"Potter never thought to clean up this mess after he rifled through it?" he asked, kicking an empty potting jar across the kitchen floor.

"Malfoy, don't! This is a crime scene!" she warned, reaching down to replace the jar from whence it came. "We're not here to present the award for Witch Weekly's Cleanest Cottage...the idea is to look for anything relevant the Aurors may have missed on previous visits."

"Is that a thing?" Theo asked as he leaned against the kitchen wall, arms folded loosely across his chest.

"I knew we shouldn't have brought him," Draco mumbled, making a spectacle of having to tip-toe every third step to avoid knocking into any more debris. "How in Merlin's name will we be able to pick up on anything that's out of place if literally everything is out of place?"

"Revelio." Hermione cast the simple spell around the perimeter of the kitchen, ignoring the obstinate wizard at her side. When unsurprisingly nothing happened, she forged through the door's threshold undeterred, taking painstakingly careful steps into the aft sitting area.

"I'm sure the Aurors already tried that," Draco grumbled under his breath as he followed closely behind.

She swung around, wand held high in her grasp. "I don't see you attempting to uncover anything. Did you come here to work or is your plan to continue walking in my shadow?"

The barb was meant to reference his current position at her heels, but that's not at all how he took it.

He had been hearing that particular insult from his parents since his first year at Hogwarts, and it stung.

Before he was able to fashion a biting reply, the clipped voice of Theo rang out from across the kitchen. "If you two are going to fight like an old married couple, I'm out." With very little effort, he pushed himself off the wall with his foot. "I'll be outside surveilling the perimeter. Holler if you need me." And with a gruff sniff, he strode outside through the cottage's back door.

"It's nice to see your loathsome personality continues to drive men to run in the opposite direction." Draco's cold eyes narrowed at her. "In fact, I think I too will follow suit."

He turned theatrically on his heel and stalked back into the kitchen.

Huffing something inaudible under her breath, she continued her slow and deliberate exploration of the sitting area.

Peering up, she noticed a narrow walkway leading out into the greenhouse and decided it prudent to have a closer look at what remained of Miriam's garden.

Upon first glance, she was awestruck at the sprawling enclosure, expertly lined with galvanized steel beams and fitted with rigid polycarbonate panels.

Linear pathways sliced through the broad arboretum, leading to an elaborate workspace dotted with cauldrons at the back of the massive structure.

Gravel crunched under her feet as she slowly made her way down a cramped path edged with what appeared to be the remnants of asphodel root or aconite. She paused to cradle one of the lifeless leaves in her outstretched hand. Aconite. Such a shame, she thought. She would have given anything for her flat's greenhouse to have a fraction of this one's grandeur.

Seeing something that had once been teeming with life now reduced to nothing more than shriveled compost affected her far more than it likely would have had she not been an avid potioneer herself. She wondered if Miriam supplemented the St. Mungo's stores with her personal draughts or if this was solely a leisure endeavor.

The question reminded her how very little they knew about this woman who had been a staple at the hospital for so many years.

When she finally arrived at the elongated workspace at the back of the nursery, she paused to examine the surprisingly coordinated display...three cauldrons placed approximately one meter apart, each with a wooden stool secured beneath the counter.

Apparently not everything was upended in the raid.

She reached into her beaded bag to retrieve three empty vials. Waving her wand, she muttered an extraction spell above each cauldron. As she did so, a thin, wispy thread of residue unfurled from within each vessel and deposited itself into the corresponding chamber. With the sampling complete, she stoppered each tube and tucked them neatly within her beaded bag. With any luck, those would reveal Miriam's most recent amalgamations.

Just then she heard a loud bang issue from inside the house, causing her breath to catch in her throat.

Malfoy.

With her heart pounding like the hooves of a wild centaur, she bounded down one of the rows toward the main residence, loose pebbles flying like a spray of bullets.

When she arrived at the kitchen's edge, she skidded to a halt, wand held firmly out in front of her and eyes darting uncertainly toward any sign of danger.

Just beyond the length of the kitchen wall, past a haphazardly rolled-up area rug, Malfoy's head peered out from a gaping hole in the floor causing her to spring backward.

She would have burst out laughing at the sight had it not been for the obvious gravity of the situation.

"What may I ask are you doing down there?" she asked, slowly inching forward and lowering her outstretched wand.

"Oh, you know, just doing some light housekeeping," he answered, rolling his eyes in contempt. "What do you think I'm doing?! Get Theo, please."

"I can help you," she offered, stepping closer.

"I don't need your help, Granger. What I need is Theo's expertise."

"I beg your pardon. Theo's a Hit Wizard. Unless there's an armed fugitive down there with you, I'm certain my skillset would out-perform Theo's in every regard."

"While I'd love to stand here and continue listening to you dissertate on your credentials, there's a safe down here that I'd like to open sometime this century. So, if you wouldn't mind, please get Theo like I asked you to."

"A safe? What kind of safe?" She lurched forward to have a closer look at the opening in the floor. Gleaning the outer edge of a black steel coffer, she gasped. "Malfoy! How did you find this? Move over...I'm coming down."

"Absolutely not! There's barely room enough for me to stand let alone two-" But before his words were out, she had already crouched down and dropped into the cramped space, suddenly finding the length of her entire body pressed uncomfortably against that of her erstwhile adversary. "Brilliant, Granger. Now neither of us can move." He looked down at her with disdain.

"Sorry, I didn't realize-" she stammered, feeling the heat from his gaze pool in her stomach. She chased it away with a clearing of her throat. "It's just...I once helped Harry open a safe at a job site in Surrey." She squared her shoulders, looking up at him with steadfast eyes. "I figured I might have a look."

"Right. Well, you could have at least warned me you were going to jettison yourself into my personal space."

She tried and failed to stifle her laughter behind her hand.

"It's not funny, Granger. Maybe you and the dimwitted duo spend your nights tangled in each other's embrace, but I rather dislike being accosted at every turn."

She rolled her eyes, smirking. "Ok, Malfoy. I'll refrain from accosting you in the future. Now if you're done with the little lecture on your intimacy issues, I'd like for you to give me a hand with the safe."

"I've already tried all the routine unlocking spells, Granger. None have worked."

"What about a Bombarda?"

"Right, because blowing its contents into smithereens seemed like the prudent thing to do," he scoffed.

She grabbed him by the front of his robes and yanked him down to crouch in front of the safe alongside her, making no move to apologize for the unnecessary roughness. "We'll never accomplish anything if you continue to argue with me at every turn. Now, light your wand."

Wrenching his robes from her grasp, he begrudgingly withdrew his wand from his pocket and held it out in front of him. "Lumos," he muttered. "Not because you told me to...but because I'm rather terrified of what sort of brutality you'll exhibit next if left under the cover of darkness."

She nudged Malfoy a few measures back, pointing her wand firmly at the inset lock affixed to the front of the safe. "Cover your face...just in case."

"What the fu-" But before he could finish, her wand was raised causing him to immediately shield his head with his cradled arms.

"Bombarda minima," she said, barely above a whisper.

With a dulcet crunch, the lock gently splintered into a thousand tiny pieces, cascading onto the floor in a well-coordinated heap. Granger reached a deft finger into the modest hole left in its wake and with a tender flick, unlatched the pin holding the door closed.

As the hatch swung open a crack, she turned to look at Malfoy who was still hunched over in the fetal position.

"Malfoy!" She shook his shoulder to unfurl him from his flimsy protective stance.

He peered up through the tiny gaps in his fingers mumbling something that sounded very much like, "Am I still alive?" Cautiously holding his hands out in front of his face, he looked them over, front to back. No loss of limbs, he noted. Then suddenly remembering why he was in his current panicked state, he glanced up at Hermione with a murderous glare. "For fuck's sake, Granger...are you trying to kill us both?"

Willfully ignoring his theatrics, she cast a Lumos with her wand and held it up to the safe's opening. Slowly maneuvering the door open with her other hand, she gasped when she saw its contents. "Malfoy, look!"

He dipped his head lower and saw that within the safe's confines sat a tired wire rack, which housed two glass vials, each one containing a silver shimmering substance that appeared to be both liquid and gas.

"Merlin. These are memories, Draco-"

"I have a Pensieve at the Manor. We can take them there and have a look-."

All of a sudden, an earsplitting BANG! reverberated from above causing them both to leap backward in alarm...the sound of Theo clattering through the front door.

"Malfoy! Granger!" he hollered in a voice Draco immediately recognized as panic. "Someone's coming! Let's go!"

"We're down here!" Malfoy yelled, standing up to get Theo's attention.

Granger hurriedly seized the vials from within the safe and shoved them into her bag, just as Malfoy grabbed her by the waist and hoisted her back up through the hole onto the kitchen floor.

Theo bounded over just in time to catch her arm in his, as Malfoy swiftly followed her through the opening.

They heard footsteps rapidly approaching the walkway leading to the house, the rhythmic pounding of feet on pavement...at least two men, maybe more.

Theo looked with alarm from Draco to Hermione before instinctively reaching out his arm. "I know a place. Grab hold." And with a crack, they Apparated away to the outskirts of the property, far enough away so they wouldn't be seen, but close enough to keep a watchful eye on the uninvited guests.

"Who the bloody hell was that?" Draco asked with a hint of panic after they'd landed and he'd taken a moment to catch his breath.

"I didn't get a good look. I was on the other side of the house when I heard them coming through the trees." Theo's unsteady hand moved to rigidly knead the back of his neck. "Wanted to get you two out of there before it was too late."

"Thanks, mate," Draco said, settling a firm grip on the other wizard's shoulder.

Malfoy turned with marked trepidation, only to find Granger elbow-deep in her beaded bag.

She was breathing heavily, frantically rifling through its contents.

"This isn't the time to be powdering your face, Granger," he snapped.

Draco's long history of witnessing Pansy and Daphne rummaging through their purses in much the same manner left him very familiar with the panicked look of a woman in search of a refresh.

Hermione huffed. "I'm not looking for powder, you dim-witted fool!"

"Woah, easy Granger...remember what we talked about earlier," Theo reminded the worked-up witch.

Draco's eyes shifted suspiciously from Theo to Granger. "What exactly did you talk about earlier?"

When neither answered, he scoffed. "What, now the pair of you are hosting secret meetings? That's fucking brilliant. I may as well just go on my merry way and leave you two to your little clandestine sisterhood." He turned sharply and began to stalk off when Granger grabbed him firmly by the wrist.

"I found it!"

Draco stopped, turning to see her holding out what appeared to be a pair of eyeballs in her outstretched hand.

He clenched his eyes shut and stiffly ran a hand through his hair and down the length of his face. "Do I even dare ask what in the bloody hell those are?"

"This is going to get us back into the cottage without us actually having to go back in!" she declared with an irritating air of academia and an exceedingly pleased look on her face.

Draco glanced with pained bewilderment at Theo and he shrugged.

"I don't follow, Granger," Malfoy said with patience he scarcely possessed. "Maybe you can tell us how we're supposed to see you holding a pair of eyeballs and believe that the likes of a child's trinket might be helpful given our circumstances."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "This isn't a child's trinket...well, not entirely. It's one of George's newest gadgets from the shop-"

"For the love-." Draco huffed under his breath, as he began pacing back and forth. "You've spent the last ten minutes searching for a toy from the joke shop? How in Merlin's name did you defeat the darkest wizard of all time when a Weasley novelty knickknack is your primary plan of action?" He choked out a derisive chuckle.

"Laugh all you want. This Weasley 'knickknack' is going to procure us the information we need without us even having to draw our wands from their holsters. Watch." She gently rolled the pair of eyeballs into the grass at her feet, just as George had demonstrated the previous night at the Burrow. Almost on cue, a miniature pair of legs sprouted from beneath each orb and scurried off into the distance. "And just like that, we've re-entered the cottage," she declared with a satisfied grin.

"I'll believe it when I see it," Draco scoffed, pausing to fold his arms across his chest.

"You're bloody brilliant, you know that Granger?" Theo said, casually looking over at her with undisguised amazement swirling behind his eyes.

Something about his friend's shameless adoration caused Draco to feel like he swallowed something acrid, leaving an unpleasant feeling to settle in the pit of his stomach. There was no time to examine why that might be, as all at once the air in front of where they stood rippled and congealed, forming what looked like an amorphous outline of the cottage's interior.

"What is it? What do you see?" Draco pressed forward, wedging himself between the two, his eyes narrowed as he tried to make out the blurred forms still manifesting.

"Shhhhh," Hermione scolded. "It takes a moment."

Another few seconds passed in silence before the image completely coalesced.

"It's him. It's MacNair," Malfoy grimaced. "I'd know that face anywhere."

"He's with someone. Do you recognize who that is?" Hermione asked, leaning forward to have a closer look.

"Never seen him before," Theo replied. "But that's MacNair, alright. My father used to have him over to the Manor when I was a kid." His jaw tightened at the unpleasant recollection.

Although his father had died shortly after the war, unfortunately, the animosity Theo felt toward him didn't perish along with him. The good-natured wizard hid it well, however...behind a mask of perpetual merriment.

"I knew he wasn't working alone," Hermione said under her breath, seemingly lost in thought.

"I wonder why they came back," Theo posited, seemingly lost in thoughts of his own.

"Haven't you heard? A criminal always returns to the scene of a crime," Draco answered in the matter-of-fact tone that always grated Hermione's nerves. "It's fairly textbook."

Hermione rolled her eyes, not for the first time that day when addressing the overconfident wizard. "Or, better yet...perhaps they're back to look for something they left behind. Like, oh, I don't know...the fibula?"

"It does look like they're searching for something," Theo said, watching as the surly pair paced back and forth the length of the kitchen, overturning chairs and forcefully throwing errant pantry items. The burly man with MacNair paused his rummaging to look down into the latent hole in the floor, standing up stiffly before giving the rolled rug a swift kick.

"I think we should go in there and apprehend them," Hermione declared as if it were the most logical assessment of the current situation. "We could put a stop to this right now...close the case and lock these two up in Azkaban for good.

"What?" she asked, when the two wizards looked up at her questioningly.

"We're not your little ragtag band of apple-polishers, Granger. You don't just go rushing a pair of hardened criminals without a plan."

"That is the plan, Malfoy. There are three of us and only two of them. As a Hit Wizard, Theo is more than capable...and I am perfectly skilled in surprise assaults. So that leaves you. What are you afraid of?"

He bristled. "I'm not afraid of anything. I'm just not looking to get myself killed. The only two people who know we're even out here right now are Potter and Weasley, and they're not exactly my idea of a solid backup plan should things go to shite."

"Not to piss on your plan of going all Gryffindor gladiator right now, Granger, but maybe Draco has a point. Maybe instead we should send a Patronus to Potter and let him know they're here. If MacNair's here, that likely means MacNair Manor is empty right now. Potter and Weasley can break down the wards without risk of assault and go in and have a look around."

"And what if the Manor's not empty? What if there are more of them there? Then what? We just send them into an ambush?"

"We've been surveilling the Manor for weeks. If there was an army on site, I think we would know about it," Theo assured her.

"How do you explain this then?" she argued, gesturing to the two men still canvassing the kitchen. "Not once has anyone seen this man before in all your weeks of surveillance."

"You're going to have to trust me on this, Granger. Hit Wizard instinct."

"Well, this is Gryffindor instinct," she defended. "I think we engage a surprise attack and apprehend them while we have the chance. This is an opportunity that may never again come to pass."

"Fuck. Fuck. FUUUCK!" Draco dropped his head into his hands and roughly pulled at his hair, the sharp pain of it allowing him to think about something other than the current conundrum. "Are you always like this, Granger?" he muttered through his clenched fists.

"I'm going in," she declared confidently, retrieving her wand from her pocket. Theo and Draco shared a panicked look, a concessionary agreement that where she went, they'd follow. There appeared to be no other choice in the matter where this witch was concerned.

Theo sighed in resignation. "Let me send the Patronus to Potter first." He turned and walked several paces away to do so.

When they were finally alone, Draco shifted to glare down at her. "Is this what it was like for all those months on the lam with Potter and Weasley? You concocting a series of poorly-thought-out, completely inadvisable ideas that those two buffoons weren't bright enough to recognize as insanity?"

Her face twisted with a barely-concealed smirk. "It's not inadvisable if it actually works." She half-shrugged, toeing her foot along the grass.

"Well, for the record, if you get us killed, I will never forgive you."

"Duly noted." She looked up at him with a thin smile just as Theo reemerged from the overgrowth.

"So what's the plan?" Theo asked with renewed optimism. When met with nothing more than their combined blank stares, he added grimly, "Shite, there still is no plan, is there? Well, you know other than the 'try not to die' one."

"The element of surprise will work in our favor. They definitely won't be expecting us, so we will have that advantage." Hermione looked up at the fleeting images of MacNair and his counterpart stalking through the sitting room, approaching the walkway to the greenhouse. "It looks like they may be nearing the end of their sweep." The three shared a sobering glance between them before she uttered, "Now is as good a time as any."

The trio nodded in reluctant agreement before Hermione held out her arm for the two wary wizards to take hold and with a crack, they Apparated back to the cottage.

"Did you hear that?" The tall, portly man stopped in his tracks, gravel grinding like the crushing of bones beneath his shoes. He turned to find MacNair mindlessly peering out the greenhouse window to an area just beyond the clearing. "Walden!"

The gangly man's attention abruptly drew away from the pane. "Sorry, sir...I thought I saw something in the distance."

The man stood stock still to listen intently. "I swear I heard the crack of Apparation."

Without warning, a barrage of powerful spells shot across the greenhouse, the cacophonous sound of magic striking metal and glass breaking causing the two men to drop to their knees.

"Incarcerous!" Theo's ear-splitting spell ricocheted off the steel beam where MacNair knelt, shattering a beaker on the elevated workspace at the back of the room.

MacNair swiftly drew his wand, aiming it directly at the approaching wizard. "Stupify!" he growled from the floor, as Theo deflected it with practiced ease.

"MacNair, your time is up-come out, come out, wherever you are," Draco jeered as he made his way around the perimeter of the enclosure, gravel stirring weakly in the distance from beyond the raised herb beds. Spotting a broad-shouldered man crouched beneath the dried nettle using a pruning bucket for a shield, he aimed his wand. "Petrificus Totalus!" he bellowed, the thunderous spell narrowly missing its intended target as it exploded against the column and he scrambled out of sight.

From out of nowhere a poorly-aimed Bombarda spell soared from where MacNair ran half-bent toward the front of the greenhouse.

Hermione screamed when the spell whizzed past her head and demolished the polycarbonate panel behind her with a crushing peal of splintered explosions.

The undeterred trio stealthily fanned out in all directions. "We know what you're here for and you won't find it!" Hermione's voice rang out with steady confidence. "You're surrounded, MacNair. It's time to turn yourself in."

A gruff voice boomed from across the greenhouse. "Stupify!" The crafty stunning spell sailed effortlessly across the length of the room, blasting to smithereens the supplies cabinet near the workspace where she stood, just as the portly man crawled through the volley of spells.

Draco hollered menacingly above the commotion. "You're outnumbered MacNair...and more Aurors are on the way."

She and Malfoy instinctively made eye contact as they closed in on MacNair in the forward corner of the garden, his cloak barely visible behind a row of shriveled wormwood.

Malfoy nodded in a manner she inherently knew to mean they would strike in tandem...but before they could act, a blazing inferno erupted from behind where they were rooted, engulfing the entire midsection of the greenhouse in blinding flames. Hermione shrieked as spells rained down in all directions and the sizzling heat from the fire scorched their exposed skin. Draco latched onto her hand all but yanking her to the floor. "Aguamenti!" they clamored in unison over their shoulders as they raced at a breakneck pace toward Theo, knowing he would be in need of immediate backup amongst the chaos.

As the pair skidded to a halt, they spied the two deft wizards engaged in an animated volley of combative and defensive spells just beyond where they stood, with Theo appearing to have the upper hand over MacNair's counterpart. Without hesitation, Draco raised his wand to deliver the final blow from behind...when without warning, a ragged spell soared past the fungi platform where they were huddled, striking Hermione with a shrill hiss. She choked out a hushed whimper before collapsing into his side.

He looked down at her in horror with barely-concealed panic fermenting behind his pupils as he shifted to cradle her prone form in his arms. "Shite! Granger's been hit!" he hollered loud enough for Theo to hear his strangled outcry above the clamorous commotion. "Let's go!"

With a deafening crack, Draco Apparated from the greenhouse to the only place he could think of in his haste...the Manor.

He stumbled as they landed in the receiving room, the added weight of carrying her limp body displacing his equilibrium. Hastily lowering her onto the rug in front of the hearth, he swiftly grabbed a throw pillow from the settee to prop up her head. "Granger."

He gently pat her lifeless cheek with his hand.

"Shite! Granger!"

She lay unconscious, color drained from her face.

He looked down only to see blood seeping through the arm of her sleeve, quickly moving to tear the cloth of her jumper to get a better look at the damage.

An inflamed gash the entire length of her arm met his panic-stricken eyes, issuing a heavy flow of crimson blood along her exposed skin. He fumbled for his wand, haphazardly muttering a healing spell he'd mastered from his many months tending to the wounded during the war.

The feeble skin around Granger's laceration slowly knit itself back into place, but the spell wasn't nearly enough to stop the unyielding flow of blood.

"Shite! Accio Dittany!"

An old-fashioned potion's cabinet flew open across the room allowing a small amber bottle to sweep across to where he knelt. Catching it effortlessly in his outstretched hand, he unstoppered the lid and began furiously dripping the clear liquid onto the wound. "C'mon, work...please work," he muttered in a panicked plea, his hand struggling to remain steady.

For the stretch of an eternity, nothing happened, causing his internal hysteria to escalate.

After several more agonizing moments of feeling his heart fighting to escape his ribcage, the blood flow finally stymied, allowing him for the first time to exhale a strained breath.

Without delay, he Accio'd a blood-replenishing potion from the cabinet and moved to tilt her head back, her matted curls coarse between his fingers. Hands still trembling, he unstoppered the vial and allowed the transparent liquid to trickle evenly down her throat. He crouched down mere centimeters from Granger's face, his forehead nearly touching hers. "C'mon, Granger. C'mon, you foolish witch. Wake up!" His hand rhythmically pat her cheek, willing her to return to consciousness. "C'mon, Granger." His voice grew louder with each new plea.

He became so immersed in his desperate supplication that he didn't see Granger's eyes crack open just beneath where his head hung low.

"Malfoy," she croaked, her throat dry and gravelly.

"Malfoy," she tried again, somewhat louder but only just above a whisper.

He looked up expectantly, eyes widening when he realized just how elated he was to see color returning to her pallid face.

"Shite, Granger," he breathed. His head, no longer able to support itself from the weight of the previous hour's immeasurable stress, dropped onto her shoulder in exhaustive relief. He stayed there, taking in a few sedating breaths before gingerly sitting back on his haunches, wary eyes never leaving her face.

She peered blankly around the empty room. "Where's Theo?"

His vacant stare grew icy, taut muscles of his jaw tightening. "You nearly bleed out on my sitting room floor and all you can think to say is 'Where's Theo?' Sorry, I was a little preoccupied with saving your life...didn't exactly have the spare time to catch up with Theo over a pint."

"That's not what I meant," she replied in a strained and ragged voice, struggling to prop herself up on unsteady elbows. "I only wondered if he made it back from the cottage." She winced, the added weight on her injured arm causing a dull ache along her festering tendon. "Last I recall, he had nearly overtaken MacNair's partner."

"Right, well, I guess we'll have to wait until he turns up to find out," he replied harshly, rising to stand.

Only then did he realize the sheer amount of blood that had seeped onto the floor, including that which was smeared over the length of his hands and arms.

With recognition dawning on her face, Granger said in half a panic, "Merlin, I'm sorry...here, let me help you clean that off." She struggled in vain to reach for her wand, but before she could grab it, he stopped her.

"No, Granger. You haven't the energy." He tugged the pillow closer to the base of her head, encouraging her with his other hand to lie back down. "I can handle it."

With a quick Scourgify, his wand absconded the bloodstained areas of their cardinal-soaked fluids.

When he looked over and saw Granger's bloodied arm, he cradled it in his hand while casting another nimble Scourgify to cleanse the surface around her wound.

With the dried remains eliminated, he could for the first time see the results of his healing efforts. He inwardly preened, as all that remained was a thin white line where the curse had struck.

She looked up at him appreciatively.

Gliding the pad of his index finger gently along the length of her mended arm, he stiffened when he saw the faint outline of another curse...the word Mudblood carved grotesquely into the tender skin just below the recent laceration. He stared vacantly at the vulgar slur for a prolonged measure of time before glancing at her with a deeply troubled grimace, his pained expression conveying what words never could. "I'm sorry, Grang-"

"It's fine," she interrupted before he could finish.

"No, Granger. What happened to you is not fine. And you need to know that if I thought there was a way I could have stopped it, I would have." The conciliatory admission left his mouth with immense difficulty, not because he struggled to say it, but because of the weight it carried.

"I know you would have...maybe I didn't know that then, but I do now." Her parched voice only grew more uneven with each breath.

He nodded his head slightly, eyes cast down to where their limbs were joined. Gently placing her arm across her stomach, he muttered a mending spell on the sleeve of her jumper and rose to stand. "Get some rest, Granger. I'll look into what happened with Theo."

As her eyes steadfastly fluttered closed, the Manor fireplace ignited with green flames, Theo stepping through looking worse for wear.

"Merlin, there you are!" he exclaimed with a sigh of relief, brushing Floo powder from his soiled robes. "I just came from St. Mungo's where I thought you'd taken Granger. This was my next guess." He tensed, looking down at where Granger lay, her tired eyes blinking open as she struggled again to sit up on her elbows. "Woah, Granger...you look like shite!" he barked, carelessly stepping over her and dropping in exhaustion onto the settee.

"You don't look so great either," she groaned, eyeing him carefully for any discernible injuries, an ingrained habit born from when she, Ron, and Harry would return from a dangerous mission. "So, what happened?"

Draco stepped forward anxiously. "Yeah, mate, did you nab MacNair?"

Theo barked out a derisive chuckle. "Do I look like I just got back from booking those two degenerates into Azkaban?" He visibly stiffened, carding a hand through the chaotic wreckage that was his hair. "I mean, yeah, that's where I would be had Potter not shown up with his bumbling band of incompetent Aurors and mucked it all up," he amended, gesticulating wildly with his hands.

"What? Harry was there?"

"Oh, yeah-you know Potter-he can never stay out of the limelight." He snorted, eyes rolling clear into the back of his head. "When he got my Patronus telling him we were going back into Strout's place, he just couldn't help himself. I mean, I guess it's not his fault-hero complex and all." He shrugged dismissively.

"So, wait-if Harry and the other Aurors showed up, where are they now? Is Harry ok? What about Ron?" She struggled to sit upright among her rapid-fire barrage of questions.

Theo impassively raised his arms up over his head, stretching them behind the back of the couch and unfurling a yawn that sounded much like a wounded animal. "They're fine. They're fine. They're at the Ministry right now meeting with Kingsley about the whole cock-up. And while it truly is a spectacular story, you'll have to wait for Harry to tell it. I'm spent." He made a spectacle of unleashing another unnecessarily loud yawn.

"That's it? That's all you're going to tell us?" Hermione asked with a hint of strained impatience in her voice.

"You came all the way over here to tell us you're too tired to tell us anything?" Draco cut in, arms folded tightly across his chest and a look of mounting annoyance donning his face.

Theo sat up. "Of course not. I came to check on Hermione. And-" He waved his hand to where she was still straining to sit upright on the receiving room floor. "Seeing as Healer Nott finds her to be perfectly coherent-Potter asked me to accompany her back to her flat." He slapped his hands onto his knees and moved to stand, but before he succeeded at propelling his body completely upright, Draco put out his hand to halt his progress.

"Easy, mate. Granger's been through a bit of an ordeal here. You can tell Potter I have it handled. I'll get Granger to her flat." His leveled stare left Theo no room to argue.

"I can get back to my flat unassisted," Hermione said as she tried and failed to stand using only one arm for leverage.

Draco darted over to her side, grabbing her good elbow before she fell. "You will do no such thing," he warned, dipping his arm under her shoulder and helping her to stand. She wobbled beneath his grasp, so he promptly picked her up, cradling her in his arms as he had before.

She buried her face in his chest, cheeks heating with discomfiture. "This is so unnecessary. I'm fine, I promise. There's no need to carry me around like a child."

"You're not fine, Granger. But, you will be after a pain potion, sleeping draught, and a good night's sleep," he asserted, wandlessly summoning two vials from the Malfoy reserves and shoving them gruffly into his pocket. "Now let's get you home."

Theo reached down to pick up her beaded bag, tossing it onto her lap. "Potter said to tell you he'll be by later to check on you. Fancy a nightcap later to put a lid on this disaster of a day?" he asked Draco, grabbing a fistful of Floo powder.

"Not tonight, mate. I'm knackered."

He gingerly stepped aside to allow Theo unfettered entrance to the Manor Floo.

Theo half-shrugged. "You're probably right...I could use a long lie-in. Well, I'm off to the Ministry...I'll see you two tomorrow at the office then." And in a flash of green flames, he was gone.

"You want to do the honors, Granger?" Draco asked, stiffly gesturing toward the bowl of Floo powder on the mantle.

"Sure."

As the ragged pair stepped into the Floo, a burst of emerald flames transported them to Granger's flat.