Apparition was a tricky thing when one was aiming for something that was moving. In Hermione's experience, chances of accuracy largely depended on the target's size, and usually one had to be within seeing distance to aim well.
Zabini's boat wasn't exactly small, but it wasn't a land mass either. It was also on the move, and Hermione really should have aimed somewhere on shore. Unfortunately there was the slight issue of being sandwiched between two naked men which was affecting her ability to cogitate properly.
In the grand scheme of life, such as escaping from certain death by sacrifice, things like a little nudity shouldn't have mattered. Certainly it didn't seem to matter to the Malfoy men at all, and neither of them had bothered to shield themselves or hunch over in a semblance of shame. Instead, they had stood fully upright as though they were used to striding about the manor completely starkers...which was quite the image playing in her head.
She probably should also have offered to Transfigure a covering for them, or just their bits, but mentioning that in the remains of the ruins seemed untimely, especially when they were soon to be out of their depths (literally) in a scenic underwater cavern.
That instant of indecision almost made her lose concentration. She aimed for the salon where she, Nadi, and Zabini had discussed their plans. It was nighttime, and doused with water as they were, whisking through the chilly vacuum of instant travel made her shiver even before she was back in corporeal form.
Her split second of indecision shook her concentration. At the very end of the Apparition, she also happened to see, as though through a blurry foggy tunnel, the inside of Zabini's boat, and there were so many people inside—shouldn't there just be Zabini and Nadi? Had Zabini decided to give an impromptu party? Given how he was, Hermione really wouldn't have been surprised.
She lost control, and the three of them landed with a jumble of limbs and hubbub of shouting. For a moment, her mind blanked as she wondered if she'd splinched someone. Dittany, she was already thinking. Did Blaise have that on hand? That seemed unlikely.
Hermione tried to sit up and couldn't. She was very firmly sandwiched between the naked muscled flesh of two Malfoy men in a way that made her not want to move for fear of touching anything she oughtn't.
Her senses gradually came back to her in flashes—the wet, warm, and moving body below her, what was probably (hopefully) a hand on her waist, a patch of the bare skin of an upper shoulder squashing her cheek against her nose. They were as wetly intertwined as much as two giant squids and a Grindylow grappling in mud, and she felt just as agitated and desperate to escape.
Her hand became fully entangled in Lucius' long, loose hair as she pulled herself up, and it was as though she had been enmeshed in wet seaweed. He growled, she yelped, and Draco underneath them yelled at them to get off him. Because she was clearly sitting on top of his—again, naked—very, very naked...er, midsection.
…Although at least nothing seemed to be broken.
Draco had the worst of it, being underneath her. Was it wrong of her to be slightly turned on by the warm clasp of his hand on her waist? She wasn't being inappropriate, was she?
"GERROFF!" screeched a fourth voice.
Hermione finally, with horror, pinpointed what had caused her concentration to break. She'd recognised the person standing inside the yacht through that fuzzy tunnel vision. Though she'd originally dismissed him as a hallucination, he clearly wasn't seeing as they'd simply landed on that someone when they dropped out of the skies.
It wasn't a figment of her imagination after all, and now her hallucination was underneath Draco's nude bum, and she couldn't believe he'd made it and came for her.
Ron.
She struggled to get out from being somewhere between Lucius's knee and Draco's thigh and most importantly, get everyone off Ron Weasley, who was currently on the bottom of their human pyramid being flattened into the ground like a red-haired pile of Weasley's Wizard Wheeze Goo. It was proving impossible when there was another arm flailing on her neck and pushing her down. She was too stuck to attempt any spells, and really her topmost fear was that Lucius would fall backwards on her and either impale himself on her wand or worse, break it. Not to mention he really needed a haircut because she was having trouble pulling her other hand out of his hair without his entire flipping head coming along with the ride. With everyone shouting instructions at the same time, she couldn't see any way to get out without shoving aside Lucius's naked arse.
"Hermione, here," another voice called above the ruckus. A hand was extended out to her above flailing limbs.
Hermione's eyes widened as she saw who the helping hand belonged to. Harry too, oh thank God. He'd come to rescue her, of course he did.
Reaching forward to grip her hand tightly, Harry paused and frowned as he seemed to notice her hand stuck in Lucius's hair. A quick propulsion charm managed to free her from the melee at the expense of Lucius, who shouted at the indignity done to his mane.
"Are you okay?" Harry's eyes were as wide as hers under his glasses, and she could see he was trying not to gape or giggle inappropriately or both. "What happened here? And more importantly, why are Malfoy and his father starkers?"
Hermione was afraid to look back to see again just how starkers the Malfoy men were. She was aware of an awkward little giggle bubbling up inside her throat herself, and she was still wet. She blew a wet curl out of her face and grinned at Harry. "Am I glad you guys are here! I've had simply the most dreadfully—"
"OI! A little help!"
Hermione turned back to find Ron trying to push off the floor with the sprawled figure of Draco on top of his back.
"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed as soon as Ron was free of Draco and was brushing off his robes as though he'd been spattered with bubotuber pus. "You came!" She was so touched to find the two of them there that she threw her arms around Ron.
Ron patted her twice on the back awkwardly. To Harry, he said rather sourly, "They all fall on top of me, and you're asking why they're naked?" Then, turning to Hermione, Ron asked, "You alright? They haven't—done anything to you, have they." It was less a question than a statement rife with threats of vengeance. His blue eyes were narrowed as he glared over at the Malfoy men, who had regained their footing. His hand flexed protectively on her shoulder.
Before Hermione could speak, Narcissa's imperious voice interrupted; as cutting as nails on chalkboard as she stalked forward, slapping the length of her wand against her palm as though she were about to exact vengeance from Hermione. "Exactly why are my son and husband naked with...you?"
To someone else—Hermione assumed it was Zabini even though Narcissa hadn't turned to address anyone—Narcissa snapped out, "Someone find robes or a covering of some sort! Quickly!"
She knew she'd sent a message off to Narcissa Malfoy, but presumably she'd been in England at the time. She didn't think that the Malfoy matron would be able to hightail it across the European continent at the drop of the hat, but here she was, with blue eyes so sharp that Hermione felt her insides lasered to cowardly goo. She felt instantly as though she should apologise for being clothed when they weren't, for being stuck between them, and for touching them unduly as she struggled to free herself.
There was just no immediate good explanation for what had happened, since it looked like she had been in charge of a fertility ritual starring the naked Malfoys.
"Er," Hermione said.
Ron chose that moment to say, unhelpfully, "Merlin, your hair's huge."
"Yes, thank you, Ron!" Hermione's cheeks were hot and flushed.
Harry hurried to pull her away towards the sofa. "Right, so maybe you should brief us on what happened."
Behind her, she could hear the sharp tones of Narcissa Malfoy demanding to know what exactly had happened and why the two men had ignored all her owls.
"Malfoy's in for it now," Ron said in a loud whisper as he loped after Hermione.
The three of them settled into the booth-like couch, with Hermione sandwiched between the two boys like old times. Hermione glanced at the three blond individuals huddled on the other side of the room, while simultaneously trying to seem like she wasn't looking. A whoosh of warm air flowed over her, blowing her hair all over her face and startling her. Harry had just dried her off with a spell.
She blinked. "Oh. Thanks, Harry."
Harry's eyes were obviously and shamelessly fastened on the Malfoys, where Narcissa was hastily transforming clothing for the men, and Hermione couldn't help but stare as well. With a wave of her hand, she'd floated over two cushions from the sofa and transfigured then into two robes, which looked far more fancy than anything hastily transfigured from cushions should be. They stretched and adjusted themselves so that they were of the right size before being draped over the two Malfoys.
Hermione noticed that the clothing had been dumped unceremoniously on Lucius's head, but Narcissa was talking much more care with Draco. Now she'd taken her son's chin in her hand and was turning his face left and right as though to check for serious injuries.
They'd enclosed amongst themselves; tall, imperious, and blond, and although not an insult had been spoken, Hermione had never felt so ostracised before.
She turned to be absorbed into Ron's hug. "I'm so glad you came," she said to him, completely honest. "It's been awful."
Harry patted her on the shoulder. "You still have your clothes on though," he said bracingly. "That means you must've won."
She managed a shaky smile at his attempt at humour.
"Yeah, what'd you do to them?" Ron asked in a loud whisper.
Harry seemed to have lost interest in the Malfoys and was scrutinising her closely. She must really look terrible, since his eyes had flickered up to her hair once or twice. "What happened to you? And that's not your wand, is it?"
Hermione's attention flashed to the wand in her hand. "Oh bollocks," she said and sighed. "No, it's not mine. It's—borrowed. In a manner of speaking."
Ron grinned at her and pulled at a strand of her curls. "Pinched it, did you?"
She elbowed him in the side. "Well, I had to. Mine was stolen, and there was a cult that was trying to sacrifice Draco and I suppose his father too—"
"Wait, yours was stolen? A cult? What cult?" Harry interrupted.
"Draco?" asked Ron at the same time in the same tone of voice as you'd use to point out that someone had poo on their face. "You call him Draco now?"
Hermione couldn't help the heat rushing up her neck and undoubtedly over her cheeks. Across the room, the Malfoys were thankfully all covered up now, though there was some gesticulating and agitated whispering that made her think that all was not well in Pureblood-land. Zabini appeared at the landing of the stairs, carrying two black robes over his arms, and handed them off to Narcissa with fanfare, as though he were playing the part of a waiter.
Hermione took a deep breath and dragged her eyes away. Ron had a strange expression on his face, like she'd betrayed him by sabotaging his favourite Quidditch team. "Oh, well—I can't very well call them both Malfoy, could I?"
"Focus." Harry waved a hand under Hermione's nose and shot Ron a look that questioned the latter's ability to fixate on irrelevant things. "What cult? This all sounds very dodgy."
"A cult composed of fit, deadly witches," Zabini said. In his smooth way, he'd strode over with a glass in hand and the other pilfered wand in his other hand. Without waiting for an invitation, although of course this was his boat, he squeezed in on the other side of Harry.
On the other side of the cabin, the Malfoys had disappeared down the stairs, presumably to another room to make themselves presentable or at least a lot less naked.
Ron's eyebrows twitched at Zabini's words. "Fit witches, sorry, what?" He straightened a little in his seat as though said witches planned on joining them.
Hermione was so distracted she didn't bother rolling her eyes at that. "It's a very long story." Maybe Draco wanted a say in how the story was told. When she glanced back at the other people with her, she found three pairs of evaluating eyes had been watching her watch Draco Malfoy's half-naked figure disappear down the stairs with varying degrees of judgement and glee. She cleared her throat. "I wasn't there for some of it."
"How did you even come across Malfoy in the first place?" Harry asked, as Ron looked as grossed out as he had when he'd swallowed Essence of Crabbe Polyjuice potion.
Hermione rushed into an explanation. "Well, when I ran across him, I was about to go on the felucca trip the very next day, and I saw pickpockets clear off with Malfoy's things—he was drunk, although I didn't know it was Malfoy at the time, and—"
"What was Malfoy doing in Egypt at the same time?" Ron asked suspiciously. "Odd sort of coincidence if you ask me."
"I think that had to do with his father, but you'd have to ask him. Or maybe Zabini?"
A glance at Zabini found him levitating the contents of the bar over to the table. Ron gave a shrug and took the drink that was set down in front of him. Harry ignored it all, instead keeping his intense green eyes on Hermione.
Hermione reached for the most innocuous looking bottle that looked similar to the packaging for Butterbeer and poured herself a glass. "Thanks, Zabini."
"Well, you did manage to save my arse." Zabini gave an effusive wave of his hand. "A Birrificio is the least I could do."
Harry cleared his throat and jogged his knee under the table. His hand fidgeted on top of the table as though he itched with the need to take notes on his notepad. "You saved Zabini? How'd that come about?"
"Right, but first—you have anything to eat around here, Zabini?" Ron interrupted, setting down his empty glass.
Hermione elbowed Ron in the side again and ignored his grunt of protest. While Zabini searched around, she filled Harry in on the rival groups in Egypt. She hardly noticed when a packet of Pumpkin Pasties flew over her head to be caught by Ron, who murmured, "Thanks, mate," before ripping apart the wrapping with his teeth.
"Wow," Harry said when she was finished. "You saw...that? They actually—cut it off and put it in...themselves?"
A Pumpkin Pasty froze midway to Ron's mouth as he gaped at what Hermione had just heard. "Blimey, that's—and Purebloods, you said?"
"No! It was just the one woman who did that, not an entire slew of them." Hermione felt twitchy and uncomfortable but also giddy and antsy. If someone had said, let's go do that all over again, she wasn't entirely certain she wouldn't have been the first to leap up and shout, yes! It was a very strange sort of feeling, like how she felt after taking five N.E.W.T.s in one day and being fairly sure she'd done well. Logic would have decreed she sleep for one full week, but instead she'd wanted to discuss every single question on the test and/or possibly retake the whole thing if possible.
"We were locked up in a cage," Zabini said, "until Granger there stole someone's wand and Imperio'd her into helping us."
Her face was bright red at the mention. "She wanted to help us in the end, Zabini!"
Ron broke off chewing to nod matter-of-factly. "I mean, that does sound like Hermione."
"Right." Harry adjusted his glasses and shrugged. "I'd assume she had her reasons."
"Bloody terrifying," Zabini muttered into the lip of his bottle. "And what's even worse is that you two don't even look surprised."
Ron made a loose gesture with his hand. "Well, she helped defeat Voldemort, didn't she?"
"She didn't do it waving butterflies around," Harry agreed.
"Although she's got that wicked bird hex if you piss her off—"
"Alright already!" Hermione cut in. She gave Zabini a smile that had his brow crinkle up in consternation and maybe a little terror. "Anyway, don't you think we should make a trip to return Nadi's wand to her?"
"What?" Zabini gaped at her. He'd spilled some of his drink on his collar, and yet he still looked urbane and cool. "Are you fucking serious, Granger? We've just got rid of her. I plan to get the hell out of this bloody terrifying place and never come back again."
"They've been through a lot, these women," Hermione protested and looked pleadingly at Harry. "They've been going round with locked wands for years and years. And it's turned out that Zabini and Malfoy had possession of stolen artifacts—"
"You're making it sound like Draco and I personally stole them from Egypt," Zabini interrupted, "and I'd like very much not to be arrested by two Aurors just when I'd finally managed to escape from a cage. They belonged to our ancestors, and we don't have much choice in what they chose to do, do we? And it's not as though we still have them. I gave mine away, for no compensation whatsoever," he announced as grandly as though he'd just personally saved the world from impending doom.
"It's not really our jurisdiction, is it." Ron had finished off two Pumpkin Pasties and was chomping his way through a third. "It'd be the Egyptian government who would come after you. That is, after they chopped off the body parts they wanted from you." He smiled beatifically at Zabini.
"You know, Draco might just have a point about you." Zabini sat back in his seat, cocking his head to one side as he regarded Ron. His cheek was slightly twitching as though he'd seen a bug and was itching to kill it. "You do rather resemble a leprechaun—the red hair and the—"
"Alright," Harry said, cutting them both off before Ron could bristle up. "How soon will we be out of Egypt?"
Zabini took some time to respond. He scratched the side of his neck. "We should already be in the Mediterranean."
"Already?" Hermione asked. It hadn't even been a full thirty minutes since she'd boarded. "Were you already this far north when we came in?"
"No, but it's a magical boat, Granger." Zabini didn't say it this time, but Hermione could read the obviously written on his face.
It alarmed and amused her to know that in the short time she'd spent with him, she'd come to know his mannerisms somewhat well. He'd probably be horrified that she no longer viewed him with that sense of awe that one did for someone so exceedingly and unfairly handsome, but she was tickled by the fact that he now bore a bit of awe for her right back. It wasn't the worst thing in the world for a Slytherin to be afraid of you.
Harry half-rose from his seat to look out the window, and Hermione also swivelled her head to follow his gaze. "How soon can we reach land? You said Italy right? I see lights."
"We shouldn't be there yet. Even this boat's not that fast," Zabini said. He leaned across the table and peered through the slats. "Wait, fuck, let me check the map."
There was a short silence as Zabini left them and strode swiftly away. Then all of three of them leaned forward over the table and rushed into speech.
"After this—" Harry said.
"We should—" Hermione said.
"I can't believe—" Ron said.
They all broke off and laughed. Hermione thought they were all sitting in mirror images of one another, shoulders hunched forward and hands lightly clasped on top of the table almost touching.
"Right, who goes first?" Harry said. "Hermione?"
"I've lost everything." Hermione shook her head and turned her hands over on the table so that they could see she only had a wand, and it wasn't even hers. "I don't even have my bag anymore. Or my wand."
Harry wrapped an arm around her shoulders and shook her once, bracingly. "We'll get you set up when we go ashore. Zabini told us he'd let us off on land. Sicily, I believe he said."
Hermione frowned in confusion. "But I thought Cyprus is closer."
"Cyprus is an island, isn't it?" Ron asked. "We'd still have to Portkey back to the Continent if we went there."
"Oh right," Hermione said, feeling foolish. "Sorry, I've been awake for ages now. I can't wait to get into an actual bed. A bath. And I still need to return Nadi's wand to her."
"You're not serious, are you?" Ron asked. "Would have thought you'd never want to return to that place."
"It wasn't all bad." Images were popping up in Hermione's head, of the top of Mt Sinai where she'd held hands with Draco Malfoy and felt at peace with the world for the first time since she'd left for Egypt. Of swimming in the Nile with him and dunking his head in when he kept circling her like a shark. Of them sharing that strange, inappropriate kiss in the police station.
Which led her to think of the robber wizard, the mugging on top of the mountain, and being led straight into a strange ritual at Luxor after walking around for an hour.
She laughed, and then didn't stop laughing until she was wiping tears from her eyes.
Ron and Harry shared a look. "I think Egypt broke her," Ron said, an uneasy smile playing on his mouth.
Harry patted her awkwardly on the back. "Hermione, we'll replace everything. We'll get your books back," he said, which made her laugh harder, because he did know her very well. "The bag—well, wasn't it starting to look a bit ragged?"
"I'll buy you a new one." Ron hugged her from the other side. "As soon as we get away from this place. What do you think, Harry? Is there time for us to look around Italy a bit? I've never been, and well, the Portkey is self-activating, isn't it? I've saved up a bit of money recently, so the next meal's on me."
"You've saved up a bit of money?" Harry asked. "How've you done that, when you've been taking some witch around all this time?"
Ron blinked at Harry for a moment, and Hermione could have sworn he blushed. "I haven't!"
"Well, you couldn't have been if you're flush." Harry gave Ron a penetrating look. "Then where have you been recently? Why haven't you been around for meals?"
Ron looked from Harry to Hermione and then harrumphed in a way that was guaranteed to have both of them raise their brows suspiciously at him. "I mean—working, of course."
"Something happened while I was gone, didn't it?" Hermione said. "Is it—"
The rest of the occupants of Zabini's yacht all converged at the same time. Zabini was holding a large piece of parchment with moving squiggles, and Draco, with his parents behind him, had emerged from the stairs.
Draco hadn't been kidding about his mother knowing all the cleaning spells. He'd looked caked over in mud and grime, bearing three days of scruffy blond beard, and his hair had been sticking up in odd places. After five minutes with his mother and a borrowed robe from Zabini which—to give the latter credit, he did have extremely snazzy taste—Draco looked like a new man. The scruffy beard was gone, his hair looked fully cleaned and brushed to a side part, and his cheeks were glossy and slightly pink from an overexertion on a cleaning charm. When he reached over for a glass, Hermione instantly felt she needed a full week in a bathtub, because even Draco's nails were gleaming.
"There's good news and bad news." Zabini held up the parchment which proved to be a magical map with numerous ships shifting around on the blue portion. "Which do you want first?"
"The bad," Harry and Hermione said at the same time Draco and Ron said, "The good."
Zabini raised his eyebrows and glanced at each of them in turn. "Right, so all at once then. We're coming up on land, but it's not Italy. The imp that's steering the boat wanted to visit Greece instead, so he's directed us past Crete, and we're coming up on the peninsula right now, or that's what he said." He looked confused but not particularly bothered by any of this. "He's a bit incomprehensible at best, my imp."
"What's the bad news?" Hermione asked. She actually wanted to launch into a lecture on enslaving magical imps, who had been whispered to have been collectively chained up because of their evil nature, but truthfully she wasn't certain she had the energy right now. Maybe in another hour.
She wasn't rewarded for her forbearance. Zabini gave a look like she was stupid. "We're in Greece instead of Italy."
"It's alright with me," Ron said, and Harry nodded.
"We can get back to England from Greece. It's got a treaty with England, right, Hermione?"
"Yes, we wouldn't even have to cast a Traveller's Charm," Hermione said. Normally she would have told them all about the history behind the conflict between Greece and Turkey that started with the legend of the Black Sea, but she was additionally too distracted by the reappearance of Draco. He looked tall, blond, and remote in the way he'd always looked, and dressed in the family's signature black again. The only thing that looked familiar was the irritated expression on his face that made her hesitate to say anything to him.
He didn't say anything to her either, his eyes running over the three of them on the sofa, his eyebrows snapped together over his nose like he'd eaten something that disagreed with him. She didn't even want to tell him he looked better, because honestly she'd preferred him with a much more open face, even if it meant he looked scruffy and unkempt. It made her feel as though lines were being drawn again, and the gap that'd shortened while they'd been on vacation together was widening into a cliff the size of the Mediterranean.
It was Narcissa who spoke up on behalf of the Malfoys. "It's very kind of Blaise to want to take us all the way back to England, but since we're already on shore, we'll make our own way back home."
Lucius was looking stiff-lipped and silent, and not even his revamped glossy hairstyle could erase the lines of exhaustion from his face. Hermione wondered if his wife had just rung a peal over his head. They'd heard nothing up here, but that didn't mean that they couldn't have had a massive blow-out belowstairs, especially considering that Narcissa was the only one of the bunch who currently possessed a wand.
Draco wasn't looking anywhere at Hermione, and well, that was rather his prerogative. He'd bent his head down over the map that Zabini had handed over to him, and he was currently perusing it with a deep furrow between his brows and an intensity like the ship was his personal responsibility.
"Miss Granger," Narcissa said, and Hermione's head snapped up. At no prior point in her life had the Malfoy matron ever addressed her before, and that was including the time someone had introduced them to one at the Ministry where there were no Death Eaters forcing Hermione to bleed on someone else's carpet.
She felt unaccountably nervous for some reason.
"It's come to my attention that you were the one responsible for freeing my husband and son from their predicament. We are much obliged to you for your altruism." Narcissa had the same way of addressing people with her head tilted back so that she was always looking down her nose at others. Granted, it was a very lovely nose, but Hermione felt vaguely as though she should curtsey. "It is also my understanding that you have lost a considerable number of possessions in your dedication?"
Hermione couldn't help her eyes flickering over to Draco, who was now looking out of a window as if he couldn't wait to get out of here. Something inside of her shrivelled, but she firmly pulled herself up. "A few things, yes, but it was no trouble."
"Nevertheless." Narcissa gave her a chilly smile. Hermione could feel Ron and Harry frozen on either side of her. "If you could draw me up an itemised list? We shall be happy to reimburse you for your troubles."
Next to her, Ron jostled her elbow, and Hermione's jaw was beginning to set. Was this the Malfoy way of thanking someone? If so, they could keep it. She felt more like she was a beggar seeking charity. The terms that Narcissa was using—predicament, altruism, reimburse—all of them made Hermione feel distinctly grubby, as though any decent person in the same situation wouldn't have acted in the same way she had! "No, thank you," she said equally coldly. "I'm only glad that I was able to do some good for the nation."
Narcissa's eyebrows rose. "Indeed. How kind of you to equate the Malfoy well-being to the good of the nation."
"I was referring to Egypt," Hermione said. She was trying to present her coolest front, but Harry emitted something that sounded like a muffled snort, and it almost ruined everything.
The way Narcissa's eyes flickered over to Harry on her side showed that her hearing was not impaired in any way. "I was the one who informed the imp to deposit the three of us at the nearest mainland port. I trust it shall not prove too inconvenient for the rest of you?"
The way it was phrased prevented anyone from claiming that it was an inconvenience, not even Zabini though it was his boat and his imp. From the look on his face, this particular piece of information was also news to Zabini.
"Marvellous," Narcissa went on to say all by herself. Not a single person in the cabin had spoken up to contradict her. "Mr Potter and Mr Weasley, again my thanks for accompanying me halfway across the world. Please do feel free to enjoy the rest of the trip." She waved a hand, and a House-elf appeared out of the blue.
Hermione had shrunk back into the seat with the crack of sound accompanying the House-elf's sudden appearance and grabbed onto Harry's hand by instinct. There was a sharp intake of breath when Harry saw the House-elf that made her wonder if Harry had known this elf too.
When she glanced back up, however, she met Draco's silver gaze and all thoughts flew out of her head. He looked almost...accusing. That couldn't be the right description for it, could it? And why would he look like that?
Her mouth opened to ask, and she was pushing Ron out of the seat at the same time. Behind her, Harry crowded close behind her, holding her by the upper arms, standing pressed up against her back and forming a protective shield as they were wont after what she'd gone through at the Malfoy Manor.
"Sassy." If Narcissa was aware of the tension in the room, not by one hair did she reveal it. She nodded at the House-elf, and the small creature stepped forward with a small satchel of coarse fabric, handing it to Ron, who took it dazedly.
Something clinked inside the pouch, and before Hermione regained the presence of mind to reject it, Narcissa smiled briskly at the three of them. "Now that's all settled, we'll be off. Blaise, if you will?"
Clearly that was a signal that Zabini understood, because he nodded and led the way out of the cabin. Draco didn't glance at her as he passed. The chilly breeze wafting in from the open door made her realise just how far away from Aswan they were. They'd clearly made extraordinarily good time for them to be out of Egypt and this far north by now. The yacht was powered by an even greater magical force than the Knight Bus.
As soon as the four of them had exited the room, Ron let out a breath of air. "Merlin, that woman's just as frightening as Bellatrix."
Hermione gazed out of the window. The boat had docked in front of an arched stone doorway not five metres from the shoreline. Aside from the bright moon shining down on them, the island in front of them was like a rather bulbous turtle shell floating in the water. Although it was late, there were still enough lights lit up in the village nestled at the foot of a steep sandy plateau. Despite the low light, Hermione could see the remnants of the medieval walls of a fortress town, with the buildings in the Byzantine style. It was clearly a tourist town, with the clean-swept streets and the shop fronts brightly lit despite the hour.
"Well," she said and slowly let out a pent-up puff of air. It was ridiculous of her to feel so rejected, but that was exactly how she felt.
Would it have killed Draco to look her in the eye before he left?
But then, maybe she had overstepped. He'd told her to leave, after all, not ride in to his rescue.
Something that felt like resentment began to simmer below the surface. How dared he? How fucking dared he? Even Zabini had thanked her for rescuing him, and she didn't know him half as well as she'd gotten to know Draco!
"What's in the bag?" Harry was asking Ron.
Ron jingled it and gazed at them with disbelief and amazement. "I think—I think she gave us gold."
Harry shook his head. "Let me check." He waved his wand over the pouch several times to check for spells, and then he opened it and barked out a laugh. "You're right. That family's barmy. It's so much gold—d'you suppose it's to reimburse us for the trip back? Or maybe it's for Hermione and her books."
Hermione peered over, her eyes quickly counting the coins. "There has to be a hundred Galleons in here, easily." She rocked back on her heels. "How much will a Portkey back to Britain cost?"
"We already have one for the way home," Ron said. "We stopped in France on the way here and got one for the way back." He shrugged and looked at Hermione for confirmation. "Though I suppose we had thought we'd be leaving from France instead of all the way here in Greece."
"We should get a connecting one, but it shouldn't run to the amount of a hundred Galleons. I suppose all that money is just—recompense." She felt so sick to her stomach that she couldn't even talk. All that talk about them being friends now was just until his parents could show up and rescue him. And being paid like this—it felt so cold and wrong.
Outside, she could see the movement of the Malfoys as they stepped off the yacht and into the shallow rocky shore. There was an arched stone doorway not five metres from the waterline, and one by one, they moved together and through the opening. Zabini stood for a moment watching them disappear and then his back also vanished from view of the windows.
Ron lifted the bag so that it was next to his ear and shook it, clearly entranced by the sound of that many Galleons. "Well, I know what we're doing next. Here's to a good Greek feast."
"No," Harry and Hermione said at the same time, and Ron sighed.
"We're Aurors. We can't accept bribes. We need to itemise all the costs incurred and bill it to them."
"Harry's right." Hermione folded her arms across her chest. "It's also dirty money. I'm not touching it."
"But what about your bag? Your books?" Ron asked. "Didn't you say that you got mugged while helping Malfoy get back to England?"
"Well, I'll draw up a list, like Harry suggested, and I'll bill them for it, and not one knut more."
"Fine," Ron said with another sigh. "So are we getting off here too or what?"
Harry glanced over at Hermione for approval, and she shook her head. "We'll go to Italy like Zabini originally suggested. We don't need to travel with the Malfoys. Good riddance to them."
Her voice was so final that neither man spoke for a long moment. Then, "Right," Harry said. "Well, there's Zabini now. Let's ask him where he's headed."
After a moment, Hermione nodded.
Her Egyptian trip was at an end.