Nous Allons a la France

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.

Draco Malfoy laughed to himself as he admired the tiny sketch taken from Granger's sketchbook, which was not quite shut. And he quickly discovered Hermione Granger was not quite the innocent perfect angel, nor the classy, icy employer that she pretended to be.

Hermione had another side that was struggling to be asserted. As the sketch showed that he had stolen.

It wasn't that the sketch was exquisitely drawn. All her drawings were. No.

It was the fact that it was a drawing of Hermione in a tiny miniskirt, and an equally skimpy top with razor sharp, skyscraper high heels. Maybe it was just the drawing, but he'd never realized how long her legs were. This made even walking home and a sandwich for dinner a lot better.

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However, he was more sober the next day. This had been a dangerous risk. He would find out.

He found out indeed.

When he stopped by her office to check in, she looked up at him.

"One moment Draco."

He felt surprised- she had never used his first name, and said by her it sounded much nicer. This implied that she had something very important to talk about, and he had absolutely no idea what she wanted. Or did he . . .? He was nearly as nervous as he had been the day that she had hired him.

"I believe that you have something belonging to me."

He played it cool. "And . . .?"

"Don't be innocent. It doesn't suit you. All I am asking you is to keep that sketch out of sight, and your mouth shut." Something about the way she was looking at him told him that she was desperate.

"You are realizing that I have a perfect chance for blackmail?" he said, coolly.

The corners of her mouth curved up in a half smile. Apparently she took no offense. "You are realizing that you are treading the fine line between staying and getting fired?"

He didn't take offense either, but he laughed outright. The woman was playing as dirty as he did. "I withdraw the question."

Her smile became a full smile. "I accept that. Now, don't you have work to do?"

"Naturally." He nodded good bye to her and retreated to the comfortable security of his plush office, safe from the furies of Mrs. Potter. Unfortunately, not of the sheer élan of Miss Granger. Everything in that office showed her.

He tried to ignore all that and started his work. Unfortunately it wasn't that easy to do. Even all the elusive scents that he had come to associate with her were in his room . . . cinnamon, vanilla, Chanel . . .

Damn.

So just to distract himself, he began to inspect various pieces of jewelry, and frowned. The best places for these were in France, that was what he found. And so it was not easy to access them. He wrote on his pale green and silver memo, and sent it straight to Hermione.

To his shock she appeared in his office three seconds later.

"Yes, Draco, I had noticed." She sat down in the other office chair in his room. "It is rather annoying unless . . ." she trailed off.

He however knew what she was thinking of. "Unless we go to France."

She looked up at him, startled. "How did you know?"

He smiled at her, the lazy smile that he liked to tease her with, either to watch her blush, or to see her respond with the elfin smiles that tilted the corners of her mouth. She didn't disappoint him as she smiled as he told her, "My dear Hermione, it was obvious."

"And if I dare make a suggestion?" he told her, brushing his hair from his eyes and watching her eyes grow icy as she became furious with herself. He knew he was teasing her. But he liked it.

"You may dare." She whispered it.

"Chose a villa not a hotel."

"Thank you." She got up to leave.

He got up too, and said, "I appreciate you listening to me."

Her eyes turned up into his. "Doesn't anyone?" Her eyes seemed slightly shadowed, yet he could see emotion there. He didn't know which emotion.

He looked at her, feeling murderous. Of course not, angel, he whispered. No one does. "Naturally not, angel," he said, drawling coldly. "Who would listen to a Malfoy?"

"I would," she whispered. She looked surprised at her self.

He felt somehow gratified, with her. No one ever would. But he wouldn't let her see. "Honey, you're one of a kind."

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Often, in the next few days, when he dropped by her office, she was looking up something on the Internet. Generally it was villas, and then she looked with a slight frown between her brows that he longed to smooth away . . . then he cursed himself in as many languages as he knew. Sometimes she was listening to music, and doing a quick check he recognized Billy Joel's Modern Woman. With a smile he had laughed and passed down the corridor to Kevyn. The description suited Hermione to a tee.

But once he caught her looking non-business stuff. In fact a tiny, leather, black miniskirt. Quietly he chuckled, pretending that he hadn't seen.

"Well?" he asked her. He purposely made it seem somewhat ambiguous.

"Well what?" She looked guarded, wary . . . watching her tongue.

"Are we going?"

"Where?"

"Don't be innocent Hermione, it doesn't suit you. Are we going to France?"

He saw her sigh relief, and she said "Well, maybe we are going . . . maybe not. It all depends on if I can afford to send us, if I can find a villa . . . I'm just getting stressed."

"Take a break," he told her.

"Right. I would if could, but I can't."

"Okay. I'm going and gone."

He was. He pondered as he reentered his office. Miss Granger was as usual trying to be superwoman. And that was not good. He laughed at himself. He really should not care. What was a little Mudblood to him? She was his boss. Sexy, it was true, and she listened to him, but push come to shove, and she would just get rid of him. Like who cared about him? He was a Malfoy. To them, he would always be a filthy bastard.

He smiled, slowly, deliberately, and evilly.

Perhaps that was best. In fact, it was simply charming.

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Considering everything, he wasn't really surprised when he heard Hermione call the meeting. Not at all, since she called them meeting, and told them what she had planned. At she didn't waste her words either.

She told them short, plain and simple.

"We're going to France on Saturday for two weeks. The accommodation is set up and paid for. All you have to pay for is your own transportation. Bring personal spending money, and pack lightly-we'll be hitting Paris sometime. You may bring one person with you."

Stunned silence followed this.

Then Ryan said, "But um, Hermione, today is Thursday."

"I had noticed," said Hermione dryly.

"Hermione? France?" squeaked Ginny.

"On what?" asked somebody.

"The train."

Draco laughed to himself as he watched the stunned expressions of everyone else.

"But why?" asked Kevyn.

Hermione explained. "In la belle France, there are available gemstones, and plus, it would be an attraction to put pictures in the store for summer, like we did last winter. Also, we will need a vacation, before summer starts. If you don't wish to come, you don't have to. Who's game?"

They all exchanged glances. Then, with one voice, they said "ME!"

Hermione smiled dryly. "I figured that would be the case. Now, to arrange . . ."

As soon as she let them out, they ran towards the door like school children running home for the holidays, instead of grown adults. Hermione watched them and laughed. She seemed unaware of his presence, that is, until she called him.

He looked up, surprised. What did she want with him?

"Now, I do know that you are unable to pay for transportation. Therefore I am paying for you, and taking a certain amount of your salary to repay me. Is this suitable for you?"

He nodded as coolly as he could. He resisted the mad urge to run straight to her and sweep her off the ground in complete shock and happiness. Then he smiled at his own stupidity.

"Thank you Miss Granger."

"Now off with you. Go pack."

He was about to leave when suddenly she called him.

"Yes, Hermione?" was his question.

"Kindly behave yourself on this trip Draco," she said, returning the courtesy of the first name, "I might know that you will, but Mr. H. Potter doesn't."

He felt a sudden cold fury run through his body. Potter. Who hated him. And to do him justice he had hated him in before. But really that was rather insignificant to him now, But to think that he would still hate him, still loathe him.

Well, a poisonous mushroom can't change its spots. He wondered if he was talking about himself or Potter.

He left.

And as he was at home packing into a small suitcase that he still had-that was what you called packing lightly-he suddenly dropped his shirt. An idea came to him. Wicked you could call it. But it would grate on Mr. and Mrs. Potter's pair of nerves, please him . . . and he had no idea what it would to Hermione. She might like it.

Such was his subtlety.

He smiled again, looking slightly diabolic. It wasn't evil a plan. It just made him look so.

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For Ryan, Friday was a strange, rather fairytale day. Everyone had a touch of real magic, not the useful thing, but a sort of lovely fairytale things. As they all bustled, her running here and there, she reminded herself of a firefly. They were busily shutting up a shop, locking safes. She picked up things, but in between, she watched them all. Tanisha her friend was a rather quiet, dreamy dryad. Laura floated. Somehow, she floated, managing to look serene among the rushing people. Maybe she was part elf, part faery. A princess. Kevyn, following her was a goblin bodyguard. Sam was a sultan, somehow, and Latoya was an exotic court dancer, a member of his harem. Mike and M.J., that staid and sensible twin just seemed like the brown old women of the earth, good witches with magic of gems in their fingertips. She shivered.

The sunshine streamed in one Ginny, one advisor to the queen. And of course the queen herself, Her Majesty Hermione, with her hair all in disarray, and her cold, closed face verging on the stressed bothered and upset. Sometimes, her fantasy let play, and though she knew the true story she often pretended that Hermione was under a spell. One that prevented emotion.

But what of Draco? For despite Ginny's croaking, he was a nice human being, who though he was somewhat threatening at times was not at all planning to kill them all. What of him?

She watched him, and noted, how, when he arched one eyebrow at Hermione how she responded with a smile—a slow, lazy smile that just curved the corners of her mouth. And she knew how he teased her. Watching them out of the corner of her eye while taking something downstairs, she saw Hermione blush ever so faintly, dismissing Draco with a queenly gesture. But it didn't faze him. In fact he only smiled, and catching the sight of his face as he turned she nearly dropped what she was holding as that smug smirk held his face. It was a look that told her that he was up to something—not bad, but something that would make a lot of people uncomfortable.

And then, she saw.

Ryan had the gift of seeing, given to her from her Irish ancestors. In those seconds her eyes suddenly pulled away mists of time, and then she laughed, a full blown roguish laugh, and she said out loud, in the broad Irish accent

"Well, no doubt there'll be a mighty fuss, but after all . . ."

She chuckled to herself as she changed herself to a veiled fortune teller, and Draco was at once a prince—a dark dangerous prince, come to woo Hermione from a distant land. A prince who came from places people thought Hermione had never been, or never would go. And Hermione was a prisoner, a queen but a prisoner who wanted to break free. She wanted to live for herself.

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As he reflected on the day, Malfoy worried, or wondered about just one thing,. Why had Ryan looked at him like that? Not any hope of flirting, but a rather strange and eerie look as if she knew something he didn't know, and as she turned away he heard a rogue laugh and he knew that Ryan was Irish.

It was, when all was said and done, rather strange. But this trip to France turned everything topsy-turvy and it would get even more so.

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Laugh ask away if you want to, but you'll get answers in due course. Shayl, your review is the word France unless you have anything else to say.