A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows! We are back to Adrian POV for this one. You can follow me on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions.
Please let me know what you thought of chapter nine and be on the lookout for chapter ten soon!
Working with Hermione Granger was nothing like Adrian expected it would be like. He had been surprised when she'd found him in the library and told him rather sheepishly that she'd taken it upon herself to tail Max the very first day after they'd had their talk together. It was oddly Slytherin of her, sneaking around the castle like that. But, she'd obviously not been as sneaky as she'd thought she'd been as she very clearly must have alerted Max to his tail at some point, otherwise he wouldn't have up and vanished.
It was...oddly endearing.
Hermione hadn't appreciated the little chuckle he had, thinking it was at her expense. She'd pressed her hands to her hips - a familiar stance he'd come to expect - but the pink tint on her cheeks gave away that she was mostly feeling embarrassed.
He'd soothed the unintentional hurt, promising her that he wasn't making fun of her, promising that it was just odd to imagine her sneaking around the castle like that. She'd given him a secret smile and informed him that she probably got up to all sorts of things that he would never expect out of her.
That statement had given his mind a little more to run with than he bargained for.
Once they were back on topic, Adrian agreed that there was no way that Max could have just disappeared into thin air in that section of the corridor. He mused that it seemed like Max was able to apparate around the castle, which should not be possible.
"I almost wonder if he is some sort of Unspeakable from the Ministry, sent to test Hogwarts's defenses," Adrian had said, running his hand through his straight, brown hair. "And the hapless student act is just a facade."
"Would they really do that?" she had asked, her eyes wide, showing off her naivete.
He hadn't been able to resist a derisive snort at the question. Really, hadn't the Ministry shown that they were willing to do basically anything? "They sent Umbridge here a few years ago," he had countered. "I think something like that would certainly be possible."
"Oh, right," Hermione had replied. "I had just hoped that Kingsley would do something about the corruption."
Her casual use of the Minister's given name made him bristle, before he forced himself to give her the benefit of the doubt. He wouldn't automatically assume that everything she was doing was to show off. She'd fought alongside the Minister, and she'd probably used it absentmindedly. "I'm sure Shacklebolt is doing a great many things," he had reassured her. "But, he can't make progress happen instantaneously. And the Department of Mysteries has always bucked against oversight."
"Which is precisely why they need more oversight," Hermione had responded.
Adrian had softened a little more towards her then. She was such a crusader, and so certain in her convictions. She knew what was right and she was going to give it her all to accomplish it. He appreciated the ambition.
"Anyway, I have made some contacts in the Ministry, so I will make some inquiries," he had promised her.
Then, it had become clear that he had absolutely no idea what to talk about her if it wasn't related to Max. Clamming up, Adrian wished her a good evening and quickly returned back to his dormitory, before beating himself up over the fact that he was afraid to talk to a girl. But Hermione Granger was no mere girl.
Something his daydreams were only too keen to remind him of as of late.
After their brief meeting, Adrian was disappointed that he had no reason to speak to her as he hadn't heard back from his friend at the Ministry yet. He didn't want to yell at her for taking books out of the library, not after he had seen how deflated she looked when he'd visited her at Gryffindor tower.
So, when he finally received the package he had requested, Adrian was ready to sprint off in the direction of the library, eager to talk to her again. But, he was a Pucey, for Salazar's sake! He walked like a normal wizard even if he was looking forward to spending an evening in the library with Hermione. Merlin, that was a lot to unpack.
He walked directly towards the table that he knew Hermione favored and he was glad to find her sitting there, currently revising for...Charms, if he wasn't mistaken. "I've got a present for you," he said when he sat down next to her.
Hermione turned to look at him, her hair cascading over one shoulder. "A present, Pucey?" she asked, sounding intrigued.
"Well, it's some research anyway," he said, belatedly realizing how lame it was that he had called information on Max Purney a present. He just hoped Hermione would appreciate it. He pushed the package towards her. "Go on, then, open it."
He watched as her eager fingers opened the flap and pulled out the stack of documents that he had been sent. "What is it?" she asked, flipping through the hundreds of pages.
"Well, my contact at the Ministry assured me that there was no secret Unspeakable project at Hogwarts," he explained. "But I hope this is the next best thing."
"Census records?" she asked, when she finally read through the loads of names on the page.
"Exactly," Adrian said with a smirk. "From the last 100 years in the Province of Munster."
"Where Kenmare is located," Hermione murmured.
Adrian took a moment to appreciate the angles of her face while she was enthralled. The slope of her nose was sprinkled with freckles that had long since faded from summer, but where still there. The delicate curve of her lips showing off that the lower one was slightly larger than the top, well abused from how often she bit it unconsciously.
"Pucey, how did you get these?" Hermione suddenly asked, looking at him in confusion. "None of the ones after 1946 should not have been released to the general public yet."
He couldn't help from smiling, wondering if she would appreciate his ingenuity. "I told you I had a contact at the Ministry," he said with a casual shrug of his shoulders. "He was able to pull them for me."
"That's illegal," Hermione said with a frown, but she was already working to divide them out into their rough date ranges. "But, necessary, I suppose. I doubt we will get clear answers from Max."
"Glad you can see it my way," he quipped, thinking that it was rather like her to question the legality of what he was doing, when she was constantly breaking the rules. "Anyway, we won't share them with anyone else and I'll destroy them when we are done."
She nodded in agreement. "And the last century?" she asked, eyebrows raised.
"Well, I think we need to face the possibilities that Max might not be who he says he is," Adrian explained. "And even if he is who he says he is, there is the possibility that he's come from another time."
"But...forward time travel has never been documented before," she answered, rather reasonably. "Time magic is very complex."
He shrugged his broad shoulders. Adrian had thought about that, but there was no way to get records from the future, so this was their best option. "It doesn't hurt to check," he offered.
"I suppose you are right," Hermione said with a sigh. "This is going to take ages to go through."
"We'll just have to split up the work," he said, dividing the last census up roughly in two. "At least there are two of us."
It was nice to have a companion for the dull work, Adrian mused. And Granger was nothing if not efficient. She dutifully took her half of the list and began working her way through the pages at an even clip.
Adrian was surprised by how...nice it felt to be working with Hermione. Of course, he'd grown out of the delusion that she would be spouting facts off, trying to prove how smart she was. He'd quickly learned that his teenage self had been utterly wrong about the young woman that Hermione Granger had grown into, more self-confident and assured. But, he never expected that they would work this well together.
Before he even knew it, they had gotten through the most recent census without any sign of Max Purney.
"That's odd," she said, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "He should certainly be in this list. It was only four years ago - he would have been a teenager."
"Even odder that there isn't even a Purney listed in this whole census," Adrian agreed. "Surely his father would be included."
Hermione nibbled on her lower lip. "Maybe his father is a muggle? They wouldn't have been included on the magical census, and Max wouldn't be counted until he came of age," she suggested. "Perhaps we should be looking at the muggle census, too."
Adrian was glad to have her expertise in that area. Of course, Hermione would be in the same position. "I didn't even consider him being a muggleborn, but it could be," he answered. "It's a bit odd that the Ministry doesn't count muggleborns until they are of age. Muggleborns are still part of the population."
She rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it," she quipped. "The Ministry does a lot of things that are a bit odd regarding muggleborns."
He felt badly then, for never even thinking about the kinds of hardships that muggleborns must face from their own government. He didn't want to say anything about it, though, feeling a bit stupid that he hadn't thought of it until then.
Their moment was cut off when Madame Pomfrey came around and told them that the library was closing. Hermione looked bitterly disappointed. "We only got through one census," she said, dejected. "And we were just getting into a groove."
Wondering if he would regret it later, Adrian made an impulse suggestion. "I've got a private room," he blurted out, before realizing he was inviting a witch back to it. And not just any witch. Hermione Granger. "We could keep working there, if you wanted to get through one or two more."
Hermione, it seemed, was completely unphased by the offer. "Brilliant!" she said, before standing from her place and packing up her bag. "Being an eighth year has at least one perk - I don't have a curfew. So I can stay as long as you'll have me."
Adrian felt his words stick in his throat, completely unable to come up with something suitable to say back to her. He wasn't sure where all of these improper suggestions were coming from.
She chatted away the whole walk back to his apartment, not seeming to care that he was being an absolute shit conversationalist. When they arrived, she made herself right at home, setting up on the couch and pulling the census back out of her bag, before fanning it out on the table.
"It's probably better that we work here anyway," she said. "With the census information being so confidential anyway. Oh! Do you have any tea?"
Adrian was immensely thankful that she'd taken full control of the situation, even though he didn't like being bossed around in his own room. He busied himself with lighting a fire in his fireplace and preparing a pot of tea. Once it was done, he took his spot next to her.
This partnership was going far better than he ever could have imagined, and it had Adrian briefly wondering why he had been so irritated with Granger in the first place. She was a brilliant witch, and he was forced to admit that maybe they could get along, if he just got over himself.
They breezed through the 1991 census quickly, with no sign of Purney and barely any wizards named Max either. By the time he'd gotten through his half of the 1986 census, Adrian was wondering if maybe they shouldn't try to get the muggle census.
Stretching, he let out a yawn. "I might have to pick this back up tomorrow," he said. "I don't know if I can look at another name."
When he received no answer from the tiny witch, Adrian turned to see that she'd fallen asleep at some point, papers still clenched in her hands. Standing up, he agonized over what he should do. Really, he knew the most obvious option was to wake her up and send her off to Gryffindor tower.
But she looked so peaceful, sleeping there...
Prying the paper from her hands, Adrian used his wand to better position her on the couch. Hopefully she wouldn't wake with a crick in her neck. Then, he summoned a comfortable blanket and gently lay it over her.
Salazar, he hoped she wasn't furious at him in the morning.