#we're certainly alike in coffee habits though

[skywailer]

ahHHh could you do d/hr + "i mispelled an email to be your name & now we're penpals !! & actually hate each other irl" aka a 'you've got mail' type situation

this entire thing is just a really cute situation that turned into a 16 page situation, because i have NO CHILL

One-shot under the tab, but I like… I also put it on a03 to spare your eyes.

01:36 What book has you up so late?  Feels like something I should read.

Hermione is still grinning, ten hours after such a mundane message was received, and a little too promptly opened, on her AOL account.  Her cheeks are flourishing with all kinds of pinks and reds, and it’s absolutely embarrassing how she’s there, ten hours after the fact, after not replying - pretending to be asleep, what a ninny -, staring at this message.  In her office.  Her place of business.

“Oi, these documents aren’t going to sign themselves,” someone calls, and Hermione’s blush deepens the longer Harry stares.  How long had she zoned out?  Had she even seen him come into the room?  He looks like he’s been sitting there, collecting dust for eons.

“Sorry, I was thinking about how to reply to this…” She fumbles, and hastily closes out of the chat window.  “Very important email.”

“Oh, of course,” Harry says a little too certainly, with a little too much of a glint in his eyes.  The spark of mischief is intensified through his glasses.  He shuffles the files on his lap and places the cases of most importance on Hermione’s desk.  Pretends to not notice how Hermione’s noticed that he’s noticed something.  

It’s all very childish.

Her continuing blush, racing down the playground of her neck and chest is the most childish of all.

“Percy is really pushing to close the Stockton class action ASAP,” Harry continues a conversation Hermione had, in a way, been keeping up with despite her distractions.  She rolls her eyes and nearly stabs her pen through the stack of other, paying, clientele dear Percy wants them to focus on.

“My one pro bono,” she mutters, “I wonder why.”

Harry grimaces, eyes wide with sarcastic wonder as he leans back in the chair.  The leather complains enough for the both of them.

“It really is a wonder,” he replies, but his thoughts are already somewhere else, somewhere rather dangerous.  He adjusts his glasses, as though to get a better, clearer look at Hermione.  

“The real wonder, though, is what book kept you up so late?  Do you feel it’s something he should read?”

“Do those glasses give you x-ray vision?” Hermione snaps in return to the husky mockery of her private life.  Harry smirks.  This is, after all, his favorite part of the day: torment Hermione hour- the hour that never actually ends.  

As if it wasn’t his and his wife’s idea for Hermione to socialize more, to ‘put herself out there’.  Ginny was the one who’d made her AOL account while she’d been away in the bathroom.  She’s the only one who could think up the horrendous screenname: booksnob4life.

It’s a miracle anyone talked to her on that blasted thing.

“I wish,” Harry sighs.  “You just have a nasty habit of leaving your computer screen on when you go to the bathroom.”

Like wife, like husband.

“You rotten little-!”

“I was just doing my job,” Harry defends himself, arms raised and pleading innocent until proven guilty.  “Turning in the affidavit you needed, and there it all was.”

Hermione’s head is smack against the desk, affidavit stuck to her forehead, before he’s anywhere near done laughing.

“Who is this dashing i-object-to-idiots?”  Harry’s voice is too bubbly and sweet; this moment is obviously just too rich for him.  “He sounds devastatingly charming.”

She groans into the mountains of paperwork.  Suddenly, they look much less painful than before- when compared to this.

“He’s actually quite charming, intellectual and witty, and someone I’ll never meet - if Percy has his way.”

That grants her a snort.  She glares up from her slouched position; her back is already aching, and her hands itching to sort through the mess.  

“Please, this mound will be gone by three,” Harry completely disregards her moans.  Hones in on the nitty gritty detail: “So, you’re saying you’ve never met this guy?”

She frowns and sits up, corrects her posture and turns her attention to work, even if it’s the farthest thing from her partner’s mind.  “Exactly.”

His ridicule and peaked curiosity is reverberating off the walls.  “Have you made any plans to….?”

Hermione’s face is deadpanned, eyes dull with the blunt knowledge that: “We’re both lawyers.  You figure out that algebraic mess.”

She’s already turning to her computer, opening an endless stream of Word and Excel pages.  Anything to avoid that one beeping notification at the corner of her screen.  

“You haven’t even brought it up, have you?”

“No.”  Hermione doesn’t mean to sigh, but she does.

It’s rare: this feeling of disappointment and nervousness.  It only pays a visit when she thinks about this faceless, nameless person who’s she’s confided in for the last six weeks.  Who she wants to come face-to-face with, to see and hear in front of her, to not have to wait for her computer to connect to the internet before she can say hello to him.  

Who she equally is afraid of ever meeting, of having the ideal cruelly extinguished by reality.

She deals in laws of man and nature, and facts.  And that blinking little light on her computer screen is too artificial to trust.

“Well,” Harry replies, clucking his tongue as he stands up to leave; job done quite a while ago, and snark breaching his allowed, daily quotient.  “You should at least give him a book to read while he waits.”

He’s laughing again at the sour patch look on Hermione’s face, as if her love life - or complete lack thereof, is such a freaking riot.

That blinking notification is winking at her now, insistently begging her to “notice me, notice me!”  As if it isn’t constantly distracting her.

Hermione grimaces, thinking: maybe her love life is a freaking riot.  If she can’t even reply to a simple book recommendation out of fear of “the ideal”.

She opens up the AOL interface and stares at that message again, thanking any and all gods that i-object-to-idiots is not online to witness this ridiculously late, and pathetic response.

Pushing down the equally pathetic anxiety over literary scrutiny, Hermione takes a deep breath and types her reply.

22:15 You in court must be a sight.  Pitiful, really, the fool who goes up against you - this coming from personal experience.  In fact, I’m still licking my wounds from the last duel; is it really so wrong to love Jack Kerouac as I do?

22:15 I wish I could see you in action.

22:19 Actually, I wish I could just see you.

22:21 You know what- screw it.  Cup of coffee.  You and me.  Foreseeable objection completely overruled.  I want to see you.

“Objection!”

Hermione’s voice fills the courtroom twice-fold, but its inhabitants - especially Judge McGonagall - are quite accustomed to the volume.  The only one who seems bothered by it is the man standing opposite her; he is a smirk in a brown suede suit, reeking of wealth and privilege, defending the undefendable companies that seek to manipulate and exploit the disadvantaged populace.

In short: he is everything Hermione abhorrently opposes.  Abhorrently.  Did she mention: abhorrently?

“On what grounds, exactly?” Draco Malfoy drolls, his posture never once shifting away from the jury.  He just barely turns his head in her general direction, silver locks carefully smoothed into place so as not to stir when he does.  However, something about his demeanor has shifted.  There’s a tightness to the usually casual smile on his face - he always tries to work the jury with his disgustingly transparent charm - and something crackles to life in his eyes.  

He’s watching her intently, even if he doesn’t mean to.

She challenges his stare with one of her signature courtroom glares; quick, efficient, deadly as daggers.  It’s gone before a single eye in the jury can detect something amiss about the darling, if a bit passionate, lawyer.

Everyone in the room has lost track of how many times they’ve run this bit.

“Besides the fact that you have blatantly disregarded giving us any notice of this new witness?” Hermione shoots across the court, directly between Draco’s narrowed eyes. “You’re clearly now leading said witness.”

The only response this apparently warrants is the laziest of smiles.  Hermione catches a few jury members, men and women alike, melting at the sight.  She holds in her vomit.

“Your honor, forgive me if I was too much of a gentleman,” Draco responds gracefully, ducking his head down in an adamant, completely false, display of embarrassment.  “My witness is tired after a very long flight just to be here, and I’m simply trying to be helpful.”

Helpful.

Hermione’s nails dig into the case file in her hands.  She can feel Harry’s eyes drinking it all in, unsure whether to be amused or utterly frustrated; this kind of back-and-forth banter and jury-fondling has been going on the entire week at trial, and months before then too.  

Hermione’s feelings on the matter are quite settled: she hates this man with every fiber of her being; her very tolerant, open-minded, loving, I-see-through-your-bullshit-you-cunning-bastard being.  Hatred and these very qualities can co-exist.  Hermione’s determined for it to be so.

So yeah, she hates him.

Judge McGonagall doesn’t seem too easily persuaded either, and almost- almost rolls her eyes at him.  Hermione stills the unprofessional smile that this wrongfully encourages.

“Mr. Malfoy, being a gentleman entails knowing when and how to speak.  Talking a little less, and letting your witness speak more, would be much more helpful- don’t you think?” The judge responds calmly, if a bit exhausted by the ongoing banter.  She adjusts her glasses, but remains lax and leaning in her seat.  “Sustained.  Jury is to strike the last question from the record.”

Now that got the smile out of Hermione.  She’s grinning, a child winning the parent’s favor.  Her gloating becomes very visible when Draco’s carefully placed, fresh-pressed for company smile twitches, unnerved.  He seems to feel the happiness vibrating off Hermione in ridiculous waves because his steel eyes snap onto hers.  Positively glowering.  

She gets a sense that the hatred is mutual.

But either way, Hermione persuades her face to conduct itself professionally, and rolls her lips between her teeth to smooth them out.  To compose herself.  But she just hasn’t gotten this much joy from an opponent’s loss in ages.

Ridiculous as it is: she can’t wait to let her date know he has yet another fool to pity.

Perhaps it’s her giddiness to go, her impatience to meet a man she hardly knows, that makes today’s court appearance even snappier than usual.  She allows Draco no leeway with his roundabout questions, and shows no mercy to those on the stand.  She wants to close today’s testimonies as swiftly and efficiently as possible.

Harry has taken notice of the extra gasoline Hermione’s poured on her own fire.

“When was the last time you exhaled?” Harry mutters when she sits down.

“I told you, I don’t want the jury to siddle too long with his ‘experts’.”

Harry nods, his lips pursed in an odd twist of humor and affirmation.  “Right, the quickfire approach.  Has nothing to do with your rendezvous at 12 o'clock.”

Her eyes dart between the notes she’s scribbling down in a race against herself, and the opposing table.  Draco has yet to stand up and approach the prosecution’s first expert, is still calmly and lazily glancing through the file she’d been forced to give his legal team, his client absolutely at ease- slender form lounging as though he’s got nothing in the world to lose, and she nearly snaps her pen in two.

“Sure, fine, it has something to do with that.  But it also wouldn’t be so wild to want to keep today’s session back on track as much as possible.  So we can have recess at the usual time, but it would seem Draco,” the name comes out in a nasty little whisper fuming with frustration, “once again is playing games.”

She’s glaring daggers again, and he must’ve sensed at some point her increased urgency, because today he’s being exceedingly tedious; more so than per usual.

“To think, I once thought the law school rivalry would die a graceful death.”

That comment bestows upon him quite the incredulous look from Hermione.  She’s still got fireballs for eyes, and he nearly shrivels into dust.

“You know very well that’s not what this is, Harry,” she snaps, trying to keep the whisper low but Judge McGonagall is looking between both parties, and her watch.

“Mr. Malfoy, if you would so kindly hurry up,” the judge calls out, but Draco doesn’t even look up from the papers, and Hermione’s still stabbing into Harry’s psyche.

“We’ve been nurturing this case for years now, and then I find out he’s the one who takes up the defendant’s case?  His family name attached once again to Tom Riddle?  Don’t you dare belittle my issues down to a simple case of rivalry.”  

Her head is practically in flames at this point and it’s a blessing no one is seated in the first few rows behind her.  It’s a miracle Draco himself doesn’t hear.  How Harry hasn’t combusted is impossible to understand.

You’d think she’d be in a cheery mood, what with her date and all.  But it seems the first-time jitters are short-circuiting her patience and overall temperament.

“Your Honor, it would seem I need further time with these documents I’ve just been handed-”

That whips Hermione’s head nearly completely off her neck.

“Just handed?  I personally delivered that to your legal team a week ago.”

“Really?” Draco muses, a damn-near playful lightness to his eyes and voice.  “Strange, I only just got it now.”

It’s ten minutes to twelve, and Hermione is livid, and obviously that’s exactly Draco’s aim- he lives to see her explode in court.  He’s about to get a show.  “Your Honor, may I approach-”

“Your Honor,” he slides in, grinning at the judge.  “I feel now would be a good time for a recess.  If at all possible, could it be extended so I can get a proper look before my cross examination?  Clearly, the prosecution has been rushing to get their expert on the stand today, and now with this-”

“You know what,” Hermione takes a turn at being rude.  She mimics Draco’s smile and stands up.  “Your Honor, a recess would be lovely.”

Judge McGonagall looks like she was praying for the exact same thing.  She waves a hand at the both of them before they can say anymore.

“Alright.  Heaven knows I need one.  We will adjourn until two o’clock.  At that time, I expect both legal councils to conduct themselves with civility.  I don’t care for you two to be friends, but I care deeply about this migraine your squabbling has induced.”

With that, she drops the gavel and Hermione subsequently shoves all the paperwork at Harry.  Who grumbles something predictable and unintelligible.  Something Hermione doesn’t bother to snap back at.  It will take her at least six minutes to get to the coffee shop and fix her disastrous hair (it was fine now, but once it touched the outdoors…).  Not a second to waste.

And now she has two hours, instead of the measly one she’d expected.

Uncharacteristically bubbly and distracted, Hermione darts for the exit, only to slam right into the most dastardly obstacle.  Who smells like the men’s section of Macy’s perfume maze.

With a cosmetically injected smile, Hermione backs away from the tailor-made jerk in front of her, and unfortunately away from the small gate that separates her from freedom.  

“After you, Mr. Malfoy.”  She means to sound polite.  She sounds poisonous.

Draco is all thickly laid-on politeness, since the jury isn’t completely done filing out.  He’s a performer ‘til the end.  So, his smile only wavers just a tad, enough to let Hermione know, and only her, that he loathes her guts.

For everyone else, he takes a leisurely step back and waves a hand towards her one escape route.  

“No, I insist.  After you, Ms. Granger.”  He means to sound polite.  He sounds disgustingly sweet.

Not wanting to prolong the agony any longer, or chance an encounter with his chilling client, Hermione makes a break for it.

When she’s through the court doors, it’s like she’s opened a jar of butterflies in her stomach.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

“Ron,” Hermione flails, eyes glued in horror to her computer screen.  Ron doesn’t look up from the hellish paper sorting she’s chored him with.  “Ron, Ron, it’s blinking.  What does that mean?”

Finally, Ron decides this might just be a good enough distraction from his task and gets up from his place among the rubble.  He walks behind Hermione’s desk, where her hand is waving at him.  When he peers closer at the computer, thinking she’s having a virus attack - again -, Ron nods slowly.

“Right,” he murmurs,”that blinking little person means someone wants to talk to you.”

Hermione gapes.  “What? Who?”

Despite her outraged cry, Ron leans in and guides the mouse to that little person, and clicks.  “I-object-to-idiots, apparently.  Are you telling me you have an AOL account, but you’ve never used it before?”

He’s laughing at her, on the inside.  He knows better than to actually laugh out loud, this close in proximity to her talons.

Hermione scowls, and shoves his hand off the mouse.  “Your sister set it up as a joke.”

To that, Ron just shrugs.  He doesn’t make to return to his volunteer work.  “Doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with it.”

“I don’t want to have fun.  I have work to do.”

She hears Ron snoring at her mid-sentence, and glares at him.  To think, she’d invited him into her safe workplace, to obediently do her busywork for her.  And now he was revolting.  

“Do you really think I have time to bother with someone called ‘i-object-to-idiots’?”

“Hmm,” he mock-wonders and leans back in to get a better look at the horrible username.  She’s busy watching his thoughtful expression that she doesn’t notice when his fingers sneak around that hazardous mouse.  “I don’t know, do you, booksnob4life?”

There’s a click, and a ding! And Hermione’s stomach drops from beneath her.

Before she can raise her arms to swat Ron away, he’s backing out of her range, laughing hysterically while her computer makes some alien clucking sound.  She glances at the screen, petrified, as the notification comes: i-object-to-idiots is writing.

“Oh god, oh no.  He’s writing something.  What do I do?”

Her last encounter with a social life was… too long ago, she can’t accurately place a date on it, and God help her she’s barely ever interacted with the internet besides for research and school, and her ability to talk anything but law has shriveled dramatically these past few years-

“Respond, I’d hope,” Ron chuckles, and he’s not at all helpful-

There’s a gleeful swoosh!

“Oh, god.”

I-object-to-idiots wrote at 19:43 - A real book snob would never put the number ‘4’ in their username.  Actually, I think the ‘4life’ bit is a dead giveaway that you are not who you say you are.

Without any rational thought behind it, Hermione slaps Ron’s hand where it lies on her desk.  

“That’s exactly what I told Ginny!” She exclaims, oblivious to Ron’s painful yelp as he flinches away from her.  He curls his hand against his chest, regretting all of tonight’s decisions- starting with picking up the phone and not instantly hanging up at the sound of Hermione’s voice.

His mouth opens to encourage a reply from Hermione, but her fingers are already attacking the keyboard.  The grin on her face is the most earnest one he’s seen in weeks; her current caseload has kept her on a downward stress spiral.  

It was one of the reasons why Ginny had hatched this devious internet scheme.  Ron just hadn’t thought it would actually work.  

He scoots away and plops back down in the seventh circle of hell- determined to sort through the files while Hermione, finally, sorts through her personal life.  

Occasionally between rapid-fire typing, Hermione lets out a laugh or scoffs at something she’s read.  She remains this way most of the night, completely forgetting she needed to fax so-and-so this-and-that by ten, sharp.  She hasn’t had this much interest in the internet since she found out how to send mass emails.

She barely waves goodbye to Ron, and has to remind herself that she does have a hearing to attend bright and early the next morning- but before she can even type a goodbye-

i-object-to-idiots wrote at 23:01 - I’m extremely proud that I managed to distract you this badly, and for this long.  You have something to do in the morning, I’m guessing?  I should let you go?

you wrote at 23:02 - Am I to assume you didn’t have anything better to do?

I-object-to-idiots wrote at 23:02 - Better?  No.  But there is a closing statement I should be writing…

It’s a shame she can’t hear him, for she imagines he’s groaning.  And she wishes he could hear her laughing.  But it’s just a bunch of clicking.

you wrote at 23:04 - I should let you go, then.

He writes: Please don’t.  I’d rather save myself the finger cramps and just wing it.  I’m a pro at that.

Hermione’s hand hovers over the keyboard, biting down on a smile.  She mistakenly takes a peek at the time stamp next to his message, and sighs as she writes back:  I actually do have something to do in the morning…

He replies, “Oh,” and it’s like he’s sitting in her office, glump and unwilling to leave.  She has no idea what he looks like, but yet she tries to picture this stranger all the same.  There’s the outline of proud shoulders and he’s leaning back, leg hitched over the other.  Hermione’s sure he’d be wearing something impeccable but she can’t quite put her finger on the brand.  “Now why on earth did you have to go and plan that something?  Not knowing you’d encounter an intellectual on the internet tonight?”

“An intellectual?” Hermione barks, her swivel chair twists and drifts back in mock confusion.  “Where?”

Imagination is a dangerous business, especially hers, and it runs wild with assuming this stranger’s reaction.  He places a hand upon his chest, wounded severely.  “Ouch,” he sends across an immeasurable distance of intangible web.

It’s boggling to realize this conversation is being held both here, and somewhere completely unknown and unseen to her.  Moreso to feel like they were in their own space, unknown and unseen to anyone else.

The chair she imagines him to sit in creaks, his body shifting unwillingly, preparing to make his leave- even though he wasn’t ever really here.  “I should go, then.  You’ve abused my ego enough for one night.”

For one night.  Hermione’s pressed against her desk, probably too close to the glaring screen to be healthy at all, and it feels like one false scooch is all it’ll take to drop her off her chair.  In one night, a few hours really, she’s become invested in conversation with a complete and utter stranger.

Despite the little, insistent whisper in her head that this is a terrible idea, and she should really focus on work-

She types: Round two, tomorrow night?

And waits.

23:10 Of course.

The jar of butterflies has become a vortex- a portal, if you will, to a butterfly-infested dimension.

She’s sure there is one butterfly for every message she’s ever sent her mystery man, and at least double that for every message he’s ever sent her.  Weeks of confiding in anonymity to a stranger who couldn’t possible relate to her - yet did - swirl around in her chest.  Suddenly, every conversation is replayed in her head: every Sunday banter about each and every overhyped, politically distressing and underrated novel clashed with late night confessions.  The ones she’d never tell her friends: about how maybe her job has in fact consumed her, and how maybe she hadn’t realize how much of herself she’d have to give- how much she was willing to.  He assured her, continues to in her mind, that yeah, it’s selfish but it’s okay to want to take a break from ‘doing good’ and just ‘do you, relax, have a day to yourself, have a way to define yourself outside of your job.  Have a life.’

She wants to, she does, but the more she waits on life, the more she just wants to run back into her office.

Hermione clutches a searing cup of coffee in her hands, using the nagging nerves in her palm as a distraction from her ticking watch, from the crowded, humming room and the thump-thump-thumping of her heels against the stool she’s sitting on.  The barista keeps glancing at the furniture, certain this extremely caffeinated customer has stabbed two holes into the stool pegs.  Unfortunately, Hermione is not at all caffeinated.  She wishes that was her excuse.  It’d be more of the usual, and less of the absolutely absurd.

But no, the insanity continues.

There’s a quiet, almost indignant touch of expensive shoes to linoleum floor, and Hermione knows better than to look over her shoulder.  She knows who it is before he opens his mouth to say something witty-

“Could you please?” She mutters with a quick flutter of the hand, shooing the pest away.  Draco Malfoy is just getting comfortable, sliding into the one free stool the room has to offer.  It’s supposed to be for someone else, but he obviously doesn’t know this, or care, from his complete lack of mobility.

He’s staring down at the book on the counter with a great deal of shock and curiosity, and Hermione is quick to snatch it away and place it on the other side of her.  He still looks baffled, and is not in anyway moving.  So, she clarifies her reason for not wanting him around this time, and stares him down all the while.  Despite the redness nipping at her ears.

“I’m meeting someone.”

His stunned expression lingers, eyes observing her for a moment too long for her comfort, but she refuses to back down.  

Now Draco’s frowning; the kind of face he’d make if he heard one of his clients had passed away before paying his legal fees.  

He opens his mouth, but hesitates; lips twisting this way and that, as though struggling to form coherent words.  Her request is that stupefying.  “This is the one coffee shop with decent roasts, within walking distance,” he finally says, the words coming out slow and dubious, “and you want me to give it up because you are ‘meeting someone’?”

“Yes.”

“Well this is the only seat available, I’ve been standing all day, and I don’t care,” Draco briskly states, and it feels like he’s actually cemented his ass to the stool; posture perfected from years of practice (he used to slouch like a humpback whale in school), hands firmly planted to the counter, eyes determined to look out the window.  He didn’t even have a coffee in hand, and Hermione is pretty sure he’d make the barista deliver it to him herself.

“Figures,” she mutters bitterly, and takes a sip from her cup- just to keep from spouting years’ worth of bitterness.  

At least his arrival has extinguished all the pesky butterflies in her chest.  

“I never took you for someone who’d go on a blind date.”

Hermione nearly spits onto the counter.  Instead, she manages to somewhat gracefully swallow her coffee.  She keeps her eyes out the window, watching strangers brush shoulders and never speak.  Draco does the same.

“Who says I’m on a blind date?”

She hears him chuckle lightly, and she’s always hated the sound; it’s sincere, and reminds her of a time when- No, no.  It didn’t do to think about then.  It only served to disappoint her when she remembered now.

In the midst of her thoughts, Draco’s become animated and he’s pointing at the biography she snatched away from him.  “You always take your coffee to go, but here you are, sitting close to the door, meeting someone but not scouting for that someone’s arrival.  Interesting.  Except, of course you wouldn’t be, because you don’t know what he or she looks like.  To top it all off, you read that book a few weeks ago.  You can’t possibly be rereading it, so you’re using it as a token for the person to identify you by.  A blind date.”

Skin tingling with a good deal of embarrassment and annoyance, Hermione takes another sip of her coffee to soothe her nerves.  But she can feel Draco watching her expectantly, waiting for validation.  She glances over at him and raises an eyebrow in challenge.  “Are you expecting applause?”

His lips go topsy-turvy, and he’s smiling in a way that’s nowhere near the falsities she’s used to.  This isn’t a show Draco’s putting on for a crowd to appease or convince them.  It’s not the one he practices in the mirror before greeting another smoke-clogged, greed-driven client or entering another ghastly and cold meeting at his father’s firm.  It’s the lopsided smile of a young student she used to know, who was amused by her ability to amuse him.  When they weren’t at each other’s throats.

“A ‘bravo’ will suffice,” he replies, and the mood is uncomfortably different than what she’s used to.  The hostility of the courtroom had become second nature to her, almost a second home.  This camaraderie was completely foreign ground.  At least, now it was.  

Five years ago, it wouldn’t have been so strange to see Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger seated next to each other with a cup of joe.  Practicing a mock trial they’d play out later that evening in class, swapping notes on the case their professor had them studying together, or arguing about the ‘favored’ results on one of their exams.

In law school, they hadn’t hated each other as much as they did now.  It was, as Harry had put it, more of a rivalry than anything.  And sometimes, their combative natures were fun to play off of, to bond over when they were mentally and physically wiped.  But then-

“Why the nerves?”  He asks, and for once it isn’t to tease her before a session or in front of a client.  

Hermione sighs into her cup, watches the aromatic steam dance away from her and kiss the windowpane.  

“I’m afraid he might be too ideal,” she confesses, her brain foggy like the glass in front of her.  She shouldn’t be confiding in her opponent, but the coffee beans smell nostalgic of late night study runs and lazy libraries.

Draco’s whole face seems to be shocked by that, and the muscles pull back in confusion.  “And you’d rather he wasn’t?”  

Hermione groans and puts down the coffee, twists in the stool to turn away from, and then towards Draco.  She’s incapable of making up her mind on him, on this subject, and it’s terribly bothersome.

“Yes, and no,” she offers to Draco’s furthered confusion.  She rolls her eyes, mostly at her own incompetence, and runs a frustrated and firm hand through her curls.  Another horrible decision on her part; she can feel the curls multiply and frizz.  So much for fixing it up.

It says much about her worry over the ‘ideal’.

“I have an image in my head of who he is, and if he isn’t… It’s hard to get past what your mind builds up.  But… if he is, if he’s exactly who I pictured him to be, and he’s as close to perfect for me as they come,” Hermione’s blabbering, and she knows it, but she can’t stop it now.  She sighs.  “That just means I get to ruin it.  As I always, inevitably do.”

“You’re that bad at dating?” He’s scoffing, and it’s meant to be playful, but Hermione is quite serious when she eyes him.

“Yes, actually I am,” she replies, deadpanned, “because I’m dedicated to my job.  And not many relationships can withstand it.”

Draco’s teasing smile falters the longer her eyes remain steady and stoic.  She’s no fun like this.   And he knows she can be fun.

“But he’s-” Draco’s mouth lags behind his words and he shakes his head, frustrated.  “What’s his profession?  Do you know?”

“Of course, I know,” Hermione shoots back defensively, simultaneously begging he doesn’t ask for a name.  “He’s a lawyer.”

“Then he’ll understand.”  He says it like it’s case closed, settled business.  It says much about how little he knows of her personal file.  She’s actually laughing at him, stunning him again for the millionth time that day.

“And so what if he does?  I’ve dated within my profession before, and it doesn’t work out either.  Not the way I want it to.  My private and public life are built in two completely different fashions.  It’s impossible to maintain them both, and maybe I don’t want to…” Hermione trails off, something in Draco’s eyes catching her unhealthy interest; she realizes he’s really paying attention to her, not tuning her out as he’s prone to doing in court (though he swears he’d never).  He’s intent to discuss with her the intricacies of her private life, “and I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

“Isn’t it nice to talk about something other than work, for once?”  There’s a sad hint in there of ‘like before?’ that Hermione isn’t lost on.  And that’s the dangerous bit, really, because it almost pulls her in again, almost makes her forget:

Draco Malfoy has done this before.

“No, it’s not nice, actually,” and Hermione’s words are bricks building a wall between them.  A wall she should’ve never brought down in the first place.  Not again.  The last time she’d done it, it had cost her dearly in court.  And as he full-well knew: “My work is my life.  Other people’s lives.  It’s the only thing worth talking about, especially around you.”

The look on his face tells Hermione he takes her comment as he should: personally.  Draco’s smile is scorched from his face, and he’s clearing his throat against ash, his gaze severe.  “I take the cases that are put on my desk, same as you.”

“No, you choose them,” Hermione rejects his excuses; this imagined scenario where he has no choice.  “You always have, Draco.  Your father may own the firm, but you own yourself.  At anytime, you could’ve walked away and done some good.  You know I gave you a chance to.  But instead, you’re defending a company- a sick, sick man who intentionally-” Draco opens his mouth, but Hermione’s hand shoots up to stop the nonsense- “intentionally poisons the water and pretends not to notice when it irreversibly damages, ends lives.  You and your father have been defending Tom Riddle for years now, by choice.  You chose this case, as did I.  And if I can’t see that man behind bars for what he did, I sure as hell am going to get him for all he’s worth.”

Hermione thinks she’s done ranting, turns back to the pedestrians beyond the glass, glaring at an innocent passerby, but she’s still got something angry and bubbling inside her where butterflies once were.  

“I once thought you wanted the same.”

Whatever that something is, it’s still bubbling.  But she decides she’s done and focuses on the now lukewarm coffee in her hands.

The coffee is cold when Draco finally speaks up, ten minutes to two o’clock.

“Seems your date stood you up,” he says blandly after clearing his throat of something that’s been lodged in there for two hours now.  She doesn’t even know why he’s bothered to stay in awkward, hostile silence next to her.  She doesn’t know why she’s disappointed to see him go.  

She does know, however, why her stomach has turned to concrete.

“I’m sure something came up,” she replies, and it’s pathetic because it’s mostly something she says to comfort herself and not him- because why would he care?  If anything, he should be gloating that her personal life has, yet again, been a no-show.

Strangely enough, Draco looks as distraught as she feels.

He takes his leave, but she lingers.  After all, it only takes six minutes to walk back to court.

She ends up two minutes late.  She’s never late.  At least, not before him.  Yet Draco is devoid of any snide remarks, and Harry’s more bothered by the look on Tom Riddle’s face, so Hermione doesn’t think too much of it until she’s home.  Until she’s home and seated at her computer, staring at the little blinking notification at the bottom of her screen.

Someone wants to talk to her.

For a moment, she thinks of ignoring him, of sitting on the couch and taking a moment for herself.  But then she realizes she’s only thinking of relaxing because of his short, fleeting influence on her life.

So.  Hermione gives into the blinking light and reads:

16:34 I’m so sorry.  Something came up at work, and I couldn’t make it in time.

16:40 No, that’s a lie.  I shouldn’t have said that.  I should be honest.  So, I’ll try, even if I’ve gotten very good at the lie.  I stood you up.  There are nicer ways to put it, that put me in a better light, but I want the light to be as plain and real as possible.  I stood you up.  I was the worst kind of coward because I’d made it to the door, I’d made it inside, but I couldn’t reveal myself to you.  

16:41 You see, I’m afraid I’ve painted myself in a very particular pallette of colors that creates an ideal image, rather than a real human. And you deserve something, someone real.  So, I still want to meet you, so badly, but not until I’ve proven myself to be flawed and ridiculous and real, and you’ve decided I still deserve your time.  

16:42 Of course, you might be ignoring these messages completely because I, again, stood you up.  I should probably stop typing that, but it’s the truth and you probably already knew that and are ignoring me.  But I’ll keep messaging you, because I’m stubborn and selfish, two traits you should definitely know about me.  So yeah, I’m really hoping you don’t think I’m completely spineless by the end of this, and will give me a chance to prove that I’m more than a waste of words on a screen.

16:42 I’ll stop typing now.

The glow from her screen is soft and warm, and the now cozy, familiar sound of talking keys fills her small apartment.  There’s a click, and a swoosh! and she’s written:

I can’t wait to meet you.