I know this chapter is pretty short, but I'll try to update again sometime this week!

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It had been one day and she already regretted this new commitment to work with Malfoy in a greater capacity than she had originally agreed to; they had agreed to meet at the Ministry Law Archives. She sucked in a breath as Malfoy walked towards her, he certainly cut an intimidating figure, dark black, billowing robes contrasted his pale face and light blonde hair. Honestly if he wasn't sneering or looking down his nose at her she thought he might even be handsome. She immediately frowned at herself, pushing the thought away.

She flicked her eyes up at him when he neared her but he refused to make eye contact, fine she thought to herself, fine. She moved quickly to a table at the back of the first floor, not paying attention to see if Malfoy was following, when she sat down she realized that he wasn't there. She pulled her notes out of her beaded bag and sat, waiting, assuming he was further behind her. She had just been about to get up and look for him when he appeared in the aisle on her right, two stacks of legal records floating through the air in his wake.

He settled down in the chair opposite her, the stacks of records and notes falling down to the table with a heavy, thunk! She took a moment to gather herself before looking up at him, he still refused to make eye contact. How dare he, she thought to herself, she was here to help him and he was ignoring her.

But she needed to look past this, she needed to prove to herself that she could do this. She knew that had the situation been reversed, had she been the one in need that Malfoy wouldn't do this for her. Hell, she didn't want to do this for him, but she would. This was the right thing to do she reminded herself, with a quick breath in.

They fell into an awkward dynamic, anytime Hermione came across something that could help, she would say his name and wait for Malfoy to put his quill down to begin speaking. If he had something to say back his gaze would remain focused over her head as he spoke. And when Malfoy deemed her input prudent on something he would clear his throat obnoxiously and launch into whatever it was without even waiting to see if she had acknowledged him.

Never once did he so much as look at her. When she had asked him to repeat himself his jaw had tightened and his hands formed fists on the table between them before he decided to speak.

The sheer number of cases the two of them were attempting to sort through was intimidating but the ordeal was made so much worse by the fact that Malfoy bordered on being rude when they interacted. Her bum ached from the hard wooden chair and she almost wished she was in the library with Harry and Ron, at least with the two of them she had never been able to sit still for this long.

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Draco refused to look at the woman in front of him even though they sat directly opposite each other at a small table. Looking at her was a reminder of what he had come to, of what the Malfoy family had come to. Degraded to working alongside filth like her. Every time they had spoken over the past three hours he had refused to look at her, refused to acknowledge what she was doing for him, for his father.

His father, while Lucius Malfoy may not have been an affectionate father, Draco had never doubted his love for him. Lucius Malfoy might have passed on his prejudices to his son but he had also passed on the incredible value of family. Draco had always had a family that he knew loved him, a family that he knew he could depend on (as long as he didn't stray from the beaten path, but he had never worried about that). A powerful family, one that had taught him what his place was in the world as a Malfoy.

He scoffed to himself, his place, his place in this world was above Hermione Granger and others like her. While he hadn't been thrilled at the idea of asking Potter and Weasley for help, having Granger's assistance crossed the line. While Potter was a half-blood and the whole red-headed lot of the Weasley's were blood traitors, Draco would always hold them in higher regard than he ever would Hermione Granger.

He picked up the next case in his pile, his momentary distraction costing him valuable time, time he did not have. He had twenty days, twenty days to save the man he knew as his father. He didn't want to consider the alternative, because Draco Malfoy would do anything for his family, a trait he had no doubt gotten from his mother. Draco had attempted to kill Albus Dumbledore because the alternative was losing his family, his mother had lied to Lord Voldemort because the alternative was losing her son. But to lose his father to something like this was unthinkable.

The first sentence that caught his eye caused him to snort; "Defendant claims to have been under the influence of the Imperius Curse when forced to torture and kill parent..." Here he was fighting to keep his father's soul in his body and this bloke goes on and offs a perfectly good father?

His snort had caused Granger to look up, her eyes were wide as she waited for him to speak.

Draco decided to quickly describe the specifics of the case to her so as not to appear as though he had snorted for no real reason of consequence. He couldn't bloody well tell Granger that he had found the irony amusing!

She was frowning at him, he could see it out of the corner of his eye, clearly she was trying to piece together how this was helpful in any way.

"What exactly did he do to his parents?" She asked.

He was tempted to tell her that this case wasn't pertinent at all in an exasperated voice but that bordered on friendly or amicable so instead he related the details of the torture in a cold dead sort of tone.

"...mangled remains of the mother were found in the kitchen, her body showed clear signs of the Cruciatius Curse. Additionally Aurors concurred that the body had been stabbed upwards of 46 times. Due to the state of the remains an accurate number wasn't able to be determined. ..."

He continued reading from the file, across from him Granger's jaw tightened, out of the corner of his eye he could see her fists closing on the quill she was holding, her knuckles turning white. He was tempted to look up at her, to see what expression her pathetic face would make when she heard something like this. But he didn't.

"Stop." She hissed, her voice trembling.

He smirked to himself, of course the pathetic little mudblood wanted him to stop, her perfect innocent little ears had had enough. But he didn't stop, he wanted to see just what she would do, he wanted to push her to test her, anything he could do to cause her pain.

Because the fact that she was here right now, that she was helping him right now, it caused him pain. He was just returning the favor.

'SNAP!'

The sharp sound startled him into looking up, Hermione's quill had snapped in her hands, leaving a large cut across her palm, a single tear was sliding down her cheek, she stared wordlessly down at her fingers before looking up and grey eyes met brown for the first time in years.

Her eyes were wide, he could see the fear in them, he leaned in slightly. He lowered his eyes, her mouth hung slightly open in a half sob, he looked down to her hands, where she was bleeding freely, where her blood had spilled onto the papers in front of her, and he recoiled. Dirty blood. Mudblood.

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