Remain Nameless

Chapter 3

Hermione couldn't quite understand what had made her offer her handshake to Draco. It was something in his voice: not quite anger, not at her anyway. Anger at himself, maybe, or at the world around him. It was also something in his gray eyes: the hesitation to accept her offer of a fresh start. And Hermione knew then that Draco was far more afraid of her than she was of him.

"So did the handshake help or was he still acting odd?"

Hermione and Ginny volunteered themselves to grab extra cutlery from the kitchen so Hermione could fill in her friend without being overheard.

"No, it honestly seemed to clear the air. The rest of the week was more or less perfectly normal. Though he did speak rather rudely about my proposed centaur legislation."

"Does this mean you two are... friends now?"

Before Hermione could answer, another voice cut through the kitchen. "Gin, your mum sent me back here to help, or rather, 'see what in Merlin's name is taking those girls so long, it's just silverware!'"

Hermione and Ginny giggled at Harry's rather accurate impression of Molly Weasley. As they finally set about gathering the cutlery they promised, Harry let Hermione walk ahead and fell back in step with Ginny.

"Anything I should be concerned about?" he whispered to Ginny. His wife merely grinned up at him, giving nothing away. "No, and don't you dare pester her, nosy. Hermione's a grown witch, her business is her own."

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April 2007

"Oh come on, that is an absolutely ridiculous portion of the budget."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Granger, you're smart and all, but I'll never understand your blind spot when it comes to quidditch."

Hermione huffed and sat back in her seat. "Are you telling me you're not the least bit perturbed at the percent of the Ministry's budget that is allocated for supporting the Department of Magical Games and Sports?"

Draco grinned. "Well Granger, since my livelihood depends on that poor, struggling sport known as quidditch, I think you'll find I'm rather encouraged by it."

Hermione let out an indignant snort, then seemed to catch herself and averted her gaze from Draco, looking slightly ashamed.

"What is it?"

"Nothing, I just... nothing."

"Oh spit it out, Granger."

Hermione sighed, but still wouldn't meet his gaze. Draco noticed a light pink beginning of a blush working its way up her face.

"I was going to make a rather snarky quip about your wealth but... well we'd been getting along so well these past few weeks and I didn't want to ruin that by being childish and insulting."

This was true. Every day before work this month had been rather pleasant for the two of them. Draco was still having the occasional nightmare, and if the bags under Hermione's eyes on certain days were any indication, she too suffered from her share of sleepless nights. But despite the night terrors, Draco knew if he could just survive until he arrived at the cafe, then his day seemed to turn right around. During an office-wide meeting last week, Draco had even responded with "good" when a colleague asked how he was doing. It caused the man's eyebrow to raise, which made Draco retreat back to more neutral responses. But he couldn't stop thinking about how the word "good" had rolled right off his tongue.

"You'd hardly wound me Granger, I could live ten lifetimes and barely scratch the surface of gold in my family's vault. I don't need to work to make ends meet."