Chapter Text
Hermione was running late.
Which, on a typical Monday, was perfectly acceptable as she was beholden to no timetable but her own. But on the day she was finally getting her research assistant, being ten minutes late was less than the professional impression she wanted to make.
Fortunately, the streets of Wizarding London were mostly deserted and so she didn’t feel too self-conscious about trotting at just above a speed-walk from the Horizont-Diagon Apparition point to The Daily Prophet offices. She pushed the front door open, raising a hand in greeting to Aurora at the front desk without pausing, heading straight for the stairs that curled up and to the left.
“Are they here yet?” she called back, rounding the newel post and beginning to clatter upward.
“He arrived five minutes ago,” Aurora called back apologetically. “I sent you an owl, but—”
Shit. She clattered more quickly.
“No problem! Thank you!”
Owls were hardly a timely form of communication but Aurora had stubbornly declined Hermione’s offer to set her up with a mobile phone and so the traditional ways had to do. As she cleared the first floor landing, she wondered whether the poor creature was circling her flat, confused by her sudden disappearance into thin air. Did owls understand Apparition…?
Her office door was ajar, indicating that her new assistant had made themself—himself, according to Aurora—at home. Which, fine. The sort of research assistant she wanted certainly wouldn’t wait to be told what to do, nor would they linger outside a place they were expected to be, waiting for permission before proceeding in. All in all, it was a rather good sign.
The door swung open under the flat of her palm, words of welcome on her lips as she stepped over the threshold, and then froze, confused.
Standing across the room, inspecting her bookcase like he had any idea what he was looking at, was Draco Malfoy.
She hadn’t seen him in the flesh for nearly two years, not since she’d passed him in the street, his cerulean cape billowing around him in a, dare she say it, Lockhart-esque manner. As their paths had crossed, he’d compounded the effect by looking away from her toward a group of witches, flashing them a broad, rakish grin and earning giggles for his effort.
In the convening half-decade since leaving Hogwarts, Malfoy had made a name for himself by not making a name for himself. He hadn’t followed his father’s footsteps by becoming a Ministry puppeteer, nor his schooltime aspirations of Quidditch player or, one could only assume, professional crybaby. Instead, he lolled about, flitting between social events arranged by his mother and doing Merlin knew what in his Manor.
She’d tried very hard to not know anything about him after leaving Hogwarts, but he made it difficult with his endless appearances in Witch Weekly and her own paper, in both the society pages and gossip columns, and—worrying—several adverts for hand cream. Sure, objectively, he had nice hands but, honestly, what was that about?
He’d grown up, as she had, but even at twenty-five, he still had an unseriousness about him. He was a man of leisure—a playboy and, almost certainly, a fuckboy. She mistrusted him on principle and while she wasn’t vindictive enough to have wished Azkaban on him, knowing that he was gadding about doing whatever his rotten little heart desired grated at her.
If anyone deserved to do whatever their heart desired, it was her. She was a godsdamn war hero—one-third (if she was being generous; one-half if she was not) responsible for figuring out how to evade capture, survive on the run, and destroy Voldemort from the inside out. And yet it had still taken a solid two years for her Investigative Department to be approved by Barnabus.
All Malfoy had done for society was attempt to destroy it and then, when he’d been unable to accomplish even that, faffed about with similarly unproductive ventures. That he was standing in her office now heralded only further frustration, but she tabled her reaction until the current problem at hand was dealt with and summarily dismissed. She pointedly left the door open behind herself, a nonverbal invitation for his figure to pass back through it.
“What are you doing in my office, Malfoy?” she asked, toeing the line between businesslike and unfriendly.
He glanced over, eyes flicking from her face down her body once, before fixing his attention back on her books.
“I was under the impression you were an investigative journalist,” he quipped, then lifted a hand to the spines.
“Don’t touch my books,” she snapped, then gave him a taste of his own medicine, appraising his indecently well-tailored dark grey suit with a scathing upturn of her lip. Irritatingly, he didn’t look over to witness her disdain, and so she commanded his attention with another clipped reprimand.
“You can’t just invite yourself in.”
“The witch downstairs implied your assistant could.” He gestured to himself with the raised hand, turning his obedience at not messing with her things into something distinctly insouciant. Prat.
And then his words registered.
She jolted back like she’d been slapped, blinking against the cognitive assault. “What? No. You’re claiming that you are my new research assistant?”
“Cracked it in one,” he drawled, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets.
What the fuck was Barnabus playing at, giving her an unqualified, untested playboy to aid with one of the most important divisions of the Prophet? The amount she had groveled to earn her assistant—had even given up the right to select one herself!—and this is what he thought she deserved? A strongly worded memo began to compose itself in the back of her mind as she inhaled deeply, traversing the small room to set her things on her desk positioned directly across from the door.
“That’s nonsense. How could you be?”
He finally looked at her, and the intensity of his full attention made her stomach flip. Pale brows knit elegantly over icy grey eyes framed with golden lashes. High cheekbones and a sharp nose that brought awareness to the contrasting plushness of his bottom lip and the soft sweep of that iconic platinum blonde.
Looking at him made her stomach feel like it was full of Cornish pixies, nerves standing on end to prepare for whatever snide thing he was about to say.
Perhaps that’s all it was. How she felt when she looked at him was simply the lingering result of her girlhood crush on Lockhart, combined with the adrenal response of facing off against her girlhood annoyance. That was a thing, right?
But then he spoke, ruining whatever pleasant thoughts she’d had about him, as it always had.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand the question.” His voice was patronizingly polite
“It’s not a difficult question,” she said, pulling out her chair. Half way down into the seat, it clicked. She hovered for a moment and then dropped down heavily onto worn leather. “Oh. Of course.”
Malfoy had turned from the books to watch her progress across the room and now stood at the short side of her desk, one hand still in his trouser pocket and the other daring to stroke the ear of the little porcelain ginger cat paperweight on the corner. When she didn’t carry on, he cocked his head, a brow raising interrogatively.
“Of course…?”
“Lucius.” She said the name like the curse it was, then huffed an exasperated sigh. “If it weren’t for nepotism, half the Ministry wouldn’t exist, so why not every other Wizarding enterprise as well?”
Malfoy snorted, attention back on the figurine. “It can’t be nepotism, Granger. My father doesn’t work for The Prophet.”
“Semantics. He funded it somehow, yes? What, did he buy the paper to get you a job?”
He rolled his eyes, a gesture that irritated her on principle, like seeing someone else wear her favorite jumper—and wear it better.
“No. My father has no ownership nor shares in The Prophet, nor does he give them a Knut over his subscription fee. Honestly, I think he begrudges having to pay even that.”
There had to be an explanation. She’d seen his essays in school – well, not seen, but she could imagine what they looked like – and there was categorically no way that Draco Malfoy had gotten a job at The Prophet of his own volition.
And certainly not in the Investigative Department. He didn’t have the drive to hunt down the truth—he’d willfully ignored it for long enough, she wasn’t sure he even knew how to spot it.
“Did he—”
“Granger.” He fixed her with an unexpectedly weary expression. “My father didn’t do anything. He didn’t buy my way in—”
“Don’t act like that’s unprecedented,” she muttered dryly.
Except for a twitch of lips, he ignored her interjection. “He didn’t tap a shoulder, or bribe, or blackmail anyone. He wasn’t involved at all.”
She raised her brows. She hadn’t even considered blackmail, but now that he’d mentioned it…
“I applied and was hired. Alright? Now, can we get started? Despite your doubts, I did actually come here to work.”
Given that she knew he didn’t need employment, she had no clue what his game was. But with any other person, she’d have approved of the quick shut down of chit-chat in order to focus on the job. Tricky as the impulse was to do the exact opposite, she endeavored to treat Malfoy just like anyone else.
“Fine.” She pointed to the spare chair against the wall. “Bring that over, and I’ll orient you on what work actually means.”
Normally, she lingered at the office until six or seven, partly because there was nothing for her to rush home for, but mostly because her brain had always worked best in the evenings. It was tempting to make him stay late with her, purely because she could, but having spent nearly eight hours sharing air with him was already more than she’d ever wanted. As soon as the clock struck five, she dismissed him.
The next morning, she arrived at the office late, though intentionally this time. She’d stopped by a shop in Muggle London on her way in, a fresh idea of how to antagonize him delighting her so much, she’d eaten her toast on the way.
When she pushed open her office door, he was already sitting in his assigned seat, though he’d taken the liberty to Transfigure it from the original hardwood to a tufted leather armchair. The fitted light grey trousers of today’s coordinating suit pulled taut over his thighs as he twisted toward the door, eyes tracking her progress across the small space between them. A lazy appraisal of her sensible trousers and blouse and then his eyes rose to hers.
“Morning Granger,” he drawled.
She stopped just beside his chair and held out her purchase to him in lieu of returning the greeting. His eyes held hers for a moment before looking down at the rectangle of plastic in her palm. Standing this close to him so early in the morning meant she couldn't avoid inhaling his clean, freshly-showered-and-groomed scent. It was overpowering, though in a way that made her take in a second, surreptitious sniff. If she had to exist in the same geographical space as him, at least she'd be able to enjoy one aspect of it.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“A mobile phone.” She shoved her hand a little closer, indicating he take it.
He did, brows twitching together as he turned it over in his hand, inspecting it. “What does it do?”
“It allows us to communicate instantaneously.”
When his eyes flicked back up, there was a hint of amusement in them. “I didn’t realize you were so desperate to communicate with me that it needed to be instantaneous.”
It took effort, but she managed not to scoff. The reason for giving him the mobile had been entirely motivated by her desire to frustrate him and already it was backfiring. Letting him know as much was unacceptable and so she kept her expression carefully professional, though perhaps a bit patronizing.
“It’s essential that we stay in contact while you’re still learning the ropes, particularly when you start venturing out for interviews. So, pay attention.”
She flicked the mobile open with her thumb then used her index finger to point. “This is the screen.” She tapped her nail twice over the smooth surface before moving to point at the power button on the side. “And this is how you turn it on.”
“Should I press it?” he asked, for some reason dropping his voice half a register. “Or give it a rub?”
“A rub–?” She broke off when she saw the stupid look on his face. “You’re a child.”
He clucked his tongue imperiously, pulling the mobile out of reach. “Words hurt, Granger.”
Words hurt?
Oh, she was going to flay him alive.
The audacity of Draco Malfoy telling her that words hurt and then brushing off her help in order to sort out a Muggle device on his own ignited her. Her temperature rose so suddenly, it was as if she’d spilled an extra measure of mandrake into a Volubilius potion, sending her gut into a flash boil. She wanted to scream behind her teeth, or slap him, but as neither was professionally acceptable, she settled on giving him a tight-lipped smile.
“My apologies. You press it.”
He tilted the mobile to find the button then gave it a light, short press.
“Harder,” she instructed automatically and then shook her head when he bit his lip to hide his smile. “Merlin fucking spare me.”
He chuckled. “Don’t fuss, Granger. I’ll figure it out.”
“Wonderful. Good luck.”
“Don’t need luck.” He tapped his temple with the mobile, ostensibly insinuating something to do with his intelligence but, as the gesture snapped the mobile shut over a lock of his hair, served the opposite purpose.
Perhaps she was as immature as him, because trying to conceal her bark of laughter didn’t even cross her mind. He shot a glare at her, untangling the mobile and setting it gingerly on the desk in front of him as he fixed his barely askew hairstyle with a few careful fingers.
She rounded her desk, setting her bag to the side and dropping down into her chair.
“So what do you have for me today?” he inquired, crossing his ankle over his knee.
The phrasing – as if she was there to provide anything for him – triggered the reflexive annoyance she’d cultivated after years of matriculating alongside his snobby, prattish self. The agenda she’d drafted for their day had started with her giving him an overview of the story she was currently investigating, but now she’d be hard pressed to sit and entertain him.
It was his turn to prove his worth to her.
The journalistic integrity of The Prophet had been in question for decades, but in the five years she’d worked there, she’d done her part to bring the standard up. Adding Malfoy into the mix would not be the thing to send it back. A plan formed instantly.
“We’re going to run through a little role play to assess your interview skills.” She gestured to him. “You’ll be the journalist and I’ll be a source.”
“I am a journalist,” Malfoy reminded her, tapping the plastic badge clipped to his shirt pocket that he’d gotten from Aurora the prior afternoon.
“Not yet you aren’t.” She sent him a simpering smile then clasped her hands together, settling them on the desk in a no-nonsense manner. “You’re investigating a story about corruption in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, specifically within the Muggle-Worthy Excuses Committee. I’m an employee of said subdepartment. A woman named Doris Smith gave you my contact information and suggested I know something about the corruption.”
She gave him a literal second to absorb her rapid-fire burst of information, then sat back. “Begin.”
A beat and then he fixed her with a steady, easy smile. “Hello. My name is Draco Malfoy and I write for The Daily Prophet. How are you this morning?”
She blinked, thrown by his smile and the welcoming, friendly tone. “What are you doing?”
He dropped his demeanor with a laborious sigh. “Role playing with you, Granger, though I must admit, it’s not nearly as fun as I imagined it would be.”
“Why are you introducing yourself?” she asked, staunchly ignoring his attempt to goad her again.
The surprise on his face seemed genuine. “Should I not state my name and occupation?”
“No, that’s fine. But we’re just—” Her interjection had already detailed things longer than if she’d just left if alone. She drew in a quick inhale through her nose. “Nevermind. Continue.”
He shifted in his seat, resuming what she now saw was his professional expression. “Thank you. As I was saying, I work for The Daily Prophet and was hoping to borrow a moment of your time.”
She determined she wouldn’t soften an ounce, even if he did appear capable of manners. “What for?”
“I understand you work for the Ministry.”
“Who told you that?” she asked, testing him.
He instantly failed, the confident smile suggesting he thought he was about to ace it. “Doris Smith.”
“Don’t reveal your source,” she corrected, relishing the way it made his smile finally flag. “People won’t talk to you if they think you’ll blab about it to others.”
His mouth opened as if to defend himself, but he hesitated then nodded. “Right. Okay.”
She gestured that he carry on. He shifted in his seat, refocusing on her.
“I understand you work for the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, is that right?”
“How would you know that?”
He didn’t hesitate this time. “Ministry personnel are public record. I looked you up.”
She inclined her head in a small dip, a singular gesture of approval, feeling, regrettably, a tiny bit impressed at his quick answer.
He pantomimed holding a quill over a notepad, looking up at her with that same expectant, pleasant smile. “Alright if I take notes for the record?”
Deftly done. Damnit.
She nodded. “That’s fine. And yes, I work there.”
He pretended to make a note. “What a noble occupation. Have you been there long?”
“Ten years,” she invented.
He hummed an impressed sound. “You must have witnessed quite a bit. Were you involved in that brilliant magical reversal when that young witch transfigured her Muggle neighbor’s cows into cats?”
What the fuck? Her brows knit and his smoothed.
“Ah, not your area then. So are you with the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee or the Obliviators?” His tone was perfectly balanced between polite interest and professional requirement, giving no clue as to what exactly he was aiming to find out. She had to hand it to him, his ability to navigate a conversation the direction he wanted was adept.
“I’m with the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee.”
“For all ten years?” He smiled pleasantly, fake-quill hovering over his fake-notepad.
“Yup.”
“Oh?” The word was intrigued, as if she’d informed him of something he’d suspected but not yet had confirmed.
Even though there was nothing to know in her made up scenario, when he uncrossed his legs and leaned forward to prop his elbows on his thighs, nerves fluttered in her stomach, as if she’d given something away.
“Right,” she said, before he could pose his next fake question. “That’s enough for now.”
His eyes met hers from under his brows before he sat straight again. “But I didn’t get to find out how far into the corruption you were,” he protested, feigning disappointment.
“You did fine.”
His eyes glinted at her scrap of praise, leaning back in his chair with a smug smile.
“I’m an excellent conversationalist,” he boasted, then sniffed and looked around. “So, will my office be this size?”
“You don’t get an office. As my assistant, you’ll work in here with me, or you’ll be out in the field.”
The edge of his lip twitched downward as he completed a second canvass. “This is a very small space for two people.”
She didn’t need the reminder. It was a small room to start with, made smaller by the inward encroaching of bookcases, file cabinets, her desk, the sideboard, and, the latest addition, his armchair.
“Here.” She picked up a slim folder and held it across the desk for him. “Read this. It’s for the story the department is currently investigating. Once you have the broad strokes, I’ll give you a detailed recounting to bring you fully up to speed.”
He took it, flipping it open. “The department.” He lifted the cover sheet and began to skim the contents, flicking a quick look to her. “You mean you.”
She sighed. “Unfortunately, I now mean us.”
Until recently, it seemed that the Wizarding world held little interest in uncovering corruption, injustice, and general wrongdoing. Evil was everywhere, she knew. Small and insidious, bad actors being born and raised and broken in every day. And five years after the war, people had begun to slip back into complacency.
It was because of all those factors that the concept of an Investigative Department hadn’t been hugely popular. It should have been the most flourishing department in the wake of the war, but the nature of the work meant that stories broke slowly—sometimes, she didn’t have anything to print for weeks—and so getting a strong readership was tricky.
It had been a department of one and definitely didn’t hold the same gravitas as those which had been Prophet institutions since its inception, so it was therefore confusing that Malfoy had applied for the position. Even without Lucius holding his hand, she suspected he’d have been hired for any department he’d wanted, such was the Malfoy name in Wizarding society. How fast the sins of war were forgotten behind the shine of gold.
Why he’d apply to work for it would be an investigation in and of itself.
Over the next day, she did her best to fluster or frustrate him. The mobile had been tucked into the inner pocket of his jacket not to be seen again, but she’d continued her agenda of forcing Muggle items on him. Rather than quills and ink, she passed him two ballpoint pens. In lieu of parchment, she used only crisp white sheets of paper or lined, spiral-bound notebooks.
Malfoy took each in stride, jotting down notes in his little spiral-bound notebook, fingers awkward around the slim ballpoint pen. Perhaps he was fulfilling his own agenda of pissing her off by not letting her bait him. Either way, it was all incredibly frustrating.
Although not as frustrating as the fact that it seemed Malfoy would require very little coaching on most aspects of the job. It meant less time dealing with ineptitude, so sure, that was a benefit, but it pricked at her curiosity. As far as she was aware, none of his prior occupations—and she used the word extremely lackadaisically—had involved anything that would have trained him in the skills needed to think critically.
She managed to hold off prying until Wednesday afternoon.
Familiarizing him with all the details of their current story had only taken a day and a half, something she’d expected to stretch the full first week. But he was an attentive audience, eyes focused on her or the board of evidence as appropriate, head nodding along and only interrupting to ask relevant questions.
The story she was currently investigating was centered around finding the origins of the increasingly prevalent, highly dangerous plants being supplied to a subset of unlisted Potioneers. Thus far, the potions were innocuous enough that they hadn’t garnered the attention of the DMLE (something she’d confirmed with a few casual questions to Harry during a Sunday dinner at the Burrow), but after she’d read through the third report of someone having been dosed with an unexpected Shrinking Solution or Voice-Modification Brew—potions that came across as pranks to anyone who wasn’t looking closely, aka someone who wasn’t Hermione—she’d started compiling evidence.
It wasn’t the potions themselves she was concerned with but where the ingredients required to create them were coming from, specifically Bloodroot, Cowbane, and Snakeweed. The plants were notoriously hard to cultivate, some requiring highly specific conditions that only existed in several specific places across the globe. Places that she had determined were not currently producing them. The plants were also highly controlled, due to the extremely illegal, downright terrifying potions they could be used to brew. Potions that the DMLE would be extremely interested in tracking down the origins of, as would the DoM.
But until such time arose that they finally began looking into the root of the issue and the disastrous ramifications, Hermione was happy to take it off their metaphorical hands.
The man she was currently investigating was Thomas Clarke, a late-middle-aged wizard who’d gotten on her radar after his name had continued to crop up in the Wizengamot testimonies of Potioneers accused of brewing illegal potions, unrelated to those currently being circulated around the greater London area, as a 'consultant'. The term was so vague, it immediately pricked her interest. But despite his handful of shady known associates, his personal record was clean. The dissonance was immediately suspect.
So far, she’d been able to collect a wide range of information on him, all of which she was in the process of reviewing and, now, sharing the burden of with Malfoy.
By the afternoon, she had nothing further to lecture on and so set him the task of sorting through the sheaf of Clarke’s financial records she’d obtained through technically-legal means. There was a methodicalness to him that she couldn’t recall observing from school, except perhaps in the fussy way he always kept his desk neat and tidy.
The incongruence niggled at her until she couldn’t help but ask.
“What were you doing before this?” It was tough to keep the question casual and not accusatory, particularly when aimed at him, but she thought she half managed it.
He didn’t look up from where he was poring over the documents he’d spread out over the sideboard, his makeshift workspace, but he hesitated for a moment before replying. “Consulting.”
She narrowed her eyes. What was it with dubious men and consulting? “Consulting about what?”
“All sorts of things.”
“Such as?”
He sighed. “Whatever arose.”
Whatever arose?
“You didn’t have a speciality?” she pressed, brows furrowed.
“Aesthetics.” He shot her a look. “Alright? If there was something to assess from an aesthetics point of view, I would give my opinion.”
She let it sit for a moment but couldn’t help herself; it was her personal and professional speciality to figure things out, after all.
“Who asked you for your opinion on aesthetics?” It wasn’t an outlandish concept, given the way he dressed and groomed, but she couldn’t fathom who would have sought him out for it.
“Merlin’s saggy balls,” he muttered. “You’re worse than a Niffler in a quarry, aren’t you?”
“Pardon me for being curious as to your credentials,” she defended. “I wasn’t exactly briefed on your work history or qualification before you were hired, and I think it’s highly relevant information for me to know.”
He looked up, grey eyes flicking over her with a sort of assessment she didn’t appreciate, then straightened up, finally ignoring the papers spread out on the surface below his hands.
“I’m more interesting to you than work, am I?”
She kept her face completely still, knowing any reaction—an eye roll, a huff, a blush—would give him a sense of victory. However, resisting a scathing retort was beyond her control, so she shot him a snide, “You wish.”
He hummed a warm, knowing sound that went straight up her spine, looking back to the documents with an expression adjacent to contemplation. “He’s quite the transitory bloke.”
He stabbed a finger downward, squashing the nose of the referenced man. The photographic version of Thomas Clarke wrinkled it before shifting to the edge of the image, tiny hand rubbing his accosted feature. Despite herself, her interest was piqued. She repressed it for half a second before giving in.
“Why do you say that?”
Malfoy pointed to several spots of the document in front of him and after another half-second of dithering, she went over to look. It was one of Clarke’s property listings; as she stepped up beside him, Malfoy fanned out several others.
“He owns properties in Soho, Notting Hill, Chelsea, Westerfield, Sproughton, and Warren Heath – concurrently.”
She scanned the documents. Six properties altogether, three in London and three in Ipswich. Apart from that, she couldn’t see anything of interest. It begrudged her to ask, but she did it anyway.
“So what? You own several properties. Does that mean you should be suspected of supplying resources to an underground network of nefarious Potioneers for hire?”
Malfoy clucked his tongue dismissively. “Triangles, Granger.”
She waited, but that was it.
“...Triangles,” she repeated slowly, and then again, in case he hadn’t heard the absurdity of it. “Triangles?”
“Yeah.” He nodded to himself, tapping the page absently. “Huh.”
Huh indeed.
She eyed him speculatively from the corner of her eye, wondering what the fuck was going on in his head but definitely not interested in finding out.
“Alright,” she said, with as little patronization as she could. “Why don’t you…focus on that, and I’ll work on the financial…angle.”
She coughed discretely to cover the rise of humor at her accidentally geometric phrasing. He looked over at her, brows raised.
“Yeah? You think this might be something?”
“That’s for you to find out,” she said diplomatically, going back to her chair. “Now, pass me anything to do with his banking records, will you?”
Malfoy collected a short stack of pages, tapping the edges together neatly before leaning to the right, not even needing to take a step in order to set them on the desk.
It really was a dreadfully small office.
The following morning found her blissfully alone in the office while Malfoy fucked about doing Godric-knew-what Godric-knew-where. Should she have been annoyed – or, more generously, concerned – that her direct report was not in the office by ten o’clock? Perhaps. But his presence in her life had always been a blight, and so shortening her reprieve from him was unthinkable.
An hour later, her pen ran out of ink. She gave the tip a quick lick, just to check it hadn’t hit a dry spot, but the cartridge was definitely depleted. She pushed back from her desk, exiting her office to head for the storage cupboard down the corridor for a new one. Five minutes ago, she’d stumbled across a promising lead while reviewing Clarke’s financial records and so she was therefore too distracted to remember the necessity of keeping the door propped open.
It wasn’t until it clicked shut with finality that she realized her mistake. The door was faulty on a good day and almost purposefully malicious on a bad one. A useless turn of the handle confirmed it: the mechanism had detached yet again.
But she was no stranger to being locked in her cupboard, so reached for her wand. Which…was still sitting on her desk, midway through running a spelling and grammar check charm on her rough draft. Her pocket did elicit one thing: her mobile phone.
She really, really didn’t want to have to do it but…shit. Hardly anyone else had allowed her to insert a mobile phone into their lives so he was her best option. Godric bloody Gryffindor, how had it come to that?
She heaved a sigh then found his contact and clicked into a new message. Asking where he was would imply she cared, and since asking for his help was beyond her mental and emotional abilities, she went with the third best option.
Are you available? she sent.
There was a massive chance he’d still not figured out the mobile, so she was pleasantly surprised when it only took a minute for hers to chirp with an incoming text. Her relief was short-lived.
Ggmp tggp?
Her brows knit, staring at the nonsense. And then she closed her eyes, breathing in deeply. Merlin’s fucking beard.
Malfoy, she typed, you know who it is. Click the button until it gives you the letter you want.
A pause. And then:
Tgat’p wgat g dgd!
“Bloody idiot,” she muttered, then gave in and pressed the call button. It rang twice before he figured it out.
“HELLO?”
The volume he achieved would have allowed her to hear him while standing across a Quidditch field. Mid-game.
She pulled the mobile away from her ear reflexively, then jammed it back to her ear before he could shout at her again.
“Speak normally. You don’t have to shout. See? Hear my normal voice?”
Static crackled along the line as he breathed directly into the mouthpiece. “Oh.”
He didn’t deserve to have her help him, but suffering through his learning curve would tap out all the patience she had stored up and she desperately needed it for other, more important things. So she started talking before he could say anything else.
“When I said ‘click the button until it gives you the letter you want’, I meant the individual button. So for example, to type a B, you’d click the number 2 twice. And for O, you’d click 6 three times. Get it?”
His breath got further away, presumably as he brought the mobile away to look at the number pad. The heavy breathing was back a moment later.
“Got it.”
“Great. Can—”
The line went dead as he hung up.
“Oh my—” She smothered her curse behind her lips, snorting a frustrated breath through her nose before drawing the mobile away to call him back. A text message came through before she could hit the green phone button again.
Who’s this?
She…stared. Was he serious?
She had to close her eyes for a calming beat, and by the time she’d gathered her fortitude, her mobile pinged again.
That’s what I was trying to ask before.
“Oh my god.”
Could she Apparate wandlessly? Splinching herself suddenly seemed preferable to corresponding with Malfoy a second longer. Her mobile chimed while she was considering the risk-to-reward ratio of attempting it.
Yes. I am available.
Wandless Apparition was too risky. She’d have to let the blonde prat help.
The door to the supply cupboard is jammed, she typed.
It took forty-three seconds for him to reply.
Thanks for the update.
Splinching was extremely painful. She knew it was. The sounds Ron had made would never leave her, and he’d only had a bit of his shoulder caught in between points. Wandless Apparition would cost her a limb, if not more.
It was still tempting.
But she needed her limbs, so she texted him back.
I’m in the supply cupboard.
Ten seconds, and then:
:)
A smile.
A smile?
Was he laughing at her predicament? Showing sympathy? Agreeing to come help?
She’d thought a come here and let me out text was redundant and micromanagery, but…it was Malfoy. She wouldn’t put it past him to simply be pleased she was sharing about her day.
Five minutes. She would give him five minutes, and if he still hadn’t shown up or sent another message, then she’d bang on the door until someone else came to her aid. In the meantime, she could at least do a spot of reorganizing.
The door opened three minutes later. She was down on her knees, straightening the rolls of parchment on the bottom shelf and so looked up to find the bemused face of Malfoy, lit from behind so that his hair glowed like some sort of religious iconography.
He was wearing another suit, this one navy blue. It made his eyes look insane, or maybe it was just her slowly losing her mind.
He smirked down at her. “Well, here I am, Granger. Available for whatever you need.”
She exhaled a long, relieved breath that whatever spell his appearance had on her was so easily banished by his words. When he held out a hand to help her to her feet, it was easy to tsk and use the shelf instead. His hand curled around thin air then lowered back to his side, expression bemused.
“Where have you been?” she asked automatically. Damnit.
“All over.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, taking a step to the side to allow her to pass beside him, his body turning as she walked by. “Why? Miss me?”
“You know, I wish I had,” she said, feigning regret as she walked back to her desk. “But unfortunately, you’re entirely forgettable.”
“Ha.” Even without looking, she could hear his smile. “Alright. That’s it then? I can head off?”
It was eleven AM in the middle of a workday but she waved a dismissive hand. “Off you pop.”
“I don’t know why people complain so much about having to work,” he drawled, striding to the office door and pulling it open. “If this is what it’s like, it’s a lark.”
Her head shot up, affronted, but he was already through the door, turning to shoot her a wink as he sauntered out the door, pulling it to.