A/N: I'm so thrilled you're all enjoying this so much. Thanks ever so much for all your kind reviews. Much love! xx-Kitten.
The Silver Dragon
By Kittenshift17
CHAPTER SIX
Draco was going to hex her. He'd have to. The witch was barmy if she thought she was going to stalk in on his case and take over with her sharp tongue and her clicking heels to boot.
"Oi! Granger!" he called, having followed her out of the office when Potter dismissed him, clearly recognising Draco's need to put the witch in her place – that is to say, to set her straight on how this mission and this entire case would be carried out. Not her most useful place, which happened to be under him and screaming his name while he fucked her. Draco doubted Potter would be so accommodating were he to let on his thoughts about proper placement for Hermione Granger.
"Oh not now, Malfoy," Granger grumbled. She glanced over her shoulder at his shout but didn't stop as she stalked back through the Ministry towards her office. Draco gritted his teeth in annoyance with her that she didn't even have the decency to stop. Anyone else would have stopped in their tracks and be glancing at him furtively out of fear over being hexed, cussed or spoken down to condescendingly in such a way they left wondering if they'd ever been so insulted without actually being sworn at.
"Witch, I'll follow you all the way through the Ministry if you don't bloody stop," he warned her in annoyance, being sure to keep a dignified air to his gait. Malfoys didn't run after anyone. Especially not bossy, pompous, overbearing little mudbloods with wild hair and the sexiest bedroom eyes this side of Romania.
"Keep up then," she retorted. "I'm going to vomit on your shoes if I have to stop."
"You're legitimately unwell?" he asked. Draco walked a little faster until he caught her, keeping stride with her through the mostly deserted corridors. She actually did look a bit off. There was a slight sheen of sweat along her upper lip as though it were hard work to traverse between her department and the MLE. Her cheeks were also flushed pink beneath the make-up she'd dusted on that morning – something unusual outside of a function - suggesting she'd looked bloody terrible with her illness when she dragged her carcass out of bed that morning. She also had dark, bruise-like circles under her eyes as though she hadn't been sleeping well.
"I think I'm getting the flu," she nodded. "Did you need something Malfoy or are you just following me because you like the way my arse looks in this skirt?"
Draco nearly swallowed his tongue at her flirtatious question before realising she was paying him back for his comment in Potter's office about him making her uncomfortable.
"I'm in charge of the case," he told her. "Not you. You don't give orders to my agents. You don't issue orders to me. You do as I tell you and make sure none of us are killed on this assignment, got it?"
"Don't make stupid calls or try to assert dominance when it's not needed for the sake of pride then, Malfoy," she warned, slanting a glare in his direction. "Or you'll find my footprints on your forehead when I go right over your head and do what's best to make sure the mission isn't compromised and runs smoothly."
"And if your call is a bad one?" he challenged. "If I have to pay the price – as commanding officer of the mission and the Trafficking department - if you mess up?"
"Malfoy in the sixteen years you've known me, have I often messed up?" she asked him. "Have I made stupid mistakes?"
"You let Potter and Weasley lead you into trouble," he pointed out. "It's a miracle the three of you are still kicking."
"No Malfoy, I learned at a young age that they are headstrong and rash-acting males and learned to plan for the inevitable fall-out when they got us all in over our heads. Those 'miracles' were more often than not the result of me having enough smarts and forward-planning combined with Ron's skills at strategizing and Harry's irrational bravery," the witch informed him seriously. "As of right now, however, I know little of your nature when under pressure or in a squirrelly situation and all I know of Seamus and Sarah's abilities involve Seamus's gift for pyrotechnics and spontaneous combustion and Sarah's penchant for fidgeting when she gets tense. Until I know what I'm dealing with, I will be making contingency plans for everything and you will deal with it."
She stomped into her office and Draco levelled a glare at her secretary when the woman made to follow them in, clearly intent on passing along messages. She was a nondescript woman with entirely average features and a rather forgettable face.
"Don't close the door in Hatty's face, Malfoy," Granger warned when he'd been poised to do just that. "Hatty, I'm going home. I'll need you to rearrange my schedule a bit. I'm definitely coming down with the flu and liable to faint at any moment. Cancel all my appointments for this afternoon, could you? Can you let Luna know I'm taking the hybrid kittens home with me, too?"
"Right, of course. Erm… what do I tell Oliver if he comes back?" Hatty asked.
"Tell him the truth. That I'm home with the flu," Granger went on, ignoring his presence. Draco scowled at her with mounting frustration. He'd never met a more infuriating witch, he was sure of it. And that was saying something, given who his mother was and who his fiancé happened to be.
"Also I…" Granger stopped suddenly and Draco darted towards her when she swayed precariously for a moment before she began to topple towards the floor as though lightheaded.
"Ooooh," she groaned. Her eyes were unfocused as Draco caught her against his chest before she could fall and hit her head on the desk.
"Bloody hell, Granger," Draco sighed. He peered into her face, her lilac and honeysuckle scent engulfing him.
"Oh no, is she alright?" Hatty the assistant asked, hurrying forwards.
"Don't be alarmed," Draco smirked. "Granger is hardly the first woman to swoon in my presence."
He dodged when Granger tried to swat at him for his cheekiness, but in doing so nearly lost his grip on her. Scooping her up until she was cradled against his chest, Draco realised she was actually rather unwell. She didn't even protest.
"Everything spins when you do that," she told him softly, laying her cheek against the hollow of his shoulder.
"You're kind of pathetic when you're sick," he replied. He felt the strangest twinge inside his chest as he looked down at her sorry state.
"That's a horrible thing to say!" Hatty exclaimed. Draco rolled his eyes.
"He's called me worse," Granger waved her away. "I need to go home. Hatty, could you bring me those kittens?"
"You expect me to stand here and cradle you while she fetches you some cats?" Draco demanded, amused by the witch in spite of himself. He'd not spent much time interacting with her whilst sober before now. They were either drunk and shagging or hungover and feeling sorry for themselves. There was no middle ground. Or hadn't been, until now.
"You can put me down if you want to. I'll Floo home with my kittens," she told him though she'd closed her eyes and begun nuzzling her cheek against his shoulder like a sleepy kitten herself.
"Here you go, Boss," Hatty told her, coming back with three small kittens in a clear box with air-holes in it.
"Thanks Hatty," Granger sighed. She wrapped her arms around the box when Hatty brought it over and placed it on her stomach while Draco continued to cradle the witch.
"I assume you're going to take her home, Mr Malfoy?" Hatty asked him sternly, looking concerned for her boss.
"I don't appear to have much choice in the matter," Draco replied dryly, stepping towards the fireplace with the intention to Floo to her flat. "Lock her office when you leave, I'll Floo back to my own."
"What are you doing here anyway?" Hatty asked.
"That's hardly your business, is it?" he asked, raising one eyebrow condescendingly at the witch as he stepped into the fireplace with a pinch of floo powder. Granger gripped the kittens tight, still looking like she was asleep in his arms.
"GRANGER'S FLAT!" Draco shouted before he was whooshed into her flat once more.
He climbed out of the fireplace with the witch still in his arms even as she began fiddling with the latches on the carry-cage with the kittens in it. They didn't seem overly perturbed by their Floo travel as she opened the box and let them free.
"You're going to let them run wild in your flat?" he asked when she tossed the empty box onto the couch a minute later while the kittens raced each other around her lounge room.
"They've been living here," she sighed sleepily. "They're used to it. Crooks gets so annoyed with them, it's rather funny actually. Grumpy old fluff-ball."
"What is a Crooks?" Draco frowned before something large, orange and pug-nosed came racing into the room with a yowl, fur standing on end. The kittens mimicked the sound and rushed at the older feline, tackling him playfully and beginning to purr so loudly that Draco could hear them from across the room.
"That's a Crooks. His name is Crookshanks, he's my cat. You can put me down, you know?" she told him, wriggling a little in his grip.
"No I can't. You'll fall and hit your head on something. And then we'll be bollocksed for the mission," Draco informed her. "I assume you're smart enough to keep Pepper-Up Potion in your bathroom vanity?"
"You can't just charge around my flat cradling me like some swooning bride, Draco Malfoy," she protested weakly as he explored the flat until he found her bathroom. He sat her carefully on the bathroom sink and began raiding the cabinets for the potion she needed. He blushed when he found a stock of contraceptive potions, a box of feminine products and some pregnancy tests in the first drawer he opened.
"Wrong drawer," she giggled upon catching sight of his pink cheeks.
"Planning for all outcomes here, Granger?" Draco asked, trying to keep some dignity and condescension about himself despite his embarrassment. He was twenty-six years old and he was no fool. He knew the horrid things witches had to suffer every month, even if he'd had little experience with such things. The few casual girlfriends he'd had before he'd been talked into betrothal had dealt with such issues.
"Makes sense to keep them together," Granger informed him clinically. "Pregnancy test if the painters and decorators don't come, tampons if they do and potions to make sure they bloody do."
"You're not pregnant now, are you?" he asked, continuing to search her vanity cupboard and discovering an alarming amount of dental floss, seven spare, unopened toothbrushes, a gallon of mouthwash and enough hair-ties to hang himself with. There were also enough hair products - Wonder Witch and Sleek-Eazies mostly - to drown himself.
"Why do you keep asking me that?" she demanded. "I have the flu, not a parasite."
"Must you mention such horrid things in my presence?" Draco asked, wrinkling his nose even as he finally found her medical supplies.
"It's what pregnancy is. A horrid growth and mutation of cells that rapidly form into something terrible that effects the host so severely, extraction is the only cure. A nasty little parasite that takes roots and feeds off the host until that is no longer sustainable. And when the parasite has the decency to remove itself – via excruciating pain, I might add – it has the audacity to squall and scream in demand for continued attention from the then-abandoned host for the rest of its life."
Draco was eyeing her in horror by the time she stopped speaking.
"I'm going to assume that you never want children…" he said slowly, unsure if he should feel safe in the same room with her.
"What are you talking about?" she had the nerve to ask, as though she weren't clinically insane. "Of course I want children. One day. With the right man. Once I have achieved all I want from my career. And have the time and inclination to tolerate the little beasts."
"Oh yes, very convincing Granger, I'm sold on your yearning for kids," Draco laughed, locating a Pepper-Up potion and unstoppering it before handing it to her and urging her to take it. She grimaced at the idea, not looking at all cooperative but gulping the potion down before making a face as the steam poured from her nose and ears, her cheeks flushing scarlet.
"Shut up," she rolled her eyes. "I'll have then one day."
"I dread the day," he informed her.
"Oh, you'll have one perfectly arrogant little snot and that will be that, don't lecture me," she snapped, making another face at him.
"Did you just suggest my child will be perfect?" he smirked at her.
"Perfectly arrogant. At least if it's anything like you. Who knows, they might end up an ice-queen like Astoria. You could have an ice-sculpture for a son," she said, reminding Draco of his betrothal and impending requirement to produce an heir with his horrid fiancé.
"What are you doing?" he asked her when he stopped scowling long enough to look at her again and found her wriggling on the bench, trying to free herself on the robes she wore.
"Can't sleep in these," she shrugged at him, slipping off the counter to her feet before she swayed precariously again.
"Oh bloody hell, witch," Draco sighed, catching her again before she could crack her head on the edge of the bath. "Stop wriggling and let me get at the zipper."
"You want to undress me?" she asked, her eyes slightly unfocused as the potion kicked in. She smirked at the idea.
"I don't take advantage of the ill," Draco informed her.
"No, just the inebriated and the emotionally vulnerable," she needled. Draco couldn't hold back his smirk even as he helped her with the zip on her skirt, watching it puddle at her feet and leaving her standing there in her half-buttoned blouse and her knickers. They were a cute little cotton and lace pair in a terribly tempting shade of cream. She looked entirely too innocent and utterly delectable as she returned his smirk wickedly like the little vixen he knew she could be when she wasn't ill and being pathetic.
"Don't act like you didn't benefit from my lack of scruples," Draco chided. He steered her down the hall and into her bedroom. His gaze wandered the room as he helped her towards her bed while she went to work on the buttons on her blouse. She wore a camisole underneath, but Draco decided she looked rather alluring in only her under things.
"Why are you here anyway?" she asked suddenly, pausing as she tried to work the pins out of her curls. "You're supposed to be pretending I don't exist and that you've never seen me naked. What will Daddy Dearest say when he learns you escorted me home while I was unwell?"
"You are now a colleague," Draco replied. "One I have to work with on a daily basis while entering into dangerous and highly volatile situations. He'll realise I was simply protecting my own arse by making sure you don't compromise a mission."
"Ironic how we have to work together now, of all times," she muttered, looking frustrated when she couldn't get the pins out of her hair properly while she could barely keep her balance. Draco resorted to pressing her lower half to his, gripping her hips gently to hold her up while she fiddled. He didn't rightly know why he was helping her.
"Meaning?" he asked.
"We used to ignore each other at work and only shag," she shrugged. "Now we have to work together and ignore the idea of shagging."
"Disappointed?" Draco smirked at her, bouncing his eyebrows cockily at her slightly put-out expression.
"I think I'll live," she rolled her eyes. "Though whether or not you do remains to be seen. I hardly think tolerating you and your enormous ego will be so agreeable when we're not drunk and fucking like the human race depends on it."
"You're fun when you're ill," Draco deadpanned. "You get even blunter than usual. You do realise you threatened the Minister for Magic this morning?"
"He tried to pull rank on me," she shrugged unapologetically, finally untangling her hair and letting it cascade down her back.
"You realise you can't threaten me with a wife behaving badly when I pull rank on you, right Granger?" Draco continued to smirk at her.
"You realise I can make your life even more miserable than anyone else's, right Malfoy?" she smiled at him sweetly. Curly haired little vixen.
"I'm betrothed to a woman I loathe, being forced into an arranged marriage and have to work with you, Finnigan and some other bint. All while suffering my father meddling into my sexual affair," Draco replied coldly. "What more could you possibly do?"
Granger grinned at him widely, clearly beginning to grow very sleepy from the potion.
"If I told you, then it wouldn't be a surprise," she replied. Draco chuckled in spite of himself. She was funny when she was trying to be evasive.
"Just sleep off this inconveniently timed illness and turn up for work tomorrow, would you, witch?" he chastised her. "If we miss this meet of the smuggler's in Earl's Court because of your ill-timed flu, I'm going to spank you."
"I might like that," she replied flirtatiously, a smirk creeping across her cheeks even as her eyelids fluttered closed while he was still clutching her to him.
"I know you'll like it," Draco said self-assuredly. "Now stop flirting with me and get into bed, woman, before you fall on your face."
"You wouldn't let me fall," she replied leaning towards him instead and pillowing her cheek on his chest.
"What makes you so sure?" he wanted to know.
"You haven't so far," she shrugged. "Now, unhand me, villain! I'm to sleep and you're not supposed to be here."
She lifted her head off his chest once more, blinking her eyes open slowly and stepping back out of his hold. She nearly fell again but luckily she was close enough to the bed that she sat down upon it heavily. Draco marvelled at her lack of grace as she crawled across the covers before burrowing beneath them without removing her camisole.
"I'm not," he agreed. "You realise this assignment is going to be horrible, don't you?"
"Of course I do," she rolled her eyes at him, snuggling down against her pillows in a way that he might've called cute if he were prone to such sissy nonsense. "The dynamic between you and I works because we only interact when inebriated and emotionally fraught as a means of physically out-letting a number of vile emotions. And while under other circumstances such an assignment might have made for easier access to such an arrangement, our… interaction isn't like that. You don't much like me as a person – despite barely knowing me – and I don't much like you, either. You're too arrogant and always certain that you're right. It's going to be the longest few months of your life until this case is closed. Mostly because we're not going to be shagging during that time as it will jeopardise the mission and we might be caught by your father or the other people on the case. But also because you're going to have a terrible time adjusting to the fact that I'm always right."
"In other words," Draco deadpanned. "We're going to kill each other unless we're fucking. And we can't fuck."
"That's about the size of it," she nodded, blinking sleepily at him. "Go away now and let me sleep, or I'm taking tomorrow off too."
Draco smirked at her despite himself, amused by her bossiness even when she looked like an oversized bed-worm all snuggled up in her quilt and blankets.
"If you're not at work tomorrow, I'm going to come looking for you Granger," he warned her seriously. "And you might get that spanking."
"It's like you don't want me to get better," she smiled half-heartedly and Draco laughed. "Now be a good boy and kiss my forehead before you go."
Draco snorted at her request.
"You want me to kiss your forehead?" he scoffed.
Granger cracked one eyelid open to glare at him.
"I'm sick! You're supposed to be nice to me!" she demanded. Draco kind of hated the fact that she now looked grumpy and entirely adorable about it, too.
Unaccustomed to such things, Draco moved around the edge of her bed and tugged the covers up to her chin, tucking her more securely under the sheets before he leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to the middle of her forehead. She sighed contently as he did so, as though it genuinely made her feel better.
"Anything else, your highness?" he asked as he straightened.
"Warm milk would be nice," she informed him and Draco rolled his eyes.
"Don't push you luck, Granger," he told her, strolling out of the bedroom.
She blew a raspberry at him as he walked off down the hall and Draco was sure he must be losing his mind when he found himself going into her kitchen and finding her a mug and some milk. Unsure how to use her muggle devices to heat it, Draco used his wand to bring the liquid to a toasty temperature as he carried it back down the hall. He wondered what had gotten into him that he was being so nice to her, other than the fact that she genuinely was unwell and was cute as a button about it.
If anyone had ever told him he'd one day be waiting on an unwell mudblood, he'd have hexed them and then dragged them to St. Mungo's mental ward. Of course, if anyone had told him he'd have shagged the life out of that same mudblood several times over and enjoyed the hell out of it, he might've checked himself into the mental ward as well. Instead, Draco carried the mug of warm milk into her bedroom and set it lightly on her bedside table beside the hefty tome she had sitting there – something about traditional wizarding marriages that looked terribly ponderous.
Granger cracked one eye open at him as he set down the mug.
She didn't say anything about him having brought her what she wanted, but the look on her face really said it all. A slight look of surprise that he'd actually done what she asked of him despite it being elf-work, mixed with an all-too-knowing expression that silently had Draco recalling her accusation the previous week about him getting attached.
Blast it all, the witch was right! He bloody well was attached to her. He didn't fancy her and he didn't particularly want to be her friend but he enjoyed her, nonetheless. Her snarky attitude that led to their strange interactions inside the bedroom. Her tolerance of his penchant for spanking her and tying her to the bed. Her willingness to allow it without a word of complaint and her ability to bloody get off on it as much as he did. Her tight little body that he'd ravaged every inch of without a word of complaint from her. Even her willingness to pull him up on his attachment and push him away for both their sakes.
He was bloody attached to his mudblood and for the next few months there didn't seem like there was going to be a bloody thing either of them could do about it. Nodding his head once at her in realisation of the mistake he'd just made by being nice to her when he ought not to have, Draco left her room and then her flat without another word and without a backward glance.