The yoga instructor

Rather a lot of dramione-interactions and feels for our main characters in this chapter, I hope you approve!

And I'm so sorry about the late update! No, this fic is not abandoned and yes, I am going to finish it :-)

Warnings: M-rating for language and sexual innuendos.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I own nothing but the plot, though I fervently wish I did.

HBSJ

Chapter 14, The feels

Draco was staring up at the ceiling in his room. He couldn't sleep. A-fucking-gain.

He loathed it, he loathed the insomnia he sometimes had to deal with. At home he would just have a drink or two and then comfortably read in his library to pass the time. Seeing as he wasn't home and they had to deal with the French in the morning, he had genuinely tried to get some more sleep using all sorts of breathing techniques that he'd once heard about in passing from some of the witches in his office.

Nothing helped.

Especially not the repeated thought of having missed a prime opportunity to ravish Granger in the elevator after dinner.

He sighed heavily and got up, rubbing the heels of his hands in his eyes. He looked around his darkened room and considered ordering some food just to kill some time but he wasn't hungry. As his room was the penthouse on the top floor, he had direct access to the roof top pool. He could see the water glimmering beckoningly in the sparse light from the moon outside.

That decided it for him. He transfigured a pair of boxers to a pair of trunks and opened the glass door leading out to the terrace.

It was a clear night, Calais wasn't a large city, so the stars above him shone brightly. He easily found his namesake constellation in the sky, something he'd done reflexively every time the stars were out since he first learned how to recognize it, and jumped in the pool to swim laps.

It was almost therapeutic, gliding through the water as he pushed his body harder and further, he sought the muscle ache that would hopefully help him get at least a couple of hours of sleep.

Tossing and turning wasn't a new experience for Hermione, she had done it what felt like a million times since the war ended and even before that. But she didn't want to feel haggard in the morning, she didn't want to look like shite. They were meeting with Gabrielle, she winced inwardly at the name, who would take them to the French aurors where they were to exchange information. And before that she had to teach her yoga. She groaned.

Now that she was alone, she could recognize why she felt so antagonistic towards Gabrielle.

She was jealous.

And when had she developed this crush or whatever it was towards Malfoy? She couldn't be sure but she was fairly certain that it had started sometime before their kiss at Vici. He was so… The word wicked sprang to mind.

Because he was wicked but not in a bad sense.

Wickedly handsome, wickedly sexy, wickedly mischievous, his gaze and smirk that held so many wicked promises, his words which could be wicked too but without the sting they held back when they were at school.

She didn't know what he thought of Gabrielle but she did not like the attention he was giving her. And in the deep dark recesses of her mind she knew why. She liked it when he gave herself attention, when he gave her goose bumps and when he touched her. In fact, she was regularly both dreaming and day-dreaming of that kiss. That sense-depriving kiss.

She shook her head and sat up to clear it. It didn't work at all but she gave herself an O for effort. She'd spent most of the evening after dinner trying to not deal with the way Malfoy had made her feel in the lift and working furiously through the evening instead. She'd gone through most of the old files and notes and confirmed that portkeys would be the most likely way of getting the eggs out of the dragon cages for the nesting mothers.

She'd then started researching spells to trace portkeys. If she could tweak a spell or two, maybe they could go to Romania, cast the spell and then find the person or persons who was carrying portkeys. After that it would be a cinch to find out if the portkey was illegal or not, which it probably wouldn't be, but they needed to catch the person first.

Her mind was racing and she needed an outlet. Yoga wasn't good enough, she needed to burn off some of this restless energy. She considered going on a run but she didn't know the city so she nixed that idea but then the pool at the roof top terrace entered her mind. Perfect.

She hurried to her bag to fish out the bikini she'd had on the back of a shelf for ages now, donned it, the hotel slippers and a fluffy robe before taking the lift to the roof.

When she emerged from the lift, she was rather surprised that the water wasn't still. The waves rippling the water when she saw the pool through the glass doors at the end of the corridor but she didn't think much more about it, she'd just have to share and it was a large pool so she didn't think twice about it.

With her robe and slippers placed on a sunbed she walked to the edge of the pool. There was a man swimming furiously fast but seemingly effortlessly, he glided through the water like a bullet, it was a mesmerizing sight. His body was taut and strong and his hair was a dark blonde but it was difficult to tell in the dark and with his hair wet.

She sat down on the edge and moved her legs through the water, it was soothing and refreshing all at once, so she plopped deep into the water without further ado.

When her upper body broke the surface again however, the man was no longer swimming.

Quicksilver eyes were boring into hers with an unfathomable expression. He was only a few feet away and he was staring at her with an intensity she'd never experienced before.

She gasped softly and considered for a brief moment trying to explain herself. But he was here too. Maybe he had sleep-issues as well? Come to think of it, there was that one day of the fight where he'd owled her very early in the morning.

At her small intake of breath however, his eyes flew to her lips and he licked his own sculptured ones in return. It was a simple action but the heat pooled in her stomach and a flush was creeping up her cheeks.

His body was lean, chiselled and bare, except for a sprinkling of dark blonde hair that made her want to reach out and touch him, explore him. She bit her lip to keep from acting on the impulse.

As if he'd heard her thoughts, he strode forward with fierce determination on his face, trapped her between the edge of the pool and his body, enveloped her in his arms and kissed her, deep and hard.

She gasped again at his sudden forwardness and the feel of him flush up against her and he took full advantage. He plunged into her mouth like a man on a mission. Instinctively, she put her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her, she needed him closer.

One of his hands moved from her waist and drifted down her stomach, she wanted him so badly to touch her, to make her implode. He surprised her when his hand moved around to grab her arse instead and pulled her body up to him in the water. She curled both legs around his waist and he immediately started rhythmically grinding his pelvis slowly into hers.

The feeling was divine.

She melted into him. This was miles better than their kiss at Vici because now they were in their own skin. His kisses were everything. When he roughly ran his thumb across an exposed nipple, she completely lost track of the entire world around them. She hadn't even realized that he'd released her breasts from the confines of her bikini top. It was fire and ice all rolled into one, fuelling her desire for him.

She could feel an almost feral possessive rumble in his chest that made her see stars behind her closed lids, it elevated her arousal to practically unbearable heights and she clutched him to her, their tongues discovering and her body craving release as he rubbed her aching core over and over. She could feel herself building already and she didn't want it to end.

Until she heard a slight cough and froze.

She pulled away from him slightly but he kept her trapped between him and the edge of the pool, hopefully to give her time to cover her breasts which she promptly did.

Draco was looking over her shoulder towards the doors to the lifts with narrowed eyes and when she turned to look, she saw a maintenance wizard looking highly embarrassed. He was looking intently at the stars above and mumbled something about cleaning the pool every night and that usually no one was up here at this hour.

She was mortified. Again.

Because they'd been caught snogging heatedly. Again.

Quickly she extradited herself from Draco, pulled herself back onto the terrace, grabbed her things and fled, literally.

Just before the glass doors closed behind her and she started banging on the lift buttons, she heard an audible male groan coming from the direction of the pool.

It was cowardly, yes. Even her inner Gryffindor roared with all its might at her spineless reaction but it couldn't be helped. She just fled from him.

Draco groaned and punched the water in frustration as he again watched that maddening woman flee from him. He now had an erection as hard as steel to deal with and the pool guy was patiently waiting for him to exit the pool, busying himself with fixing some of the sun beds that were askew.

He sighed deeply.

He took several deep breaths to calm his raging body and hoisted himself out of the pool. He didn't look back, he just grabbed a towel and went to his room, then he placed a series of complicated silencing spells before he started pacing while cussing loudly and violently.

That infuriating witch! It was like she was toying with him. His body ached for him to go to her. Claim her, sate her until the wee hours of the morning.

That made him pause. Of course, the morning.

She was meant to teach Gabrielle yoga on the terrace this morning, he thought it was around six thirty. He smirked to himself.

Well, if the witch was going to play hard to get and literally run away from him when they had that kind of chemistry, he would just make himself even more available for Gabrielle to flirt with. Maybe that would spur the Gryffindor princess on a bit.

With that diabolical plan rolling around his head, he finally fell asleep with the smirk still grazing his lips.

Hermione woke to the sound of her wand-alarm at quarter past six in the morning. She whined and moaned to herself about the fact that she now had to spend time with Gabrielle.

Nevertheless, a promise was a promise, so she got up and donned her workout clothes, put her hair up into a high bun, took a few mats from the deep recesses her bag and trudged reluctantly to the lifts.

As the lift doors opened, they revealed a stunning Gabrielle Delacour, wearing a much too small top and short shorts, showing off most of her body to the world. Trying to school her censure of this very scanty outfit, she merely smiled and said good morning which the French witch returned.

They emerged onto the roof top terrace in silence to find a casually dressed Draco Malfoy at a table, reading the paper, drinking coffee and eating croissants. He wore just dark jeans and a t-shirt and it suited him so well, she almost choked. His casual elegance was something which made it very clear to her that they should never be together, no matter what her feelings about him were, which he should and would never know at all.

She felt too clumsy around him. He always looked like he was laughing at her and, she thought with deep chagrin, he probably was.

That was why she decided to ignore him as much as he was ignoring her. When Gabrielle made her way over to his table to flirt with him, she went the other way to an empty part of the terrace and placed the mats there, ready for the lesson.

However, it didn't seem as though Gabrielle was in a hurry to start. She was sitting at the table now, biting into a piece of his pastry and seductively giggling and purring at Draco.

Wait, when did she start thinking about him as Draco and not just Malfoy? She frowned to herself and sat down on her mat with her back firmly to them and her face to the morning sun as it rose on the horizon. She then closed her eyes and started emptying her mind, including blocking the laughter and irking flirtatious giggling she could hear behind her.

When she was done ten minutes later, Gabrielle still made no move towards her but kept flirting madly with Draco who flirted right back, much to her annoyance.

So she began on her own, enjoying being able to go through her moves in her own time but shooting covert glances every now and then towards the pair of them, chatting away.

At one point when there was a pause in their chatter, she caught Draco staring at her intensely with an indefinable look in his eyes, she blushed and averted her eyes as quickly as possible, remembering all those fiery feelings he brought out in her the night before.

Just with one look, one bleeding look, even when he was flirting with someone else, he gave her goose bumps.

Wicked man.

Only a minute or so later, she saw Gabrielle coming towards her looking rather put out. Behind her Draco was still staring penetratingly at her and not at the French girl who was swaying her hips as seductively as humanly possible. Despite herself, she liked it, a lot.

Actually, she realized that she did like him. For real. Why, she didn't know. He could be a real prat sometimes but she still liked him. Maybe that was why she fled last night. She didn't know up from down around him. When they kissed it was so completely all-consuming that she couldn't think at all. And that was only kissing and maybe a bit of a touch here and there. She shivered to think how explosive actually having sex with him could be. And she did think about it. Rather a lot actually.

That was probably why she was holding back. She wasn't into casual relationships that were only about sex. Especially when it came to colleagues. She liked him but maybe she was actually falling a bit for him? It scared her because she was probably alone in it.

She looked up to see Gabrielle walking towards her with a winning smile that was clearly forced. "So, 'ow do we do zis yoga?"

After their awkward abbreviated yoga session with Draco watching and breakfast afterwards, they met up in the lobby at eight. Gabrielle was taking them to the French Ministry of Magic in Paris by floo.

Harry, who had wisely chosen to avoid the roof top terrace, was in a brilliant mood. Almost too brilliant. He told her discreetly that he had a gut feeling that they would crack this case very soon and be rid of Gabrielle even sooner. Hermione merely looked at him with an extremely dubious expression gracing her face. Harry, the incorrigible optimist, didn't have a moment's doubt that their break through would come speedily and seemed to be satisfied relying on luck and chance. As she was naturally suspicious, she soon found out that Harry had consumed no less than five espressos in the breakfast parlour of the hotel that morning which had caused him to be uncharacteristically chipper. She was forcibly reminded of his behaviour after he'd drunk the Felix Felicis potion in sixth year.

He practically bounced over to greet Gabrielle and Draco with an unrelentingly cheerful expression his face and Hermione watched on in horror as he almost hugged Draco before the man could disentangle himself. How she wished she'd had a camera! The look of absolute revulsion on Draco's face was bloody priceless! After seeing Draco's reaction, her horror soon gave way for a wide grin which then turned into bellowing laughter.

She sank into an armchair and tried very hard to reign in her mirth when Draco gave her a very pointed and annoyed look, unfortunately it only made her laugh even harder.

After a moment though, it would seem that he'd had enough, so he walked over and placed his hands on each of the armrests, effectively caging her in, leaned in close and bit her sharply on her earlobe before soothing the chock by nibbling on it gently. She choked on a stifled moan mid-laugh, his mercurial ways were already wreaking havoc with her insides. "Being the joke is not something I usually appreciate Granger." His whispered words sent flames of fire through every fibre of her being and she could feel his breath on her neck. He paused to lightly suck her earlobe, she could feel his tongue at work too and the spikes of pleasure running through her was intoxicating. "You are normally such a good student, maybe I should teach you a lesson, hmm?"

From an outsider's point of view, it would look like he just whispered to her but his underhanded tactic had her body and mind in complete disarray. She didn't know how to react to his proposition, because she knew that was what it was. She didn't know if he was just playing with her, trying to make her go crazy because she did feel rather crazy around him.

He pulled back to look her in the eye and his eyes were dancing with the challenge, she was sorely tempted to say yes. She didn't want to flee from him again and she didn't like backing down, it wasn't in her nature. Actually, she wanted to pull him a lot closer. Also, she positively quivered at the possible anticipation, in her minds eye she tried to imagine it and gods, she did want it. But she didn't know if she could actually say the words. She wanted to nod but that was when Harry remembered them.

He had ambled over and was standing right beside her, without acknowledging Draco crowding her. "'Mione, are you coming? Gabrielle is waiting, she is very charming don't you think? These French aurors sound very good, we might not have to do much." He talked very fast and grinned at her, a bit more subdued than five minutes earlier but it was still very uncharacteristic of Harry to not want to do everything himself.

Draco was looking at Harry with amusement and he raised a single eyebrow at her. Maybe he'd realized that it actually wasn't only Draco she was laughing at but the determination in his eyes made her think that he didn't have any intention of retracting his challenge.

Bollocks.

What was she supposed to do now?

Undaunted of Draco hovering over her, Harry pulled her from the armchair and over to Gabrielle who was looking thunderous. "Zis way." She was curt and she turned abruptly towards the lobby floo. "You just say Ministère de la Magie. Lets go!" Her frown was especially directed at Draco and Hermione was feeling a tiny bit smug about it.

They flooed to the French ministry one by one, Gabrielle refusing to travel with any of them. He knew he'd pissed her off but he really couldn't bring himself to care. She was but a girl compared to the luscious Granger.

His grand plan of flirting heavily with Gabrielle hadn't been nearly as successful as he'd planned, he knew she'd been a bit jealous but he liked her recent reaction to his lewd suggestion much better. She wasn't all that squeaky clean, he felt it. He could see the range of emotions flitting across her face when he'd pulled back to look at her and it had shown initial surprise, then intrigue, interest and finally undiluted lust. It had been a heady and most welcome realisation that she wanted it as much as he did.

As they convened in the lobby of the massive ministry he was careful to walk in the back, Gabrielle was up front leading them, Potter and Granger was walking together, muttering very fast and he was enjoying the view behind Granger.

After about ten minutes of walking, lifts and something like a slide, they arrived in the auror office. Immediately there was a commotion and about ten witches and wizards swarmed Potter and Granger like bees to a flower. Exclamations were heard all around at the honour of meeting the legendary British war heroes and much to their consternation they were besieged by the people around them, clamouring for autographs and greetings.

He pulled way back, not interested in being engulfed by the steadily growing throng. He was watching Granger as discreetly as possible but more than once did she catch his eyes with a subtle smirk of her own. She was no boring witch and he longed to explore her. He somehow had a feeling that he would never tire of exploring her.

Only someone in the throng of people decided that they wanted to explore her as well and grabbed her arse. Granger showed in a flash exactly why she also had a bit of a reputation for ruthlessness. The wizard was instantly flung up against the wall and stuck there. A few people laughed but Granger merely gave him a derisive look worthy of his own mother, a feat no other witch had even come close to rival, and turned back to her admirers.

That simple action made his body harden, she was formidable, bossy and a bookworm. But she was also luscious and soft and fit him to perfection. It was like finding his lost puzzle piece.

He could see the colleagues of the foolish wizard trying to get their friend down but no spells helped. He was stuck until such a time as Granger deemed that he could come down. That only made him crave her more. She had a dark side, tinged with light certainly, but he wanted to get to know it, to know all of her.

His mind was reeling and she looked at him just then and held his gaze. That was when the strangest feeling came over him. His entire world tilted and righted itself in a moment but it left him an altered man. It made him a man on a mission.

That was when he truly realized it.

He wasn't just trying to fuck her. He was playing for keeps and it scared him shitless. Except that Malfoy men were never scared of course...

Fuck!

The awed expressions directed at her from the people around her made her no closer to letting the groping wanker down from the wall. The sticking charm she'd used on him was of her own invention and she knew he wasn't going anywhere for quite a while. It had been an especially handy little charm during the war. Some of those snatchers and Death Douches had really thought her defenceless because she didn't have her wand. How very wrong they were.

And then there was Draco.

The most confusing man she'd ever met. Maybe because she really wanted to get to know him? She liked him but during the 'siege of the French' she had felt something shift between them. She didn't know if he liked her. He wanted her, sure. She wasn't in any doubt about that but she didn't just want a shag from him anymore. He had depth to him which she'd seen every now and then on rare occasions and it intrigued her immensely.

The widening of his eyes as she silently and wandlessly removed that disgusting wizard from her immediate vicinity and then the subsequent darkening of his eyes which sent a lust-filled gaze her way had her positively trembling as a piercing stab of fire shot down her spine. Maybe he liked it when she was showing off. She wanted to test out her theory and filed it away for later examination.

When she and Harry finally extracted themselves from the crown around them Gabrielle, having made no effort to get them away from all of those people, led them down a long hallway to a conference room. It seemed airy and had enchanted floor to ceiling windows on two sides which showed the beautiful city of Paris and a sparkling blue sky. Hermione longed to explore Paris. She had only been to the south of France with her parents and she'd heard that Paris was amazing.

They were greeted by no less than six aurors, all dressed in dark grey robes and the highest ranking sent Gabrielle from the room after the introductions had been made. She might be their liaison but she was not cleared for the particulars of this case.

To her consternation however, Cormac McLaggen was there and he was smugly winking at her from the opposite side of the room. She wanted to launch an array of hexes at the arrogant toe-rag but he was completely oblivious to her displeasure at seeing him there.

She even saw that the French Minister for Magic was there, currently fawning over Harry and weirdly enough, Draco too. She wasn't sure what to make of that. Harry was still acting all high-spirited and delighted with everything around him.

It was a very eclectic gathering of people. From the very sombre French aurors to the smug winking bastard in the corner to the overly exuberant minister.

Only now did she see that Draco wasn't exactly returning the minister's happy greeting, in fact, he looked rather sulky about being approached by the minister in the first place. It would seem that he moved away as soon as possible and she was dying to know why. It didn't fit into her understanding of Draco to avoid the spotlight or not want to befriend the current French Minister for Magic.

After many exclamations from both the minister and Harry they finally were able to settle down and start the meeting. To both her great delight and utter annoyance, she sat between Draco and McLaggen who kept on feeling her up when she really wanted Draco to do it instead, though he was stubbornly keeping his hands to himself. In the end she had to jinx McLaggen every time he came too close to her. That worked for about a minute. She rolled her eyes at his infuriating tenacity. She then decided to enchant her thighs with a trip-jinx for him.

The authoritative French head auror, Pierre Guerin, was giving them all possible information they had. The barge was filled to the brim with complicated enchantments and disguises and they actually still had curse breakers working on the trickier disguises. Hermione was scribbling furiously. She was surprised that they hadn't discovered any of those themselves but it was only her and Harry who'd actually searched the barge and they hadn't been through all of it either. For one thing, she had been way too distracted by Draco and Gabrielle flirting.

The auror went on to specify that no eggs were discovered anywhere and confirmed both that the dragon appeared out of nowhere and that a small metal spoon was found which had magical traces of having been a portkey, thereby affirming her theory. The dragon itself was currently in transport back to the Romanian Sanctuary, a portkey was suggested to make the transport as quick as possible but portkeys were made for human travel, not animal travel and especially not for huge dragons. The fact that the dragon had appeared by portkey in the village unharmed was practically a miracle.

The French were sending a team of aurors with the dragon back to Romania and they were staying there to investigate further from the ground into the employees at the Sanctuary. Here Draco piped up and shared his knowledge of the employees along with an agreement to share the report he and his colleagues had made.

After that, many ideas to catch the culprits were bounced around the room and between Harry, who had by now sobered up from his espresso-binge, and auror Pierre they were already planning several avenues the case would be investigated.

McLagged tried several times to interject himself into the investigations to appear very important but as soon as Auror Pierre realized who Harry was, i.e. the British head auror, McLaggen was completely side-lined and she couldn't help feeling rather smug about it. She even saw the side of Draco's cheek lifted in that enticing smirk of his.

She was wondering what the difference between how she saw his smirk now and how she'd seen it in school. Back then it seemed cold, calculating, superior and cruel but now she could see nothing but warmth, wickedness, flirtation and mischief. After some thought she decided it wasn't the smirk itself. It was his eyes that made all of the difference for her, his eyes just didn't look at her the same way anymore.

The meeting was ending and McLaggen was grumbling beside her. He had tried to grope her no less than twenty-one times since she activated her small stinging jinx which meant that he was now rather sore on the corresponding area of his own thigh.

As she got up, someone put their hand on her lower back to guide her. The warmth burning though her body at the slight touch was extremely telling and she liked that he could be a gentleman in situations like this. Unlike McLaggen.

When they finally arrived back at the hotel late that afternoon with Gabrielle in tow, she was ready to eat and get a good night's sleep. She was knackered. The meeting had continued long after lunch and she was laden with reports in French and she'd almost filled an entire notebook!

Her progress was stopped when a small morphing ball of bright light appeared in front of Harry suddenly and they all recognized the hawk patronus as belonging to Terry Boot, a Ravenclaw from school who was now working for Harry as an auror. The hawk opened its mouth and delivered its short desperate message. "We have a serious problem, the Horntail is loose in muggle London, muggles have died! Come as soon as possible!"

Before the patronus had faded from its spot they were all running to their rooms, gathering their things. They needed to get back to London now.

Please review and fav and all that!

Also, happy holidays!

HBSJ