Clarity

by unebellecatastrophe

My name is Hermione Granger. Everyone believes I am a head librarian for the ministry, when really I am a highly trained field agent for the ministry of magic's conjoined department with Interpol. I spend half of my life spinning a lie. The other half I get to be myself; the downside is I only get to be that self with my partner Draco Malfoy.

1. Prologue

Clarity

"Hold still right before we crash cause we both know how this ends" –Zedd

Prologue:

Squaring off with Malfoy is nothing new, but the way he's looking at me is: like he wants to destroy me and fuck me at the same time. His gaze is a fire that burns me from the inside out. The closer he gets the harder it is to breathe. I know it's protocol—I know what's happening, and it makes my mind want to come apart at the seams. My thoughts are becoming disjointed.

"Granger." His voice is rough as his lips push out my name. I've been gone, undercover for three months and held prisoner for two. Usually a female at HQ does this part of my assimilation back into the unit, but I am stuck in this cave on the edge of the world with Draco Malfoy. I know I am a suspect until he clears me. All these things I know but I can't control the racing of my heart. He snaps his fingers in front of my face.

"Are you going to wait all day? I'm not the least bit interested in seeing your body Granger, so get on with it." I've been Malfoy's partner for three years; I know everything about him, every tell of his body. Just now, he lied. When said he didn't want to see me, he rubbed the pads of his index and third finger over the pad of his thumb. He does this every single time he lies.

As long as we've been partners there's been a thick tension between us. One that looked a lot like hatred but the longer we were partners I began to know it better: raw attraction. There have been brushes of skin that lasted too long to be professional, but not flirting in the sense that others would recognize it. It's the way we fight, words flying into the gut like a fist. But the way he makes me feel, looking at me like he's looking at me, I would do anything he asked me to. I watch his eyes darken, become black steel, and his barely visible pupils expand as he takes a step closer. The longer I put this off, the more suspicious I become. Our eyes lock.

"Take. Your. Clothes. Off," He commands.

I reach down and pull the hem of my faded grungy standard issue tee-shirt over my head.