Draco couldn't remember the last time he had been so disgruntled with his lot in life, and that was saying quite a bit given everything he'd been through over the past handful of months.
Although he appreciated Dagomir more than he could express most days, and he certainly wasn't willing to look a gift horse in the mouth when the man had been such an invaluable addition to the Nocturnus Council, a deep scowl spread across his face in response to Dagomir's grin.
"I miss when you were grouchy all the time," Draco grumbled under his breath, tugging at his collar. If anything, the man's smile only widened. "Are you positive this is necessary?"
On his other side, Potter looked equally put out, his arms folded over his chest and a deep frown etched on his unfamiliar face.
"You wanted glamours," Dagomir clipped, peering between them. Leaning against the opposite wall, Hermione and Hugo stood out of the way, unwilling to get involved in the matter. Draco felt a sharp stab of betrayal as Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles.
Meeting her stare with narrowed eyes, Draco bit out, "I'm going to remember this."
"I don't understand why the glamours need to be female," Potter announced, a harsh line to the soft curve of his jaw. "We only need to make certain we aren't recognised, right?"
Dagomir glanced over his shoulder to where Hugo watched on, struggling to keep his expression blank. Wryly, Dagomir drawled, "I think this is my finest work."
Hugo only brandished two extended thumbs, biting down hard on his bottom lip.
"To answer your question," Dagomir said, turning back towards them as he fiddled with Draco's long hair, tucking a lock behind his shoulder, "many guards—not all, mind you, but some—will hesitate for a split second before attacking a woman. Call it what you will, but it's the truth in my experience. If any Avance scouts see you as men, they will attack on the spot."
While the response made a modicum of sense—if only slight—Draco wasn't ready to acquiesce to the idea of it just yet. Although if he was honest, both he and Potter made for attractive women.
This was the last thing he had anticipated when they asked Dagomir to help prepare them for the trip to Malfoy Manor.
"We'll be under the Invisibility Cloak anyway," he ground out, resistant to the idea no matter the logic. Maybe it wouldn't seem so bad if Hermione would stop laughing at him.
"You shouldn't," she choked out. "You both look so lovely."
Draco had drawn the line at anything that wasn't trousers, especially since they might end up in a situation where they would need to move quickly, but he wore a soft cashmere jumper in a particularly bright shade of pink, and Dagomir had accessorised him with sparkly jewellery; Draco couldn't even imagine where he'd found it.
"Why does Potter get to wear green?" Draco realised he was behaving petulantly, but even so, his outfit was decidedly more feminine in appearance.
With a shrug, Dagomir only proceeded to adjust them once more as if they were his personal dolls. "The other option is that I propose a council vote and disallow you from going at all. The idea is madness as it is, and every chance I can give you to survive, whether you think it looks ridiculous or not, I'm going to take."
Scowling, Draco snapped his mouth shut.
Maybe the man wasn't simply having a lark. But Draco had never known Dagomir not to take his work seriously, and he certainly hadn't been making it any easier.
"Remember," Hugo mused from the wall, "use your magic to defend yourself if something happens but they can't see you use the affiliation." A disconcerted frown slipped across his lips. "Let's hope you're lucky enough that you don't see anyone else at all."
"In and out," Draco said with a nod, taking in Potter's chocolate stare and black curls. His own eyes were a pale green, his long hair dirty blonde, as evidenced by the full length mirror ahead of them.
The plan was for the pair of them to Apparate onto the Manor grounds as closely as possible to the passage where he'd hidden and warded the journals. Without knowing anything more than Potter's vague understanding of the access wards Avance had established, they weren't sure how deep into the Manor they would go.
There was a chance they could trigger the Avance wards simply by entering the Manor, but hopefully they could avoid them altogether.
From the grounds beyond the Manor, they would be able to scour for magical signatures before Apparating closer, and it was their best shot to determine what they'd be walking into.
"Right," Potter replied belatedly, his own expression distant. "We get these journals you're so keen on and we'll Portkey back through several dead-end channels in case someone tracks us leaving the Manor before we re-route to the villa."
"The chain of Portkeys is already in place," Hugo added.
And since their best chance of avoiding detection would be to catch Avance unaware, they would be leaving in the small hours of the night. Which meant he and Potter would begin the trip to England shortly.
Draco shifted on the spot as he caught Hermione's eye, flexing his palm on instinct. He felt strange looking at her, his body shorter than usual which made her seem taller in comparison. She paced forward, coiling her hands around his arms.
"You're quite pretty," she said softly, a smile tugging at her lips. "If this is the best way to keep you safe and back to me alive, then so be it." She drew him into an embrace, and he tugged her closer, inhaling a deep breath from the scent of her hair. By his ear, she whispered, "For Merlin's sake, be safe."
"We will," Draco murmured, glancing towards Potter before Hermione engulfed him in a hug as well. "And with any luck, we'll have answers soon." Before he could dwell too long on the thought that there had been far too many dangerous missions lately, he turned towards Dagomir with a nod.
"Very well." Dagomir reached out to adjust Draco's hair once more, but he shrugged him off, and the man clapped his hands together. "Do not even think of getting yourselves killed tonight."
Potter snickered, breaking the tension in the room, even as Hermione's eyes shone with poorly concealed tears; he could see sparks of magic dancing around her fingertips as she bit down on her bottom lip.
Stepping forward once more, Hugo placed a Portkey on a small end table and activated it before offering a sharp nod. "It will reactivate on command once you're ready to leave."
As Potter brandished the Invisibility Cloak, they shared a grimace before he threw the cloak over both of them. Dagomir checked his watch. "Nocturnus guide you," he said softly.
Beneath the cloak, Draco found Potter's gaze, far too close to his own, and they both reached out a hand towards the Portkey. Before he could rethink the situation, they were gone.
Their first stroke of luck was that Draco hadn't been able to detect any human signatures from the grounds as they looked upon the Manor from a distance. Four house elves were in one wing of the Manor, but that was to be expected. He knew the line of the wards like the back of his own hand—and it could be an entirely different story the moment they crossed the boundary.
If Potter's observations were correct, the Avance wards would have tied in with his own.
But the good news was that there was no one actively patrolling the property, so even if they were to trigger some insidious ward they weren't aware of, they would still have the jump on them.
"Can you detect anything?" Potter whispered as they circled around the perimeter to check for discrepancies. Draco's heart sunk into his stomach at the destruction that had befallen the Manor, and he knew he would have hated to see how it looked before the elves had begun to repair the damage.
"I'm not sensing any intrusion to my wards," Draco returned softly, testing and prodding his own magic to see how it would respond. "So if they've tied into the same boundary, they've done it well."
The affiliation was naturally spell-breaking, and though they'd discussed only using it if necessary, no one else was present. He fired a quick bolt of magic at his wards, feeling only his own magic echo back at him.
Sucking in a sharp breath, he muttered, "I think we're safe."
Coiling a hand around Potter's slender wrist, he Apparated them both into the Manor.
Without speaking, they ventured down the corridor as quietly as they could manage, casting non-verbal disillusionment and soundless charms on themselves for good measure. Tilting his head towards one corridor, Draco was pleased when Potter followed him intuitively with a silent nod. It would be easy to get caught up on one another, as the large cloak was snug with two people beneath it. But they moved seamlessly together.
Maybe he had initially underestimated the benefits to having a fully trained Auror along for the trip.
Twice, they had to reroute their path in order to circumvent damage to the Manor. While Draco longed to repair his family home, they couldn't risk using too much magic and drawing attention to themselves—least of all affiliation magic.
With a brief glance each way, Draco released the protective spells on a door into his father's old study before carefully easing the door open and slipping it shut behind them. But without lingering, he guided the pair of them into a hidden chamber at the back of the room, revealing a passage with a specific book.
Potter flashed him a grin as they stepped into a narrow corridor, once more concealing the entrance behind them.
"Nearly there," Draco huffed under his breath. "Then we get out of here."
Reaching his wand between the folds of the cloak, Draco tapped several bricks, releasing the wards he'd put in place before a small alcove revealed itself.
He'd stowed the journals into a satchel, and he withdrew the bag from the alcove, shrinking it down to fit in his palm and slipping it into a pocket.
"That's it?" Potter whispered, frowning when Draco nodded. "Feels anticlimactic."
"Don't," Draco hissed. Magic stung against his palm, tension roiling within him. He also thought it felt too easy—Potter had said that Avance had a means of tracking people coming and going from the Manor. "We have to get back to the receiving room. Most of this floor is firmly anti-transport."
Carefully checking for signatures, they slipped back through the passage and into the study. Draco's wand felt wrong in his right hand when such powerful magic pulsed in the other, but he clenched it into a tight fist to quell the glow beginning to emanate within the cloak.
He tugged at his collar, adrenaline spiking in his veins and racing through him. He felt hot, a prickle of sweat breaking along his temple. The sooner they could get out and get back to the villa, the better.
"Bloody hot in here," Potter muttered, tugging at his own green jumper.
At once Draco froze, his hand locking on Potter's wrist as he stopped short. "Fuck!" he breathed, squinting in the corridor ahead of them. His eyes stung. "Smoke."
Blinking several times, Potter rubbed a hand at his eyes and muttered, "You've got to be bloody joking."
With a great, cacophonous roar, the corridor rocked with a concussive blast, and Draco nearly lost his footing with the force of it. A short distance ahead, flames licked up the walls towards the ceiling, bright flashes of colour with sweltering heat.
"Change of plans," Draco choked, firing a blast of water behind him from his wand as he darted down the nearest corridor. "We'll have to circumnavigate to reach the receiving room."
"Fine," Potter huffed as they broke into a jog, careful to keep the cloak around themselves, but every so often Draco could feel the fabric sneaking up his ankles. There was nothing for it, he supposed, if their presence had already been revealed. With a sharp, "Watch out!" Potter screeched to an abrupt halt on the marble floor as another great blast sounded ahead of them, fire bursting forth once more.
"Bloody Avance and their bloody explosives," Draco cussed, shifting course again. They needed to backtrack a short distance to catch the next turn, and he was thankful he had spent so much time exploring the labyrinthine manor as a boy.
"It doesn't surprise me," Potter said, out of breath as they ran from the encroaching flames, "that you've dug up enemies that are so crazy they're fucking bombing your house."
Draco fired him a grimace.
His heart clenched in his chest at the thought of the Manor, charred and unrecognisable, and a spasm chased through him when he thought of the four house elves they'd detected earlier.
"Potter, scan for the elves. Make sure they're alright." he said as he peered down one corridor, flames already spiking halfway down.
For a moment, he could feel Potter's stare on the side of his face, and he snapped his eyes towards the other man's. A crooked grin spread across his face, despite the dire situation in which they found themselves, and Potter only drawled, "Hermione's clearly had an impact on you."
Draco only grumbled, "Shut it, Potter."
"Four elves," Potter quipped in response. "They must have made it to safety onto the grounds."
"Here!" Draco called, the sound of flames crackling all around them as he shoved Potter into a hidden passageway. It was narrow—wide enough for elves but tight for humans—and he only hoped they could make it to the other side with haste. "This will get us where we need to go provided the other end hasn't been hit."
The floor ahead of them crumbled as flames broke through the wall, a beam crumpling into ash.
With a disbelieving huff, Draco only stared as their way forward fell to the flames, but Potter only shoved him on, shucking the cloak free from them both and tucking it under his arm. "Go!" he shouted, pushing Draco onwards.
"You're bloody mad." Sucking in a tight breath, Draco summoned all of his courage and broke into a sprint, leaping over a great gap in the floor that dropped into the level below. Potter crashed halfway into him as he followed, grappling at the bare wall as the floor dropped away beneath him.
Jumping ahead, Draco grabbed hold of Potter's arm and tugged him onwards.
The walls collapsed behind them, dropping down to the main floor with a great crash.
Panting from the exertion and the heat, and with terror clawing at the back of his mind, Draco chased onwards without any regard for anything as he blindly threw water from his wand. But there was no hope for it when the flames licked up all around them.
They would have already been gone if their path hadn't been blocked so many times, but in the chaos he could barely even recognise where they were, the blackened walls and furniture aflame all around them.
"Fuck it," he huffed, waving a hand ahead of them with a twist of his wrist, and a great rush of magic poured forth as he released the straining power of the affiliation.
Despite everything, they hadn't even seen a single other person, and he was left to believe they had walked right into an armed fire trap. That must have been what the Auror department had picked up on that he hadn't felt in the wards.
His heart mourned the destruction all around, the priceless artefacts and the ruined portraits, their subjects having long deserted their frames.
But still magic poured from his fingertips, quelling the fire ahead of them and dousing the flames with sheer force of will. His chest heaved with the exertion, until at last he dropped his hand to rest useless at his side, flexing his palm.
Potter watched, startled, his mouth hanging open before his gaze slid to meet Draco's at the charred, smoking remains ahead of them. "Shite, mate," he huffed, "that's wild magic."
"Tell me about it," Draco said with a grimace. "Why do you think they tried to kill me over it?"
Behind them, flames still licked the walls and ceilings, the beams groaning as the Manor collapsed all around them. Despair settled into his heart as he stared behind, lost for an answer until Potter nudged him in the shoulder.
"Malfoy," he muttered, "we've got to go. I'll alert Kingsley to get here once we get out, yeah?"
Draco managed a thick swallow. "Yeah. Good one. Thanks, Potter." Snapping back to attention, he nodded ahead. "Through there."
With the flames quelled in the immediate area, they were able to make it to the half-destroyed remains of the receiving room at last, and Potter wasted no time in reactivating the tin can Portkey before brandishing it forth. Draco clapped a hand to the can, feeling a pull beneath his navel as they left the Manor.
The stark silence that embraced them as they arrived at the designated location felt unfamiliar compared to the chaos of moments before, and Draco sucked in lungfuls of fresh air, his eyes and throat burning as he coughed, his lungs searing.
It was a painful reminder of the time Potter had saved him from the Fiendfyre in the Room of Hidden Things during the war. As their eyes met, he knew they were both remembering the same.
"Thanks, Potter," he gasped, rubbing at his throat as moisture broke from his eyes.
Potter's long hair was charred and shredded, his skin coated in ash and sweat, and Draco knew he wasn't likely to look any better. Potter clapped a hand to Draco's shoulder with a stuttering nod. "Close one."
Unease settled in the pit of his stomach to think of what he might have cost them in using the affiliation so abundantly. Surely if Avance could detect human presences, they could have a way to track magic.
As if sensing his train of thought, Potter murmured, "You did what you had to do. We could have died in there if you hadn't used the magic."
Draco gave a slow nod, sucking in a fortifying breath as he reached down for the next Portkey Hugo had left for them. "Let's get back."
Although it was the middle of the night, Hermione was wide awake. She sat in the kitchen, nursing a cup of cold tea with Dagomir and Hugo, but none of them had it in them to speak.
Draco and Harry ought to have been back by now.
Even with a conservative estimate of how long Draco thought it should take, they were almost an hour late.
Hugo tapped the edge of the table with the end of his quill, a jarring, disconcerting rhythm that grated against her nerves. But she didn't have the heart to ask him to stop when the sound of it kept her grounded.
Every few minutes, Dagomir checked his watch, as if expecting something to have changed.
And Hermione's heart simply clenched tighter in her chest with each sound and every flash of someone moving in her periphery. Narcissa had sat with them a while before seeking the solace of her gardens, and Madeline had flitted away after she passed out on Hugo's shoulder.
"Can you tell whether the Portkeys have been activated?" Hermione asked, her voice scarcely a hoarse whisper. She had felt a flicker of something in her marked wrist at one point, but they were so far away it was difficult to tell what it was. She had only recognised, in the brief instant, fear.
Thinning his lips, Hugo shook his head. "No."
After several more tense minutes, Hermione rose to her feet, pacing the small kitchen in an effort to keep her anxiety at bay. If something had gone wrong, she could lose both her husband—the love of her life—and her best friend in one fell swoop.
Then with a sudden rush of magic, sound jumped out at them from the sitting room, and they all rushed from the kitchen to see Harry and Draco. They had stripped themselves of their female glamours, but they were both a great mess.
Their clothes were torn and hair singed, faces blackened and filthy, and they looked more frazzled than she could have expected.
"Thank Merlin," she gasped, relief welling in her eyes. As she pulled Draco into her arms, his hold surprisingly strong as he tugged her in, Harry pulled his Nocturnus coin from his pocket and began tapping a message into it. Swiping at her eyes she asked, "What happened? Why on earth do you look like you've been trapped in a fire?"
Draco and Harry exchanged a grim look. "We were. The Manor was rigged with fire traps. We must have done something to activate them."
"We just barely made it back to the receiving room," Harry muttered, coiling a hand around Draco's shoulder. "Good thing Malfoy knows where he's going in that blasted place."
Blowing out a breath, Draco shook his head. His hands were black as he swept them through his hair, pale and short once more. "More like it's a good thing Potter doesn't freeze in the face of danger."
"Gryffindor." A wry grin spread across Harry's face. "I've just informed Kingsley what happened and he'll dispatch a team to douse the flames."
Bewildered, Hermione stared between the small group; if it was possible, Dagomir and Hugo looked even more concerned than she felt.
"Fire traps?" Dagomir asked at last, a deep furrow in his brow. "Did you see anyone from Avance?"
"No." Draco shook his head, his jaw clenched into a hard line. "They weren't there; it must have been triggered by our presence somehow. Before we knew it, the Manor was blowing up around us."
"Merlin," Hermione whispered, clapping a hand to her mouth. Her eyes still stung with tears, her heart racing with a mixture of fear and relief. "I'm so glad you're back."
Draco planted a kiss to her temple before rummaging in his pocket for a small shrunken satchel. "Thanks for your help, Potter. You saved my arse back there."
"You're the one who put out those fires," Harry muttered, looking sheepish as he slipped his hands into his pockets. Dagomir's stare snapped to his, and Draco looked a little put out at her side.
"The flames were too high—I didn't have a choice," he grumbled, curling his fingers into a loose fist.
Dagomir released a sigh. "Very well. We must only hope Avance did not detect it. In a decision between life and death, you must of course do what it takes."
Draco tossed the satchel onto the table, enlarging it with a wave of his wand. "For the love of Merlin, let's hope what we're looking for is in one of these journals."
Almost instantly, Hugo snatched up the bag with a somber nod. "I'll begin looking at once."
"Get some sleep, Hugo," Hermione said quietly. "The journals can wait until tomorrow—we'll go through them together."
He had been unusually quiet, and it was only then that she noticed the emotion behind his carefully stoic expression. The muted sunkenness to his stance. He only nodded, his lips pulling into a brief smile.
She felt herself withdraw as Harry said goodbye before returning again to England, and Hermione sunk into Draco's hold when he pulled her into her chest. The rest of them dissipated, intent to begin a search through the journals in the morning, but Draco dragged her in silence towards their suite.
"I need a shower," he breathed, sweeping a hand through his hair once more. He looked exhausted.
"Are you alright?" Hermione asked, peering up at him. As he opened his mouth to respond, she added, "Actually alright."
Shaking his head, he admitted at last, "No. Not really. The Manor's destroyed and… I'm just tired. But it'll be alright."
Pressing up on her toes, Hermione planted a kiss to his lips, tugging his singed jumper over his head. She dragged her bottom lip between her teeth as she reached for his belt buckle, helping him from his clothes.
His eyes fluttered shut as if he didn't have the energy to do it himself, and slowly she stripped him down to his shorts before helping him into the bathroom. When his eyes drifted open slowly, fatigue and strain shone back at her.
"Is any of this even going to be worth it?" he asked, the words quiet as they resonated between them. "All this effort and we still don't…" He trailed off, slamming his lips shut.
"One day," Hermione whispered, pressing another kiss to his lips, firmer this time. "One day, Draco, we're going to look back on these trials and know that we did the right thing. We did what we needed to do. And…" her voice broke, tears threatening once more, "we never lost faith."
Draco's nose nudged hers, his lips seeking hers once more as he deepened the kiss. Pulling back, he rested his forehead against hers, breaking away to tug her top over her head. "Shower with me," he murmured against her skin, hitching her tightly against himself.
As he kissed her again, sweeping a hand down the curve of her hip towards her arse, he breathed, "Help me forget tonight."
Pushing her jeans from her hips as she reached for the taps, Hermione could only nod.
Author's Note: Can you believe this story is already 50 chapters? Thanks so much as always for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story, and I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Alpha and beta love to Kyonomiko and LadyKenz347 respectively.