Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love

Chapter 1: An Unsporting Attack

Tonks gave Draco a sharp look. "Looking forward to yours, Malfoy. I've a degree of curiosity about that one – the target is working on some top secret project. They wouldn't even tell me what it's about."

Tonks made her way back to her office, managing to tread on an unsuspecting colleague's foot only once.

Draco, now rather curious, pulled the folder towards himself. The protection request came straight from the Minister's Office and Shacklebolt had requested a security audit, defensive warding, every confidentiality-enhancing measure known to wizardkind, escorting, if you please, and protective surveillance – in sum, the bloody works.

Draco was preemptively irritated – this sounded rather a lot like effort.

And who, pray, merited this extravagant treatment?

He flipped over a few more pages of Ministerial demands to find, finally, the Principal.

And it was Hermione. Bloody. Granger.

Her photograph was pinned to the top of a brief biographical note – as though anyone alive today didn't know her and her hair. She looked seriously at Draco, blinked at him once, then left the frame.

Draco seized the folder and headed for Tonks' office. She was rarely worth arguing with, but this casefile merited an especial attempt.

"Tonks – I can't take this one. You'll have to give it to someone else."

Tonks looked up from the parchment she'd been attacking with a quill. Her hair turned a quizzical mauve. "Whyever not?"

"It's Granger. That's the Principal. Hadn't you seen?"

"And?"

"We don't exactly get along," said Draco in a vast understatement.

"Are you telling me that some school-time unpleasantness from fifteen years ago will interfere with your ability to carry out this assignment?" asked Tonks.

In the Foe Glass behind her, shadowy silhouettes clustered about, as though keen to eavesdrop on the drama.

"We have a rather unhappy history," said Draco.

"Worse than you and Potter?"

This, Draco considered for a moment. Finally, he answered, "In some ways."

"Fine," sniffed Tonks. "Swap with Fernsby. I'm sure he'll only be too happy to change out a cushy protection jobbie for the troll aficionado."

"...Isn't there anything else I could take?"

Tonks gave him a quelling look, emphasised by her eyes turning a dangerous, hawkish kind of yellow. "I've just assigned the month's missions, Malfoy, and I won't have your complex about Granger domino its way through the entirety of it."

"I don't have a complex about Granger."

"Good. Then you'll do fine. Off you go."

Tonks waved her hand and her office door closed slowly, squeezing Draco out.

Draco strode back to his desk, half intending to ask Fernsby for the swap – however, the gurgle of horror emanating from Fernsby's cubicle was sufficient to change his mind.

Fine. He'd do the Granger thing. It was, at any rate, not troll pornography.

-

Draco sent Granger a coldly professional note stating that he would be pleased to meet with her at her earliest convenience to discuss the Minister's protection request.