AN: Holy Life! I sincerely apologize for taking almost TWO WEEKS to post a new chapter. I hope this makes up for the wait and I promise to try to post another chapter soon!

Chapter 14

"Law enforcement… where you spend very little time catching the bad guys, and the rest doing paperwork!" Theo muttered earning him a huff from both Draco and Hermione.

Paperwork was not a new concept for Draco, but the amount they were having to sort through at the moment would put the number of essays professors at Hogwarts had to grade to shame. He scanned the length of the table and saw that every inch was still covered in case files, notes, and photos they were having to sort through and preserve so they were able to put them into the archives. Effectively cleaning out the large filing cabinet in Hermione's office. When Draco heard of the project, it was difficult for him to truly be upset, it allowed him access to the one place he was hoping to search since the day he got back to London.

The file in hand had been split, so he had been spending the last several minutes trying to find the second portion of the case notes when he heard Hermione exclaim. She slammed a file down on the table, sending lose notes scattering to the ground and walking into her office. Exchanging a confused look with Theo, he turned to watch her through her office window. With all the self-control he had, he was able to hold in his laughter as she slammed things around in her office yelling to no one. Her hair had gone frizzier than he had seen it in the last several months and her face and neck were flush. She was still muttering to herself when she sat back down and began aggressively flipping pages.

Picking up the pages from the floor, he sat them down before taking up residence in the stool next to her.

"Sickle for your thoughts." He allowed a smirk to cross his face, the file he had been searching for, forgotten.

"My thoughts are worth well more than that." She responded slamming down another folder to avoid looking at him.

"Galleon then." He laughed while stopping a rogue photo from skirting to the floor.

"I'm not in the mood, Draco." She flourished her wand saying the incantation to preserve the long scroll of notes, but because of her emotional state, the paper turned so stiff she could no longer fold it to fit inside the folder without snapping it in half. She gave another aggravated groan and buried her face into her hands.

With a chuckle he grabbed the parchment and corrected the spell before letting his chin rest in his hand looking at her. "If you become anymore frustrated, you'll set the whole table on fire like you did sixth year in potions.

This earned him a glare, but it just made him laugh again. He could understand her frustration, they were assigned this daunting task because there were no more leads on the murders they were trying to solve, and no other cases had come in that required their expertise. Meaning they were now required to go through all the cases not archived in the last ten years, resulting in a surprising amount of unorganized papers that needed to be sorted.

"I hate busy work that should have been taken care of years ago." She huffed. Curls that escaped the hastily gathered bun at the nape of her neck escaped and fell into her face.

He couldn't remove the smile that had formed on his lips, nor did he really want to while looking at her. "I thought you'd love reading through all these old cases. Learning the history and different techniques. After all, you were the only one to stay awake during Binn's class." He remembered the random years the Slytherins and Gryffindors had to take that class together, and how he'd always been more fascinated at watching her than paying attention to what the professor was saying. She had always been so engaged and scribbling down notes, her tongue sticking out slightly, as it was doing earlier before her frustration got the better of her.

"When it's relevant!" She roughly pushed her hair back with another heavy sigh. When the stubborn curl fell back into her face, he had to stifle his laugh to avoid upsetting her more.

The file he was working on prior, was back in his hand and he went back to searching for the other half of the notes, staying in the stool closest to Hermione. He was telling himself it was so he could stop anything tragically happening to the papers incase her frustration go out of hand, but he didn't fully believe the weak excuse.

It was difficult for him to put an exact time on when it began, but at some point, even before their eighth year, he had become attune to when her emotions and magic were on edge and had been drawn to stay as close to her as he would dare when it was happening. Such as second year, he could tell she was terrified, no thanks to him trying to impress the older students in his house. That's what prompted him to help her with her research – without her knowing of course. Then, in fourth year, when she was crying in an empty classroom, he helped comfort her but they both agreed to never speak of that ever again. As they got older, the pull to go towards her when she was upset got stronger. That's how he knew where to find her, and inadvertently Harry with his wand, during the war. That is also why he had been awake during their eighth year, even if he didn't go to her until she blew the hold in his wall.

"How's this for relevant?" Theo piped up from the end of the table.

Theo handed the folder to Draco, who read the names. Grim Fawley and Penelope Fawley nee' Padgett. He recognized Penelope's name, though he didn't know here extremely well. He knew she was a former Slytherin and her husband, whom she had married as soon as she graduated from Hogwarts was sorted into Hufflepuff and a pureblood. The article announcing their wedding had come out not long before the final battle, stating it was a Proper pureblood match.

He had not thought too much of it, being that was a particularly stressful time in his life. Reading the case, however, made him rattle his brain for anything else he could about the couple. They did not fight in the war, but he knew Penelope's uncle was a death eater, but couldn't recall anything about Grim. Their deaths were ruled as a result to a fire after being found at the bottom of their stairs, both with a broken neck. The notes stated it appeared they both had fallen while trying to escape the inferno.

This struck him as odd. The creak of the lab door pulled his attention, but when he saw it was Katrin, his focus went back to the case. They were both extremely capable with their magic, their NEWTS were listed in the file, so why did they not use their magic to put out the flames instead of running? The report stated it had been a normal fire verses fiend fyre, so it should have been simple enough.

Then he saw it.

The part of the case that suddenly made everything clear to him, and what had caught Theo's attention, but could have been and was easily overlooked by the original investigative team. His eyes met Hermione's who was watching him intently. When he handed the case to her, he could feel the magic coming off her in waves. She was scared and he wanted to know why, but she made it clear she did not want to talk about it at the moment.

He watched her read the file in silence and when her eyes went wide, he knew she agreed with him and Theo.

"You know what this means?" she asked giving the folder to Katrin.

"We get to catch a serial killer." Theo said with a smile on his face that could rival Astoria.

"This purple powder; is it his símakort… umm…" Katrin was snapping her fingers and her eyebrows frowned when she couldn't think of the right word.

"Calling card." Theo translated and she gave him a smile with a nod.

"I had thought it was before, but it didn't seem likely because of the small amount left. But now, I'm starting to think it might be again." Draco ran his hand through is hair.

Hermione was chewing on the corner of her lip while rereading the file. "How many others do you think are linked?" her voice was barely more than a whisper.

The urge to grab her hand almost overtook him, but he was able to resist by gripping the folder in his hand harder than necessary. "I haven't found one, yet. I have a feeling there are more."

"This was the first one I've found. It's from 2001. Grim wasn't Slytherin, so that rules out singling out that house. But his wife was, and both had relatives connected to Voldemort, and both were purebloods." Theo said.

"Vhat is the motivation?" Katrin asked taking a seat between Draco and Theo.

"I don't think we will know that until we catch the bastard." Draco ran a hand through his hair again and dared a chuckle, "Well, now we have a different reason to go through all this."

"Yes, at least now it's not a complete waste of time. But we could use help." She looked at Katrin, but she had already picked up the file closest to her to read.

By the end of the official workday, the four of them had found three other deaths that could be linked to the serial killer, and Hermione looked like she was getting paler with every case they found. Katrin had volunteered to take them to Harry and the profiler to try to single out the type of person they were looking for. Theo jumped at the chance to go with her leaving Draco and Hermione alone in the lab. He gathered up the piles of preserved files without a word and took them to the archives to be sorted.

Upon returning to the lab he saw Hermione with her head in her hands and her shoulders slumped. No noise came from her, but he knew here well enough to know she was good at suppressing the sounds of sobs.

"Come on, Love." Instead of trying to get her to talk about it, grabbed her bag and slung it over his shoulder before pressing her coat over hers. He pulled her up, keeping his arm across her shoulders and close to him and guided her to the lifts as she leaned into him.

With so many murders being overlooked and ultimately left as unsolved, he knew it would weigh her down, but he needed to show her she wasn't alone in solving this, he just didn't know how.

"Floo or walk?" he asked.

"Walk." She said and wrapped her coat around her tightly. "I wish the snow would start sticking."

"It will soon."

They were walking through the atrium full of Ministry workers making their way home for the evening. Some were frustrated from a long day of work, others were laughing and making plans to meet up with friends in a few hours, but the commotion of the upcoming weekend did not stop them from sending a wide variety of looks towards the two of them, Draco's arm still over Hermione's shoulders pulling her into his side doing is best to protect her from the outburst he could feel her magic was wanting to do.

When they finally made it out into the cold air of the November evening, he looked down at her and saw tears silently falling. "Hermione?" he stopped and turned to look at her.

"I'm fine." She wiped her eyes. "It's just … stress. I guess."

"You're not alone." He pulled her into him again and continued walking and rubbed his hand up and down her arm. They walked in silence for some time, her comfortably tucked under his arm against the harsh wind ripping through the abandoned street.

"Are you ever going to answer my question?"

"Which one? You ask so many of them." He laughed when she smacked his chest.

"How do you know him?"

He took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. He knew this was going to come up again, he had just hoped that he'd be able to actually prove something to her before he had to tell her. "I met him while I was in healer training in America. We didn't get along." He said simply hoping that would be enough.

"Didn't get along?" she laughed, "He hates you, and it's pretty obvious you hate him."

"Don't try to get up to be civil. It's not like it was with Potter."

"I wasn't going to. Harry barely gets along with him, don't even get me started on Ron and Ginny. Even Luna avoids him."

"Yeah, she's gotten pretty animated on where she thinks he should go." Draco laughed remembering when Luna had vented saying that Sebastian could get stabbed in the abdomen by an erumpent horn and she would thoroughly enjoy the show that followed. "Wait, if every single one of your friends hates him, why are you with him?"

"It's… complicated." He saw her face flush and felt her magic surge in a menacing way.

"Did he hurt you?" Draco growled feeling his own magic wanting to burst forth in a wave of anger.

"As if I'd allow someone to hurt me physically anymore."

"Your need to specify is concerning." He looked down at her, but she refused to meet his eyes. He felt her shiver and he pulled her closer, rubbing her arm once again.

Somehow, they had already made it to stairs leading to their flats and he finally lifted his arm from her shoulders, instantly missing the warmth of her and her magic that seemed to be pulling at him.

"I have it under control." She said simply before kissing him on his cheek. "I promise." She squeezed his forearm, sending a jolt of electricity up his arm.

He pulled down on his left sleeve before nodding and watching her walk into her flat. When he turned, he saw Blaise and Theo standing outside of his own both giving him the signature Slytherin smirk.

"For people that can apparate, you two sure walk a lot." Blaise said with a raised eyebrow.

"She needed it." Draco walked towards them and went to open his door only to be stopped by Theo.

"You've got a visitor, and if I know you as well as I know I do, you don't want to go in there after she just watched Granger kiss you."

"It wasn't an actual kiss. It was a … you know what, you're right. Where are we going?"

Blaise put his hands on their shoulders and within a heartbeat the three of them were outside his manor. "I think it's time we talk about getting you out of a terrible situation." Blaise said.

Later that evening he found himself heading back to his own flat, where he knew Astoria was waiting, with a plan to finally end things with her. Even if he thought the second part of his friend's plan was completely ridiculous, he had to agree with the first part. Astoria was an unneeded complication and did nothing but drain Draco. Having someone you didn't fully trust taking over aspects of your life was enough to set your nerves on fire, after all, he had rules for a reason. Something, Blaise and Theo liked to use against him when it benefited them and their goals.

Stepping out of the bright green flames he saw her sitting on the couch flipping through the newest edition of Witch Weekly. When she heard the fireplace, she looked up and raised an eyebrow.

"Avoiding me?"

"Yes." He admitted. There was no point in lying to her. "But now we need to talk." He began pacing in front of his fireplace. He heard her put down the magazine and stand up, but he did not turn to look at her. "Look, Astoria, I don't know how all of this," he motioned between the two of them, "got started again, but it needs to stop."

"Because of the mudblood?" She spat.

"DON'T YOU DARE CALL HER THAT!" Draco spun and faced her, noticing she was within arm's length of him suddenly.

"I can't believe you've gotten such a soft spot for her, or any of them. This is because of your pointless job." She shook her head and played with her necklace.

A sense of relaxation overcame him, and his eyes softened while looking at her. "It's not a pointless job. I enjoy my work."

"It's cute you have taken on a little project. I just don't want you to let it distract you from what you are destined to do."

Anger rolled through his chest, and he cut his eyes at her. She sounded so much like Lucius with those words it made him step away from her. "Astoria, this needs to end for no other reason that I don't want what you do."

A grin played across her face as she closed the gap between them once again. "Do you know what you want?"

"Yes." He said and narrowed his eyes at her.

"And what is it you want?" she ran her hand over his chest.

Grabbing her wrists to stop their decent, "Not what you do. I don't want to get married because of some contract and I don't want to marry you."

Laughter escaped her lips and she pressed herself against Draco. Her breath was hot on his lips and her smell was intoxicating. He swallowed hard to try to keep his thoughts clear as she spoke. "You don't have a choice. You will have to marry someone because of that contract. And I know it has to be someone pure. I'm the best choice. You can learn to love me, because I promise Draco, I already love you. I will be the perfect wife for you." She leaned in and kissed him.

The taste of her lips pulled him under and all coherent thought was abandoned as he released her wrists and kissed her back. Her lips parted and their tongues danced together like it was imperative to life.

"I love you, Draco." She whispered before she kissed below his ear and along his jaw. He didn't say anything. He knew he didn't love her, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew what was happening needed to stop but he couldn't bring himself to do it. She overwhelmed him and it was difficult to think of anything other than her.

She pushed him into one of the leather chairs he had next to the fireplace and proceeded to straddle him while kissing him and unbuttoning his shirt. He let his head fall back against the chair as she kissed down his neck, relishing in the feeling of her running her hands along his bare chest.

His eyes closed and he saw a flash of curly brown hair before he snapped them back open. His eyes met bright blue instead of brown and confusion took over him. He grabbed Astoria's shoulders but before he could say anything her lips were back on his and she was grinding against his hips.

"I'm going to help you relax. You're so tense." Astoria said into his lips. Part of him wanted to relax into her. Wanted to think of nothing but the woman on him and what she was doing to his body. He wanted to kiss her back and bring her upstairs to allow her to help him release the stress he had been carrying around.

Another part of him rumbled in anger. This wasn't what he wanted; this wasn't what was supposed to happen.

Hips was grinding against his and his hands automatically gripped them. The skirt she was wearing had ridden up and was now sitting high enough on her waist that his hands were gripping bare skin except for the small lace knickers she had on. Instinctively, his fingers wrapped around the string and he pulled her towards him returning her fevered kiss.

Her hands left his chest, but he realized the absent of her didn't bother him as much as it should. His thought process was stopped when she pulled off the shirt she was wearing to reveal a black lace bra before she pushed herself back to him with her hands pulling at his hair.

Hands left his hair and moved down his chest to pull at his belt and he stopped kissing her. Her eyes were dilated with lust and a devilish grin was on her pink lips.

"Relax. It's not like I haven't done this before." She said in a honeyed voice and he narrowed his eyes at her. Something in him was telling him to not trust her, but every time he tried to act to stop her, another part of him shut it down and let her take him over again.

With belt and buttons undone, she stood up and knelt before him pulling off his slacks off in an agonizingly slow pace. When they were off, she parted his knees and slid between them grabbing him with a confident hand.

"I'm going to make you cum with just my mouth, then give you the best fuck of your life."

She took him fully in her mouth in a quick motion and his head rolled back to rest against the chair once more closing his eyes. Images of black spandex shorts covered by his green sweater flashed in front of his eyes followed by warm brown eyes and curly brown hair. The sound of her laugh filled his ears and he bit down on his lip while sucking in air. Astoria's tongue was flicking over his head while her hand pumped, and his hips started to buck. He was close but he didn't want to stop seeing her, so he squeezed his eyes closed. She was smiling and her eyes were cast down, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. Her deep brown eyes finally looked up at him and he was pushed over the edge.

When he finally looked down at Astoria, she was running her finger along the space between her breasts, picking up a bit of cum before sucking on her finger. His heart was beating hard against his chest while he ran a hand through his hair. His face was flush, and he couldn't tell if it was because he was shocked by what he allowed to happen or who he had been thinking of.

"Astoria…" he breathed.

"That's just the first half." She stood up and kissed him lightly allowing her smell to envelop him once again. "I'll be upstairs."

He sat on the edge of the chair and rest his head in his hands. He needed to stop this, but the part that didn't want to stop was quickly winning, and when he saw the black bra land on the railing of the loft, his mind went blank as he went up to meet her for what was sure to be a long night.

When the dim light of morning caressed his face, he knew it was time to get up, even though he had not truly slept at all that night. His dreams had been riddled with albino snakes with red eyes and bodiless screams. He felt Astoria get up less than ten minutes ago, but he didn't want to talk to her. He was ashamed of himself for allowing last night to go so far off course, and he had no idea what had come over him.

The water turned on in the bathroom and he finally threw the comforter off. He was going to tell Astoria she needed to leave and that it was over between them. When he pushed open the bathroom door, steam was already beginning to envelop the small room. Rolling his eyes, he went to cast a spell to get rid of the humidity but stopped short when he saw the necklace on the counter. This was the first time she had taken it off that he had seen.

He had concerned about it before, but this was the first time he had been able to get anywhere close to it without it being on her. As soon as he picked it up, his suspicions were confirmed, and he felt anger roar through his chest as heat made its way up his neck and to his face. Clutching his fist, he left the small room, humidity be damned, and went downstairs.

By the time Astoria came down, he had placed himself in front of his fireplace, arms resting against the mantle watching the flames dance across the logs. Orange, red, and yellow flickered across his eyes while his mind was far away, thinking of what his mother might have told him to do in this situation.

"You're clever enough to have known, but you allowed male stupidity to overcome you. Now fix it before it ruins you."

Narcissa's pale eyebrow would have been raised and her lips would have been pressed into a thin line. He knew his mother never really like Astoria, but she been polite to her out of social necessity, nothing more. When they had dated during his eighth year, she made it clear that Astoria was not the pure in which she had hoped for him. Though it didn't make sense then, he was beginning to see it now, especially after reading her letter so many times. He believed he might see the way out of the contract as well, but he had no idea how to test his theory at the moment.

"Good morning." Astoria's honeyed voice met his ears and he cringed. He had placed the necklace on the mantle under a stasis charm to be able to keep his mind clear. He wasn't sure how she had manipulated it the way she did, but he was going to find out. Even if it meant going to someone for help.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Draco said, his voice came out in a growl as he tried to keep himself from yelling. His magic was on the verge of exploding and he didn't want to have to clean up after that.

"I don't know what you mean." She said from the kitchen. "You really should call your house elf back from Hogwarts. It's such a waste to keep her there."

"When were you going to tell me? When were you going to stop?" He could feel his nails digging into his palms, but he didn't release his fists. He was still staring into the dancing flames hoping they would keep him calm.

"Tell you what?" she laughed, "That I loved you. I thought it was obvious. All I've wanted is-"

"You know that's not what I'm referring to!" His voice rose as did the flames. "How did you plan on this going?" he said after several breaths.

"I've told you that many times. We are going to get married, satisfy your contract, and live a beautiful, pure, life." Her voice had an air of dismissal and it was infuriating Draco further that she was acting like she had no idea what he was referring to.

"You can't honestly be this stupid." He said through clenched teeth finally turning to look at her.

She was sipping from a teacup with raised eyebrows, a look of feigned innocence. He hated that look. "I don't know what you're referring to."

"THE FUCKING NECKLACE ASTORIA!" he finally yelled, and he felt the flames behind him enlarge throwing heat into the room.

Her hand flew up to where her charm normally sat, and her eyes went wide.

"Yeah, want to explain that?" he asked, "Or would you rather me call Katrin?" he let a smirk play on his face when Astoria's face paled at the mention of the Icelandic warrior incarnate.

"I did it because I love you, Draco. I've always loved you. You're just too stubborn to give us a real chance."

"You don't love me." He laughed and held up his hands to keep her from coming closer to him. "And I don't love you. There is never a chance of that happening, now."

"Draco…"

"No! Do you even know what you did? You took away my choice, you took away my ability to make decisions. You realize that's how Voldemort was born?"

"If you just-"

"No. You don't get it. I didn't love you and that's why I ended things at Hogwarts. The only reason things started again was because you manipulated the situation."

"This is because of your ridiculous job and that stupid mudbl-"

"DON'T!" Draco's voice echoed around the room and he slammed his fist into the wall. He felt pain surge up his arm, but he ignored it for the time. "Don't you dare say a word against her! She has nothing to do with this. You should be arrested for what you did, and I can't believe I didn't see it before. Get out of my house and don't you dare come back, ever. Don't you come near me or Hermione or any one of my friends. Do you understand me. If you do, I will have you thrown into Azkaban!"

"Draco."

"Get out, Astoria." He said, his voice full of exhaustion now. "I never want to see you again."

"You're going to regret this. You'll see. I'm the only one pure enough for you."

"I know what pure is, and you are not the pure I want. Now get out."

She left, slamming the door so hard behind her, all it did was bounce back open. He shook his head and cursed as he held his wrist to look at his hand that was swelling at an alarming rate. He knew beyond a doubt it was broken, but he knew trying to heal your own bones would never work well. Walking to the kitchen, he grabbed a hand towel with his left hand and laid it out before grabbing some ice cubes from the freezer.

Placing it on his hand, he cursed again and was answered with a laugh. His head jerked up to see Blaise sitting at the counter in front of him. "I'm going to assume that is not because you hit her."

"What kind of Neanderthal do you think I am?"

"Want me to heal it?"

"Do you know how?" Draco asked narrowing his eyes at his friend. He had never been the most studious person, but he was not an idiot. Still did not make Draco trust him anymore with something like fixing his broken hand.

"Not really." Blaise laughed.

"I'll wait for someone else then."

"I could get Ree-"

"I will break your hand if you finish that sentence."

Blaise laughed and flourished his wand to wrap up the hand towel and adjusted it on Draco's hand to keep it from falling off. "So…"

"I'm not talking about it."

"Just answer one question…" Blaise said while he raised his eyebrows. The question hung in the air and didn't need to be verbalized.

"Yes." Draco sighed, and as he said it out loud, he felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

"Thank Merlin! That woman is dead from the neck up!"

"I wouldn't go that far." Draco then went into an explanation of what happened the night before leading up to him discovering the necklace and showed it to him. Blaise had been just as angry as he was and they both decided to go find Theo to be able to fix his hand.

On their way out, they did not notice Hermione sitting at her desk with an open window so she could hear what was going on, nor did they notice the tear that fell down her check when he continuously defended her against the prejudice slurs that dominated her school years, and there was no possible way they would know of the happiness she felt when she realized that Draco had finally gotten rid of someone that was as terrible for him as Astoria.

AN: Again, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. It was so wonderful to finally be able to break up Draco and Astoria, what are you thoughts? I'm so curious to see what you all think and I absolutely LOVE reviews. It pushes me forward during my times at work on night shift.