Heyi.
THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL THE REVIEWS, AND FOLLOWS!
More than a month since the last update. I am apologizing, yes, but I had good reasons. Previous month was the duration of my final exams to my last High School year - commonly known as Senior Year. (It doesn't exactly work like that, here, in my country, but can roughly be termed as this.) And now I'm caught up with various entrance examinations to colleges. I've been busy, but writing certainly helps alleviate the stress. I wrote drabbles and single-shots all this while. But then I decided that this needed an update, and so I did. :D
And Draco is going to be into the story with full force, hence. The main four characters, along with Padma, are going to play a major role for quite some chapters to follow. From here on, the actual story is beginning. Be prepared for me-special tinge of humour and DHr-special snarky banter, along the way.
PS. This one's kept short, intentionally.
Read on!
four
24th July, 2001
Tuesday
12 Grimmauld Place
(Late Evening)
Hermione was still groggy from the multiple sedatives given to her that morning when she stepped through the fireplace at Harry's Study. Looking around, she realised that she was late. Harry mostly spent some late afternoon hours in his Study before retiring to bed. As far as Hermione knew, Harry had made a new habit of taking dinner in his bedroom - if no one accompanied him, and forced him into the kitchen - ever since he'd become an Auror. He was always much too tired move into the Dining Hall, Ginny had told her.
She crossed the vast room, dimly lit with three floating candles, and stepped across the door. Finding herself at the bottom of the house's staircase, she smiled to herself. This place was memorable, actually.
She'd just taken a step up, when voices disturbed the eerie calm about the place. Voice-s? She frowned. Harry had company? She hoped it wasn't Ginny. She didn't want to have her around while she bit Harry's head off. Ginny was sure to take her side with this current issue, and her reprimanding Harry by siding against him, had a past record of always leading him into weeks of grumpiness.
Following the direction the sounds seemed to be emerging from, Hermione reached the kitchen. The kitchen? Hermione mentally groaned. This was definitely Ginny quarrelling over Harry's weak cooking skills. She wasn't to be blamed, though. Ginny cooked like a wonder. Rather, she cooked like Molly.
Clicking her tongue, she made a move to leave, when-
"...you are wrong! I do not doubt you, for God's sake!" Harry.
Hermione's breath hitched. Doubt? What had Ginny done?
Horror struck, she acted on instinct, stuffing her morales away, and pressed an ear against the kitchen door.
A muffled voice was hissing, but before she could focus, Hermione had missed some part.
"...so don't you even pretend that you do! And anyways, when have I ever given you a reason to have such blind faith-"
"It is not blind faith! I've seen you - observed you! And how can you forget that I was the one who proposed-"
"Shut it! We both fucking know what you were - or, might I say still are? - running after. Stop this pretense, okay?"
Hermione couldn't breathe. Reason to trust? Proposal? Harry was running behind something? Pretending? What the hell was happening in Harry and Ginny's lives? For a moment, Hermione forgot her own colossal worry as she thought about two of her best friends. But, for for only a moment, because the door was flung open the next and she toppled over.
The expected smashing against the floor never came, as Hermione found her upper arms in a vice like grip of a pair of hands. She inhaled deeply and realised that her face was stuffed into something that remarkably felt like a male's chest through linen. Her tightly clenched eyes snapped open in shock as she realised it wasn't Harry's citrus washing powder's fragrance she breathed in. This was a strong, strong cologne. Startled, she looked up into fire spitting grey eyes.
She was shoved back as she gaped at Draco Malfoy's scowling face.
"Eavesdropping, Granger? I swear I thought better of you," he said, sounding disappointed in her.
There was a muffled 'Hermione' to be heard, before Malfoy was pulled away from the doorway and a horrified Harry made his presence. "Hermione?" he gasped. "What are you doing here?"
Hermione quickly collected her wits, as fresh, burning fury flowed through her. "What am I doing here, Harry? Me? I'm your best friend, that is what! What the hell is he doing here?" she screamed.
Harry sighed, looking at Malfoy who shrugged. Hermione's fury exploded.
"And you, Draco Malfoy!" she thundered; pure, unadulterated wrath barking on her behalf. "What is your gameplan, huh? Turns out you're being found at very unexpected and unwanted places recently, aren't you?"
Malfoy scoffed. "My, my, Granger, unexpected? Hardly," he smirked. "But how come you don't know? Didn't our dear Potter tell his best friend?"
Harry groaned. "Please, Draco. I can really do without any further antagonizing. She's gonna torment me like anything without your input, I assure you," he gave a pleading look to Malfoy, and Hermione gaped again.
Since when did Harry plead Malfoy? World was spiralling out of her control, and pretty fast at that.
"I can take care that it doesn't come to that, Harry," Malfoy winked at Harry, and Hermione gasped.
Since when did Malfoy call Harry by his given name? The world was definitely spinning out of her control, and sodden hellishly fast!
"Yeah?" Harry scratched his mussed head and adjusted his specs. "I'll leave it to you then. But, please don't strangle each other okay?" he looked between her and Malfoy.
She wasn't going to strangle him, no. She was going to be castrate the slimy ferret and strangle Harry, instead. Who was he to leave her off on Malfoy's dependence for explanations? She scowled darkly at the yawning, black-haired idiot.
"We're not done yet, Harry," she hissed through teeth, making him shut his mouth with a plop. "Remember that!"
Nodding grimly and clearing his throat multiple times, Harry mumbled quick goodnights and, walking around Hermione's crossed-arms form, rushed up the staircase. She stood glowering at the blond, meanwhile.
"Don't give me that, Granger," Draco drawled, inspecting his nails. "I'm not a part of the remaining, infuriating, silly two-thirds of your trio." He smirked again, raising an amused eyebrow, "Your supposedly intimidating glares don't threaten me."
"Save the brags for later, Malfoy. Spill out, whatever you know about this stupid incident from today morning!"
His smirk widened and she fisted the hem of her shorts - falling somewhere above her knees - as she held herself back from punching him.
"Relax, Granger. We can talk about that in more detail and more comfort, don't you think?" he asked.
"No," Hermione shook her head, "I don't." And she didn't. Nowhere in the world could she have a comfortable conversation with this Silliest Ferret of Their Age.
Without prior warning, he sighed exasperatedly and stepped into her personal space. She flinched, placing both her hands splayed over his black-linen clad chest to push him away. But she gasped as her right hand came to rest just above his heart; shocked, she felt the thrumming in him which she had believed to never have existed, all through her teenage life. She noticed a quick intake of breath by him, before he was smirking again and wrapping his arms around her waist.
"Malfoy!" she gasped again. But he wasn't listening.
His forehead came to rest on hers and she could count streaks of blue in his grey eyes. Then her world was spiralling and spinning again. Only, this was familiar.
ooo
She was out of breath when she pushed him away. Her brain whirled with the force of Apparition. She sneered at him when she realised that he'd apparated them to her terrace.
He shrugged. "I live just next doors, remember? I can skip off into the house if your parents came looking. And you… Well, they know you're a witch and can apparate."
Hermione huffed in agitation. "Can we come straight to the point? What is the meaning of all this? What are you doing here, Malfoy-"
"Shush!" he jumped up from his bum-resting-on-banister stance. "Don't say that name, here, Granger. It's Stevenson in this world. Or Steve if you find that a mouthful."
Hermione's head hurt. "Just what is that you… and even Harry - going by what I've witnessed today," she scowled, thinking back to the way her best friend left her with their biggest rival of all times. "What are you two upto? My head's about to burst!"
He sighed, looking down at his feet as he relaxed back on the parapet of the terrace.
"It is something really secretive. But as it isn't an Auror mission, I guess telling you isn't dangerous," he said quietly, looking at his feet as she frowned. "You're the War Heroine, after all."
"Of course it isn't dangerous for me, Malfoy," she scoffed at him.
He winced. "Not dangerous for me, I meant," he spoke in an urgent tone, before lowering his voice and scowling at her, "Will you stop taking that name, Granger?"
Dangerous for him? That had her interest piqued - so much that she completely ignored the warning he'd given after that. "Why, pray tell, would it be dangerous for you?"
"It is not, I said," he shrugged. As she'd opened her mouth to counter, he cut her, "This is beside the point, Granger."
She kept shut, tapping her foot in the silence that followed - reminding him that she was still waiting for him to begin. Taking a deep breath, he finally looked up at her. His face screamed of uncertainty, and Hermione felt uncomfortable.
"I'm an undercover Auror for the Ministry of Magic."
Hermione's hand flew up to clasp against her mouth that had continued to hang open after a loud gasp left her. Her eyes bulged. "You…you're an Auror?" she spoke into her palm.
Malfoy nodded, looking away again. "I have been, for the past two and half years, as a part of my Community Service."
Oh. God. The Ministry was taking up people to serve as undercover agents in the name of their community services? This was extremely cunning. She wondered if some Slytherin had set the idea up…
"It has been quite a long time, and I'm really tired of remaining hidden. I thought upon coming out of it, few months back… and that led me to Potter. I approached him with the plea of either taking me in as a proper Auror, or disbanding me from the service," he said and took another breath. "Minister put up a condition. Despite all of what I've done as an undercover man for them - keeping ears open for any rogue activities; keeping a check on illegal seeming transactions at Gringotts; fighting in the Aurors' battles with a supply of Polyjuice - my complete abilities aren't put to test as nicely as he would have liked.
"A month ago, he approached me with this idea," he smirked as her eyes narrowed. "I am to show my fullest abilities one last time by properly surviving in a Muggle community, proving myself to be of no threat to Muggles."
Hermione's brows flew off her forehead. Draco Malfoy was spending his life as a Muggle, these days? She felt like giggling.
"Stevenson Paley," he continued in a hushed tone, "is the nephew of your dear neighbour, as you must have been told. The man has met him terribly seldom in his life of sixty, and his nephew's of twenty-two years. Shacklebolt discussed all of this with the Muggle Prime Minister, and I was moved here as the old man's nephew. He has been ordered to take care of me, the way he would as if I were the actual Stevenson. He's aware I'm not, though." He chuckled as an afterthought.
She blinked. "What does he know, then? Sure they couldn't have told him that your probation period has to end up with you getting comfortable into the community of his type of people?"
"I assume not," he shrugged.
This was news. Draco Malfoy being an undercover Auror for the Ministry… Draco Malfoy living off as a Muggle… Draco Malfoy being her parents' neighbor.
Hermione was slowly nodding, absorbing all the information. Until another question propped up in her head.
"Wait. How did you… You mean you people accidentally found out about this colleague of Dad's, who was expecting his nephew to visit him?" she squinted at him.
He shrugged, whistling a breath out, and looked away.
Uh-oh.
"Draco Malfoy!" she hissed, making him jump and flail his arms about, possibly to prevent her from taking his name, "You bloody ferret! This is no coincidence! You purposely chose a place to my proximity!"
He smirked mischievously, "You think everything's about you, don't you? Taking that War Heroine title far too seriously, eh? But," he interrupted as she opened her mouth again. "But I might have done what you're accusing me of," he gave her a full, toothy grin.
Too much discomfort. She awkwardly cleared her throat, looking away. But truth be told, nothing prevented irritation from creeping under her skin. This git was never going to give up on making her life hell, was he? Speaking of…
"What about working like a foolhardy teen to charm the pants off my parents?" she crossed her arms again.
He chuckled at that. "What about that?"
She snarled, "Why are you doing it?"
"Why, but to rile you up, Granger?" he winked at her and, in the blink of eye, began to pace towards the side of the roof's balcony that faced the house he was supposed to be in.
Hermione noticed that the sun was setting, and so didn't make any move to stop him for further questioning. He was a neighbor and was found bouncing around her house all day long. She groaned at the thought, but sought comfort in the fact that she had the opportunity of pestering him with questions, anytime she liked.
She sighed resignedly as he hopped onto the adjacent terrace, jumping athletically over a distance of about two feet. She knew he was showing off, but she wasn't impressed in the least.
No, she really wasn't.
Then she turned on her heels and stormed downstairs. This had been a huge day, after all.
Do you like the plot? Review if you read. Really makes my day to see you respond.
xoxo
Aishwarya.
ooo TO BE CONTINUED ooo