"For heaven's sake, Granger, how much paperwork do you intend to have me review?" Draco asks from behind a pile of documents and files he holds the next morning, huffing after his question as if, no matter the answer, he knows he will be displeased.

"Believe it or not, Malfoy, eradicating a law actually requires one to do some research. Difficult to understand, I'm sure," Hermione says in response, placing one more large file in Draco's straining arms.

"Oh, I understand that it necessitates research, but I didn't expect it to include a library's worth," he says, coughing intermittently on the dust collected just under his chin between his fussing. "Just where, exactly, should I even put all of these ever so important documents?"

Hermione is tempted to tell Malfoy he can shove them somewhere in particular, but she restrains herself. She can be kind to Draco. Surely.

"We'll take them back to my office, I suppose, so that we can review the material as a team," she finally manages to say, though she has the urge to gag. Hermione has always hated group work.

Once she feels she has amassed an adequate amount of information, Hermione motions for him to exit out the door of the department's storage room, slamming shut a filing cabinet or two before she heads out herself and imagining that, really, she is smashing Malfoy's head between the slabs of screeching metal. Patience, she reminds herself, patience.

Despite all of the paperwork balancing precariously on his arms, Draco saunters down the hall without hesitation. Even in walking, Malfoy seems to scream of cockiness, she thinks, nearly sprinting just to beat him to her office door and remove the various spells keeping it locked. When she pulls the door open, he pushes past her, nearly knocking her over. Hermione curses at him silently, shutting the door after she regains her balance and slides inside.

Despite her earlier wariness of working as a pair, Hermione does find herself surprised by how quickly Draco goes through the information. At first, she suspects that he isn't even reading anything, but after a half hour, he says, "Perhaps you'd like to petition that the Ministry remove a law allowing any Muggle-born to be held for questioning without being charged for a crime?"

Hermione snatches the paper he is reading out of his hand as she says, "Is that really what it says?!"

It is. The rest of the morning passes in between Hermione's other cries of outrage as she and Draco locate even more ridiculously prejudiced laws. By noon, she has a list of 21 that she hopes will be changed, and they aren't even halfway through the paperwork. Exhausted from their findings, Hermione suggests a lunch break, and she heads off to eat before Draco even responds.

Hermione wanders down to Diagon Alley, ready for a nice lunch with Ginny and a pint of butterbeer to ease away the stress her morning's work has created all through her spine. She takes the majority of lunch up with blather and complaints about both the laws and Draco until, when she is mid-gulp on her second pint, Ginny says, "You'll never believe what Ron told me he bought yesterday."

While Ginny might be surprised, Hermione is not, and she says "A ring" at the exact moment her friend does. "How long until he proposes, you think?" she asks.

"Maybe in the next few weeks? She always did want to have a fall wedding, you know, so I'd think he'd give her the time to plan it."

Hermione laughs then. "She always wanted to be married in September because it'd be right near her birthday and easier for him to remember both. Doesn't about four months, not even including that he hasn't yet proposed, seem quite a short time to plan to you?"

Ginny just grins, looking equally doubtful of Ron's chosen time frame. "We'll have to see, I suppose." She looks Hermione up and down for a moment, seeming to ponder how she ought to say what she's thinking. "Hermione, you know," she says, the look on her face somewhere between mischievous and nervous, "while four months may not be very much time to plan a wedding in, it is quite a while to, oh, choose someone to include as your plus one."

Hermione suddenly has the feeling that what she has drunk might revisit her mug if Ginny keeps talking. "Ginny, did all of my information about how busy I am at work escape your notice? I'm practically babysitting a former Death Eater as I attempt to eradicate laws put in place by his lot for their benefit. I don't exactly have the time to devote to sifting through all the chaff and idiots of London."

"Hermione, you haven't been out with anyone since... Well, it's been so long that I honestly don't remember when."

Tracing her finger across the still damp exterior of her mug, Hermione says, "Since Ron, Ginny, and that's because I happen to know that I enjoy my work and dislike disturbances to it and because, too, I know absolutely no man that is the equivalent of what I desire for myself."

Ignoring what could possibly be seen as a quip about her brother, Ginny replies, "But aren't you lonely?"

Hermione just smiles ruefully before paying for her lunch.

When she arrives back at the Ministry, she's surprised to see her office light on already, even more shocked when she walks in and sees Draco hunched over in the same position he was in when she left, still gleaning through files for something useful. When he realizes she's returned, he colors to a bright red.

"Having a long lunch, Granger? You certainly took your time coming back."

Hermione, noting his embarrassment over what was apparently just more work for him, says, "Yes, Malfoy, one must eat, after all."

He continues to go through the crumpled pile of files in his lap as she resituates herself, and Hermione watches him work, doing his best to seem intent upon and interested in what he's reading so that he doesn't have to look at her. Something about him strikes her as quite different from the sneering boy she knew at Hogwarts, though he appears to sill have grown up into a sneering man. After a moment, the right description comes to mind: lonely. Draco Malfoy has never looked as alone as he does to Hermione at this moment, skipping meals not because he knows no one in the department but because, she supposes, they have known him too well. Even though his Dark Mark has faded, she doubts many wizards and witches have forgotten who Draco Malfoy and his family supported until the final moments of the war.

For a horrible second, Hermione understands why, exactly, clearing or even simply cleaning up his name might be so important to Draco. And in that second, pity and sympathy cause Hermione to say something she almost immediately regrets.

"Malfoy, if you can manage to be less than foul for an hour or two, you are welcome to join me during your lunch break."

At her words, Draco's face seems to slacken, unable to respond to an offer so unexpected. Then, however, he recovers and states, with more than a trace of disgust, "Why, thank you, Granger; I'll consider your offer when I completely lose my mind and dignity."

Blast being nice to bits, Hermione thinks, I hope the cocky degenerate chokes on that smug grin.