Chapter Text
Chapter eight: I don’t like your kingdom keys
‘Are you sure?’
‘I think so’
‘That’s not good enough’
After Draco’s warning to McNair, the other Death Eaters hadn’t missed a payment so far, but as they kept getting into more and more debt as they clumsy tried to bribe everyone at the Ministry, it didn’t look like they would lose their hold over them anytime soon. McNair hadn’t said a word to anyone about what had happened, obviously knowing he would be scorned and mocked if the other Death Eaters discovered he was beaten bloody by Draco, so soon enough he would have to go back to the safe house and give more warnings. In the meantime, the brief moment of calm allowed Hermione and Draco to focus once again on Hogwarts and the children of the Death Eaters they couldn’t shackle with loans, alongside the relatives of Ministry employees they might need soon enough. It meant focusing once again on the Silver Parties, and Hermione wanted to repeat something similar to what had happened during her first one. She was sure that was what needed to be done, or at least she thought it was.
‘I…’ she stammered, already blushing.
‘Tell me exactly what you are comfortable with and I’ll handle it. I’ll make sure he doesn’t cross any lines’ Draco was firm, even more so than when they first started when it came to boundaries and things that might make her uncomfortable. On her part, Hermione still wasn’t used to talk so freely about sex and what she wanted from it, what she liked, what she thought she might enjoy, but she was getting better.
Hermione tried and failed not to blush, her cheeks were on fire long before she started to speak.
‘He… he can fuck me while you fuck him, if he likes that. Or he can fuck me while you fuck my mouth’
Draco’s eyes went black with lust as she spoke, but he just nodded.
After the success with Nott and Parkinson Sr three weeks before, Theo and Pansy had been quite eager to show how thankful they were to be free of their parents and the constant pressure of joining the Dark Lord, so Hermione hadn’t been particularly surprised when on the next Silver Party they’d dragged her and Draco into the dorms for what had been basically a foursome, the memory still making Hermione blush furiously. If she’d thought seeing Draco fuck Theo with a mix of want and anger had been one of the hottest thing she’d ever seen, seeing Draco with his ex lovers now that he was once again confident was something that made Hermione’s toes curl. He’d fucked Theo slowly this time, a show for Hermione to watch while Pansy ate her out.
That night had given Hermione a better insight into who Pansy was as a lover and a friend: she definitely was the domineering type while Theo enjoyed being bossed around, and it was one of the reasons their polyamorous relationship with Draco had broken down. Pansy enjoyed being in charge, and Draco needed to be in charge to feel wanted and included. It was probably why Hermione and Draco worked so well together, she wanted someone reliable she could let go with, and Draco was all too eager to be that person. That night also had another unexpected consequence, that of enlightening Hermione to her own feelings: she was becoming greedy and possessive when it came to Draco, she wasn’t as willing to share him as she previously thought, especially with someone who could potentially take him away from her. It was why her dislike of Pansy and Theo was slowly but steadily growing, and the reason she was adamant that, whilst what happened between the four of them had been very much nice, there would be no second time.
They had another Silver Party to attend that very night, and Draco had been carefully trying to see if her boundaries had changed, if something might be different given their new target: Adrain Pucey. Seventh year, son of Edmund Pucey, the Death Eater that managed almost all of the Dark Lord’s safe houses where those who didn’t bear the Dark Mark and couldn’t enter the Manor met and coordinated attacks.
They were getting ready in the prefects bathroom, another very short golden dress barely covering her while Draco was already in his best suit, eyes dark from her words, but also, as well as her, probably form the memory of their night with Pansy and Theo.
‘It wasn’t too much, wasn’t it?’ he asked for what was probably the tenth time, his arms circling her until he could cup her ass, his lips already on her throat.
‘You know it wasn’t’ she moaned as she held on to his shoulders. She thought it would fade eventually, the way his hands and lips on her felt intoxicating, but her body never seemed to stop carving more and more when it came to him. His fingers were already dipping under the hem of her dress, biting her earlobe lightly when he realised she wasn’t wearing any underwear, and it was Hermione’s clue to stop him, otherwise they wouldn’t go anywhere that night.
‘Later’ she said pushing him away, a huff of displeasure coming out of his mouth as he smirked and fixed his hair.
They timed their exit from the bathroom almost down to the second, a routine they developed as they practically perfected the art of not getting caught. It wasn’t as hard as Harry and Ron had made it sound for five years, the trick was to memorise the rounds and who was doing them, how long it would take them to walk down the corridors, and there was no need for an invisibility cloak nor Marauders Map. Hermione had thought about stealing the map from Harry, but she changed her mind after she realised that Harry had monitored where she was and with whom several times since her and Draco made their relationship public. It was more and more obvious by the way Lavander kept holding court at the Gryffindor table to discuss where she and Draco where hiding and what where they doing while Ron fumed with anger and Harry looked mildly sick. It had been more entertaining than Hermione could have ever imagined, seeing Harry being sick a the thought of her and Draco having sex. It was just another proof of the huge disconnect between them, because if there was one thing Hermione immensely enjoyed and found pleasure in, it was sex with Draco. She had to focus on that, on the funny side, because if she stopped to think about how even her sexuality was not considered her own but something that they needed to approve of… well, she would have probably gotten expelled for hexing half of her House.
Once they reached the dungeons, Hermione stoped Draco before he could mutter the password and let them in.
‘What is it? Did you change your mind?’ he asked worried, and Hermione shook her head. She knew he had doubts since their night with Theo and Pansy, and she wanted to address them directly. They were doing this to get informations, yes, but also because they wanted it and they liked it. She didn’t want to risk anything, and she didn’t want Adrian Pucey to become a source of further misunderstanding because of the way Theo and Pansy hurt him. Perhaps, if Voldemort had never forced him to take the mark, if Lucius hadn’t been arrested and the situation of the wizarding world had been different… then perhaps Draco would have taken his break up with Pansy and Theo differently. But things were what they were, and she wasn’t oblivious to the hurt she still could see in his eyes sometimes, the pain of being left behind still sharp as a knife.
‘I’ve never been with a girl before’ she said as he looked at her closely, ‘and Pansy was very nice, but I don’t like her more than I like you, and I didn’t like how she ignored you’ she revealed.
‘She didn’t ignore me’ Draco replied immediately, a flash of embarrassment clouding his eyes.
‘Just making out with you at the beginning it’s ignoring you, you were the last to come, she barely touched you and she purposefully kept Theo away from you, which was impressive given the fact that you were fucking him. You didn’t even kiss him! She should have been more thankful, especially since you fucked Theo so good he passed out for a moment’ she almost shouted, rage making her blood boil in her veins.
‘Alright’ Draco said softly in the end, his thumb drawing circles on her hands, clearly trying to soothe her anger, but also pleased by it, a small smile curving his lips.
This time, it was Hermione who led him inside. Everyone was already there, dancing and chatting and drinking, the music loud as the smell of alcohol filled the air. She got to know more and more students from Slytherin since her first Party, and Hermione wasn’t as nervous as she used to be as Draco left her alone to look for Adrian. There were always people eager to say hi or to talk to her, or people she wanted to sweet-talk in order to gain some confidence and use for informations later. Hermione wasn’t the only one from a different House anymore. The more the year dragged on and the days shortened, the more Slytherins invited Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs to the Silver Parties, either as their dates or as a way to repay a favour, although she was still the only Gryffindor.
Hermione made a point of ignoring both Theodore and Pansy as she made her way through the room, barely noticing Blaise and Daphne’s absence as she tried to be pleasant but not overbearing while she introduced herself to some seventh year students form Ravenclaw and Hufflepuffs. The former were friendlier than expected, impressed by her love for knowledge and her academic records. There was no denying that she had been disappointed of having been sorted into Gryffindor in her first year, she wished to be a Ravenclaw since she heard the song of the Hat speaking of wit and love for knowledge, setting her eyes of on the House of Rowena, but maybe it was for the best she was never sorted there. The more students from Ravenclaw she met, the more she realised that they were hungry for knowledge, yes, but they tended to be obsessed and focused on a single subject if not a handful of them. Hermione was curious about everything to the point of being greedy.
Draco had joked often enough that she should have been sorted in Slytherin, and Hermione was finding it harder and harder to disagree, her loyalty to her House becoming thinner and thinner the more they treated her like a traitor and a sellout whore. A House full of pride such as Slytherins would have never laughed at her eagerness in class like Gryffindors did in first year following Ron’s lead. Hermione had thought more than once about how different it could have been, she could have had peers that smirked at her raised hand in class not to laugh at her but with pride, knowing she would get them points. She also wondered if the term mudblood would have ever been used against her as it had been, after all there were muggleborns in Slytherin too, and they seemed perfectly content to belong to their House.
‘Lost in thought?’
Draco’s words almost made her jump, and he huffed a laugh as he gave a glass with a little bit of firewiskey in it.
‘Just thinking… what do you think of Luna Lovegood?’ she asked as she looked at two Ravenclaw girls she introduced herself to ten minutes before. Among some useless gossip about exams dates, they told her Luna wasn’t actually an uncommon character for their House, they had weirder.
‘Lovegood? The blond one always muttering about creatures?’ he asked confused, and Hermione nodded. ‘Well, her mother was one of the best potion masters in the world, but she died in an accident almost a decade ago, if I remember correctly. I think something went wrong during the brewing process of an antidote she was developing for a curse. I remember my father being annoyed at the questions that followed, since some thought it was the work of Death Eaters who didn’t want a cure to be found’
‘And was it? The Death Eaters’ fault?’
Draco shook his head, ‘no, for once they had nothing to do with it. We haven’t gotten there yet in Potions, but antidotes for dark curses are extremely volatile and hard to brew because they have to deal with dark magic artificially. Usually cleansing from dark magic is gone through rituals, but to distill what is filtered through nature and objects into a potion… it’s a tricky business. S0 she might have accidentally trigged a dark curse. Although, if I remember correctly, I think Lovegood had the misfortune to see her mother die. My father came home from the Ministry that day talking about how she tried to convince the Aurors on the case that a small blue creature resembling a pixie was trying to tamper with the potion and her mother couldn’t stop her on time. Of course, she was dismissed as being into shock’
Hermione tried not to gape at Draco. She had known Luna had lost her mother, but she never imagined it happened in such a way.
‘Could it have been, though, a small blue creature?’ she asked, and Draco frowned.
‘It’s unlikely, or so the Auror said at the time. No pixies to be found around the house, and despite Lovegood’s insistence, the only magical creature that we know of that can be seen or not seen are Thestrals. Of course, I’m sure that if you asked the Scamander heir, he would have a very different answer for you’
’Scamander as in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them? You know him?’ Hermione couldn’t contain her excitement.
‘Relax, Rolf is not like his grandfather, more of a troublemaker, really, but he’s in the US, and his only value lies in being able to access his grandfather’s notes’
‘Just say you don’t want me to talk to him’ Hermione muttered taking another sip from her glass to hide her pout, something that made Draco sigh.
‘I’ll give you his address if you insist, although I don’t see what you could possibly get from him’
‘Jealous?’ she asked, sincerely interested in what Draco would say, but his attention was captured by someone behind her.
‘He just arrived’ he said as Hermione turned around and looked towards the entrance where, among the crowd, she could spot a tall man with bronze hair and blue eyes, Adrian Pucey.
They made their way to him confidently, Draco approaching Adrian by feigning to be bothered by something that happened during the Slytherin Quidditch training that very day. Adrian was more than happy to talk. As a matter of fact he talked a lot, about Quidditch especially, in a way that reminded Hermione of Krum. He talked and he drank, and before Hermione could get more than two words in, Adrian was drunk, completely so.
‘Say, Granger’ Adrian said suddenly, addressing her directly for the first time that night.
‘Yes’ she said moving closer, trying to look sexy, but Adrian looking unfazed by her attempt.
Did she do it wrong? She wasn’t as good at it as Pansy when it came to approaching people seductively, but she thought…
‘Do you think Longbottom might like me?’ Adrian’s words were slurred by the alcohol, but Hermione’s brain came to a sudden halt.
‘I’m sorry?’ she blinked confused.
Draco, on Adrian’s other side, was unsuccessfully trying to hide his laugh behind his glass of firewhiskey, and Adrian seemed to take that as his clue to keep going.
‘He’s… very cute… the blush he gets in the greenhouses… very cute, always with those plants of his… wonder if I might make him sweat like that… bet he whimpers, bet he’s… so fucking cute, hot… we shared a table at the start of the year in the library, and then I saw him with his plants… always with plants, as he cheered in the match Gryffindor-Ravenclaw and he changed somehow, got taller, maybe?… I thought a lot about him since then… I mean, his eyes just… and I like his face, this blush he gets in the greenhouses during Herbology when its too hot… Granger, Granger… do you think he likes men?’ Adrian rambled swinging lightly from his seat between her and Draco, who was still trying not to laugh out loud, less shocked by this turn of events than she was.
‘I… I can ask him?’ Hermione said in the end, not really knowing what else to say, but Adrian smiled at that as if she’d promised him the sun.
‘Really… after seeing you two… thought I could try… can’t get him out of my head, I hate it… love it’ he muttered as he put a hand on her shoulder in thanks.
‘Gryffindors’ Draco just said with a smirk, licking his lips as his eyes locked with hers.
Adrian sat up straighter. ‘Amen to that, mate!’ he exclaimed trying and failing to clink his glass with Draco’s.
They stayed for a while longer, but given that all he could talk about was Quidditch and Neville’s apparently adorable blush, they left Adrian with some other seventh year Quidditch players and mingled once again with crowd. Theo and Pansy had left the party already, and Hermione was thinking to liger a little longer. She didn’t drink that much, she could still do something, but Draco indulged in firewhiskey almost as much as Adrian, and his hands were already wondering over the curves of her body in way that told her he wasn’t very aware of their surroundings.
‘Are you disappointed?’ he murmured in her ear as he held her flush to him, dancing almost ridiculously slow for the kind of music that was playing.
‘A little’ she breathed as she tried unsuccessfully to focus on the people around her and what they were saying.
It took just another couple of minutes before he dragged her out of the room, ready to make their way to the prefects bathroom. Hermione laughed at his eagerness, the alcohol in her veins, Draco’s hand holding hers, making her feeling light and happy, but she fell silent as she heard someone sobbing and crying loudly, the sound ricocheting off the stone walls of the corridor.
’Myrtle?’ Draco wondered holding her hand tighter in his.
They walked forward a couple of steps but they stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of a disheveled and very drunk Blaise Zabini sitting on the floor, a half-empty bottle of firewhiskey in his hands and his face was wet with tears.
‘Did you do this?’ Draco asked in what he thought was a whisper but was actually half a shout.
‘No. Did you?’ she asked back, and Draco shook his head too forcefully, almost losing his balance.
‘Dracooooo’ Blaise cried finally noticing them.
‘What’s up, mate?’ Draco answered trying to lower himself on the floor and failing, ultimately opting to keep standing.
‘Dracoooo’ Blaise repeated before he started to cry loudly once again.
Hermione sighed and kneeled on the floor next to Blaise as Draco leaned on the wall trying to quickly sober up.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘I don’t understand’ Blaise sobbed, ‘why? What is the reason?’
‘Mate, what is it?’ Draco asked again, and Blaise raised his eyes to look at Draco only to start to cry harder.
‘I found her… and Montague!’ he finally shouted as Draco muttered a ‘well, fuck ‘.
‘I’m so sorry Blaise’ Hermione said trying to comfort him, taking his hand in hers.
It seemed to have the opposite effect, Blaise just started to shout and cry, his voice booming and echoing in the corridor.
‘I don’t understand! Why? If she didn’t want to be with me anymore she could have told me! Why cheat on me? What is wrong with them?’
‘Yeah, cheaters are… terrible!’ Draco exclaimed as Blaise nodded through the tears.
‘What is the point of it? You’re smart, Granger! Tell me!’ Blaise asked suddenly letting go of the bottle in favour of taking both her hands in his.
‘Uh… maybe they like having… many options?’ Draco answered before Hermione could all him not to say everything that passed through his head.
’Then why didn’t she say?! I like Montague! It could have gone better than between Draco, Theo and Pansy’ Blaise shouted.
‘I doubt that, you don’t even like men’ Draco muttered irritated as he crossed his his arms over his chest, and Hermione couldn’t hold in a sigh as she tried to figure out what to say.
‘I can eat her out! I’m very good at eating girls out!’ Blaise exclaimed angrily as he tried to stand up. After struggling for a minute, he finally managed to stand up with Hermione’s help, his unfocused gaze moving between her and Draco.
‘You’re going somewhere to fuck?’ he asked.
‘Um..’
‘Yes’
Hermione and Draco ended up speaking at the same time.
‘Can I come, too?’ Blaise asked eagerly, his eyes suddenly fixed on Hermione. For the second time that evening, her brain stopped as she processed what he just asked her.
‘As I said, you don’t even like men!’ Draco repeated shouting as well, which only seemed to make Blaise angrier.
‘Well, you don’t have to fuck me Malfoy, and what do you know, maybe I want to try it and fuck you!’
‘Please, we tried that last spring and you could barley kiss me!’ Draco huffed as Hermione couldn’t hide her surprise.
‘What?’
‘Granger, can I fuck you? We can both fuck you, I can do that. I’m extremely confident I can do that’ Blaise said ignoring Draco and looking at her.
Hermione had to assess the situation and do it fast. She should have thought about what her advantage could be, but there was something familiar in Blaise’s pain, something that made her want to help him.
‘We know how that feels, being betrayed’ she said in the end turning towards Draco, hoping he would understand what she was doing.
He nodded at her and then looked at Blaise. ‘Where’s Daphne the cheater?’ Draco asked, and at that Blaise started to cry again.
‘Why would she do that to me?’ he sobbed as Draco sighted heavily.
‘Focus, Blaise’ Hermione encouraged him gently.
‘In the storeroom at the end of the corridor before the kitchens’ he finally managed to say through the tears, and the three of them walked over there as silently as they could.
Despite all the shouting and crying from Blaise and Draco, Daphne and Montague were still very much there if the moans coming from behind the closed door were any indication, and Draco had to put his hand over Blaise’s mouth to avoid him from crying out loudly.
‘I know you don’t really wanna fuck either of us’ Hermione whispered cupping Blaise’s face with her hands while Draco kept his mouth shut, ‘but I know a nasty jinx that will not allow them to have sex for a while, alongside making them run to the Infirmary with a very awkward problem. Is that okay? Can Draco let you go?’
Blaise nodded and Draco let go of him as Hermione kneeled on the floor in front of the door, pushing the tip her wand through one of the cracks in the wood and whispering the words to the jinx. It wasn’t anything serious, just some irritation that would keep the two apart for a while.
They stood there until Daphne and Montague busted out of the room shouting, a pained expression on their faces as they tried to run half naked towards the stairs to get to the infirmary, red dots all over their skin.
‘Thank you’ Blaise muttered.
‘Cool, cool, now can we go?’ Draco said taking Hermione’s hand.
‘Thank you’ Blaise repeated as he dried his tears, trying to compose himself but still lightly swaying on his feet, ‘I’m glad you stopped trying to fuck all your friends, Draco’
‘Fuck you, Blaise’ Draco screamed before dragging Hermione up the stairs.
It was almost irritating how effortlessly beautiful he managed to be. In the early morning, the light that filtered through the high windows of the Prefects’ bathroom made him look almost ethereal, and Hermione couldn’t stop looking at Draco’s face as he rested peacefully next to her. She didn’t have any intention to wake him up or to get up herself; she was warm and cozy, a rarity those days given how, with autumn descending over Scotland, the castle corridors were already plagued by cold drafts that could chill to the bone. Hermione wasn’t also particularly looking forward to going back to the Gryffindor tower, as she was certain that her roommates had already noticed her absence last night, and gossip about her and Draco was sure to be the topic of the day once again.
So Hermione remained where she was, not moving an inch even if her mind was already travelling miles. Halloween was a week away, and as that year it would coincide with a Friday, a special themed Silver Party would be held after the banquet in the Great Hall. She was looking forward to it. After seeing so many Slytherins invite students from other Houses, she wanted to do it too, invite people that would otherwise be inaccessible to her into an environment that she could mildly control and in which she felt confident enough she could make her case successfully. There were problems, of course, the first being that Slytherins were naturally suspicious of everyone, especially Gryffindors, until they proved themselves trustworthy; the second problem was that the Gryffindors she wanted to invite could very well refuse and call her a traitor like the rest of her House.
Neville could be convinced, Hermione was sure of it. Ginny remained an enigma. As enamoured as she was with Harry, her loyalty to him was both a problem and something Hermione wanted to erode. She was seeing Dean on and off, clearly in an attempt to get noticed by Harry after his fiasco with Cho Chang, and Hermione didn’t really know how to create an opening for herself, nor how to make a heartbroken Blaise Zabini appealing to the younger Weasley.
Yet, all of it felt useless when she remembered what she heard after they left Adrian and before Draco dragged her away. Those who participated in the Silver Parties were becoming more and more reluctant to talk about Voldemort and their families, Hermione supposed it was just the natural course of things: the more dark reality became, the more they tried to find solace and forget for one night. Only a handful of people ever discussed Voldemort outright, and it was mostly students from families of Death Eaters who were in as a precarious position as Draco. Even from what little it was talked about, and from the reports Narcissa sent of the meeting they attended using Parkinson and Nott, it was clear that Voldemort was going to use his forces against muggleborns and muggles after painting them as scapegoats. It was a worrying. The magical world was small, possible to defend if it came to it, but the rest of the world was huge, and it gave her a headache just thinking of it. It also made Hermione wonder about how delusional Voldemort and his followers really were.
The MACUSA, much like its non-magical counterpart, was always all too eager to put its nose in other countries’ affairs. It was hard to believe that the Americans would just stand by and look as a handful of British dark wizards jeopardised the Statue of Secrecy, especially after what they did in the 30s to stop Grindelwald. It was a reckless move on Voldemort’s part. The MACUSA could very well look the other way when it came to muggleborn discrimination given their own history of it, but the Statue of Secrecy was something they held in high regards, and something they would fight for if it came down to it.
As if that wasn’t enough, Draco had told her about the rumours regarding Adrian’s father, that he was purchasing more properties to house Voldemort’s foot soldiers outside of the Manor and in strategic locations across Britain. It was the reason they tried to approach Adrian, but as nothing came of it the night before, it left her nervous and on edge. Time was tickling by, and they’d made progress, but they were still stuck at Hogwarts, in the backbenches, while Voldemort’s numbers were constantly increasing. How could they compete with that? How could they even think to stop it? They severely lacked the manpower, and the Order looked more and more like a ragtag group of people who yes, had the right ideals, but who were also terrible at organising and at getting out their message and gathering people to their cause, two things Voldemort was doing exceedingly well even despite the Death Eater’s clumsiness in bribing the Ministry. It was undeniable that, while the offering of money in exchange for alliance had its advantages and disadvantages, many were flocking to the Death Eaters ranks or just letting them do their thing simply because they agreed at least in part with Voldemort’s ideas and had been deeply unsatisfied with the state of Ministry for decades.
‘I can hear you think, you’re so loud’ Draco muttered stretching next to her. She was so lost in her own thoughts she hadn’t notice he woke up.
‘This is bad’ she sighted, and Draco huffed moving closer to her, leaving a kiss on the corner of her mouth.
‘Good morning to you, too’
‘He has so many following him already, it feels like a wave, how can we stop it?’ she asked out loud, making Draco sigh.
‘Why are you having such dreadful thoughts so early in the morning, Granger? I woke up in a good mood’ he said feigning irritation, but Hermione could recognise by now the way he masked anxiety with humour. Although she was sorry she ruined the day before it even started.
‘Perhaps we’ve been going in the wrong direction’ Draco added as he stood up, looking for his clothes, ‘we can control a part of the Death Eaters through loans, but that will always be a small percentage of them. Using the potion we used on Nott and Parkinson on too many isn’t a smart plan, as a drastic change in behaviour might draw suspicions. So maybe… maybe we should consider building up the Order’s support. If they’re so incompetent, we might need to do the work ourselves, although I’m not so sure about the details.’
Hermione tried to unclench her jaw and control her anger, ‘old men like Moody have a way of looking at things that severely penalises the Order and its strategies, but no one will remove him, and we still don’t know what Dumbledore is doing exactly, just that he’s spending more and more time with Harry.’
‘If Pucey were to give us the locations of the safe houses and the list of people who go there… it’s possible we might intervene more subtly’
‘In what way?’ she asked steading up so fast Draco laughed before his eyes fell over the curves of her naked body.
‘Draco’ she called him, and he had the audacity to smirk.
‘This is just… an hypothesis. We might insert ourselves in the chain of command in a way that might be beneficial to us, by using that muggle game you told me you played when you were little, the game of telephone’
Hermione sucked in a breath, understanding what he was thinking about. ‘We could strategically place the Death Eaters we control through loans as the head of the safe houses, effectively controlling the actions of Voldemort’s foot soldiers and blaming the fact that we don’t follow orders to the letter to the fact that the message gets distorted through the chain of command!’ she exclaimed all in one breath, excitement making her restless. ’It could work, after all these people aren’t fanatics, they didn’t take the mark and likely won’t, or are people that are not considered worthy of the mark but are used anyway… what did you say they are called?’
‘Snatchers’
‘So if we managed to get our people there… we could, what? Give some wins to the Order?’ Hermione wondered out loud as she felt once again more and more hopeful.
‘Or just simply managing the way this whole things unfolds. So far we have shackled Death Eaters to us through loans, but we haven’t told them how to spend the money we so graciously grant them. If we do that, and if we are careful, we could give the impression the Ministry fell under Voldemort’s hands when in truth it is in ours’ he said, and Hermione would have kissed him if it wasn’t for one problem:
‘I’m not sure I can manage that amount of slyness’
‘My mother can’ Draco replied without missing a beat, but she wasn’t as confident as he was.
‘Are you sure?’
‘My father was a lobbyist for a decade, but he didn’t work alone. She managed the social circles they moved in very tightly, and even if it was my father going into the Ministry, it was through her work that doors opened when he knocked. Her afternoon teas with the ladies were a masterpiece of political manoeuvring’ Draco explained as he finished to button his shirt.
‘What direction should this thing take? Should we offer ourself as a third option?’ she wondered around once more, a tacit acknowledgement of his mother’s abilities that made Draco smile lightly.
‘It’s not a bad idea. You said it yourself, so far people have two options: the terrible mismanagement and bureaucratic mess aided by bribes and nepotism of the Ministry that Dumbledore is somehow trying to protect, and the new order promised by Voldemort in which muggleborns and muggles are the scapegoat for every single problem wizard society has. We could highlight the faults of both, crating distrust for both while carefully creating a third way without being seen until the right moment arrives.’
‘Why do I have the feeling that this while thing gets more and more complicated and dangerous the more we learn things?’ she moaned exhausted, hand in her hair while Draco left out a sigh.
‘Probably because it is a fucking mess, that’s why’
They remained in a comfortable silence for a couple of minutes as Hermione looked for her clothes as well, dressing lazily. She wondered if she should have mentioned her worries in the first place. She didn’t want to go back to the tower, but at least they could go to Hogsmade in the afternoon, so that was something she looked forward to. Hogwarts was becoming more and more suffocating.
‘Are you alright?’ Draco asked after a while, and he seemed so worried it left Hermione dumbfounded for a moment. She still wasn’t used to be with someone who cared enough to notice her emotions.
‘I just got depressed for a moment, that’s all. Talking to you made me feel better’ she reassured him, and she was rewarded with the sight of Draco Malfoy blushing.
‘No, I meant… I’ve heard the gossips coming from Gryffindor about what we do, all the times you don’t go back to the tower at night’ he said almost awkwardly, and Hermione was touched by his concern, a smile curving her lips as Draco stepped forward, helping her button up her shirt to avoid looking at her in the eyes.
‘It’s irritating… no need to lie about that. But we’re hardly the only couple having sex, they’re just angry it’s with you. Gryffindors are so…’
‘Obtuse’
‘I was going to say a bit close minded but…’
‘We can…’
‘It’s fine, Draco, really’ she interrupted him, ‘I like… spending time with you’ she said, a blush already colouring her cheeks, ‘and I’ve given up so much to be what they wanted me to be, and they disliked me anyway. I want to do what I want now, and I don’t care if they call me a bitch and a whore’
‘Next time someone calls you that, they’ll better run, because I’ll hex them into the next century’
‘Thank you’ she said raising herself on her tiptoes to kiss him.
It was unexpected, their partnership, but it was something Hermione could scarcely do without now. His support, the time they spent talking, or even just simply together… it wasn’t difficult to accept that she was becoming more greedy and possessive when it came to Draco. She never had something like this before, and she didn’t want to lose it.
‘So, still set on the whole Weasley-Zabini thing?’ he asked as he put on his shoes, and Hermione nodded, her eyes on the hickey she left the night before and that the collar of his shirt couldn’t hide.
‘I think they’ll like each other. You manage the Slytherins, I’ll get Ginny and Neville’ she said trying to sound as confident as possible, but Draco remained skeptical.
‘Longbottom? He would betray Potter?’
‘We’re not going to frame it that way’ she said with a smile that made him laugh.
‘If it’s not betrayal, then what are you planning for them, Granger?’
‘I’ll just show them that there is a better option.’
‘Which is?’
'Me’