Note: English is not my primary language. I'm self-taught (by reading fanfics). So please have that in mind! If you spot any errors that I couldn't identify during the proofreading, please let me know.

Thank you for reading and sorry for the delay!

Chapter 2: The restless patriarchy

When he woke up on his bed after a long night of work, he couldn't help but be content. He caught his lips curving up on the bathroom mirror as he brushed his teeth and on the shopwindows as he accompanied Pansy to pick up the wedding invitations.

Hopefully Granger would sleep all day or remain on her apartment where no owl could reach her, reading and caressing the double beast that was her hair and her cat.

On Sunday morning, however, the grim shackles came again.

"Again?"

His jaw clenched shut without even questioning his mother, hidden behind the open pages of the Prophet. The silver knife on his hand was at risk of becoming two separate parts. Draco desperately wanted to see the pictures and crumble the newspaper into nothingness. But no, he couldn't. He pretended to not be interested, when inside he could only think of swallowing certain woman to stop being a nuisance. Maybe in the deep of his stomach she would cease to bother him.

Once the breakfast was finished, he didn't waste any time nor tried to distract himself or the gods with justifications. The wizard went directly to buy the Prophet and Apparated home, where his eyes caught the words and images before his body could even inhale air.

MUGGLEBORN WAR HEROINE AND HARRY POTTER'S BEST FRIEND STRIKES AGAIN

Along with some repeated examples of the lasts men, there were four magical photos of her and Lawrence. It was indeed the Auror, who was smiling at her in two of them, filling her glass in another and whispering something in her ear in the last.

How bloody hypocrite. Weren't Aurors brainless dogs incapables of autonomous thinking? Maybe she didn't want him for his thought's capacity, but for other physicals abilities.

Fuck.

She was wearing a dress. Another one, light this time, maybe cream, white or a light something. The black ink and the triad of black, grey and white didn't let him point out exactly the color. Draco kicked the nearest thing to him, which was an sculpture his mother had gifted him. He shouldn't have only burned the paper, but burned down her wardrobe; he shouldn't have casted a spell to repel owls, but men; he should have cursed her door before leaving, so she wouldn't have been able to leave for nothing but work.

For the rest of the day his mind refused to let the issue alone.

On Monday he made sure to arrive on the exact moment their boss came in. He didn't want to have more spaces or times to interact with the subject of his lately worries and laments, even if he necessarily had to talk to her. It was, after all, the submission's day. He couldn't avoid it, but he certainly could delay it. Having that in mind, Draco made a tremendous effort into not even posing his eyes on her, not matter how much his face twitched with the need or how he could see from his peripheral vision that the witch was indeed noticing everything.

The course of action was aborted, however, when he suddenly noticed that one of her hands, moving now along with her words, portrayed five gold painted nails. The man stared at them longer than normal, judging by the nails moving in front of him as she snapped her fingers. His eyes moved to her face, startled for a moment, before recomposing himself and leaving the now almost empty room. The weight of her stare followed him all the way to the door.

As his body moved autonomously towards his office, he couldn't stop thinking about her nails. Draco had never seen them painted. Maybe for one Ministry Ball, but never on a working day. Did they have under remains of Lawrence's skin and sweat? Had they torn and grasped his clothes? He didn't know. What he did know was that they were currently twisting and gnawing at his guts. There was a trail of blood and pain behind.

Draco yearned to confront her, to insult her, to make her take away that color, to shake her and make her explain and repent. But he knew that it was not a valid course of action. He would put himself in a vulnerable situation, because why did he even care? And then, what could she possibly answer? It was ludicrous to think she would find herself suddenly in love with him.

Once the door of his office closed behind his back, his eyes moved to the clock. Each tick-toe sounded like the march to hell. He didn't want to see her. Why did he always work with her in projects? This would be the last, he thought. Specially if she was going to keep doing these- things. Why couldn't she be virgin and shy? Or asexual. He had come to terms with the necessity of inaction, but it was just pure cruelty of fate, of her to shove all her actions and fun in his face.

Sitting down and putting his hands onto the table, he invoked all the gods to give him the coldness and nonchalance in order to not put on fire the office with her in it. His pray was not even finished when two little knocks hit the door. Why did she even bother knocking? Didn't she know that he could smell her perfume, distinguish her footsteps from others, and recognize the shape of her shadow?

"Yes?"

Draco didn't look up from the papers. Her shadow fidgeted, an insecure little thing. If his eyes were to fix on it, the limits would start to blur. "The submission date has been extended."

Silence. Rustle of turning pages.

She sighed in exasperation. "Would you like to revise again or should I summit it?"

"Do as you wish."

"Ok, Malfoy. I won't bother you again." Her voice was now the bitter one with a touch of resignation that made his stomach twist with something like guilt. He envisioned the photos of the Prophet and evaded it easily.

Granger didn't bother him again. Well, not directly. The rage, jealousy and some cousin of sadness still visited him because of her. With this new found emotions he started noticing more things, like how much time she took for lunch (whenever before she would eat a salad on her desk in order to not miss work), the quantity of males that searched her out or the change of earrings and the new presence of sometimes a necklace or a bracelet. The last was the worst. Was she trying to make herself prettier to seduce someone, everyone? On Friday she was even wearing lipstick. After someone in the office made a comment about it, she had returned from the toilet with the face bare as always and annoyed, snapping at every person who crossed her way for the rest of the day. Not at him, no. There had been no need to evade her this last week: she was stirring out of his way like a cockroach encountering light.

On a Tuesday the cockroach's approach paused for over thirty seconds. The elevator doors had opened and he had found her and that bloody McLaggen almost stamping her against the wall in her intent to put distance between their bodies. That man had never learnt about personal space, especially when it came to the female part of the Golden Trio. It was never quite clear if it was a deficiency in attention and self-awareness or if it was made consciously for means of seduction. For that reason the Slytherin thought that Granger had never sent him to hell or hexed his bollocks off: the stupid man seemed to tingle the line of indiscretion, but never trespassed in a one hundred percent evident way.

Draco clenched his jaw at the image and saw the moment her face lighted up at his presence. As he moved in and stood with his back to them, he heard the man whispering something about showing her his new bed and so, yes, it was seduction. Poor seduction. Very blunt, pathetic seduction.

"No, thank you," she said with clear disgust in her voice. The other man didn't seem to catch it; the whispers started again. Draco felt suddenly a hand grasping his elbow, tugging him slightly back. He turned half his body and yes, it was her, of course it was her, but at least now her nails were bare. Taking his elbow as a bloody life jacket, moving closer to him and away from the beast who was now sending violent glares at him. He wanted to shake her off and say something about consequences and reaping what was sow, but one look at her imploring face made him quiet. "Malfoy," a life jacket with a name. "I- Finally I submitted the papers on Tuesday."

"Yes, Granger. That was two weeks ago." And of course he was still bitter and annoyed. Yes, a life jacket indeed. An object, without emotions or feelings or fucking anything, no, Granger? Only to be used whenever one was drowning. Meanwhile, as the latest Prophet had said, she was over man number seven. Would she like to invite him along to her dates to save her in case they didn't go well? Would she like to make him stand next to her bed and hold her hand while she screws too? "What do you think, that I don't do my bloody job? I already checked."

Granger blinked once at his ferocity. Then her face matched his. "I don't know what your bloody problem is, but involution doesn't become you."

The gods seemed to think like her, because in the same moment she finished speaking the doors to their floor opened and she left. Draco scoffed in response and glared hatefully at the other man.

The next Sunday The Prophet escalated the number to eight. The new man was a former Head of Aurors, old enough to be her father. What the fuck was wrong with her, he asked himself internally as his mother manifested the same concern in a more educated form. The biscuit crumbled into millions pieces under the pressure of his jaw. The photos moved before his eyes: again the dead sheep (thank god for small mercies) around her shoulders as she talked excitedly at the man's warm smile.

"I encountered Rita Skeeter the other day," the blonde lady started after sharing the still shocking news with his son.

"Encountered where?"

Narcissa smirked at his question. People always thought that his smugness and arrogance came from his father, but really he had learnt at a very young age by mimicking his mother's manners. "At The Prophet's offices. I had a sudden urge to make a little donation," she explained, her hands moving in a dismissal gesture, her long, manicured nails shining just like the silver ware. "We talked about the latest news of society, including this girl." His body almost moved forward in anticipation. He controlled it like a good Malfoy. "I don't know what Granger did to Skeeter, but the woman absolutely hates her. Maybe this," she continued, moving the newspaper beside her, "is revenge. We all know that no respectful man would approach her now with honest intentions. But seeing the photos... maybe Skeeter is right and she is a gold digger." Never gold: she wouldn´t even let someone buy her dinner. More like a cock digger. Or rider.

Fuck.

"Has she ever approached you, dear?"

Draco unconsciously fulminated his mother with his eyes.

"I will take that as a no. Take care. I know you like this type of women," she said, the disapproval clear in her words. "You have showed so on every event. You should start thinking about your future. Why don't you talk with Theodore?"

Monogamy and marriage weren't a disease that you could catch by speaking with the already infected. Life would be so easy if it was like that: he would be able to infect Granger and make her reciprocate his infatuation.

Draco drank the rest of his tea in answer and changed the subject to her new techniques to save the dying roses on the garden. He didn't want to think, even less talk, about how he would only be monogamous for one person. One person that didn't give him the time of the day, and who lately practiced sexual liberation like a fucking Azkaban's escapee.

The next day he arrived just in time again. There was no need to avoid Hermione, however, since she was on a similar mission of completely ignoring him. Draco noticed that her nails were painted with a light pink. He forced himself to look away, focusing with absolute attention on their boss' words and sighing with relief at the near end when the man left, not before asking them to finish arranging the week activities.

Once the authority disappeared through the door, the mood lightened and the jokes began. Draco was in no humor for that -not that he ever was. After half an hour of goings and comings, the division of work was established except for one item.

"Someone should speak with the Aurors."

"Maybe you, Granger?" Andrew asked with a smirk. The tone was playful in the surface, but the glint in the eyes betrayed him. That man had been trying to get into every woman's knickers that crossed his path with a fearsome dedication. Draco didn't know his efficiency rate, but he had witnessed the moment that Don Giovanni had encountered a wall, an offended one, in Hermione. Since then, he constantly made apparent innocent jokes about her which would drive all the office to laugh. Granger always answered either with a raised eyebrow or with complete disregard, brushing off his insults like little, stupid insects.

The witch moved her eyes away from her notepad and suddenly noticing the several grins around the table her eyes narrowed in confusion. Wasn't she aware that her slutiness was being reported every week and being made a casual topic of conversation? "I will talk with Harry."

"Ok, you do that. But don´t forget to work." More sniggers travelled down the table, mostly by the men, which constituted the eighty percent as usual. She seemed put out by the mood, not catching where the jokes was. The witch remained seated, eyes fixed on the stupid man as everyone started leaving.

"Excuse me, Anderson," she said in that bossy tone that she had perfected so many years ago. Draco hid a smirk at her stern use of the family name as he closed the ink bottle and stood up. "I seem to be missing the joke. Do you care to explain?"

Draco looked back, seeing from behind as a moment of doubt seized the caveman's body. His resentment seemed to win after looking around and noticing that only the two of them had remained around the table. "What? You are too busy fucking different men to keep up with the Prophet?"

Wow.

Granger's mouth opened in surprise as she blinked. From fire, passion and never ending words, she had transmuted into a statue, immovable and speechless. As if sensing his thoughts, her eyes moved towards his behind the man. Maybe to petition for the life jacket to enter into action? He didn't, however, for most that he wanted to make the man's face meet the table repeatedly.

"If I knew you were this easy, I would have just show you my cock."

Repeatedly, repeatedly until his brain would come out and paint the wood red. The caveman, future corpse, stood up and turned towards the exit, his smug and victorious face paling at seeing the blond man at the door. Malfoy stabbed him with his stare on the march towards the door. The caveman seemed to crouch into himself when he passed by him, and only after closing the door and thus invisible to the still speechless woman, the Slytherin's hands moved without thinking, grabbing Anderson by the robs and shoving him violently against the wall.

"Speak to her like that again and I will make sure you will never be able to get laid," he spat into the man's face, invoking every ounce of his Malfoy heritage. Draco had never been glad for his Death Eater past (or sort of past), but leaving the man frozen and silent behind him, he had finally found its rightful use.

Granger didn't show her face for the rest of the day, or at least not in his vicinity. There were, however, several owls coming and going towards her office, so he logically inferred that she was getting up to date with her appearances on the Prophet. There was no need to guess her current emotion: pure rage. He wondered about the cause: was it because it was a breach of her privacy or because it was a misunderstanding? Biting the inside of his mouth, he wished again and again that it was the latter case.

And so Draco awaited for her to come and explain herself, and then they could insult and plot against the caveman. Whenever there was a shadow approaching the space seen by his opened door he felt his insides clenched with hope.

But only Elmira, the old lady that sold coffee, came in.

"You seem cheerful this morning, son," his mother commented as a whirlpool formed by the spoon's movements on her cup. "Did something good happened?"

Or something bad hadn't happened. As he had already checked on his early supervision of the newspaper, that Sunday there wasn't any article about her, nor photo old or new. Draco felt like he could breathe freely again. Not even the presence of his father, sitting on his side, with a judgmental eyebrow raised, could tarnish this moment of peace.

Maybe the caveman's crude words did have a positive effect. Not that it made him lessen the desire to smash the man's face against his fist.

It was the first Sunday in some time that he didn't have to resort to alcohol or into sleeping long hours in order to alleviate the depressing mood. Suddenly he felt happy, the colors returning to the world, the sounds vibrating louder, the sweets in his cupboard tastier. He felt like celebrating the new found lightness inside his chest.

The happiness extended to the next day, but met a wall shortly after. First, he felt a jab of something when her eyes flickered to him, but moved instantly away with sadness. Then, he saw her red nails, which promptly changed the nature of the something. Finally, the cherry on top of the cake, he was called to their boss's office to be informed that Granger had asked to be spared from going to the New York conference taking place in two weeks.

Albert continued despite the surprise invading the man's face in front of him. "She told me on Friday. I insisted that she should give it a second thought. She informed me first thing this morning that she doesn't want to go. I told her it isn't negotiable."

"Why?"

"I had hoped you knew." He answered, interpreting correctly his question. "She didn't say. Seeing that you two are the best couple on the team and always fulfill everything in perfection, I can't let her stay."

As soon as he was dismissed, Draco crossed the corridor towards Granger's office. Anderson stepped into his way and told him in a nervous whisper, looking around for eavesdroppers, "Malfoy, I swear on my mother I didn't talk to her again. Lift the-"

Without pause, Draco opened and slammed the door on the caveman's face. He didn't know what the man was talking about and he didn't care. There was only one subject on his mind now, as of lately: Granger, Granger who was not currently inhabiting her own office.

It didn't matter, he though as he moved one of the chairs in front of her desk to face the door. Whether she had gone to the toilet or to the fucking North Pole, he was not moving from the spot until her irritating presence was in front of him to answer his questions.

Because why would she have done that? The conference was the tying vow of everything they had been doing that year so far. She had been over the moon when their proposal had been selected, her face transformed into a wide smile and her eyes twinkling with happiness. Why throw all the work away now? Had maybe one of her dates asked her to stay? Did she stay in order to not mess up her dates schedule? His foot tapped the floor, punctuating each question with nervous violence. The fifth one was interrupted by the opening door.

Hermione froze in the entry for a few milliseconds, before recomposing herself and moving around the desk to sit on her own chair. If it wasn't for the initial inaction Draco would have doubted his very existence. He rearranged the chair into place and sat facing her, his arms folded in front of his chest.

When it was evident that she planned to ignore him, he started speaking.

"Why don't you want to go to New York?"

Her eyes didn't move away from the papers on her desk. Despite her effort in giving a nonchalant aura he could tell she was heavily thinking her next words. "I´m tired."

"And?"

"And pretty much that."

Her hands continued shifting through the pages and he had to bite his tongue in order to not lash out. With irritation bubbling up, he breathed in and out, just like she had taught him one late night of stressed work.

"You were excited about this opportunity, why the change of mind?" Draco asked and watched her hand close around a pen to start moving it along a page, leaving traces here and there. He frowned, trying to discern if she was really writing or just wasting ink for the sake of annoying him. "What happened?" The movement didn't stop after a sharp silence, so he took his wand and casted an accio at the papers, provoking a long line of black ink across several of them. As she gasped at the audacity, he continued, "I´m speaking to you, pay attention to me for one minute at least."

Now she was the one with her arms folded, full of anger, reclining against the back of her chair. "It amazes me how one sided our relationship always is."

Draco's throat moved gulping air in a nervous motion. "What do you mean?"

"This," she indicated with a movement of her hand. "I have been trying to speak with you for the last weeks and you not even look at me." He sighed with relief."And now that you are the one who wants to talk I have to leave everything immediately to hear my precious majesty."

"I take it that you are mad at me."

A snort of disbelief left her mouth as her body leaned towards the desk. "You take it?" There was a sharp edge of fury on her voice. "Don't you think I have ample of reasons?"

"No."

"No?"

"No," he replied again, putting all his vocal cords force in the word, even if he recognized the rhetoric nature of the last question.

A shriek of frustration escaped from her lips. "You have been cold and hot with me for no visible reason. You've been avoiding me and if not, treating me like shit under your shoe. You didn't even defend me last week!"

Life jacket again. He was fucking pinning after her, burning images of men, having trouble sleeping, working, breathing without a word of recrimination, and she was mad that he didn't act as one of her stupid friends would have reacted?

"I thought women didn't need saving."

"Of course not!"

"Then? I didn't know I had to do something," he said with disbelief showing on his face. "What did you expect me to do?"

"To bloody say something!" The exclamation seemed to be thrown out of her throat. "We had been working together for two years now? And you can't say something in my defense?"

"Why would I do that?"

The angry lioness seemed to evaporated at his words as if they were an animal enchanter. It was like seeing a balloon being deflated in slow motion. Now, instead of a dangerous feline, there was a little deer with eyes full of sadness and disappointment. Draco felt heavy, an unforgiving fist twisting his insides, which only made him angrier because he was the one feeling sad and disappointed. She had no claim over that emotions.

"I don't know what's the matter with you lately. I sought you out, I asked you, I figured you needed space, maybe something had happened- with your mother or father or-. Maybe you're sad because Parkinson is getting married. I don't know," she said in a quick succession, ignoring his snort. "It seems I interpreted it wrong." The fist wringing his insides grew harder, as Granger stood up and started moving towards the door. Who would have said that a Gryffindor would be so coward to run away and leave her own space? Not that he was someone to talk, but well. She was going to talk to Albert to convince him this time for all. "You clearly still have a problem with me. I will not bother you again."

At her words he was suddenly immersed in pure, blind anger. How dare she! he thought as he stood up, the chair squeaking against the floor, and approached the entry just as her hand closed around the door handle. "Don't say I still have a problem. I don't still have a problem and you fucking know it."

"I know it?" Hermione snarled, turning her head to look at him. "Are you kidding me? It's been more than a month since you are a step away from cutting my head off and now-" Her hands moved away from the metal to dance in angry gestures. "Do you need a psychiatrist? Are you even hearing yourself or the words leave your mouth without processing them?" She scoffed exasperated. "And now you ask me why would you even defend me when that Neanderthal said those things! I don't know what concept you have of friendship, but we don't seem to share it."

"How can I defend you when he's right?" He didn't mean to say it, but the words escaped from between his lips like furious waterfalls. Draco only wanted her to go back to her celibacy or at least to do it in secret, so he didn't have to suffer so much.

She blinked at him as the silence stretched for almost an eternity. "What?"

"Yes. He say more or less that you´re a slut. Aren't you?" Ok, he couldn't stop.

"So you think I am a slut?"

"Well, if it moves like a duck..."

"I'm sorry," she started looking at the sides as if there was something or someone apart from him to clear her confusion. "Didn't you went out the other day with... Linda was it? From the cafeteria?"

"Yes-"

"And before that, weren't you recently bragging about having gone out with two secretaries from the Improper Use of Magic Office?"

"What-"

"And before! Didn't you-"

He raised his voice over hers. "And what does it have to do with this?"

"What does it have to do?" Her hands were moving at her sides, palms up in a clear gesture of disbelief mixed with fury. "You can do it without being called anything and I can't?"

"You are- Granger." He replied stupidly, but it did say a lot. "A woman."

Hermione took some steps towards him, wishing that her proximity could infect him of rationality and logic. "So because I have a vagina I can't go on multiple dates?"

The tale of the lock and the multiple keys would have been pertinent, he thought, and even more peaceful than the actual words that left his mouth next. "You are a slut." Even he could recognized that his voice came out violent and hard. With hope he had been expecting an explication and the reassurance that it was all a big misunderstanding or tricks of reporters and photos. But no. Nothing was ever easy with her.

The heaviness of his words made the air dense as a tunnel formed between their intense stares.

Despite the venom of his voice, Hermione moved closer and responded with more disgust than him. "What does that make you then?" She pressed her palm into his chest, shoving him a step back and following into it. "The number one slut? No, a bloody bachelor. A bitter, vengeful man that can't stand that his frien- his colleague enjoys herself? No, a bloody good man. Fuck you." When she shoved him again he took her hand into his grip. "Men pursue and women are pursued? What are you? Patriarchy 101? Look it up, you stupid arrogant pureblood-dinosaur." Clucking her tongue in a clear gesture of disappointment, she finally added, "I thought you were different than your parents. Evidently I was wrong."

She did know which buttons to push. Malfoy moved instinctually closer to her, stopping one step in front of the space occupied by her infuriating body. He loomed over her, casting darkness on her face and imposing his physical presence as a threat, as a bribe. "Take that back." The tone was icy and the order was as clear as the increasing tension in the room.

Some years ago, on the face of his imposing and masculine presence, she would have swallowed not exactly in fear, but in something very close to it. Now, however, the only acceptable course of action was to take the step he didn't dare, almost trampling over the tips of his shoes, and speak, breath caressing his skin, but words stabbing a million needles. "You are the same."

Boiling waters danced inside of him. They were not the ocean waves, increasing and receding over the rocks. They were tsunamis, threatening to swallow it all: rocks, beaches, cities and jungles. Grabbing her by the arms he pushed her back until they collided with a chair, on which she sat down in order to not fall.

Malfoy leaned over, his face directly above hers, and his voice came as a feral growl as his nails tried to stab her through the yarn of her sweater. He had never damned her style of big and bulky clothes more than now. He wished to hammer his nails into her skin, to give her back something, anything of which she gave him every fucking day.

"Take that back."

She didn't. Force didn't beget duty, only submission, which she had not. Not even a drop. Hell, she surely wasn't even able to spell that word without disgust.

"Take back what you said."

Shaking his hold off, she spat on his face. "You can say what you think of me and I can't share my own opinion?" The witch leaned up, an inch away from his face and sneered. "You may think me a slut, but at least I am not Lucius's blind dog."

The urge to hit her was so urgent and pressing that he could feel fire on the palms of his hands, begging to hurt her, touch her. He didn't, because he knew that even if her words harmed him more than what he could physically give her, he would regret it. And so, the next rational way to hurt her in a disguised form was to encase her jaw into one of his hands, finally stabbing her skin with his bare nails and crush his lips against hers.

Was it a kiss? The word was too sweet and innocent to describe it. His lips touched her, or hit hers, or burnt hers. His mouth moved on top, as it ought to be. She gasped or invited him in and so his tongue travelled inside, invading as a king would to its enemy's land.

In the back of his minds he took notice that Granger was responding, but it was of no matter. She was the object of his socially accepted destruction. He was the one biting and imposing over someone else's body. He was the one dominating and conquering. She could only accept or wait for him to finish.

In the rush of passion, he didn't know when his hands had moved to her hair, which he tugged back to impede her of autonomous movement. She couldn't kiss him now, only wait the microseconds for the arrival of his lips and welcome their return.

Only when a little, almost inaudible moan left her mouth he moved away. Malfoy stared down at her, beneath, inviting and waiting. Her cheeks the color of desire. Now she did swallow. In fear? In passion? Or intending to swallow herself and disappear?

In her blush laid the evidence of her arousal. He imagined making a comment of her wetness and hotness, but didn't. He imagined himself maybe smiling at her if he wasn't so bloody angry still. Draco mentally cursed her for spoiling the one time his fantasies took flesh. The point was clear, however. See?

There was no word exchanged. Once she looked down, avoiding his eyes, he left with his pants tighter than when he had arrived.

For a so-called-feminist she liked aggression just fine.