For a long moment, as all the portraits in the room regained their faculties, Hermione forgot she was a witch and clapped her hands over her ears. The volume of the portraits all screaming and yelling at once was overwhelming, and she dropped into a crouch, overcome by the cacophony of noise. She hadn't experienced a crush of noise of that magnitude in a small space since the sound of wand fire and calls for help had rung out in the narrow halls of Hogwarts. Fortunately, Draco was both literally and figuratively quicker on the draw and, with a flourish of his wand, quieted all the portraits littering the walls.
Now that all portraits were quiet, but fortunately moving, she suddenly realized how odd it had been not to have them moving earlier. While not covered in portraits, per se, the walls were far from sparse. Portraits were on all the walls, in small frames on bookcases and tables, and the sudden rush of movement made her wonder how they had both entered the room earlier without noticing their lack of movement. Moving portraits were an integral part of the wizarding world. She'd gotten more used to them flitting about their frames than the motionless watchers of the muggle world.
"Are you alright?" he asked, slipping his wand back into his trouser pocket and crouching down beside her and gently pulling her hands from her ears.
"I... yes. The noise startled me. I wasn't expecting that."
"I'm sorry," he whispered, one hand coming to rest hesitantly on her upper back before he began gently to stroke the space between her shoulder blades. "I should have guessed a situation like that would happen. I shouldn't have awoken them all at once. I should have started with one at a time, or I should have—"
"No. It's not your—no. It's fine. I was... surprised, is all. You couldn't have known."
She suddenly realized how close his face was to hers. His face was near enough to see the faintest of freckles across his nose. The sight of something as human as freckles on a Malfoy suddenly made him appear much less of the ideal of what the pureblooded aristocracy was supposed to be, and suddenly like much more of a... man. A man whose cheeks were pinking as he stared down at her. He rarely looked directly at her, typically side eyeing her to speak to her while he stared off into the middle distance. It was only because it was so uncommon for him to look at her that she could recognize that he had certainly never looked at her quite like this. There was an intensity in his gaze—coupled with a look of something akin to wonder—that had goosebumps rising on her arm.
His eyes trailed down from hers to look at a point just below her throat. At her pulse point, where undoubtedly he could see how her heart was hammering away in her chest. It was inconceivable that he wouldn't be able to see it thrumming right under the skin, as it was pounding hard enough to keep time to a Celestina Warbeck song.
Abruptly, he removed his hand from her back and cleared his throat. Whatever had held them both captive for that long moment shattered, and they both came back to themselves with force. Hermione felt herself falling back into her body—the sensation similar to waking up after a dream involving a long free fall, only to wake violently rather than hitting the ground.
"Right, yes... Sorry. Here," he said, rocking back on his heels and offering her a hand to stand. "We need to figure out exactly what is going on here so we can get going if we're ever actually going to get on the road today."
She rested her palm in his, surprised to feel that his hand was clammy. Cool to the touch, but definitely slick with nervousness. He pulled her up to standing, sliding his wand free of his pocket once again.
"I'm going to lift the silencio now. Please, for the love of Merlin, do not start screaming again. I have some questions I need to ask you," Draco said, sounding both exhausted and impatient.
He waited for a few nods of agreement from the portraits before he cancelled the spell.
"Has she done it?" demanded a portrait—probably seventeenth century, if she had to guess—of a young woman with a violin propped on her knee, score of sheet music open across her thighs.
"Has she done...?" Hermione asked, not wanting to lead the portrait with what they suspected, given how the portraits at Hogwarts at least took the smallest piece of information and extrapolate wildly.
"Well, she has a vial of something purple, or black—"
"Poison!" cried a portrait of a woman that couldn't be anything other than some distant ancestor of the Malfoy family, based on her almost white-blonde hair and grey eyes. Astonishing, really, how two recessive genes could be so dominant in one family.
"Yes! And she was walking about, rehearsing some letter. Something about her son never forgiving her for what she was going to do. Lady Beatrice on the south wall asked what she was doing, and she pulled out her wand a froze us all! She was just here. Were you able to stop her?"
Draco shook his head, fingers still clenched tightly around the handle of his wand. "It's been at least two weeks since that day. We're trying to find her now. We found the vial—empty. And I have the letter. It... it doesn't look good. But I still hope that she's not gone yet."
"Draco!" Hermione suddenly cried, grabbing his arm. He tore his gaze from the portrait to land not where she was pointing, but on her hand curled around his bicep. The look in his eyes was a sort of shock—not as if it surprised him that she was touching him, but as if the very thought that she was doing so willingly was entirely unfathomable to him.
She shook him lightly to get his attention, jabbing her finger again toward the wall behind him. "Look!"
Finally, looking away from her grip, he spun slowly on his heel, looking towards her finger. The portrait of Narcissa on her wedding day hung high above the fireplace in nearly full scale. She still sat perched just on the edge of her chair, seemingly ready to stand.
But she didn't.
She didn't move at all.
"Are you positive that the portrait is magical?"
Draco nodded slowly, staring otherwise motionless at the portrait of his mother. His expression nearly matched the portrait's exactly—blank, slightly wary, uncomfortable.
"Yes, I'm certain of it. I promise you, she would never have sat for a mundane portrait for that sitting. It's tradition for the Lord and Lady to sit for their official portraits the morning of their wedding day."
"So," Hermione said, "she's out there still."
Draco nodded again, still staring at the portrait. "Yes. She's still out there. We don't know *where*, or in what condition, but at least now we know that she's alive."
"Yes," she replied. "She's still alive. Did you find what you were looking for?"
He shook his head, finally looking away from his mother's visage. "No. I don't even know that I was looking for anything in particular. I just... I wanted to come in here one last time before we left. Just in case whatever we find out there isn't what I wanted to find. But I think I'm ready to leave, now."
She nodded and reached a hand out to him. "We should get going, then."
He quickly patted his pockets, double checking that their shrunken luggage was still in his jacket, before pulling her hand into the crook of her elbow so she could apparate them to the airport to hire a car.
With a pop, they landed in the designated apparition corridor of the airport in Glasgow. She reminded him to remove their bags from his pocket and unshrink them, not wanting the attention that being in an airport without luggage of any sort might bring, and quickly checked to make sure that they were both suitable in appearance to step out into the muggle world. After finding them both to be up to snuff, he gestured for her to lead the way and followed her through the crowd of people as they exited the designated space and entered the main terminal. He kept close to her in the crowd, but she didn't know if it was due just to the throng of people, to keep her within sight, or because of the number of Muggles hurrying to catch their connecting flights.
Following the signage, they exited out into the lobby, and quickly found the desks for the rentals. Recognizing the service she'd chosen, they stood in the queue, waiting their turn. She took the moment to watch him as she took there, lightly tapping his foot and glancing around the room. Outside of one of the tall windows a plane took off, and she felt him startle slightly beside her.
Finally, their time at the head of the queue arrived. The man behind the desk was tall and weedy, thin moustache perched atop a set of alarmingly chapped lips he couldn't stop licking.
"Name on the reservation?" He asked, beady eyes flicking from Hermione to Draco, who still stared a bit distracted out of a window. His eyes lingered on her, trailing up and down her form. She tried to suppress a shiver, but must have failed based on how his smile widened.
"Er... Hermione Granger, please."
He furiously typed into the computer, asking her three separate times how to spell 'Hermione'. Rather than typing each letter as she spoke it, he stared unsettlingly at her mouth every time he forced her to repeat the spelling. Finally, she fished her driver's license from her bag, handing it to him when he failed to grasp it. He stared down at the license in his hand, reading and rereading it in a way that unsettled her. Almost as if he was trying to commit to memory the information on it.
"It appears that you didn't select a class of vehicle. Do you have any preferences, Hermione?" He asked.
The sound of her name in the man's voice seemed to shake Draco out of his distraction, and he looked down at the man.
"Oh, well... perhaps economy, or compact? Something along those lines?" she replied, desperately wanting the encounter to be over.
The man behind the desk nodded, clicking away on his computer before looking somewhere just shy of her face and rather closer to the buttons on her blouse. "We have a Peugeot for £400 for the week, or we have a Citroen for £440. Assuming you can drive standard, of course."
She nodded and mentally tallied the cost of the car and their accommodations for the week. She'd tally it all and square it away with Malfoy when he paid her, but especially given his unfamiliarity with Muggle currency and that they hadn't discussed the financials prior to leaving, she didn't want *now* to be the moment that she started squabbling with him over costs and fees.
"No, that simply won't do," Draco said, stepping closer to her and gently wrapping an arm—almost hesitantly—around her waist. She felt a slight shiver as the feeling of his magic, cool and soothing, washed over her left arm. She looked down and tried to withhold a flinch when she realized he had made a ring appear on the ring finger of her left hand. The silver band glittered in the bright lights of the airport, an appallingly large diamond flanked on either side by shining emeralds and black onyx. He subtly pushed on her elbow, lifting her hand up toward the desk and making her rest her hand on top of the counter as he sidled her out of the way and stepped forward in her place.
"It's our honeymoon, you see, and she's been working so hard to save for the wedding that I think she's forgotten that it's time to spend again. We'll be getting out of the city a bit, but I think we'll be spending quite a lot of time in the car. Something comfortable for long days, I think. Price isn't an issue," he said as he reached into pocket, withdrawing from his wallet the black card that Gringotts had made for wizards navigating the muggle world-that bore more than a striking resemblance to a certain other black card that carried a certain connotation in the muggle world.
He flicked the card out between his fingers, waiting for the clerk to take it from him, taking a moment to look down at the ring that he'd at some point either illusion or summoned onto his own ring finger.
With slightly shaking hands, the man took it from him, demeanor suddenly changing. "Yes, yes, of course. Mister..."
"Malfoy."
"Well," the clerk said, "we do have several premium and luxury models available. Would a Mercedes-Benz perhaps be more to your liking? We have an E-Class available still, I believe. We also have an Audi that you could take instead, if you'd prefer."
Realizing that she had all but been physically removed from the conversation, Hermione let her mind wander a bit. An Audi. Her father had bought an Audi when she was young—her mother had found it to be a frivolous purchase. Not as practical as needed for a man with a young child, and a waste of good pounds that could go towards something more appropriate. But her parents had worked hard to build their practice when they were young and by the time that Hermione was born, they were older than most of her peers' parents. Richard had joked that his time for a midlife crisis had passed, and that he deserved the car as a marker of his three-quarters' life instead.
She had memories of riding in the car's backseat, Hogwarts: A History open across her thighs as he drove them up to visit her grandparents. Of countless rides home from King's Cross and explaining her new life to them. Of trips to the library, football games, and museums. Of learning to drive in the car, as her mother's minivan was too full of clutter for her to relax enough to focus on the road ahead of her instead of the mountain of clutter behind her. Of the day that she'd sat in the backseat behind her parents for the last time, realizing that they had to forget their past with her in order to have a future.
"On second thought," Draco said, interrupting the man. "We'll take the Audi, if you wouldn't mind."
Her head shot up, and she looked up towards him. He was steadfastly refusing to meet her eyes, and if not for how closely they were standing, she might have missed the faint blush that was rising up his neck.
After a few more long moments, including a terse disagreement over the man not quite grasping that no, Draco did not have a license and yes, Hermione would be the only registered driver on the rental, they were ready to leave. The man tried to insist on personally walking them out to the car, but after a quick glance at Hermione, Draco assured him they could find it themselves.
She followed him from the airport as he hurried in the direction that the man had indicated, barely waiting until they stepped outside before opening her mouth to speak.
"Before you ask," he said, continuing to follow the signage toward the pick up point and handing her the keys, "I did not use legilimancy on you. At least not on purpose. You were rather... loud... with your thoughts. Sometimes I can pick things up, usually surface, unless someone is focused rather intently on making something heard. I'm sorry if I overstepped, but you seem to have good memories with these Audis, and I think we need as much comfort—mental and physical—for what we're about to undertake."
"I wasn't going to ask you about the car, but thank you for assuaging any fears I might have there. What was all that about a honeymoon?"
He lightly flushed again, and slipped his hand into his pocket to grasp the handle of his wand, the rings melting away from their fingers.
"That man was staring at you so intently that it was making me uncomfortable. He clearly wasn't listening to a word that you had to say, and men like that tend to respect women more when they think that they're taken. I'm sorry if I overstepped, but it seemed grossly inappropriate."
"While I do think that it is grossly inappropriate that some men seem to think that being under the protection of another man makes women more deserving of respect and recognition, I do appreciate you looking out for me."
He nodded, stopping next to the car, whose lights flashed as she hit the button on the fob. "My parents went wrong in a lot of ways when they raised me, but they did manage to teach me that witches—women—deserve of respect."
She dropped her bag into the boot, closing the lid after he followed suit. She gestured for him to walk around to the passenger's side of the vehicle and get it. Slipping into the driver's seat, she was awash with a mix of melancholy and excitement. This Audi was functionally a newer version of the one her father had bought, and in many ways, it felt like coming home. That's what she missed the most about her parents—the everyday moments, the car rides, family dinners, and Sunday mornings.
"Don't worry about it," she said as she punched their first destination into the sat nav. "I appreciate you looking out for me. Now, buckle in. We've got a long day ahead of us, and it's already gone half noon."
A/N My muse might be back! Fingers crossed. I'm going to try to bank up some more chapters here so I don't leave you in the lurch for quite so long again. We're nearing the end of Act I, here. Also, I have a few things I want to say in response to a few very bizarre comments and DMs I've gotten here and on AO3 .
First and foremost, I'm not a Dramione shipper- which I know seems weird, considering this is definitely NOT my first Dramione fic I've written. Plus, I probably read more Dramione than almost anything else. But what I am is a HERMIONE shipper. If you can think of a character, the chances are good that I've read a story with that person paired with her (please, for the sake of my mental health, do not drop those in the comments and force me to admit to anything). So I find it very weird that people are leaving comments on my other stories saying that they're going to imagine that I'd written them using Draco instead of whoever the love interest is, or that my story was "alright", but would've been "good" if it had Draco instead.
That's frankly a) rude, and b) unnecessary. The stories I tell work with the characters I choose to be in them, and characters shouldn't be interchangeable. Shout out to the commenter months ago who respectfully bowed out of 'Say Something' when Draco appeared but not as Hermione's love interest. They said that they will read things other than Dramione, as long as Draco isn't in the story with someone else-that makes sense to me, and I can respect that! But other people simply telling me that I'm not writing a good story because they don't like the pairing? Then don't read it, and don't tell me that the story I apparently didn't write for you wasn't your cup of tea.
Fun fact: this story was originally going to be a Theomione, with Hermione solving the cold case disappearance and possible murder of Theo's mother. But because the Notts aren't as fleshed out in the books as the Malfoys are, I would have needed to do a lot more world and character building- I can imagine how the Malfoys would react to certain situations, but I don't know how the Notts would. And while a good author can and should be able to do that, I'll be the first to admit that I sometimes struggle with character development. So for my first real plotty story, I wanted to use characters that have a real characterization already.
Thank you to all of you who continue to read, despite my large gaps in posting. I do it for you.