Chapter 6

"Astoria, are you sure she did that?" Draco asked for the second time.

"Yes Sir. I saw her with my own eyes. Miss Granger threw those lovely peonies into the trash with a disgusted look on her face" she said melodramatically.

"Very well then" Draco sighed.

She was mad at him and why wouldn't she be? He had fucked up. Big time. It was all his mistake. If only he had controlled himself and not lost his fucking temper in front of her last night things would have been different.

"Sir?" The petite girl standing in front of him asked in a concerned voice.

Draco's train of thoughts was broken by her voice. He cleared his throat. "Okay that shall be all. And get me a cup of coffee. No sugar." He said and dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

Astoria gave a sweet smile and left.

After last night's incident things had been pretty rough. He had asked his secretary, Astoria to go and see Hermione's reaction after she received the flowers and as expected it had been far from good.

A knock on the door broke his train of thoughts. "Come in" he replied mechanically and Astoria walked inside with a cup of coffee. Draco didn't fail to notice the way she bent a little more than necessary to place the coffee in front of him, in the process giving him good view of her healthy cleavage.

Draco was not unaccustomed to these kind of advances from his secretary. He never really paid attention to her, not the kind that she wanted at least and the reason he hadn't fired her yet was because she was quite commendable at what she did.

"Thank you Astoria, you can leave" he said in a bored voice and dismissed her again.

He ran a hand through his hair and opened the very first file resting in front of him. With a dull looked he started reading it.

After the war Draco had struggled to get his life together, especially after Lucius Malfoy being sent to Azkaban and the death of Narcissa Malfoy. It had taken him a year to get hold of himself. He'd finally realized that the entire Malfoy fortune and name now belonged to him. It was a huge responsibility on the shoulder of a twenty year old but he knew he had one chance and he had to prove himself.

Draco had started a small potion business of his own. His job was to procure all the potion ingredients and supply them to the people in need. After the war the Gringotts vault of the Malfoy's had depleted to a huge extent and that was why it was very important for this venture of his to work.

He geared up and started working, today he had decided to spend the day inside the four walls of his office and finish the paperwork. On some days he used to spend all his time in the vast acres of the Malfoy estate, collecting all the required ingredients. For some rare ones he had to travel to distant locations but he didn't mind that at all. Astoria was to be in the office always, she would take care of all enquires and help him with whatever he needed.

He spent the entire day filing important documents, managing the finances until he was dead tired. He wrapped up everything and headed straight home.

The next day was pretty much the same. Draco spent all his time inside his office doing paperwork until lunch. He hated these days where he had to sit in the same place the entire day. Bored, he asked Astoria to get him the letters.

Draco looked at the bundle of letters that had accumulated over the past few days. He opened the first one, it wasn't a formal one.

Pansy and I have got back from Italy. Let's meet up ASAP.

-Blaise.

This lightened Draco's mood a bit. Blaise and Pansy were coming back from their vacation, that was certainly good news. Blaise and Pansy were dating since the past three years, their relationship had survived the war and that was saying something. Draco maintained him friendship with both of them. After the death of his mother and the imprisonment of his father, Blaise and Pansy had helped him a lot.

He went through the other letters in the pile, nothing caught his attention until he stumbled upon one which had the ministry stamp on it. He quickly tore open the seal and ran his eyes through the contents. It was from Kingsley Shacklebolt, a ministry official. He felt an immense sense of joy when he learnt that the ministry was interested in making a deal with him where he would have to supply them with large amounts of potion ingredients. This would certainly earn him good revenue.

He continued reading further, it said that a meeting had been scheduled with Shacklebolt day after tomorrow in the ministry to discuss the terms of their deal. Draco's heart suddenly sped up as the realization hit him. The venue of the meet was at the ministry. Granger would be there.

He tried to push the thoughts of the brunette to the far back of his mind and decided to concentrate on work. He had a lot to prepare.

…

Today was the day. Draco had picked one of his finest suits and groomed himself. He repeatedly told himself that it was because of the meeting with Shacklebolt and not because of anyone else. Certainly not a bushy haired witch.

The meeting with Shacklebolt went pretty well. Draco had bagged the deal. He was supposed to leave after that but he purposely kept lingering on the third floor. The floor on which was the Department for the Regulation And Control of Magical creatures. But he still couldn't find her anywhere. He was about to give up and leave when he spotted her.

Hermione was sitting alone in a corner of the cafeteria. She had her hair up in a neat bun making her look very sophisticated. He started walking towards her with hesitation. He didn't know what he was going to say but he was going to fix it. As he neared her he noticed her lips were moving, as if she was talking to herself.

"Hope I'm not disturbing you" he said as he pulled the empty chair next to hers.

Hermione looked up at him with a surprised looked on his face. She ignored him and took a sip of her coffee.

"So I'm assuming you didn't receive what I had sent for you the other day." He tried.

"Actually I did, but I threw it away" she said without any remorse.

"Ouch" was the only thing he could think of.

"Why are you even here? Stop following me-"

"I'm not following you Hermione, for Merlin's sake. I have come here to get some work done. You see I had an appointment with Kingsley Shacklebolt here."

"Fine. Why are you here, talking to me?"

He suddenly looked away from her, "I- I wanted to apologize for the other day". The playful, casual tone had disappeared and he sounded serious. Hermione waited for him to continue. "I got angry and I just…" he trailed off.

"You and your anger issues, Draco" Hermione scoffed.

"Sorry. I can't tell you what to do and what not to do. You can date whoever you want, it's your choice, after all" he finished.

Hermione's expression softened. "It's okay" she choked out, her voice thick with emotion.

They both looked into each other's eyes longingly, for a while until Draco looked away and broke eye contact.

"But hey! That doesn't mean that I have changed my mind. I still think we would make a better pair." He chirped, the playful tone returning to his voice.

Hermione chuckled.

"So we're good?" Draco gestured between them.

"Yeah" Hermione wasn't sure what he meant by that but she nodded and smiled anyways.

"Great" he exclaimed. "So are you free tomorrow? We could get some coffee?" he ventured.

Hermione's smile disappeared and her face had an odd expression.

"As friends of course" he quickly added.

"Oh" she breathed.

Hermione wanted to say yes. She genuinely did but she had a promise to keep.

She crinkled her nose and started thinking of excuses that she could make. "Actually I….I have to get some things done and I really can't-"

"You still hate me, don't you?" he interrupted with a smile plastered on his face but his voice sounded sad.

Hermione was caught off guard. "What? No! That's not true. It's just that" she paused and continued hesitantly, "I don't think it's a good idea for us spend time together, alone" she finished awkwardly, avoiding eye contact.

"Is that what you think or is that what he thinks?" Draco asked without any hesitation.

Hermione looked at him, surprised and confused.

"Your boyfriend"

"Draco, you're crossing the line again" she warned.

He gritted his teeth. "I did it again. Sorry" he was talking more to himself than to her

"It's… it's okay" she said.

"Yeah. I should leave." He said finally.

"Okay" Hermione nodded.

He gave her a last look and walked away with huge strides.

Draco wanted to kick himself. What the hell was wrong with him? Why couldn't he just control himself when he was around her.

Draco's initial plan was to maintain cordial relations with Hermione, be friends with her and slowly slither back into her life. That way he could very easily pry all information out of her about her love life and when the time was right he would make his move. But he could see all his plans going down the drain.

Hermione had clearly refused to spend time with him. He suspected her stupid boyfriend had asked her to do that for some reason. The point was, being friends with Granger was off the list.

It was already hard for him to pretend to be only friends with her after all their shared history and now that she had straightaway turned down his offer it seemed that there really was no chance for him. He sighed and apparated out of the ministry with a dejected look on his face.

A/n- I had posted this chapter last night but I had to delete it. Apparently it got messed up because I copy pasted the thing instead of uploading the file. I am never going to do that in the future again. Thank you for review or I would have never known about this.