Chapter 2

A/N: Hello readers! For some reason when I wrote this, all of the stakes were steaks and then I had to go through and change them, but apparently I missed a few. By the time I was done changing them over, I had managed to confuse myself. Anyway! The one I missed in the previous chapter has been fixed, sorry for confusing you.

Next chapter! Look at me getting it posted so quickly. You have irianaceleste to thank for it, she got it edited so fast!

A huge thanks to everyone who reviewed. You guys make writing so much more fun.

~Frosty

Harry continued, unaware of Hermione's fervent prayers. "Malfoy was in there last night and when he tried to leave this morning, they told him that he may need to stay a few more hours."

All of the colour drained from her face. Bloody hell, he must have been furious. She didn't even want to imagine how the hospital staff was going to react if he ever needed to go to the hospital again. They were probably cowering in fear.

"Apparently, he tried to hex a Healer, found that he had no wand, and then started swearing that some 'bloody interfering bitch' had stolen it from him. Then he tried to stab a Mediwitch with a wooden stake and escaped through the Floo."

Harry and Ron both had tears in their eyes and rosy cheeks from their laughter by the time Harry was finished explaining. While it was nice to see them in such good spirits, she wished it would have been on a topic that amused her as well.

Hermione was sure that, under different circumstances, she would have found the situation amusing as well. Unfortunately, she was the "bloody interfering bitch" and she knew where Malfoy had been headed when he'd Floo'd out of the hospital. She only had moments.

"Hermione, what's wrong?" Harry asked once his laughter had slowed down enough to notice that his friend hadn't been sharing in their mirth. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"There's something I have to tell you." Hermione voice was uncharacteristically subdued and her eyes were downturned. Her stomach was once again not where it should be. It seemed to be doing flips.

"Hermione?" Ron asked. Even he had noticed that there was obviously something bothering their friend.

"About my partner," she started, only to be interrupted when the door to her office slammed against the wall with a room-shaking bang.

Malfoy, looking more dishevelled than usual, was standing in the doorway, breathing heavily. Harry and Ron immediately had their wands pointed at him, but Hermione merely sighed. She'd been hoping to have a conflict-free day.

"The beverage slave dies today," Malfoy growled. "Give me my wand." He held out his hand to Hermione, so focused on his anger that he had yet to notice that she wasn't alone in the office.

Hermione raised her eyebrows, gesturing with her eyes to his audience. Both Auror's wands were steady, pointed directly at Malfoy, whose scowl only deepened upon seeing them. His grey eyes flashed, just daring the other men to try something. Hermione didn't doubt that he was angry enough at the moment to try and take on the both of them unarmed – she could only hope they'd confiscated all of his stakes at the hospital after he'd tried to stab someone.

"Harry, Ron, put you wands down," Hermione said, knowing she was going to have to be the calm one if she wanted the confrontation to end without violence. "And Malfoy, you're not getting your wand back until you've calmed down. Go get your tea. If you want her to get your order right, try not making her cry and refrain from calling her a 'beverage slave'."

None of them looked happy about it, but Hermione was using her no nonsense voice and they knew bad things would happen if they disobeyed the no nonsense voice. Even Draco knew when to pick his battles. Glaring at everyone, he stalked off to get his coffee.

"Why do you have Malfoy's wand?" Harry demanded the second Malfoy was gone.

Hermione sighed yet again. "I took it from him last night so that he wouldn't hex anyone at the hospital. Apparently I forgot the stakes."

They were lucky that holy water wouldn't have done anyone there any damage, or Hermione would have had to replenish their stores of that as well as submit a request for more stakes (She somehow doubted the hospital would be willing to return the ones they'd confiscated).

"What aren't you telling us?" Harry asked, Ron nodding along in agreement while he gnawed on yet another licorice wand.

"Malfoy's my partner." Hermione spoke clearly, wanting to get that off of her chest before Draco returned to make the entire situation worse.

Unsurprisingly, Harry and Ron spent a moment sputtering before gaining their bearings once more.

"Malfoy?" Harry spat. "How long have you been partners with him?"

It was then that Draco returned, looking marginally less enraged as he sipped at his tea. Hermione could only assume that the poor girl at the coffee cart had made his order correctly since he wasn't ranting about her incompetence.

"We've been partners for as long as she's been working for the department," Malfoy said. He pushed past Harry and Ron and stood beside Hermione, his hand extended and waiting for his wand.

"Is that true?" Harry asked, his eyes showing hurt. Ron expression mirrored Harry's, but with more anger. Their break up had been mutual, but Ron still got a tad jealous when other men were around Hermione. To find out that Malfoy had been with her every day and he hadn't even known was probably quite the unpleasant shock for Ron.

Hermione nodded, swatting Malfoy's hand away. He wasn't going to get the wand until Harry and Ron were gone. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to get angry and start problems, and then I couldn't because it had been too long and you would have expected me to tell you sooner."

Shoving a pile of files to the floor, Malfoy perched on the edge of her desk, glaring at everyone in the room. Hermione didn't bother scolding him; she'd just make him pick up the files before she handed over the wand.

Draco looked around at everyone in the room. "I'm sure this would all be very entertaining and everything, but I've had a horrible night and I want to deal with as few Gryffindors as possible. Granger, why are your goons here?"

"They need us to clear out a vampire nest so they can arrest the man that's hiding with them." She could tell from her friend's expressions that they would dearly love to start hexing, but she was counting on the fact that they were Aurors and couldn't go after an unarmed man to keep Malfoy out of the hospital. She didn't want to be anywhere near him if he had to be sent to St. Mungo's again so soon after being released. She couldn't imagine the hospital staff being all that thrilled to see him again either. They needed time for counselling and stress leave before Draco went back there.

"Good," Malfoy said. "Potter, Weasley, get on with the briefing. I'm sure we'll all feel better once we've decapitated something. We can have this discussion later."

In perfect synch, Harry and Ron's mouths both dropped open in disbelief. Except for the oddly violent bits, Malfoy had sounded almost mature. They would have expected more sneering and insults to Hermione from the Malfoy they knew.

"You have the file, Hermione, you can brief your partner," Harry said, standing to leave.

Ron shot her a disappointed look but didn't say anything because he was chewing. They weren't consistent, but at least Ron occasionally had manners.

Immediately, Draco rounded on Hermione. "Wand. Now."

Her brown eyes lowered to the scattered pile of papers and then drifted back up to him, hinting.

"I'm not one of your little sidekicks, Granger. Give me back my wand or I'll take it back," he snarled. "You wouldn't be the first person I've stabbed today."

Hermione sighed but handed him the stick of wood. It just wasn't worth the fight. She waved her wand and cleaned up the papers as Malfoy took a seat in his usual chair. Coincidentally, it was the same one Harry had occupied.

"You're going to get arrested one day and I'm not going to bail you out. I'll just let you rot in prison while I train a new partner," she grumbled at him. They both knew that she was lying. While they may bicker, Hermione and Draco made a surprisingly good team. Besides, Draco had enough money to be able to bribe himself out of most trouble.


Hermione frowned up at the abandoned building on the fringes of London. It looked vaguely ominous, just the place for a coven of vampires. The bloodsuckers had a flair for drama that was annoying. The publication of Dracula and the resulting fame had gone right to their heads, making them think that clean and structurally sound structures ruined the aura of a place. Dingy and dilapidated were requirements for a nest.

Since they were going against something a little more dangerous than the unicorn, she was wearing a trench coat similar to Malfoy's with jeans to protect her from the sharp claws and fangs of their prey.

Fully in his element, Malfoy had settled into a state of dangerous calm that was significantly less annoying than his usual antagonistic personality. However, the calm was beginning to erode at the edges – Harry and Ron were late and Malfoy didn't have any patience. Hermione's bet was five more minutes before Draco burst in there, stakes and holy water flying. In the meantime, he was stalking back and forth across the alleyway they currently occupied like a caged animal.

"You know," she said in an irritated voice, "You could be using this time to read the file."

He made an annoyed sound; Hermione could practically hear his eyes rolling. "Granger, I've killed vampires before; chop their heads off, stake their heart, or hit them with a strong sunlight spell. It's not exactly difficult."

He patted the hilt of the sword at his hip with something resembling affection. Hermione had never understood his fondness for the strip of metal. The thing, unlike Hermione's smaller, ministry issued blade, was something of a Malfoy heirloom and it was jewel encrusted with platinum detailing; entirely too ostentatious for an instrument of death in Hermione's opinion.

A strange scurrying in a dark shadow caught Hermione's attention. Worried that it may be a disgusting rat, she took out her wand and bent to examine it. For a second, she thought she saw a lizard, but that was impossible. It was much too chilly for cold-blooded reptiles to be moving freely about. She shook her head at her overactive imagination.

Malfoy stopped his pacing at the sound of footsteps. Having heard the sound as well, Hermione's head whipped around to face the direction of the sound. Hand still resting on his sword, Malfoy disappeared into the shadows.

Hermione knew what was expected of her. One of their most successful strategies was where Hermione, trying to make herself look vulnerable and scared, would stand alone and wait until the attacker was almost on her. Just as she was about to be attacked, Malfoy would spring into action, followed immediately by Hermione.

This time, however, Hermione recognised the figure approaching. She frantically gestured at Draco to stop him from beheading the approaching figures. Hermione could only imagine the annoying paperwork if Malfoy tried to behead Harry – and she wasn't naive enough to think that Malfoy would fill out his own paperwork just because he'd caused the mess. It had certainly never worked that way in the past.

"Sorry we're late," Harry said, "We got caught up at the-what are you wearing?" he demanded, his eyes wide as they ran over Hermione's outfit.

She looked down at her ensemble. So maybe the jeans were a little more form-hugging than they were used to seeing and the jacket was fitted, it was because she couldn't afford to have claws catching on any loose fabric.

"A pretty standard hunting uniform, actually," she said with a careless shrug that she hoped masked her blush. Hermione had forgotten that Ron and Harry had never actually seen her at work. They probably thought her job was all filling out the paperwork that consumed most of her time.

"Where's Malfoy?" Ron demanded, looking around suspiciously as if he expected the blond man to come bursting out of the shadows leading an army of vampires.

"Right here, Weasel." Stepping out of the shadows, Malfoy was back to scowling. Luckily, with the arrival of Harry and Ron, his calm was back because he knew that he was going to get to finally start the mission.

"Is that a sword?" Ron asked, his wide eyes on the shiny instrument Malfoy held.

Hermione rolled her eyes and pulled back her coat to reveal her own sword resting at her hip. "We both have one, Ron. Now are you two ready?"

Harry and Ron shared a look that Hermione didn't even try to read. It was one of their "Hermione is doing something strange" series, but she couldn't tell the specifics under that. She'd learned long ago that it was pointless to even try.

"Whether they're ready or not, I'm going in there," Malfoy announced. He slammed his boot to the door and rushed into the darkness beyond.

Hermione sighed and pulled out her wand, following after him.

"I thought he was a coward," she heard Ron whisper to Harry as they trailed after her.

Draco took a deep breath of the foul-smelling air and slashed out at the vampire in front of him. The place was filthy and completely disgusting, but he felt better than he had all day. His heart was beating strongly and pumping adrenalin through his veins, giving him the rush he missed when not battling against some magical creature.

The pair of Gryffindor idiots had been right in their estimate that there was only three, and Draco was kind of disappointed. He could have really used the stress relief at the moment and only three probably wouldn't provide him with enough things to hit to work off all of his excess energy.

With a satisfying slice and then a thump, the head of the nearest vampire fell to the floor and then its body turned to dust. Immediately, Draco turned to face the other two.

One of them, the smarter one, was hanging back and watching the fight. He had armed himself with a knife instead of trying to take on Draco and his sword with only teeth and fangs. Draco went after the closer one, making the mistake of losing track of the other and allowing it to get behind his back.

There was a whooshing sound behind him that signified the one with the knife was going for his back, but Draco didn't have time to turn around. He braced for impact even while he sliced his blade through the second vampire's neck.

Draco didn't need to turn around to know that Granger had saved his butt. He wiped the thick, black blood of the vampires off of his sword before slipping it back in its scabbard. Just in case there were other vampires lurking around, Draco drew his wand. The sword wasn't exactly good for stealth and that's what he wanted at the moment.

Hermione let out a huff as she blocked another strike with a shield charm. She had seen the vampire heading for Malfoy's back and rushed into the fray just in time to cast a shield over him. The stupid git owed her for that. If he hadn't been so busy trying to get out his angry energy, then he would have noticed that vampire coming up behind him.

Not used to the different fighting style of vampires instead of wizards, Ron and Harry hung off to the side, their wands ready but not getting involved. It was best that they just left it to the professionals unless it looked like Hermione and Draco needed help.

Getting frustrated with the constant shield charms, Hermione slipped her wand back in her robes and drew her sword. With a quick slice that would make Malfoy proud, she cut the thing's head clean off of its shoulders. Hermione was all for the rights of Magical Creatures, but that was only if those magical creatures had souls – and weren't currently trying to kill her.

She could have used a sunlight charm, but that may have alerted anyone in the building who hadn't heard the fighting already that they had guests. Wrinkling her nose in distaste at the black blood staining her blade, Hermione walked back over to her friends.

"I thought you were a paper pusher," Ron said in awe.

Hermione shrugged. "Most of the time I am."

"Now we just have to find our guy," Harry said. He moved in the direction that Malfoy had disappeared in, but it turned out to be unnecessary.

On the second story, a window overlooking the production floor from what Hermione assumed had once been the manager's office shattered as a body came flying out. Hermione just had time to use a cushioning charm on the flailing and screaming man before he collided with the hard concrete of the main floor. The impact would have killed him had she not been so quick.

"That him?" Hermione asked, flicking her wand to roll her struggling captive onto his back.

Harry and Ron were still blinking. They probably did things with a little more finesse in the Auror department, but they had a lot more resources there and could afford said finesse. Hermione and Draco were used to working with what they'd been allowed, which was a small budget and very little back up staff.

She glanced up towards the office. Draco's head poked out of the jagged hole. "He slipped," the blond said with a roguish grin that Hermione knew had broken more than one heart in its time. No one believed him, not even a little bit.

"He's had a bad day," Hermione explained to her friends. She had a feeling that they weren't going to forget this little outing anytime soon. "Shouldn't one of you be arresting the suspect?"

Ron stepped forward and snapped a pair of magical cuffs on the man while Malfoy returned, looking almost cheerful – which for him meant that he wasn't scowling and one corner of his mouth was turned up in a smirk.

"You guys have an interesting way of handling things," Harry observed.

Shrugging, Hermione led the way back out of the building so they could make their way to the Apparition point. As Ron and Harry walked ahead, the prisoner trapped between them, Hermione and Draco fell back.

"You're in a better mood," Hermione quietly observed.

Malfoy looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. "You know how much better it makes me feel to hit things."

Mentally making a note to get him a punching bag or something to keep in his office, Hermione rolled her eyes at his simplicity; give him something to hit and he was content. It wasn't like he used his office for work, he might as well get a punching bag for it. Located across the hall from Hermione's, Malfoy's office was mostly just a place where he kept the things he didn't use. He preferred to lounge in the chair in Hermione's office instead of by himself in his own. She suspected he actually enjoyed her company but knew that he'd never admit it.

"You should probably go home," Hermione whispered. "I imagine your mum's beside herself by now since you didn't come home last night."

He shot her an expression so foul it could probably curdle milk. "Leave the mothering to my actual mother, Granger," he snapped.

"Are you two coming?" Harry called from the apparition point.

Hermione ignored Malfoy's dark look and hurried to catch up with her friends.