AN: Sorry it's been a while. I kind of froze in this story. But, here it is. I hope you all enjoy, and thanks for taking the time to read this!

Disclaimer: Nope. Don't own Harry Potter. Still. Or ever.

Hermione POV

I rushed out of the fireplace into the Ministry. I could no longer take the looks of sympathy from anyone and I wished I could just apperate straight to the safety of my office, away from sympathetic eyes.

I thought back to yesterday afternoon, and my very brief encounter with Ron. Then I thought back to when Blaise had told me about the story in the Daily Prophet, and had I apperated straight to the Canons practice field where I knew he was practicing.

Cormac was the first person I saw, so I marched straight up to him. He looked up as I stormed up to him and he smiled, "Hey Hermione. How are-"

"Where is he?" I growled, hearing the resentment in my voice.

"Who, Weasley?" he asked dumbly.

"Who else?" I hissed sarcastically.

He looked wounded by my tone and I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes, "He just went onto the pitch."

"Thanks." I mumbled before I quickly went to the pitch.

"Morning Mione. What brings you to the pitch-" the redhead started when he saw me, a smile on his stupid, freckled face.

I pulled out my wand and pointed it as his face, "I am giving you five minutes to explain."

"Whoa there, Mione. Calm down. What's wrong?"

I accioed a copy of the Daily Prophet and shoved in his face, "This…This is what's wrong." I noticed, in horror, tears that threatened to fall. I watched as the look of amusement he had had due to my anger quickly turned to shock.

"Uhm…Mione, I can explain."

"Well, you are now down to three minutes, so you should do so quickly." I said in a deadly calm tone.

"I-I don't know what I was doing. It was a mistake."

"It was not a mistake, Ronald, it was a choice. A choice you made," I jabbed a finger at the headline, "Three girls, Ron. Three. That was not a mistake."

His face flamed a bright red, but not in embarrassment. In anger. "Listen, Hermione. There is no reason to be so bloody unreasonable about this!"

My eyes widened and my jaw dropped in disbelief, "You have got to be joking me! I have every reason! You bloody cheated on me! A week before our wedding!"

"Yea, but only because I won't be able to do that after we get married! I was doing it for you!"

I stared at him as a wave of tears flooded down my face, "That's bloody ridiculous! You cheated on me!

"Calm down, Mione!" The stupid redhead had the nerve to try to put his arm around me. I quickly jumped out of the way and he let out a frustrated sigh, "Mione, just calm down. This time tomorrow, everything will be alright again. It always is. Then, next week, we'll be married, and everything will be perfect."

I frowned at him. Was that what I wanted? Bloody no! He cheated on me! I defiantly don't want that for myself. But what else do I know? I was always supposed to marry him. Everyone thought so. Even back in Hogwarts. But, I helped fight against the Dark Lord. I can take care of myself. I don't need a cheating bastard as my husband.

"I think not, Ronald." I told him coldly. I yanked off my ring—the thing that symbolized our love and commitment to each other—and I threw it in his face. And before he could utter another word, I apperated away.

I shook off the memory. I had already packed all of my stuff from the apartment we had shared and I now had a cozy little room at the Leaky Cauldron. Even though Harry and Ginny had offered to let me stay at their place, I had all but refused. I honestly just needed some time to myself right now.

I looked around to find an available elevator. I quickly rushed toward one that was about to leave and yelled, "Hold the elevator!"

"Oh, no problem, Hermione," said the familiar voice of Blaise Zabini.

"Thanks, Blaise." I murmured to him. No one else was in the elevator, and since we were both going to the same department, it should have been a short trip.

"So, Hermione…" Blaise started.

I cringed. Somehow, I had a feeling he would talk about the whole Ron thing. And since he was good friends with Malfoy…oh God.

"Yea, Blaise?" I asked hesitantly, willing the elevator to go faster.

"I just wanted to say sorry for what happened with Weasley. It really does suck."

"Yea…" I agreed quietly. An uncomfortable silence followed. I was dying to ask him if Malfoy had talked to him. Blaise and I had always had a comfortable relationship. Way better than his best friend. He had always been very charming, and he was also really nice. But, I still didn't know how to ask him if he had talked to Malfoy.

"Uhm…Blaise?"

He raised his eyebrows at me and I may have just imagined the hint of a smirk on his face, "Yes?"

"This may seem like an odd question, but…" I took a deep breath, "Have you seen Malfoy lately?" I finished in a rush.

I wasn't imagining his smirk, "Yes, actually. I spoke to him yesterday afternoon."

"Oh really?" I cringed again. Please don't say anything about my being drunk. Please, please, please.

He didn't say anything else. He just smirked at me. Since when was the elevator ride to our offices so long?

Finally, I decided I couldn't leave our conversation at that, "So, uhm, how has he been lately?" Dang it! Why did I have to sound so dang nervous?

"He's doing well…he said he had an interesting weekend."

I'm not sure what my face looked like when he said that, but I am sure that it was worthy of the front page of the Daily Prophet, "Oh really?" I sounded strangled, "What did he do that was so interesting?"

His smirk just seemed to grow, "Well, he said he went to a bar…" He stared at me pointedly.

"Ugh!" I cried out in frustration, "Not a word, Zabini," I hissed as our elevator finally slowed to our department, "Not a single word."

"Fine. We'll have lunch today and talk about everything." He winked before strutting off to his office.

"Zabini!" I yelled after him. When he didn't turn, I groaned and stalked off to my own office. I silently prayed that Draco Malfoy hadn't told anyone else about what had happened.

Draco POV (SHABADABADOO)

"Thank you, Mr. Malfoy. We appreciate your time." I stood and shook hands with yet another man trying to do business with me. Fortunately for him, I actually liked his sales pitch.

"Yes, it was nice doing business with you." I showed him to the door and then, once it was shut, I started stretching and rolling my neck. He was my last appointment before lunch. Blaise had asked me to come by his office for lunch to talk about his and Hermione's conversation. Therefore, the day had gone by at a snail's pace.

I locked my office door and told my secretary that I would be back by two. As I left the office, I thought back to when I started this business. A distant cousin of mine (on the Black side) had had this company that sold Broom Insurance. Insurance is more of a Muggle thing, but when I had heard there was a lot of money in it, I did more research. Then I figured out that broom insurance actually benefited a lot of people. And, since the war, I felt that every chance to help other people I could get was worth taking. I knew that I could never make up for the pain I had caused, but this couldn't hurt. So, I took over my cousins company and it was doing better than I could have imagined. At first, when I took over the Insurance company, all I got was negative response. Then, a couple of war heroes got some of the insurance, and people tentatively started giving me business. Now, it was booming.

I went into the Ministry through the visitors entrance. I tried to ignore the glares I got and kept my eyes forward and just went straight to the elevator. Ever since the war, I'd been getting those looks. Even though, I had never killed anyone. Just because I was associated with Death Eaters, everyone treated me like this. Well, not everyone. Just most people. Anyway, that's why I avoided the Ministry as much as I could.

I got into the elevator and was glad to see that no one else was in it. As the doors were beginning to shut, I heard someone yell, "Hold the elevator!" On reflex, I held my hand out. The person got into the elevator and murmured a thanks and I tensed when I realized who it was. It was Harry the-boy-who-lived Potter.

He looked down to press a button, but then said, "Oh, you already pushed the button for the Department of-Malfoy?!"

I cringed, "Yea."

He stared at me. Not glare. Not glower. Just…stare. "Can I help you with something, Potter?" I asked, my inner Hogwarts spoiled brat coming out. I tried to cool my tone. I was sure Granger had told him everything that had happened, and I didn't want to add fuel to an already large fire.

He snapped out of it, "Hermione told me what happened," I tensed for yelling or a hex or something. But, the tone of his voice said that that wasn't going to happen. "And…I just wanted to thank you."

"Thank me? For what?" I was surprised. Never, in a million years, had I ever imagined Harry Potter, my childhood nemesis, would ever thank me for anything. Ever.

"For not…doing anything. Ron was being an idiot, and normally, Hermione never would have done something so irrational. I'm just glad that you didn't try anything, and that some other crazy whack job didn't come after her instead. So I thank you for that." Potter made a face at something that I didn't want to understand.

I pondered that, and realized that would be a perfect excuse as to why I had helped her out in the first place, "Huh…and here I thought you were going to get angry."

"Oh, I was angry at first. Then I thought about it. And I thought about what could have happened. And I decided to be angry with Ron," started Potter. He looked as though he wanted to say more, but second guessed himself.

"Yea, well, he was an arse. Still is. Always was, actually." I smirked as Potter's eyes flashed as he wanted to defend his friend, but realized that he was angry with him and that I was right.

The elevator arrived to our destination.

"Why are you even here, Malfoy?"

"I'm eating lunch with Blaise."

"Oh. I'm here to drop off some things with Mione."

"Right, well, see you around, Potter."

"Yea, Malfoy…and thanks again. I mean it."

"…Right." I murmured as I walked into Blaise's office.

Normal POV (Row row row your boat, gently down my...I mean the...stream...)

Harry walked into Hermione's office and saw her hunched over her desk, working furiously on the latest project. She didn't even noticed when he walked in. He cleared his throat to get her attention, and she looked up quickly and smiled at him.

"Hey, Harry. Sorry, I didn't hear you come in," she sighed as she stretched and rolled her neck, "What brings you down to this department?"

He waved a manila folder in front of her, "I just have another case for you," she sighed as she took the folder from him, so Harry decided to change the subject, "So, have you had lunch yet?"

"No. And I'm supposed to meet with Blaise in a few to have lunch," She groaned as she remembered their conversation from earlier.

"Hang on, with Zabini? Only Zabini?" Harry remembered when Malfoy had just told him that he was supposed to have lunch with Zabini.

"Yea. With Blaise. Why?"

Harry had a feeling that Malfoy hadn't known about Hermione eating lunch with them. And neither did Hermione…so Zabini was planning something here. And, oddly…Harry didn't mind where this was going. He knew that Malfoy and Hermione needed to talk about what had happened instead of just pretending that nothing was going on. So, whatever Zabini was planning, he approved.

"No reason. Just curious. Well, I should be going now. I'll stop by later." He turned to leave as Hermione got up to go to the door.

"Ok, thanks Harry," She looked her office door behind her, "I'll see you later." She started to walk toward Zabini's door, so she didn't see when Harry smirked at her back. Harry thought to himself, "Yea, if you survive that lunch." He quickly went to the elevator to avoid the inevitable fireworks that were about to occur.

Draco POV

"Hey, Zabini. Are you ready to go?"

Blaise looked up from his paperwork at me, "In a minute. I'm almost done with this."

I sat down in one of the chairs he had that were normally for clients, "All right. I'm in no hurry."

"You may not be," he murmured from his desk, "But I am."

"What was that, Blaise?"

He looked up at me and smirked. It was a smirk I knew well, and I knew he was planning something. Something I would not enjoy, "I took the liberty of inviting someone else to lunch with us."

Uh oh. "Who?" I asked, but no sooner had I asked the question then the answer knocked lightly on the door.

"Come in, Hermione! I'll just be a minute as I finish this!" Blaise called to her.

"Blaise!" I hissed as I sat up in my seat and she walked into the room.

"I hope you didn't forget that we were supposed to be having-Malfoy?!" she stared at me and I stared back.

I hadn't noticed Blaise standing up, but in a second he was next to me saying, "Alright then, I'm all ready to go," Neither Hermione nor I moved an inch, "Come on, you lot! I'm starving!"

Well, damn.

AN: Alright then. Here it is. Next chapter, we will have more Draco/Hermione interactions.

I hope you all enjoyed, and thank you all so much for reading! I don't think I thank you enough, but I really do appreciate it.

If anyone has anything they would like to see in the next chapter or just in the story in general, just let me know!

And, as always, REVIEW! Reviews are motivation! They make me smile every time!

Love you all, FlowerPainter