Lawful Good

It was rough.

Not that Hermione didn’t like it given to her rough, but sometimes predictable, soft, and sweet is good too.

Her life definitely wasn’t like that anymore, because everything seemed to have gone sideways these last five months. Surprisingly enough, given her tumultuous childhood with Harry and Ron, life had been pretty straightforward since the war. She had been given the opportunity to pick a position at the Ministry - yes, hand pick whatever she fancied - and had stuck with that for the past three years steadily. It was a difficult decision she weighed carefully, but in the end let her heart choose the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Where else could she personally oversee the House Elves movement? If there was somewhere she had actually created change during her years at Hogwarts, it was with the house elves. She was proud of that.

Apparently, she had put too much of her heart into it because she caught the eye of the head of Magical Law Enforcement for the outstanding headway she had made with writing and passing new laws for magical creatures... and also because her love life with Ron had become null and void.

It was about the time when she had been convinced - painstakingly convinced - to do an 18 month contract with Magical Law Enforcement when Ron had announced that he was interested in experimenting with other people. Hermione was shocked, heartbroken, and yet not surprised. She always gave her best attention to her work, and honestly, Harry and Ron had been “work” growing up. Of course they were her friends, but Merlin knows how they both needed her to help them survive. Now that they lived normal, adult lives, life was... dull. The thrill and necessity of being with Ron evaporated. After all this time, he was still an insensitive prick towards her feelings, too.

It was hard to let go of someone who had been by your side, through it all. Worse yet, she felt like he just wanted to fuck around and might’ve already been cheating behind her back before they broke it off. Because really, is he that desirable that he could find a new girlfriend in a week or had he already been seeing her? Whatever, Hermione thought, let him live out his little boy fantasies. She huffed at the thought whenever it would creep into her mind, because she had better things to think about: work.

Being the brightest witch of your age has its drawbacks, in that people want your mind. The head of Magical Law, Rolfson, had been wearing her down since she started. When she got exacerbated at all the unwanted attention in her first 6 months of starting work, she would start performing harmless charms on her annoying followers. If she was this desired, how far could she push it? Her favorite was sending paper birds to swarm her follower’s head. Yes, sure, it may be a department head and she definitely got formal complaints, but was she really going to get fired? She had the upper hand here, and took secret joy in the power play.

In the end though, she caved. Rolfson was smart, and he learned that if he could appeal to both her emotional and intellectual sides, then she might actually give him the help he wanted. Hermione knew that she was being manipulated, but it was willful manipulation. Yes, a lot had been done in the last 3 years to put the magical world back together, but she would be lying if she said she didn’t want a bigger part in it. Sometimes, even though her work was impactful, she felt it was small compared to what she could be doing - and what she was used to doing.

She finally felt confident enough to put her work for magical creatures on hold, knowing good progress was being made, to dive into another sector. She was given 3 months to prepare from the day she signed the contact before she would be fully switched over. This meant 3 months of late nights and no weekends trying to familiarize herself with the current laws, what had been updated already, and who was working on what. It also meant 3 months of no drinks at the Leaky Cauldron with Ron, Harry and Ginny - but she could definitely handle the 3 month break. If she was being honest, she was excited to have all this extra work to make her feel important again. It had been a long 3 years since she felt that warm, bursting feeling in her chest.

A lot had shifted dramatically after being in a comfy position for so long, but even though life felt rough it was nothing she couldn’t handle, right?

***

Day one in the new department meant her first stop was a 9 am meeting with staff members she was going to be working alongside for the next 18 months. She met gigantic mahogany doors that opened for her when she was just about to reach a hand up to push one open. As the doors widened, so did her eyes at who was before her: a few older scraggly witches and wizards alike, contrasted by some remarkably posh looking witches and wizards, a few of whom were younger. It took a moment and some quick masking to hide her surprise and stifle the gut wrenching feeling that arose at the realization she would be working with Draco Malfoy and his old Slytherin cronies.

“Miss Granger, good morning. Please take a seat,” Rolfson motioned to an empty seat opposing the Slytherins. She smiled at Rolfson and made no eye contact with the others. The names came back to her now... Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson. She wondered if this was a cruel set up, and if she could go back on her contract now.

“We will start with introductions, since everyone here is someone you will be working with in some capacity. This is not the entirety of the department, but individuals assigned to this 18 month project you will be a part of from now on.” Hearing that somehow made her stomach sink, like she had just signed up for prison. He named off each person in the room, and she made herself give equal courtesies to each person until he came to her 3 old enemies. She simply forced herself to look at their faces, nothing more. How could she be expected to give anything more than acknowledgement at this point?

“I am sure you know these last 3 mentioned, Miss Granger, and are probably wondering why they are here,” she couldn’t give a reply because her mouth had gone dry. “You may have been aware that any Death Eater defectors or associated sympathizers were taken in for prolonged and involved questioning directly after the war,” yes, of course she was aware, “and during that time there was a period of evaluation to see whether they could still become members fit for wizarding society or would be better fit for one of several other places,” including Azkaban, Hermione thought. “These individuals before you underwent, shall we say, reformation courses and have been actively serving to help, assist, and rebuild Britain’s wizarding community in any way the Ministry has seen fit,” so the Ministry’s bitches on leashes, basically? He continued, “I hope you will be able to see past their prior faults and find them as useful counterparts as we have come to during their employment here.

Hermione, still looking at Rolfson, curled her lips inward before saying, “Thank you, I will do my best.”

Hermione’s brain was already starting to stew with questions when she was interrupted again, with a, “Please let me show you to your office,” by Rolfson and a scraping of chairs as everyone rose and made for the gigantic doors. She snapped her mind into focus so she wouldn’t look like a fool asking for directions to her office in the future, and soon entered a room which looked much like her old one with the exception of now having gray walls instead of beige, and the bookshelves empty and sparse. Her desk already had multiple thick files on it, and as she glanced through she was relieved to find that most of it was not new information and she could probably get a full 9 hours in tonight as a treat for the mess today had already been.

Because, first of all, HOW was it kept a secret from her that Malfoy, Zabini, and Parkinson were here, working for the Ministry? She was silently seething. Rolfson might as well run for next Minister with the games he was playing with her... and they hadn’t even started.

Secondly, how could she be expected to work, and work amicably with any of them? Parkinson was a spoiled, selfish brat; Zabini was spineless and did the deeds of the highest bidder; and she had been tortured in front of Malfoy’s eyes in his own home - not to mention a million other things. She flipped through another folder to see if she could locate bios on each of them, and indeed she did - actually, she found all of the members of the room today, but they weren’t important at this moment.

Reading through each of their bios, they sounded like they had all been through very similar experiences. Surrendering their freedoms to the authorities, a year or so of being kept in solitary confinement except when being questioned or health and sanity being assessed, something that was called a “mind cleanse” which was not further detailed, and then different services around Britain for about a year. She read a lot of gardens and memorials being created, some home rebuilding or renovations, and a bit of working with Magical Law Enforcement for locations of old Death Eater hideouts. That last part was also a bit vague, but it makes sense how they all moved into the department eventually. They had all come in within the last 8-11 months, and some of their work was highlighted. At least Hermione knew now they were actually useful and this wasn’t a handout, even though Roflson really didn’t seem like the type to offer handouts.

Malfoy’s work highlights were a little more detailed and longer than the other two. She knew he didn’t do poorly in school, but she never really pinned him as “smart”. She knew she was going to need a few days and a few wines shared with Crookshanks to come to a place where she accepted that this was her new fate.

***

The whole reason why she was here was to help write laws. Well, the writing part was easy, but it was the hours of research and backing things up with evidence that was her pride and strength. There had been temporary laws and mandates in place for the first year after Voldemort’s defeat, but those all needed to be upgraded or replaced for times of peace. A lot of the work had been done in the past 2 years for the most pressing laws, but she was called in for the trickier, more detailed laws that would need to be cross referenced with information gathered during the trials and inquisitions in the first year post war.

She had lists of what needed updating as well as ideas people had proposed here and there, but the latter took a lot more effort to even see if they were viable options. As Hermione was re-reading the list and trying to reorder everything from most to least important, the meeting kept flashing in her mind.

She hadn’t expected to see Malfoy so soon. 3 years wasn't as long as she’d hoped, at least. She had made her eyes focus on his face while his name was stated, yes, but she hadn’t allowed herself to think about what she saw or let old emotions creep through. But they were creeping through now...

His eyes were sunken but they were bright and alive. The others’ eyes were sunken too, but they looked far from beaten down. There was just something about Malfoy’s face, his piercing and emotionless stare, his alabaster white skin even though it was summer, and his perfectly placed golden-white hair was haunting to her. She circled back to his eyes again and again - they were intelligent, alive, and she knew he was picking her apart for the 10 minutes they were in that boardroom. She hoped she had masked any emotion well, though it was a tell that she didn’t smile in their direction when Rolfson stated the Slytherin trio’s names. Part of her was curious about Malfoy now, and if he had changed as much as his bio said he had, or if deep down he was still an entitled prick who was just smart enough to navigate the system. Sadly, she knew she wouldn’t have to wonder for long.

She spent the rest of her morning reviewing and organizing information in the files before heading to lunch. The layout in the department was nearly identical to the one for Magical Creatures, so her well-informed guess led her to the cafeteria just fine. She spotted 2 of the older, more scraggly looking witches from the meeting sitting together and asked if she could join them for lunch. Partly because she wanted to get to know them better than their bios, and partly because she didn’t have a good direction of how she should spend her afternoon.

They chatted amicably and expressed they were happy to have her on the team, and agreed that they should meet after lunch to get some work done together. Hermione nonchalantly brought up the question that had been crowding her mind this morning.

“How do you feel Zabini, Parkinson and Malfoy add to the team? I’ve gone over their bios of course, but would really appreciate some personal feedback from people who have worked with them.”

“Well, certainly,” the one with the jangly bracelets and gaudy jewelry spoke first, “I think they’ve been assets to the team, each in their own way, and have been easy enough to work with. If I wouldn’t have known about their dark past, I would have only thought they were all a little reserved but otherwise professional.”

“I would agree for the most part, but sometimes Pansy has a snarky side you haven't been privy to,” the much older witch pursed her lips and sat back, and Hermione barely stifled a snort. “They’re all very bright, yes, and I think that Draco is the brightest of them all. Perhaps even out of everyone on this team,” she glanced towards Hermione, “except now that you’re here dear, I think you’ll give him a run for his gold.”

Hermione smiled and thanked the witches for their honesty. She needed all the help she could get, it seemed.

***

Her week passed by smoothly and almost uneventfully, save for Friday afternoon. She had managed to escape coming across any of the Slytherins all week, and started to wonder if they were hiding from her or, more practically, only came in at certain times. She had just left the office of one of her coworkers and rounded a corner when she came upon Malfoy headed in the same direction as her.

“Hello Granger,” he said in a flat tone. Hermione ignored him. “What, no hello in return? That’s rather unprofessional.”

Hermione squinted in his direction and said in an equally flat tone, “Hello.”

Raising his eyebrows and letting out a low whistle, Malfoy retorted, “You may yet rival Pansy on one of her moody days.”

Third year briefly flashed before Hermione’s eyes before she said coolly, “Perhaps you’ve already let it slip your mind that one of the last times we met I was being tortured on the floor of your mansion,” and stormed off before she could hear a peep from his mouth that was widening in surprise.

She thought she had gotten over it, but it was just too good not to shove in his perfect face. That too - I mean, who has skin as nice as that? She was used to getting a monthly spot or two, and her freckles had only increased with age, but it seemed a pity to waste such perfect skin on someone like that.

She definitely needed some Chianti and cuddles from Crookshanks this evening. Jane Austen was her pick of late. Even though she had read all of her books the summer before she turned 14, being an adult and thrown into the midst of politics gives you a slightly different perspective on things.