for a long time." Astoria's smile was soft when Hermione's breath hitched. "He wouldn't tell me who it was out of respect, but he said it was someone worth the effort. That's how I knew it was you. The way he looked at you told me everything he wouldn't say aloud."
Hermione's throat was as dry as it was tight. She was struggling to breathe as well as hold back her tears. "But you kept up the rouse of being engaged for months."
She nodded. "Long enough for us to figure out a way out of it without me having to come out to my father. I might be confident in my choices of partners, but I have no intentions of being cut off just yet."
"Choices?"
Astoria laughed and thanked the waiter who set their food down before them. "I'm into witches, Hermione."
"Oh," she breathed, her eyes widening. "Oh! Sorry, I didn't…"
She waved her off and took a bite of her food. "Finally his mother came through for us. The engagement has been officially off since Friday. It's what I was doing at the Ministry. We were filing the dissolution paperwork. We wanted it notarized by an official so neither of our fathers could go back on their word."
Hermione stared at the plate of food before her, her stomach rolling as several emotions coursed through her.
"I don't know why he didn't tell you, Hermione, and I'm sorry if this explanation is too late to change anything between you two. I just felt that you had to know. I didn't want you to cower whenever you saw me or heard my name like you did back in the office earlier. You were never the other woman; you were the only woman."
Hermione swallowed over the lump in her throat, unable able to decide if knowing all of this made everything better or worse. "Thank you," she said after a moment, forcing herself to eat a little.
Astoria nodded. "Alright, enough with the heavy stuff. I've been dying to pick that brain of yours for ages."
Hermione couldn't help but smile at that and tabled her thoughts of Draco for when she got home where she could process them in the safety of her own place.
Wednesday, the discrepancy she had discovered in a case file weeks before came across her lap in another file. The four of them alerted Robbards and by the end of a very long day, the case had been cracked open. Once the final pieces of the puzzle had been put into place, most of those working on it were sent out to make the necessary arrests. Draco and Hermione were one of the few that stayed behind to help get a head start on paperwork.
Normally, that was the easiest part of her job, but she couldn't help but stare at Draco across from her. Astoria's words had been plaguing her since coming back from lunch the day before. She had even lost sleep debating what she should do with the information. While she was happy to know it hadn't been real, she was equally as sad and frustrated that he hadn't told her any of it from the beginning. If he liked her as much as he told Astoria, he should have said something. Maybe then they could have been utilizing the quiet of the office for something a bit less productive.
She cleared her throat and shifted in her seat, dragging her eyes away from Draco back to her report. She could feel his gaze on her, making her cheeks burn. She put up her Occlumency walls, vividly recalling the last time she had fantasized about him and the fact that he had caught her.
She didn't look up at him again for the rest of the night. Something she felt was a personal achievement of sorts. It was late when she arrived home, but she still called Ashton just like she promised she would. It led to him coming over with a very late dinner, something she had completely forgotten about during the rush of excitement from solving such a high profile case.
"So you can take some time off now, yeah?" he asked as they tucked into their food.
Her fork hovered over her takeout container as she gave a half shrug. "I suppose." She eyed him when he smirked. "Why?"
"I was thinking we could go away for the weekend," he said, his hand coming out to rest on her thigh. "Maybe turn it into a long weekend by taking Monday off."
She gave a short nod and bought herself some time by chewing her food extra slow. He had been patient with her; a perfect gentleman. This was her chance to have something real; something easy and void of secrecy. All with someone that didn't remind her of the past she had gone to great lengths to banish.
"I'll put in for it tomorrow," she said.
"Perfect, I'll make the arrangements."
Hermione only nodded and listened to him talk about his day while trying her best to squash the thoughts of Draco. If she wanted to put him behind her, Ashton had given her the perfect opportunity and she intended to make the most of it.