Chapter 7
The door swung open to reveal a woman Draco’s age rifling through papers on a desk. She had long, sleek light brown hair that was swept into an elegant ponytail. Draco leaned out of the door to check the nameplate on the office. It felt very anticlimactic for him to have dramatically asserted himself into the wrong office. No, the nameplate read “Mrs. Granger” but the woman at the desk wasn’t Hermoine Granger. Hermoine Granger had bushy hair and knobby knees and the haughtiest look on her face at all times. This woman had big eyes, tamed hair and although he couldn’t see her knees under her inmate uniform he had a feeling they were decidedly un-knobby. His eyes fell to the badge clipped to her collar. Sure enough it read “Hermoine”. The woman looked from her work to register who had flung themselves into her office. Her eyes lit up like stars when she saw him. A smile flew across her face and she rose from the desk to meet him. Draco felt as if he’d been stunned. Had she stunned him? That bitch. He realised that wasn’t possible because he felt her slide her hand around the back of his neck and heard the voice he knew very well sweetly whisper in his ear. “I guess this morning wasn’t enough?” He opened his mouth to ask her what the fuck she meant but she swallowed any words he wanted to say as she crushed her lips to his in an aggressively open mouthed kiss.
Dear god, she was kissing him. No, she wasn’t kissing him. She was kissing Dean. Granger was kissing Dean but Draco was kissing Granger. The thought of it made his stomach lurch in his abdomen and he found her shoulders and shoved her off of him. “What the fuck Granger” was all he could muster as he bent at the waist with his hands on his knees and lost the battle with the wretching in his stomach he’d tried to suppress when he’d felt her mouth touch his. There was a look of confusion on her face that immediately turned to shock and then horror. Draco was still hunched over in disgust and he let his eyes fall to the floor. That’s when he noticed his shoes, the shoes he’d worn this morning to meet with Potter. HIS shoes, not Dean’s shoes. The polyjuice had chosen this exact moment to wear off. While his first sight of Granger in ten years had been of her nice hair, big eyes and non knobby knees. Her first sight of him was of him bent over and retching at the floor. There was a pause Draco thrust his wand out to silencio the room, and then there was a scream. He thought his ear drums might burst at her piercing yell. Then she was throwing things at him. A large book, a cup filled with pencils, a stapler, and various muggle devices. Draco dodged each one while trying to collect himself and catch his breath. He held his hands up simultaneously shielding himself from the onslaught and attempting to signal a truce. “MALFOY” she was still screeching. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE- YOU FUCKING COCKROACH”. She was yelling but she’d stopped the active attack so Draco was able to drop his arms. “You’re still sweet as ever” he retorted while wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand with an exaggerated swipe. God he hated her. He hated her voice, her face , he hated even being in the same room with her. After all of the effort he had exerted to be here in this moment, in front of the person responsible for all of the disappointment in his life. Draco felt at a loss for words. For a moment they stared at each other. It was not lost on him that the stars in her eyes from when she had believed him to be someone else had dulled into bitter stone. She tilted her head to the side as if she was assessing him, perhaps diagnosing him in her mind. He hated it, the way she could tear him open and trample on his sense of self without laying a finger on him. He felt exposed, like she could see under his skin and straight into his bone marrow. She wasn’t a Legilimens like Luna but she was something else, something somehow worse. Like she could look at him and see who he was as a person. It made Draco’s stomach flip almost like it had in the lift. Except this feeling felt more like he was slipping, losing his grip on every part of himself he had worked so hard to change. To her he was still a teenaged asshole from a prejudiced family and he always would be. Finally she broke her silence as an obnoxious smile spread across her face. “Ah, I know exactly why you’re here.”
“You know why I’m here?” Draco parroted back to her, he would have killed to have an original thought at that moment. He was feeling exposed and confused and of all the things he had expected to happen when he saw her for the first time after all of these years, an open mouthed kiss had not registered on the list.
Granger turned to a large black case and retrieved a small cup with an orange lid from it. She held it out to him, keeping as much distance between them as she could while offering it to him. His eyes darted to the cup and then back to her face. She waved it at him again in an exasperated huff then rolled her eyes. “You go in the cup and then come back in two days and I will give you the tablets”. Draco slowly reached for the cup, if only to ensure she didn’t get so irritated that she threw it at him. She had said “You go in the cup” go where? Was it a portkey? Likely not since they were both still standing in her office. She went on “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that you should contact your recent partners and have them see me as well. It’s not my business but you might want to tell your fiance first before anyone else has a chance.” He was sure her voice had curled just a bit on the word fiance. It was very interesting that she knew about his engagement. Interesting but not too surprising. It meant that she kept up with the Wizarding world but perhaps not enough to have gotten the more recent editions of the prophet. All the same he was perfectly happy to note that she hadn’t caught wind of his public breakup.
“Well the washroom is down the hall, you can leave the urine sample on my desk and I’ll test it for you this evening.”
“Sorry did you say Urine?”
“Yes Malfoy, Urine, Pee, Piss, Wiz I know even the purest of wizards use the loo on occasion.”
“Why do you want my piss Granger? Is this some sort of perverted joke?”
“Well, most people prefer to be tested for sexually transmitted infections through a urine sample but if you prefer a urethral swab I can arrange it.”
“GOD, Granger What the fuck? Oh my God, is that why you saw Blaise?”
Granger blinked at him seemingly speechless for the first time in their interaction then averted her eyes from his. “I do not share personal information of those I treat whether they are muggles or wizards.” As she spoke she surveyed the wreckage of her office and picked up a contraption made of tubes from her desk. She slid the contraption around her neck and made her way to the door gesturing for him to leave the office and closed the door behind them.
“ Wizards can’t get muggle infections.” Draco said in a hushed tone as he trailed her back up the hall. “They can now” she responded flatly. They crossed the hall where the lift was located and she paused in front of the silver door and pressed the button to call it. He heard the whir of the lift and realized he was running out of fucking time. “Due to mutations in bacteria many wizards have found themselves susceptible to infections previously thought to have only affected muggles. I see you’ve come all the way here to waste my time due to some aversion to urinating in a hospital.” The bell rang and the doors of the lift slid open. He moved slowly through them desperate for a way to breach the subject of the curse- he was out of time, he’d made it this far only to learn about mutant sexual bacteria.
“I didn’t come for the urine test, I came for your help with something else, um- a bit more serious.” He dropped his voice to just above a whisper "Something more magical in nature than your sex bacteria"
Her arms were crossed tightly against her chest and turned her head from one side to the other likely ensuring there were no nosy muggles within earshot before stepping closer to him.
“I don’t practise magic anymore Malfoy” the words came out as a hiss. “And forgive me, but if I did you would be the very last person I would feel obligated to assist with my talents.” Her eyes had shifted again, from the bitter stone to a searing hot flame. Draco felt a chill run through his spine at the contempt that permeated her voice. She was terrifying. The chill from his spine stretched through his limbs and something in him was desperate to challenge her. He fought the urge to meet her intensity and instead let his shoulders casually fall as the lift door slid closed. He could still see her through the sliver of space in the closing door when he thrust his hand out to stop it from closing. All of the self control in the world couldn’t keep the smirk off of his face as the door bounced back open. He raised his arm to rest an elbow on the door of the lift and looked down at her with as much condescension as he could muster then tossed her the little cursed effigy before sneering “Actually Granger, I think you’ll feel very obligated to assist me with your talents.”