"I'm home," Marilyn announced her presence as she made her way through the front door, awkwardly juggling her luggage and keys as she did so.
She wasn't sure what she'd expected. Koda was happy to see her, of course, but even his reaction was strange - stopping dead in the hallway to observe her for a moment, before sniffing around her ankles, and then finally expressing his excitement at her return, barely scrambling out of the way of her suitcase until the wheels presented him with no other choice.
"Guys? Hello?" She propped her case up against her bedroom door before skirting around it, turning her attention to the dog at her heels "Where are they, hmm? Should we find them? Let's go find them!"
At first she thought perhaps they were in bed, but as she walked further into the house she heard the kettle boiling in the kitchen and followed the sound, nursing a thoroughly bruised ego over the lack of any greeting so far. That would teach her to think they'd spend their lives waiting by the front door, pining for an update on her sex life.
In an effort to get him out from beneath her feet, Marilyn relented and picked up Koda, bringing him up to her chest and enduring many attempted head-butts and chin-licks for her troubles. Both Taylor and Sarah were in the kitchen when she entered, leaning against counters on opposite sides of the room - which was almost too small for two people, never mind three.
"Shit, hey, welcome back!" Taylor greeted her with a tired smile, rubbing at her eyes "I can't believe the weekend's over already."
"I'm guessing you two had a wild one while I was gone?" Marilyn offered them both a bemused smile.
"It's very foggy," Sarah grimaced "Didn't even plan on drinking."
"What sort of self-respecting northerner makes plans to drink?" Taylor snorted, taking up the kettle when it clicked "Did you, though?"
It took Marilyn a moment to realise the question was directed at her. Any sorrow she felt at the weekend now being over and done with was quickly being replaced by a sort of amused concern. Both of her housemates looked considerably worse for wear - not sick, nor anything too serious at all, really - just...tired. Confused. Dishevelled. Like toddlers woken up too early and then placed in an unexpected situation.
"Did I drink? A little," she shrugged.
"No, did you have a wild one?" She paused in her tea-making to wriggle her eyebrows at her.
"Dear lord," Sarah snorted, shaking her head.
For her part, Marilyn gave an exasperated chuckle, stooping down to let Koda out of her arms, as he'd now begun to grow bored of her return already and was doing his best to wriggle out of her grasp. There was also the small fact that she hoped the way her hair fell about her face as she did so would buy her a few precious moments to wide the stupid smile from her face. But it was no good - once it had hold of her features it wouldn't budge, thoroughly unhelped by the way she could already feel her cheeks begin to blaze.
"Oh-ho-ho!" Taylor caught it immediately, all but dropping the kettle as she turned her full attention to her.
"Alright Santa, calm down," Marilyn grumbled good-naturedly, shrugging off her coat and bundling it up in her arms just to give her something else to focus on.
"I will not!" Any of her grogginess was quickly forgotten "Not until I get details."
"Was he any good?" Sarah chimed in.
Even she seemed thoroughly interested, eyes sparkling with amusement as she nibbled at a piece of toast.
It was a question that Marilyn had entirely anticipated, and even put a bit of thought into how she might respond on the train journey back in the moments when Draco was much too consumed by whatever thoughts whirled around his head to be drawn into idle chit-chat - or any kind of conversation at all, for that matter. The plan had been predictable but simple: smile, laugh, and make some sort of coy comment that had the effect of both confirming just how much she'd enjoyed her little getaway with the blond man in question, and smoothly stifling any hopes they might have of hearing details. It had been a good plan. But what they said about the best laid plans was a cliché for a reason, and Marilyn only reinforced that cliché by opening her mouth to say something clever, before promptly choking on a nervous laugh and hiding her blush behind her hands.
"I knew it!" Taylor announced loudly to the kitchen.
Koda barked in response, tail wagging furiously - either he had shared her suspicions, or was just excited by the sudden life that burst into the room.
"Been thinking about his hypothetical skills in the bedroom a lot, have you?" Marilyn teased, if only to stave off her own embarrassment.
"Oh, not for me, I'd eat the poor fucker alive - and not in a sexy way," Taylor waved a hand.
"I wasn't aware there was a sexy way to do cannibalism," Sarah deadpanned.
"I have much to teach you," Taylor said sagely before jabbing a finger in Marilyn's direction "But this isn't about cannibalism."
"Thank god," Marilyn and Sarah said in unison, before sharing a smile.
"This-" the redhead continued, unperturbed "Is about you, and how you need to share details. I won't accept half a story. What happened? Did he woo you? That fucker better have wooed you, I swear. If he didn't I'll-"
"Eat him alive?" Marilyn asked.
"And not in a sexy way," Sarah said drily.
"Exactly," Taylor nodded "So tell me he wooed you."
"He wooed me," Marilyn smiled fondly, not only at her friends' antics "And I wooed him, I suppose - I hope. A mutual wooing, all round. We saw a show, got back to the hotel, talked for a while and...well, things just happened from there."
"And he was good?"
"Very," she could feel her cheeks heat up once again, like she was a damned teenager who'd just had her first time "Very, er, enthusiastic. It caught me off guard, in the beginning."
Surprising, but certainly not unwelcome. Draco had a way of being blasé about anything and everything, while it was perhaps naïve of her to think that such an attitude would extend to the bedroom, she was delighted to have been proven wrong.
"Good lad," Taylor said approvingly.
Was Draco out there somewhere now, having a similar conversation with his own friends? People from his circles who were part of his 'real' life - the one he snuck away from in order to seize a few hours with her? She doubted it. In fact, she doubted anybody who attended whatever fancy dos his family threw knew of her existence at all. It was much easier to wipe the smile from her face after such thoughts permeated her mind completely of their own accord.
It was fine. It was. Truly. She was a big girl, she knew what she was signing up for, she wasn't about to be ridiculous because her brain threw an unwelcome thought in her direction. She was stronger than that.
"When are you going to see him again?" Sarah asked.
"Tomorrow night. He's going to meet me after work," the lightness in her voice wasn't even completely forced as she replied.
That gave her over twenty-four hours to sort out her head. More than the amount of time she'd need.
There were a few things Hermione desired as she strode through the streets of York's city centre. A bath - in her own body, no less, so she wouldn't feel like some sort of twisted voyeur - the opportunity to talk through her worries and theories with Ron and Harry, and a bit of peace and quiet so she might sort through her post and catch up on any work she might've missed while she was gone. Instead, she found herself ducking into an out-of-order public toilet with Draco Malfoy, who seemed about as cheery as ever.
"I take it your silence over the last few days means nothing happened?"
"Nothing at all," she grumbled.
She edged her way into one of the filthy bathroom stalls, grimacing as she did her best not to touch anything around her. There was barely enough room to breathe once Draco followed her in and shut the door behind them, and out of pure eagerness to get out of such close-quarters, she linked arms with him rather aggressively and apparated them both to the home she shared with Ron. It wouldn't be the reunion her husband was hoping for - to see her coming up the garden path toting the heir to the Malfoy name and fortune - but they had more pressing matters to contend with.
It seemed a debriefing went without saying, though, for as they entered the house through the side-door in the kitchen, they discovered Harry, Ron, and Ginny - the latter two greeting Draco with stony glares that were eerily reminiscent of their mother.
"Ginny! Hello," Hermione greeted her with a hug, keenly aware of how her sister-in-law didn't stop glaring all the while "Where's James? Is he here?"
"I left him with mum. I would've brought him, but not with him here," she said pointedly.
While none of the Weasleys could boast any warm feeling towards the Malfoys, Ginny's hatred ran deeper still than most. The memories of what she'd been subjected to in her first year of Hogwarts still ran deep, and Ginny was not one to forgive easily. Nor should she, considering.
"He'd have been quite safe, I haven't bathed in the blood of new-borns in...oh, weeks, easily," Draco said drily.
Nobody laughed, but Hermione had to stifle a snort - and she caught Harry doing the same, gnawing on the inside of his cheek as he looked away.
"The fact that they didn't take the bait raises a few worrying questions," Harry was the one to cut in.
Hermione settled down into one of the empty chairs at the kitchen table, while Ron and Draco remained standing, the latter leaning against the doorframe with an unreadable expression.
"Are you sure you didn't tell anybody in your circles where you were going? Even anything that could've given them a hint as to what was going on?" He turned to Draco to ask.
To his credit, Draco seemed to bite back whatever snide remark was on the tip of his tongue and dying to spring forth, instead sighing in annoyance and shaking his head.
"My father came by the night before I left, but he doesn't know anything. Doesn't suspect anything."
"Maybe he does and he just doesn't want you to know yet."
"If you think my father would be aware of my associating with a Muggle and choose to deal with the matter with any degree of subtlety, you don't know him at all," Draco replied simply.
"We know him well enough," Ginny replied, her tone dark and wielding a sharp edge.
Hermione tensed, ready for an argument to unfold. While she would thoroughly and inarguably be on Ginny's side in any such spat, it wasn't exactly what they needed in this moment. She didn't like it any more than the others - her memory of what he'd done to them at school was just as clear as theirs - but for now their grudges needed to be shoved firmly aside in order to tackle the bigger and more pressing threat.
But Draco didn't rise to the bait. Nor, even more surprisingly, did he appear tempted to do so. While he didn't appear chided, not exactly, he seemed to accept the point Ginny made, lips pressed firmly shut in a solemn line as he offered no argument to the contrary, no clever remark, not even a scoff or a sneer. Harry and Hermione exchanged looks of mild disbelief across the table.
"Who's to say he doesn't know?" Ron suggested, lip curled "Who's to say this isn't some big scheme by your family, and you're only here to pull the wool over our eyes? So we don't suspect that it's really been you all along?"
The look of pure annoyed exasperation on Draco's face was almost comical. He allowed a moment of silence to pass, as though leaving it there to emphasise just how idiotic he found her husband's suggestion to be, and then he spoke.
"...As I said," he replied pointedly "If you think any scheme of my parents' would involve my associating with a Muggle, especially for something as trivial as an alibi, you don't know them half as well as you may believe."
The four former Gryffindor's in the room shared a look at that. He had a point, there. And even without the point, Hermione truly did not think Draco had a hand in this. While she still wouldn't exactly be bowled over if his parents weren't involved - they had a finger in every rotten pie in the country - even that somehow didn't have a ring of truth to it. Draco was right. If his father had even the slightest inkling of what was going on, he'd have strung him up by the ankles from Malfoy Manor's highest tower until he 'came to his senses' and remembered the proper prejudices.
"Whoever is behind it, I'm not sure where we go from here," Hermione sighed, smoothing a hand over her curls "If they still mean Marilyn harm, then they're playing their own game here and they won't do anything until they're good and ready."
"And if they don't?" Draco raised one pale eyebrow "Are you seriously suggesting they might've simply grown bored and moved on?"
"I'm suggesting that the alternative is they weren't expecting the amount of pushback they met after their last attack. Maybe we spooked them. Maybe they've moved on to easier targets."
It didn't solve their problem - that of the Ministry's, anyway. The chase would continue as long as the attacks did, and she knew deep down that they wouldn't stop until they were stopped. But if they'd been warded away from this particular target, it did end Draco's involvement. It meant that he could go back to steadfastly avoiding them, they could return the favour, and they could go back to pursuing this problem with real ministry resources, rather than keeping everything below the table. And, likely most importantly to Draco, Marilyn Baxter was safe. For the time being, anyway. From this particular threat.
"Maybe my aunt Bellatrix was just a little eccentric, and You-Know-Who was a big softie at heart," he summed up his thoughts on her theory with little hesitation.
"Well, you were much closer to both of them than any of us, so I suppose you'd know," Ginny replied.
This time Draco's annoyance did show, manifesting in a noticeable twitch of his jaw.
"My point being, I don't understand how you can just casually imply that the best solution is that we sit back and do nothing until she's attacked - or worse - again!"
"Nobody's suggesting that, Malfoy," Harry sighed.
"It's not nice, is it?" Ginny cut in "Watching somebody you care for be persecuted for the very thing you supported so ardently not all that long ago."
"And if it wasn't for my mother risking her own life, everybody in this room bar myself would be dead," Draco snapped "Shall we go on rehashing the past, or should we instead see to the rather more productive task of saving an innocent woman's life?"
"Hey!" Ron and Harry snapped back in unison, but it wasn't needed for Ginny bit back.
"You're the one asking for our help, I don't think you can afford to get an attitude about it."
"And what exactly does your help look like, Weasley? Because at the moment, it's been no help at all, and it doesn't seem like that's going to change anytime soon. How is it possible that you're more inept as adults than you were as teenagers? Your eleven year old selves would have solved this and won fifty thousand house points from Dumbledore in the process. As adults you can't even draw up a list of suspects that don't involve the people you should be helping. How does that one work?"
"Oh Merlin's balls, you're not still bitter about the House Cup in first year are you? Now who's rehashing the past? You sad bastard," Ron rolled his eyes.
Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose as if it might negate the tempers in the room that seemed to have fanned from embers into forest fires within a fraction of a second. It was only a matter of time. She knew that. They couldn't spend so long hating each other, only for all of that to go away entirely, with not a trace left to be seen - even if bygones were largely bygones.
Ron and Ginny both seemed to be in full war mode - doing nothing about the stereotype regarding red hair and quick tempers - while Harry looked to be fighting his own frustration and annoyance, but not outright anger in the same way his wife and brother-in-law were. This surprised Hermione most, for in their Hogwarts days it might've been the other way round. For her part, though, while annoyed and frustrated at the situation at hand more-so than she was at Malfoy (he was just a prat, she'd made her peace with that), she was just tired. That tiredness was not helped at all by her desire to catch the culprit - for it meant there was no time to be tired. Not when another attack might still happen, whether it was levelled at Miss Baxter or not.
Just as she wracked her mind for some way of defusing the situation, though, it seemed Draco had decided he'd had enough.
"This is a farce," he shook his head, the scowl that he wore permanently back at Hogwarts occupying his face now "I don't know why I came here. I don't know why I tried to enlist your help."
"Malfo- Draco," Harry corrected himself with great visible difficulty "Sit down, and we'll work out where to go from here. This is a hurdle, nothing more."
"Work it out yourself, and good luck to you. I'll see to matters on my own," and then, doing an eerily good impression of his father, he swept out of the room, door slamming behind him.
"Yeah, I really see that change in him, Hermione," Ginny muttered.
"You see how angry he got?" Hermione pointed out softly.
"I think we all did," Ron replied.
"That was over a Muggle. Worry for a Muggle, hidden behind anger. Now don't tell me any of us could've seen that coming."
While she didn't like Draco, and desired little more than the day when she'd never have to tolerate his presence again, she couldn't pretend she didn't see it. Nobody said anything in return - not to agree, but not to disagree either.
The next morning, Marilyn woke up feeling oddly content. Noting to herself that she must've needed the time away just as much as Draco had, she dressed, smoothed her golden tresses up into a bun, and then paused in the mirror to regard the necklace Draco had given her. She'd still yet to take it off, despite not having had another episode since the first one. While she told herself it was nothing more than pure and simple consideration - she'd be seeing Draco immediately after work, and wanted to show gratitude and appreciation for the gift - she couldn't kid herself that there was no sentimentality there, either. In fact, that sentimental streak seemed to grow stronger and stronger the more time she spent around him.
Sighing, she smoothed her thumb over the phial once, as if doing so might bring her good luck. Then she pulled on her coat, scarf, and shoes, and was heading out the door. She couldn't put her finger on why she felt so good about the day ahead. While she hardly hated her job, it was taxing at times - dealing with so many children and teenagers, training them to do the thing she loved most but could never do again. But today she was excited to get to it. It helped that her knee was giving her no trouble at all, too, something she often took as a sure sign that she'd have a good day.
Her mind was filled with choreography, lesson plans, and timetables more than with awareness of her surroundings. That wasn't to say what happened next was her fault, however. Even if she hadn't been so wrapped up in her own musings, she wouldn't have been able to stop the Stunning Spell as it hit her square in the chest the moment she turned into a deserted side street.
Her body hit the cobblestones with a sickening crack, and she gained her bearings just enough to see a figure cloaked in black approach her and point a stick at her face before the world went black.
A/N: An early update! Thought about waiting to upload it, but it seemed pointless to have it just gathering dust in my document folder when it was ready to go.