The woods were covered in a thick, white blanket and branches hung deep in their path, the heavy weight of snow dragging them down. Hermione pushed the branches away from her face, uncaring for the way they snapped back into place behind her, eyes fixed onto her wand lain on her outstretched palm, pointing their way. Heavy footsteps were audible behind her, dragging and accompanied by the occasional gruff mumble of discontent.
"Granger, if you snap another one of these in my face, I will- "
"Oh, sod off Malfoy, your threats are getting dull", Hermione interrupted him, staring ahead unbothered.
"I hope for your sake that we're back home, soon. This cold is just disgusting, my skin isn't used to this climate."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Don't act so uptight and royal, Malfoy. You're just afraid to get lost. Merlin help me, I'd never find you again, you're the exact same shade of snow."
Fast shuffling caught up to her, and suddenly he was stomping beside her, a dirty sneer on his pale face, turned towards the ground. White-blonde puffs of hair were falling in his eyes and he kept blowing them away, to no avail.
Hermione wrapped her free arm tight around her middle and looked ahead. It seemed that finally, after about an hour of walking, they had arrived at what was probably a blooming meadow during summertime, now a large, white field with a small mountain-house nestled comfortably into the edge.
"I don't understand why they can't provide us with portkeys to get there, why do they send us walking through the woods for hours, it's not like magic literally exists to be used-", Malfoy started whining again as he kept walking obliviously, and Hermione shoved her elbow into his side to make him look up.
He sighed audibly at the sight of dark grey puffs emanating from the chimney. Someone was home.
Even if Hermione didn't like to admit it, he was right; it really was quite annoying to trudge through the deep Russian woods they'd been sent to. They had to retrieve what seemed to be a baby dragon ravaging nearby villages. Their main informant lived in the cottage they had finally arrived at; a reclused wizard who had discovered the nature of the mysterious stealings and vandalizations close muggle villages had to suffer from in recent times.
Apparently, he knew where the dragon's nest was located in these vast woods. Despite her partner's bitching, Hermione had to admit that it had been an awful travel to find this hut.
Another 20-minute-long trek later, the two found themselves in front of a shaky wooden door. Malfoy was walking in circles on the porch, and Hermione was trying her best to ignore him. Today was a particularly bad day for him; he was rarely this prissy during their missions. He was usually more of a brooding, towering wall behind her, there to intimidate the people they questioned and grunt non-verbal answers whenever he was asked something.
As Hermione considered knocking for a third time, suddenly, she could make out lead-footed footsteps approaching from within the house, and Malfoy's circling stopped as they both stared at the door. Then, with a screeching whine, the door creaked open to reveal their informant.
Heavy animal felts hung down the massive shoulders, and every bit of clothing seemed to be stitched together from scraps of fabric and tissue. Hermione had to step back to look at the man fully without putting her head in her neck; it oddly reminded her of Hagrid.
Fitting the iron-clad boots and the rest of his feral appearance, the man's face was largely covered by huge, bushy eyebrows that were frowning disapprovingly as he peered down at them. Hermione remembered what they were there for all of a sudden, but no words left her mouth.
"Hello Mr. Rakitin. Miss Granger and I are here on behalf of the British Ministry of Magic, to take a look at the dragon you have discovered in the surrounding woods."
Hermione exhaled the breath stuck in her throat as Malfoy spoke. He had joined her side, shoulder to shoulder, forming a wall.
Rakitin looked them up and down and nodded, before grunting something that sounded awfully like "Come in".
With that, he turned away and disappeared into the depths of his hut. Malfoy gave her an incredulous look, a raised eyebrow asking why she'd choked up. She shook her head and the blonde shrugged before following the isolated wizard.
The inside of the hut seemed very much like the kind of place someone like Rakitin would live in; the walls were covered in large animal pelts, as were the floors, and shelves towering tall above them were filled to the brim with Russian books. Bits of muggle technology and wizarding gimmicks like a radio and rows of potions were strewn throughout the messy hallways and any rooms they could catch a look into. Rakitin led them into what Hermione thought to be the living room, with a large couch and a reclined armchair, both surprisingly covered in even more animal felts.
Hermione felt tense; the walls seemed to close in with every further step they took, and the few sources of light inside cast long, flickering shadows capturing their every movement. It oddly felt like a place she shouldn't be; a place no one should be.
In the living room, Rakitin fell into the armchair with a grunt, and Hermione could see his face clearly now as he took of a scarf that had covered his mouth; small, beady eyes bore through them, suspicion etched into the time-telling wrinkles of his face. A long, black beard that could have challenged Dumbledores disappeared inside his large overcoat.
Hermione followed Malfoy as he perched himself at the edge of the stuffy couch, and she kept her eyes from wandering around their surroundings; instead, she retrieved a notebook from her purse. Malfoy had put his head in his neck, eyes fixed onto a small, mismatched chandelier on the ceiling.
"So, Mister Rakitin, we have been informed that you know of the extent of the dragon's misbehaving's, as well as the breed and his current location. Could you possibly recount everything you know for our records?", Hermione asked, ignoring her partner's rude disinterest in whatever their informant was about to relay.
With a heavy cough, the wizard started retelling everything in a nasal, thick accent, voice vacant of any nuance or rhythm. Hermione wondered how long it had been since the man had interacted with another human being as she listened, her charmed quill scribbling wildly.
Not 15 minutes later, after taking another look around his house and bagging up the research Ratikin had provided, the pair was heading out again.
"Did you listen to anything he said?", Hermione asked, immediately turning East, where Ratikin had described to find the dragon's nest.
"Why should I? You're gonna tell me everything anyway", the blonde drawled as he followed her suit and Hermione puffed up, aggressively whisking away the wild strands of hair from her face.
"Well in that case, I just won't tell you anything, then."
Malfoy huffed a breath of laughter.
"Sure."
Hermione balled fists at her side and quickened her pace, stomping through the snow.
It had taken years for them to build up a rapport of unwilling collegiality, through screaming fits, folders and reports chucked at each other's heads, tantrums at their superiors, beggings for a change of partner and sometimes, a quiet yet lethal battle of wits, snarky remarks and snide insults to drive each other up the walls. For a while now they had found a rhythm through which the other was bearable, but even then, there were still moments where Malfoys old, pratty self resurfaced to taunt and torture her.
Their mission was going well so far. They had left London only this morning, and if things kept going like this, they would be home in a smidge. There was no reason to act like this, other than-
Hermione's foot caught a root sticking out, hidden from her view by the snow, and she shrieked as her body flew forward, crashing into white, freezing pillow of snow. Ice-cold flakes stuck to her face and hair, invading her mouth and clinging to her clothes and Hermione rolled over, just about ready to flail out her limbs and give up.
Her eyes locked onto Malfoy's, who stood above her, mouth set in a thin line. She knew that expression.
"Shut up", she hissed, recovering from her fall to haul herself up as she swatted away his stretched-out hand. His shoulders were shaking with the laughter he was holding him, wrinkles forming around his eyes with the effort. Hermione almost wanted to laugh with him, but his prissy behaviour was not deserving of being humoured today.
With a few quick charms, she had cast away the snow covering her and surrounded herself in a cloud of warm air, and returned to her path towards the dragon's nest. Malfoy was quietly chuckling to himself as he followed her.
"Rakitik thinks it's a Swedish Short-Snout, a baby one. Judging from the size he described, he must have hatched only a few weeks ago. As soon as we've finished the reports, he'll be sent to Charlie's resort."
Hermione rattled down the information sitting at the tip of her tongue, unable to keep it from her partner, however insufferable he was being. Instead of the expected disinterest, Malfoy gave a curious noise.
"A Swedish Short-Snout? This is not Sweden. And they usually don't go near Muggle villages."
Hermione nodded. "Exactly. We need to examine him carefully and find out where he hatched. I say smugglers lost the egg and if it weren't for the cold climate, it likely would have never hatched."
Malfoy tipped his head in thought.
"That doesn't explain why it got so close to Muggle villages."
Hermione didn't answer, because she had none. The thought of that peeved her enough to speed up her pace.
Just as Ratikin had promised, it had taken less than 20 minutes to arrive at a large cave inside the solid frozen ground. Hermione recognized it immediately, hushing Draco aside to hide behind a couple of trees.
They exchanged no words as Draco shrugged off his long overcoat and the one underneath to retrieve his wand and several potions, securing them to his belt, revealing a grey cashmere sweater and dark jeans; his casual, ridiculously fancy work clothing. Hermione spread her own coat on the ground to organize everything they'd need to carefully check the nest and find any hints as to how the dragon got here and why it behaved so abnormally. In the distance, they could hear occasional cries bellowing and bouncing around the concave walls of the cave. It definitely sounded like a young one.
"Go ahead, I'll get all of this ready", Hermione said, sat on her feet, flipping through the notebook without looking up to see Malfoy's reaction. He did nothing but shrug and turned around to go follow the dragon noises.
Even if she did not like to admit it, Malfoy was much better at handling these dangerous creatures up close, and she often let him take the lead in situations like this. Hermione watched as his figure shrunk further and further away until it disappeared, and she looked up towards the blinding sky through the crowns of the thick trees. The sun reflected off of the snow brilliantly, appearing vibrant and almost hypnotic around her. Just then, Hermione's eyes caught onto a small movement above her to the left. She squinted, once again wiping away a mob of her hair clinging to her forehead.
It was a colourful swarm of animals, flitting around in stark contrast to their surroundings, hovering closer and closer to Hermione. All thoughts of helping Malfoy were cast aside when she realized what the swarm was, exactly: Mongolian Fireflies.
Hermione had read about them a lot, fascinated by their nature and abilities, but she'd never thought she'd see them in person. Without a thought wasted, she procured a charmed jar, cast a spell to match the climate inside to the one surrounding her, and with a quick flick of her wand, several of the little flies zoomed in, as if right at home. She screwed the lid shut and put it back into her enlargened purse.
Just then she heard her name being shouted, and she looked up to see Malfoy at the edge of the cave, waving. Beside him was a small, charmed net lain with a sleeping dragon inside.
Hermione sighed. She was not going to hear the end of this.
As one of two workers for F.A.U.C.E.T., Fetching And Uncovering Creatures Experiencing Terror, Hermione was used to working in an office that was nothing short of a mess. Several pinboards were constantly filled with pictures and reports of rare creatures that were close to extinction; ongoing missions that required them to check up on the last few remaining animals regularly to ensure their safety as well as their continuant breeding. Then there were several aquariums, mostly empty, though sometimes filled with animals they took back from missions lining the wall opposite their desks.
There was a constant buzzing and chirping coming from said cages and accompanied by the array of bushy plants lining their windowsills, the FAUCET office always seemed to be in a state of jungle-like disarray. Their newest addition were the Mongolian fireflies; they flitted around the aquarium nearest to Hermione in a colourful cloud. She had charmed the inside to expand and changed the climate to fit the one they were used to.
The Faucet division of their department was responsible for exactly that: Navigating and fetching lost, rare or exploited creatures that were either abused by wizards or Muggles, or were being a nuisance to their surroundings. As soon as Hermione had gotten promoted from her previously mind-bogglingly boring desk job pertaining to working on reports from the Auror's office, she'd been thrilled to finally do some worthwhile work, perhaps even promote S.P.E.W.. Her excitement had died the moment she was introduced to her partner; a certain pratty blonde who could as easily get a rise out of her as she did him.
She could still remember the day they started working together, when they were introduced as partners. It had been nerve-wrecking.
For the fifth time in seven minutes, Hermione's eyes shot up from her work to read the time. What used to be Seamus' desk was now completely bare and empty, void of his old messy files, threatening to fall apart at any moment. Now there was nothing there but a candle and paper trays, waiting to be filled.
Admittedly, she did miss Seamus a bit, but she understood why he'd transferred to the sports department. They worked well enough together, but Hermione could always tell that his heart wasn't in it.
A week had passed since he suddenly left for a newly opened position, and Hermione's superiors had been scrambling to find a replacement. Just this morning a memo announcing the imminent arrival of her chosen colleague had reached her, and while the time had been rather unspecificed ("sometime around lunch"), she could not stop checking the clock. Whoever was going to come better not be late, or this would already be off to a bad start.
So one could imagine her surprise when her office door finally opened and Draco Malfoy, name-calling bully and Ex-Death Eater, fresh out of a year of house arrest an then two more, walked in and ogled Hermione with much the same expression she suspected was on her face. A surge of nauseating memories rushed through her mind; past images of a young, sharp-faced boy who mocked her appearance in the schoolyard, insulted her blood status, whispering to his friends as his eyes bored into hers during lessons.
Hermione's stomach dropped.
As her hand unconsciously grabbed her wand, watching him trudge slowly across the room to put down his cloak on Seamus' old desk, he raised his chin and wrinkled his nose, seemingly in an attempt to mirror his old habits of sneering down at people.
"I'm your new partner."
His voice was tentative, a shiver of insecurity slicing at the arrogant sneer he used to carry himself with for years. Hermione couldn't remember a single time when she'd seen the Malfoy heir so shy. She opened her mouth and for a moment, she wasn't sure if she could find her voice.
"It seems so", she croaked. Her mind was racing.
Was she expected to work with Malfoy of all people? Her old school bully? Someone who wanted her dead, not so long ago? Actually, who knew if he even surpassed his old mindsets. For all she knew, he could pull out his wand and finish the job right there and then. And there was absolutely no way Malfoy had the know-how for this job.
This had to be a mistake.
It had not been a mistake, sadly. As it turned out, during a year of mandatory house arrest for Narcissa and Draco Malfoy, he had studied up on magizoology, and together with an 'Outstanding' in his 'Care of Magical Creatures' NEWTs, there had been no reason not to hire him for the faucet position.
Their first week was spent with awkward, empty silences; carefully moving around the other as if either could suddenly turn their case study into an impromptu duel. Ironically, the ice broke one Monday morning, a week after their first day together, when Hermione came to work exactly at nine to find him waiting in the visitors chair at her desk, refusing to start work until he could tell her something.
That something was a short but hefty apology for everything he'd done during their schoolyears, during the war, as well as a promise that if he was going to be a prat, it would be in the realm of the new, improved version of himself. He stuck to that promise vehemently, because in all of their hundreds of fights and quarrels over the years, he had never once used her blood status to diminish her argument.
It was awfully frustrating, because this meant that he would only criticise the things about her that she could actually control, like the conclusions she came to in their cases, her investigative skills, and sometimes, when he seemed really desperate, her choice of wardrobe.
For some reason, after his apology that left Hermione slightly dazed, the awkward air was gone; from that day on, their incessant arguments literally would not stop. Like a dam of year-long frustration and irritation had been released by the promised redemption of past mistakes.
Their shared office-space had not made their… less than ideal situation any easier, but Hermione liked to think that through lots of screaming matches and sulking sessions, they had managed to transform their office into something unique.
Hermione furrowed her brows, her quill halting in its scratching as her mind turned over their discoveries again, for what felt like the thousandth time in the past few hours. Something about this just did not make any sense whatsoever-
"Malfoy, can you give me 'Dragons of the past 10.000 years'?", she mumbled, not bothering to look up to her partner across from her, who was likely resting his boots on his desk, displaying a disgusting amount of disinterest in their work. Too many fights had been had about his habit of putting his feet in places they shouldn't be, and Hermione was not in the mood for a quarrel.
Without as much as a protest, the book she'd requested levitated across their space and landed in front of her. She found what she was looking for immediately, and finally she looked up to see his haunches perched on top of a mountain of files, arms crossed behind his head, face turned towards the ceiling with closed eyes. He seemed to be skilfully asleep.
"Draco, come here for a second. I found something."
The use of his given name seemed to wake him from his trance, and he squinted his eyes open to give her a bleak stare. Hermione waved her hand, a sign for him to hurry up.
The rest of their mission had not lasted for very long the day before. After gloating for a good few minutes about conquering the dragon on his own and shutting up rather fast when Hermione pointed out that it was literally a baby dragon, yet unable to even spew fire. They had taken a look at the nest; the egg shells were nearby, but no sign of a mother or how it had gotten there.
The entire time, Hermione had felt something curious; a magical buzzing in the air that forced her to consider whether or not this was any usual case of a dragon egg getting lost, or if there was more behind it. They had worked silently, without the occasional jabs and nags, and Hermione was certain that Malfoy had felt it too.
"What is it?", he drawled, swaggering over to perch himself on the edge of her desk, leaning over the page she had opened.
"Remember how we wondered why the Short-Snout would go near a Muggle village? And why it would end up in Russia of all places?"
Malfoy nodded silently, eyes roaming over the contents of the dragon breed Hermione had found. He squinted then.
"Granger, what does the Russian Sharpclaw have to do with this? They've been extinct for at least 500 years."
Hermione ruffled through the records and pulled out the images they took of the incapacitated dragon.
"Yes, exactly! Look at his scaling. Baby Short-Snouts are usually silver, but this one has a hint of green with it, instead of the typical blue. And you said that it didn't attack with fire, right? Short-Snouts can usually breathe fire days after being born. All of this, plus going near humans, does not match up with Short-Snouts, but it matches up with the Russian Sharpclaw!"
She rambled everything down as more and more inconsistencies unravelled. Malfoy grunted, pulling the description of the Russian Sharpclaw close and taking the picture from her hand. Hermione watched as he read the page quickly, eyes sometimes flitting to the picture, likely to cross examine with the physical description of the extinct dragon.
"You're right", he mumbled, and he closed his eyes to rub the bridge of his nose. Hermione could sense the impending spout of emotion.
"You know what that means", she said, and he pushed off her desk to walk across the room, hands furiously roaming through his hair, groaning loudly. She almost felt bad.
"Merlin help me, I bloody hate those worthless swots."
He stood in front of the firefly aquarium, shoulders tense and arms crossed. His side profile revealed a clenched jaw, mouth pressed into a thin line. Hermione sighed, dipping her head to write her latest discovery, closing the file. For good.
"Me neither."
Usually, she would offer a word of comfort or understanding, but today she shared his anger. Her fingers curled around the closed report, itching to rip it apart, the muscles in her hand stiff from restraint. It had happened way to often lately.
"That bloody Rabnott and her goons, they don't even do anything with the cases. They just throw them away."
Hermione watched as the fireflies turned into a vibrant purple and she raised a brow. Malfoy did not seem to notice the change of lighting. He turned around, stalking back to his desk and Hermione watched him like a prowling predator.
"I can talk to Harry about it. Being Head Auror is still just a formality."
The fireflies turned blue, with flecks of green in between. Malfoy scoffed.
"Yes, let's get the wunderkind in on this, he will care about some time travelling illegality. Potter won't be able to do anything else, either." The aquarium glowed orange.
Hermione groaned. Nothing was good enough for him.
"Malfoy, I'm just trying to do something at least! I don't know how to keep them from taking our cases over, but if you reject all of my ideas, I can't bloody help you either!"
The volume of her voice was rising, as well as the shrill tone she detested so much. The fireflies continued to glow orange and Hermione's nose crinkled in disgust, watching as Malfoy hurdled several pens across the room, accompanied by a bellow of angry, non-verbal noises.
"Not if your ideas suck so much! Get Potter in on this", he continued with a mocking, nasal voice that imitated hers only seconds earlier, and Hermione's ears rushed with a mount of blood, anger rising in her chest. The quill in her hand snapped.
"You're supposed to be the Brightest Witch of her Age, where's all of that brightness when you can't even keep the dom from taking our cases!", he shouted, face red with the effort of screaming. Hermione's chair scratched over the floor with an unforgiving squeak that hurt her ears, and in the matter of seconds, she had her wand pointed at him, trembling with the intense bout of fury igniting her insides.
"Don't call me that", she seethed, holding his gaze, daring him to say one more word.
But even Malfoy knew when to stop. She almost expected him to stomp and flail his arms like the first year she remembered, but instead he kicked a non-existent stone and turned towards the row of cages and aquariums.
"Fucking Rabnott, she- Why do these things keep changing fucking colours!", he roared, aggressively waving his arms towards the fireflies that had suddenly turned purple again, completely forgetting the sentence he'd started about the Head of the Department of Mysteries. Hermione refrained from answering.
Rabnott was an omnipresent force; she had access to every other department, could move around freely and watch everyone and everything with hawk-eyes. There had always been something deeply unsettling about the way she moved noiselessly, her completely perfect appearance and the atmosphere of pure power she emitted.
Malfoy turned away, massaging the bridge of his nose once more. There was nothing to be heard but the increasing jungle noises and their heavy breaths as both collected themselves. Hermione smoothed her frizzing hair down, hands still shivering. Calmly, she pulled her chair back and sat down, repairing her quill and crossing her arms as she watched Malfoy's back.
Then, he turned, walking towards her and taking the file she had outstretched, flipping through the pages of handwritten records, interviews and pictures. A whole days' worth of work completely lost. His brows were furrowed, lips pursed in a thoughtful pout. The sharp angles of his face he had grown into since the end of the war lent a fearsome graveness to his expression, one that Hermione had learned to read.
"There's no loophole, Malfoy. We have to hand it over."
Slowly, he nodded. Hermione watched as the Fireflies turned orange again. He followed her gaze.
"Really, what are those things?", he asked, pointedly calm.
"They're Mongolian fireflies. They kind of work like a mood ring- "
The wizard raised an eyebrow at her mention of muggle culture. She rephrased her words.
"When you say someone's name, they sense the change of your aura and they light up in a colour according to how you feel about the mentioned person. It's said that we feel all of the possible emotions about everyone to a certain degree, but depending on your relationship with said person, some colours are more dominant."
She recited the book she'd read last night in a perfectly monotone voice, and Malfoy seemed to listen intently, much to her surprise. He was still watching the aquarium.
"Sybill Rabnott", he barked, and the flies glowed in a deep, purple light.
"Purple means deep disdain, or even hate", Hermione said before he could ask. Malfoy's mood seemed to lighten considerably now, and he even breathed a haughty chuckle.
"At least they're right", he said. And with that, he dropped the file onto her desk and turned away. The topic was done.
"Granger."
"Hm."
"What does yellow stand for?"
Hermione looked up from yet another file, another day, to offer Malfoy her most incredulous look. He was stretched out on the armchair on the other side of her desk as he often did, flipping through the latest reports they'd gotten from the almost extinct Moon-Hyenas in Switzerland. He had pushed back his pale hair and several buttons of his button-up had come loose over the hours. He rarely let himself go like this, but the loss of their Russian Sharpclaw case had hit his work morality hard.
"Playful love", she said curtly, returning to her own file, quill scratching over the parchment as she took notes. "It's not actual love, more like a crush. Why?"
"Interesting."
Hermione looked up again to find him rubbing his chin thoughtfully, eyes set on the aquarium to her left. Years of working with the emotionless Slytherin had taught her to read the fine tell-tale signs of his body language, and Hermione was getting more and more certain that his interest in the fireflies and the information they could offer up was nearing an unhealthy infatuation.
"While you were off with the Weasley girl, that stupid bint two doors down came in to tell me that McLaggen invites us to have a drink tonight. The things lit up yellow when she said his name."
Hermione's gaze followed his to rest on the now orange flies flitting about, halting her writing as she contemplated the information he'd offered. It was the kind of juicy gossip Ginny would love to hear about, and exactly the kind of stuff Hermione could not care less for.
"If you're just gonna use them to find out how our co-workers feel about each other, then I'll take them home, Malfoy. And don't you dare go blabbering about what we find out here, it's invasive."
In a smidge, Malfoy was irritated again.
"Invasive? You put them here in the first place! I can't help but notice when they change colours!", he snapped, the tone in his voice climbing to heights she only ever heard inside their office. She didn't offer him an answer, but more a very tired look of detachment, which he dramatically rolled his eyes at.
"What's pink? And orange?", he asked then, and Hermione just noticed the change of the fireflies' colours mere seconds ago.
"I won't tell you, because it's invasive", she replied indifferently. Malfoy tilted his head in thought, then jumped up, walking over to their shelves of books behind his desk. Hermione halted her writing to watch him search in vain.
"Accio book about Mongolian Fireflies."
A thinly covered book about magical Asian insects fluttered out from a well-hidden corner of the shelf, and flew into his hand, opened on the right page.
"Granger, I can't believe you platonically love me! I must say, I do prefer dinner beforehand, but I will absolutely accept this confession- "
Hermiones cheeks flushed and with a hot face, she used her wand to send several books from the shelf falling over him, interrupting his awful gloating.
"It's platonic, you idiot. Barely friendship, not even deep. And anyway, I see a few pink ones there, too."
She gestured towards the aquarium, which glowed pink and orange. Malfoys teasing ceased with the thin set of his lips, and he snapped the book shut, setting it down on his desk as he rubbed his neck.
"These things are stupid, anyway", he drawled, and Hermione barely suppressed a chuckle at his boyish behaviour. Orange for collegiality and pink for platonic relationships – not even unconditional or affectionate, which signified the kind of deep friendship she shared with Harry or Ginny.
"Anyway. McLaggen, huh?"
The topic change was greeted with a groan. Ever since Hermione and Ron had broken up two years ago, Cormac had revived old, mushy feelings from school times and repeatedly tried to get Hermione to go out with him and his colleagues. For years now, Malfoy had been watching her plight with glee, without offering just a smidge of assistance. Cormac invited her out for drinks almost weekly, and never seemed to get the hint.
"You know, perhaps I'll go. Just to humour him", Malfoy droned on. Hermione sent him her steeliest, deathly glare.
"Don't you dare. Making fun of him will not make it easier."
Cormac had an annoying habit of stopping by their office several times a week and delivering some kind of made up important file just to make googly eyes at Hermione, and Malfoy looked like he wanted to puke out his lunch every time. It was even worse when she wasn't there apparently; too embarrassed to state the real reason he'd stopped by, McLaggen would involve Malfoy in awkward small talk with long stretches of silence in between.
"You could just tell him to his face that he hasn't a chance, instead of dragging the poor lad along. As a fellow lady's chaser, no, as a fellow human, I really feel his plight, you know- "
"Oh, do tell Malfoy, you feel his plight? Are you saying that you'd wanna have a drink with me, too?", she interrupted him, words tumbling from her lips before she could think about it. A hot surge of embarrassment flushed to her cheeks, shutting her up.
She half expected him to laugh dismissively and say something to the effect of "too much brains", like he'd done in the past, but this time he merely raised a ridiculing eyebrow, a smirk tugging at his lips.
"Say, Granger, is that what you secretly wish for? For me to ask you out, instead of McLaggen?"
He was leaning forward, hands firmly planted on the surface of his desk, eyes gleaming with dirty implications. The grin on his lips was downright infuriating, and Hermione somehow felt even hotter under his gaze, stunned at how quick he had flipped the tables.
"Don't twist my words, Malfoy, you know that's not what I was saying", she snapped, standing up with such force that her chair squeaked desperately.
The room was suddenly smoulderingly warm, and Hermione could not bear this ridiculous conversation any further. He always did this, taunting and jabbing, until she barked back, just as childishly.
It was laughable how easy it seemed for him to get under her skin. Hermione would have hated it much more, if it weren't for the fact that half the time, it was him who left their office just as angered and sore.
She fled their office fuming, accompanied by his boisterous laughter echoing behind her. The door flew closed with a bang.
Despite the fact that Hermione and Ginny were sat in a lovely café with buzzing clientele, music playing from radios and loud conversations carried around them, there was a stiff silence between them as Hermione hacked at her Greek salad, lost in her memories of their fight yesterday that still made her grind her teeth. Ginny watched her, a worried crease in her forehead.
"Hermione, I know he's a prat, but there's no reason to abuse your salad."
Just then the witch realized the ferocity with which she held her fork, and how violently she had jabbed it into her salad. The fork clattered to the plate as she dropped it with a sigh.
"He's just- just- ", Hermione struggled for words, her mind empty with ravaging anger and frustration.
"An insufferable, prissy bitch. Tell me what happened."
Ginny laid her hand over Hermiones' comfortingly, encouraging her with a smile.
"It's not even that he's so awful- "
"Did you accidentally flirt with him again?", Ginny intercepted, and Hermione groaned audibly, pulling her hands away to bury her face in them.
"It just keeps happening!", she muffled, and Ginny chuckled.
"You two are a piece of work, honestly."
Hermione looked at her friend sheepishly. Then, she shook her head and straightened up, lifting her cutlery from where she'd dropped it.
"It's just – we lost another case to the Department of Mysteries, and it's just getting so frustrating. This is the second one just this month, they just take more and more! And every time we lose another day or week worth of work, he becomes even more dreadful!"
Ginny listened to the witches' rant thoughtfully, nodding now and then. Then, she frowned.
"Another time travel case again?"
"Yes. This time it was a long extinct dragon. The egg could only have been obtained by travelling over 500 years, and every case that even just hints at the possibility of time travel having been used has to be handed over."
To keep from ranting even more, Hermione stuffed her mouth with a forkful of salad.
"It's been a lot lately, don't you think?", Ginny mused, a thoughtful finger tapping against her chin. Hermione nodded slowly; she kept saying that the dom took more and more from them lately, but just then did she realize how many there really had been. At this point, a good fifth of their cases were at some point compromised by some kind of time or space oddity.
Hermione would have to investigate this later.
"Enough about me. How's the planning going?", Hermione asked, changing the topic to something less dreary. Ginny lit up instantly, perching up like a volt of electricity had woke her.
Harry had finally popped the question, after five years of waiting. At no point had anyone doubted that the Potter-Weasley union was going to happen, yet Harry had held out long enough for most people to forget they weren't even engaged yet, just to do it in secrecy without reporters and tabloids ripping the new-found union apart. Ginny had been positively glowing for months now, neck-deep in wedding plans, yet somehow never too busy to have lunch with Hermione at least once a week.
As Ginny carried on about flower arrangements and colour schemes, bridesmaid dresses and table setups, Hermione could not keep her mind from numbing to the incessant talking and wandering away to work. As was their routine, they had ignored their fight yesterday after Hermione returned from lunch and just this morning, they had gotten in another case from an escaped Demiguise in a German warehouse. Hermione did not worry about it too much. Demiguises were easy to lure in.
No, the Demiguise case was not bothering her. It was the curiosity of their increasingly dwindling cases lately.
Hermione shoved the remnants of her salad into her mouth and tried her best to all chew it without any of it falling out. Ginny interrupted her ranting.
"Are you done?", she asked, eyes wide, and Hermione nodded.
"Sorry, I have this really important case to take care of. I need to get back", she replied, searching for her purse to pay for lunch. Less than a minute later, she had given Ginny a rather absent-minded goodbye and was already on her way back to work.
Just as Hermione had organized the dozens of labelled notes onto the cleared pinboard opposite their wall lined with aquariums, the office door opened behind her. She waited for a noise, a grunt, a question or perhaps just a sigh, but as she organized the notes into a timeline, the door closed silently, and footsteps approached behind her.
"What's all this?"
Miraculously, he did not seem annoyed, a common occurrence after lunchbreaks he spent outside their office. He blamed it on "all these people trying to talk and chatter like I could give a shit".
"I realized that the amount of cases the dom has taken from us is bordering on hazardous. There is no way they have experts with our knowledge in their department who can possibly take care of all the cases we've had to give them, and I found out from Harry that the majority of law departments are losing more of their cases, too."
Hermione turned around to Malfoy discarding of his coat and leaning against his desk, studying the pinboard with what she could possibly consider mild interest.
"So you're gonna do what exactly now?", he asked slowly, as if to mock her entire thought process. Hermione rolled her eyes.
"I'm conducting a timeline, as well as considering the reasons why they've taken the cases. Whenever a case includes time travel, the jumps have been getting larger and larger. Remember the first case we had to hand over, three years ago?"
Malfoy nodded and crossed his arms, squinting at Hermione as she wrung her sweaty hands.
"That case we worked with Harry, with that smuggler who used Kappas to get rid of his competition, and it turned out to be a certain breed that went extinct 40 years ago", she breathed, talking faster and faster, words tumbling out of her mouth. He nodded again.
She turned and pointed at the notes she had pinned up.
"The Kappa case only required a time jump of 40 years, which is already pretty much impossible to do with a regular time turner. The Sharpclaw case required a jump of 500 years. The amount of years that have to have been travelled for each case increased with almost every case- "
"It might just be that these criminals figured out a way to jump further through time", Malfoy interrupted, and Hermione shook her head furiously, getting heated.
"No, that's impossible. They have to be using time turners because those are small, handy, and easy to use. Time turners cannot make jumps this big."
"Then how do they do it?"
Hermione threw her hands in the air, exasperated. "I don't know! The only machines that can make such large jumps are so easy to miscalculate and make mistakes, plus the materials needed to build them are high-classified, almost impossible to obtain, even for high-ranking ministry workers. There is absolutely no way some petty criminals are doing 500-year jumps without…"
She trailed off, unsure how to finish her sentence. Without what?
"Without help, you mean?", Malfoy finished. He stood up and closed the distance, reading everything Hermione had pinned onto the board carefully. She nodded, unsure.
"They have to be getting help. Or- "
The words stopped again, and Malfoy quirked a questioning eyebrow as he turned to face her. Hermione swallowed. Why was it so important to her that he believe her? Why was the pit in her stomach so awfully deep all of a sudden?
"Or, since it seems like the dom is covering up all of these cases, it could be a possibility that they are in on it."
Malfoy considered her words, a serious crease deepening between his brows. For a moment, Hermione wondered if all of this was just stupid, if there was no reason to believe there to be anything bigger going on, and if Malfoy would just laugh, turn away, ignore everything she'd said and carry on his work like before.
Despite their clashing… everything, Hermione quietly admitted that they worked disturbingly well together. He preferred the action part of their work, actually being in contact, fighting and sometimes eliminating magical threats, while Hermione was fond of the paperwork. They divided the workload evenly, all while never underestimating the others ability or skills. With Malfoy, Hermione always knew that he understood whatever she said, that he would always consider her train of thought and then add his own, while never putting her progress down – only if he didn't agree with it. And he never had a bad reason not to agree with her.
This was likely the reason why their superiors had refused to partner them up differently; because aside all of their fighting and bitching, once they calmed down and came to their senses, they worked together like a well-oiled machine.
In that sense, it really shouldn't surprise Hermione that she cared such an awful amount what he thought of her latest discovery. It still caught her off-guard sometimes.
Malfoy did not answer right away; the room filled with white jungle noise as he studied the board closely. Hermione wiped her sweaty palms on her pants, to no avail. Her heart was beating fast; not only for his inevitable judgement, but also because she truly felt that she was onto something here.
Then, finally.
"So, the Department of Mysteries is corrupt."
"It seems so."
Malfoy pinched the bridge of his nose, crossing one arm across his front.
"It's not like this is surprising, because Radnott is shady as all bloody hell", he mumbled, turning his head to rub his forehead.
"What do you wanna do about it, Granger? Were just… faucet workers. There's no way we could actually change anything", he continued.
"Who says we couldn't? We've worked here for years. I realized just now what's actually happening, how high are the possibilities that others even remotely noticed this? Most people don't even care when they have to hand over their cases, you know that! Whenever we complained about it, nothing happened! We're the only ones who bloody care enough about our work to notice what's actually happening!"
Her voice rose higher and higher as she ranted on, and Hermione started walking in long strides from one wall to the other, balled fists hanging limply at her side. All of the injustices of years' worth of work were becoming clear in front of her, like a dam had broken.
"The only reason we have to hand over the cases is so they can cover up their dirty work! I bet you everything in my vault, if we try and find out anything about our lost cases, there will be no conclusion! They won't have followed up on any of it!"
She was shouting now, her cheeks rising with heat and her hair frizzing out of its once elegantly coordinated bun.
Malfoy had moved around, now perched on his desk again as he watched her outburst, lips pursed thoughtfully.
"But what do you want to do then?", he asked after her breathing finally calmed down. Hermione stood rooted to the spot, unsure of what to say. Exposing them was the obvious answer, but how so?
"We need to collect evidence. Prove that Rabnott is wilfully ignoring cases, in her favour."
"We?"
Hermione was offended.
"Oh, do pray tell, is the Demiguise so much more interesting than corruption inside the Ministry?", she snapped, and Malfoy rolled his eyes.
"Fine. But, how do we prove this? I've never heard of such restrictions on time travelling. As far as I know, as long as you illegally procure some way to travel through time, the number of years, decades or centuries jumped don't matter. How do you know for sure that 500 years are impossible to travel?"
Hermione pressed her lips into a fine line. All she knew about time traveling was from her third year, and McGonagall had made her promise never to tell anyone about what she knew about time travel. The practice was largely unknown to the public, any documentation harshly restricted. Most people knew that it was possible, but dangerous, high risks and the like. Time turners were a rarity; they usually only existed within the confines of a controlled environment.
Of course, Malfoy would pick up on the one inconsistency of her argument. Hell would freeze over before she told him how she lived through her third year of school.
"I just know. I've… had some experience with time turners- "
Malfoy opened his mouth in protest, but Hermione held up a hand to stop him.
"That's not what matters right now, Malfoy. Even if criminals could make such jumps, there's still the issue with the increasing rate of time traveling being detected by ministry workers, and the fact that our cases never get finished- "
"How do you know they're not finishing the cases?", he interrupted with a sharp voice. Hermione opened and closed her mouth like a fish, searching for words.
"I- I don't know yet. I was just about to go to the library to ask for some of these records. The Kappa case was fairly basic, there is no reason why it shouldn't be accessible."
Malfoy crossed his arms again, leaning forward as he faced the carpet, pondering what she said. Hermione fiddled with a loose thread in the hem of her shirt; he was impossible to read in moments like these, when they were presented a case and neither had yet found a general consensus on what to do next, on what judgment to hail.
Either he was going to help her, or he'd ignore whatever plot she had concocted, and leave her to fence with it alone. And with growing horror, Hermione realized that he was the only person she trusted with this now. He was a flirtatious, arrogant prat, but also the only person who met her at eye level whenever they encountered unknown issues.
An impossibly smart, witty prat he was; though Hermione would never admit that to his face.
Finally, he raised his head, and his grey eyes met hers. Hermione's breathing stopped. Then, he turned to pick up his coat.
"Let's go."
This is a re-upload of an older fic I wrote over a year ago, I hope you enjoy! I'll try to post every week but the whole story is up on my AO3 if you want to read everything at once!