~ The Ugly Truth ~

"Damn, Draco, you're looking pretty grim."
Smirk on his mouth, Theodore Nott slid into the booth across from him, proffering a shot of the finest of firewhiskies. It was inevitable that they would meet eventually, Draco thought it necessary because his pointed anger was at an all time high. And that emotion needed some remedying.

Still, he couldn't do this right now.

He picked up his goblet, not daring to look him in the face.
"Lot on my mind."

The delightful afternoon visit with Granger was weighing on him. An anvil was pounding the back of his skull, and his demeanour wasn't up to snuff. It lasted a total of approximately 30 seconds confronting her to explode in a fit of rage. It would likely be less with this idiot.

"Oh yeah? Haven't seen you in a while, my man."

"Been busy." He took a swig of beer.

"Thought you were avoiding me. And this place," Nott made a sweeping gesture to look round the bar. "You know I'm getting bothered by the big guy about you. Troubles at home?"

He took another swig.
For all the stupidity he held, Draco was impressed by Nott's ability to ease smoothly into uncomfortable conversation with no jibber jabber of trite niceties.

Downing the booze, and the rest of his pint, he studied the empty glass before staring straight into Theodore's eyes.
"Nott, you must be aware by now that I've spoken now face to face to the 'big guy'. I know you were plastered, but you were present. When you involved me in this process way back when, I was told it would be anonymous and confidential."

"Uhuh? And hasn't it been? HEY, Marty! Alright? How's the wife?"
Waving at an elderly man in a trouser suit, he winked at Draco, who promptly rolled his eyes.
"What's your deal?"

"That. Exactly that," he pointed his finger at Marty, perching himself on a stool. "I am no longer anonymous, nor confidential. I walked in here today, at three in the afternoon mind, and was handed a drink immediately upon sitting down. The staff know me. People know me. There's a rep here, and not a good one I fancy to have tacked onto my already less than desirable name."

"So? Draco, only people who frequent this place know you. Besides, you have an in. You can't be touched. Rake it in! Reap the rewards, I haven't paid for a drink here in like two years."
He was still smiling, wiggling his eyebrows as if he were a very popular woman in a club full of horny men.

"Money is not the issue for me. I want out."

"Out?"
It was like a foreign word.

"Out."

Anticipating a harsh tone, Draco received a laugh instead.

"You can't just get out. I gotta tell you man, if he finds out you're bailing before you get shit done, you will get a visit at home. And you won't make it out with that handsome pureblood face of yours. You wouldn't want that, mm?"

Reaching over, he felt the sweaty fingers pinch his cheek, slapping it lightly after so his fragile skin turned pink.
Exhaling, with great effort he chose to ignore the heinous violation of personal space.
"I think you've been operating under the assumption that this little shindig is all I have, Nott. Personal security is more important than galleons. What I gotta tell you, is after this batch is done, you're going to have to find someone else."

"Someone else?"
Raising a brow, Nott downed his own shot, chuckling,

"I'm serious, Nott. Find someone else. It's nothing personal, just business."
He stood up, threw his sweater over his arm and began to walk.

"Just business?– HEY."
Grabbing a sleeve, Draco was jerked back so he was hovering over Nott, a manic expression threatening to surface from his cohort.
"You can't do this to me. Just – meet me tomorrow night, I will get him here and we can…talk."

"I said it's over, Nott."

"Malfoy," he was the firmest Draco had ever heard. "You can't do this to me. It's a statement, not a lamenting outcry. We'll both get fucked if you bow out, but it'll be worse for you. Honestly, I am not afraid to let you get the brunt of it if you won't even consider talking it out. I'll still be chopping, but you will be marked. You'll be done in this town. Come on, we can renegotiate the terms."
Folding his arms, Draco knew he was right, knew he would throw him under the proverbial bus. Old Theo was much too huge in ego, and much too brash in the head to think before acting.

Should've been in Gryffindor, Draco thought as he was straightening his tie. He pinched the bridge of his nose, then began rubbing his eyelids.
"Alright. Tomorrow. Just before closing, I don't need anyone around."

"Fine."

Tossing up his collar, he threw ten galleons onto the bar before rushing out into the sunset.
"Fucking idiots," said Draco, before apparating with a crack into the sky.

{}

Her vision was beginning to blur, all the lower cases and capitals scrambling together into meaningless nothing. Normally reading the Complete History of Werewolf Legislation was fascinating, but today time had slowed, concentration and retention was out the window.

Her stomach was tangling more and more as the seconds ticked, realizing now it was past seven. Watching the door, flicking her gaze to her pages and back hundreds of times, finally at 7:08 there was a knock.

"C-come in."
Damn her nerves, they had still yet to settle.

Ruffled blonde hair entered first, then a black suit, followed by Draco's grim expression, sneer permanently plastered on his face. Stepping quite slowly and deliberately to her desk, he dropped down into the visitor chair, stretching his legs out and sighing.

Staring at each other, she was stiff as a board. He was surprisingly calm to have to explain himself to an angry lion, and the first to break the silence.
"Hello again."

"Hi."

Fiddling with her wooden house elf figurine that the Minister for Magic sent her at Christmas, Draco shifted, sighing once more.
"Alright, Granger, this is going to continue to be quite awfully uncomfortable if we can't even talk to each other past hellos."

"I am uncomfortable."

Glaring at her, his face fell from vague exasperation to exhaustion.
"And I'm tired of your attitude." He relayed this statement almost factual. "We're stuck together Granger, you heard Elias. I am trying my best to be fucking courteous, but that doesn't come easy, especially when it concerns you. I'm stressed as hell, so just please, lend a bit of trust in me."

Scoffing after a moment of silence, the girl shook her head; he noticed her curls quite bushy this evening, face darkened with rouge tint.
"Trust? Honestly, Draco? That bridge isn't going to be easily crossed. This morning I didn't exactly expect to be a 'component', as you lovingly put it, with a situation that involves imminent destruction. And be bound to it, as Elias put it so lovingly. My attitude is the least of your problem."

"You're acting like you expected me to be fine with having a prophecy made about myself, let alone us."
It wasn't harsh, or rude – no, he conveyed this sentiment very monotone.

"Okay look," Hermione sat up straighter, moving her stacks of papers inside her cabinet. Then she leaned in. "I'm going to be frank, Draco. I really don't like you."

"Oh what a surprise," he mumbled.

"And I know you dislike me." She ignored him. "Trust between us is going to be difficult to build. If at all. Five years isn't enough to heal time…but I'm willing to compromise with you if you can with me. You want us to keep this private? Fine. I'll agree to that if you agree to let me have an equal say when push comes to shove and we will both decide on what actions to take in dealing with…whatever this is."

Crossing her arms, waiting for a response, Draco threw his own arm into his jacket, and pulled out a considerable bottle of rum.
"You want a drink, Granger?"

Unscrewing the lid, he downed a hefty chug before plopping it in front of her.

"What?"

"You're clearly freaking out about this. This is how I deal with the same feeling," he gestured to the bottle. "I'll agree to let you make decisions, but if you strong-arm everything I say, which I imagine you'd have a tendency to do, I will not be a happy participant in, as you say, whatever the fuck this is."

Eyeing him, searching for something in his face, he remained the same.

"Fine."
Yanking the drink, she slurped too big of a gulp, wiping her mouth with her arm to hide the grimace from the burn.
It was like a sick pact they'd made, as she saw Draco nearly close to smirking at her sloppiness with his brows raised.

"Now. Tell me what this is about. All of it."

She watched as he shrugged his shoulders loose, noticing the veins on his neck pop as he attempted to crack his neck, chin up, white skin iridescent in her terrible office lighting.

"Alright. I will do my best to be impartial. However, you must let me finish before you make any comment as I know you will have many choice words for me. Deal?"

"Deal," she agreed immediately, realizing only in the present how much she had been awaiting the dirty details of this mystery.
The direness of the situation had allowed her to think of every last worst case scenario.

"Fuck, ok." Slugging back a third of his rum, his cheeks burned with pinkness, and he breathed deeply before staring straight into her interested amber eyes, faltering for a moment as he noticed the intensity. "Last November, my old pal Theodore Nott approached me at the Spiny Serpent. I hadn't seen him in about two years."

"The Spiny Serpent?"
Renowned for its seediness and less than wholesome regulars, the pub in Knockturn Alley had yet to rid itself of its status postwar.

"I said no interrupting."

Hermione huffed, but replied softly:
"Fine."

"As you likely know, I am extraordinarily good with potions." He could hear her grinding teeth. "Okay don't get your wand in a knot because I beat you at Hogwarts. You beat me in everything else."

"I was going all or nothing," she remarked lifelessly, forever bitter.

"Anyways, his uncle Cantankerous Nott is the owner of the antique book store down the road, Literary Ancients. It's a cover. Nobody goes there because the cheapest book is 600 Galleons. It's a hideout for a ring of criminals –and no, if you rat them out we will never solve this – whose leader that up until recently, I knew by reputation. Salvatore Sangrey."
It rolled of his tongue with such disdain that it reminded her of the way he used to talk down to Harry. Potter.
"Nott sought me out because he knew that I was capable of making difficult concoctions, offered me a ridiculous amount of galleons to brew some recipes, told me he was one of the sellers for someone 'higher up'. Apparently they'd scoured every newspaper and record to find I'd beaten Hermione Granger at school. All I had to do was brew some shit, most of them took a few weeks. I got about ten times the retail price per ingredient. So I agreed."

"Really? Really?"
She was at a loss for words.
Draco Malfoy, illegal potion master. It didn't sit right, she didn't think he'd have the balls for it.

"Look, Granger. I went back to Hogwarts so I could make something of myself other than 'Lucius Malfoy's Death Eater Son'. And nobody would have me after I graduated even though I know I would be great at a lot of Ministry or even damn St. Mungo's jobs. I didn't want to live at home anymore, my mother coddled me constantly while my father made embarrassing attempts to be social, and let's face it; The Malfoy's are pariahs. But they wouldn't give me any money if I left. So fuck it. I moved out immediately to an anonymous location and pay my landlord in cash. He doesn't give a damn or ask questions."

"I don't care about your life story, Draco," she rushed him. Well, that may have been a slight lie. She cared a little bit. "Exactly what kind of potions are you making?"

"Was I making. First, it was Felix Felicis. Liquid luck, fucking fair enough, people pay top dollar for that. What's the harm in boosting your chances a bit?"
A lot, Hermione was thinking, but she kept her mouth shut.
"Veritaserum, next. If Snape can make it and keep it at Hogwarts…what's really the harm in telling the truth?"

"Draco, are you justifying yourself to me?"

He handed her a look of loaded contempt.
"Don't flatter yourself, Granger. I'm telling you my train of thought. Normally I wouldn't have cared about the implications of everything I was doing if the reward was far greater. But I started to get requests for weird things like invisibility potions…bloodroot poison. Those ingredients are ridiculously hard to find, and I could only make one or two doses." Draco was fidgeting, hands shaking up and down his thighs across trousers. "And then…it was Amortentia. That is seriously illegal to sell. Even more so than poisons."

"You're joking. Amortentia?"
She was at a loss.

"Yes. I told Nott that I'd only bottle enough for just over the legal limit, because sex potions contain the same ingredients. Apparently the 'big guy', Salvatore, didn't like it but nobody else could do the job."

"Anything else?"

"Polyjuice too. You must know about that, I heard that your lot used it to get Potter out of his house. It takes an entire month."

Boy, did she know.

"My last straw, about four months ago; was Mendacium."

Now she was hanging onto every word: four months. April 25th.
Despite her disdain for his actions, this was the good stuff.
"Mendacium?" She hesitated to admit: "I've….I've never even heard of that."

"It's exceedingly tedious to brew," he emphasized. Hermone considered he might even be relishing in her ignorance. "It's a potion that, when drunk, waives all magic effects for twelve hours."

"All magic effects?"

"Yes. Maybe not the killing curse, but certainly all jinxes, all potions. It takes 5 months to cook, in fact, it's sitting in my attic as we speak."

"You're actually making it?"
Her voice was shrill, Draco winced.

"Just let me fucking finish. Nott gave me the instructions, which begged the question; who in the hell are you working for? Because that idiot is not smart enough to find a book that contains something so dangerously dark. Up til then, I didn't care to know who was in charge, and I didn't know it was Salvatore yet. But this…this was different. This had some pretty serious potential for evil."

"Did he tell you?"

"No, he refused. And I left it alone, pick your battles, until I got that Prophecy."

"Four months ago," she recalled, and he nodded, taking yet another swig. "Can you lay off until we finish?"

Bottle at his lips, he grimaced, slamming it back onto his lap.
"Fine. I got a letter from the Ministry, prompting me about its existence. I went in, la de da, and thought to myself – imminent destruction? Of course I was perplexed, but the world ending from me making a batch of potions didn't seem too plausible, especially considering I didn't make anything that causes explosions. I also didn't care to think of a girl I'd have to involve myself with. This operation I'd been running was supposed to be me alone – solitary – with no interference. And I knew nothing about who I was serving, so how could I 'reveal all'? Then – April 25th happened."

"April 25th," she repeated in a whisper.

He inhaled, sticking a thumb into his mouth and biting down hard, resting his elbow onto her desk.

"I'll tell you Granger, and you must not let anyone know, that I live in Knockturn Alley. In an old inn, the outside looks abandoned but it's a spell. I can hide easily and the drop off point for my potions is just up the lane. No harm or foul, or so I thought. April 25th I was drunk as all hell, I had visited my parents after my mother begged me to, and I stayed there much too late. It was 4 am when I made my way home, and I used the fireplace in Diagon Alley because apparition wouldn't work in a stupor. As I rounded the corner, I heard voices…one was soft, culling almost, and the other was desperate."

Hermione couldn't feel her hands, her chest was beating so hard she was seeing spots.
"It was a woman in black, who had backed up this man into the wall behind The Spiny Serpent. I thought perhaps they were going to fuck right then and there. " She was squirming at the vulgarity. "But they weren't drunk. No, the man was telling her how much he loved her. Talking a mile a minute. And she…she was telling him he could have all of her if he did what she said."

"And what did she say?"

"She wanted him to bring certain plants from the hospital to her house, because there were potions she really needed to make."

"The hospital?"

"Yes. He desperately wanted to marry her, but he'd lose his job if he was found out, and then he couldn't provide for her. And that's when I realized that all the ingredients she was naming for him to take were ones that I needed for mendacium. Because up until then, I'd get them in a neat little package from Cantakerous's shop. This batch I'm almost finished is only good for eight doses."

"And eight isn't enough?"

"Just wait, Granger. This gent was practically on his knees, but they had yet to touch. And then I realized…this poor sod had been slipped Amortentia. There was no other explanation for why he was so manically professing his love in the wee hours of the night in a fucking alleyway."

"Can you please stop saying 'fuck'?"
He was about to lash at her, but he saw she was registering this information, processing it with worry, rubbing her temple.

"I'm almost finished. She kept threatening to leave him if he wouldn't get her plants, but the man wouldn't budge, saying he couldn't do it. He'd just give her the stuff she wanted, but that wasn't good enough for her."

"So what did she do?"
Hanging onto his every syllable, Draco found he was relishing at the way her attention focused on him. Hair falling over her eyes, the skin on her chest peaking from her blouse as she was practically hanging over her desk. His anger seemed to lessen.

"Um," he cleared his throat. "I had been standing out of her line of sight the whole time. Suddenly I had the overwhelming need to vomit. I was trying very hard not to, and then - I heaved. She heard me. She turned around." Despite herself, Hermione gasped. "I got a good look – beautiful face – and she shuffled around. Whispering into his ear, he must've replied with something less than savoury because a split second later she growled, conked him on the head with a stunning spell and grabbed him. They apparated out of sight."

"What?!

"This all took place in about two minutes, Granger, I almost thought I'd imagined the whole thing until I read the headline of the Prophet a few days later– Head Healer, Ford Robertson, missing since Saturday."

"OH MY GOD."
Hermione was breathless, wide-eyed, feeling her body start to shake uncontrollable.
It had major been news for weeks: a public figure disappearing form thin air. Nobody had come forward to say they'd seen him, nobody knew where he was, not a single clue.

"Yes."

"So why didn't you say anything!?"
He could be dead, and Draco could've prevented it!
She was boiling to the surface now, her veins resurging with feeling, hands with the overwhelming urge to smack him.

"I wanted to! Granger, I was going to – but then I saw her, the woman, at the Spiny fucking Serpent not two days after the headline. And who was she with? Nott. Nott who was piss drunk. And! Fucking Salvatore Sangrey."

"What?"

"Yes. Nott introduced me to Salvatore, who acted all slick. I suppose Nott mentioned that I wanted to know who I was working for, and he thought it right to introduce himself. He likely sensed that I was hesitant about continuing, so he upped my payment. Rest assured that I was 'safe'. Ridiculous."
Shaking his head, he disregarded the 'rules' and sucked down the rum.

"But who was the woman?"

"Ramona Woodsen. She is Salvatore's 'girlfriend', so he said, but I'm certain she is his second-hand man, or should I say woman. Who needs that much mendacium if not for a hatched scheme? They are planning something big. Eight doses is quite a lot, but if you need a team to be unstoppable? You need plenty. Recently they'd asked for a double batch of love potion. I've been killing myself over what they could possibly do with a fuckton of Amortentia and the ability to be magic-less. Guess I know now. But we have time, I've still yet to receive any more ingredients to make the bloody invincible stuff, so that's going to take five more months lest they decide to forgo it."

"So it was April 25th when you decided to get serious?"

"I had already been speculating about my prophecy for some time, but it wasn't until I realized how dangerous my 'higher ups'," he air quoted, "That I went in again to hear it. I had to find the other person involved. Back of my mind, I'm pretty sure I knew it was you, dreaded it. I wanted to confirm it by looking up your birthday. And I did. Hard as fuck to track you down you know. I'm surprised I got past Weasley to even talk to you without rousing suspicion. But I did…And here we are."

He spread out his arms, ta da!, folding them afterwards, waiting for her response. It was a bomb of information to drop, with essentially no inkling of a lead to go on.

Head down, pensive, it took slow minutes for Hermione to finally speak:
"You are...absolutely, positively an idiot, Malfoy."

Throwing up his hands, he had no words.

"They are obviously getting Ford to grow the plants they need at a hideout. And controlling him with the love potion!"

"I figured that one out, genius!"
He was getting just as huffy as she was, both of them fiercely red.
"It's the why I don't know, and it's not like you do either!"

"Because you only just told me about everything!"

"Well, FUCK Granger! I'm trying to do the right thing, alright? I don't need you talking down to me."

His voice was icy, and she wanted nothing more than to flip her lid, and tell him doing the correct thing would've been to not dabble with criminals.
"Okay, okay, let's both calm down. So – you're making the potions, and they don't suspect anything?"

"Well –"
For the first time this visit he looked uneasy.

"Spill it, Draco!"

"Merlin, calm yourself! I went to the bar after seeing you this morning, and Nott found me. I informed him after this batch I want out, for my safety, and now he's basically told me that I will have to speak to Sangrey with him tomorrow evening because I 'can't do that'."

"Why would you tell him you want out!?"
Rookie mistakes, she furiously thought, about to shake him for being so bloody incompetent.

"Granger, it makes sense. People have come to know me around there and the deal was to be anonymous. I am no longer anonymous, it isn't a swift change in my character!"

"This is stupid. We have to tell someone. We have to tell someone now."

"NO!"
He yelled so loudly, she flinched. Sitting up pin straight, he was incensed.
"Didn't you hear what they did to that man? How in the hell did Ramona slip him the drink in the first place? How did they find the instructions for mendacium? We don't know what they're capable of. I don't want to be involved, which is why we should operate from the outside. If I get tacked onto anything I'm dead. We're dead."

"Draco, are you a Slytherin or what?" He was taken aback by the disgust laced in her tone. "That is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. If they see you back off, and suddenly their stint goes up in flames, they'll suspect you! You have to keep going, you have to play double agent!"

"But I don't want to!"
Backing off, she recoiled from his voice. Then recalled what he had told her at Arran's party: I'm scared.

She was scared too.
"Draco," she almost cooed, softly enough that his mouth twisted into a frown, "We're in this together. But if you leave them, then we won't have any information, and the only thing we could do is spy. And what if we got caught? If you were still involved, you could make an excuse. When you go tomorrow night, you can convince them you've been mulling it all over!"

Malfoy could see the idea forming in her mind, her eyes lighting up like fire.
"Tell Salvatore you want a bigger involvement because you don't like being kept in the dark if you aren't going to stay as a confidential partner. Be demanding, and be rude, I know you can do that. Don't back down, make him respect you. If you really are one of the only ideal people who can do this job, let them know it."

He had to admit that that was a good strategy.
He also had to admit he was terrified of being strung along again like he was a mere 6 years ago, a pawn in a bigger plot.

"Alright, alright." he had to concede. He had to man up. "I'll try, ok? I can't promise that'll happen, I've only met him once. I'm meeting them around 2 am, for privacy. I will….I guess I'll come see you the day after at 12 and tell you about it?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Well I want to get some bloody sleep, I haven't been able to for a solid month."

With no goodbye, he shot up, snatched his alcohol, and ran out the door.
Alone now with only her thoughts, Hermione felt the gravity of the thing gripping her insides. This information she promised to lock away in a box with no key.

How long could she last without spilling her guts to Harry or Ron?