The Right Thing To Do

Chapter 26

Hermione spent the rest of the week cleaning out her cubicle at the Ministry, saying goodbye to her coworkers and friends, and taking beatings from her pure-blood teachers.

It had already gotten out that she was joining M.C.G. by Thursday. Skeeter wrote a quick blurb on Draco in the Prophet detailing his current social outings and his relationship status – surprisingly, Katya was not mentioned – and she managed to list the Senior Consultants that had signed on. Hermione recognized a few names, like Cuthbert Mockridge who had retired from the Goblin Liaison Office. She remembered Draco mentioning him.

On Friday, she received two anonymous Howlers at the Ministry. One from a pure-blood fanatic who was disgusted to hear that she would be tainting the Malfoy name with her dirty blood and Muggle ways, and one that chastised her for leaving her future behind and following a Death Eater blindly. It took her thirty minutes to leave the closed office that she'd silenced. Her mood on her last day was essentially ruined until they brought out a cake and threw a little party for her.

She took home her last box, and gave Aiden a hug. He smiled at her and told her maybe he'd swing by the bookstore once in a while. Hermione felt badly that they had never had a second date, even though she honestly had no interest in a second date, but it was really the principle of the thing.

She'd gotten through her weekend classes, learning gothic architecture and how to create a cheese plate, and on Monday she was battling her nerves starting at four in the morning. When she heard Ginny leave at five for practice, she decided to simply get up, and get over to the office. She had one more box of things to pack up and bring.

She stood in the lifts to M.C.G. at 7:30AM, holding a medium sized box that she'd cast a feather-light charm on. The doors opened and she was relieved that Dorothea was no longer stationed up front, but instead a button-nosed redhead beamed up at her.

"Hi, I'm Melody!" She stood from the reception desk and held out her hand to shake. Hermione shifted the box around and held out her hand. Damn handshake.

"Hello, Melody." Hermione brushed hair out of her face with one hand. "Are you our receptionist?"

"One of them!" She had wide teeth, but all-in-all, she was quite attractive. "Oh! I'm supposed to let everyone know that there's an all-staff meeting at 9AM, then just Senior Consultants at 9:30AM. There's also a memo on your desk about it."

"Brilliant. Thank you, Melody."

Hermione shuffled her way over to her office door, managed to open it with one hand, and found Blaise Zabini in her office chair, legs up on the desk.

"Ah! The early bird catches the worm," Blaise said. His fingers were playing with a quill. Probably her quill.

She shook her head at him, and slugged her box to her guest chair, plopping it down. How early did he have to be to beat her?

"So, in this situation, am I the bird? Or the worm?" She frowned at him and placed her hands on her hips.

He smirked at her.

"You're too smart for your own good, Granger."

She grinned and plucked three books from her box. "Yes, I've been told." She walked to the bookshelves near her door and began filling them. "What can I do for you, Blaise?"

"Just wanted to bring this by." He stood from her chair and pulled a piece of paper from his inside pocket. He unfolded it and set it down on her desk just as she was returning to grab more books.

It read Office Relationship Disclosure. She blinked at it. She scanned down the document to see the Partner #1 line had his signature and his printed name. Partner #2 was blank.