Hermione only manages to make it through the ministry atrium and into the lift before she's second guessing her decision, the green apple a dead weight in her palm.

Honestly, what is she going to do with it? She can't- and won't- go looking for him before she goes to her own office. And yet it also seems incredibly silly to carry around an apple until she just so happens to see the twat.

He could even be doing field work today, for Godric's sake!

Yes, this was most definitely a mistake, Hermione decides. The lift comes to a stop and let's in more passengers, filling to the brim as it normally does.

Perhaps she should throw the damned thing away before she even gets to her office. Yes, that's what she'll do, considers that this the best idea she's had in the last 24 hours and it makes her want to weep.

This is all Harry's fault, she thinks bitterly as she exits the lift on her floor. Honestly, why she ever listens to him-

Her train of thought is abruptly cut off as she rounds the corner and is presented with the entirely irritating view of Malfoy leaning against the wall across from her office. He's in another perfectly pressed grey suit (honestly, does he own anything other than grey or black?), his outer robes carefully folded over his arm.

Even the way he leans against the wall screams pompous prat, one ankle crossed over the other, his broad, pale hands propping open today's Prophet. His head is dipped over slightly, white blond hair falling across his forehead, reading whatever monstrosity of an article Skeeter has been allowed to publish today.

Aside from the slouched leaning, his posture is maddeningly immaculate regardless. Hermione grinds her teeth.

Straightening her own posture, she continues towards her office- and him briskly, with what she hopes is an air of confidence, of purpose.

"Granger," he says in greeting as she stops a few paces away, his head still dipped toward the paper.

"Malfoy," she greets sharply, and he looks over the top of the Prophet at her. His grey orbs appraise her for a moment until it lingers on the green apple clasped in her right hand.

The only hint of recognition is a slight curve of his eyebrow, flicked up in what Hermione has come to understand as indication of amused surprise. His eyes are back on her face now, and she bristles under his gaze.

He hasn't said anything, and Hermione knows- just knows it's because he's messing with her.

She wants to throw the apple at his stupid face. Instead, she holds it out toward him, a gesture.

"I just wanted to-" and Merlin, is it difficult to choke the words out, "-to apologise again for covering you in coffee- yesterday," Her tongue feels like ash.

He's still looking at her, eyebrow raised, face impassive minus the quick, barely there quirk of his lips. A smirk or a sneer, she can't decipher.

Malfoy still says nothing.

Grinding her teeth together once more, she racks her brain for something, anything to say.

Gryffindor courage can only hold up to so much, and with Malfoy holding all of the cards in this situation, Hermione feels desperately on edge.

"You know what they say," she says, trying to sound as polite as one can with clenched teeth, "An apple a day-"

"Morning Miss Granger!" calls a voice.

Startled, Hermione looks away from Malfoy to see the department rookie, Glenn Alden, walking at a brisk pace down the corridor toward them.

"Good Morning Mr Alden," she replies, trying to inflect some careful animation into her voice as Glenn passes. His brown spectacled eyes glance briefly between Hermione and Malfoy, her outstretched hand, the apple clutched in her fist-

Her cheeks begin to burn. Bugger.

"Good Morning Mr Malfoy, I hope you're keeping well," Glenn greets, his eyes lingering on the form of Malfoy, who simply nods curtly in greeting. "What brings you down to level four today?"

Hermione clears her throat, taking this as an opportunity to get the whole embarrassing debacle out of the way, and pushes the apple rather sharply into Malfoy's chest. His jaw ticks at the impact. Good.

"Yes, what brings you down to the Beast Division this morning?" Hermione asks sharply, hoping he sees the unbridled anger in her eyes even as she smiles brightly.

Malfoy very carefully, and very deliberately (of that Hermione is bloody certain) slowly folds his paper and tucks it under his arm.

Only then does he take the apple from her. The absence of weight in her palm feels like triumph.

"I'm actually here for a meeting with you," he replies, quirking his lips in a smirk, "Surely, Granger, you got the memo?"

No, Hermione did not get any memos-

"Ah I see," Glenn says cheerfully, "I suppose I'd best leave you both to it- see you later Miss Granger, Mr Malfoy." she doesn't miss the lingering glance in their direction. Bloody Malfoy.

She turns her glare back to him the second her brown haired peer is out of earshot and opens her mouth to unleash hellfire on the blond who looks far too bloody smug-

"Who'd have thought," he begins, and Hermione feels herself bristle, having been waiting for the snide remark to happen, "That Gryffindor's Golden Girl would be so eager to gain forgiveness from an ex-Death Eater".

"I just wanted to make amends, don't make me regret it, Malfoy," she sniffs.

"Colour me surprised," Malfoy retorts, "I feel absolutely blessed".

His tone is positively maddening.

Hermione scoffs, turning on her heel to unlock her office door.

"Although we both know exactly why you want to make amends, Granger," he says, his voice suddenly low. "And it has nothing to do with niceties." Her back stiffens.

"Whatever do you mean?" she replies haughtily, producing her wand from her robes.

"Please, Granger," and his voice is lilted with something- "playing dumb is unbecoming of you."

Snorting, Hermione waves her wand in a specific, albeit complicated fashion and the door to her office pops open with a sharp click.

"Malfoy, are you accusing me of something?" she asks, stepping into her office. Doesn't have to look to know he has followed her inside. To know he is watching her.

Hanging up her outer robes and her satchel on the coat rack to the left of her office door, she turns to him, arms crossing over her chest defensively.

"Not at all, Granger," he replies, and Hermione can't hide her unbridled surprise at his lack of retort.

"Fine," she says dismissively, moving to take a seat at her desk, "And pray tell, why are you here exactly?"

Malfoy's smirk widens, and it is entirely devious. It's enough to make her skin prickle.

"I wasn't lying about that meeting, Granger," his voice is honeyed, and it sets her on edge, "Humphries and Sturgis will be here any minute now."

Bugger.

"Harry."

"Hey Hermione," the young Auror says, his eyes on his desk as he scrawls something on a piece of parchment, "What can I hel-"

He cuts off as he looks up at her, his green eyes widening a fraction. She'd flung the door open, not even bothering to close it properly behind her.

"Harry, you have to do something." Hermione's blood is still simmering in her veins, even hours later, and she stomps over to his desk swiftly, "I can't work with him- I can't-"

"Hey, hey, hold on," he says, putting his quill back in the ink pot. "What happened?"

Hermione snorts, throwing her mane of curls over her shoulder.

"Malfoy bloody happened, that's what," and her voice comes out almost like a growl. She begins to pace. "He is an absolute arsehole-"

"So we've established, but what exactly did he do this time?"

Breathing heavily through her nose, she sets to relaying the last two hours to Harry.

"The meeting was a blasted mess, Humphries was right to call our department into action, really. Vampyr Mosps, Harry! In this part of the country? It's unheard of, and the amount of attacks, the venom, it doesn't make any sense and I really ought to be working on the case full time, but Malfoy- Malfoy insinuated that he could handle it on his own, the absurdity-"

"Hermione-"

"As if he could really differentiate between a Queen Mosp and a Drone, let alone figure out what the hell they're doing here, and I could see Humphries consider it! Put me on it part time, that is. Luckily he didn't, but Malfoy was just being so- so stupidly smug, focusing on the sting marks instead of the genomic display which is absolute bollocks-"

"Hermione-"

She is still pacing, trudging violently back and forth across the floor in Harry's office. Feels red in the face, ignores Harry's wide eyed stare because she is not done-

"And what's more, what's more is that he had the audacity to question my credentials- Oh and I took your advice by the way. Never. Again. He didn't even eat the apple! Just- just let it sit there on the desk! Honestly, Harry, who the fuck does he think he is-"

"I think I'm quite capable, Granger- and your superior in this case, of course."

Hermione comes to an abrupt stop at the voice. At his voice.

She whirls around, eyes round like saucers.

Malfoy is leaning against the doorway, his towering form taking up most of the space. Hermione feels an almighty heat cascade across her features, knowing she is quite possibly as red as a tomato.

"Superior?" she hisses, not being able to linger on the embarrassment, not when her blood is boiling over again, "you are not my superior-"

"Actually, he sort of is." Harry replies, holding his hands in the air in surrender as she turns her blazing glare on him.

"How? We didn't discuss this in the meeting!" She is incredulous.

Malfoy smirks, his signature one, and she feels magic crackle at her fingertips. Wonders how quickly she'd hex it off his face-

"The DMLE is headlining the case, Granger," he explains slowly, carefully, as if explaining something to a toddler, "Which means I'm personally headlining the case. You are simply assisting me in our enquiries."

He's still smirking smugly. It would be slightly disconcerting- his lack of occlusion- if it weren't for the fact she wanted to throttle him.

She bristles, fisting her hands to her sides violently.

"You know, I am quite busy-" Harry is saying in the background.

"Oh, so now you're happy for me to assist? What happened to doing it on your own-"

"I didn't say anything about doing the entire case alone, Granger, I was specifically discussing any field work that might require combat-"

She scoffs at that.

"That is not at all what you said and you know it."

"It is, and I truly believe if you had actually listened you would know that."

"I quite clearly listen more than you, Malfoy," she spits venomously. "Because Humphries and Sturgis have signed an agreement for our departments to work alongside each other."

She can see him formulating a response and her magic is crackling at her fingers at the prospect. Wonders what he might reply with-

"That is enough from the both of you," Harry says suddenly, and he is very rarely angry anymore, but he is now and for that reason, and that reason alone, Hermione stills.

There's a pregnant pause, then. She wonders if Malfoy might try to continue their spat. Chances a look at his face, which is still- still smug, still calm, collected, and somehow it irks her more than any of the things he had said in their meeting. And really, she can't bring herself to understand why, to even consider picking any of this apart, because Malfoy gets under her skin in a way no one else is capable of.

It makes her feel on edge, out of control, two things she has come to detest in equal measure. Her calm, matter-of-fact and professional demeanor is ripped away the moment his presence crops up. She hates it, hates him. Has this awfully strange feeling that working with Malfoy is a bad idea, as bad as they come.

She turns away from him, now, to look directly at Harry, smoothing something into her face she hopes is pleading enough.

Harry rubs at his face and looks between them. He sighs, sounding tired, exasperated.

"I hope you realise," he says, after a pause, "that I have no jurisdiction on your case. I can't remove anyone from the team-" his green eyes land on Hermione meaningfully. "-I can't interfere, nor assist, and need I remind you both-" he looks directly from her to Malfoy, now.

"-need I remind you both that this case is of serious importance-"

"I know, Harry, and that's why I wanted-"

"No, you don't seem to know," the sound of his voice, sharp and pensive, is enough to drown the rebuttal in her throat, "people have died, 'Mione."

Harry is right. People have died.

Vampyr Mosps shouldn't cause anaphylaxis in every person they sting, the same way a wasp or a bee shouldn't. Only if someone were allergic- and each victim so far was not.

The whole situation is concerning, and Hermione suddenly feels incredibly guilty, although she supposes that was Harry's point.

Deflated, she takes a seat in one of the plush armchairs in front of her friends desk.

"More will, too, if both of you don't get your acts together- and actually work together," he notes, looking at them both.

"No need to worry, Potter," Malfoy responds briskly, "Myself and Granger can assure you we'll work together on this one."

A look of clear disbelief washes over Harry's features, but he nods, looks at Hermione with intent.

"Yes, we'll- we'll work together," she concludes, and the words feel like dirt in her mouth.

Likely because they're absolute bloody lies.

Four victims.

Four people that had died of anaphylactic shock.

Four identical cases in which the sting marks were congregated to the neck, the face.

Interesting. Positively interesting.

Because there's been no research, no other instances recorded of Vampyr Mosps being so specific in the location they choose to sting.

Even more so because they have no eyewitness accounts, nothing to indicate this was a Purple Mosp or a Red Mosp, although she'd expect Red Mosps because they're inherently more aggressive-

Hermione is broken from her reverie by her clock chiming loudly. She startles, dropping the tome she'd been engrossed in. It lands with a thud at her feet.

She needs to get that damned clock fixed, she thinks bitterly as she picks up the tome.

Plopping it onto her small coffee table, which is currently covered in scrolls, tomes and her notes, she replaces the sugar quill she'd been chewing on to it's holder. To be fair, she had been working for a few hours since getting home-

What was it that Harry had said after Malfoy had left earlier?

"Make sure you get some rest, Hermione, this case is looking to be a difficult one." he'd said. He was right of course, but he had also reminded her in no uncertain terms of the fact she needed to play nice with Malfoy if she wanted to impress her superiors.

Which again, is true.

She rubs her face with her hands. They'd both agreed to meet first thing tomorrow morning to go over the case notes again, and try to get a head start on it.

Hermione lies down on her sofa, looking up at the ceiling.

Harry had also joked that she should bring Malfoy another apple, "to make amends, again" he'd said. But Malfoy hadn't even eaten the one she'd gotten him today. Hadn't even touched it, just let it sit there on the desk between them, like some kind of reminder- another way to get under her skin.

She needed this to work.

But perhaps-

Perhaps there's a way to make it work and make it seem like she could get along with him.

A way to get the jump on him in their little feud, and get their work done, even if he detested it.

Oh, she'd make him detest it, alright.