The whack of the door shutting startled Hermione so much that she shrieked, and the book that had been resting on her chest fell to the floor, completely forgotten. She went around the couch where she’d been snoozing, hand reaching for her wand.

She sighed in annoyance when she caught sign of the disturbance.

“It’s you,” she said bluntly. Glancing over at the poor door, it occurred to her that it had never properly been closed since a certain someone’s arrival. Briefly, she wondered how much more abuse it could take before she’d have to replace it.

“Don’t sound too thrilled, Granger. You might pull something.” Malfoy walked past her and clumsily up the stairs, where he stumbled every few steps. The stench of firewhiskey reeked off of him.

“Are you –?”

“Drunk? Not enough to have me crawling on the floor and quacking, but enough for your hair to have eyes.”

Hermione (glancing in a mirror at her eyeless hair) leant on the railing as Malfoy disappeared into his bedroom, disapproval etched onto her face. “May I enquire as to why?”

“No you may not.”

She paused. “Is it because of what – of what I said?”

“Noooo.” It became clear to her that, when drunk, Malfoy was a horrible liar.

“Listen, about that, I really think we need to discuss what –”

“We don’t,” he told her sourly.

From where Hermione was standing, all she could see of his room was one side of the bed and hastily shifted her gaze to her hands when she saw his pants and shirt being thrown off carelessly. Apparently, drunken Malfoys didn’t care who saw them naked either. Albeit, it wouldn’t have been a surprise to her if he was like this whilst sober too.

“You really shouldn’t get intoxicated to suppress feelings,” she said in what Ron would call her McGonagall voice, only quieter. But Malfoy’s sudden appearance and the dark look he was sending her way told Hermione that he had heard anyway.

Malfoy pushed his arm through the sleeve of his pyjama shirt, tugging it down. He then slowly and unsteadily trampled down the stairs. “You want me to express my feelings? Fine.”

And quite without warning, he was suddenly a mere foot in front of her. Firewhiskey engulfed her senses, and Hermione tried not to screw up her face at the smell. His cologne on the other hand… a musky spicy smell that she couldn’t name but for the spearmint, she liked very much.

Unexpectedly, he leaned in closer. His hand held a strong grip on her arm to prevent from any escape, his fingers digging onto the thin fabric her shirt as she felt his hot breath wisp across her neck. Hermione shivered when his lips were mere centimetres from her ear.

“I hate you,” he whispered, his mouth barely caressing her hair. “Every time I see you, all I can think about is how much you infuriate me. You don’t even know how much I never wanted to see you again. Once the war was over, that was about one of the few things I had to look forward to; the probability that I’d never have to see your stupid little bushy head again or hear your stupidly annoying, bossy voice echoing through the Great Hall.” His voice had turned bitter, and Hermione flinched at his next words. “But because life seems to enjoy fucking with me, I’m stuck again with you. Four years later, you’re still a filthy Mudblood and I still can’t stand you. I hate you Granger, so very much.”

Malfoy let go of her shoulder with unneeded force and took a step back, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

Hermione didn’t know what to make of his words. Never in her life had someone been as cruel to her as Malfoy was. She was furious that he seemed to believe he could treat her this way, but she was also completely at a loss for words. Part of her desperately wanted to curse him until he was literally demolished; to just hit and scream at the prick until her words hurt him just as much as he hurt her. But she wasn’t that kind of person. She had control, and she didn’t want him to know he’d bothered her. Yet, Hermione felt that the look on her face had betrayed her.

She was saved from thinking of a retort when there was a knock on the door. Malfoy stumbled past her and into the kitchen, no doubt to his ‘precious apples’ and with a heavy sigh she went to the door, peering through the peephole.

Her eyes went wide with panic and she muffled a gasp with her hand.

Oh no. No, no, nooo! Not him, not now!

“Now what?” Malfoy drawled casually, as though he hadn’t been a complete arse moments before. Hermione wondered if he had bipolar.

She swallowed and considered telling her visitor that Malfoy had broken into her flat and refused to leave. That’d probably get him a punch or two, nothing less than what he deserved.

But she had gotten herself into this mess, and she needed to remind herself just whom she was living with at the moment. Of course he was going to be insulting, what else had she expected, for Malfoy to suddenly be sweet towards her? She almost laughed out loud at the thought.

“Coming!” she called at the door before rushing over to Malfoy.

He raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“It’s… it’s Harry. I need you to hide.”

A large smirk spread across his features. “Oh? Potty’s here? Lovely, let’s greet him, shall we?”

She quickly blocked his way to the door. “No, I’m serious –”

“You’re always serious –”

“You’ve got to hide. Please.”

He scoffed. “I’m not hiding like some slut once the wife gets home.”

“Bloody hell, yes you are!”

“Why not tell him?” he asked, obviously enjoying her discomfort. “I’m sure he’d be understanding.”

“I want to tell him in my own time, not when he just happens to stumble upon you!”

“Hermione? It’s kind of chilly out here,” Harry called.

“Hold on! Malfoy, so help me god, if you don’t make yourself scarce –”

“You’ll what? Make me?” He snickered as his eyes drifted over her small size.

With as much strength as she could muster, Hermione pushed against his chest, willing him to move at least an inch, but he didn’t. “Malfoy – please!”

“Granger, please!”

“I didn’t want it to resort to this but…”

Hermione was better at spells than Malfoy, she was the better duellist, she had more experience and she was much faster than his drunken reflexes. Therefore, when she pulled out her wand and hit him with a Stupefy, he had had hardly enough time to react. She didn’t use much force behind the spell, not wanting to actually hurt him, but she couldn’t deny that it hadn’t felt good to stun the prat.

“Hermione, seriously, what are you doing?” Harry demanded.

“Sorry, sorry, give me a moment.”

Quickly, she grabbed hold of Malfoy’s limp form, biting her lip as she noted his back was going to be very sore in the morning from the fall, and with dismay looked up at the stairs. The staircase wasn’t very long exactly, but she seriously doubted her strength to hurl him up there. Using her wand was another option, but she didn’t think she had the time. Harry was growing impatient, and if she wasted anymore time it would look more suspicious than it probably already did. So, as fast as she could, she dragged him towards the toilet that was merely located to the left.

Once inside the small space, Hermione sat him up against the wall near the sink and as far away from the toilet as she could manage; she somehow didn’t think he’d be too happy if he woke up with his head in there. Then, she hastily scrambled out of the little room, closing the door behind her.

“Harry!” she greeted as normal as possible, gesturing for him to come inside.

His hair, slightly longer than it had been four years ago, was still almost as untameable as hers. Smiling, she reached out to flatten it, knowing full well by now that it was pointless.

“What took you so long?” he asked, frowning as she shut the door softly.

“Oh, um… reading. I had to finish off the chapter,” she smiled.

He rolled his eyes but looked amused all the same. “Of course you were.”

“So what can I do for you?”

“I know it’s rather late,” he sighed, “but I have to talk to you about something.”

“It couldn’t have waited until tomorrow evening? Not that I’m not happy with you being here,” she added quickly. “It just seems like a more reasonable time.”

He smiled apologetically. “Sorry, but this is important and I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow.”

With reluctance, Hermione led him over to the lounge and sat awkwardly beside him. Relax, she told herself, nothing’s wrong. Of course, that was a lie. She really didn’t want Harry to find out about any of this, not now. She wanted to tell him when she was ready and when the both of them were as far away from Malfoy as possible. She knew Harry well enough to know that that was the best method to use with him. You don’t unexpectedly throw things at him; you ease into it and make him see reason.

Playing with her fingers, she looked back over at Harry and her brows furrowed. He had the Daily Prophet placed in his lap and was flicking through it so rapidly she was stunned that the pages didn’t rip.

“What exactly is so important?” She hadn’t remembered seeing anything interesting in the paper. There never was anymore.

“I don’t know if it is important, but I’ve got a weird feeling about… ah, here it is.” He pointed at the missing witch and wizard collum. This week, there was a middle-aged woman with dark, flat hair. She gazed up at Hermione and Harry anxiously, looking from side to side as though waiting for something to pounce on her, her eyes wide.

Still confused Hermione asked, “You know where,” she looked at the name of the woman, “Margaret Hoskings is?”

“No, but what I’m getting at is after Voldemort, and once everyone recovered from the war, things were quiet, right?”

“What?”

“There were no missing persons in the Daily Prophet,” he said impatiently.

“I don’t know about that, Harry. People were still missing.”

“I said after everything had settled. People they couldn’t find from the battle only appeared missing for a certain period of time until they were either claimed dead or found. Once that died over, the Prophet was pretty much lacking in the missing wizards department.”

“Okay…?” She still had no idea where he was going with this.

“Blimey, Hermione! People are missing again. At first it was only occasionally every few weeks they’d have a new missing person, but over the past few months they’ve been increasing. People are disappearing more frequently and what I want to know is why no one else has noticed?”

“Harry…” She put her hand on his arm. “People go missing all the time. It’s horrible, but all we can do is keep a eye out. You haven’t got anything to be worrying about.”

He groaned, frustrated. “No, it’s beginning to happen too much now. Something’s not right about it… Ron didn’t believe me either.”

“I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I think we shouldn’t worry ourselves over it until we have solid evidence. Okay listen,” she added when he glared at her, “I’ll also keep watch and see if the numbers increase, whatever will make you happy, but honestly I don’t think you have reason to panic. Have any of them been confirmed dead?”

He thought for a moment. “No. They go missing and… just don’t come back.”

She gave him a small smile and patted him on the back. “I’ll keep a lookout. Now, would you like a cup of tea, or…?”

“Don’t you have work tomorrow?”

She blanched. “Oh, no. I do.” Meaning, Malfoy also had work tomorrow. His first day and he’ll likely have a hangover. Brilliant. She suddenly wasn’t too keen on the idea of tomorrow. “But it doesn’t matter, I had a sleep earlier.”

He grinned. “Sucks for you. I get tomorrow off.”

“What? Why?”

“They give us Monday’s off now,” he said proudly. “Didn’t Ron tell you that?”

Her face fell and abruptly the conversation had lost what little humour it had.

“Hermione…” Harry trailed off hopelessly, looking at her guiltily. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“It’s okay,” she said, determinedly keeping her voice strong. “It doesn’t bother me.”

“Yes it does,” said Harry carefully. “You know I’m always here to talk.”

“Not always. Being an Auror doesn’t give you much time to talk anymore. I don’t mind though, as I told you, he doesn’t bother me. Tea?”

“Changing the subject.”

“Harry –”

Thud.

Both Harry and Hermione’s heads snapped up, exchanging brief glances. She may have been slightly grateful for the disturbance of where her and Harry’s conversation had been leading, but she had a feeling she knew where the noise had came from, and if she was correct and Harry found out, talking about Ron actually sounded preferable. Hermione, for the first time in a long while, really hoped she was wrong. She anxiously stood, and went towards the source of the sound.

Thud.

No. No, no, no. Malfoy don’t do this…

He wasn’t supposed to wake up yet! She knew her mistake; she hadn’t cast Stupefy well enough. She pulled out her wand and pointed it to the door.

“Where’s that noise coming from?”

Hermione cursed under her breath and turned, feigning innocence as she discreetly shoved her wand into her back pocket. “No idea.”

Her voice shook as she spoke, and Harry, always the observant one, noticed. “What’re you hiding?”

“Nothing.”

Thud. Thud.

He looked from Hermione to the door behind her. “Is someone in there?”

“No,” she answered all too quickly. “Probably just Crookshanks.”

“In the toilet?” he asked sceptically.

“Well, yes. People teach their cats all the time.”

“Do they really?”

“Yes! I mean, I know Ron’s always said there was something funny about him, but really there’s a lot more to Crookshanks than meets the eye –”

Thud.

“– he’s a terribly intelligent creature and I really feel he should get the respect and recognition he deserves. Not one of us knew who Scabbers really was in third year, did we? But Crookshanks certainly – oh.”

She ceased her meaningless rambling, for at that precise moment, Crookshanks had happily trotted into view. Neither Harry nor Hermione said anything for a moment, both watching as the furry feline rubbed itself up against Hermione’s sofa, purring as he did so with his bottlebrush tail swaying from side to side. They continued to stare in silence, except for the increasingly loud thuds from the toilet, until Crookshanks had disappeared from view.

Harry finally turned his attention back to her, a frown set firmly onto his features. “Who’s in there?”

“Crookshanks gave birth in there yesterday,” she said as though it were painfully obvious.

“Crookshanks is a he.”

“Can we really be sure about that Harry? Can we really be sure about anything? What is gender and who are we to judge?” she expressed heartedly.

Harry stared for a second. “Who’s in there?”

“I told you, no one.”

Thud.

“Okay…” he said slowly. “If no one’s in there, you won’t mind if I take a look?”

Hermione opened her mouth to make up some pathetic excuse when it dawned on her, no matter what she said now, it didn’t matter. It still looked odd, she couldn’t convince him to turn away, and he knew what she was saying was a load of bollocks.

Taking a breath, she stepped to the side and gestured for him to enter. “All right, go in. I guarantee you’ll regret it.”

He studied her for several seconds as if the answer was drawn all over her face. Which, she thought, may have been easier instead of having him find out this way. Merlin, it was going to look bad. What would he think? She had Draco frigging Malfoy in her toilet, not literally (but the thought had its appeal), in the middle of the bloody night. He would most definitely draw the wrong conclusion.

She didn’t look at him as he walked slowly past her, as if he was secretly daring for her to stop him, nor did she jump in front of him when she heard the door click open, but her heartbeat had increased with the tension, and she was bracing for one of Harry’s rages.

“Oh my god.”

________________________________________

Next chapter; we'll see how Harry will react to what's in the toilet. Their first day of work, and Draco's already made an enemy.