Alpha and Omega

Chapter 4: The Light in the Dark

The doors slid open with a hiss, revealing an expansive, cubicle-cut office, surprisingly Muggle-like, except for the fact that the cubicles had taken it upon themselves to rearrange themselves at random intervals. Shifting continuously, the room resembled some sort of giant, writhing maze.

Draco stepped over the threshold and found himself at a desk where a young witch was perusing the personals. The gold placard that hung, glimmering, over the dark mahogany of the desk was labeled Receptionist: Bernice Waters. Her head hovered behind a multicolored, highlighted page, and he leaned in to read the closest illuminated lines: 20-year-old wizard seeking bubbly partner. Prefer a slug-munting mate.

Slug-munting? Thought Draco with a snort. What a load of-

"Yes?" Bernice snapped her paper with an irritable shake at Draco's still-bent head. He looked up quickly and was surprised to find quite a pretty witch with amber eyes glaring at the intrusion.

The blond coughed coolly. "I believe that a Junior Auror Position was reserved for me quite recently."

She turned her glossy lips upward in what Draco decidedly thought was not quite a welcoming smile. Then she narrowed her eyes. "No," she said and picked up the newspaper again.

"Slug-munting," Draco commented offhandedly, with an unaffected air. "Quite a pastime. I remember as a wee lad I would, with my father, inflate them into abnormally huge, slimy..."

She shuffled the paper irritably again. "Malfoy, leave. Or I might be hastened to call security on you."

"...and they were good times indeed. But then, that was when I was 5 years of age." He fixed her with a bland smile. "The Aurors would come after me? I assure, Miss Waters, that I much more protected here than you are."

"Indeed you are," Bernice sneered. "Because I'm in the league with You-Know-Who, I'm free to prance around in my knickers in the Ministry."

"I'm fully clothed," said Draco, motioning vaguely to his body. He smirked and leaned forward slightly, catching the side of her jaw with his free hand, running his thumb languidly along her cheek. "But if you prefer me in only my knickers, I'd gladly oblige. After all, I don't mind if you join me."

She slapped his hand away. "Leave. Now." She spoke angrily, but anger wasn't the only thing causing the furious red to blossom across her face. She stood up, wand in hand. "Your kind is not welcome here."

Draco only continued to smirk, infuriatingly so. "Well, I hope you have luck with those personals. You could do much better than slug-munting...like me, for instance."

"I wouldn't give you a second glance for all your family fortune," she snapped.

"You wouldn't need to. I already own it."

Draco turned to go, but just as he stepped towards the lift, he ran into a precarious pile of papers that were drifting idly behind him. He swore, and there was a muddle as white sheets fluttered around him and a hasty "I'm so sorry!" ensued.

When the misbehaving sheets rearranged into a pile once more, he found himself face to face with the last person he wanted to see. She was still quickly snatching one loose leaflet, her coppery strands of hair standing in vivid contrast with her fair skin and light freckles.

"Weasley," he said automatically, with a mix of relief and disgust.

She glanced smilingly towards him, but when she recognized the pale blond, she stiffened. "Malfoy, what are doing here?"

"I..." and it suddenly struck him how strange it would be to start talking about Dumbledore, alive. "I need to see the Head Auror. Now."

She stared at him. "Why?"

"I have to give something to him."

"From you?"

"No. From somebody else."

"Who?"

"None of your business," he snapped. Neither of them noticed that Bernice was staring at them with confusion, her head moving in tandem with the exchanges in conversation.

"What do I have to do to prove that I'm not here to kill you? You have the fucking advantage, Weasley. Just bring me to the Head Auror."

"Don't swear at me," she said, gritting her teeth. "You don't belong here, and you can't prove it."

Draco strode forward suddenly, and Ginny flinched, expecting an attack. But, instead, he had rolled up his sleeve, revealing the golden phoenix stretched across his palm. The redhead stared down at the shining, luminous bird before looking up to meet his eyes again. They stared at each other for what seemed like eternity, silver-gray eyes locked with copper-gold.

"All right," she said, finally. "I'll take you there. Bernice," she nodded to the astonished witch. "Can you bring these papers to Lance? He'll take them." The brunette nodded numbly, waved her wand, and the papers rustled after her obediently.

Ginny began to stalk off, and Draco, adjusting his cloak, hurried after her. As he caught up with her, he remembered something.

"Who's Tom?" he asked nonchalantly.

She spun around, and he walked into her. Pulling back, he was surprised to see a violent contortion of feelings flashing in her eyes.

"What did you say?" Her voice was pulled tautly, threatening to lash at him.

Draco raised an eyebrow. "I merely asked, 'Where's Ron?' as in your brother, Ronald Weasley?"

Ginny resumed walking. "Why is it a concern of yours?"

Draco hurried up to catch up with her. "I heard that he's doing some top-secret project for the Ministry..." he stated with feigned interest.

She snorted in amusement. "Where did you hear that? Last I heard, you were living in a hole deep in the ground. Ron's working at the International Affairs branch."

"How about Potter?"

She looked at him intently. "He's working with the Senior Aurors."

Draco snapped his fingers in gesture of well, of course Potter's elevated himself in the Ministry. "Of course. And you're an Auror-in-training because you want to be with Potter?"

She didn't answer, and he glanced over, seeing more pained looks from the redhead. Draco had heard about her legendary crush on Harry Potter at Hogwarts; he even once made fun of her for it, but he never realized that she liked him that much. To him, it seemed like a childhood infatuation, nothing more. On his part, he never really took his on-and-off relationship with Pansy Parkinson seriously. She was available, she was there, and she made his love life as worry-free as possible because she always adhered to his requests.

Draco let the topic drop, and they continued on in silence for a short while until Ginny stopped in front of a pair of shiny oak doors. "Here we are," she said, finally.

He paused, his hand hovering over the shined wood, and looked at her. "Well, I guess I'll be seeing you around, Weasley."

She nodded. "Yeah." She began to turn away, but he spoke, stopping her.

"You know, the way how I see it, you can do a lot better than Potter."

She looked at him with almost-sad, but strangely determined eyes. "Malfoy, you can't let go of things you've grown into your whole life so easily. I suggest that you redeem yourself before you go around offering advice like Dr. Phil. The way I see it, you've got a long way to improvement."

"Dr. Phil?"

She had already turned around and was beginning to walk away, but Draco could swear that he almost caught a shadow of her smile as she answered, "The first step to improvement is watching the telly."

"The Muggle telly?" he asked, in disbelief.

"The Muggle telly." And she ran down the hallway, the candles lighting her way as they flared into brilliance before her and were subdued into darkness behind her.