A/N: Hello you beautiful, sassy mannequins come to life and thank you for being here for the next chapter! I put a lot of pressure on myself for no reason about this story and thus wrote nothing for months. Well I'm done with that! No more pressure just writing and having fun.
oOo
"You have got to be fucking kidding me."
"I'm not particularly thrilled about this turn of events either, Granger," Marcus growled, his face the very picture of disgruntled. Hermione briefly wondered if she had heard that Real Flint had his teeth straightened and shrunken or if his slightly more pleasing appearance was due to the machinations of her own subconscious.
"Can't you just… go away?" Hermione asked, waving her hands in a shooing motion.
Marcus inhaled deeply, his massive chest puffing, and then slowly exhaled. "If only."
This was the fourth time in as many nights that Marcus Flint had showed up in her dreams and Hermione was well and truly sick of it.
"Maybe if we try walking away from each other again?" Marcus suggested, but the tone of his voice betrayed the expected futility of such attempts.
They had tried that on Night Two. Both attempting to leave their little clearing in the woods by walking in opposite directions. That experiment had resulted in an unspecified amount of time wandering through the woods until eventually, at the same time, they had both arrived back in the Clearing. Hermione had woken up digging her hands in her hair and groaning indistinctly. They had tried again on Night Three only to be met with the same results.
"I just really get the feeling that there's something we need to resolve here," Hermione said, motioning to the two-ish meters between them.
"Yes, you keep blathering on about lessons or whatever the fuck and it's honestly giving me a sodding headache." Marcus was rubbing his temples now as if to prove his point.
"You're a dream projection, Flint, you can't have a headache," Hermione pointed out in full swot.
Marcus looked up, his face contorted in disgust. "For the absolute last time, you daft witch, I am not a sodding dream. I am Marcus sodding Flint."
"I know that's who you think you are-"
"Can we-" Marcus interrupted, fists clenched and eyes closed. He took another long, fortifying breath in through his nose and out through his mouth before opening his eyes. "Can we just, what did you say before, move forward pretending I'm real for the sake of my goddamn sanity?"
Hermione frowned. She gave Marcus a long look, head to the side and arms crossed over her chest. "Fine."
"Thank you," he managed through clenched jaws.
"Perhaps acknowledging you as Real Flint is somehow part of the lesson."
"Fuck my life."
oOo
April 30, 2009
The cursor was blinking. And blinking. And blinking. And despite how much Hermione stared at it, no sentences or phrases or even just a word or two would appear. Long fingers sat poised in the air above the keyboard, nearly twitching they were so ready to type out…
Something.
What had she been working on again?
Hermione placed her hands on her desk and, pushing herself back, stood up with a greater sense of purpose than she actually felt.
I need tea or coffee or…
Something.
"Right," Hermione announced to her empty office with the sort of awkwardness that one is born with, the sort of awkwardness that though one has spent years training away, comes out in these quiet moments when one is alone or when one believes oneself to be alone.
"Talking to yourself again, Granger?"
"Damnit, Malfoy," Hermione gasped, jumping to the side in surprise. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"
Draco raised an eyebrow so imperceptibly that his forehead didn't even crinkle. Hermione had to narrow her eyes to be sure she'd seen it.
"I knocked, Granger," the Slytherin drawled. "I wasn't aware knocking could be perceived as sneaking up."
"I hate you," Hermione remarked flatly. "Why are you here, barging into my office?"
Draco waved a folder in the air. "I just received this from the Minister's office."
"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, shuffling from around her desk. "Well, what does it say, give it here!"
She reached for the folder but Draco raised it higher into the air, extending his arm to it's full length, which was decidedly out of Hermione's reach.
"Malfoy!" Hermione huffed, wobbling on her toes as she attempted to elongate herself. "Hand it over!"
"We can take a look at it together," Draco began, easily sliding out of Hermione's reach, "over lunch. That new bistro, the one with salads, I think would be an excellent choice."
"Bugger off, Malfoy, you know I don't eat lunch," Hermione huffed, slipping her wand from the sleeve of her blouse. "Now hand me the folder before I'm forced to use extreme measures."
Draco cocked what could only be described as a sarcastic eyebrow. "Well, I am just shaking in my dragonhide loafers, let me tell you," the wizard drawled.
"You've been warned," Hermione said, raising her wand.
"Granger, come on!" Draco whined, voice heavy with exasperation. "One bloody lunch won't kill you, I assure."
"Some of us have work to do, Malfoy."
"It's your lunch! My lunch too, by the way, which we are wasting with this useless exchange," Draco pointed out, folder still held in the air. "So I'm going to have to insist you put your big girl robes on, stop huffing and join me for a very low-key business lunch."
"Absolutely not!"
oOo
How did I end up here? Hermione wondered to herself, staring at her admittedly delicious salad.
Her absolutely delicious but not at all low-key salad.
She glanced around wearily for most probably the thousandth time, surveying Diagon Alley's newest French restaurant for the bourgeoisie elite. She was fairly certain she'd spotted no less than ten members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight tucked away in the dimly lit establishment and considering how few Purebloods were left, that was quite a feat to attract so many.
"Stop looking about the place like someone's going to hex you at any moment," Draco said, looking up from his roast.
"How do you know someone won't?" Hermione asked. "You've brought dirty blood into this fine establishment."
Malfoy cringed. "You won the war, Granger, anyone in here is more interested in retaining the assets the Ministry let them save than they are in archaic blood prejudice."
Hermione wasn't convinced.
Just a few short years ago many of these restaurant patrons would have been itching to at best send a clandestine stinging hex at the muggleborn and at worse- well, she didn't need to think about that. Hermione absently scratched on the hidden scar on her neck, a reminder of what "worse" could be.
Archaic, hmm?
"Can we look at the Minister's report now?" Hermione asked if not a bit petulantly.
Malfoy's thin lips curled into the barest of smiles which caused Hermione's full lips to slump down at the edges.
"I don't have it," he said slowly, taking a calculated bite of his lunch.
The witch narrowed her amber orbs, a string of expletives that did not bare repeating at such a restaurant on the tip of her razor sharp tongue.
"You what?" she hissed, gripping the edge of the table as if to steady herself.
"I don't have it," Draco repeated nonchalantly.
"Then why, pray tell are we here?" Hermione demanded, her voice rising an octave.
Draco sighed. "To relax, Granger. Salazar. You're wound so tight over this whole thing, you need to eat something."
"I eat all the time," Hermione spat defensively. "And I relax all the time as well. I spend my time just eating and relaxing."
Draco stared. Hermione hateded him a little more except she didn't hate him at all, not anymore at least.
He was right, however. Which she did hate. Who had time to eat or relax when one was a mother, a wife, best friend to the Chosen One, Brightest Witch of Her Age, while also juggling a full caseload as a solicitor?
Not Hermione Granger-Weasley.
"You've lost weight," Draco pointed out not unkindly.
"I have not," the witch insisted.
She had.
"You're running yourself ragged."
"I am not!"
She was.
"You need a moment to breathe."
"I do not!"
She did.
"You do," the wizard reiterated.
"I don't! I need to see what revisions Kingsley has sent back to us and make the appropriate changes. We need this case, Malfoy!"
Whatever had possessed her those months ago when Draco Malfoy of all people, had approached her about opening a non-profit advocacy group for magical creatures to say yes she would never know. Maybe it was the absolute shock that Draco Malfoy was speaking to her about anything, let alone advocacy for anyone besides himself or perhaps it was the utter sleep deprivation of new motherhood.
Whatever it was, she deeply regretting it at that moment.
"Granger, you're the doll of the wizarding world, Kingsley Shacklebolt adores you as does the vast majority of wizarding Britain, there's no way he's going to say 'no' to whatever you ask of him."
Draco continued to be right, though Hermione wouldn't admit it. Helping defeat the Dark Lord came with an influence and fame Hermione had never grown comfortable with and was loathe to leverage.
"I want this done because it's the right thing, not because anyone owes me a favor," Hermione said quietly. "There are hundreds of laws that need to be removed, we have to get this case absolutely right or it'll take months, maybe years for another opportunity to come along."
"How do you Gryffindors even stand each other?" Draco asked seriously. "Who cares for what reason the laws are overturned, whether because it's the right thing to do or because you called in a favor, as long as it gets done?"
"Me. I care."
Draco Malfoy heaved a long suffering sigh. "I know, Granger. I know."
oOo
Hermione stared at the hulking wizard before her and screamed.
"Why does this keep happening?" She asked no one before tucking her legs beneath herself and falling gracefully to the grass.
"Hell if I know." Flint sighed. "I should just quit taking that damned potion, but Weasley wasn't lying, I feel fucking amazing when I wake up. Best night's rest of my life."
"I know," Hermione groaned. "It's really quite fantastic. I can't remember the last time I slept so well, certainly not since Rose was born."
"Did you and wee Weasley reproduce?" Flint asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"Yes, it was all over the papers."
Flint shrugged. "I don't read 'em."
Hermione considered beginning what would probably be a long winded diatribe on how he's a dream spectre and thus can't read anything, but she really wasn't in the mood. This was now Night Number Five and if she was going to be stuck with her subconscious' version of Marcus Flint for company well, she'd just have to deal with it. Honestly the sleep was worth it.
Instead she decided to humor him.
"Why not?"
"Just not a fan of reading in general and nothing the Prophet or Witch Weekly has to say has ever felt particularly relevant."
"Flint," Hermione admonished. She really couldn't help herself. "The wizarding world is stuck in the dark ages, the only way to get any information on the goings on of the Ministry or the world at large is through the papers."
Marcus rolled his eyes before plopping down on the grass as well. "What the Ministry is or is not doing is not really of interest to me."
"Hmph," Hermione breathed. "Whatever."
"That's it?" Marcus asked, thick eyebrows traveling up his forehead. "Not going to ring my balls about it further?"
Hermione made a face. "Firstly, yuck. Secondly, what would be the point? Won't make a difference either way."
"I don't know! What was the point of every bloody admonishment I recieved over the last five fucking nights, Granger?"
Hermione shrugged. "I'm kind of over it, honestly. If there is something to figure out here, I don't care. If just dealing with you every night is what I have to pay for amazing sleep so be it, I'd rather just relax here."
What she did not mention was that this or anything really, was better than the nightmares and if having to be around dream spectre Flint meant no more nightmares, Hermione could handle it.
"Fucks sake! Why couldn't you come to this realization five nights ago? Yes!" Marcus put his hands behind his head and fell backwards, now laying completely in the grass. "Let's just relax in silence then!"
And so they did.