Author's Note - Rated M up to the first page break. I'm trying to be careful with the next few chapters because they move quickly and there's a lot of detail, so I'm taking a little extra time. Thanks for sticking with me! -MM


November 2008
Muggle London, England
Friday

They spent the morning eating a cozy breakfast in their room and finding flimsy excuses to touch each other. Lyra knew she was, in her dad's words, being a 'clingy little wildebeest,' but she didn't care, and Draco didn't mind at all.

They used the floo in the Hogshead to go back to the Savoy apartment and Draco enjoyed watching her grumble around morosely, getting ready for work.

"You could always not go, Sweetheart," he reminded her as she spelled her hair dry in front of the bathroom mirror after a quick shower.

Lyra sighed. "I know, but I'll feel lazy and guilty if I don't. I am here on exchange to be an Auror, not to eat pancakes and get laid," she informed him with a determined frown.

Draco laughed and walked up behind her, gripping her waist over the towel loosely wrapped around her body. He bent down and ran his nose along the juncture between her neck and shoulder breathing her in. She hummed and pressed herself into him, like he knew she would. "I don't see any good reason why you can't do all three of those things. You're a relatively ambitious woman," he teased.

She glared at him in the large mirror.

"My point is that you're getting ready for work, and you've already had pancakes today, so..." he mused, pressing his clothed erection into her terrycloth covered bottom and dropping soft kisses along her shoulder.

She rolled her eyes in annoyance but then groaned when he lightly sunk his teeth into her sensitive skin. She turned in his arms, and hopped up on to the marble-topped vanity in the bathroom. She reached out for him with her naked legs and wrapped them around his waist, pulling their groins together.

Draco gave a satisfied huff and leaned into her.

"You have exactly ten minutes," she whispered, reaching for the button of his trousers.

"Ever the romantic," he mused playfully as he slipped a hand under her towel to get her ready for him.

Draco watched a ripple of tension run through her expression She was thinking about something. He leaned in to touch his forehead to hers.

"What is it?" He asked.

"Say it again," she whispered shyly, pressing in to him.

She was nervous, he could tell. He surmised that she was afraid that with the sun up and their clothes on (more or less), he wouldn't have the guts to say it. That it would change how he felt, as if anything could.

He pulled his hand from her, ignoring her displeased whine, unsheathed his cock and pushed inside her hard, without warning.

Lyra cried out and let her head fall back into the mirror with a thud.

Draco groaned as he entered her. She was tight from the lack of foreplay and not as wet for her comfort as he would have liked, but he had to. He had to be there. He pulled her close to him, bringing their chests together. He angled her face up to look at him as he started pistoning his hips against hers.

"I love you, Lyra," he said plainly.

She made a choked little gasp and felt like she could breathe again. "I love you too, baby," she informed him with a proud smirk before leaning in to kiss him He loved hearing her say it. He worried that, with her being the more outwardly loving one of the pair, she would have to pull it out of him too much. He didn't want her to have to ask. He wanted her to know, to feel it in her bones, on her skin, in her sex.

Lyra wrapped her arms around him tightly and protested to have him let her down. He frowned but complied. She set her feet back on the floor and pulled the towel from her body leaving her bare. She turned her back to him and leaned over the counter, watching him like a hawk.

Draco let his breath out hard and charged in. He grabbed her hip with one hand and guided his cock back inside her with the other, enjoying the way Lyra dropped her forehead to the cool marble as he stretched her.

As he resumed his quick thrusts, Lyra looked into the mirror and ran her gaze over the sexy picture they made. Draco's dark clothing rubbing on her tan skin, his pale fingers curved firmly around her waist, her long hair swaying rather prettily in time with his work. Not bad at all, she quipped to herself before Draco hit something delicious inside of her and she had no more brain left for quips.

She could tell that he was getting there. She'd become somewhat of an expert on that these last few weeks. Truth be told, he hadn't really changed all that much in that way since they were young. His eyes would slot to half lids, his hands would squeeze into her flesh, his breathing would lose tempo and every so often he would emit a sound that straddled the delicate balance between deep groan and low growl. All of it was him and it was so irresistible it made her toes curl. She didn't expect to come from this, she needed a little more time, but she would be damned if she ever turned down the chance to see him lose his mind.

"I'm gonna come, Sweetheart," he warned her.

She smiled and pushed her hips back to invite him in further. "As deep as you can. I want to take you with me to work," she purred, hoping it would have the intended effect.

He growled, pulled her body back into his chest with an alarming strength and lifted her off the ground. Lyra felt jailed in his embrace like she was being strangled by snakes; one around her breasts, one around her waist and another buried deep inside her, pulsing with victory and filling her with warmth. She laid her head back on his shoulder and happily went limp in his arms. It felt amazing.

He moaned into her hair as his cock gave a few final throbs and he lowered her feet back down. The action caused him to slip from her body and Lyra could feel gravity start to do it's work on what he'd given her. She turned and kissed his jaw as he panted and then scurried into the bedroom, slipping into a pair of red panties.

She bustled around the room, finding a suitable outfit. Draco, after he had put himself back together, watched her with amusement from the doorway.

She was bending over to pick up her skirt when she felt the caress of his magic on her backside and around her hips. She gasped and looked up to see him pointing his wand at her with a cocky smirk. "What are you..." she began and then looked down at her panties. He had turned them a deep green.

"Smartass," she mumbled, pulling up her skirt. She finished getting dressed and ventured out into the kitchen to down an espresso.

Lyra stole a few minutes before she left to kiss him, long and deep. He ran his hands over her bottom and whispered sinful things in her ear about how hot it was to know part of him would be inside her while she did her work. His words readily fed the dull, unsatisfied ache protesting from between her legs.

"You owe me one, baby," she whispered, nibbling on his earlobe.

"And I'll give you three to start when you get home," he replied with confidence.

"You're a cocky little thing, you know that?" she laughed, pressing a hard peck to his cheek.

"I do," he replied.

She reluctantly disentangled herself from his embrace and hopped into the fireplace, giving him a little wink before she disappeared into the green flames.


November 2008
Wizarding London, England
Ministry of Magic of Great Britain
Office of Magical Law Enforcement, Auror Department
Friday

She flooed into the Auror's Common at about nine. There weren't a lot of people around, which wasn't unusual for a Friday.

"Lyra. It's good you're here," Harry's voice came from behind her.

She turned to him and smiled. "Hey! Is Gin still mad at us? Tell her I'll watch the kids on Saturday if she wants. I'll watch you too. She can buzz off and go get a massage or something," she babbled to her friend.

Harry blanched. "Ginny and the kids are going to her mother's for awhile," he said seriously.

Lyra frowned and reached up to squeeze his arm. "Something's wrong. What is it?"

The dark haired wizard sighed. "There was a break in at Azkaban. Malfoy. He's...we don't know where he is."

She paled instantly. It felt like she had been punched in the stomach. Harry took the hint and guided her over to the worn leather couch behind them. "When?"

"Just this morning. About an hour ago," he replied.

"Scorpius. Where is he?" Lyra asked in alarm, suddenly sitting forward.

Harry furrowed his brow. "With his mother, I assume."

She lept up. "We have to hide them, Harry. We have to hide all of them. Now."

"How do we know he'll come after them? Maybe he's just fled," Harry countered, trying to calm her.

"He will come after them! You know that! If you thought otherwise, you wouldn't be hiding your own family?!" Lyra fired desperately. "I've been in his mind, Harry. He's a proud, shrewd sociopath who's been made a fool of by his unworthy son and a filthy American. He is not going to disappear into Europe for some R&R when he's got people to crush and misery to create. Look. I need to get Draco. We have to get Scorpius, his mother and Narcissa. You know they aren't safe. You know it."

Harry frowned powerfully and considered her words. She was right. Malfoy was a status seeker, but now that his reputation was about to be effectively shattered again, it seemed unlikely that running and hiding would be enough for him. Losing that would surely be a blow to his entire worldview. People who have their foundations shaken in that way can be extremely dangerous, especially people who are spoiled and entitled. Lucius Malfoy was a dangerous man before all of this happened. He would be even more so now.

"I think you're right," he conceded.

"Good. I have to go check in with Shacklebolt," she replied, giving his arm another squeeze before turning down the hallway to the Head Auror's office.

Shacklebolt informed her that the break in had freed several high profile blood purists and appeared to be a highly coordinated attack. MLE was working on it, but so far they were unsure if Lucius was freed intentionally as part of this group or just happened to get lucky.

"Well that's fucking great," Lyra sighed miserably.

"You're afraid," Kingsley mused knowingly from behind his desk.

"You're damn right I'm afraid, boss! I'm afraid for Draco and his family, because they're important to me, but I'm also scared for me. The last time I saw this guy he threatened to have me killed in my sleep and I punched him in the face. So, let's just say I have a few personal concerns about his new found freedom," she lamented. "We need to bring Draco and his family in. They're not safe out there. There's too many avenues of approach. Too many ways to get at them. These people have too much goddamned real estate if you ask me."

"I think you're right about bringing them in...and also about the real estate," the old wizard replied. "We'll send people."

Lyra nodded with a frown. "Only us. Only Harry and our team. I don't trust anybody else," she said.

Shacklebolt sighed. "Black..."

"No. I don't buy for a second that he got out by mistake, and I don't think you do either. It's Azkaban which means if he had help it's likely that it came from someone in the AD or MLE, and it could very well be more than one someone. I want my team for this," she pressed.

The old wizard nodded. "Alright," Shacklebolt conceded. She sounded so much like her father in that moment. He mused that if he hadn't already known, he may have guessed it himself. The simmering anger and calculated mistrust. She, like Severus, tended to get more right than wrong with her suspicions, if that said anything about the sorry state of the world they lived in. The old wizard snapped back to present and regarded the young woman before him seriously.

"Go get Draco, bring him here. Potter will take care of the rest," he instructed.

"I'm on it," she replied.

Lyra left his office and headed back to the common. She was scared, pissed and so incredibly over Lucius Malfoy. Someone should just fucking kill him. I know it's evil but some people just need to die, she thought to herself before flooing back to the Savoy.


November 2008
Muggle London, England
Friday

She rushed into the living room at the Savoy. She hadn't been gone more than an hour and figured he'd still be there getting ready. She was nervous. She didn't know how he would take the news. She didn't even know what to say.

She rounded the couch, trying to compose herself for the task, and saw blood on the floor. A lot of blood.

She let herself blip into insanity for a fraction of a second before her training set in. Wand out, she cast a disillusionment charm on herself and spells to silence her footfalls and movements.

She slinked back, away from the blood to access the kitchen from the other direction.

She rounded the island and saw Draco on the ground. He was paper white and unconscious with deep gashes in both arms, his blood spilling freely on to the wood beneath him. He had a syringe still sticking out of his left bicep. Heroin. It got about as much love in the wizarding world as it did in No-maj-land, which was too much. She knelt next to him, coating her legs in his blood and spelled his wounds shut. Her mother had taught her the rather complicated incantation for returning blood to a host but it would have to wait. She wasn't alone. She could feel another person in the apartment. She pulled the needle from his arm and trailed a shaky hand to his lips. His breathing was frighteningly slow but he was alive. Thank god. She ran her hand through his blood soaked hair and stood.

She heard a faint sound from their bedroom and walked to the edge of the blood spot on the floor, stepping out of her heels. She crept down the hallway with her wand forward and peered into the room from the corner of the doorframe. There, she saw herself. Lyra Black was in her room throwing things haphazardly into her suitcase. It was surreal. It was her, but something was off about the eyes. The person wearing her face made her hazel eyes look dead and tense. She wondered absently if Draco had noticed it before her doppelganger had gotten the jump on him. Fucking polyjuice. She could smell it. It smelled like sweat and stale beer.

The woman zipped up Lyra's suitcase and made for the door. Lyra pulled back silently and went back to the living room to observe. The impostor pulled a role of parchment from her jacket pocket and scrawled a note on it in a decent approximation of Lyra's handwriting before dropping it on the marble of the counter. She picked up Lyra's suitcase and made for the elevator.

"Incarcerus. Prohibe Oclumensi." Lyra said at moderate volume. She sounded almost bored, she thought to herself. I may be losing my mind, just a smidge. No big deal.

Ropes encircled the intruder and she fell to the ground. Lyra stepped forward. The woman had landed on her face. Lyra kicked her so she rolled over on to her back.

"Hey girl," Lyra said dismissively.

The woman hissed.

"Legilimens," Lyra spoke, with her wand pointed at her mirror image.

Fuck you, bitch.

Well, aren't you adorable? Lyra thought.

Lyra stomped through her mind like Godzilla over the city of Tokyo. She let the information buzz around her like an annoying mosquito. Nothing with these fucking people would ever surprise her again. I mean...for fuck's sake.

Her impostor was a woman named Ophira Nagini. She was one of the girls at the London house who considered herself untouchable because she had the distinction of being the boss's niece. She also fancied herself next in line to marry Lucius Malfoy once his present wife was dead, which would hopefully be soon. Poor Lucius's family had abused him terribly, you see, and it was just better and more convenient if they all died.

Her part in all this was to kill her lover's ungrateful son. He was a weak and moody little thing, irrevocably in love with some classless American whore. He left it up to her how she did it, but requested that it be as bloody and pathetic as possible. She decided to make it look like he had gotten high and killed himself after his muddy little girlfriend had left him to go back home. Lucius had his own plans for the girl. Ophira was supposed to make it look like she'd left, but the girl herself was not to be touched.

She put the stupid Muggle footman under Imperious and sent him into the flat very early in the morning to retrieve some hair from the woman's hairbrush so she could use it for the polyjuice.

Lucius's son was confused when his black-haired girlfriend entered the flat through the elevator, apparently the actual witch had left only a bit before. Regardless, he welcomed her with a kiss and warm hug. He smelled amazing and was, to be honest, better looking and more muscular than his father, but no matter. She shoved a needle with some heavy downers into his arm and let him drop roughly to the floor.

Lyra's mind went red with rage when she saw the woman's memory of Draco looking up at her face, at Lyra's face, dazed and confused as he went under he spell of the heroin and the woman slashed at his arms with a knife.

Lyra took some other information from her. The location of the London house, passwords, anything else she knew about Malfoy and where he might be. Apart from her task, she didn't know what else Lucius had planned. He had told the girl that after his wife and son were dead they would have to leave the country for appearance's sake.

Lyra pulled out of her mind.

"Jesus, kid. You're not real smart, are you?" Lyra mused down at the woman in disgust.

She put her in a body bind and opened the suitcase to rummage for a revitalization potion that she had left over from the hospital. She went back over to Draco and frowned. She kept seeing the way he had looked at the fake Lyra as she had attacked him. I wonder if after this I'll have a few minutes to cut some of her fingers off? None of the important ones, just maybe like her ring fingers or pinkies something...she mused, looking back at the woman.

So, Lyra was definitely losing her mind.

She knelt next to him and reopened his wounds with a wince. She started the resanguination spell which began shrinking the vast pool of blood on the floor, returning it to his body. She got what she could, but didn't bother spelling the blood from his body or hers. It was a fussy kind of magic to begin with and she didn't have time. Draco's color had returned to just a half shade lighter than his normal pale and he looked like he was just sleeping...or high as fuck.

Lyra sighed sadly into the ether and slapped her beloved across the face. Hard.

"Bitch," Draco groaned at her, fluttering his eyelashes.

"I'm so sorry, baby. It's Lyra. Real Lyra this time," she soothed, rubbing her hand on his chest.

He cracked an eye at her.

This Lyra was wearing the clothes he thought she wore in to work. This Lyra also had the right eyes but his head was so fucked from drugs that he couldn't be sure and he didn't particularly care. His trip was calling him back.

He cringed away from her.

"Draco. It's me. I have the other one. She's in ropes on the floor," she said loudly, trying to reassure him.

He opened his eyes again to study her.

"Show me your knickers," he said in a weak voice.

"Now?!" She said, confused. Maybe he had a concussion.

"Just bloody do it," he mumbled seriously.

Lyra huffed and stood. She pulled her tight pencil skirt up over her hips and let him see them. "Happy?" She asked, annoyed.

Draco let out a sigh of relief. "Green," he dropped his head back to the ground and let the high pull him down.

Lyra frowned. He'd turned them green before she left. She got it. She left her skirt up and straddled his waist. She shook him roughly. "Draco, I need you to drink this."

He grumbled.

Lyra sighed and slapped him across the face again.

"Fucking hell," he groaned, weakly raising a hand to his very red cheek.

"You have to drink this right now!" She shouted at him. God, it was like talking to a brick wall.

He furrowed his brow and Lyra helped him lift his head. She dumped the revitalizing potion into his mouth and watched him swallow it. She stayed perched atop him for the minute or so it took the potion to set in, rubbing his cheek and whispering to him reassuringly.

Draco's blurred vision slowly focused on his witch above him. She was covered in blood. He started a moment before he recalled that it was his blood. He took a moment to recollect his memories from the drugged haze...and before.

"You hit me!" He accused her quietly, with a raised eyebrow.

"Twice," she replied plainly. "Are you alright?" She asked, smoothing her hands down his arms. "I got here and you were...I was so afraid..." she trailed off, starting to tremble. Her trained efficiency was faltering into jittery shock now that it was over.

Draco looked up at her. Her eyes were brimming with tears and he could see her pulse hammering in her throat.

"I think so," he sighed, wrapping his bloody hands around her wrists that she had braced on his chest.

She bent down and pressed her lips to his sweaty forehead. "I love you so much," she whispered, dropping a few tears on to his face.

"I love you too," he replied. "You saved my life."

She pulled back, nuzzling his nose with her own. "I'll put it on the list," she joked sadly.

Blaise arrived in the living room of Lyra's flat in muggle London and walked into the kitchen to find one of her in the foyer in ropes and another one of her straddling Draco on the kitchen floor. They were covered in blood and looked very surprised to see him there. Harry had sent him over to make sure they were coming along. The Lyra sitting on top of Draco had her skirt hiked up around her hips, putting her Slytherin green knickers on display for the room.

Blaise cocked his head to the side. "Perfect," he said, referring to her ass.

"Oh my God, Blaise. You unbelievable pervert. Turn around. What is the matter with you? You are so fucking gross..."

He laughed, turned his back to the couple, and allowed Lyra's verbal rebuke to wash over him like birdsong.


AD - Auror Department

MLE - Office of Magical Law Enforcement

Resanguination Spell - A thing I made up. Takes blood from outside the body and puts it back in. Simple as that.