November 2008
Spinner's End
Muggle Yorkshire, England
Saturday

Everybody was sleeping when she got back. Astoria had taken the sofa while Nott crashed on the floor close to her. Narcissa was asleep in an armchair, holding her chin aloft with an elegant hand. Draco was on the floor, his back braced against a bookshelf. Scorpius was snuggled into his chest, breathing softly under his father's chin. Lyra beamed. They were so cute.

She walked over and knelt next to them, ensuring her jacket was buttoned around her so Scorpius wouldn't see her translucent dress if, by some chance, he woke up. She ran her fingers gently through Draco's white hair. He blinked his eyes open and focused on her.

He leaned into her touch. "How'd it go?" He questioned.

"More or less according to plan," she replied.

"My father?"

"Azkaban, so far as we know," she answered. "I need to talk to you."

He nodded and motioned for her to take Scorpius. She picked him up gently and laid him on the couch, next to his mother who instinctively wrapped him in her arms. Lyra smiled.

She led Draco downstairs and had him read her properly. She showed him everything. Meeting her mother, the change in plans to try and get the two men to destroy each other, the way his father had touched her, Lucius's plan to kill her and her parents, Harry's intervention, Julian's capture, Lyra giving Malfoy the portkey and the aftermath. Everything, he saw it all.

He pulled out of her mind and frowned at her. She was panting from the exertion. He had a lot of conflicting feelings about things that he wanted to discuss, but first he needed to displace every memory he'd seen of his horrible father touching her. He raised his hands and started undoing the buttons of her jacket, running his fingers over the sheer muslin covering her belly.

"Staking your claim there, Frog?" Lyra said with a smirk. She pressed into his touch and let her jacket fall from her body to the floor. She didn't like what she was wearing in any context outside of being alone with Draco and seeing him look at her like he was. It was intense as hell and she was so into it.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and grabbed her bottom with both hands. Lyra could feel the warmth from his palms easily through the barely there barrier of her gown.

"You're mine," he whispered into her ear as he drew her hips to his.

She melted into him and let him back her up to an old table. He threw her onto it roughly and ran his pale hands up her legs, moving her gown out of the way.

He trailed his fingers up her inner thigh to her sex and found her already silky with arousal. Lyra shrugged coyly at him and leaned back to let him play. This little game was one of their favorites back at Hogwarts. He would drive her crazy with his hand under her skirt on some desk or workbench and she would do her best not to get them caught. She actually had to maintain a running lie there that she was deathly afraid of spiders to throw the librarian off their trail after she had attracted attention by crying out shamelessly from the Arithmancy section...multiple times. Draco thought it was hilarious.

"I wonder if I'm afraid of spiders today," she whispered to him, stealing his thoughts.

"Mmm, I hope so," he replied, rotating his fingers inside her and making her gasp. He let his eyes roam over her again. He loathed the idea of her parading around a room of other men like this, but gods if she didn't look like gilded perfection. The sheer gown she wore was a style he'd only ever seen on Nagini women. Women who were built and bred to reduce rich men to love sick lapdogs. She would have fit right in with the ladies there. She looked like one and, not that he would necessarily tell her, but she fucked like one. It made a great deal more sense now that he knew she technically was one. She didn't need it, Draco already thought she was sexy as hell, but he'd be a liar if he said seeing her like this didn't turn him on.

Lyra canted her hips up suddenly to get him to go deeper. She moaned quietly, lost in her pleasure. Draco narrowed his eyes and got to work. In the end, Lyra won the round, but only by biting her lip and cutting a few half-moon marks into Draco's arm with her nails. His mother, his ex and the kid were all upstairs. The stakes were pretty high.

"Better luck next time," she panted softly as he pressed gentle kisses to her sweat soaked temple.

He laughed softly, kissing along her jaw. "I love you, sweetheart."

She squeezed tighter around his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his waist. "I love you, baby," she said with a satisfied sigh.

"You have to go back?" He asked glumly.

"Yeah, I do," she replied, burying her face in his neck. She was not looking forward to that at all.

"Do you really think Potter would have killed him for you?" He asked.

Lyra frowned and pulled back to look at him. "I do," she replied honestly.

"Does...is he in love with you?" He asked seriously.

Lyra bit both of her cheeks to keep herself from laughing. He looked so grumpy. It was adorable. "In all of that, that's what has you up in arms? That Harry Potter has it for me so bad, he'd off your dad?"

Draco said nothing...which meant yes. Lyra sighed and smoothed her hand down the back of his neck. "I know Harry would have killed a guy for me because he already killed a guy for me," she explained. "You."

"Bullocks. He didn't have the stones, remember? He blacked out," he countered, referring to Harry's testimony at the inquiry.

"Bullshit, Draco. He didn't have the wand. That's it. I read him before his hearing. I assumed what you just did, that he's too good a guy. That the wand played a part and Harry's good nature did too, but I was wrong. I watched him cast that curse from the inside of his own mind and he nailed it. He wanted you to die. The only reason you didn't was because of your old wand." she explained.

Draco was stunned. "That wanker!"

Lyra rolled her eyes. "You know what he was thinking when he was running through the hallway, listening to me scream? Listening to you kill me?"

Draco paled a shade and shook his head.

"He was thinking 'Not again. Not his daughter. Not another one.' He was not thinking 'I wanna bang this girl,' or 'I wanna leave my beautiful wife and children for this tart I just met.' He wanted to kill you to protect his friend. To repay what he viewed as a debt to Severus. To protect himself from losing yet another person. It's kind of a thing with him now after losing his parents, his mentors and about half of his classmates...as I'm sure you can relate," she said gently. "He's not in love with me, Draco. And even if he was, which he most certainly is not, it wouldn't matter."

"And why the devil not!?" Draco exclaimed petulantly.

"Because I am in love with you, you knob," she informed him, punctuating her words with feather light kisses on his face.

Draco's stomach warmed at her admission. He pulled back and was toying with a piece of her hair when a thought occurred to him. "So then you lied for him at the board?" Draco accused.

"I didn't lie. Harry doesn't know what to make of the event, it was deeply subconscious and without Legilimency or hypnosis he probably wouldn't remember. I just declined to mention that I knew about it. Plus, I hinged my entire defense on the fact that his intentions didn't matter. And I won, as you may recall," she chirped proudly.

"You little snake," he quipped, impressed.

"Are you mad?" She asked.

He signed. "No. I just..."

She squinted her eyes at him. "You want to know if I'd lie to an inquiry board for you?"

"It sounds stupid when you put it that way," he admitted, but she was essentially right.

"It's not stupid, baby," she reassured him, rubbing his arm. Insecure Draco was definitely something new for her. She wanted to tread lightly.

"How far would I go for you? Definitely too far," she said with a smile, catching his earlobe between her teeth. She leaned back and looked at him. "I lie for you all the time! I pretend it's not annoying that you wear almost exclusively black. I allow you to believe that Harry is a total wanker..."

"Potter is a total wanker! He all but killed me!" He defended.

Lyra gave him an incredulous look.

"Ok, fine. But those examples are of you lying to me, not lying for me," he pressed.

Lyra scoffed. Now she was annoyed. Was the kid blind? "I dunno, I don't lie for you because I've never really been in a position where I've had to! Is that really your metric of love? Lying?! I mean I did jet over here when I heard you were in danger. I did come within an inch of my life to protect Scorpius and and just had your disgusting father literally pawing at my boobs so I could send him back to Azkaban to keep our family safe!"

She took a breath and started going on, noting how Harry had beat her ass that very morning but Draco silenced her with a frantic kiss. She tipped her head back and gave in to the assault, fumbling blindly with his belt. After a bit of a struggle, she got him free and guided him into her body.

"You're absolutely right. All good points," Draco said by way of apology, his voice husky with lust.

Lyra sighed, enjoying the pressure of his entry. "I know I'm right. Tell me all about it later," she retorted.

He groaned and happily gave her what she wanted. Before she came, she put his hand over her mouth so she wouldn't wake the house. Her slick core quivered around him as she wailed breathily into his palm. After she finished, she rested her head on his shoulder, dazed. He snapped his hips against hers quickly, bringing himself to the edge, but slowed down to draw out his orgasm. He shifted to stimulate his tip on the narrow cuff of smooth muscle at her entrance as he came making it tight and so intense. His fingers twisted into the gauze of her dress and shredded the delicate garment.

He was absolutely feral, growling wildly into her hair as he used her body to make himself go insane. Lyra loved every second of it. She heard the fabric of the gown rip and squeaked joyfully as his fingers gripped onto her hips. After he finished and pulled out, she could feel his warm come dripping out of her deliciously, further ruining Ophira's dress. She pulled his head to her chest to hold him and hid her devious smirk in his hair.

Draco's thoughts were fuzzy for the first few minutes after his climax, but once his thoughts began to recrystallize, he felt silly for questioning Lyra about Harry. Jealousy was unattractive, he knew that, but he just couldn't help it. This witch had the fighting skills of an Auror, the intellect of his mother, the heart of a lion and the body of a siren. All of that and she loved him. Him, of all people. After everything he had done. If he wasn't the luckiest sod on the face of the earth...Deserve her, he thought to himself as he squeezed her closer.


"I want to come with you," Draco said behind her as she was finishing her braid.

Lyra started, but turned to face him as she fussed with one of her wristwraps. "Good, I'm going to need you," she mumbled, avoiding his gaze.

"I'm going with you," Nott said from the back of the kitchen, causing Lyra to jump.

"Jesus, dude! Don't do that! My wand hand is twitchy as fuck and I have had the worst day!" She admonished the huge wizard.

He smirked down at her fondly.

"Why?" Draco questioned him, skeptically.

"Just in case little-bit here finds herself in more trouble. I can help. I make people nervous," he replied flatly.

Now actually, that's not a bad idea, she thought. Lyra smiled at him. "You're a man of few words, Nott. But they're all words I like."

She turned back to Draco. "I want to floo in through the Atrium."

"What?! Why?" He protested.

"Press," she stated simply.

"Press? For what?" Nott asked.

"For...visibility. To sell the story," she clarified, channeling Narcissa.

"Why would that matter?" Draco questioned.

Lyra hesitated and looked nervously back and forth between the two men. "Well...because it is very likely that they are going to arrest me as soon as I walk through the door."


October 2008
Wizarding London, England
Ministry of Magic of Great Britain
Saturday Morning

After what felt to her like a decade of arguing about nothing, Lyra and Draco emerged into the atrium together, with Nott on their heels. The wizards shifted to flank her as they entered the large space that was laden with press, Aurors and MLE personnel. She was nervous, but not surprised.

"No wands," she muttered to her boyfriend and her bouncer. Draco was about to open his mouth to argue when Shacklebolt emerged from the throng with Harry, Blaise, Simpkins and a handful of MLE folks she didn't recognize. Cameras were going off everywhere. Well, at least that worked out, she thought.

Shacklebolt frowned and stepped forward.

Lyra raised her hands in surrender. Draco made to step in front of her but she stopped him.

"Malfoy and Nott just came to see that I'm taken in properly. They had no part in my decisions or actions. My wand is on my left hip and I have no intention of resisting," She said clearly.

Lyra looked at Harry, who looked ill.

"Lyra Black, you are under arrest for unlawfully attacking your fellow Aurors, for the abduction of victims and witnesses under Ministry protection and for the use of an illegal, unregistered portkey," Shacklebolt called out to her in a miserable monotone.

"You're gonna charge me for the portkey too? That is cold, man," she said in genuine surprise. The other stuff she was kind of expecting. "Did it work? Did we get him?" She asked.

Shacklebolt said nothing.

"Lucius Malfoy. Is he back in prison where he belongs? It's a simple question!" She yelled.

She looked at Harry and registered his nearly imperceptible nod. "Oh thank god," she whispered, in genuine relief.

Shacklebolt nodded his chin in her direction and Blaise, Simpkins and one of the MLE guys, who was every bit as huge as Nott, came towards them.

"Fellas, you're going to let them have me and you're going to say nothing. Draco, when you get back to your flat, owl your mom at Spinner's End and tell them that we got him and they can go home. Put security on them in case your dad had a Plan B," she whispered urgently. She studied Draco's horrified face for a moment and sweetly ran her hand down his cheek. She leaned in and gave him a kiss, resulting in a veritable lightning storm of flashbulbs capturing the moment. "I love you," she informed him.

"I love you," he replied softly.

She stepped forward and extended her hands.

"Blaise. Simpkins. Tall guy," she said, acknowledging her jailers. "I want Simpkins to do my ropes. He's the least creepy of the three of you," she informed them.

Simpkins raised his wand and shackled her wrists in ropes. The other two wizards advanced on her, grabbing her by the arms.

"Hey, Zabini," Draco called to his old friend.

He dropped Lyra's arm and turned just in time to catch Draco's fist with his face. Nott pulled Draco back, as Blaise fell to the floor with a split lip. Harry was there in a second to pull Zabini up.

"Nott get him out of here!" Harry yelled, holding Blaise back from offering a return punch.

Lyra turned back and locked eyes with Draco. He got the message and jumped into her thoughts.

Holy fucking shit, baby. I am so scared right now. I love you I love you I love you. Lawyer please! I love you.

He nodded at her and let Nott pull him away to the fireplaces. Simpkins took her other arm and started leading her through the crowd of reporters. She threw her front back up so no body would know she was petrified and started chuckling to herself.

"What could possibly be funny, Black? You're being arrested," Simpkins said sadly.

"Come on, Simpkins! Draco punched Zabini in the face. It was awesome!" She chirped, flexing her hands in her ropes.

"Oy! I can hear you!" Zabini protested.

She laughed full on.

"Ohmigod, Blaise. Right in the face," she confirmed in between snorts.

Despite the gravity of the situation, that got laughs from almost everybody in the immediate vicinity. Harry, Blaise, Simpkins, even tall MLE stooge thought it was funny. Well...at least I have that going for me, Lyra thought.


Author's Note - So sorry if this seems like a rush job. I'm pushing to get to the next few chapters. Thanks for the awesome review, Ahsilaa. The next chapter and author's note will answer your questions in more detail. I will try to get them out ASAP. Happy reading, all! -MM