A Wonderful Fortuitous Love

4. Doing the Unthinkable

“Since when – has she – been this – violent?” Blaise panted.

Draco could not find his voice. Breathing heavily after the many turns and long halls filled with employees and dashing in and out of doors, he finally came to a skidding halt just before the lift. There was nothing extraordinary about it’s metal doors, but Draco had never been happier to see one in his life. He slammed down with more force than was necessary on the button, rapidly hitting it and cursing.

“Come on, come on, come on!” he rambled, bouncing on the souls of his feet. But then the tapping of heels met his ears, and almost instantly he froze on the spot.

Panicking, Draco desperately looked between the long spiral stairs to his right, and then to the large metal doors before him that, he knew, would be too slow to close in time before Granger caught up to them.

She was after him, not Blaise, so shooting his friend a farewell look as a dozen formally dressed people flowed from the lift; Draco pushed past them and zoomed down the stairs.

He ran past Bun Woman’s desk, through the mass of people, knocking, pushing, and swearing at them to move, before looking anxiously back at Granger again. He might have laughed, had this been a completely different situation, at the way she had suddenly half slowed down to some weird kind of walk/jog/skip/run as she tried acting completely normal, smiling graciously and nodding at the people around her who were practically gawking.

“Oh, Ms. Fitch, you look lovely today!” she called with forced pleasantness, waving. “Mr. Holloway, good evening!” The looks on their faces made it clear they had never seen ‘Miss. Granger’ act in such a manner.

When she was free of the cluster of people, Granger broke out into a proper sprint again, and it was only when she was much too close did Draco realise he’d stopped running to watch her strange display of normalcy.

The abrupt panic that came over him from the murderous gleam in her eyes made Draco, stupidly, run back down towards Bun Woman’s desk – literally jumping and sliding over it rather than running through the doors like an intelligent person would have done.

Bun Woman let out a shriek, the most emotion Draco had ever seen her display, and scurried away into the large crowd that was now forming. There were not only people on the first floor, but up the staircases too, a long line forming right up until the second lot of stairs disappeared to the third landing.

But Draco barely recognised this: all he cared about was keeping a good eye on the Mudblood out to get him. Not surprisingly, she seemed to have been eaten up by the crowd, so to speak, because when Draco searched for any sign of bushy hair there was none – only gaping people.

He was breathing heavily, and everything around him (the exception of his drumming heart) was still. He did not marvel that she was out of sight. If there was one beneficial thing his father had ever taught him, it was to always keep your eye on the enemy.

And then movement caught his eye. She was slowly, as though trying to tame a hippogriff, walking towards the reception desk until that’s all that was separating them.

Her bun was ruined with hair and loose pieces sticking up this way and that; Draco thought it a miracle that the whole hairdo hadn’t collapsed. Her clothes were rumpled, and her face was shiny.

Draco hastened to the left of the desk, and she mirrored his action from the other side, his grey eyes piercing hers as anticipation surged through him. He then spirited to the right. When the action was repeated once more Draco found it hard not to scream at her.

“What are you doing?” he demanded irritably.

“Do you even realise how… how rude that was before? Couldn’t you possibly have waited until I was out of the meeting?”