I Love(d) You (Once)

Chapter Eight: I Loved You Once

Ignatius Prewett tugged at his Hawaiian-shirt—he didn't have time to change because he had grabbed the emergency Port-key and got here immediately when he heard the startling rumour from Maurice Pucey, his long-time business partner. Seated in his office, the sombre darkness made a stark difference to his bright attire, like a candle flame to the dark of night. In front of his desk stood a young man, sweating so profusely the rim of his shirt collar had soaked through with sweat despite the cold season. Artie took to staring at the window behind Prewett, and took quiet, slow and even breaths, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible. Even if he had met Ignatius in more favourable circumstances, there was no doubt he would be more than flustered. Harry Potter may have had defeated He Who Must Not Be Named, but it was Ignatius Prewett and Maurice Pucey who had picked up the pieces and rebuilt society as they knew it now.

Artie took a quick glance at Ignatius and found himself meeting his eyes. "Are you going to tell me what happened?" asked Ignatius softly. He never felt the need to raise his voice, his whole person commanded respect. People did what he asked of them.

Artie's eyes watered and he choked as quietly as possible, trying not to draw attention to himself. The intern's display made Ignatius raise an eyebrow, though incidents and people seldom surprised him. Maurice gave a light chuckle to break the tension.

"You work for Draco and Hermione," said Maurice. "And they answer to us. Don't be afraid, we'll make sure they won't punish you for doing this."

The younger man shook his head. "I don't know anything." And he didn't, Hermione and Draco left him out of their Secret Plan the way school children excluded their classmates from playground games. Artie wasn't even sure the two bosses knew anything was amiss – they might just be testing him – so he was going to keep his mouth zipped shut until Hermione and Draco came back from wherever they were.

"Could you please call them in here for me?" Ignatius asked Artie. Tight-lipped, Artie pulled his phone out of his pocket and began to dial a number…

One of the many things which the Muggle Revolution had brought into the Wizarding world was the ease of communication; not only was it faster than sending an owl, there were some things better expressed in conversation. However, it appeared the message which flitted across Draco Malfoy's cellphone late into the night, would have appeared ominous, no matter in what mode it was delivered. A message from one's employer after business hours, demanding his presence – especially when he was supposed to be on vacation – meant only bad news. He left with Pansy and Astoria still staring daggers at each other at the bar and rushed off to the company.

Draco met Hermione at the elevator, and as the doors swung shut they made their journey up to their employers' office with their glum expressions reflected on the steel panes of the door. He placed his hands in his jacket pockets as they rode in silence and found the puzzle Hermione had gifted him in there. He had planned to show off the completed puzzle to Hermione the next time he saw her, but this was hardly the relaxed situation he envisaged their next reunion to be. They were halfway up the company tower now, and Hermione remained muted and had closed her eyes, as though she could disappear from the place if she could make her presence less noticeable. After a longer string of silence, Draco couldn't contain himself anymore. "Did you tell anyone?"

"Of course not! Granted, after our slapdash exeunt, they might have heard something from someone... rumours... I don't believe they could have found solid evidence tying us to anything. Right?"

"We're the only two that know the full story. I think they'll have their suspicions. I don't know. We'll find out when we get there, I suppose. Who knows, we might be freaking about nothing," he lied, "Maybe they're calling us up for a reason entirely different."

She nodded. All their efforts would amount to nothing if their bosses could prove what they had done. The elevator doors slid open, and they stepped into the corridor. Ahead, the doors to the client room was wide open, and the two heads of the respective companies watched as the incoming pair approached them. Hermione gave Draco a perfect expression of panic when she was close enough to see their expressions. Draco involuntarily swallowed.

Ignatius sighed when he saw Hermione. He had thought to train her up for a few years and leave the company to her when he retired. But right now, it looked like she'd have to be packing up her office soon. "We'll be questioning the two of you."

She gulped, knowing Ignatius would be interrogating her. Draco adopted a poker face, as he often did in times of adversary. His heart was pounding in his chest and it made matters worse to know Hermione and himself would be questioned separately. Together, they were sure to be able to overcome any obstacle, but alone… alone... and it was too soon—the heads of the company got up and like ducklings following their mother, Draco and Hermione trailed behind their bosses into their separate offices.

Maurice took a seat behind his desk and made no offer for Draco to sit after he had closed the door behind him with a swish of his wand. "Draco, is there anything you'd like to tell me?" he asked as Draco kept his eyes trained at the pot plant in front of him. His gaze could cut through glass. "Draco."

The blond continued to stare at the foliage. The only sign of tension within his body was the slight heightening of his shoulders. He refused to look at his boss, knowing the mere glance at his superior would make him cave. "I know how you are with secrets. But I can't tell you..."

Maurice sighed. "We have no solid evidence to hold anything against you but I want you to come clean."

Draco bit his lip, trying not to yield to the temptation.

"If you come clean, I'll be generous," Maurice began, "You see, we knew making the two of the brightest in our company tell the truth would be… difficult… so we had to instigate a situation of sorts."

"Ignatius Prewett is asking Granger the same thing, isn't she?" croaked Draco.

"Yes," said Maurice. "If Hermione tells the truth which involves you in any way and you keep silent, we'll assume you're the one responsible for everything, because the only evidence available of a person involved if you. I'll fire you and she gets to keep her job. It applies the other way round."

"If we say both of us were in it, then you'll demote both of us," Draco guessed. "There's no way you'd fire us both." The smile on Maurice's face confirmed his idea. Draco was silent as he considered his options. His head was spinning. "And if we both remain silent..."

"There would be no evidence, so nothing," Maurice said. "Do you think Hermione would trust you not to betray her? Her job is on the line."

"So is mine," he replied, feeling sick to the stomach. He hated it when Maurice played the devil's advocate; Hermione would never betray him… she was good like that. That was just the kind of person she was. She is such a smart person, and she could catch out a million faults to use against you in a second. Only she was good, so she used her skills to help people instead of putting them down: she was that kind of person…

"I'm sure you trust her to do what's right, but what are you going to do? If you get demoted or fired, you won't be able to gain access to those files," Maurice said.

And Draco did believe Hermione would do what was right, or what she thought was right, at least?". Only he wasn't exactly sure what Hermione would think was right. She always had a sense of justice about her, and what was right with her would be…? To tell the truth, consequences be damned? Or be a martyr? No that was left to Harry Potter. After all, the truth was that she was the one who started everything.

"So answer this one question for me, with a yes or no. Did Hermione do something wrong?"

"It..." Draco began to say, and at the same time, Ignatius began to speak in another room.

"Take a seat both of you."

"First, don't take it too hard on Artie. He tried his best to lie. Lucky for his future wife, he's not good at it," Ignatius said and began to explain why he had brought her here to question her, away from the Malfoy and Pucey parties.

"You've got to be kidding me," she said, her mouth hanging open.

Ignatius looked at his watch and said, "I'm giving you thirty seconds to decide what you want to say."

She looked down at her shoes and deliberated. The question boiled down to whether Draco would place his interests above her own. Both their jobs meant a lot to them—it took up so much of their time and energy, it pretty much defined them. She shuddered to think what would happen if she kept silent and he ended up blathering. She'd be fired! The thought made Hermione's blood run ice-cold. If she kept silent while Draco blamed her, she'd have to shoulder all the blame. If she left the company under those circumstances, no one would be willing to hire her. There'd be no way Ron and she could afford a home then. She'd be left with nothing. Hermione wasn't the type to sabotage or deliberately rid people of their jobs, but in the end Draco had chosen to follow hadn't he? Every person was responsible for his or her own actions and consequences which flowed from them. And if it was about spreading losses… Draco was rich. Sure, he had lost his family fortune by blasting himself off the family tree—which meant he was no longer recognised, in a magical sense, as a Malfoy—but he was still very well off. He didn't need a job. In an ideal world, Draco and Hermione would trust each other enough and both of them would get out of this mess. But in reality, speaking up, (and it was the truth so it wasn't about betraying anyone) meant guaranteeing an end to living in a small apartment, from living on such a tight budget for Hermione. And she was sure he would speak up anyway, he was too self-interested to be a martyr. Ha! If the situation wasn't so grim, Hermione would have found the idea hilarious.

And if Draco did decide to keep quiet? He'd get fired, sure. But at least he had a large bank balance to continue to provide sustenance and shelter over his head. If I cover for him and he betrays me, I'm left with nothing, she thought. It's just about spreading the losses. Having decided that there was no debate in what she would say.

"Did Draco Malfoy do something wrong?" Ignatius asked.

After Draco told Maurice's his answer, he nodded and stood from his seat. "We will talk in front of the Prewett company."

Maurice pushed the door open and Draco felt sick at heart. Hermione and Ignatius sat on couches in the middle of the room. Artie had been sent away. Maurice and Draco took a seat adjacent to them. The two older men shook their heads at each other. They had both told on each other. That much was clear.

"You have disappointed us."

After the relief of knowing she was not fired, Hermione shot a glance at Draco and her expression mirrored his, it was the look of intense irritation, the kind of look you'd give to someone who had just pushed you under a heavy, moving vehicle.

"Maurice, I'm glad you convinced me I'm a decade too young to retire. Both of you have failed miserably."

"As you had undoubtedly caught on, the two of you have been working together for almost half a year, we wanted to see the extent of the trust you've fostered. When I set you to partner with Draco Malfoy you were more than reluctant to do so, despite spending three years in Salem together."

"You didn't want to work with me?" asked Draco even more hurt with this revelation. It felt like he had lost just lost in a quidditch game, and to add to the insult a stray bludger had knocked him off his broom after the opposition seeker caught the snitch.

Hermione looked down, uncomfortable that Ignatius chose to bring that up. Now she wished she hadn't spoken up, but at the start, the thought of working with Draco was… "I didn't want things to get complicated between us."

"Ahem," said Ignatius. "When Prewett and Pucey merges, the two of you will be partners managing the largest consultant and hired-help company in the whole of Great Britain. I am disappointed the two of you chose to betray each other."

"We don't have evidence to bring you to the Ministry, but with your confession as 'proof', we sure can discipline you on our own. We've received complaints from Director Mar and she has decided to never work with us again. What were you two thinking?"

"It was her fault," Hermione said in a rush. "She was the one who tweaked the contract."

"And so you decided to break the law instead of proving fraud in the conventional means, why?" Maurice's voice was no less as furious as his partner. "The whole point of merging the Pucey and Prewett firm was to gain Ministry-approval. This sort of insolent activity would shake the integrity of our companies." He glared at the blond man. "Stealing someone's identity and trespassing into our client's company? You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"I'm sorry," said Hermione and at the same time, Draco muttered a rare apology.

"Both of you are going to be disciplined for doing something so reckless. What makes it even worse was that the two of you knew the risks and chose to run with it anyway," said Ignatius, shaking his head. "Hermione, why didn't you tell me about the contract from the start?"

"B-Because…" she spluttered. "I thought I could handle this. I didn't want to disappoint you, I wanted to fix it."

"You are afraid of failing," Ignatius told her.

"The two of you have to take responsibility of your reckless actions." He took out two collapsed-cardboard boxes and handed one to the two of them. "You two are hereby demoted and until you can prove yourselves. The two of you will be dealing with first-year level cases.

"I didn't work so hard in the company to be moving furniture," protested Draco.

"And my salary?" said Hermione in a shaky voice.

"Oh, of course you'd care about that," said Draco priggishly. And it became clear to him exactly why Hermione chose to tell on him; not for the interests of justice or anything, but because she wanted her pay to keep coming in. Hermione shot him a glare and looked back at her boss for the answer.

"Entrance level."

Hermione closed her eyes as she felt the world crashing around her.

"You are now dismissed," said Maurice, looking tired and as though he'd aged a decade from this conversation.

Draco gripped the cardboard box and headed for the elevator. She didn't feel like speaking to Draco right now and had deliberately walked slower, but there he was stony-faced, keeping the door open for her.

Unbelievable, Draco thought to himself. The reason why she told Ignatius was because of her stupid dream for a house? And here he had thought it was about integrity. He yanked the cube out of his pocket and threw it at Hermione as the elevator shut. Caught by surprise, it bounced off her and it fell apart, the multi-coloured pieces scattered across the elevator floor.

"Hey!"

"Take it back. Gifts aren't so nice when the givers aren't nice themselves."

"What?" she asked, chagrin flushed through her features. Draco had no right to take this out on her, he had told on her too! Trying to be the bigger person—of course Draco would be the kind of person to throw temper tantrums when things didn't go his way—she ignored the comment and the bright coloured pieces on the ground. The two stood in a chilled silence and the faint drone of the elevator only increased the tension. Unable to bear it any longer, Draco pulled out his wand and with a violent swing, the elevator lurched to a sudden stop and having lost her footing, Hermione crashed into the side of the elevator. "What are you doing?"

"Shut up," he said, pacing from one corner to another. He continued back and forth in the small elevator an agitated manner. "Just shut up."

She stared at the man, afraid of how he was behaving. Maybe he had cracked under the news of his demotion, or had fallen too hard out of the building. Or was drunk. "Are you all right?" she asked him, staring at him.

Clearly he was not, for Draco's fist crashed against the wall, any harder and there would be dents in the metal case. Even so, the elevator shook and rattled. His normally pallid complexion had turned bleached paper white, as though a Dementor had sucked spent the last few minutes sucking his soul out, and Hermione could see his struggle to keep composure. Draco grinded his molars, and forced himself to take deep breaths, exhaling loudly through his nose. He dared not open his mouth until he was suitably composed. The effort to remain calm, to Hermione only increased her dread.

"People said you were beautiful," he finally said, his voice had taken an awkward stilted quality in hopes of feigning calmness. "Because people often say true beauty is reflected in actions and the amount of care given."

"M-Malfoy, what are you talking about?" He had definitely cracked, and although she could see he was trying to control herself, her instincts were screaming, telling her to leave. She tightened the grasp on the cardboard box in front of her and pulled out her wand and chanted a spell to get the elevator to start moving again. The machine whirled to life and with a rattle, they began to descend again.

"On the surface, you're beautiful—but today you showed me something else. Tonight I realised, you're rotten to the core. Just like me… just like the rest of us. I've seen you for what you really are now. I never loved you."

What. The. Flipping. Fuck. "Malfoy," said Hermione, her eyes wide. This whole situation seemed surreal. His palpable rage was scaring her, but she didn't think he'd ever hurt her, not even when he drew out his wand. What she was afraid of were the words coming out of his mouth. "What's going on?"

"You are manipulated me!"

"I did no such thing!" Hermione said. "When did I do that?"

Heat burned in his chest and he whacked the handrail in the elevator. "You used me."

No matter how shocked he was over the demotion, it did not give him a right to take out his rage on her. "I beg your pardon?"

"You used me," he said again. "You treated me like toilet paper. I wiped away all your shit and then you threw me away."

"You're being impossible. I can't believe you're saying this to me."

"You dragged me into this," said Draco, his voice full of ice. "I wanted to tell them, but no, you wanted to do it yourself."

Her eyes widened to the size of a crystal ball. "Well hindsight is 20/20. But are you trying to suggest this is all my fault? That you were completely innocent? That you had nothing to do with this? You were the one who created the plan."

"You used me," he repeated in a hiss.

They really had to clear that up. "I didn't use you; I asked you to help me," Hermione said in a rather short tone, as though she had been explaining something to an insolent five-year old for the hundredth time.

"I didn't have a choice," he said. He stepped away from her and looked as though he might be sick.

"Um no, you did have a choice. I was there too," she said, "I asked you to help and you said yes."

"You compelled me to help you!"

Hermione snorted. "What, did I hit you with an Imperius curse when you weren't looking?" When the words slipped out of her mouth, she felt a twinge of guilt. She shouldn't have said that, but right now her temper was starting to rise. Draco's expression turned stone rigid and he smashed his fists against the elevator walls. "Stop that! You're going to break the elevator. And Merlin help me if I have to be stuck in here any longer than I have to with you."

Draco shot her a glare, and Hermione jumped with a start, for the realising this was much, much different from the regular "differences in opinion which sometimes turned quite heated" they had and that her comment had crossed the line, she opened her mouth to apologise for the comment—not for anything else, but he spoke before her.

"You knew I wouldn't refuse the chance of running to your rescue."

"You were more than willing to help," she reminded him again. "You were there too! I didn't hold you by wandpoint at any time."

"You should've accepted your fate instead of choosing to drag me into this mess. You thought your job was important? Well this might come as a surprise, but my job was even more important to me!"

Hermione stared at Draco, whose whole body went rigid with resentment. After yelling out the last sentence, his anger turned icy cold again. Even though she was angry at Draco for throwing a fit and blaming her for everything, she could tell something was amiss. He's too angry, I'm missing something, Hermione realised. There's something else. She saw the strange and hurt expression in his eyes and she gulped as her heart sped up. What he said at the start. There had been an unspoken agreement between them to never speak of it… Please don't, she silently begged.

"Screw that cube of yours. I've solved the ultimate puzzle. On the surface, you're beautiful. And I loved you for that," he said and his voice broke as he swallowed the fury he couldn't keep inside of him. Hermione cringed at his confession; he had opened the Pandora box created many years back, an incident that had rendered her speechless and she told no one about. "I loved you for the something good I thought I found in you, unlike all the arseholes surrounding me." He kicked at a stray puzzle piece at his feet. It skidded and rebounded against the wall. "But then you dragged me through your shitty problems and left me to rot because your job was so important."

The dread of the confession—or whatever that might have been made her blood run ice cold. She had been patient, and she had tried explaining what her point of view was, but there was no way she could put up with this any longer, not when he started pulling anything and everything out in the open. And she hated how he was trying to accuse her of manipulating him, when he was trying to twist the story and force her to… she couldn't take it anymore. Draco Malfoy in this particular circumstance brought the absolute worse out of Hermione. "Malfoy, shut up!"

"You were supposed to be different—you weren't supposed to manipulate me with that! You were supposed to be the one thing I could trust to be good."

"I…" she said. She hated being backed into a corner like this! "I stand by what I said. You're responsible for your own actions, and… I'm with Ron."

"Oh, thank you, High Priestess of Obvious."

"I didn't say anything and pretended not to notice because you didn't want me to," she said, feeling defensive and hardly noticing she too had starting lumping tonight's incidence with something else entirely. "It's not fair you're mad at me for not returning your feelings. You knew I wouldn't return them."

"Hell as though I'm angry about that!"

"You knew the risks to the plan," she said again. Her voice only sounded shriller in the enclosed metal box. "And you're being a hypocrite if you're angry about me blaming things on you. You did the same!"

"I'm upset but I would have eventually gotten over it," he admitted. "But the reason why I'm furious, why I'm never going to treat you the same is not because you knew my feelings and didn't accept them, it was because it took but a second to use them against me for your own gain."

"I did not do that!" she insisted.

"Oh yeah, then why out of everyone you could have asked, you asked me?" he spat back. "Because out of everyone you knew the chances of someone being so stupid as to risk his job to help you—the only one daft enough is me!"

"No…" she said. "I asked you, because—"

"Don't try to deny it! You definitely thought about through everything before you approached me—hell to what would happen to me after! Don't you dare try to say otherwise, I've spent my whole life living with my family. I know. I know!"

Draco pressed all the buttons on the elevator and in a few seconds the doors opened to the nearest floor and he stepped outside. He turned and glared at her. "Don't come out." He didn't look back as the elevator door closed and he kicked the door to the staircase open. He would walk the remaining flights.

Hermione felt like a cork to a bottle, for the surmounting pressure in her heart about to make her explode. "But I didn't," she said, with the same angry defensiveness as a battalion as they charged down the hill to protect their land. She wasn't wrong in this. She didn't manipulate him or use him like that. She asked him and he made a free, deliberate and informed choice. Draco was a grown man and capable of taking responsibility of his own actions. It was unfair for him to even insinuate that she would take advantages of his feelings—or anything of that sort.

And that was that.

Hope you guys enjoyed that. Obviously their relationship before was much much too happy without something to happen to it... TBC!