A/N: Yay two chapters today! Because their both on the shorter side! Yay? Hahaha. Thank you again for you responses, I'm so glad the last two chapters went over well I was so worried about putting them up, so I'm excited you guys like them! Hope you guys like where the these two chapters take us!
Chapter 22
Hermione took a deep breath and refocused her eyes on the files in front of her, spread widely on her living room floor. She had been working all day and Draco was due to come over for dinner shortly. She had meant to work only for a few hours, then clean her flat and herself up before he got there, not that she thought that he would care about the chaos, but it made her feel better. Once again, however, she fell down the deep hole of work without even realizing it. She started shuffling her work around in neat stacks just as her fireplace erupted in green flames and Draco casually strolled into her tiny flat. She looked up at him, once again flawless, as if he had just walked out of a muggle magazine. He never ceased to amaze her. "Hey," she smiled up at him.
"I see you've had an eventful Saturday," Draco smirked, his hands in his pockets.
"Well, it would have been eventful if I actually found something," Hermione huffed in frustration. It had been three weeks since Draco was mysteriously let loose at the Manor and Hermione had been working furiously. She went over backgrounds of the few people that had been let into the property, she had tripled checked alibis and everyone had checked out. She had gone over the wards and floos, interviewed everyone thoroughly and she had not one piece of evidence that anyone was there. How was she supposed to protect Draco from a ghost? And with the impending full moon her stress levels were starting to peak.
Draco was starting to pick up on the cues Hermione gave off, the subtle hints that she was lost in thought. She wasn't hard to read when you knew what to look for and Draco had watched her carefully in the month and a half that she had come back in to his life. "Granger, it will be okay. The Aurors haven't left my side since they were assigned." Draco was not terribly fond of having bodyguards around him all the time. For one, it implied that he needed someone else to fight his battles. Second, he rather enjoyed his privacy and two thugs following him around everywhere put a damper on things. It was an entire ordeal just so he could visit Hermione's flat without the Aurors looming over their shoulders. He knelt down and kissed her sweetly, vanishing all other thoughts from his mind except her.
His kisses still sent butterflies wild in Hermione's stomach, especially these ones, the ones where he was trying to convey more than he was saying through his lips. Hermione sighed softly when he broke the tender kiss. "We have no idea who got in or how they got in, how in the world can you be so cool about it?"
Draco smiled at her. "It's hard to be concerned about anything but you."
Hermione's heart twinged, he could be so damn charming. She used to wonder why the Slytherin girls swooned over him, but being on the receiving end on his charm, she now understood. "You should take this more seriously, Draco," she whispered softly.
Draco's smile fell. "Hermione, I am taking it seriously, but I'm not going to let whoever this is ruin this, ruin us. I have wanted this for too long, so when I'm with you, I choose to be with you, not looking over my shoulder." He slowly stood, pulling her up with him.
Hermione blushed, what was she supposed to say that? So she decided to kiss him instead. "So I do have bad news, I may have forgotten to prepare something for dinner." She laughed, trying to take his advice and be with him.
Draco chuckled. "Nibsy," he called. Instantly the small elf appeared at his side.
"Yes, Master Draco?" Nibsy asked cheerfully.
"Would you please prepare some dinner for us? Whatever you're making for mother will do fine." Draco looked at Nibsy.
"Of course, sir! Dinner shall be ready shortly." Nibsy chirped. "And I shall bring some here for Master and Miss."
Draco nodded at Nibsy. "Thank you, Nibsy." The elf disappeared, and he looked at Hermione again. "Disaster averted."
Hermione felt bad that once again she was eating his food. She had invited him to her flat because she mostly went the the manor to spend time with him. She was beginning to worry that she was taking advantage of his hospitality. On the other hand, she also knew that the House Elves always made an abundance of food, more than enough to feed three people. "Thank you, again. I promise someday I'll actually cook for you." She walked in to the kitchen grabbed some dishes and started setting the table for dinner.
Draco followed her into the kitchen and impossibly small breakfast nook. "Can you actually cook?"
Hermione sent a mocking glare at him. "It's not hard. It's basically potions but with food, and if you remember correctly, I beat you in potions," she teased.
"Ah, yes, but good cooking involves instincts and understanding of flavors." He leaned against the cobalt counters.
Hermione smiled. "Are you implying I'm not a good cook?"
"No, merely asking." He grinned.
"Guess you'll just have to figure that out on your own," Hermione shrugged, walking back towards him, tapping his hip that was blocking her silverware drawer.
Draco moved behind Hermione to pin her to the counter with his body, her back arched against his stomach as his hands gripped the counters on either side of her. "I don't much care if you're a good cook, as long as you're good in bed," he murmured in to crook of her neck, "which I already know you are."
Shivers ran up and down Hermione's spine, he could turn her on like a switch, the feeling of his voice vibrating into her neck made her knees wobble with want. "Is that so?" she hummed softly, trying not to lose complete control.
Draco pulled her hair aside and started delicately kissing her neck up to her jawline. "Well, you see, after rigorous testing, the results have been incredibly encouraging," he whispered softly into her ear.
Hermione chuckled, but the pop of the house elf snapped her back to reality. Hermione felt Draco shift in frustration at the bad timing. She laughed to herself, she was sure they would get to that eventually tonight, but right now she really needed to eat.
Draco moved from behind her and Nibsy skipped in to the room floating what looked like a roast, with a few side dishes behind him. The food flew to the table and Nibsy asked if there was more that Draco needed but Draco thanked him and dismissed him for the night.
The rest of the night went exactly how Hermione expected it to. They had an intriguing conversation over dinner, debating the difference and similarities of cooking and potions, then that morphed into the the fundamentals of potions and what techniques, so on and so forth. That was the thing about Draco, Hermione thought to herself, as they basked in the afterglow of the sex that had followed dinner, Draco could keep up with her. Draco may not have beaten her in scores at Hogwarts, but he was in no way less intelligent than her. He could hold his own in their debates, he had even won some of them against her. Hermione was extremely academically smart, she was very good at absorbing information and extrapolating on that knowledge she had, Draco was a different kind of smart, though. While he was good at understanding and maintaining information, he was linguistically adept and far superior at interpersonal intelligence. He could read Hermione like a book, then he would use what he gathered from her to challenge her in new way, force her to see things from a different perspective. She shifted in her bed to look up at him, and his stone eyes met hers and she couldn't help but smile at his chiseled features. She wondered if she could really see a future with him. That being said, she wasn't even sure where they stood right now.
Draco kissed her forehead, clearly she was lost in thought again, there was something so beautiful about watching her think. While Draco had been with many women, never did he find any of them so intriguing. He loved to watch her brain turn over, consider, and analyze everything. He wondered what it was like to be in that buzzing brain. "What are you thinking about?"
She pursed her lips at him, then leaned up on to her elbows, drawing soft circles on to his chest. "Where do we stand?" she bit her lip, watching her fingers tracing his skin.
Draco smirked. "Well, I just assumed we were exclusive." He smiled when her head snapped up, her cinnamon eyes meeting his.
"Oh, so you're not..." She trailed off.
"I'm not, and I rather hope you're not either," Draco said, matter of factly.
Hermione laughed. "No, I'm not, I haven't dated in long time. What does exclusive include?" she delicately asked.
"Well, I would think it means we're not seeing other people, with the intentions to see where this goes." Draco informed her.
"So dating?" Hermione smiled
He chuckled. "If you'd like to refer to it like that, I just would prefer to keep it out of the public eye for now."
Hermione bristled, "Why would that be?"
That was not the reaction Draco expected, he assumed she would want to keep it quiet too, he stroked her back trying to reassure her. "Not because of your blood, I swear. I just like to keep these things quiet until they develop into more, especially with you being part of the golden trio and I a supposed ex-death eater, the media would have field day with it. Our face would be everywhere and people would planning our wedding before you know it. So to give us some breathing room it would be best if were didn't go public just yet."
Hermione gaped at him. Since Ron, she hadn't been in a serious enough relationship that came even close to this conversation. Draco was right however, Hermione and Ron were constantly bombarded by journalist and paparazzi always wanting the exclusive details of their relationship. "Oh. Well, that makes sense."
"Jeez Granger, when are you going to trust me?" Draco teased, though it pained him that she jumped straight that conclusion. He knew, though, that she still thought he held prejudices, and he would still have to work twice as hard to prove to her didn't.
Hermione kissed his chest. "Sorry, I shouldn't have assumed that it was because of my blood, old habits."
Draco tried to shrug it off as her kisses trailed down his abdomen. It was several hours later, after they had sated themselves, Draco woke up to a piercing noise. His heart raced as the sound sent him into a fit of panic. It sounded remarkably like the screams that would carry through the manor of the poor souls being tortured in the dungeon. Draco groped for his wand, his hands shaking in fear that he would be next. He cast lumos to find a groggy Hermione shielding her eyes from the light spilling from his wand, she was fumbling for something on her table side.
"It's the coin." She sat up and with the coin between fingers, as she silenced the alarm on it. "I have to go." She kicked her feet over the side, pulling on clothes. "You should get your detail and go back to the Manor." She turned to look at him, but he didn't look okay. His chest was heaving and he had a death grip on his wand and the sheets. Hermione knew this was a panic attack and her heart was torn. She wanted to hold him and bring him back down, but she had to leave immediately, someone may be in serious danger. "Nibsy!" She called. The elf appeared a moment later, looking sleepy himself, "Draco is having a panic attack. Take him to the Manor and bring him down. I have to go." She didn't have time for pleasantries, she would have to apologize later, and with that she clicked the coin into a portkey and was gone.
The next moment she was standing in Diagon Alley, the cold night air assaulting her senses. She looked around and found Ron standing next to one of the side alleys. "Ron!" she called, trotting over to him.
Ron looked over his shoulder a solemn look across his face. "Mione, wait." He turned to block her view.
Hermione's brows knitted together, "What's wrong?" Her voice trailed off. Over his shoulder, it looked like deep red paint had been spilled on the ground. Hermione's heart stopped, "Who is it?" he asked weakly, knowing that Ron wouldn't stop her from looking unless it was a dead body.
"Hestia Carrow," Ron's voice grim. "They slit her throat. She was dead when we got here."
Hermione's stomach was starting to feel queasy. She was supposed to be helping werewolves and she was failing miserably. Hestia was not one of her wards, but the responsibility still fell on her shoulders since she was in charge of the program. "Do we know who did it yet?"
"They're looking for evidence now," Ron looked at her. "We got here only a few minutes before you did. There was one more thing you should know." Ron grimaced. "We found her coin on her forehead."
Hermione clasped her hand to her mouth in shock. "The killer knew about the coin?"
"It could be that she had it and used it, and the killer figured out what it was. Or, worst case, the killer knew about it and used it and is now taunting us." Ron sighed. "Either way, they know about it now."
Hermione's head started to spin with scenarios, which really didn't help with the onset nausea. "So wait, why bring me here? Hestia wasn't even my case." She looked around for Smith, she saw the chestnut hair, standing next to another Auror.
Ron looked at her with a sorrowful expression. "They left a message. We're not sure what it means and Smith said we should call you." Ron pointed to the wall over his left shoulder, and he stepped to the side.
Laying on the ground a pool of dark crimson was Hestia's body, her skin was an icy blue except for the massive gash across her neck. For the first time, Hermione noticed the dark words written on the wall Purity above all, traitors will fall.