Out Of Order

Chapter 1

Hermione had almost made a clean escape until her unfortunate discovery on the street. Confronted with the reality that her coat pockets were, indeed, empty-neither the crumpled receipt from the grocer's nor a slightly sticky sweet wrapper could be mistaken for her mittens-she was forced to return to the Ministry, entirely against her will.

She needed those mittens because she'd promised Ginny and Angelina that she'd take the kids ice skating tomorrow, giving their parents a much-needed break. Fred, Roxanne, and James were prone to rampaging for hours, and a Warming Charm on her bare hands wasn't going to cut it in a Muggle park. No, she needed her mittens, the ones that she'd hand-knitted two winters ago. The stitching wasn't the best, and she'd had to redo one of the thumbs three times; but they were warm, comfortable, and imbued with an exceptionally strong Warming Charm. She hadn't even been out of the Ministry for ten minutes, and the bitter night air had already numbed her bare fingers.

Hermione hurried through London's snowy streets, squeezing herself into the musty old telephone box and silently cursing the Ministry's Anti-Disapparition Jinx the entire ride down. Oh, there were excellent reasons for the jinx's existance, but, at the moment, what she wanted was to pop in and out of her office in a heartbeat. She'd originally hoped to escape from the Ministry before anyone in particular had noticed that she was gone, as he'd been making little remarks about tonight's Christmas party. Well, she wasn't going to be around for this year's party, that was for sure. Not after what had happened last time.

As the telephone box came to a halt, Hermione looked up and down the entrance hall before cautiously leaving the booth. Although the entrance hall usually held no more than a few people by seven o'clock at night, tonight it was completely deserted thanks to those either tucking into their dinner at home or into the Ministry's gratis champagne at the party. Hermione sidled into the main hall before scurrying across the floor, her footsteps echoing in the grand vaulted central chamber. She glanced left and right before sliding to a halt in front of the main set of lifts. She jabbed at the button for the lift, drumming her foot against the floor as she anxiously waited. She'd be in and out of her office with her mittens, quick as a thought, just as long as the lift came quickly. The set of doors to her right opened with a chime. Hermione darted forward, only to skid to a halt once more.

Draco Malfoy, the last person she wanted to see, was standing squarely in the middle of the lift. His look of surprise quickly turned into sly delight, unlike her own look of dismay.

"Auror Malfoy," she said stiffly.

His smile grew even wider. "If it isn't Unspeakable Granger. Come to join the party, instead of spending another year sulking in your dungeons?" he drawled.

"Multi-level underground laboratories," she automatically corrected. Just because her department didn't have flashy high ceilings, expansive windows, and a large interior decorating budget-well, any interior decorating budget-did not mean that the Department of Mysteries was some kind of dungeon.

"Your offices are made of stone, you have no windows, and rumour has it that they practically chain you to your desks. It's a dungeon."

While Hermione adored her work, that wasn't to say that her work environment was without flaws. The Department of Mysteries wasn't a dungeon, but it certainly didn't have the fine hardwood floors, enchanted tapestries, and five-layer crystal chandeliers that graced the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Hermione put that down to more than a little inter-departmental blackmail on that account. Looking at Draco, she found herself missing the first nine months of the year, when she'd been seconded to the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Her time with International, working on the renewal of the St. Gallen Treaty on the Regulation of Experimental and Restricted Magic, had not been without its perks. For example, her International colleagues had been much more sociable by far, even if one of them had been a too-charming prat who-