The dance, the lights, the music, the woman in his arms – it was a moment of scintillating joy that would become one of Draco's fondest memories and produce astoundingly powerful Patronuses for years to come.
They broke apart with a breathy, clinging regret. Granger pulled away first, then Draco kissed her again; he felt the imminent knell of reality and wanted just one more.
Then he tried to pull back, but she rose to the tips of her toes and pressed her mouth to the edge of his jaw. His hand slipped to the nape of her neck, rose petals brushed against his knuckles, she sighed against his cheek.
The dream of the moment began to fade. Draco ran his fingers down her side to memorise the feel of her and kissed her one last time to seal away the memory of her sweet mouth.
They stared at each other, wet lipped, bewildered, their drunken faculties finally catching up to what they had done.
Reality was cold and unyielding and it hit hard. Draco's brain, which had been, by all accounts, absent all evening, returned. It asked, with violence, what the fuck he thought he was doing? An Auror did not snog his Principal.
Granger looked equally confounded. She took a step back. There was self-reproach, regret, and dread in the movement.
They regarded each other with mounting alarm and a desperation to assert that it had been nothing at all.
Granger, stricken, found her tongue first. "We shouldn't have done that."
"No – we shouldn't have," said Draco, hating how breathless he sounded.
Granger looked at the floor, at the mirrors, at anywhere but him. "I know that we're not – erm – I know that – obviously, you know–"
"Yes, obviously–"
"And also – we aren't–"
"Yes."
"We have a working relationship," said Granger. "And there are strict rules about this sort of thing. For very good reasons."
"There are. Yes. Rules. And a Code of Conduct that is unequivocal on – on things of this nature."
"Right. Of course."
"It was a lapse in judgement," said Draco.
"Yes. We were both – both under the influence. It won't happen again. I wouldn't want to contravene anything and jeopardise – this. You as my Auror and – and everything."
"Right."
"Right," repeated Granger.
Draco attempted to find his insouciance. "It was the drinks. Just the drinks."
"Obviously, yes. Nothing more."
"Nothing more," repeated Draco.
"Good," said Granger.
"Shall we – go to bed?" asked Draco.
"Yes."
"I mean separately, of course. Go to – beds. Plural. I mean we can leave together but go to separate beds."
"Right," said Granger, nodding vigorously in the face of this critical clarification. "Yes."
"Because we would never go to the same bed, obviously–"
"Of course not."
"–That would be mad."
"Yes."
"We aren't mad."
"No. We are – perfectly sane."
Having established their vexing soundness of mind, they turned to the door.
The things that had drawn them together were still at it; they brushed elbows, then leapt away from each other as though burnt, with more apologising.
Leaving the ballroom was an awkward jig of who would open the door and who would go first, without touching the other.
Draco walked Granger to the grand staircase but did not follow her up.
"Aren't you–?" asked Granger.
"No," said Draco. "Upon reflection, I've decided to throw myself into the lake."
Granger looked as though this was truly an excellent next step. "I'm going to go scream into a pillow."
"Good. Brilliant. Er – do enjoy."
"Thank you."
Granger hurried up the stairs without looking behind her.
Draco waited until he heard her door close.
Then he said, quietly, but with all of the turbulence in his soul: "Fuck."
-
The full moon was imminent.
The Ministry of Magic, attempting to balance public safety with public hysteria, published an advisory asking the wizarding community to stay indoors during the three nights of the hunter's moon, due to suspected werewolf activity.
Potter, the WTF, and every available Auror spent the hunter's moon on the hunt themselves, and caught thirty werewolves who had positioned themselves to transform where they could infect the most people. Seven werewolves were not caught on time, fifteen people were infected, five succumbed to their injuries.
Granger's work took on a new urgency. Draco's Legilimency had never been so in demand.
But Fenrir Greyback was careful. There was nothing of use in the minds of the captives.
The traps at the safe-houses and Granger's cottage yielded four captures: one witch, three wizards, all working under Greyback's orders, and all infuriatingly unaware of his whereabouts.
Security at King's Hall was tightened. Bemused scholars and students found themselves made to present credentials at the entrance, now guarded by DMLE operatives. Access to the third floor, which housed Granger's laboratory, was blocked off. The other Fellows were relocated elsewhere. Granger briefed her laboratory staff on the threat and gave them the option to discontinue their work, with pay, until the situation was resolved. None took it.
Days passed in a tense, anxious blur. When he wasn't with Granger, Draco's attention was obsessively on the ring, waiting to feel the panicked rise of her heart or the shrill call of her distress beacon.
So, of course, at the next incident, he felt neither.
It was Goggin's burly ram Patronus who alerted him that there was a problem.
Draco had been interrogating a werewolf caught at Granger's cottage when the silvery ram bounded into the holding cell.
"King's Hall," it grunted in Goggin's voice. "Quickly!"
Draco Apparated to Cambridge to find panicky wizards and Muggles running about along Trinity's quad. He fought his way to the entrance of King's Hall, where Goggin lay, sliced open from the sternum downwards, bleeding out.
Beside him were the limp figures of the DMLE operatives who had been on guard and the bodies of five unknown wizards. Further on, a scattered pile of books. No sign of Granger.
Feeling a horrid, inverted sense of dejà-vu, Draco sent three Borzoi streaking to the Auror Office and the Mediwitch Service.
He Disillusioned himself and Apparated to the ring. Why the fuck hadn't she activated the distress beacon? What had they done to her?
He cracked into existence in near darkness, in the living room of a boarded-up house. The silhouettes of a half-dozen men jumped in surprise as the crack of his Apparition gave his arrival away.
He couldn't see Granger and therefore dared not plough through them with something explosive. He managed to Petrify three of them as he gathered his bearings, deflected two curses – then he was in the crossfire of too many spells to deflect, and was hit by a Finite Incantatem, something concussive at his knee, and a Stupefy.
The Stunner was a glancing blow, striking him in the shoulder. His wand fell out of his nerveless hand.
Draco, seeing his wand clatter away to his opponents' feet, feigned a collapse, as though the Stunner had hit true.
There were four men left. From where he now lay on the floor, Draco could see Granger, slumped against a cracked wall. She, too, looked Stunned. No obvious bleeding. It was a minor relief.
Draco's wand was picked up by the largest figure amongst the men, who now held three – Draco's, Granger's, and his own.
"Is that a bloody Auror? How the fuck is this arsehole here?" asked one of the men. He shone a Lumos at the insignia on Draco's cloak.
"This one must have a tracker on her," said another in a nasally whinge, kicking at Granger. He cast a basic revelation spell, too rudimentary to reveal the ring. "Let's strip her."
He pulled Granger off the floor with unnecessary violence, snapping her lolling head backwards. He began to tear at the front of her jumper and stuffed one hand under it to undo her jeans.
He was going to die today.
"I will search her," said the biggest figure.
That slightly accented rumble. The red-blond glint of the beard.
It was Larsen.
"You always do the fun bits," said the nasally one, his groping hand at Granger's fly. "I want to have a go–"
Larsen grabbed the man by the back of the neck. "Moore. I said I will do it."
"Get your fucking hands off me," said Moore, dropping Granger to squirm against Larsen's grip.
They had a scuffle. Draco watched and waited for a moment when one of the men would stumble too close to him and he could steal a wand.
One of the other kidnappers attempted peacekeeping, shoving his way between the two of them. "Oi oi oi. Could you two stop fucking about? Who knows how many other Aurors are on their way?
"Aye," said the lanky fourth man. "Let's get what we need from her and go."
Moore took advantage of the distraction to land a blow to Larsen's face. "Let me go, you fucking–"
Larsen did not react well to the hit. He backhanded Moore into a wall. Moore pushed himself off it and launched himself at Larsen with a rageful yell. The other two tried to intervene, wands up, threatening to Stun both combatants.
Draco waited for his opening – he would only have one. They were closer to Granger than to him, now, and too far for him to seize one of the wands from Larsen's fist.
The failed Stunner was wearing off of Draco's arm. He slid his hand to his thigh holster, where his favourite knife was strapped.
A smattering of an elevated heart rate came through the ring – and then a flutter of fear.
Granger was waking up.
As her abductors grappled with each other, one of her hands shifted towards her pocket. She kept her head hanging as though she was still unconscious.
Now, amongst the stomping boots of the arguing men, Draco could see something shining in her palm. It was a stack of her anti-magic pucks.
Oh. Oh.
Granger was about to even out the playing field.
Draco waited.
With snaps of her wrist, Granger sent pucks skidding into the corners of the room, under rotted furniture and into dark nooks.
One of the men noticed the movement. "What the fuck did she just do?"
"What d'you mean?"
"I just saw her – I dunno – twitch – I think she threw something."
They crowded around Granger.
Larsen snatched her by the chin and pressed his wand to her temple. "Legilimens!"
But it was too late. Draco had felt the change the moment the perimeter was complete – there was a kind of extinguishing, deep within him. A sudden lack.
There would be no Legilimency in this room.
"The fuck is happening?" asked Moore.
The lanky one pressed his hand against his chest, as though the breath had been stolen from him. "What the–?"
Draco did not give them time to work it out.
He sprang to his feet, took three strides towards the group, and plunged his knife into the side of the first available neck.
Then, being happily unencumbered by a sense of honour, he stabbed the next man in the back.
The lanky one and the peacekeeper were down.
Larsen and Moore whipped around and backed against the wall, wands raised.
"Expulsis visceribus!" spat Larsen, slicing his wand towards Draco.
"Confrigo!" shouted Moore, jabbing his towards him, too. "Crucio!"
Nothing happened.
Looking bewildered, Larsen switched to Draco's wand – "Decapio!" – then to Granger's – "Stupefy!" – to no effect.
"What the fuck is wrong–" said Moore, pointing his useless wand at Draco.
Draco plucked the wand from Moore's hand, as he was conveniently offering it to him.
He plunged it into Moore's eye to the hilt.
There was some spurting of vitreous gel. Moore pitched forwards with a strangled scream. Draco stepped onto the back of his head and did not remove his weight until he felt the tip of the wand pierce the man's skull and press against the bottom of his boot.
That was for Granger.
He stepped over him and turned to Larsen.
He and the Viking sized each other up.
The biggest man that Draco had sparred with was Goggin. This man made Goggin look like a pubescent boy. Draco was wise enough to know that he was physically outmatched. In any other situation, he would have retreated. The right move here was to flee, if only for long enough to call for reinforcements. The logical move. The obvious move.
But he would not be fleeing. He would leave Granger alone with this man over his literal dead body.
That was the problem with Somethings between Aurors and their Principals.
Draco had a knife. Larsen had all of the advantages of superior height and weight.
This was going to be interesting.
Larsen blinked at Draco in the penumbra. "The pilot...?"
Right. Driessen's memories.
"Do not fight me," said Larsen, raising his hands. "I will let you go. I only need her. She is not worth what I am going to do to you."
"She is definitely worth what I'm going to do to you."
Larsen dropped the useless wands and rushed in. They began a dangerous dance, with Draco doing his best to avoid being grappled, while Larsen wanted nothing more than to bring him into close quarters and beat him out with superior mass.
Draco positioned himself between Larsen and Granger, who was huddled into a corner, her heart racing through the ring.
Larsen came in too close. Draco sliced a pretty line across his face. A punch intended for Draco's throat hit him in the chest. He felt something crack.
He lashed out with the knife. Larsen ducked away at the last moment and lost an ear instead of his life.
They separated. Draco found it difficult to catch his breath – something was not sitting correctly in his ribcage. Larsen touched at the side of his head and looked at his bloody hand in wonder. The flap of flesh that had been his ear was on the floor.
They stared at each other. Draco sorely missed his Legilimency.
Larsen snarled and launched himself at Draco again. Draco landed a kick at his solar plexus that should have put him on his knees.
It did not. It slowed him for a moment, then he switched tactics, focusing on seizing the knife from Draco's hand. Draco saw an opening for a clean hook and seized it, his fist smashing into the man's eye. He felt the precise outline of Larsen's eye socket against his knuckles, felt a kind of grinding.
That punch would've thrown any other man on his arse, but not the Viking. He shook it off and lunged again for the knife. Draco welcomed his groping hand with the point of the knife and pushed it through his palm.
Larsen snatched his hand away and swung in with an uppercut with the other, only partially dodged by Draco.
It clipped Draco on the jaw. He saw stars.
If Larsen landed a single solid punch, this fight was over. The Viking was a beast.
They broke apart. Larsen held his punctured palm to the side. Draco shook his head to knock his brain back into place. Black spots swam in his vision.
Hand to hand combat was exhausting. After these long sixty seconds of fighting, Larsen should've been like Draco, panting, shaking with exertion. He was hardly winded.
They came together again. Draco crunched a fist into Larsen's mouth. The Viking was thrown off course and spun away.
Now he was angry. He spat out teeth. He lunged – outrageously quickly, for such a large man – and managed to kick the knife out of Draco's hand.
They both dove for it.
Draco realised, as Larsen wrestled him into the ground, that the man hadn't wanted the knife. He had wanted Draco within reach of his monstrous bulk.
Draco was pinned. Larsen was on him, a hand at his neck, pressing every pound of his hideous weight into it.
Draco's vision began to swim.
Larsen raised his fist.
Draco was dead.
In a kind of slow motion, he saw a small hand appear beside Larsen's thigh.
In the small hand glinted a scalpel.
Larsen's fist began its downward trajectory. Time slowed to a crawl. With loving precision, the scalpel was pressed deep into the upper part of Larsen's thigh and dragged down the length of his femoral artery.
The descending fist paused. Larsen's trousers split along the cut.
There was a gorgeous gush of blood.
Time accelerated again. Larsen turned with a snarl and knocked Granger to the floor. She tumbled away.
The damage was done. Larsen staggered to his feet – a mistake. The long wound disgorged what looked like a pint of blood.
Draco's vision cleared. Granger was on her knees, two of the wands clutched to her chest. She was reaching for the third.
Larsen kicked her away and snatched up the remaining wand. Then he took her by the arm and heaved her up. Draco's heart stopped – she looked so fragile, so breakable as she dangled before finding her feet.
The Viking staggered for the door, bleeding profusely, dragging Granger along, evidently planning on making an escape.
Draco disagreed with Larsen's plan, which he indicated by throwing himself towards him, knife in hand, and severing his stupidly thick Achilles tendons, first his left, then his right.
Granger pulled her arm from Larsen's grip as the man fell to his knees.
The Viking looked over his shoulder, at the knife and the scalpel, and at the long smear of his own blood, red-black on the grimy floor.
He half crawled, half fell out of the door. He did not know it, but it put him just outside of Granger's perimeter.
Draco, still on his hands and knees, threw the knife.
Clutching at his wand with his bloodied hand, Larsen opened his mouth to Disapparate.
The knife hit him in the shoulder. He grunted, raised the wand again weakly – and then his jaw went slack. He – finally – fell unconscious, in a pool of his blood.
Draco and Granger both scrambled to their feet and joined him outside the perimeter. Draco pulled Larsen's wand out of his hand; Granger passed him his own.
"He mustn't die," cried Granger, kneeling next to Larsen, Healing spells aglow at the tip of her wand. "I need to know why."
Draco flung cuffs on the man and tightened them without mercy.
They sent a small menagerie of Patronuses out, summoning mediwitches, Potter and Weasley, whoever was at Auror HQ, and Tonks.
While Granger stabilised the man, Draco snatched him by the beard and snapped his head back, swiped his wand at him to open his eyes, and spat, "Legilimens."
In his half-dead state, the Viking's Occlumency softened. Draco gasped out his findings to Granger as he went.
"Right – what does this arsehole want from you – two things – first he wanted to scour your brain for information on anyone else who might be working on magical immunotherapy, or even Muggles who might be able to help magical researchers. And secondly–"
Draco encountered a denser Occlusive barrier. He struggled against it, then decided to take a shortcut by squeezing at Larsen's throat until it faded away. "Secondly, when he heard that you were developing a treatment for lycanthropy, he – first he didn't believe it – it was impossible – and then he wanted to understand how you'd isolated the virus to target it in the first place – he hasn't been able to it isolate it, himself–"
"How did he hear about it?" asked Granger. "And why is he trying to isolate it?"
"Give us a minute," said Draco, working through disjointed threads of memories to find answers. "He wanted to gain enough of your trust to meet you somewhere alone to read you and understand how you'd done it. You were too careful – too guarded, so he – offered to work with you so he could get in behind the scenes. He felt me read him in the café – didn't want a confrontation – decided to prune off other researchers before coming back to you. Discovered that your protection measures had been ramped up – has been watching King's Hall for weeks – gathered today's group to kidnap you – was going to use Legilimency to learn how you'd isolated the virus, or torture it out of you – and then – fucking arsehole – then kill you."
"But why?"
"I'm getting there." Draco plunged deeper into Larsen's mind, where involuntary Occlusion lingered the thickest, in spite of the man's near-unconsciousness. "He wants to kill anyone working in this field because he – doesn't want a cure. For lycanthropy."
He shattered another barrier, in the deepest part of Larsen's brain, where all of his most precious secrets were kept. "Bloody hell, he's a – he's a fucking werewolf. Fuck! He's working with Greyback – Greyback told him about you."
"What?!"
"He needs to understand how you targeted the virus because – they are trying to develop – some kind of countermeasure to you – Larsen's lab is trying to produce – a strain of lycanthropy that can be used to infect others at any time, not only at the full moon. That's why he needed to understand how you'd done it. They're – they're trying to weaponise it."
Draco pulled out of Larsen's mind.
He and Granger stared at one another.
The cracks of Apparitions resonated around them.
"I don't think so," came the voice of Tonks.
One of the Petrified men, still half-paralyzed, was dragging himself out of the house, one hand clutching his wand. Tonks' combat boot crushed his fist into the floor.
"Get her out of here," said Tonks.
Granger insisted upon collecting her pucks. Then, arm in bloody arm, they Apparated to the Manor.
-
At the Manor, Draco and Granger wiped the blood from their faces and held a summit meeting with Tonks, Shacklebolt, Potter, and Weasley. There was much hugging of Granger and clapping of Draco's shoulders (he dodged the hugs).
After the expected expostulating and fussing, the six of them settled in around a pot of opimum to debrief on the incident.
Larsen and Greyback's plans were a shock to all. There was Greyback's usual vindictive form of madness, then there was this – a concerted effort to spread a cruel disease on a massive scale and kill any of the researchers remotely able to work out a cure. It was well beyond the scope of what any of them had thought him capable of.
"Buy me time until December," said Granger, pale-faced.
Draco learned that Granger had been Stunned immediately upon exiting King's Hall, which explained why he hadn't had the slightest hint from the ring on her predicament. Goggin and the DMLE operatives had taken five men down before they were overwhelmed by their opponents' numbers. Goggin was at St. Mungo's, recovering from the same nasty evisceration curse that Larsen had attempted on Draco.
In attacking Granger as she left King's Hall, her kidnappers had made use of her only real vulnerability – the sole moment when she wasn't surrounded by wards, stepping out of the Hall to Disapparate. Shacklebolt said that he would have a word with Magical Transport to have a Floo hearth installed in Granger's laboratory, so that she would never have to leave King's Hall's protective walls again.
Greyback was playing an entirely new game, now. Under the weight of Shacklebolt and Tonks' wild-eyed stares, Granger agreed, with obvious pain, to drop her shifts at St. Mungo's A&E. If Larsen had been bold enough for a daytime kidnapping at Trinity, there was now a real possibility that Greyback would be bold enough to stage something at A&E.
Tonks said she would advise the Danish Auror Office of Larsen's attack, laboratory, and repugnant plans. She, Potter, and Weasley left to pump Larsen full of Veritaserum and extract whatever information he might have on Greyback's most recent location.
Draco rose to join them, but Tonks categorically forbade it, snapped at him to sit down, and told him not to be a martyr – he'd bloody well done enough for one day.
"If you're going anywhere, it'll be St. Mungo's," she said, eyeing Draco's various injuries.
"I'll take care of him," said Granger.
The summit meeting dissolved.
-
Draco and Granger showered and reconvened in one of the smaller salons, both a bit worse for the wear. Draco was limping ("That collossal fucker was so heavy, I think I've ruptured a bollock").
Henriette and Tupey hovered anxiously, offering tea, more opimum, and chocolate, until they were gently shooed out.
Granger and Draco took stock of their injuries. Mostly contusions for Granger, where she'd been thrown about and grabbed at and kicked. Wrists, arms, jaw.
The sight of the marks made Draco vacillate at the edge of a sudden descent into rage.
Something of it must have shown in his face. Granger gave him a kind of disconcerted look and healed herself with a few quick passes of her wand.
The contusions were gone. The rage remained. Draco bound it up tightly and tucked it away.
Now he found himself surrounded by the green glow of diagnostic spells as Granger began to examine him.
He looked about at the pictographs teeming with cryptic meanings.
"You're a useful witch to have around," said Draco.
"You're a decent sort of wizard yourself," said Granger. "Thank you. For today. Again."
"Absolutely brilliant move, pulling those pucks of yours out."
"Exceptionally glad you had a knife. Was going to throw you the scalpel."
Granger fell quiet for a bit as she studied the diagnostics. Then she said, "I'm not very fond of being a damsel in distress."
"You aren't very good at it, either. I've never seen one open a femoral artery with such sublime exactitude."
"He was beautifully positioned for it."
There was a silence. Her hands were steady as she flicked her way through a few more diagnostic spells.
"You're feeling all right?" asked Draco.
"About what? Slicing a man open?"
"Yes. And – everything."
"At the moment, I am more angry than anything else. The opimum is palliating the rest. You?"
"Fine. Eager for revenge. Plotting Larsen's accidental death when I interrogate him. Fantasising about Greyback's violent murder at my hands. You know. Fine."
Granger gave him a sidelong look. "Doesn't fantasising about murder weaken one's moral fibre?"
"I haven't a single moral fibre to speak of."
"Haven't you?"
"No. I gave them all to the orphans."
Granger paused. She turned away, laughed into her hands, then breathed and faced him again. "Stop being silly. We have work to do."
No. He would not stop being silly. He liked to see her laugh. It gave him a fluttery feeling. Also, that post-adrenaline randiness was awakening, and the Granger-induced fluttery feeling kept wanting to descend to his groin.
Steady on, old boy.
Granger, happily unaware of Draco and his fluttering crotch, dismissed a few of the schemata and made an inventory of his ailments.
These consisted of a black eye, two broken ribs, a sprained knee (the bad one – of course), and a fractured jaw.
She was pleased to inform Draco that he hadn't ruptured a bollock.
She went off to wash her hands. Then she came back and got Healery – serious and focused, with a certain authority in her bearing. "Right. Let's get you properly fixed up. We'll begin with those ribs. Take off your shirt."
Draco tried not to look too delighted at the opportunity.
He was instructed to lie down on the sofa, which he did, happily. He put his hands behind his head (because it was comfortable, but also because it made his pecs pop, as a bonus for Granger). (Also, he had a rippling six pack. She was free to notice that, too.)
Granger was less interested in revelling over the Apollonian perfection before her than in muttering about Lars the Arse between incantations. Draco felt the pressure of her wand at his side and his cracked ribs became whole again, one after the other, with a muffled snap.
Granger passed him his shirt.
Her professionalism and efficiency were, frankly, abominable.
Draco put his shirt back on because Granger, dangling it between two fingers, was now wiggling it at him impatiently.
Next was his injured knee. Draco offered to take off his trousers. No, said Granger, he could just roll up his trouser leg.
Beastly.
Draco rolled up his trouser leg. She healed his knee.
Next was his black eye, which took all of a moment.
Draco cogitated. Perhaps he ought to have allowed himself to be beaten to a pulp to give Granger more trouble and more reasons to strip him down.
In a further foray into madness, he thought that perhaps he should have ruptured a bollock.
Finally, Granger came to his fractured jaw.
A glowing rendition of Draco's skull floated in the air between them. It was very handsome and shapely, with cheekbones quite as nice as the Magdalene's.
Along the mandible, a crack glowed in red.
Granger took in a little breath.
"It's bigger than I thought," said Granger.
"I'll be gentle," said Draco.
Granger laughed, then regained control of herself and gave him a look that was deeply unimpressed.
After studying the schema from several angles, she said that she wanted to be particularly careful healing this one, to make sure it was realigned properly and didn't affect his bite.
Good. Finally. Be careful. Be slow. Be close.
Granger cleared off one of the side tables for Draco to sit upon.
"Pretty," she commented as she moved an ornate hourglass out of the way.
"Do you think so? It's my great great Uncle Snodsbury."
"I'm sorry?"
Draco flipped over the hourglass to demonstrate. "He wanted to be cremated and still be of use."
"...Charming."
Draco sat on the side table. Granger stood between his knees and took his face in her hands.
This was good, thought Draco as he looked up at her. Very good.
Granger said that she knew it was going to be horribly difficult, but she needed Draco to keep his mouth closed for an entire six minutes.
This was fine by Draco. He was going to luxuriate, instead.
Granger enlarged the diagnostic image and got to work with wand movements slow and precise. Both her fingers and her wand were warm on his jaw. Draco closed his eyes and sighed, as though he were only sighing and not, you know, breathing in Granger just out of the shower. Soap, squeaky clean skin. What a pity that he couldn't lean forwards and press his face between her breasts and inhale.
Draco's conscience twinkled irritatingly into existence to point out that Granger had just undergone a traumatic kidnapping and was now healing him, and all he could think of was her tits? He was beastly. He was a disgrace.
Draco weighed the allurements of Granger against the burden of good behaviour.
He decided that he was indeed beastly, and a disgrace, and fuck good behaviour, he would think about tits all he liked.
Granger shifted her weight from one foot to the other. He felt a brush of movement on the inside of his knee.
A slow-moving pleasure flowed through him.
She drew her wand tip along his jaw in deliberate lines, muttering an incantation that made things feel tighter throughout his mandible.
Also, things were feeling tighter in his trousers.
He should probably do something about that. Think about maths, or something.
Granger cast another imaging spell. "Sorry it's so slow. I'm going to great lengths to prevent any dental misalignment."
Draco made a "Mm" of understanding in the back of his throat.
He, too, was going to great lengths.
An Auror did not shag his Principal. He was being hideously inappropriate. He needed to calm down.
Hearing Granger mutter incantations near his ear was – stirring. Her mouth pressed into a concentrated moue, right there, was terribly enticing. The push of her wand angled under his jaw triggered some fantastically arousing hormonal combination of threat and sexy. Her focused, serious gaze gave him a thrill right down to his balls.
Everything was sexy. These were six of the sexiest minutes of Draco's life. He wanted to snatch her up and–
"Stop smirking," snapped Granger.
Oops.
"If this heals crooked, half of your teeth will only chew empty air," scolded Granger. "I don't think you'd fancy a liquid diet."
Draco would have suggested that he could give her a few spurts of a liquid diet, if she was amenable, but alas, he couldn't talk.
"Almost done," said Granger, with far less tetchiness in her voice now that he was behaving himself (as far as she was concerned, anyway).
She waved a final diagnostic into existence and brushed her fingertips along his cheek as she studied it, tilting his head left, then right.
"Perfect," she said, with evident satisfaction. "Quite as good as new. You may resume talking."
She gave him a gentle sort of pat along the jaw.
It was the kindest touch he'd felt in years.
He was completely hard.
He was an absolute disgrace.
Granger toddled off to wash her hands.
Unlike Madam Pince, she did not make it a habit to observe his bulge. Which was excellent, because right now, it was... rather bulgy.
Draco glanced down to find that his untucked shirt camouflaged the worst of it. He disengorged himself with a wand wave and proceeded to sit there, on the side table, feeling like the world's most reprehensible man.
Which normally wouldn't bother him.
But Granger was so fucking – pure-souled – and – and, just, fuck.
Granger came back to the salon with a brisk determination in her stride.
"Right," she said. "Since an assortment of criminals is obsessed with interrupting my work, I'd best get on with preparations for Samhain, sharpish, before I'm waylaid again. Have you a moment to look at something with me?"
Draco followed Granger up the stairs (yes, he looked at her bum) and into the guest suite. The suite's front room had been taken over, as her cottage's had been, by books. Her foldy computer glowed on a table.
Her cat had found a favourite perch on a high shelf, from whence it watched Draco with a kind of imperious benevolence, as of a grand vizier permitting a peasant to enter the inner sanctum for an audience with the queen.
Revelations was back on its plinth. Floating around it were stacks of Anglo-Norman dictionaries and reference texts, bristling with yellow squares of paper upon which Granger had scrawled notes.
Granger opened the ancient tome with her usual degree of care and flipped to one of the latter portions.
"Right," said Granger, frowning at the page. "I've got a question about that friend of a friend who helped you find this copy of Revelations."
"Lady Saira. What about her?"
"Do you think she would be au fait with details on other rare, alleged-to-have-disappeared-forever, items or artifacts?"
"Er – possibly," said Draco. "She's exceptionally well-connected."
Granger turned to him. Her hands were clasped in front of her. She had that anxious look about her, the one she'd worn when first asking him to join her to steal Mary Magdalene's skull.
"I mean – I could do without it. I could. But if I want to do the thing properly..."
"What is it?" asked Draco.
"Might you enquire about any rumours surrounding the location of another rare item, meant to be lost to the ages, if it ever existed at all?"
"What item?"
Granger bit her lip.
"Tell me," said Draco.
"You're going to think I've gone quite mad."
Draco scoffed. "We've already established your aggravating soundness of mind. Tell me."
Granger took a breath.
"We are looking for Pandora's box."