A/N: Thanks for the reads and reviews! Also, a big thanks to waterflower20 for pointing out some inconsistencies with the previous chapters – that's fixed now. Happy reading!

Chapter Four

On Monday morning, Hermione stared up at their office building and the obscene logo that now graced its smooth, flat face. She barely even recognized their building. Once an abandoned Ministry building, it'd had the appearance of a generally nondescript building with a slightly crumbling infrastructure. Now it shared the look of nearly all Malfoy-owned companies – sleek, gray, with dark reflective windows. It was a cold, intimidating building, with an M underneath their redesigned name.

"Oh, that is so unholy," she muttered to herself, before taking a breath and walking in.

The changes happened quickly. Cubicles were enlarged for comfort, ventilation was added, and gone was Matilda, their clumsy but earnest, overworked secretary. She had been replaced with something also new and frigid: a slender Brunette named Ingrid whose demeanor discouraged any kind of sociability.

On everyone's desk was a thick packet of new information. New clauses, contracts, and rules. She looked over them with a fine tooth comb, searching for anything that she could use to take the company back. She didn't know what she expected to find – a blueprint of a hidden dungeon on the first floor for all who didn't agree with his leadership, perhaps – but she disappointedly found nothing.

It was on Tuesday when she walked in to find that an extra office had been added to their floor. She glared at the gold name placard on the door, as well as the secretary sitting in front of it.

"Is this really necessary?" Hermione demanded, as she walked into his new office. It looked identical to the one at his headquarters: pristine and pompous. "We can do our work here just fine without you peeking over our shoulders. We've been doing it for the last three years."

"Which explains why this firm has been exploding at its seams with success," he said dryly. He looked at her from behind his dark mahogany desk, his gray eyes calculating. "Let me tell you about how business acquisition works, since you're clearly new at this. When I take over failing businesses, I personally see to them until I'm certain they're firm on their feet. That way there's no room for error. Understand? Good. Now go be productive."

She planted her palms at the edge of his desk, speaking low. "You may fool everyone in this office, Malfoy, with your god-awful Witch Weekly covers and impeccably tailored suits – but I know you. Give me one reason to, and I will destroy you."

"While it does give me some amusement, hearing you recycle the same three threats," he said in a bored drawl, "don't you have work to do?"

Harry was right. It took so much energy to hate him. Even when she was back in her office, he was still there, in the webs of her mind, taunting her. She closed her eyes, massaging her temples. This was my baby. Mine and Wendelin's. We failed.

Wendelin popped her head in. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. "Hermione dear, staff meeting in five. Bring the handbook."

ooo

"Hermione! Hi!"

Hermione looked up from her pile of cases to see Ginny Weasley standing in her doorway, wearing an emerald green dress that perfectly complimented her strawberry hair. She glanced at her clock and put down the papers, surprised.

"Ginny, how are you? Are you—"

"Just meeting Draco for a lunch date," Ginny smiled.

"Oh." Hermione looked past Ginny and her open office door to Malfoy's office, where the door was still closed. His secretary, wearing the same bored look on her face since two weeks ago, was answering some owls. "Right."

"Thought I'd come a little early and see how you've been," Ginny said. "You know, since Ron and I aren't exactly on speaking terms."

"I heard about that." She sighed. "Look, this is silly. You're brother and sister. Isn't there some way to, I don't know, have a conversation without bringing up Malfoy?"

"Have you tried having a conversation with my brother?" she said dryly.

"You have a point."

"Draco tells me it's going well here – that the firm's doing better already."

She tried to keep her bitterness from showing. There was a faint itching in her ears every time she called him Draco. "I guess so."

"Well – and don't crucify me for this – I'm glad it's your firm that he bought out. The Ministry can barely handle things as it is, recuperating after the war. It's been a mess over there, with the reconstruction still going on and so many files lost."

Hermione nodded, still watching the door behind her. She was grateful for Ginny's thoughtful visit but she also really, really wanted her to leave.

"Oh! It's one o'clock. I'd better go. See you later, Hermione," Ginny said, and Hermione said goodbye, charming the door to close behind her. She didn't want to have to watch them parade whatever it was they had around the office; she'd be sure to hear all about it at the proverbial water cooler later.

They were still in their probation weeks – getting comfortable with the new procedures, working through trial and error. She hated to admit it, but their efficiency numbers were up, and the Malfoy funds had been spent on new hires to organize their old and new cases, which already made the work a little more seamless.

Still, she had work to do. Tons.

It was a good thing she'd just lost her appetite so she could work through her lunch.

ooo

Three years ago

She truly believed that it was some kind of cruel play that she'd been paired with Malfoy as Heads for their final year. Punishment, maybe. She had indulged with him during the war, entertained thoughts of him when the mood had been too dark, and now she was stuck with him. She was going to spend the entire year associating her shame with his smirking face.

"Just so you know," she said, when they had finally entered their common room, their Heads badges pinned to their chests, "what happened between us during the war – that's over."

"Right," he loudly snorted. "Where have I heard that little conversational gem before?"

She wanted to slap him. "I mean it, Malfoy. This is strictly business. We're keeping our distance from each other. Besides, we're not at war anymore." Her voice softened. "It doesn't have a reason to happen, anymore."

He looked at her, his face unreadable. She hated how she couldn't read him. Why couldn't he be an open book, like her? Why did some people have all the power of frozen facial muscles?

"Got it?" she said, firmly.

He turned his turned his back to her and headed to his room. "You worry about keeping your own promise, Granger."

"I don't have to worry," she called out after him. "I'll keep it just fine!"

She reasoned that with their reenrollment in school, she would have enough distractions to keep him out from her mind. But a small voice from the back of her skull reminded her that they had been at war, and even then, he had found a way to sneak in and dig himself a place inside the very place she was trying to vacate of him.

"That was different," she whispered to herself.

Except they were all different now. They were in a post-war world, living in a time that was trying to gather its broken parts and find a way to be whole again. It was different. It would always be.

ooo

A month passed. A month of meetings, procedural reviews, experimentation, and late nights. The nights Hermione stayed late, trying to catch up on all of their backlogged cases, she often noticed the light in Malfoy's office still on. He would send his secretary home around seven, and he would then stay in his office until around the time she left. She secretly watched his door on those nights; he never left his office. She was starting to wonder if he had built a secret tunnel underneath it without anyone's knowledge – which she wouldn't put beyond him at all.

She glanced at the clock. It was around ten-thirty on a Friday night. She had canceled plans to meet up with Harry at the bar because she had hit a snag with a case, which involved more paperwork and owls to send out.

She made it a point to go through her messages and mail before she left for the weekend, because she knew all too well that by Monday there would be another gargantuan stack waiting for her. She tossed some out, filed others for later, and pocketed the ones that seemed urgent. Finally, she came across a company memo, with a conspicuous M emblazoned in gold foil at the top.

She read it carefully, before scoffing in disgust. Malfoy was holding a little soiree to celebrate his "successful" acquisition of their firm, no doubt to stroke his ego in regards to his string of company conquests. Everyone in the company was invited. Formal dress robes were required. The press, she knew, would be swarming all over this.

She held the memo in her hand, looking up at the light shining through the glass walls of his office. She scribbled NOT A CHANCE on the memo before heading over to his office to personally deliver it to him.

Usually she exercised the common decency of knocking for other people, but Draco Malfoy was not other people. She barged in, to hell with what he was doing.

The worst part about it was that he hadn't seemed all that surprised about her coming in unannounced.

"I've come here to RSVP," she said, putting the memo on his desk.

He looked up from the papers he had been reading, quickly glancing at what she'd written.

"Real mature," he said. "I wonder if all your dedicated, hardworking employees know you're this petty."

"Look, I'm not going to deny that – yes, you buying this company may have been the first decent thing that's happened to it since the Ministry decided to put us on the backburner, but despite the postmodern facelift you've given the sad building we were all actually quite fond of, and despite your secretarial transplant that seems to be more android than human, we are not this kind of company," she said, pointing to the memo. "And by that, I mean flashy. We don't use words like soiree. Our Christmas parties involve donuts, spiked pumpkin juice, and a secondhand karaoke machine. And we are perfectly fine with that."

He crossed his arms around his chest, leaning back in his chair. "That's cute, Granger, but irrelevant. I own this company. Like it or not, soirees like this get good press. Which help your firm. Which keep it from sinking into the black hole of economic depression."

She clenched her jaw. "Well, I'm not going," she said, before turning on her heel to walk out of his office. But when she reached for the doorknob to wrench it open and storm out, it was locked.

She had just wrapped her fingers around her wand when she heard it.

"Expelliarmus." Her wand flew and clattered against the window.

"You know, this bitter hag act is getting quite old," he said to her, with a hint of annoyance in his voice. "So let me put it this way, Granger, since your little oxygen-deprived brain obviously needs things spelled out for you: you're going, or you're fired."

When she turned around, he was out of his chair. He was just a few long strides away from her now. She could feel herself starting to feel unsettled at her situation. The last thing she needed was to be alone with Malfoy. That circumstance had a history of turning out a certain way that always involved losing a little bit of dignity.

"The image of company solidarity is important for the public to see," he said, coincidentally answering the question that had been pulsing in her mind: what's it to you whether I go or not, you sadistic prick? "So stop being a child and suck it up and be a team player."

She could feel the tightness in her chest. Every single muscle inside her body was aware of him, waiting for him, watching him. She hated that his mere presence commanded that kind of attention.

"Why this firm?" she said, lowly.

His face remained unchanged.

"The Ministry's a wreck. There must be dozens of other 'sad' little firms struggling to keep their chins up above the water – many, I assume, equally as charitable and therefore helpful in boosting your company's image. So why'd you choose mine?"

"Because yours was the saddest of them all."

She scoffed. "I don't believe you."

"Then tell me what you'd believe," he said, crossing his arms, his eyes shining with challenge. "Come on, Granger. What would you like me to tell you? What delusion would you like me to fulfill?"

She didn't know. No, that was a lie. She knew but once she did, it was exactly the kind of thing she wanted to unknow. All she could see was him on the final day of the war, looking for her without saying her name, amidst the piles of bodies and the rising smoke and destruction. And then him on the train platform, the memory sagging with the weight of the unsaid. And then him with Ginny – an image sloppily cut and pasted from the mental collage she had begrudgingly gathered from the Witch Weekly Sightings page.

"Good night, Malfoy," was what she said, instead, and by then the door had been unlocked, so she grabbed her wand and left his office, with her memo still on his desk, null and void.

She felt something inside her burn as she walked away, because that was what he did – Draco Malfoy had an aftereffect. Residue like moisture rings or ash clouds or dirt in your fingernails. No matter what she did, she could never get him completely out.

When she reached the elevator, she could still see him as his door slowly shut. Still watching her, his face like a perfectly synced orchestra, his eyes the color of a still, gray sea.

She only started breathing again when the door closed.

ooo

The event was held in the Malfoy gardens. Hermione had caught on from the few old money magical weddings she had been to that "gardens" did not exactly mean they had more than one – it was just that their garden sometimes literally amassed acres, which then merited the plural form of what it actually was.

Malfoy's estate did not disappoint in its elegance and size. Along with a labyrinth, the Malfoys also boasted impressive marble Greek statues in their gardens, in addition to four fountains she could only guess the karats to, and a mini menagerie. Miles of fairy lights had been strung up, and there were men in black and white that directed guests to the main area. Somewhere, she could hear the stylish plucks of a harp and the low wails of a cello.

Aside from her employees and Ministry workers, there were many faces at the party she did not know but recognized from Pansy's wedding. This didn't surprise her. This was a socialite event – exactly the kind of thing she hated. Daily Prophet photographers peppered the scene, along with those from Witch Weekly and other publications thirsty to leak the newest high powered wizarding couple.

Hermione sipped her second gin and tonic as she watched the power couple of the night: the radiant Ginny Weasley and the very calculated Draco Malfoy. She studied their movements, the way they looked at each other, and tried to dig up every trivial fact she had ever heard (and then promptly forgotten) about body language and relationships. She watched his hand occasionally touch that spot on the small of her back. Watched her wrap her arm around his. But she never saw them laugh.

"Riveting, aren't they?"

Wendelin was beside her now, drinking from a flute of champagne.

"Heard Witch Weekly's already trying to bag a full-on interview and photospread with them," she said. "They're rumored to be the next Dean Thomas and Pansy Parkinson – but even bigger, if you can believe it. Nobody's a stranger to the hostility between the Malfoys and Weasleys. It reads like Romeo and Juliet – if Romeo and Juliet were born genetically flawless."

She loved Wendelin but the tone of excitement in her voice made her despise her, just a little.

"They haven't laughed."

"What?"

"They haven't laughed. They've been together the entire night, schmoozing with the other shallow socialites, and they haven't laughed. Not once."

Wendelin coughed. "Hermione, dear, you know that your eye for detail is something I consider invaluable, but I'd advise you to keep this to yourself. It's a little bit creepy."

"Right," Hermione said. "Well, if I hear another heart-wrenching harp number, I'm going to vomit. I need a break." Wendelin gave her a sympathetic squeeze on the shoulder before Hermione left the main area to explore the rest of the gardens.

She sat down near a fountain with an overlooking Aphrodite. She was a majestic thing, pure white with smooth lines, her features delicate yet voluptuous. She picked up a lily from one of the lower pools. She was surrounded by walls of plants and plenty to distract her yet all she could think of was how she wished she never came.

That was when she heard it: voices, increasing in volume, from somewhere nearby. Hermione looked around. They must be behind the wall, where she couldn't see.

It was an argument.

"Do you want to call this off?" the female voice shouted. "Because I dare you. One word from you and you can just as easily be a bachelor again, shagging whatever whore that bats her eyelashes at you."

"Of course not! I love you, Pans! But we haven't even been married for three months, and – you know, marriage isn't supposed to be this hard. All I can think of is your parents, and how hard they pray that we'd just crash and burn. If it wasn't going to cast them in a bad light, I'm positive they would have disowned you by now."

"Well, I can't do anything about that. They're my parents. You know how much energy I've wasted on trying to convince them? I've done everything."

"They're ruining our marriage. And you're letting them."

That was the last she heard. She guessed from the silence and faint rustle of motion that Dean had left. Hermione got to her feet, but in her hurry, toppled her glass into the fountain.

"Shit!" she hissed.

She reached over, dipping her hand into the water to retrieve it. When she looked up, Mrs. Pansy Parkinson-Thomas had appeared from behind the maze wall. She was watching her closely with her arms crossed.

Hermione tried to ignore the red-brimmed eyes that were leering at her.

"Granger."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know someone was out here—"

"I don't care what you heard," Pansy said. There was a moment of silence that passed in between them. It made her feel uncomfortable. There was a steadiness behind her eyes that made her nervous – a knowingness. "Marriage is hard. But it's even harder when Witch Weekly decides to publish an article about your pending divorce that hadn't existed before but might now actually be a possibility."

"I'm sorry," she said, trying to mean it.

"Don't be. It's none of your business." Pansy's eyes studied her. "When I heard he was buying your sad little firm, I almost thought that he'd gone barmy. Everyone was betting that the Ministry would put you out of your misery in a few months' time, but Draco always had the best and worst timing. And I bet you aren't even the slightest bit grateful for his help."

She numbed the sting from her comment with the irritation she felt towards the assumption that Draco was doing this out of the goodness of his vacant heart. "It's not help. Help is well-intended. This is political monopoly."

"Maybe," Pansy shrugged. "But it still must kill you, seeing him with that Weasley girl."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at her. "She could do better. Everyone knows it."

Pansy laughed to herself. "That's not what I mean." She stepped a little closer to her. "Oh, Granger. Wake up and smell the tension! You forget that I know a thing or two about wanting not to want someone. It's a game you'll lose. I know you don't consider me much of a mental challenge, but I've always been good at reading people. It's one of my undisclosed talents. It's too bad everyone else is too daft to see something so palpable, so there."

She imagined herself as a blank wall. A block of untouched marble. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't – here, that is. Out in the public, while he's parading around with his little ginger girlfriend. But what about when you crawl into your sad, lonely, little bed at night, Granger? Do you still tell such convincing lies then?" Pansy uncrossed her arms, smirking at her. "I admire the strength in keeping up the charade, even after three years. I do. It was something I was never good at, and look where I am now."

With that – a soft lingering hint of sadness – the recently wedded Mrs. Thomas left. She heard the clicks of her stiletto heels on the stone path grow fainter as she headed back to the main area.

Hermione tried to hate her, but she pitied her more.

"My bed is not sad. Or lonely," she muttered to herself. "And we never lie to each other."

It was on that note that she decided to end the night. She made her way out of the labyrinth, and – with a few directions from the greeters – began to make her way off the Malfoy estate.

She was unnerved by Pansy's knowledge of her innermost turmoil. How long had she known? Since the war? And who else knew? She had brazenly outed her, but did Malfoy know the extent of Pansy's suspicions?

"Leaving already?"

She paused in her step, before turning around. There he was, the man of the hour. Alone. All the way out here, with her. She knew without having to guess that if she were just a little bit closer she would catch the stink of alcohol radiating off of him.

"I have a severe aversion to harp music," she said, dryly. "Pair that with a crowd of old money snobs, and I'm just done for." She shifted her weight between her feet. "But I came. I get to keep my job. So now I have the pleasure of leaving. All right? See you Monday."

Go home, Hermione. There was something different about him right now. He was unguarded, and disheveled in a way she couldn't see but felt, anyway. It made the silence that strung out between them pregnant with something she put all of her energy into trying to ignore.

"I wrote to you," he said to her back. She stopped. "Two years ago, I sent you one owl. And what did I get? All of the times the burden was put upon me to listen to you gab on about petty rules and righteous self-talk, the useless hours accumulated of your voice in my head talking about absolutely nothing, and what do I get in response to this owl?" he said.

She said nothing. He continued on.

"Silence."

She would never tell him. She would never tell him about the stack of drafts she had written, none of which she ever sent. None of them were good enough. None of them conveyed her inner conflict. I still think about you and I hate myself for it. No, that didn't even begin to explain her myriad of emotions.

"So stop acting like I've wronged you in some way. This is not a world full of mind readers, Granger. You can't get what you want without asking for it. So ask for it."

"Ask for it?" she scoffed, whirling around to face him. "And what do you suggest I ask for, hm? You?" She laughed, and it was a vehicle for sarcasm and emptiness. "Nobody asks for you, Malfoy. You happen to people. You show up. You buy people's firms. You build a fucking office on their floor, where you stay late nights. You date pretty girls, much to the derision of everyone who actually care about them. You throw soirees. And now you're here. So – no, I'm not going to ask, because you show up anyway. Without an invitation. Without so much as anyone asking you to."

She took a step back. Then another. Then three. Then seven.

"Go back to your soiree, Malfoy," she called out to him. "You're drunk."

And then, with her hands still shaking, she went home.

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