Chapter Nine: Love is in the Air

Hermione, whose antipathy towards Lord Ronald Weasley increased exponentially with every second spent in his presence, soon discovered that he was not a morning person. She watched the hours slip past fretfully. Seven of the clock… eight of the clock… and still he was snoring away. This was ridiculous! She couldn't while away the morning in bed with him. In an uncharacteristic leap of faith, she'd entrusted some very valuable documents to Draco, and she couldn't rest easy until she had assured herself that he had faithfully followed her instructions and stowed them safely in her trunk.

Come to think of it, she couldn't quite believe she'd told Prince Draco Malfoy of all people how to access her false bottom. Nobody else knew that! She must have been more tired than she'd thought.

Hermione shifted restlessly. She had stripped off her robes and mussed her hair to give Ron the impression he had indeed managed to fuck her last night. She was currently lying parallel to his body on the mattress, clad only in a thin chemise, using his arm as a pillow. It was not a comfortable pillow, and she was rapidly tiring of waiting for him to wake on his own. Clearly she'd be waiting till kingdom come if she left it up to him.

"My lord?" she murmured insistently. "Ron? My lord?" She poked at his bare chest.

"Mum, go away, I'm getting up, I'm – "

His eyes flew open and he sat up, staring at her in incomprehension for several seconds before the fog cleared from his face. "Hermione!" His eyes dropped lower. She followed his gaze and found that the dark shadows of her nipples were visible beneath the sheer cotton.

"Ah, so we – that is – "

He was stumbling over his words. Hermione forced out a giggle and wrapped one of her curls around her finger, thrusting her breasts out further.

"You were so good, my lord!" Her voice was not one which any of her compatriots would have recognised as hers, either in pitch or tone.

"That is – well – I'm glad to hear it," he said, finally meeting her gaze. "So did we actually – by which I mean, I'm afraid I must have drunk rather too much last night, as I have absolutely no memory of –"

She took pity on him and leaned forward, letting her brown curls fall forward over her shoulders. Hopefully she still looked alluring to him when he wasn't three sheets to the wind.

"We certainly did," she promised breathily. Her hand reached out and they both watched as one short finger ran itself over his chest and circled the flat discs of his nipples. He swallowed.

"I'm afraid I have to go now," Hermione said, pulling away with every appearance of regret. "Lady Pansy will be missing me. But, er – would you like to meet tonight?" She dropped her eyes modestly. "At eleven of the clock, perhaps?"

"Huh? Oh, um, yes please," Ron said with flattering eagerness. "I'm so sorry I don't remember – I'll do better tonight!"

Not if she could help it, Hermione thought. Picking up her dress robes from where she'd shed them on the floor before getting into bed, she clothed herself hurriedly and let herself out.

To her relief, the Tower was deserted. After a night of debauchery no true pureblood would be up before midday at the least, and she passed no-one on the relatively short journey (they were on the same floor, after all) between Ron's room and her own. She glanced at Draco's door as she passed it but suppressed the urge to knock. He was doubtless asleep and she didn't want Blaise knowing precisely what was happening.

It wasn't that she didn't trust him, or Pansy: it was simply that her loyalty was to the Malfoys alone, and things were still far too critical to share with anyone.

"Fanged geranium," she murmured outside her door, and entered.

A sprawl of blonde hair on the pillow was the only thing visible of Pansy, who had not bothered to pull the curtains around her four-poster bed. Hermione listened to her deep, even breathing for several seconds until she was convinced the other girl was asleep. Then she slipped over to her trunk. It was a tense few seconds while she tapped out the unlocking pattern, but to her overwhelming relief she found that Draco had succeeded in stowing her pile of evidence under the false bottom. She prayed that he'd managed to do it without Pansy noticing.

Finally, for the first time in hours, Hermione allowed herself to relax. It was time to catch some much-needed sleep before the third night of the Yule Ball.

Draco and Blaise collected the girls as usual before heading downstairs. Pansy was in low-cut black dress robes, striking against her pale skin and hair; Hermione was in yellow. To her immense relief Pansy had acted perfectly normally since waking up, suggesting that Draco had in fact managed to secrete the documents without her knowledge.

Hermione allowed the other couple to pull ahead slightly as they descended the spiral staircase, then turned to him.

"What?" she said, blinking up at him. Draco had been assessing her face with a strangely penetrating gaze, a tiny frown marring his forehead. It cleared away instantly and he gave her a blinding smile.

"Nothing, Granger. Just making sure you'd kept your promise and not let the Weasel touch you."

She raised an eyebrow. The move had taken hours of practice, but it was worth it. "One, I promised no such thing. Two, how could you possibly know that just from looking at me?"

"Because no woman who's had a well-fucked night could possibly be as grumpy as you look right now," he said smugly. "Though it is the Weasel we're talking about, to be fair… If he's ever made a woman come in his life, I'll donate my fortune to the poor and take a vow of chastity."

Hermione bit back an inappropriate snort of laughter. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Malfoy. Anyway, for your information, I didn't sleep with him – but it had nothing to do with you," she added severely as he opened his mouth to gloat.

"Sure it didn't," he smirked. "Just remember, Granger, there is no way the Weasel is getting his hands on you before I've had you."

Her eyes narrowed. "Women aren't pieces of meat, you know!"

"Lord save me from feminists," he said with a theatrical roll of his own eyes, but he was silent as they trailed behind Blaise and Pansy – whose heads, Hermione noted gleefully, were inclined very close together – into the Great Hall for that night's supper.

"Are you going to him tonight?" Draco said abruptly as she was about to leave him for her seat.

"Yes," she admitted. "We do have a fair amount of evidence already, especially that invoice from Karkaroff. But I want everything we can get. Plus, establishing a good rapport with Ron will be useful in the future."

His high-boned face was unusually grim as he surveyed the slowly filling Hall. "I suppose so," he said, voice low. "We haven't discussed the whys and wherefores yet. Do you – do you really think Gryffindor's raising an army to wipe us out?"

"I can't see any other reason why," she said equally quietly. She fixed a smile on her face for the benefit of anyone who happened to glance in their direction. "The Weasleys are already powerful, after all. They have royal influence. Yes, they're not rich, but Lady Ginevra will probably marry Potter and he's absolutely rolling in Galleons. He could afford to refill their coffers ten times over. So it's not money and it's not power… it must be vengeance."

"Vengeance," Draco said scathingly. "As if my parents or grandparents ever did anything to a Weasel it didn't deserve. I expect a status report first thing tomorrow afternoon, Granger. And one last thing…"

"Yes?" she said enquiringly, and was startled to see a sudden mischievous gleam in his eyes as he slid her palm into his. He was wearing gloves tonight that had probably cost more than her parents' hovel; the cool material was silky against her bare fingers as he bowed over her hand and brushed his mouth against the skin. His lips were warm and surprisingly soft, despite their habitual sneer. A jolt ran through her.

"To keep you going," he said and turned away to his own seat.

Hermione knocked at Ron's door, mentally rehearsing her plan once more.

She needed him to think he was sleeping with her without actually sleeping with her – no easy task. It wasn't that she was squeamish; before she had become spymistress and stopped going on missions herself, she had occasionally been forced to carry out seductions to their fullest extent. The encounters had generally been mildly pleasant and she had never been opposed to participating in them.

But in this case, for some reason, Hermione found herself strangely reluctant to actually seduce Ron. Well, no. There was a reason, and his name was Draco Malfoy, and the sad truth was that Draco kissing her hand had managed to inspire her with more lust than Ron's full-on kisses had.

Idiot, she mentally berated herself. She couldn't be attracted to Malfoy. Hermione Granger was far too practical for that. He was the ultimate rakehell, young and spoilt and drunk on women as much as wine. Remember the orgy Alecto Carrow was telling you about? The one with the Travers sisters and Druella Burke at the same time?

She had no further time to contemplate the ill-advised direction her fancy had taken, because at that moment Ron opened the door.

"Hermione!" His smile was wide and boyish. She was surprised to see that when he was sober, his eyes were a clear and not-unintelligent shade of blue.

"My lord," she murmured, smiling back.

"I told you to call me Ron," he admonished. "Now, why don't you come in? Hurry, hurry, quick now…"

His quick scan of the corridor outside was furtive, and her smile became ugly. All these pureblood boys were the same, weren't they? Willing to dabble with the Mudblood help but Merlin forbid anyone find out –

"Now, what do you want to drink?" Ron asked in a business-like voice. He led her inside his room. To her consternation, Hermione saw that his desk – which last night had been a mass of loose parchment – was tidy and bare, save for two goblets and an array of wine bottles. Had he noticed the absence of the documents she'd taken? If he had, he didn't suspect her: his face was open and unsuspicious as he waited for her to make a selection.

To buy time, Hermione wandered over and examined the bottles intently. She had no intention of drinking, of course, but it gave her the opportunity to determine that Ron really had cleaned up for her visit. The teetering piles of parchment which had been everywhere yesterday were nowhere to be found.

Shite.

"This one looks wonderful," she said, grabbing a bottle of the highest-percentage alcohol she could see. Ron poured it into one goblet and handed it to her – but left his own, she saw, alone.

"Aren't you going to drink too?" she asked.

"Oh, no, not tonight," he said. "Just Butterbeer for me. I don't want to forget again, you see." He settled himself on the edge of his bed. "Please do sit down!"

Hermione sat down next to him on the bed, her mind working lightning-fast. Could she simply knock him out again, the way she had the previous night? Wouldn't he find it suspicious that he failed to remember either encounter with her, especially when he hadn't even been drinking the second time?

It didn't matter: she had no choice. Since he had hidden his papers away, she needed a secure space of time in which to search his room – the sort of security which could only be provided by a Ron who was truly unconscious, rather than asleep. Anyway, she had no plans to return after tonight.

Hermione set her goblet down on the floor and slowly straightened up. Ron was watching her with ill-disguised eagerness. She spared a moment to wonder how strong his attachment to Lavender Brown had truly been, if he was able to fall into bed with another woman so quickly.

"Actually," she said, "let's both skip the wine tonight, shall we?"

She leaned in to kiss him.

Kissing a sober Ron was only marginally better than kissing a drunken Ron. Yes, he no longer tasted repulsively of alcohol, but there was still rather more saliva involved than fastidious Hermione could have desired. No matter: she had a job to do. She skimmed one hand inside his robes and arrowed it south over his abdomen, teasingly making a pause to circle his navel. He groaned into her mouth and kissed her harder. She wrapped her free arm around his neck, still keeping him distracted by how close her fingers were to his groin, then relentlessly pinched down.

He slumped backwards. Conveniently, his head landed on the pillows.

Hermione was somewhat surprised to discover that she felt a tiny bit of remorse. Only a little bit, though, and it dissipated rapidly as she set to work.

There was one thing in her favour tonight. Ron had left all the candles burning, so the cavernous room was brightly lit. She scanned it. If she were a Weasel – Weasley, she corrected herself scrupulously – where would she hide important documents? She had to bear in mind that Ron, while probably not quite as stupid as the Slytherins made him out to be, was no Hermione Granger. His hiding place was unlikely to be especially complex.

The most obvious place was under the floorboards, of course. Expensive Niffler-skin rugs were dotted all over the floor, but Hermione crawled methodically over every inch of the glossy wood. Most of the boards were firm and silent. But – yes, there. One of them near the desk gave way slightly under her weight, and upon closer inspection she saw that it was a slightly lighter colour than its neighbours. Using a penknife from the desk, she levered the board up and examined the hollow she had uncovered.

She was disappointed. The space was empty except for a single book, and when she drew it out she saw that it was a photograph album. It was apparent why it had been hidden away. Most of the pages were plastered with photos of Ron and a round-faced brunette who had to be Miss Lavender Brown.

Hermione made to throw the book back in – Ron's love life was of little interest to her, and of even less value in her mission – but she hesitated, caught by some stupid impulse to see the girl who had been in some ways her predecessor. Glancing once more at the bed to ensure that Ron was out cold, she settled herself cross-legged on the floor with a candle to look at the photographs.

The miniature Rons and Lavenders contained within the book smirked and waved up at her. Some of them were kissing in a distinctly exhibitionist fashion. Her nose wrinkled slightly in distaste, Hermione flipped past them.

Her efforts soon paid off. To her delight, she discovered that only the first score of pages were devoted to her would-be lover and his erstwhile fiancée. After that the photographs transitioned to the House of Weasley as a whole. Of course, Hermione had seen many, many images of them before, but these were different: not the stately photos released to the public, but humorous and sometimes silly ones. There was one of Lord Percy Weasley posing in a ludicrous court jester's outfit; Lady Ginevra with the twins Lords George and Frederick taking running jumps into a pond, clad scandalously in nothing but their undergarments; there was even one of the heir to the dukedom, William, Earl of Godric, who rarely agreed to be photographed due to the terrible facial scarring he had sustained years ago in a werewolf attack. She caught herself smiling at one adorable picture of Ron with his tongue stuck out at the camera.

This was clearly no ordinary album.

Hermione was enthralled. An orphan, she found it almost impossible to imagine such family and camaraderie. These laughing people all looked like each other, with their long bodies and flaming hair, and their movements within the frames were expressive of deep warmth and affection for each other. The Malfoys loved each other, of course, but Draco had only just returned from boarding school and in any case, showing such obvious familial affection was simply not the Slytherin way. She had never seen a family interact with each other like this.

She flipped faster through the album. One page was taken up with a full-size image of a grinning, black-haired young man, hazel eyes bright behind his glasses. His arm was wrapped around a woman whose wine-red hair hung sleekly down her back. Hermione would have recognised her almond-shaped emerald eyes anywhere. Here were James Potter, first Viscount Potter, and his wife Miss Lily Evans.

Who had also been a Mudblood. A Mudblood who had married a pureblood.

She ruthlessly suppressed the tiny surge of hope inside her that pointed out there was precedent for a Mudblood marrying a pureblood. She didn't need love. Or even friends. As a spymistress, all she needed were useful contacts.

She was so occupied in convincing herself of this that she nearly missed the photograph which would change the rest of her life.

A pair of young men had their arms interlocked with each other as they strolled along a garden path. One was tall and slender, with a delicately arrogant face and shoulder-length bronze hair. He stared up at Hermione haughtily. His companion was slightly shorter but more muscular, and it was the eyes that finally gave it away: his eyes were a piercing blue that neither age nor time had dulled.

The album fell from her suddenly boneless fingers. Never – in the history of Hogwarts – had anyone ever, ever seen a photograph of King Albus Dumbledore and his closest advisor Sir Gellert Grindelwald together.

And, before her astonished eyes, things got even better; shooting Hermione a challenging look, Grindelwald took Dumbledore's face between his hands and gave him a long, deep kiss.

"Oh my Merlin," she whispered. Hadn't she thought, a couple of nights before, that she ought to manufacture something to suggest that the two of them were in a relationship? Well, she hadn't had to manufacture it. The real deal had fallen – almost literally – into her lap.

Hogwarts was a fundamentally conservative land, and the law Draco's great-grandfather King Brutus had enacted against same-sex relationships had never been repealed by his successors. Not even by Dumbledore. This, right here, was the key to all her future plans.

Hermione cursorily searched the rest of the room but found nothing else of interest. It didn't matter; her blood was thrumming with excitement as she pulled the covers over Ron and penned him a quick note thanking him for an excellent night but indicating that Pansy urgently required her assistance. She had only abstracted the Grindelwald photograph from the album, and it was doubtful Ron would notice the disappearance of a single image not directly related to him, so she was filled with confidence as she left.

Everything in her yearned to go to Draco immediately. A scheme was forming in her mind, but she needed Malfoy approval before she could execute it. She didn't dare entrust this to a letter, or ask one of the Malfoy portraits to carry it to Lucius and Narcissa. Portraits were terrible gossips. Draco was her only hope.

To her irritation, tonight's entertainment had gone on for long enough that the Tower was still filled with people as she exited Ron's room. Keeping her head down and her cloak wrapped around her, she skirted past drunken revellers and entered her room.

Pansy was absent. Surprising, but Hermione used the opportunity to place the photograph under the false bottom – which was getting quite crowded – and slid into her bedroll.

"Where were you last night?" Hermione asked as she twisted Pansy's hair into a knot. It was early afternoon; they were preparing for the night's dancing and dining, which Hermione would be attending in full this time. "You weren't in when I returned."

"I was down in the Great Hall dancing with Blaise," Pansy said, smiling at her own reflection in the mirror. "I don't wish to be presumptuous, but…" she trailed off delicately. "If I don't get a proposal out of him by the end of the week, my name is not Parkinson. Quod desiderio obtineo, yes?"

What I want, I get. The motto of the House of Parkinson. Hermione grinned at her.

"I have every faith in you."

"Thank you," Pansy said modestly. "What of you? I know you can't tell me where you're going every night, but I'll have you know that it makes Draco quite intolerably moody. And – this must be the longest I've ever seen him go without having a girl!"

Hermione blinked. "We've been here less than a week!"

"Exactly," Pansy agreed. "He must really want you, if he hasn't decided on someone else already… No, let that bit of hair stay down. Keep the rest up."

Hermione dutifully followed her instructions and had only just wriggled into her dress robes when there was a sharp rap at the door.

"Open up, Granger. It's time for that report," Draco said imperiously from behind it.

Pansy hurried over to open the door. Today Draco was, somewhat unexpectedly, in green: the robes were inlaid with expensive silver embroidery, matched by an emerald ring on his finger the size of an egg. He could not have proclaimed his Slytherin nature any louder if it had been engraved on his forehead.

"I see we've stopped trying to be subtle," Hermione said to cover the dryness in her mouth that always seemed to attack when she saw him for the first time.

He said nothing in response, but his icy eyes left fire in their wake as they trailed slowly over her body. She pulled at her collar, which was abruptly too tight.

"Get out, Pansy," he said without looking at her.

Pansy huffed loudly but did so, no doubt to find Blaise. Hermione held her breath and told herself she wasn't disappointed when Draco made no move to take advantage of their newly alone status and instead sat down on the bed, crossing one leg over the other.

"Well, Mudblood? What have you got for me?"

She switched on her professionalism. "I've obtained an incredibly valuable document which will enable us to blackmail Dumbledore, at least to a degree. You see, my lord –"

"Draco," he corrected. "Or Malfoy, if you must."

She nodded. "Draco. I've been thinking, and I truly do believe that Gryffindor is intending to crush Slytherin once and for all. That's what their newly built-up army is for."

"Why now?" he asked.

"Because they're about to form an alliance with the Potters and thus, by definition, with Dumbledore. Now is, as we've said, when they're strongest – and they clearly think that means 'strong enough to crush us, the wealthiest dukedom in Hogwarts."

He slid his ring off and turned it slowly in his hands as he looked at her. "It's true that Potter seems most likely to pick the She-Weasel as a bride. She's the one he's danced most often with over the last few nights. So what do you propose we do?"

Hermione took a deep breath. "I think we should blackmail Dumbledore into allowing Slytherin to build up our own army."

She searched his face to see the reaction of her proposal, one she had spent the entire night refining. His expression was oddly inscrutable as he ordered, "Explain."

"The key players in all of this are Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw," she said. "They aren't complete enemies of Gryffindor the way we are, but they still won't be happy to hear that their neighbour has built up such a large army. So we need to keep them in reserve as possible allies. Still, they'll never join us as allies unless we look like we have a good chance of taking the Weasleys – and to do that, we need our own army. You know we've been banned from having an army for years. But using the blackmail I found, we can convince Dumbledore to allow us to have an army. Then if war does come, we're in a far stronger position to bargain. And we can go from there."

He rose slowly from the bed and stalked toward her. Hermione stood her ground, suppressing the urge to flee. Anxiety thrummed through her. She was totally unable to read his response, and she felt inexplicably like a small animal of prey being hunted by a predator much larger and stronger than she was; there was a curious gleam in Draco's eyes as he stopped a handbreadth away from her.

They were so close she had to tilt her head backwards to meet his gaze. Their breath mingled in the inches between them.

"Hermione Granger," he said distinctly, "you are the cleverest girl that I have ever known."

Then he kissed her.

AN: Can this really be a 4000 WORD CHAPTER posted THE NEXT DAY?! Yes, yes it is! If this doesn't deserve a review, I don't know what does :P Everyone who favourited and followed, please consider reviewing as well! It really keeps my spirits up and inspires me to write faster (sad but true). This chapter is dedicated to my old friend Sam Wallflower, first reviewer on the last chapter!