A Post Hogwarts Affair Chapter 7

My mouth must have dropped open and I spluttered, "You wanted papers on Ron?" in the highest-pitched voice that I could have ever imagined.

He didn't say anything for a bit, but when he spoke, his answer was crisp and laconic. "So?" he asked.

I nearly chucked my butterbeer at him. What was he doing, messing with my mind? One minute, he seemed to fancy me just as much as I fancied him, and the next minute, he was still the mean, immature boy from Hogwarts, and then sometimes, he was something in the middle, just a platonic friend that I wanted to hurl off a cliff. "All you can say is so?" I cried incredulously.

 He shrugged. "I wanted to see what Weasley was up to. Do you have a problem with that?" His eyes narrowed.

His voice was so bloody confident; I grew a little unsure of my assumptions. Maybe he was just messing around, getting information on old schoolmates, or enemies, in this case. A few seconds later, it hit me. Bloody bastard was trying to reverse the tables on me! And he'd almost had me.

"That is not what you were doing!" I shrieked, trying to control my volume but it was a little difficult.

"Then what was I doing?" he asked nonchalantly, smoothly.

I was puzzled. He could probably talk his way out of anything. "So, let me get this straight," I continued, feeling as if my plan had been thwarted, "You fabricated a lie about going out of town and actually researched Ron?"

He smirked, that infuriating smile that made me want to slap him…or kiss him, I couldn't quite decide. "Weasley isn't worth all of that," he said contemptuously.

"So you really were out of town?"

We glared at each other, and I could see sparks of fiery in his eyes. I remembered my Hogwarts days for a second before he spoke. "No," he finally said. "I wasn't."

"And why not?" I replied, still glaring.

"Private matters."

Before I could say anything else, he'd grabbed the papers from his secretary's hand and stormed out of the pub. Astonished, I turned to his secretary. She gave me a pitying glance and then hurriedly ran—well, to the best of her abilities, in her five-inch heels—after him.

I stayed in the pub, staring at the door. Both Malfoy and his secretary had disappeared by this point. In a fit of frustration, I threw my butterbeer away and stomped out of the pub. Two minutes later I was out in the cold weather and severely regretting my rash actions. I needed to talk to someone about this. I wanted to talk to Harry again, but he wasn't "available" as he so delicately put it. We all knew he was probably out girl-stalking. It was one of Harry's favorite pastimes.

Well, he didn't really stalk them, because most of them were more than willing to be stalked. So I guess it didn't really count.

The only person I was close to, besides Ron, was his little sister Ginny. And I just couldn't tell Ginny! What would she say if she found out I was…romantically interested in someone besides her brother?

She'd tell Mrs. Weasley and then I would be beat to death by a frying pan.

And I loved Mrs. Weasley. I loved the whole damned family, but…I didn't really love Ron.

Against all my better judgments, I ended up flooing myself over to the wizard beauty salon that Ginny owned. Making my way through the palatial salon, I finally reached the back where Ginny's office was. I smirked when I saw her. She was busy applying eye shadow and make-up to her already embellished eyes. Attitude of a very posh beauty salon owner.

"So this is what you do at work?" I asked. She looked up, disoriented for a second before she finally noticed me.

"Hermione! You scared me!" she gasped.

"That was the intent, wasn't it?" I asked, sitting down on one of the plushy pink sofa chairs.

Ginny reached over her desk and pulled me into an awkward and messy hug. "It's been ages," she declared.

I nodded. "Yeah. I kind of wanted to sort some stuff out with you," I began.

"Not here," Ginny said, snapping her make-up case shut. "Let's go to a café or something?"

I shrugged.

Twenty minutes later Gin and I were standing in front of a very exclusive café that Ginny claimed she frequented quite often. And why not? Makeup is always a good thing to invest in.

She pulled me in and I immediately felt very out of place. Sure, I liked expensive things every now and then, but I wanted to crawl under the floorboards and Avada myself. I was the only woman who didn't have her hair up in a fancy upsweep, the only woman who was not wearing designer couture, and the only woman who hadn't a trace of makeup on. I felt like something Ginny'd picked up off the streets.

But Ginny didn't seem to notice. Instead, she dragged me up to order, and I nearly fainted when I saw the prices. "Gin," I whispered. "I can't pay three galleons for a cup of coffee!"

"My treat," Ginny replied casually. She ordered two vanilla lattes and I watched with interest and horror as she dropped six galleons onto the white marble countertop. She was so different from her brother—Ron had to save every knut; we spent as little as possible so we could send money to his parents and the rest went to his Quidditch needs or, now, my work needs. Here Ginny could drop six galleons on coffee and she probably spent this kind of money almost every day. I had never realized that Ginny was, well, filthy rich. As was Draco Malfoy. I scowled as I cursed myself for thinking of him. This morning he had clearly shown that he wasn't interested in me…by gods, he was more interested in Ron! The mystery came flooding back to me and I tugged on Ginny's shoulder.

"Look, Gin, I'm having an emotional crisis!" I said impatiently.

"Just a sec, Hermione, the lattes are almost here…ah, there they are."  Grabbing the lattes, Ginny sashayed in a perfect model's walk to the nearest glitzy table.

I sat down, feeling awkward as I sipped the latte. It was much too cold, and there wasn't nearly enough sugar to keep me content. It figured, really, that expensive places such as this one would really have bad coffee. I preferred to stick to coffee mixes from the local corner store.

"Okay," Ginny said passively as soon as she was comfortable, "tell me everything."

I smiled. Ginny's weakness was just her immense curiosity for everything, which sometimes got her into trouble.

"Well, I don't know…I just…I'm not…" I trailed off, annoyed to find myself at a loss for words.

Ginny took matters into her own, perfectly manicured hands. "Hermione, tell me everything! You will not leave a word out," she commanded bossily in the only voice that I ever really was submissive to.

"Okay, okay," I sighed as I began my long story. However, every three sentences, Ginny had to interrupt.

"So, I wasn't very pleased that Ron was always playing Quidditch or drinking something, an—"

"Ron isn't always doing that, Hermione, sometimes he comes and visits me or goes over to Harr—"

"Gin, that's not the point. So as I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted, I was awfully upset with the way life was going, and then when I was down at Dia—"

"Hermione! How come you didn't tell me you weren't happy? I'm supposedly your confidante, some confidante I turned out to be…" Ginny sputtered.

"Honestly, Gin, if you don't let me finish I'm going to have to Silencio you in order to," I almost screamed.

Ginny grinned sheepishly. "Fine."

"No interruptions?"

Ginny sighed exaggeratedly. "I won't say anything until the end."

Satisfied, I continued my story. "Well, anyhow, I met Draco Malfoy in Diagon Alley, and to my surprise, he was actually quite civil to me."

Ginny's eyes grew wide but to her credit, she didn't say a word.

"And it…just grew worse. I started thinking about him…a lot. And then he offered me a job at Malfoy, Inc, you know, the company he owns…and I got a really good job too, fantastic paycheck…"

Ginny nodded; this was something she could easily understand. But I could tell she wanted to speak very badly.

Smiling mischievously, I continued the tale of my distress. I felt rather like the damsel-in-distress sort of thing, and it was a little unnerving, but I hated the position I was in. I was attached to my emotionless life and Malfoy, Draco, whatever I thought of him as now, had really toppled it all over.

"So," I finally finished up. "I asked him why he lied, he became incredibly defensive and fed me enough lies to confuse me, and then stormed out on me," I sighed dramatically, signaling the end to the story.

"Can I talk now?" Ginny asked irritably.

I laughed. "Yes, of course. I need you to help me…and Gin, please, please try to understand that I do love your brother…just not in a romantic way."

Ginny nodded. "Don't worry," she said. "I wouldn't have berated you anyway for that. You don't choose who you love, it just happens."

I was astounded at Ginny's philosophy, but at the same time, I really liked it. "So…you're okay with all of this?"

Ginny scoffed. "Of course not. You are infatuated with Draco Malfoy. We've all detested him since we were eleven, and he has hated us just as much, if not more. So, why in bloody hell would he offer you a job, take you out to lunch and act like he's interested in you, suddenly disappear from your life as if you are nothing but a mere employee, and then the next time you see him you find out he's getting papers on Ron? If you ask me, he's got a multiple personality disorder."

I snorted and Ginny gave me a look. "You know, you've really got to develop a better way to laugh, Hermione. Snorting is extremely unattractive."

I snorted again. "I can't help it, Gin," I said, through tears of mirth. "I love your take on life."

It was Ginny's turn to laugh. "So, what're we going to do about all of this?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. That's why I came to my love-and-sex-life-not-that-there-is-any-of-it-adviser-extraordinare, Ginny Weasley."

"Who is currently single," Ginny added glumly.

"Oh," I said meekly, as I remembered that Harry'd told me weeks ago they'd broken up, "Yeah." I didn't quite know what to say. Before I could help it, insensitive words tumbled out of my mouth. "So how's that going for you?"

Ginny scowled. "You are so bloody honest," she reprimanded me, "You never cover up what you want to say."

I shook my head in contradiction. "Not true. Anyway, we are deviating from the topic. Which is our love lives, or lack thereof."

Ginny put up her hands in mock defeat. "All right, all right, forget I even brought it up. Shall we go back to talking about how bloody crazy Malfoy is?"

 I nodded, a little panicky that Malfoy had become my new favorite topic.

A/N: Huge thanks to reviewers! I really appreciate it. I am so sorry it took me forever to update, normally it won't take that long but I've been awfully busy. Also, like I said in my other story, don't expect any more updates for any of my stories until at least December 17th. I've got midterms, *sigh*. RECOMMENDED FIC: THE BACHELOR BY FLUFF. Go read it, everyone! It's quite fun!

Certain reviewer responses:

Sam8 – A very Ginny filled chapter, hope this satisfies your need for Ginny in the fic! Thanks for reviewing, I really appreciated it.

LMTran- I was thrilled to see your long review! Thanks so much, yes, I was aware of Fluff putting me in her fic, and as you can see it's my turn to do a little advertising. Thanks for reviewing!

Dragonfly315- While I really do understand where you are coming from with the voicing Draco and Ron's thoughts, I chose a first-person point of view and I really can't, I hate that but I love it at the same time. So everything is based on Hermione's thoughts, you'll have to find out stuff at the same time as her, I suppose. Sorry! But thanks for reviewing!

Labordor- So far, I don't have any lemons planned out. The rating's PG13. Thanks for reviewing!

To everyone that asked if Draco really was out of town or not: You'll have to decide, based on what Hermione knows. The truth shall come! Heheh!

Thank you all for reviewing!

And with that, I'm out. Hopefully I can get some reviews? Maybe?