Chapter Nine

"Granger!"

"Over here!"

"Is there any truth to the rumor that Flint is actually a client?"

"Granger!"

"How will a romantic association with Flint affect your business?"

"What are your clients saying in light of the news of your return to the front page?"

"Granger!"

"How does it feel to be back in the spotlight; this time on the arm of a wizard whose disastrous reputation rivals that of your own?"

"Hermione!"

"Is faith in you as a crisis manager lost?"

"Can I get a picture?"

"What about about a quote for the-"

"Back off!" Marcus roared, shoving an over eager photographer back from Hermione's face, sending him sprawling onto the pavement. Using himself as a shield against the relentless flashing and yelling, he ushered, "Come on," pushing her into Adrian and beyond him, under Blaise's arm into the relative safety of Golden Fire Solutions.

Shaking her hands out of the coffee she had been sipping until she had been bombarded on the street, sending it spilling down her clothes, she swore, "Bloody vultures were camped out in front of my building. I had to climb down the fire escape to get out of my flat this morning. I swear, when my lease is up, I'm finding a flat with an actual fireplace."

Setting her purse down on the edge of Lavender's desk, she saw its light colored leather staining from the coffee. Its officially ruined state being the ferret that broke the hippogriff following the last seventy-two hours since Marcus had kissed her in the middle of the Magpies' stadium.

Whirling around on him as he was helping Adrian charm the windows of the office opaque, she yelled, "You! This is all your fault!" jabbing her finger into his hard chest and forcing him back with each step she took. "We had a plan! A well thought out, foolproof, media friendly plan. And you, in your infinite wisdom of having exactly zero days experience doing my job, blew that plan to shite.

"And why? Because you didn't like the way William Fitzgerald — an openly gay client of ours — was looking at me. As if you have any right to be possessive and jealous over me! You lost that right and all other privileges you once had when you fucking left me!"

"I told you this would happen!" he shouted back, no longer giving her the inches he was as he towered over her. "I fucking told you this was exactly what was to come for anyone who was seen as attached to me. And as you just said, this is your job so why weren't you better prepared for this?"

Raising her hands up like she was getting ready to strangle him, Hermione snarled, "I was prepared. It is my job to always be prepared. I however cannot do my job effectively when I'm forced to clean up after a giant, petulant child who doesn't like other people playing with toys he thinks of as his!

"I'm just lucky your arrogant, Neanderthal stunt didn't burn every bridge the three of us have spent years building.

"Now get out of my way so that I can make myself presentable for my morning of putting out your fires," she finished, pushing against his massive chest only for him to not give so much as an inch, making her let out an agitated scream.

"Ask me nicely, angel," he taunted.

Mustering up as much feigned sweetness as she could though she knew she looked like a feral cat, she asked, "Marcus, will you please be so kind as to move your cockwomble arse out of my fucking way."

"So feisty in the morning, I love it," he smirked, finally shooing himself off to the side.

Stomping into her office with Lavender on her heels and slamming the door in the face of the three wizards, Hermione ripped open the cupboard where she kept clothes on hand for long nights at the office, muttering about the tree sized menace that was her ex-boyfriend. Settling on a pair of ripped jeans with a navy Henley lined with mother of pearl buttons down the center of the chest and along the wrists of the sleeves and a frilly, baby pink lace camisole for underneath, she began to strip as her friend sorted the past three mornings and evenings worth of newspapers and magazines. It wasn't even marginally professional enough for a day in the office but it would be more than suitable for what she had cleared her morning schedule for and demanded Marcus's presence at.

Realizing she didn't have acceptable shoes, she donned her dragon slippers that normally made her smile for the small flames they would breathe when she walked with a pout and fell back onto her couch, groaning up at the ceiling, "How bad is it?"

"Oh it's bad," Lavender responded, ripping the plaster right off. "We have the topless photos from when you were on that yacht with the Australian Minister of Magic's sons; our own drunken nights of London club hopping; a lovely spread questioning your own sexual morals and who you have and have not taken to your bed — on a side note, you're lucky we're friends so I know the questions about you and Blaise carrying on behind my back are complete rubbish otherwise, there would be a second mauling victim working at Golden Fire; and hands down the most concerning, the speculation that Marcus is in fact a client of ours. It has sparked a rather fiery debate as to whether you lack proper ethics or if you and he are in fact a masterful ruse orchestrated by Britain's best and original fixer."

Tilting her head back to look at the blonde upside down, she asked, "So nothing about Greyback and Italy?"

"No. Blessedly, your storming return to the front page is entirely focused upon the media collision that is you and the league's playboy."

"Well thank Merlin for small mercies of magic."

"That's about the only break we've caught."

"It's the only one we really need. We can survive everything else. My parents and Greyback though… that would destroy not only me but you and Blaise, the business, even Kingsley."

Combing her fingers through her hair and scratching her nails along her scalp, Lavender soothed, "Don't worry, Kings and Shane buried what you did to your parents so deep no one will ever find out. And magic bless Adrian, because you know he buried, bribed, and brutalized anyone and everyone who had even the most vague idea of what happened in Italy. We're going to be just fine, I promise. Besides, if the worst were to happen I would just say I-"

"Don't," Hermione interrupted, sitting up. Cupping Lavender's face so that she was looking right into her friend's blue eyes, she stressed, "Don't, not even for a single second. Blaise and I would do it again and again and again without hesitation for the peace it has brought you. We would do it again even if it hadn't helped settle the nightmares. The only thing I regret about that night was how sloppy we were. That's it, nothing else. And do not sit there with our house's ridiculous, self-sacrificing, thestral shite, and tell me you'll take our place in Azkaban. You know full good and well we wouldn't let that happen."

Hearing the raised voices of the wizards in their lives begin to come in through the door, both witches sneered and slumped on the couch before standing up.

"Children, the whole bloody lot of them are children," Lavender grumbled, holding her stomach. "As if having a baby on the way won't be enough work."

"Our little princess is going to be an angel, you just wait," Hermione smiled, resisting the urge to rub Lavender like a magic lamp.

"We don't know if we're having a girl," Lavender reminded, taking her friend's hand and placing it where her baby was beginning to kick. "We could be having a boy."

"And allow them to have the numbers on us? Never!" Feeling the movements of the tiny little person growing inside her friend, she said in awe, "This right here, is true magic."

"You ever think you'll have any?"

Shrugging, Hermione pulled her hand back and said, "I would need the right man to come along first."

"Oh, you mean to tell me he's not currently out there in our reception area making a scene?" she laughed.

"Well I mean if you're willing to share Blaise, then yes, definitely."

"Not on your life, Granger."

"Fine, fine," she teasingly waved off as the men's voices continued to grow. "I guess I'll have to keep looking."

"Probably not that far if my tarot is correct."

"And on that note," Hermione dismissed, throwing her office door open. Pinning each of the three wizards who were well into their twenties with a look of disapproval that would make Mrs. Weasley proud, she snapped, "Children, zip it!"

"But I-" Adrian started.

"I said, zip it," she repeated. Pointing at Marcus, she ordered, "You, in there, now." Moving to Blaise she directed, "Make yourself useful and do whatever your wife tells you to so we can maybe salvage the bridges Marcus has set aflame. And you," she said looking at Adrian. "Actually Ades, what are you even doing here?"

"Nice to see you too, sweetheart," he jested. "I'm here to set up a plan for you and Blaise.

"Why would they need help?" Marcus asked from behind her, his arms coming around her.

"Get off," she demanded, smacking each of his hands that were engulfing her hips.

"I mean I would prefer a bed but I'm sure your desk could take it. It looks sturdy enough."

Spinning around, she shoved his laughing self through the door and growled, "Again, I have killed before. Several times in fact and can still sleep like a baby at night. Do not test me, Marcus Hawthorne Flint. Otherwise, you'll find you'll be the next unfortunate soul to face down my wand and lose."

Giving Adrian her attention once more, she sighed, "Thank you, Ades. So far all is quiet on that front. When we jumped into business together, Blaise and I created a contingency plan in the event that night doesn't stay buried with Greyback. For now, there's no reason to ring that alarm." Stepping up on her toes, she gave him a quick hug and kissed his cheek, adding, "If that changes, you know you're still my first call."

"Second, but since Lav will no doubt be involved, I'll happily step into her role as first," he replied, squeezing her. Clapping his hands together, he said, "Okay with that temporarily settled, I guess I should go to my own office and get some work done." Going over to their floo, he pointed his finger down the line of the three of them and pleaded, "Don't kill him, he's my best friend. But if you do, floo don't write and don't tell me anything I'll be forced to lie about. Got it?"

"Yes, Ades," they all chorused as the flames turned green and he called out for his main office in London.

With him gone, Hermione crossed her arms and facing her Cheshire smiling friend, whose beautiful, tawny complexion practically glowed under the light, highlighting his devastating, fallen angel beauty, she interrogated, "Want to tell me what you three were arguing about?"

Sobering under the twin glares of his business partner and wife, Blaise raised his hands up in surrender and explained, "I was merely setting the record straight for Flint, so you don't have to. He's under the impression that through this ruse we've crafted that he can somehow charm you back into his life permanently."

"Well, he should have thought of that before he up and vanished ten years ago."

"That's what I told him."

Motioning with her hand for him to get on with it, Lavender prompted, "And?"

"And he said, 'well maybe someone should remind her about why I stayed the fuck away, since she seems to have a selective memory when it comes to that summer.'"

"Really, I have a selective memory? How does one selectively remember one of the worst days of their life?" she demanded, her already precariously lidded anger rising even more. Taking several deep breaths as she felt her body begin to physically heat with her bubbling rage, she tightly but calmly said, "You know what? It doesn't matter. We have bigger, more important things to focus on; like putting out the fires our client has created.

"I've already arranged to have the issue handled this morning and then after the article comes out, we will go back to the drawing board to reevaluate what is left of my social capital and where we can best press on it to help him out. The sooner we can get the narrative off of me and spun around on him, the sooner we will be rid of him, and the sooner I can go back to living my life without Marcus bloody Flint anywhere in it."

"Has he ever not been in it though?" Lavender quietly asked. "I mean you still wear the, you know," she said, gesturing to the chain that was peeking out from her camisole. "And you still have the, you know over in the place. He's always been a part of you and I just have to wonder, given everything he's doing when no one is around to see but you, if maybe he wants you back as much as you refuse to admit you want him."

Curling her lips in, Hermione closed her eyes and softly pleaded, "Lav, I can't. Please, I just… I can't go down that road. It no longer exists. It hasn't for a long time, so please, don't try and turn me back. Please."

Pulling her into a hug, the blonde retracted, "You're right, I'm sorry. We hate him, plain and simple. Regardless of what he wants, he's the enemy. I got our roles flipped for a minute. I think the pregnancy is making me soft," she laughed.

"No, I think it's all that rubbish Divination clouding your mind," she teased by way of acceptance. Letting her go, just as their floo roared to life, she sighed, "Wish me luck," opening up her purse and rooting around for an envelope she had retrieved from the cottage the night before.

"Romilda Vane, our savior," Blaise greeted, kissing the witch on each cheek. "Looking as lovely as ever."

"Save it, Zabini. We both know your heart was captured long ago."

"Doesn't mean I still can't appreciate a witch when she graciously comes to bail our arses out."

Smacking her husband's chest, Lavender heatlessly said, "Okay Casanova, you can stop laying it on so thick." Taking their fellow Gryffindor's hands, she gave the witch the same greeting and asked, "How have you been?"

"You know, busting my arse so I can squeeze into that assistant editor's spot. With any luck, snagging this interview will guarantee me the promotion," she responded eagerly as the floo opened up once more letting out her preferred photographer.

"Where do you want me?" he asked, quick and to the point.

Pointing to her partially ajar door, Hermione answered, "My office right over there. It'll need a few modifications so it looks homey and natural."

"On it," he called, already walking into the room.

"So what exactly do you three need? For the article I mean, I'm still tracking down a few of the sources from Flint's larger and more surprising stories."

"We need him to look wholesome," Lavender answered.

"Likable," Blaise added.

"People need to love him, and I guess now they need to love me too. They need to see a completely different side than what they've been told about him. We need them to see the potential of a reformed bad boy getting a happily ever after. More than see it, they have to want it for him."

"So a miracle?"

"Basically," all three responded.

"Well, just call me Merlin then. Let's get started."

Following the witch into her office which was already undergoing a massive transformation to look like a cozy living room and not a set up, Hermione came to stand beside Marcus and agitatedly begged, "Please Godric, tell me you brought different clothes," only just realizing that he wore a pair of trainers, joggers, and a hoodie.

"No, no, no," Romilda interrupted. "Even if he did, the two of you like this is perfect. It's sweet, natural, easy. It shows a familiarity and comfort between you two. It screams of real attraction and love, that you two can be so unadorned around each other and still manage to look like the other is the most beautiful person you've ever seen."

"She is," Marcus quietly responded, looking down at Hermione as she glanced back up at him.

The taunting and teasing had vanished from his eyes and in its place was the softness that had been there when she was sick. It was an echo of the way he had looked at her all those years ago — as if she were a dream and he, all too willing to stay suspended in his slumber so that he could continue to gaze upon her. And whatever her face reflected back must have been equally as telling of their past, because as she found herself falling into his eyes, the flash of a camera went off startling them free of whatever had been about to pass between them.

"I love it," Romilda declared. "You two are surprisingly perfect together. The beautiful brains and the brutish quaffle head; a savior of Wizarding Britain and icon to witches everywhere and the charming, roguish, playboy of quidditch. If you two can give us more of that, this article will no doubt write itself and Asher will have more than a plethora of workable photos to publish." Pulling out her notebook and quill, she asked Asher, "Where do you want them?"

"Couch first, it'll ease 'em in."

"Wonderful, off you two go and let's get started."

Dropping onto the couch and sitting in such a way that his back was propped against the corner, Marcus stretched one leg out and bent the other so his foot dangled off the edge, impossibly taking up nearly two thirds of the space. Not giving her a chance to figure out where she would go, he took hold of her hand and pulled her down to sit between his thighs, hiking her legs up and over his own, one arm keeping her caged in as it wrapped around her and the other closing her off as it rested midway up her thigh.

"Damn," the photographer, murmured. "You two really do look good together. I mean I admit I was concerned about the aesthetic of it all given the height difference, but shite… it's like two pieces of a puzzle coming together. Are you sure this is all fake?"

"That's what she keeps telling herself, but she's just being stubborn," Marcus responded, nuzzling his face into her neck and pulling a sharp giggle from her as his lips brushed along the sensitive skin.

Ready in the way only someone with years of experience behind a camera could be, Asher proceeded to snap a dozen photos of them in quick succession.

Squirming away as Marcus continued to tease each spot on her body that drew out belly aching laughs from her, Hermione gasped through her mirth filled tears, "Okay, okay, stop, stop, please."

"Fine," he pouted, adjusting her much more pliant body against his, the muscle memory of their evenings in the library waking up as they fell back into each other and the give and take of their shifting bodies until they were both comfortable.

"Okay, so obviously being on Golden Fire's short list of reporters, I know — as does Asher — that what they're saying out there is true; that this is all a ruse meant to clean up your image. So tell me Marcus: how am I to convince my readers that you — the most notorious player to come off the pitch in what could easily be the history of the British and Irish League — are actually smitten and falling in love with Hermione Granger?

"What is going to make the populace at large believe that a wizard who had to repeat his seventh year and retake his NEWTs, has managed to steal the heart of the Brightest Witch of Her Age? Especially when you kicked off 2006, by being photographed swimming nude in a fountain with a magnum of champagne and an equally nude witch as your company."

Stoking his fingers up and down her slender arm, as his lips brushed the crown of her head, sending off another series of camera flashes, Hermione's eyes growing lazy under the touch, he thoughtfully responded, "I don't know if you can. By all accounts we're an odd couple. I've always known we were. I mean you said it yourself, I had to repeat my final year at Hogwarts and retest my NEWTs. Looking at us on parchment, we don't work.

"Hermione is intelligent beyond all imagining. Her brain operates on a level so superior to not only mine, but most everyone's, that she regularly leaves me in awe when she speaks. But that's the thing about her intelligence. She isn't arrogant about it; she doesn't flaunt it in a manner in which to say, 'I'm the smartest person in this room,' though there isn't a person in Britain who would argue against such a statement.

"She's patient in knowing that not everyone can keep up with her, effortlessly slowing herself down and explaining the brilliant inner workings of her mind. And she does it without making you feel dumb, which is something I have often felt and been told. In fact, Hermione is one of the few people in my life — both as a student and an adult — who has never made me feel stupid or as if I possess rocks for brains.

"I think that's part of what makes us work together, though I don't know how you'll manage to take that and print it in your magazine. I'm able to appreciate the high functioning of her brain. I find beauty in its chaos and truly believe that it's what makes her so… ever-vest-ant-"

"Effervescent," she gently corrected, smiling up at him and kissing the corner of his mouth, caressing her thumb over his dimple as it peeked out with an embarrassed smile.

"That's it," he acknowledged, grabbing her hand in his as she pulled it away and kissing the spot where her palm met her wrist, a place he had always favored on her for the way it made her literally shiver each and every time. This time being no different from the numerous others in their shared past.

"And as for why we should believe that you're turning over this new, monogamous leaf and committing yourself to only one witch?"

"Perfection looks different to every person. For such an ideal, it's highly subjective. What isn't though, is what one does when they achieve perfection or in my case, when they lay eyes upon it. You don't cast it aside. You grab it and hold on to it with both hands as if your life depends on it. And in a way it does, because how many times in a person's life will they meet someone who is perfect for them? The person who breaks apart the world as they know it and rebuilds it so they're at the center of it. The person who — as overused as this sounds — is the one you can't breathe without; the one whose steps you count as they walk away from you; the one who makes you count the moments until they're back with you; the one, your person, a perfect creation meant just for you to love."

Having been unable to take her eyes off of him as he spoke, his own blue-green irises looking at her as if she were all there was to see, his attention so wholly fixated upon her that it felt like he spoke to her and was pleading with her to change her mind, Hermione found herself once again slipping as she had that day in her flat. This here — the unsure, mildly self deprecating, unintentionally charming wizard who had wrapped himself around her both physically and emotionally — was Marcus Flint. The one she had known and had loved. The one she wanted so desperately to believe in and love again. This was her drug. The one who had turned her into an addict, chasing after every second of his attention and touch, drawing her in as effortlessly as breathing.

She was lost to him, to the past, the future she had once dreamed of and now cried for. Right there in his arms, with his words warming her heart, she was his once more. He had been right. She was and always would be his. She would surrender herself to him willingly, endlessly, every second of every day because he too was hers and she would lose nothing by doing so but gain everything.

It was all an illusion though. One that she more than anyone was at risk of being devastated by as she fell for it time and again. Case in point, Romilda's next question hitting her like a punch to the gut, forcing her to break the surface of Marcus's spell and return from the fantasy he had once offered to the reality he had given.

"You sound as if you're actually in love, Flint. If quidditch doesn't work out, might I recommend acting? Put those skills of yours to use.

"It's okay though, doctored or not, the way you speak of her and the way you two look at each other, this is going to be one of the highest selling issues since the conclusion of the war. The only problem I see you two facing is the unanswered question of how exactly your paths crossed.

"I mean Hermione, you're obviously in business with Zabini who was in Slytherin and whose tenure briefly overlapped Flint's. You're also friends with Pucey who is Flint's best friend so maybe you could have been introduced that way, but after so many years of those friendships, it's really not believable that you two would only just be meeting now."

Shrugging Marcus's touch off her, the weight of him shifting from comforting to oppressive as she realized how vulnerable she had made herself, she stood up and pulled the envelope from her back pocket. Sitting further down and on the edge of the couch, she opened it up and pulled out several photographs. With one final look through them, she reluctantly handed them over to Romilda, knowing and hating that she had to go forward with sharing the secret of their prior relationship for public consumption.

"When he returned to Hogwarts, Marcus was assigned a student tutor to help assist him where the professors could not. I was that tutor. Over the course of my fourth year, we developed a friendship which gave way to attraction and eventually bloomed into a secret, teenage love affair. At the time, only Lavender, Adrian, and eventually Viktor knew about us. But it was no less real just because we couldn't be seen together.

"I loved him very much. And even though our parting was mutual…" she lied, her throat briefly closing around the false words as she began altering her painful history to save him. "Even though it was mutual and amicable given his moving to Spain and my still having three years of school left and a war to fight as we would come to learn, it still broke my heart.

"That's how we knew each other and if anyone is questioning how we could so easily fall back into infatuation and love with each other, that's their answer. We never stopped, we merely parted ways until such a time came when we could cross paths again. Which is exactly what happened several weeks ago when I went to mee Adrian for dinner. From there it was too easy to fall back into him and rekindle what we once had."

"Holy sword of Gryffindor," Romilda breathed, flipping through the photos over and over again as if she expected them to vanish. "These are real? Like actual, real, not doctored photos from 1994 and '95? Photos from your own private collection?"

Nodding her head as she stood up and began changing the room back into her office, she clarified, "I mean they're copies but yes, they're the real deal."

"Shite… we really are about to break the best selling story since the war," Asher confirmed, looking over her shoulder. Pointing to one, he said, "That one right there beside the one of them when they were standing is your cover, Romi. Mirror images of the love between them.

"Everyone in Britain will be shipping them together and hoping for the announcement of a coming wedding." Looking up at Marcus, he congratulated, "Way to go, Flint. I didn't think you could do it even with Hermione in your corner, but you may actually pull this image rehab off. No one is going to believe that your whoring across Europe and the island is the true you after this."

"So I take it we're good here?" Marcus asked, standing up and following her over to her desk, where she stood staring blankly at her chair as she tried to regain control over herself and thus the situation.

"We are more than good," Romilda confirmed, packing up her things.

"Perfect," he murmured, now directly behind her, his hands guiding her to turn around and face him. "Then if you don't need me for anything else this morning, I'm going to head back to Montrose for practice. We have another match at home on Wednesday night. You'll be there won't you, angel?"

Looking up at him as she leaned back into her desk, she softly asked, "Don't call me that."

Resting his knuckles under her chin and guiding her head further up to meet his already stooped body, he whispered, "I never want to call you anything but that," before kissing her with such tender affection, one of the tears she was fighting to hold back slipped free just after Asher took his last set of photos before seeing himself out.

Wiping it away with his thumb, Marcus kissed her again and promised, "I'll see you Wednesday."

"See you Wednesday," she confirmed, sliding down the side of her desk as he walked out and closed the door behind him to cry into her knees.