The Red Door

Chapter 3

Hermione had loved every minute of being a Probationary Auror, her smarts were always appreciated by her superiors, she had been entrusted to run a low risk arrest operation which was successful, she had assisted with several high-risk arrests and even managed to trap a highly dangerous criminal with a clever ploy after one of the missions she was on turned out to be a little bit more complicated.

Her and Ron's relationship was going along although she was becoming slightly bored with the repetition of everything, she wanted to change things up a bit but Ron didn't see any reason to change anything and didn't want to do anything new.

During her year as a probationary Auror she had had to work with Draco Malfoy a few times. To her surprise he was very much like her in his dedication to planning for everything and being prepared and all of their missions had run smoothly, they had actually gotten along well. Sadly the same could not be said for when she had to work with Ron. He didn't want to listen to any of her plans and almost buggered the whole mission up by setting off the alarm, but her quick thinking and training kicked in and she was able to save the mission and arrest the criminal. She had been gentle towards Ron's actions and behaviour in her report but the others that were on the mission had not been. He was reprimanded and made to do double shifts for 2 months. This did not help their relationship, another huge fight in which Ron had accused her of trying to make him look bad in her report to which she responded he didn't need help looking bad. They hadn't spoken for a week until Ron came crawling back with an apology.

At the end of their first Year of being fully qualified Aurors several were promoted to Team leader. Hermione, Seamus, Draco, Harry, Alexis and Kyron were all promoted alone with a few others she didn't really know. This absolutely didn't go down well with Ron and another huge fight erupted. It seemed like the better Hermione did at work the worse her relationship got. She wasn't sure how much longer she could stand it before having to break it off with Ron.

A few months after their promotion Harry, Draco, Seamus and Hermione were called to Morgana's office. She had a job that would require all four teams to work together. She handed the file to Hermione to take point but after Hermione scanned the file she handed it to Draco who looked confused.

"This one seems to be right up your ally" she said answering his unasked question

He scanned the file and realised why she had handed it over the target was a snatcher back in the day but now was making and dealing in dark potions, the hottest new designer drug to hit the streets and no one knew the workings around this sort of magic better then Draco.

"Ok meet in the war room with your teams in 10" he said before they all walked out to gather their teams "Hermione" he called as she walked out of the office.

"Yeah what's up" she asked

"Want to help plan the op" he asked with a slight smirk

"Sure" replied Hermione with her own smirk

They had seemed to come to some kind of agreement leaving the past in the past and being professional. She had in no way forgiven him or forgotten what he had done but she was a big enough person to see that he had changed and wasn't the same vicious child he was to her at school.

They planned the perfect mission every team had their job Harry's team were to clear the area (that meant stunning all muggles in the vicinity) while Seamus' team were setting up the implosion of the house Hermione's team where to hold the front and Draco's where to hold the back. Draco and Hermione would go into the house together pretending to be interested in buying some potion and arrest him when they had the evidence they needed.