Chapter 9

A/N: Hello readers! I think I'm slightly over a week with this chapter, so sorry. But it's here now!

I haven't the time at the moment to answer reviews, but I'm getting to them... Eventually. Thanks to everyone who reviewed and to irianaceleste for betaing!

~Frosty

Draco found her there in bed shortly after she finished and sent off her letter.

"Where were you?" she mumbled, already half asleep. It had been a long, exhausting day and she had already been low on energy when it started. She hadn't rested near as much as she should have during their week off and was regretting it.

Seeing her exhaustion, Draco grabbed her feet and yanked them down so her head was resting on her pillow instead of leaning against the wall. Hermione squeaked a little when he pulled her, too tired to even glare properly as he took off her shoes, socks, and then her pants. Half awake and completely pliant, she limply allowed him to undress her.

Draco, much more alert than her, left on her underwear and shirt, only removing the uncomfortable parts of her outfit. He didn't want her accusing him of taking advantage of her exhaustion in the morning when she woke up sans some important pieces of clothing.

"How come you suddenly have so much energy?" she complained as he started kissing her neck.

"I had a nap, remember? I'm going to need to expend some energy if I'm going to be able to sleep in this disgustingly uncomfortable bed."

Hermione sighed. She was too tired for sex and refused to allow Draco to talk her into it only to have her too tired to do anything but lay there while he did all the work. It wouldn't be very satisfying for either of them.

She pulled Draco's head down further and he went along with it, probably because he thought that she was agreeing to his little plan. Hermione turned his head to the side and pressed his ear over her heart. She threaded her fingers through his hair and rubbed them against his scalp.

Draco didn't like cuddling, but Hermione enjoyed his closeness. He claimed to put up with it for her benefit, something Hermione doubted.

It was human nature to occasionally need contact with other humans. Sex was fine, but it wasn't the only way to experience closeness with another person. Hermione wanted to teach him this. The fact that doing so gave them both what they wanted at the moment just made her plan seem that much better.

"Granger, what are you doing?"

Shushing him, she continued to stroke his hair. "Relax."

He had yet to jerk away from her, so she had to assume that he liked it or had at least decided to tolerate it. Draco wasn't the type to stay mute while she did something that he didn't like. Suffering in silence for the benefit of someone else just wasn't his style.

Gradually, he did as she asked, his breathing slowing until he was almost asleep. Hermione, comforted by his weight and warmth on top of her was dozing off as well when he ruined it.

"Are your breasts bigger?" Draco questioned, reaching a hand up to cup the one that his ear wasn't squishing.

"Nice try." She slapped his hand away and went right back to stroking his hair.

Chuckling, Draco rolled over onto his back so that if he fell asleep, he wouldn't accidentally crush her. To Hermione's surprise, he pulled her onto his chest with a hand resting on the small of her back. The warmth she felt was much more than what was given off by his skin.

They fell asleep like that, the bloody uncomfortable bed completely disregarded.

Hermione received her answer from Harry the next morning. He said he would look into both of the things that she'd mentioned, but it might take him a while. The Muggle authorities were notoriously slow with getting back to the Ministry, mostly because the majority of the police force didn't know about the existence of the Ministry.

Whatever mood Auror Smith had been in the previous day seemed to have passed, as he was completely normal at breakfast the next morning. He even smiled with something that could be mistaken for affection when Cassy bounded into the room, nearly squeezing the life out of Sylvester as she carried him. Oddly enough, Sylvester seemed to be relishing the attention.

"What are we doing today, Hermione?" Cassy asked. She'd been talking about her broomstick adventure almost nonstop since they'd landed. Personally, Hermione couldn't understand the appeal.

Hermione and Draco exchanged a look, but it was Hermione who spoke. "Draco and I actually need to go somewhere ourselves today." Auror Smith started to puff up, clearly readying himself to start yelling at her. Hermione cut him off before he could begin a tirade that would only annoy them and upset the little girl. "I've arranged for a friend to come watch Cassy. All you're going to have to do while we're gone is keep Cassy safe."

This seemed satisfactory to Smith, which was good because Hermione was leaving Cassy with him and their guest whether he wanted her to or not. She would have preferred to bring Cassy along with them, but she was confident that Smith could keep her safe from outside threats and the babysitter would keep her shielded from the surly Auror.

Hermione frowned at the Auror. Smith claimed that he only wanted to do his job and wouldn't do anything more, but if he continued to prevent Hermione and Draco from doing their jobs, he really wasn't doing his own.

"Who's going to be watching me then?" Cassy asked.

Harry and Ron had been busy with their jobs, as had everyone else that Hermione could think of to possibly watch Cassy for the day. It had actually been Draco to come up with a solution when he said, "Why not just get the barmy Lovegood woman to watch the kid?"

Luna wasn't as insane as most people thought. She had actually discovered a number of new magical creatures in her travels around the world. In her own, slightly loopy way, she could be quite brilliant. It was just that being in her presence for too long tended to make one a little frustrated.

A knock on the door had Hermione up from the table and rushing to answer it.

"What did we ride to the Ministry in sixth year?" Hermione called through the door. She hated being so distrustful, but they were in a safe house and just randomly letting people inside was begging for trouble.

"Thestrals," came the faint voice of Luna.

"Um... Luna?" she asked in confusion when she opened the door to reveal what appeared to be a very slight biker. The helmet was crooked on her head and spewing waves of blonde hair, the leather jacket was so large that it swallowed her, and the huge black boots looked like they would slip around on her feet and trip her.

"Hello, Hermione. I didn't have time to get a Polyjuice potion, so I had to make do with what I had lying around."

"That's fine, Luna." Hermione stepped back so that her friend would be able to enter the house. She forced herself not to ask why Luna had what appeared to be the clothing of a biker in her house on hand. Her eyes widened when she saw the back of Luna's jacket and automatically corrected herself. Luna had the clothing of a biker gang member, as evidenced by the patches displayed on the back her jacket.

"We really appreciate you helping us with this," Hermione continued once she'd found her voice.

"Oh, no trouble at all. It's actually quite nice to get out of the house. As you know, my gravity has been misbehaving at home. It's very naughty. I suspect that it's a plot to ruin my advantage over the floating attic mice. If you get an infestation, just open the window and they all float away, except I clearly can't unless I want to risk floating away along with them." She shook her head sadly.

Cassy, listening from the kitchen, looked to Draco with wide eyes. "Are you sure she's okay to watch me?"

Draco snorted but his response was cut short when Hermione and Luna came into the kitchen.

When she caught sight of Smith, Luna tilted her head inquisitively, but then dismissed him and focused on Cassy. Luna smiled dreamily and pulled what looked like a handful of paint-dipped paintbrushes that were struggling to escape her grasp. "You must be Cassy. I thought we could start with some crafts. Nargles are repelled by certain colour combinations."

Cassy looked at her like she was a strange new species of frog that had taken up residence in her shoe. "I don't like paints."

"That's fine. I'll do the painting and you'll be in charge of the glitter shaker."

Somehow, Cassy wasn't as pleased with this compromise as Luna seemed to think she would be.

"We have to get going now," Draco said, dragging Hermione out of the safe house by her arm. He wanted to be out of there before the barmy blonde said something to Smith that had him refusing to be left alone with people. Lovegood tended to have that effect.

"Granger, where the hell are we going?"

"If you would read a file or occasionally crack a book on mythology, you would know that we're headed towards the temple that houses the Oracle of Delphi." Hermione's scolding usually rolled right off of Draco like raindrops, but this one was particularly ineffective because she slipped on a rock and nearly fell as she finished. Normally, she was sure on her feet, but the footing in the ravine they were traversing was quite treacherous.

Something about the mountain they were climbing interfered with their magic and made Apparition impossible, so they were forced to climb the mountain just like the non-magical people. Draco's aversion to crowds of Muggles had them taking a different way up the mountain, the one without nice stairs and well-worn paths. The incline was just shy of calling for climbing equipment.

Wiping a drop of sweat that trailed down her face, Hermione pressed on. It was hot and she was starting to regret not telling Draco to suck it up and walk with the tourists.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him open his mouth, probably to complain. Hermione didn't say anything, she just turned her red, sweaty face towards him and raised an eyebrow. His mouth closed and he didn't say a word for their entire climb.

When they finally reached the ruins, Hermione was relieved but Draco was unimpressed.

"This is a bunch of rocks," Draco said flatly.

"Don't be silly, Draco. A god would never let their temple fall into disrepair, they're too vain. Moving it, however, so that only true believers could find it makes sense. The Oracle is here somewhere; she's just hidden in the real temple."

"That seems a little farfetched."

"I've given it a lot of thought." Hermione nodded towards a particularly large tourist. He had sweat stains under his arms and was throwing his candy bar wrapper on the ground when he thought no one was looking. An elbow in the ribs from his wife had him lifting the camera that hung on a strap around his wrist and tiredly taking a picture of the ruins while loudly complaining about the lack of bathrooms on the site.

"Would you really want people like that all over a temple dedicated to you?"

Draco saw her point. "Fine, where do you think we should look?"

Lips pursed, Hermione surveyed their surroundings. What she really needed to do was get a good, close up look at the ruins, but there were tour guides and signs everywhere constantly warning people in several different languages to stay away from the historical site.

"We need a distraction," Hermione said absently. They didn't have magic on the mountain, so they weren't able to just conjure something to bring everyone's attention away from them as they snuck into the ruins. That was fine, they were good with improvisation.

She turned back to Draco to see if he had any suggestions, but her partner wasn't there.

Frantically, Hermione's eyes darted around, searching for the bright patch of blond that she knew so well. There was so much trouble that he could cause unsupervised among so many unsuspecting Muggles. She cringed when she saw him sneaking up on the sweat stained man from earlier. Draco's malicious grin said that he was up to no good and relishing it.

Hermione wanted to close her eyes and brace for the chaos, but she knew she had to keep them open to watch. If there were charges pressed, she wanted to know as much about the situation as possible. The Ministry would appreciate her memories.

While the sweat stained man's back was turned, Draco shoved a slightly smaller man into the larger one and then slipped away before either man noticed that it had been Draco to instigate the resulting collision. Sweat stained man stumbled forward and then immediately rounded on the smaller one. The shouting match that ensued drew the attention of everyone in the area.

"What were you saying about a distraction?" Draco asked smugly.

"You enjoy manipulating Muggles a little too much for me to be comfortable."

Shrugging, he led the way down the slope to the ruins.

"Do your thing quick, Granger. I don't think either of those men have the endurance to last very long shouting at each other like that. We've only got minutes."

The temple was large, but almost entirely in ruins. Only a handful of the original pillars were still standing on the rocky ground and they didn't look like they'd be standing for much longer.

Hermione nodded, scanning the ground. The sun above them was bright, but she was searching for the place where the sunlight was the brightest. A temple for the god of the sun would shine brighter than normal sunlight – or at least this was Hermione's hope. Unsurprisingly, she hadn't been able to find many hints about the location of the temple in her history books.

If Hermione's quick calculations were correct, then the place that got the most sun throughout the day was between two pillars. She squinted against the sunlight reflected from the light-colours stones. It was hard to tell, but she was pretty sure the light was brightest between the two tallest pillars.

"Sweat stains is about to have a heart attack or something, Granger. I give him another few seconds before he searches for some shade and a chair."

"I know where we're going." Hermione grabbed Draco's arm and dashed towards the two pillars.

Her careful thought was rewarded when the air between the pillars shimmered as if from extreme heat. They passed through and came out on the other side in a completely different place.

It was clearly a cave, but there was an improbable amount of sunlight streaming through a small hole in the roof. Just one fist-sized hole allowed so much light to enter that even the stone walls seemed the sparkle. The giant fresco that took up the majority of the far wall was nearly blinding to see.

Draco looked around and sighed. "I was half hoping that your idea wouldn't work so I could create another Muggle scene."

Not bother to look towards him, Hermione swatted Draco in the chest. Her eyes were busy scanning the new temple. Water poured from spouts in the wall into a basin along two of the three fresco-free walls. There wasn't a speck of algae or pond slime, showing the temple was well maintained despite its remote location.

Bright reflections from the water sent rippling reflections along the walls, only furthering the light bouncing around the room. The complete lack of shadows made it obvious that Hermione and Draco were alone in the temple.

Draco squinted up at the near-blinding fresco depicting Apollo, posed naked in the sky while miniature mortals bowed down to him. It was so large and detailed that the expression of worship and awe on the faces of the mortals was impossible to miss.

"Modest, isn't he?" Draco asked.

"Don't speak ill of a god in his own temple."

Dead center under the larger than life Apollo was a long stone table, presumably for offerings to the god. It was almost completely empty. If Apollo wanted more offerings, he probably should have made his temple easier to find.

Hermione searched around in her beaded bag until she found a small wineskin that she'd packed just for this purpose. She set it on the table and then turned her eyes to the only other thing resting the stone was what appeared to be an answering machine – and not a particularly new one either.

"What's that?" Draco asked, warily approaching it.

Hermione didn't answer, instead pushing the button. A tinny voice echoed around the bright cave. "If you're here to see the oracle, you're a little late. I've gone to Athens for some gelato and I won't be back for three weeks at least. Good luck with your issue and I'm glad I don't have to listen to you whining about it."

The fact that there was a working answering machine in the temple at all had to be due to a little divine intervention. That its message happened to be in Hermione and Draco's first language was a little much, even for the gods. Either it there was some magic in place to change the language of the machine or the Oracle had known that they were coming.

"Who takes three weeks to get gelato?" Draco wondered. "I'm a little concerned about the competence of this oracle." He plucked something from beside the answering machine. It was a fluorescent pink sticky note that said:

If you're really that desperate to reach me, you can call me at 216-555-4365. Just know I won't be happy about it.

"She sounds like a bundle of fun." Draco handed the note to Hermione and went in search of an exit that wouldn't lead them somewhere scrutinised by dozens of Muggles with cameras. The Ministry was sensitive about that kind of thing.