Author's Note: And… yeah. I'm really just putting a note at the beginning of each chapter for the sake of putting a note at the beginning of each chapter.

Do you like Fridays, or do you like Fridays?

Chapter Four

A Little Healthy Havoc

At about seven-thirty the next morning, Draco Malfoy stirred himself out of a hideous monstrosity of a dream about elevators with gnashing teeth and pink unicorns that wanted to be petted (it was complicated). He rubbed his eyes, yawned loudly and luxuriously, peeled himself off the couch, and stumped into the kitchen (presuming that the word "kitchen" described the closet of a room), scratching at the stubble emerging on his chin. There were two primary reasons that he shaved less than polite hygiene might have dictated. The first was that a little bit of a beard here and there made him marginally less recognizable. The second was that it was, as far as he was concerned, damn sexy.

Liberally scratching his equally sexy behind, he opened the refrigerator and thrust his head in. Lurking between a positively evil-looking jar of salsa and a dish of something that might once have been leftover casserole was, he discovered, a carton of orange juice. He picked it up, sloshed it around a bit, unscrewed the top, and sniffed delicately. He waited. He didn't die. Accordingly, he unearthed a glass from one of the cupboards and poured for himself. Punctiliously he replaced the top and set the carton back in the fridge. Then he did his best lounge against the counter as he sipped.

His efforts did not go unrewarded.

Shortly, Hermione Granger bustled in, dressed to the hilt for some labor-law-defying work at the Ministry. The suit was a good cut on her, Draco decided. You know. Considering what the unlucky suit had to work with. She paused upon noticing him lounging expertly.

"Forget I was here?" he inquired cheerfully.

Hermione frowned. Apparently, despite all evidence to the contrary during school, Hermione Granger was not a morning person. It wasn't too surprising. They were an elusive breed, those ungodly hour-loving freaks of nature.

Draco himself was a whenever-best-to-drive-people-insane person. And, alternately, a whenever-would-save-his-ass person.

"Hardly," Hermione answered crisply. She folded her arms across her chest and appraised him. "Are you going to stay here while I go to work?"

Winsomely—he had practiced extensively in the mirror and designated this one "winsome" after no little deliberation—Draco smiled. "Actually," he remarked, "I was hoping to go with you."

Hermione looked at him like a poinsettia had sprouted from his left ear. She was so flabbergasted that he raised a hand to it, just to check. He disguised the motion by smoothing his hair unnecessarily.

"You can't," Hermine managed after about thirty-five seconds.

"Why not?" he asked. "I mean, I need a job, right? What better way—"

"What are you wearing?" she interrupted.

Draco looked down at himself. "This," he noted.

Being a woman, she didn't let it rest. "Your jeans are about to fall apart," she told him, pointing at the huge rip over his knee for emphasis. "Did you sleep in those jeans?" Before he could ask what was wrong with that, she moved on. "And what did you do to that shirt?" Draco glanced at it. To him, it appeared to be a plain white T-shirt, admittedly a little worse for the wear. To her, it might as well have been on fire. "Are those—" All of a sudden, the slightly shrill tone of reprimand went out of her voice, to be replaced by a bit of confusion. "—bloodstains?"

Draco brushed a bit of fuzz off of himself. "Let them be what they are," he said. "Can I go to the Ministry with you or not?"

Hermione Granger, Draco reflected, should have adopted a vast litter of children, because she had the motherly scowl thing down pat.

"Not in those clothes, you can't."

Histrionically and hyperbolically, Draco sighed, chugged the last of his orange juice, rinsed his glass, placed it in the dishwasher, and trudged to the single bathroom, pausing only to get his forlorn pack and drag it along behind him like a pull-toy. He managed to rustle up a pair of black slacks (egregiously wrinkled from its captivity) and a button-up white shirt (likewise abused). He put them on, looked in the mirror, and considered tucking the shirt in—for about an eighteenth of a second. It would have taken at least three Hermiones, each armed with a blowtorch and a kitchen cleaver, to push him to that feat of madness.

He opened the door and poked his head out.

"Hermy, darling," he called.

He received a very not-amused "What?" in return from the kitchen.

"Can I use your perfume?"

"No."

"Damn it."

She sighed. "Look, I've usually already left by this time. Can you please stop screwing around—?"

Draco sauntered back out into the living room and tossed his bag at the couch. He missed. He didn't really care. "We need some major Skele-Gro here," he announced. At Hermione's cocked eyebrow, he explained, "To grow you a funny bone."

"Har, har," Hermione said, but he thought she was hiding a smile.

They Apparated to the Ministry side by side, and Draco was, for the umpteenth time, helplessly grateful that he had managed to retain his wand. That was a miraculous godsend, as far as godsends went. And Draco knew godsends—by now, anyway. Godsends were the reason his sorry ass was making its way into the Ministry behind Hermione. The sending gods must have had a soft spot for that ass of his. He appreciated it.

Signing in, Hermione referred to him as "a guest." She gave him a stern glance to indicate that she wanted him to stick to her little story—as if he needed it. The last thing he was going to do was go prancing around the Ministry of Magic, singing "My name is Draco, Draco Ma-alfoy" to the tune of the "Toreador Song" from Carmen.

Well, maybe the second-to-last thing. There were worse things that flushing your dignity down the toilet. A few, at least. Like eating lutefisk.

They reached Hermione's desk. She sat down, sighed, and then stood up again.

"I'm going to go get some coffee," she declared.

Draco nodded his approbation. "Good. You look like something out of Night of the Living Dead." He grinned. "Or Morning of the Living Dead."

"Whoever introduced you to movies," Hermione muttered, "is in for it." She stalked off down the hall.

Draco plopped down in her chair. It was a rolling chair, and it spun nicely on its axle, offering up a piercing squeak every time he moved. He rubbed the armrests appreciatively.

He lasted five whole minutes before he was careening down the hallway whooping at the top of his lungs. Best part was, a couple of Ministry slaves came rattling down the hall after him in their own chairs. It was like Ride of the Valkyries, only in rolling chairs, without the winged helmets and blonde braids. Draco cackled.

Then he collided with Hermione Granger as she appeared around the corner, and coffee splashed all over her white shirt and slate gray suit jacket.

She screamed.

"Erm," Draco said meekly.

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and then pointed her wand at her clothes and muttered, "Tergeo."

The coffee disappeared. Draco was considering the wisdom of doing the same. Before he could sidle innocently away and then run for it, she looked at him.

"Is that my chair?" she inquired pointedly.

Draco glanced down at it, trying to seem as though he was seeing it for the first time. "Why…" he said. "Why, yes it is! Isn't that strange?"

Mercifully, she didn't send him back to the hellhole apartment building. Rather, she let him loiter around her desk and sent him off to bring her things. Frequently. She was reveling in having him serve her every whim.

He frowned as he went to deliver something (he forgot what) to someone (he forgot who). Women were like that. Start up a little bit of healthy havoc in the office; a dose of constructive chaos, spill one coffee cup, and you were the Errand Bitch for life.