Chapter 13: Interim Head of Transportation

Hermione scratched at her thighs, stupid skirt as she sat impatiently in the giant war room of the Ministry. All parties gathered to discuss the full scope of the 'elf issue' and how the Ministry should proceed. Nearly every head of department was in attendance. Hermione's boss was the only one to bring an underling, as it was his subordinate who'd caused all this. He was not happy with Hermione.

An awkward silence filled the room as they stared at the two empty chairs. They were waiting on Draco Malfoy and his council to arrive. He was ten minutes late.

Hurry up, you blonde prat . Hermione thought as she shook her leg and chewed her lip.

"Hello, all." Draco Malfoy entered, an ancient and very whispy man followed behind. "This is Cyril, my brief." He gestured to the old solicitor, who appeared not to hear him. "CYRIL, THIS IS EVERYONE," he called to his lawyer, a smirk tugging his lips. "He's deaf."

"Mr Malfoy, you are ten minutes late." Kingsley chided the wealthy blonde.

"For a meeting I was summoned to this morning. If you want punctuality try perpetration next time, minister." he slid into his chair as though he were merely taking a seat at a cafe and fired her a smile. She sat directly opposite him. Hermione felt a thrill sprout through her. Here he was, acting the snake, sniping at anyone who dared come for him, when she knew underneath it all he was a goofy idiot who practised what he was going to say. She felt her cheeks redden, and her thighs clench.

"You'll be pleased to know we found no criminal charges to be brought against you, Malfoy." Kingsley, who could be just as petty as the next man, called down the long oak table, Draco's brow furrowed, and his mouth opened as if to reply, but he was pipped to the post.

"What on earth could he be arrested for?" Hermione's voice was dripping with incredulity. Some of the older department heads gasped, and she rolled her eyes. She couldn't do the fake deference like the others. She'd known Kingsley since she was a girl. She'd patched his wounds when he'd been injured at war. She'd helped him write his inauguration speech. The most he could hope for from her was straightforwardness and honesty.

"refusing to declare…" the minister started, but Hermione raised a hand to interrupt the minister. Draco was so hard he thought he might faint. She was fierce. She was utterly without insecurity on this front, so sure of herself. Only he knew her timidity and vulnerability. Hard as the dickens.

"As per this package I've put together…." She expertly slid folders to all the attendees across the board table. "Mister Malfoy registered his emancipation of the four elves last year with Marcus Pitt in our office. It wasn't flagged because it's what we want, isn't it?" she looked directly at the minister. "Or are we just pretending we want to free the elves because it makes us look good?"

I LOVE YOU. Draco Malfoy mentally bellowed as he watched his witch, his woman, melt the most powerful wizard in Britain with a stare.

"Of course not. Of course, we want to free them." The minister nodded. He'd said it enough times "I just think it needs to be done carefully."

"Every attempt I have made to move this issue forward has been blocked with: where will they go? Well, there's an answer to that now, isn't there?"

"I don't think a hoard of mental elves living on the Malfoy estate is quite the solution you think it is, Young Lady." The Head of Games and Sports, Robert Ashford, sneered at her patronisingly. It was Hermione's turn to be interrupted as Draco's Aged Lawyer cut in.

"It's not Malfoy land Ya thick-headed bastard." the lawyer squawked in a thick Scottish accent. "It's house-elf land."

"and it's expanding." Draco added helpfully, "on top of their initial 40 acres, given to them from me in lieu of back pay for their servitude, they're looking into buying up the surrounding properties." he glanced at Hermione again. She was grinning, and it made him so glad.

"Who's the seller?" Davina Smith from international queried, Hermione noted it seemed to be more from curiosity than opposition.

"Me." Draco beamed at them.

"Surely something can be done about this?" Ashford piped up again.

"He's completely within his rights to sell his properties to whomever he chooses!" Hermione's voice had upped an octave, and she was reaching full lecture mode. To Draco, there was nothing hotter "unless, of course, the Ministry is going to pass legislation that House-elves cannot own property, in which case, that's a line in the sand, isn't it? That's a clear declaration by this administration that the rights of sentient beings aren't worth minor inconveniences to humans."

"Nobody is suggesting that, miss Granger." Gill Hasslebeck, head Auror, Harry Potter's boss, nodded appeasingly.

"aren't we?" Deirdre Barlow, interim head of Transportation, looked open-mouthed at the group. "we've had seventeen of the little bastards run away from the rail network."

"I thought the rail network offered them freedom?" Hermione glanced around the room. "Didn't we spunk half the social budget on a ball so you could gloat that the network was 'ethical'?" Hermione laughed with incredulity.

"Aye, but we didn't expect them…." Dierdre stopped herself from finishing the sentence, but it didn't matter.

"When you make empty gestures, someone's going to fill them." Hermione shrugged.

"Why are we deferring to a deputy head on this?" The glorified Quidditch captain Robert Ashford barked with laughter from Draco's left. The blonde felt his fist tighten and his eyes narrow. He was poised like a viper, ready to cut the red sack of blood down a peg. But then his eyes caught Hermione's, and she gave him a gentle smile that said, I've got this.

"The Elves asked me to be their advocate at the Ministry," she said plainly. "It's in the packet I handed you."

"I don't get why you and your little friend's feel the need to cast yourselves as the hero's in every story." The former seeker for the Chudley Cannons spoke as he shook his head disapprovingly, attempting to wither Hermione. A laughable attempt.

"My little friends and I had to be the hero's Mr Ashford, what with grown-ups running off to Belgium for two years." She folded her arms in triumph as Gill Hasslebeck choked on a laugh, and Dierdre Barlow gasped in horror. The Head of Sports and Games sunk into his chair, his cheeks turning purple with embarrassment.

The only person who hadn't spoken was Arthur Weasley, who sat unassumingly at the corner of the table observing Draco. He couldn't wait to get home and tell his wife about the furtive glances between the blonde and the girl he'd helped raise.

"Ok, Hermione, stand down." The minister nodded with finality. Hermione leaned back in her chair cooly and blinked serenely at the attendees. Draco realised the woman was a soldier, a rabid defender of good with verbal talons that could slice flesh from bone. God, I want to marry her. He groaned as his eye caught her's again, her lip trapped in her teeth, her eyes flitting from the minister to him.

She squeezed her thighs together and willed her heart to slow. She spotted out of the corner of her eye, his fingers drumming on the table, the middle two stroking back and forth on the wood. Fuck. She was eternally grateful for the absorbency of wool, lest she slides bodily from her conference chair. Stupid, sexy man.

The meeting dragged on as legal went over the contract Draco had penned. His lawyer shouted some more, and the great and good of wizarding Britain fretted over what would happen should all the elves just quit.

"You were magnificent in there." He whispered in her ear after hours of painful tenting in his pants. They were both walking purposefully away from the board meeting and the crowd who had gathered outside it. The only person who noticed their joint intent was Arthur Weasley, who tittered.

"Thanks, Malfoy." She shot him a grin over her shoulder. What was she doing? Striding with him through the Ministry of magic, blushing, damp and unbearably aroused.

"Look at this." He pointed to a spot on a door, and before she knew what was happening, she was inside a cleaning supply closet. Small, square and filled from floor to ceiling with shelves.

"I can't believe 'look at this' worked", she gasped as she fired a spell to lock the door, and he fired one to silence their activity from prying ears.

"You deserve a reward Granger." he huffed as he hiked the thick, tartan, wool skirt he was so fond of, up "watching you terrify a room full of people twice your age is so hot," he murmured against her cheek as he pressed what felt like hundreds of kisses down to her neck. With her thighs bare to him, he took his hands and ran his nails the length of her flank. "That feel good?"

"Yes." she moaned as he scratched the skin that had been itching under the skirt all day.

"Trevor was very excited to receive his pompom… you're not wearing knickers!" He suddenly gasped as his hand wandered higher on her thigh.

"I forgot." She lied, her lip tucked in her teeth.

"Granger…" His forehead fell onto hers. The fact she'd been sitting in that room, giving them what-for without a scrap between her and the world, had him almost at an end.

"I'm sorry I was mental the last time you saw me." she breathed against his neck as his fingers started to move against her.

"You should have told me earlier!" Hermione had barked at him for the millionth time, they'd bickered since their return to the manor, and he wasn't at all sure why. She had seemed happy, and then, quite suddenly, she was not.

"I tried, and you told me I must wait for my home visit!" he had been tempted to peak in her head, to work out why she was yelling at him but knew it too dishonest.

"Well, you should have pushed me!" she'd marched over to him. "You should have just come out with it!"

"The elves didn't want me to involve the Ministry at all. I had to convince them I knew someone who would put their interests first!" he was sure he'd gone over this. They were fighting in a circle. "And it's not like they're mine. They're free! I don't have to declare anything about them to the Ministry, as well you know Granger."

"I'm not talking about the ministry, I'm talking about me!" and then she'd cried and then she'd fled.

"I should have told you sooner," he braced himself in the cupboard as memories of that night flitted through his brain.

Hermione had been turning Ginny's words over and over for days. Perhaps she did just fancy him rather than it being some massive conspiracy of aura and sex magic. His very presence in the meeting had her mind awash with filthy thoughts and a persistent and sudden need to lick his neck. "thank you." she muttered against his cheek as she pressed a kiss there. Usually, it was him doing the face kissing. This was certainly new. She trailed her lips down to his neck as he continued to stroke between her legs.

"Quite a little chess game you've got going on in that boardroom Granger," he muttered as he picked up the pace and felt her teeth sink into his neck before she licked at the bite. She hummed in response, very occupied with his jugular. "Are you marking me, woman?" he chortled as he slid his fingers inside of her, curling them softly and letting the heel of his hand keep up the motion she liked on the outside.

"Fuck." She gripped his shoulders and braced herself as two simultaneous points of pleasure were pushed precisely.

"Answer me. Did you just brand me with your mouth?" he mumbled as he concentrated on his wrist movements.

"Yes." she gasped, feeling the coil of her gut and the flutter of her walls.

"Good." he moved his face close to hers and stilled his hand, feeling her so close to completion and denying her for a second. "I'm going to take you on a proper date next week Granger." he muttered against the shell of her ear, "and then I'm going to kiss you after it."

She whimpered and moved to grab the wrist connected to the hand immobile inside her. "Move." she harried.

"Not until I get an answer, darling." he moved his mouth to her neck and sucked at the skin, tit for tat, and all that.

"You haven't asked me anything 'Darling'. You just stated that you're taking me out next week." She tried to grind on his hand, but he stopped her with a tut and partially removed his fingers.

"Can I take you for a proper date next week, on which at some point will you consent to me kissing your mouth?" he rolled his eyes, his hand still infuriatingly immovable.

"if you like." she shrugged with a smile as she slid back down onto his fingers. "now, please finish what you started, Draco," she said in that busy little voice that had him straining in his pants. He did as he was told and watched as she came apart around his fingers after only thirty seconds more of movement.

"Thank you." She breathed as he continued to stroke her, enjoying her shudders. "I don't know what came over me." A blush crept up her cheeks. "I was a bit pushy there." She smiled at him from under heavy eyelids.

"one of the perks of sleeping with a mighty woman," he muttered as he removed his hand gently and straightened her skirt.