The Promise

Disclaimer:  I own nothing.  Not even this laptop.  It's my father's, mine died.  How sad.  So, please, no suing.  I already have 50grand worth of school loans, I have nothing left to give!!!

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Hermione Granger learned a long time ago that Draco Malfoy was not easy to ignore.   In school, her earnest requests to Harry and Ron to ignore him might have made sense, but that did not make them any easier to carry out.  His taunts, and the constant bickering he caused were hard to get away from, especially when she and he shared Head Boy/Head Girl duties in their final year.   And yet, Hermione now found herself at times longing for the Hogwarts days, when she was in large company in her abhorrence of Malfoy.    If he was hard to ignore and dismiss when everyone she knew was trying to do the same thing, it was impossible to do so now, when all of her friends either worked with, tolerated, or were friends with the impossible man.

Groaning, Hermione laid her head on her desk.  It was bad enough, really, that Harry had developed some sort of strange friendship with the git, that Ron no longer hated him and that Ginny adored him.  It was also the fact that almost everyone she knew liked him as well.  They may acknowledge to her his faulty traits, such as his arrogance, his pride, and his awful ability to say the cruelest things at precisely the wrong time, but they would also smile and wistfully speak of his acts of heroism in the second war.  It was enough to make a girl go mad.  And now, now, Hermione was being forced to yet again spend an evening in his presence, but this time she actually had to sit next to him at the Potter's dinner party.

"Oh, come on, Hermione!"   Hermione looked up across her desk at her so-called friend as Ginny spoke.  "I mean, honestly, you act as though I've requested that you marry Snape.  It's just one night.  And I'm only seating you next to him because, well, it's New Years," she finished, and looked at Hermione with an expression which clearly told her friend that she thought her vague statement cleared everything up.

"What does New Years have to do with me sitting next to sodding Malfoy?  You know how these things are.  Everyone sits around the blasted table for hours, and how am I supposed to avoid getting into some ridiculous row with him when I can barely avoid it when we're together for more than five minutes?"  Hermione cried, and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms.  

"I just don't understand why I have to spend yet another evening next to him.  I mean, really Gin!  It's been almost twice a week for the past year that I've had to be around him, not even counting when I have to see him here! I don't like him; he's an annoying prat, Ginny.  That's not going to change.  Perhaps I don't hate him, I can admit that he's not Lucius, and I respect everything he did for our side in the war.  But-," she stopped and pulled a face.  "He's just so damn infuriating all the time.  And his stupid smirks, and the way he just riles me up with such little effort, and he always has a comeback-," here she was cut off by a drawling voice, of one said annoying prat, who proceeded to rile her up such little effort.

"Why, Granger, I hardly knew you cared," he spoke from her doorway.  In her rant, Hermione had not heard the door open, and she spun in her seat to direct her glare to him, the glare she specifically reserved for his pale face.

"Well, Malfoy, I must ask how you know I was speaking of you?   Are you really that eager to claim that description?"  She smirked as he scowled, and watched him wearily as he proceeded to cross the room and lay a photo down on her desk.

"This is the newest picture of Mason.  Spotted in a village near Devonshire.  Some stupid person shot his picture, but didn't think to stun him when they saw him.  But at least we have an updated description.  Just came in," he finished.

Hermione picked up the picture and studied it for a moment.  It had been six years since the final battle at the end of their seventh year, but the Aurors were still searching for and rounding up stray Death Eaters.  Hermione and Malfoy were both Aurors, but Hermione's job tended to consist of more research than fieldwork, luckily the opposite of Malfoy's job.  She shuddered to think of having to see him on a more frequent basis than what she was subjected to now.

Looking back up at him, she thanked him for bringing her the picture, and carefully placed it in a file in a drawer of her desk.  She noticed that he was looking extremely tired, his face was much paler than normal, and the bags under his eyes were clearly defined.  She wondered why he hadn't used a glamour charm to make himself look more presentable, it seemed like something he would do.

"Were you out there last night?  You look terribly tired.  How long were you there?" she asked, curious.  Ignoring the interested gaze of Ginny, she waited an answer.

Malfoy closed his eyes briefly and sighed.  "Yes, I was there after we were alerted of the sighting.  Got there around seven last night and we didn't finish checking the area or interviewing residents until after three in the morning." Sighing once more, he turned towards the door and started to leave. 

"Do you want some Pepper-Up?  I have some in my desk, if you think you need it," she offered.  She suddenly became aware of how incredibly odd she was behaving.  Like she gave a damn if he was tired or not.  But, he just looked so tired, more tired than a late night could have caused.  And it was disturbing for her to not see the Malfoy she knew when she looked at his face and posture, disturbing enough for her to want to change it fast.  He looked back at her with an odd questioning gaze before agreeing. 

She did indeed have a vial of Pepper-Up with her, and he took it with a murmured thanks, barely decipherable to her ears, and quickly left. 

"What was that?" Ginny asked, quite keen on figuring out what had just transpired. 

Hermione shot her a look.  "What do you mean?  He looked awful, I hadn't realized how tired he's been looking until I saw him just now.  It's more than just last night, it must the buildup.  We've had several leads lately; everyone has been out almost every night for the past couple of weeks."

Ginny just looked at her for a few moments with a level gaze.  Then she gave a small smile, one tinted with amusement.   "Right.  Well, then, back to our talk.  Really, Hermione, the reason it matters that it's New Years is because almost everyone there will be part of a couple.  Only you, Malfoy, and two other people that I know of are coming alone.  So seating you next to Draco is the only way that I know you won't be bored out of your mind."

Hermione interrupted her speech to toss her a glare and reply, "Of course, I won't be bored.  Instead, I will be desperately irritated all night.  That is, if he even bothers to acknowledge me.  Bet you five galleons that, couple or not, he speaks the entire night to the person on the other side of him.  Allowing for the few snide comments to me, of course."

"Hermione, if there is one thing Draco does not do, it's ignore you.  The two other people you would find incredibly boring.  The man, Adam, works with Harry in the Quidditch Division of the S&G Department, and that's all he is.  Honestly, he's very a nice man, but all he will talk about is Quidditch, to anyone who will listen.  I know for a fact that you would hate that.   And the woman, while also perfectly nice, is some Veela look-a-like who works at Madam Malkins whom Fred has been getting friendly with.  They're not coming together officially, she's a guest of mine, but either way she'll either be occupied by him, or boring you with her vapid discussions all night.  Draco is really your best seating partner.  And, if worse comes to worse, and you have a terrible night, I promise you a free two weeks from Draco." 

Ginny leaned back in her chair and smiled with satisfaction.  Hermione eyed her distrustfully. 

'Two free weeks?" she thought.  "Two weeks without having to deal with seeing Malfoy in the halls, watching him smirk at her when she occasionally would drop her papers on the way to the owlery.  No listening to him prattle on about himself when they had coffee with Ron and Harry.  No more being forced into admitting to herself that she enjoyed the conversations that could occasionally have that didn't involve mutual disgust with each other, or how his job was more demanding of hers.  Two weeks free of his stupid attractive hair, and stupid smoldering eyes, and stupid smirk that drew her eyes to his stupid lips, being able to avoid how he could always find the one thing that was bothering her and bring it up, just to watch her explode.  Two Malfoy-less weeks."

Her musings were interrupted by Ginny clearing her throat.   "Alright, Gin, I accept under the knowledge that he will make it a miserable night for me, and I am immensely looking forward to two weeks without the forced companionship of Malfoy."

Ginny stood up, looking pleased.  "Good, Hermione, I knew you would agree.  Well, then, I have to go, I have a lot of cleaning left to do, magic or not."  She walked to the door after quickly giving her friend a hug.  Turning, she smiled and said, "Honestly, Hermione.  No one would think any less of you if you just admitted that for all his faults, and for all the ways he annoys you, you do enjoy him."  She laughed and darted out the doorway quickly, evading her friend's outraged expression. 

"Enjoy him?  Admit that I enjoy him?" Hermione thought, barely able to process Ginny's parting statement.  Perhaps she could appreciate that even in school, Malfoy had been her intellectual equal.  Though they approached learning with very different styles, his marks were always only slightly below hers.  And yes, they did get on quite well with their Head duties when they weren't busy taking the piss out of one another, in an extraordinarily non-friendly way.  And of course she admired the work he had done in the war, and the risks he had taken.  As a co-worker, she also admired his diligent attitude towards his job, and hadn't she just expressed concern at how tired he looked?  But that didn't mean that she enjoyed him.  How could she?  Perhaps she could, if she lived in some crazy alternative universe, where Malfoy had apologized for the nasty things he said about her heritage when they were younger (which he did in her reality), and then proceeded to be the somewhat nice version of himself that he presented to nearly everyone else she knew.  He was by no means, Harry, or Ron, and he was still arrogant as hell, but he wasn't constantly berating everyone he spoke to the way he did her.

"And why the hell is that anyway?" she wondered, "Why can't he leave me alone?"  She concluded that he really must hate her more than she thought he did, but couldn't understand why this hurt her as much as it did.

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This was initially going to be a one-shot, a rather long one at that.  I wrote it quite awhile back, and forgot about it, and just found it again now.  So I'm posting it now under I think three separate chapters (that's how I have it split up at the moment, maybe it will change).   And I'm just finishing checking them over and making sure I still like them now.  So the rest of the story should be up momentarily.

But, please read and review.     This is the first fic of mine that I have actually finished, I'm so glad I found it.  And I know this isn't all of it, but I probably won't have it up until tomorrow evening, or early the next morning (super busy here).  So if you have comments of problems with this first chapter, or comments in general, I will gladly receive them and can hopefully use them as I tweak the remaining chapters.  Thanks for reading!