List of preparations:
- Send a letter to Harry → follow up resignation-letter
-(Fake Draco's death)
-Find a reasonable explanation for Draco's disappearance
-Prepare the third bedroom to be child-friendly ?
-Get rid of the car and get a new one (transform the car into a cube and mail it to China) abandon it somewhere
-Tracking spell? Ministry badges? (duplicate and mail back copies)
-Retrieve Anette from the orphanage, get her file and leave no witnesses harm nobody in the process!
-Theo.
-depending on Theo, where we go
The first few things were taken care of quickly.
The next morning, Granger rose (from what Draco suspected to be still considerable period cramps, which she was fully ignoring and he didn't dare to mention) and wasted no time compiling a quickly scribbled list of preparations, which he added to with footnotes that were judged and sometimes crossed through.
The first thing she did was compose a suitably melancholic letter to Potter, lamenting of her broken off engagement, stolen memories of a wedding that didn't happen and hints at wanting to leave for a while.
In spite of Draco's protests, they finally agreed to leave his disappearance rather open-ended – he had, after all, no obligation to let anyone know where he would possibly go and in the end, no one would doubt him if he just decided to bail in the middle of a job.
It was the coward's thing to do.
The car issue and child preparation was done in the afternoon.
It only took a few moments to transfigure most of everything in the third bedroom into a child friendly version of its former self; a smaller bed frame, rounded out edges on all furniture to prevent potential injuries, permanent spells to alert any movement within the room and splashes of colourful bright accents to make it all easier on the eye. This was more just in case; they were still ready to abandon the house in case their plan with Theo didn't work out.
And in the afternoon, they drove to the rest stop minutes away from Jøvik, because Draco had luckily remembered a pretty useful detail; the abandoned car garage at the edge of the parking lot.
"We need to see first if we can repair it. I don't know a lot of spells for this kind of thing," she repeated once more as they parked. Draco craned his neck, eyes sweeping the lot that curved around the back of the gas station.
At the very back where the forest was warily creeping into the cement of civilization, there it was; a shoddy shed with a wooden sign reading foreign words hanging on a single nail, and inside, two old, broken down cars surrounded by equipment; nothing of which had moved once since they'd first seen it. Probably much, much longer.
The shed housed an empty office at the back and heaps of broken equipment lying around. The cars lined one wall, the varnish was faded, coated in grime and dust. Rear lights lay broken and shattered on the cement ground, and one of the hoods was cracked open. Rust was peeling off at the edges, discoloured and ugly. All of these aesthetical blemishes could be fixed easily; the question was, if the engines and other mechanics still worked.
Granger had parked the car nearby – its graveyard, because this would be the last time they drove it. To add further injury, they almost changed the paint and license plate, but decided it wouldn't fit Granger's backstory.
"You're sure you don't know any repairing spells?" she asked as they arrived in front of the abandoned cars. Draco shook his head.
"Whenever I had an issue, I just brought it to a mechanic."
"Of course you did," she grumbled and crouched down beside the driver's door, pointing her wand at the lock. Draco glanced around the stuffy garage, leaning out of the open front to let his eyes sweep the empty parking lot, but still positioned himself in front of her, casting an inconspicuous cleaning charm with a flick of his wrist and a mumbled incantation.
The door clicked open softly. Despite the spell, the rust was still peeling, white curling to reveal a brown and reddish underneath, and she grimaced as she pulled open the protesting door. Dust swirled up for a second, until his belated spell made them fade out of existence, and only then he saw the seat with the interior torn open and rotted away.
"I swear to Morgana's tits–"
She waved her wand again to restore as much as possible, but the grimey interior would not budge much. She looked at him, the corners of her mouth pulled down in disgust. He made a sweeping gesture to the inside.
"Milady."
"Shut up," she mumbled and ducked, stepping inside with a groan. The car rocked and heaved loudly with her weight and Draco leaned forward, watching her pressed back into the seat, hands raised in front of herself, hovering above the steering wheel. It was covered in cobwebs.
Another cleaning spell pressed past her lips and she just barely relaxed. The smell of mold wafted towards him then and Draco ducked away, glad to not be sitting inside.
She inclined her head towards the keyhole and pointed the tip of her wand at it, muttering a row of incantations. He recognized some; a reparation spell, restarting, meant specifically for engines, but nothing happened.
"I don't think this is going to work," he said after a while, now comfortably leaning against the door after he casting another Muggle repelling spell several minutes ago. The lot was empty, but turning his back to it still made him feel uneasy. She shot him a dirty look.
"You try, then."
"I know even less about car fixing spells than you do," he reminded her.
She jumped out of the rocking car then and uttered inaudible sounds of frustration, walking away a few paces, back out onto the car park, hands running through her hair. Draco rounded the door and kneeled beside the opening, leaning inside to catch a look at the keyhole. Thoughts churning for any helpful spell as the must of mould attacked his nostrils
Mere seconds later, the sound of a loud engine revving at the front of the lot tore through the cold air, and they both looked up, watching as it parked on the side of the lay-by. Out of a red, shiny car stepped a man, keys swirling in his hand and accompanied by a low whistle that the wind carried over to them.
"I have an idea," Granger spoke then, intently staring at the man as he disappeared inside the service station, and Draco furrowed his brow.
"What?"
She ignored him of course, instead opening her purse and pointing her wand inside. "Accio mirror."
It shot out of the opening straight into her hand, and she began to smooth back her hair and angle the mirror at herself from various angles. She pointed her wand at her face, murmuring spells he vaguely remembered. Appearance changing charms?
He watched as her hair flattened, curls evening out and falling into straight strands. And then from the ends up, they morphed into a soft, strawberry blonde colour, climbing up her roots and eating away at her usual chestnut brown.
"What are you doing?" he finally said, finding his words after all, and she only glanced at him before she turned her eyes a faint green hue. She was unsettling to look at, utterly different and yet strangely familiar.
"Am I recognizable?" she asked then, looking at him. He sputtered.
"I mean – yes? What are you trying to do?" he asked, impatient. She always made him ask so many questions, and he hated it. She had conjured a dark red lipstick and was stretching her lips across her teeth, applying it carefully.
"I mean, am I recognizable as Hermione Granger?"
She rubbed her lips together and made a soft pop sound. He had to admit that the changes were effective. She didn't resemble herself at all. It felt odd to look at her, like in the matter of seconds, she had pulled a mask over her face, but her old features were still shining through; the stern, no-nonsense look in her eyes that was decidedly Granger, and the manic energy he had just recently come to meet that sometimes surrounded her like a misty cloud of what is she doing now?
"No, you're not. What–"
"Good. Just wait by the front of the shop, I won't take long" she called, already walking away. Draco glanced at the abandoned cars – really abandoned now – and slammed the door shut before he followed her.
Just before she rounded the corner to the glass front of the building she kneeled down again, bending her knees outwards awkwardly, and when Draco watched her walk through the sliding glass doors he realized why; she had made the heels of her simple black shoes higher. And shrunk her petticoat to hug her form lightly. It wrapped around her slim frame, accentuating her waist.
And the faint fear he'd felt squirming in his head all along finally came into full fruition when he watched her walk up to the man they had seen step out of the car, sitting in one of the benches of the restaurant seating area, in front of a newspaper, coffee, wallet and car keys spread out on the table.
She stopped in front of him and the man looked up, eyes lightening as he took in the woman in front of him, a lively smile beginning to play at his lips. Draco could only see her side profile but she was talking with a smile one could call charming, and as she sat down on the chair next to the man, she angled her head along with her words, twirling a strand of her now blonde hair between her fingers, leaning forwards as she spoke. The man mirrored her movement with an appreciative grin.
She was flirting. And by the utterly infatuated look on the mans face, she was good at it.
Oh, he'd had no idea that she could be like that.
He watched rather open mouthed. He could not hear their conversation, but he understood it perfectly. Laughing and giggling, sweeping hair and swirling strands around her finger. A biting lip was almost too much, but she managed to make it seems like the most natural thing in the world. The man leaned forward with an inclined head, like a magnet pulled towards her irresistible charm. Sucked in.
Then the man turned sideways, gesturing and pointing in the direction of the road, and she nodded attentively. Eyes intense and watching, and damn her, another lip bite. The man almost turned enough to see Draco watching from outside – like a bloody creep – but Granger spoke quickly, regaining the man's attention and tilting her head with another captivating smile.
It was happening so fast, Draco had barely had time to even register that it was her inside, throwing her head back with laughter and a cheeky twinkle in her eye. He'd never seen anything like it. The quick switch from the focus on their mission, to a flirty bombshell who managed to wrap some man around her finger in less than a minute.
It was fascinating.
Seconds passed, and she touched his shoulder as she got up, but she dropped her purse. The man immediately bowed down to grab it and she kneeled as well, hand placed on the edge of the table to help herself back up and with a last few exchanged words, a last dazzling smile and a dopey expression from the man in response, she was walking back out towards him.
And in her hand, held tightly to the front of her coat, shone the shiny red cars keys. Swiped from the table. Draco gaped openly now.
"Go! Get in!" she hissed as soon as the glass doors slid open, all smiles and winks gone, and Draco followed her orders almost instinctively, scrambling from his spot and legs moving at once. The car blinked and buzzed, and he threw himself inside.
"Granger, what the fuck–"
"Shut up, we need to leave!"
The car was squeaky clean, nice leather and sleek, proper dashboard, windscreen, legroom, everything, but Draco could focus on none of that right now because before he knew it, she had jammed the keys into the ignition, and the engine swelled to life with a low, comfortable hum.
And just as he clicked in the seatbelt, she had thrown it into first gear. The car jerked.
She slammed her foot onto the accelerator and off they went. Speeding out of the car park, down the road and out of eyesight. Adrenaline bubbled out of his chest and Draco couldn't help it; he laughed, he laughed out loud, a scared and excited sound that could not be held in, and he squirmed in his seat to look back at the fading car park. It was empty.
"You're bloody insane, Granger!"
She was panting with the same feeling he was sure, and she was laughing too; blonde hair beginning to wave and colour back into brown. She looked at him with that glint in her eyes; craziness, he thought, but something else, too. Life.
"It worked! We have a perfectly working car now, and once we change the license plate and colour–"
"You're bloody insane!" he could not help but repeat, and the air mingled with pants and light-headed, excited laughter, hearts pounding and ears rushing.
She was a menace alright, Draco thought; but he'd never considered that she could be so useful.
And when they arrived back in Jøvik, the rush was still pushing out of them in gusts of nervous giggles, disbelieving glances and slightly shaky hands. And the high stayed for the rest of the day, and carried them through all other preparations; it all was easy now, like a switch flipped; invincible and grand it felt, until it didn't anymore.
I had a few issues with the formatting this chapter, so if you want a better reading experience, please go read the fic on AO3 where i update more on time as well! my username is the same there and on tumblr and twitter as well!