Chapter Text
“Have you looked over the McNulty case?”
He hummed, not even sparing a glance upwards at her. “Mm, yes. It’s a clean case, a bad marking.”
Her nose twitched. “I disagree.”
“Of course you do.”
“They’re mates, Malfoy. Veela mates. You have to look at this with a wider scope.”
“I believe my scope is perfectly fine, Granger. It was a bad marking. She didn’t want to be mated with him.”
“That’s not true,” she huffed indignantly, “She’s not the one who filed the report, her husband did.”
“As he should.”
“Malfoy, have a lick of empathy will you? Veela mates are... are biologically meant to be. Or whatever the magical equivalent is to that.”
“There is nothing magical about infidelity and sexual assault.”
“Assault?”
“Yes,” he finally looked up at her. “Rape. In the simplest of terms. Veelas have their own biological traits that make them irresistible to their mate. And it’s not love, it’s a guaranteed fucking—“
“Crude—“
“In any case, she was a married woman. Happily by all accounts. She chose her husband and McNulty had no business interfering otherwise. Veelas aren’t animals Granger, they can control their actions. And McNulty should have controlled his.”
“Veela magic isn’t controlling. She still had full autonomy. It’s not about fucking as you say, it’s about survival. Without their mate, a Veela will die.”
He stood, knotting his tie tighter on his neck and brushing off his sleeves, “Frankly, McNulty should have sooner died from his Veela magic than ruin that poor girl's life. In any case, that’s what I’ll be writing on the report. If you disagree feel free to write your own.”
He stalked out of the office, stacks of paper in hand, and Hermione sighed as she watched him go.
It was always like this, with him.
She didn’t even know why he bothered to join the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. He didn’t even seem to particularly like magical creatures enough to warrant the job choice, or even her for that matter. But here he was still, five years later at the same desk in the same office with the same partner.
When they had been paired up their first week it was Hermione who threw a fit. Surely they couldn’t expect her to do rounds with Malfoy or even possibly put the trust of her life in his hands. During her tirad, Malfoy kept his head down, only blinking upwards when their boss announced that the partnership was final and if they didn’t want to forfeit their positions, they would learn to get along.
It wasn’t a terrible first year together. And, really, if Hermione was honest with herself, any of the issues they had at that time was of her own fault and judgement. She expected Malfoy to slip up and so she looked for it, trying to catch him in a vulnerable spot so she could report back and get herself a new partner.
It wasn’t until Christmas of their second year together that things had really changed for her. There had been a brombus spotted on the outskirts of a village and Hermione and Malfoy were called in to handle it. A protected creature by law, their job was to direct him away from civilization.
It was also Ron and Hermione’s second Christmas together as a couple and she could remember the purse to his lips and the bite to his cheek when she told him she’d be missing Christmas dinner to spend the evening brombus-hunting with Malfoy.
“Why can’t he just do it? Not like he’s doing anything today, he’s got no family.”
“He’s my partner.”
Ron had exploded then, I’m your partner. Even though he knew that wasn’t what she meant. She had slammed the door behind her on the way out, the force chipping an icicle to shatter at the ground by her feet.
It was probably the anger and bitterness that clouded her judgement that night. She wanted to get home, away from Malfoy, and finish her fight with Ron. Hopefully with the last word.
Malfoy met her just outside the gates of the village looking over a sea of forest where the brombus had been spotted, his bare hands stuffed into his pocket and his cheeks tinged pink from the cold.
They didn’t talk, they never talked. Even if they spent hours alone on missions such as this, they never talked. Malfoy kept his head down to his chin as if afraid any eye contact might set her off. Honestly, it might have.
“Here.”
The creature was tucked into a ball, its long talons and fur paws buried in the snow. It looked to be asleep.
“I’ll bind it and we can levitate it deeper into the forest, away from the village.”
She remembered the look Malfoy gave her then. A thin lipped grimace and draw in eyebrows.
“Granger, I don’t think--”
“I wasn’t asking,” she snarled, drawing her wand. “Just stay here.”
She crept up to the creature quietly, her wand drawn just above her hip. The brombus snored quietly, its short snout flapping gently with its snores. A leaf crunched under her foot and she stilled, watching the creature intently to make sure it was still asleep.
“Granger,” she heard a small whisper from behind her. Her eyes narrowed further. If Malfoy would just keep his mouth shut, she could have this done and be back home before the ham was gone.
She took another step forward, only feet away from the sleeping beast and she raised her wand.
“Inc--”
A bright red eye shot open, teeth bared as it lunged at her outstretched arm.
“Bombarda!”
A heavy force knocked her to the ground as she heard the sound of a large body hit the forest floor and whimper. She opened her eyes, expecting the creature to be above her and gnashing for her neck, but instead she saw two orbs of wide, grey eyes and pale eyebrows drawn together in concern.
Behind his shoulder, the brombus whimpered and began to limp away, opposite of the village. When she looked down she gasped.
“Malfoy, your arm!”
Every layer he had on was torn through with one gash, the wound split open and bleeding steadily onto the snow below them.
He looked down too, his face almost as shocked and surprised as he was that he had thrown himself in front of the beast to protect her and caused himself a nasty injury.
His weight was still settled on top of her and Hermione remembered the hot blush that came to her cheeks when he shifted to move off her and his knee came between her legs, nearly grazing her slacks.
“It’s nothing,” he said, twisting the arm to his side to hide it. “Just a scrape. You should be more careful next time, Granger.”
It was more words than they had ever spoken to each other. And from that day on, her attitude towards Malfoy changed. And so did his attitude towards her.
She liked working with Malfoy. He was witty, intelligent, talented, and ambitious. He complimented her impulsive nature with his cautious one, always reeling her back to reality and keeping her grounded. He was a welcomed perspective.
In opposition, it almost felt like he began to withdraw from her even more. Where before he barely looked at her, he began to make himself scarce to even be around her. Their conversations not relating to work were short, if not impersonal. And any time they were in the same room together, he had this odd look on his face. Almost as if he smelled something rotten.
Ginny had blamed his foul mood on being lonely. With Lucius in prison, his mother dead, and a huge manor all to himself; he was bound to be lonely. In those first two years he had never even mentioned the name of another woman in passing.
And then suddenly, it shifted again. She walked into their shared office one morning with Malfoy at his desk and a steaming cup of coffee on hers. She peered over and Malfoy raised his own mug, his eyes still focusing on his paperwork.
Cheers.
She took a tentative sip. It was luxurious. Thick and rich and not too sweet. She raised her cup back to him.
Cheers.
After that, it wasn’t as if they were friends, but more friendly towards each other than before. He started to hang around her more often and that permanent skink face he had disappeared. Most importantly, he supplied overpriced coffee and she drank it. It was a symbiotic relationship.
They began tentative conversations that delved further into their personal life.
She learned about Theo and Blaise, his best friends and two potion master entrepreneurs.
“Why didn’t you join them in starting the practice? You were great in potions, I remember. Maybe better than them.”
She thought she had seen his cheeks tint red, but he covered it with a cough.
“Didn’t interest me,” he said simply.
“And this does?”
Which brought her back to the first point; Draco Malfoy’s employment at the DRCMC. He had been offered other positions throughout the Ministry after they saw his talents. He had even been scouted as an Unspeakable, a true honor. And he had declined them all.
Sometimes Hermione wished he would just go do something… else. Something that actually made him happy. She didn’t know why he forced himself to stay in their little corner office that barely fit their two desks and piles of papers.
But she never urged him to leave. She would, as begrudged as she was to admit it, miss him. It was only at times like these where it was frustrating to work with him.
He seemed to have almost no empathy for nearly-human magical creatures like Veelas or Werewolves. It was almost like he had a personal vendetta for every one of them. Especially when it came to matters of mating.
She didn’t even know why she bothered to ask him to look over marking cases anymore. There was nothing in there that could satisfy him enough to rule it a good, clean mating. There was always something about the magical allure or the unfair advantage, but Hermione just knew it as magic.
Perhaps it came from her younger self’s penchant for fairytales; but soulmates were meant to be together, right? No matter how they found each other.
She sighed, rubbing her temples with her fingers, knowing she’d be doing her own report on the McNulty case.