When Draco walked into the office on Thursday, he made a beeline for his desk, then backtracked a few steps, looking around the room in confusion. 'Where is my soup?'

'Gone.'

He gave her an accusing look. 'Gone where? I paid good money for that soup.'

Hermione shook her head. 'I thought it was left over from Mr. Jones, the bunker guy.'

'No, that stuff expired a few months ago. The soup was mine and I want it back. Now.'

Hermione fought the urge to groan. Malfoy was clearly in even more trouble than she had guessed. Why had she decided to meddle? 'So you went out and bought crates and crates of soup? Why?'

'It was a good deal and I like soup.'

'You can't live on that stuff. You'll waste away. There isn't even a microwave in here. Did you build a fire?'

'It said heating optional.' He said it with a straight face, as though it were perfectly ordinary to like room temperature canned soup.

'God. That is just about the saddest thing I've ever heard.' She put a container on his desk. 'Here. I bought you some real food. Roast chicken and vegetables.' Courtesy of Molly Weasley, who kept pushing food on her every time they met.

Draco gave her a withering glare. 'I don't need mothering Granger. I can feed myself. Save it for Pothead and Weasel.'

Hermione shrugged. 'This is more for my benefit than yours. The sight of all those cans was depressing. I'm banning soup from the office for a month.'

'Interfering swot. You can't just-'

'And if you waste away to nothing, how will I dispose of the corpse? I can't cast any spells in here, and I'm certainly not dragging you up the stairs.'

He stomped over to his desk and proceeded to ignore her for the rest of the morning. Hermione silently celebrated her victory. Finally, a normal reaction. They had been working together for three days, and Malfoy had kept up the Mr. Cheerful act the whole time. He hadn't insulted her once. He was annoyingly polite and happy. He had actually tried to push her chair in for her this morning. She had been so bamboozled she had almost fallen right off it. That was when she suspected the soup of poisoning his mind. She hadn't seen him eat any, because she always had her lunch outside in the real world where she could breathe fresh air, but the cans were slowly disappearing. She had smuggled a few cans out of the anti-magic zone to test them for enchantments, but they had come back clean. She had felt silly for being so paranoid, which may have fuelled her rash decision to throw away all of the soup. Even if she wrong about the poison, they certainly weren't doing Malfoy any good. And the sight of them was slowly poisoning her own mind. She felt a little guilty about his extreme reaction, but he did eat the roast after all.

As always, she was out of even the most futile busy work by the afternoon. She peeked over at Malfoy and saw that he was just sitting there, tearing a note to shreds. Now that he had showed some humanity, she thought it was worth trying a little light interrogation. 'So, how did you land this job? Did you wander over to HR and say you were super keen to be a paper-pusher?'

He was silent for so long she thought he was ignoring her. She was halfway through her latest doodle when he finally spoke up. 'The Ministry made it a condition of my probation. They couldn't have the young Malfoy villain lying around in his mansion all day eating caviar and laughing at the peasants. Not a good look.'

'Hmm.' If he was so unhappy, why had he pretended so fiercely that he wasn't? To avoid showing weakness? To throw her off-balance?

Malfoy flicked the shreds of paper off his desk where they joined the growing paper mountain on the floor. 'And you? How did Little Miss Perfect get such a lovely promotion?'

'That's none of your business.'

Malfoy stood up and stalked towards her desk, kicking the paper across the floor as he did so. He towered over her. She resisted the urge to stand up so they were on equal footing. Up close, she could see that there was still a crazy glint in his eye. Possibly from soup withdrawal. 'You have to tell me now. It's only fair.'

It was only fair. If she didn't reciprocate, he would just clam up and then she would have to put up with that awful silence again. But this time she would be stuck with a broody Draco instead of a fake-happy Draco. 'I was working in the Department of Magical Creatures. I got promoted to Assistant Manager after a few months. There were huge gaps in the office after the war, so we got to set things up in our own way, start from scratch. We made the office more creature-friendly, and we were doing good work. Important work. Then Percy Weasley stuck his nose in.'

'He does have an awfully big nose.'

'He wanted to overhaul the department. We had a few disagreements and I said some unprofessional things. There was this hex I learnt from Ginny… Apparently it's very wrong to assault a Senior Official of the Minister. A Grade 1 offence. Tatamount to attacking the Ministry itself. Unruly and disrespectful.' Percy had written all of that down in an official letter, so it had been easy for her to memorise. She had pinned it to her fridge.

Malfoy nodded along to the story. 'Sounds like him.'

Hermione grew suspicious. Since when was Malfoy the listening type? Was he gathering blackmail material? Against her or Percy? She would need to watch her words. It was just that she hadn't really had the chance to unburden herself about everything. She had been avoiding her friends like the plague, which was pretty easy from way down here. It would break Molly's heart if she started up a row between Percy and his siblings, after everything that had happened during the war. 'I refused to apologise to his satisfaction, so he shipped me down here. So here I am, until I muster up the right words to soothe his ego. I've known Percy for a long time. We'll sort things out eventually, once we've both cooled off. He is practically family after all.' She smiled to soften the edges of the story. Just a silly fight between friends.

Malfoy just stared at her, as though waiting for her to finish the story. She tried to resist, she really did, but the words kept pouring out. 'What's a little career destruction between friends? He only crushed my dreams to dust in the name of productivity and public relations. And he appointed Luna Lovegood in my place. Luna! She embodies the spirit of everything I wanted the department to stand for. She's so good-natured that I can't even resent her for it. It's the perfect job for her, and she deserves it more than I do.'

Malfoy inspected his fingernails. 'That's some pedestal you've put Loony on there.'

She supposed it was. But she owed Luna so much. Luna had helped nurse her through the after effects of Bellatrix's torture even though she herself was half-starved and hadn't seen daylight in weeks. She had checked on her every hour, distracting her from the pain by regaling her with tales of exotic creatures. Hermione liked to think that she was a good friend, but she had her faults. She could be too demanding sometimes and too slow to forgive. She loved Harry and Ron, but they were a bit careless with their friendship in the small everyday ways. It made their friendship easier, because there was less pressure to be the perfect friend in return. Their friendship was flawed, but it was real and solid as rock. Luna had always been ten times the friend she was, even when Hermione was being a bit of a jerk in return. Hermione had been awed by the full force of that friendship. She had vowed to be a better friend to Luna after the war, but now there was this mess between them. Luna may have taken the job, but Hermione couldn't doubt for a second that she had done it with pure intentions, even though they hadn't talked about it. 'Luna's a good person.'

'Hermione Granger's a good person. How many people are there who would disagree with that statement?'

His tone had been sarcastic, but she answered seriously. 'More than you would think. I'm not an angel.'

'Neither is Luna Lovegood. She's unfocused, detached from the real world. Her mind is wide open, but she isn't book smart. She isn't the desk job type. I'd be willing to bet she doesn't last a month in that job. Hopefully she'll drive Weasley bonkers in the meantime.'

There was some truth in what he said. Maybe Luna didn't really want the job. Maybe she would be happier elsewhere. Hermione wanted to repay Luna any way she could. But not this way. It would be so much easier if Luna simply gave up the job. Because Hermione didn't know if she could fight her for it. Didn't know if she could not fight her for it. For now she would pass time in limbo, until her mind finished warring with itself. It wasn't so bad down here. It was like a vacation. A very boring one, with no views or fresh air.

She heard the ringing bells that indicated that a new pile of extraneous paperwork had materialised out in the hallway, on the edge of the magic barrier. It was Malfoy's turn to go pick them up, but she volunteered instead, taking the chance for a graceful exit from the conversation. When they had begun, she had thought she was getting solid answers to the mystery of Draco Malfoy, but now she realised she had given away ten times the amount of information in return. Malfoy hadn't told her anything that she couldn't have guessed or found in public record, but she had spewed out some of her deepest insecurities.

When she came back, Malfoy was sitting at his desk with a thoughtful look on his face. She worried that he was ruminating over their conversation, so she fished for a distraction. 'So anything that becomes redundant or unnecessary up there just gets zapped down here? Sounds like complicated spellwork.'

Malfoy yawned. 'Not really. I spent months untangling the spells before I realised they lifted the system straight out of Morley's Everyday Charms. It was a spell every Ravenclaw from the 1940s used to clean up their scrap paper without destroying it, in case they became the next Nicholas Flamel. Their Head of House back then was a real neat freak. The Ministry just used it on multiple offices, with the same waste destination.'

Hermione tapped the sheet labelled 'Shopping List' with her pen. Not exactly a work of genius. It must have been zapped when the writer finished their shopping. 'Half of this stuff is useless. Has anyone ever wanted any of it back?'

'Nope. Not ever.'

'Then why bother with the charade? Why not just burn the lot of it and call it a day?' He made a show of being careless with the files sometimes, but he still filed 90% of it away in their giant filing cabinets.

Malfoy gave her a significant look. 'What do you think I did before you came along? You're a goody-two-shoes. You would never agree to that.'

It killed her that he was right. She had essentially been arguing with herself, trying to figure out why she kept going through the motions as though this were a real job. As though it mattered. She tried to bring herself to drop the paper on the floor, as Malfoy had earlier. But her hands just wouldn't do it. She marked it down in her ledger, then filed it away under Personal Listicles. It was the biggest drawer they had. When the bell rang, she did it all over again.

The next day, Hermione waltzed back in after lunch with a message. 'Pansy Parkinson wants to talk to you. She asked me to pass on her regards and her wish to catch up. She will eagerly await your owl.'

Malfoy said nothing, but he spent the next hour scribbling on paper and then discarding it. It was a good thing they had an almost endless supply of paper. After his tenth attempt, Hermione stood up from her desk and walked over to the sofa. Instead of sitting on it, she plopped down on to the floor, sitting cross-legged. 'Sit like this,' she demanded, patting the floor next to her. 'You aren't going to finish that letter on that rickety old desk. Have you ever done any actual work on it?'

Malfoy looked at her as though she were crazy, but she just stared back, a challenge in her eyes. He walked over to the sofa, and then gingerly sat down with his nose crinkled in disgust. 'Am I supposed to burst into song now? Tap dance?'

Hermione smiled. 'There were never enough chairs in the Gryffindor common- room, so we would sit like this. I thought it was a bit silly at first too, undignified. But if you just loosen up, you'll feel more comfortable. I wrote some of my best essays in this position. I don't know why, but it works.'

He placed the pad of paper on his knee, but for five minutes all he wrote was 'Dear Pansy'.

Hermione shifted to make herself comfortable, dragging down two pillows from the couch and handing one to Malfoy. 'During the end of the war, Harry and I were stuck with each other 24/7, in tight quarters. When it was all over, we decided to take a break from each other, for the sake of our sanity. But the break just kept going and going, for a whole month. It felt like the summer break from Hogwarts, but with no reunion at the train station to look forward to.'

Malfoy wasn't looking in her direction, but she could tell he was listening from his complete and utter stillness.

'One day, out of the blue, Harry sent me a charms book and a long letter. I already had two copies of the book, and most of the letter was a play-by-play analysis of a Quidditch game. I cried for hours over it. Now we rarely go two days without talking. I never expected him to be the one to reach out first. But even best friends can surprise you sometimes.'

Malfoy's pen hand was shaking a little bit, but still no more ink was being added to the page.

'Pansy saw me heading towards our secret staircase and deduced that I was working here with you. She ran across the lobby to approach me, and then she asked me very politely to pass on her message. Pansy hates me. To ask me for a favour like that, in public and with a straight face, she must really love you. She won't care what you write, as long as you write it to her.'

'And you just agreed to be her messenger girl out of the goodness of your heart?'

'Yes.' Whether he believed it or not, it was true. She wasn't a big fan of Draco or Pansy, but she could get behind two long-lost friends making up. She was a sucker for a happy ending.

Malfoy gave her a feeble smirk. 'Are you going to take your own advice Granger? Your little friends haven't showed up to threaten me yet, so you haven't told them about the new job. And you hate lying, so you probably haven't spoken to them all week. Claiming you're busy, ducking around corners when you see them coming, with all the subtlety of a lion.'

She rolled her eyes, but didn't see the point in denying it. It was eerily accurate. She had seen Ron in the lobby this morning and actually hidden behind a pillar. 'You write yours and I'll write mine.'

She felt him take a deep breath and then he started to write slowly and methodically. It seemed that to put up with sappy conversations and vulnerability he needed to take her down a peg to even the score. She would let it be, just this once, because Pansy had looked pretty desperate to get her friend back. But next time she would strike back twice as hard.

She noticed that their knees were touching, the only physical contact she had ever had with Malfoy since that punch in third year. She could move away, but she didn't want to spook him. It was an important letter. So she just sat there on the floor, leaning back against the sofa and trying to ignore Malfoy's warmth while she composed a speech to Harry and Ron in her mind. The blush was from anger. She might not feel very angry right this second, but she was sure there was plenty of future anger in store when it came to Malfoy. When she had finished planning out three speeches for different locations and moods, Malfoy was still scribbling away on a fifth page. She tried to come up with some ideas for making the office less gloomy. A new lamp. Some posters. It was almost Christmas. Would Malfoy object to Christmas decorations? They could be green, after all.

When Malfoy sealed off his letter, he didn't breathe a word of thanks to her. But he took the next three extraneous paper deliveries, and he dropped a Muggle chocolate bar on her desk on his way out. It was way past its expiry date, so it was probably from some weird stash he had kept better hidden than the soup, but it was the thought that counted.