Chapter Six: Think Creatively
Hermione led Malfoy out into the middle of the arena. The pit was deserted but for them and Harry, who had come along, partly because it was in his best interests to see for himself how Malfoy fared if they were to have each other's backs in a real fight, and partly because he was in need of a break and some amusement. He knew Hermione too well to not know when she was scheming, and he could tell she had some sort of mischief in hand. Nothing malicious, just something to get under Malfoy's apparently inalienable immaculateness; a form of gentle hazing, unlike her former attempt.
Granger had changed back into her combat gear, and was grinning at Draco in a way that made him deeply unsettled. It was a wolfish kind of grin that he'd never expected to see on her, and it made him feel extremely vulnerable. It was about to get worse, however.
She raised her wand and gave a quick, careless flick at him before Draco could even react.
For a moment he wasn't sure what she had done to him, but when he suddenly felt cold, he looked down and saw his neatly pressed suit and robes had vanished, replaced with one of those ridiculous skin-tight outfits that the recruits and Granger wore.
He now felt exposed and vulnerable.
"What is the meaning of this, Granger?" he spat, too uncomfortable to bother being polite, automatically crossing his hands in front of himself.
Hermione smirked. "It's standard training gear, Malfoy. It gives you better movement – we like trainees to start with minimum hindrance before adding normal clothes and robes to the mix."
"I feel like I'm naked."
Hermione shrugged. "I guess you're as close to it as you're going to get whilst still being covered up." She eyed his embarrassed expression, astonished to find that his pale cheeks were actually tinted a faint pink, and laughed. "Who'd have thought the great Draco Malfoy would get so out of sorts just because of a bit of lycra."
Draco forced his arms to his side, attempting to regain his usual poised nonchalance with little success. "I feel like I'm about to do a bloody ballet, Granger – not practice fighting."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Everyone who goes through combat training is in the same boat, Malfoy; stop being so silly." Her hands had migrated to her hips, elbows akimbo.
"I'm not being silly, I'm being perfectly reasonable," Draco spat, determinedly ignoring the heat in his face. "Besides, it feels…restrictive."
Hermione couldn't repress the snort that bubbled up at that, and focused on keeping her eyes from wandering down from his face. "It's only because you're unused to clinging clothing. I assure you, there are no medical side-effects to, er, performance that might result from wearing lycra."
Draco's eyes narrowed at her words, glaring with penetrating force, but he only pressed his lips together.
Hermione smirked. It was clear from Malfoy's body language that he had resigned himself to the fact that he would have to wear the ridiculous clothes, no matter what verbal protestations he uttered. "Right." She slid smoothly into her usual opening statements for new recruits. "So the point of this is to give you an advantage over your opponents. It's a new program that we implemented because until they get actual field experience, a lot of the new Aurors struggle with adapting to different terrains and situations, and aren't very aware of how they can use their surroundings to their advantage. They need to learn to make their surroundings work for them, not against them. Furthermore, traditional one-on-one duelling doesn't place much emphasis on spatial awareness, and there's nothing worse than being blinkered in a real wand fight."
Draco restrained himself from rolling his eyes as Granger went into teaching mode. It was just like being at school again, with her rattling off some of the apparently inexhaustible list of facts she committed to memory regardless of their applicability to the situation.
"Of course, if they don't learn this beforehand, it could be too late to learn it on the job. So we added this segment of the training course. When you become an accomplished duellist it's more helpful in terms of being able to get an edge over an opponent if you're evenly matched. In such circumstances your options are limited – run, make a mistake and lose, wait for them to make a mistake, or fight until it becomes a battle of stamina. If you can think creatively in such a situation, you can distract your opponent, and give yourself the second you need to get under their guard. The key is to think creatively."
Draco nodded, knowing from the expectant look in Granger's eyes that she expected an answer of some sort from him.
"OK. We're ready, Harry!"
Draco felt something akin to a light static buzz wash over him from the feet up with a tingle, and suddenly the arena had disappeared, replaced with a traditional duelling room with a long strip of purple grip down the centre of the wooden floor that marked out their centre line. There were a few suits of armour along the walls, and a mirror at one end.
"What just happened?" he asked warily.
Hermione grinned, a hint of pride in her tone. "You're in the S.T.E. – it stands for Simulated Training Environment. It's a spell I devised that allows us to put trainees through a wider variety of mock situations so they're better prepared for real life combat than plain duelling. It's simpler than going out on location."
Draco glanced around. The simulation was flawless. Not that he'd tell Granger that. He raised an eyebrow. "Why are we in a duelling room then?"
Hermione rolled her eyes, moving to take up her place at the opposite end of the strip, raising her wand. "I need to find out your competency first, and that's best done in plain surroundings. Later on I'll train you in different locations and patch up any weaknesses. Take up your position."
Draco moved to his place opposite her feeling extremely wary. It had indeed been a long time since he had done anything that even approached duelling, and it was clear that Granger was something of an expert if she was training rookie Aurors. He'd been glad not to have been too shabby when he'd versed her the other day, but his defensive tactics then hadn't simply been strategy – it had been next to impossible to beat her to the punch and sneak in anything offensive. Furthermore, if that glint in her eye was any indication, she was not about to hold back on him. They might have reached an understanding, but that didn't mean they were suddenly best friends. The thought occurred to him that even if he were Potter she probably wouldn't hold back, and he felt marginally comforted.
Draco straightened himself, drawing up to his full height, and raised his wand.
They stared at each other down the strip for a few long moments, then–
"Stupefy!"
Draco flicked his wand, lazily bringing up a shield with plenty of time to deflect the Stunning Spell that bounced off, boring a cindering hole in the wood panelling of the walls.
Non-verbal skills – good. Hermione mentally checked the ability off on the list running through her mind – she'd already ascertained that much last time they'd fought, but it was best to be systematic about these things. She grinned; this might be quite fun – it was quite boring versing new recruits; they were all too easy to beat. Not to mention how good it would feel thorough trouncing Malfoy as part of work; now that would be fun. There was something about his manner and near-constant composure that begged her to irritate him.
She swiped her wand through the air, sending a non-verbal Full Body-Bind Curse blazing at Malfoy, and he deflected it again.
Reflexes – good. That was a given – he'd been a Seeker. But even those skills could get rusty.
Draco had decided it was time to go on the offensive, a little perplexed at how easy she was going on him, and stepped forwards, cords shooting out of the tip of his wand and flying towards Granger, eager to ensnare and bind her.
Hermione slashed her wand at the cords, sending them flying back towards their creator, now in the form of writhing, spitting snakes.
Draco saw the airborne reptiles with seconds to spare and dodged them, spinning around to incinerate them with a mental shout of Incendio!
The snakes turned to ashy coils on the floor behind him, and as he turned he caught sight of Granger raising her wand to the ceiling.
"Lumos maxima!"
The sudden flash of light was as though the sun had been brought into the room, and Draco flung up an arm to shield his dazzled eyes, straining his ears for sounds of Granger's approach as he blinked forcefully, seeing nothing but white. He heard a step to his right, and spun in that direction, blindly firing off an Impediment Jinx.
Harry watched from the benches as Hermione dodged Malfoy's spell, impressed at how he was standing up to her test. To be fair to Hermione, she was being professional about it this time. She could easily have hit him with a spell the moment he was blinded, but he knew she was methodically testing Malfoy's abilities in different areas, checking them off as she went. Hermione was nothing if not good at her job.
Hermione was surprised and impressed by Malfoy's attention to his other senses while blinded – few if any recruits showed such awareness – although she firmly believed that his jinx getting as near as it did to her was dumb luck.
She waved her wand at the suit of armour his jinx had bounced off of, denting its breastplate, and the suit leapt into life, clanking nosily towards Malfoy, who was still blinking stars from his eyes.
He heard the metal man coming however, and blasted it apart, bits of plate armour flying everywhere as the last of the dazzle faded from his eyes. At last able to see, Draco waved his wand at the scattered pieces, and they all rose and shot towards Granger.
Use of surroundings – good.
Hermione leapt, ducked, and rolled across the floor, the armour thudding into the wall where she had been standing, several pieces remaining embedded in it. A flick of her wand at the ashen coils behind Malfoy turned them into an icy puddle, another at the carpet dragging it out from under his feet so that he stumbled backwards, one foot landing on the ice.
Draco felt himself skid backwards, falling unceremoniously on his rear with a hard thud. Ow. Damn you, Granger. He rolled onto his side, and sent a Trip Jinx whizzing along the floor at Granger's ankles, at last landing a blow on the wily woman so that she fell heavily to the floor.
Hermione gasped as the breath was knocked out of her, and she narrowed her eyes at Malfoy who had the temerity to smirk at her. He quickly realised his mistake.
Hermione directed her wand at the large mirror hanging on the wall behind him, shattering the glass into a thousand flying fragments which she directed at Malfoy.
He rolled right to see the oncoming sharp hail, and disintegrated the glass hornets into a fine sandy powder that rained down over him, although not before one shard cut him across a cheekbone.
Draco turned back towards Granger, who had regained her feet, and with a flick of his wand, sent the sand blasting towards her with enough force to exfoliate steel.
A quick twirl of her wand ripped the floorboards up in front of her, shielding her from the brunt of the exfoliating blast of the sand, which stripped off the varnish from the boards and began to swiftly wear through the wood.
Ingenuity – good.
Hermione peeked around what remained of the boards as the sand faded, ducking back just in time as a fireball blasted towards her, Malfoy behind it as he ran at her. Spinning around to the other side of the boards, Hermione snuck her wand tip around the corner, and quickly diffused the fireball, shooting a Jelly-Legs Jinx at Malfoy and hitting him squarely in the chest with it in quick succession.
His speedy progress instantly halted as he began wobbling towards her, snarling out the counter-jinx and turning to glare at her.
Hermione couldn't help but laugh. That nearly cost her.
Draco blasted away the boards, following the spell quickly with a stream of spiders as large as his hand that shot from his wand towards her.
Hermione screamed out, "Ascendio!" just in time, flying up into the air, and out of the way of the tide of spiders, pointing her wand back down with a rapid, "Arania exumai!" as she fell back towards the writhing carpet, blasting the spiders away.
Her feet had barely touched the carpet before the spiders began to converge on her once more.
"Opugno!"
Draco's eyes widened as the spiders rapidly turned and began to scuttle towards him with alarming speed. He banished them with a slash of his wand, back pedalling to be on the safe side, and was hit in the chest with a Stickfast Hex.
He fell to the floor for a second time in as many minutes, this time bouncing his head rather badly on the floor, the soles of his feet still glued to the ground. Draco had the wits to keep his eyes on Granger, despite the pain going through his head, and gabbled out, "Draconifors!" his wand pointing at the scattered shield of the suit of armour.
A small dragon apparently made of enamelled metal instantly appeared, leaping before its creator, and breathed fire threateningly at Hermione. She brandished her wand calmly at it, her Shield Charm fending off the flames of its attack, and a moment later had vanished it.
Draco was ready for that, waiting for her to drop her Shield Charm to banish the dragon, and jabbed his wand at her, "Everte statum!"
Hermione flew backwards, and would have cannoned into the stone wall but for a timely Cushioning Charm. As it was she still experienced a nasty jolt of whiplash.
Cunning – well…hardly needed to test that. Time to wrap it up.
"Langlock!" Hermione knew that sticking Malfoy's tongue to the roof of his mouth wouldn't harm his duelling abilities, but his surprise at the odd sensation was what she wanted, and with a second flick of her wand, she had disarmed him, catching his soaring wand in her free hand.
Hermione marched up to Draco where he still lay on the floor, his feet stuck to it, and his tongue glued in his mouth. "Finite," she murmured, and the spells faded. "You did well, Malfoy. I'm impressed."
Draco had to work hard to restrain a smirk, and was surprised when she offered a hand to help him back up to his feet. He paused a moment, regarding the hand and what it meant, then took it.
The simulated duelling room faded around them as she hauled him up, and they turned to face Harry who was coming across the ground towards them.
"So?" Harry asked expectantly.
Hermione wiped a little sweat off her brow, her cheeks very slightly pink from the exercise, and gave Draco a look he dared to think might approach respect. "He'll do," she replied stiffly.
Draco could feel his own sweat dampening the duelling gear, and was rather grateful he wasn't in robes after all. "Merlin, woman. What does a guy have to do to get a full compliment around here?" he panted slightly.
Granger glared at him for a moment, making him think he'd crossed some sort of line, then punched him in the gut before his blood could finish freezing.
"Oww!" Truth be told she hadn't hit him that hard, but it had been unexpected.
"Suck it up, Ferret." But she was laughing.
He could tell she was still wary of him; perhaps it wasn't yet time to be relaxed around her. Damn Potter for lowering his guard, and damn himself for offering to let her into his mind. If they hadn't called a truce he might have been more guarded – but then again, if they hadn't called a truce, he probably wouldn't even have been asked on the case. He wasn't sure yet whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
"You get turned into an animal one time," he muttered sourly under his breath as they walked back to the benches together.
Harry chuckled.
Back in Harry's office, when Hermione and Draco were back in normal office wear, and had freshened up a little after the fight, they reconvened.
Hermione had brought along the proper paperwork and began to fill it in, clearing Draco for fieldwork on the proviso that he took further training in the Auror program; at least an hour with her every day.
"Don't you have other instructors?"
Harry and Hermione glanced up at Malfoy's question.
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Do you have a problem with me being your trainer?"
Draco shook his head, backpedalling when he saw the impression he'd given. "No, I just thought – with the case…" he tried to wriggle out of giving her a compliment. He might not hate her anymore, but that didn't mean he was about to go around dispensing accolades every which way. "You'd have more important things to do?"
Hermione's expression cleared with comprehension. "Each trainer supervises a group of trainees – we teach them everything," she said formally, professional once more. "Aurors should be competent in all areas, even if they specialise, and the one-on-one teaching method is more effective than one trainee having tutors for all the different areas. It's easier for a single person to assess their progress than a group. I may not be an Auror, but I head the combat division because it's my specialisation. I don't teach it to all the trainees, however; I just devise the training program they undertake. Likewise, I'll take you through the full course – sped up, obviously."
Draco nodded.
Harry was pleased. If nothing else the fight had proven to him beyond all doubt that Hermione and Malfoy would be able to work together and maintain a professional relationship. It was a bit much to hope that Hermione would grow to respect or even like Malfoy as he did, but he knew she didn't think as poorly of Malfoy as she had.
He watched as they each signed off on the papers, unable to help but feel a faint sense of pride in at least engineering the circumstances that allowed them to reconcile their differences. At school he had never thought much of Dumbledore's talk about inter-house unity. Back then it had seemed an impossible task that Gryffindors and Slytherins could ever get along, but they were more than their ex-houses now, and after the War he had seen the devastating effects of division in a community.
Harry returned to the papers littering his desk as Hermione filed away the forms with a flick of her wand. The list of remaining known Death Eaters still at large had come through from the Investigation Department, and it was rather unhelpful. Five names were on it with "unaccounted for" beside them – which could mean anything from missing to presumed dead – the majority with their most recent sightings labelled as the Battle of Hogwarts, or even the break-in at the Ministry from their fifth year. A second and much longer list of potential Death Eaters and people with known blood supremacy beliefs was below.
Harry handed the list to Draco. "Do you think you could have a dig around and see if there are leads on any of them?"
Draco perused the list and nodded, waving his wand at the page and catching the copy that drifted into existence. "My father might have some ideas about their bolt holes and suchlike." He reserved the comment that it would be as easy as pulling teeth with a rusty fishhook to get the information however. "I'm not sure how much anyone with real information might trust me though…it's been pretty well publicised that I'm not on their side anymore. If I'm too obvious then they might catch wind we're onto them. I have a few contacts, but we'll see."
Harry nodded his thanks and turned back to the wall of information by his desk, pinning the list onto it. "So…we've got a fairly strong connection to the previous seven murders. High probability that it's a new Dark witch or wizard, or a Death Eater –"
"The spellwork will rule out some of them – the weaker ones like Crabbe and Nott," Draco interjected, scanning the lists once more. "It's specialist knowledge. They were just grunts. You can focus in on my uncles," he sneered the word, "Rodolphus and Rabastan. And Rowle – he was a talented duellist. Possibly Travers."
Harry nodded, and Hermione flicked her wand at the page, tiny glowing red stars appearing beside the names Malfoy had listed.
"So it's likely to be a Death Eater with specialist curse knowledge, a thing for torture, and potentially something of an exhibitionist if the letters and the Marks are anything to go by." Harry sighed and leant back in his chair. "It just makes no sense when you consider the previous seven. Why was their blood drained? Why one every seven days? Why seven people? Why the gap? Why the change in the method of killing? Why no letters on them? Why no Dark Marks?"
"Seven is the most powerful magical number," Hermione said thoughtfully.
A chill traced over Harry at the words, remnants of Tom Riddle saying similar words in Slughorn's memory surfacing.
"I'll look further into its significance," Hermione said firmly, sensing Harry's discomfort and drawing him back to the present. "I have Arithmancy books by Bridget Wenlock left over from school; she discovered the –"
"Significance and application of seven in Arithmancy, we know, Granger," Draco interrupted. He knew she was a walking depository for all known to wizard-kind, but she really didn't need to state the obvious.
Hermione frowned at his interference, "We know it because we studied Arithmancy," she corrected him tartly. "I was saying so for Harry's benefit."
Draco rolled his eyes at her, but conceded her point with a twitch of his eyebrow.
"I'll check through seven and any other numbers that seem significant in the case," Hermione continued, giving Draco a brief glower edged with superiority before she returned her attention to Harry, who had observed the interchange with mild interest.
"I'll check out potions and artefacts relating to it," Draco added helpfully, sensing he ought to regain ground after his faux pas. Potions and Dark artefacts were his speciality, after all. He received a curt nod from her.
"I'll owl or firecall you if I find anything important before tomorrow."
He nodded. "Likewise."
Harry glanced between them, glad that some sort of headway was being made, and they silently split ways – Hermione for the Ministry library and archives, Draco for Harry's fire to floo home to consult his own library, and Harry back down to Forensics via the personal lift in his filing cabinet to ensure that the connection between the two murders was as near to proven as possible. If they were going to work with that assumption, it had to be right beyond all reasonable doubt.
AAAAGH. I know I said I was going to get back into an updating schedule, I'm sorry! Because it HAS been a while since my last update, chapter 7 will be following soon!
As for this chapter, even though they're working together, don't think for a second that Hermione isn't going to have some fun with Draco. I mean, come on, the guy really does ask for it!
Also, the case is moving forwards (slowly, I know), and there'll be more of that in the next chapter.
I hope you enjoyed it! 3
Please do review and/or favourite :) Tell me what you like or don't like :) Questions and speculations are always welcome :D As is incomprehensible flailing if that's what you go in for :)
If you want to get access to sneak previews to chapters before they're posted, you can like me on Facebook (JZJ Tomkins) or follow me on Twitter ( jtomkinsauthor) or Tumblr (jzj-tomkins):)
