Author's Notes: I've noticed that the judicial system in the Wizarding World doesn't seem remotely as advanced as the common law of America or England. I have therefore taken great liberties.

Summary: Hermione is stuck in a dead end job with little pay and no future. Just when things couldn't get worse, the Christmas season brings her face to face with an old obsession, who just happens to be Draco Malfoy.

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THE AMBITION OF THE SILVER RIBBON

by Jen Ann Bradley

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"Are you available tomorrow?"

Mr. Ansel Applegate tipped his spectacles low over his aristocratic nose and peered up at her from over the top of his copy of The Daily Prophet, irritated that she had caused him to exert himself even this little bit. Hermione knew that "Are you available tomorrow?" was not a question, but a statement; and that Appelgate hadn't the slightest doubt that she would be free tomorrow, knowing that even if she had plans, she would cancel them. In fact, he considered it a very great favor to be offering her a chance to be his courtroom clerk on this one occasion, four days before Christmas, when the head clerk had called off in order to spend time with his family in Rome and every other clerk in the Ministry had refused to come in. There was no question but that Hermione Granger would accept it. Applegate was already handing her the case file, instructing her to look through the names of every person in it and give him an organized list of every prior crime and suspicious occurrence in their respective lives so he might bring it up in the tribunal tomorrow. Hermione stared at the stack of papers, expertly bound between two pale blue rectangles of cardstock, and frowned at her ignominious introduction to her redemption. She took the stack with subdued gratitude, tucking it under her arm along with the box of tea leaves she was to deliver to one of the judges before she made the long journey back to her own office.

Hermione's office was located in the basement of the Ministry of Magic, in the far western corner, between the emergency stairwell and the porter's closet. Nobody ever went there if he could possibly help it, and all communication with the upper floors was carried out via paper airplane. Since most of the airplanes sent to her were lost en route, twice a day, Hermione trekked down the long, narrow corridor outside her office, up two flights of stairs to the first floor with elevator access, and then took the elevator up ten floors so she could check her mailbox, which was usually empty.

She dropped the tea off in the judge's mailbox, turned around and retraced her steps to the elevator. Then down down down until she reached the empty service stairwell, and after that she went out the long corridor, along which there were several doors, emergency exits leading from the Ministry courtrooms that were still packed with hearings, interrogations and trials even this far into the Christmas season.

Once Hermione crammed herself back into her cramped little office, she sat down in her creaking desk chair and dutifully took out the case file, looking at the first page, which consisted of a long index of names presented in chaotic lack-of-order. During the haste of its creation, the list had not been alphabetized. Most likely, the people whose names appeared had been listed in the order they had been arrested. The mass of papers under their names consisting of their personal histories—some extrapolated, others mostly truthful—had been thrown in with the same haphazard contempt.

Hermione sifted through the pile, first placing the files in the same order as they were presented on the accompanying docket sheet. She stopped several times to mend paper cuts with a quick healing spell before bending over her work once more. As usual, the light was dim. She cast a lumos spell and squinted at the small type scrawled over with black scribbles and continued.

Near the bottom of the pile, she found a short stack of papers concerning a "Percy Weasley." Her hands lingered briefly over the document as she considered anew the import of this assignment. She scanned the cover sheet of his file, reading the words, "Forgery of official documents; aiding and abetting criminal Death Eater activity." Then, without further ado, she set the file in its place by the other files and went on. Percy Weasley had been rotting in Azkaban for two weeks, which fact was causing his mother endless distress. He was probably innocent, or at the very least the charges against him had been trumped up to a ridiculous degree. However, Ron and Harry had done nothing, and neither would Hermione.

---

It was cold in the courtroom, even with the tumult of spectators lining the benches; yet Draco Malfoy refused to draw his heavy robes over his shoulders. This was the last place on Earth where he could be seen wearing black robes and a hood, and if he had owned anything other than his father's black cloak, he would have worn it. People were eying him with suspicion as they came in. The ones who recognized his face drew back in shock before choosing seats as far away from him as possible. Most were wondering how he dared to appear in the heart of the Ministry, thinking that if he'd had any brains at all, he should flee to the far corners of the earth and change his identity. He felt like shouting at all of them that he had been summoned here to testify, and that he was not here of his own free will. If he'd had his choice, he would be vacationing in France, spending the money that the government had seized from his father's vaults.

Malfoy sank lower in his seat and tried not to scowl. A person like him could not afford to scowl. Instead, he smiled at everyone, trying to look as pleasant as possible, but he suspected his attempt at pleasantries merely made them more uncomfortable. He settled for staring forward, pretending not to notice anyone at all, and thinking about the old days before he had realized it was a luxury to be able to show exactly how much he hated everyone around him.

Just then a clerk walked in from the side door and stumbled a little over the worn groove on the floor. Her stumble caused a quiet thud to reverberate throughout the room. Malfoy noticed her instantly. She was a young woman, draped in black robes that were too big for her, and sporting a ceremonial white wig that sat on her head at the wrong angle. She had missed a few strands of chestnut brown hair, which stuck to the back of her thin neck. Malfoy found those little hairs captivating for some reason, perhaps because he was afraid to look anywhere else in the room, or perhaps because there was something in the woman's manner that made him feel a special affinity with her. He watched her take her seat, examining the table by the judge's box with the diffident eye of a person who has obviously never been at that table before.

She set down several stacks of papers and laid out an empty pad of paper directly in front of her. She was facing the audience, scanning it, looking afraid that they might see her doing it. Malfoy could sense her nervousness, but he chose to believe that she was not accustomed to feeling nervous and that this was a rare occasion. He liked to picture her as a stranger in this environment, like himself, here only by necessity. He wondered what was making her so uncomfortable, whether it was the first day of her job or whether she had a pressing appointment after the hearings.

He stared unabashedly at her, waiting for her eyes to glaze over his form as she completed her survey of the crowd gathered. Would she recognize him and react the same way as the others, he wondered? As her gaze flitted back and forth over the room, Malfoy slouched even lower in his seat. He felt that her discovery would disappoint him and began to wish she would pass him over. Unfortunately, he had chosen a seat in the middle of the room, in the front. She was scanning the wings now, but any moment she would look directly ahead, and then she would see him. The inevitable moment came, and Malfoy met her eyes. She did indeed recognize him. The woman paled. His own face grew hot.

He had been staring at Hermione Granger.

Immediately, Granger looked down at her papers, rubbing her right hand as if she'd been burnt. Malfoy gulped, recalling that the last time he had seen Hermione Granger, that hand had been aiming her wand at his head; only then she had been the picture of calm. Now she seemed afraid. She shuffled through the stacks of papers, refusing to look up at him. Eventually, she called over one of the Aurors standing guard at the door and whispered something in his ear.

The guard strode over to Malfoy's direction, leaned over the bar and conveyed Granger's message. "I'm afraid you cannot sit here."

Malfoy frowned, tried his best not to show how irritated he was at being told what to do, and replied, "Tell the young lady that I don't want to move."

The Auror motioned for Malfoy to leave the seats. It was an authoritative gesture, almost rude. "It is not a matter of what you want. The clerk informs me that you are a witness, and witnesses must be sequestered outside."

Malfoy's jaw twitched, and he glanced at Granger, who was still staring too intently at the papers in front of her to be reading them in earnest. She was flexing her right hand. In their days at school he would never have done anything she asked of him, whether it was in accordance with the rules or not. Yet he stood, gathering his robes around him, and departed.

---

Percy Weasley's hearing was the next to last on the docket. There had been ten hearings before his. Hermione's hand was aching at this point, but this was her fault because she had lacked the foresight to swipe a QuickNotes Quill from the supplies room. Now there was nothing to do but go on taking notes.

Her hand was not so tired as to cause her to forget how it had tingled earlier when he had been in the room, propelling an old memory that she had never managed to forget into the forefront of her thoughts. Hermione sucked in her breath, pushing the pictures away, forcing herself to go on. She didn't know what would be more unpleasant this day: to listen to the examination of Ron's brother or to sit in the same room with Draco Malfoy.

Eventually, the current hearing ended. The accused was reeled down from the cage. A new one was cranked up, the eleventh of the day. Percy Weasley, 825 Wimpole Street, Hogsmeade, England. Ambitious, youthful, handsome. He possessed a talent for pleasing his superiors, but exercised poor judgment in selecting whom to please. He had been disowned by his father before his twentieth birthday, and they had never reconciled. Their feud had been of long enough duration that people no longer thought of one when the other was mentioned.

A few coughs came from the audience, while Percy Weasley squirmed in his seat, eyeing the spikes within the cage pointed at his eyes and neck. He wore the striped prisoner's uniform. His hair was unkempt, his beard unshaven. There were dark circles underneath his eyes.

There was a long pause as the magistrate scribbled a few words in his own notes concerning the previous case.

"Do you know why you are here today, Mr. Weasley?" questioned Ansel Applegate, chief magistrate of the Ministry Court. His voice, which boomed across the courtroom, was meant to intimidate and elicit last minute confessions, and in this respect it was effective. For this reason and no other had Applegate been appointed to his judgeship.

Percy shook in his cage, diminished. Hermione scribbled a note that Applegate would appreciate, "Accused seems distressed by possible reprehension," and decided she would not look at him again for the duration of the hearing.

"Mr. Weasley, you are charged with forging official documents for several known Death Eaters. Do you understand the serious nature of the consequences with which you are faced?"

"I didn't know what I was doing," Percy whimpered, his voice coming out in a hoarse croak. Hermione wondered when it was he had drunk water last. "Fudge handed me a packet of files and told me to change a few things in one folder and destroy the ones in others. I couldn't have guessed…"

"You are an ambitious man, Mr. Weasley?"

Hermione swallowed, knowing this was one of the points she had written down for Applegate to bring up.

Weasley did not answer right away, contemplating how each possible answer might be used against him. "I hoped to go far," he finally said. "But that does not mean that…"

"You were raised in less than ideal circumstances, yes? Economically, speaking that is."

"Yes, that is true, but…"

"You felt that you did not have the same opportunities as others from larger income families?"

"Yes," he answered. Hermione felt all the shame of her betrayal. This entire line of questioning had been her idea. At the time, she had consoled herself with the fact that Percy really was guilty. He probably had not known precisely what he was doing when he had done it, but he must have sensed that it was wrong. Furthermore, intent was not part of the criminal offense with which he had been charged. Yet, prying into his family history like this, re-connecting him to Arthur and Ron and the others seemed treasonous.

Applegate continued. "Did you ever feel that your lesser background entitled you to take certain short cuts?"

"No, and if you are suggesting that I…"

"ORDER!"

Hermione quailed with each impact of the gavel that overpowered Percy's adamant self-defense. Malfoy's entrance was imminent, she sensed.

"Did you ever doctor official papers concerning reports made to the Ministry about Death Eater activity?"

Percy's voice warbled. "I don't know."

"Did you ever accept bribes from Death Eaters to burn records or change them so as to reduce the government's suspicion of their activities?"

"No!"

"The Court has summoned Draco Malfoy in order to testify at this evidentiary hearing that he has proof that you accepted bribes from the late Lucius Malfoy. Will this change your answer? Perjury is a criminal offense punishable by five years imprisonment, Mr. Weasley. You are already facing over a decade in Azkaban."

Percy Weasley took a deep, audible breath, before he answered with perfect confidence, "It does not change my answer. I never accepted a bribe, nor will I ever."

"Bring in Mr. Malfoy."

It was ironic that Malfoy was to provide testimony against a man accused of aiding Death Eaters, and no one acquainted with his past would require an explanation of why it was ironic. Malfoy's history was well-known throughout the Wizard community. At one point it had been breakfast table talk. The only reason he wasn't behind bars was because no one had been found to provide conclusive proof against him. Hermione suspected most of the people who could have testified against him had been blackmailed. As for herself, well that was a personal matter.

Hermione heard the door swing open, but she refused to look up from her notes. It would have been ideal if she could raise her head and meet Draco's eyes as if he was a perfect stranger, but Hermione did not trust herself not to become flustered. A year ago or two, she could have done it, but not with all these people staring on, whispering their malicious speculations about her to their friends and relatives. Anyway, she didn't need to look up to know what was happening. Right now Malfoy was entering the court room, his father's cloak billowing behind him. His silver blonde hair had fallen in his eyes, of course. He would grin at everything and everyone, but his eyes would be hateful. Probably, he was stopping to look at her before he climbed into the witness box, having a good mental laugh at her wretchedness. She knew that he didn't care if a mudblood like her heard him lie under oath.

"Draco Malfoy," he stated for the record. "1547 Tallygrange Court, London."

Tallygrange Court. A numbered flat, not Malfoy Manor. Hermione tried not to care. Her right hand trembled as she took notes on the proceedings that followed. The writing was uneven, illegible. She would have to rewrite this section before turning it into Applegate. Every word he spoke was a torment to her, as Hermione listened to Malfoy's testimony based upon which Percy Weasley would be sent to trial, no doubt to be convicted beyond a reasonable doubt. He delivered it in that same arrogant tone he had used in their schooldays when he had been so confident of his superiority. Hermione transcribed it mindlessly, deciding she would think about its content later.

"My father came home from the Ministry and took my mother aside."

"And what did he tell her, Mr. Malfoy?"

"He told her that we didn't have to worry. That Percy Weasley had accepted twenty galleons to 'lose' reports to Fudge concerning my parents' presence at a gathering of the You-Know-Who's followers."

Malfoy had said 'You-Know-Who," but he really meant 'The Dark Lord.' Hermione hated the easy way he could mask his true loyalties. He was a man without boundaries, swaying back and forth between sides with predictable grace, like the pendulum of a clock. Hermione could measure the years of the war based on his confused allegiances, the simpering peacock; and even now she did not know where he truly stood.

"Mr. Malfoy," said Applegate as if he could read her mind, "Do you have any interest in the outcome of this hearing?"

"No, Your Honour," he said, seeming less pleased.

"Then this court can state for the record that your testimony is reliable and true?"

"You can, Your Honour."

Hermione wrote a short note in the margins of her notes, "Authenticated." However, if Hermione had been the judge, nothing would have convinced her so much of Percy's innocence as adverse testimony from Draco Malfoy.

---

He was sipping from the water fountain when the side door opened and Hermione emerged. It was plain from her obvious distress that she had not seen him. If she had, Malfoy was certain she would have made every effort to compose herself. As it was, she had yanked her wig off in a second and was gasping for air, fanning herself with her notepad.

It is a wholly feminine gesture, and something she always did when overheated. Malfoy recalled an entire summer where he watched her from afar, memorizing her every movement, not because he was in love with her, mind you, but because she had appeared to him to be the most gullible: The key to his plan. He had admired her, though; and who was to say there hadn't been dreams.

Granger wiped her brow with the back of her hand. That hand moved lower to her mouth, which she covered as if stifling a cry. Malfoy felt himself become aroused. His lack of control angered him. He felt she ought to be made to suffer for causing it, and he could no longer to keep her in ignorance of his presence.

"Hello, Granger," he snapped, keeping his voice hard.

Her head whipped up in an instant, and her whole demeanor changed. They were standing five meters apart, yet she stepped back to increase the distance between them. Her papers and the wig dropped to the floor, freeing her hands. Malfoy half expected her to pull out her wand and curse him.

"Bet you never thought you'd see me again," he said.

"Not alive, no," she replied.

Her make-up was smeared around her eyes, and her hair was pressed flat against the top of her head, a little damp with her sweat. People began to exit the courtroom, and a few came to swipe a drink of water. Granger looked noticeably uncomfortable as the onrush of officials swarmed around her, passing her on their way back to work. She broke eye contact with him and began fidgeting with her hair, turning away from him to watch the traffic in the hall.

She was expecting a reply, of course, and Malfoy tried to think of a good insult, but he suddenly realized he had nothing. He didn't hate her anymore. Far from it, he fell to admiring the shape of her lips and the angle of her cheek. This unwelcome revelation brought a different kind of hostility to mind.

"Better pick up your notes," he began, prepared to follow this mundane statement with a scathing statement about showing off her rear end. Before he could finish, however, Hermione Granger had turned and left, retrieving her belongings via the Accio spell when she was half way down the hall.

Malfoy couldn't flatter himself that she had fled from fear. Knowing Granger, she had simply deemed him unworthy of the waste of breath. This was a new development, and one he did not like. As he watched her retreating figure disappear around the corner, Malfoy was confronted with the disturbing notion that he would like nothing so much as for her to come back.

---

Ron was waiting in Hermione office when she returned. He was sitting at her chair, leaning his head on his hands and looking morose. He hadn't even removed his coat and scarf. His gloves were strewn over a stack of papers to his right. The first question he asked upon seeing her was, "Is it over?"

"No," she answered, closing the door behind her, even though it was a cramped room for two people that required ventilation. "There will be a trial. He'll probably receive twenty years."

"Parole?"

"It's not likely. Not during this administration, at any rate."

Hermione dropped her papers and the wig on the desk and embraced him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and kissing the top of his head. His cheek was pressed into her bosom. Strangely, her right hand was still tingling from an old memory, and her mind was still full of Draco Malfoy.

"Mum'll be beside herself. I suppose…I suppose he deserved it, the bastard."

"No he didn't," she said. "But it's the law."

Before she could go on about the injustice of the Ministry's decrees, Ron disentangled himself from her arms and took her hand, patting it fondly. Hermione knew this meant the conversation was over, and she tried not to feel frustrated by how swiftly he could close himself off from her.

"Ron, it's all right to feel upset," she told him.

He laughed at her, squirming under the gravity of their discussion. He had never been good at being serious, and the onset of manhood and done nothing to change this. Hermione had always assumed he would grow out of his emotional shyness, and he had in certain respects. To her he was loving and thoughtful, something he had not been in their youth; but in the matter of his own affairs he was far too apt to keep his feelings to himself. Ron did not understand how it hurt her to be shut out from his life.

"Come with me shopping," he said, obviously thinking this would wipe the frown from her face. "My boss is having a sort of Christmas-silver anniversary party, and I'm no good at picking out knickknacks for gifts. I know you've probably done your shopping already, but maybe you can browse the bookshop while we're there."

"I have work," she protested, falling back on her customary excuse. Ron hadn't stopped to think that Hermione did not have enough money for books, and that it pained her to watch the easy way he spend his money. His recent successes had caused him to forget all about what it was like to be poor.

"Skive off," he said. "Please? For me?" He kissed the knuckles on her hand and made a funny face, his puppy face she called it. Hermione felt rather that it ought to persuade her than that it actually had. But relenting, Hermione pulled her hand free and motioned for him to get out of her chair. "Can you wait an hour or so?"

---

Ron wound up choosing a silver pocket watch on his own. It was tasteful, masculine and expensive, but he could afford such things, whereas Hermione couldn't even dream of a future involving a decent flat. She knew that she could accept his proposal and be his wife, but that would mean giving up on winning back her reputation, or worse, his own might be sullied, his career ruined by association with a "confirmed Death Eater sympathizer." Hermione knew that Ron would resent her for it, no matter how vehemently he denied it at present.

"But someday," she had promised.

She held up the little white box in which the watch was enclosed. Against her recommendation, Ron had asked the salesclerk to tie a silver ribbon around it, not understanding Hermione's reasons for objecting. It was his boss' silver anniversary, after all. Everything was going to be silver.

Hermione couldn't blame Ron for going against her wishes concerning the ribbon. He couldn't have known about the silver ribbon she kept folded and hidden in a copy of "Witches and Wizards." He would never have guessed how many times she had taken that ribbon and ran her fingers over it, wondering about a man she'd be better off forgetting entirely. Besides, it was Ron's boss and Ron's boss' party. She wasn't even going, so what did it matter what packaging he picked?

Ron had left her by the book shop, holding his packages, so he could go look at a new broom in a store around the corner. Hermione stared down at the little box, annoyed to be holding someone else's present. With a sigh, she entered the shop, smiling as she smelled the familiar scent of parchment and printed ink.

The ground floor was bustling with holiday shoppers, so much so that it was impossible to browse at her preferred pace. The stacks above, however, contained scholarly histories and analyses that no one from the general public was much interested in, and the quiet atmosphere high above everyone else looked inviting. Hermione climbed up the winding steel staircase that led towards that section and began to peruse the tightly packed shelves, glittering with scads of freshly printed books with gleaming covers. She walked the aisles for a long time without choosing anything, but at some length she spotted an interesting title on the bottom shelf. Unfortunately, when she bent over to pull it from the shelf, the watch box slipped out of her hands and fell to the floor. Grumbling over inconsiderate boyfriends, she inched forward and reached for it. Just as she touched the box, however, she gasped in surprise, for another hand was closing over hers.

Hermione knew whose hand it was before she saw his face. She recognized the ring upon his hand, a simple silver band bearing the worn crest of Slytherin House and the year of his graduation. His hand was warm over hers; only the metal of the ring was cold.

"Malfoy," she whispered by way of a greeting. Just as in the courtroom, she could not bring herself to meet his eyes. Together they stood up, both still clutching the box. Her heart was beating so hard she thought her chest would collapse.

Inevitably, he ruined the moment.

"What's this, Granger?" he demanded, bringing her head up so she was looking directly at him. Except for a few new lines around his eyes and mouth, he was the same snotty prat she'd known from school. "Present for your boyfriend?"

"Fiancé," she said without thinking. Hermione's mouth twitched at the lie. Malfoy seemed to grow angrier, if that was possible. His grey eyes were flashing.

"What is it? A diamond necklace to go with his ring? Did you get down on one knee and beg? I can't imagine him proposing."

Hermione shrugged off his insults, which were less offensive than they were calculated to bring forth personal information that she was unwilling to divulge. In fact, they were oddly personal. She tried to think whether the best route of escape was to push around Malfoy and take the short route down the stairs, or to retrace her steps and take the long way, hoping she could lose him in the stacks.

She chose to push around him, and this turned out to be a mistake. He reached out and seized her by the forearm. The physical contact was startling. His touch was gentle as it lingered, yet she wrenched her arm away as if she had been burnt. Then she was sorry she had not let his hand remain, for she no longer had any excuse not to run down the steps. It was of her own volition that she stayed, flanked by him and the cramped stacks, with his shoulder pressed against hers, and his breath puffing out against her forehead. The years had not diminished the attraction between them one iota, and he was too close. They had never kissed, she realized.

"Did he ever get around to snogging you, or is he saving that for your tenth anniversary?"

"If I'm marrying him, Malfoy, then I think the answer to that is obvious," she snapped, then regretted that she had deigned to speak to him for such a silly remark. She tried to back away, but the shelves behind her prevented such an action.

"Are you going to buy a house or live in a bin with your in-laws?"

Hermione snorted. "You should talk, '1547 Tallygrange Court.' Ring a bell, Malfoy?"

He pushed away from her then and turned away. Hermione guessed his face was screwed up in one of his more evil-looking glares. For a moment, she awaited his reply, but then she realized that this was her chance to escape. Pausing only a moment more, Hermione brushed by him and down the stacks.

When she got to the stairs, she heard a pair of shoes clanking on the steps behind her. He was following her, she realized with a groan. This made her descend faster.

At the foot of the steps, Malfoy caught her by the hand and spun her around. He pressed something hard into the palm of her hand, and to Hermione's chagrin she saw it was Ron's present for his boss. She'd forgotten it.

"Forget something, Granger?" he asked with a laugh.

Hermione cast a glance to her left and right, hoping no one had seen Draco Malfoy hand her anything. Malfoy saw her do it.

"Are you running away because you don't want to be seen with me? Because if that's the case, I'm shocked. I never knew you to care what others thought, Granger."

"You think you're so smart, Malfoy," she said, pulling her hand and the box out from his grasp.

"I think I'm right," he answered. "And I'm offended that you're so keen to bolt away from me. We used to be such good friends."

Hermione never recalled a single minute when she and Malfoy could have been good friends. She knew of a lone winter, when Harry and Ron and Ginny had been off looking for Horcruxes while she remained behind, nursing her wounds. Malfoy had been her only companion who was the same age, but he had been kept in a locked room most of the time: Her prisoner, but certainly not her friend. It wasn't until the beginning of the summer that anyone had offered to let him out, and by then the others had returned. She hadn't given him much thought after that. Except for one day, when she had dropped her book on the floor…

"We were never friends," she spat before heading for the exit. She didn't know whether he followed her or not, because outside the shop she immediately found Ron.

"Great timing!" he exclaimed, pulling his hands from his pockets. His cheeks and nose were flushed from the cold, but he looked as happy as he'd ever been. "I was just coming to find you." He put an arm around her shoulder and led her to a safe spot where they could apparate to the Burrow.

"You'll never believe what I bought for Ginny," he exclaimed with a laugh.

"A broom?" countered Hermione, stating what she believed to be obvious. "What else could you have been doing in a broom shop?"

"Yes yes, but can you believe that I just bought my sister a broom? I didn't even have to put it on credit! It's great not to be poor."

Hermione scowled at him in spite of herself. Nothing reminded her so much of her lack of success as the Christmas season. Yet it was unfair of her to envy Ron's success when it made him so happy, but the angry part of her said that he should know better than to flaunt his new found wealth in this way. After all, Harry had never talked about his riches in front of Ron because he had known how uncomfortable it would make him. Oughtn't Ron extend her the same courtesy? She felt strangely detached from Ron in a way that she hadn't before. She had known him all her life, and yet standing there listening to him talk about things that didn't matter to her, she felt as though here were a stranger and that the boy she had loved was gone. It made her sad, so sad in fact that she drove the possibility from her mind. Ron was her soulmate. Yet Hermione continued to drown out his extended description of the broom's capabilities and specifications, doubting she would have cared even if she made a million galleons per annum.

His obsession with Quidditch was something she had learned to put up with over the years. Occasionally, she would even find it endearing, but today was not one of those occasions. The endless Quidditch talk bothered her. Didn't he want to know if she'd found anything in the bookshop that she might want for Christmas? Maybe he would care to know that Draco Malfoy had been eyeing up his girl, and that Malfoy's breath smelled like peppermint and spice and that she had liked it.

Hermione peered over her shoulder as they walked further away from the store, and saw Draco Malfoy standing outside, watching her leave him behind. When he noticed her watching him back, he smiled, just like a man who had just made his peace with God. She couldn't help but meet his gaze, and before she knew what she was doing, Hermione had stopped completely.

Beside her, Ron turned around to find whatever it was she was gaping at.

"You know, I've heard so many rumors about you two over the years."

Her heart stopped, and she looked up helplessly at Ron. Despite her earlier frustration with Ron, Hermione loved him. He was the last good thing in her life. Could she lose him over a lustful crush? Don't look guilty, she told herself.

Then Ron laughed, and Hermione realized he had been joking, and her fears dropped away like the details of a bad dream. She stifled a sigh of relief. "C'mon, let's go home before he tries to talk to us," she said, linking her arm with Ron's and pulling him away.

"What makes you think he'd want to talk to us?" he asked, suddenly refusing to budge.

"Nothing," said Hermione, feigning innocence.

"Has he already tried to talk to you?" Ron demanded. His cheeks that had been rosy from the cold grew even redder as his temper stirred.

"Oh well…maybe I saw him after the hearing," she said.

"And I bet that git was there trying to stir up trouble, as if you needed any more."

"Really, Ron, I don't think…"

"I'll kill him," he stated, wheeling on his heel and reaching for his wand, stored in the pocket of his robes. Hermione seized him by the arm and hauled him back.

"Please, Ron! Don't make a scene."

"He probably wants more fodder for blackmail," cried Ron, practically shaking from the fury building inside him. "He's doing everything he can to stay out of prison. You know, he signed a plea bargain in exchange for his testimony against…well, you know."

"Percy?" Hermione was unsurprised to learn that Malfoy had received something in exchange for his testimony.

"Yeah, him. And it was a bunch of lies, just rubbish. Percy may have been a stupid prat, but he would never…" Suddenly, Ron deflated without explanation. He grew somber when he met her eye.

"Stay away from him, Hermione," said Ron, taking her by the hand. "You're too good hearted, and he'd only try to take advantage of it."

Hermione nodded, frightened by his unexpected insight. "I know."

---

In the morning, flowers mysteriously appeared for her in the mailroom, "Compliments of Draco Malfoy for Miss Granger." The message was written in large, dark lettering, and everyone in the Department must have seen them. He'd done this on purpose, of course. Embarrassed, and a little frightened, Hermione made an equally public display of casting the Incendio spell over the little bouquet.

Hermione had to admit, however, that it didn't seem like Malfoy's style. He had never enjoyed taking credit for his schemes at school. She had always thought he was only cruel out of necessity, either because someone was making him be that way or because he had some deep-seated loathing of others that longed to be expressed. Yet here he was, flouting his so called affection for her in front of all her co-workers, knowing what they would think of her for associating with him of all people. Did he mean to coerce her into doing him a favor?

Hermione rushed from the mailroom to the elevator as fast as she could, convinced that everyone in the office knew she had received flowers from Draco Malfoy and that they were whispering behind her back.

She calculated in her mind exactly how many days it would take before she was called up to Applegate's office and told that he was letting her go. After that, there would be no new job and no way to pay her bills or feed herself. She would have to go home to her parents and beg them to help her. Perhaps she would have to go back to school in the muggle world to qualify herself for a good, muggle job. That would take years! And she would have to give up all hope of ever reclaiming her reputation.

When she arrived at her own office, she found another bouquet of flowers spell-o-taped to the door bearing the note, "In case you destroyed the first one. –Draco"

She half expected him to be waiting inside her office when she opened the door, but she met an empty room. Scanning from left to right, and seeing no sign of anyone, Hermione sat down at her chair and laid her head upon the desk. She hurled the flowers in the direction of the rubbish, but knew from the metallic clang that followed that she had hit the filing cabinet instead.

Immediately thereafter came a rap at her door. Hermione jumped, sure it was Malfoy. Her eyes skirted around the room in search of a suitable hiding place, but the only spot was under her desk. He would sniff that out in seconds.

"Come in," she relented.

Her statement was followed by the tentative creak of her door as it opened. Just then Hermione realized the silhouette beyond the pane of frosted glass in her door was too small to be a man. And whoever it was on the otherside was opening her door too carefully for it to be Malfoy. Hermione couldn't quite push aside the disappointment she felt when Regina King, one of Applegate's mousy secretaries, stuck her head around the door.

"Miss Granger?" she said. The woman's uncertainty, of course, stemmed from never having been to this part of the Ministry before. Regina was probably afraid she had stumbled upon some broom closet.

"Yes, Mrs. King?" called Hermione, immediately sitting up straight, like a trained bear who has just heard the crack of a whip.

Regina came fully around the door, holding four bouquets of flowers: two in each and one under each arm. "These came for you, Miss," she explained. "The judge is allergic, you know. He ordered me to throw them out, but I thought you might like to see them first."

Hermione stood up and snatched the bouquets from her grasp. "Did you see who they were from?" she asked, startling Regina with the rudeness of her tone.

"No," she said. "But whoever it is, you should tell him to send flowers directly to your office and not to the mailroom. I'm not a delivery boy, after all, and I have too much work to do to be bothered with other people's love lives."

"Love life?" said Hermione with a forced laugh. "He's…it's not…"

With a little shrug Regina left the office, evidently not caring a jot for Hermione Granger's personal affairs, either because she truly didn't care, or (what was more likely) because she thought she already knew about them.

Thus, Hermione was abandoned in possession of five bouquets of flowers, all of which were so strongly scented that her office smelled like a perfume shop and she could barely breathe. One by one she vanished them all, but she couldn't help wondering whether there wouldn't be six more bouquets waiting for her in the morning.

It had to stop. Hermione pulled out a sheet of stationery and began to scribble a note to Malfoy. When it was finished she stared at it, knowing that once she sent it she would have destroyed everything she stood for.

---

Draco Malfoy apparated to the location specified in Hermione's note and stared at the building's crumbling façade. It was not the sort of place he had expected one of Harry Potter's minions to dwell in. The people walking by seemed decent enough, but lower class nevertheless. Hard workers with not a knut to their names. Perhaps this was some sort of ruse, he thought.

In the end his curiosity got the better of him. Malfoy entered the building, which smelled like an antique shop, the floors of which had been scrubbed with urine. He made his way up the creaking stairs and found the flat to which he had been directed. Her door was on the second story at the end of the staircase, apart from the other doors, as if to say that nothing that was Hermione Granger's could be anything but isolated. Malfoy had only to knock once before the door swung open and revealed Hermione, still wearing her work clothes. She had obviously been waiting behind the door, and she was fidgeting with her hands and her hair. As far as Malfoy could tell, she had not applied make-up. Nor was she pleased to see him. Malfoy was dismayed to realize that this was not to be a romantic encounter. Up to that point, he hadn't understood how much he'd wanted it to be romantic. He'd told himself that he would have some fun at her expense, and that all he wanted was to see one of Potter's friends squirm. Not that he was in love with her, because he wasn't.

"Hello," he managed. "Nice flat," he said, not meaning it at all. He hoped she felt insulted. Instead, Granger barely acknowledged him. She seemed to be engaging in some great mental struggle. "I think my house elves had a room like this once, but I never went there except for one time, so I really couldn't say."

When she persisted in ignoring him, Malfoy had no choice except to shut up. Besides, considering her "Tallygrange" comment, she must already have known about his financial circumstances, and it wasn't any fun to tease a person about being poor when you were poor yourself.

"Thank you for coming," she began, formally. To Malfoy, her words sounded rehearsed.

"You didn't put out any of my flowers," he said, sweeping into the middle of the flat without being asked in. "They were expensive, and as you well know, I haven't got as much money as I once did."

"I hated your flowers," she stated. "And I hate you."

Malfoy just smiled. Sometimes a caged animal, which has been starved, grows so weak that it can no longer remember how to be an animal; but once it is given food and regains some of its strength, it will pounce on the person who fed it, forgetting anything other than the meanness it had learned in captivity. Granger looked like a caged cat.

Then again, Malfoy comforted himself, Granger could never hate anybody, no matter how hard she tried. It was one of the few things she wasn't any good at.

"Oooh, I'm shaking with disappointment," he laughed, daring to approach her. He felt pleased when she backed herself into the door. She looked so helpless.

"I burnt them," she offered further explanation. "And I would appreciate it if you would desist from sending me any other tokens of your undying devotion in the future." The way Granger said 'undying devotion,' a person would have thought she was discussing the abominable snowman's vacation to Jamaica. Malfoy found it cute when she wrinkled her nose as she concentrated so hard on appearing like she loathed him. He almost believed her.

"I asked you to come here because…" Granger trailed off, aware that he had come quite close. Malfoy saw her brain working, calculating how best to avoid being pinned to the door.

"Don't worry, I'll stop sending you flowers," he said, still advancing. "I can't afford more anyway."

"Y…you'll leave me alone?" she squeaked. Malfoy didn't dignify that with an answer, but noticed that she was paying more attention to his mouth than she was to his words. She licked her lips. He leaned down even lower in order to reel her in. Just then a thought occurred to him.

"Where's your fiancé, Granger?" he inquired, catching her off guard.

"Don't change the subject," she practically purred.

"Does he live here?"

Malfoy pressed his mouth up against her ear, then moved to do the same to the other. Granger trembled beneath his touch. She didn't answer him at first, perhaps unwilling to divulge any meaningful information, but now Malfoy was pressed against her body. He positioned his right leg in between hers and was staring down at her, just centimeters from her mouth, daring her to stop him.

"No," she finally answered. Then she did the most surprising thing. She yanked him down by his collar and kissed him full on the mouth. Her tongue tasted like mint. He could feel her nipples poking at him through the thin fabric of their robes, and knew she had been aroused long before his arrival. As she moaned into his mouth, Malfoy reached underneath the folds of her robes and found the smooth skin of her thigh…

---

Afterwards, they lay entwined together on her bed, face to face, staring into each other's eyes. His hands were tangled in her hair, and hers were resting beneath the covers. It was an intimate posture, and Malfoy was surprised that he allowed it. Yet he couldn't stop touching her.

"Why did you send for me?" he asked, momentarily pausing from the anointment of her face with his kisses. "Really?"

"Because you wouldn't stop sending me flowers," she answered, impulsively bringing up one hand to brush the hair from his eyes. She rested one cool palm on his brow.

"And that's all?" he said, not believing her.

"I needed to see you," she answered, but there was something in her voice that seemed to show she was hiding something. Whatever it was, Malfoy liked her answer. He chose to ignore her mysterious meaning.

"I thought you hated me," he teased her.

"I did," she admitted. "But the feeling comes and goes."

"When did you stop?"

A great sigh escaped her, as if she had been holding it in for a long time. Then, at last she confessed, "When we were at the Order's Headquarters, in the summer. I can pin it to the day and the hour. I was reading a book," she began, smiling at her recollection as if she were recalling her first kiss.

"Witches and Wizards," said Malfoy, picturing a younger Hermione Granger bent over her novel, ignoring his sneers completely. He couldn't help but join her narrative. "I remember that. I couldn't stop staring at you and wondering what was so fascinating about the story that had made you forget all about being in the same room with me."

"I saw you staring," she admitted. "You'd been staring at me all summer, but that was the first time I'd ever seen you look at me without loathing. I was so shocked that I dropped my book. I'd been using a piece of ribbon as a bookmark that had been attached to a Christmas present from Ron and I had kept it as a memento."

"Poor Weasley," he said, thinking how nice it would be if Weasley walked in on them rolling around together on Granger bed. He said as much out loud, but realized afterwards that this had been a mistake. Granger froze in his embrace, presumably guilty over the mention of her fiance's name.

"Don't you want to hear the rest of the story?" she whispered, a little desperately.

It was not that Malfoy didn't care, but in truth he didn't really want to hear the rest because he had spotted a particularly tempting spot on her neck that he wanted to kiss, and he already knew how the story was going to end. "Not really," he said, moving in to nibble the place in question.

"You bent over and reached for it at the same time I did…"

"You've been obsessing all this time because I tried to pick up your ribbon and your hand happened to get in my way?" he interrupted her with a laugh. "How do you know I was doing it for you? Maybe I wanted to keep it for myself."

Granger looked scandalized, but was apparently determined to go on. "When our hands touched I stopped hating you," she finished in one breath, like a novice actress, who wants to get her part over quickly. "But I hate you again now, so it doesn't matter."

"Since when?" he asked, unconcerned. "Because I don't believe you. I hear that you keep refusing to give evidence against me. That doesn't sound like hatred."

"Since you went back to the Death Eaters," she replied, but Malfoy knew she was lying.

"I didn't want to go back to them," he corrected her. "I had no choice. As I recall, Granger, some angry witch had her wand pointed at my head. Before I had a chance to explain, she told me to run or die."

Unable to help herself, Granger arched into his mouth. She was responsive to everything he did, and he reveled in it. "I believe I said that I would kill you if I ever saw you again," she said.

A few minutes passed in a silence filled only by the moving of hands and mouths, but when Malfoy moved over her, Granger looked him square in the eye and said, "I'm still going to marry Ron."

"What a liar you are," he laughed.

Her reply was stifled by a moan, and he did not hear it.

---

Christmas morning came and brought with it several warning signs that Malfoy would never have ignored if he had the chance to do it all over again. First of all, Granger was sitting on the bed, fully clothed and freshly groomed. She was wearing a ridiculous knitted Christmas sweater, bearing the letter 'H' on the front. Secondly, she refused to meet his eyes when he first awoke. Thirdly, she made no answer whenever he asked her a question.

"I suppose you're the hit and run type," she said at length, alluding to their present situation. "But if you can hold out for half an hour, I'd be grateful."

Malfoy rubbed his drowsy eyes. "If we're not going to have any more fun, then get me my trousers."

"Certainly," she said, fetching them from the next room.

"What's going on?" he asked her when she returned.

Granger's answer was to throw his trousers at his head. Then she walked to the window overlooking the street and looked outside as he leaped from the bed.

"I didn't mean for last night to happen," she explained, with a deliberate care.

"But it still happened to you," he retorted, "Over and over and over and over again." Then, with his trousers on, but unfastened, he strode over to Hermione and kissed her roughly, possessively, as if he could convey through his kiss that she was his. When she did not respond, he pulled away. Where had the girl from last night gone? Malfoy moved in to kiss her again, hoping he might revive her. As he did, however, he saw her eyes flicker to something outside the window that turned out to be a pair of figures on the street. There were no footprints in the thin layer of snow behind them, meaning they had apparated specifically to this location. They strode towards the apartment building, reaching into their robes in order to pull out their wands.

At first Malfoy did not understand, but then he saw their faces. Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley. Their Auror badges were flashing in the morning light. Despite himself, a little bit of fear crept into his heart. They would tear him limb from limb if they found him here with Granger.

"Where's my wand?" he asked, reaching into the pocket of his trousers where he usually kept it. There was nothing there.

He looked to Granger only to found her silently weeping. She showed no sign of having heard his request.

"Give me my wand," he demanded of her, his eyes darting to the pair of Aurors just now leaving his sight as they entered the building.

Slowly, Granger shook her head. Then, without warning, Granger stepped back and held up her own wand pointed at his neck, and Malfoy knew she wasn't going to tell him to run this time.

"I called them here," she said, alluding to her friends, now making their way up the stairs. "And when they take you away, I've promised to testify against you in a court of law. In exchange, I will be removed from the blacklist. Quid pro quo, Malfoy. Something you're familiar with."

Malfoy waited for her to capitulate in tears and tell him to run for his life as she once had. He simply could not believe Granger was capable of this level of deception. She couldn't have lured him here on purpose to bait him with a sense of security, only to snatch it from him hours later. And why had she cheated on Weasley? To make Malfoy's defeat all the more satisfying? She had never been vindictive. He simply couldn't fathom the possibility. And yet, she did nothing to help him. She didn't even show remorse.

"Well, you are a cheeky little mudblood, aren't you?" Malfoy exclaimed. "I never thought you'd find the guts."

"I've protected you for years," she said, showing true anger for the first time since he'd come into the flat. Behind her voice were the years of uncertainty, self-loathing and regret. "I was demoted, blacklisted, reviled, distrusted, all in the hopes that a little worm like you would redeem yourself someday."

"I've been blacklisted too, you selfish cow," he growled. "I didn't have a chance to do anything."

"'You never had a choice, you don't have a chance,'" she mocked him. "You're a coward, Draco Malfoy!"

"Look at you, Granger," he cried. "You want me, but you're afraid to be seen with me in public because you don't want your boss to fire you from your pitiful job as an ass-kisser. You can't even keep a harmless bouquet of flowers."

Just then, Malfoy heard the sound of the front door opening.

"Hermione!" called two anxious voices from the front of the flat. "Are you all right?" They would be here within seconds. Malfoy knew he couldn't have run for it if he'd tried. He did the only thing he could think of and slapped her hard across the face, an answer to her betrayal.

Malfoy flushed red when Granger didn't even look surprised. "I knew you would do that," she said. "I only wish I'd realized sooner what a pathetic little bastard you are!"

"And you," he spat. "My father didn't hate mudbloods because they were stupid or inferior. It's because you invade our world and destroy it! You're so anxious to please that you'd feed your own children to the wolves to fit in. You haven't got hearts."

Malfoy felt the sting of her spittle as it shot into his eye. And that was when Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter came to drag him away. When he saw Granger quaking in the corner, having witnessed her whole self-image tumble into ash, Malfoy decided not to put up a fight. He had said all that he needed to say.

---

An hour after they left, Hermione still lay on her bed with her face buried into the pillow that had been Malfoy's. Ron and his family would be waiting for her to join their festivities at the Burrow, but she would not face Ron until she had purged every piece of Draco Malfoy from her apartment.

Malfoy's scent was gone from the pillow, for she had charmed it away, but she still had this one last remnant, the ribbon, which she held in her right hand. She tried to remember how warm his hand had been over hers, but the sweetness of the memory was lost forever.

Hermione tried to comfort herself by remembering that she could be taken off the blacklist, that she could leave her job and find a better one, that she could marry Ron without damaging his career. Yet none of this took away her despair. Whatever had made her Hermione Granger was in shambles, and she was dead to the world.

All that was left to her was a silver ribbon and her betrayal.

------------------

The Challenge from Firesorceress1:

Three things you want your fic to include:

1) A silver ribbon (not used for a present or gift)

2) Detachment (as an overall theme)

3) White Christmas

Three things you do not want your fic to include:

1) Rape

2) DM/HG as students at Hogwarts (them being there is

okay)

3) Violent!Harry & Ron