Disclaimer: I don't own J.K. Rowling's universe, I just like to play in it on occasion.
Chapter Three
Early the next morning, Draco stands in front of his wardrobe, wondering what the hell to wear for the day. While there's no specific Auror 'uniform', as such, there's a dress code, but he's not sure he should go that route, since he can't really make this visit in an official capacity. Civilian attire, then, and his lips curve in a smirk as he selects trousers, shirt, and traditional robes. Might as well go all out, as they say.
Somewhere in the warehouse district three men showing multiple claw marks are being berated by their boss. "Damn it! I can't believe not one of you recognized her. They said she was a librarian and you bring me that Potter kid's best friend. Are you sure you got the right girl?" Yeah, he's not happy.
Neither is Hermione who wakes up to find herself locked in a tiny dark room, tied up and with no idea where she is or how she got there. To make matters worse she finds that she can't say a thing and be heard. Someone has clearly cast Silencio on her. A glimmer of memory flickers in her aching head and her eyes turn momentarily miserable before lighting with fury. Crookshanks!
Slytherin green with accents of silver, that's Malfoy's chosen colors for the day, and he looks damn good in them. Before heading out to the Firendrade Estate, however, he stops in at St. Mungo's, on the off chance Johnny's mum has turned up. No such luck, and with a resigned sigh and a determined expression, he Apparates out to the countryside, where Ioain and Letitia Firendrade have their stately manse.
The boss sends his grunts to clean themselves up and then dispatches them with rapid orders. One is sent to make sure that they have the right girl and another is sent to see what information he can weasel out of the other librarians. For now he leaves the troublesome Miss Granger who made the papers a little too often to stew.
Fortunately, the estate is isolated enough that Draco's not mobbed upon his arrival, and he strides up to the gates, imperious and haughty. "Draco Malfoy to see Mr. and Mrs. Firendrade on a matter of the utmost importance," he barks at the servant in the gatehouse, who looks at him blankly. With a snarl, he waves the man toward the manse. "Go announce me already, I haven't got all day!" The servant vanishes, and Draco swears under his breath.
Hermione is worried and furious, though secure in the knowledge that she can't possibly tell them anything because she doesn't know where little Johnny is. To distract herself from thinking about how her poor defenseless kitty looked she starts thinking her way through all the laws the criminals broke working her way through statutes of wizarding law. It's a way to pass the time.
Once his arrival has been properly announced, the servants are quick to usher Draco through the gates and into an overly plush and frilly sitting room, where Letitia Firendrade sits upon a divan. In her day, she was quite the beauty, but that day has long since gone, and now she's overweight and ponderous with it, and he suppresses a flicker of instant dislike for the woman. "Draco Malfoy, as I live and breathe! So sorry to hear about what happened to your father, dear. He was a good man."
At the library one flunkey is getting absolutely nowhere with Miss Vendworth. "I'm sorry, dear? What did you say your name was?" He repeats the cover name and she gives him a really dotty smile. "And what did you want again?" He tries to explain again only to have the old lady look at him in utter confusion, "Oh, I'm afraid I couldn't possibly tell you anything about that. There are far too many tykes that come for our story hours to remember one. No, I couldn't possibly. Oh! And there's Mr. Peppersmith. He's quite dashing, you know. Oh, Mr. Peppersmith! I believe this gentleman was just leaving!"
Lucius Malfoy, a good man? Draco stares at Letitia, unable to hide the shock because her words catch him completely off guard. What the fuck? Clearing his throat, he schools his features once more and nods. "Of course. I didn't come here to discuss my father, though, Aunt Lottie."
The look on Miss Vendworth's face as she enters her office once Mr. Peppersmith has evicted the man is anything but dotty. "Fern, did Miss Granger arrive yet?" she barks out, sounding more like an efficient drill sergeant than a dotty old lady.
"No, Miss Vendworth, and she's not answering her mirror, either," Fern replies.
Miss Vendworth frowns. It is entirely unlike Hermione Granger to be this late, much less to not relay a message if she were going to be late. The elderly witch pulls out a parchment and begins sketching the man and jotting appropriate details down about him and his inquiries, mulling the matter over in her mind.
"No, I thought not." Letitia nods sagely, gesturing with a beringed hand toward an overstuffed chair. "Do sit down and have some tea, won't you? Ioain is out of town, I'm sorry to say, I know he'd have loved to catch up with you. So why have you come to visit me, dear?"
Picking up the teacup, Draco doesn't sip from it, instead watching her from over the rim as he says, "I'm here about Tierius. Or, rather, his son."
Miss Vendworth picks up her mirror and leans back in her chair, "Cassie? It's Elmira Vendworth. Could you just put a message through for me to one of your boys to call over here? Why, yes, Draco Malfoy." Pause. "No, though he is a handsome young man, isn't he? He's working on something over here and I have some information for him." Pause. "Much obliged and do try to keep your hands off the lad. You know how sensitive they are at that age."
Letitia freezes, then sets her tea aside and smiles coldly at her cousin's son. "Yes, I had heard you were on the case of Jane's disappearance." She clucks her tongue disapprovingly. "So sad. And the boy is so young. He really should be with family in such a trying time as this, don't you agree?"
Draco's jaw tightens, and he sets the untouched tea back on the table. "He should be with his mother," he replies coldly.
Hermione hears a scritching sound and shifts in her bonds, assessing them, but they are too tight. She can't even feel her hands which isn't good at all. Her feet aren't much better but she shifts them as best she can wondering how long they're going to just leave her in here. The thought of rats doesn't horrify her, but it doesn't thrill her, either. These aren't likely to be someone's pet variety and rats carry disease. Ugh.
The Firendrade woman tsks again, shaking her head sadly. "I would have thought you, of all people, would appreciate the importance of family. The boy is of Firendrade descent, he should be raised properly."
Draco gets to his feet, his eyes flashing dangerously. "Is that what you thought?" he says, his tone frosty. Then he steps toward her, his voice lowering to a growl. "Where is she? What have your people done with her?"
The door to the storage room swings open letting in dim light and a menacing figure stands in the doorway. Hermione can't see his face in the shadows but the tone doesn't reassure her at all.
"Well... if it isn't Miss Granger... if librarians had looked like you when I was a boy perhaps I'd have finished school..." She hides her fear behind a glare. "What, no words, my dear?" It's all soft menace and threat. "I'm sure a smart girl like you will have lots to say, but I think you need a little more time alone to think about your choice of words. Yes, I think giving you back your voice at this time would be... imprudent."
Something knocks her over, though not a hand touches her and she struggles against the bonds again. The door clicks shut, the lock falling back into place. She struggles to sit up again. Ugh. That voice. It makes her feel all dirty and he didn't even touch her.
With a sigh punctuated by another tsk, Letitia shakes her head. "I don't know what you're talking about, dear. Surely, you can't think that Ioain or I had anything to do with that poor woman's disappearance. We simply want what's best for our grandson."
Draco takes a step toward her, and she flinches, and then there's a chirp from his pocket, and he frowns. "One moment. This isn't over, Lottie." Digging out his mirror, he steps out to the hall and flips it open. "Malfoy."
"Sorry to bother you, sir, but Miss Vendworth called, from the library. It sounded urgent." Cassie, the MLE's resident secretary. Draco frowns. "Thank you, Cassie. I'll call her straightaway." Lottie will have to wait. With a sigh, he keys in the frequency to the librarian's mirror.
It's an indication of how concerned the head librarian is that she answers the mirror on the first chirp. "Oh, Mr. Malfoy, thank goodness. I have a sketch for you of a man who came in to inquire about the boy... but it seems your concerns may have been correct. Miss Granger has not come in today, and she is most regular in her duties. There has been no note or mirror call about it, either. I am most concerned." The elderly woman certainly looks it. She's been staying in her office waiting for a return call.
"I see. Thank you for your call, Miss Vendworth, I'll send one of my team down for the sketch. And I'll drop by Granger's flat, see if I can locate her. I'll find her." Draco looks grim, but he also looks sincere, an expression which would no doubt surprise Hermione if she were there to see it.
"Do you need her address, Mr. Malfoy? I have it here from the employee records," Miss Vendworth replies, anxious to be of help. She can't think what could possibly keep Hermione from calling in if she were able, ergo something must be wrong. If Draco answers the affirmative she'll provide the address. Otherwise, she settles back to add any additional information she can think of to the notes accompanying the sketch so that she might give it to the Auror who comes to pick it up.
"Yes, if you have it there." Draco doesn't, in fact, need Hermione's address, but he has a feeling that it'll cause less gossip if he doesn't admit that fact. He nods again and rings off, returning to the sitting room to stalk over to his father's cousin. "I will find her," he seethes, through gritted teeth, "and I will see to it that you will never have the boy. Good day, Aunt Lottie. I'll see myself out."
Elmira sets the mirror down and, recalling the direction the man went after Mr. Peppersmith evicted him from the library adds that to the notes. She puts the lot into an envelope, though she gives the sketch another thoughtful look and a quick nod before doing so and makes her way majestically to the front desk where she can go back to monitoring her realm. When the Auror comes after checking his identification carefully she hands over the envelope and settles back to wait.
Upon leaving the Firendrade estate, Draco first calls one of the other Aurors on his team to pick up the things from Miss V. Then he Apparates to Hermione's building, directly into the hall outside her flat. Noting the absence of wards, he frowns, and cautiously pushes the door open, wand at the ready. The loud, angry yowl is all the warning he gets before a flash of ginger fur leaps at his face, and he ducks just enough that the cat's claws only graze his forehead, drawing blood. "Fuck!" he swears, aiming a Stupefy at the animal, then lifting a hand to check the wound. It's not severe, though, and he sweeps his gaze around the area, noting a few small signs of a struggle. He tightens his grip on his wand and proceeds deeper into the apartment, making sure it's empty before locating the woman's hairbrush. "Idiots," he hisses, plucking several long strands from it.
Hermione shifts again, but it is no use, the ropes won't loosen their hold no matter what she does. She's had plenty of time for thinking as the sinister man suggested she would and she's reached a few conclusions. Unfortunately none of those conclusions actually help with getting her out of the mess she's in. She's hungry and thirsty and, yes, a little bit frightened though damned if she'd admit it. Clearly, they made a professional job out of snatching her. They've left her to herself to let imagination do its work for them. Why would they leave her with not even water if it wasn't to make sure she would drink something when they offer it? The answer comes to her almost at once. Veritaserum. She sets her mind to recalling everything she can about the potion, including resisting it.
One of the items missing from Johnny's house had been his mother's hairbrush, but the thugs were too busy snatching Hermione to remember to do the same with hers, and Draco stalks out of the building, the hairs held firmly in one hand. He Apparates, not to the Ministry but to the house he maintains on the outskirts of London, loping up the stairs to the rather elaborate laboratory. Potions was one of his better classes, and not entirely due to Snape's favoritism, and in the years since Voldemort's defeat has developed a number of new potions formulae, as well as improving several existing ones. Lips curving in a grim smile, he stalks toward the well-stocked shelves and starts assembling what he'll need for the tracking potion, carefully setting the hairs in a container.
Sounds echo strangely in a warehouse and it becomes clear to Hermione now that they didn't bother put silencing wards on the storage closet they are keeping her in, no doubt secure that the Silencio and tight bindings will keep her quiet. She doubts that there is anyone but villains to hear her anyhow. The voices she's hearing don't come to her whole, but rather in broken bits and pieces and she doubts that they realize she can hear them.
"...think the boss will..."
"...play with her?"
"...other one. Back later..."
Her head drops against her knees. Say something useful! her mind rages at them, but it is just the same sort of almost gossipy snippets as before.
"...damn cat..."
She listens intently after that, but doesn't catch anything more about the cat, either, and the voices fade again.
Time is often of the essence, when it comes to missing persons, and Draco knows this better than most. The tracking potion is designed to be quick to brew, for that very reason, and before long he's adding the strands of hair and smirking in satisfaction at the finished potion. "Essence of Granger," he muses, dipping the crystal pendant into the still-bubbling potion. There's a brief flash, and he draws it out quickly, then brings it up to eye level, watching the arrow form within it. He draws the chain over his head, the pendant falling to just below his collarbones, and sets out to locate the missing librarian.
Hermione keeps listening, but the voices can't be heard any more. She's starting to feel a little light-headed. She shifts her feet again, trying to keep some feeling in them and shifts herself as best she can to try and explore her small prison. She isn't sure her hands can hold anything since she can't feel them but perhaps she can find something to cut through the rope. It's doubtful. Her captors were no doubt thorough in removing anything useful, but she should at least try - should have tried hours ago no doubt. Her head isn't feeling very clear, there's a peculiar light-headedness to how she feels reminding her that she never got to eat the supper she picked up on the way home from the grocer yesterday? She presumes it was yesterday. It could have been longer. She doesn't know.
It's past dark by the time Draco reaches the warehouse district, and a fog has rolled in, which he finds almost comforting. The fog will help hide his spells if any Muggles are about, and he orients again on the warehouse, the little arrow (Gryffindor red) pointing straight at it, pulsing slowly within the crystal, in time to the woman's heartbeat now that he's close enough. He doesn't allow the thought to process of just how disturbing that slow pulsing is, shoving aside the odd flash of concern for later consideration. He doesn't have time to wonder about that concern, not when there's fighting to do. Pulling something from his pocket, he rolls it under the door, then attaches another something to his ear: Extendable Ears. The Weasel's brother made the best business decision of his life when he took that Ministry contract, and as annoying as the twins were, Draco can appreciate their particular brilliance at moments like this.
The lackeys are sitting around playing cards. Their boss has left them here to go and have another little 'chat' with Jane. He was strict in his orders that they not have words with their prisoner. The librarian, he has decided, is to be left to him. What Hermione heard earlier was a bit of their speculation and growsing about that. She's still trying to listen, but the voices are faint and they don't always register. She's dropped off more than once in the past hour or two.
Playing cards. Draco shakes his head in disbelief, wondering how anyone could possibly be stupid enough not to think they'd come looking for her. To think they wouldn't notice she was missing. People like Hermione Granger didn't just disappear for days at a time without word. Unless, of course, the lackeys hadn't told their boss they'd forgotten to clean up after themselves, which he decides is more likely. He hears enough to know there is a boss, and that they're distracted, and then he reels the ear back in and pockets it. Stepping into the alleyway at the side of the warehouse, he brandishes his wand and blows the side door off its hinges and into the room, then follows it.
The lackeys to their credit may not be the brightest but they leap to their feet when the side door blows, cards scattering. Wands are out and they spread out to deal with the threat. There are more than the three that collected Hermione from her flat. Of the five one peels off through the back of the warehouse and a crack! announces his departure. The other four are for the moment seeing what they are dealing with. The noise jolts Hermione out of the doze she had fallen into but she's disoriented and unsure of whether it is help or further trouble that drew her out of sleep.
For the better part of six years, Draco was second-best at Defense, and frankly it drove him crazy. So, once, when he and Harry Potter were in Auror training together, before Potter washed out to go play pro Quid, he cornered the Gryffindor and they discussed why. Then they went out to the deserted, unkempt gardens of the equally deserted manor house Draco had recently moved out of, and had an honest, one-on-one duel, and took each others' measure with no interference or emotion, just skill and brains. And he proceeded to hand Potter his own arse, twice. They swore each other to secrecy and went back to being colleagues who barely tolerated each other, but soon after that Harry left the Ministry, while Draco worked his way up the ranks.
Compared to some of the other stuff he's seen in the course of his career, the kidnappers register pretty low on the danger scale. While waiting for the potion to brew, he'd changed clothes, and is garbed in unrelieved black, and when he enters the warehouse on the heels of the explosion, he's a frightening sight, indeed, to the unprepared: all in black, hair and face almost ghostly pale, silver eyes flashing dangerously, the crystal glowing against his chest, pulsing red... and some of the fog comes in with him, tendrils curling in through the now-open doorway. He snaps off two stunning spells as he goes, toward the two nearest goons, his expression cold.
One of the stunners hits, the goon dropping with a thud on the concrete floor, the other one narrowly misses as the man swerves out of the way. He fires a stunner behind him as he starts running for the back of the warehouse, but given he hardly does more than glance his aim isn't particularly good and it just wings off the warehouse wall. The other two eye the downed man and the ghostly figure. One casts an Accio on the stunned man, while the other casts off a stunner in Malfoy's direction.
Hermione can hear things happening, but in strange echoes that break the silence. It sounds almost eerie. She can't know that the lugheads left guarding her are unnerved by the figure that blasted the door in into silence, nor what is going on with the fight. Her earlier explorations of the storage closet proved useless. It is completely empty except for her, though a chemical smell remains, no doubt accounting for part of her light-headedness.
Malfoy flicks his wand and casts a shield, a delicate, shimmery bubble of spell energy that absorbs the stunner and then dissipates with a tiny pop. He snarls, charging through the remnants of both spells and closing the distance between himself and the goon that fired at him. His wand is still in hand, but it's the other that comes up, fisted, to punch the guy in the nose. It is, oddly enough, a lesson he learned from Hermione in their Third Year at Hogwarts: wizards rarely expect physical combat, and most of them can be caught off guard by it. Draco has found, over the years, that decking someone is a fantastic way to blow their concentration... and it's pretty damn satisfying, too.
The other goon has managed to manhandle his stunned comrade and take off with him, the one Malfoy just punched was a hair slow in following and now finds himself knocked down on the ground seeing stars, an involuntary yelp escaping him as the apparition punches him out? What the heck?
That yelp is magnified through the odd way noise carries in the warehouse leaving Hermione to wonder what just happened. Did someone sneak in? She doesn't even know how many guards there are. She's feeling particularly helpless, not having been able to even get any information out of the situation. It isn't a feeling she likes, but the disoriented feeling of dizziness doesn't allow her to even focus too hard on that.
Dropping to one knee beside the fallen thug, Draco grabs a fistful of the man's shirt and yanks him up enough to snarl, his voice a menacing rumble, "Tell your boss his days are numbered. I'm coming for him, and he can be damn sure I'll find him, no matter how many rocks he chooses to hide under. And if any of you so much as thinks of touching Granger again, I will personally have your arse in a sling." He lets the guy drop back to the floor, reaches out to tweak his broken and bloodied nose, and gets to his feet. "Now, get the fuck out of here."
"...boss...days...numbered..." "...Granger..." Hermione gives her head a shake, trying to clear it. What are they talking about now? Someone sounds angry.
While she is pondering this, the thug is moaning over his broken nose because it hurts like hell. However when Draco tells him to get out of there he doesn't hesitate in scrambling to his feet and running like hell wondering for perhaps the first time if he perhaps should have listened to his mum and worked for his uncle the carter.
Had it been one of Hermione's friends running this show (Harry, Ron, Ginny), the next step would have been to go rushing into the closet and rescuing Hermione, thereby leaving themselves open to possible attack by any bad guys that might have doubled back. Draco is a great deal more paranoid and thorough, and his next move is to ward the space, then poke around in what belongings the thugs have left until he locates her wand. Only then does he open the door to the storage closet the arrow points him at, his expression closed and remote as he summons a light for the space.
The light seems blinding to the girl after so many hours in darkness, and she flinches, shifting her head down a little and trying to see past the light. She can't tell who it is any more than she could see the face of the boss earlier. Her expression still holds defiance, but had it been the boss he would have been happy to see the underlying nerves that she can't quite hide any more and the way the girl trembles. Time in the dark without food or water, he would attest, make an excellent start to wearing down the will to resist questioning. It takes time for her eyes to adjust, but when they finally do and she sees that it is Draco standing there it is equal parts relief and mortification that flood through her causing her cheeks to flush against her current pallor.
No food or water since they captured her, and he can tell, having seen it before, can see the signs of her mistreatment, his expression cold as ice, eyes flinty with it. "Granger." Draco's countenance softens, just a little, and he drops again to one knee, bringing his wand up. "Hold still, I'll have you loose in a minute." Carefully, almost gently, he picks apart the spells holding her captive and silent, setting her free.
Holding still isn't a problem now that she knows who it is even if it does embarrass her to require rescuing, and from Malfoy, no less. Her hands fall apart from where they were bound, but she can't get them to move yet the circulation will take a little time to come back. Her feet are better since she's been able to get them to move a little, though she makes no attempt to stand right now. She doesn't think her legs will support her yet. Hermoine slowly tests out her voice and finding it discovers a husky note to it, no doubt from being parched, "Thanks." The simple word is all she says, but it is completely sincere. However, the short reply seems completely unlike her. She's finding it difficult to focus.
"Don't thank me, yet," Draco tells her, frowning at the way her hands just flop into her lap. He sniffs, and his eyes narrow, and he reaches for her. "Come on, we're getting out of here." His manner is brisk, abrupt, but beneath it there's a trace of actual concern, and he doesn't even bother hiding it.
Hermione tries to stand, but with her hands not working yet she ends up swaying like a drunk - or perhaps a ragdoll trying to stand without a hand to hold it - before she even gets halfway. Her expression might be comical under other circumstances, but the frustration and confusion isn't the only thing that has her near tears right now, and she doesn't want Malfoy to see her cry. "Sorry." Whether she's apologizing for making him more work or for her feet not working isn't clear, and she makes no more comment than that.
"Don't apologize yet, either," Draco says, bending just so and scooping her up into his arms. It's an easy gesture, for him, and the ease with which he can just pick her up may very well surprise her, because he doesn't falter at all. "Hold on." He takes a step back, out of the closet, letting the wards go on the building before Apparating them directly to her flat.
If she weren't so dizzy Hermione would probably question her sanity. She's never wanted to be a romance novel heroine and here she is, the very picture of a damsel in distress, in Draco Malfoy's arms being carried? There's a little wince even as she manages to hold on, the feeling is finally starting to come back to her hands and it hurts. Her cat apparently doesn't stay down for long because a decidedly disgusted-looking Crookshanks is stalking around the flat irritably prompting Hermione in that same husky voice to say, "Crookshanks! You're all right!" Not right or not, the sound of Hermione's voice transforms the cat from menace to purring monstrosity and for all that he leapt at Draco earlier the contrary beast now twines himself around the man's ankles purring all the while.
"He's fine." Draco sets her down gently on the sofa, then prowls through the flat, setting wards on all of the windows as well as the door, making sure it's secure in case someone decides to ignore his warning and come after them. Then he returns to where he left her, sitting beside her and reaching for one of her hands.
The cat mrroows a protest to that, he is most certainly not fine. His food dish has been neglected. Men have come into his domain and taken his mistress. She's back however, and when Draco sets her down the large cat prowls over and curls up right next to her feet. Ordinarily he'd have landed on her lap the moment she was sitting, but he's a smart cat. He can see something isn't right. Hermione is looking slowly around with a little frown, glancing down at the cat. "He looked dead. I had my hands full. The groceries dropped... I was trying to get my wand out... but after that I don't remember. They shouldn't have been able to get in."
"I'll look into it," Draco says, the words a promise, as he takes hold of her hand and begins rubbing gently, massaging feeling back into it. "They cleaned up after themselves, just like with Jane. Put the groceries away, left the cat. But they forgot something, this time." Which begs the question, if they cleaned up so well, how did he find her?
"They forgot something?" Hermione asks. She doesn't ask about Jane yet. One thing at a time seems to be all her focus is good for, something that disturbs her deeply. She's used to being the clever one, at seeing things that others miss. This disorder of her thoughts and lack of concentration is a frightening thing. So heavily is this on her mind that it only occurs to her that Draco has her hand when the feeling has returned more. "I think the one in charge was with Jane... I didn't hear much, but it sounded that way," she says, and in a complete departure from what would be her ordinary reaction to having Draco Malfoy holding her hand for any reason, she doesn't yank it away.
"They left your hairbrush," Draco says, as if this explains everything. The crystal is still pulsing, the little arrow pointed directly at her, but he doesn't pay it any attention, focused on her hands. Once he feels her hand has sufficiently recovered, he lets it drop and reaches for the other, to repeat the process. His hands are strong and gentle, with callouses here and there where the handle of his wand would rest.
When Draco mentions the hairbrush, Hermione's eyes drift down and spot the crystal with a little, "Oh." She's familiar with the sort of potion it would require, though probably not as up to date on the intricacies of hurrying the process and it brings a genuinely approving, if fleeting, smile to her face. "Yes, that would definitely be a mistake. I'm not quite sure what his plans were... but I suspect Veritaserum might have been the least of it. He was leaving me to stew a while." The smile disappears as soon as she thinks of the boss again and without intending it her fingers clench.
The particular tweaks that Draco has done to the original formula have been shared with precisely no one, and he's only used it a few times. He keeps massaging her hand, but looks up at her face, silvery eyes intense. "Don't," he says, quietly. "Don't think about what might have been. You're out, you're safe." He's tempted to add 'I'm here', and wonders briefly where the hell the urge comes from, but he refrains, holding himself in check.
She doesn't bother tell him that it is never that easy. She already knows that he knows. Instead, brown eyes regarding him seriously, Hermione asks, "How are you going to find Jane?" It is a completely unselfish question. She knows that when he goes she'll probably do needlessly complex things to make herself feel safer, but being out, being safe, reminds her that the other woman is not. Had Jane been rescued he would have told her. The cat, exhibiting an extraordinary amount of patience, is not yet even growsing about the lack of dinner.
Having spent a year of terror with Voldemort in his house, Draco most certainly does not need to be told that it is never that easy. "Same way I found you," he replies, letting go of her hand and drawing the chain up over his head, offering her the crystal, the arrow still pulsing. "Wait for him and his hired help to go to ground, then go after them. I've a blood sample from one of them to use." He doesn't mention that he got it by breaking the guy's nose.
Hermione takes it from him and studies it with interest and there's a glimmer of amusement to her words, "So I'll always know where I am." Certainly the arrow hasn't stopped pointing at her for resting on her palm. "Just be careful, Draco. I don't think the boss was a stupid man." She doesn't even realize that she just used his first name. It isn't something she does particularly often.
"For the next six hours or so, yes," Draco replies, smirking a little, though his eyes flash at her use of his given name, and something sparks in his chest. "Stupid or not, he crossed a line when he went after you. But don't worry about me, I can handle myself."
Crookshanks is purring smugly as he leaps from the ground to Hermione's lap, kneading at her skirt with his paws but not sinking the claws in. One great paw reaches up to bat at the crystal and her hand closes over the paw, still holding the crystal. She leans down to get a better look at her cat's claws. "Hmm, I think he marked some of them." She releases his paw, but not the crystal much to the cat's disappointment.
"I saw scratches on the one who tried to tangle with me, so you're probably right." Draco gets to his feet, rolling his shoulders so that his robes fall into place neatly. "Excuse me for a moment." Then he heads for the kitchen, with the intention of making tea.
Hermione nods. She's still rather out of it, so when he goes into the kitchen she doesn't even really think much of it. Instead she fusses over Crookshanks, making much of the cat for attacking the thugs. Fussing over him is normal and thus reassuring to her, especially after having worried that he might have been hurt. It finally occurs to her that the cat won't have been fed, either. "And you deserve that fish I got you if it isn't spoiled," she murmurs to the cat.
At the mention of fish, Crookshanks leaps off her lap and pads quickly over toward the kitchen door. Hermione is a good deal slower, pushing off the couch and coming to her feet rather unsteadily. She waits until her head clears a little before moving ever so slowly toward the kitchen.
Draco hears her fussing over the cat, and is in fact moving to check the icebox when he hears her get up. He rolls his eyes, mutters under his breath about stubborn women, and returns to the living room, catching her by the shoulders before she makes it very far and gently pushing her back to the couch. Then he shakes a finger at her, admonishing, "Stay put. You're not in any shape to be up and about, just yet. I'll feed the bloody cat."
From the alarming way her head was starting to spin, Hermione isn't really able to argue the point. She finds herself sitting on the couch again far more quickly than she stood and walked the few steps toward the kitchen. "All right," she says, wondering why his bossiness isn't aggravating her but too tired to overthink the matter. "All right," she repeats.
Something in her voice catches in his brain, and Draco again remembers the chemical smell from the closet. He swears under his breath and digs in his pocket, pulling out a potion vial and twisting the cap off, pressing it into her hands. "Drink this, Hermione."
One hand still holds the crystal, the red arrow thrumming slowly in time with her heartbeat. The other takes the vial when he presses it into her hand and she stares down at it. "What is it?" It isn't said argumentatively and she's lifting it even as she asks, but it isn't at all like her to drink something without knowing what it is. That she's doing so now demonstrates both a trust in Draco that she probably would not have guessed was there and just how out of it she really is.
"It's an antidote," Draco says, his expression grim, eyes intense as he watches her take it. "The smell from the warehouse, I should have remembered it sooner." He shakes his head and straightens. "I'll make some tea, it'll help wash away some of the taste."
She drinks it down, "I've tasted worse," Hermione replies, leaning her head back against the couch now that it's taken. She forgets to set the vial down and so it, like the crystal stays in her hand. It would be nice if the room would stop spinning, she concludes, though it doesn't seem to want to do so.
Draco reaches toward her, slender fingers brushing hair back from her face, gently. "The tea will help," he says, simply, withdrawing his hand and retreating to the kitchen, where the teakettle he started earlier is almost boiling. He locates the fish in the icebox, checks to make sure it's still fresh, and cuts some of it up to put in the cat's dish, then returns to the stove to turn the heat off just as the kettle starts to whistle.
Hermione looks at him a little confused when he brushes her hair back, but he's back in the kitchen soon enough, leaving her wondering why he's being so nice to her. She can hear Crookshanks murmuring his approval over the fish and the low whistle from the tea pot and her eyes shut for the moment.
Presently, Draco himself has no clue why he's being so nice to her, except that he has no real reason to be particularly cruel. He fixes two cups of tea, adding the precise amounts of cream and sugar to hers that she likes, and then lifts the lid of the trash bin, intending to throw out the fish bone... and freezes, at the sight of the offending Pansy novel. Slowly, he picks it out, absently tossing the fish bone in to take its place, and his lips curve as he notes the cracked binding, the bent pages.
Hermione would be surprised that Draco even knows how she takes her tea, but isn't in any state to really notice that he does right now. Happily for her at the moment she's completely forgotten about Pansy Parkinson's novels, so she is blissfully unaware of what Draco just found in her rubbish bin. She looks like she's dozed off again with how she's laying back against the couch with her eyes closed and her breathing slow and steady. In reality she's just waiting in hopes that her head will stop spinning as the antidote Draco gave her sinks in.
Setting the book on the counter, Draco picks up the assembled tray, having located a tin of biscuits to go with the tea, and heads back out to the living room. He sets the tray on the coffee table and settles next to her on the sofa, touching her shoulder. "Tea. It will help with your head."
Her eyes open slowly and rather cautiously she lifts her head from where she was resting it against the back of the sofa. Her head still has some of that dizziness about it, but at least some of the vertigo is passing. Hermione reaches automatically for the teacup that looks to be how she drinks it. Her hand isn't steady as she lifts the cup, but she doesn't spill at any rate, sipping quietly at the teacup. If the silence of her ordeal was supposed to make her talkative it backfired. Hermione offers another polite, "Thanks." She pauses a moment and then offers, "If you need to start the potion for the tracker while the blood is still fresh you can check my lab to see if there are the right things in it for you." Yes, she still has her own potions lab at home.
"It will keep," Draco replies, referring to the blood sample. The vial is tightly capped and sealed, in a pocket in his robes, and he'll wait until he gets home before worrying about the second potion. "Nice lab, by the way." The potion should be clearing her head, so the lack of conversation is a little worrisome.
"They didn't mess it up, did they?" Hermione asks, sipping more of her tea. At least she has the sense to drink it slowly. It helps that it is hot. After not eating or drinking for over twenty-four hours she knows she'd better take it slow on both. She can see that it has been that long from the time on the clock on the mantle. Once it catches her eye she ends up staring at it a long moment, longer than a clock merits, and gives her head a little shake as though clearing it and nearly spilling her tea on herself in the process. "Oh, hell, I should send a note off to Miss Vendworth. She'll be worried sick. And here I'm keeping you, when you could be finding, Jane." Whatever it was about the clock, clearly it cleared something up. Or perhaps the antidote just kicked in more.
"I'll call Miss Vendworth," Draco offers, though he doesn't move to do so right that second. "And I've a feeling they'll be treating Jane a little better than they did you." His instincts are telling him that Jane is meant to be a bargaining chip, if nothing else, and she's of no use to the kidnappers if she's injured or dead.
"I hope so. She must be worried sick about Johnny," Hermione says, her eyes showing concern, but a lingering vulnerability too. "I wish I could tell you more of what they discussed, Draco, but the sound carried so oddly that I never heard the whole of anything when I could hear it at all. I tried to listen." This time it belatedly occurs to her that she usually calls him Malfoy, not Draco, and she feels heat creep into her cheeks. She tries to hide it by staring into her tea cup.
The color creeping into her cheeks lets Draco know that she's sufficiently recovered enough to recognize her surroundings... and what she's called him. He sets his cup down, his hand coming up to once more brush aside hair from her face, gentle fingers cool against her heated cheek. "It's all right, Hermione." He uses her given name on purpose, though probably not for the reasons she'd expect, and his tone is oddly gentle, as well. "You were drugged... poisoned, really. And the sound did carry rather strangely."
Hermione looks up from her tea when he says her name, her gaze caught as much by the mesmerizing quality of his eyes as by the tone of his voice. "How did you know? I was expecting that he'd ask me things... he wouldn't have gotten very far with that." She is surprised to find that her usual irritation with Malfoy seems to have abated leaving her almost, but not quite comfortable with him.
"The smell," Draco replies, his fingers sliding across her cheek. "Very rare, highly illegal, the potion was developed in Japan. The fumes have the same end result as the Veritaserum, and prolonged exposure without food or drink makes one more susceptible to it." His voice is a soft caress, relaying just the facts, without sounding condescending. "It can also be quite toxic, which is why it's illegal in three-quarters of the civilized world."
"Oh, well, that explains why my head kept spinning then," Hermione says, in an off-hand sort of way, adding softly, "I daresay they wouldn't have expected that I might think of Veritaserum though. There are memory tricks you can use if you're expecting it like a memory palace. I did a fair bit of reading on the subject a few years back."
"I suspect," Draco says, his lips twitching as he refrains from looking smug, "you do quite a bit of reading." There's a pause, his fingers still resting against her cheek, and then he adds, "I wouldn't have figured you for the Pansy Parkinson novel, though."
There's still enough of the drug or poison in Hermione's system that he gets a straighter answer than she would have provided if she weren't still clearing it out. "Everyone at the library reads them... even Mr. Peppersmith, though he says he likes to keep up with what the ladies want. Miss Vendworth insisted with the first one. Oh. Blast." Hermione looks away from him, "The problem," she says with a wry frankness, "with unlocking the palace is that if the serum isn't fully out of your system you never know what will come out. I suppose you saw the one in the rubbish bin."
"It was rather impossible to overlook, being right there on top." Draco withdraws his hand and gets to his feet. "I hear it's her best work yet, though I've not read the copy she sent me." He's not ashamed to admit that his personal library includes all of Pansy's books: she always sends him a copy from the first printing.
"I don't know... I didn't read it," Hermione says, still rather embarrassed to be caught with the book even if it was in the rubbish bin. Nevermind that there are five more Parkinson novels on the bookshelf across the room from where she's sitting. "It isn't Saturday, is it?" she asks, frowning a little. Even with seeing the clock she isn't sure just how much time she lost while unconscious.
"Well," Draco drawls, his gaze shifting to the bookshelf where the other five books are sitting, "the books aren't anywhere near as good as the real thing." Because even if she hasn't read the newest one, he KNOWS she's read the other five... plus the ones he spotted in her bedroom earlier. "Today is Friday. Miss Vendworth called the Ministry when you didn't show up for work."
Hermione can't help but smirk. Men and their egos. But whether it is a reluctance to snipe at him at the moment or the actual lack of a comeback she doesn't comment on the egotistical remark. She's relieved to hear that it's Friday, though. "Oh, then I really should send a note. She's no doubt been worrying all day. I'm glad it isn't Saturday. I promised Ginny I'd watch the boys on Sunday after brunch."
"How do you want to handle it?" Draco asks, straightening and looking back at her, one eyebrow arched in inquiry. "There was no official report filed, but the call went through the Ministry, so there may be an inquiry. I can leave out the details, though, if you'd rather." Meaning she's not obligated to tell her nosy but well-meaning boss the details, thus sparing herself a fussing-over.
"If you need someone to press charges, I will, of course, but if it can be kept quiet, that would be good. Otherwise, it will turn into a circus and people will be bothering me for weeks," Hermione replies. It could be months, if news is slow, but certainly weeks. Even now on slow news days occasionally some stupid article will turn up on something she or Ron has done. Harry, of course, never stopped making the news.
Which is why he asked; Draco is smart enough to have picked up on the fact that she'd prefer not having people fuss over her. Harry, for all he professes not to, enjoys the spotlight, as does Ron, when he can get it. Hermione, though... Draco nods, ignoring the nagging voice in his head that has piped up to ask just how he knows her so well, chalking it up to the fact that he used to watch her, back in school, waiting for just the right moment to say something cruel, looking for ways to hurt her. Those days are behind him, now, but the knowledge remains. "We'll worry about pressing charges after they've been caught. Will you be all right, here?"
"I'll be fine," Hermione says matter-of-factly. It's a reply she's used to giving. She'd very much like to know how they got into her flat. That still bothers her as well it might given the levels of warding she uses. "Thank you again, Draco," she says, the words coming out softly. She's aware that he could have just dropped her off at Mungo's after or with one of her friends, but instead he brought her home and made her tea after he rescued her. It's more than most aurors would do, even for an acquaintance. Because they were never friends.
Fine? Draco rather doubts it, and he leans down to catch her chin with his elegant fingers, tilting her head up so he can look her in the eyes. "That may work on your friends, but that tone doesn't hide anything from me," he says, his voice a quiet rumble. "If you'd rather not be alone just yet, I can stay."
Striking eyes. It's the first thought that pops in Hermione's head and she's only glad she didn't say it aloud. "I'll still be fine, Malfoy. I've got Crookshanks for company and once I've sent off a note to Miss Vendworth I'll probably just heat a tin of soup," she says quietly. Of course she'll probably also after eating that soup take many extra precautions against anyone else getting into her flat, but that's entirely beside the point. "Of course if I knew how they managed to get in here in the first place no doubt I would feel better, but I'm sure there's many things you'd rather be doing than staying here."
Malfoy. That she's retreated back to the use of his last name draws a smirk from him, and a vague awareness that he liked her calling him 'Draco' better. "I said I'll look into it, Granger. I don't make promises I don't intend to keep." He would have questioned the neighbors, earlier, if he hadn't found her hairbrush, but it's too late in the evening for that, in the absence of a real emergency.
She frowns a little as something else finally occurs to her, "My wand..." Hermione glances around wondering whether they would have left it or taken it. Clearly she is getting back to herself far more if she's worrying over its whereabouts.
With his other hand, Draco retrieves her wand from a pocket of his robes, presses it into her hand. "You have my card. Call if you need anything." He leans closer, his eyes intent upon hers, and then closer still, and finally brushes his lips against hers, the briefest of kisses. Then he straightens, flashes her a smile without a trace of smug in it, and Apparates out.
Hermione's fingers tighten around her wand automatically when Draco presses it into her hand. She doesn't think to mention that the card is at the library, not at home and even as he leans closer and closer it still comes as a shock that he actually kisses her. Her face is almost expressionless as she looks at him after, save for a measure of surprise and confusion in her eyes even as she notes the absence of smugness in his smile right before he apparates. "What the hell was that about?" she asks Crookshanks, who is just emerging from the kitchen licking his chops in appreciation of the fine fish dinner he just polished off.