Frostykitten - Print Warfare

7/30/2019 Frostykitten - Print Warfare

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Copyright Page

This book was automatically created by FLAG on September 23rd, 2012, based

on content retrieved from http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7699968/.

The content in this book is copyrighted by frostykitten or their authorisedagent(s). All rights are reserved except where explicitly stated otherwise.

This story was first published on January 1st, 2012, and was last updated on

January 1st, 2012.

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Summary

Taking advantage of her position at the Prophet, Hermione gets creative with herrevenge on a certain blond. Unfortunately, things get a little out of hand when he

retaliates.

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Chapter 1

A/N: This started out as something a Professor mentioned in class. A poet(I can't remember which one now, this was started months ago) printed an

obituary for his rival... who wasn't dead. I thought it would make a goodstory.

Happy 2012 everyone!

~Frosty

"What the hell is this?" the enraged blond demanded, waving his copy of theDailyProphet as if the paper had done him personal harm. In a way, it had.

Calmly, Hermione glanced up from the article she'd been editing. "It appears to bea copy of theProphet."

"I know that. There's an obituary in there for me," he snapped. Frantically, heflipped through the pages to find said article, missing the amusement that flashed

across Hermione's face before she could smooth it back into her impassiveexpression.

When he managed to produce the article, Hermione read it over. "Mycondolences," she said solemnly. Her voice cracked slightly from the effort to hold inher laughter, but Malfoy was too distraught to properly notice.

"I'M NOT DEAD," Draco yelled, losing what little composure he'd managed toretain. He probably could have maintained his cool if people hadn't been wishinghim their condolences all day. One man had even screeched in fear upon seeing and

run in the other direction.

Lips twitching with the effort to restrain her laughter, Hermione looked at thepaper again. "It appears you are."

All of his movement stopped as he finally took in her appearance, twitching lipsand laughter in her eyes.

"You wrote this," he said flatly. No longer distracted by the content of the article,

he was free to note that, in tiny letters at the end of the piece, was clearly printedher name.

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"In case you don't remember, I'm the smartest witch of our age. As such, amrarely wrong," she said primly.

The rage pumping under his skin wanted to tear the frustrating woman limb fromlimb, but his clever mind told him that such actions would only land him in Azkaban.No, he was going to have to use all his cunning to punish his bushy-haired nemesis.

"This isn't over, Granger," he said menacingly, putting as much venom as possibleinto his voice and glare. As he turned to leave, he had to suppress the urge to shoveeverything off of her desk like a wronged toddler. Malfoys didn't throw tantrums likethat in public, they were undignified.

"I expect to be invited to the funeral," she called.

Briefly, he paused, but a slow smirk grew on his face and he started moving again.He'd get her back, and vengeance would be sweet.

Once Malfoy was gone from her office, Hermione burst out laughing, her bodycurled over her desk with tears running down her cheeks.

Working for theDaily Prophet was a good job, but sometimes she needed to letout a little steam in order to restore joy to her work. She'd been having a

particularly stressful day when her little idea had occurred to her.

Malfoy had said something to her at the recent Ministry party celebrating theanniversary of their victory over Voldemort. No one got away with claiming she wasa "boring, uptight bitch with no sense of humour and a stick up her arse largeenough to rival Percy Weasley's", even if she had stumbled and accidentally spilt herdrink on them.

Her little confrontation with the blond had made her week; his reaction waseverything she'd been hoping for.

The recent break-up with Ron had left her in a funk for the last few months, butshe finally felt like the cloud that had been hanging over her head was starting tolift. Who would have thought it would beMalfoythat made her feel better? It wasn'tin a conventional way, but he had still lightened her mood.

She was just starting to nibble on her lunch behind her desk so she could get to

work on actual news stories when Malfoy stormed back into the room.

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"Today I've had to reassure my estate manager, a team of lawyers, and my motherthat I'm not actually dead," he snarled, throwing himself down onto one of the chairsshe had for guests.

While it wasn't as amusing as before, Hermione still snorted a little at the idea ofMalfoy having to reassure his mother that he was still alive. He had to have tried to

do it through owl post; otherwise, she couldn't see the conversation having takenvery long.

When she was done with her snickering, she turned her attention back to thesilently fuming blond. Never had she seen his usually matte grey eyes look moremercurial and angry.

They were kind of entrancing.

As subtly as possible, Hermione tried to shake those blasphemous thoughts right

out of her head. She must be overworked if she was thinking Malfoy was anythingbesides the annoying prat who had bullied her in school and hadn't grown upenough after graduation to see a reason to stop.

"Why are you back here?" Hermione asked with a sigh.

"People keep owling my office with either condolences or subtly worded letters

asking if it was one of them who offed me and congratulating them for it. If I'm notgoing to get any work done today then neither are you."

Leaning back, he thumped his feet onto her desk, scuffing the papers that hadbeen resting there. An almost petulant expression was on his face.

Irritably, Hermione snatched them from under his feet and glared. Suddenly shewasn't sure that tormenting him was worth the aggravation of having to deal withhis constant presence. The bloke had a lot of practice getting under people's skin,and he was good at it.

She turned her full attention to the crinkled and smudged papers, making surethey contained nothing important. Luckily, they were just opinion pieces Percy sent

in every few days in hopes that she'd publish them. If he ever wrote something thatwas even a little bit more entertaining than Professor Binn's classes, then she'dconsider publishing it. Until then, his writing would only take up space in herrubbish bin with everything else she knew had no place in theProphet.

"It's your own fault your coworkers dislike you so much - and so obviously - that

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people think they may have killed you," Hermione said. She figured that if sheangered him enough, then perhaps he'd storm out of her office for the second timethat day. It was just a happy coincidence that she could anger him using the truth.

Instead of the rage she'd been expecting, Malfoy deflated slightly, rubbing thebridge of his nose tiredly. "It's not my fault. With the level of incompetence I have to

deal with on a daily basis, it's a wonder the Department of InternationalCommunication hasn't collapsed."

She couldn't disagree but she kept her eyes on the paper in front of her, notwanting Malfoy to know that she was in agreement with him. Wasn't there afundamental rule somewhere that a Malfoy and a Muggleborn couldn't be of thesame mind about something for fear that the world would implode? It was probablyin the Malfoy charter.

When he was silent for too long, Hermione glanced up at him to see Malfoy

watching her contemplatively. Apparently he'd burned through his anger and haddecided on a cooler approach to his problem with her.

He steepled his fingers and looked at her contemplatively over them. "Granger,I'm wondering if you're aware of who it is owns this paper."

Panicking briefly, Hermione tried to stop the blood from draining from her face. A

reaction like that was just what Malfoy wanted. She knew for a fact that theProphetwas owned by a company called Foamly Media Group. Nothing Malfoy-related there;he was just trying to get a rise out of her.

The smirk on his face didn't bode well for her.

"I'm guessing that right now the words 'Foamly Media Group' are running throughyour head."

She glared, which he took as a yes.

"Let me give you a little history lesson," Malfoy said, looking gleeful enough thatHermione knew she wasn't going to like his 'history lesson'. "Before the war, Malfoy

Industries owned a large portion of Diagon Alley, but the whole Voldemort debacledragged the Malfoy name through the mud and forced us to do a littlerestructuring."

Hermione stared at him in horror, hoping he wasn't going to tell her what shethought he was. It would be too terrible to comprehend if she actually worked for

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Malfoy.

Malfoy's smirk widened. "I see you've picked up where I'm going with this story."He reclined more in his chair and placed his arms behind his head, relaxing in orderto more fully savour the moment. "Despite decades of being one of the mostrespected Pureblooded families, we Malfoys discovered that keeping our name on all

of our companies was actually a hindrance to business. The solution was a rathersimple one; we bought up various smaller companies and kept their names, whilerenaming some of the existing ones with a jumbled version of our name that Motherdecided was a good idea."

This time, Hermione was unable to stop all of the blood draining from her face.She was quickly rearranging the letters of Foamly in her head into Malfoy. Merlin,she'd been a Malfoy employee for years and hadn't even known about it. Harry and

Ron were going to laugh their asses off when she told them about it.

Her nose wrinkled in distaste at the thought. She felt kind ofdirtyfor working forthe Malfoys. It wasn't like she'd compromised her morals or anything while workingfor the paper, but it felt like she had.

Some of her conflict must have shown on her face, because Malfoy was entirelytoo smug. "What's wrong Granger? Don't like the idea of working for your betters?"

At her stricken and furious expression, he left the room, smug and confident thatshe was going to remember his visit for a long time. She would think again beforeshe published something untrue about a member of his family.

Hermione glanced around her new office. It was bigger than her previous one, butshe hadn't had time to unpack any of the personal touches that made it hers.

"What the hell, Granger?"

She turned from organizing her knickknacks on the bookshelf to the blondstanding in her doorway. One of her eyebrows rose in question. "Is there a problem,Malfoy?"

Not waiting for an invitation, he stalked into her office and, with the toe of hisshoe, poked at one of the many cardboard boxes scattered around the room. "TheDepartment of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes?" he asked in disbelief. "You

quit your job at the paper to wipe Muggle memories and clean up after people too

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stupid to keep their magic under control?"

Hermione didn't even turn to face him. "In case you didn't notice, Malfoy, theplaque on the door you just passed said I'm head of the department. I can do moregood here than I ever did at the paper."

Kingsley had been trying to get her to work at the Ministry since before she hadeven finished her last year at Hogwarts, but she'd resisted, wanting to get a careeron her own. Fat lot of good that had done her; she'd ended up working for the worstprat in Britain and not even known it until he decided to show up in her office.

He snorted. "The only good you can do here is completely replacing everyone onthe Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee. I spent entirely too much time last monthdealing with an international incident that originated with one horrible excuse from

yournew department."

Deep breaths, she told herself. If she let it show that he was irritating her, thenshe'd never get rid of him. Like a child, he'd get bored and wander away if he wasn'tgetting the attention he wanted... Or was it that he'd throw a temper tantrum inorder to get the attention? Hermione wasn't very good with children. Their stickyfingers always ruined her books.

Best to just play his game and shoot a barb back at him, he might get offended

and leave again. "I trust you've sorted out the confusion with your estate manager?"she asked in a falsely sweet voice.

When he didn't immediately insult her, she turned around, confused. He'dobviously forgotten that it was his turn to say something infuriating. She found himlooking at her with such a piercing stare that she was sure he could see rightthrough her. It was a little eerie.

She had to turn back to the shelves she'd been organising to escape those eyes ofhis.

"Half the people who see me either think I'm a vampire or some kind of corporealghost," he said flatly.

Hermione could just picture the other Ministry employees in Malfoy's departmentbeing even more terrified of him than before because they were worried that he'dbite them rather than just hex them. He definitely had the personality for a

night-stalking predator.

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"Their fear must put a huge damper on your social life," Hermione respondeddryly. It didn't take her advanced intellect to figure out that rumours of Malfoy beingless than human wouldn't scare away anyone who was actually friends with him, andanyone it did keep away were probably people he didn't want near him in the firstplace.

Plopping himself down on her still undecorated desk, Malfoy watched her putteraround the room, rifling through boxes and unpacking her things.

"I didn't think you were the type to just give up on a career," he said, soundingstrangely disappointed for someone who wasn't supposed to have any expectationsof her at all.

Hermione whipped around to glare at him. "Is there a reason you're here, or did

you just decide to grace me with your irritating presence?"

He scowled at her. Through some trick of the light, Hermione briefly saw analmost hurt look on his face. Strange. There must be a gas leak or something in heroffice making her hallucinate.

"Apparently there isn't," he snapped. Turning sharply and leaving.

Hermione flinched when he slammed the door behind him.

Three days later and his words were still bothering her. She'd turned them aroundin her head, trying to look at them from all angles and figure out what exactlyhe'dmeant by them.

He'd seemed almost disappointed in her that she hadn't stayed at her old job andfought with him. But how was he even capable of being disappointed in her? He

wasn't supposed to have any expectations of her, so how could she not meet thoseexpectations?

For another day she was tormented by not knowing what was going on in theblond's head. She considered the possibility that he was messing with her onpurpose, but somehow she didn't think so.

Hermione sighed and glared at her door from behind her desk. She wasn't goingto get any work done until she'd solved the bloody mystery, and to do that, she was

going to have to go see Malfoy.

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The stupid albino ferret had always been good at getting under her skin, butrarely did he manage to seat himself so firmly in her mind. It shouldn't matter to herthat he was disappointed in her, but it did.

It was a short walk from her office to his; too short for her to manage to talkherself out of going to see him, but more than long enough for her to be overrun

with doubts. She had to rustle up some righteous anger before she could bringherself to open his office door.

Malfoy's eyes barely flickered to her before going right back to the paper he'dbeen reading.

"I don't have time for this, Granger," he said, his gaze focused on the paper.

Hermione bristled. He didn't even have the decency to look at her when she wasabout to confront him. Never mind that she had done the same thing to him when

he'd been in her office, she was there to talk to him, the least he could do was payher attention while she berated him to make herself feel better.

"And what exactly do you thinkthis is?" she demanded scathingly.

When he continued to ignore her, Hermione stomped over to his desk, leaned overit, and slammed a palm down on the paper that was so fascinating to him. Didn't he

know how rude it was to read when someone was trying to talk to you? Hermioneignored the fact that she had done the same thing on numerous occasions to peopleshe liked more than Malfoy liked her.

He glanced up at her, but his eyes never quite made it to her face. Hermioneglanced down to see what he was looking at and squeaked in mortification, jumpingaway from him with a glare. As she'd been leaning over his desk, her shirt hadgaped, giving him a clear view of her bra and the tops of her breasts.

"I think," he said, meeting her eyes, "That you're here to yell at me to makeyourself feel better about something stupid, and I don't have time to deal with youright now."

For extra layers between his eyes and her chest, Hermione crossed her arms eventhough he was no longer staring. He'd actually barely looked; it was the tingles ofexcitement she'd momentarily felts at his expression that had really thrown her off.They fought and there were sparks between them, but they weren't supposed to be

that kind of sparks. The kind that led to torn buttons and inappropriate officebehaviour.

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To get her mind out of the disturbing loop it had landed itself, Hermione went onthe defensive. "For your information, I have a perfectly reasonable explanation formy presence in your office," she said primly.

Skeptically, Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "What is it you wanted then?"

Having not expected him to call her bluff before she had time to think up aresponse, Hermione blurted out the first thing that came into her head.

"I wanted to know why you sounded disappointed in me about quitting my job."

Merlin, she was an idiot. For someone who was supposed to be smart, she couldcertainly say some stupid things.

The other eyebrow rose to join its match and he smirked slightly. "Since when doyou care what I think?"

"If I ever cared what you think, I would have long ago dropped out of Hogwartsand become a circus clown or something else demeaning that you would deemfitting," she snapped. "Now answer my question."

"Technically, you didn't ask a question."

Hermione gritted her teeth and gave him her best glare, the one that never failedto make Harry and Ron quake in their boots. It didn't seem as effective on Malfoy.

"Answer it anyway," she said through gritted teeth.

Malfoy stood from his chair, still focused on his papers. "Look, Granger, I'm surethis is something very important, but I have a meeting to get to."

He strode past her, close enough that their shoulders brushed as he left the room."Don't you have a job to get back to?" he called back to her without glancing up fromthe papers.

Huffily, Hermione stomped back to her office. If the door slammed a little hard

behind her, it wasn't her fault.

Days later, Hermione sat at her desk, her cheeks still glowing with anger from

Mafoy's dismissal of her. He was allowed to burst into her office and rage at her, but

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wouldn't let her have the same release? How was that fair?

It wasn't fair. He had publicly embarrassed her, caused her to lose her job(indirectly, but she still blamed him for her change of career), and now he expectedto just dismiss her and get away with it?

No. Hermione Granger did not take things like that lying down, she fought back.

Malfoy may own the paper, but none of the reporters there, save for Hermione,had ever been overly concerned with pesky things like journalistic integrity. Theywere lucky that slander charges and the like were practically unheard of in thewizarding world. Hermione was lucky as well, because she had an idea for anotherstory.

Her smile had a hint of evil in it as she started to write what was sure to be aliterary masterpiece.

The very next day, Hermione walked into her office to find a livid blond sittingbehind her desk, with all the lights off, just waiting for her. To be honest, it was kindof creepy, but it also filled her with a sense of accomplishment.

She waved her wand to light the room as she walked through the door. Only

slightly less creepy with illumination, she observed. That was unfortunate.

"Can I help you with something, Malfoy?" she asked in a falsely innocent voice. Itwas a decent performance considering she hadn't even had her morning coffee yet.She had thought it would take him longer to confront her about the article.

"Don't play coy with me, Granger, I know you for the devious bitch you are," hesnarled, whipping the paper onto her desk.

Ah, it was nice to be on familiar ground with him once more. Cold dismissal just

wasn't their thing. There was nothing cold about their relationship, there never hadbeen.

From him, words like those were practically a compliment. In fact, she was prettysure there was an admiring glint in his eyes... under all that rage. Her primaryconcern at the moment was the rage, it made it look like he was going to murder heror something. Hermione was confident in her ability to protect herself, but she

couldn't have her guard up all the time.

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For a brief moment, she felt a thrill of fear, but it was quickly crushed. Malfoy wasa git, but he wasn't a bad person. The emotional trauma he could dredge up wouldbe great, but she wouldn't actually be in danger.

In an effort to avoid his enraged gaze, Hermione let her eyes drift down to thepaper in front of her. Immediately, she had to clamp a hand over her mouth to stop

the laughter to escape.

Recently Deceased Malfoy Heir Secretly Marries War Hero

A reputable source has informed us that Draco Malfoy, son of convicted DeathEater Lucius Malfoy, recently wedded war hero and member of the Golden TrioRonald Weasley in a secret ceremony open only to close friends. More details tocome.

"It appears congratulations are in order," she said between chuckles. It was

impossible for her to keep a straight face.

Malfoy did not share her amusement. Not at all.

"If you still worked at the paper, I would fire you and make sure you never work inthe industry again. Since you're no longer employed by me, I'm going to have tothink of some other way to exact my revenge." Having moved past his initial rage at

her, he seemed to settle, steepling his fingers in front of his face and staring at hercontemplatively.

Unwilling to take a visitor's seat in her own office, Hermione crossed her armsover her chest. "You don't work at the paper anymore and I have work to do, so ifyou'd kindly vacate my office..."

"I'm not going anywhere," he said smugly. The statement was accentuated by awiggle to get more comfortable in his chair and a thump as his shoes plantedthemselves on her desk.

"If I didn't have it from a good source that you're already spoken for, and playingfor the other team besides, I would swear you enjoy my company," Hermione

taunted.

Silver eyes narrowed in a glare. "Did it have to be Weaselbee? I think I could havedone better..." he muttered.

"You would never have been able to land Harry, he's the saviour of the wizarding

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world. Way out of your league. Besides, he's happily with Ginny."

Malfoy only continued to glare. He seemed content to just take up her office spaceand glower menacingly, but only twenty minutes after Hermione had arrived, apaper airplane flew in through the door and landed on her desk. After picking it upand reading it, Malfoy left with one last parting glare.

"Don't think this is over, Granger," he threatened.

Hermione snorted behind him. "I seem to recall you saying something similarbefore," she called after him.

"Do you have any idea how childish the two of you are acting?"

Hermione blushed and looked down at her hands clasped in her lap, cheeksburning with shame. She hadn't been scolded like a child even when she'd been achild. The situation was only made worse by the fact that it was her boss andMinister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt scolding her and Malfoy.

Shooting a sideways glance at her blond nemesis, Hermione saw that he didn'tlook anything close to contrite. If she had to put a name on his expression, she'd sayhe was smug, though what he had to be smug about was a mystery. She had

obviouslywon the last round. Malfoy had started off strong with a jinx that emptiedall coffee cups within her immediate vicinity, forcing her to attempt to compete herwork without glorious caffeine. She had been banished from her department forremoving all the coffee. Naturally, she had stormed into Malfoy's office and madesure he didn't get any coffee wither.

By lunchtime though, Hermione had evened the score somewhat by forcing Malfoyto share her torment or remove the spell. He'd refused to remove the spell and had

stalked to the cafeteria for lunch, obviously hoping Hermione wouldn't follow himsomewhere so public. His hopes had been in vain. Needles to say, their

confrontation in the cafeteria had quickly degraded to name calling and foodthrowing. Their fellow Ministry employees were not pleased.

Kingsley glared at the both of them. "Draco, you were a model employee untilHermione started working here, and now you're starting food fights in the cafeteria?This is unacceptable. There's only one thing I can see resolving this problem."

Expecting to be fired, Hermione cringed a little in her chair, unconsciously

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hunching her shoulders.

Kingsley looked between them, disapproving and stern. He seemed to bedeliberating punishments.

"Minister," Malfoy started, peeking at Hermione out of the corners of his eyes and

looking almost worried about her.

The Minister interrupted Malfoy mid-protest. "Malfoy, you're going to takeHermione on a date and relieve some of that sexual tension between the two of youbefore the whole Ministry becomes collateral damage."

Hermione and Draco shared a long glance.

"You heard the Minister, Granger. How about this Friday?"

Hermione smiled. "Sounds lovely."

Kingsley nodded approvingly and dismissed them from his office. Hopefully, thiswould be the end of their newspaper sabotage and Ministry shenanigans. Hermionehad passed to close to him earlier in the day and his coffee had disappeared. No onemessed with the Minister's coffee. Ever.

Resurrected Malfoy Heir Once Again Secretly Marries War Hero

After a whirlwind courtship, Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger have officiallytied the knot.

Ron Weasley was not available for comment. This reporter can only assume thathe has fled the country, nursing a broken heart after a rather messy divorce with

Mr. Malfoy. When asked for a comment on his marriage to Mr. Weasley, all that theMalfoy heir had to say was that "Weasley's unnatural obsession with Potter got in

the way of the romance".

It seems that Harry Potter also nurses feelings for Mr. Malfoy and he and Mr.Weasley were constantly fighting over the desirable blond. We can only speculatehow they feel about Hermione Granger stealing the Malfoy heir right out from undertheir noses.

Hermione folded the paper and turned to face the blond lounging beside her in

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bed, an eyebrow raised in question.

"His 'unnatural obsession with Potter got in the way of the romance'?" she askeddryly.

Picking through the breakfast tray resting across his lap, Draco carefully buttered

a piece of toast before he looked over at his wife, smirking. "You have to admit,those two were always a little too close during school, if you know what I mean."

She rolled her eyes. "You're going to have to hire some fact checkers at the paperbefore people start doubting what they read in it."

He tugged her against his side so she could share the breakfast. "Maybe once weget back from our honeymoon."

The End

Frostykitten - Print Warfare

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