Author's Note: Oh, no, falling action!

Heh, I'll have to be more careful dropping hints next time I try to have a plot. Plot is my nemesis. (That and math. I am utterly hopeless at math.) There's a delicate balance between being unfairly confusing and making people go "OH!!", and I seem to have fallen slightly short. Well, hey. Learning experience and so forth. I'll see if I can't do better next time.

Oh, and bluenavydragon, I definitely read your review wrong, and… yeah. Please ignore my utter idiocy. First your name; now this—when will it END? In the meantime, you have my express permission to beat me with a stick. One with rusty nails stuck in it.

After this chapter, if there's anything that isn't explained (and isn't attributable to my general stupidity), let me know, and I'll try to clarify for next time.

Fic plus reviews equals love. And that, my friends, is the extent of my mathematical capabilities.

Chapter Nineteen

Curiouser and Curiouser

Andray Rachels was a proponent of the widespread use of Veritaserum, and Hermione knew it. That was why she went straight to him with Giles Helicane.

Helicane, for all his potent Death Glares in Draco and Hermione's direction, started singing like a rather large, discolored, tone-deaf canary as soon as the potion made its merry way through his system.

"Oh, it was all exceedingly simple," he declared calmly. "Kill the stupid kid. That was all we ever really wanted. And damn, if we didn't get close a few times."

Andray Rachels raised a thin, jet-black eyebrow. He was always extraordinarily well-groomed, and today was no exception; not a strand of midnight hair was out of order. There wasn't a wrinkle in his suit or a whisker on his pointed chin. This, as far as Hermione was concerned, was the kind of man you wanted running your country: cold, clean, and ruthless.

"You tried to kill him," Andray summarized flatly.

"Countless times," Helicane confirmed sadly. "Countless times, and each time, we failed. Arturo really is an idiot, you know. When you're beating the living daylights out of someone, you don't just leave the guy there when you're done. Unless you've checked his pulse yourself—I mean, if he'd just used a spell in the first place—imbecile, I tell you." Helicane sighed and rubbed his eyes. "First thing I learned getting rid of all those fools who stood in my way—use a spell, and get it done. Simplicity is perfection."

"So if you wanted to kill Draco," Hermione said slowly, "why did you hire him as your secretary?"

Helicane smiled thinly at her. "Oh, stupid, stupid girl," he replied softly. "All the brains in the world, and not a shred of creativity." His smile disappeared as if a curtain had been dropped over it—a curtain of pure malice. (Hermione, for her part, would have preferred the gilt-edged crimson kind they had at nice theaters.) "If he was my secretary," Helicane went on, rolling his eyes, "I had my eye on him all the time. I could offer him tea, offer him coffee, offer him God knows what else, and put whatever I wanted in it."

"The champagne," Draco muttered, tapping his fingers on his chin.

"Of course the champagne, you bloody idiot," Helicane snapped. "And if you'd drunk the whole glass, like you were supposed to, you'd be dead right now instead of sitting there with that stupid look on your face, y'bloody monkey."

"Ouch," Draco said, somewhat distantly. "'Monkey'? Did I really deserve that?"

Andray Rachels took some detailed notes on his yellow legal notepad. They probably did not involve Helicane's apparently limited repertoire of insults.

"And all the tripe you gave me about my shoddy work and everything," Hermione said, realizing it aloud. "That was all to split us up, wasn't it?"

Sneering, Helicane looked to Andray. "Did I hire her? Did I? Because if I did, I take it back."

"That's not why you're here, Giles," Andray responded equably. "Just answer the question."

Helicane turned his sharp, accusatory eyes on Hermione again. "Picture it," he told her. "Picture pining uselessly for your revenge after all you ever wanted has fallen to pieces at the hands of a bunch of upstarts led by that bastard Harry Potter."

"He's a good sort," Draco said.

Hermione stared at him disbelievingly, and he shrugged.

"That bastard Harry Potter," Helicane repeated, louder. "And all because the Malfoys decided to cop out right when we needed them. Their son disappears, the little prick—"

"Big prick, thanks," Draco cut in.

"—and then they're gone. What's a man to do? It's all over and done with, and the last people you've got to blame are cowering in some hole somewhere."

Draco scratched his head. "Probably a hole with a grand ballroom and a view of the ocean, knowing my parents," he remarked.

Andray Rachels raised an eyebrow once more, very clearly and precisely. "Please," was all he said, but it shut Draco up all the same. He looked at Helicane again and nodded. "Go on."

Through a frown, Helicane obliged. "And then the unthinkable happens—one of the last men you can trust comes and tells you that, wonder of wonders, he's found the Malfoys' son! But wait, kid's gone. Found him again! No, he's gone. Wait, found him one more time! And then," Helicane's eyes were gleaming at the very recollection of success, "he gets chased right into London—right into the heart of things. And then right into the Ministry. Into the break room. More than a bit worse for the wear, but unmistakably himself. And what do you do, Granger?" He smirked at her. "Do you shake his hand and let him go free?" Any trace of a smile vanished again. Helicane seemed to be good at that. "Of course not. You trap him as effectively as you can, hold him under your finger, keep him in sight, and you wait. You wait until he tells you—" Here he smiled at Draco. "—that he's staying with an idiot girl whose address is in the files."

Draco looked at him contemplatively. "You're a sneaky bastard," he decided thoughtfully. "And you're good at it."

Helicane snorted. "Only because you're such a damn fool, Malfoy."

Blithely, Draco smiled. "We can't all be geniuses."

Andray Rachels cleared his throat fastidiously, and everyone looked at him. "Giles," he said, "for the record, just how many people did you kill?"

Helicane sighed feelingly and started ticking them off on his fingers. The casualness of the action sent shivers rippling down Hermione's spine. "Well, the Johnsons and that other couple were really just to make it look like some loony out there was after harmless suburbanites. Worked, too—did you read the articles? Brilliant. All this serial killer paranoia. Filthy Muggles anyway; probably deserved it. And when my secretary started asking about getting her job back in the future, she had to go." He paused to consider, wiggling his six raised fingers. "I believe that's all… I could be wrong."

Hermione blanched a little at the fact that he could be uncertain about such a thing.

Andray raised a sculpted eyebrow at Helicane and then turned to her. "Anything else you wish to know, now that he has reserved himself a comfortable little corner of Azkaban?"

She looked at Helicane. "Where's Leonine now?"

Giles Helicane's heavy features arranged themselves into an ironic smile. He folded his hands behind his head and leaned precariously back in his chair, completing the image of indifference. "Probably a Hell of a long way from here," he answered.

Then the chair slipped, and Helicane knocked his head solidly on the ground and lost consciousness.

Andray Rachels pursed his lips. "I'm always telling my nephews not to do that," he remarked. Then he stood, glanced at Draco and Hermione, and nodded to Helicane. "This session appears to be over," he informed them.

That, Hermione noted, would be their cue to exit.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Early Saturday morning, there was a knock at the door. Setting down the wonderfully un-scary newspaper, Hermione went to get it.

Fidgeting beyond the threshold was an utterly breathtaking, impossibly beautiful, entirely perfect woman.

It was Ilsa Engelman Weasley.

"Um, hi," Ilsa said haltingly, tentatively attempting to display a gorgeous smile full of straight, white teeth. She had the faintest hint of a German accent. "I was just wondering if you wanted to… you know… go out to lunch sometime. Talk things over."

Hermione looked closely. There was a little brown mole by the right corner of Ilsa's mouth, and a faint outline of sunglasses was detectable on her otherwise flawless tan. Her smile was genuine and hopeful, and her Caribbean-water-blue eyes were earnestly clear.

Hermione smiled back. "I would love that," she replied.

Ilsa's grin widened. "Great! Give me a call anytime—" She wrestled a scrap of paper out of a very ordinary-looking purse, jotted a number down on it, and offered it to Hermione, who took it. "That's my cell. Just let me know when you've got time, okay?"

"Sure," Hermione acceded happily. "Thanks."

With a chirpy parting salutation and a little wave, Ilsa started off down the hall again, and Hermione shut the door, still looking at the phone number. When she glanced up, she saw that Draco was lounging against the wall nearby, smiling his favorite I-know-something-you-want-to-know smile. Helplessly she smiled back.

Draco crossed over to her, cupped her face in both hands, and kissed her deeply, and then he went into the kitchen and opened the fridge.

"What was that for?" Hermione called after him dazedly, unable to erase the blissful grin plastered on her face.

"You," Draco responded calmly.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

That afternoon, a letter arrived informing them that the Minister of Magic wished to see them right away. After a brief discussion—if you could call "Well, shall we go?" followed by "Yes, let's go" a discussion of any sort—Draco and Hermione went.

Pericles Tyrus had a craggy, rough sort of face, generously lined, with steel gray hair and a nose sharper than a knife. He looked like you could push him out of an airplane at 35,000 feet, and he would quite summarily survive the fall, get up, dust himself off, and then grind your face into the mud on the side of the runway when your plane came back down again. The drapes were drawn in his cramped office, casting the whole room in a shade of cloudy gray with the slightest hint of blue, and a wispy line of smoke trailed its way up from the end of the lit cigarette tucked between his lips.

"What I would like," he said, "is for someone to tell me who the Hell does the hiring around here. Where the Hell is the Minister of Employment?"

Hermione was about ninety percent sure that it was a rhetorical question. Apparently Pericles Tyrus agreed, because he shifted his feet where they were propped up on his desk and looked at her.

"Your boss is gone."

"Yes," Hermione agreed helpfully.

"And you're the premiere witch of your age."

Hermione blushed. "Well—"

"She is," Draco supplied.

Pericles Tyrus leaned forward, grabbed a rather crude and somewhat ugly ashtray in the shape of a turtle from his desk, and tapped the end of his cigarette on it. "So you get his job."

Hermione stared. "What?" she said.

Pericles Tyrus raised an eyebrow that could have sliced cheese. "You get his job. You're probably more than qualified, and you bloody well can't do worse than he did."

Hermione continued to stare. "But, sir…"

Dismissively waving the hand wielding the cigarette—and consequently flinging ash to some shadowed corner—Tyrus snorted. "Come on, Granger. I read that speech you made about Muggles and whomsoever."

"That speech got me demoted," Hermione recalled.

An "Ohhh" came from Draco.

Pericles Tyrus snorted again. "Yeah, by your slimeball ex-boss. Probably didn't want anyone that smart so close to him." Tyrus took a tremendous puff on his cigarette, coughed, and sighed. "Damn these things. Would you believe it, I'm up to a pack a day. Make me smell like smoke, and they'll cut fifteen years off my life at the least." He pointed the smoldering end at Hermione. "But I damn well won't die before you take that bloody job, I can tell you that; so you'd better do it."

"Okay," Hermione conceded meekly.

Tyrus nodded and plugged the cigarette back in. "Good. Now, didn't he just lose his secretary?"

"Only then he hired me to replace her," Draco supplied.

"I was about to ask—who the Hell are you?"

Draco swallowed, and his Adam's apple bobbed like a yo-yo. "Draco Malfoy, sir."

Pericles Tyrus pursed his lips and blew a stream of smoke. "Thought you looked a little like Lucius." He glanced at Draco. "Your parents are in Spain, by the way. Barcelona, at the moment."

Draco's eyes lit up, and a wildly pleased smile spread slowly across his face like a gathering storm. Only a good storm—the kind that would pour cool, clean rain through the sweltering air and wash the dirt and the grime from the streets. "I thought it was France for sure," he said.

"Nope," Tyrus replied. "We've been in touch. Your dad and I went to school together. That damn Hat put me in Slytherin when I called it an uppity, self-important dishrag. That's what I get for being bloody honest, I guess." He sighed, more nostalgically than unhappily, and then considered the pair of them again. "All right, now you twitchy kids can get the Hell out of here."

"Yes, sir," Hermione consented readily, getting to her feet.

"One more thing, if you will, sir," Draco interjected. One eyebrow flicking up, Tyrus nodded for him to continue. "You might see about canceling the order for my nameplate," Draco told him, "or it'll say 'Ardoc Olyfam.'"

Tyrus blinked. He paused. Then he smirked. "Nice," he said. "Nice."

As the door to the Minister's cave of an office swung shut behind them, Draco turned to Hermione.

"I'm your secretary," he declared.

"I can call you my 'assistant' if it's less wounding to your masculinity," was what Hermione offered.

But what she was thinking was, How deliciously scandalous.