Disclaimer: Not one of these characters is mine. At least, not while I'm awake.
Chapter 5- Cohesive Forces
It was becoming increasingly cooler on the sidewalk in front of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, but Draco Malfoy resisted the urge to hunch his shoulders against it. It was bad enough that the breeze had picked up and begun to blow his meticulously styled hair into his eyes. He didn't want to look like some street hood, even if he had been holding down this piece of sidewalk for the past forty-five minutes.
Of course, Draco had no idea how close he was actually standing to the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, as he couldn't see the house. Indeed, he wasn't entirely sure what it was he was looking for. All he knew was that the goons in the Ministry who'd been following Harry and his happy band of do-gooders had told him they'd been able to localize them to somewhere around this spot. He had, of course, paid good money for the information, and therefore understood it to be true.
Well. Now that Draco had set the ball into motion, he couldn't very well wait anymore for those cads to come up with more information. As always, when something had to be done right, you had to do it yourself. That was fine, as far as he was concerned. It was clear to him that he could only trust himself, anyway. Merlin knew he wouldn't make it very far relying on anyone else.
And it was likely a very short time before Voldemort realized what he'd done.
It made a sort of sense, anyway, he mused. It tickled a vague and distant memory from his childhood. After all, there were no coincidences, and hadn't there been someone in his family who had lived on this street? When he had gone back and scoured records of his family's various properties and holdings, there had been no information, naturally. But if Draco was not mistaken, which- let's face it, he rarely was, he was willing to bet that his worthless blood traitor of a cousin had been assisting the light side even from behind the veil. Yes, they were here. He was sure of it.
For the twentieth time, Draco put his wand hand directly out in front of him. As he wind picked up and swirled his long, dark coat around his legs, he once again felt the telltale ripple of a magical ward. Likely more than one. They were damned good, as far as he could tell. But he would disable them. All he needed was-
"Why are you here, Malfoy?"
Draco jolted gracelessly and turned around at the all-too-familiar voice of his childhood nemesis.
"Oh, you know," Draco drawled with a smirk. "Just having a stroll in the autumn breeze, and all that. Thought I'd look you up, and wax nostalgic about our glory days, at Hogwarts."
Harry nearly snarled. It had been a long day already, and the last thing he'd ever expected was to find Draco-bleeding-Malfoy standing out here on the street. To think; not ten minutes ago, he'd been inside in the warmth, on the couch, about to 'make up' with Hermione. And now Malfoy was out here being cheeky? Forget it. He flipped up the collar of his jacket as the wind set his hair to blowing.
"Malfoy, I find it strange that you're out here snarking at me, as if you weren't, I don't know, a known Death Eater, or anything. Tell me why I shouldn't have you arrested here and now. Right along with your no-good father."
On principle, Draco's eyes went to slits. "Look here, Potter, you"-
"You can start," Harry interrupted, stepping forward, "by telling me how the hell you ended up on this street to begin with. And you have ten seconds." Harry's wand hand flexed, more than ready to pull his wand down from inside his sleeve.
Draco scoffed. "There's no information that can't be bought, Potter, and you'd be surprised where I got it." He wondered if Potter knew that the ministry was following him. He hoped not; that was his largest bargaining chip, and the main reason he'd come to him.
He continued, wanting to shiver in the growing chill, but not wanting to give any indication that he may be at all intimidated.
"Think we might be able to discuss this inside?" Draco asked with a derisive snort. "I'm not exactly used to standing on the street like some bum."
"You think I'd let the likes of you into my house?" Harry gave his own snort of derision. "You keep on, Malfoy, and I'll stop wondering why you aren't in Azkaban and drop you off at the Ministry right now. I believe they'd be quite pleased to see you - and I'd imagine the Dementors would rather like the family set."
"You'd help the Ministry do anything?" Draco asked shrewdly, with an arch of his elegant eyebrow.
Something about the way he said it made Harry look up sharply. Did this bastard know anything? "What do you know about it?" he asked, eyes narrowed.
"I know a lot of things. And I'd be happy to share. I only need a…favor."
Fuck it. Harry moved; lightning quick, to Draco's side, and facing him he got close in to his ear. "You cross me right now, Malfoy, and I'll make you beg for the Dementors; d'you understand me?"
Without warning, he grabbed Draco's arm and Disapparated.
-==-==-==-==-
As soon as Harry had Apparated out onto the sidewalk, Hermione and Ron made their way over to the window. Hermione craned her neck anxiously and looked out, her head tilted upward to see around the small tree in the front yard.
Ron studied her profile. Her hair was tousled, and she was just the tiniest bit flushed, he guessed from the episode he'd walked in on between her and Harry only a few minutes ago. He turned resolutely to the window. Best not to think about it now.
"Do you think we should go out there with him?" Hermione asked him anxiously. "We should, shouldn't we?"
"Nah, I don't think so," Ron drew the curtain, wider so that he didn't have to stand so close to her. "It's only the ferret, remember? Nothing to be afraid of."
"But he's a Death Eater now, Ron," Hermione frowned as she took in Malfoy's malevolent eyes, currently trained on Harry. "Who knows what he's seen and done in the past three years? We're none of us the same people we were when we were children," she added, glancing at him.
It was hard to disagree with that, Ron mused. In that moment, even though it was hardly the time, Ron just had to say something. Maybe he'd been waiting for a good time, but with everything that was happening, it was possible that it wasn't ever going to come.
"So, ah…you and Harry, eh?" He asked quietly. It wasn't anger in his voice, but maybe just the tiniest bit of wonder, and hurt.
Hermione's racing heart thudded an extra beat. She knew it was cowardly, but she kept her eyes trained on the exchange happening outside. "Ron…maybe this isn't the right time to be discussing that."
"Guess timing seems like something we've all got problems with, then. When would have been the proper time to let me know you two were shagging?"
Hermione slid her eyes shut. Seriously? "Ron, we only just- it's happened so quickly; we didn't mean to"-
"I'm not"- Ron cut in, only to stumble over his own words. How could he explain? "I don't like being treated like- like I'm just decoration in this house, or something. Just background. I'm not just background, Hermione."
Hermione turned to him fully now, meeting his eyes and placing a hand on his arm. "Ron"-
But the movement from outside had them both turning back to the window. Harry had lurched forward and grabbed Malfoy, whispering something to him. Ron and Hermione both gasped as the two men disappeared from the sidewalk.
"Oh, god." Hermione indulged in a moment of blind panic before mentally kicking herself for not going out there with Harry. "Where did they go? What do we do?" She lunged for the front door.
"Potty, if you don't take your grimy, half-blood hands off me, I swear to Merlin, I'll"-
"Shut up," Harry said tersely. Hermione whirled, to find Harry shoving Malfoy back from him roughly. He'd brought him through the wards?
"Harry, what are you doing?" she hissed. "What is he doing here?"
"Relax, Hermione," Harry said. "He still won't know where he is or how to get back inside. Besides, it may not be an issue, once the Ministry carts his arse off to Azkaban," he added, loudly, for Draco's benefit.
"Yes, yes, scary Dementors, and all that," Draco drawled.
"So, this is it," he commented, beginning to take a turn around the parlor, looking around. "The inner sanctum of the illustrious Order of the Phoenix."
Ron stepped forward. "Don't get used to it. And don't touch anything, ferret. I'd love a reason to hex you to bits."
"Don't worry, Weasel. Merlin knows, you've not got much to spare," Draco sneered.
Hermione's eyes flashed. "Why don't you have a seat, Malfoy?" She conjured a chair right behind where Draco stood.
"You don't get to order me around, Mudblood." But under Harry's baleful glare, he sat.
"Incarcerous." Hermione waved her wand as chains bound Draco to the chair before he could say another word, and then summoned his wand.
She took Harry's arm and led him over to the corner with Ron in tow. She kept her voice low and looked back at Draco, who was tethered to his chair, glaring at them. "Harry."
"What? Don't look at me like that; I had to. It was either that, or"-
"Hex him into the middle of next week?" Ron offered. "That's an option I would have considered."
"I wanted to," Harry agreed vehemently, albeit quietly. "Still do. But something he said out there about the Ministry. I want to know what he's after, and we couldn't just stand on the street, outside the wards, indefinitely."
Hermione sighed. "Let's just get rid of him quickly, yeah?" She reached for Harry's hand and squeezed it, before she turned back to Draco.
"What are you doing here?" she asked him. "And I need you to get to the point, because we're losing patience. Why shouldn't we have you sent to Azkaban, again?"
Draco regarded her with utmost contempt, hating that things had come to this. "What if I told you that I'm the one who gave my father up to Kingsley Shacklebolt, and that I've left the Death Eaters?"
"I'd say you were a bloody liar." Ron moved forward. "You expect us to believe that load of dragon dung?"
"Believe what you will, Weasley," Draco sneered. "I've nothing to prove to you. Any of you," he added, raking his wintry gaze over each them in turn."
"Actually, you do," Hermione said coldly. "You've everything to prove to us, because if what you said is true, then it means that you have made us the only thing standing between yourself and the Dementors." She narrowed her eyes, and leaned forward as she perched onto the arm of the sofa.
"Why would you do that?"
That was the right question, Draco thought. Why, indeed? What the hell had become of his life that he was now coming to Potty, Weasley, and this insipid Mudblood to make a deal for his own protection?
Draco sighed (inwardly, of course). "I did my father a favor. He deserves a hell of a lot more than Azkaban after selling my mother out to Voldemort. And likely, Voldemort will break him out again, just so he can kill him personally."
"What do you mean; he sold out your mum?" Ron asked. "Last I heard she was"-
"Yes, what was the Daily Prophet's line on that one?" Draco snorted, and shifted within the confines of his chair. "Oh, yes- she was killed when a school of crazed grindylows attacked her in our backyard pool, or something, wasn't it?"
"Er- yeah, something like that," Ron conceded.
"Well, that was a load of shite. Voldemort killed her, and my father may as well have been holding his wand." Draco looked away. "She- after the incident at Hogwarts three years ago, my father was still in jail. I went into hiding. My mother thought it would be safer than facing Voldemort…after"-
"After you weren't able to kill Dumbledore," Harry finished. "She figured you were a dead man if you faced him after that."
"Well, yes," Draco replied grudgingly, "Though I wouldn't have phrased it quite that way. Anyhow, when my father was broken out of Azkaban, he pressured my mother into telling Voldemort where I was. He thought if he could deliver me he could escape the bastard's wrath, himself. He was a coward, and in the end, he gave me up without telling her," he spat. "He was pathetic, and I'll never be that way. Never."
"So Voldemort killed your mother for hiding you." Hermione concluded.
"You'd have thought he'd kill me, instead. But he said I'd be more useful." He looked away. He wasn't here to make a big deal out of it, or anything.
"Malfoy, that was a year and half ago, last I read. Why did you wait until now to leave the Death Eaters?" Harry frowned.
"More to the point, what does any of this have to do with us? You want to, what? Join our side? Fight Voldemort?" He regarded Draco skeptically.
Draco stared at Harry for three full seconds of genuine confusion before he laughed.
"Heavens, no," he scoffed. "As far as I'm concerned, you're fighting a losing battle. I've been in his circle. He knows things you wouldn't comprehend; done things none of you could even imagine. And unless you're willing to learn his methods, he'll swallow you whole when you meet him."
"Yeah? Then why doesn't he ever want to stand and fight me? Why does he run? You tell your Dark Lord that"-
"You weren't listening, Potty. Try to follow. I don't have a side anymore. No one's but my own, and that's all I need. I'm no longer taking orders from him, and I'm sure as hell not joining your self-righteous brigade."
"But you need us," Hermione murmured, crossing her legs on the arm of the couch. "You've no longer got Voldemort to keep the Ministry off your scent. In fact, you're marked by both sides. You want to go back into hiding, and what I don't understand is why you think we'd help you."
Draco straightened. "As it happens, I have some information regarding your situation with the Ministry."
"And what do you know about any of it?" Harry demanded.
"I know they've been having you followed for the past year and a half." He noted that they didn't seem at all surprised about that fact. "And I've some information about it that you could use, to our mutual benefit."
"How?"
Draco paused- for effect, to be sure; not because he was at all nervous.
"Well, a shake-up at the ministry would mean that they're not so concerned about locating me," he explained. "That's one house elf off my back, so to speak."
Hermione let out a tiny little growl, but made no comment on the analogy.
"We're still waiting for that information," she said waspishly.
Draco glared on principle, but continued. "My family's Gringotts accounts were frozen when my father was imprisoned," he began.
"When he was broken out, naturally he couldn't just stroll in and open them back up, and we certainly weren't about to go without. So my father decided to contact one of his old plants within the Ministry. Three guesses as to who that was."
"I don't believe that," Hermione said incredulously. "Rufus Scrimgeour takes bribes from Death Eaters?"
"Oh, not now," Draco conceded. "Old Rufus is squeaky clean, these days. But back when he was head of the Auror Department? You bet. Granted, he used the money mainly for department expansion, hiring staff, new quills or whatever, but in exchange, he was ignoring small pockets of Death Eater activity at my father's behest."
Harry, Hermione, and Ron exchanged glances.
"Anyway, my father persuaded Scrimgeour to unfreeze our accounts in exchange for him keeping his mouth shut to the press. I think such information, if it were ever made public, might lead to all manner of investigations that would make it easier for me to slip away unnoticed."
"And what about Voldemort? How will you deal with him?"
Draco was more worried than he was willing to admit, even to himself. But this had been the right decision. Self doubt was not a part of his vocabulary. Never mind the fact that Potter already seemed to know about what the Ministry had been doing. That had been a miscalculation on his part, but it was easy to underestimate other people when he held himself in such high esteem by comparison.
Whatever. May as well see it through now.
"I stay off his radar my way, just like I did before. This will just be one less headache. Incidentally, I heard about your little outburst today. Perhaps you could do with an extra bargaining chip of your own?"
-==-==-==-==-
Harry, Hermione, and Ron had retired to their corner again to talk. They stood close, Ron ducking his head to avoid the light fixture against the wall. All three of them whispered at once.
"We don't know if he's even telling the truth, Harry. In all actuality, we could use the information and still turn him in."
"He's a liar, Harry. You don't honestly believe that shite, do you? He's a Death Eater."
"I think we should let him go."
Hermione and Ron paused. "What?"
Harry sighed wearily. He was so tired of this. All of it; the strategizing, the fighting, always being on the goddamn defensive. "I- What's the point, you know? We're no safer if he goes to jail. The Death Eaters and Voldemort will still thrive. Besides, if he is telling the truth, then he's done us a favor of sorts. He chose to come here when he could have taken his chances without us." He paused then, looking at both of them in turn.
"Let's just let him go, guys."
His friends were silent for a moment before they nodded in tacit agreement.
"Getting a bit of a cramp, over here," Draco called from his chair.
"Malfoy, fuck off," Ron said grumpily as they went back over. Hermione drew her wand and lifted Draco's chains. Harry kept his own wand trained on him as he stood, hoping he wasn't making a mistake and wondering why he was suddenly much too tired to care if he was.
This time, all three of them Apparated out onto the empty and unlit street with Malfoy.
"We'd better not regret this, Ferret." Ron was still unsure whether this was a good idea. He'd never trusted Malfoy and he never would.
Draco moved an elegant shoulder. "Weasley, I don't care whether you regret it or not. And I can't promise you that you won't. But suffice it to say that I've got rather more to deal with than you three at this point. I'll be leaving now."
He turned around, hunching his shoulders against the chill.
"Draco." Harry's voice was quiet, but the fair-haired man turned back all the same. Harry handed him his wand.
"I'm sorry. About your mum."
Draco faltered almost imperceptibly, and his eyes changed for a millisecond before they frosted over again. He recovered with a sneer as he shot his cuffs through the sleeves of his dark and painfully expensive coat and pulled on his gloves.
"The last thing I need is pity from someone like you, Potter. You won't see me again. But don't pretend to know how I feel." He started to walk away, and then turned back.
"I actually got to know my mother."
Harry felt a buzzing in his ears as he watched Draco disappear. His hands clenched at his sides. He Disapparated without a word to either of his friends as he left them standing on the sidewalk, looking at each other.
Ron and Hermione joined Harry in the parlor, where they were met with silence.
"Fucking ferret," Ron commented. "If he ever comes back around here, we'll deal with him, mate. That was below the belt."
Harry only nodded tightly.
"Harry, he's not worth you getting upset." Hermione reached for him. He moved away, jerking his shoulder from her touch.
"Malfoy's an arse. We always knew that, right?" He pulled off his jacket and tossed it onto the couch. "I'm going to bed."
As Harry made his way upstairs, Hermione released a breath and fidgeted for a moment. She took her time removing her coat and hanging it up in the foyer closet. Then she went to the couch and carefully lifted Harry's jacket and folded it over her arm.
Ron watched her go back over to the closet again and neatly hang the jacket next to hers. She may as well have been pacing and twisting her hands, he mused. But when she began to move past him to take up his coat, now strewn across the back of an armchair, he stopped her, taking her arm.
"Hermione. It'll keep."
"Ron, I've got it."
"I said, it can wait."
"Just give me the coat, Ronald! Okay?" Hermione pushed her hands through her hair, and huffed out a breath. "Just- let me hang it up, alright?"
She hated that she sounded so neurotic and irrational. She hated even more that she couldn't seem to stop, even knowing that she did. It was just that she felt so out of her element. How did they deal with this now? How did she deal with Harry?
Ron waited for her to calm down. However he felt about the whole situation, Harry and Hermione were his best friends. If they needed each other for…whatever it was they needed, then he'd never begrudge them that.
"You should go and see if he's alright," he said quietly. He could see it all over her face. "When he gets like this, he- you know, that's when he needs someone the most. When he doesn't think he does."
Hermione looked up at Ron. He was right, of course. Sometimes it was easy to forget that in his way, he often was. Before she headed up, she turned to him. "We'll talk, alright?"
He nodded, jerking his head in the direction of the stairs. Hermione grabbed Ron's wrist and looked him straight in the eye. "We'll talk," she repeated.
"Yeah. Go."
-==-==-==-==-
Harry paced his bedroom. He felt agitated, useless and ineffectual. This had been a day for the books, he thought. He'd gone off half-cocked, completely flown off the handle at the Ministry, and gotten his friends into trouble. Hell, if it hadn't been for Hermione, Harry would likely still be there.
He'd let a known Death Eater escape because- Because what? He'd felt sorry for him?
Harry looked up as the door swung open and Hermione came in, closing it at her back with a quiet click.
He sighed. "I'm not upset, Hermione. You didn't have to come check on me."
Hermione raised her eyebrows and nodded. "Good. So long as you're not upset." But she moved to stand next to him anyway as he sat on the edge of the bed.
Harry took her by the waist and pressed his face into her belly. "I really bollocksed everything up today, didn't I?" he murmured. "With you, with the Ministry…and now with Malfoy. I don't think I could have handled things any worse."
Hermione's hands moved through his hair, front to back. "We do the best we can, Harry," she said slowly. "No one expects you to know exactly what to do, all the time, and you're much too hard on yourself."
Harry didn't think so, but in that moment, it really wasn't something he wanted to discuss anymore. He pulled away and scooted back on the bed, pulling Hermione with him so that she was on her knees on the mattress. He cupped her face and kissed her slowly, letting the heat sort of build on its own, pooling in both their bellies. Hermione's hands were at his waist, and gripping the fabric of his jumper ever more tightly while he deepened the kiss. When he pulled back breathlessly, she yanked the top over his head, just dropping it on the bed, much too preoccupied to expend the energy of tossing it on the floor. Harry's hand shot up to grip the back of her neck and pulled her to him for another, rougher kiss that made them both want to sink through the floor.
Hermione sighed as Harry continued his ministrations of the afternoon, busying his hands with the buttons of her blouse and shivering as they found the skin underneath, and he spread them over her abdomen and around to her back. When he parted the fabric and bared her shoulders, he dropped his head to her shoulder and trailed kisses along her collarbone, loving the way she pressed herself closer to him in response.
Hermione moved her hands over the tight skin on Harry's shoulders, chest and down his abdomen, needing to touch and needing his warmth. The way the muscle quivered under her fingertips made her feel powerful, and she felt like there was more of a balance now, than before. Like she could make him feel as completely open as she'd been to him last night. She brought her head forward and kissed the spot right at the base of his neck. Harry's hand went through her hair, sweeping it back in an urgent gesture that made Hermione shiver with anticipation.
For the second time this night, Harry felt the crazed buzzing in his ears, but this time, in this case he welcomed it, needed it, and as he molded her shape under his hands, feeling the soft skin and the fascinatingly tensile muscle underneath, he thought he'd die if he didn't have her, now.
Enjoying the new sensations and this new position, Hermione gave Harry the tiniest shove backward, and since he was holding her so tightly, she fell forward on top of him. When her lips found his again her tongue dipped into his mouth almost immediately, and as they sank into each other, Harry felt a sort of tangible vulnerability that he'd never expected to experience.
From that point they fought with the rest of their clothes, pulling, dragging, shoving. Hermione slid over him, feeling his rough hands and moaning as his fingers skimmed, then pressed, and then skimmed again. Unable now, to wait, she gave herself over to the urgency and let herself be guided by instinct and Harry's grip on her hips. She completed their rushed and heated joining, and now there was nothing but pleasure, enervating and rhythmic. They frantically sped over that crest together and Harry's hands trembled and she shuddered, shuddered.
Hermione's head fell to his shoulder, her face burrowing into his neck where his pulse throbbed, thick and steady. It was a long while, or maybe not, before either of them spoke.
"Are we always going to do this at the most inappropriate times?" Hermione lifted her head.
Harry kept his eyes closed, but he quirked up the corner of his mouth. "There's no such thing as an inappropriate time. The word 'inappropriate' really doesn't apply at all in this case."
Hermione lowered her head. "You could be right."
"I definitely am. First time today, actually." He frowned. "What's next, Hermione? What do we do?"
She could be sure that he wasn't talking about another round. "How about we deal with that in the morning, yeah? I mean, assuming you'll actually be here when I wake up, of course," she said lightly.
"Never going to live that one down, am I?"
"Probably not," Hermione said as she pressed a kiss to his throat.
a/n: Thanks for reading. This is my first Beta-ed chapter. Which can only be good, as far as I'm concerned. Say hello to Castledown. He's RiXX here on PK, and I know many of my reviewers read his stories. I think they're wonderful.
I need to point out that if there's anything you liked about this chapter, nine chances out of ten it's because of his help with the phrasing, and Brit-picking, and stylistics. If there's anything you don't like, it's likely because it was much too far gone for him to do anything. Don't blame him. ^_^
Feedback on this chapter would be especially appreciated, as I've had the most trouble with it so far.
Cheers,
Heather