Chapter Text
Chapter 6
-oOo-
"For the fifth time, I'm not pushing you away out of misplaced chivalry!" This was the second time Draco had been elbowed in the stomach for his troubles. Hermione was definitely a contender for The Most Pigheaded Witch Award (Pansy couldn't win it every year). "Most of those wards have extra protections against Muggle-borns, and I don't want you to set them off."
"This particular Muggle-born happens to be much better than you at disarming wards, so let me at it." Hermione was dressed top-to-toe in something Muggle and black, which (although fetching) would instantly tip Pansy off that something was wrong if she caught a glimpse of them.
Draco was sensibly dressed in his best robes, so he could claim he'd popped by to see if Pansy was home if they got caught. It might be a bit harder to explain why he'd brought Hermione with him, however.
"Well, get on with it then – we've been here for far too long." Despite his knowledge of Muggle burglary being somewhat lacking, Draco was quite sure you weren't meant to be waiting outside for more than a few minutes, at most. It had taken them twenty minutes just to get up on the front steps, never mind getting into the actual house.
"You're lucky hexing you in the back would attract too much attention," Hermione muttered, and Draco reflexively looked around. The nicest street in Upper Flagley was deserted on a Saturday night – anyone who was going in or out would use the Floo or Apparate. Which was why they were creeping around the Parkinson's garden in the first place.
Finally, the enchantments inside the ornately carved front door caved in to Hermione's sustained assault. It opened slowly, only darkness showing inside.
"Yes!" Hermione hissed.
"Famous last words, Granger." When Draco's detection spell didn't reveal cause for concern, he advanced cautiously.
He was well aware Hermione's boot was itching to give him a nudge forwards, but he kept his glacial pace, satisfying himself the only booby trap awaiting the unwary intruder was Pansy's coat, thrown on the floor rather than put away. It didn't surprise him – to Pansy, housework happened to other people, and tonight her house-elves were out of action. Hermione had performed some undisclosed act for keeping them from interfering. Knowing her, they were probably locked into a closet, being force-fed tea and biscuits.
"Can we search the room now?" Hermione lit her wand on his signal, and the soft light revealed her impatience was getting the better of her.
"Search away – I told you, she sleeps with it under her pillow."
Unsurprisingly, no Time-Turner turned up when Hermione cast her Accio. "Has it occurred to you that Zabini might have been wrong?"
"Frequently. Not in this case, however – he's known Pansy since she was five. We know exactly what she's like when she gets a bee in her bonnet about something. I too have suffered over the years." Draco shuddered, remembering the time Daphne failed to return Pansy's favourite quill. The Slytherin common room had spent weeks dealing with the fallout.
"My heart bleeds," Hermione muttered, and he could see her eying up the staircase.
"Yes, I agree – no point wasting time down here."
Hermione looked surprised – she was of course used to having to lead Weasley and Potter by the hand, rather than having a partner who could think for himself.
Slowly, slowly they disarmed each trap set on the stairs. Draco wondered who Pansy's forbearer had pissed off, considering the trouble he had gone to protecting the house he had built. Then again, tact and finesse weren't exactly part of the Parkinson arsenal – perhaps he had merely shown remarkable foresight.
"Stop!" Hermione froze, and Draco followed her example. He'd ascertained that Pansy's parents were in the Caribbean, and like himself she was an only child. The shuffling upstairs could only be Pansy herself, or –
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Draco muttered. His freezing spell struck mid-shuffle, and he risked a Lumos to confirm he'd been right. "It's fine, it's just Rufus."
"And who is Rufus, if I may ask?"
"Her familiar. He's an anteater. You wouldn't catch Pansy picking a normal animal, like a cat – oh no, she had to be different. Never let him get within licking range, is my advice." Draco shuddered.
"I really have to introduce you to Crookshanks," Hermione mumbled. "So Rufus is harmless?"
"Now he is." Draco resumed his work. Bizarrely, despite the tediousness of casting the same detection spell for each step, this was fun. He would almost consider doing it professionally – working for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement came with the added bonus of acting within the law for a change. It would of course be useless to attempt to join. Potter had it all sewn up. Draco's surname virtually guaranteed any application from him would go straight into the bin.
He realised he didn't know exactly what Hermione did for a living, when she wasn't on unpaid leave trying to save the world. He must remember to ask her when they weren't breaking in somewhere.
"And that's it – the last one." Draco lowered his wand with a flourish, but as usual Hermione was too busy planning the next step to give credit where it was due.
"Where's her bedroom?" Hermione peered around at the Silenced portraits and giant Chinese vases decorating the upper landing. Amanthea Parkinson looked scandalised at the intrusion, but the blindfold Draco had placed over her eyes prevented her from identifying the source.
"Third on the right." They advanced together, only pausing to allow Hermione to avoid toppling over Rufus.
The door swung open without a sound. Inside, they could hear Pansy snoring. No streetlight slipped through the heavy curtains, so they entered the room completely blind. Draco almost slipped and had to steady himself on Hermione – when he kicked the offending material away, he realised it must be Pansy's clothes from last night.
Draco really hoped Pansy had started sleeping in pyjamas since school.
Hermione touched his wrist – it was the agreed signal for him to stop and wait for her to approach the bed. She had been quite insistent that it ought to be her, to lessen the intrusion somewhat. Draco had tried to tell her that from Pansy's point of view it had better be him, rather than a Muggle-born Gryffindor with whom she only shared the characteristic of being female. Hermione had won the argument, of course. Draco had revised his estimate of Potter's pigheadedness upwards lately; he must be a truly spectacular specimen to have withstood Hermione in full flight so many times.
Sometimes, despite his feelings on erasing the past, Draco wished he could have had a proper Time-Turner and send Hermione back to the early days of Tom Riddle's career just to see what would happen.
Hermione shuffled across the bedroom almost soundlessly, accompanied by Pansy's snores. Eventually, she came to a standstill, and the rustling of silk sheets betrayed that she was searching beneath Pansy's pillow. It went on forever – Draco's wand arm started aching from being stretched out for so long, and he wished he dared to shift his weight to a more comfortable position. If he happened to make the floorboards creak he knew Hermione would kill him, however, so he remained as he was, hoping his left leg wouldn't give out.
There was an extra long rustling – hopefully the sound of Hermione pulling her arm out from under the pillow, and then all hell broke loose.
"Thief! Intruder!" Pansy shrieked. A curse flashed past Draco, hitting the doorpost. There was an almighty scramble, with curses flying everywhere and muffled exclamations. Draco dodged the curses as best he could, hovering on the sidelines trying to see who was winning. Pansy was bigger than Hermione, but the latter had better fighting instincts (not to mention the fact that she was a considerably more powerful witch, no matter how heretic that statement would have seemed to his teenage self).
"Stop that!" Hermione screamed. "It's happening again!" The whole room shuddered – Pansy must have pressed the Time-Turner again. With Draco's luck, it would be this time everything went tits up.
"Stop it!" Hermione panted from the floor – she seemed to be losing the fight. Draco was going to have to step in and put a stop to it. Just then they rolled, and Draco misjudged the direction of the fighting pair. He was knocked down, got a kick in his stomach when he tried to get up again, and decided enough was enough.
"Lumos Maxima!"
Hermione and Pansy halted hostilities temporarily, blinking to get their vision back. Draco had closed his eyes before casting the spell, so temporarily had the advantage.
Draco finally remembered he was a wizard. "Accio Pansy's Time-Turner!" It sailed into his hand, and Hermione looked aggrieved.
"I had that already!" She was deafened by Pansy's outrage.
"Draco! What are you doing here with – Granger?"
"Not so fast, Parkinson!" Hermione was quicker and had Pansy immobilised on the floor before she had time to act.
"I'm here on a mission to save all of mankind," Draco announced. "I've always wanted to say that," he defended himself to Hermione, who was raising an eyebrow rather archly. "It's true!" he told Pansy, who couldn't have looked more incredulous if he had announced his intentions to move in with the Giant Squid at Hogwarts.
"It is," Hermione said. "Unfortunately, Parkinson, your little device can cause the whole fabric of time to tear apart."
"That would be bad," Draco explained helpfully.
"So it must be destroyed," Hermione resumed, ignoring his interruption. "You will receive compensation, of course, but as you were somewhat resistant to giving it up –"
"But I need it," Pansy wailed, and Draco recognised the signs. They could explain until they were blue in the face, but Pansy wasn't at home to Mr Logic when her desires were thwarted.
"That's a shame, but we're doing it anyway," he said firmly, bringing down the sledgehammer Hermione had the forethought to shrink and bring with them on the second last Mini Time-Turner in existence. Draco resolved to destroy Hermione's backup Time-Turner as soon as they got out of there.
"I'll get you for this, Granger!" Pansy struggled mightily, but she couldn't tear herself loose in time. "And you too, Draco," she added bitterly.
"We'll make it up to you," he said hastily, knowing only too well what Pansy was like when she was intent on revenge. " We'll –" Draco was struck by inspiration. "Hermione will make a spell for you, to guarantee your nail polish always is perfect."
"I will, will I?" Hermione asked, but she could see that Pansy had brightened up.
"In that case – I suppose I could overlook it. And you said I was going to be compensated, too?" The Parkinsons weren't wealthy, not since the crash of 1923. A very large bag of Galleons would certainly soothe Pansy's sensibilities, as long as Hermione could deliver the goods.
Draco groaned. At this rate, he'd be queuing up to buy Weasley's second-hand robes. It was only when he noticed Hermione's dazzling smile that he realised that they had finally made it – they'd achieved the impossible, without any help from the Ministry.
He wondered how he had ever thought she was average-looking, or believed she had somehow stolen her magic from other wizards. The best thing about Hermione Granger wasn't her considerable magical powers – they were secondary to the fact that she shone like a diamond from the inside, if you knew how to look. She would spend all her savings and leave her job to save a world full of people who would never find out what they owed her, just because someone ought to do it.
Draco knew she would have found a way to do it all on her own, if she'd had to. Thankfully he had been there to help her – this way, no one was going to end up in Azkaban, and there may well be Orders of Merlin at the end.
Unfortunately, by now there was something else he wanted even more badly than an Order of Merlin.
The cream of the Wizarding world was present at the ceremony; anyone who was anyone, from grizzled war heroes to pure-bloods with more money than sense, was there. Draco tried not to smirk about the fact that he would imminently be awarded an Order of Merlin, First Class, for acts of outstanding distinction – he didn't want to spoil his appearance on the first page of the Prophet with the medal pinned to his chest.
Hermione was standing next to him, occasionally smiling to an acquaintance in the crowd. That was how Draco spotted Potter, and then the Weasleys next to him. The sight of Ronald Weasley's face almost made him slip up.
"Weasley is looking like someone ate his dinner," he mumbled to Hermione.
"Well, this whole thing was his fault, after all." They both knew she'd forgive Weasley eventually – Potter wouldn't settle for less – but not yet.
Weasley's loss was Draco's gain, however.
"I don't think that's why," Draco said, seizing the opportunity. For being the smartest witch of their generation, Hermione could be remarkably dense sometimes.
"Why is it then, since you seem to know everything?" Her whisper was a bit more annoyed this time.
"It's because he doesn't like me standing so close to you."
Hermione looked at Draco like he had explained they'd better go to bed at night, on account of the sun setting. "Ron has loathed you since you were both eleven years old. Of course he doesn't like it. He may have got past what happened in the war, but it doesn't mean you'll ever be friends."
Draco shuddered. "Merlin forbid. You still don't get it, though. Weasley doesn't like it because I might do something like this." He bent his head down and kissed her cheek. Her hair smelled of flowers, parchment and something earthy and strong, just like her. Draco tried his best to look confident for Weasley's benefit, but his knees were trembling as he waited for her reaction.
"I see," Hermione said. "Or something like this, perhaps?" She reached up on her toes and kissed him on the mouth, and Draco thought his heart was going to stop before it started beating at double speed. She didn't linger – Hermione Granger didn't snog in public – but she had made her intentions clear to most of the Wizarding World.
"Yes," he managed to squeeze out, just like his world hadn't been turned upside down. Again.
"Ladies and gentlemen, wizards and witches," the speaker began and Draco tried to recollect his wits. He was only partially successful – he got through the ceremony, but he was smiling like a loon on the front page of the Daily Prophet the following day.
THE END