Chapter 2: Hopeless and Awkward and Desperate

One Year Later
10 June 2002

The Meant 4 Me charm was, above all else, an enormous fucking joke. Frankly, the only reason Draco Malfoy had gotten one at all was because he and Theo had too much money and not enough sense between them, and also, because they had dared each other (mutually) on a whim. The dare was, of course, fueled by thirteen too many rounds of Ogden's and also by the occurrence of Draco's final parole hearing, which had gone swimmingly. And by swimmingly, a word being used in this context to define something less afloat than simply adrift, Draco might have more accurately used the word 'conveniently,' as the Warlock's final ruling on the subject went as follows:

It is herewith determined that the Defendant—here used in reference to Draco Malfoy, former Prefect and temporary (but reformed!) associate of Lord Voldemort—having satisfactorily completed the reparatory requirements issued by the Wizengamot following the verdict of Guilty in re Criminal Misconduct during the Second Voldemort War (see also Case #40192, "Dumbledore, Albus, Attempted Felony Murder," and Art. 314(b), Criminal Intent to Use Unforgivable No. 1)—blah, blah, it clearly sounded worse than it was—including but not limited to a rehabilitation programme emphasising Public Decency, Moral Education, and Proper Conduct, will henceforth be released from Wizengamot Supervision—here defined as 'the hawk-eyed watch of one Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress and executioner-by-proxy'—for purposes of reabsorption into Wizarding Society—i.e., the world at large.

It had the ring of reasonability to it. Largely because it failed to mention the subtler but still undeniable reality, which was, in two parts: 1) that overcrowding as a result of post-war renovations was causing such an extensive financial crisis for the struggling Ministry that they were forced to pardon all non-violent offenders (for which Draco narrowly qualified thanks to some well-timed Astronomy Tower hesitation), and 2) that Draco Malfoy was, for whatever reason ("Certainly not your looks," sniffed Theo, with which Draco firmly disagreed) the chosen martyr of the woebegone pureblood class. To wit: He was little more than a child; Purely a misguided soul; Subjected to the failures of an unstable Hogwarts curriculum run by an anarchist madman; et cetera et cetera, so on and so forth. In sum: if Draco Malfoy burns for his sins, we'll riot. Typical nihilist nonsense, really, except in this case, vengeful rhetoric happened to be inciting enough to frighten the half-healed Ministry into submission. Thus, the judiciary Warlock in question—who was, lightly put, not a fan—had little choice but to release Draco from his sentence of mandatory oversight.

"You may be a pointy little twat, Mister Malfoy, but you're certainly a lucky one," had been the parting words from the Ministry On High, followed by the slam of a Wizengamot gavel. It was a lesson, really. Not in the hazards of being a pointy twat, but in a much more favorable outcome. Things were considerably easier if one did one's very best to be born rich and also, placed a healthy limitation on one's ultimate contributions to genocide.

Surely anyone could see for themselves that, given the situation, there had been little choice ("To the boy who had no choice!" caroused Theo, carousingly) but to celebrate Draco's lukewarm victory with, quote, "excessive intoxication," this having been barked in his face by one of the staff at Twilfitt and Tattings after discovering Theo's impressive cyclone of ladies' hats. (And it was impressive, really, because Theo had forgotten his wand at the previous establishment, having deposited it in a flower bed outside the tavern, and in the end Draco had been the one to bet the posh bastard he couldn't create any chaos more objectionable than the purposeful asymmetry of the hats in question, so. Fascinator, indeed.)

"Go back to Azkaban where you belong you little lowlifes" had been the last thing Draco and Theo heard before half-smacking into the god-awful Weasley shop, which on that particular day had a line halfway out the door. The truth was that nobody was going to arrest them no matter what they did, provided nobody died (always a close call but, as Theo pointed out, Draco had never killed anyone before, even when he was supposed to) so they'd hopped into the queue and begun rancorously serenading each other until the line gradually diminished to nothing, leaving them face to face with a horror surpassing the Almighty Law Itself: one of the Weasley twins, who could not be so easily sidestepped.

"Nothing better to do than harass my customers, I take it?" asked the Weasley, who had either once cursed Draco's tongue to adhere the roof of his mouth whenever he said the word 'balaclava' (a particular disturbance during the week they discussed the magical impact of wizardry during the Crimean War) or caused a faint ringing in his ear to the pitch of a slightly flat B-sharp for two days, depending which twin he was or had been at the time.

The answer was, of course, no, they did not have anything better to do, as Draco had spent the last three years under mandatory Hogwarts supervision and this, his first day of verily undeserved freedom, was being spent with Theo Nott, who was now and had always been an unholy combination of manic energy with a singular distaste for authority. More a weedy set of trickster-god qualities (complete with an ardent devotion to antics) than any sort of human man, Theo was nonetheless Not An Idiot, and therefore he and Draco had drifted apart during their primary Hogwarts years as a result of Draco's extracurricular activities: conspiracy to commit murder, criminal intent, destruction of private property, and—who could forget—possession of illegal intoxicants with intent to distribute (as if anyone could have gotten through a year of the Carrows without being massively under the influence). Given the circumstances—i.e., Draco being either a living symbol of saintly redemption or a publicly reviled criminal with no credible middle ground—it wasn't as if there was anyone else he could call.

Hence, Theo.

"What's this?" Theo asked the twin who, evidently, could have only been George, which Draco later realized was probably at least partially his fault, while pointing via narrow-eyed squint to the brightly-colored banners on the shop's window. "Meant 4 who?"

"Not me," said George. "We're a 28% match." He turned to Draco, pursing his lips. "We're 22%."

At that point, Theo had of course leaned over to ask Draco if he thought George was communing with vengeful ghosts, to which Draco had replied he couldn't possibly be, not on a Tuesday, to which George had said I can hear you you smarmy dolts, to which they replied it was unspeakably rude to eavesdrop, at which point George had sighed and said two galleons to leave me alone, to which Theo said do you mean us pay you two galleons to leave you alone and George replied yes, which had prompted Draco to indignantly ask why, to which George had said because it'll be funny that's why, which was a rationale Theo had never been able to resist.

"50%," Theo observed when it was over, and then, with a frown, "What?"

"Means you're 50% compatible with him," George replied, gesturing rather impolitely to Draco, "now leave."

"50% compatible with me?" Draco scoffed, turning to Theo with palpable disgust. "Impossible. No offense."

"Offense egregiously taken," Theo said loftily. "This side of you is clearly the incompatible half."

"You can't honestly believe this is real," Draco replied, and then turned to George with a frown. "How do we know you haven't just tricked us?"

"Well, for starters, I don't actually care what happens to you," George said.

"Fair," Theo replied. "Is there more?"

"No," George said. "Anything else?"

"Yes," Theo said firmly, glancing at the near-emptied shelves of Extendable Ears. "Do you also carry mouths?"

"Please tell me you don't want it for some sort of depraved sexual act," Draco said, repulsed.

Theo, openly wounded, replied, "Of course not. I'd simply like to be able to sing to you while you're in the shower."

George wisely escorted them to the door, advising them never to return as they, for whatever reason, had obeyed, newly fascinated with the charms they'd received. For the rest of the night they'd gently accosted strangers, looking around for percentages and seeing who between them would win, thinking it a hysterical game.

Little did Draco realize it would be the biggest mistake he or anyone had ever made, almost killing Dumbledore included. (Okay, maybe not that. Close, though.)

"Hm," Astoria said, chewing her lip as she glanced at the number, suddenly reluctant to remove her dress. "This is… rather sad, isn't it?"

Draco glanced at the glowing 45% on her wrist. "Sad?"

"Well, it's not even half," Astoria said, with a display of astounding mathematical aptitude. "Doesn't that seem worrisome to you?"

They had begun seeing each other during Draco's extended stay at Hogwarts. (He preferred to call it that, finding the implication of some sort of rehabilitation holiday a softer term than the consequences of his criminal sentence.) By Astoria's final year, they had been tentatively in the early stages of admitting they were dating; by the time Draco was released into the wild with his new sense of good morals and right conduct—complete with the Weasley enchantment that seemed to be spreading around like wildfire—the idea they might willfully surrender to the antiquity of pureblood courting wasn't the worst thing either of them had ever heard.

Or so he thought.

"Worrisome?" Draco echoed, and Astoria bit her lip.

"Well, yes," she said. "Even you and Nott are 50% compatible—"

"Please stop talking to Theo," Draco said, not for the first time. "It really can't be good for your health."

"—so for us to be less than that…" She trailed off, mouth slightly crooked with the start of it's not you, it's me. "I'm just not sure I see the point, Draco."

"The point of what, us?"

"I wouldn't put it in those terms, necessarily," she sighed, "but I suppose, yes. What would be the purpose in continuing?" she asked him, pursing her lips. "We'll only break up, you know. That's the point of the charm, isn't it? Knowing for certain that we have a better chance of failing than not?"

"What, so now it's some sort of divination tactic?" Draco scoffed. "That's rubbish."

"Said like a Gemini," Astoria pointed out, which Draco very politely and with burdensome effort did not demean, demoralize, or huff at in any way. "Besides, predicting relationship happiness isn't rubbish," she informed him. "It's not as if it's some old bat with bad lipstick spotting your death in a pile of tea leaves. It's simply a fact, Draco, that we could be 55% more compatible with other people than each other."

"So you're breaking up with me," Draco summarized, "because a charm on my wrist tells you we don't belong together?"

"Well, it's just very logically sound," was Astoria's reply, and that was that. Last he'd heard, she was somewhere in the stages of being courted by one of the Flint brothers, with the two of them allegedly boasting a compatibility score in the nineties.

After a certain point, Draco couldn't round a corner without hearing people talk about the Meant 4 Me charm. It seemed everyone had one, men and women alike; within weeks, the unattached (or loosely attached) were ravenous for it. By December of 2001, the word "percentible," the inelegant portmanteau of "percent compatible," was declared the word of the year by Gorgon's Wizarding Dictionary. By February, the Daily Prophet released an astounding report that nearly two hundred divorces had occurred as a result of incompatible partners leaving each other for their employers/employees/lost loves/orthodontists as a result of the Meant 4 Me charm, which was nearly 600% higher than average. It was impacting everything, from the real estate market (no loans for couples with less than 60%) to conspiracy theorists ("The GOVERNMENT wants us all to be GAY for their LEFTIST AGENDA," declared one notable Warlock, who was by his own inexplicable admission only compatible with men), to the point where Draco could no longer pretend it didn't exist. Thirty seconds into any encounter with a woman and he could see her polite dismissal was a result of the obvious: the score on his wrist was too low to merit any further investment. It had never been above 50% with anyone, as Theo delighted in reminding him, and for the first time in Draco's life, it was a problem neither money nor blood status could solve.

Favorably, Draco wasn't the only one affected. Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley had broken up extremely publicly about a week after the charm's release, followed by rumors from Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. The slow demise of their relationship had meant dragging its corpse around for months, the two of them obviously gritting their teeth while smiling dead-eyed into the cameras. Pansy, who had been seeing Adrian Pucey at the time, had her own engagement noisily broken off by her father, who had been unwilling to turn over half the Parkinson fortune to the Pucey family for their offensive (so he said) 67% match. Even George Weasley, the inventor himself, remained single for reasons he claimed were unrelated to the charm, though Draco privately doubted it.

As for Theo, well. It was impossible to tell how fully he lived in the scope of reality, so he either seemed or actually was completely unaffected. Mostly, Theo remained Draco's partner in rakish debauchery, devoting himself more avidly to aristocratic leisure and its respective overindulgences than to much of anything else.

Around the time Draco's and Pansy's respective relationships met their unfortunate ends, the two had resumed their previous school-aged habit of casual sexual engagements, tumbling drunkenly into bed around the Christmas holidays and continuing it as a weekly endeavor, like therapy. They were a laughable 33% compatible, hence the ease of their no-strings agreement, and by that June, a little over a year from the charm's initial release, neither had met anyone of note—though, not for any lack of trying.

"I suppose it makes sense," Draco said, zipping his trousers and hunting around for his shirt, which he eventually spotted draped atop her bedroom's chandelier. "I can't imagine any of us can be expected to find the person we're perfectly compatible with at twenty-two, are we? On the bright side, the average marriage age will probably increase," he considered aloud, "which isn't necessarily a bad th-"

"What on earth," Pansy interrupted, glancing up from where she lay reclined against her excessive pile of pillows, "are you monologuing about now, Draco?"

He rolled his eyes, snaking his hand under the duvet and grabbing her calf as she yelped, kicking him away. "You know, the least you could do is listen."

"The least I could do?" she echoed, arching a dark brow. "I think I've already done the least I could do, and I don't believe I heard any complaints."

"Yeah, well—"

Draco broke off, grimacing, as Pansy's fireplace abruptly turned a furious shade of purple, a paper airplane shooting itself from the sudden burst of flame and flicking him beside his temple.

"What's Nott want now?" Pansy asked, slinking lower in the blankets and closing her eyes. From experience, Draco guessed she wouldn't make it to the end of the sentence before falling asleep.

"Probably nothing. If I had to guess, he's probably just bored at h-" Draco broke off, the note slapping his hand away as he moved to unfold it and, in lieu of opening, transformed itself into a beak.

"To the esteemed Mister Malfoy, may I begin by saying: blessings," the note squawked aloud in Theo's voice, prompting a single one of Pansy's eyelids to crack in opposition. "It appears I'm going to have to collect a small favor. Yours in divinity, Theodore Videlio Nott, Esquire."

"Well," Draco sighed, imagining Theo had probably tried to fence with the owner of the Leaky Cauldron again, or possibly stolen the sign outside Florean Fortescue's (it read "Everyone's favourite flavour!") for the third time, or possibly he'd riled up the owls at the Diagon post. "Probably just the usu-"

He broke off a second time as a translucent stag bolted through the wall of Pansy's bedroom, sending the majority of her hair askew on the gust of a magical breeze.

"Oi, Malfoy," said Harry Potter's voice, which was a sound Draco had not heard in years and yet could not fail to recognize, his entire gaggle of intestines seizing up in detest. "Much as I do not have any interest in speaking with you now or ever, Nott's in lockup and he tells me you're his emergency contact. You can collect him a- shut up, Nott. Nott, for fuck's sake, don't t- I said don't touch th- Jesus, how have you not been arrested before this?" Pause. "Please never say that again." Pause. "No, it's not funny." Pause. "I can't even begin to exp- no, you know what? No. Malfoy, just bring the bond money t- Stop it. Stop. I sa- Ron, can you…?" Pause. "Wait, are you leaving?" Pause. "Fine, yes, you go, I'll handle it. He's just another bloody pr- oh, sod off, Nott. Yes—no Ron, it's fine, I told you I've got it. Why? Why what?" Pause. "Because he's done something wrong, that's why, and seeing as we both know Malfoy's only going to pay off the entire department if I don't—" Pause. "Yes, all night if I have to!" Pause. "Not like that." Pause. "Just shut up, Ron. Anyway, MALFOY," the stag barked, "JUST GET HERE AT 8 A.M OR SO HELP ME—stop it. Yes, you. Fuck, this is Harry Potter, by the way. For fuck's sake, Nott—"

The message ended with the stag's burst of dissipation into empty air, followed by Pansy's yawn.

"Alright, get out," she said, as Draco finally spotted his left shoe behind the dresser. "I've got some sort of stupid meeting in the morning."

"Another pureblood suitor?" Draco asked her, half-listening as he searched for the rest of his belongings.

"No. Worse. Well, not worse, but hardly ideal," she muttered, and then clarified with a shake of her head, "it's back to the Ministry again. Revenue and customs this time, in the DMLE."

Draco's right shoe, which was hidden under the bed, had to be summoned. "For what?" he asked, bumping his head on the frame and cursing under his breath.

"Tax fraud," Pansy replied, eyes closed again by the time he glanced up at her. "Or something."

"What, another audit?"

She shrugged. "They can't get us on any criminal charges from the war, I imagine, so continued attempts at financial difficulty it is."

Draco straightened, frowning. "And you're the one handling it?"

"Better me than either of my parents," Pansy said, which was probably true. "My mother's a beautiful idiot, for one thing, and you know my father's mind is halfway gone as it is."

Hence the desperation to marry his daughter off like he was some sort of reincarnated Borgia pope. "Ah," Draco said, checking that his buttons had been properly attended to. "Well, best of luck, I suppose."

"And to you," Pansy drily agreed, gesturing to Theo's note. "For the record, if you both get arrested simultaneously, don't bother calling me. I won't come."

Fair. Per their gentleman's agreement, she'd come often enough last night to prevent his turning to stone with boredom, which was a friend-adjacent service unto itself.

"Bye," Draco said, and apparated out, by which point Pansy, whom Draco already knew to be a teeth-grinding nightmare from the single occasion he'd accidentally broken his no-sleep rule, had already put in her mouthguard.

The year since the release of the Meant 4 Me charm had been… quite productive. Exploratory, as Hermione liked to characterize it when she was in a favorable mood, which she was very quick to assure both herself and others that she was, thank you very much. She had achieved a great variety of things, chief among them the expansion of her social circle. Call it dating, if you like—Harry did, despite her frequent protestations—but there was nothing wrong with a healthy sense of discovery. That her increase in social outings with potential partners only occurred after receiving the charm was purely correlation, not causation, and therefore the idea she may have experienced any adversity as a result of it was little more than a common logical fallacy.

Understandable, but irritating. Mildly. But ultimately, fine.

"So," said Terry Boot, carefully inserting the prongs of his fork into the flaky crust of a Leaky Cauldron pie. "You're… a reporter now, if I recall correctly?"

"Yes," Hermione said, dabbing at her mouth and glancing briefly at the 80% that glowed from Terry's wrist. She had already recorded it in her records, having bumped into him the week prior in Diagon. "I write for the Daily Prophet."

"What sorts of articles?"

She aimed a purposeful stab into a spear of broccoli. "Hm?"

"What do you write? Political pieces," Terry guessed with a smile, "knowing you."

"Oh. Yes. Well." She reached over for a heel of bread, severing the innards from the shelter of its hearty crust. "I used to, but the Ministry was… less stable, back then. Not particularly in search of constructive criticism." She smiled crookedly, re-calibrating her tone before it darted off into tired unpleasantness. "I've put in for a promotion, though. I imagine you've heard Irwin Doge retired?" At Terry's nod, she explained, "They're expected to name the new Chief Ministry Correspondent in, well…" She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes. "About ten minutes, actually."

"Oh, I think Padma's up for that, too," Terry said, placing a forkful of meat pie in his mouth and hastily exhaling. "Hot," he explained, fanning desperately at his mouth, and Hermione, who at least had the sense not to bite into a fresh pie, fought not to roll her eyes.

"Which Padma?" she asked instead, forcefully polite.

"Pa'il." Terry's eyes had watered, his mouth quite obviously burnt. As if they were not wizards who could cast a bloody cooling charm. "She wa' in my hou'e," he added incoherently, reaching for his ale with a heavy swallow.

"Oh yes, Padma Patil, of course. Just making sure." She and Padma were friends, obviously. Distantly. Certainly on friendly terms, having spoken a handful of times over the past year. Padma had taken over Hermione's spot in the political news department shortly after she'd been placed on… probation, so to speak. Hermione preferred to think of it as a temporary sabbatical, finding that to be a more accurate reflection of its cause.

Of course, Hermione hadn't quite expected to be on temporary sabbatical from political news for an entire year, but here they were. She could only assume the trial period in question had been for the purpose of observing her more closely, in order to see how tactfully she provided the occasional guidance to Padma (unsolicited and certainly uncelebrated, but good deeds always were) and also to witness the superiority of her work over time. Essentially, to gauge whether she'd learned her lesson; which they would quite obviously assure her, as she had so diligently assured them over the past year, that she had.

Any minute now.

"I have to say, I'm surprised you agreed to have dinner with me," Terry remarked, diving into his pie again the moment he regained the ability to speak. Hermione was quite certain it was no cooler than it had been previously, but she supposed it was a timely shift in conversation. "I wasn't sure you were interested in dating anyone else quite yet."

"Hm?"

She watched him take a bite, flinching, and force a swallow.

"Ho'," he said a second time, reaching again for his ale with a shake of his head before turning to her with a smile. "Anyway," he said, after a heavy swallow, "last I heard, you and Weasley were—"

"Ah. Well. We like to keep our private lives private." Hermione forced a smile. "No sense parading around for everyone to see, hm?"

"Certainly better than what happened to Potter," Terry said with a chuckle. "Have to say, I felt bad for the guy."

Hermione tore off another piece of bread. "Well, with Ginny always traveling so much—"

"Really?" Terry asked, surprised. "I heard it was about their percentible."

Percentible. Hermione bristled, tightening her hand around her fork.

It wasn't even a word.

"There are plenty of reasons relationships fail," she replied. "Distance, for one thing, as I said. Work schedules, et cetera." Which were still valid reasons even if Ginny hadn't gotten the charm, as Hermione liked to remind herself.

"Is that what happened with you and Weasley?"

"Sort of. Something like that." Certainly not her inability to forget that her compatibility score with Ron had turned out to be even less than Harry's 'Acceptable' Astronomy O.W.L.—for which she had always known perfectly well he'd never even breathed in the direction of the notes she'd prepared for him, much less a textbook. "Our timing was off, that's all."

Had Harry won the bet? Yes, according to technical terms, but as Hermione had been quick to argue, the spirit of the wager remained crucially indeterminable. Harry's intent had been to establish that she and Ron would inevitably break up if they were anything less than 100% compatible, which was so obviously not what happened. They'd broken up only after the emotional and psychological rigor of a few trying months, the majority of which Hermione had spent covering a series of travel pieces on haunted castles in the Scottish Highlands. Had she accepted the assignment despite it keeping her from London, where Ron worked? Only for the purposes of her career, which Ron had supported with clear evidence of long-term relationship compatibility. Had she confronted George about his research every night for nearly four weeks in the interim to triple-check her figures on the charm's valuation? Certainly not disruptively, and anyway, he had either moved away or run into trouble with his Floo, so no harm done. Had she ultimately happened to have a higher percentage with both Nearly Headless Nick and Professor Binns than with Ron? Yes. Had that had anything remotely to do with her decision? No, of course not, they were entirely unrelated.

So really, she hadn't lost, exactly. She had just… very much not won.

"Well, that happens sometimes," Terry said with a shake of his head. "Was it terribly low, then?"

She set down her butter knife, glancing up at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"The percentible." He laughed, and she flinched. "Come on, be honest. I won't tell anyone, and anyway, we all saw what you two were like in school—"

"We just… weren't a good fit, that's all," Hermione informed him, a bit annoyed. This was clearly what came from a missing 20% compatibility. She made a note not to accept anything below ninety again, adding, "In any case, I hardly th-"

She broke off, startled, as an owl landed on the table, a letter attached to its leg with her name in fine, delicate script.

"Oh, look," she exhaled, relieved the night was finally turning around. "This must be from my editor. Excuse me a moment," she said, smiling at Terry, and he gestured for her to continue, taking another idiotic bite of his still-scalding pie as she fumbled with the envelope.

She skimmed it, noting her supervisor's signature (H.M.S. Dauntless for Halloran Meister Sherwood Dauntless, which made him sound, aptly, like a bloated naval ship) and spotting the words pleased to offer, excitedly returning to the beginning.

Dear Hermione,

I know you've been expecting to receive the Chief Ministry Correspondent position, so I thought I should deliver the news personally that, unfortunately, we've decided to go with another candidate. This is absolutely NOT a reflection on your obvious potential as a valued member of our writing staff. Your work in Human Interest certainly shows great promise! We simply feel you're hitting your stride as an up-and-coming writer, and would like to give you a few more years

"YEARS?" Hermione barked, incensed. "Is this a joke?"

to develop as a reporter before placing you in such a high profile position. Given both the sensitive nature of the work and your personal history with the Ministry, we simply hope to give you more time to convince us of your impartiality

"Impartiality," Hermione echoed aloud, fuming. "Impartiality, really? They want me to have nearly died as a result of wizarding politics and then be impartial about them as a subject matter?"

"Uh, Hermione," said Terry, glancing at the wisps of smoke emanating from her knuckles. "Not to alarm you, but—"

However, in recognition of your valuable contributions to this publication, this letter is not without its own promotion! We are pleased to offer you the newly-created position of Chief Correspondent in Popular Culture

"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME," Hermione snapped, the flame from the candle between them bursting aloft as Terry hastily shot backwards, his chair scraping against the wooden floor. "Pop culture, really? REALLY?"

"So, Hermione," Terry ventured apprehensively, staring at the table. "Listen, I'm just not sure I'm ready for anything serious at the moment… it's not you, of course—I'm just at a bit of a crossroads in my personal life," he said with a nervous laugh. "I'm…. well, I'm considering going vegan, so… that's got me very busy, and actually, I have been considering a move to Japan—"

Regarding the Ministry position, the editorial staff has decided to promote Padma Patil to the position of Chief Correspondent, and as such

This time, Hermione did not shout. She didn't scream. She certainly didn't charm any vicious birds to fall out of the sky and directly onto Padma Patil's face, which was so outrageously poreless it might as well have been made of stained glass. That would have been childish and undignified.

Instead, she decided she was going to tell the most influential person she knew that something would have to be done about the Daily Prophet's obvious incompetence, and together they would sort this out.

"I'm afraid I have to leave," she informed Terry stiffly. "Shall we split the bill, then?"

She was, after all, a modern sort of woman, and meticulously thoughtful as a rule.

"Sure," Terry said, a bead of sweat dripping from his forehead as Hermione rose to her feet, depositing a handful of galleons on the table.

"Thank you for a lovely evening," Hermione offered graciously, and tossed the letter onto the flaming tablecloth, leaving it behind to burn.

Draco arrived at the Ministry five minutes late, which was not the result of any time-related difficulty. He simply did not want to be there an hour before work, which people were often surprised to hear was something he even did. It was a minor addendum to his parole release but still, a factor nonetheless. His "reimmersion" into society included the expectation of full-time employment, for which he was qualified to do… somewhat little.

Hence his perfect credibility for hire within the Ministry.

Draco's position in the Department of Magical Accidents was intensely unremarkable. He was not an Obliviator—the most prestigious position available in the department, which was still not particularly impressive—but rather, a case manager, which was quite a fancy term indeed for the person who showed up to do the paperwork when a minor stole a wand and accidentally turned the family cat into a balloon animal. (If that sounded specific, that's because it was. On the bright side, Draco had happened to be 27% compatible with that child's mother, and they had proceeded to have 27% of an explicit tryst before his supervisor sent him off on a subsequent case: an expired potion which had accidentally turned the occupants of an entire house a blinding shade of chartreuse.)

Needless to say, Draco was not in a hurry to arrive at his place of employment. True, Theo had never been arrested before, which was certainly unusual, but they were both men of means and therefore possessed a certain… fluid understanding of the law. As in, it did not apply to them in the traditional sense. In this particular case, Draco suspected personal contact from a former war hero wasn't strictly Auror protocol, and therefore he doubted an additional five minute's wait was going to make Theo's condition particularly dire.

He wandered into the Auror bullpen to find said war hero slumped halfway down his chair, eyes closed, but clearly not sleeping. Beside him, a predictably chatty Theo had his arms and legs bound to a chair, aiming a stream of commentary in an unresponsive Harry's direction. Draco, who was in no hurry to speak to his former school rival, opted to say nothing at all, wandering inside and observing them in silence rather than announcing his presence.

"Hey, Potter," Theo was saying. "Potter. Potter. Hey. Potter, are you listening? Potter." A pause. "Potter. Pot-"

"Jesus balls," Harry mumbled, one eye snapping open. "What?"

"We should really discuss what this means for us," Theo informed him, just as Harry spotted Draco's presence at the door.

"Oi, Malfoy, you're late," Harry said irritably, ignoring Theo as he rose to his feet and cracked what had to be his entire spine. "It's fifty galleons."

"For what?" Draco said, immensely irritated. Not because of the fee, naturally, but because he was here at all, and because whatever Harry Potter may have been entitled to after his years of public idolatry, one of Draco's finer moods was hardly one. "What did you do?" he asked Theo, rounding on him where he sat in the chair.

"Nothing," said Theo. "Certainly nothing interesting."

"Drunk and disorderly conduct," Harry answered for him, turning to Draco. "He was raving like a lunatic in Diagon when I took him in. It's just a misdemeanor charge," he added, sounding unreasonably defensive. "It'll go on his record, but he won't have to appear before the Wizengamot if you just pay the fine."

"If he won't have to appear before a Warlock, then what exactly is the purpose of this exercise?" Draco demanded, sniffing the air and immediately regretting it as he placed the scent of whisky and revelry (Theo) along with tacos and carbonated Pep-Up potion (Harry).

"If you must know, I'm not interested in the self-important outrage I'd have to deal with from going after another untouchable pureblood," Harry said, with an air of trying to make a common fact sound like some sort of devastating insult. "But that doesn't mean the law doesn't apply to him, Malfoy. Or to you."

What a marvelous turning of the tables, Draco thought with pleasure. So the Chosen One had gotten precisely what he deserved for spending so many comfortable years as Dumbledore's pet, then. How many House Cups had Harry Potter undeservedly won before realizing the law hadn't applied to him, either? If Draco hadn't been intensely irritated, he might have laughed at the irony.

"What was the point of keeping him overnight, then? You both reek," Draco complained instead, briskly conjuring an enchantment for the smell. "If you wanted to avoid upsetting anyone, you might have at least sent him home."

"Couldn't," Harry said, forcing the words through a broad yawn, "seeing as—"

Draco waited about a year for the insufferable yawn to end, tapping his foot impatiently.

"Seeing as," Harry exhaled, finally bothering to manage any coherence, "he was drunk."

"So?" Draco snapped. "He only gets worse when he's sober."

"I don't doubt it," Harry retorted, "but I'm an Auror, so according to my job descript-"

"Hey, Potter," Theo interrupted, and Draco watched Harry growl as he reflexively turned in response and then quickly tried to obscure the motion. "About that thing I told you earlier—"

"I've heard enough hilarious things from you," Harry told him, rubbing his eyelids below his glasses. "Next time," he grunted, "just stay home and get drunk in the cellar like a normal person, would you?"

"Well, that's not troubling at all," Theo remarked, delighted. "Is that what you do?"

"Please," Harry sighed, "just stop talking." He turned to Draco, gesturing over his shoulder. "If you can just take care of some paperw-"

"Well, since you won't discuss it with me, I'll have to just tell Draco," Theo informed him.

"I'd prefer it if you didn't," Harry said.

"Noted," Theo replied, "and also, immediately disregarded."

"Can we move this along, please?" Draco asked, suitably impatient. "I have to be at work in forty-five minutes."

"As do I," Harry mumbled, gesturing for Draco to sit. "Just fill out these two forms—sign here, initial here, and—"

"Interesting that this is what they have the Chosen One doing," Theo remarked, craning his neck to observe Harry's instructions from his chair. "Shouldn't you be out being beloved?" he posed, with the sort of maddening provocation only he possessed. "Abducting luckless dragons? Accidentally obliterating Dark Lords? Other narrow escapes?"

"—just the date here," Harry continued loudly, "and then on this page—"

Draco glanced down, catching a flash of Harry's wrist as he reached for a quill and observing, with a grimace, the presence of a glowing 49%.

"What?" Harry asked, catching Draco's glare and scowling. "Let me guess. Is the quill not good enough for you, Malfoy?" he prompted, with his usual holier-than-thou tone of righteous arrogance. "Because if you require a solid gold one you'll have to w-"

"Don't you have the fucking Weasley charm, Potter?" Draco retorted, and waved a hand in reference to his wrist, which he realized belatedly was obscured by his watch. "I'm simply further convinced of its idiocy," he said gruffly, adjusting it, "not that I have ever suspected otherwise."

"No, I don't," Harry said, returning his attention to the paperwork. "Anyway, as soon as we get these signed, we c-"

"What do you mean you don't?" Draco interrupted, encountering his first genuine surprise of the day, and perhaps even the week. "Didn't you and the she-Weasley split up over it?"

"See? This is what I was going to tell you," Theo said, cutting in before Harry could speak. "As I was saying, the hilarious th-"

"Ginny had the charm, not that it's any of your business," Harry muttered, not looking up from where he was signing his duplicate copies. "Personally, I continue to find it unnecessary."

"Yes, precisely," Theo said, "which, again, is why it's particularly entertaining—"

"Unnecessary is an understatement," Draco said.

"—that ours is one hundred percent. Anyway, you were signing unnecessary forms?" Theo mused, turning his attention innocently to Draco, who arched a brow in warning.

"You're clearly lying," Harry said without looking up. "Which, for the hundredth time, won't help you, Nott. I'm not going to drop the charges."

"After our magical night together you think I would lie to you? Don't be ridiculous," Theo sniffed, which Draco figured was an unwelcome taste of what sort of time Potter might have had with him. "However, if it were to persuade you in any particular direction—"

"I'm in enough trouble without your help," Harry said. "Just sign the papers and leave."

"Well, not to point out the obvious, but think how much faster we'd be out of here if there were no papers to sign—"

"Harry," came a voice at the door. "For heaven's sake, have you been here all night?"

Hermione had waited over twelve hours for Harry to get home from work, stewing in her misery through a frustrating silence broken only by three hours of fitful sleep and the occasional furious outburst to herself. Ron had moved out of Grimmauld Place shortly after their breakup, correctly citing the impractical nature of their awkward cohabitation, but Hermione continued to live there with Harry, who was in desperate need of a roommate. If not for her (and Kreacher, in part, but mostly her), she suspected his socks would never be suitably clean.

"Have you been here all night?" she demanded, barging into the Auror bullpen after bumping into a frazzled Percy Weasley down the hall, who for whatever inexplicable reason had insisted on asking her how she was despite their mutual disinterest in her answer. (Which, for the record, had been, "FINE. THANKS.")

"Harry, you were supposed to meet me for breakfast fifteen minutes ag- oh," Hermione registered with a scowl, recognizing first Draco Malfoy, and then Theo Nott. "You, then."

"Yes, me, then," Draco mimicked in his usual condescending tone, still looking incredibly pointy and smug despite the multiple years and numerous hairstyling trends that had passed since they'd last encountered each other. "Thought you'd finally vanished from the face of the earth, Granger."

"No such luck," she replied tightly, glancing at Theo, who was grinning vacantly. "What?"

"Nothing," he said. "Still a little drunk, mostly."

"Unsurprising," Hermione judged, having already determined both of them to be monumental wastes of time. Both had returned to Hogwarts to take their N.E.W.T.s and had never been heard from following the exam, which for them was her preferred degree of interaction. Even Harry had done her the favor of scarcely mentioning Draco's name since their sixth year, at which point she assumed her careful Pavlovian conditioning (a smack with a newspaper, like a dog) had finally kicked in. "I take it neither of you have done anything noteworthy for the past three years, then?"

"Not true," Theo said. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Not for a commendation," Harry reminded him, and then glanced up at Hermione, looking positively exhausted. "Sorry I forgot about breakfast," he said, adding with a glare at Theo, "I had to stay overnight."

Not his fault, then. Hermione softened a little, recalling that Harry's latest Auror duties—another reprimand under the guise of 'assignment'—included an unpleasant night watch near the border of Diagon and Knockturn, an area largely populated by derelicts and drunks. "Still?" she asked, concerned.

"It appears Dawlish does not feel I've made up for my mishap last month," Harry drily confirmed. "Can do coffee for about thirty minutes when I'm done here, if you like?"

"This is cute," Theo said, glancing between them. "Should we tell her?"

"No," Harry said firmly.

"Tell me what?" Hermione asked, frowning, and Draco Malfoy, of course, gave her a look of contemptuous impatience, probably unable to sustain his herculean effort at two minutes of non-derogatory silence.

"I'm sure you can guess it's total nonsense, like all of this has been," he informed her, finishing his signature with an ostentatious flourish and tossing the quill carelessly in Harry's direction. "Are we done here?"

As Draco stood, Hermione couldn't help looking for the number on his wrist; habit, by then, though for the sake of proper experimentation she hoped to see an appropriately harrowing valuation. To her annoyance, he was wearing a garish antique watch, obscuring the glowing number as he caught her looking with an arched brow of scoffery.

"Don't worry, Granger," he assured her, lazily flicking the face of his watch aside. "No need for an existential crisis. We're about as incompatible as anyone would expect."

The glowing percentage was an abysmal 18%.

Good.

"A bit high, actually," she informed him tightly. "I'll have to check in with George."

"Do that," Draco advised, rising to his feet and doing the annoying thing tall men always did, hovering in her space while she resolutely refused to budge. "Now," he said, giving her a particularly haughty smirk before turning to Harry, "are we done here?"

Harry slid a piece of parchment across his desk to Theo, who was idly marveling at the renewed use of his arms. "Stay out of trouble," he warned. "And don't let me catch you doing anything stupid again or next time, I promise you, I won't be so lenient."

"This is lenience?" Theo echoed doubtfully, gesturing to where Harry had recently undone the binding enchantment on his ankles. "Shall I expect a spanking for my second offense?"

"You think you're above the law, Nott, but you're not," Harry informed him, ignoring Theo's look of self-satisfaction and folding his arms over his chest. "It's about time you realized you can't get away with things just because you've got a vault full of gold."

"And a sparkling personality," Theo said, with all the spectacular irreverence a younger Harry might have stupidly dueled him for. "Don't forget that."

Draco rolled his eyes, yanking Theo to his feet. "Come on," he muttered gruffly, "we're going."

He shot Hermione a last look of distaste, prodding Theo out the door as she fell into the chair he'd vacated, summoning her notepad from her purse.

"18%," she told the enchanted quill, which gleefully scrawled as she'd requested, and then she frowned. "Rats, I forgot to check Nott's."

"You're still doing this?" Harry asked, half-laughing as Hermione shot him a look of yes, obviously, Harry James Potter, you can see perfectly well I'm still doing it and I won't hear another word from you on the subject. "You can't actually believe you're compatible with Nott, can you?"

Certainly not. "I'm just collecting data," Hermione reminded him for the thousandth time, tucking her notepad and quill away, "and anyway, I've been waiting all night to talk to you."

To that, he managed to look apologetic. "Did you get the…?"

He trailed off, expectant, and grudgingly, she shook her head.

"They gave it to Padma," she said in a low voice, and Harry scraped a hand over his mouth with a grimace, sighing.

"Well, come on, then," he beckoned, rising to his feet to tuck an arm around her shoulders. "We'll plot their downfall over coffee."

a/n: Yes, yes, I know, but there is a twist afoot: in the words of historical anti-hero Aaron Burr, WAIT FOR IT. Just an fyi, my latest book, The Lovers Grim, is now available at olivieblake dot com, should you have any interest in mermaids, murder, illicit affairs, or the devil's patronage of his local public library. Thank you for reading; I'd like to resume the dedications I didn't have time for in my previous WIP, so this one is for my supportive pal shayalonnie, recent Masters of Death enthusiast/general hypeman deifiliaa, and Kattekwaad Aangevang, whose review made me laugh. Also, a ball of yarn for aurorarsinistra, without whom this wouldn't exist. Finally, the chapter title comes from Friends' resident sage, Chandler Bing: "I'm hopeless and awkward and desperate for love!"