"The right mixture of caring and not caring - I suppose that's what love is."

- James Hilton

In all the dozens upon dozens of times that Hermione Granger had found herself sitting across from her superior in his shiny mahogany office, the Newton's cradle above his fireplace had never once been in motion. Today turned its back on all those previous times, and yet, she didn't halt to wonder what difference today made; she merely watched the spheres swing with glazed eyes.

Almost three years had passed since she had first sat in this very chair, across from the bulky, red cheeked wizard calling himself her superior; she had been nervous back then, one leg jumping uncontrollably as she soaked up his every word like a deserted sponge. The division had barely been older than a month, thrown together in a haste, Harry told her, mostly from public pressure to do something - anything - about the tragedies.

The horror of people dying all over the world at the hands of Obscurials had long ago faded into a well-accepted reality. That was what Hermione was here to do; what the division was created for. To locate Obscurials as soon as they made themselves known – most of the time with a few casualties – to observe them, and then hand them over to the Department of Mysteries for Terminal Isolation.

There was no cure. No medicine for uncontrollable, unpredictable horror. No origin to be found. No worth in wasting your time searching for something that everyone knew did not exist, Roberts always said.

The job had sent her all over the world, with a variety of partners, and the newspapers loved it. Loved them. And she'd been one of the first ones to join; it was an impulsive choice that Ron had found odd, and Hermione decided to be the most logical thing in the world.

Now, she stared at the Newton's cradle behind Roberts' back, just enough movement and momentum to catch her attention every time she tried to focus on his words.

She couldn't function this week. She had anticipated it for months now, the approaching date a looming taunt. Just two more days.

The briefings though, they were always the same, anyway. The only thing that ever changed were the partners. Most of them lasted little more than a month or two. And most of them were late.

"… And not to be a chatterbox, but I will soon give up my position as head of this division, and there are two candidates who the board is considering appointing to it. The first is a foreign wizard from the Americas with an impressive résumé regarding dark magic, and the other…"

This caught Hermione's attention.

She had known for a while, from her last lunch with Harry about three months ago, that the division was looking for a new suitor in Roberts' place. It was her chance. Succeed, and prove to everyone that she was still the same old Hermione Granger. Unlike what Ron had told her. Her hand moved to touch her necklace, just above her collarbone.

For six months now, she'd worked countless late nights. Record times for finishing cases. Volunteering for each upcoming problem.

Hermione sat up straight. Her leg was bouncing again.

"What do I need to do?"

Roberts smiled at her, the one that made his little dark bug-eyes near disappear.

"Well, we just got a very… interesting new hire. He's been studying the Dark Arts in France for the past three years, and his background is more than… auspicious, although we had a bit of a laugh when his résumé came in. In truth, we don't expect a lot from him. We've selected him as your partner for this case. I know you can do this, but the board wants to see your adaptability and flexibility at work, with him specifically. Do what you always do, and I can promise you that my job will have a very capable successor."

He winked at her, a mischievous glint in the dark of his eyes, and Hermione smiled back now. This was almost ridiculously easy. Whoever she was to work with seemed to be little more than a challenge only for her.

"Who is the new hire?"

Roberts' glanced at the clock on the wall beside them. It was five minutes to nine am; briefing was always scheduled for nine, which was why she always came at least 15 minutes early.

"Well, he should be arriving any second – He got his education at Hogwarts and he's your age, so you two might actually know each other–"

While he spoke, Hermione's mind churned, flipping through all the names from her school years – it couldn't be Finnigan, he'd already been here a year ago and stopped after two cases, nor Jordan–

Someone knocked at the door and Roberts perked up, calling "In!" and Hermione twisted in her seat to see who it was; who was going to accompany her on the case that would secure her the promotion.

In the doorframe stood Draco Malfoy, tall and with a slightly displeased look on his face, striking blonde hair and a sneer that truly, could only be his.

And Hermione could hear the universe laughing at her. A faraway dull vibration that was meant for her, and only her.

"Mr. Malfoy, right on time! We got two early birds, I see. I think this will be just incredible!" Roberts' voice rang shrill, octaves climbing with that same mischievous hint.

Roberts got up and moved around the desk towards Malfoy, who had not yet looked at Hermione, and the two men shook hands. Roberts even added a slap on the shoulder, strong enough to make a child fold in half. Malfoy didn't even wince.

Hermione slowly got up, turning to face him, and Roberts stepped aside, standing beside them with a hand on each of their shoulders. She could see his whole length now; Malfoy had grown taller, towering above her almost an entire foot. He was clad… uncharacteristically.

Wizarding cloaks and hats had long gone out of fashion since the war. But even with modern clothing arriving in the Wizarding World, Malfoy… He looked like a Muggle. A black mid-length coat, button-up shirt and washed out, old trousers. They may have even been jeans, she realized in horror. His slicked back hair from Hogwarts was nowhere in sight; in fact, his hair looked like he'd rolled out of bed ten minutes ago. He looked casual, too much so. Almost unkempt. Untamed.

What on earth had happened to the prim and proper Malfoy she remembered so vividly?

The years had shaped his boyish features into something sharp, aristocratic; the straight nose, cutting cheekbones and defined jaw seemed as though they were carved out of cold, delicate stone. Only his tousled hair seemed to fit his unorthodox dress-up. He was completely expressionless - smooth, marble features, cold eyes looking at Roberts.

"So, do you two know each other?"

Malfoy's eyes dragged across her for the first time now, and Hermione felt a twinge of pain in her chest. His eyes were dark slits sparking utter disdain. As though her very existence in his proximity was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. How long, she wondered, would it take for him to call her a Mudblood?

"We…", Hermione began, a stupid stutter that died on the way out of her throat, and Malfoy raised his eyebrows just the tiniest bit. A small, ugly clearing in his expression. Waiting for her to say it.

He was daring her.

Hermione pushed her chin up and locked their eyes.

"We went to Hogwarts together, yes. We didn't know each other well, though."

She thrust out her hand and Malfoy regarded her with a new tweak of something she could not decipher. As though he was not sure either.

He gripped her hand tightly and they shook, gazes not leaving each other's eyes.

Roberts clapped his hands together then, utterly oblivious, and vibrating with joy.

"Well, this is just great. Mr. Malfoy, like I said, I… made sure to pair you up with our best. You'll learn the ropes in no time." Roberts threw her a wink as he turned back towards his desk, making sure that only she would see it.

Hermione raised her eyebrows. Malfoy had known she was going to be his partner? And he'd still shown up?

Roberts moved back around to his desk and sat down, opening and shutting drawers. Hermione stepped back from Malfoy, finally breaking eye contact, and sat down stiffly. Malfoy followed her suit, perching in the empty chair to her left. She only now noticed the scruffy black suitcase he put on the ground, clamped between his legs.

"Now, I must make sure you both know what you're going to do."

Hermione knew this speech; Roberts always repeated it for new hires, which was often.

"You two will go to Norway, meet our on-location referee, conduct necessary interviews with friends or family of the deceased and figure out if the Obscurial has disappeared or was moved. In the case of a disappearance, you'll be home tonight. If you can locate it, you will conduct a two week long period of observation to make sure its nature is stable. We expect regular reports, delivered to the local referee every two days. When you're sure that the Obscurus is stable, let us know in your report and we will send specialists to come and extract the Obscurial. At that point, your mission will be done, and you will return home. We will provide you with a house, a car to blend into Muggle society and maps to orientate yourself. Understood?"

They both nodded. Roberts smiled, cheek to cheek, teeth showing. A form had appeared in front of them, two dotted lines on the bottom.

"Just sign so we're all sure what's going to happen, and then I'll give you the essentials!"

Hermione pulled the form towards herself quickly, snatching the pen next to it and scratching her signature onto the first line. She pushed it back and looked up at Roberts.

He had pulled out two blank leather badges, a filled out form for car insurance, and a singular key. Hermione took all of it immediately, except for the second badge that Malfoy picked up and turned over.

"You will be sent to a Norwegian broom store in downtown Tromsø. You'll be able to exchange your money for some Norwegian currency there. Next door is a muggle car dealership, where you'll loan a 1983 white Fiat Uno. That key is to the safehouse in Jøvik, a two-hour drive away. Wands, please."

Hermione handed over her wand as she read through the form. One side was, presumably, in Norwegian, and the other was in English. She wasn't really reading though; she was focused on keeping her breath from hitching, her pounding chest from giving her away. Her head was filled with dull cotton, a warm, uncomfortable sensation like an egg cracking over her skull. His presence next to her was louder than the fire crackling, Roberts' voice rattling down instructions, her own heartbeat.

This was absolutely ridiculous. She couldn't work with Malfoy. She just couldn't. Of all people, why him? After all this time?

People like Malfoy didn't just wake up one morning and decide to go and save children. Especially not Draco bloody Malfoy. Not him, with what the newspapers said, and everyone thought. What a ridiculous notion.

Malfoy slipped out his wand from the sleeve of his coat, ever so slowly, and Hermione watched it from the corner of her eye.

Roberts performed the spell in less than a minute, a dark blue light settling over their wands and soaking into the wood. They grabbed them back quickly.

"Now, we have correspondence in Jøvik, he lives just a few houses down from you. He's been situated there for the past four years, and he will be in contact with us throughout the entirety of the case, and you're to report every update to him. His name is…"

He pulled forward a stack of papers and flipped through them quickly.

"…Ah yes, Theodore Nott, our British representative in Norway."

Hermione glanced at Malfoy again. Nott had been a housemate of his. She wondered if they'd kept in contact.

Roberts slapped the stack shut and looked up at the two of them doing their utmost best to ignore the other's presence. His smile spread from cheek to cheek. Hermione wanted to yell.

"Any last questions?"

Now, her mind screamed, tell him that Malfoy bullied you, he hates you, he wants to tear your heart out, you can't work with him! Do it!

The words died in her throat, swallowed back down when she remembered what Roberts had said earlier.

"Do what you always do, and I can promise you that my job will have a very capable successor."

The job was only going to last two weeks at most, maybe just until tonight. She could survive that. She had to. They knew that Malfoy was not a serious hire. He was just here for her to prove her worth. She held that over him. They didn't care about him.

She was not going to let Malfoy destroy this. Absolutely not.

Hermione straightened up, chin pushed high. "No."

"No," Malfoy said.

"Absolutely perfect!"

Roberts' clapped his hands together again and stood up, turning towards the high fireplace behind him. Hermione followed suit, the chair screeching against the floor.

"Let's send you two off then!"

He grabbed the bag of specialty Floo powder from the mantle and threw a handful of it into the extinguished kindles. Purple flames shot up high, and Roberts gestured towards them.

Malfoy spared her no further glance, walking into the fire with no hesitation.

Hermione grasped at her purse. Roberts gave her a last encouraging smile.

The Newton's cradle was still swinging.

With a deep breath, she stepped into the swirling flames and let them take her away.

With a three year long streak of unemployment finally broken, Draco Malfoy found it exceedingly easy to summarize his life into a page long résumé. His entire life, all his accomplishments – or lack thereof – fit onto one piece of parchment. Clean, neat letters that told everyone who cared what they needed to know about him. It simply made sense.

Private tutors, OWL's and NEWT's, a six-month employment at the Auror's office after his graduation and three years of independent research into dark magic.

There are no further questions, Roberts said; I know, Draco thought. Me neither.

He knew far more than they could ever imagine. Enough to bring them to their knees and beg for forgiveness. And he was prepared to deny it.

"Your partner is one of our most experienced employees here, the best of the best, if I may be so bold. She's very ambitious, you know. And adaptable. You have nothing to worry about."

All of this said with a scheming twinkle in his eyes; the proud glow of an employer praising their most beloved worker. Draco had perked up, but for another reason.

The best of the best.

It was her. He'd thought about it; the possibility of getting paired up with her. After all, the newspapers had regularly reminded him of the unbridled philanthropy of everyone's favourite fucking war heroine. He'd kept her image pinned to the wall of his mind, but for far different reasons.

A motivation to keep going. A smiling face filled with laughter, so light and happy, representing everything he absolutely despised about the world. Some nights he felt she was laughing at him; other nights, he had the impression that it was just a naïve, stupid giggle, no idea what was coming for her.

What a privilege. To be not only the cause, but also the witness of Hermione Granger's fall from grace. People like her, they expected everything and nothing of him. He could never manage to please them, no matter what he did; they thought of him in terms of impossible redemption and at the same time, a hopeless, bumbling idiot. People like her expected an apology from him but would never accept it; so he'd never even consider apologizing. She was simply not worth it.

The mere thought of her flourishing at the ministry, amongst all the grime and ugliness, putting herself on a pedestal there and loving the praise, made him feel sick. But not as much as it made him giddy with joy right this moment.

An ugly idea formed in his head, slotting right into place where it felt most comfortable. It had been there all along, but came to full fruition now, faced with the perfect opportunity. It shone over everything he had been researching for three years and blinded him with a crystal-clear wish.

He was going to destroy everything Granger thought she knew. Because she was on a throne built of lies. Because she represented absolutely everything he hated about the world, which was most of it.

Because for the first time in his life, he had the power to.

That evening, Draco read the employee protocol Roberts had given him. It was the first insight into the Ministry's workings he'd ever gotten, outside of the newspaper articles and published Obscurial studies available to the public.

It was horrid. Pages upon pages of strict measures and every few sentences, the inevitable reminder: Obscurials are dangerous, deadly, a threat, and must be feared. He wanted to rip it apart, but one thought made him still in the motion. The other employees – who was he kidding, he meant Granger – probably believed in this shite religiously.

He knew exactly how to topple a mindset built on lies. It had changed him; it would change them all too. Pull out the rug underneath them and take a brute force to the foundation of everything they believed. It was the perfect tool to loosen the screws of Granger's throne. Simply make a believer doubt their own bible, and the rest will follow.

Draco woke up skittish the next morning. His suitcase, turned into a large office with bookshelves and wardrobes with the help of an Undetectable Extension charm, possessed two further functions; one for Muggles, and one for the Ministry. If they knew what he housed down there, they'd probably arrest him on the spot.

Before leaving the dank hotel room, Draco climbed down into the office for one last check. Three years of his life, neatly stowed away and organized into dozens of boxes and files and books, sorted into shelves lining every wall. Everything was perfect.

He walked through the Ministry atrium with a skip, ignoring the heads turning to watch him pass, the sneers and whispers at the sight of his rejected person.

His excitement vanished the second Roberts' door swung open. Like a switch flipped, he dropped from glorious fantasy into brutal reality.

She was there, in the corner of his eye. Craning her neck in the chair, gawking and staring. And when he shook his employer's hand and finally looked at her, he was met with no surprise. She appeared like the bland perfect summary of every single Ministry employee he'd seen on his way through the hallways; modern muggle pantsuit in a bland, grey colour, rigid posture like a broomstick was shoved up her arse and an empty, uncaring look in her eyes. Even her wild mane he remembered from school had been tamed into lackluster curls that hung limply.

The sight of her face when she stood up, turning towards him made him buckle back into reality. No more dreams of stripping her of all the lies and fiction. Nothing but the ugly truth left, that she was his partner.

They were actually going to have to work together. Talk. Live together.

That look in her eyes when she took him in, scanned him from top to bottom. So wide open, innocent surprise. He hated it. She'd had no idea that it was him. So naïve, like the rest of them all.

Are you going to tattle-tale? Are you going to tell him that I was the big bad bully? Are you going to back out? Because I know you could.

And when she didn't, Draco simply became more determined.

They exchanged currencies at the broom store, awkward glances and ungainly bumping into each other in the small, stuffy front room. She was doing quite her best not to acknowledge him, a tense silence spreading like wildfire beginning the moment she stepped out of the fireplace behind him. She brushed past him, squeezed through the gap in the front door and stepped out into the cold morning air, halting on the pavement as she looked around the rural houses lining the street. She soon found what she was looking for; the car dealership to their right. With a rather dirty side look, she spoke at the street. "Wait here, I'll get the car."

She hurried away, leaving Draco to wait on the curb. Soaking in a first impression of the gloomy, chilly Norwegian country. Stilling his white breaths.

He only allowed the bossing around because he knew that better things were to come.

Draco heard the car before he saw it; a loud rattling and aching, like a dying animal that ought to be put down. A small, boxy white car rolled out of the parking lot and stopped on the side of the street in front of him. It was so low above the ground, the door would just barely scrape over the pavement. Paint chipping off. Screws probably loosening with every move.

Draco opened the passenger's side door.

"This is the ugliest fucking car I've ever seen."

"Sorry, a Ferrari isn't in the budget I'm afraid. As if you know what that is. I'm sure you're used to an entire cavalry at your services. Nevermind actually, I'm not sorry."

Draco sneered, threw his briefcase into the legroom and followed behind. The car rocked when he sat down and slammed the door shut. He didn't even know what a Ferrari was. And she was already unpleasant.

"You know, this could be a short case. If the Obscurus is already deceased, we'll be home tonight."

Granger had started the engine and made a U-turn, not looking at him once. "To make things clear; I don't know why you're here and I'm not keen to find out, so we can keep this very simple. Just don't get in my way, and we can soon act like this never happened."

She really liked laying down ground rules. It almost made him chuckle; how simple she thought this was going to be. How she had absolutely no idea what he had in mind for her, and for everyone else.

"What constitutes as getting in your way?" Draco asked, flipping down the visor. A gas receipt fluttered into his lap. It was from 1986. There wasn't even a mirror; he'd expected to see his own scowl there.

The engine rattled brutally underneath them as Granger switched gears quickly, weaving her way through the dormant city.

"Talking, mostly." Oh, he was going to talk.

"That's really not going to work out. I'd like to know some things," he spoke slowly, stretching his words. Taunting her own fate.

"I don't care. We have a protocol for questions."

Someone honked in the traffic, probably directed at Granger's rapid lane switching. The city was not so sleepy anymore.

"I read the protocol. Where are we?" he asked. Granger stayed quiet for a second, looking in the rearview mirror.

"Tromsø."

Draco nodded and watched the city blur into outskirtish suburban streets. The name told him nothing, but he liked the answer.

"What did he do to our wands?" he asked a while after she turned on the radio to foreign sounding voices speaking rapidly. He knew the answer, but he wanted to know something else. He needed to make sure if that cursed protocol was really what he thought.

Granger closed her eyes for a second, chest heaving with a sigh, as if searching for a prayer. Her knuckles gripped the wheel, tight and white.

"I thought you read the protocol," she said deliberately, enunciating every word as if she was talking to an idiot. Draco's teeth grated. Overwhelmed with the urge to squeeze the arrogance out of her.

"I did."

"Clearly not. It's outlined in the sections for premeditative measures for travels abroad. It tracks Apparition spells."

Just as he expected. Simply quoting information without even thinking about what it meant. So predictable.

"Sounds highly illegal."

Granger huffed.

"It helps us keep safe in case we get into danger and they have to find our location. It's for our protection."

Draco opened the glove box and started leafing through the yellowed car manual. It yielded nothing interesting, except looking at something new.

"Has it ever helped you out of a dangerous situation then?" he asked. He hated asking her questions, he found then. As if she knew something he didn't. But he was going to have to ask a lot for this to work. The thought made his jaw click.

She shifted beside him, a moment of silence. She was searching for an answer.

Fucking glorious.

"I don't get into dangerous situations."

Draco laughed then, a bitter huff, and turned towards the window. Their view had slowly transformed into vast fields and a long line of mountains sprinkled along the horizon, tipped in snow.

The radio got louder, but it couldn't drown out the silence between them.