Vanilla

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

“No. And language.”

"I won't do it."

"You have to."

"Says who?"

"Me. Your boss."

"Oh, shove off. This is absurd. Eight fu—bloody weeks?"

Draco was one word away from leaping over the desk and strangling Potter with his bare hands. The fact that Harry had the audacity to even suggest this assignment was enough to warrant it.

"I believe your job description mentioned long assignments as part of the deal," Harry said, rubbing his temples as though he were the one being inconvenienced.

"This isn't about the length of the assignment!" Draco snapped, pacing now, his agitation barely contained. "I couldn't care less about that. It's about who I'll be spending eight weeks with!"

Eight weeks with Neramus McCain. Draco would take another stint in Azkaban over trailing that dreary little man across Europe. McCain was a bureaucrat with the charisma of wet parchment and a penchant for drinking at all hours of the day. Worse still, he was boring—a boring drunk, which was the worst kind.

One particularly long meeting with McCain had once left Draco seriously considering asking Theo to put him out of his misery.

"Look," Harry said, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose like a beleaguered parent. "I get it. I wouldn't want to spend eight weeks with him either—"

"So you understand why I'm saying absolutely fucking not!"

“—But you're the best Auror we have," Harry cut him off, putting his glasses back on and fixing Draco with a pointed look. "This trip requires someone I can trust to make sure nothing happens to McCain. If something does, Kingsley will have my head on a stake. So, no, Malfoy—you don't have a choice."

Draco scowled, tossing the file onto Harry's desk with a thud. He resumed pacing, his robes flaring behind him.

"I am an investigative Auror, Potter. I don’t do glorified babysitting. This isn’t my job."

"Under normal circumstances, yes. But with half of my team quarantined with dragon fever after that Bulgarian case, I don’t have anyone else to send."

Draco stopped pacing, glaring daggers at the ceiling. A mental list was already forming of at least a hundred ways Potter would need to grovel to get back in his good graces. Not that they were friends, but Draco didn’t mind Ginny Potter—his wife was, annoyingly, both tolerable and entertaining, and she happened to be the best Chaser the Harpies had ever seen.

Resigned, Draco finally exhaled through clenched teeth.

"Fine. But I want it on record that I’m not happy about this."

"Noted." Harry smiled faintly, holding out the file again. "I’ll have the itinerary and travel arrangements on your desk by the end of the day."

Draco snatched the file and stormed out without another word.

He loved his job—or he had, at least. After Azkaban, the Auror Office had been his lifeline, pulling him out of the dark spiral of self-loathing and drinking that had consumed his life. But right now, he was seriously considering quitting.

“So, Mr. Malfoy, how has your week been?”

Draco’s court-appointed mind healer, Mrs. Gerwinkle, perched in her garishly pink armchair across the room, folded her hands neatly in her lap. The armchair—and frankly the entire room—was nauseatingly cheerful, an explosion of pastel and floral prints that made his teeth ache.

It had only occurred to Draco today, as he stepped into the room, that Mrs. Gerwinkle reminded him a little too much of Umbridge with her whole aesthetic. That realisation alone almost made him turn and leave.

“Horrible. Please, send me back to Azkaban.” Draco said flatly, reclining on the sofa with exaggerated laziness. He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned his head back, and stared at the ceiling as though he might drift off mid-session.

“Please be serious, Mr. Malfoy,” she said in that clipped, professional tone of hers.

“Who says I wasn’t being serious, Hilga?” he shot back without looking at her.

Her lips tightened—just as they always did when he called her by her first name. She had repeatedly instructed him to address her as Mrs. Gerwinkle, but he found the sound of her last name thoroughly unpleasant. “Hilga” at least amused him.

Mrs. Gerwinkle sighed, the sound long-suffering and familiar. She scribbled something on her notepad, likely another scathing observation about his “uncooperative attitude.”

“Let’s try this again, shall we?” she said, her voice carrying the practiced patience of someone who had spent years tolerating difficult clients.

Draco finally lifted his head to meet her gaze. She raised one eyebrow at him, silently daring him to keep pushing her buttons.

“What was the high of your week?”

He thought for a moment, then smirked. “Watching Watson fall flat on his face in a meeting this morning.”

Her pen paused.

“Watson?”

“New recruit at the Auror Office,” Draco explained, his smirk widening slightly. “He tripped over his own feet in front of the entire team. Went down face first. It was spectacular.”

Mrs. Gerwinkle made a soft hum of acknowledgement as she resumed writing. “So, workplace schadenfreude. Lovely. And the low?”

Draco’s smirk faded. He let out a slow breath, tapping his fingers against his forearm.

“I’m being sent away for eight weeks,” he muttered, his tone devoid of humor now.

Her pen stilled again. She glanced at him over the rim of her spectacles, her sharp brown eyes glinting with curiosity. “I presume this is for... work?”

Draco nodded curtly.

“And how do you feel about that?”

“I’m thrilled, obviously,” Draco said dryly, rolling his eyes. “Eight weeks babysitting a Ministry official who couldn’t negotiate his way out of a paper bag. Just what I signed up for when I became an Auror.”

Mrs. Gerwinkle tapped her pen lightly against the edge of her notepad. “And why does this assignment bother you so much? Surely, as an Auror, you’ve been sent on long assignments before.”

“It’s not the length,” he said irritably. “It’s the company. Neramus McCain is insufferable. A pompous, boring drunk.” He shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ve spent five minutes with the man and wanted to hex myself into oblivion. Eight weeks might kill me.”

Mrs. Gerwinkle suppressed a smile, though her eyes betrayed her amusement. “So, the issue isn’t the assignment itself—it’s your disdain for your colleague.”

“Colleague?” Draco snorted. “That’s generous. McCain’s not even a Ministry employee. He’s just a glorified trade negotiator with a bloated sense of self-importance.”

She scribbled something else on her notepad, and Draco resisted the urge to lean forward and see what she’d written.

“And yet,” she said calmly, “you agreed to go.”

“I didn’t exactly have a choice,” Draco muttered. “Potter made it very clear that I’m the only one qualified for the job. Half the department is out with dragon fever.”

“Potter,” she repeated, her tone turning slightly wry. “I see.”

Draco arched his brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only that he seems to feature quite prominently in your sessions.”

“That’s because he’s a constant thorn in my side,” Draco shot back, scowling.

“Is he, though?” she asked, tilting her head. “Or is he simply holding you to a standard you’d rather not meet?”

Draco’s jaw tightened. “I meet every standard, Hilga. I’m the best Auror in that office, and Potter knows it.”

“Then perhaps,” she said lightly, “this assignment is a reflection of that.”

Draco rolled his eyes again, leaning back against the sofa with a huff. “If Potter sends me on one more mind-numbing babysitting job, I’m quitting.”

“And doing what, exactly?” Mrs. Gerwinkle asked, setting her notepad aside and steepling her fingers. “You’ve worked very hard to rebuild your life after Azkaban. Do you truly think you’d find satisfaction elsewhere?”

Draco stared at her, his lips pressed into a thin line. He hated that she was right.

“I don’t have to like it,” he muttered finally.

“No, you don’t,” she agreed. “But perhaps you could use this assignment as an opportunity to prove to yourself that you can tolerate situations you dislike without compromising your professionalism.”

Draco let out a derisive snort. “I’m sure McCain will find that very inspiring when I hex him halfway through week one.”

Mrs. Gerwinkle smiled faintly. “I’ll make a note to check in with you after week two, then.”

He was watching her again.

She had entered the meeting room a full ten minutes before it was scheduled to begin. Quietly efficient, she laid her notes out in a meticulous line, sharpened a quill, and then buried herself in what appeared to be leftover work. Her hair was pinned up with her wand again, the loose curls defying her efforts and framing her face. Every now and then, she blew a soft breath of air to push an errant strand away from her eyes, seemingly unaware of the delicate, almost hypnotic rhythm of the gesture.

She hadn’t said a word to him upon arrival. He was already seated with Kingsley and Potter, discussing potential routes to transport McCain without compromising security.

Her greeting to the room was polite, impersonal — a brief “Good morning” and a small smile to Potter returned with one of his own. And though it wasn’t directed at him, Draco couldn’t help but feel a pang of envy. How he would like her to smile at him. It might just cure everything that plagued him. Who needed Hilga Gerwinkle when Hermione Granger could undo him with nothing more than a look?

When her gaze finally flicked to his, she offered a terse nod, lips pressed into a thin, unreadable line.

He simply stared, his own nod slow and deliberate in response.

For some reason, his mind drifted to his father’s face. Lucius Malfoy would be spinning in his grave if he knew his only son was practically salivating over Hermione Granger — a Muggle-born. The thought left a bitter taste in Draco’s mouth, as his father’s face always did. He tore his eyes away from her, forcing his focus elsewhere.

Other personnel began trickling in, including two members of Draco’s team. Both were his best. Since becoming Head Investigative Auror and assembling his own squadron, Draco had been quick to pick out those with immediate promise and invest entirely in their development. For him, potential was irrelevant; you either had what it took, or you didn’t. In dangerous situations, you needed reliability, not liabilities who required hand-holding.

Potter rose from his seat and strode to the front of the table, breaking the murmur of conversation. “Right, let’s begin. Thank you all for coming on such short notice. We know this is an incredibly big job with limited time to prepare, so your willingness to step up is appreciated.”

Draco tuned out as soon as the formalities began, letting the words fade into white noise. His attention, predictably, wandered back to her.

Granger was seated a few chairs down, fully engrossed in the briefing. She nodded occasionally at something Potter said, her fingers absentmindedly tracing circles on the table. Draco wondered if she even realised she was doing it. When she wasn’t idly drawing shapes, she was scribbling frantically in her notepad, brows furrowed in concentration as she worked to keep pace with Potter’s words.

Draco didn’t think he could tear his eyes away from her even if Merlin himself strolled into the room. He was in too deep.

When this fascination had first taken root, he’d tried to fight it. Avoiding rooms she was in, deliberately fixing his gaze on anything but her when proximity was unavoidable. But it was futile. His eyes betrayed him every time, seeking her out like she was the only point of clarity in a blurred world. Over time, he stopped questioning the way his pulse quickened whenever she was near.

It was no longer a matter of choice. It was simply a fact of life.

Hermione Granger was the most captivating thing he had ever encountered.

But he would never act on it.

“Malfoy?”

The sound of his name snapped him out of his thoughts, and he quickly tore his gaze away from Granger. His heart gave a jolt as he realised everyone in the room was staring at him. Harry, standing at the front, was giving him a look—a mix of expectation and something else Draco couldn’t quite place.

“Yes?” Draco coughed, sitting up straighter and trying to will the heat from his face.

“I was asking if you could brief the team on the current threat, considering you’ve been leading the investigation.”

Draco cleared his throat again, pulling himself together. “Right.” He smoothed the front of his robes, his voice evening out. “As you know, we’ve seen the emergence of several fringe groups across Europe in response to the introduction of The Auror's Charter for the Preservation of Magical Sentience or ACPM. These groups have proven to be a credible threat, both to the bill itself and to those involved in its creation and passage.”

He glanced around the table, his eyes briefly landing on Granger. She was scribbling furiously in her notebook, her brows drawn in concentration. He faltered for half a second, forcing himself to focus.

Drawing a deep breath, Draco continued. “A few weeks ago, my team and I were sent to Romania to investigate a man named Jeremy Edmonton. He’s a prominent voice among these groups—known for his vehement opposition to the ACPM. He’s repeatedly made public threats of harm and retribution against anyone supporting the bill. According to our intelligence, Edmonton believes—” Draco’s voice tightened slightly, “—that so-called ‘sentient beings’ have no place being granted rights equal to wizards. His rhetoric is dangerous, but more than that, his actions suggest he’s willing to escalate.”

Across the table, Granger’s lips pressed into a thin line. Her hand slowed on her quill, but she didn’t look up.

“Edmonton’s primary focus appears to be the werewolf provisions. His opposition stems from a... family legacy,” Draco added with faint disdain. “His grandfather was a well-known werewolf hunter, and it seems those prejudices have been passed down. Edmonton has spoken explicitly against the funding for Wolfsbane distribution and has called the safe zones for transformations an insult to wizarding purity.”

The room had gone quiet, the weight of his words settling heavily.

“We believe Edmonton poses a significant threat, particularly as the team moves further into Eastern Europe. His rhetoric has gained traction among like-minded extremists in the region. And,” Draco hesitated for a moment, glancing briefly at Harry before continuing, “there is evidence suggesting he’s attempting to organise a network capable of direct interference—potentially violent.”

Granger’s brow furrowed deeper. Her hand stilled completely, and this time, she did look up. There was fire in her eyes, barely restrained.

“And your team’s assessment?” Harry asked, breaking the silence.

Draco leaned back in his chair, his tone measured. “He’s a fanatic. Fanatics are dangerous because they don’t care what they lose—so long as they take someone else down with them. He’s intelligent, resourceful, and knows the terrain. If this bill goes to vote, Edmonton will see it as a declaration of war.”

“So, in other words,” she said, her gaze locked on Draco’s, “we can’t afford to underestimate him.”

“Exactly,” Draco said, meeting her eyes for a fraction of a second longer than he should have. Then, he shifted his attention back to the table, his expression hardening. “This isn’t just about protecting McCain. It’s about ensuring that the ACPM—and everything it stands for—survives.”

Something in Granger’s face softened, just for a moment, as though she had briefly let her guard down. The ACPM was hers. McCain might be the face of it, the one shaking hands and signing papers, but everyone in the room knew who had built it from the ground up.

Granger was the architect.

Draco had followed her work on the ACPM with more interest than he cared to admit. She was the only one in the Ministry who had dared to champion comprehensive protections for magical creatures classified as “sentient beings,” particularly those who lived in the grey area between creature and humanoid: centaurs, merfolk, werewolves. These were groups that wizarding society had long treated with a mix of fear, disdain, and indifference. Historically, they had been ignored or exploited, and Granger had made it her mission to change that.

He remembered her relentless campaigning for house-elf rights back at Hogwarts, that ridiculous badge of hers. S.P.E.W might have been laughable at the time, but it had clearly been the seed of something far greater. Now, her dedication had landed her a seat at the Ministry’s most important table. This bill was her legacy, and she wasn’t about to let anyone destroy it.

Draco’s gaze shifted to McCain, seated across the table. For all the fanfare surrounding him, McCain was hardly the paragon of integrity Granger deserved as a partner in this fight. At that moment, he wasn’t even paying attention. Instead, his eyes were fixed on a female Auror standing by the wall. His lecherous stare roamed her figure, and Draco felt a wave of disgust.

Useless.

“So, how do we ensure proper protections in this circumstance?”

Granger’s voice snapped him back to the present. She was still looking at him, her unwavering focus pinning him in place. For a split second, he forgot how to breathe. The intensity in her gaze was unlike anything he had ever seen, a mix of determination, expectation, and intrigue.

It made him wish they were alone.

Preferably in his bedroom.

He swallowed hard, trying to shake the thought. Stop. She was putting her trust in him to safeguard everything she’d worked for, not to fantasise about her in entirely inappropriate ways.

Focus, Malfoy.

He straightened in his seat, forcing himself to concentrate. “I’ll be monitoring the situation closely,” he began, his voice steady despite the hammering in his chest. “Fortunately, Edmonton isn’t subtle. He’s vocal about his whereabouts, so we’ll know if he’s nearby. He’s not a sneak attacker—that’s not his style.”

Granger nodded, her quill poised but hovering over her parchment. She wasn’t scribbling now. She was listening. To him.

“If Edmonton does pose an immediate threat—one where McCain’s life is at risk—then I’ll intervene.” Draco paused, letting the weight of his words settle. “And I will ensure his safety.”

He met her eyes again as he said it, making sure she understood. It wasn’t McCain he cared about, not really. But for her—because of her—he’d make sure this job was done right.

Granger’s lips pressed into a thin line, but her gaze softened again, just slightly. It wasn’t approval, not yet, but it was close enough to make his chest tighten.

This wasn’t about McCain. It never had been.

It was about her.