St. Mungo's Anatomy

Author's Note: Hello, hello, hello! Have you missed me? I've certainly missed you all. Sorry for the delay, I write spuratically… Enjoy!

"Gin, you home?" Hermione yelled, as she entered their apartment, arms full of books.

"Yeah, I'm here," Ginny called from the bedroom. "What in God's name are you doing with all of those?" She asked, entering the room, indicating the stack of books in her friend's arms.

"Just some light research. Aaron, you know Aaron from my practice, well, Aaron and I just got one of our first clients. His brother invented this bizarre curse and hit him with it, so we need to find a cure. Right now he has a second nose, and let's just say it's not on his face. How funny is that?" Hermione recounted, laughing to herself, while flipping through the mail on the table.

"Oh that's a riot," Ginny laughed. "I didn't see you come in last night. I guess I fell asleep before you came home."

"Oh yeah, I was researching last night with Aaron. We ended up falling asleep in my office."

"Wow, you and this Aaron guy seem to be spending a lot of time together. What about Brody?" Ginny asked, curiously.

"Brody…well, he's a nice guy and everything but I didn't really feel any spark. So I ended things. And nothing romantic is happening with Aaron, we just work together."

"Well you just worked with Malfoy and look where that got you!" Ginny said mischievously.

"That is completely different—" Hermione began.

"Speaking of Malfoy, I saw him last night."

"What? Where? What?" Hermione asked, flustered. "Not that I care but—"

"At Luna's, he looked good."

"Well, good for him."

"He gave me something that he wanted me to give to you." Ginny smiled. She and Luna had devised a plan to help Hermione. If she is really over Draco then the plan won't harm her, but if she is still pining after him, like they believe she is, then it might just give her the push she needs to admit her feelings for him.

"Really?" Hermione sputtered too quickly. "What?"

"His jacket," Ginny said, pulling it out of her bag. "Now why do you think he would want you to have this?"

"I mean I guess he technically gave it to me…but I don't want it. Can you throw it out or something?" Hermione asked, sadly. The jacket instantly made her think of Draco and of all the things that she was initially attracted to. It even smelled like him. But Draco proved to be a huge disappointment and she needed to forget him.

"You know Draco is seeing someone else," Ginny lied. "I heard it's getting pretty serious."

"What?" Hermione didn't care if she sounded emotional; she just wanted answers.

"Yup. Remember Melinda?"

"Oh my god. I walked in on them…that's why I quit!" Hermione felt tears spring to her eyes.

"Yeah. Actually I think they will both be at Luna and Blaise's Christmas party tonight."

"That's tonight? Bollocks!" Hermione groaned. "I have nothing to wear and I hate going to parties alone."

"You're not going alone. You can come with Harry and me!"

"No offense Gin, but I think the only thing more sad than going to holiday parties alone is going to holiday parties as the third wheel. I'll figure something out."

"You could un-break up with Brody?" Ginny offered.

"I don't think I could possibly stand him for another moment. If I have to listen to him dribble on about how, 'life is just a living portrait,' one more time, I will projectile vomit."

"That is disgusting!" Ginny grimaced at her crude, albeit hilarious, friend.

"Sorry."

Draco had never experienced anything more painful in his entire lifetime. One date with Melinda and he thought his mind was going to explode.

"So I told Stephanie that like, no way was magenta her color. I mean, right? She has red hair…magenta is like almost red-ish-pink and like that kind of clashes. I mean it doesn't totally clash but like enough that she should avoid it. Everyone knows redheads look good in green. But like she doesn't have green eyes, she has brown eyes. So like there is nothing that she can really pull off." Melinda babbled on.

"To be perfectly honest, I wasn't listening." Draco muttered.

"Want me to start over?" Melinda asked, batting her eyelashes.

"No, I have little interest in Stephanie's color pallet, or any woman's color pallet, especially women whom I have never met."

"So Blaise's Christmas party is tonight," Melinda said, suggestively. "We're going together, right?"

"Uh, well…I don't—" Draco sputtered.

"Good. I would totally hate to go alone. And a guy going alone is really sad too. I am so glad we found each other. We're totally perfect together."

"Perfect is a strange word…" Draco groaned.

"You're perfect, Draco Malfoy!" Melinda said, leaning forward to kiss him.

"No, not at all," he said, avoiding her lips.

"Hey you've reached Blaise and Luna's voicemail. Ah! We live together! So crazy, right? He said he loved me! Oh uh, leave a message." Ginny sighed, hearing Luna's cheerful voice on her telephone message.

"Hey Luna, it's me, Ginny. Stage one complete. Idea of D plus M in L set in H's mind. H is worried. It's great. Blaise, if you try decoding this message I will K-I-L-L you. That is all."

"Hello?"

"Hey Gin, it's me, Luna. I don't think Blaise could decode your message because I couldn't even decode your message," Luna said, clutching the phone in one hand. "What does D plus M in L set in H's mind mean?"

"Duh. The idea of Draco plus Melinda in love was set in Hermione's mind."

"Oh."

"Keep up. And you're supposed to be the Ravenclaw. Jeez." Ginny teased.

"Hey Hermione," Aaron greeted.

"Hey Aaron. How's it going?" Hermione smiled, entering his office.

"Great. I'm finding a lot of research for Mr. Lyonsion's case. I think we'll have him good as new in no time."

"That's great!" Hermione smiled. Running her own practice had become the best decision of her young life so far. "Hey listen, Aaron, I actually have to leave work early to get ready for this rather stupid Christmas party that I was invited to. I really am dreading it, but a friend is hosting it so—"

"Don't worry about it. So you don't like parties?"

"It's not that I don't like parties, but due to extenuating circumstances and my poor decision making, I'm not looking forward to seeing a certain person." Hermione grimaced.

"Let me guess, an ex-boyfriend?"

"Something along those lines, yes. Well not a boyfriend, but an ex…something. And this ex-something is bringing his new current-something and I'm just not really ready to face that reality."

"Oh. Do you have a date to go with you? That would probably drive him crazy. I mean he must be crazy to have ever ended things with you, so it serves him right to feel a little jealousy."

"I doubt he'd be jealous if I did have a date, but no I don't have one," Hermione said, embarrassed.

"I could go with you, if you want." Aaron offered. Truth be told, Aaron had developed a crush on Hermione. However, her being his boss made things a little more complicated than he was ready for. A Christmas party was innocent enough though, right?

"Really? You'd go with me? That would be great, so great!" Hermione smiled.

"Awesome. So when does it start?"

"It starts at 7, but I definitely don't want to be the first one there."

"I'll pick you up at 7:15 then so we can be a half an hour late."

"Sounds good." Hermione laughed.

"See you then," Aaron said, winking, before returning to his research.

Luna had spent the entire afternoon decorating Blaise's and her flat. Ornaments were hung on the tree, wreaths were placed on all the doors, and mischievous sprouts of mistletoe were dangling from the ceiling. Luna loved Christmas, but she wasn't excited for the holiday cheer, she was excited for Ginny's plan to go into action. Draco and Hermione wouldn't know what hit them…

"Luna, I'm afraid you may have gone overboard…" Blaise laughed, entering their flat with his arms filled with groceries.

"Not possible. I'm just in the holiday spirit! And you, Sir, need to get to my level!" Luna kissed him sweetly, before grabbing a bag of groceries from his arm. "Did you buy out the entire grocery store or did we suddenly invite the entire wizarding world to our party?"

"Hey, I followed your list to the dot. Although they do say not to go shopping while hungry so maybe I overdid it a little." Blaise mumbled.

"Not a problem. We can just eat six layer taco dip from now until our next Christmas party."

"Shit. I forgot the dip!"

"Don't worry, I'll ask Ginny to pick some up for me." Luna said, smiling. She never knew she would enjoy sharing her space with any man, as much as she loved living with Blaise. Even if he was a useless ponce, who was incapable of grocery shopping.

"No, no. I'll go run back and grab some."

"Thank you, Love."

"But now that you mentioned Ginny, that reminds me—what was that message about?"

"Oh nothing, dear…" Luna smirked mischievously. Oh what a plan it was…

"You better not be meddling—" Blaise called her out of her daze.

"—I" Luna began

"…without me." Blaise winked.

"Can we review the plan again?" Blaise whined. "I'm nervous I'll botch it up."

"Blaise, this is so simple. All you have to do is talk to Malfoy and entice him to grab some conveniently placed chip dip. At that same moment, Hermione will go to refill said bowl. Then they will be trapped under the mistletoe. And cue the sexual tension…" Ginny squealed.

"That is terribly dumb." Blaise muttered.

"Excuse me?" Ginny snapped.

"Oh come on, they get 'stuck' under the mistletoe. It's not jinxed mistletoe. They don't have to kiss. And how do we coordinate them evening seeing it? Oh and by the way, I bet when Hermione sees Draco, she will turn right around and go as far away from him as possible."

"Hmm…you're right. I guess we should just cancel the entire plan then." Ginny pouted.

"I think that's for the better. Don't you agree, Luna?" Blaise called in the support of his girlfriend, afraid to experience Ginny's inevitable wrath from her plan being foiled.

"I suppose." Luna said, nonchalantly.

"Alright, I'm going to go grab the dip. I'll be back in about twenty minutes so that should give me plenty of time to change before the party. Will you girls be alright here, without me?"

"We'll be fine, dear." Luna cooed, nearly pushing Blaise out the door.

"Okay...bye." Blaise said to the slamming door.

"Good, now that he's gone, let's talk about the real plan." Ginny giggled.

"Good call on getting Blaise uninvolved. He's adorable and has the cutest bum known to mankind—"

"Luna" Ginny warned.

"Right, sorry. As I was saying, Blaise is great but he is rubbish at plots. I think this may be due to—"

"Some weird mystical creature that tormented him as a baby. Yada yada, I know, Luna. We only have a half an hour to your party. We need to finalize our plans to have both Hermione and Draco throbbing in jealousy and sexual tension by the end of the night. Plus we need to change."

"Go team, go!" Luna cheered.

Aaron was surprisingly nervous as he walked to Hermione's door. She was the epitome of what he had one day hoped to find in a woman. She was passionate, intelligent, beautiful and above-all-else, kind. However, he wasn't sure how to present his feelings for her. She was technically his boss and was clearly still hung up over her ex, or whomever it is that she will be avoiding tonight. He had opted not to bring flowers, despite spending nearly twenty minutes arguing with the florist over what message roses really sent. Sodding roses. Finally he gathered up the courage and knocked on Hermione's door. The door flew open but he didn't see Hermione anywhere.

"Hi Aaron, I'm terribly sorry but I'm running a little late." Hermione's voice called from the back of her flat. "Please make yourself at home."

"Oh, no problem." Aaron replied, before taking a seat on her pristine, but rather uncomfortable sofa.

After about five minutes of waiting, Hermione immerged wearing a demure, crimson gown. The top of the dress consisted of a tight bodice, with the sleeves laying just off-the shoulders. The skirt billowed out, highlight Hermione's petite waist, ending just above the knee.

"Hermione, you look…you look—" Aaron stuttered. "Wow."

"Oh, uh, thank you." Hermione said, awkwardly. This was going to be a long night, she feared.

"And Draco, what do you think of my dress?" Melinda cooed, attempting to pat down the material of her skin-tight gold dress.

"Don't you think that it might be a little much for a Christmas party?" Draco questioned, adjusting his silver and emerald tie.

"You should see what I have underneath the dress" Melinda winked.

Draco wasn't sure what to think anymore. A month ago, a line like that would have been enough to captive Draco's full attention. Now, he couldn't have felt more repulsed. He wanted to believe he just found Melinda to be vile, but could there be more to it? He tried desperately to shake the image of a certain brunette woman out of his head.

"And I said 'no, no, Sir, your wife has acute angina.'" Aaron roared from laughter, before realizing no one else had joined him. "Sorry, medical joke. Guess it wasn't funny…" He awkwardly muttered.

"Oh…I'm sure it was," Ginny said, attempting to alleviate the tension. "We just don't know enough medical stuff to get it, I guess."

Aaron felt that, so far, the night was a bust. He was making a terrible impression on Hermione's friends, she was paying absolutely no attention to him and some blonde girl told him he looked like a 'Dorloa'. He had no idea what that was but he knew it wasn't a compliment.

"Hey Hermione," Aaron said, shaking Hermione out of her own thoughts.

"Wha—oh, Gods. I'm so sorry, Aaron!" Hermione gushed. "I'm being the worst date ever." Aaron inwardly smiled at the use of the word 'date.'

"Date, huh?" Aaron began. However, he saw Hermione's vacant expression and realized he had lost her attention. In fact, she was looking past him entirely. He turned around to see what she had fixated on. Some blonde guy entered with some girl in an obscene dress. "Is that the ex?"

"Oh…him? Yeah. Well, no. Sort of?" Hermione contradicted herself.

"Let's get him really jealous then, shall we?" Aaron asked, noticing the blonde guy staring directly at him. "Want to dance?" He asked, taking her hands before she could answer and dragging her towards the music.

"Thanks for all of this," Hermione smiled. Aaron simply nodded, placing her hands on his neck, and his on her waist. She was content to sway back and forth, however, Aaron thought he might just step it up a notch. Suddenly she felt her body being pulled flush up against his. She had been in this position not too long ago with Draco. Why couldn't she stop thinking about that? She felt Aaron moving his hands up and down her back and she felt ill. What was wrong with her?

"Who the hell is that?" Draco growled at Blaise, jutting his chin towards Aaron.

"Hermione's date."

"Are they seeing each other?" Draco massaged his temples.

"I dunno, mate."

Draco watched Aaron pull Hermione closer to him. He felt his blood boiling. At that moment he felt the full weight of his previous actions on his shoulders. He knew was a complete moron he was. It hit him like a ton of bricks, falling from a twenty-story skyscraper. Toss it all to Hell. He was totally, utterly and irrevocably head-over-heels, ass over teakettle. He loved her. Shit.

Author's Note: Sorry for the wait…I really have the best intentions for finishing the story. I just don't want to let go. Please review! : )