Author's Note: So, if you haven't already guessed, the format of this story goes like this: First, there's a moment from the present in the opening few paragraphs, and then a flashback/memory thingamajig afterward. First two are from 1996, their Sixth Year.

Chapter Three

The prospect of seeing her terrifies him. He has not looked at her face since the moment he saw her from across the Great Hall, when she was lit up with that ghoulish green light. What is he possibly going to say to her? What will she think upon entering the office? Will she run again? Will she volunteer for every hellish assignment just so she won't have to look at him again, so she won't have to remember when they'd last spoken, how she'd known he'd give her away?

Draco sighs again before stepping into the Floo and considers that working with the Aurors is wrong, for he really doesn't give a damn if he helps them or not, nor does he want to hunt down people with whom he'd once dined and shared a house, because he never wants to see those people again. But he begged Potter for the job and because of this, he is stuck, because he won't let Potter best him in this.

As he walks into their office, her absence is palpable. There isn't a sign that she has even been in yet; no cloak hanging from the door, no papers stacked on the desk in preparation for the day. He goes to his desk, places his briefcase beside him on the floor and stares at the map's little countries, marvels at how small the world looks when it's tacked to an office wall.

Draco hears Potter outside mumbling something under his breath and before Draco even turns to look he knows that Potter is speaking to Granger. Angry murmurs follow Potter's speech; Draco's hands are clenched onto the underside of the desk.

"I see you've finally agreed to get a job."

He releases his breath and tries, tries so fucking hard, to assemble his face into one of indifference. He wonders if he should toss in another emotion; perhaps wear a mask with the possibility of old familiarity on it? He can see a hand painting civility onto his lips with thick strokes but they've already betrayed his supposed apathy by parting in surprise.

She is not how he remembered her. She's not painfully thin anymore; no longer do her bones protrude like small birds' wings. She's grown into her pert mouth and sharp nose, has even traced these things with makeup. Her hair is shorter, sleeker, and this bothers him, for if he could have chosen one thing about her that could have remained the same, he would have chosen her hair. Not because he'd suddenly fallen in love with that crazy mane of tangles, but because long ago, her hair had once glided over his chest when she was sleeping next to him, her body betraying her supposed indifference and curling against his.

"I thought the Ministry had you employed ages ago."

Draco finds his voice even though his mouth feels as though someone's force fed him cotton. "No, they just wanted my donations."

"Oh, of course," she says, sneering, and it isn't a look that becomes Hermione Granger's face. "Free from life's hardships because of your wealth. Glad to hear that the Ministry is still archaic."

Merlin, she hasn't changed mentally. Still the snarky intellect that cares too much about the rights of underdogs.

"Why are you here, Malfoy?"

He knows it's a desperate question; a question of whether or not she must now tell her friends that she slept with their enemy while they waited for her in the cold, of why he cannot leave it alone, of why he is trapping them in an office when they both agreed they wouldn't speak again.

"Well, Granger. A job's a job."

She glares at him. "You'll be lucky if you last a day."

Turning on her heel, she slams the door.

October 1996

He whispers her name in the middle of the darkness, hoping that the night will cover it up; it feels disgusting and liberating to say it, like trying out a curse word for the first time. Blaise stirs beside him. Draco shuts his curtains and murmurs Muffliato. Glancing down at his fingernails, Draco sees that he's bitten them down to the quick, that blood has crusted around the cuticles; he shakes his hands in disgust.

He saw Granger in the hall today. He saw her drop that bracelet and he knows that she did it on purpose, the manipulative bitch, knows that she would have figured out that his eyes were on her. She just wanted to see what he would do.

He wonders what she would look like in her knickers, if she'd be so prim if he had his mouth on her. It's no longer a question of blood; he just wants to see what he can make Hermione Granger do.

But you've never had anyone, comes that nagging little voice that erupted in his head over the summer. Please her? You don't even know what you're doing. It's a strange voice; it hisses.

He also saw her after class today. He'd left his book behind, because his mind was never fully engaged in classes anymore, and she'd been speaking with Slughorn about the properties of something – he hadn't taken the time to care. She turned when she heard him open the door and he sneered at her. What, Mudblood? And she replied with a sneer of her own, transforming the delicate features into something that resembled angry Veela. I'm sorry, Death Eater, but I don't really care if you call me names. You'll be dead by the end of the year anyway.

He knew that she wasn't thinking it, but Merlin, he heard the hissing voice slither the words into his head.

November 1996

As of now, they have not met. Not properly, at least. Draco does not know anything about Granger nor does she know the first proper thing about him. Their only contact has been the exchange of looks in the hallways, the occasional unplanned touch as they pass Potions ingredients, a hasty jump when their fingers collide.

Their Prefect schedules land them in the same hallway and she comes across him while he's berating a First Year into fits of hysteria for being out after hours.

"For God's sake, Malfoy, take points and be done with it."

The boy, who's been whimpering into his hands, sees his escape and sprints, Draco calling out his loss of ten points to his retreating back.

"I fucking hate First Years," he grumbles, as though he were speaking to Pansy.

"Who doesn't?" She smiles. "But you don't need to scream at them to have your point made." She turns to leave; "Oh, nice work on only deducting ten. I'd figured you'd take fifty."

Before he even registers what he's doing, he's grabs a hold of that maddening hair and forces her head toward his, slamming his mouth onto hers. She moans, he suspects, before she has a chance to check it, but then she yanks her face back and smacks him across his cheek, just like Third Year, and says, "Don't you dare touch me again, Malfoy."

They have not met properly, and he suspects that they will not for a very long time.