Travel Companions (4/?)
by pari
[ see chapter one for dislaimers, etc.]
[]
Acquiring a motel room turned out to be ridiculously simple, to Draco's way of thinking.
Not that Draco had any prior experience with acquiring motel rooms. But any establishment willing to give a Malfoy a key to anything, without so much as a firetalk with the local authorities, was alright by Draco - and firmly reinforced Draco's general estimation of Muggle common sense (i.e. that they have none, and are extremely bad judges of character).
Of course, the desk clerk's easy cooperation with the Auror might have had more to do with the extraordinary amount of money he'd thrown down on the counter (Draco never paid attention when someone tried to teach him about Muggle currency) than with Draco's character.
But Draco was not overly concerned.
Hermione laid down on the bed nearest the door, closing her eyes the second her head hit the pillow.
"With spending habits like yours, Malfoy," she sighed, "It's no wonder your family's been evil for generations. Good deeds don't pay well enough for five-hundred dollar tips." The tone of Hermione's voice stated clearly that - had her head not been pounding quite so hard - she would have had a lot more to say on the subject.
Draco raised a brow. "Never thought I'd see the day, Granger, when a Gryffindor admitted that evil pays." He'd fetched a face cloth from the bathroom and was wetting it in the sink.
"Of course," he went on, "Until my father, Malfoys had made most of their money off of investments, real estate, that sort of thing. Being evil was a recreational activity."
Hermione was obviously not listening, drifting in and out of consciousness. Draco frowned. He'd given her a potion back at the car - thanking Professor Snape, all the while, for having imbued him with the importance of keeping a well-stocked potions kit at his side at all times. As it turns out, Hermione had hit her head during the crash. The potion would take care of the concussion she might have suffered at that time, so it was safe for Hermione to sleep.
It just wouldn't do Draco's rattled nerves any good, to see his petite partner laid out with blood still on her face, eyes closed and chest barely rising with each breath.
Also, Draco hated not being listened to.
Hermione awoke with a start, eyes opening wide, as she felt the bed dip beneath her and something warm press against her lips.
Luckily, Draco had thought to set her wand on the bedside table before he'd sat himself down beside her, otherwise there was no telling what might have become of him. As it was, rather than getting hexed, Draco only suffered a sharp jab to his solar plexus as Granger's arm lashed out in search of her wand.
"Ow!" Draco slapped at the offending appendage with the wash cloth he'd been tending to Hermione's lip with. "Bloody hell, woman, stop that!"
Hermione's eyes focused on the man beside her, at last, and - if anything - widened further.
"Malfoy?"
She shook her head, as if trying to remember where she was and why, in Merlin's name, she was there with Draco Malfoy.
Draco scowled in irritation.
"No, I'm Potter. But taller and with better hair."
Hermione made a face at that, then winced as her split lip protested the movement.
"What on Earth are you doing?" she asked, and Draco arched one brow. He held up his wash cloth.
"Giving you a bath. I'm surprised you didn't wake until now. The buttons on that blouse are an absolute nightmare."
Hermione gasped, sitting straight up - eyes and hands going to her shirtfront…
And finding that not a stitch was out of place.
Draco laughed. He genuinely laughed. The sound was so startling and pleasant, Hermione almost forgot to be furious that he'd just tricked her.
Almost.
"Oh! You absolute prat!" Hermione hissed, cheeks bright red. She was more embarrassed, really, than angry. She'd never seen Malfoy so obviously pleased with himself.
"Relax," Draco continued to chuckle. "Honestly. I may not be above debauching the occasional innocent, but I generally prefer for them to be awake when I do.'
Hermione was unamused. Or mostly unamused. Draco wagged his eyebrows at her and that was it.
Hermione swiped the wash cloth out of Malfoy's hands and attempted to slap him over the head with it.
Draco ducked.
"Watch the hair, Granger!" he scolded, half-serious. "Is this the thanks I get for tending the poor and lame?"
"Poor and lame!" Hermione's exclamation was followed by the sound of a satisfyingly wet plop.
"Hermione! I've warned you about the hair!"
[]
The sun was beginning to rise by the time Sunnydale's visiting Aurors had tended to their wounds and allowed themselves a short nap.
Hermione awoke first and threw herself into the problem at hand, unshrinking a number of the chests she'd brought with her in her pocket. In them were her books, manuals, pamphlets on mission protocols…
Hermione blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes, and added the last large text to one of the waist-high stacks she'd created throughout the room. And Ron and Harry had laughed, when she'd first told them she never left home without her library! There was no telling when an emergency would arise, and the information contained in those texts would be needed.
Of course, it would be more convenient if Hermione could carry with her a condensed version of all her books. The way Muggles carried about palm pilots and laptops. But Hermione's work on a Wizarding version of the portable computer was still only in its preliminary stage, and Wizarding books were quite resistant to being condensed.
For example, Hermione's copy of Goblin Sociology & the Impact of Isolation on the Goblin Psyche had still not forgiven her for having used it in one of her experiments. As soon as it was out of its chest, it leap from Hermione's hands, knocked over a stack of history tomes, and scuttled under the bed that Malfoy was sleeping on, to nibble at the carpet and generally be unapproachable.
Hermione sighed.
She would definitely have to remember to grab that one before she and Draco cleared out of the room. She could only imagine what a confrontation with an animated textbook on goblins would do to the psyche of the hotel's cleaning crew.
Once unpacked, Hermione began searching through the texts now available to her for some sort of answer to the predicament they now found themselves in. Somehow, she had a feeling that actually getting her huge books out of their chests had been the easy portion of her task.
And speaking of tasks…
Hermione's eyes went back to the Goblin Psyche text. It had inched out from under the dust ruffle of Draco's bed and was ruffling its pages at her, tauntingly. Then Hermione's eyes wandered upwards to the Auror sleeping above.
She was going to have to wake him up. She was going to have to wake him up and she was going to have to work with him today, without reaching up to trace her newly healed lip with her fingertips every few moments, remembering her partner's uncharacteristic care of her.
Hermione caught herself doing it again, and scowled, lowering her right hand to clasp her left where it lay in her lap.
It wasn't that she hadn't ever seen Malfoy behaving considerately. He wasn't at all as hard to work with as she and the others sometimes let on. With the exception of herself, Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Neville, Malfoy pretty much kept to himself while he was at the office, and while he was out of the office he was the consummate politician his father had raised him to be. He was frighteningly attentive to his demon of a mother. Hermione had even heard that he still visited Pansy Parkinson at St. Mungo's on a regular basis, even despite his sordid history with the female Slytherin.
But Hermione had never been the focus of Malfoy's considerate behavior before. Not as she had been earlier, when she'd woken to find him dabbing gently at her lip with a wet washcloth. She supposed she should be pleased with the development, and she was. She and the other Aurors in their department were relatively close. If it had been Harry or Ron or Nev who'd tried to help her, Hermione wouldn't even have thought of it.
But this was Malfoy. And, somehow, that made everything entirely different. Not just because of their past… Of course not. But because-
'Well.' Hermione frowned. She wasn't exactly sure of all of the reasons because. But she knew that her earlier embarrassment had had as much to do with her proximity to Malfoy as with his silly prank. Which was an altogether disturbing prospect. Hadn't Hermione just been thinking, the day before, how peculiar it would be if she were actually beginning to enjoy Malfoy's company? If he was actually beginning to endear himself to her.
Now she was getting all flustered simply because they'd sat on a bed together…
'Oh, dear.' They had, hadn't they? Hermione hadn't really considered that before. She'd been too preoccupied with the fact that, when she'd felt the warmth of the washcloth against her lips and woken up, for a moment… For a moment, she'd thought that he'd kissed her.
As if a disappearing Hellmouth and a possible international conspiracy weren't phenomenal enough.
"What in…"
It wasn't until Malfoy spoke that Hermione realized she'd become lost in thought, eyes staring unseeingly at the open pages of the text nearest to her. She looked up and saw that he was awake and sitting in bed, staring over it.
"Granger? Do Muggle books eat dust ruffles, or is this one of yours?"
"What?"
Sure enough, a glance back down confirmed that the Goblin Psyche text had gnawed a good portion of the bed's dust ruffle away.
"Oh! Stop that!" Hermione made as if to charge the magical book, and it hurried back under the bed.
Malfoy shook his head. "Disgraceful," he said, in a perfectly serious tone. "None of the books at the Manor would dare do damage to the upholstery. They know they'd have their spines broken if they did."
Hermione gave him a pointed look - all previous thoughts of her pureblooded partner momentarily forgotten.
"What? They would. You've got to maintain discipline to keep a library, you know, Granger. Otherwise there would be chaos. Did I ever tell you about the time Crabbe's Remedial Arithmancy books turned on him? Ugly is what that was. I'd never seen Vince run like that in all my life."
Despite herself, Hermione laughed.
[]
As Hermione conducted her research, Draco went about using the hotel room's telephone to send an emergency call to the Ministry, reporting their status. The Ministry had long since devised this system so that Aurors could check in from Muggle locations when other forms of magical communication were unavailable. It was a simple system to use. In theory. One simply had to cast the Prideminus Fama while simultaneously entering in the proper identification code.
But in practice, the Ministry's emergency systems were never that simple.
The Prideminus Fama was a complicated charm to cast; nowhere near your usual swish and flick. And the Ministry assigned all its Aurors identification codes that were seventeen characters long. If you typed them in right on the first try. They lengthened exponentially with every attempt after that.
Within moments Draco was glaring at the telephone sitting before him, and consulting the notes in the small, black leather notebook he usually kept in the inner pocket of his robes . He turned to page twenty-two: personal identification codes appropriate for the fifth attempt at using the Emergency Communications System…
Hermione didn't look up from her copy of Hellmouths: Where to Find Them & Other Frequently Asked Questions. "That little book is against at least seven different regulations, you know," she stated matter-of-factly.
Draco grimaced, but said nothing. He did know, actually. Although the correct number was something more like ten. Aurors were supposed to memorize their identification codes, using memory retaining charms if necessary. Draco didn't see the point. His "little black book" doubled as his daily agenda and personal memoirs and so - naturally - had been charmed to swiftly dismember any unauthorized persons who should happen to try and read it. That charm alone accounted for two of the ten regulations the book was currently in violation of.
"This whole system is prejudiced against purebloods, you realize this, don't you?" Draco proclaimed once he was at his wit's end.
"It's a touch tone phone, Malfoy. You can't possibly be unable to use a touch tone phone. All you have to do is push the buttons."
"Yes, but if you press too hard, the button sticks, or you end up hitting the same number twice. If you wait too long it resets, and then I've got even more bloody numbers to dial!"
Hermione felt dangerously tempted to snicker. She even looked up from her reading. "There's a reason they call it the Emergency Communications System, Malfoy. So that Aurors only use it in an emergency."
"Yes. And just to make sure you don't forget, they make the system impossible to use! Doesn't categorizing a situation as an emergency rather confirm the lack of time to be sitting about, punching numbers into a silly little Muggle machine?"
Hermione raised her brows. She watched Draco's fingers as they worked over the face of the telephone.
"You just punched the nine key twice. There aren't any consecutive nines in your authorizations codes."
Draco paused, then realized that she was right. "Damn!"
His eyes narrowed. "Granger… How did you know that?"
Hermione smirked. "There are no more than three "I"s in the discerpo tetigi either. You might remember that the next time you refresh that dismemberment hex."
Hermione's smirk became downright gleeful as Malfoy's eyes bugged comically. She decided not to tell him that, really, she'd simply been paying attention the last six times he'd inputted his codes. She wouldn't touch that black book if the secret of life were written inside of it. Malfoys were many things, but slouches in the hex department, they were not.
Draco said a few colorful curses and then threw his hands in the air.
"Why in Merlin's name am I even doing this? The purpose of having a Muggle-born partner is to not have to interact with filthy Muggle artifacts."
The "filthy" bit rattled Hermione's nerves, but she let it slide. Honestly, she often had trouble utilizing the ECS herself. Which was to be expected, she supposed. What had possessed Hermione to let Ron cast her memory retainment charms, Hermione would never know.
"No. The purpose of having a Muggle-born partner is to keep you from futzing up royally while trying to use a filthy Muggle artifact, in typical pureblood fashion," Hermione countered coolly. "And don't you dare do the same to that telephone as you did to the map! We have to contact the Ministry eventually!"
Draco lowered his wand and scowled.
[]
"And that's it? A Hellmouth goes missing unbeknownst to the Ministry, and that's all you have to tell us?"
"What more do you expect, Malfoy? This is the Watcher's Council we're talking about, after all. They've even more to do with the Hellmouths on American soil than those Yanks in Cory."
Draco was standing at the foot of his bed - one of the few spaces in the room that wasn't currently cluttered with Hermione's research materials. Hermione perched on a nearby chest, the phone sitting on a stack of books between them. Thank goodness she'd learned how to work the speakerphone. Otherwise she'd have had to piece together what Zacharias was saying by Malfoy's indignant asides alone.
"But doesn't this sort of thing justify immediate action on our part, Zacharias?" Hermione asked. "They failed to report the absence of a Hellmouth to the Ministry of Magic! That's a blatant violation of the Amsley Accords of '56. It's like forgetting to check in and tell the Conference that a whole slew of Dementors have gone absent, and that we've no idea where they've gone!"
Draco raised a brow. "Trying to jinx us, Granger?'
Smith paid no attention. "The Ministry will be taking immediate action, Hermione. The Council will answer for this, make no doubt. But that isn't your concern. The most you can do from your present location is locate the Council's representative there. A Watcher by the name of Rupert Giles. His Slayer's the oldest I've ever heard of. If anyone over there had something to do with the Hellmouth closing, she's our likeliest bet."
"I don't make bets on Watchers and Slayers, Smith," Draco said. "Or anything that spends the majority of its time in the presence of Dark creatures and calls itself a champion for the Light."
Hermione threw a glance in Draco's direction and frowned. She could practically hear Zacharias stewing over the enchanted phone. Zacharias had been a key member of Dumbledore's Army; he was one of the more highly decorated members of their department. But his role during The War had been that of a duelist, not a diplomat. How he'd ended up in what basically amounted to a PR position within the Ministry was unclear. What was certain was that he'd never taken kindly to being spoken to in the way that Malfoy generally spoke to everyone.
"You just have to find her, Malfoy. And, more importantly, her Watcher," Zacharias said. "Find out what they know about all of this. We'll handle the Council and the Conference from here. And you're an Auror. Any Dark creatures you encounter shouldn't be a problem."
Hermione resisted the urge to cringe. 'Oh, dear…' Though he'd said Auror, it was obvious that Zacharias had meant something entirely different, and as Hermione noticed Draco's wand hand twitching, she quickly decided to intervene.
"We'll do what we can, Zach. We'll report back when we've learned something."
Zacharias's voice softened somewhat as he addressed his last bit to Hermione. "I'm sorry I haven't anything else to tell you now. You're right. This is a highly irregular situation. The Ministry will have to handle it carefully, and you should be careful, as well. If there is some sort of conspiracy going on down there, of whatever kind, we'd rather not lose two of our own to find out."
Hermione nodded, still watching Draco out the corner of her eye as he crossed his arms over his chest and sat down on the bed. He was not happy, but he no longer looked ready to say something that could possibly get him suspended, either.
Hermione said a quick goodbye to Smith and cast the counter spell to the Prideminus Fama. Not wanting the silence that had fallen upon Malfoy to stretch any farther than it must, she said, cheekily:
"Well. I suppose we've got a bit of Slayer-hunting ahead of us, then."
Malfoy, however, had already wiped whatever emotion had been in his expression clean from it. For the umpteenth time since she'd begun to know him, Hermione counted them all lucky that he'd defected when he had. The malicious if ineffectual boy of their Hogwarts days had grown into a man who could intimidate effortlessly when he wore that face.
Luckily, Draco didn't wear it for long. His eyes lightened from a stormy grey to something less impassioned, and his expression softened within moments.
"Well, then, Granger, let's get to it, shall we?"
Then, inexplicably, he took a shrunken chest from his pocket and headed towards the bathroom.
Hermione blinked. "Where are you going?"
"To change, of course. We hardly need to stay in these Muggle clothes to go traipsing about a cemetery in the middle of the night, now do we?"
[ to be continued… ]
A/N: Ooh… This update was long in coming, and I know it. It's a bit longer than the other chapters, though, so that's something. Hopefully it was worth the wait? :p