Round 5 Challenge #1: VOTING!
Are you ready to RUMBLE??
Welcome to the first week of voting for Round 5 of Dramione LDWS-Rumble Edition!!
A couple of things to remember when deciding which drabbles to vote for (most and least favorite):
Guidelines:
1. Which drabble best incorporates the prompt?
2. Is the drabble clever, different, fresh? Does it evoke an emotional response (good or bad)?
3. Does the drabble contain grammar, canon or spelling errors?
The “feedback” option.
As a voter, you have the option of leaving a brief statement about why you voted the way you did, for both most and least favorite. You can also leave feedback for ALL drabbles in a screened comment if you wish. Your feedback will then be given to the drabble writer (if they want the feedback) ANONYMOUSLY.
Example: Most - #40: the ending was brilliant - OR - Least - #57: the ending fell flat
Now that all of that is done… We present the drabbles for week 1!!
RULES
[1] Choose your most favorite and least favorite drabbles. Favorites will receive +1 point per vote, and least favorites -1 point per vote. Each drabble’s MF and LF scores will be added together. Drabble with most points wins.
[2] You may NOT vote for yourself.
Voting ends at 11:59pm, Friday, October 9, 2009.
PROMPT:
AROUND THE WORLD with Draco and Hermione!!
First stop: Sao Paulo, Brazil! Pick a fact - any fact (historical, a festival, local color - whatever) and incorporate it into your drabble. Must be in first person, Draco’s POV.
1
Title: Non ducor, duco
Author: marlaichen
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Word Count: 444
I can feel it in the air and in the way the rain beats against the window that she thinks she's finally given me the slip. How many thousands of miles I've followed her I never will, and never want to know, and still I can't help wondering if all this time I've just been chasing smoke. Never have I felt it more keenly than now, sitting in the dark on yet another spongy hotel mattress, staring into my hands. After a while, you don't even feel it anymore and it's that numbness that scares me now.
She knows that I'm following her. She's always known. Every few cities she'll leave me a clue, sometimes to tease me, sometimes to torture. In Paris, it's a paperback with notes in the margins. In Oslo, it's an empty hotel room where the sheets still smell like her hair.
Recently though, her clues have been few and far between. I'll go for weeks without seeing some sign that she's been there, and I start to wonder if she's finally decided to leave me behind for good. More than once, I've wondered whether she's deliberately sent me down the wrong path, and I know, more than once, that she has.
I stand and walk over to the window, looking out at streets of São Paulo. It's been days since I've had any hint of her, but worst of all, she's beginning to slip from my mind. I lean against the cool glass, my head feeling heavier than it should. If I concentrate, I can almost hear her voice and feel the way she makes goosebumps rise on my skin. I close my eyes and listen quietly to the pulse in my ears.
Suddenly I'm falling forward, a familiar sucking sensation pulling me away, and before I realize it, I've Apperated. Catching my breath I squint in the dim light. The room around me is unfamiliar but the rain still beats the same steady rhythm, so I can't have gone far.
A noise to the left makes me spin around. I can hardly believe my eyes. There she is, her mouth open, looking as shocked as I feel.
She turns to Apperate but I lunge and grab her wrist. She freezes in my grip, her eyes wide, her breath tense. My voice sticks in my throat and all I can do is stare. This image I've carried in my mind suddenly real, as all the pieces of herself and myself we've left scattered across the globe come rushing back to us in waves. Our hearts beat in time to the rain and I hold her until we drown.
2
Title: Business, With Pleasure
Author: mister_otter
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Post-war, Epilogue ignored
Word count: 386
A night wind rustling through the debris in Sao Paulo’s open air Sambadrome whips against the legs of a few drunken stragglers.
I am one of them, standing alone in the dark. Carnaval is over and Granger has not come.
My heart sinks in my chest; there has been no word from her for three days.
Granger and I are not lovers. Not yet. We are here as part of an Auror search team seeking the whereabouts of a Dark Wizard-in-hiding.
Both of us had leads to follow. Our intent was to meet at Carnaval after, to spend a week in each other’s company exploring feelings that we’ve long denied.
Right now, I want Granger’s safe return as much as I want to know her body...
A frisson of light in the middle distance and she appears, walking toward me with the taut grace of a dancer. She is masked, a fact that fires my senses--my imagination--like nothing else she could have done.
A flood of emotions erupts-some familiar, some not. Lust. Relief. And a strange, as-yet-unnamed stirring that strikes deeper than the tight coil of desire.
“Como vai, meu amigo?” Granger calls in Portuguese, the language tripping off her tongue with the golden evanescence of champagne bubbles.
“You are late.” My reply is inane, obvious.
“Yes. But…I have found Rosier.”
“Where?”
”In a villa in the Mantiquiera Mountains.” She steps forward, cupping my cheek. “I am sorry that I could not join you in time for Carnaval, but I couldn’t let the trail grow cold.”
“Rosier could bolt…”
”Please, give me credit for being a cleverer witch than that.” Lips close to mine, breath like candied cherries, Granger’s voice holds a smile. ”The orgy of celebration following the capture looked inviting, but…there are more pressing matters, here, between you and me. Isn’t it time we made our own carnaval, Malfoy?”
“Granger, that is quite possibly the most rhetorical question I have ever been asked.”
In response, I wrap my arms tightly around her and we Apparate away from the empty Sambadrome.
Granger and I aren’t lovers. Not yet. But we have seven days to spend together in Sao Paulo.
A week is more than enough time to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.*
*Paul Coelho, Brazilian novelist
3
Title: Looking Beyond Prejudice
Author: alexajohnson
Rating: PG-13 (for Draco's potty mouth)
Warnings: None!
Word Count: 499
If someone had told me Hermione Granger was going to end up working for me, I would’ve laughed.
Maybe it’s more karma coming to bite me in the arse. Or maybe the Big Man in the Sky is simply amusing himself. Well, fuck you too Mr. Omnipotence. It isn’t that I regret the decision-at the time I’d desperately needed to improve my image, as people didn’t really want to invest in a company connected with the Malfoy name after the War-but damn if the woman isn’t annoying as hell.
Especially when she’s right.
There’s almost nothing I hate more than admitting being wrong, and Granger just makes it worse. But I can’t fire her, because her being here has been making a difference. After the War, I took it upon myself to restore the Malfoy image-with Father in prison and Mother an emotional wreck, they obviously weren’t going to do me much good-and I’d figured the company would be the best place to start.
But people still see Death Eater or Father when they look at me, and I want to punch them, shake them, anything that would make them see. People talk of how they’re moving on from the past, but it’s all a bunch of bullshit.
“Well, that’s hardly constructive, Malfoy,” Granger had said.
In a rare moment, my frustration had gotten the better of me. It had been uncontrollable word vomit, and I pursed my lips, annoyed at myself. “I don’t recall actually asking for your advice.”
“That’s what I’m here to do, isn’t it?” she’d retorted, then continued with a sigh, “I wanted to be a consultant for your company because I wanted to encourage people to put the past behind them. Okay, so it hasn’t been enough. You need to expand, take your product abroad where they aren’t as familiar with your name and will be more interested in what you do. Then people here will be forced to acknowledge you, especially if you’re a success. ”
I know she’s right, and I hate that I hadn’t really considered that. My father had ties in France but hadn’t really explored all the possibilities, and I know that it would be ridiculous to ignore this opportunity because of my odd relationship with Granger.
Mind made up, I send for her.
“Your suggestion is a good one,” I concede, ignoring the smirk on her face, “and because it may be too soon for Europe, I’m sending you to São Paulo. It’s probably the most important financial center in South America, and we should do well there. You’re leaving early tomorrow.”
She’s smiling. “Certainly. I’ll go get ready.”
It’s ridiculous that I ever resented her, because as I’m needed here this would be impossible without her, and right now I think I could kiss her.
“Granger,” I say as she’s leaving, and she turns expectantly. But as much as I want to, now is not the time. “Call if there’s anything you need.”
Her smile widens. “I will.”
4
Title: Obvious Reasoning
Author: ayane_tsurugi
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language
Word Count: 467
“Brazil, Malfoy?”
Looking up into the bright Sao Paolo sky, I asked, “Really?” Because, obviously, this was some sort of cosmic joke. My first real day off since I’d joined the Auror program and started dealing with two-thirds of the Golden Fucking Trio on a daily basis, and the last third finds me. Great.
I heard her snigger. “Expecting an answer?”
“Did you follow me here, Granger?”
She ignored me. Of course. “You know, when Shacklebolt gave you the day off, I don’t think he expected you to leave the continent.”
“I didn’t realize it was any of his, or your, business what I do in my free time.”
“There’s no reason to get snippy.” There wasn’t? What conversation was she having? “I was sent because there’s a new case and Harry thought you might want in on it. Your house elf told me where to find you.” She made a face when she said ‘house elf.’
“Well, I don’t,” I said quickly, hoping it would deter the lecture about the ethical treatment of magical creatures that I saw brewing. Or at least delay it long enough that I could make a run for it. “Now hurry on back to England. I’m sure Potter and Weasley are near hysterics without four of the five brain cells you lot share.”
She turned her head and squinted at me. “You know, if you look hard enough, I think there was a compliment somewhere in there.” She grinned at me in the same infuriating way that she did everything. “So, why are you here?”
“Honing my Portuguese, obviously.”
“Because Portugal wouldn’t have helped you with that at all.”
“Sarcasm isn’t a very becoming quality, Granger.”
“Says the pot to the kettle.”
“Pardon me?”
“Certainly.”
I glared at her. Honestly, now she was just wasting my time. “Fine. If you must know, I’m here to shop.” I gestured around us. We were in a massive parking lot, for Merlin’s sake! “Sao Paolo has the largest shopping center in all of Latin America.”
She just looked at me. “You’re joking.”
“Of course not! I’ll have you know there are fourteen cinemas in there, not to mention a bloody amusement park.”
“You seriously Apparated across the Atlantic for a shopping mall?”
“Is there a better reason?” She looked at me incredulously and began to open her mouth. “I thought not. Now, either go away or come along.” I started walking toward the long row of double doors that led inside, and seconds later, I heard footsteps running to catch up.
“You’ll be treating me to a movie, of course,” she said, and I could hear the grin in her voice.
“I haven’t cursed you yet, and that’s plenty of generosity for one day,” I said, smiling slightly despite myself. “Don’t push your luck.”
5
Title: What Goes Up
Author: bookishwench
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Word Count: 496
I am not going to be sick. The thought is utterly ridiculous. In my schooldays I was capable of keeping my wits and my breakfast even during the steepest of dives after the Snitch, so there is no precedent at all. I am fine. I am perfectly fine.
“Draco, are you feeling well?” Hermione asks, a frown of concern on her face mixing with puzzlement.
“Yes,” I say, but it’s through gritted teeth.
“Really? Because you’ve turned a rather impressive shade of Slytherin green,” she says, and now there’s a suppressed laugh in her voice. “Didn’t you tell stories about escaping from helicopters on your broomstick back when you were in first year? Don’t tell me the great and powerful Draco Malfoy was exaggerating his abilities!”
“Oh, shut it, you,” I say, and I swear someone is rolling Gobstones back and forth in my stomach. “Besides, I never said I was in one of the bloody things. Let’s get back to work so this unnatural Muggle contraption can put us back on solid ground. This was really a stupid idea.”
“Sao Paulo has more helicopters than anywhere else,” Hermione says primly. “We couldn’t possibly fly brooms here without Muggles noticing, and the Ministry needs us to do aerial observation to check for signs of illegal dragon smuggling.”
“Does the pilot have to keep bobbing up and down like this, though?” I ask, and I don’t care if it’s a whine. “And those blades! They keep whirring around and around and… oh, Merlin!”
“Do you need the air sick bag?” she says quickly, moving back as though she’s afraid I’m going to splatter her pretty new sundress.
“No, not that, look!” I say, pointing beneath us.
Sure enough, hidden in one of the poorer sections of town and undoubtedly surrounded by dozens of Muggle-Repelling Charms, are seven or eight adolescent dragons. They’re in a paddock surrounded by buildings that would make them invisible at ground level, but they’re quite obvious from here. The dragons must be sedated since they’re just lying about and snoozing. The Muggle pilot doesn’t notice a thing.
“Have you got the coordinates?” I ask and glance over to see her using one of those GPS things.
“Yes,” she says. “I’ll owl the Ministry as soon as we get back to the hotel.”
“Then we can land?” I ask in relief.
She smiles, motioning for the pilot to set us down on a nearby helipad on the top of a skyscraper. She pays him and we leave, taking the elevator down. Somehow, we’re the only ones on it. How terribly convenient.
“Hermione?” I say, kissing her neck. “Did you know one of the best cures for motion sickness is lying down for a while?”
“Is it?” she asks slyly.
“Mmmm,” I confirm. “Care to join me when we get back to the hotel?”
“Well, I couldn’t very well leave a sick comrade alone, could I?” she says.
I think I’m beginning to love Brazil.
6
Title: Too Crowded
Author: thebigdisaster
Rating: PG
Warnings: Nope!
Word Count: 167
“Why must we be surrounded by all these people? This is supposed to be a vacation, not a … is there even a word for this many people?”
Hermione rolled her eyes and returned to her travel guide. “We agreed that I could pick the destination, and I wanted to come to Brazil.”
Draco took the travel guide from her hand and turned her to look at him. “Yes. And that’s fine, but I thought this trip was about us. Not about us and over a million people”
“I like being in the city,” she said.”
“Well, I like being alone with you.”
She laughed and pulled him along. “No. You just want to find some secluded area so that we can, you know…” she blushed.
Draco smirked. “And what’s the problem with that?”
“There’s not a problem with that. But we’re in the seventh largest metropolitan area in the world. I think we should find other things to do, you know?”
“What’s better than sex?”
7
Title: Something To Write Home About
Author: somandalicious
Rating: G
Warnings: *Art Galleries in Britain. Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool, etc.
Word Count: 494
11-01-2000
Dearest Mother,
Firstly, I hope this letter finds you and father in good health. I trust that the remodeling of the manor is going along swimmingly and that you are enjoying the winter in the city.
Secondly I must say that I’m astounded you would suggest such a horrid destination for a holiday. Get away from it all, you said. Leave your stresses behind, Draco, see the world. Regrettably, I cannot find the words to express my disappointment. There is nothing interesting to be said about São Paulo. It is a city like so many others around the world. Sure, the weather is warm and there are a plethora of landmarks to visit, but if I wanted to experience a masterpiece by a deceased artist, I could have simply visited the Tate* instead of braving the Museu de Arte de São Paulo.
Needless to say, I want to come home. Please send for me as soon as wizardly possible.
Affectionately,
Draco Abraxas Malfoy
28-1-2000
Dear Mother,
Thank you for the gift, while it wasn’t a portkey home as I had hoped, I do find the wand holster quite helpful when I am forced to blend in with the Muggles. Speaking of which, if the urgency of my immediate return wasn’t clear in my previous letter, I hope that I can aptly stress it now. I must come home. It is a matter of life and death. Not only do these muggles zoom around in like maniacs, holding up the roads in their “vehicles” and beeping their loud horns, but Hermione Granger saved me from being run over by one.
If I wanted to run into her and listen to a diatribe about pedestrian safety, I could have done so from the familiarity of Diagon Alley, thank you.
Please obtain a portkey quickly. I am now under a Wizarding Debt to keep her company. I do not pretend to be thrilled about the development.
Eagerly,
Draco Malfoy
10-2-2000
Mother,
I’m writing you to ask you to temporarily halt any attempts to acquire a portkey for me. I heard from Granger that there was a very festive event this weekend at the sambódromo in Parque Anhembi. She promised that I will never experience anything like a Brazilian Carnival and that São Paulo is the best place in order to do so. So I’ve decided I’ll give this place on last chance to make an impression and any opportunity to prove Granger wrong always has merit.
Await further instructions.
Curiously,
Draco.
28-2-2000
Mum-
Thank you for sending a portkey so expediently after my prior letter. However, I feel I must decline. While I appreciate your concerns, I must say that this holiday has accomplished what you had intended. My horizons have expanded. You see I've decided to stay here in the Land of Drizzle. It has offered me something that being in England never gave me the occasion to explore. The possibility of Love.
Indefinitely,
-D.
8
"The city's Latin motto is Non ducor, duco, which translates as "I am not led, I lead".
Title: Observations from the Dust of Retreat
Author: moxicrimefightr
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Word Count:488
It was a typical day at the Ministry as I walked toward the last office I ever thought I'd willingly step foot in. Paper airplane memo's whizzed about but the only one my mind would register was the one crumpled up in my left hand.
Auror Malfoy,
I wish to inform you of your reassignment, after your and Auror Finnegan's run-in with the dementors in Godric's Hollow I believe you need to be somewhere out of the action for a bit. You will be working with Hermione Granger, Head of Muggle Relations. Given your fieldwork experience I trust you should take the reigns on this one. More details later.
Sincerely,
Kingsley Shacklebolt
Minister of Magic
It had to be joke and not a very funny one at that. Me, Draco Malfoy, devastatingly handsome and charming to boot work with that troll? I'd rather take a bludger to my most beloved appendage.
Repeatedly.
For two weeks.
When I reached her office to hopefully confirm that our Minister of Magic hadn't suddenly gone bonkers and that really Potter had just gotten incredibly good at faking Shacklebolts signature I was greeted with the sight of the feisty ex-Gryffindor standing behind her desk buried in a flurry of papers. She appeared to be running late for something, judging by the way she was hurriedly stuffing things into her leatherbound briefcase.
"Oi Granger." I drawled unceremoniously from her doorway. Apparently she'd been expecting me because she did not look up from her rummaging.
"Good day, Malfoy. I believe I owe this extreme displeasure to the memo you got this morning?" she answered.
"Merlin's balls. So they really do expect me to work with you?" I said but now that I was standing in front of her a tiny bit of the outrage fizzled out. She had gotten almost pretty in the years following graduation. She was still rather homely, but she'd traded in her frumpy sweaters for a sharply tailored pantsuit and her hair didn't resemble a rats nest nearly as much as it used to.
"Why yes they do. And whats more enraging is that they expect YOU to 'take the reigns'." Her voice was losing its controlled edge as she continued her speech closing her breifcase and walking towards the door.
"I will have you know. That I am not led." She paused in the doorway and stared up at me defiantly.
"I lead." she finished and turned to whisk down the hallway not giving me a chance to retort. I stood there watching her form hurry away and letting the previous exchange sink in.
I had always had an appreciation for a woman with a fiery temper (absolute animals in the sack). Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. I had never been a natural born leader and besides, if the view from behind was always this nice I didn't think I'd have any qualms in following Granger anywhere.
9
Title: Five Minutes
Author: greenschist
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word Count: 487
As we climb hand in hand up the stairs, a uniformed guide reminds us again that each visitor's time on the Banespa Building's observation deck is limited to five minutes. Five minutes, after standing in line for over an hour. The boy I used to be would never tolerate such a wait for a few minutes on a Muggle rooftop. The man I am is willing to believe the view will be worth the wait if it's a view Hermione wants to see.
Her hand is warm and slightly damp in mine, and she tugs me to the building's edge so we can see the city. All around us, the citizens of São Paulo, or paulistanos as Hermione's guidebook says they are called, fill the streets below with their cars and color-coded buses and the skies above with their helicopters. She exclaims over the view, bursting into one of those lectures that is uniquely Hermione: part history lesson, part social commentary, part random trivia. I try to absorb it all because I've been to São Paulo before, brought here by Father's business dealings, but I've never seen sights like these.
I understand now how little Mother, Father, and I saw of the city and how many opportunities we wasted on our family trips by confining ourselves to São Paulo's tiny wizard community. We never ventured out to a Muggle museum or restaurant. Mother and Father never danced to samba music in a crowded club. The wind ruffles my green and white Palmeiras t-shirt, and I feel myself smiling at the memory of how Hermione laughed when I screamed myself hoarse over Muggle football. My parents would never attend a football game, and if for some reason my mother bought a souvenir team shirt for Father, he would never wear it.
These thoughts make me sad for them and so grateful for Hermione that I interrupt her narrative to give her a kiss. I think I could kiss her for hours, on this sunny rooftop as helicopters whir past.
She's pink-cheeked and breathless when she pulls away, giving me a heated look that brands her name on my heart. She drops Muggle money into one of the coin-operated binoculars, and we take turns peeking through, each pointing out the busy Avenida Paulista and the gothic spires of the Catedral da Sé. She pulls her hair up off her neck as the wind whips it about, and I take advantage and kiss the soft skin at her nape. I wish I could revisit every place I've ever been alone and experience them all over again with Hermione at my side.
She turns and wraps her arms around me, and I whisper "Eu te amo" against her lips. She loves me back, she says, and rests her cheek on my heart.
We stay wrapped around each other, listening to São Paulo hum around us, until our five minutes is up.
10
Title: Compromise
Author: midnight_birth
Rating: PG-13.
Warnings: Mention of sex.
Word Count: 399
"And we of course have to see the Metropolitan Sé Cathedral and the Bandeirantes monument," Hermione was listing off matter-of-factly, as if those things were supposed to mean anything at all to me. She glanced over at me and got a sheepish look on her face. "Is there anything you would really like to see?"
I looked over at her and everything I wanted to tell her died on my tongue. Her eyes were shining with enthusiasm and she was all but hopping up and down from excitement.
We sure were different, not that anyone could ever argue. When I thought vacation, I thought lavish hotels we wouldn't leave for days, breakfast in bed, maybe a lazy walk on a beach somewhere and lots of sex. It became evident quickly that Hermione's idea of a vacation was seeing all the historical and tourist attractions in a given city, and it was lucky for me if she remembered that human beings had to eat, sleep, and relieve themselves. Not to mention that by the time we got back to our hotel we were so exhausted even I didn't try anything.
She studied my face closely and then sighed, looking down at the ground.
"You're bored out of your mind, aren't you?" she asked, frowning. I wasn't quick enough to answer, and I couldn't lie to her anyway (the woman could see through anyone). "You were so nice to get us this vacation and you're not enjoying it at all."
I rolled my eyes. "I got it for you. As long as you're enjoying youself-"
"No, you got it for us and we should both be enjoying it," she cut me off. "So how about we do whatever you want to do now, ok?"
"Then you wouldn't be enjoying it," I snapped. "How is that any different than the situation right now, except the other way around?"
She immediately looked irritated at my stubbornness to accept a grand gesture from her, and I preferred that look on her. "Then we have to meet in the middle."
I smiled and pulled her roughly to myself, closing my arms around her and lowering my lips to hers. "We can go see Se Bande-whatever, and then I have a suggestion of something we both would very much enjoy."
She grinned and glanced up seductively. "How about we switch the order of that?"
I pulled her into an empty alley and Disapparated.
ooo
REMEMBER: Vote for the NUMBER of the drabble, NOT the title. It just makes it easier on the mods!
Poll
NOW, for voters! If you’d like to participate in our side challenge this round, in a screened comment, please rank the 3 drabbles YOU think will place in the top 3. PLEASE use the NUMBER of the drabble, NOT the title.
You may also leave feedback for each drabble if you'd like. This will be helpful for the participants as they continue through this challenge. Since no one will be eliminated, writers will be able to use their feedback to improve week to week. Thank you!
Top 3 Drabbles:
[1]
[2]
[3]
Welcome to the first week of voting for Round 5 of Dramione LDWS-Rumble Edition!!
A couple of things to remember when deciding which drabbles to vote for (most and least favorite):
Guidelines:
The “feedback” option.
As a voter, you have the option of leaving a brief statement about why you voted the way you did, for both most and least favorite. You can also leave feedback for ALL drabbles in a screened comment if you wish. Your feedback will then be given to the drabble writer (if they want the feedback) ANONYMOUSLY.
Example: Most - #40: the ending was brilliant - OR - Least - #57: the ending fell flat
Now that all of that is done… We present the drabbles for week 1!!
RULES
[1] Choose your most favorite and least favorite drabbles. Favorites will receive +1 point per vote, and least favorites -1 point per vote. Each drabble’s MF and LF scores will be added together. Drabble with most points wins.
[2] You may NOT vote for yourself.
Voting ends at 11:59pm, Friday, October 9, 2009.
PROMPT:
AROUND THE WORLD with Draco and Hermione!!
First stop: Sao Paulo, Brazil! Pick a fact - any fact (historical, a festival, local color - whatever) and incorporate it into your drabble. Must be in first person, Draco’s POV.
1
Title: Non ducor, duco
Author: marlaichen
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Word Count: 444
I can feel it in the air and in the way the rain beats against the window that she thinks she's finally given me the slip. How many thousands of miles I've followed her I never will, and never want to know, and still I can't help wondering if all this time I've just been chasing smoke. Never have I felt it more keenly than now, sitting in the dark on yet another spongy hotel mattress, staring into my hands. After a while, you don't even feel it anymore and it's that numbness that scares me now.
She knows that I'm following her. She's always known. Every few cities she'll leave me a clue, sometimes to tease me, sometimes to torture. In Paris, it's a paperback with notes in the margins. In Oslo, it's an empty hotel room where the sheets still smell like her hair.
Recently though, her clues have been few and far between. I'll go for weeks without seeing some sign that she's been there, and I start to wonder if she's finally decided to leave me behind for good. More than once, I've wondered whether she's deliberately sent me down the wrong path, and I know, more than once, that she has.
I stand and walk over to the window, looking out at streets of São Paulo. It's been days since I've had any hint of her, but worst of all, she's beginning to slip from my mind. I lean against the cool glass, my head feeling heavier than it should. If I concentrate, I can almost hear her voice and feel the way she makes goosebumps rise on my skin. I close my eyes and listen quietly to the pulse in my ears.
Suddenly I'm falling forward, a familiar sucking sensation pulling me away, and before I realize it, I've Apperated. Catching my breath I squint in the dim light. The room around me is unfamiliar but the rain still beats the same steady rhythm, so I can't have gone far.
A noise to the left makes me spin around. I can hardly believe my eyes. There she is, her mouth open, looking as shocked as I feel.
She turns to Apperate but I lunge and grab her wrist. She freezes in my grip, her eyes wide, her breath tense. My voice sticks in my throat and all I can do is stare. This image I've carried in my mind suddenly real, as all the pieces of herself and myself we've left scattered across the globe come rushing back to us in waves. Our hearts beat in time to the rain and I hold her until we drown.
2
Title: Business, With Pleasure
Author: mister_otter
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Post-war, Epilogue ignored
Word count: 386
A night wind rustling through the debris in Sao Paulo’s open air Sambadrome whips against the legs of a few drunken stragglers.
I am one of them, standing alone in the dark. Carnaval is over and Granger has not come.
My heart sinks in my chest; there has been no word from her for three days.
Granger and I are not lovers. Not yet. We are here as part of an Auror search team seeking the whereabouts of a Dark Wizard-in-hiding.
Both of us had leads to follow. Our intent was to meet at Carnaval after, to spend a week in each other’s company exploring feelings that we’ve long denied.
Right now, I want Granger’s safe return as much as I want to know her body...
A frisson of light in the middle distance and she appears, walking toward me with the taut grace of a dancer. She is masked, a fact that fires my senses--my imagination--like nothing else she could have done.
A flood of emotions erupts-some familiar, some not. Lust. Relief. And a strange, as-yet-unnamed stirring that strikes deeper than the tight coil of desire.
“Como vai, meu amigo?” Granger calls in Portuguese, the language tripping off her tongue with the golden evanescence of champagne bubbles.
“You are late.” My reply is inane, obvious.
“Yes. But…I have found Rosier.”
“Where?”
”In a villa in the Mantiquiera Mountains.” She steps forward, cupping my cheek. “I am sorry that I could not join you in time for Carnaval, but I couldn’t let the trail grow cold.”
“Rosier could bolt…”
”Please, give me credit for being a cleverer witch than that.” Lips close to mine, breath like candied cherries, Granger’s voice holds a smile. ”The orgy of celebration following the capture looked inviting, but…there are more pressing matters, here, between you and me. Isn’t it time we made our own carnaval, Malfoy?”
“Granger, that is quite possibly the most rhetorical question I have ever been asked.”
In response, I wrap my arms tightly around her and we Apparate away from the empty Sambadrome.
Granger and I aren’t lovers. Not yet. But we have seven days to spend together in Sao Paulo.
A week is more than enough time to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.*
*Paul Coelho, Brazilian novelist
3
Title: Looking Beyond Prejudice
Author: alexajohnson
Rating: PG-13 (for Draco's potty mouth)
Warnings: None!
Word Count: 499
If someone had told me Hermione Granger was going to end up working for me, I would’ve laughed.
Maybe it’s more karma coming to bite me in the arse. Or maybe the Big Man in the Sky is simply amusing himself. Well, fuck you too Mr. Omnipotence. It isn’t that I regret the decision-at the time I’d desperately needed to improve my image, as people didn’t really want to invest in a company connected with the Malfoy name after the War-but damn if the woman isn’t annoying as hell.
Especially when she’s right.
There’s almost nothing I hate more than admitting being wrong, and Granger just makes it worse. But I can’t fire her, because her being here has been making a difference. After the War, I took it upon myself to restore the Malfoy image-with Father in prison and Mother an emotional wreck, they obviously weren’t going to do me much good-and I’d figured the company would be the best place to start.
But people still see Death Eater or Father when they look at me, and I want to punch them, shake them, anything that would make them see. People talk of how they’re moving on from the past, but it’s all a bunch of bullshit.
“Well, that’s hardly constructive, Malfoy,” Granger had said.
In a rare moment, my frustration had gotten the better of me. It had been uncontrollable word vomit, and I pursed my lips, annoyed at myself. “I don’t recall actually asking for your advice.”
“That’s what I’m here to do, isn’t it?” she’d retorted, then continued with a sigh, “I wanted to be a consultant for your company because I wanted to encourage people to put the past behind them. Okay, so it hasn’t been enough. You need to expand, take your product abroad where they aren’t as familiar with your name and will be more interested in what you do. Then people here will be forced to acknowledge you, especially if you’re a success. ”
I know she’s right, and I hate that I hadn’t really considered that. My father had ties in France but hadn’t really explored all the possibilities, and I know that it would be ridiculous to ignore this opportunity because of my odd relationship with Granger.
Mind made up, I send for her.
“Your suggestion is a good one,” I concede, ignoring the smirk on her face, “and because it may be too soon for Europe, I’m sending you to São Paulo. It’s probably the most important financial center in South America, and we should do well there. You’re leaving early tomorrow.”
She’s smiling. “Certainly. I’ll go get ready.”
It’s ridiculous that I ever resented her, because as I’m needed here this would be impossible without her, and right now I think I could kiss her.
“Granger,” I say as she’s leaving, and she turns expectantly. But as much as I want to, now is not the time. “Call if there’s anything you need.”
Her smile widens. “I will.”
4
Title: Obvious Reasoning
Author: ayane_tsurugi
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language
Word Count: 467
“Brazil, Malfoy?”
Looking up into the bright Sao Paolo sky, I asked, “Really?” Because, obviously, this was some sort of cosmic joke. My first real day off since I’d joined the Auror program and started dealing with two-thirds of the Golden Fucking Trio on a daily basis, and the last third finds me. Great.
I heard her snigger. “Expecting an answer?”
“Did you follow me here, Granger?”
She ignored me. Of course. “You know, when Shacklebolt gave you the day off, I don’t think he expected you to leave the continent.”
“I didn’t realize it was any of his, or your, business what I do in my free time.”
“There’s no reason to get snippy.” There wasn’t? What conversation was she having? “I was sent because there’s a new case and Harry thought you might want in on it. Your house elf told me where to find you.” She made a face when she said ‘house elf.’
“Well, I don’t,” I said quickly, hoping it would deter the lecture about the ethical treatment of magical creatures that I saw brewing. Or at least delay it long enough that I could make a run for it. “Now hurry on back to England. I’m sure Potter and Weasley are near hysterics without four of the five brain cells you lot share.”
She turned her head and squinted at me. “You know, if you look hard enough, I think there was a compliment somewhere in there.” She grinned at me in the same infuriating way that she did everything. “So, why are you here?”
“Honing my Portuguese, obviously.”
“Because Portugal wouldn’t have helped you with that at all.”
“Sarcasm isn’t a very becoming quality, Granger.”
“Says the pot to the kettle.”
“Pardon me?”
“Certainly.”
I glared at her. Honestly, now she was just wasting my time. “Fine. If you must know, I’m here to shop.” I gestured around us. We were in a massive parking lot, for Merlin’s sake! “Sao Paolo has the largest shopping center in all of Latin America.”
She just looked at me. “You’re joking.”
“Of course not! I’ll have you know there are fourteen cinemas in there, not to mention a bloody amusement park.”
“You seriously Apparated across the Atlantic for a shopping mall?”
“Is there a better reason?” She looked at me incredulously and began to open her mouth. “I thought not. Now, either go away or come along.” I started walking toward the long row of double doors that led inside, and seconds later, I heard footsteps running to catch up.
“You’ll be treating me to a movie, of course,” she said, and I could hear the grin in her voice.
“I haven’t cursed you yet, and that’s plenty of generosity for one day,” I said, smiling slightly despite myself. “Don’t push your luck.”
5
Title: What Goes Up
Author: bookishwench
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Word Count: 496
I am not going to be sick. The thought is utterly ridiculous. In my schooldays I was capable of keeping my wits and my breakfast even during the steepest of dives after the Snitch, so there is no precedent at all. I am fine. I am perfectly fine.
“Draco, are you feeling well?” Hermione asks, a frown of concern on her face mixing with puzzlement.
“Yes,” I say, but it’s through gritted teeth.
“Really? Because you’ve turned a rather impressive shade of Slytherin green,” she says, and now there’s a suppressed laugh in her voice. “Didn’t you tell stories about escaping from helicopters on your broomstick back when you were in first year? Don’t tell me the great and powerful Draco Malfoy was exaggerating his abilities!”
“Oh, shut it, you,” I say, and I swear someone is rolling Gobstones back and forth in my stomach. “Besides, I never said I was in one of the bloody things. Let’s get back to work so this unnatural Muggle contraption can put us back on solid ground. This was really a stupid idea.”
“Sao Paulo has more helicopters than anywhere else,” Hermione says primly. “We couldn’t possibly fly brooms here without Muggles noticing, and the Ministry needs us to do aerial observation to check for signs of illegal dragon smuggling.”
“Does the pilot have to keep bobbing up and down like this, though?” I ask, and I don’t care if it’s a whine. “And those blades! They keep whirring around and around and… oh, Merlin!”
“Do you need the air sick bag?” she says quickly, moving back as though she’s afraid I’m going to splatter her pretty new sundress.
“No, not that, look!” I say, pointing beneath us.
Sure enough, hidden in one of the poorer sections of town and undoubtedly surrounded by dozens of Muggle-Repelling Charms, are seven or eight adolescent dragons. They’re in a paddock surrounded by buildings that would make them invisible at ground level, but they’re quite obvious from here. The dragons must be sedated since they’re just lying about and snoozing. The Muggle pilot doesn’t notice a thing.
“Have you got the coordinates?” I ask and glance over to see her using one of those GPS things.
“Yes,” she says. “I’ll owl the Ministry as soon as we get back to the hotel.”
“Then we can land?” I ask in relief.
She smiles, motioning for the pilot to set us down on a nearby helipad on the top of a skyscraper. She pays him and we leave, taking the elevator down. Somehow, we’re the only ones on it. How terribly convenient.
“Hermione?” I say, kissing her neck. “Did you know one of the best cures for motion sickness is lying down for a while?”
“Is it?” she asks slyly.
“Mmmm,” I confirm. “Care to join me when we get back to the hotel?”
“Well, I couldn’t very well leave a sick comrade alone, could I?” she says.
I think I’m beginning to love Brazil.
6
Title: Too Crowded
Author: thebigdisaster
Rating: PG
Warnings: Nope!
Word Count: 167
“Why must we be surrounded by all these people? This is supposed to be a vacation, not a … is there even a word for this many people?”
Hermione rolled her eyes and returned to her travel guide. “We agreed that I could pick the destination, and I wanted to come to Brazil.”
Draco took the travel guide from her hand and turned her to look at him. “Yes. And that’s fine, but I thought this trip was about us. Not about us and over a million people”
“I like being in the city,” she said.”
“Well, I like being alone with you.”
She laughed and pulled him along. “No. You just want to find some secluded area so that we can, you know…” she blushed.
Draco smirked. “And what’s the problem with that?”
“There’s not a problem with that. But we’re in the seventh largest metropolitan area in the world. I think we should find other things to do, you know?”
“What’s better than sex?”
7
Title: Something To Write Home About
Author: somandalicious
Rating: G
Warnings: *Art Galleries in Britain. Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool, etc.
Word Count: 494
11-01-2000
Dearest Mother,
Firstly, I hope this letter finds you and father in good health. I trust that the remodeling of the manor is going along swimmingly and that you are enjoying the winter in the city.
Secondly I must say that I’m astounded you would suggest such a horrid destination for a holiday. Get away from it all, you said. Leave your stresses behind, Draco, see the world. Regrettably, I cannot find the words to express my disappointment. There is nothing interesting to be said about São Paulo. It is a city like so many others around the world. Sure, the weather is warm and there are a plethora of landmarks to visit, but if I wanted to experience a masterpiece by a deceased artist, I could have simply visited the Tate* instead of braving the Museu de Arte de São Paulo.
Needless to say, I want to come home. Please send for me as soon as wizardly possible.
Affectionately,
Draco Abraxas Malfoy
28-1-2000
Dear Mother,
Thank you for the gift, while it wasn’t a portkey home as I had hoped, I do find the wand holster quite helpful when I am forced to blend in with the Muggles. Speaking of which, if the urgency of my immediate return wasn’t clear in my previous letter, I hope that I can aptly stress it now. I must come home. It is a matter of life and death. Not only do these muggles zoom around in like maniacs, holding up the roads in their “vehicles” and beeping their loud horns, but Hermione Granger saved me from being run over by one.
If I wanted to run into her and listen to a diatribe about pedestrian safety, I could have done so from the familiarity of Diagon Alley, thank you.
Please obtain a portkey quickly. I am now under a Wizarding Debt to keep her company. I do not pretend to be thrilled about the development.
Eagerly,
Draco Malfoy
10-2-2000
Mother,
I’m writing you to ask you to temporarily halt any attempts to acquire a portkey for me. I heard from Granger that there was a very festive event this weekend at the sambódromo in Parque Anhembi. She promised that I will never experience anything like a Brazilian Carnival and that São Paulo is the best place in order to do so. So I’ve decided I’ll give this place on last chance to make an impression and any opportunity to prove Granger wrong always has merit.
Await further instructions.
Curiously,
Draco.
28-2-2000
Mum-
Thank you for sending a portkey so expediently after my prior letter. However, I feel I must decline. While I appreciate your concerns, I must say that this holiday has accomplished what you had intended. My horizons have expanded. You see I've decided to stay here in the Land of Drizzle. It has offered me something that being in England never gave me the occasion to explore. The possibility of Love.
Indefinitely,
-D.
8
"The city's Latin motto is Non ducor, duco, which translates as "I am not led, I lead".
Title: Observations from the Dust of Retreat
Author: moxicrimefightr
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Word Count:488
It was a typical day at the Ministry as I walked toward the last office I ever thought I'd willingly step foot in. Paper airplane memo's whizzed about but the only one my mind would register was the one crumpled up in my left hand.
Auror Malfoy,
I wish to inform you of your reassignment, after your and Auror Finnegan's run-in with the dementors in Godric's Hollow I believe you need to be somewhere out of the action for a bit. You will be working with Hermione Granger, Head of Muggle Relations. Given your fieldwork experience I trust you should take the reigns on this one. More details later.
Sincerely,
Kingsley Shacklebolt
Minister of Magic
It had to be joke and not a very funny one at that. Me, Draco Malfoy, devastatingly handsome and charming to boot work with that troll? I'd rather take a bludger to my most beloved appendage.
Repeatedly.
For two weeks.
When I reached her office to hopefully confirm that our Minister of Magic hadn't suddenly gone bonkers and that really Potter had just gotten incredibly good at faking Shacklebolts signature I was greeted with the sight of the feisty ex-Gryffindor standing behind her desk buried in a flurry of papers. She appeared to be running late for something, judging by the way she was hurriedly stuffing things into her leatherbound briefcase.
"Oi Granger." I drawled unceremoniously from her doorway. Apparently she'd been expecting me because she did not look up from her rummaging.
"Good day, Malfoy. I believe I owe this extreme displeasure to the memo you got this morning?" she answered.
"Merlin's balls. So they really do expect me to work with you?" I said but now that I was standing in front of her a tiny bit of the outrage fizzled out. She had gotten almost pretty in the years following graduation. She was still rather homely, but she'd traded in her frumpy sweaters for a sharply tailored pantsuit and her hair didn't resemble a rats nest nearly as much as it used to.
"Why yes they do. And whats more enraging is that they expect YOU to 'take the reigns'." Her voice was losing its controlled edge as she continued her speech closing her breifcase and walking towards the door.
"I will have you know. That I am not led." She paused in the doorway and stared up at me defiantly.
"I lead." she finished and turned to whisk down the hallway not giving me a chance to retort. I stood there watching her form hurry away and letting the previous exchange sink in.
I had always had an appreciation for a woman with a fiery temper (absolute animals in the sack). Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. I had never been a natural born leader and besides, if the view from behind was always this nice I didn't think I'd have any qualms in following Granger anywhere.
9
Title: Five Minutes
Author: greenschist
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word Count: 487
As we climb hand in hand up the stairs, a uniformed guide reminds us again that each visitor's time on the Banespa Building's observation deck is limited to five minutes. Five minutes, after standing in line for over an hour. The boy I used to be would never tolerate such a wait for a few minutes on a Muggle rooftop. The man I am is willing to believe the view will be worth the wait if it's a view Hermione wants to see.
Her hand is warm and slightly damp in mine, and she tugs me to the building's edge so we can see the city. All around us, the citizens of São Paulo, or paulistanos as Hermione's guidebook says they are called, fill the streets below with their cars and color-coded buses and the skies above with their helicopters. She exclaims over the view, bursting into one of those lectures that is uniquely Hermione: part history lesson, part social commentary, part random trivia. I try to absorb it all because I've been to São Paulo before, brought here by Father's business dealings, but I've never seen sights like these.
I understand now how little Mother, Father, and I saw of the city and how many opportunities we wasted on our family trips by confining ourselves to São Paulo's tiny wizard community. We never ventured out to a Muggle museum or restaurant. Mother and Father never danced to samba music in a crowded club. The wind ruffles my green and white Palmeiras t-shirt, and I feel myself smiling at the memory of how Hermione laughed when I screamed myself hoarse over Muggle football. My parents would never attend a football game, and if for some reason my mother bought a souvenir team shirt for Father, he would never wear it.
These thoughts make me sad for them and so grateful for Hermione that I interrupt her narrative to give her a kiss. I think I could kiss her for hours, on this sunny rooftop as helicopters whir past.
She's pink-cheeked and breathless when she pulls away, giving me a heated look that brands her name on my heart. She drops Muggle money into one of the coin-operated binoculars, and we take turns peeking through, each pointing out the busy Avenida Paulista and the gothic spires of the Catedral da Sé. She pulls her hair up off her neck as the wind whips it about, and I take advantage and kiss the soft skin at her nape. I wish I could revisit every place I've ever been alone and experience them all over again with Hermione at my side.
She turns and wraps her arms around me, and I whisper "Eu te amo" against her lips. She loves me back, she says, and rests her cheek on my heart.
We stay wrapped around each other, listening to São Paulo hum around us, until our five minutes is up.
10
Title: Compromise
Author: midnight_birth
Rating: PG-13.
Warnings: Mention of sex.
Word Count: 399
"And we of course have to see the Metropolitan Sé Cathedral and the Bandeirantes monument," Hermione was listing off matter-of-factly, as if those things were supposed to mean anything at all to me. She glanced over at me and got a sheepish look on her face. "Is there anything you would really like to see?"
I looked over at her and everything I wanted to tell her died on my tongue. Her eyes were shining with enthusiasm and she was all but hopping up and down from excitement.
We sure were different, not that anyone could ever argue. When I thought vacation, I thought lavish hotels we wouldn't leave for days, breakfast in bed, maybe a lazy walk on a beach somewhere and lots of sex. It became evident quickly that Hermione's idea of a vacation was seeing all the historical and tourist attractions in a given city, and it was lucky for me if she remembered that human beings had to eat, sleep, and relieve themselves. Not to mention that by the time we got back to our hotel we were so exhausted even I didn't try anything.
She studied my face closely and then sighed, looking down at the ground.
"You're bored out of your mind, aren't you?" she asked, frowning. I wasn't quick enough to answer, and I couldn't lie to her anyway (the woman could see through anyone). "You were so nice to get us this vacation and you're not enjoying it at all."
I rolled my eyes. "I got it for you. As long as you're enjoying youself-"
"No, you got it for us and we should both be enjoying it," she cut me off. "So how about we do whatever you want to do now, ok?"
"Then you wouldn't be enjoying it," I snapped. "How is that any different than the situation right now, except the other way around?"
She immediately looked irritated at my stubbornness to accept a grand gesture from her, and I preferred that look on her. "Then we have to meet in the middle."
I smiled and pulled her roughly to myself, closing my arms around her and lowering my lips to hers. "We can go see Se Bande-whatever, and then I have a suggestion of something we both would very much enjoy."
She grinned and glanced up seductively. "How about we switch the order of that?"
I pulled her into an empty alley and Disapparated.
ooo
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