A/N: This chapter ran longer than I usually like, so I advise you grab a cold beverage and snack before you settle in to read (enjoy, and review)!

ON TO

Chapter Three:

A shrill whine from inside her desk interrupted Hermione's reading as she smoked and basked in the sunshine streaming through her window on a day she did not have to work at her Muggle job. She marked her place and hastened to see which of her sensors was detecting something. For a split second, she had not known what to make of that noise, so much time had passed since she had last heard it.

It was a Sensa-spell, reminiscent of a compass except that the slender hand (shaped like a real human hand) gave off a noise halfway between a whistling tea kettle and a distant firecracker. The whine dropped in pitch after a second or two, which meant that the spell had been performed a long ways away. Occasionally, it picked up traces of Wizarding Paris, but only when someone or someones cast an exceptionally strong spell. But the hand was pointing in a different direction today.

The whine picked up again and then dropped off. Either another spell had been cast in quick succession from the same locale, or the first was still working. She grabbed a small notebook and a pen and ran out of her flat to the street below. In the almost complete absence of magic, the spell detected could have been cast as far away as the city limits, so Hermione hopped aboard a metro train headed in approximately the same direction as the hand. Conscious of the risk it posed, she had brought the Sensa-spell in her handbag and peeked at it when she descended from the train, hoping no one had paid too much attention when it whistled on the metro.

She took the stairs back to the street two at a time, arriving in the afternoon sunlight out of breath but more energized than she had felt in… too long. The shrill pitch rose and fell much more quickly now, signalling that she was very close. It was not until she had hurried down several blocks that she realised the full danger the Sensa-spell posed for her, not merely exposing Muggles to a magical device but also exposing her presence in a potentially harmful situation. And it was also at the moment that she realised that she had left her pack at home.

She hissed a quiet word – ah, the wonders of wandless magic – to mute the whine and watched the hand shift as it pinpointed the location of the spell. It would continue to point after the spell had terminated, but the agitated vibration it had just acquired meant that whatever had first alerted the Sensa-spell was continuing. Whatever it was, a single drawn-out spell or a heated exchange, Hermione was about to walk right into the middle of it.

In front of her loomed a stately hotel, and the hand pointed right in between the lobby doors. Luckily for her, people were streaming in and out too quickly for anyone to stop a rather shabbily-dressed young lady from dashing into an elevator. She clutched the sensor in her hand, feeling the vibration build as the elevator slowly rose. As the fifth floor, it went into a frenzy until she feared it would tear itself apart. She got off at the next floor and ran down a flight of stairs.

The hand was steady now, indicating a room at the opposite end of the hall. As she approached, the hand swung slowly until it pointed straight ahead. Room 543. Do not disturb. She swallowed. Perfect silence greeted her, probably the result of a silencing charm, but she could feel something through the heavy, ornate door when she set her hand upon it. A passer-by gave her a strange look, and she composed herself, knocking with an apparent confidence she did not possess.

It occurred to her in a flash that Malfoy would probably stay at a place like this if he did not wish to be seen by any of the wizarding community. Had she walked into the middle of a torture session, a little Death Eater fête with a helpless victim as the centrepiece?

She knocked again, harder. Suddenly furious, she curled her hands into fists and pounded on the door as hard as she could. From a room a little ways down, a middle-aged man appeared and ordered her to stop making such a racket or he would call hotel security. Without awaiting a reply, he turned and vanished back into his room.

She gritted her teeth. There was one final chance… "Alohomora," she whispered. If she were very lucky, perhaps the Death Eater in charge had forgotten to place a magical lock on the door, relying on the silencing charm and the door's deadbolt. To her great surprise, the doorknob clicked and yielded when she tried to twist it.

It opened to a scene she would never have dreamt to find. A tall, emaciated figure draped in black stood over a barely-conscious Lucius Malfoy. A rasping voice cast the cruciatus curse over and over again at its victim, writhing on a Persian rug. The torturer was too engrossed in his or her work and Malfoy in his agony for either of them to notice Hermione's intrusion. To her horror, the figure picked up Malfoy's cane, caressed it, and raised it with a blood-chilling laugh. Thinking fast, she decided that the only possible plan did not seem likely to succeed but would at least give her a good story… if she survived to tell it.

She ran at the dark figure and tackled it as fiercely as the rugby players her Muggle school friends had idolised. The wand flew out of reach as Hermione seized one arm and twisted it behind her victim's back. Prostrate on the floor, he or she grunted with exertion and tried to fight until Hermione nearly wrenched the arm out of its socket. After that, the raspy voice had to content itself with cursing as much as it could, pressed into thick carpeting.

During this time, Malfoy had righted himself and searched for his captor's wand. Hermione looked up to see him, pale and sweaty (and dressed like a Muggle, a distant part of her brain noted) but fairly composed, grasp the wand and turn to aim it in her direction. He wore a terrifying expression, every muscle in his face taut in a half-grin, half-snarl, and his long hair plastered to his skull. It seemed to take him a moment to recognise his saviour before his face settled into a closer semblance of its habitual faint sneer. He acknowledged her with a curt nod, and…

"Avada kedavra!"

Then several things happened simultaneously. A bar of green light shot out one of the wand, Hermione rolled herself away from her capture, and Malfoy fell into a convulsion on the floor. A moment later, Hermione strode over a kicked the wand out of Malfoy's hand. He grunted in pain, and she felt a brief burst of sympathy in spite of herself. She bent over and stuck the wand into her bag, a perfect fit.

"If I had meant to kill you," Lucius said as he stood up, "I would not have missed."

She crossed her arms and glared. "You didn't have to kill anyone!"

"If you're worried about the Muggle gendarmerie, don't be. A Death Eater will arrive shortly to check on her progress. When he finds her dead, he'll remove the body and all evidence that any of us were here." This he said casually as he headed into an adjoining bathroom.

"It's not that," she shouted through the bathroom door, though a part of her might have been a little bit relieved. "We could have brought… her to justice." Her. She wondered who lay at her feet.

Derisive laughter greeted this assertion. "The way your elders once brought me to justice? Forgive my scepticism. Think of it as a final mercy. My Lord would have his hands on her much sooner than any prosecutor, and she would have begged for death before the end."

He re-emerged from the bathroom, face washed and hair tied back in a queue. She thought she could see a hint of discolouration at his neck, possibly bruising, and his shirt was suspiciously dark and torn in places. What had she stumbled in on?

His expression softened a little as he approached her. That unnerved her as much as anything she had seen so far that day, and she froze. When he raised his hand, she instinctively clamped one of hers over her bag. He chuckled and gently touched her hair, tracing his fingers down its messy length.

"Thank you, Miss Granger," he said softly. "It seems I owe you a debt, and a Malfoy always pays his debts."

Had she heard that before? She could not remember.

She dropped her eyes and tried not to fidget. "You can start by telling me what's going on here."

He turned away from her and walked toward a closet in one corner of the luxurious chamber. She realised that she had been holding her breath and now was free to exhale. A second later, she inhaled sharply when, with complete disregard for modesty, Malfoy stripped off his torn shirt and tossed it to the floor.

The proper thing to do at this juncture was of course to avert her eyes, but, well, what could be the harm in looking? Bruises and cuts marked the pale skin, and she could not help but wince as still-fresh blood oozed down his back. Still, she watched with fascination the way his shoulder blades and the muscles of his back shifted as he rummaged through the closet.

"Wait," she called hardly knowing why she spoke. He looked over his shoulder and winced a little as the movement pulled at one of his manifold injuries.

"Your back looks terrible. You have to clean it up a little if you don't want infection to set it. Do you have any magical creams, or…?"

He shook his head. "No. Nor do I have my wand at present." A heavy sigh escaped his lips. "I suppose I will have to rely on Muggle folk medicine for the time being."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Hermione found herself laughing. "You sound as though we're stuck in the Stone Age. Sanitation has come a long way even in this world. Soap, for example, is one of the many modern marvels you'll find in any Muggle bathroom."

She tried not to look at the body at her feet as she stepped past it. Later she would freak out and have nightmares, but right now she had to keep her composure. Her stomach turned mutinously, and she thought longingly of how a fag would calm it.

"Come on already."

Leaving his closet, Malfoy followed her into the bathroom. She gazed around herself in awe; it was larger than her entire flat. "Sit there," she ordered, indicating the toilet. Feeling the full strangeness of the moment, she ran hot water over a plush hand towel and unwrapped a cake of perfumed soap. First to dab away the blood, then clean out the wounds.

He did as he was told and looked as uncomfortable as Hermione felt, in his distant way. Her hands hovered for a moment just above his skin, uncertain where to begin. She swallowed and started wiping the worst of the gore from his back. He tensed but otherwise gave no indication that he felt any pain.

"Is this okay?" she asked, feeling somehow silly as she spoke.

"It's fine," he replied through a clamped jaw.

She continued in silence, torn between revulsion at the ordeal he had endured, sympathy for his pain, irritation at her sympathy, a terrible craving for a smoke, and frank admiration of his physique underneath her fingers. No one in the wizarding world would believe their eyes if they walked in, she thought, a junior member of the Order of the Phoenix tending a senior Death Eater.

And just in case she forgot that she was indeed tending a Death Eater, she caught a

glimpse of the Dark Mark on his forearm. Her mouth dried even as she told herself she was being ridiculous. She could not very well have forgotten, now could she? As she cleaned his back, she focussed her eyes on his injuries and tried not to look at the mark. Just seeing it there so near made her feel unclean. It was always there, she argued silently, you just normally don't see it. Nothing's different now. But it felt different.

After a few minutes, she worked up the nerve to ask another question. "You never told me what happened here." At least, it was almost a question.

Lucius sighed and rolled his shoulders. "I should think that was apparent. My sister-in-law was paying me a social call. I forgot to wish her a happy birthday, you see, and Bellatrix hates that."

Hermione stopped and stared. From his seated position, Malfoy turned to regard her in the mirror. He smiled. "And they say we Death Eaters have no sense of humour. Close your mouth, you'll catch flies."

Her mouth snapped shut, more in surprise than anger. Hadn't she once said those exact words to Ron?

"My Lord is unhappy with me at the moment, but he'll be impressed that I thwarted his favourite lieutenant."

At this, Hermione dabbed a little harder than necessary. "You murdered an unarmed woman after I subdued her!" She went to rinse out the pinkened towel and vigorously rubbed soap into the cloth. Hmph. To think, she had felt sorry for him a few moments before! She was very satisfied to hear a hiss of indrawn breath as she spread soapy lather over his wounds. A tiny part of her wished she had iodine or peroxide or alcohol at hand… to properly sterilise his wounds, of course.

"The circumstances are irrelevant. However, it will probably be for the best if I stay out sight for a little while. My Lord might react… precipitously to seeing me again too soon."

She snorted. "And what does a Malfoy know about keeping a low profile? Tell me, where do you plan on going after you leave here?" His back looked much better already under her careful hand.

"I know a tolerable sort of establishment in the first. Overrun with American tourists, but what can you expect these days?" he answered as she rinsed the cloth once more. With a few quick strokes, she wiped the soap from his back.

"Turn around," she ordered. "I might as well send you to your grave looking presentable." She hoped her expression did not betray her thoughts too explicitly as he spun around to reveal a well-muscled chest, more lacerated than his back.

His eyes narrowed. "I wager I'll outlive you and your futile Order."

She shrugged as she bent and began repeating the process on his chest. "I'm sure you will," she said in her most bland tone. "Let's pretend for a moment that I'm a Death Eater sent by Voldemort to kill you. I ask myself or someone who knows what the ten most expensive hotels in Paris are, and then I send ten of my minions to bribe, blackmail, or otherwise intimidate the managers of each of them into alerting me the minute he sees a man matching the picture I have."

She paused. "How many hours do you suppose it takes me to find you?"

Silence fell again as she attended him. Trying to act nonchalant, she rested her free hand on his shoulder with the aim of keeping her balance as she angled to reach every bloody spot. His skin was warm to the touch… of course it was, she told herself. He's human, if barely. The muscle was round and hard under the skin, reminding Hermione of the comparative delicacy of her own frame.

"I gather you have a better idea." To her great shock, he laid a hand atop hers. His voice became low and caressing. "Some place a little… closer to you?"

She jerked her hand away and hastened back to the sink. Insufferable. Worse, he had used his left hand, and she could almost feel a greasy taint like oil on water brush her knowing the Dark Mark lay so very near her. She should not have said anything about his idiotic plan, should have let his precious friends kill him as soon as they could. Let her read about in the next joyous message from the Order. Fine, she would offer no more of her advice if he was going to act like that.

"You look utterly foolish when you pout, like a little girl who didn't get a pony for Christmas. I'm going to ask for your help, Miss Granger, and in exchange I'm offering you all the information I have on my Lord and his allies."

Her wide eyes met his. "All? But I thought you planned a reconciliation with him?"

"Eventually, but I must first survive his wrath, and I'm certain that you can help me stay alive. And I'm not completely blinded by loyalty… the possibility of my Lord's ultimate defeat has occurred to me." His cat-like smile faltered a bit as she scrubbed his chest but never faded. "You cannot mean to renounce this opportunity to sway one of my Lord's highest-ranking allies to your way of thinking."

"I'm helping you now, aren't I?" she huffed. "But please stop calling him 'my Lord'. It's worse than 'You-Know-Who' and it's… servile." Once more she went to rinse the towel and wash the soap from Malfoy's chest. He was looking much better, of which she felt quite proud.

"There, that should keep you in good health until you can take a shower and buy some antiseptic."

"Again, I thank you. Am I safe to dress now?"

"Go ahead."

They returned to the bedroom, where Hermione's stomach heaved again at seeing the deceased Bellatrix. "Could you please hurry?"

He changed into a pale blue shirt, a darker jacket, and a tie. A flush rose into Hermione's cheeks when she heard the click of a belt buckle, and she turned to stare fixedly at the door. One whoosh and rustle suggested that he was removing his trousers, and another that he was pulling one new ones.

"You could have warned me. Are you finished yet?"

"I am."

Before her seemed to stand another wealthy French businessman, surrounded by grandeur slightly marred by blood and a corpse on the floor. His own injuries were mostly hidden by his tailored jacket, and no one would think to look at him that he had just endured possibly hours of torture. She wondered if his typical Frenchman persona included a penchant for smoking… it was tempting to ask.

She shook her head. "If you're going to keep a low profile, you're going to have to find new places to shop, to eat, to spend your time in general." Her forehead crinkled in thought. "What do you do all day here? Why are you in Paris at all?"

He cast one last look at Bellatrix's body as he walked past and into the corridor, after politely gesturing Hermione to lead the way. His answer did not come until they were both in the hall, and when it did, it was most unsatisfactory.

"The same thing any tourist does, I imagine. I'm recently quite taken with Versailles, for instance. It seems even Muggles are capable of grasping the concept of luxury now and again." He glanced down at her. "It's infinitely more amusing than teaching English at that… business school of yours."

"How do you-" she began, a moment before realisation hit her. "You're spying on me!"

He looked quite unconcerned as he pressed the button on the lift and waited. "At least I may be grateful that your obsession with routine left my days mostly free to dispose of as I wished."

"Well I'm glad that I'm such an easy target!" she replied hotly. "And what exactly were you looking for?" She began to feel afraid that Voldemort's inner circle knew more about her work here than any of the Order had suspected.

The lift opened in front of them, and Malfoy gave a tiny shake of his head as they stepped inside. A middle-aged woman with dyed blonde hair and a shockingly short skirt tapped her foot while they entered and continued doing so during the entire ride down to the lobby. A younger lady who might have been her daughter railed at her in a very loud American accent, rendering any other conversation impossible.

Lucius cast a contemptuous glance after the departing pair before resuming their own conversation. "What I was looking for…" He stopped and looked up. "Damn, I forgot something in the room." He started to turn back, but Hermione laid a hand on his elbow. His annoyed look met her most stubborn expression.

"We're leaving here as quickly as we can. If it's urgent, you can arrange for the hotel to ship it to you wherever you go."

He pursed his lips but did not argue. His hands tugged at his cuffs, and Hermione wondered if it was his infamous silver-headed cane he was missing. She wondered what he would say to find out that Bellatrix had come very close to beating him bloody with it. Well, she was glad not to see it and hoped he would forget about it long enough for someone to dispose of it.

"Let's return to the spying," she prompted after a moment of silence.

"As you wish. It was not spying, precisely. As we have previously discussed, I came to make you an offer-"

"- which I will never accept."

"As you say. My… the Dark Lord believed that you would react so, and when I informed him of your initial response, the matter for him was settled. I was to kill you."

A passing bellboy shot Lucius a wide-eyed look which the latter did not notice. Hermione gasped. "Kill me? But why? And why didn't you?"

At this, Malfoy stopped short to give her one of his long, penetrating looks. She felt as if she were being weighed, measured, and categorised by that look… and did not enjoy the sensation. Her fingers twitched.

"You're an extremely valuable asset to your Order, more than they and perhaps even you recognise. The Dark Lord knows that killing you would strike a powerful and demoralising blow to your allies although I believe that no one knows how important you are."

Hermione thought of Harry, who had only become more driven to fight with every successive death they placed at Voldemort's feet. It was more proof that he and his followers truly lacked a fundamental understanding of their opposition (and, she suspected, human beings in general).

"If that's true, then why am I still here?"

They stepped into the afternoon sunshine and blinked furiously at the sudden brightness. Without consulting her – this was beginning to be a pattern – Malfoy set off across the busy street, barely sparing a glance for traffic. The man was mad, as if she needed more evidence of that.

"That's what my sister-in-law came to inquire after today. Ultimately, you have my high good opinion of you to thank for that," he shouted above the roar of traffic. At least, he raised his voice.

When they reached the other side, safe and sound, Hermione looked at him incredulously. "I'm alive because of your good opinion of me? Haven't you forgotten something… say, my family history?"

"Is it so hard to believe," he asked as his lips curved into that familiar smile, "after everything I've said about both of our associates underestimating you? I believe that to kill you now would be a potentially great loss to the Dark Lord. Unfortunately for him, he does not share my opinion at the present moment and suspects me of having erred most foolishly in this respect."

He led them to a taxi stand where several cabs waited, idling with their windows rolled down. "Are you free?" he asked in that accent-perfect French.

"Yes, sir. Please enter."

He did just that, opening the door and waiting for Hermione to step inside before following.

"Where is our first stop in my new, low-profile existence?"