A/N: *Bouncing in my seat because I'm so excited for this week's chapters*
Side note, I'm living for the response to this story. Really makes me want to just have the whole damn thing done and out, but I'm totally not there yet. This might come as a shock, but I don't have a beta reader and I do all my editing with the help of my 19mo and 4yo. That being said, I'm going to totally miss a few things. If you see any errors, please don't be afraid to point them out so I can fix them!
I'm not too proud to go through and edit past chapters, ultimately makes the story better and my heart happier. Also, totally taking "worse case scenario" game from This Is Us, because it's for sure something I do with my husband to make myself feel better. Oh, I do hope you enjoy this full platter of fluff sine the next two chapters will be plot driven. More notes at the end.
Chapter 9, The Greengrass Sisters
Hermione stepped off the lift and onto the floor of the DMLE, making a bee line straight for her office. After finding out that Aurora is a veela (tentatively), Hermione had gathered her up and brought her home to finish off the weekend relaxing just the two of them. Her parents had been out for a late evening with their friends that had flown in from Australia, and had gotten home long after Hermione and Aurora had fallen asleep.
Being that they had been out much later than their usual, neither Helen nor Roger had been awake when Hermione had gotten herself up and ready for work. With them having a lie in, she hadn't had a chance to tell them about the news about Aurora yet and felt that it should be a conversation had with them in person, rather than leaving a note or shooting them a quick text.
Hermione also knew that they also had would have no idea what a veela was, as the only time she'd ever mentioned them was after the quidditch world cup the summer before her fourth year. That meant, instead of just telling them, she wanted to have a few texts for them to be able to reference after their conversation as well.
An owl had already been sent off to set an appointment with the veela specialist at St. Mungo's, so that they would need to go over in addition to whatever testing and such would need to be done to confirm that Aurora is a veela. Fleur had eventually come back around to let Hermione know that the specialists could monitor veela children as they grew old for progression of their abilities as they got older before they were able to full transform.
The reply from the specialist had already come back, and the appointment was set for Wednesday afternoon. Meaning that Hermione would be taking that entire afternoon off, not knowing exactly how long the appointment would take with whatever tests were needed to be run or what they would be discussing. Thus, she had resolved that she would be spending today and tomorrow working late to ensure that she didn't fall behind nor any cases she was involved with fell through the cracks.
With Hermione arriving so early at the ministry, there was no one else on the floor with her while she dove into the reports that had come in since Friday. As soon as Kenneth had stepped in to bring her morning coffee, she'd instructed him to rearranging her Wednesday afternoon.
Glancing at the clock hanging on her wall, Hermione realized that it was late enough in the morning that Harry should by now be in the office. Hermione stretched and decided that it would be best to go find him to let him know what was going on with Aurora. Unlike with her parents, Hermione could just freak out over all the worst-case scenarios with him and realize that it really wasn't worth her working herself up as much as she had. Somehow just saying what the worst that could possibly happen just put everything into perspective, and no one could get as morbid with her as Harry James Potter.
Making her way out of her office, Hermione quickly slid past every Auror and MLE officer that tried to stop and ask her for help or for a favor. It wasn't that she didn't want to help them, but honestly, she was the newest employee on this floor. All of these people knew what forms they needed to be filling out. It was completely absurd that they would ask her about filing their own evidence, but Hermione knew that no one became an Auror for the hours of paperwork.
After she'd dislodged herself from one very persistent Auror who had just seized trick wands that had gotten in the hands of some muggles, Hermione was finally to Harry's office. "Hey Jasmine, is Harry is yet?"
Jasmine, who had been working as Harry's assistant since his promotion was a beautiful woman with thick black hair and equally dark eyes. Her chestnut skin tone always seemed to be glowing and without any imperfections or blemishes. Besides being Harry's assistant, Jasmine had a real talent for cosmetology, and always came into work (regardless of the early hours she kept) with the most elaborate looks. Not only was she talented and beautiful, she also had a charming personality that was just nice and made everyone like her, much like Rachel. Hermione suspected that if Rachel and Jasmine were put in a room together with all the world's leaders, they could probably negotiate world peace.
"Hullo, Hermione. No, I just got a note that Harry is going to be working from home today. Theo came down with a 'cold' and Harry is staying with him to take care of him." Jasmine said giving Hermione a wink. Hermione couldn't help but laugh and give a little shudder thinking about her pseudo brother 'taking care of' his husband all day.
"If you'd like, I can leave Harry a note that you came looking for him. I wouldn't recommend floo calling him, I made that mistake once. Haven't been brave enough to ring them at home again since." Jasmine's shiver let Hermione know that she had also had the misfortune of witnessing one of Harry and Theo's 'sick' days.
Laughing at the poor girl's pain, because no one ever should ever be subjected to the debauchery that is Harry and Theo's sex life, Hermione shook her head at Jasmine. "No, no. I'll catch him tomorrow when he's back in the office. Thanks anyway." Hermione turned away with a wave and started to make her way back towards her office with full intentions to lock herself away until the end of the day so that she couldn't be distracted with mundane questions or tasks. Without Harry here to get her past the 'my daughter is a veela and I have no fucking idea what to expect', Hermione was set in her determination to get thoroughly caught up.
Fate, as always, had other plans when it came to Hermione's plans. She'd hardly made it down the hall, before a familiar southern accident calling her name, made her stop and turn around to see one of her favorite co-workers waving at her. Once the had made eye contact, Rachel quickened her steps down the hall, heels clicking against the marble floor, and carrying a file in one arm; waving with the other. Hermione couldn't stop the grin that spread across her face at her approach.
"Rachel, how can I help you?" Once Rachel had caught up to Hermione, they fell into step, and continued onto Hermione's office.
"I have a case that I'm going to need you to testify for as an expert witness later this week. Zacharias Smith? I'm not sure if you know him or not, but we're nailing him to the wall next week. He's been peddling bogus master's programs and paperwork to unqualified witches and wizards for years; oh, it's become a fucking nightmare. He was using Runes to let people place orders at some bar in Knockturn Alley, can't remember the name off the top of my head. Anyway, fucking ass was even using his old family ties to Helga Hufflepuff to throw his weight around, as if an educator would have ever approved of this bullshit. His fucking defense is to plead not guilty, so if I can get you on the stand to explain his fucking ordering system to the Wizengamot, there's no way he's walking free."
Hermione and Rachel had made it to Hermione's office, where they closed the door so they wouldn't be interrupted. Hermione had heard through some gossip at work that there had come out a group of potions masters that weren't actually masters and had been brewing potions that were not only subpar, but also making people really sick.
There were also a few charms and transfiguration masters that had caused a stir in the muggle world when their spells hadn't actually worked very well. The worst fake transfigurations master had involved a park bench that had been transfigured into a public loo at a bloody muggle park, of all places. It ended up with a muggle, that hadn't been affected by a repellent charm (it was probably cast wrong), and resulted with an indecent exposure charge when the loo he was using transfigured back into a bench and was caught was reliving himself out in the open on the bench. An entire team had to be called out to obliviate the group of muggles that had been out for a family reunion and to stop the muggle police from arresting the man. It had been a mess.
The bloody contractor that had hired the 'master' for the transfigure job had tried cutting cost for installing the damn loo with a transfigure job by one of the cheapest transfiguration masters he could find. It ended up costing the ministry twice what it would have cost for the fool to just hire someone to come in and build a fucking public toilet to begin with, but that was neither here nor there.
"Zacharias Smith giving out bogus masters, somehow this just doesn't surprise me. He always was a right prat in school. Alright let me see what you have, I'll happily be an expert witness against him." Hermione had settled herself behind her desk with the file that Rachel had been carrying. While she read, Rachel helped herself to the tea cart that also held a small coffee pot, and poured herself a cup of coffee before waving her wand over it to make it an iced coffee.
It didn't take much to see that this case against Zacharias was air tight and that even without her testimony that Rachel would be able to get the guilty verdict with ease. "Gods, he actually had someone who was selling their contraception potions to an apothecary and instead of preventing pregnancy it was promoting it. This is, wow. This is all really bad."
"Hm, oh yeah. You should see the increase in births. Luckily, we got it pulled before it got too out of hand and had only been out for two months. As it is, Hogwarts in eleven years is going to have a rather full first year class. Fuck, excuse me." Rachel had dropped her cup and fell sitting behind Hermione's desk as she looked up and saw Cormac McLaggen come swaggering past Hermione's office window before he let himself into Hermione's office without knocking.
"Cormac, can I help you?" Hermione asked with an annoyed tone at the intrusion, but also making sure that her eyes didn't travel down to the witch that was currently huddled on the floor hiding from the obnoxious man standing in Hermione's doorway.
"Granger, I thought I saw a picture of you in the paper last week. I was coming to see if you'd like to grab a drink after work. I would have come to see you earlier, but Uncle Tiberius had me busy and out of town on some business for the Wizengamot. You know how it is working with them, so much influence with the minister and other leaders, all very important people." The arrogance was radiating off the man as he continued to make his way into Hermione's office, being uninvited wasn't going to deter him. Running his fingers over the trinkets that she had sitting on the top of her bookshelf, Hermione shuddered when he lingered a bit too long over one of the priceless artifacts she'd found at a site in Chili. The piece of pottery was priceless, and knowing this buffoon he would break it without blinking twice.
"Er, no. I'm actually getting ready for another meeting," gesturing towards the files splayed across her desk to drive her point home. "So, I must ask you to leave so I can finish preparing myself. I'll be here late and have to be back in early in the morning. No time for a Monday night drink, unfortunately." Hermione had schooled her features to try and keep her repulsion of Cormac off her face, but she knew that it was a losing battle. She never could stand him in school, and it seemed that age had only made him worse.
"Very well, I'll put something down for us for next week then." Cormac gave a wink, that he clearly thought was seductive, and backed away out of her office (without closing the door) and was gone.
It wasn't until they could clearly hear him flirting with another unsuspecting witch before Rachel let out a breath and leaned back with a laugh and smile up at Hermione.
"Thanks for letting me hide. Gods, a girl makes a mistake once and he thinks it's a lifetime open invitation." Rachel had pushed herself off the floor and was flattening out the cream trousers she was wearing that had gotten creased while she'd hidden.
"Hold on, we're going to have to rewind for a second. You shagged Cormac McLaggen?! Rachel! I thought you would have had better taste than going for him! He's a bloody wanker, possibly the biggest wanker to walk the earth!" Hermione couldn't help the laugh that escaped from her throat at the thought that Rachel had had such a clear lack of judgment and fallen into bed with such a sleaze bag.
"Okay, okay, in my defense, it was my first ministry Christmas party and Drake was the only person that I knew at it. He'd brought that banshee he's married to and so I lost my babysitter and my voice of reason for the night. Merlin knows, I'm never living that down. Drake still like to bring it up for a good laugh, completely at my expense. It's been almost five years, and McLaggen still thinks he has a shot."
Feeling bad for the woman, Hermione went on to tell Rachel about how she'd invited Cormac to Slughorn's Christmas party her sixth year to get back at Ron and how anytime he saw her he was still asking her out, even after all almost thirteen years. It wasn't much to console Rachel, since all it showed was that no matter how much time had passed, he still thought he had a shot with any witch he wormed his way into their bedroom.
Hermione and Rachel settled themselves in with some more coffee and a few biscuits swapping more stories of Cormac's attempts to woo them, when they heard a screeching coming from the ballpen towards the front of the MLE pulling them both from their conversation.
"DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM! YOU CAN'T PUT ME IN HERE LIKE I'M SOME SORT OF COMMONER! I DEMAND AN AUDIENCE WITH MY SOLICITOR, YOU CAN'T SPEAK TO ME THIS WAY!"
Hermione had hardly stuck her head out before she heard Rachel summoning her patronus. A large silver orca was taking up Hermione's office when she turned back around and heard Rachel sending a quick message. "Drake, you're going to want to down to the DMLE. Sounds like the wench got herself arrested again; I'll go sniff out what's happening while you deal with her." The orca nodded its head after rubbing its face affectionately against Rachel's cheek, then disappeared; swimming through Hermione's ceiling and out of sight.
The screaming and shouting continued, but Hermione was struggling with understanding what was now being said by the shrill voice, that she assumed belonged to Astoria Malfoy from Rachel's response to hearing it. "Is it safe to assume that this isn't the first time Astoria's been picked up for something?" Hermione asked Rachel while she was busy gathering up her case files that had been spread all over Hermione's desk.
"Oh, well she gets picked up about once every six months or so with possession of pixie dust. Drake always has to pay an arm and a leg to get her out of trouble, and obviously it looks even worse on him since he's a fucking ministry prosecutor. Gods, when Marcus, her sister's husband, gets picked up with the cow, it's an even bigger mess.
"Alright, I have to go see what's going on with her to see what damage control I can do for Drake before the fucking shrew can making it worse on him. Fucking harlot, can't wait for Drake to divorce her ass and be done with the entire mess that is the Greengrass sisters. I'll see you tomorrow to finish going over this file." And with that, Rachel was out the door and making her way towards where Astoria could still be heard shouting obscenities.
Hermione knew that she really had no right getting herself involved in the mess that is Draco's marriage, but Hermione couldn't help herself wanting to see what was going on with the junior Malfoys. Hermione justified her snooping as she was eventually going to be telling Draco about Aurora, and by extension, Astoria would find out about her. The fact that his wife seemed to be completely unstable was blaring concern for Hermione, because just how much would Astoria be involved?
Her snooping had nothing to do with Rachel mentioning Draco might be divorcing Astoria in the near future. Draco divorcing? That meant nothing to Hermione, nothing at all…
Hermione swiftly made her way through the department, following the sounds of Astoria's threats (really not helping your case) and came up on a scene that made her pause. Hermione had only seen two cases of people high on pixie dust, and neither time had been nearly as disturbing as the scene unfolding before her very eyes.
Astoria was bouncing all over the holding cell while bursts of magic were blasting off her and repelling back towards her, knocking her back to the floor. She would jump to her feet and start making threats against every MLE officer that she would have all their jobs for how they were treating her and falsely imprisoning her.
A loud wail pulled Hermione away from watching Astoria, where she could now see another woman cowering on the ground of the holding cell. Hermione assumed this woman was Daphne Greengrass, as she closely resembled Astoria in hair color, build, and size, was sitting with her face in her hands. Her behaviors and reaction to the pixie dust were the complete opposite of her sister. Where's Astoria was bouncing around screaming in a frenzy, Daphne was rocking back and forth crying, refusing to lift her face to acknowledge anyone. Her golden blond hair was messy and dirty and her clothes looked like they'd been slightly torn in a scuffle, but otherwise Daphne physically appeared to be alright.
"Hermione, thank Merlin you're here!" Hermione turned in time to see Dean Thomas running towards her holding a roll of parchment. "With Harry out, you're sitting supervisor for the department right now." What the fuck, since when? "And we're going to need you for this mess. They're both coming down from their trips, and with Mrs. Malfoy being high profile we can't have anything happen to her. Fucking Bradley tried transferring them to St. Mungo's and got himself blasted through a wall with Mrs. Malfoy's burst of uncontrolled magic core. No one can touch Mrs. Flint; her magic core is burning anyone who tries and as you can see, we've got to get them moved to St. Mungo's."
"Dean, what the fuck are you going on about? I'm not a supervisor, and I have very limited knowledge about the effects of pixie dust. Honestly, I'm the last person that should be up here helping at all." Hermione was turned her head away from Dean and started watching the sisters again. She could see their behavior was terrifying, but looking closer she could see a blue glow on Astoria and a pink glow over Daphne.
"Hermione, you're the best we have until Harry gets in, and we haven't been able to get through his floo. You're a quick study, so I'll just give you the basics of this drug. Pixie dust, it causes extreme moods; happy, sad, angry, excreta. When taken in extremely high doses, it can also cause the magical core to become unstable and for uncontrolled magic to burst from whoever's taken it, manifesting in different ways. That's why they're both in a containment unit until their cores are stable enough to be transferred to St. Mungo's for detox, but it could be anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours for that to happen. If we stun them, it'll knock them out for five to seven days, so unless it's an emergency or we have consent from a family member to do that, we avoid the use of stunners." Dean explained, while Hermione turned back to watch the sisters. She could see now what Dean was talking about. Daphne was in a pit of despair while Astoria was filled with rage. The glows covering their bodies also now made sense, as it was their unstable magic cores bubbling out of their bodies.
Hermione was getting ready to ask Dean for more details on the sisters when Draco came bustling onto the floor looking at his wife with the most disgusted look she'd ever seen on an adult Draco's face. After the war, Draco had changed so much, and the biggest change was he was he had become much more humble man. The way he was now looking at Astoria was as if she were scum that he'd just stepped in and dirtied his shoes.
"What happened." Draco asked not taking his eyes off his wife who had yet to notice him while she stalked back and forth in front of him.
"Mrs. Malfoy and Flint were found in muggle Birmingham high on pixie dust preforming magic in front of muggles. We've had to obliviate ten witnesses and send two of those to St. Mungo's for injuries caused by magic." Dean quickly answered Draco, stepping up and handing over the arrest records for both women.
Looking down at the parchment, Hermione could see Draco's eyes quickly scanning the records before cursing to himself and looking back to his wife, who had taken up to trying to blast her way out of the holding cell. "We're going to need to stun them both and get them moved before Lucius shows up sniffing around with Tiberius. They'll be in the hospital a bit longer for it, but it can't be helped. Since Marcus isn't here to speak for his wife, I'll give consent for my sister-in-law as well as my own wife."
Dean only nodded his head at Draco before moving into position and raising his wand. The first stunner hit Daphne, causing her to fall over into a heap. As soon as her sister's body hit the ground, Astoria turned to see Dean with his wand still raised. Astoria held up her hand and successfully blocked the next stunner that Dean had sent her way.
"YOU FILTHY MUDBLOOD! HOW DARE YOU HURT MY SISTER! I'LL HAVE YOUR JOB FOR THIS!" Astoria roared at Dean. Hermione couldn't help a glance at Draco, who still hadn't noticed her, and saw that his face had turned pink (probably in embarrassment and fury) at his wife's wild outburst.
Draco, who was now behind Astoria, raised his own wand and pointed it at her, shooting off a silent stunner. With a flash of red light, Astoria's racist rant was brought to an abrupt end with her body crumpling onto the floor. An uneasy silence was settling over the entire department while all the DMLE employees looked down at the now unconscious women in front of them. Hermione, who had been frozen, felt someone nudge her in the side and promptly snapped her jaw close.
"We're going to need a private room at St. Mungo's for them if you want to call ahead and let them know to get one ready." Rachel had at some point appeared next to Hermione and was whispering into her ear the instructions. With a nod, Hermione turned on her heels and quickly rushed back into the head of the DMLE's office to floo call St. Mungo's admissions, letting them know that they were about to have two witches admitted that were in an unstable condition.
The check in witch asked a few questions as to what state the women were in and what they were needing to be seen for, and Hermione quickly explained that they were high on pixie dust and had been stunned. After a few tense words about them being public figures that had to be cared for in the most sensitive manner, Hermione heard the woman letting out a heavy sigh with the news. After walking away from her desk to go make the arrangements, she'd come back instructing Hermione that they could bring them straight through the floo connection directly to the third floor where healers would be waiting for them. After hanging up the call, Hermione jumped from the office and ran back out to where Dean and Rachel were standing next to each other having a tense, but quiet discission.
Not wanting to interrupt them, Hermione knew that Draco would be the one mostly likely in charge of getting his wife and sister-in-law to St. Mungo's, so she walked over to where he was standing having a hushed conversation with one of the MLE officers that had responded to the alarm his wife had raised.
"Bloody embarrassment, yes if we could keep my father out of the loop until after she's been admitted to the hospital. Well, we had to stun them, so the bints will unconscious for about a week, less than they deserve." Hermione could hear Draco saying to the wizard he was talking to.
Before the other man could respond, he noticed Hermione standing off to the side, getting wide eyes with his eye brows raise, also drawing Draco's attention away from the conversation. Draco followed the other man's line of vision and easily spotted Hermione, who gave him a small wave to signal that she was waiting to speak to him. He quickly turned back to the man and whispered something else to him, that caused the man to nod his head and then Draco was walking towards her. If her stupid heart could stop pounding in her chest before he reached her, that would be excellent.
Hermione could clearly still hear the thumping pounding in her ears, but pushed away the feeling of being close to him again. Now was not the time for that. "I contact St. Mungo's for you. They have a private suite ready for them and said that you can floo directly onto the third floor to avoid going through the lobby." The first conversation that Hermione and Draco were having after having one of the hottest kisses of her life, and it was talking about his currently overdosed wife being admitted to the hospital.
Hermione held back a sarcastic laugh that was threatening to burst from her throat. Of all the conversations she needed to be having with Draco, this had never been on the list. Though, this now did put something else on her radar with telling Draco about Aurora. Rachel had mentioned that this happens about once every six months or so? That meant that Aurora's step-mother, someone who will be involved in her daughter's life, is addicted to and a current user of pixie dust.
There was no fucking way Hermione was going to put her child in a position where she was going to be exposed to someone who is regularly making her magical core unstable by doing so much pixie dust that she has to be hospitalized to detox. Hell, the fuck, no would Aurora ever be around someone in such a state. Watching Astoria and Daphne tripping on their highs was terrifying for Hermione as a grown adult to watch, she couldn't fathom putting her four-year-old in a position where she might have to see this.
Astoria wasn't Draco though, rationally, Hermione couldn't hold her poor choices against Draco. While it was scary knowing that Astoria is married to Draco, she couldn't use that as a reason to keep hiding the truth from him. Just, with having Astoria getting ready to be moved to St. Mungo's where she would be for the next week or so, Hermione concluded that today was not going to be a good day for her to drop 'you have a daughter I never told you about' on Draco. Looking at Astoria's unconscious form again, Hermione accepted that Draco had enough problems to deal with today.
Hermione was pulled out of her rapid thoughts by Draco looking at her, as if he wanted to say something. Raising her eyebrows in a 'go head' meaning, Draco took a breath and shook his head before whispering in a low voice "thanks, I've got to get them to the hospital. I'll have to see you later. Maybe tomorrow?"
Hermione nodded her head, not trusting herself to not blurt any of her other thoughts out while she still had adrenaline pumping through her body after what she'd witnessed. Without another word, Draco turned away from her and flicked his wand towards Astoria and Daphne, causing them to levitate into the air. Both still had the glow from their magic cores being unstable, making Hermione wonder how much longer it would be before someone could safely touch them without being injured.
Once Draco had disappeared into the head office for the DMLE to use the floo, Rachel rushed over to Hermione. She let Hermione know that she was going to have to head back to her floor to get all of Draco's appointments for the day rearranged and was going to be adding some of his workload onto her plate to help him out before she too also left Hermione.
Not knowing what else to do, Hermione went back to her office and shut herself inside. She made a new resolve that she was going to finish cracking Borgin's ledger for Draco this week so that he would have one less thing that he would have to worry about. The other thing she was going to get done was Rachel's case against Smith. Rachel, it seemed, was willing to go above and beyond for those that she kept close to her and Hermione wanted to show her appreciation the best way she knew how.
Staring at her schedule on her desk, Hermione circled next Monday. No more making excuses to herself. Hermione decided that she was going to tell Draco next Monday about Aurora, no matter what. Hell, if she had to she would even schedule a damn meeting with him to make sure it got done.
Next Monday would be the perfect time. She would have had a few days to process whatever the healers had to say about Aurora. She would have gotten to hang out with Harry and get her biggest fears out in the open. She would have been able to do some of her own research and talk to her parents about Aurora being a veela. Yes, next Monday, she was going to tell Draco Malfoy that he had sired a child.
With one last sigh, Hermione turned her attention back to the daunting workload on her desk and dove back in, ready to rid her brain of the sight she'd seen earlier.
A/N: Shout out is going to Royal Blood by Allthelove_Em on AO3, who gave me pixie dust as a magical drug. However, I did come up with what the high does on my own. Alright, Hermione's set a date to tell Draco about Aurora! What could go wrong, right?
I'm SHOCKED that I was able to get this update out today, but I was determined because I really want to post three this week. What I worked against; four hours of sleep, two sick kids, and having to go get my cat from the animal shelter. We made it. Off to go finish writing and editing chapters 10 and 11.