Chapter 5: Wednesday morning, the Library

An hour later, having spoken with his father, an anxious Draco returns to Granger’s bedroom.

Granger’s still in her underwear—plain white cotton—searching through yesterday’s discarded clothing. When he enters, she turns to him, panicking. “I can’t find my wand!”

Fuck, he’d forgotten about that!

“Potter has it,” he says, capturing her in his arms as a pre-emptive measure. “It’s all right, it’ll be returned once you’re cleared of the charges.”

He feels her body sag, and he manoeuvres her back to the bed, and sits her down. “We can find you a temporary wand,” he says, sitting down beside her. “It won’t be the same, I know, but at least—”

“The Auror Office won’t allow that,” she says.

“Who’s going to tell them?”

She slumps against his shoulder. “Merlin, you’re such a Malfoy,” she says.

“A few hours ago, you were telling the whole world what a wonderful thing that is.”

She makes a noise, which he hopes is a chuckle. Then he remembers his mission. “You’d better get dressed, Granger,” he says. “There’s a lot to see.”

...

They sneak downstairs, peeking round corners and darting for cover like children playing a game. As they approach Lucius’s study, Draco goes on ahead and, once he’s sure it’s safe, he beckons to Granger, and they slip into the Library unseen.

Draco seals the doors. “It’s in here,” he says, leading her to an alcove on the far side of the fireplace. “It’s well-hidden...” He runs his fingers along one of the bookshelves, selects a particular book, and pulls it half way out.

There’s a soft click, and a full-length door, disguised by rows of fake books, swings open to reveal a tiny room, just big enough to contain a stone pedestal supporting a shallow stone bowl.

“Not many families have their own pensieve,” says Draco, who can’t help boasting, even though he’s nervous. He takes a glass vial from his breast pocket and hands it to Granger.

Granger holds it up to the light, and studies its contents—several wisps of a silvery substance—Draco’s memories of his earlier meeting with his father.

“Does it help us?” she asks.

“It’s... Well, you’d better prepare yourself. It’s a bit of a shock.”

She pulls out the stopper and tips the memories into the bowl. “I hope you extracted the right ones,” she says. “I don’t think my nerves could take watching us play that dice game.”

“Nor mine, at the moment.” Draco smiles ruefully. “Though I’m sure I could manage something if you happened to get all hot and bothered.” He holds out his hand, and Granger grasps it, and they squeeze into the little room. “This is going to be cosy.”

Together, they bend over the pensieve, and fall into his memories, searching for clues.

...

“Ah, Draco,” says Lucius, “close the door; take a seat.”

Draco, standing with Granger beside his father’s desk, watches himself cross the study, pull out a chair, and sit down. Can’t Father see, he wonders, how nervous I am?

“Have you spoken to your mother this morning?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Good. I know that she was worried about your future wife’s—”

“What did you want to talk to me about, Father?” Draco interrupts.

Lucius takes up a knife and carefully trims the nib of his quill. “Shortly after your precipitous exit from the Moran Holdings meeting, I received an owl from the Head of the Auror Office—”

“Gawain Robards?”

“Do you know of another Head Auror?”

Draco scowls.

“He informed me that your future wife had been arrested on suspicion of murder—some Muggle woman, I believe, and a prostitute, if I’ve understood correctly?”

“Father—”

Lucius holds up his hand. “I’ve spoken to Robards, privately,” he says, selecting a sheet of vellum, “and he’s assured me that this unpleasant business can be kept away from the newspapers—until, that is, your future wife is charged with murder. If that should happen, it will be out of his hands, and far beyond my reach.”

He removes the stopper from his inkwell, and dips his quill. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me, Draco, what your future wi—”

“She has a name, Father!”

“Hermione,” says Lucius. “Which you never use.”

“I call her Granger. It’s what I called her at school.”

“Well, then—perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me what Granger was doing in a Knockturn Alley brothel?”

Draco runs a hand through his hair. “She wasn’t in the brothel. And you know very well what she was doing, Father,” he says.

Lucius looks up from his writing. He seems genuinely surprised. “What are you talking about?”

Draco feels Granger squeeze his hand, as if to say, Look at that!

“You set it up,” says Draco, “using that letter. You thought it would make her leave me.”

“I trust,” says Lucius, and there’s an edge to his voice that’s more fear than threat, “that my letter was delivered safely?”

“Of course not. Granger followed me—just as you’d planned—and saw everything.”

“Draco”, says Lucius, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Tell me exactly what happened to my letter.”

Reluctantly, Draco describes his encounter with Delilah Caine, her attempts to entice him into the building, the Freezing Charm, and Hermione’s reaction.

His father makes no comment on his complicated sex life. “You dropped my letter,” he says, rising to his feet, “you...!” And, throwing his inky pen down on his desk, he paces like a caged lion, berating his son.

Granger’s fingers crush Draco’s in silent support.

“Have you any idea,” says Lucius, “are you remotely capable of comprehending, what you have done?”

“Yes,” yells Draco. “Yes! I’ve got Granger accused of murder!”

Granger slides her arm around his waist.

“Some weeks ago,” hisses Lucius, “I was informed—it need not concern you by whom—that an anonymous party, with seemingly impeccable credentials, was anxious to acquire a certain—item—from the Malfoy collection.”

“I thought all those things had been confiscated.”

“Obviously not.”

“So you’re saying that the letter was to this ‘party’?”

“To his agent in London.”

“And who’s that, Father? Father? Who is it?”

“Borgin,” says Lucius.

“Borgin’s still trading?”

“Covertly.”

“How could you do something so stupid?” cries Draco. “We don’t need the money! You should have—”

“What?”

“Surrendered the fucking thing to the Ministry!”

“That little mudblood really does hold your jewels in the palm of her hand, doesn’t she?”

“Only when I’m lucky!” yells Draco, clenching his fists. He takes a few rasping breaths, and forces himself to calm down. “Look, Father—just tell me why—why did you send me to deliver the letter?”

“Because Borgin would only deal with you! He knows you! Besides, you already had legitimate business in Diagon Alley, and there would be no reason for anyone to suspect anything if they’d caught you sneaking off! Of course, I seriously overestimated your competence, as usual, Draco.”

Draco hears Granger mutter, “The bastard!”

“Well,” says Draco, angrily, “I can tell you that your ‘party’ wasn’t Borgin. I heard his voice when he cast the Freezing Charm, and it certainly wasn’t Borgin’s.”

“Then who was it?”

“I don’t know. But Granger thinks it’s someone who wants revenge. On you father. On you.”

...

The memory blurs, and Draco, still holding Granger’s hand, feels himself float upwards, and land on the floor of the pensieve room.

“What did your father say to that?” asks Granger.

“Nothing you’d want to hear.”

She slips out into the library, and sits down in one of the big, wing-back chairs. Draco pulls up a footstool, and sits at her feet.

“He was telling the truth,” she says.

“I know.”

“But I think the revenge is on you as much as on your father, Draco. This wizard asked for you.” She’s wearing the little frown she always wears when she’s thinking. “He obviously wants your father to suffer. But he wanted you inside the house. I don’t think he had any idea that I’d be there because, if I’d been with you in the first place, none of that business with Delilah would have worked... I wrecked his plans, Malfoy, and he wants me out of the way.”

Draco stretches out his arms. “Come here,” he mouths, and—somehow—they end up lying on the floor, with Draco on his back and Granger straddling him. “Why is it,” he murmurs, and he’s not joking, “that, whenever anything bad happens, I get this really desperate urge to shag you?”

“You’re highly sexed. It’s the way you’re made.”

“It wears me out.”

“I happen to like it.”

He reaches up, and tucks a thick lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m just a coward,” he says, “with a big dick.”

“Draco! You’re not a coward.”

“Tell me one thing I’ve ever done that was brave, Granger.”

“You piled those desks up,” she says, talking about the Room of Requirement, “and dragged Goyle—great, big, heavy Goyle—to the top of them, and hung onto him, when you could have let go of him and let Harry save you.”

“Notice that it was Potter who was doing the actual saving, Granger. And you and the Weasel.”

She frowns, and he knows, from her expression, that she’s going to bring up the subject of his nightmares. “You tried to help Crabbe as well, didn’t you?”

He sighs—a great, shuddering sigh. He’s thinking, Maybe telling her about it will help, somehow, and—when he finally does answer—his voice is hoarse, like it had been on that terrible day: “He wasn’t human, Granger—not any more—just burnt skin on black bones, thrashing and screaming, ‘Help me, help me…’ I couldn’t get anywhere near him. I just grabbed Goyle, and we—I—left him to die... I just... Oh, fucking hell, Granger, I want to shag you so much!” He closes his eyes and tries to will the desire away.

“It’s normal, Draco.” He feels her fingers stroke his cheek.

“Normal? What are you talking about?” He shakes his head, trying to escape her hand. “No—whatever it might be—getting a raging hard-on at the thought of your friend burning to death is not normal.”

“Yes it is.”

“Says who?”

“Muggle psychologists. They say that, when you experience death like that, you need to prove to yourself that you’re still alive—you need to make new life, Draco. It’s completely normal.”

“Well, if you ask me, it’s pathetic. It’s the heroes who get to fuck the girls, Granger. We wimps aren’t supposed to reproduce ourselves.”

“Oh, Draco!” She slides her arms under him, and hugs him tightly.

He doesn’t hug back. “The thing is,” he says, “I know what you’re going to say. And the more I think about it, the more cowardly I get.”

She raises her head again, and looks down at him, frowning. “What am I going to say?”

“You’re going to say that we need to go back to Knockturn Alley and break into that house and search it.”

“Actually, I was going to say that we need to extract your memories of the Freezing Charm, and examine them in the pensieve. But searching the house is an even better idea.”

Draco swears.

“So we’ll do both,” she says, decisively. “But first,” she adds, with a kiss, “let’s give you that shag.”

...

He lifts himself up on his hands and, leaning down, he kisses her breasts. The new position’s altered the angle of his hips, and they flex with every lick, nip, and nuzzle, making his cock jerk in tiny, teasing thrusts, which provoke a series of strangled gasps from Granger.

He raises his head. “I love it when you make that noise.”

They share a smile.

“Got your confidence back, I see,” she says. Then, brushing her thumb across his lips, she adds, “Next time you get close, Draco, you’d better let yourself come. We need to look at those memories.”

...

They watch Draco’s memories of the Freezing Charm twice, but find little to enlighten them.

“She was absolutely desperate to lure you into the house,” says Granger. “Did you see her expression when you turned to leave? I’d say she was terrified.”

“Yes,” says Draco, lifting the silvery wisps back into the vial. “He’d obviously threatened her.”

“Did you recognise his voice?”

“No. There’s something familiar about it, but...” He shrugs. “I am sure it’s not Borgin.”

“Well, we certainly need to go back there. And I think we need to go to Madam Mafalda’s.”

Draco inserts the stopper, and looks up at her. “You’re joking.”

“No.”

“It’s a brothel, Granger. And you’re—”

“What? A prude?”

“I was going to say you’re a punter’s wet dream but, now that you mention it, yes, you are a bit of a prude with anyone but me.” He slips the vial into his breast pocket and holds out his hands to her. “Besides, I don’t want you going in there.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not the sort of place you should see.”

“What are you talking about? I played the dice game.”

“With me! And—I don’t want to shatter your illusions, Granger, but—that audience wasn’t real.”

“You played it often, didn’t you?”

“A few times.” He pulls her into his arms and—to his relief—she doesn’t resist.

“Was it always with her?” she asks, softly.

“Yes.”

“Did you love her, Draco?”

“No.” He holds her tightly. “I was fond of her, in a way, and—well—I always gave her extra money, just for herself. But she wasn’t you, Granger.”

“Did she have any friends, that you know of? Amongst the other women?”

“I’ve no idea. Why?”

“Because we’d need to talk to them.”

“In case she told them anything.”

“Yes.”

Draco sighs. “All right. But let me go on my own.”

“No.”

“You can watch it later, in the pensieve.”

“No.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“I don’t trust them, Malfoy. They’ll be all over you.”

He rubs her back—this possessive side of her is pleasing and annoying in equal parts. “They won’t let you in there, you know.”

“They will if you pay them enough. You can hire the entire place.”

“The girls won’t talk to you.”

“They will if you offer them a reward.”

“They’ll lie.”

“We’ll give them Veritaserum.”

“Fucking hell, Granger, you just don’t know when to give up, do you?”

“Neither do you.”

“Well... I tend to give up now, and come back later.”

Granger chuckles against his chest. “Do you have any Veritaserum, Malfoy?”