AN:
Beauty and Madness
Chapter 2:"There is Never a Winner in a Battle of Ego."
Draco sat patiently in a cluttered office, looking around in distaste he looked to the muggle clock and noticed that Granger was running late. 'Merlin give me strength' he muttered. He wished he could deny his mother, but that was a feat even his father could not do. She was a master manipulator. Able to twist the wills of the strongest, stubborn men.
FLASH BACK
"I do not see why you cannot do this one thing for me Draco. I have never asked you to do anything, I gave you everything you ever needed and then some. Do you like to see our family name in ruins, we are slowly working our way back up the social chain and hosting this event will help restore this family back to its former glory. We will be known as the family that repented it sins and learned from its failures and looked to the future, we would be giving to good cause. Think of all the children, not all those children were from the winning side. And if we do not represent them who will, no one wants a son or daughter of a death-eater."
END OF FLASH BACK
The tears are what did it in for him, he hated seeing his mother cry. Even with the retort that maybe she should adopt all the misfortunate children on the tip of his tongue he couldn't say it to her face. Damn woman, Draco knew for sure that tears were a weapon that could do more damage than any hex invented. He looked at the clock again and groaned, were was she. Draco hated waiting.
Today was a bad day and to top it all off it was raining. So that meant her hair took more time to tame and it did not help that her alarm clock decided today out of all days was a good day to not work. Stupid alarm clocks and not giving notices that they were going on vacation. "I need a cup of coffee." she muttered to herself as she finally entered the ministry she really needed to get connected to the floo network. It would make the commute to work a lot more bearable.
Stopping at the department coffee/tea area she grabbed herself a cup of coffee not quick enough because Elaine stopped her. "Someone is in your office waiting for you."
Hermione glanced at her watched, "Dammit, I hate being late, throws off my whole day and now I made a bad impression on my new partner, great way to start."
With a rushed goodbye she walked quickly to her office ready to suck up and make up the lost time. "I am sorry I am late, you wouldn't believe the day I am having." she didn't get a good look at this person yet since she was messing with her coat and fumbling with her coffee. Which she dropped when she heard the voice of her past.
"I am sorry to break this to you Granger but I do not care what kind of day you are having, weather it be good or bad, personally I prefer you to have a bad day, gives me a certain satisfaction but considering the fact that I am being forced to work with you on this project I believe we should leave the small chat to the minimum and just get this done as quickly as possible so I can go about my life in peace." Draco said, he had time to prepare this little speech, "And if we could possibly get on with this meeting you wasted enough of my time."
"Malfoy!" Hermione said, still shocked about who was sitting in her office. "You!"
"Your powers of observation continue to serve you well." Draco drawled out.
She wanted to scream, she wanted to throw a fit and hit the man sitting there with that damnable smirk on his face, but she couldn't. "Hold on one moment, I will be right back." She left her office barely hearing him yell out "Granger!"
Letting anger take over her shock she stormed down toward the Auror Department. She may not be able to take her anger out on Malfoy, but she could go down and yell at the one who found this all humorous yesterday.
"HARRY JAMES POTTER! I HATE YOU" She yelled as soon as his Raven hair came into sight, the movements in the office stopped as they watched the golden girl yell at the savior.
"What did I do?" Harry said standing up, worried about his friends anger. He hasn't seen this angry in a long time.
"You jinxed me that is what you did."
"Hermione you are not making any sense, calmed down how did I Jinx you." Harry said, trying to approach her slowly, Hermione had a habit of throwing anything within reaching distant, he had been hit with many books, thankfully soft cover novels(Hermione would never throw a book that actually contain useful information).
"Well you found it funny yesterday, so how is this for humor it is Malfoy. My ruddy partner is Malfoy, of all the people in the world it is Malfoy. Not laughing now are you." Hermione said with the same malice in her voice as when she first entered.
Ron came up to them, hopefully to defuse the situation before it got worse than it already was. But then Harry actually had the nerve to laugh.
"Malfoy, I knew it. Merlin…"He couldn't get out the words to express how amused he was.
"Why are you laughing?" Hermione yelled again.
"Because it is funny." Harry retorted.
Ron had to grab Hermione before she could punch Harry.
"Well I have to go talk to ferret face, Harry. I hope you have a horrible day. Thank you Ron Talk to you later." She said, composing herself to face the devil.
"I will stop by later tonight 'Mione." Ron told her
"Me too." Harry called out Not even trying to keep the humor out of his voice.
"Harry if you want to live to see tomorrow you will not even come within mile of me."
"Bye 'Mione" He said happily.
"Are you Mad?" Ron asked Harry as soon as Hermione left the department.
"No, it is just funny."
"It is not funny, Malfoy is git."
"Which is why I think we should go and talk to him later." Harry said, serious now. He didn't want him insulting her and hurting her.
"Yeah that we should." He said turning around to return to his desk.
Harry smile, he loved it when Hermione got into a fit about the something, even a small detail could throw her into a tissy fit. Malfoy may not his most favorite guy but the man was harmless, and if it wasn't for his mother he may not be here today. He also tried to help them when they were captured.
Hermione came back to her office, all the anger, dread and shock was hidden by a mask of calm. "Sorry about that, I forgot that I had to take care of something." She said sweetly, pretending that the person in her office was not Malfoy.
"And what was that?" Draco asked, she looked a tad bit more composed. He of coarse being a curious person wanted to know why.
"Do you want me to lie or do you want the truth." Hermione said, the sunny disposition slipping for a bit.
"Well lets try the truth." Even more curious now.
"I went and yelled at Harry for jinxing me with you as a partner."
"And if I wanted you to lie,"
"Woman problems."
"Ah, you need better lies. You are not really creative." Draco said clearly amused. "And how did Potter jinx you."
"Well shall we get down to business." Hermione said ignoring Draco's question. "We should set up a to-do list to get started and then plan on when we will meet."
"And where." Draco said as he looked around the office, it was small and crowded with books and files.
"And what is wrong with meeting at my office." Hermione asked sharply.
"It is a mess, we will never get anything done in here, and I fear I will lose anything I set down. Someone made me tea and it went missing, I refuse to work in this cluttered mess Granger. I will look into getting an office in Diagon Ally and owl you the location."
Hermione bit her tongue, it will not be a good thing if she killed, maimed or tortured the Malfoy Heir just yet. "Fine." she ground out. "But I am not paying any rent for said office."
"Don't worry about that, I am sure with your 'salary' it would be best if I paid, wouldn't want the Golden Girl living on the streets now would we."
Hermione heard enough, "I am not exactly poor Malfoy but considering who I am talking to you would not understand the concept of an honest living, everything you have was handed to you by your father."
"I am not some spoiled snob you think I am Granger."
"Really what is that you do then, what is your career? And who exactly is going to be paying the rent for this office that you need, your father. Do you have to ask your father?"
"You do realize that it is my money too, I am heir to it and no I don't have to go ask for money and as for a career I haven't decided yet. Not that it is any of your business."
"Well maybe you could be a party planner, your mother is definitely making sure you get the experience."
Draco did not like the way this was going, she had the upper hand in this argument. "Apparently you have a problem with me, ironically I don't care. Hate me all you want Granger because I can assure you the feeling is mutual, mock my family as much as you need to, if you need to do it to make yourself feel better. You don't want me here and I don't want to be here unfortunately there is nothing that I can do to change that. We will plan this damn event and go our separate ways. I will owl you the location to the office by this afternoon. Good day." Draco stood up to leave.
"You cannot go anywhere Malfoy we haven't done anything yet." Hermione said getting angry.
"And whose fault is that, I was here on time. Ready to work, you are the one that had a melt down then persisted to attack my life choices. You wasted enough of my time already. And just because I don't have a fancy job doesn't mean I am not a busy man." That was all Draco said before he left.
He was right, she did waste a lot of time today. But that did not stop the feeling of wanting to break something. This was never going to work out. Narcissa really wanted Hermione to fail planning this event. Why else would she make Malfoy help her. Laying her head in her hands she tried to clear her head, there was no point getting angry. Malfoy was right they didn't have a choice, might as well get past the fact for the next couple of months they will be spending a lot of time together. Hermione groaned out at the thought, she officially hated her job.
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"So how did it go?" Blaise asked.
"She was late and then had the nerve to insult me." Draco said. They were back on the balcony unwinding from the day, it seemed like a habit they were beginning to pick up.
"Hmm, how was her reaction to you." Blaise asked.
"She insulted me, are you not listening to anything that I tell you." Draco said getting annoyed that he was having to repeat himself. "She did have a go at Potter, wish I could of seen that. Don't know why , she was wild though."
"So other than the insulting, did you get along good enough?" Blaise asked.
"You do realized that if I said she was insulting me it means that we were not getting along. The next couple of months are going to be my hell….and why the hell are you laughing. There is nothing funny about this. You know what laugh it up, I am not going to stay here and be mocked. Get a hold of me when you want to be a friend."
Blaise could not help it, Draco was amusing when he was pissy about something. He would get worked up over the smallest detail.
Harry walked into Hermione's apartment, dodging the knick knack that was thrown at his head. "You cannot still be mad."
"I spent the morning with Malfoy, that tops any bad day you ever had." Hermione said, pushing the refrigerator shut as she grabbed a pint of ice cream for her and Ginny.
"Hermione I do not see why you are so worried, Malfoy is all talk." Harry said as he grabbed a butter beer from the fridge.
"Precisely, and he never shuts up."
Hermione gave up, she did not want to spend the night thinking about the damn smirking man anymore.
"We should have a girls night, boys are clueless." Ginny said
"I agree, I need a mani/pedi and liquor all at the same time." Hermione said. "This Friday sound good."
"Perfect, and don't tell my mother about this I don't want to have to invite Fleam." Fleur was getting on Ginny's nerves, Even worst on Molly's too.
"You know that the clueless guys are still in the same room." Ron said as he threw a pillow at his sister.
"Oh you want to go to the girls night and get your nails done too." Ginny said throwing the pillow at his head.
The two started to bicker back and forth, while they were distracted Harry sat down by Hermione "If you really have a problem with Malfoy helping you on this project I will see if I can pull a few strings to get him canned off the project."
Hermione honestly consider this an option for about a minute, "I will be fine Harry, he just gets under my skin."
An owl started pecking at the window, Harry got up and let the black owl in. it was a beautiful bird, regal. Hermione knew instantly it was Malfoy's. "What does the Ferret have to say."
Harry read out the address and the short message it contained, ' meet me there tomorrow morning at 7 sharp. Do try and not be late.'
"I really hate that man."
"Well at least you two are on the same page in regards to each other."
"Draco dear how did your first meeting with Mrs. Granger go." Narcissa said
"Fine mother, just fine." he was not about to tell her the truth, if his mother wanted to believe that him and Granger were doing go than that was her deal not his. He was partially mad at the fact that his mother was making him work with her in the first place.
"Maybe you should have her stop by the manor, I am sure she would like some ideas on how to host an event such as this, I could give her some pointers." Narcissa suggested.
"I highly doubt that she will want to come here considering the last time she was here." Draco reminded her, Hermione was tortured right in this room by his crazy aunt.
"Very well son. I shall retire." Draco kissed his mothers cheek as she passed. Lucius would of laughed at Draco's stupidity but he did not want to give so much away to his oblivious son.
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PREVIEW: "Went to the gym today and had to stare at myself while on the treadmill.. definitely not a confidence builder.."
PLEASE REVIEW
I am hoping for longer chapters soon.