Travel Companions, 5/?
by pari
[ see chapter one for disclaimers, etc. ]
A/N Hmm… I got one review for the last chapter. Do I take that to mean it wasn't worth the wait? :p
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As far as sympathy went, Hermione's for Malfoy didn't last long after they'd gotten off the telephone with Zacharias Smith. Not that Hermione wasn't bothered when reminded that Malfoy's life wasn't the carefree existence he usually pretended it to be. It was simply difficult to remain sympathetic towards a man who owned more pairs of boots than Luna Lovegood did collector's copies of The Quibbler (since her father's death, Luna had taken to buying exactly twenty-three copies of each issue, stowing one immediately in her file cabinet at the office, and whisking the rest away to some undisclosed location for Merlin knows what purpose.)
This wouldn't have even come to Hermione's notice if Draco hadn't thrown his staff in with his footwear when he'd packed for their trip.
"I didn't have a lot of time to prepare for this little jaunt, Granger. I'd just gotten back from Jerusalem the morning before," Draco explained as he pulled boots out of the trunk in front of him left and right.
Hermione crossed her arms over her chest. She had taken Draco's lead in showering and changing, although she knew there wasn't much point as they were about to venture out into a cemetery - of all the dark, dirty places. They had learned - Draco most of all, Hermione supposed - to take advantage of what conveniences were afforded them while they had the chance. As Aurors, they never knew when they would be cut off from those exact same conveniences for long periods of time.
Unlike Draco, however, Hermione still wore Muggle clothing. She always had worn Muggle clothing, whenever at all possible. The Wizarding world had nothing on a pair of blue jeans and sneakers and a simple pullover where comfort and maneuverability were concerned, Hermione'd decided. Malfoy obviously disagreed. He wore a pair of dark trousers, that had no doubt been tailored, and a white dress shirt under a full set of dark robes. His hair was still slightly damp, as he claimed never to use a drying spell or - horror of all horrors - a blow dryer.
Hermione wondered why the scent of her shampoo - which Draco had borrowed - was so obvious on the Slytherin, and why it unsettled her so.
It was probably because of the boots. Draco owned every sort of boot imaginable. Large, clunky boots; sleek, tailor-made boots; tall riding boots. Thick black boots covered with buckles - like something out of a movie. Hermione blushed. Maybe she was just a prude, but Malfoy's collection struck her as decidedly kinky.
Of course, this was Malfoy she was thinking about. He probably owned a dozen pair of everything in his wardrobe. And, as she'd overheard Malfoy saying at a party once - "Of course I'm kinky. I'm a Malfoy. And a Slytherin. There's a reason they keep us in the dungeon, you know."
"Ah. There it is," Malfoy finally proclaimed, pulling his staff out of the chest. All of Malfoy's luggage was charmed to be bottomless, so he could store his staff in the chest without first minimizing it. A good thing since simply finding the thing had taken so long. If Draco had desperately needed the staff, he wouldn't have had time to enlarge it after digging it out of its chest. Although, in that situation, he would have plenty of boots to throw at his attacker until he'd figured something out.
Draco's staff stood as tall as he did, and was made out of polished, ebony oak. It was as thick as Hermione's arm and carved to look natural - not as perfectly straight and smooth as some of the staffs Hermione had seen used during The War. At the top of Draco's staff sat the fist-sized pewter ball that focused the staff's energy, encased by a winding criss-cross of wood - each, slender piece carved to look like a dozen tiny black snakes, their eyes inset with tiny emerald-colored stones. The bottom of Draco's staff was slightly pointed and, Hermione knew, quite sharp.
She tried not to let her unease show in her expression. Several of the wizards and witches who fought on the frontlines during The War had used staffs. That was practically the weapon of choice for Death Eaters during the second wave of battles, and the DA had learned to fight fire with fire. But only a few warriors on either side were really good with the staff. Harry, of course, although now he wouldn't touch one if he had to. Ron might have had skill if he hadn't had the tendency to bump his staff into things while he was trying to arch. Ernie McMillan, surprisingly, had been a quick study with the dreadful things.
But Draco's command of the staff was unparalleled now that his father and Professor Snape and Millicent Bullustrode were gone. During The War, he'd been even better with the staff than Harry, as Harry had always hesitated to wield that sort of power over his enemies, save for Voldemort. Draco simply hadn't cared. Another reason his defection had been timely to the Order and Dumbledore's Army.
Draco had taken such a liking to his staff, in fact, that he carried it with him on missions even now, when staffs were somewhat less fashionable.
Less fashionable as in no one wanted anything to do with them, and would promptly run in the other direction whenever Malfoy was spotted wielding his. Which was the main reason he did it, of course. Other than one or two incidents over the last three years, Hermione hadn't heard of Malfoy's actually having had to use his staff as anything more than a conversation piece.
Not that those conversations - with suspected Dark wizards under interrogation - hadn't been absolutely fascinating.
"Granger."
Hermione realized she'd been staring at the same space for some moments when Malfoy spoke her name and pressed the crest on the underside of his staff's head. The long weapon minimized until it was slightly less than wand-sized, and Malfoy slipped it into the holster strapped to the inside of his forearm, beneath his shirt sleeve.
Hermione looked up and saw the questioning concern in Malfoy's eyes and shook herself with a frown. She tried to lighten the mood that had set over them with an exaggerated, "Good. Now can we get to the Slayer-hunting? Or did you pack your traipsing-about-in-a-cemetery boots in a chest full of scarves?"
Draco didn't miss a beat, recognizing Hermione's jibe for what it was.
"Actually, no. They're back at the Manor. But I can make do."
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The cemeteries were everything Hermione had expected them to be.
There were just so damned many of them.
"I will never understand how anyone can live near a Hellmouth, and not realize that there is something unnatural about this place," Hermione said as they made their way through the third graveyard of the evening.
They paused and scanned the immediate area for any signs of life or its indirect opposite. Draco nudged a leaning headstone with the toe of one boot, but rather than slipping back into place, the headstone tilted onto its side into a bed of weeds.
Draco frowned. "You know most of all that people see what they want to see, Granger," he said. "What did your little Muggle friends say the first time you levitated a tea cup, or animated a stuffed bear so it could play with you?"
Hermione grinned, more because of the visuals Draco's words inspired than because of their validity. Hermione hadn't had any Muggle friends when she was a child. Until Harry and Ron, she hadn't had any friends. But the thought of a young Draco, tiny and angelic looking as he'd been when he was a boy, having tea with a small army of animated teddy bears, chased away any melancholia those thoughts might have otherwise brung to life.
Not that Hermione was often melancholic over her childhood. She wouldn't trade her history with Harry or Ron for a thousand girlhood playmates.
"Is that how your magic first manifested itself, then?" Hermione asked, sidestepping a large, stone urn than had fallen into the path she was walking between two rows of graves. From several rows over, Draco snorted. He replied as they continued their search, their voices carrying softly in the gloom.
"Hardly. I kept turning the house elves upside down. Not sure why. I was only two, you know."
Hermione raised a brow. "That's early."
She knew that Draco was smirking without looking at him. "Of course I was early, Granger. All the most powerful wizards are. At least that's what Father liked to say."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "I'm sure."
They had nearly crossed half the cemetery when Draco turned to her again.
"So what was it, Muggle-born? Floating tea cups or dancing bears?"
Hermione threw him an irritated look, and said nothing, though she really didn't mind the question. It was peculiar talking with Malfoy as much as she had been during this trip. Peculiar…but not unpleasant. Consistent comments on her heritage notwithstanding.
"Purple hair," she told Draco finally. She met him in the middle of the cemetery, near a cluster of large, old oaks.
"What?"
"I turned my father's hair purple. Every time he came back from a convention and didn't bring me anything. I'm sure I didn't even know I was doing it. But his hair kept turning purple, and making me happy was the only way to change it back. It didn't take my parents long to figure out that I was the cause each time something like that happened, even as fantastical as the thought must have seemed then."
Draco raised a brow. "Quite. I must admit, Granger, I'm impressed. Glamour charms are a bit advanced for a manifestation."
It was Hermione's turn to smirk. "Of course I was advanced, Malfoy," she mocked. "All the most powerful witches are."
Draco made a face at the bad joke, but his lips remained un-sneering and he said, "I'll refrain from comment on that."
Hermione studied him quietly while he wasn't looking, then resisted the urge to look nervously away when he was. She realized that she and Malfoy had just conducted perhaps the first conversation they'd ever had that didn't involve work, Harry, or insults - either harmless or not - towards someone or something. Malfoy had begun to endear himself to her. And either the sentiment was mutual, or her fellow Auror had mellowed a lot more in recent days than Hermione had thought. She'd only needed an opportunity to notice.
Draco looked startled when he became aware of Hermione's consideration of him. He tensed, no doubt fearing that Hermione had seen some threat near them that he had missed. "What?" he asked.
Hermione thought back to their conversation with Zacharias, and to Malfoy's comments about the Dark.
"You know, Malfoy," she said thoughtfully. "Some people see what is."
And that, of course, was when the creature that had been perched in the tree branches above them chose to make his debut.
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"Granger!" Draco warned, about a split second before the vampire actually appeared, dropping to his feet behind Hermione.
Hermione had hit the ground before Malfoy had finished speaking, her wand in her hand, her right foot lashing out at the vampire. The kick connected with the vamp's lower abdomen, and would have brought him down if he hadn't caught Hermione's ankle when he did. He pulled, dragging Hermione towards him.
But it was too late for him to do more than that. Draco had already fired off a hex - and like a single ray of light, the Solarum hit the vampire in the chest, disintegrating the beast where it stood. All of this had taken seconds. The next confrontation would undoubtedly take longer, as - suddenly - two more vamps had dropped out of the tree from above, and three of their friends walked around from behind it.
"Well," Hermione took an involuntary step nearer Malfoy, even as she drew up her wand in the Gryffindor dueling position and narrowed her eyes. "The Hellmouth's left town, but the vampires are still here."
Draco gave her a look out the corner of his eye and tapped his wand against hers - a gesture Hermione had noticed he and Harry exchanging before battles in the past.
"The trip hasn't been a waste, then," he drolled.
And then the vampires came at them.
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Draco had always been remarkably sensitive to the presence of Dark creatures.
This was unsurprising. The Malfoys were traditionally Dark themselves, and Draco had been exposed to more of that side of the magical world than most wizards. On top of that, he'd trained under - and later fought beside - a werewolf, and the closest thing he'd ever had to a confidant had been a Veela.
But this sensitivity had begun early into Draco's childhood. It might even have been investigated as a sign of special magical abilities…if Draco hadn't always had the sense to keep it to himself. Admitting that he could, apparently, sense Dark things coming was much too close to admitting that he was terrified of said things. And Draco's father would not have reacted well to such an admission. So Draco had kept his strange intuition secret, and put on a brave face (at least when in the presence of his father and his father's minions). Now, after having battled Dark creatures and wizards and witches for most of his adult life, Draco relied on his intuition constantly, and made no secret of why.
Which was probably what had gotten him this assignment, come to think of it. No one back at the Ministry would have sent him into Muggle territory if he hadn't had an advantage over his peers where dealing with vampires and demons (and other such inhabitants of a Hellmouth) were concerned. And they certainly wouldn't have sent him with Hermione Granger. Not even Potter's faith in him and the acclaim he'd won for his participation in The War was enough to get Draco sent out alone with the Ministry's most renowned researcher.
Not that Granger particularly needed the Ministry to select her partners. She could quite take care of herself. Provided she wasn't given time during a fight to stop and use that frightful intellect of hers and forget to fight back.
So Draco's alarm, when he'd heard the rustle of leaves and felt the slight prickling at his senses that announced the first vampire's appearance, was probably a bit unnecessary.
The unease that crept up upon him when the vampire's friends appeared, however, was justified. Vampires were short work compared to basilisks and manticores and Dark Lords with armies of followers. But bigger men had fallen to lesser evils, and Draco knew it. He couldn't be too careful with these creatures. Especially as they outnumbered him and Hermione by almost three to one.
Luckily the vampires exercised no such caution. Obviously thinking that their prey was nothing out of the ordinary, and wasting no time or discussion on either of them, they charged in a very straightforward manner. Making them easy to pick off with standard hexes.
Draco turned towards the three vamps that had come round the tree, while Hermione turned to the two who had landed to the left of her. She cast a quick Solare Totale, blinding the vamps long enough to hex one with the Solarum and to dodge the other. Draco cast a Percussum Asser at his trio of opponents, three slim whiffs of smoke shooting from the tip of his wand and forming into ghostly-looking stakes that solidified as they neared their targets.
The stakes hit two of the three vampires, killing one immediately and piercing the other just far enough to slow the vamp to a stop. Draco had to follow through and, with a well-aimed kick, drive the stake home into the vamp's heart.
Meanwhile, the third vamp - who had previously been standing between his two companions - had leapt to avoid a similar fate, and had landed behind Draco on his feet. The stake that had been meant for him had lodged in his thigh, but the vampire paid it no mind.
The second vampire Draco had staked hadn't yet fully turned to ashes by the time the pureblood whirled, his wand pointed at his final opponent. The vamp's fangs were bared, its face contorted into the demonic form its kind adopted when ready to feed.
The vampire turned to ash before Draco could so much as open his mouth. Standing in its place was Hermione with her wand outdrawn. She had used the wand as a stake and had struck down the vamp for him.
Draco blinked. Behind his partner he could see two piles of ashes on the ground, signifying that Hermione had managed to take care of them, as well.
If it had been Potter who had just come to his aide, Potter would have been grinning like a loon and bragging that he could add an extra mark to his score card. Draco would have sneered and said something cutting, but then he would have bought them a round of drinks back at the nearest pub and smiled to himself while Potter wasn't looking. If it had been Longbottom that had helped him, Draco would have been appalled and showed it, and Neville would have flushed and stammered, and finally spouted off in uncharacteristic anger. Draco would then have made Neville buy them a round of drinks, and would have spent the rest of the night blowing the poor chap's mind with uncharacteristic cheer and friendly banter.
If it had been Weasley who had been participating in this little skirmish with him, Draco thought - half believing it - they would probably both be dead right now, and Draco would be kicking the other Auror's ass all the way from one end of Hell to the other.
Hermione simply smiled, looking extraordinarily smug. On Harry, the expression was part irritating, part amusing - on Hermione, somehow the look caused Draco to forget what he was going to say and simply stare.
"Well. That was almost fun," Hermione said, surprising Draco into another stunned blink. Granger didn't get out on a lot of the more physical assignments.
Then the look on her face changed, and her eyes shifted just over Draco's shoulder. Draco would have known from that alone that something new was approaching them, but with his sensitivity to the Dark kicking in he was certain of it.
"Who the-"
The voice coming from behind him barely registered, as Draco turned and brought his wand with him.
"Draco!" Hermione called out, too late. Draco had already taken aim and was casting an Expelliarmus.
In result, the dark-haired young woman who'd been approaching them flew off her feet and backward, landing several feet away on her back. She lay very still, and Hermione and Draco stood, silent, as the dust settled.
Then they looked at one another.
As one, they rushed to the young woman's side. Hermione knelt beside her, and Draco crouched nearby, taking one quick glance around to make certain they were alone.
They were. No more vampires had appeared. The cemetery was empty, save of its grave stones, Hermione, Draco…and the human Draco had just hexed off her feet.
Hermione blinked. "Oh…dear," she stuttered, quietly.
The young woman was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, under a brown leather jacket. She wore a cross around her neck, and - lying near a grave stone some distance away - there was the stake that she'd had clasped in one hand. She was very much alive. Very much not a vampire.
And very much not your average Californian girl, if the slightly magical aura she was giving off was to be believed.
Draco and Hermione had found their Slayer.
[ to be continued… ]