Chapter 10

A/N: Hello readers! I think it's been more than a week since I last posted. Sorry! I was exhausted from an iron deficiency then I got sick... Here's a chapter though!

Also, remember I've written a oneshot for the Fandom for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (link in my profile). For a small donation, you get access to my story and a number of other wonderful stories.

Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed (I got behind on answering them as well as my posting, sorry) and to irianaceleste for betaing!

~Frosty

Hermione stared at the Oracle's note with a frown. There were only so many hours in the day and they had already used a good portion of them on the mountain climb. They just didn't have time to climb down the mountain again, Apparate to Athens, and then try and hunt down the gelato shop where the Oracle was hiding before they needed to be back at the safe house to relieve Luna of her babysitting duties.

Besides that, Hermione didn't have a mobile and needed a phone to call the Oracle. Athens was just too big to search without some way of narrowing the search a little.

Draco found the exit before Hermione had stopped her contemplative staring at the sticky note. The expediency of his discovery was partially due to the fact that the exit wasn't concealed at all.

On the same wall as the fresco, there was a bright golden piece of fabric concealing a doorway. Like the rest of the temple, the fabric was in surprisingly good condition considering how old it must be. The gold had probably been brighter originally, and it was a little threadbare, but it was still blinding in the bright light reflecting around the room.

Frowning as the ancient fabric brushed against him, Draco peered up the long staircase beyond the doorway. There was a lot of light at the top of those stairs.

Hermione finally noticed what had her partner's attention and peeked around his shoulder. "These stairs either take us to Olympus or back to the surface."

"I'm not sure which one I'd prefer. On the one hand, the gods are unbearably annoying, but then, so are Muggles – especially tourists." He started up the stairs without knowing the answer; either way he was going to have to get out of the temple somehow. Hermione followed behind him.

Hermione was right in thinking that it would be too late to hunt for the Oracle once they reached the bottom of the mountain. They emerged not where the Muggle tourists were, but on a spot further along the mountain. The trek back down from the different position had been even more treacherous than their ascent had been – something Draco had pointed out as frequently as possible on the journey. Hermione couldn't glare him into silence this time because they both knew the difficulty of this trip had nothing to do with Draco's preferences.

The weather wasn't as unbearably hot as it had been earlier in the day, but the summer night was still awfully warm. Hermione pulled her mass of damp hair up off of her neck and wound it in a messy bun in an effort to stave off some of the horrible heat. It didn't work.

In order to get to their Portkey that would return them to England, Hermione and Draco had to Apparate to a remote location on the coast once they reached the bottom of the mountain. Both of them were hoping that maybe it would be cooler once they were closer to sea breezes. With relief from the heat in mind, they Apparated the moment they felt their magic surge back into existence within them.

Hermione searched along the ground while Draco looked at the water contemplatively. There was a bit of a drop to the ocean from the cliff they were on, but there was a well-worn path in the cliff where people had clearly dragged themselves out of the water after jumping.

"What do you say to cooling off a little before we go back to that safe house?" Draco asked, suddenly right behind Hermione. He didn't wait for her answer, just grabbed her around the waist and threw her into the water. Hermione had a second to look up at the nearly full moon and Draco's hair, silvered by its white light, and then she was plunging below the cool water.

Lucky for her reckless partner, she was a skilled swimmer and had no trouble popping up a moment later, gasping from the sudden shock of the cooler water. Having jumped in right after her, Draco popped up beside her with a grin on his face.

"You threw me off of a cliff!" Hermione screeched, diving on him and shoving his bobbing head below the surface. She held him there for a moment, indulging her need for vengeance. "I could have died!"

Draco came up without sputtering, having expected some sort of retaliation. She hadn't stopped yelling at him even when he was underwater. He rolled his eyes and dunked her back before she could really get some momentum to her rant. "I jumped right after you. If I thought it was dangerous, why would I follow you to possible death?"

Hermione had been mid inhale when Draco dunked her, so she came up trying to cough the water out of her poor lungs, glaring at him all the while. She thought about scolding him more, but he had a look in his eyes that said he fully intended to keep dunking her until she stopped.

Knowing when to yell at him and when it was better to remember her grievance for later, Hermione put aside her irritation. Draco wasn't going to change and she wasn't able to alter the fact that he'd thrown her over a cliff.

"I can see you stewing over there, Granger. Neither of us are hurt and we're both much cooler now. Enjoy it."

She gave him one last glare, aware that it was much less lethal than the one she'd directed towards him only moments before. Satisfied that he knew how irritated she was with him for his little stunt, she leaned back, spread her arms and just floated on the waves, relishing the coolness.

She had a brief moment of concern over things lurking under the water and waiting to grab her, which made sense when her recent encounter with a giant squid was taken into consideration, but she quickly dismissed that worry. It had obviously been some sort of fluke or possible divine intervention that led the squid so near the surface just as they were passing.

While Hermione floated, Draco swam over to a large rock and pulled himself up so he could soak up the moon's rays. It was as close to sun tanning as he could ever get with his chronically pale skin.

"Granger, you're drifting pretty far," Draco commented when he happened to glance around for his partner and found that the drifting hair patch that he'd been using to keep track of her was much farther than he'd expected it to be.

Just as surprised as her partner with the distance between them, Hermione swam over to the rock, reflecting that the current must be stronger than either of them had thought.

Draco hauled her up on the rock beside him, a mischievous glint in his eye.

"What are you up to?" she asked suspiciously, having long ago learned to be wary when he looked so carefree. While he truly cared about little, there was always massive anger and heavy thoughts keeping Draco from being lighthearted. Too much had happened to him, both during the war and after for him to manage childlike anything with much regularity.

Instead of answering, Draco gave her a grin – not a smirk, agrin– like a naughty schoolboy with a stash of fireworks. He grabbed her hands and lifted them above her head, pinning them there in one of his while he stretched over top of her. His other hand was busy undoing the buttons on her white blouse. While the material had become translucent in the water and wasn't doing much to conceal her bra from the world, she still wasn't sure she wanted the meager protection it provided removed.

"Draco, someone might see."

He raised his eyes from her chest incredulously to meet hers and then turned to scan the unoccupied cliff and vacant stretch of water.

"Someone could pass by at any moment," she grumbled when his only answer was to raise an eyebrow at her.

When her troubled frown didn't disappear, he sighed, leaned back on his haunches and gave their surroundings a more thorough examination. There was still not a person, god, or threatening sea creature in sight.

"Granger, even on the off chance some late-night fisherman passes by and gets an eyeful, I promise you that you have nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, you'll probably be the highlight of his night." He went back to her buttons, with one hand and repining her hands and the other busy with her shirt. This time he went on without any objections from her. "You're definitely going to be the highlight of my night."

When she still didn't quite look convinced, he leaned down and gave her a kiss that had her toes curling and made her briefly forget how exposed they were. She opened her eyes for a moment and thought she saw a shadow on the cliff behind Draco, but it was just a pair of birds.

A small part of Hermione's brain still wanted to object that they were in public and that anyone in a passing boat or on top of the cliff would be able to see them clearly, but the rest of her smothered that small part. She knew that she would be mortified later when she was once more thinking clearly. At the moment though, Hermione could care less if someone saw. She pulled at her hands, but Draco refused to release them.

Completely in control of his bossy partner and relishing it, Draco took his time. He undid her buttons carefully, drawing out the tension for the both of them. His patience was rewarded when Hermione squirmed impatiently and pulled away from his mouth to glare at him.

"Patience, Granger," Draco scolded, laughter and lust warring in his voice. He leaned down to connect their lips once more.

In the end, Hermione had been right in her assessment that Draco looked like he was hiding a stash of fireworks. While there had been fireworks, Draco hadn't been hiding them, they were something he willingly shared with her.

"We rocked the world," Hermione said with some surprise. Her post-sex brain wasn't yet up to its usual standards.

Feeling the same thing as his partner, Draco looked down. "I don't think it's the world that's moving. Our rock seems to be walking."

She scrabbled onto her knees and peeked over the edge of the rock, squinting at the inky water. "It's a giant crab!"

Now that she was looking closer, Hermione saw that the rock was indeed a giant crab. Its shell was camouflaged to look just like the surrounding cliffs, so it wasn't surprising that both she and Draco had taken it for an everyday rock.

Thought to be extinct, the Mediterranean giant crab had been known to grow large enough to carry whole houses on their backs. They were the source of most Muggle moving island legends. But there hadn't been a record of them for over 400 years.

Hermione was pretty sure that making love on the back of rare magical creatures was disrespectful. If her boss ever found out about it, she'd probably lose her job. Grimacing, she looked to her partner. "We will never speak of this to anyone. If it got out that people from our department have had sex on one of the magical creatures we're supposed to be protecting, we'll become a laughingstock."

Draco snorted. "I wasn't planning on sharing, especially with someone from the department." He looked over the edge just as Hermione had, wanting a look at the crab. "This thing is moving awfully fast."

He was right; the crab was quickly moving into deeper water and they were still naked. Hermione made a grab for her clothes, but they were caught on a bump in the crab's shell. Somehow, while Hermione tugged fruitlessly on her caught clothing, Draco managed to wiggle into his sodden shirt and pants with relative ease considering the way the fabric clung.

Reaching the edge of the shelf, the crab disappeared into deeper water, leaving the clothed Draco and completely naked Hermione treading water. They watched the crab disappear into the inky blackness of the water. Hermione's wand popped up beside her, the natural buoyancy of the wood freeing it from her clothes. She tried to summon them to her, but the only thing that came to her was her beaded bag, and she didn't have a chance of clothes in there.

"I guess you're just going to have to swim back and get the Portkey like that," Draco said cheerily. He was absolutely chuffed that she was without her clothes.

"Give me your shirt."

He laughed. "And deprive myself of the wonderful view?"

Fortunately, Hermione knew how his mind worked. "Auror Smith is back at the safe house. Do you really want him to see me naked?"

Draco started swimming back without giving her his shirt as she'd thought he would. "Smith's back at the safe house; I can still enjoy the view on the swim back and the walk up the cliff."

"Draco Malfoy, if someone sees me, I'm going to strangle you with seaweed!"

A few quick spells had Hermione and Draco dry when they appeared back in the safe house, but they were both missing a few articles of clothing. Draco was without a shirt while Hermione was only wearing his shirt. Their shoes were long gone.

Cassy was the first to notice them. She came running into the room with Sylvester flying after her as soon as she heard the door. From a security standpoint, that really wasn't safe. Hermione would have said something, but she was distracted by Cassy's appearance. She suspected that Luna was to blame but wasn't sure how to politely word a question. Draco didn't have any such qualms.

"What the hell did Looney Lovegood do to you?"

Cassy touched her hair, which was standing straight in the air as if she was hanging upside down and covered in several different shades of paint and glitter. "Luna made me float, then flipped me over and froze my hair this way. Isn't it fun? I didn't even mind the crafts we did." Cassy tilted her head to the side and stared at them with an expression similar to the one with which Draco was regarding her. "Where are the rest of your clothes?"

"I'm wondering the same thing," said a voice behind the girl. Smith finally entered the room, presumably to see if Cassy was still alive after opening the door. Hermione made a mental note to have a little chat with him later.

Seeing her expression, Draco made a note to watch her and make sure he was there for the little chat she was planning. Something was off about Auror Smith and Draco didn't want Hermione alone with him.

Draco stepped slightly in front of his partner when he saw the way Smith was looking at her. Only Draco was allowed to look at Granger with such an intense expression. It was part way between lust and anger and had no business being directed at his partner.

"A letter came for you," Smith said, handing Hermione a sealed envelope. He had to reach around a glaring Draco, but pretended nothing was out of the ordinary.

In the time since she'd left, Hermione had forgotten about Luna's biker getup, so it was a surprise when the blonde woman walked to the door wearing the leather ensemble. "If you don't need me here anymore, I have to be getting home," Luna said. "I'm a little behind in my writing for the Quibbler this month because it's so difficult to get ink to flow without gravity."

"We appreciate your help, Luna," Hermione said with a smile as Luna hugged Cassy goodbye.

"You're not going to be quite so appreciative when you see what she's done to the kitchen," Smith said with more than a little amusement.

Once Luna was gone and Cassy had lost interest in the spectacle of Hermione and Draco's lack of clothing and wandered off, Hermione finally glanced down at the letter. She briefly forgot that Smith was in the room and ripped into it, wanting to know what was so important that the Auror Department – not Harry, his department – was sending her a message while she was in a safe house.

Draco however, did not forget the Smith was in the room and looking at Granger inappropriately. While she read, Draco grabbed her elbow and steered her up the stairs and to the room they shared.

"I really don't like the way Smith looks at you," Draco spat as soon as they were in the privacy of their room and the privacy spells that kept them from being overheard.

"I don't either, but he hasn't done anything and I'm more than capable of protecting myself in the unlikely event that he does." Hermione's answer was automatic; she wasn't really paying attention to their conversation. She was completely focused on the letter that she was reading.

"The Auror department wants us to clean out a vampire nest immediately," Hermione told him when she finished.

Draco dropped his angry expression and perked up considerably. "Excellent. Let's stop at the Manor so I can get my sword."