Hermione had returned to work the next day, and found that meeting with Kingsley and Harry to go over current projects and research needs calmed her. She didn't have to think about Ron, or her temper, or the upcoming matches from The Sorting Hat. She could get a list of actionable items from Kingsley, and begin chipping away at the intricacies of those problems. It was the first Monday in June, she'd woken up without any pain, and the weather was glorious.
There were only two irritations of her first Monday back at work: one was her inability to apiparate between the Department of Mysteries Library and the Ministry Archives, as she really disliked the roller-coaster-like ride inside the Ministry elevators, and the second was Blaise Zabini's incessant Patronus messages. It was amusing to see and hear exactly how chuffed he was with himself. She had chuckled at his enthusiasm, knowing the giddy feeling of mastering not only something new, but something as difficult as a corporeal Patronus. She had sent her otter back to him while thumbing through a law book in Anglo-Saxon,
"Hey Granger, why didn't you say yesterday that this thing is a badger? Seriously?! Do I look like a Hufflepuff to you?!"
"Blaise, it's an African Honey Badger, it makes the European Badgers we have here look downright tame in comparison."
Sixteen minutes later:
"Huh, I guess I overlooked there being different kinds of badgers. How many kinds of badgers can there even be in the world?"
"I'm sure I have no idea Blaise. Why don't you look it up?"
Twenty-two minutes later:
"Hermione Granger, Brightest Witch of Our Age doesn't know something?! I feel like I ought to call the Daily Prophet or something."
His tone was clearly amused, teasing, and he was laying on the false awe a touch thick for her liking. It had made her smirk momentarily, but the tête-à-tête was distracting her from a runic translation, and beginning to officially sour her mood. She didn't reply to him.
Thirty-nine minutes later:
"Bloody hell—now I have to get out of bed and slog down to the library, to find a bestiary of all things, where Narcissa will insist on tea. Merlin help me, Granger, you're not only making me look up a book, and bloody read the thing, but now I'm going to have to put on trousers And use manners before noon. How irritating."
The idea of Blaise without trousers on made her brain go momentarily blank, aside from aestethically pleasing mental image. She shook her head as if that would help clear her imagination, and send a somewhat terse response,
"I'm sure you'll survive having to say 'please' and 'thank you' long enough for a cuppa, without expiring from the shame of participating in all that propriety."
Fourteen minutes after that:
"You don't know that for sure, Granger. I for one, am fairly positive I'm allergic."
She had laughed outright, but still decided not to reply, lest he interrupt her again.
Two hours later, the blue beast was snuffling around atop the parchments on her worktable in the Archives when she returned from the loo:
"Draco's being pissy"—there was a long pause as if he'd been listening to Malfoy say something she couldn't hear—"excuse me, his majesty is not being pissy, he is irritated to discover from the bestiary that his Patronus' name means 'glutton' thrice over, and is more than a little disgusted to find that they often eat carrion."
"Ugh, he would get finicky over something like that. It's not meant to be literally indicative of your nature, but rather metaphorical. Perhaps you should both realize that your guardians have traits that are incredibly admirable."
Thirty seconds later:
"What's admirable about carrion?"
"Goodbye Blaise. I'm at work...Wait, why isn't Malfoy at work?"
Another thirty seconds:
"He is. As I was so rudely driven from bed earlier this morning, I decided to come here to hobnob with someone in the International Trade Department whose acquiescence I need for shipping permits in Tunis. Anyway, I swung by the DMLE to pry him off his desk in this particularly sad bullpen in order to go to lunch. Wanna come? Where are you in this infernal labyrinth anyway?"
"I will come up to the DMLE and go to lunch, but only if you acknowledge that interrupting me this afternoon will result in a reply that is a Howler rather than my Patronus."
Twenty-six seconds later:
"Deal. Ten point to Slytherin for extortion, Ms. Granger." She was smirking while she placed a modified stasis charm over her work so no one could touch or remove her research materials while she was out.
...
Blaise was lounging against Draco's desk, fully aware of Draco's glaring at his ass, likely on top of some very important paperwork that Blaise could only be slightly convinced to give a Knut about.
He was still smirking about inviting her to lunch, something Draco had approved of with a quick nod, and which Potter had snorted about from across the bullpen. Or maybe Potter's snort was about his commentary on the room's decor, Blaise couldn't really be arsed. He had realized the first time she'd not sent a reply that he was likely pestering her, but he had several justifications for his continued messages to her:
One: He enjoyed the sensation of casting the spell now that he'd mastered it. It kept filling him up with a sense of bubbly warmth that nearly tickled. He'd been pestering Draco this morning with it, until he was growled at to bugger off, so he'd sent the blue eidolon off to her instead.
Two: He enjoyed talking with her. It felt oddly flirtatious and familiar, like bantering with Draco.
Three: As soon as he'd recognized her irritation, he decided it was adorable, and even more so, when her otter began taking on the narrowed eyes and tight mouth of her own irked mien, which he found highly amusing.
He'd sent one off to Draco informing his lover of her otter's pinched face and how precocious it was. The reply had made him laugh aloud:
"You're a shit-stirrer, Blaise."
So he waited for her reply, looking for all the world as relaxed as possible, but his skin was crawling with his own nerves, so Draco probably felt like someone had stuck him head-first in an anthill. The otter finally swam into the room in a lazy spiral, almost dancing with itself, its face decidedly smug.
"I will come up to the DMLE and go to lunch, but only if you acknowledge that interrupting me this afternoon will result in a reply that is a Howler, rather than my Patronus."
Blaise saw Potter flinch in his periphery: amusing, satisfying. Good. He found a broad smile slithering its way across his face, and a fresh ration of gooseflesh washing across the skin above his knees and the back of his neck at her audacity. She was more slippery than anyone had ever given her credit for back at Hogwarts. It was delightful.
"Expecto Patronum—Deal. Ten point to Slytherin for extortion, Ms. Granger."
...
Draco's eyes widened at her threat, he was sure she would make good on it. Blaise has better not be in the bullpen when said Howler was inevitably delivered.
That thought rankled because Blaise was pointlessly flirting again, and he especially didn't want to contemplate how his gut had tightened and his cock had twitched at Blaise's response. The tone of Blaise's voice made a very rapid assault on his brain, like flash photography of very old fantasies involving Granger and detention, all pummeling the back of his eyes. He was definitely getting a headache.
It had not helped that she was wearing slate palazzo pants, a peach blouse, and bloody heels when she did sweep into the Auror office. Not now that he was acutely aware of the actual shape of her hips underneath her prim office attire.
...
Harry shook his head. He wondered if any of them realized they were being very flirty. Well, no, he knew Zabini was aware of his actions, and Malfoy's eyes nearly bugged out of his skull, so he clearly noticed as well. Harry knew Hermione would likely be oblivious, she was constantly overlooking when people were trying to chat her up. She only ever seemed to notice the really leery ones, and she'd said more than once that she purposefully ignored it when she did notice.
Working in the Auror office had taught Harry a lot, but observing Malfoy and Zabini intermittently over the last few months had definitely taught him that growling, sarcasm, extortion, name-calling, and threats constituted flirtation of the highest order to them both.
Sometimes he wasn't sure if they were flirting with each other or the people around them, what with Zabini just pouring charm everywhere. He also wasn't sure yet if it was a pureblood thing or a Slytherin thing; he certainly hadn't worked up the nerve to ask Andromeda to confirm it.
He realized he wouldn't be upset if The Sorting Hat spit out Zabini as a match for Hermione, even he could see that she could be happy with the challenge the mischievous colossus would present. But he worried, Zabini wasn't a citizen, so he wasn't really flirting for purpose, he wouldn't be included in any of the matches. Harry just wanted to see Hermione well-matched and happy. She deserved nothing less. After all the upheaval and loss, most of it he still battled with his own sense of guilt about, there were some questions he wasn't willing to ask in case there would somehow be even more blood on his hands.
...
Lunch at The Red Lion was mildly irksome to Hermione, as she was overwhelmed by the buzz of conversations from politicos Muggle and magical alike. Arguments about immigration made her instantly itchy and irritable, and the snippets she heard of some Ministry underlings discussing the current inflation rate of the Galleon was just mind-numbing. Perhaps choosing the nearest restaurant hadn't been her best choice. Ugh.
She pressed her fingertips against the tip of her wand, holstered up her sleeve, and whispered a Muffliato as soon as they were seated. She'd overdone the spell a bit, considering all the other voices in the pub were now a low murmur, but she didn't mind. Blaise was staring at her as if she'd grown a third head, and Malfoy's eyebrows were nearly in his hairline. He finally voiced his inquiry in his usual posh drawl,
"Wandless?" She shook her head, held up her hand and pulled the sleeve down while folding her fingers over again to demonstrate. Blaise chuckled,
"So just mostly wandless, then. Good to know."
She found herself nearly instantly nervous, skin positively crawling, and she had no idea why. She'd spent time with them alone before, shared meals, even flirted back at Blaise before—she had been aware of it before and was aware of it today—but she also knew it meant nothing to him. He did that with everyone, she wasn't entirely sure he was always aware of it himself. For whatever reason, this meal felt different. She found herself rolling the seam of her napkin up against her thigh under the table, all through what she remembered later to be a lovely conversation, but she couldn't remember what was discussed or why she'd been so nervous. Her afternoon was uneventful, but productive, but returning home in the evening felt too quiet. Her dinner felt too solitary, the wind going through her fruit trees, and even the distant wash of the waves sounded ominous instead of comforting. It was as if she was finally realizing that she lived alone, and for the very first time, it was an uneasy vacumm from sound and interaction, instead of a sanctuary against the white noise of everyone else.
...
Kingsley Shacklebolt had been reading the lists of matched pairs for weeks, and his staff had been sending out form notice letters ever since the Sorting Hat had swallowed the last of the summoned parchment slips three days after the public announcement. The hat had insisted on starting with older folks and working its way down to the most recent class of Hogwarts graduates. Somewhere in the middle would be the Hogwarts classes of '98 and '99, the ones everyone was worried about, the ones that really should not have owed a single further thing to the Wizarding world at large, but still had to submit to the land. The warriors on both sides—those young people who should never have had to fight, but had done so valiantly—and were now struggling to rebuild their lives after seeing and losing entirely too much.
The wedding announcements in the Daily Prophet had already begun. Most of the older folks, divorcées and those whose partners had passed away, had decided to marry quietly and privately at the Ministry, and the announcements went to the paper as a matter of public record. He had thought he'd be a bachelor for life, and the end of the Shaklebolt family line, so he'd been just as required—and hesitant about his chances as the younger folks—about the land binding.
He was pleased enough with his own match—Gwenog Jones of the Holyhead Harpies—who he remembered as being a Gryffindor two years his junior. He hadn't actually met her in person yet, but they'd exchanged a few owls. They'd planned to announce their engagement and get married during the short bre she had next week.
Her overall self-assurance and fiery attitude would have been off-putting to him—a former Ravenclaw himself—had she not shed her lion-skin for a moment to express her nerves about becoming the wife of the Minister for Magic. What if her profesional squabbles lost him his support? What would be expected of her from the public, and from him? Did he even like Quidditch? Because if she couldn't talk about her work, then they might not work out, and she actually was hoping for a life-match out of the land binding. What had he been hoping for? Could he even be attracted to a halfblood 'tomboy' with Beater's shoulders, who loved to wear heels on her nights off regardless of the height of her date?
It had all been in one letter with significantly sloppier penmanship than the preceding three, leading him to believe that it had taken more than a bit of Firewhiskey with her teammates to even put her concerns to parchment, which he could relate to. Kingsley wasn't fantastic about expressing his personal thoughts and emotions outside of the political scope. He much preferred a Wizengamot debate to a discussion of whether or not a partner's behavior might affect his feelings. He blushed briefly at the thought, but recognized that they'd likely fight if they didn't learn to at least trust each other with their emotions.
He'd done his best to answer her questions: her professional squabbles would likely be more talked-about in the press after they married, but were unlikely to damage his career, the only possible issue would be that he'd havae to talk to Ludo Bagman more often than he liked. Professionally, he expected her to play her best becuase he was mad for Quidditch and hand't been able to play since a Bludger to the head in his fifth year, and he wanted to be able to cheer her on. As far as his personal expectations, he would prefer her fidelty in a relationship and she would have his. The public's expectations of her outside of her annual attendence at a few Ministry events could go hang as far as he was concerned.
His life as Minister and his life as a man were things he considered very separate, and thus far, even the press had respected that. Their ability to do so was likely made significantly easier considering he currently had no personal life worth printing anything about. He'd even taken the emotional leap and told her that he too, was looking for a life-match, grateful that the land had offered him to opportunity to find a partner, as he'd always thought his professional ambitions had ruined his ambitions for a happy personal life.
He wanted a confidant and lover to come home to, he wanted to share meals and travel with a companion, but he was unlikely to always be on time for dinner, and he never took breakfast. He'd even shared with her that he'd already mourned the end of his family line, should she decide that she didn't want children, so she needn't feel obligated to give him an heir. He'd left a post-script to answer her final frantically scribbled question:
p.s. I wouldn't worry. I've been told I'm very tall, and the delicate women of the world have never appealed to me.
He'd sent that letter this morning, and it was now nearing dinner, and he was still at the office. Kingsley found his eyes glazing over a bit as he stared at today's list of matches, and wishing he could reach Gwenog directly. He wanted to ask her if he ought to send these notice letters personally, rather than the filled-in forms his staff had been sending, or if he should avoid any sign of special treatment. The hat had reached the graduates from '99.