Back in his office, Draco stood a safe distance away, discreetly training his wand under his sleeve on Hermione's wild, wary pacing.

"Are you going to buy something, or not?"

Draco wasn't on top of his game—but he had a shitload of practice in making deals with desperate people. Push the sale. Give them a deadline.

He winced as Hermione took a beeline for his stash in the large cabinet, knowing better than to step in between a starving half-vampire and their next meal. She rummaged through an assortment of strange items until she found the blood bags. She selected one and held it up in the light. Then she gave it a good sniff and let out a contented sigh.

A thrilling shiver went through him as she licked the side of the bag. She was about to tear into it with her teeth, but then she caught herself in the mirror's reflection against the side wall. She stared at herself long and hard, like a succubus caught in the act, and slowly lowered the bag from her face.

Draco held his inner reactions in check and put on his best poker face as she turned to face him full on.

"Does this make me one of your clients?" she asked.

"Desperation pays my bills. How much did you bring?"

He felt his cordiality expiring as unnamed side effects of his experimental potion cued up to make their presence known. Losing control with the underbelly of London was one thing. Debasing himself in front of a Ministry employee, well, that was reckless, too. But Draco was at the end of his rope. On the bright side, he wouldn't be putting on a show for the entire pub.

"What is wrong with me?" she repeated, wearing a worry-path on the priceless oriental rug. She still had the bag in her hands, but it was farther away from her face, as if she were trying to convince herself that she didn't need it.

"I keep asking myself the same thing," he said. "What's so special about me that I get to go on living when I've done all this horrible shite. Why is my life more valuable than everyone else's?"

Ah, yes. Over sharing. He should make a note of that.

His gaze shifted back to the bag in her hand. "You're buying that, aren't you?" The smirk was thick in his tone. Interesting.

"Because if not," he said, suddenly harsher, "then get out."

Oookay… mood swings, check.

Hermione stopped her pacing. Her mouth was literally salivating as she continued to resist the pull of the contents of the bag. Her voice came out in a stutter, as if her control was on its last legs as well. "Is money all you care about?"

Was it? If he had all of his faculties, his verbal sparring would be on a much higher level with this woman, but even his sluggish brain took notice that something significant had changed since he'd seen her last time. Hermione was resisting her urges far better than the average half-turned mess, and Draco had serviced a surprising number of them over the last few weeks, which had been a great profit to his bottom line. The one thing they couldn't resist was a pull to satisfy their most basic urges.

Hey, Draco had urges too, and right now, he was losing care about who Hermione Granger worked for or who her friends were. She was on a large, corporate payroll. Which meant he could exploit the funds given to her in his name.

Or… Draco tried to rub his brain cells together enough to form a plan. Options, options… What else had he got? He could get that guileless reporter from The Prophet, Skeeter, in here. She could take photographs and, with Granger in that bite-me outfit, make a killer blackmail deal. Skeeter was on one of Draco's products too—she'd be willing to make a sweet deal out of it.

Yeah, life was like a decomposing ghoul with the Transylvanian Flu, and then one day, you just weren't strong enough to rattle your chains anymore. Or in his case, he recovered sufficiently to suffer another day. Draco could endure the pain of survival, as long as the profit margin was wide enough.

So how could he keep Granger occupied long enough to contact Skeeter?

Hermione didn't seem to care about Ministry protocol either, or maybe she was too single-minded to pay attention. "It's hot in here," she said, rubbing a hand down the front of her neck.

"Yeah," he agreed, loosening his tie and undoing his top three buttons. Warm under the collar went on the mental list. Warm in other places too... This was something to pay attention to.

"Burns said I have little time. I hate being rushed, but I'm so starved I can't think straight anymore. Last time you gave me something that made my magic come back, and this smells different.. I just… I liked how that felt. I want to feel it again."

"I don't know a Burns, personally. Maybe you could introduce me. What is he? Wizard? Vampire? Is he the one stringing you along?"

"No one's stringing me along."

She was lying. Or someone hadn't given her the whole story. He didn't feel any obligation to do the honors, but it would be a crime if the great Hermione Granger went down not even realizing…

"Surely you know what happened to you."

"He said it's reversible. I'm working on it." Beads of sweat appeared on her unusually radiant skin. If he was close enough to her, he could do something about that… lick it off her, perhaps? His pants began to feel snug, and he tried (and probably failed) to be discreet about loosening his belt buckle.

"As if they're going to cooperate with you. They're going to take what they want, when they want it, and it won't be on your terms. All you can do is hold on to what you have, and hope for the best. You're here because I have something that can give you a temporary reprieve from your inevitable doom. Sometimes, that's all you can hope for. As long as you've got the gold, we can keep talking." He'd given this spiel before, all of it true. Draco almost felt bad for treating her like a common bloodsucker… but not enough to stop the show.

She held the bag up, apparently tired of pacing around with it. "How much?"

"Ah," he said, back to business. "Double last time."

"Double! That's insane!" she cried. "It's not even the same!"

Her anger amused him on several levels. And aroused him even more. "I don't think you're in a bargaining position. So, you've got to ask yourself how hungry you are, and what you are willing to pay to end your misery."

He watched with great interest as she shoved a hand into the pocket of her jeans.

"I am absolutely famished," she said, slamming down the coins she'd retrieved onto his desk.

That was too easy. He could have tripled the price. But no matter, the barkeep would get a good chunk from this transaction.

Hermione held up the bag. "Maybe once this would have made me feel bad, but I'm having a hard time feeling anything right now." She tipped the bag up and bit into it.

He could tell by the way her pupils blocked out all the color in her eyes that she was lying again. She was feeling all kinds of things. Once she left, he could get in a good one with himself, get all slap happy if he needed to. Or...

"I could help with that," he said as his zipper pressed unbearably against his groin. He wasn't above the occasional intimate request from his clients to fill the emptiness inside them after they fed.

Hermione dropped the empty bag on the rug and flexed her fingers. "Why isn't it happening?" she asked, staring hard at her fingers. She rubbed her fingertips together, then whirled on Draco.

"Where is the other stuff?" she demanded, baring her teeth at him.

Before he could react, she was back in the cabinet, tossing things aside. Draco winced as a box of empty bottles clinked as they hit the Persian rug.

She whirled around again, following her nose to the box under Draco's desk. Inside, Draco died a little as she began upending the small doses of his new stash into her mouth, licking the drops that spilled onto her chin.

"This," she said, holding the potion in front of her, "is helping."

That potion cost way more than the coins she had slapped onto his desk. But in this case, money didn't matter. What mattered was that she had just burned through his new supply, which was going to take him more time. More blood. More carbs. How much cake was still in the cooler? At this rate, he'd have to order out for steak.

But also, this meant that her manic pilfering was almost over. Draco made his way slowly to the cabinet, forming a plan.

If she used the animal blood as a chaser to his mix, her cravings would cease for a whole day. He could appeal to her human side and tell her that she could resist this madness if she wanted to. Clearly she didn't want to, but he was told that he could be quite persuasive.

He dug around in his cabinet and pulled out more of the same blood bags. Cow. Pig. Not tasty, but they would continue to clear her head. Maybe even prod her to leave once she'd come down from the numbing high.

So he'd heard.

Hermione made a soft mewling sound as she finished off the potion that made him harden so fast that he'd probably end up with zipper imprints. That wasn't a reaction he needed right now.

He considered taking a dose of the Everclear on his desk to remind himself of all the ways Granger had not been appealing once upon a time. Then, maybe his body would calm the fuck down, because hot and bothered looked really, really good on her. It was probably the potion. Maybe it was only partly the potion. No, it had to be just a side effect. But then, did he really want to find out which part of his brain was telling the truth?

Besides, she was about to pass out from the sedative. In a minute or two, she'd become a harmless lump on the floor. Draco collected the blood bags and closed the cabinet, locking it this time. A soft rustling sound behind him made him smile. There it was, she was going down.

He turned around just in time to see Hermione Granger climbing over the ottoman towards him.

"It's not enough," she whined as she got back to her feet. As if climbing over furniture was just as acceptable as walking around it. "I can't feel it."

Draco's scrambled brain reeled. Then he realized those bottles were only half full… because he hadn't finished the formula. The sleepy additive hadn't been added yet. Which meant…

He backed up, bumping against the closed cabinet as she approached him. Her eyes burned with need. A finger traced along the veins in her own neck, as if she could follow the mixture entering her system. He watched her trail down between her cleavage, the spreading of her hand along her midsection, making its way lower.

His eyes took in everything, and then traced all the way back up to her face—where her fangs descended and gleamed in the flickering light. Her smile transformed into a grimace. Her voice became a snarl.

"I need more."

Draco's pulse slammed through his body like tiny, synchronized bludgers. Even in his altered state, with the potion's side-effects coursing through his veins, he was hyper aware of two things:

Hermione Granger was hot.

And in the next few minutes, if he didn't give her exactly what she wanted, she was probably going to kill him.