A/N: Teehee, your reviews make me laugh so much. I was giggling the whole time when I read the most recent ones from my delightful guest reviewers. I adore such emotional responses from you guys. It lets me know I'm doing something right if I can really rile people up. Now, onto the story. I do hope you giggle and grin throughout this chapter as much as I did while I was writing it =) Much love! xx-Kitten
The Silver Dragon
By Kittenshift17
Chapter 9
Hermione stood back to admire her handy-work as she assessed her new colleagues. Seamus had been the easiest to alter. Making his hair grow longer and a bit shaggy did wonders at concealing his identity. She'd made his eyebrows a bit bushier, roughed up his clothes a bit to make him look like he hadn't bathed in a few days and caused the stubble on his jaw to grow until it was stubbly looking. His brown hair was already rather forgettable so she'd only had to alter the size of his nose a bit to make him intimidating and shady-seeming, but forgettable.
Higgins had been harder. Draco was right. She was bad at playing an heiress.
Hermione had altered her slightly, making her taller and thinner with some tricky glamour charms. Her long dark hair had been charmed blonde and sleek, her recently-broken nose straightened once more and reshaped with magic to appear as though the tip flared a bit, giving her a haughty look. Resorting to gaudy-seeming clothing of decent calibre had been tricky, but she'd managed it. Hermione had dressed the witch in a pair of heels, a short, summery dress and a big fur coat. Combined with glitzy jewellery she looked like any Hollywood starlet Hermione had seen on her tele lately.
For herself, Hermione had taken to playing at mousy to the extreme. She'd located a knitted green poncho which she had donned. She'd swapped her jeans for a long flowy skirt but kept boots on, and had adopted a pair of glasses that made her look like a librarian – of like Trelawney, if she was being honest. A charm for her hair had made it frizzier even than it grew on a sticky summer afternoon before a storm. She aimed for mousy, but trying to be better. Trying to be fit for the glitzy friend she was tagging after. In all it gave her an air of desperation that made people want to dismiss her as trying too hard and being without hope.
Malfoy was her final project and he was proving tricky.
"I can't take you seriously with your hair like that," he informed her even as Hermione ghosted her fingertips over his pointed chin, blunting it and making him appear more square jawed. He was still smirking - having finally controlled his laughter - as she tapped his nose to flatten it as though he'd been in a few fights, muggle style. She didn't entirely take away his good looks. It would be a good cover that he was interested in Higgins' character and handsome enough to get the attention of an heiress.
"You should see yours," Hermione retorted, reaching up to card her fingers through the silky strands and charming it black as a raven's wing. Smoothing her thumbs over his eyebrows to match their colour to his hair, Hermione transformed him into the epitome of tall, dark and handsome, complete with five o'clock shadow on his jaw.
"You need to change," she informed him, "You look too official in those robes. Take these and put them on."
She handed him a pile of clothes she'd swiped from evidence and nudged him towards the change cubicle the others had already used. He took them with a raised eyebrow but did as she'd instructed.
"You better be kidding with this, Granger," his voice called a few minutes later and Hermione suspected he'd just found the muscle shirt. It was a tight fitting black t-shirt designed to show of the way she'd altered his lean build to make him appear burly and strapping with hard muscle. Paired with fitted black pants, he would look like a thug out of a muggle movie. The sleeves would also curl around between his deltoids and his biceps. Meaning it would show the points of his tattoo where the wings ended on the backs of his arms at his elbows.
"I'm not. Put it on and stop whinging, you're meant to look intimidating, cocky and like you're not to be trifled with," Hermione retorted to him.
"I already did look that way," he relied from behind the wall where he was dressing.
Hermione rolled her eyes at Sarah and Seamus who both grinned at her.
"Oh yes, of course you did," Hermione told him patronisingly.
"I can hear tone," Malfoy warned before pulling open the door to reveal the complete transformation he'd undergone. Hermione popped over in front of him and whispered a glamour charm to make it look like he had more tattoos.
He blinked at her in surprise as she performed the magic to protect against anyone thinking the enormous tattoo on his back was real. Hermione gave him an exaggerated looking design that emphasised the place on his left forearm where his Dark Mark had once been. She also gave him several Ancient Rune tattoos for things like strength, including one on the side of his neck.
"What did you just do?" he asked, looking alarmed when Sarah began to eye him like he was some piece of meat to be devoured.
"Turn around and have a look," Hermione told him, gripping his broad shoulders tightly and spinning him.
"Ooh, what's that one?" Sarah asked, spotting the silver wingtips poking out the bottom of his sleeves.
Hermione watched Malfoy stared into the mirror at the glamour that made him look like he had more tattoos than he actually did before he smirked coldly.
"It's a great big silver dragon," Hermione answered Sarah's question before quirking an eyebrow at Malfoy and tugging on the hem of his shirt, "May I?"
"What have you done?" he feigned ignorance, nodding slightly.
Hermione lifted the back of his shirt to reveal the tail that curved down around his hip and the back legs of the dragon that dug into his lower back. She didn't lift it any higher. The fewer people who knew about the full extent of his tattoo, the better.
"Wow, they even feel real," Sarah gasped, reaching forwards uncharacteristically and brushing her fingers over the tail on Draco's hip. Hermione made a face when the feel of her touching it made Hermione suddenly feel violently ill. Based on the way Malfoy grimaced and stepped away from her touch, causing Hermione to drop his shirt, he felt it too.
"Hands off the merchandise, Higgins," Malfoy drawled, "I'm spoken for."
Hermione bit her lip as she thought about just how spoken for he was and how she didn't at all like anyone else laying their hands on the claiming tattoo she'd left on her husband.
"You alright, Granger?" Malfoy asked her, seeming to spot her reaction to Sarah touching his tattoo – no doubt noticing the way she'd gone a bit pale.
"A little nauseas," Hermione nodded tightly, "Probably the antidote in my system. Let's get going, shall we?"
"Mate, you look bloody ridiculous," Seamus informed Draco as they all set off through the office and towards the Apparation station.
"He looks hot," Sarah disagreed.
"I am always enticing, thank you," Malfoy replied snobbishly, rolling his eyes, "Besides, you two look bloody stupid. You fit the part, but knowing what you have underneath that mess is ruining the effect. I never knew you could look any bloody worse, Finnegan. Then again, at least you don't look like Granger right now."
"Bite me, Malfoy," Hermione retorted evenly, flipping him off over her shoulder.
"I don't eat junk food," he sneered unkindly and Hermione caught the way Seamus stiffened at Malfoy's implication that she was junk.
She also caught the way Malfoy smirked at her and shot her a wink when Seamus and Sarah were both through the Apparation station.
"Quick thinking there Granger," he commented referring to the glamour tattoos and his real one.
"Someone on this team needs to be clever, Malfoy," Hermione replied with a smirk of her own before apparating to the spot they'd agreed on.
Seamus and Sarah were to meet them a few blocks away so as not to arouse suspicion by having them all congregating in the area at once, possibly drawing the attention of muggles. Draco landed beside her a few seconds later and Hermione glanced up at him for a long moment.
"You really do look ridiculous with dark hair," she told him, finding that though he did indeed look handsome in a dangerous kind of way, she preferred his blonde hair and his pointed looks.
"Too attached to my blonde locks, Granger?" he sneered at her.
"I don't get attached to my playthings, Malfoy," Hermione replied.
"Speaking of your playthings," he grinned suddenly before stepping into her and snogging her right on the mouth.
Hermione nearly groaned at the feel of his mouth on hers. Sweet Merlin, no one had a right to kiss so well. And she wasn't supposed to be kissing him, curse it all! They'd agreed that this had to stop. It needed to. Otherwise he was going to see that she had a tattoo very similar to his and he was going to put the pieces together. He was smart. He would quickly come to the assumption that they'd gotten married. And then all hell would break loose.
He pressed her into the wall and Hermione whimpered when he moulded himself against her, thrusting his hips slightly to grind against her.
"We agreed…" Hermione told him breathlessly as he pulled away, "No more."
"I had to thank you for what you did to my fiancé," he replied wickedly, "It was particularly Malfoy of you to put her in her place by letting her do almost all the work to incriminate herself."
Hermione wondered if she looked as alarmed as she felt to be called Malfoy in any sense.
"Even so," Hermione replied, pushing him away and stepping around him, "We agreed there would be no more intimacy between us Malfoy. I can't work with you if I have to worry about your father ruining my reputation when he finds out you've been screwing me. And while I'm not above putting your fiancé in her place, she is your fiancé. Even if she is a bitch, she deserves better than this."
"She does not," he rolled his eyes, "She deserves to be locked up for impersonating a screeching banshee and misrepresenting herself as a human being."
Hermione sighed heavily.
"Draco," she warned, rather unfamiliar with his first name, "Enough. No more. You know all the reasons this can't continue. Don't snog me again unless it's absolutely necessary."
"It was absolutely necessary that I express my happiness over what you did to Astoria," he answered, smiling devilishly.
Hermione rolled her eyes at him and set off in search of Seamus and Sarah, meaning to meet up with them so they could get this mission over. Mentally preparing herself for what was to come, Hermione put her game face on and did her best to forget about everything else for a little while.
"Are we ready to do this?" Sarah asked when they reunited, looping her arm through Hermione's as though they were best girlfriends and Hermione assumed the persona of a dorky, uncoordinated, frumpy best friend to a pretty rich girl.
"Let's go," she nodded, making her voice a little bit ditzy and squeaky.
Sarah led the way, Malfoy and Seamus following close behind and lurking like henchman might. Hermione pretended a fearfulness that wasn't entirely faked as they entered through the small and dingy looking shop selling knick-knacks. The guy behind the counter eyed them suspiciously.
"I heard tell that if one was in the market for something exotic," Sarah said simperingly, batting her eyelashes at the shopkeeper, "That you were the man to see."
"Is that right? And where might you have heard that?" the man sneered, his eyes narrowing as he eyed Malfoy and Seamus.
"A little birdy told me," Sarah grinned, and Malfoy absently reached as though to scratch at something, revealing the remnants of the Dark Mark on his forearm alongside the other fake tattoo work Hermione had done on him. The man noticed it immediately and his eyes widened.
"This way," he said gruffly, leading them through the shop and over and a gilded mirror in one corner, "Step through here and you'll find what you might be looking for."
"Thanks ever so much," Sarah told him with a winning smile before she and Hermione both stepped through the mirror, their arms still looped together.
Hermione pretended to stumble as they went through the doorway into a busy looking basement type tunnel that seemed to be part of the underground system that had been abandoned. Malfoy and Seamus followed and she watched them slip into character as Malfoy snorted in derision when Hermione pretended to stumble right into the nearest vending table.
"Oh I don't think this was a good idea, Becky," she pretended to whine to Sarah as she swiped up a highly illegal species of mushroom and pocketed it under her poncho. She'd worn the frumpy, oversized garment for this reason. It was easy to hide things inside it in the little pouch she'd worn around her waist beneath it.
"Nonsense Lucy," Sarah waved her hand, "I want a Tiger-Drake and Daddy told me this is where I could get one."
A few people trading other things looked over at her arrival. Hermione could see the way they looked first curious and then conniving. It was clear they meant to take advantage of Sarah when they saw her short skirt and ditzy looking appearance.
"But Becky these men look like criminals," Hermione stage whispered, hurrying back over to the other girl and pretending to be scared as she cowered against the girl. She made sure to dart furtive glances at Draco, managing to fit fear, attraction and a hopeless school-girl crush into her expression as though believing whole-heartedly that he would protect them.
Sarah rolled her eyes and didn't deign to answer hr while Hermione's gaze travelled over the many vendors, absorbing every detail. Her photograph memory would come in handy later and she made sure to note the faces and products each vendor was selling.
"'Ere, Miss? You like puppies, Miss?" someone called to Sarah, ignoring Hermione completely. Hermione pinched Sarah, indicating she needed a closer look at those puppies when she spotted the fact that some of them had scaly paws.
"Oh, I love puppies!" Sarah giggled, dashing over and dragging Hermione with her.
Hermione pretended to be afraid as she held her hand out to one tentatively, jerking it back in feigned horror when the puppy tried to lick her with a forked tongue.
"Oh I want one, Lucy! Aren't they darling?" Sarah gushed, picking one up and cuddling it close, letting it lick her neck as though she hadn't noticed its wicked looking fangs that were probably venomous.
"They have forked tongues," Hermione whispered to the girl, "I thought you wanted a Tiger-Drake."
"Oh but you know I can't resists puppies!" Sarah said, "How much for a puppy, sir?"
"Thirty Galleons for that one," the man smirked, revealing a set of broken and brown teeth.
"I'll take her," Sarah announced, handing over the required money to the man and petting the puppy the entire time. If she knew she'd been ripped off – that he'd been selling the rest for ten galleons each, Sarah pretended not to notice.
Malfoy shuffled to one side a little and began muttering to a man selling illicit potions, including Amortentia and what looked like a new recreational potion that was on the market at the moment. It combined the effects of Daydream Charms with Lust potion. Hermione had also heard it contained trace amounts of crystal meth and that it was highly addictive.
"Oooh! Look Lucy! Dragons!" Sarah squealed, handing the puppy she'd just brought off to Hermione and dashing towards a table where a man was selling baby dragons.
Hermione pretended to be horrified by the puppy, holding it furtively while it wagged its little tail at her and tried to lick her. She hurried after Sarah to look at the dragons, her eyes scanning the many breeds with mounting horror.
Some were common enough dragons. Welsh Greens were on sale alongside Horntails and Chinese Fireballs. But the sight of an Antarctic Ice Fang was not a welcome one. They were terribly rare and were part of the reason that the Antarctic hadn't melted yet. This one was only a baby but given the chance to grow to maturity the dragon could plunge Britain back into another ice age.
Other rare breeds were on display too. Amazonian Leaf-Eaters. Zipplebacked Humdingers. Tarovian Blazebreathers and even a Peruvian Vipertooth. Sweet Merlin, Charlie Weasley would have a fit if he could see this!
"Do you have a Tiger-Drake?" Sarah was busy chattering to the vendor, distracting him with questions.
Several other shady looking characters were milling around the busy market place where it seemed literally everything could be bought and sold. House Elves were being traded off in one corner. Potions, ingredients and illicit plant-life were being pedalled in another. And magical creatures were everywhere. Hermione spotted a young centaur fawn hobbled and chained amid a collection of Hinkypunks and a few Blabbering Jaybirds. Eagle owls, hawks and other birds of prey were being sold and there was even a tank with Grindylows and some merepeople held inside.
"Not this time, little lady," the vendor told her, "They're hard to get a hold of. Maybe you'd be interested in this Andovian Spiketail?"
Sarah slipped away from Hermione carefully to inspect the dragon she'd been offered – a cute little dragon in a vivid shade of purple. They didn't grow very large and Hermione knew there had been some trouble recently in parts of Europe where people were buying them as pets for their children only to have them accidentally spike the children and kill them or to have their houses burned to the ground.
Seamus brushed past her as Hermione shuffled slightly towards some of the other dragons on display and Hermione felt his hand slip under her poncho to deposit something inside her pouch. He did it with a sneer, looking like a cruel and lecherous scoundrel as he leered. Hermione pretended to be terrified of him and glanced again towards Malfoy. He smirked wickedly but didn't say anything, letting her know she was on her own as part of the act.
"Stop it," Hermione hissed, pretending fear and outrage over such treatment when Seamus proceeded to stroke a dirty nailed hand over her messy hair and lean into her slightly.
Seamus pretended that while Sarah was busy he would take advantage of her dorky friend and even more people ignored them. Hermione realised it was a tactic. If people thought he was abusing her – people in this crowd – they were more likely to evade their eyes and let it happen than to interfere. Meaning even less people were paying attention to her as Hermione pretended to stumble away from Seamus slightly and snatched up the cage containing the Antarctic Ice Fang dragon baby.
The creature didn't even stir as she slipped it's too-small cage under her poncho and away into her pouch. She was more grateful than ever for her ability to cast undetectable extension charms. Hurrying away from the dragon section and Seamus, pretending outrage and not wanting to be accused of theft from these horrid people, Hermione quickly immersed herself in this dark underworld.
More illegal substances than she'd ever seen were being pedalled here.
"Is this …?" Hermione began to ask a vendor, pretending interest in a Devil's Snare plant in a pot. She trailed off when the merchants ignored her. Seamus was still trailing after her, pretending amusement at her tactics to try and escape him and Hermione knew these people didn't want to be mistaken as assisting her. Seamus looked mean enough – thanks to Hermione's handiwork – that no one wanted to mess with him.
Pocketing several phials of Draught of Living Death that a merchant was foolishly displaying at the edge of an apothecary stand and not paying attention to, Hermione hurried back towards Sarah. She dodged around Seamus, who trailed a yearning hand over her stomach and forced her to squeeze past him when he blocked a pathway. Someone chuckled when she squeaked as though terrified, her eyes wide and fearful behind her glasses. When she reached Sarah, Hermione dodged around behind the girl to where Malfoy was lazily leaning on one of the tables containing several Puffeskins, Pygmy Puffs and what she suspected might be a cross between a Puffeskin and a tortoise.
He was leaning there looing particularly arrogant and Hermione sidled up next to him, pretending to be a love-struck fool interested in her best friend's young and handsome bodyguard. Seamus followed her but stopped when he saw that she was standing close to Malfoy and Hermione enjoyed his acting ability when he instead struck up a conversation with Malfoy about needing to get his hands on some illicit potion ingredients.
To any witnesses it would look as though she was a timid little twit who was being pursued by an older and creepier man. It would also look like she believed Malfoy's character would protect her and like Seamus's character was concerned over being caught outright molesting her by Malfoy.
"What are you, little one?" Hermione whispered, turning her attention from Seamus as though she believed herself safe in Malfoy's presence. Something that seemed confirmed when Malfoy reached out his hand and snatched her fingers back from the Puffeskin that looked like it had been bred with a tortoise, just in time to avoid having the little beast snap its fanged mouth closed on her hand.
The merchant was still trying to woo Sarah into buying an Andovian Spiketail and Sarah looked like she was lapping up the attention as the shady character flirted with her. She also darted glances back towards Malfoy as though she believed she might make him jealous by flirting with the merchant. Malfoy squeezed Hermione's fingers lightly before he released her without saying a word to her.
She realised it was a distraction tactic when she felt his free hand slip under her poncho and drop something else into her pouch there.
"Well that wasn't very nice," Hermione pretended to coo at the Puffetoise chidingly before reaching for it again. It was terribly fluffy – its fur a pretty shade of periwinkle – but it had a tortoise shell with delightful patterns on it. Instead of being leathery of skin like a reptile it was instead fluffy all over but for its shell. Dodging its teeth when it snapped at her again, Hermione picked the little creature up by its shell. The fork tongued puppy she was still clutching under one arm that Sarah had purchased squirmed towards the Puffetoise excitedly, trying to lick it.
Hermione giggled when the Puffetoise withdrew into its shell until only a few tufts of blue fluff were visible inside the shell.
"You want that one?" Malfoy asked in a drawling voice and Hermione looked over at him, still giggling and beaming.
She realised he meant to make it look like he was humouring her as the dorky friend of the woman he was there to protect. She nodded her head emphatically, awarding him an adoring smile that made him smirk just a little wider.
"We need to get going," Seamus muttered as Hermione cooed over the Puffetoise again while the puppy she held squirmed for attention, now trying to escape Hermione's hold to go to Malfoy.
Malfoy reached over and petted the pup a few times as he glanced towards Sarah once more – who was now in the process of buying the Andovian Spiketail after catching a nod from Hermione that she wanted the dragon. Malfoy handed the merchant the seven galleons required for the Puffetoise as well before insisting to Sarah that they get out of there.
Sarah agreed readily enough, already babbling about needing to go shoe shopping to try and find some that would match the colour of the dragon scales on her new 'pet'.
"We can't go back out the way we came in with you two clutching all these animals," Malfoy informed them, "We'll have to apparate."
He offered his hand to Sarah, pretending she was his charge and Hermione gritted her teeth, pretending horror when Seamus chose to wrap both his arms around her waist from behind before he apparated her back to the Ministry.