This Mortal Coil (1/3) - a gift for inadaze22

[kalina_blue]

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling and Warner Bros. All fics posted at this community were written entirely for fun, not for profit, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Title: This Mortal Coil (1/3)
Author: Terrayn (pinch-hitter)
Gift for: inadaze22
Rating: R
Word Count: 23,965
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Warnings: unconventional point-of-view, profanity
Summary: Draco is in a pub and drunk and has a story to tell. Hermione listens.
A/N: The prompts were a doorstep, a rock and "Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane. Thanks so much to Demi, Dina and Jen for going above and beyond the call of duty and being such incredible readers and betas.


Tell me. When are you going to let me in?

I should’ve known then that all roads led to you.

I’m not talking about fate or some romantic bullshit. God-who I’ve surmised is a scorned woman from my hellhole of a life-only knows why females need to read cosmic implications into every fleeting feeling. Just the other day, I was at Florean Fortescue's when I was accosted. No, I’m not stalking you. I just need that jar of honey. And no, I’m not tongue-tied because my feelings are threatening to overwhelm me. You’ve actually appalled me into silence. I don’t remember seeing you a day before in my life- oh, were we in the same House? Well, this is awkward. Theresa, Tina . . . Tracey, you say. Right. Of course. No, I’m not staring because I’m too shy to ask you out to dinner. I really do need that honey.

What it boils down to is coincidence. And I’ve decided the only suitable entity to blame all my misfortunes on is you, considering God hasn't seen fit to bless me with a single favor in at least twelve years - Potter, the Man-with-Rainbows-Shooting-from-his-Arse, clearly being her, yes her, anointed savior on earth and hopefully her nancyboy whipping post in the thereafter. That’s right, I blame you. It came to me in a moment of clarity between my eighth tequila shot and the strangest desire to order a Bikini Appletini. It began, as you know, with my nonappearance at my wedding. Terrible scandal, that. No, don’t get up! I know you know the story, but I want- need you to hear it. Because you see, that was the end of the beginning.

Pansy was dressed to the nines. In truth, I stood outside those crenellated double-doors for over an hour, anticipation scraping the back of my throat like unaged bourbon. But there would be no blazing warmth awaiting that first swig. When I finally worked up the nerve to give the doors a good heave-ho, I found her standing alone in that dark banquet room, a white figure blazing like a spotlight.

“Draco, you sodding bastard,” she said to me, not even bothering to turn around, so sure that only the worthless groom would dare to scurry in ten hours late.

I managed two very inadequate words before she whipped around and slit my face with rose-tipped nails, bleeding me to match her tear treks long since dry. “I’m going to kill you for this someday,” she said softly.

The pain vanished in a flash of heat leaving my cheek to burn in shame and anger. “What, this not a good time for you?” I asked, weary.

She threw the bouquet she had been clenching at me, an explosion of color that spattered my shoes like sick. To this day, I don’t know why it should be that bouquet I remember most vividly. Not the flower names, of course, but what they reminded me of: A confection of pink, yellow and white that Pansy had once shoved in my face when we were in leading strings, and she’d wanted to share her treat. I’d run away, spooked by the speculative glint in her mother’s eye. So really, I should’ve expected this execrable lack of taste in my farce of a wedding; I’d given her colorblind tyrant of a mother carte blanche, after all.

“I knew you were going to do this to me.” Pansy's small white hands disappeared in the voluminous folds of her white dress. “I knew it but some pathetic part of me hoped that you cared enough- that you couldn’t humiliate me like this.”

This could be it, I remember thinking.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, and waited for Pansy Parkinson, sweet vicious girl, still mourning the loss of me in her glassy eyes, to do something irrevocable.

“You’re sorry?” she echoed, with unsteady laughter. “I’d rather you were dead.”

“Pansy-”

“Do you know what you’ve done? I don’t even care that you couldn’t be arsed to show up to your own wedding. Not when you’ve made me into a husk. Do you hear me, Draco?” she said, in a whisper so flat and barren of pain it was shouted in every syllable. “I don’t feel anything anymore.”

“I know,” I said.

She flung a thin, pale arm to the silk curtains encasing the tall rectangular windows of the ballroom. “I stood at that window for nine hours. I stood there watching all our guests leave. I stood there watching them take down the tent and pack up the chairs. I stood there as the gardener threw away all the dead roses and . . . it hit me. What we have isn’t even as eloquent as that. You’re not just dead; you’re not even real. You’re this delusion I have, that I’ve had since school, and I saw for the first time- what must’ve been so obvious to everyone else. If you’d come, I’d spend the rest of my life waiting for you. And you would never be there! You’ve taken everything from me and I can’t even blame you.”

She shrugged, a too careless gesture of grief, the bony ridges of her shoulder stretching her porcelain skin even tighter. “I wanted to give you me. And in return, I just . . . I wanted this one thing, this one tiny thing from you," she said, voice cracking.

“Pansy,” I murmured, “I don’t love you.”

“Oh, I know that! Believe me, that has always been nauseatingly, perfectly clear. But I thought I could make you. I thought there was something wrong with me, something defective I could fix for you. But you never wanted that, did you?”

She pressed her trembling lips together, a proud beautiful creature to the last, silencing a barrage of needs and hopes and fears she wanted to etch onto me, so that someday, what was skin-deep might seep through and be real. I read those thoughts in that pretty, quivering mouth and fragile rigidity, and suddenly, I couldn’t bear to look at her, because the despair she reined in with every harsh breath, this ruptured moment, this was her last stand. I traced the sheer veil pinned above her hair; it cut a harsh outline of her face, and the truth was that for all her battering words, she was still trying to force a confession from me.

That’s when I knew this wasn’t it; nothing irrevocable was happening.

I crushed the plea in her half-mast brown eyes. “No. I never wanted you.”

She laughed harshly. “O-Of course!” She reached for me, her white hand drifting from my shoulder to rest weightlessly on my elbow. “I’ve loved you for seven years and two hundred and one days, Draco Malfoy. I hope you never find out what that’s like. I wouldn’t wish that on even you.”

Then she brushed past me, head tilted mutinously high and shoulders wrenched back. The train of her gown clipped my ankle, and it throbbed harder than the red wasteland of my cheek. The doors wedged closed behind her. And once again, I hadn’t been late enough.

Don’t leave, Granger. I’m not making excuses here. I behaved abominably, I know. But I couldn’t not. I’m sick with it. It’s the sludge in my veins, inertia hooking onto my insides until I'm dawdling by newsstands and dithering by entrances waiting for that perfect sliver of a moment sandwiched between unforgivable and merely insufferable to come in. I can no more stop pacing outside those restaurants and operas and auctions than Atlas can shrug. I’ve got to be late, don’t you see. Not unfashionably or insultingly late, but just enough so those buggers’ll know I don’t give a damn. No, I can't tell you why. I'd slot these feelings into perfectly packaged words for you-this is my last stand after all-but I don't know why.

Maybe I’m waiting. Hovering on the edge because I’ve only ever been brave enough to court ruin. Someday, probably far too damned soon, I’ll put someone in a blinding rage, and then I’ll finally be abandoned and given up on.

By who? I don’t know. Maybe Pansy or my mother or the fucking postman. Why do you care anyway? That’s the problem with you; you always have to know. It's your compulsion. You squeeze everything into little checkboxes on to-do lists that never end - why not bypass all that red tape and just file your life under death? You cram yourself so full of hearty, frenetic living just to feel accomplished, playing it up for an imaginary audience, but who's watching? My compulsion is different: It’s a thumping need to linger and linger and linger, so that it can all pass me by. My internal tick-tock is on permanent snooze, and I’ve given up being in it. You called it fleeing and you were right.

But there’s no place in this shiny new exterior your lot has given my whole world for the carcasses of privilege and prejudice, gifts that have ruled my life for so long I only realized their existence in their absence. What's a pureblood scion to do when he's a Hogwarts dropout with a rap sheet by day and a coward with prison wrapped around his throat by night?

I remember everything about you that day. How puffed up and earnest and outraged you were to find me in Mockridge’s office. Don’t think I wasn’t put out, either. There was something so damned uppity about you that one look was enough to know that having your pert, judgmental eyes inflicted on me daily would be the worst part of my probation. I threw quite the dustup, didn’t I? If Mockridge hadn’t shooed us both out, I’d probably still be Transfigured into a dung beetle- don’t deny it, you know you were within an inch of hexing me. But the point is, you had no idea how nerve-wrecked I was, shaking in my leather boots-don’t snort, I was!-when you came down on me like a hoity-toity harpy.

There I was being condescended to by a creaky old man with an alarming likeness to my batty Aunt Boudicca, the one convinced that unibrows and busty shoulder pads are the new black, when you burst into that shanty of an office.

You gave me a disdainful once over, a masterful imitation of Pansy's best sneer, and dismissed me to turn the full force of your indignation on poor Cuthbert. “What’s Malfoy doing here?” you demanded.

Mockridge blinked owlishly and pushed his spectacles higher on his nose. “Mr. Malfoy has been assigned to our department,” he answered, voice croaking. “It’s the Committee on the, uh," he squinted at the slip in his hand, "Rehabilitation of Former Death Eaters. Their first assignment. Mr. Malfoy's probation, so to speak.”

“Really?” you said, biting your lip. “The Committee’s first assignment?”

“So it says. Mr. Malfoy is apparently the first in a pilot program. I understand the two of you were in the same year. This won’t be, er . . . a problem, I hope?” asked Mockridge with tentative, and utterly misplaced, optimism.

“Problem?” you said shrilly. I fancied I could hear your teeth grinding.

Imagine how I felt standing there being discussed like an unwanted, moldy old lamp that he’d just proposed you auction at Christie’s. Can you blame me for the ensuing vitriol?

“Excuse me,” I said, cold with premonition. “I thought my assignment was to the Centaur Liaison Office.” Crumpling the parchment with my new ball-and-chain scrawled across it, I manfully resisted the urge to throw it on the ratty floor and stomp repeatedly.

You gave a sharp bark of laughter and crossed your arms, drawing my attention to the ugliest knitted jumper I’d ever seen; darned onto the wool about your left hip were your initials - your initials, for Merlin's sake, as though you were likely to lose that assault-on-the-eyes-of-decent-and-fashionable-people in a sea of similar abominations and might need to know which one was yours. Every huffy inch of you only ratcheted up the humiliating absurdity of the whole encounter.

“If you must know, this is Amos Diggory’s idea of a practical joke,” you admitted and then paused, speculating. “Or it might be more than that. There’s certainly no love lost between him and your family, not since Cedric. But no one’s ever actually worked in Centaur Liaison. It’s where we send Ministry employees who’re about to get sacked.”

“Is that right?” I said, voice tight. “Well, then put me somewhere else. Anywhere else. I trust there’s no shortage of bureaucrats in need of a tea-brewer or subordinate to yell at all hours of the day.”

Mockridge crinkled his lined face into an apologetic pucker and muttered, “No one's in need of personnel save for you, Hermione.”

You shifted your weight against the doorjamb, tapping ink-stained fingers along it and darting me indecipherable looks, probably weighing your bleeding heart sensibilities against your certain knowledge that I would be a jumped-up bastard to work with. But by then, I’d lost any veneer of composure - you were always spectacular at provoking me.

“I don’t think so. I’d rather be in Azkaban than work for a Mudblood,” I sneered.

Vibrancy drained from your face leaving only two hard red dots in your narrow cheeks. The condemning silence struck me like a whip. Stupid, stupid, stupid! You were the vanguard of the new elite; the only thing I would accomplish by insulting you was a position as lunch lady in the canteen, and only if I were lucky. Watching fury collect in your stillness, my chest caved in for air and a seeping phantom pain danced down my scar, craggy and shameful under the glamour. If not you, only dank, dark, distant Azkaban awaited. Fear swooped into my lungs, bitterer than oxygen.

But I had thrown down the gauntlet and not even the certainty of a blistering tirade ending in my being tossed back into prison could make me swallow my words.

“Believe me that can be arranged!” you hissed at last, and turned to a dumbfounded and mildly appalled Mockridge. “Sir, I refuse to work with him.”

The old man floundered, running his gnarly fingers nervously along the ivory grip of his cane. “Well, I . . . that is, the Minister wanted to make an example of Mr. Malfoy and he thought you could l-lead us all with your example.”

“My example?” you repeated.

“How quaint,” I snarled. “So I’m to be the poster boy for penitent Death Eaters, and what are you? Spearheading the Ministry’s PR facelift?”

“That’s rich considering it’s your lot who convinced everyone the Ministry was a cesspool of murderers and corrupt sycophants in the first place!”

“My lot? So much for the party line that you war heroes are above name-calling and rehashing the past ad nauseam!”

“How can you say 'penitent Death Eater' without choking? Anyone who believes you’re the least repentant is deluded,” you snapped. “I’m saving my sympathy for the deserving-”

“And who would that be?” Scorn flayed my words into chips, rusty and sharp. “Who’s got even the remotest chance of passing your little test?”

Your muddy eyes smoldered in protest, and I found myself suddenly three steps closer, fists clenched and fighting the welling fear that you knew then, as you always had, exactly what you were about. No sheen of awe or rose-tinted admiration had ever clouded your vision; you were always ridiculously clear-sighted, and why when I had the proof of purity and breeding and wealth did you always manage to see me, only me, beneath the sum of my parts and find me lacking? I wanted to shove you out of the room and out of sight, somewhere you could never force me to follow your gaze and know what you knew.

“Can’t name anyone, can you?” I spat instead. “It’s easy to talk big and lofty, Granger, but actions speak louder than petulant whinging.”

The rims of your nose flared and I braced myself for a barrage of hexes or an angry retort. Neither came.

Instead, you tilted your head, eyes sweeping down with a small vindictive smile, savoring the irony. “The way you carry on, anyone would think you’re dying to help house-elves. And if you’re so keen on it, who am I to stand in the way? I've been looking at this all wrong. It’s practically a miracle is what it is. A pureblood scion reforming his bigoted ways and frothing at the mouth to liberate house-elves? Front-page news if I've ever read any.”

You turned to address Mockridge, “I’ve changed my mind, sir. I’d be delighted to welcome Malfoy to the Office of House-Elf Affairs!”

Your expression was . . . how to describe it . . . you were positively demonic, Granger. A lesser man would've bolted, family honor and the rule of law be damned. But of course, I was made of sterner material. What do you mean be serious? I'm deadly serious. I’d already been trussed up and gawked at by what felt like every damned employee in the Ministry and processed with bone-aching ineptitude by a MLE intern; having to suffer your ignominious attitude on top of it all was the first crack in the ice I’d padded around me since Father’s trial. Don’t look so smug. Yes, yes, you’ve always been marvelously talented at making me champ at the bit.

Now where was I? Mockridge's office was little better than a hole in the ground, but our office was somehow even worse. It was furnished like a creaky old flat and had the audacity to look cozy, every nook and cranny bursting with shelves overflowing with rolls of parchment. Even that ink-stained puce couch in your corner-I always think of it as yours-only added to the room's misbegot charm. It felt occupied; a place someone cared enough to make look lived in, and was nothing at all like the rich fur rugs and cavernous elm and Carpathian desks slumbering in every study at the Manor.

I think that's why I staked out the enchanted window. With you and me and enough paper to fell a small rainforest packed together like Weasleys in their hovel-Yes, I know they're your friends, but it’s not like you’ve ever shown a modicum of good taste. Ow! What was that for?-anyway, I needed at least the illusion of space. I can't remember how we fell into our routine. You worked during the day and I came in at night to be at the beck and call of every house-elf with a sniffle. It was more than a year after that tumultuous first day before we crossed paths again, so assiduous were we in following every step in our dance of avoidance.

The wedding, you say? Yes, you might be onto something there.

Indeed, it was the second morning after my non-wedding, and every secretary, flower-peddler and coffee shop waitress was in raptures over my jilting the bride of the year. They flocked around stands of Witch Weekly-exclusive interview with the jilted bride, my arse-like pigeons dive-bombing bread crumbs, all trying to feel marginally better about their own pathetic little lives. Tell me something: What is it about acute misery that makes it irresistible to the masses? The bigger you are, the harder everyone wants you to fall. Well, I suppose I can't claim complete ignorance here. The amount of money I've donated to churches, praying for Potter to snuff it, is obscene.

What's that? You found my would-be wife's humiliation sadistically satisfying? You, Granger? Well, I'd better wrap this up then; the world's clearly going to hell in a hand-basket if someone as sanctimonious as you is copping to having a bad thought. I suppose you're right about the day. It was on that second abominable morning we met again. I slipped into our office bright and early, determined to avoid the mobs who inexplicably knew I worked the night shift- wait, that was you who hung up signs with my schedule? Well, color me impressed and a bit appalled. I think my worldview's coming apart at the seams. You've owned up to bad thoughts and siccing batty women on me; what’s next? Admitting you and Weasley don't turn the lights off, all virgin-like, and snuggle after- all right, woman!

Hitting is not on. As I was saying, the shit had truly hit the fan. The speed at which gossip travels down the office grapevine has got to violate some fundamental law of physics. We should figure out how to bottle the stuff and use it as rocket fuel- yes, I know what rockets are.

When you came in, you found me perched on my windowsill trying to cling to the fabric of blissful nothingness.

You weren't expecting me. I heard you shuffle in, a mass of unwieldy limbs and packets of crinkling parchment, and halt mid-stride on a caught breath. I wondered then what you would do, if you would turn tail and run-I certainly hoped so-or meet me head-on. For a taut moment, the only sound in our cramped little room was your hitched breaths. Undoubtedly, you were working yourself up into a proper tizzy. Then you slammed your things on your desk and rummaged through an unnecessary number of drawers, making a ruckus. I didn't move-infuriating people being one of my finer talents-and when you finally gave up trying to rouse me, you stared at me outright.

I felt your gaze rake my face like a brush of callused, nail-bitten fingers.

It's something I still wonder about sometimes. If I had opened my eyes, would I have seen you taking a catalog of all my features-cheekbones angular enough to cut glass and a thin aristocratic nose that bespoke Black as surely as my family ring-or would your look have been more intimate, a glance to drink me up and fill in all the faded spots in your memory? I suppose I'll never know, because I wanted to unbalance you as unfailingly as you always could me just by being in the same volume of space.

“You're staring so hard I can hear you,” I drawled, eyes still lidded.

I heard you trying not to bristle and enjoyed the feeling that I had made you the trespasser for once. “What are you doing here?” you gritted.

“Avoiding the mob.”

You snorted. “I would've thought avoiding Parkinson would be the higher priority. She isn't about to burst in here, is she?”

At that, you drew me into engaging you as effortlessly as ever, never mind that I'd known you were coming, damn you. My eyes snapped open, and I wanted to snag handfuls of your jumper and shake until you were intimately acquainted with the feeling of slamming into a wall, over and over, the same way I always felt, pulse rioting in my ears, from your every capricious presumption. I wanted to mar your miles of tanned skin and leave marks no one could mistake.

“That's what happens when interfering nobodies try to think. You inevitably jump to the wrong conclusions,” I sneered.

A piquant spot of triumph bloomed in my chest when you wiped me from your field of vision altogether. I saw you swallowing curses as you tried to disengage, but when had that ever been possible between us? The interplay of tensions in your stiff jaw line fascinated, a reflection of the same tightness in me, and I imagined stroking my fingertips along your mouth just to see how you would react. Probably shriek, as though good breeding and wit were contagious.

You spoke to the bookshelf in the corner, “I'd appreciate it if you did your hiding elsewhere. Some of us have work to do.”

“Then shut your mouth and do it. Let's go.”

You whirled back with an unattractive gape. “Excuse me?”

“Mockridge wants us both on the case.”

“What case?”

“Just crossed my desk last night. One of Zabini's house-elves has been murdered.”

“Murdered?” Your chin shot up, and you gravitated unconsciously towards me, chapped hands furled into fists, quashing what looked like an impulse to grab me by the lapels and shake out complete sentences.

I slid to my feet and stretched to my full height, looming a full head over you, enjoying the way you tensed. “Yes, murdered. Are you going to repeat everything I say? This conversation's getting cumbersomely one-sided.”

You ignored my surly tone, brows knitted in familiar concentration, the same stare I'd seen year after year dissecting and reconstructing facts, absorbing knowledge wholesale and never missing a beat. “Tell me everything,” you commanded.

Do you know that I've always despised that clinical and whitewashed gaze? There's no room for me in the look that reduces the world to fragments. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not as if I've ever appeared in anything you file away as meaningful, is it?

Turning on my heel, I didn't answer until we were ensconced in the lift. As usual, you were careful never to present your back to me, as though keeping me in view would ward off an attack. I wanted to laugh in the face of your absurd caution; that or slam my fist into a wall just to see your reaction. Nothing made my blood boil faster than skittishness. It tempted me to vindicate your every last thought about big, bad Death Eaters. I felt your muddy eyes scraping the nape of my neck during the entire ride up to the Atrium, hiking up the already stifling sensation of airlessness in the lift.

Temper and cloying hate clogged my throat and condemned me to silence. It was many minutes before I forced out, “A word of warning, Zabini's mother is hysterical. Turns out the daft thing was her favorite companion and she's the kind of woman who barely makes sense during her lucid days. Blaise trusts us to be discreet about this and not make it public-”

“You're barking mad if you think I'm hushing anything up!” you said tartly.

“Right,” I snapped. “Hushing things up. That's clearly what I had in mind when I invited the most self-righteous, interfering busybody this side of the equator.”

The doors couldn't have opened an instant sooner. We stepped out into the milling crowd of stragglers. A few people gaped, but I pushed past them before they could recover from the shock of finding the man at the center of London's latest on dit in so mundane a place as a lift. I queued up to a fireplace, and you were smart enough to stay quiet when you caught up, wary of the wiry tension in my stance despite the placidity of my words. As the last person shuffled into the fire, I flung a pinch of Floo powder into the flames and muttered, “Briar Rose Lodge,” trusting that your hearing would be acute enough - but hoping it wasn't. It was no skin off my back if you ended up at Briar Ridge Asylum.

The sensation of hurling about in a wind tunnel abated when I landed in a cavernous foyer, tiled with creamy marble and lined with the paintings of famous ancestors. Cesare Borgia and his ravishing sister, Lucrezia, were displayed most prominently, I noted with approval. Then the moving portraits locked into an amorous embrace, and I became a little less enamored. Blaise's mother being named Lucretia began to make perfect sense, a truer throwback to her licentious ancestor you’ll never meet.

You tumbled out of the fire with characteristic lack of grace, barreling into me and clutching handfuls of my robes for balance. I flung you off in the same instant you darted away, eyeing me with contempt and swallowing whatever insult was perched on your tongue. You turned aside instead, appearing content for now to follow my lead - which really should've been my first clue. I thought it'd finally occurred to you that if this case weren't on the level, I'd never have mentioned it. In fact, I would've buried it so deep in paperwork even that useless paper-pusher Mockridge would've thrown up his hands in disgust.

Surveying the foyer, you looked like you'd smell something foul. “Calling this palace a lodge has got to be a rich man's idea of a joke.”

Blaise Zabini appeared from around the corner, so resplendent in his elegantly pressed gray suit I wondered, not for the first time, at his sexuality - and mine for noticing.

No, that last's a lie. But the look on your face; priceless doesn’t begin to cover it. You know, I don’t think I'll ever tire of yanking your chain, Granger. So, where was I?

“Not a rich man’s joke, I assure you,” said Blaise. “Just a matter of relativity. This place is so much smaller, you see, than our other estates.”

Even though it'd been almost two years, Blaise looked like a carbon copy of his swaggering school-self. The sleek handsomeness he'd always worn like an invisibility cloak, long the butt of Slytherin jokes rooted in bitter envy, had only accentuated with age. “Blaise,” I greeted, with a nod.

“Draco,” he returned. “I'm glad the Ministry's seen fit to let you handle this situation.”

“Actually, we're both on the case,” you said, mouth pursing at the coolly amused glance Blaise exchanged with me. Distrust couldn't have been more clearly etched on your face if we'd been canoodling with snakes while whittling a totem pole to the deity of suspicious Slytherin behavior. “Why don't you tell us what happened?”

“Certainly.” Blaise waved us into a sunny sitting room with exaggerated courtesy. “My mother's house-elf Zita went missing yesterday morning, but it wasn't until last night we found her locked in the family vault. Or at least we assume it's her.”

“What do you mean, you assume?” you asked, not quite masking a shiver at the faint scorn in his smile.

“To put it bluntly, someone or something blew her up. Her . . . remains are splattered all over the walls.”

“I suppose she was locked in from the outside?” I inquired, tone bored, tilting my head in a mockery of interest.

Your disgusted looks have never yet failed to force nonchalance on me.

Blaise gave a casual shrug. “That's what makes it all so curious. Mother knows better than to show the help how to get into the family vault. Even if the house-elf managed it herself, it's quite impossible to lock from the inside. On top of it all, nothing was taken.”

You frowned in thought, and I knew then that your observant eyes hadn't missed the artificiality in his poise, something put-on about his detachment. The way Blaise carefully avoided looking at me appeared too much like a feint, as if counting the beats until you were out of the room. “May I see this vault?” you requested obligingly.

“Of course.” Blaise snapped his fingers and a sharp crack rent the air. A wrinkly house-elf in a yellowed pillowcase appeared, teetering on knobby knees. She bent into a low curtsy at the sight of her master. “Amata, show Miss Granger to the vault.”

“Will miss please to follow Amata?” she squeaked.

You cast one last speculative look at us; a wry smile on your lips when your glance absorbed the jarring image we made, two somber men with unreadable countenances in a sitting room bedecked in soft colors and lit with cheerful sunshine, as out of place as two gangsters in a nursery. Then you followed the small creature into the hallway. When your unnaturally bright voice, syrupy as a child's, asking after the house-elf's health faded, I turned to face Blaise.

“Now the unedited version,” I said.

He sunk a little into himself, rubbing his thumb over the ring on his last finger. I’d never seen him wear one, but I recognized the nervous habit of running his fingertips along things from years of cataloging the tells of my schoolmates, a handy skill for poker and eliciting secrets. “It's true that Mother's house-elf is now a bloody collage in my family vault, but she was still alive when we opened it.”

“What happened?”

“I ordered her to tell us how she'd got in. She said something about 'Master forbidding her to speak.' I lost my patience,” he admitted with a touch of chagrin, “and tried to force her. That's when she blew apart.”

“Some kind of curse?”

He nodded slowly. “If so, it's an intricate piece of spellwork. I don't think the creature was in any danger until I tried to make her answer my questions.”

“I trust you're not showing Granger the real family vault?”

Blaise smiled in ironic acknowledgment. “Not much gets past you, does it? But no, it is the real one. The prospect of . . . ruining another vault for show was unpleasant.”

“Understandable under the circumstances. I assume you've cleared out all the family heirlooms?”

“Of course,” he said, brows arched in mock affront. “I'd be very green, indeed, if I hadn't secured our Dark artefacts before calling down the Ministry bloodhounds.”

“You know, Blaise, that's what's been bothering me about this whole situation. Why even bother to report it?”

He grimaced in remembrance. “Mother insisted. Threw the most tiresome fit and threatened to owl the Aurors herself if I didn't do something. Naturally, I thought of you.”

“Careful. I’ll blush,” I said dryly.

“What I'd give for that to be my most pressing problem,” murmured Blaise. “The worst of it is that Mother says one of her rings was stolen but won't tell me which.”

“If I were a betting man, I'd wager on it being an ostentatious rock with a sobby backstory.”

“Thwarted love and all its assorted drama?” hummed Blaise. “One can hope.”

“Maybe your mother will feel more comfortable sharing the story of how your second, fifth or seventh stepfather kicked it with me,” I suggested, savoring his glower.

He scowled. “She's upstairs.”

And that's when I felt a tingling sensation down my spine, a portent of the future perhaps, warning me to keep going or to stop, or maybe neither. Oh, all right, stop glaring! So there weren't any feelings, tingly or otherwise. Honestly, a wrinkle-faced bat's got more sense of humor than you. What's the point of this show-and-tell if I'm not allowed any liberties? Tingling and premonitions - that's what all the narrators get to say in adventure stories. Okay, so I didn't actually have an inkling that our little quest for one ring would eventually spiral into a deadly duel the likes of which I'd never experienced and you thought you'd left long behind you.

Had I known then what I know now, would I have flipped Blaise the bird and tottered back into my notorious but dull existence? Not on your life. After all, it's what led me here to this smoky, poorly lit-it's all about atmosphere-little pub with you as my captive audience. Yes, yes, I'll get on with it.

Blaise's mother was one of those women; you know, the kind who's ravishingly beautiful at first youth, a bit faded around the edges but still breathtaking in middle-age, and crinkled and saggy once they've rolled over the hill. That's the woman I had the great fortune of coaxing out the story of the Ring - yes, capitalized, she referred to it that reverently.

Blaise, that smirking bastard, abandoned me with nary a backward glance. I was left in a heavily cloaked room, all the windows shuttered despite the pungent odor of burning incense. Lucretia Zabini was draped-no really, there’s no other way to describe it-on the divan in her suffocating sitting room, stroking a sly white cat with one hand, running her fingers through her long blond hair with the other, and bemoaning the plights of her existence.

I cleared my throat and tried not to faint from the fumes. “Mrs. Zabini.”

“Draco, is that you? I have been waiting for someone to take my statement,” she said, in a fair approximation of the husky voice she'd affected to great success over the years, the titillating kind brimming with all sorts of sexual promises. I'd heard that voice all throughout puberty whenever Blaise, the gang and I would drift into one of her summer homes. I can tell you from personal experience: She’s never failed to get a rise from any male bystanders.

“Mrs. Zabini, I'm very sorry for your loss.”

“Ah,” she sighed and flicked a single, glistening tear from her eye. “The men, they come and go, even my dear Blaise, but not Zita! No, that darling looked after me when no one else would.”

I refrained from pointing out that unlike men, Zita was bound by magic to be blindly obedient. It spoke volumes for the kind of 'looking after' Lucretia Zabini apparently expected from her husbands, and explained the sheer number of them. “Blaise said a ring of yours was the only thing missing.”

“The Ring!” she cried, green eyes raking eagerly over my face. “You have it?”

“No. But I assure you, Mrs. Zabini, I'll do my best to find it. Can you describe it for me?”

“It is how you say . . . incomparable. There is no other like it in all the world,” said Lucretia, mouth curving in reminiscence.

“No other like it. Got it.” I reflected briefly on the vapidity all that beauty had apparently hidden from appreciative male eyes, like a cakey orange nestled in fragrant peels. Her nine marriages and subsequent divorces were no longer a mystery. “What kind of metal and stone?”

“White gold. Diamonds so clear they were sparkling ice,” her eyelashes fluttered over dewy eyes, “and a single ruby so exquisite it was like peering into my beloved's soul.”

I braced myself, and then took the bait. “Beloved?”

She glanced at me coyly, hands resting demurely against her knees, as if to say, very good. “Yes,” she said, mournful. “My dear Gaston. He was my father's caretaker. And we were in love. Oh, how naughty we were back then, sneaking out after lights out, so many liaisons in the darkness! French and Italian men, my dear, they know how to romance.”

She tossed her head imperiously, a coquettish affectation that was comical in this old, too heavily perfumed woman. And another thousand lustful teenage dreams wilted to ash. I bit back an appreciative smile at her heavy-handed hints of drama and history. “What happened?”

“I promised to elope with him but Michel, my first husband . . . he locked me in his mansion when he found out my plans. And my lovers, how they dueled over me. To the death!”

“Really,” I said. “The death?”

“Well, wounded perhaps,” she amended. “Gaston swore that he could not forgive my betrayal and the next morning, he vanished. Never to be seen again.”

“And the ring?”

Lucretia glanced at her jewel-encrusted fingers woefully. “The Ring came to me after my wedding, but I could not bear to put it on. It was too beautiful, too painful, too pure to show my brute of a husband, so I left it in its box to prove my faithfulness, and there it stayed all these years until last night when I found it missing. It alone of all my jewelry! My most precious piece- why, if the thief came back and offered to trade for that ring, the only thing I have left of our love, I would give him anything, everything!”

“Let's not be too hasty,” I said, holding up my hands to ward off the rapid reappearance of waterworks. “Who knew you had that ring?”

“Only Zita. It is not a story for the young and innocent,” she lamented. “I do believe my Blaise still thinks the love of my life was his father.”

“It's possible,” I told her. And about as likely as me giving a toss about house-elves.

“So you will look for it for me then, Draco?” crooned Lucretia, hopeful.

“If you could give me a drawing of some kind-”

“But of course!” she said, laying a hand on the crook of my elbow with effortless intimacy.

Wait. Am I still in lust- have you lost the plot, Granger? She was old! And less faithful than the alpha lion of a pride, you crackpot. For the record, I resent the insinuation- just a minute, you couldn't be . . . no . . . but you are! You're jealous, Granger. Honest-to-god splotches of envy all over your face. Now, now. She was ugly and plump and had less depth than a kiddy pool. Happy? No, I will not stop grinning. In the tally of comeuppances, that's a point to me. Draco: twelve, Granger: three. And no, I'm not explaining the other eleven.

We met up again ten minutes later in the nauseatingly cheery parlor downstairs. Your eyes bore into me the moment you stampeded in, house-elf chaperone trotting at your heels. “Apparently, nothing was taken,” you announced, with a flash of uncertainty as you took in our conspiratorial silence.

“You doubted me?” said Blaise, amused.

Your gaze flicked from me to him. I could almost hear you thinking, Slytherins. “Trust is an occupational hazard,” you said sweetly.

I made a show of checking my wristwatch. “Then we're done here.”

Blaise didn’t miss his cue. “Thank you for coming. Both of you have my gratitude for such prompt diligence,” he said, striding forward to shake my hand, his palm a dry cool that was smooth to the touch but for a sliver of metal from the gold circlet on his little finger.

We drifted back to the foyer. Perching an elbow on the mantle above the fire, I drawled, “We'll be sure to owl you updates.”

When we filed out of the fireplace back into the Ministry, that bustling hub of paper-pushing lightweights whose most strenuous activity consisted of walking from the lift to the canteen, I made a gesture to forestall all the questions I could already see bubbling up. “We'll talk about it downstairs,” I said.

We rode down in contemplative silence, sandwiched between what felt like the entire lunch crowd - hadn’t any of them heard of the concept of work? In that interminable year serving my probation, I'd only seen the light of the workday once. Long nights at the office had often left me antsy, too wired to sit still but not enough to overcome listlessness whenever I wandered the dark empty halls, occasionally spying the odd workaholic scratching away at rolls of parchment rivaling their desks in length. As Blaise said, everything’s relative and more often than not, their passion for cranking out reports only made me realize how little I had for the remnants of my life, and this newfound freedom.

Once we were safely boxed into our cramped office, I sauntered over to my window, counting down the seconds to our inevitable confrontation. You didn’t disappoint.

“What did you and Zabini talk about after I left?” you asked, narrowed eyes and set jaw indicating you were in this for the long haul.

I pivoted towards the illusion of cotton clouds, showing you my back. “We caught up on old times,” I said, nonchalant.

“You're doing this. You're actually doing this,” you said, disbelieving. “We both know Zabini was hiding something. He wasn't going to talk with me around, so I thought I'd get out of the way. Either the vault Amata showed me was a decoy or he knew there was nothing to be found. I mean, you didn't even care to look at it.”

“Why should I?” Shrugging, I switched tactics. “Blaise has no reason to lie. Since nothing was taken, it was all an unfortunate accident. The house-elf probably touched something she shouldn't have.”

Skepticism filed your words razor sharp. “And it blew her up?”

“It happens. Some people are of the overkill security measures persuasion,” I said, a picture of bureaucratic blandness.

“Lunatic purebloods, you mean.”

I gritted my teeth. “What's that?”

“Only someone completely daft, which you obviously think I am, would take your word for it.”

I made a noncommittal noise. “It’s not as though you’ve got any other option.”

You drew your wand and grinned, nearly fiendish. “Well, I could always take Zabini's word for it.”

“What-”

Before I could react, you aimed the wand at my robe pocket. “Accio audiostone!” A glowing pebble shot out from my robes and plopped onto your palm. “Moderio!”

That's when I knew you'd pulled a fast one on me. Realization trickled like acid to the pit of my stomach as the vibrating stone began to replay my conversations. I cursed, remembering your tripping clumsiness. It had all been an act. I was caught halfway between admiration and rage.

“Now, the unedited version,” warbled my voice from the stone.

“The hell!” I breathed.

“Having not been born yesterday, Malfoy,” you said, turning your eyes heavenward at my incredulity, “I decided to cover all my bases.”

“That's cute,” I spat. “It’s funny I should be so surprised. Don’t know why, really. You've always had filthy manners.”

You went rigid, a deep frown curving your mouth as anger penetrated your voice. “You're just sore you misjudged my gullibility!”

“Or because-gee, I don’t know-it’s a dirty, filthy trick no respectable witch would-”

“Oh, that's rich coming from you! Dirty, filthy? You’re really going back there? Why not just say it-”

“-you aren't seriously calling me a rotten cheat while defending a nasty, underhanded-”

“-that you want to call me Mudblood! Stop dancing a jig with all these euphemisms. Just say it, Malfoy!”

“And give you the satisfaction of putting another mark on my record? Let you herd me back to prison? I don’t think so,” I hissed, fury drumming a staccato in my ears. “Getting rid of me won’t be that easy.”

A bitter smile touched your lips. “Then admit what I did was preemptive and warranted. Your lies have made that much clear.”

I was already toeing a thin line, barely remaining on this side of visceral rage. But the way your eyes flicked up and down, raining all that preachy judgment on me, nearly undid me. I wanted to hook my fingers onto the soft flesh of your arms and bruise you on the outside to match the demolition you’d wrought on me inside. I ached to shake you until you became too brain-damaged to form another sentence. In the end it was a very near thing, but I refused to give you the satisfaction of unhinging me.

“The only thing I’ll admit,” I said, words dripping scorn, “is that you and I both know you'd have done the same thing for Potter or Weasel.”

You flung your shoulders back, chin jutting out in defiance. “Oh, really? Well, unlike you, my morals aren't for sale! And I don't have the kind of friends who think they get free passes for breaking the law just because I work here. They would never abuse my position-”

I smiled viciously. “Not exactly a newsflash, Granger. You're the saint of crossing t’s and dotting i’s. There isn't anyone in a ten-mile radius who doesn't know that. It would take a bloody miracle to wrest your nose out of the fucking rulebook.”

“Is that right? And your way is so much better, is it? Do whatever the hell you want, screw the fallout?” You gave a sharp bark of laughter, shaking your head. “I can't believe I ever felt sorry for Parkinson. My pity is wasted. She dodged a curse when you decided to bugger up your own wedding-”

Red lanced my vision, splintering the room until I saw and heard and felt only you and the lashes of your contempt and derision. Who the hell were you to say these things to me? One moment I was standing clear across the room and the next, I'd shoved past you to the door, taking malicious pleasure in the way your arms wind-milled as you pitched back, falling against your desk.

“Don't you ever say her name,” I snarled. “You haven't the right- you’re nothing compared to her.”

Nimble as lightning, you shot back to your feet, wand drawn, jabbing it in the fulminating space between us. “Oh right, how silly of me to forget. Your standards are so skewed you actually think you're the total package. When what you are is a Death Eater slumming it out in probation because prison is oh-so-scary. And a textbook case of arrested development with a shot-to-hell moral compass. Yeah, you're a real prize.”

“You might want to tone it down,” I sneered. “I can't hear over the envy in your shrieking.”

“Envy?”

“You act like you're so much better than us. You think by laughing at Pansy no one'll notice that she's worth a thousand times more than you! I wanted to marry her. Other men still want to marry her. Where are your rows of suitors? Who gives a toss about you? Potter? He's carved himself a nice surrogate family with the Weasleys, hasn't he, and they've never needed you, have they? You're a third wheel, tolerated at best, with the kind of personality I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Face it. You're the girl some middle-aged bloke eventually settles for but who'll never be anyone's first choice,” I spat.

You flinched like I'd struck you, and in another time and place, I might've swallowed those words, but you’d clawed inside and dragged out the me who'd spent a childhood preying on weaknesses. The me who recognized yawning openings from ten paces and never failed to take advantage. I tore the drawing of the ring from my back-pocket and hurled it at you. The parchment smacked against your collarbone and fluttered to the floor.

“You know something, Granger? You should take comfort in your precious rules. Smother yourself with them. It'll be the only thing keeping you warm at night for decades to come.”

Without a backward glance, I wrenched open the door and stalked out, caught between despair and triumph at the slashes of your face I saw, your shock and rage and hurt burned beneath my eyelids.

Click here to continue.