THE COVER UP
DISCLAIMER: I don't own any part of the Harry Potter universe and I am grateful to be able to borrow them for a short time.
Reviews are a writer's coffee: they keep us going as long as we get some. *hint*
"Professor Malfoy…" she had to stop and laugh for a minute before she could continue.
Draco waited with a scathing looking on his face. "When you're quite finished?"
"I'm sorry Draco but Professor Malfoy? Three years ago, would you have pictured this? Us, professors, together? I know I sure did Not."
He raised an eyebrow and nodded his head in agreement. "That's true. I wonder what else today is going to hold. Doesn't everything always come in threes? First I decide on a tattoo and now we're professors. What's next? Dumbledore returning?"
"Mr. Malfoy, you of all people should know I never really left." The deep timber of their deceased Headmaster's voice made both of them jump and turn toward the sound. There, hanging on the wall was a small portrait of the old Headmaster.
They smiled at him before Mina said, "You decided on a tattoo? What did you pick? Did you tell Liam? How did I miss your choice?"
"I did make my choice, I did tell Liam and you are just going to have a wait and see." Draco teased.
"You are a wretch Draco Malfoy!" She swatted his arm while smiling the entire time. "Come on, I want a look at my new room." She headed over toward the doors, each labeled with a name. She opened the door labeled with her name and was surprised by what she saw inside. It was a replica of the room she had been sharing every year she had been at Hogwarts. It was just smaller, sized for one person rather than four and the colors matched those of the common room. "Well, that's just kind of disappointing."
"What's disappointing?" Draco asked from his own doorway. "No Gryffindor colors?"
"Well, the fact that it is void of all color is rather disappointing. You think all the professors are given this? Or are we just special?"
"Well, I'm special, I don't know about you."
"You know, I heard a term while I was in America that describes how special you are: 'Little Yellow Bus' special." She laughed at his confused face. "I'm going to bed. See you in the morning Draco."
"What does that mean? I want to know! Granger, come back here and argue like…" he stopped speaking when he heard her bedroom door close. With no one to argue with, he went into his room and went to bed as well.
The next morning, Mina was banging on Draco's door, "Draco! Get up! We're going to be late for breakfast! I do NOT intend to be late on our first day as professors!"
"Mina if you would quit yelling, I would tell you that I'm in the common room and have been waiting for 10 minutes." Draco calmly told her.
She was startled out of her anger to find him sitting there smiling at her. "humph"
She was glaring at him but the glare changed to amusement and that made Draco nervous. "What?"
"Are you really going to go to work on your first day wearing that?" She pointed to his robes.
"Yes. What's wrong with them?" He asked.
She shook her head at him, "You can't wear your house colors anymore. You need to wear different robes. Didn't you read the dress code?"
"Yes I did. I don't have different robes except my dress robes. I've already owled Mother and asked her to send me something else. This will just have to do until then. How did you get different robes so quickly?" Noticing her solid black robes.
"I didn't. Molly Weasley taught me a dyeing charm. I just applied it to my robes and turned the colors to black. I know the dress code for instructors says we can wear any color we want as along it isn't in combination with house colors but this was easiest. I'll buy other robes if I make it to Hogsmead again. Something with some color in them."
"Wow. Ok. You want to do these for me so I don't get in trouble?" While she was working on his robes, he pondered something, "Granger, did you notice we're basically flatmates?"
"Yes. So?"
"Well, I don't know. It seems odd is all. I mean, we haven't argued or anything."
"Well, this is our first full day so give me the day, I'm sure you will do something that annoys me and then we can argue. Then you will feel better. Ok?"
"You are so very funny, Granger. I can hardly control my laughter." Sarcasm dripping from each and every word.
"See? Do you feel better now?" She asked with a smile on her lips. He just glared at her. Within a couple of minutes he was clothed in black and grey. "There. All done. Now let's go. I'm hungry and nervous."
"I'm hungry as well." He would never admit it but he was nervous as well.
At breakfast McGonagall introduced the two newest professors and what they were going to be teaching. "I expect each and every student to treat them with the respect they deserve and to not call upon past friendships to try and get out of trouble." She looked at both the Sytherin & Gryffindor tables.
The first week of teaching went by at a blur. Between working with each of their professors and working with McGonagall together, teaching classes, grading homework, working on The Charm with Flitwick as well as getting his input on the localized stunning spell needed for the tattoo there wasn't any real down time. They didn't even have time to chat with friends at mealtimes since they had to sit at the teacher's table. It wasn't really a surprise that they both fell asleep exhausted every night.
The next week was only a smidge easier. Mina decided to put most of her free time focus on the spells for Draco. She tested different combinations of spell and wand work on him every night and most mornings as well.
She had gotten the body bind spell to isolate to his arm and torso but hadn't been able to make the time limit aspect work. Finally Draco called enough, "Mina, you will be there to take the spell off when the time comes. We can work on the time limit part later. My arm is sore and I don't want you to try another one. That last one was fine." She ungracefully accepted that he was probably correct. In its current form it would be more than adequate for their needs but she didn't like it that the time limit aspect wasn't working. She vowed to make it work at some point but let it go for now.
By the time the next Hogsmead weekend came around they were ready for it in every possible way. When Friday finally arrived the excitement of Draco's tattoo was pretty much all that was keeping them on their feet even after a month of their current schedules. The young teachers received begrudging permission (McGonagall having already approved it) from their professors to leave on Friday morning at 11am.
They arrived in the shop just after 7pm local time on Friday night. "Liam, we're here." Draco announced while exiting the closet they always apparated into.
Liam was there but so was another artist who was working on a client. "Where have you been? You guys left here over two hours ago!" Liam shouted back hoping they would pick up on the situation.
Draco picked up on it but it was Mina who came to the rescue. "Well, you know how it is, Liam," she said as she walked up to Draco, placed her arms around his waist and snuggled into his chest. "I'm sorry but…um…we forgot to get dinner." She gave the most un-Hermione Granger giggle either man had ever heard come from her.
Draco was surprised at her cover but still loved it. Who knew Granger could act or giggle?
Liam was beside himself trying to not to laugh at the display Mina was making of herself. Mina was normally so conservative, he didn't know she had it in her to be this bubble-headed.
But it worked. The client and the artist were just finishing up during the conversation and had started to laugh at her act. When the client left, Liam turned to the artist, "Mate, don't worry about your machine & station. I'll get it cleaned up. I'm going to close the shop for the night and just hang out and talk with my friends."
"You sure?"
"Yea, this appointment went long and I know you have a date tonight with your wife. Not something you get very often since your baby was born. Take my largess and run away." Liam encouraged.
"I'm not stupid. I really appreciate it mate." The man grabbed his stuff and walked out.
As soon as the door closed, Liam and Draco both burst into laughter. Mina tried to detach herself from Draco, "WHAT?" she demanded.
Draco just pulled her into a hug, "You Mina, are one of a kind. That was priceless! I didn't know you could actually giggle." Draco was still trying hard to bring his laughter under control.
"I lived with Lavender Brown and Parvarti Patil for 6 years so I just channeled them. Never thought I'd find a use for that…skill." Mina rolled her eyes and separated herself from Draco as he broke down laughing again.
Liam wasn't even trying to stop laughing as he locked up and turned out the "OPEN" sign in the window. He magically blacked out the windows and turned to his friends. "So are you ready?" He asked when he was able to stop laughing. He also asked it with a fanatical gleam in his eye.
That look sobered Draco right up as he took a step back out of caution, "I thought I was but why do you look like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like you are about to do something evil. I've seen that look of…un-remorseful glee in the eyes of more than one person."
"No, nothing like that, but if this works, I have another whole new area of profit to explore. Here." He handed a sheet of paper to them. It contained an advertisement: HATE YOUR DARK MARK? CONTACT LIAM'S TATTOO PARLOR, PERTH, AUSTRALIA. WE CAN HELP!
"It's just a rough copy but, if this works, I'm going to place an ad in the Daily Prophet. As far as I know, I'll corner this market for a while. No other tattoo artists that I know about are willing to do this."
"That's great Liam. And I can teach you the spells I've adjusted so you can do them." Mina offered.
"I was hoping you would since that's the only way this will work." Liam smiled. While they were talking Liam had grabbed the design he had drawn for Draco. "How's this look?" He showed them what it would look like when it was done.
"Are you sure this is going to cover it up?" Draco asked. That was when Liam pulled the paper of the design off and showed them the image of the Mark beneath it.
They could not believe the Mark could be covered so completely. They both looked up at the same time to see how transparent the overlay actually was. They saw Liam's smiling face through the new design.
"Shall we?" Liam asked.
Draco took a deep breath and walked over to Liam. After Liam prepped his arm, Draco sat in the chair and Liam laid the outline over his arm. "Ok, Mina, hit him with the numbing spell only. Let's see how well that does. Use this easy part as a test of the spell so we know it works when we really need it."
"Of course it's going to work." Mina groused as she made some simple wand movements while quietly reciting the spell. "Ok, give it minute to work its way up his arm. Draco, when you can't feel your arm at all let me know."
"Ok."
They waited for a several minutes making stupid conversations, "Draco? Anything?"
"No. Nothing's changed." He dropped his head back to rest on the chair back but still looked disgruntled.
"Do me a favor, close your eyes." He did. Mina leaned over to Liam and told him to poke Draco on the Mark's line as hard as he would if he were doing the tattoo. "Keep them closed, Draco."
"Mina, what's going on?" Draco asked.
"Ok, open your eyes."
He did and saw Liam pressing down hard against the Mark and he didn't feel it at all. He didn't speak from amazement.
Liam started on the outline but asked, "Mina, how long is this going to last?"
"That's kind of hard to say. Without the Mark it should last four hours, but we know that the Dark Mark fights any magic used on it, so I'm not really sure. Without the Mark, after two hours, it will stop numbing for 20 minutes and then start numbing again, then stop completely after another 1 hour 40 minutes. That's a safety I built in after talking with Madam Pomfrey. There still has to be blood flowing to his arm or the arm will die. Putting this powerful of a numbing spell on his arm is like putting a tourniquet on, it numbs it because it almost completely stops the flow of blood in his arm."
"You stopped the blood flow in my arm?!" Draco was panicking.
"Don't you trust me, Draco?"
"Um…yes?"
Liam and Mina were chuckling at him. She explained, "What the spell actually does is every 10 minutes it reduces the amount of magic…well not really. Ok, um…It just lightens up on the numbing so there is more blood flow, but then tightens again, like a tourniquet." At his confused look, "Oh bugger it, just relax. I'm not going to let you get hurt. I'd have to do your work as well as mine if you got hurt. I've got enough of my own to do."
"School getting to you, Mina? Never thought I'd hear you say that." Liam questioned.
"We forgot to tell you, didn't we?"
"Tell me what?"
"We're Assistant Professors now. I'm teaching Ancient Runes and Draco is teaching Flying and Quidditch. We are sharing the Transfiguration classes with the Headmistress."
"That's GREAT! Good for you two. I always knew you were too smart to stay in school, Mina."
"Yes she is. Even without actually completing 7th year, she still scored the highest marks the school has seen in over 200 years." Draco bragged.
Mina countered, "Draco's scores were just under mine."
"Well, aren't you a pair." Liam said smirking while he worked. He continued to work as Mina laid back in a nearby client chair and promptly fell asleep.
"Mina?" Draco tried to wake her up. "Mina!?" He saw her eyes start to open, "something feels weird here." Draco said.
"Weird how?" She asked as she sat up and started to focus, Liam kept working.
"Well, it's itching and burning and it feels like bugs are crawling on my skin."
"Hmmm." Mina checked the clock on the wall, "ok, it's only been about 45 minutes, but I'm going to take the spell off. We didn't have this when we tested this spell but we didn't leave it on for the full time either. Liam, you might want to stop for a moment." She wait for Liam to stop before she spoke the counter curse.
Draco was trying to reach for the Dark Mark to scratch at it but Liam was quicker from years of practice and grabbed his hand, "Nope. Don't touch it."
"I have to! It itches so much!" Mina reached over and touched his skin near the Mark but not touching the tattoo. He screamed, "SHIT! OW! FUCK! WHAT THE HELL?"
"It's gotta be the Mark. It must have some spell attached to it to prevent it being covered up. We knew it would fight it. Liam, how much more time do you need?"
"At least another two hours to finish the outline, scales and other details."
"Drac I think we need to body bind you. We can try the localize bind to see if that works but if it doesn't, we will need to do the whole body bind and we can try either of them with a milder version of the numbing spell."
At the quizzical looks she was getting from both men, "We can't use the numbing spell at full strength apparently; not for the time period you still need. I don't want to risk more intense side effects. I don't know if using a milder numbing spell on his arm will be of any use at all because the Mark could just absorb, for lack of a better word, the magic faster. It's up to you Draco if you want to try the localized body bind or just go with the whole body bind. Especially since we don't know how the Mark is going to react to the magic."
"A couple of hours huh?" Liam nodded his head and Draco took a deep breath. "Let's try the local bind without the numbing spell. I've been used me as a test subject before, let's test this and see what happens." He tried to joke to cover his nervousness.
Liam nodded his head, "Alright, but here's the deal. If you feel you can't take it anymore, if your vision blurs, if you feel lightheaded or dizzy or like you're going to vomit, you have to tell us. Those are your body's warning signs to stop. If you feel just one you have to tell us. Alright? Tomorrow is going to be harder for a couple of reasons. 1) that's when we do the color and I can't say I'm not going to hit lines, 2) the shop will be open. I'm going to put up a screen so we can't be seen but we can be heard so you can't be screaming your head off, puking or passing out and 3) um.. I can't really think of the third, but I'm sure there is one. Understand?"
Draco nodded his head.