Chapter 3

A/N: Hello readers! It has occurred to me that if I want this story and the Deceptive Natures sequel AND the conclusion to This Incarnation out by the end of the summer, I'm going to have to post more than once a week and step up the editing. I'm not making promises, but I'm going to TRY for twice a week.

Just for the record, I've shamelessly tweaked real mythology for my own purposes (in this chapter and in further chapters, I probably won't remember the warning later). Some of it may not match up with actual myths, but I tried to keep them as true as possible.

As always, thanks to all the wonderful people who reviewed and to irianaceleste for betaing.

To Teentypist: new chapter, see? We can't have you dealing with crushing disappointment for too long.

~Frosty

Hermione was assembling the paperwork she needed for the case. As always when going out of the country, there were a very specific series of hoops that she needed to jump through and she wanted to be ready so that they could leave quickly once Draco returned. She also wanted the file relating to their case ready for him to read. After the disaster that happened the last time Draco refused to read the file, she wasn't going to let him talk his way out of reading one again – at least not without a fight.

When Draco came into the office holding his temples and looking more pale than usual, she knew that it was going to be an even larger fight than she had anticipated. He got a tad tetchy when he was in pain and didn't have something to hit.

"Did Narcissa not want to go on the trip?" Hermione asked with sympathy. She had seen what happened when Narcissa argued with Draco and it wasn't pretty, especially when he was trying to tell her that he knew what was best for her. For such a delicate-looking woman, Narcissa Malfoy was certainly an imposing force when she wanted to be.

"No, she was very excited, started packing while I was still there." He scowled at the thought of what really had him in a foul mood – besides the migraine that was threatening to split his head in half, of course.

It wasn't as horrible as he thought it would be, having Potter rifling around in his head. Draco had expected some sort of righteous residue to linger in his thoughts everywhere Potter had travelled, but that wasn't the case. Potter was more skilled than Draco had originally been willing to give him credit for. Draco was dangerously close to impressed.

"Thanks," echoed in his head, showing that Potter was listening to his surface thoughts as he shuffled around Draco's mind.

"Let's not prolong this ordeal," Draco answered in the same way, "Focus on what you're supposed to be doing."

He watched as Potter obeyed and went back to flipping through Draco's memories from when he was first assigned to be partners with Granger. Because Potter was in his mind, Draco felt his surprise at the way Draco had saved his partner from a vampire in the hospital on their first day together. If he believed that Draco would watch as a vampire killed someone who was partially his responsibility, then Potter had severely underestimated him.

From there, Potter moved on to watch a more recent memory. In a moment of gentleness, Draco smoothed Hermione's mass of hair away from her face as she slept. Merlin, it was uncomfortable to have someone else in his head.

"In my defense she was going to suffocate in her sleep and I was going to be blamed for it," Draco told Potter, feeling the other man's disbelief even as he told him.

Not wanting Potter to think further on the tender moment, Draco thrust forward a memory of himself, standing in the dining room and staring up at the light fixture with a devious smirk on his face. An anxious House Elf waited beside him and listened as Draco told it that none of the elves were to remove the bra that hung there. He wanted to see how long it would take for Granger to notice. He wanted to be there to see her horror and then kiss it away again.

"You expect me to believe that discovering this is why lunch went so wrong?" Potter demanded.

"It's the truth."

Before Draco could stop him, Potter reached the next memory, getting a good look at Granger as she twirled, smiling at him over her shoulder, modelling the edible knickers that Eros had given them. The thought came attached with every feeling Draco felt for the woman, something he'd been careful to strip from the earlier ones.

With a violent shove, Draco pushed Potter from his mind, both of them jolting in pain when their connection was severed and they found themselves back in Potter's office, staring at each other over the desk. Draco was furious.

"I told you to only look at what was needed," Draco snarled, trying to catch his breath. His only consolation as he panted unattractively was that Potter wasn't any better off.

"You really love her, don't you?" It wasn't really a question; Potter only now seemed to be absorbing something that he should have known for a while now. Hermione Granger wasn't the type to just sleep around without feelings involved, especially when it was with her partner, someone very important in her life.

Draco ignored the question. "Are you done suspecting that I'm doing her harm?"

"Yes," Potter said grudgingly. "But I'm still going to get to the bottom of what happened to Kate."

Tempted to tell him that he was welcome to try but would never find answers that the gods didn't want found, Draco just smirked. "I wouldn't expect the nosy bastard who spent most of sixth year stalking me to suddenly change."

"Draco, is your head okay?" Hermione asked, worried that he hadn't answered her for a while. He was just scowling moodily at the ground as he rubbed his temples. The talk with his mother after leaving Potter's office had gone remarkably well, which was a good thing because Draco had zero patience at the moment. It was hard to be patient when his brain felt like it was trying to cut its way out of his head.

"I'll be fine." For self-preservation reasons, Draco didn't want to tell her about his little visit to Potter. While it would gain him points for extending the effort, he would be risking Granger finding out that Draco had inadvertently shown her long-time friend an image of her half naked in a completely private moment involving edible knickers. She would be mortified and then furious, probably with both Draco and Potter.

"Good, then you'll be fine to read this file," Hermione said, thrusting said file against his chest. He'd had time to grab his leather duster and weapons while he'd been home, so Draco was ready to go and his hands were free to hold the bloody file while Granger finished her packing.

Grimacing, he opened the file and slowly started to read. Only one sentence in, he scowled up at her. "We're going to Greece? I don't like it there."

"If you'd read past the first sentence, you'd see it's Athens to be specific." Her statement earned a grunted complaint and a deeper scowl from her partner.

Hermione rolled her eyes. Draco had a thing against travelling to places that were dense with tourists and crowds of Muggles. He also hated going places with lots of sun, and chances were, it was going to be sunny there.

At least there wasn't going to be too much nature. Draco hated nature if he wasn't allowed to kill it.

"Wear a hat or something," Hermione snapped at him.

"A pet store?" Draco demanded, staring disbelievingly at what appeared to be the facade of a perfectly average pet store in Athens.

Hermione pushed open the door. "I'm beginning to suspect that you didn't finish the file you were supposed to be reading."

He snorted, brushing her aside to enter the store first. Hermione wasn't sure if he was going first in case of an ambush, or he was just that eager to get away from the crowds and the sun. Either way, she was annoyed with him.

The pet shop looked like any she could walk into in Muggle London save for the obvious language difference. There were cages with budgies and small finches along one wall, fish tanks along another, and rodents along the remaining wall. It seemed that there weren't any larger animals for sale here.

Hermione walked confidently up to the counter where a woman sat idly flipping through a catalogue of what appeared to be packing materials. After clearing her throat to get the woman to look up, Hermione flashed her Ministry credentials.

"I'm here because we have reason to believe that this store is ground zero for a disease that is rapidly becoming an epidemic in animals. Do you mind if my partner and I take a look around?"

Had the woman been a Muggle, Hermione knew that she would have seen the papers claiming that Hermione was from Britain's Ministry of Magic as a local police badge. It was best that Hermione assume she was a Muggle until proven otherwise.

"You're here about the monsters?" The woman didn't wait for a response. She closed what definitely was a packing materials catalogue, walked to the back of the store, and pulled the front pane of glass on the largest fish tank. It opened just like a door, leaving a wall of water and fish held up with only magic. "Follow me to the back," she said, walking through the water without a moment's hesitation.

"What kind of idiot makes a doorway that necessitates holding your breath?" Draco muttered irritably. Despite his complaints, he obediently followed Hermione through the water. They did have to hold their breaths, but it was only for a second and then they were on the other side of the wall of water, completely dry.

The space on this side of the tank was very different form the store on the other side. This was a dark cavern lit by torches that flickered, casting twisting images on the wall that made it look like their own shadows were out to get them. The walls were smooth, but not in a polished way. It was as if something had worn them down until all of the little ridges and bumps had been evened out.

"This is as far as I go," the girl said. She pointed off towards a darker shadow on the far side of the room. "Just go down there. It's a straight tunnel – deep, but there are no other passages so you won't get lost. Your main concern is being eaten." Job finished, the girl went back to man the counter in the store. She wouldn't want to miss a sale on packing beans in that catalogue of hers.

Draco muttered a string of curses under his breath and handed Hermione a torch from the wall.

She led the way, rolling her eyes at her partner. "You complain when it's sunny, when it's dark. You hate it when it's too hot or cold, or when there's swamp water and mud. Is there any place our job takes us that won't have you complaining?"

"It would be grand if the creatures could just come right to the office."

Her voice lowered as the advanced down the steep, slippery steps of the tunnel. Any sound echoed horribly, and she didn't want to announce their presence to what was waiting for them below. "You wouldn't be able to behead things in the office, it's too messy. You'd just sit and watch me fill out paperwork all day, growing fat."

He scoffed at the mere idea of him getting fat, but didn't continue their conversation. Hermione suspected his silence was because she was right.

They continued on down the stairs for what felt like forever. Hermione's torch was more than half burnt before the finally reached the end of the steps. She wasn't one to fear enclosed spaces, but even she was starting to feel a little claustrophobic knowing how deep underground she had to be after so many steps.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the yawning darkness that stretched beyond the little circle of her flame wasn't much comfort. Judging by the echoes of dripping water in the distance, the cavern was a pretty large one.

A scuffling sound that wasn't just an echo from Hermione and Draco's movements bounced off the walls and both of them froze.

Draco glanced at Hermione, but she was already moving to extinguish the torch, not needing his hint. Their light announced their presence to anything that may be out there in the darkness and they didn't need it making targets of them.

Without the torch, the darkness was complete, blanketing them entirely. If whatever was out there in the cave could see well enough in the dark, Hermione and Draco were still at a major disadvantage. Luckily, Ministry training and common sense provided a solution to this problem.

In perfect synch, Hermione and Draco made a whip motion with their wands, wordlessly casting Lumos Maxima and launching twin balls of light towards the roof of the cavern where they hovered, illuminating a good portion of the cavern.

Hermione, having read the file, was somewhat prepared for the sight that met her eyes, but Draco was another story. His mouth hung open for a full ten seconds before he remembered that he might need to defend himself. The displeased glare of his partner helped him remember that he was being unprofessional.

An angry hiss spread across the cave with the appearance of the magical illumination.

The cave was full of what appeared at first glance to be snakes. On closer inspection, it became clear that each pile of coils contained a woman lounging in a pile of scaly green snakeskin. Hermione knew from her reading that these apparently normal human women were actually attached to those coils. They were half snake, the scales ending just below their belly buttons on the front and trailing up their spines on the back. The other half was human woman – well endowed human woman, as was made apparent by their complete lack of clothing.

"Granger, were they in the file?" Draco whispered.

Hermione ignored him and approached the creatures. "My name is Hermione Granger and I'm here on behalf of the Ministry of Magic. I understand that this is where the illness that has been felling magical creatures at an alarming rate began."

Hermione knew that she was being irrational, but she couldn't suppress the stab of anger that went through her when she saw Draco looking at those women. "Stop undressing them with your eyes," she snapped.

Surprised at the vehemence and anger in her tone, Draco looked away from assessing the monsters to see how much of a threat they posed and raised his eyebrows at his partner. "They're naked, Granger. The undressing has been done for me."

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, because Hermione had to take a few deep breaths to suppress the urge to slap him. There was something about the cave that made her much more volatile than usual, or maybe she was just suffering from PMS. Either way, Draco could have had a little more tact.

One of the creatures, the one with the largest pile of coils, untangled herself and undulated her way over to Hermione and Draco. Her tail pushed her up well above Draco and Hermione's heads, so it looked like she may be poised to strike. She lowered herself when she reached them, but she was still taller than Draco.

"Mortals," the snake woman hissed, "Your meddling will only lead to your death."

Draco tilted his head to the side, weighing the chance he'd get to hit things against the potential danger. He was willing to risk the danger if he got to behead something, but then he remembered that if they weren't working, there would be nothing keeping him and Granger from spending the rest of the day in bed – besides her obvious anger at him, but he was sure that he could convince her to forgive him. It was a tough decision, but one with an obvious answer.

"You heard the scaly lady, Granger. It's futile to meddle and all that shite."

Unlike her partner, Hermione was less willing to give up on a cause. She grabbed his arm to stop him from going back up the stairs and held on to make sure he stayed.

"I appreciate the concern," Hermione said, ignoring Draco's tugged attempts to get her to stop holding him there and addressing the snake woman, "But we're required to investigate, even if the investigation itself is an exercise in futility. So if you could just tell us what happened?"

"He happened. He's hated creatures of darkness since the beginning of our existence. It was him who killed our mother and now he's taking out his petty anger on the rest of us."

"Great, they know the culprit," Draco said, wrenching his arm out of his partner's grasp. "Who was it?"

The snake woman hissed, the sound taken up by every other snake woman in the cavern. Their combined hisses echoed eerily off of the walls, making the space seem as if it was filled with far more snake women than it actually contained. "We dare not speak his name."

"Of course not," Draco muttered bitterly, earning himself an irritated slap in the chest from his partner.

"Is there anything you can tell us?" Hermione asked. "A hint, something? We just want to find out why this plague started so we can stop it from killing any more innocent creatures."

According to Hermione's file, the plague had started right here in this cave and killed ninety percent of the Daughters of Echidna. The remaining ten or so snake women were all that had survived the brutal illness. Judging by the way some of these remaining creatures were looking a little listless, she was concerned that some of them may not be out of the woods yet.

"My sisters are sick and need tending to. There is nothing I can do for you besides warn you that interfering further will only lead to your death."

Hermione pulled out a notepad from a pocket and poised a self-inking quill over the paper. She was vulnerable because she'd been forced to put away her wand, but Draco had stopped trying to escape and was watching her back.

"Can you at least tell us some of the symptoms of the curse? Any information at all could help us."

The woman's eyes narrowed. "My formerly healthy sisters were alive and well and then they were dead. If you insist on meddling, do it far from us. Out numbers are depleted enough as it is, I don't want the rest of us to die because you don't know when to stop asking questions. Now leave."

Not wanting to anger the already ill snake women, Hermione accepted the dismissal and turned to leave. Draco tried to do the same, but found that he was unable to do so.

"Granger," Draco said, looking down at his leg. His expression was halfway between horror and dread. "There's a small child attached to my leg."