A/N: Trigger: sexual assault, but it's self-inflicted

And so it continued. Hermione studied with almost religious zeal, save for when Draco pried her from her desk and took her out. Draco, obviously, took Hermione out here, there, hither and yon and didn't make much headway with jogging Hermione's memory. It was a lot harder than he thought. Maybe there were books on the subject?

Probably. In the Wizarding world. A place where he was worse than persona non grata.

Anyway.

One evening, Draco stopped by the pub to pick up a takeaway order or butter chicken, rice, beef nachos and extra sour cream when Tara shimmied into appearance behind him. Recognising her cloying perfume, Draco suppressed a sigh.

"Someone's getting spoiled," she purred, cocking the large plastic bag, crammed with goods that smelled very nice indeed.

Draco looked at her carefully. "I guess," he replied neutrally.

"You're always the bill payer," Tara said admiringly. "I like that in a bloke."

Draco couldn't for the life of him understand why this Muggle seemed so determine to chat him up every chance she got. If he had his wand, a subtle hex or two would have her second-guessing an association with him, but it was not to be.

"Henri is a student," he reluctantly explained. "I work, so I don't mind paying for stuff."

"Henri?" Tara's voice rose two or three octaves. "That's her name?"

No. "Yes."

Tara laughed, not in the nicest fashion, then changed the subject. "So, what do you do for a job, then?"

The nosiness of this bitch!

Coldly, he replied "I'm a motorbike courier." Then he collected the plastic bag with dinner in it, now a little cooler. He nodded shortly to her and beelined out the door.

Tara watched him leave.

One morning, Hermione set off at a brisk stroll towards the supermarket. She was in a tomato soup mood.

It was rubbish day, so the street the clogged with bags, bins and containers housing the unwanted, unneeded and unliked. Her own rubbish sat neatly up against her low brick wall. Looked like Draco hadn't put his out yet. He might be late if he doesn't hurry.

Piled on top of a nearby collection of beer bottles and slightly damp from the overnight air, sat a small pile of books.

Textbooks.

Curious, she stopped at peered at the top book.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was embossed on the top part of the book. In the middle was an elaborate heraldic emblem, each with a different animal of sorts residing in one of the four corners. In the centre of the emblem lay a large, proud 'H' and her heart skipped a beat.

Looking furtively around, she reached out a hand towards the books – and stopped.

Am I stealing? she asked herself.

Of course not, she replied to herself. It's obviously someone's rubbish. You're just re-homing them.

Still, she felt a little rebellious.

She grabbed the books and scooted back home before her conscience could change her mind.

Draco took a sip of coffee while watching Hermione hurry inside with the textbooks. Rather good of Dumbledore to supply the books at his request, charmed to look like dog-eared magazines on macrame to all passers-by – except witches and wizards, of course.

The first thing Draco wanted to know was whether she could properly read them. Which she apparently could. (Unless she'd suddenly discovered a passion for macrame.)

Her magical core was still ticking away.

Next challenge: getting her to read them to see if she could remember anything. And to find out if she had any dormant wandless magic inside her.

He put his coffee cup in the kitchen sink and grabbed his helmet. Time for work.

What a day that turned out to be.

In town

Draco, in the middle of his shift, kicked the motorbike's stand into place and furrowed through his satchel.

He pulled out an official-looking envelope and checked the address on it with the building in front of him. 'Miller and Son Bank and Savings.' Yep, looked like a bank to him. Simon mentioned they were new clients and reminded him not to fuck up.

Pulling off his helmet (not allowed in banks, otherwise he usually kept it on and lifted the visor) he headed inside and looked around for something like a reception desk.

He quickly found it, and blinked in surprise when he saw who among the duo of ladies occupying it.

Who practically pole-vaulted over the lacquered table to greet him.

Tara.

"Thank you so much for this delivery!" Tara gushed, clutching the envelope so it creased. Her eyelashes flapped like birds' wings. "It's ever so good of you."

"Yeah, well, no problem," Draco murmured, desperate to get back on his bike and do his job. But he had an idea he was going to be delayed a smidgeon.

How right he was.

"The document just needs to be countersigned by the branch manager before it goes to Head Office," Tara gushed, dragging Draco by the hand to an innocuous-looking door lurking in a dark corner of the bank.

"Okay, but why do I have to come along?" Draco protested, looking longingly at the bank's glass front doors. But Tara didn't reply.

She unlocked the door, threw him a come-hither smile, and shoved him inside.

Much later that day

Draco slumped in a sterile, brightly-lit cube of a room, euphemistically called an 'Interview Room.' The cube was contained within a building called a 'Police Station.' He figured the uniformed robots ordering him around were the Muggle equivalent of Aurors. He sighed.

When the Police pulled him over a couple of hours after his enforced visit to the bank, they told him he was under arrest on the suspicion of sexual assault. He stared at them, uncomprehending, then he asked what would happen if he didn't want to go with them. One of the officers held up a funny-looking pair of metal bracelets joined together by a short chain and said "We can do this the easy way or the hard way," with a gleam in his eye that Draco did not care for.

The easy way took him for bracelet-less a car ride to this soulless building, which was cold and smelled funny. He was hungry and grumpy. The Malfoy Look worked on no one. All it resulted in was a policewoman peering at him and asking if he had a headache.

The other thing that made him grumpy were his options for desperately-needed help. He had no idea what he was doing in this cube. He hadn't sexually assaulted anyone. When told who he had allegedly sexually assaulted, he gritted his teeth and started grinding.

Tara. Again.

Anyway. Dumbledore and Slytherin could make all this go away, but there were a large number of Muggles to obliviate, and he was warned that if he requested this option, he'd back in the Afterlife shortly after. For good.

So…. he'll put that in the 'maybe' pile.

Calling Simon, his boss, would probably cause more problems than solve them. He could picture Simon sitting next to him at the Interview Table, wheezing hysterically when told of the charge (because he knew Draco wouldn't ruin his one chance of living again over a bird), getting yelled at for trying to light up a smoke inside a government building, then getting arrested when it turned out the smoke was, in fact, weed.

Who was the most intelligent person he knew?

Hermione hid her shock when she picked up the phone to find Draco on the other end, saying he'd been arrested and needed a lawyer or some such.

She found him someone better.

"Right!"

Gerry Toogood, sporting new fluorescent pink tips on the ends of her spiky hair, swanned into the Interview Room like she owned the place, followed by her enormous bag, and took up lots of real estate next to Draco at the table. She nodded at a surprised Draco and then at the two policemen sitting opposite. "G'day, Roger. How'd you be?"

The more senior officer nodded back. "It's been a while, Gerry," he replied. "This is my colleague Constable Sunil" – he nodded to the poker-faced officer who was fiddling with a box of machinery on the table (as it seemed to Draco, but to the rest of us was called recording equipment). "And you obviously know Mr Malfoy."

"Who?" Gerry asked, then realisation dawned. "Oh, yeah. Young Draco here. I didn't know his surname."

Draco pinched the bridge of his nose. He was fucked.

However, Draco's faith in the comos and Gerry was restored.

As the machinery whirred, Roger the Sergeant barely managed to get a sentence out before Gerry scoffed and said "You're accusing this kid of sexual assault? Pull the other one, mate."

Sergeant Roger sighed. "Let me get through the summary of facts first, then we can discuss whether your client did it or not."

Gerry mimed buttoning her lip, then surprisingly, patted Draco's hand with reassuring warmth.

"So you're saying," Gerry said, peering at her dog-eared notebook (Draco could see the page she was looking at was completely blank) "that Draco followed this Tara Pratchett into a secure part of the bank he could not have accessed on his own, and when she told him to leave, he forcibly kissed her, pushed her against a wall, shoved his hands underneath her clothing and mauled her bare breasts."

"That's correct," said Roger, although he made a note of Gerry's mentioning of restricted access. "Ms Pratchett submitted her shirt and bra as evidence. They're pretty ripped. Also there are fingertip-shaped bruises on her breasts. Photographic evidence is forthcoming."

Gerry looked sceptically at the Police, while Draco sputtered in outraged indignation. "That's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard!" he said hotly.

"Don't swear in front of the Police," Gerry murmured. "Why don't you tell the nice gentlemen what really happened?"

Easy. Draco eyeballed each nice gentleman and began.

"This lady – Tara" –

"You know her, then?"

"Just barely," Draco elaborated. "I'd see her at the local pub and she'd follow me around, making flirty comments and insulting my – er… friend" –

A corner of Gerry's mouth twitched.

…"then last week at the pub, she blatantly asked me what I did for a job, and I, incredibly stupidly, told her."

"What is your occupation?"

"Motorcycle courier."

The Sergeant made another note. "Go on."

"We got a job to deliver an envelope to a bank this morning. I delivered it around 10am. Tara received the envelope." He paused, recalling exactly how pleased and excited she was to see him.

"What happened next?"

"She said the document had to be signed by a higher-up and insisted that I go with her to find him." Draco crossed his arms and looked up at the government-issue ceiling. "She pulled me into this small, windowless office and locked the door behind us. She threw the envelope on the table and said she'd wanted me since the day we met, and she was much better than my, um, friend. Then she shoved me into a chair, climbed onto me and kissed me. Very much against my will."

The Police officers looked at each other. "Then what happened?"

Draco slumped in his government-issue seat. He wasn't proud of what happened next. And he felt massively impotent without his wand. "I shoved her off" –

"Where did you place your hands?"

Draco raised his hands up, then hesitatingly pushed them forward on thin air. "On her shoulders," he replied.

"Did you at any time touch her breasts?"

Draco's lip curled before he met Gerry's eye. "Definitely not. I went out of my way not to touch her like that."

"Why is that?"

"Because it was what she wanted," Draco replied. "This whole thing was a set-up in order to force me into a relationship of some kind with her by using blackmail. In my opinion."

There was a knock at the door, and Roger got up to open it.

Sitting back at the table, Roger intoned "Let the record reflect that copies of photographs taken of Ms Pratchett have been submitted for interview purposes. Mr Malfoy, please take a good look at these photographs and be prepared to answer some questions on them."

Both Draco and Gerry leaned forward to peer at the photos, and both peerers were shocked at what they saw. Draco was shocked because there was no way he did any of that awful damage to Tara, and Gerry because, well, the damage was pretty awful.

Draco pulled Gerry aside and whispered "I swear I had nothing to do with that! Maybe a werewolf materialised and had a go at her."

Gerry presumed Draco was joking. "Well, if you didn't hurt her, who did?"

"She did it herself, is my bet."

Gerry frowned. "Why does this bird hate you so much?"

"Because I wouldn't go out with her," Draco said morosely. Then – "Do you actually believe me?"

"I believe Henri," was Gerry's response. "She's a smart cookie and I trust her judgement. She trusts you, ergo, I trust you."

Draco was so relieved that for an awful second he thought he was going to cry.

"So," Gerry announced, turning back to the Police, "am I right in assuming that other potential party to the assault has been considered and that Mr Malfoy is not the sole suspect?"

Roger's eyes boggled. "Mr Malfoy is the sole suspect," he said neutrally.

"But it's really just her word against his!"

Roger gestured to the photos. "Plus the injuries," he pointed out.

"She could have done them herself."

Roger cleared his throat to hide the snort of laughter.

"Have you taken her fingernail clippings to see whose DNA is beneath them? Assuming she defended herself?"

"We have, and we require Mr Malfoy to submit to a DNA test as well."

"All in good time," Gerry cautioned. "This here's a bank we're talking about, right? There must be CCTV cameras up the wazoo at that place. Have you checked the footage for the room the two were in at the time the assault was allegedly occurring?"

Colour suffused Roger's cheeks. Someone had to go back and require the footage from the bank manager, but it was in transit. "We're expecting the footage shortly."

"Well, then," Gerry said brightly. "Fancy a gentlemen's bet? You bet my boy Draco assaulted Ms Pratchett, and rather forcefully so. I bet Ms Pratchett set Draco up in a classic case of The Green-Eyed Monster."

Roger smiled. "You know we're not allowed to bet on government premises," he reminded her.

Gerry snorted. "No gambling anywhere, it seems."

Draco was ushered to a holding cell while the Police waited for the CCTV footage to present itself for analysis. "Don't worry," Gerry said cheerfully as Draco gingerly felt his way around the tiny room. "You won't be in here for long. Now, if someone turns up waving a cotton bud at you and mumbling about your DNA, tell them you don't consent at this point in the investigation. Since you're going to be innocent" – Draco nodded – "it's best not to have your DNA on Police files. See you soon."

Draco said thanks, then tried to get conformable in his cold, temporary prison cell. He had to puzzle out what DNA meant. And what CCTV meant.

Some time later, Draco heard a jingling of keys at his door, and looked up. An anonymous Police officer held the door open. "Malfoy. You're free to go."

The words he'd been longing to hear.

He padded after Constable Anonymous to a busy reception area, where he was told to sign a sheaf of forms.

"Wait, wait, don't sign 'em until I check 'em!" Gerry huffed and puffed her way up to Reception, elbowed Draco out of the way and started reading.

"What happened?" Draco couldn't wait until Gerry finished reading.

Fortunately, the good lady could walk and chew gum at the same time. "The camera tells no lies," Gerry intoned, finishing one form and plonking it under Draco's nose for him to sign. "The footage in the windowless office clearly showed her leaping on top of you, you shoving her off by the shoulders then stalking out in high dudgeon. Little Miss Pratchett stared at the door a bit, locked it again, then went to town on her outer and underclothing and groped her breasts. Tried to give herself a black eye, too, but she lacked the commitment to go through with it."

Draco signed another form. "What will happen to her now?"

"Well, hopefully she'll be charged with wasting Police time. But just in case she gets a senile old Judge who gets dazzled by her freakishly long eyelashes, I'll help you apply for a restraining order."

Draco looked blank.

"That means she won't be able to enter the pub if you're in it. Or turn up at your house or place of work."

Draco was relieved to hear he could frequent the pub without her breathing down his neck. Most of his meals (aside the ones Hermione cooked) came from there.

Once outside the Police Station, Draco drew in gulps of crisp, cleanish air. "You're a marvel, Gerry," he said. "Don't ever change."

Gerry snorted, but her cheeks bloomed. "Now," she said, power-walking to her illegally-parked car, Draco in tow, "when are you going to make an honest woman of my Henri?"

Draco was speechless. "Uh, what" –

"Oh, don't play coy with me, young man!" Gerry wagged a finger at him. "It's as plain as the nose on my face that you and Henri are crazy about each other. So release the handbrake and ask her out, man!"

Draco's mouth opened and closed.

Gerry hopped into her car and pulled Draco in. "Look, I worry about her being all on her own, you see. The bloody Police still haven't found whoever mutilated her. They could be anywhere!"

Draco swalled. Hard.

"So I'd feel much better if she had a bloke around to keep an eye on her, you know?" Gerry started the ignition and the car roared into life. She leaned confidentially into Draco. "Even better, keeping an eye on her from her bed, wink wink."

With that, she peeled off into the busy traffic, and Draco tried his best to prevent every millilitre of blood he possessed rushing to his cheeks.

A/N: Police procedures referenced in this chapter bear little resemblance to the real thing. This is necessary for plot development.