Chapter 4
Hermione’s first week working with Malfoy was far more productive than she’d anticipated. To her surprise, he was eager to learn, willing to follow her instructions, and quick to propose thoughtful solutions she hadn’t considered.
It certainly helped that he was also so keen to improve their working environment. By his second day, Hermione arrived at work to find that her old ramshackle desk had been replaced with one that matched Malfoy’s. He ignored her protests about money better spent elsewhere.
As promised, he wrote a list of purebloods that might be sympathetic to their cause and a second list of ones he expected to actively resist the change however they could.
When they weren’t reading through and reorganising the Ministry’s current documentation on Muggles, Hermione worked on a list of experiences she hoped to introduce Malfoy to, attempting to order them in terms of priority and ease. To his delight, she bought a wall calendar filled with puppies and pinned it to the office wall, scheduling activities for them in each week.
On the whole, they were working surprisingly well together. Hermione’s biggest frustration was the fact that her pens kept disappearing from her possession to end up stored in Malfoy’s desk.
Friday rolled around quickly, bringing with it Hermione’s first official planned introduction to Muggle life for Malfoy.
“What are your lunch plans today?” she asked as they finished relabelling yet another file. Perhaps, one day, she could convince the Ministry to invest in a computer, if only to save space.
Malfoy sat back on his heels, rolling his shoulders to recover from their hunching over in the filing rooms.
“I don’t have any yet.”
“Want to get lunch with me? Somewhere Muggle, of course.”
He raised his brows, curiosity flickering across his expression. “The same place as before?”
“If you’d like.”
“I have been dreaming of those pastries.”
Hermione rolled her eyes, suppressing a smile. “You can pay this time.” Earlier that week, she’d instructed him to convert some money into pounds to avoid paying for his lavish tastes with her own cash.
“Deal.” He nodded, cheeks rounding with the hint of his own smile.
They wrapped up their work and made their way through London’s streets, heading back to the same small cafe. Businessfolk, students, and young parents filled the space for the lunchtime rush, but Hermione and Malfoy managed to slip into a table just as a mother and a pair of young children were leaving. Malfoy offered to order food while Hermione used a crumpled napkin to wipe the table free of crumbs.
While he was at the counter, she pulled a gift-wrapped box from her bag—a gift for Malfoy that would solidify his venture into Muggle life. He frowned at the gaudy wrapping paper when he returned with a tray overflowing with hot drinks, sandwiches, and cakes.
“Did you forget you were only ordering for two?” Hermione asked as he placed the tray down, moving her surprise to give him plenty of room.
“I’m hungry, it’s lunch, and it all looked delicious. I couldn’t decide what I wanted.”
Hermione sighed, but grabbed her coffee and one of the sandwiches. They ate in silence, but Malfoy’s eyes repeatedly flicked between her and the mystery box on the table. She ignored him, enjoying her food and waiting to see how long he could hold out before cracking under the weight of his curiosity.
The moment she swallowed her last bite, he burst.
“What’s in that box?”
“A gift.”
“For who?”
“You.”
He frowned at her.
“Open it.” She gestured to the present.
Hesitantly, he reached out and picked up the small gift. The paper crinkled as he peeled it back and opened the box, revealing a brand new mobile phone. He took it out, cradling the blue Nokia as if it might break.
“What is it?” he asked.
“A phone.”
He lifted his face to turn his frown in her direction.
“A communication device,” she explained, lowering her voice so that even the nearest Muggles wouldn’t hear her over the general din in the cafe. “They’re very popular among Muggles. I have one too. It’s faster than owls or meeting in person if you ever need to get hold of me.”
“Granger, I have a Eurasian eagle owl. It flies at speeds of up to forty miles per hour.” Cynicism drenched his tone.
“You’re just going to have to trust me on this one, Malfoy.”
He pulled a face. “How does it work?”
“Radio waves and electric signals.”
His expression was blank.
“Shall I show you?”
He nodded, holding it out for her to take. She pulled her own phone out of her pocket and opened the contact list on his.
“This number,” she turned his phone so he could see the small square screen, “is the unique identifier for my phone. You can contact me using it, no one else will have the same number. It’s currently the only one in your contact list, besides your own number, but I’ve labelled each one with our names so even you shouldn’t get too confused.”
He glared at her.
“You can either type my number or select my name here and press the button with a green phone to call me. If I answer the call, I’ll speak into this microphone on mine and the sound will come out of yours.”
She demonstrated, picking up the call quickly to avoid disturbing too many people around them as her phone rang. “If I call you, the phone will play a jingle and vibrate. The green button answers the call and the red one ends or rejects it. Just hold it to your ear and talk. You’ll hear my voice through this speaker. Another thing we can do is text, which is like a short digital letter.”
She handed his phone back to him and typed a quick text on her own phone: Hello
Malfoy jolted with surprise as his phone buzzed and chirped. He looked down at the screen.
“I’ve texted you. Press the circular button to open it.”
He did, frown still in place.
“You have options at the side to delete or reply. You type using the buttons below.” She demonstrated on her own phone, showing him how he had to press the numbered buttons multiple times to get the letters he wanted. “If you don’t delete the message, it saves to your inbox, so you can read it again another time. Although, you have limited storage, and won’t be able to receive new messages if it fills up, so it’s usually worth deleting unimportant messages.”
“Do the messages take longer to arrive if we’re further apart?”
She shook her head. “Not usually. But, if you don’t have signal,” she pointed to the bars at the top of the screen, “you might not be able to send or receive messages.”
His brow furrowed with confusion but he didn’t question it further.
“Did Muggles truly create this without magic?” He turned the phone in his hands, peering at the charging port.
“Yes. They’re very innovative.”
He raised his brows and nodded. “You didn’t need to get me one as a gift. This must have cost a fortune, I could have paid for my own.”
She shrugged. “I thought it would be a nice surprise. Working together this week has been…” she hesitated over the best word for it, “easier than I expected. This will help things going forward if either of us need to contact the other. You’ll need to pay for more call minutes and texts when you use up the current balance on there but I put a tenner on for you, which should last a decent amount of time. I can’t imagine we’ll be using them that much. Try texting me now, I want to make sure you understand how it works.”
With a frown of concentration, he slowly pressed the buttons on his phone. Hermione busied herself with people-watching as he figured out his new communication device.
Two tables away, a young couple were gazing dreamily into each others’ eyes, their coffees long forgotten on the table. The woman reached out to brush her fingers across the man’s cheekbone. He turned his head at the last moment to plant a kiss on her fingertips. She flushed and giggled.
Hermione frowned, first at them, and then at herself for blatantly watching and judging the affection. Of course she knew why the sight irritated her so much; jealousy was a sour taste in her mouth. No man had ever looked at her with that much adoration, but perhaps her war hero status intimidated most wizards too much for them to treat her like a normal witch.
Her phone buzzed in her hand, pulling her away from her silent brooding.
Hello Granger, it’s me. Yours sincerely, D. M.
A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.
“You don’t have to sign it, the number tells me who it’s from. If your texts get too long, it charges you the price of two, so it might be best to skip the sign-off altogether.”
Malfoy’s cheeks flushed pink. “Oh, sorry.”
“No, don’t be.” She grinned at him. “You did a perfect job. You’re practically a half-blood now.”
He snorted, grinning down at his phone. His cheeks were still pink when he glanced back up at her, a shy smile in the place of his usual smirk. “Thank you for this, Granger.”
“It’s my pleasure, Malfoy. Thank you for a good first week.”
The following evening, after a lazy, relaxed start to the weekend, Hermione was sat in the Leaky Cauldron with her usual Saturday night companions: Harry, Ginny, Neville, Luna, Ron, and Lavender.
Ron and Hermione had ended things relatively quickly after the war, both coming to the realisation that they were better as friends. Despite some initial awkwardness, that friendship flourished, even when Ron and Lavender reunited. They led a quiet, contented life together, and Hermione was happy to see her friend finding exactly what he had needed in a relationship.
Her work at the Ministry had revealed that she simply did not have the time to dedicate to a romantic partner at this point in her life. Perhaps in the future, now that Malfoy was around to ease her workload, it would become a possibility, but it wasn’t a priority. Besides, she barely ever felt lonely, even when observing her friends happy and in love.
Even when she returned home to her quiet, empty house each evening.
Harry returned to their table with a round of drinks, sliding a frothy butterbeer in front of Hermione. She thanked him and took a deep sip as he slid in beside Ginny, opposite her.
“Have you told the others about your new intern, yet?” Ginny asked, loud enough to grab the attention of everyone else at the table.
Hermione glared at her friend. “Not yet.”
“You have an intern, Mione? I’m surprised Kingsley allowed that. Harry’s always moaning about the budget restrictions in the auror office, and they’re chasing bloody dark wizards,” Ron said, sipping his firewhisky.
“It’s an unpaid position.”
“Who would want to take up that in this financial climate?” Neville scrunched his nose.
“Who indeed.” Glee shone from Ginny’s face, unperturbed by Hermione’s scowl.
“Is it someone we know?” Lavender asked.
Hermione sighed, deciding the reveal was inevitable. “Yes. It’s… well, it’s Malfoy.”
Eyes widened around the table, apart from Harry and Ginny’s who already knew, and Luna, who seemed to have an uncanny ability to be unsurprised by any new information and continued to float through life without any true worries.
“Hermione, what are you thinking?” Ron exclaimed. “You can’t work with that ferret, he’s awful!”
“Well, I don’t have much choice. I need help at work, and the other candidates who applied for the role were abysmal. He actually hasn’t been that bad so far, either. He’s very hard working.”
“But he hates you!” Ron insisted.
“We’re getting along well enough, thank you Ronald.” Hermione’s voice became prim with a strange urge to defend Malfoy. Almost immediately, she felt herself recoil with the shock of the impulse.
“I think he’s trying to change,” Neville said. “I got a nice letter from him, an apology. So did Luna.”
“Us too.” Ginny nodded. “Didn’t you, Ron?”
Ron shifted in his seat. “I got a letter from him a while back, but when I realised he was the only D. M. I knew who must be securing their letters with a personalised seal and sending them with such a ridiculous owl, I threw it in the fire.”
Ginny rolled her eyes.
“Has he said anything to suggest he still holds the same beliefs?” Neville asked Hermione.
She shook her head. “He’s still pretty annoying but he hasn’t once made me feel uncomfortable. He’s also been very happy to embrace learning about Muggles and has tried to apologise several more times, despite me also receiving a letter.”
“He was a kind host when I stayed at his during the war. It must be a relief for him to no longer have to hide behind the façade he favoured back then,” Luna chirped up.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Ron muttered, wrapping his arm around Lavender’s shoulders.
The conversation moved onto quidditch, as it so often did. Hermione tuned it out, people-watching across the bar until a buzzing in her pocket jolted her attention back to the present. Malfoy’s name popped up on her phone with an incoming call. She excused herself, sliding out of her seat and moving outside, where things were quieter, before answering the call.
“Hello?”
“Merlin’s beard, you’re right! That is Granger!”
Hermione frowned, not quite recognising the voice at the other end of the call.
“Malfoy?” she asked.
A scuffle sounded at the other end of the line. Bickering voices from several people came through in broken snippets before Malfoy’s familiar tone sounded.
“My sincere apologies for disturbing your evening, Granger. Please ignore this call.”
More arguing erupted. Hermione caught the earlier voice demanding to speak with her again.
“Is everything alright?” she asked.
“Absolutely—get off me, you cretin—absolutely fine, Granger. See you on Monday.”
The call ended.
Hermione stared at her phone, brows furrowed with confusion. For several minutes, she pondered calling back but eventually gave up and returned into the pub to finish her pint.