Eyes Open by: orphan_account

XV. Deception

June 1 st , 2004

He avoids her (like the plague) for the next few weeks. He's afraid that the more time he spends with her, the more likely the chances become that he'll fall in love with her. The idea of it scares him—being in love. Especially with her. It's wrong, it's strange, he doesn't deserve her at all, and she doesn't need the baggage that's clung onto his shoulders for far too long. It feels odd and foreign, caring for a person's feelings other than his own.

She corners him, though, bringing him back to their early Hogwarts days before the war and the five times she shoved that stupid envelope in his face (the one that lays on the top of a small stack of papers in a drawer, in a desk, in a flat—his). She gets him after he finishes his lunch break in the cafeteria, backing him into a corner and waving a file folder in front of him.

"Remember this? The Thompson Case?" she says, and she's not furious, but very piqued. "The one Kingsley gave us to look over together?"

"Yes," he replies, trying to keep his face expressionless and his tone even, as he pushes past her. She simply follows him. Like an annoying, stubborn, pesky dog. With a rather (endearing) bushy coat of brown fur.

"So why haven't you been seeing me about it? Or avoiding me when I went to see you about it? Is it about that row we had a few weeks ago? I thought we were alright after that one. I mean, you almost smiled. Almost." Ah, so she's noticed it, too. She and Pansy ought to make a club or something.

"It isn't about the row," he says as he pushes the button to the lift. "I haven't had the time for it."

A foolish, ridiculous lie if there ever was one.

Hermione sees right through it, as she should.

"'Haven't had time' for a case the Minister of Magic himself asked you to review? That's absolute bollocks, Malfoy, and you know it. Come on, what's really going on?"

The doors ding as they open, and they're no one inside. Draco steps into the lift and Hermione is right behind him. He avoids looking at her at all, because he's already seen what she's wearing—a dress too sexy to be dress code yet too classy to be called out on. He knows there are the beginnings of cleavage over the neck line and the soft hug the fabric gives her narrow hips and even smaller waist.

Since when did Hermione Granger dress so damn well? And since when did Draco Malfoy start noticing it?

"There's nothing going on at all," he says as the lift begins to rise. "I've been busy and I'll give the Minister my personal apology for the delay."

"You're lying, I can tell," she tells him, and the tone of her voice is reminiscent to her know-it-all cadence from their school days. "Honestly, you're being unreasonable. Just tell me what's going on and I'll understand. Hell, maybe I can help."

"I'll take a look at the case tomorrow morning and we can report to the Minister later in the day. Okay, Granger?" he says, keeping his reply short and clipped.

She sighs, crossing her arms, making her cleavage more prominent and... appetising.

Fuck, Draco, you weren't going to look.

"Yeah, okay, I suppose can live with that. But don't pull bullshit like this ever again," she says, raising a warning finger.