Chapter 12

"Honestly, Draco, I don't know what you were thinking, becoming an Auror," Hermione heard a voice say shrilly as she walked down the hospital hall where Draco was located.

When Harry had sent them a patronus, stating that Draco had been wounded in an inferi attack, she had felt sick. Inferi hadn't been used since Voldemort's days, and she knew very well that it wasn't a good sign that they were actively attacking citizens in Diagon Alley.

It most certainly didn't help that she was worried sick that the notion that Draco had been harmed. Harry's message had been cryptic and hadn't offered more details about what had happened to him exactly, and the severity of his injuries. She had no idea if he was dying, or just had a scratch, and she couldn't help but worry it was the first.

She had been terrified, and Ginny practically shoved her out the door, knowing she wouldn't rest easy until she knew just what had happened to the man. And so she found herself at St Mungos where a nurse had pointed her in the direction of Draco's room.

As she approached the room, she could see Blaise Zabini, Theo Nott, and Pansy Parkinson in the room, looking relaxed, as Draco lay in the bed beside them, looking exasperated.

"For Salazaar's sake, Pansy," Draco rolled his eyes, "Injuries happen all the time. Becoming an Auror was hardly the worst choice in profession. Besides, it's not exactly as if I'm dying am I? I was merely-"

"You passed out from pain from having several inferi attack you, pulling your limbs in opposite directions. Your ribs were cracked, you had several broken bones, you were cut and bleeding, and nearly died from blood loss. You had a head injury, and not to mention your leg was nearly severed," Pansy stated, looking at him angrily, "Don't play it off as if it were nothing."

She let out a gasp at the mention of his injuries, and all eyes in the room turned to look at her.

"Hermione," Draco said, lighting up at the sight of her.

"I didn't know you had company," she said softly, "I can come back later."

"Nonsense," Theo said, standing up, as he walked over to her, "We were just going to grab some food from the cafeteria. You should keep Draco company in that time. Merlin knows what he's like when he gets bored."

"I'm not that bad," he complained.

"You once spent an entire week at my family library because you were bored and had read all the books in yours," Blaise pointed out, "You wouldn't stop complaining until we let you read the books from ours."

"And then there was the time where you made the elves play Quidditch with you because you didn't have enough to have a full team," Theo reminded him.

"Or the time where you-" Pansy smirked, before Draco cut her off.

"Okay I get it!" Draco protested, before wincing.

The three left the room, and Hermione sat down beside him, "Are you okay?" she asked him softly, as she threaded her fingers through his.

"I've been better," he admitted, "It won't las long though. The healer told me she was discharging me in the morning, thankfully. Merlin knows I have more than enough work to get through without being tied up to this bed."

"You should take it easy," she said gently, "You don't want to strain yourself too much when you're recovering from an injury."

"I won't," he reassured her, "But I do need to get back to this case soon. The paperwork for an inferi attack is going to be enormous."

"Do you have any idea what happened?" she asked him softly, not wanting to pry too much into an active investigation.

"No," he shook his head, "We believe it could be related to the slaying of magical creatures, but why inferi were used, we have no idea. Harry and I are going to put together a list of suspects, such as Death Eaters who evaded capture."

"Be careful," she said, knowing fully well that despite how far Draco had come since the war, if they started pointing fingers, it was only a matter of time before someone accused him of being a Death Eater, despite the outcome of his trial.

"I will," he said smiling gently at her. "The Aurors Office trusts me; if the press tries anything, they'll ensure it doesn't get out to the public."

She heard the three former Slytherins who had gone to get food return just then, and she stood, kissing Draco's forehead, before saying, "I should get back to Rose. It's late and I don't want her waking up and asking after me. I'll talk to you when you're released."

He nodded at her, and she left the room, acknowledging Zabini, Nott, and Parkinson, before returning home.

Hermione sat in the library wondering to herself why on earth she had believed Draco Malfoy when he had claimed he would meet her there to work on their project together.

Obviously he had said it to get her to shut up, and in her disbelief over his agreeing, she had actually thought that he would keep his word and show up when he said he would. She should have known better than to think she could get him to agree to meet up with her to work on a shared assignment.

She should have known better when she had wanted to help save him from whatever it was that was going on in his life. She should have known better than to try and save someone who didn't want to be saved. Merlin, if Harry and Ron had any idea of what she was trying to do, they would have her committed to St Mungos for losing her mind.

And maybe she should be. Just because Draco Malfoy wasn't showing his explicit hate for her, what's to say he didn't still hate her? With the Ministry attempting to cover their arses for not believing Harry last year, there was quite a bit of effort going into investigating all claimed Death Eaters, even if they were doing a rather shoddy job of it. So for all she knew, Malfoy wasn't spewing hate simply because he was trying not to draw any more attention to their family after his father had been locked up.

She had sighed to herself; she probably would have spent time in the library even if it weren't to meet up with Malfoy, so there was no harm in getting ahead on the Potions essay that she had due at the end of the month.

She pulled out the potions book she had borrowed, as she began to skim through it, taking notes on any section that she thought could be relevant to the topic on hand, which she would later sort through and compile an outline for an essay before writing her initial draft for it. She knew she might be putting in more work than others, but she wanted to do well, something which wasn't a crime.

And with the papers claiming more and more that muggleborns were having issues getting a job after school, she knew she needed to fight even harder. She couldn't let anyone look at her and deem her less worthy of a job because of her blood. And she certainly wasn't about to give them any excuses. No, she was going to fight harder, and prove to all of them that she was just as worthy as they were to get the same jobs and career opportunities.

She worked for another hour or so, before she sighed to herself. She closed her book, because clearly Malfoy wasn't joining her, and she had had a rather long week, and just wanted to get some rest.

"Going somewhere?" she heard a bored drawl, and looked up to see Malfoy standing there, with his book bag in his hand, before sitting down beside her.

"You're late," she said, pointedly, as she grabbed her Arithmacy notes from her bag.

"I showed up, didn't I?" he asked her, annoyed.

"I suppose you did," she sighed, not wanting to push her luck.

He grabbed his own notes from his bag and looked at her, "How about we exchange notes and see what the other has, and then go from there?"

She blinked, surprised, "That's actually a really good idea."

"Not all of us are as dumb as Potter and Weasley," he said dryly as he handed her his notes, "Some of us are capable of thinking for ourselves."

She let out a breath of air, calming herself from yelling at him, because she knew very well that if she gave him the satisfaction of annoying her, he wouldn't stop any time soon. She gave him the notes she had taken and looked over his.

As she read over his, she couldn't help but feel surprised. For all the trouble he had given her over working together, he had done quite a bit of work on his section.

They had spent the rest of the session like that, reading each other's extensive notes, deciding that they would offer options later, as it was growing close to curfew and despite him mocking her over it, she'd rather not get detention from Fitch.

As she headed up to the Gryffindor tower, she couldn't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, she could redeem Draco Malfoy after all.

Hermione sipped her cup of tea as she sat at the empty table, waiting for her colleague to join her. Draco had been released a few hours earlier, and had stopped by her office to prove to her that he was perfectly fine, and was not still injured.

She had frowned at that, but he was like Harry in a lot of aspects, one of which being that he never quite liked downtime when he was injured and prevented from doing more useful things.

"Sorry I'm late," Lavender said, as she slipped into the seat across from Hermione, placing her handbag down as she smiled at her.

"It's fine," Hermione reassured her co-worker with a grin.

Despite never being close with Lavender while they were in school, both of the girls had grown up and placed their differences behind them. It had certainly helped that they no longer lived together, and Hermione didn't have to put up with her and Parvati's gossiping, and they didn't have to put up with her late night studying habits. It also helped that Lavender was more than happy with Ernie,, and they were no longer "competing" for the same guy. Despite her former relationship with Draco back in school, she couldn't very well tell Lavender the reason why she wasn't actually interested in Ron back then, and Lavender's jealous at the time made it hard for her to see reason.

Hell, neither of them wanted him anymore.

Nothing had surprised Hermione more than when she had showed up for her first day for training to be a lawyer. The batch was rather small, given how most people had chosen to go into other careers that year, such as healing, or the Auror's office, given the influence of the war. What had been shocking to her, however, was that Lavender was amongst the batch, as she hadn't expected to see very many people she knew, much less her former dorm mate.

The two of them had been civil at first, and as time went on, they began to converse more and more, realising that the two of them had some common ground after all. When she had asked the girl what her reasons were for going into the field, Lavender had simply laughed.

"I've always enjoyed arguing with people," Lavender had said lightly, "And it seemed like a sensible decision." She had sobered up for a moment, "But in all honesty, my mother's sister got a divorce a few years ago. Her husband was a horrid man, who would hurt her and take every chance to belittle her. Mum hated the man more than anything. And when Aunt Helen got a divorce, he took her for everything she had. I never want to see that happen to another person where their spouse tries to ruin them. So I'm going to represent every person I can and ensure they are not left in ruins after their divorce."

Aside from their friendship, it had been one of the reasons why Hermione had asked Lavender to meet up with her after work. She knew she probably could go to someone else, but they wouldn't have as close a relationship to her as Lavender did and would be less motivated to fight for her. Besides, a case between two war heroes would be difficult to represent, and she didn't want to lose her daughter because her lawyer was sympathetic to Ron as well.

"I'm assuming you want to formally put an end to your marriage?" Lavender asked her, as her latte was placed in front of her by their server.

"I do," she said with a sigh, "I can't do it anymore, Lav. I need to be out of that marriage. I need to be free of him, and give myself and my daughter the life we deserve."

"Good," Lavender nodded, "You always could do so much better than him, Hermione. I was stupid back then, and considered you a threat, when all you were doing was trying to be a friend to him."

"I didn't want him back then," she confessed. "I'm not all that sure I wanted him after either. But life pushed us together, and somewhere along the line I lost myself in his ways. But I need to move on from it, and I want him gone. Ideally, this would all be over as soon as possible and I'd never have to see him again."

Lavender snorted, "I love you, Hermione, but there's no way this will blow over quietly. Ron is going to drag this out for as long as possible, and make a huge scene about it. He's going to try and discredit you to the media and play the distraught husband. He's going to do everything in his power to make sure you come out on the bottom of this."

"I know," she sighed, "It's one of the reasons I asked you to represent me. I need someone I can trust who won't just roll over because Ron asked them to. I need someone with my best interests in mind."

She silently rubbed her wrist where Ron had grabbed her before and Lavender's eyes had flashed angrily. She had always suspected something was off, but Hermione had always played off all her queries as nothing.

"It's going to be long and difficult," Lavender warned her, "People won't believe the claims of abuse and violence, as well as alcoholism unless you can show them proof. They will insult you, and hurt you, and make you out to be a liar. But I promise you, I will fight for you and to get you and Rosie away from him. You have my word, Hermione."

She smiled at the woman, known she fully intended to keep her promise.

Hermione crossed out one of the arguments she had written down for her upcoming case, realising that it would be far too easy for the defense to counter with the argument of Imperius, despite the defendant stating under veritasium that he had done it out of his own free will.

"Hermione?" he heard a voice call out and she looked up to see George standing there. She stood awkwardly, and he leaned in and hugged her carefully. "I'm sorry, I heard from Mum that you're getting a divorce from Ron."

"George-" she started softly, unsure of what to say to her.

"Don't," he raised a hand, "I don't need you to give me arguments, Hermione. I know why you're doing it. I've seen for years how unhappy you were with Ron. I've seen how my git of a brother treated you. You're doing what's best for your family. I don't need you to try and convince me that this is right, when I can see that for myself."

"Thank you," she said softly relaxing into his arms.

The two of them had grown closer after the war; George needed someone to talk to about Fred, and his family understood his pain, but they felt their own as well and couldn't grasp the pain George felt to its full significance. And Hermione needed someone who understood about the loss of her parents, who wanted nothing to do with her. They had bonded, and she considered him to be akin to a brother to her.

"I also heard that he hurt you," George's eyes flashed, "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

"Because I never wanted you to have to pick sides. You shouldn't have to choose between your friend and your brother," She said looking down, "It wouldn't be fair to you."

"It wasn't fair to you that he hurt you!" George said angrily. "You deserve better, Hermione." He calmed down slightly, and looked at her, "I need you to know that we all stand by you. Ron might be family, but so are you. Just because you aren't married to him anymore, doesn't mean that you're alone in this. We will stand by you in court, and I'll testify if I need to for you to get custody. You don't have to do this alone."

She felt a few tears slip down her face as his words settled in. Despite Ginny's promises she had still been terrified that she was putting the family in an awkward position, but to know that they were willing to fight for her as well gave her hope. Suddenly, it felt like she had more hope of coming out of the case successful. And hopefully soon, Ron would be far behind her.