Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love

Chapter 4: Imbolc

In his handful of years working with Potter and Weasley, Draco had developed a cool, professional kind of rapport with them, which Weasley demonstrated the next morning by calling, "Oi! Dickhead!" and hanging over Draco's cubicle wall like a disjointed ginger muppet.

"What do you want, Weasel?"

"We heard Hermione's been assigned Auror protection – and that the bloke's a tosser," said Weasley.

"Was that her description, or yours?"

Potter, whose disastrous hair and vivid green eyes now popped up over the cubicle wall, said, "Ours. She says you've been quite professional. We know the truth."

"Lucky bugger," said Weasley. "How come Tonks gives us the vampires, and you the Hermione-minding? You don't even like her."

"I understand that it was a question of competence," said Draco. "Tonks said she needed to assign the finest Auror to protect the finest mind in the UK–"

Weasley scoffed; Potter laughed.

"–And the nuisance Aurors to deal with the nuisance vampires," finished Draco.

"I said no such thing," said Tonks, waddling by in the form of a short, overweight man. "Shouldn't you all be off working, you blatherskites? You're all nuisance Aurors, as far as I'm concerned."

Potter and Weasley chortled. Draco was offended.

"What's Hermione working on, anyway, that's got old Shack so worked up?" asked Weasley. "She won't tell us."

"That information's on a need-to-know basis," said Draco, tapping his nose.

He hadn't a clue either, but winding up the Nuisance Duo was always a good time. The two of them looked suitably annoyed that Draco seemed to know something they didn't.

"Work!" shouted Tonks from her office.

"Yes, boss," replied Weasley.

"Word to the wise, Malfoy," said Potter as they left. "Don't insult Hermione's cat."

"Too late," said Draco.

-

Two weeks passed, during which all was quiet on the Granger front. Her ring had been calibrated to alert Draco to extreme physiological or emotional shifts that might indicate immediate danger: significant spikes of fear, panic, pain, or an unusually high heart rate.

In general, Granger seemed to be miraculously even-tempered. There was one day when Draco's ring tingled at him throughout the morning, signalling that Granger's pulse was elevated at various points – but not quite at the threshold signalling a wild panic.

He set it out of his mind and joined Goggin and a few junior Aurors for a hand-to-hand combat session. Tonks insisted that her Aurors not only maintained their Duelling expertise through rigorous practice, but also their abilities as physical fighters. Many had moaned about having to learn to fight like Muggles. Tonks had set them straight. A disarmed Auror with hand-to-hand training could still outmanoeuvre, disarm, or maim an opponent, if he kept his wits about him. A wandless Auror without those things was a very dead Auror.

Granger's elevated pulse – the fourth such incident that morning – interrupted Draco's spar. His momentary distraction earned him a solid uppercut from Goggin.

He called for a pause, clutching at his jaw, and used the Jotter to send Granger an annoyed message, consisting solely of punctuation: ???

She responded with a brief note: Losing a patient.