No Peace in Quiet | Draco

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[attr="class","cbody"]She had a meeting with Draco Malfoy, of all people.
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It wasn’t that she had too much of a problem with him, if she was being perfectly honest. He was a different person than he had been in school, as was she. They had been out of Hogwarts for decades now. Holding onto school day grudges was not productive. If he had still been an awful person, that would have been a different matter entirely. But he wasn’t. It didn’t take a genius or a particularly perceptive person to realize that. Actions, in some cases, spoke a lot louder than words.
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After all, she knew what he had been through in the past and what he had done with his life. Malfoys were always in the papers, just like Potters were. She had seen his name scattered in Rita Skeeter’s articles, just as she was sure that he had seen hers. Hermione knew that he had gone to Gráinneog Institute, because it had honestly surprised her when she had first heard about it. It was a school founded by Squibs, and its majors were all those that people could pursue both in the Muggle world and the magical one. It was not a school that she would have thought that a Malfoy would go to. It was likely not a school that his parents had been pleased that he’d gone to.
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She knew that he had been engaged to a Muggleborn a few years back. Some people had thought that was just some ploy to keep himself out of trouble with Durant gaining power in the background, and she supposed she didn’t know if that was true one way or another. It hadn’t lasted or turned to marriage, so it could have been all for show. There was no way to make that judgment, but it was certainly a pessimistic thing to think. There was a far better chance that the relationship was real than there was that Draco would spend years with a person just for the chance of it shielding him from changing power in the Ministry.
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And she knew that Narcissa Malfoy had come to Mermaid Isle while they were in hiding. She had seen her there, had known where the Potters had been hiding, and she had said nothing. Yes, the charms on the island would have made it hard to actually tell anyone anything. But if she had wanted Andromeda or the aurors to know where they were hiding, there were ways to make sure they were caught. It was something that she definitely could have made happen. She could have brought Andromeda there, she could have hinted that they needed to put pressure on the Krums. There were plenty of ways that Narcissa Malfoy could have gotten them all arrested, and she hadn’t. The Malfoys were not ordinary purists. They simply weren’t.
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With Harry and Kingsley both back at the Ministry, she had taken up the helm at the Project. Someone needed to keep the day to day operations running. When she had realized that Draco was the owner of Desiderium, she determined that there was a chance for collaboration between them. It was worth reaching out to him to see if he wanted to have a meeting to discuss it. If he wasn’t interested, he could have said no. If he didn’t want to meet up with her personally, he could have sent someone else. After all, her running the Project was technically not what she should be doing, as a Muggleborn. But she had been back in London for months, and the aurors had still not broken down their door to arrest her. There was no reason not to work here, at least. She couldn’t get a job in the Ministry, but she could certainly do this.
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It was late in the afternoon, and the few people that had been working today had gone home already, so the office was empty as she waited for Draco’s arrival. There was plenty to do to keep her occupied while she waited, but she got to her feet and headed to the lobby when she heard the front door open, knowing that there was no receptionist still here to greet him. “Hi—thank you for coming, Draco. Or would you prefer Lord Malfoy?” She raised an eyebrow as she asked the question, not being able to help herself, before she offered her hand to him to shake.
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