Chapter 8: Friday morning, the potions workshop

“Well,” says Lucius, smoothing his still-perfect hair back into place, “that was interesting.” He crosses to the sideboard, and pours three snifters of cognac. “Here,” he says, handing one to Granger. “I imagine you need this.”

“Thank you.” Granger takes a gulp, shudders, and takes another. “I remember the owl, now,” she says, her voice hoarse from the alcohol. “The note was written with a Muggle ballpoint on a scrap of paper torn from a Muggle magazine, so I knew that it must be from Delilah. She’d addressed it to both of us—Mr Draco Malfoy and fiancée—so I opened it.”

“Do you remember what it said?” asks Draco.

“It asked you to meet her in Crucible Court. I don’t think it said anything else. I don’t think it actually mentioned me by name...”

“Why did you go on your own?”

“Because,” says Lucius, “she wanted to keep you as far away from that over-endowed hussy as possible.” He pours another brandy, and knocks it back.

“They were fake, you know,” says Granger.

“Fake?” says Draco.

“Absolutely. Some Muggle doctor had put lumps of silicone in them.”

“They always felt real...”

“Well,” says Lucius, pouring himself a third brandy, and offering the others a refill, “though the images were somewhat surreal, I think that what happened was, in essence, clear.”

“Clear?” scoffs Draco. “Granger never cast an Avada—Potter established that—and that bastard never raped her with his walking stick, thank Merlin.”

Granger reaches out, and touches his hand.

“No,” says Lucius, “those particular parts were symbolic. Hermione obviously feels that she blocked the first Avada in some way.” He turns to Granger. “Perhaps you pulled Delilah aside—that might account for the flames. And you may have perceived a sexual threat, which—in your memories—took on a more concrete form. But the rest,” he continues, “seems fairly straightforward. You received a summons from the girl, Delilah, which was meant for Draco. Since Delilah was a Muggle, she must have asked someone to owl it for her, and that someone must have betrayed her, because it would be far too much of a coincidence for the Death Eater to have simply turned up at the same time.”

Granger nods in agreement.

“The Death Eater,” says Lucius, “knew when and where the meeting was to take place, and was lying in wait, expecting Draco. He’d got his torture chamber ready, and he’d armed himself with the Muggle poison, to Obliviate Delilah by Muggle means—and, presumably, you too, if you chose to come along.”

“Why use a poison,” says Draco, “when he could have Obliviated them properly?”

“I’ve no idea,” says Lucius. “Perhaps because the girl was a Muggle, and Hermione’s Muggle-born. He may have seen a poetic justice in it.”

“Plus,” says Granger, “we wouldn’t have seen it coming. He could have walked past and simply brushed his walking stick against Delilah and me, and we wouldn’t have known what had happened until it was too late. And you wouldn’t have known it was anything to do with him. You’d have been distracted, trying to take care of us, and he could have come back and used his wand on you. He must have been devastated when you weren’t there.”

“Maybe that’s why he lost his nerve,” says Lucius. “Or, at least, his temper.”

Granger looks up at Lucius. “Did you manage to see him?”

“Yes.”

“Did you recognise him?”

“No. Either he’s altered his mask, or he’s acquired another. It wasn’t one I’ve seen before.” He takes out his wand and, touching it to his temple, he draws out his memory of the Death Eater’s masked face, and drops it into an empty glass.

“Well, at least we have something we can show to Harry,” says Granger.

“Might I suggest,” says Lucius, finishing his fourth brandy, “that we retire to bed and get some rest. We’re safe, here in the Manor. We can ponder this man’s identity—and decide what we’re going to do about him—in the morning.”

...

Much later, Draco wakes from troubled sleep to find Granger beside him, lying on her stomach with her head pillowed on her arms.

He smiles. It’s one of their favourite positions, because it lets him enter her without too much preparation—whilst she’s still sleepy—and her lovely arse keeps his thrusts shallow and gives them both a satisfying fuck with no danger of his length hurting her.

And, right now, a satisfying fuck’s exactly what he needs—to empty his fears into Granger, and make Granger come apart beneath him.

Insanely hard, he vanishes his pyjama bottoms, straddles her and, taking most of his weight on his hands and knees, he lowers himself onto her, pressing his cock between her thighs.

“No...” she sighs.

It’s not angry; it’s not hurtful; it’s a gentle appeal: Please don’t.

Draco’s surprised—and disappointed—but he immediately slides off her and, lying beside her, strokes her crazy hair. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just... I’m tired, Draco.”

He knows she doesn’t mean tired.

He knows she means, Completely shagged out by all this shit that’s happening just five fucking days before our sodding wedding.

He knows that, because he feels exactly the same. The problem is that all the fear and anger and frustration are making him as randy as hell.

He sighs.

There have been a couple of times when their lovemaking has made Granger cry, and not in a good way. The day that Crookshanks died, when he’d been trying to comfort her the only way he knew how, her orgasm had released an entire night’s worth of anguished tears.

He’d had to hold her until it was over.

And, although he can see that it had been good for her—and good for this strange bonus of a relationship they seem to be building—he knows that she isn’t up to an emotional purging just now, and that he, as sure as fuck, isn’t up to seeing her through one. “I’ll go to the bathroom,” he says.

“No...” She turns onto her back. “Stay here, Draco. Let me hold you while you’re doing it.”

“Oh, Granger...”

“Please?”

He leans down, and kisses her forehead. “It won’t take long,” he murmurs. “My balls are as big as bludgers—my whole body feels like it’s going to explode.”

He settles himself in Granger’s arms, laying his head on her bosom, and takes himself in his hand, closing his eyes to concentrate on her delicious softness, and on the rhythm of his own strokes.

Granger must be watching closely, or maybe she can feel his muscles tightening because, just when he needs it most, she cuddles him closer, and caresses his nipples, and it jolts him straight to the next level. A sweet, glowing urgency’s filling his cock. “Not long,” he groans, “just—just hold my balls...”

She cups them gently in her palm, and at the same time—nuzzling him—she captures his mouth, and kisses it, and—without missing a stroke—Draco kisses her back, his need at fever pitch, his hand working frantically, until—suddenly—he’s there, he’s going to come, and he couldn’t stop it if his life depended on it—

“Oh,” he moans, as liquid fire scorches his arse and shoots down to his knees, “oh, fuck...” His cock jerks. “...I’m coming.”

And he does so, in great, sobbing, blinding spurts.

...

Draco’s body relaxes, and he sighs deeply, for the moment completely satisfied.

“I love watching you, Draco,” whispers Granger, still holding him in her arms.

...

Later

He’s lying on his back, hands behind his head, watching Granger get dressed.

“I’ll need to clean and press these,” she says, holding up the burgundy robes she was wearing on the day she was attacked.

She reaches for her wand.

“Just drop them on the floor,” he says. “Binky’ll deal with them.”

“Draco!”

“What?”

“I do not exploit house-elves.”

“He likes doing it, Granger! He even gets paid for doing it, these days.”

Granger dumps the clothes on the bed and, with a huff, disappears into her wardrobe, hunting for something else to wear.

Draco sighs. He could have done without Granger wrecking his hard-won calm with her bloody house-elf crap. He shoves her robes aside and sits up, rubbing his temples—

“Did Potter have these examined?” he asks.

“Hmm?” Granger emerges, carrying a two-piece costume of midnight blue silk.

“Did Potter have these robes examined,” he repeats. “You know, like in that interminable Muggle film you made me sit through?”

Granger frowns. “I don’t know... And you were fascinated by that film.”

“You were still wearing them in the cell,” he says, thinking aloud. He remembers that, in the film, the suspect had been forced to wear an ugly coverall whilst his clothes were being tested for something called ‘D & A’.

He looks at Granger, and can see that she’s following his reasoning.

“Should we examine them ourselves?” she asks.

“Yes,” he says, decisively. “Conjure some flasks.”

...

He begins by using his wand to spread the robes out on the coverlet. Then he runs the wand over Granger from head to foot, attuning it to her body—it’s already tuned to his own. Finally, he casts a series of revealing, Tergeo, and levitating spells, passing his wand back and forth across the jacket and the skirt, searching for anything that doesn’t belong.

His third pass reveals a tiny hole in the skirt, corresponding to the puncture wound in Granger’s leg.

His fourth pass siphons up a sample of liquid, which he’s pretty sure’s a drop of the Muggle memory-destroying poison. They quickly seal it in one of Granger’s flasks.

His seventh pass lifts a grey hair. It’s short and thick, slightly curly, and very masculine-looking.

“Well,” says Granger, “it’s not Harry or Ron’s.”

“And it’s not my father’s,” says Draco.

“What about the healers you took me to see?”

“Marchbanks’s hair was curly but blond,” he says. “The Muggle’s hair’s a sort of,”—he clears his throat— “muddy brown, and straight. It’s not Stan Shunpike’s either.”

“I don’t remember riding on the Knight Bus.”

Draco smiles. “You had a hot chocolate,” he says, and his hand rises to her mouth. “I had to wipe away your moustache.” His thumb freezes on her lips. “Granger... I’ve just had an idea that’s worthy of you.”

...

“I don’t want you to do it,” she says, mulishly.

They’re heading for their potions workshop.

Draco’s sweeping along, robes flying, like a Geminio’d version of his father, carrying the grey hair in one hand—safely sealed in a flask—and his wand in the other. Granger’s running along beside him, bringing the other samples, and her crumpled robes, and protesting loudly.

“It’s a brilliant idea,” he says.

“It’s dangerous, Draco.”

“Can you think of any other way to do it?”

“Let me owl Harry—”

“No.” He happens to be getting heartily sick of the way she wants to call in Harry Fucking Potter to do anything that requires magic.

“Well, at least,” she says, “ask your father to join us.”

Draco stops dead. Since when has Granger had any time for his father?

“Then,” she adds, “if anything were to go wrong, there’d be two of us—you know—to sort you out.”

“You admit that my father’s a powerful wizard, then?”

“Of course I do.”

“But I’m not—is that what you’re saying? I’m too weak to do this properly? Too weak to protect my own fiancée without Potter’s help?” He opens the door to the cellars with a silent Alohomora, and stomps down the stairs.

“No! Draco! Wait!” She follows him. “The reason I’m worried is that I once made a terrible mistake, and—”

“If you must shout,” says a quiet but penetrating voice from the top of the stairs, “at least have the courtesy to do it behind a Muffliato charm.”

“Sorry, Father.”

“Mr Malfoy,” says Granger, “would you please come down to the potions workshop with us? Draco’s about to do something dangerous, and he needs your help.”

Draco’s glare could blister paint, but Granger seems immune to it.

...

“So this is his hair,” says Lucius, holding the flask up to the light.

“Yes,” says Draco.

“No,” says Granger. “That’s the whole point, Mr Malfoy. We don’t know. Not for certain. It could be anything—suppose it was a dog or a cat hair—”

“Oh Merlin!” Draco sets a large bottle of thick, muddy fluid on his workbench, and turns to her with a smirk. “It’s true.”

Granger blushes.

“What’s true?” asks Lucius. He pulls the stopper from the flask, and magically cuts the grey hair into two equal lengths.

“The rumour that Granger once Polyjuiced herself into a cat,” says Draco, “and couldn’t change back.” He grins, holding out a hand to her. But it’s clear from Granger’s face that she’s upset, and—to his surprise—that makes him feel bad. He squeezes her hand, and mouths, I’m sorry.

His father, meanwhile, has transferred one of the pieces of hair from the flask to a watch glass, and he’s performing an unveiling charm on it. “Human,” he says, decisively. Then, “Perhaps Hermione would like to learn this particular Revelio? I have often found it useful.”

Draco squeezes Granger’s hand again.

“And I think that your idea’s a good one, Draco,” his father adds.

“I,” Granger begins, boldly, but then her voice drops to a whisper, and she confesses: “I don’t think I can bear to see you with his face, Draco.”

“Why don’t you wait upstairs?” he suggests, gently.

She shakes her head. “I want to be near you, in case anything goes wrong.”

“Well... Suppose I promise to keep my back turned, and stay well away from you until the potion wears off. Hmm?”

“Do you even know that a preserved potion will work?”

Draco nods. “Snape devised the method for you-know-who. All I have to do is remove the preserving charm, warm it up, and then add the Extract of Transfigured-Being-To-Be, as normal.”

“Might I suggest you get on with it,” says Lucius.

...

“It’s ready, Father.”

Lucius lifts the fresh piece of hair with the tip of his wand, and drops it into the warmed Polyjuice potion.

The fluid froths and hisses around Draco’s stirring rod, and turns a lumpy yellow-green. “It looks like snot,” he says.

“Interesting,” says Lucius. He takes up a ladle, measures a quantity into a glass goblet, and hands it to his son. “Drink.”

Draco gives Granger a rueful smile, then—first slipping off his handmade dragon hide shoes as a precaution—he turns his back to her, and gulps it down.

“Fuck,” he gasps.

The goblet drops from his shaking hand, and he falls to his knees.

His guts are writhing inside him. He can feel his skeleton thickening—his ribs threatening to burst from his chest, his arm and leg bones sawing through his flesh—and his skin bubbling, and coarse hair sprouting through the oozing mess—on his arms, his legs, his belly, and inside his nose...

And, as if all that wasn’t bad enough, between his massive, hairy thighs, he can feel his impressive cock shrinking down into a tiny little stub!

“Fuuuck!” He clasps his stomach, trying not to lose its contents in either direction.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it’s over, and he’s kneeling on the floor, panting. “Fucking hell,” he groans, looking up at his father. “Remind me never to do that again.”

Lucius grasps his chin and turns his face towards the light. “Well,” he says, after a moment or two, “we certainly have our answer.” He picks up a mirror and hands it to Draco.

Draco stares at his transfigured face. “This explains everything,” he agrees.

Granger runs from the room, slamming the door behind her.