Author's Note: Happy Tuesday! This chapter came together a lot better than I expected and I was able to use a lot of what I'd written that wasn't the right fit for the previous chapter. I'm on vacation this week. Hot sun, cold water, and plenty of time to read and write! I hope this chapter brightens your day. I've made some good inroads into the next one. Thanks as always to Sunshine Katz for beta reading. Any remaining mistakes are all on me.

Chapter 10: Nott Manor

Over the next week, Hermione and Draco pored over the books he'd gotten from the Malfoy library, looking for answers. He'd even gone back to the Manor again and hunted specifically for the book with the "don't notice" spell she'd used out of the Hogwarts restricted section.

No luck.

"I wish you had stolen that book." It wasn't the first time he'd said it and it wouldn't be the last.

"It was Hogwarts property." He arched an eyebrow and she paused a moment before continuing. He knew her well enough now to know that she'd broken more rules than he'd ever have expected from her growing up. "Besides, there's a good chance there would have been a nasty spell reaction if I had taken it out of the library without permission. You know how Madam Pince is with her books."

It was true, he did. It was why he hadn't tried to take anything out of the library when he was working on fixing the vanishing cabinet—even though the work would have gone faster if he had had access to certain books. He rubbed his temples. "You're McGongall's favorite. She's Headmistress. Would she let you borrow the damn thing if you asked?"

Hermione grimaced. "Not without explaining why I need it." Which put them back at square one. She didn't want the Ministry involved in this, and she couldn't be sure that McGonagall wouldn't go to them, thinking she was helping her cause.

He reached for her hand and held it. "I'm planning to run into Theo Nott this weekend. I suspect there may be useful things in his library if I approach him correctly."

She looked at him. "You're going to engineer an encounter?"

He looked right back. "It wasn't so many weeks ago you did the same."

He had a point.

"This one will just be a little more work. I haven't seen him in months. With my general desire to avoid any and all social obligations in the last year…" He shrugged. Still, he could do it. He knew which watering holes Theo frequented, and he could drop word about Greengrass's availability—Theo did like just about anything in a skirt. He was still putting all the pieces together, but no doubt he could make it work. "Can we telephone for food?" Breakfast had been ages ago and he'd skipped lunch.

Hermione readily agreed. The words were starting to swim in front of her eyes and she could use a break. She pulled a stack of paper menus out of the drawer in the kitchen and brought them over to him.

He looked at the selection with surprise. "We have all of these options for delivery?"

She chuckled and rested her chin on his head for a moment before sitting back down. "Absolutely. All you need is a telephone and Muggle money and food will appear at the door. It's practically magic."

He mused. "What would it take to get a telephone at my flat?"

That surprised her. Then again, maybe not. Delivery would mean that he had to leave his flat and venture out among people less often. "I don't expect it would be hard. Ask your landlord about it—he may be able to arrange something without you needing to worry about a Muggle telecom man asking about your broom rack and potions. It's possible he's already got something set up with some of the other wizarding tenants; certainly his Muggle tenants have them."

"If I had a telephone, I could call you instead of having to wait for an owl to make the round trip."

She was startled into a smile. Merlin, just hearing him say he wanted to be able to call her probably shouldn't have warmed her as much as it did, but…it did. "Very true."

They sorted through the menus and found a kebab shop that looked good, but didn't deliver. Draco tapped his finger, annoyed, and slightly annoyed at himself for being annoyed in the first place. A month ago he didn't know you could call up a shop and have food delivered to your door in half an hour, and now here he was annoyed that a meal he wanted couldn't be delivered.

"It's only ten minutes up the street. I can pop out and get it and be right back," Hermione offered. She held the phone in her hand—it would still make sense to call in the order and have it ready when she got there.

"I'll go with you."

"Draco, you're wearing robes."

She was right. Green ones today. Tremendously soft and comfortable, but not at all suitable for walking around Hermione's neighborhood. "I've only got two sets of Muggle clothing. I only ever needed them for buying groceries before."

She leaned in with a twinkle in her eye. "The good news is, you have the ability to put on one of your two sets, go to the store, and pick out more."

He hadn't really considered it. It was stupid of him really, and he was not a stupid man. He was going to need more Muggle clothes if he spent more time going out with Hermione—and he certainly wanted to spend more time with her. There was really no need to go back to his robe supplier with another specialty request. If he was capable of buying groceries and order delivery in the Muggle world, surely he could tackle clothes shopping as well. He gave a nod and put it on his mental to do list for sometime next week.

Draco looked around the dimly lit pub. He knew there was no guarantee of finding Nott here tonight, but it was worth a try. He'd debated between trying three different pubs over the course of the weekend, or picking one and coming back each night. Given that a broken clock is still right twice a day, he'd decided to hit up the same one three nights in a row. If it didn't pan out this weekend, he'd try another one next weekend. He'd struck out last night, but it was Saturday now, and if anything, the place was busier.

He was parked in a corner where he had a wide view of the room, trying to keep tabs on who approached the bar as he nursed a drink in a chilled pewter cup. Over the course of the first three hours he sat there, two witches and a wizard approached him to try their luck with him. He rebuffed them as politely as he could. One of the witches was particularly persistent and he had to get rude before she gave up. Nothing got a witch moving like telling her she reminded him of the wrong end of a Blast-Ended Skrewt.

He had finally allowed himself to polish off the first drink and was contemplating a second one to draw out his evening when he spotted his quarry approaching the bar. Leaving his cloak on the chair, he slid himself out of his seat, adjusted his face to a careful mix of frustration and boredom. He timed it, reaching the bar at the same time as the other wizard, and "accidentally" jostled his elbow as he leaned in to put in a terse drink order.

The other wizard glared at him, right on cue. The glare faltered. "Draco?"

He let a beat pass before looking over at him, eyebrows slightly furrowed. "Theo? What are you doing here?"

He snorted. "Drinking, meeting witches. You?"

He gave a shrug and ⁵ be that much harder for Draco to weasel his way into the Nott library without giving the game away. "I think I've about had my fill of witches this week, though there will be more if my mother has her way." He nodded to Theo as if toend the conversation and headed back to his table in the corner, not looking back.

The pub was getting steadily more crowded and Draco was glad he'd left his cloak to save his table. He sat back down and took what appeared to be a long drink, tapping his fingers and looking idly around the room.

He wasn't even looking towards the bar when Theo approached and took a seat at his table without being invited. "I've got time. The really good looking witches usually don't turn up for another hour or so. Your mother trying to set you up again?" There was sympathy on his face. He'd come to an agreement with his father a year ago—he could sow his oats until he was twenty-five and he'd turn a blind eye, but he expected him to cooperate and settle down in a few years and "make the family proud." He figured he'd cross that bridge when he came to it, and never understood why Draco wouldn't just make the same arrangement with his parents. After all, enjoy today, and let tomorrow's problems wait until tomorrow.

Draco turned a sardonic eye on his friend. "Apparently my eligibility window is rapidly expiring. But Lady Greengrass would be happy to have me take Daphne off her hands as long as I act promptly."

Theo whistled. "Daphne's fit. You could do worse." He frowned and took a sip of his drink. "I thought I'd heard she was engaged to Higgs? Or was it Warrington?"

"Warrington."

Theo raised an eyebrow, wondering what had caused the split.

Draco turned his hand palm up, the tiniest version of a shrug he could give. If Warrington had been fooling around with Brocklehurst behind her back, that certainly might be embarrassing for Daphne and not something she would want him to spread. Of course it was also possible Daphne wasn't really onboard with becoming Mrs. Cassius Warrington in the first place and had made an arrangement of her own with Mandy to ensure an end to the betrothal. Salazar. Who knew? He wasn't going to dwell on it. "Well, the short of it is, Daphne is available, and I don't want to be anywhere near the Manor. I don't know how you're still living at home." He let a little bit of a sneer into his voice.

Theo dropped a shoulder, utterly blasé. "I do have the whole of the west wing to myself and my father doesn't ask questions. We stay out of one another's way."

The conversation drifted on. Theo talked about some of the girls he'd been with recently in more detail than Draco needed or wanted, doing the bulk of the talking. Draco pretended to finish off several more strong drinks in fairly short order. As Draco staggered off to get another, Theo was finally starting to look concerned.

"You need another one already, mate?"

"Works better th'n a Dreamless Sleep Draught. You want one?" Theo declined. Staggering off, Draco left his still mostly full cup at the bar, and came back with another. He leaned across the table and breathed a bit heavily in Theo's direction, knowing his breath smelled strongly of spirits. "I don' sleep good. There's things I don't wanna remember, y'know? I got out of there but…" He tapped his head. "Not out of here."

"Mate, there's…steps you can take for that."

"I'm not gonna Obliviate myself. Don't wanna end up drooling like Lockhart. I just want to enjoy what life I've got left now that the bastard's gone."

He studied his friend for a moment and then came to a decision. Leaning towards Draco and trying not to wince at his breath, he said quietly, "There's subtler options. I've got some books. Come by the Manor when you're sober and you can look around the library."

"You've got something?" He leaned across the table until his chin nearly hit it.

Theo nodded and motioned for one of the bartenders to come over and help him get Draco up and out of his seat. "Write me this week if you can remember tonight and we'll work something out." He turned to the wizard as he approached. "Do you have a Floo he can use?" If he had to babysit Draco in this state it would seriously cut down on his likelihood of finding a leggy brunette to go home with. Or maybe a redhead. He hadn't had a redhead in a while.

The bartender looked startled. He knew Draco Malfoy had been sending back mostly full drinks all night. But Draco had paid in full and always tipped well. He merely nodded in the direction of the fireplace. He hoisted Draco up and dropped him over one of his shoulders while Theo got on the other side.

They got him over to a fireplace where Draco managed to say the name of his flat clearly enough to make it home.

Theo watched him go, frowning slightly. He hadn't seen Draco in months, but he hadn't realized he was this badly off. He shook his head. The night was far from over and there was a witch at the bar with enticingly tight robes. Time to go buy her a drink.

Meanwhile, Draco sat in front of his fireplace with a satisfied smile and a glass of wine—he had to get the taste of the more potent spirits out of his mouth. He'd secured the invite he needed.

All in all, it had been a successful evening.

Lunch with Ron went about as well as Hermione could have expected under the circumstances. They'd had a perfectly friendly meal until he felt the need to press his point about Malfoy. She had hoped he wouldn't after their talk at the Burrow, but she should have known. He hadn't got his two Knuts in properly that night. Ron still seemed certain Malfoy was up to something. "He's always got an ulterior motive. What's his endgame? What's he getting out of this?"

She did her best to keep her tone level. Surely there were certain benefits to spending time with her. "You don't think he could be genuinely enjoying my company?"

Ron waved the possibility aside without acknowledging it. "He's probably doing it to rehabilitate his family's image or something. It's Malfoy. You're like a new set of robes to him or brooms for the whole Quidditch team."

"I'm a broom?" She asked archly. Really?

"You know what I mean. Malfoy buys what he wants and does it based on how everything looks."

"It's not Malfoy. It's Draco. We agreed to start over. If you can't accept that, then maybe you should keep your distance until you figure out how to grow up. And honestly, Ron, I would have thought you of all people understood." After all, hadn't they dated for a year and a half? Hadn't they lived together for the better part of six months during that time? And he couldn't think of any reasons Draco Malfoy would want to date her? Besides which, they'd been best friends for a decade. She'd saved his life more than once. She was livid, turning the full force of her glare on him.

His face went red and he scrubbed a hand through his hair. "You're acting as though I'm just a jealous ex. I'm not jealous. Godric, I swear I'm not. I just don't trust him."

Her mouth formed a thin line. "But you should trust me to know my own mind and choose my own company. Either you do or you don't. Harry and Ginny seem to understand."

Ron's face darkened at being compared to Harry. Such comparisons would probably always be a sore spot and Hermione knew it—especially if the context was that Harry was better than him in any way. "Harry and Ginny are too wrapped up in each other to pay much attention to anything else. I'm the one trying to look out for you. Didn't you even consider for one minute—"

"I've got somewhere else to be." She set money on the table for her half of the meal and picked up her bag, making her exit before anything else could be said. She hadn't been lying, she was going to be late if this went on much longer. She Apparated to Draco's flat as soon as she was outside the restaurant. She cursed herself. Even running late, she should have gone home first. She took a few deep breaths, trying to get her face under control before Draco realized she was there. She wiped her eyes. She wasn't even sure when she'd started crying. Dammit Ronald.

Coming out of his potions lab, Draco paused a second when he saw the state Hermione was in. He could see her doing the breathing thing—really, he would have thought she'd notice by now that it almost never worked to stop her from crying—and debated whether he should give her a minute to collect herself as she was trying to or rush in. Screw it. He rushed to her side and took one of her hands. "Hermione."

She tried to use her sleeve to wipe her face with her other hand. "I'm sorry, I—"

He took out a handkerchief and put it in her hand, bringing it to her face. "What happened?"

She took it and tried to wipe her face. "It really wasn't anything. I was having lunch with Ron." She saw his eyes narrow, as if he should have guessed it was Ron's fault. He wanted to hang the prat up by his ankles and dangle him over a lake full of Grindylows. "It was going fine until he acted like there was no reason you'd ever want to date me on my own merits. And then I lost my temper."

"The Weasel is an idiot. Utter moron." The gears in his head were churning. Certainly he'd let his mother think an ulterior motive factored into his time with Hermione—but that was because he didn't want to talk to her about his dating life. What sort of wizard could know Hermione Granger for a decade, date her for over a year, and still think there was nothing about her that would interest another man? His arms were wrapped around her. He felt like he should say something, but struggled to find the words.

"I'm sorry, I just need to have a glass of water and let my face clear up and I'll be ready to go. I must look like a strawberry." She had no illusions about what she must look like this minute. Some girls could cry prettily—she could not. Her face turned red and by now her nose was probably running. She started to move towards the kitchen.

He took her by the arm and towed her towards the couch, trying to decide whether he was going to hold her, or whether he wanted to be able to look her in the eyes. Deciding on sincerity over physical comfort at the moment, he seated them on the couch, tilting himself so that he could meet her eyes. "Hermione." He swallowed. Her lips were still shaking slightly as she tried to stop crying. Focus.

"I hate that I cry when I'm angry. I really do. It feels like it makes people take me less seriously," she muttered and mopped her face again. She tried to look away.

He reached out a hand to her chin and turned her face back to meet his. "I'm taking you seriously. You should start carrying handkerchiefs, seriously. You are resourceful. Selfless. Arrogant sometimes. Resilient. Beautiful. So good. Forgiving beyond all reason. A know-it-all. Loyal. Driven. Sensual. Absolutely hard as nails when it's least expected. Talented. I don't know how the Weasel could have had you and lost you and not realize just what he lost. But his loss is my gain."

The redness on her face might have been partly her tears, but also partly a blush. "And a nag. And frumpy. And practically an old lady since I was teenager."

He contradicted her. "You're not a nag. You're invested in the well-being of people you care about. You're not frumpy or an old lady—you're a confident, sexy witch who knows who she is." He growled in frustration and scrubbed a hand through his hair. Part of the frustration was for himself. The Weasel might have left her with some insecurities about her appearance, but he knew he couldn't blame it entirely on him as much as he'd like to. How often had he made fun of her hair? Her teeth? Her general lack of femininity?

Pulling her as close to him as he could, he kissed her fiercely, wishing he hadn't been such an ass as a teenager. But at least he'd grown out of it. Clearly the Weasel had gotten stupider or he wouldn't have let her go. He tried to pour everything that wouldn't come in words into that kiss. His breath was ragged as he broke away and said in her ear, "I know we haven't...yet. It's not that I don't want to. Salazar's teeth, I want you. But I know this is new. And we have history. And it's complicated. I'm willing to wait. But if it has ever crossed your mind that you think I don't want you that way...you're not paying nearly enough attention."

Hermione shivered, as much as the nearness of his breath on her skin as his words. Merlin, Circe, Morgana. She was sorely tempted to take him up on his offer right now. She tried to breathe deeply. It had only been a few weeks. There were reasons she was waiting; reasons she'd gone home at the end of each of their dates before things went too far. They needed time to get to know one another better as the adults they were rather than the students they had been. And figure out where this was going. "I know. And I want you. When I'm ready for us to...you'll be the first to know." She tried to inject a little humor back into the situation. "Besides, I would prefer that the first time you see me naked my face is a little less waterlogged." She made one last pass with the handkerchief and handed it back to him.

He set it down on the arm of the couch. "You could start carrying one of these, you know. I'll even get some monogrammed for you."

"But if I carried one, you wouldn't be able to dash in and offer one when I needed it. And I suspect doing a little rescuing is good for you."

Touché. With reluctance, he pulled himself slightly away from her. "Do you still want to go today?"

She nodded. Crying was self-indulgent and rarely useful. They had an opportunity today to make some progress towards finding her parents. It was time to get going. "Just give me a minute to put myself back together." She went off to the bathroom and with a few twists of her wand her hair and face were in order again with no sign of her tears.

Draco had a glass of water waiting for her when she came out and she took a long sip gratefully. "Theo shouldn't be home; he said I could have the run of the library. We're not likely to encounter anyone. That said, we might. You've got two options. You can go as yourself, and if it comes up, we can say whatever you want to say or don't want to say. Or, I have a Polyjuice potion and the hair of a random Muggle from the market this week, and you go as the girl I'm shagging—or attempting to—this week. An anonymous Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff who wasn't in our year." Time was getting away from them. They really should have been there twenty minutes ago. They should still have some hours before Theo got back from his boring Ministry job, but still...if they could avoid running into any of the Notts, so much the better. Besides which, there'd be a lot of ground to cover.

Hermione hesitated.

"If it's my potions skills..."

She chuckled. "No, I had a bad experience once. I don't think I'd ever take another Polyjuice potion without plucking the hair myself to make sure I know exactly where it's from. Besides, I know it tastes vile."

He raised an eyebrow. She'd indulged in Polyjuice? For what purpose? When?

She could sense the questions he wasn't asking. "Several times. But those are stories for another day...maybe. I'll go as myself and we'll take the chance. You never did tell me how you arranged this with Theo."

He offered her his arm. From what he remembered of the wards on Nott Manor from previous visits, as long as he was doing the Apparating—and Theo had already arranged for the wards to let his magic in—anyone he side-along Apparated would be able to get in as well. "I implied that the war was still giving me nightmares and that I couldn't sleep. He offered up some resources." It was more true than he cared to admit, even if he had no intention of modifying his own memory to quiet the nightmares. It was another reason to wait a little longer with Hermione. He knew he tore his bed to pieces some nights tossing and turning, or got up at ungodly hours to start potions when he couldn't rest.

She nodded and made no comment, though she was a little exasperated. While she was glad Draco hadn't divulged her reasons for needing access to the Nott library, it did seem a bit much that he couldn't just ask for the books they needed.

Nott Manor was nearly as old as Malfoy Manor. The grounds were perhaps not quite so extensive, but there was an understated elegance to the place. They arrived in a formal sitting room, though the atmosphere was rather disrupted by a few female undergarments peeking out from under the sofa. Draco rolled his eyes. "This is Theo's sitting room. Not that I imagine he does much sitting in it. But there's an entrance out to the garden through there, and Floo and Apparation can be accessed here so that his guests don't have to go through the main part of the house or the other wing where his father lives. Fortunately, the library is in the west wing here, so we shouldn't see the Lord of the Manor." So far they'd been lucky. He'd half expected the house-elf to appear at their Apparation—it was the usual thing—but hopefully Theo had left instructions regarding his arrival and the house-elf may have been told to leave him alone.

Keeping Hermione close, he led the way to the library, up three flights of stairs and down a long corridor. The wooden floors gleamed with polish and a thick carpet running the length of the hallway muffled their footsteps. A brass plaque on the door announced the library. The door was shut. Draco did not like shut doors particularly—not when he was on this side of them. He'd prefer to know what he was walking into. With a deep breath, he opened it. A piece of parchment flew at his face and flapped in front of him. Theo's voice emanated quietly from it.

"Welcome. Any of the books are at your disposal, but I think you'll find what you're looking for this way."

Hermione hardly had time to take in her surroundings. Shelves upon shelves of books lined the walls. There was a window with several plush leather chairs around a table. Diagon Alley had no public library, but the Notts had this...hoard? And this was one of multiple old wizarding family libraries that half-bloods and Muggle-Borns would never have access to. She made a mental note to talk to Arthur about where the best place to start for getting a public library off the ground in Diagon Alley. She only had a moment to gape at her surroundings before Draco's hand tugged her along after the flying parchment.

Zigzagging through the shelves it led them to a spiral staircase that wound its way around a little turret at one end of the room, though they couldn't seem to set foot on the stairs. There was some sort of barrier. The floating parchment gave a pass phrase in Theo's voice and the barrier gave. They could climb the stairs.

"I think what you want will be about three-quarters of the way to the top, but look around. Most of these haven't been touched in a while and I can't promise they're all where they should be," Theo's voice drawled. "Good luck." The paper crumpled itself up and landed on the stairs.

Hermione was scanning book titles already. Most Potent Potions. A Hundred and One Uses for Muggle Blood. Deadliest Herbs and Fungi. Merlin's teeth this was a depressingly malevolent collection. And not exactly the best organized. She probably would have put the blood book on the shelf about bodily sacrifices, not the shelf of deadly poisons, though she supposed there was quite possibly some overlap.

"We'd best start where he mentioned or we'll run the risk of not finding what we need before he gets home."

Hermione nodded. She didn't particularly want to press their luck. If she could avoid having to explain her presence to anyone who lived here, so much the better. Time to get to work. Worry about the horror of the Nott family's potions books another day. Today she needed memory alteration charms.

As Theo had guessed, three-quarters of the way up the staircase were books on mind-magic. The breadth of what was available was astounding and many appeared to have been handwritten—perhaps from members of the Nott family itself. In Hogwarts, mostly positive or uplifting mind-magic was learned—Cheering Charms, Draught of Peace, Giddiness Elixir. There were books on Legilimency and Occumency here. Flipping through one called Subtle Spirit she thought looked promising, she tucked it under her arm. She added a few others, not wanting to miss anything, until she thought she had about as many as she could carry. She looked at Draco.

He had a stack of books as well, but he had them levitating next to him. As he found another, he added it to the stack.

She blinked. Of course she could have levitated them. Shaking her head she performed a wandless charm and let the books float. She grabbed one more that looked promising.

"There's chairs and a table at the top if we keep going up. This should be enough to start us," he said.

Nodding, Hermione followed him up the rest of the stairs. As it was, she could hardly picture them getting through all of these in the time they had. They settled at the table and each took a look at the other's stack—Hermione didn't see the title of the Hogwarts book in Draco's stack, but it was worth a shot. He looked at her stack for anything familiar and pointed out the two he thought were the most likely place to start.

For over two hours, the only sound was the turning of pages and the scratch of their pens on notebook paper. Anything that looked particularly worthwhile they wrote down. Hermione was more than a little horrified by some of what she came across. One chapter in Subtle Spirit was particularly for extremely minor, hard to feel, hard to notice charms for influence and control. You might notice someone under a full Imperius curse; but when someone is just being nudged, bit by bit, you could do a lot of damage, especially over a long period of time. Reading the descriptions of how it had been used was horrifying. Worse was the feeling that it wasn't so different from the spell she'd used to suggest that her parents relocate to Australia—in fact, that spell had been less subtle than this. She shut the book and looked for another one—she didn't need to reverse their impulse to go to Australia. That spell was done—they'd gone and she hadn't put anything in it about making them stay there. She needed something on undoing memory modifications and extracting the false memories.

Blinking at the louder than normal sound, Draco looked up at Hermione in time to see her pushing aside the book she'd slammed shut and reaching for another. He had come to a dead-end in his as well and set it aside. He reached for another in his stack and skimmed through the chapter headings. Revisiting the Past. Pensieves and Their Shortcomings. Memories Disturbed. Seeding the Future. He flipped back to Memories Disturbed. "I think this is it."

Hermione looked up from the less than useful book in front of her. She needed to dig a clock out of her bag soon. There was no timepiece up here and the afternoon was getting on. "Let me see." She slid her chair around closer to his so they could both read the pages. She winced at the noise it made scraping against the floor. They hadn't been disturbed by so much as a house-elf in all the time they'd been up here, but wariness remained. Hermione hadn't been invited and Draco was here under false pretenses.

Memory modification is a double-edged knife. To modify a memory, it must be fully experienced. You must feel and handle the sensations in their entirety. To modify it well, you can leave out nothing—a poor patch job does more harm than retaining traumatic memories. If you are not up to the task, it is far better to extract than to modify (see Extractions section, part B of Seeding the Future).

This was it. It wasn't the book she'd used, but it covered the same ground. Her hands shook. She'd extract the false memories she'd planted and give back what she'd taken from them. After a moment of reading silently together, Draco began to read aloud for her while Hermione took copious notes. The odds were good that the books here had a spell to prevent them being removed without permission, but certainly she could copy anything she'd like. Engrossed as they were, they didn't notice the footsteps.

A voice drawled, "Well, well. Aren't we a little too old to be copying one another's homework?"