Chapter Five

Click, click, click…

She shouldn't, she knew she shouldn't.

Click, click, click…

It was a rabbit hole she was better off stepping over.

Click, click, click…

And yet she couldn't look away.

Click, click, click…

Rolling the nub of her quill back and forth before tapping it against her desk again, Hermione continued to stare at the folder Marcus had brought in with him only to chuck it into their bin when he had walked out. She knew the contents within would be nothing but trouble. A temptation she was better off throwing in the fire because once she opened that door, she wouldn't be able to close it. She would chase whatever was inside until she reached the bottom, hoping to collect the answers she sought. He was a drug, and she an addict. Still, knowing all this she continued to stare, daring it to make a decision for her.

Click, click, click…

"Hermione?" Lavender called, giving her but a second to stash her rescued contraband.

Shoving it under a stack of papers, she forced herself to drop the quill and look as nonchalant as possible, responding, "Yeah?" as her friend walked in.

"Blaise is taking me out to dinner in London tonight. Do you want to come?"

"Yeah, come on Granger. I'll show my two best witches a proper night on the town."

Smiling at them — forever grateful for how often they included her in things without making her feel like an intrusion — she shook her head.

"No you two go on. You won't have many more chances."

"Of course we will," Blaise said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Why do you think we asked you to be our baby's godmother? Built in babysitting."

Wadding up a piece of parchment, she threw it at him, laughing, "And here I thought it was because of my notoriety. I mean just think, your daughter will be able to tell people her auntie is the Hermione Granger, Brightest Witch of Her Age, Order of Merlin First Class recipient, Supporting Savior of the Wizarding World. Isn't that what you're always reminding me? It's not what you know but who you know."

"Spoken like a true Slytherin" he congratulated.

"Oi! Stop trying to turn my friend into a snake already, would you?" Lavender scolded.

"Your friend? I thought she was our friend."

"Yeah, but I had her first and would get custody of her if we divorced. Therefore, she's more my friend than yours or ours."

Over exaggerating the batting of her eyes as she touched her fingers to her jaw, Hermione coyly quipped, "Oh come on now, you know there's enough of me to go around. No need to fight."

"Seriously though," Lavender started to ask, coming to lean against her desk. "Are you sure you don't want to come? You've hardly come out of your office all day."

Squeezing her friend's forearm, she assured her, "Yeah, I'm sure. You two go out to dinner, have fun, and go break a table or two. This time in your own home, please."

"I fucking replaced it! You can't keep using that one!" Blaise shouted in exasperation from the doorway.

"I loved that table," she defended.

"It's the same bloody table. You can't even tell."

"But we had all our firsts at that one," she pouted, before laughing. Standing up and dragging Lavender behind her, she shooed them over to the floo, insisting, "Honest, I'm fine. Go, have fun. I'm going to order Chinese, finalize some details for Kings's reelection campaign, and then go home and watch Save the Last Dance or something."

"Which home?" they both asked.

"Sgiathan Aingeal. I'm pretty sure if I go back to the flat, I'll be hearing from Adrian and until we find another attorney to represent the three of us when needed, it's best I avoid him. Otherwise, this time I'll be sure to end up in Azkaban."

Slicing her hands through the air and calling on her years of studying the empty headed subject of Divination, Lavender started brushing the air, tsking the bad ju-jus away that Hermione had summoned.

"Don't say such things! You don't want to manifest that shite into reality. I mean just look at Marcus and Ades. One half-arsed conversation about his case and we summoned the devil himself to our doorstep."

Gesturing to his wife whom he normally took the mickey out of for such behavior, he agreed, "You know, she's got a point."

"Coincidence," Hermione dismissed. "Now go, I'd like to order my own dinner and finish up so I can go home and get a jump start on my weekend plans of being a vegetable."

"Fine, fine, fine," Lavender relented, stepping into the hearth. "See you on Monday."

"See you Monday," she repeated as Blaise took a pinch of powder and called out for the Leaky Cauldron, the couple vanishing in a swirl of green flames.

Walking back into her office, Hermione pulled out her rarely used mobile and called the restaurant several blocks away. Cringing as they answered and greeted her by name before asking if she would like her usual order for one — a truly depressing commentary on the state of her social life — she confirmed she was in fact in a predictable mood and returned to staring down Marcus's dossier, finally tearing herself from her obsessive thought pattern when her food arrived.

Hours later after having done everything from eating to vetting campaign volunteers to confirming Kingsley's racing platforms and debate weaknesses twice over, she was ready to head home and start in on her weekend of watching overly angsty films in bed. However as she was packing up the work she would bring home for the weekend, the dossier — and the wizard whom it was about — she had finally forgotten about reared its head once more.

…you were the only one who ever believed in me…

…I don't even know how they get half the shite they do. And this here, this didn't even happen last night. I was here in Edinburgh, you fucking saw me at the restaurant…

…You've changed, angel, and not for the better…

"I really shouldn't…" she tried to remind herself. "This won't give me the answers I need or want." Tracing her fingers over the folder's edge, she countered, "Unless looking at him like a problematic client allows me to see things in a different light…"

Starting and stopping several times, she finally made up her mind. Even if she managed to walk out of the office and go home, she would spend the whole night thinking about what was inside and only end up right back where she was in the morning. Leaving her purse behind, she grabbed the folder and stopped first in the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee before heading up to the war room instead of out into the night to make her way back to bed and a well earned weekend of being a lethargic lump. With the lights flipped on and the radio tuned in to one of the muggle stations, she stepped out of her heels, shrugged off her blazer, and hopped up on the table with everything she needed and was loath to learn of who Marcus Flint had become since leaving her behind.

Outwardly appearing as unorganized as ever, she opened the file and was greeted with a chaotic system of order. Having spent an entire year tutoring him and learning how his mind processed and sorted information though, the mayhem within was a tranquil sea to her eyes. Pulling the bundled bits of his life out, she arranged them in a circle around her — the top most set getting placed at what would be considered eleven o'clock and each subsequent one finding a home as she worked counter clockwise until she came back to around to twelve with a single stack left over. It was all right here for her to see. The unvarnished story of his life, in her hands with his own personal annotations and insights written in the margins of the articles or attached with color coded sticky notes — a hold over from when she had helped him find a revision style that worked for him.

However as she toyed between the fold back clip and the highlighter pink tab that she knew indicated a level one priority, she hesitated. What if she opened herself up to this and came away with nothing? Worse, what if she did and came away with an answer that broke her already abused heart? And the worst and most probable of them all, what if what she found allowed hope to grow and live within her again, only for him to vanish once more?

Setting the stack down in her place, she carefully maneuvered herself off the table and began to pace the length of the room. Aggressively tugging one of the pendants around her neck along its chain, she spiraled further and further. Hermione was fighting a multi-front war within herself; her mind a catastrophe of conflicting ideas while her heart was savagely ripped and pulled apart trying to pick and fight for a side.

Giving up with a short scream, she stomped back downstairs to retrieve her pot of coffee and her favorite mug — a rather large one with the phrase, If you want me, earn me, written in calligraphy that Lavender had made for her several years ago when she attempted taking up ceramics to combat the plaguing nightmares of what Greyback had done to her. With her steaming cup of caffeine that had a little too much milk and flavored syrup to really count as coffee, she went to head back upstairs to resume her indecision. On the second step though as she was about to take a sip, there was a knock on the front door, startling her and causing the hot beverage to slosh over the top and onto her blouse.

Swearing as she tried to air out her scalded chest, she turned around and headed back to the front of the office to help whatever hapless muggle had stumbled upon Golden Fire Solutions. To her disgusted surprise, she instead found Adrian at the door.

"Fuck off!" she yelled, already diverting to her office where she kept a spare few sets of lounge clothes for long nights.

"Please, Hermione!" he shouted back. "Please, can we just talk?"

"The only thing I have to say to you, I already have. But since it seems to have not penetrated your thick skull, I'll say it again. Fuck off!"

"I just thought that if-"

Knowing she was taking the bait even as she went, she stomped over to the door and flipped the lock, wrenching it open to seeth, "No, you didn't think, Adrian. Because if you had stopped to think for even a moment, you wouldn't have done what you did. Marcus for all his faults — of which there are plenty — is aggravatingly blameless for what happened last night. You however, are not.

"You are my friend — someone I regularly turned to for help and trusted with my secrets — and you plowed over me and the singular boundary that I put up without any thought. Friends don't do that to each other, Adrian. Now fuck off!"

Putting his hand out to stop her from closing the door, he rushed out, "He told me he came to see you this morning. That's the only reason I'm here. I just wanted to see how you're doing."

Continuing to shut the door despite his fingers being in the jam, Hermione snapped, "Oh I'm great. Now good night and-"

"And fuck off, yeah I know. I also know you still love him and that his being here has to be fucking with your head."

Adrian's words were like ice being dropped down the back of her shirt.

Slowly shaking her head, she whispered, "I don't know what you're talking about," hating how quickly she betrayed herself.

"I wasn't sure at first. I thought maybe you only loved him in the way we all still love and are marked by our firsts. But how you were last night and right this second, it's plain as day for anyone to see. Anyone except maybe him but it's there in your eyes and in the way you're holding your breath."

Pushing the door open now that her resistance had dropped, Adrian walked into their reception area, locking the office back up behind him. Perching himself on the edge of Lavender's desk, he patted the spot next to him and proceeded to wrap an arm around her, resting his head over hers as she took his offer.

Sighing because she knew it was a waste to refute his observation, Hermione asked, "What made you suspect?"

"You mean aside from the time in bed when you were mumbling his name in your sleep before wrapping yourself around me?"

Shooting up to look at him with wide eyes, she denied, "I did not!"

"Oh you totally did but to be fair, you had an extremely restless night that night. If I recall it was the anniversary of when you were brought to Malfoy Manor. With that in mind, I actually dismissed it as a mix of all the things that tried to plague your waking mind breaking free."

Dropping her head back on his shoulder, she mumbled, "Merlin Adrian, I'm so sorry."

"Don't sweat it, sweetheart. We all have ghosts haunting us, just some are a little more persistent than others.

"What actually really made me start paying attention was the last night we went out. You weren't the same after seeing that issue of Witch Weekly and the subsequent tabloid coverage of him. It was like the summer after he left all over again. It killed me to see you still so affected after all these years."

"Then why'd you bring him?"

"He's my best mate," Adrian shrugged. "We all get a little short sighted where our friends and lovers are concerned. Something you and Blaise know quite well in regards to Lavender. Or do you not recall the two nights you and he spent in the Italian Ministry's holding jail before she and I could spring you both?"

Feeling more guilt over not feeling remorse for what she and Blaise had done while the two of them and Lavender had been on spring holiday in Sicily their final year of law school, Hermione flatly replied, "Trust me, I haven't forgotten."

Smoothing back the flyaways of her hair and kissing the top of her head, he warned, "You know I had never planned on calling in that favor from you or Blaise. As far as I'm concerned, Greyback got what was coming to him and our justice system is as broken as it was before the war with the Wizengamot having wanted to extradite you both."

"But," she prompted, already knowing what was coming.

"But, friends and lovers blind us to reality and the reality is, Marcus needs help. He needs your help and he won't ask for himself, not again. It was like pulling teeth — something he's actually experienced and found more enjoyable — even getting him to agree the first time around when I sent his case by owl. He didn't want to come to you. Told me he would rather watch it all finally burn out than have to come to you, and I can't let him do that."

"And yet he did this morning."

"Which is why I hate having to do this but you and Blaise said you would owe whatever I wanted for helping you two out. This is it. I need you to fix Marcus Flint. He came to you of his own freewill and while it went horribly wrong, he still did it. So charge him double if you want and make his life hell while doing it, but please, handle him. And if nothing else, I think facing it all will help you shut that door once and for all. You deserve to be free of him, Hermione. Fix him and maybe in the process, you'll heal yourself."

Patting his thigh, she hopped off the desk and started walking towards the stairs. Picking up her cooling cup of coffee, she called over her shoulder, "Well come on, Ades. If you want me to help your boy, you better be ready to work. He's a mess and a half and we're going to need all hands on deck if we're to sell the idea of his reform within such a narrow window of time."

Following close behind, he asked in disbelief, "Wait, you're agreeing? Just like that? No additional arguing?"

Gesturing for him to enter the war room ahead of her, she said, "What can I say? I just can't leave well enough alone," waving two fingers at the thirteenth pile Marcus had created for her so that it unclasped and stuck itself to the windows. Spinning around to walk backward to the beginning wall of insanity, she raised her mug at him and warned, "But this doesn't make us square, Ades. You're still going to owe me after last night."

"Anything you want, Hermione. Name it and it'll be yours."

Humming as she sipped her coffee and turned forward to face the sight of Marcus's tattooed back, she pondered, "Well, there are these Manolos I've had my eye on."

"You and your shoes," he chuckled, stepping up beside her. Taking her mug and helping himself to a sip, he grimaced at the sweetness and asked, "So tell me, Miss Granger, how does this work?"

"Well Mr. Pucey, first we air all his laundry; be it dirty or clean, we shake it out and sort it by threat level to what we want to establish."

"And then?"

"And then we con the world until they're on their knees apologizing for having ever believed anything of Marcus Flint other than what we want them to."

"And how do you propose we do that? He hasn't exactly been a choir boy."

Looking back at the stack of photos of witches he had been linked to and had gathered for her, she took her coffee back, gulping a large portion down to fight her own growing grimace as she answered, "The silence in regards to renewing his contract and whether or not he will be on the short list for the National Team, tells me Montrose and the league want him to hang up his playboy ways if he wants to be considered. However, the only way anyone will ever believe that is if we set him up with a witch whom Britain will have no choice but to love and believe when she says he's a changed man who is ready to settle down."

"And where are you going to find a pretend girlfriend for the British and Irish League's biggest whore?"

Exchanging her mug for the stack of notes, photos, and articles she had placed at one o'clock, she dismissed, "Easy, the filing cabinet down stairs."

Picking one in particular out, she held it out and instructed, "Here, put this up under the one of his tattoo."

"Why?"

"Just do it. If it still makes sense after we've gone through them all, I'll explain."

"So you and Blaise do this a lot?" he asked, tacking the picture where she directed. "Arrange fake relationships."

"Oh, all the time," she scoffed.

"For who?" he asked, scandalized.

"Ades, Blaise and I carry active legal licenses for a reason. That's privileged information."

"You really are just a bunch of media con artists, aren't you?"

"It's all about the spin, darling. People will believe whatever they see in the press and if we control the narrative, we control the perception."

"That is scarily cunning and brilliant of you."

Taking her place back on the table so that she could see the picture at large as it formed, Hermione smiled, "Thank you," before returning to reading, examining, and arranging Marcus's life into truths, lies, and a clever mixture of both, keeping track of her questions, observations, details, and hypotheses on a pad of paper.

Then as the night turned to morning, Adrian having long since retreated to her office to sleep on her couch, she realized she had to agree with what Marcus had implied the day prior. He wasn't an innocent saint by any stretch of the imagination, but someone was definitely setting him up. But to what end she couldn't fathom. Nor could she puzzle out the connection between the false, leaked, and manipulated stories. Whatever and whoever it was though, was about to feel the full weight of her wrath and have their lives upended just as spectacularly as they had done to him.

AN:

"If you want me, earn me," is a quote said by Olivia Pope in Season 2 Episode 20 of Scandal.