Courtroom six was crowded on the morning of August eighteenth; both Ministry officials and members of the public alike filled the high-rising, black stone benches. Against his better judgement, Draco Malfoy found himself entering the ominous room just moments before Astoria's trial was due to begin. Though he knew he was not required to be there; his statement was enough evidence for the Magical Law department, he had to see for himself how the bizarre chapter in his life would end.
His father had been sent back to Azkaban with an extended sentence, one long enough to ensure his final days would be spent in the wizard prison. Markus and the other members of the KoW had been trialled the day before. Draco hadn't attended, but Harry had owled him when it was over to say they had all been charged with ten years for their conspiracy, and Markus had received an extra seven for his involvement in Astoria's fake kidnapping. Pansy had also been given seven years, much to Draco's delight.
His eyes performed a quick scan of the room before he took a seat on the end of a bench directly by the door he had just entered. Harry, Ron, and Gawain were front and centre, along with eight members of the Wizengamot. Rita Skeeter sat on the row behind, wearing a dragon skin suit in a shade of green so vile Draco thought it should have been illegal, her acid green quill hovering viciously over a blank piece of parchment. She was leaning forward in a not-so-subtle way, presumably to listen to the whispered conversation Harry and Ron were having.
Further up the bench, huddled together and dressed all in black as though they were attending a funeral, were Astoria's family. Her mother was dabbing at her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief, while her father patted her knee in a comforting manor. Daphne looked positively bored, and as though she would rather be anywhere else. Draco prayed that they wouldn't look his way.
The one person he did want to see didn't appear to be there. He was sure that Hermione would have been there, having played such a big part in the investigation, but she was nowhere to be seen. 'What did you expect to happen if she was here? Hermione suddenly forgiving you and snogging your face off in the middle of your ex-fiancée's trial? ' a voice in his head asked wickedly. He knew it was right, of course. Hermione had ignored the seventeen owls he had sent her; she was still angry.
The door immediately to Draco's left swung open and the sound was followed by the clicking of heels. They faltered as they passed him, making him glance up to see who they belonged to, and he was met with the slightly shocked face of Hermione. She was wearing a set of smart, charcoal grey dress robes, with her usually wild hair pulled back into a bun. A folder hung limply by her side as she continued to stare in disbelief at Draco.
"Hermione!" Harry whispered, loud enough to make her jump.
Hermione promptly pulled the folder she was holding up to her chest and made her way over to the seat next to Harry. She handed him the folder with a shake of her head and Draco heard her scolding Harry for being forgetful.
Less than five minutes later, the door at the other side of the courtroom opened with a loud creak. Draco knew that this door led to the holding cells, and sure enough two ministry guards marched in either side of an extremely irritated looking Astoria. Though she was dressed in her best and most expensive robes, she was a shadow of the woman Draco knew her to be. Her face was bare of any make-up, and her dark hair, usually cared for with the use of only-the-best hair potions, hung limply over her shoulders.
The guards frog-marched her to the seat in the centre of the room. Astoria looked nervously at the cuffs on the arm of the chair before slowly sitting herself down. Luckily for her, the court hadn't deemed her to be a flight-risk as the cuffs remained open and she was free to place her hands in her lap instead.
The chief of the Wizengamot stood up from his seat and the quiet murmur of conversations stopped abruptly. "Please confirm for the court that you are Astoria Celeste Greengrass, of Greengrass Manor, Surrey?"
Astoria rolled her eyes. "That's me."
"The charges against you are conspiracy and perverting the course of justice through your own false kidnapping. Do you accept these charges?"
"I do, and I did two weeks ago. Can you just get on with it please? We all know how this is going to end."
"The court has an obligation to oversee all evidence before sentencing, Miss Greengrass. Your patience and cooperation would be appreciated."
It took another half an hour and a lot of complaining on Astoria's part before they got to the sentencing. All of the evidence from the Auror department had to be presented to the court, this turned out to be the file that Hermione brought in for Harry. Astoria had no legal representation, and pleaded guilty to all charges against her, which made things easier for the court. There was a ten minute break where the council members gathered to decide her fate. On their return, Astoria was asked to stand.
"Astoria Celeste Greengrass, you have pleaded guilty to all charges against you. While the Wizengamot appreciates your honesty, we feel that you show very little remorse for your actions. While we are aware of Markus Parkinson's involvement with the group that refer to themselves as the Knights of Walpurgis, and in turn, your involvement with Mr Parkinson, we do not feel you were linked in any other way with the group. We therefore sentence you only for the offences in relation to the kidnap. For this you will spend eleven years in Azkaban with no opportunity for a reduced sentence."
Astoria barely flinched at the news, but loud sobs came from her mother in the stands as Astoria was led out of the door she had entered though. Draco knew from there it would be straight to the apparition point to Azkaban for his ex-fiancée. He felt oddly discomforted by the thought. Though he knew it was nothing less than she deserved, he couldn't help but feel a small level of concern for Astoria; girls like that weren't made to cope in prison. He felt a small comfort in the fact that the place wasn't nearly as bad as it had been before the war; Kingsly had quickly seen to the removal of the Dementors and introduced real guards.
Some of the Wizengamot had begun to leave, and the rest of the court were following suit, pushing all thoughts of Astoria out of Draco's mind. He wanted to try and get Hermione to speak to him before she left so that he could apologise to her face to face. She had lingered behind to speak to one of the Wizengamot whom Draco didn't recognise, so he left the room but waited on the other side of the door so that she would have to walk past him on her way out. Astoria's family walked by him, thankfully without noticing he was there. Harry gave him a nod as he left with Ron, who very pointedly ignored him. Hermione and the witch she had been talking to were the last to come out.
"Hermione!" he shouted. The witch waved to Hermione and made her way to the lift at the end of the corridor.
"I don't want to talk to you, Draco," Hermione snapped.
She tried to walk away from him but he wasn't prepared to let her go without saying what he needed to. He grabbed her arm and pulled her back so she was facing him.
"Hermione, please, just give me a minute. Just one minute and then if you still hate me, I'll leave you alone."
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and then replied, "Fine. One minute."
He loosened his grip on her arm and gestured to the lift. "My office? Julia and Andrew will probably be out for lunch."
They rode the lift in complete silence. Draco kept glancing up at Hermione to see if her expression had softened at all, but she was looking away from him. As soon as the doors opened, Hermione was out of the lift and marching towards Draco's office. By the time he got there, she was already perched on the edge of his desk, her arms folded across her chest.
"Your minute has started," she said stubbornly.
"Oh, come on, don't be like that. Look, I'm not one for apologising usually, and I sent you seventeen 'I'm sorry' owls. I know I was a total prick to you after Astoria was finally found, but you have to see it from my point of view. I would have been a prick to anyone in that moment. And yeah, I shouldn't have taken it out on you, but in that moment I just wanted to be allowed to be angry with Astoria. I didn't want to hear that I shouldn't have reacted like I did. But how was I meant to react? Astoria really put me through a lot of shit, the worry that came with each new threatening letter, the stuff with that Azkaban guard, finding out about my father and Stan. The only one good thing that came out of this whole thing is that I got to know you better. I thought we were friends. I thought we were…" He shook his head. "What I'm trying to say is I'm really sorry."
It was only then that he realised he had been talking to his shoes the entire time. He finally looked up at her and relief washed over him when he saw she had unfolded her arms and was almost smiling.
"You were a prick," she agreed, and he resisted the urge to laugh at how odd it sounded to hear her swear. "But…I suppose I forgive you. Eighteenth time's the charm, eh?"
He wanted to cross the room and take her in his arms, but he knew that would be pushing it. Instead he settled for a grin, which she reciprocated, and before they knew it the pair were laughing.
Hermione managed to compose herself long enough to tell Draco that she needed to go back to work. Loretta had come begging for Hermione to come back to her own department as soon as Astoria had been found.
"Okay, I guess I'll see you later then?" Draco replied.
Hermione nodded and stood up from her seat on the end of the desk. She crossed the room toward the door behind Draco, pausing when she reached him for the second time that day. She thought for a moment and then threw her arms around him in a hug that almost knocked him sideways. When she let go, she was very red-faced, and left the room without another word.
Draco tried, with great difficulty, to catch up with some long overdue paperwork over the next half an hour, but he just couldn't seem to focus. His mind was somewhere else, and somewhere else was two floors below in her own office.
He sat for another five minutes, achieving nothing, before he got frustrated with himself and headed out of the room. He wasn't sure what he planned on saying to Hermione when he reached her, but he knew that he needed to speak to her.
He flung her office door open without knocking. "Hermione, I have to-"
The office was full. Hermione and two of her colleagues were seated at desks, quills in hand, eyes on Loretta Fleets, who was standing in one corner of the room next to a huge board full of notes in her messy handwriting.
"Can I help you, Malfoy?" Loretta asked. One eyebrow, purple to match her hair that day, was raised in amusement.
"Oh, er-no. I was just coming to speak with Hermione...something about the Astoria case," he lied quickly. "It can wait though…"
"Nonsense! We can wait. Hermione, out you pop, this sounds important!" Draco got the impression from the wild woman that she had seen directly through his lie.
Draco stepped back out into the hallway, Hermione followed him and clicked the door closed behind her. She began firing questions at him about Astoria, concern washed over her face. Draco quickly reassured her that everything was fine and the case was still wrapped up, but wasn't sure where to go from there.
"Well, what's wrong then?" Hermione asked impatiently, and then when he didn't reply, "Draco?"
"I just had to…"
"Had to what? I'm missing an important meeting here, Loretta was just talking about a new law she wants to bring in about muggle-borns and you're making me miss it so that I can stand out here for absolutely no reason and-"
She was ranting in a way that told Draco she wasn't going to stop any time soon, so he stopped her the only way he knew would work. He kissed her. For a moment, Hermione froze, but when Draco grabbed her hips and pulled her closer, her body soon responded. Her hands were on his back, and then in his hair. Her lips moved in time with his and her throat made a low moaning sound she had never heard herself make before.
It was Draco that broke the kiss, stopping only to tell her what he had wanted to when he burst into her office. But Hermione spoke first.
"Draco, we can't keep doing this." It was like a punch in the stomach for him. "Not because I don't want to. Merlin, it's about time I admitted that to myself… but it's too soon. There's no way you're ready for anything to happen between us, and I won't be a fling to distract yourself from Astoria."
He started to argue but she stopped him again, "No, please listen to me. Let's just…give it a while? Stay friends for now and she how you feel in a few months?"
"I know I'll feel the same," he said quickly before she could interrupt.
"And I hope you do," she said with a small smile. "But I need to know that for sure and this is the best way."
"A few months then? Shall I put a date in my diary?" he asked in an attempt to lighten the mood.
She laughed, "If you like. In fact, how about you come with me to Harry and Ginny's wedding in October?"
"As your date?"
"I guess we'll know then, won't we?" And after a swift peck on his cheek, she made her way back into the crowded office.