Dial G for Granger [PG] for Ayla Pascal (3/3)
Title: Dial G for Granger
Author: Gravidy
Rating: PG
Recipient: Ayla Pascal
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any recognizable characters or creatures.
Warning(s): Language
Author’s Note: Recipient asked for humorous or quirky.
Summary: Hermione Granger is exploring a plethora of career options, such as lawyer, psychologist, and Supreme Dictator for Life. She’s going to make the Wizarding world a better place, whether they like it or not. Post DH, EWE, humor
Hermione really hated Malfoy manor.
It was big, it was pretentious, the driveway went on FOREVER and the stupid albino peacocks were giving her looks.
“Don’t even start with me!” she shouted at one particularly shifty-looking one that had started to follow her. It fluffed itself and stalked away.
She knocked at the huge, ginormous front door and then waited for more of forever for someone to answer.
The door finally opened a crack and a harried Narcissa Malfoy peeked out at her, “Are you alone?”
“Yes. Now what do you want? I have things to do.”
Narcissa frowned, opening the door a little wider and shooting glances about before stepping back to let Hermione in.
“What I require from you,” the woman began as she shut the massive door, “—is absolute secrecy. You must not speak to anyone about this. It could ruin the Malfoy name.”
Hermione hesitated but then decided she didn’t care about whatever stupid mess the Malfoys were in and pulled out her wand to swear secrecy.
“You sold Draco that house, didn’t you?” Narcissa asked.
Hermione blinked, “Yes, erm, yesterday?” She hadn’t given it another thought, despite Draco text messaging her about ten times a day.
“Three days ago.” The woman snapped.
Oops.
“Tell me truthfully, was there any sort of a curse on that house?”
Hermione’s heart lurched and she stood still for a moment but then she thought back and realized that no, there hadn’t actually been a curse on that particular home. At least her files had said nothing about a curse. She hadn’t cared at the time—despite her original plans to sell him a cursed home—because she was so excited about finishing the sale.
“No. There was no curse, as far as I know. But it did belong to a Dark Lord.”
Narcissa made a noise too lady-like to be a groan, “Then perhaps it is not simply Draco.”
“What do you mean?”
“My son has been calling me nonstop these past seventy-two hours to tell me in explicit detail how incredibly magnificent his house is.”
“Well, that’s great right?”
“He has become increasingly excited, insisting that there are strange creatures in his house that speak to him inside his head.”
Hermione cringed, “Yeee, that’s not so good.”
“He came here about an hour ago and tried to show me one of these creatures but I saw nothing and he became more and more agitated over the matter. The things he said were absolute lunacy. I feared—I feared that my son might be experiencing some sort of breakdown. He has always had an active imagination, but this is over the top even for him. I attempted to subdue him but he ran away from me. I need someone, someone with a strong psychology background to go have a look at him and I need them to keep utterly silent on the matter.”
Hermione frowned, “I’m a licensed psychologist in both the Muggle and Magical worlds.”
“Well, that makes matters easier. You will go diagnose Draco immediately. If he has suffered a breakdown, you will bring him here as quickly and quietly and as discreetly as possible. No one must find out about this.”
“Okay, but I can’t tonight. I have company.”
“I don’t care.” Narcissa said coldly, “You will take care of this matter promptly.”
Hermione opened her mouth to argue but was cut off by a voice booming loudly, singing in a silky baritone, “BOOOORRRRN FREEEEEE. . . .”
Hermione didn’t understand what she was seeing at first.
She had to blink spots from her eyes, blinded first by the paleness of Draco’s father’s torso as he came waltzing down the main staircase in nothing but his birthday suit, and then blinded by her brain’s own refusal to accept what her eyes were seeing.
Lucius didn’t even pause. Still singing, albeit more quietly, he about-faced in one quick step, giving Hermione an eyeful of his proudly muscled ass, and waltzed right back up the stairs, back ramrod straight but otherwise not seeming to hurry.
Frigid blue-eyes filled Hermione’s vision. Hermione blinked and found Narcissa’s face very close to hers.
“You looking at my man?” Narcissa snarled.
“Uh, no!” Hermione turned her face to the side, studying the walls, “I didn’t see anything. I didn’t see anybody.”
Narcissa’s eyes narrowed at her warily, “He has a fantastic ass, doesn’t he?”
Hermione caught herself just in time, teeth clicking together before she could agree and quickly revised her answer, “Who?”
Narcissa glared at her, “Hmph. Go diagnose Draco.”
And Hermione was so flustered that she went.
Luna Lovegood woke up that morning knowing it was going to be a fabulous and exciting day for magic. After eating a quick breakfast she put on her prettiest robes and her most rugged hiking boots. A moment’s pause and she added some noodle hair clips, a homemade necklace of dried apples with faces carved into them and a really pretty ring she’d gotten for a single coin at a Muggle convenience store.
With that, Luna went to sit on her front porch, ignoring the curious looks her father tossed at her whenever he passed the front window.
She didn’t have long to wait.
Draco Malfoy appeared at her gates, stumbling wildly, with his hair askew and his face smudged with dirt. His face brightened excitedly when he saw her.
“Hey! Loony!” he flung the little garden gate open, ran up to grab her arm and started dragging her back down the path, “Come with me!”
“Hello, Draco Malfoy!” Luna sang, “Am I going to spend time in your basement again?”
Draco beamed, “How did you guess?”
“HEY!” Xenophilius burst out the door, “Kidnapper! Come back here with my daughter!”
“Sorry! I’ll have her back soon!” Draco hollered cheerfully and they vanished.
“You have got to see this, Loony.” Draco babbled as their feet crunched on the sand and gravel walkway. “No one else will listen. Maybe you’ll know what’s going on.”
“Your house is very nice!” Luna stated, charmed, “It has a very happy feel to it.”
Draco grinned, “Does it? I think so too.”
Mansy, Goyle, Tracey, Pucey and Nott were waiting for them inside.
“Draco, you’ve got to be kidding me,” moaned Mansy with a look of disgust at Luna, who was staring straight back at her, obviously very impressed.
“Hello, Draco Malfoy’s friends.” Luna sang, not quite remembering any of their names. It wasn’t like they had ever spoken to her at Hogwarts, or like she was ever locked in their basements. “Your Vlimsum pathways are looking extremely aligned today, good sir.” She said to Mansy in a tone that suggested that this was a very great compliment.
Mansy just gave Draco a look.
“What?” he asked coolly, chin thrust in the air, “I bet she’ll believe me.”
“I’m sure she will. She’ll believe anything!”
“She knows about things like this.” Draco argued hotly.
“Right. We’re staying up here.” Mansy flung himself into one of the sofa chairs and picked up the Daily Prophet, blocking Draco from view.
Draco sneered, “You guys do that. And keep watch. My parents could attack at any moment.”
Mansy lowered the Prophet slightly, troubled, “Your parents aren’t out to kill you, Draco.” But he sounded uncertain.
“I’ve already told you,” Draco said tightly, “I went home and mother just attacked me out of nowhere! Millicent was right, they’re out to kill me and replace me with a new heir. So you guys keep watch.”
The lot of them exchanged looks and nodded reluctantly.
Draco nodded decisively and dragged Luna to the nearest wall. Immediately, a heavy iron door appeared.
“Oooooh.” Said Luna, reaching out and touching the contorting faces. They gummed at her fingers fiercely but didn’t seem to bite.
Draco grinned, “I think that’s some of them.”
“Hmm?”
Draco swung the door open and Luna followed him down the dank steps without hesitation.
“My house is awesome!” Draco started loudly, “I started noticing it right away. Things I wanted came to me. Doorways and hallways moved to wherever I needed them. Furniture created itself right before my eyes when I wanted to sit down. But that’s not anything too fantastic, you know. Just great charm work or something. Only it’s not!”
They reached the bottom landing and the platform rumbled beneath them as torches sprang up from the ground and lights appeared high, very high, above them in the ceiling, illuminating the small rocky platform they were on.
“Everything kept itself clean, but I didn’t notice because I’m used to House Elves.” He turned on Luna, and said, in a voice full of wonder, “Did you know that breakfast doesn’t make itself?”
Luna nodded sagely.
“I didn’t. Almost starved trying to figure out where breakfast was. Laundry doesn’t do itself either. It was just bizarre to realize. But I don’t have any House Elves here. My parents were only going to let me borrow the manor Elves and I haven’t asked them for any yet. And none of my friend’s Elves stayed. I don’t think I would have even noticed that something strange was going on if I couldn’t hear them in my head.” He turned around, peering through the dim caverns, “Come on guys. Come out. I want her to see you.” He glanced at Luna, “They’re very shy.”
Luna squinted through the darkness eagerly.
Three sets of very large, very bright eyes appeared over the chasm in front of them and then vanished just as quickly.
“Oh come on, guys! She’s not going to hurt you.” Draco cajoled.
A moment later the eyes reappeared and then three very large creatures slowly became visible, floating in the air.
They were nearly the exact color of the rocks around them. Whether they were furry or smooth-skinned, Luna couldn’t really tell. They had six, long legs and even longer bodies, with swishing lizard-like tails and tapered feet. Their muzzles were squashed, any features hidden by the almost helmeted appearance of their horned head plate.
Luna gasped and the creatures promptly popped into tiny versions of themselves and whipped through the air to hide in Draco’s robes and hair.
“Nargles!” Luna breathed, hands over her mouth in wonder.
“Is that what they are?” Draco asked with a laugh, reaching up to poke the little beings in his hair. One of them grasped his finger.
Luna nodded frantically.
“I knew you’d know what they are! I’m brilliant!” he gave himself a satisfied nod, “They’re amazing. They shape-shift, they’re all different sizes. They’re everywhere in this house! That’s what I meant when I told you that the door might be them. I think they might even BE this house, that they might have built it themselves. But they won’t show themselves to anyone else and no one else can hear them like I can!”
He held out his arms and more nargles appeared from the air, from the walls, flying about, some of them traipsing over his arms like little tiny horses.
“You’re a nargle-whisperer!” Luna realized in amazement, moved almost to tears.
“Nargles.” Draco repeated. “Why haven’t I ever heard of them?”
Luna’s face became serious, “You know how a lot of Wizards feel about Magical Creatures. They’re jealous of them. They’re afraid of them.”
Draco nodded, sobering. “But these guys are great! They’re so sweet!” he nuzzled one of them and it let out a tiny cry of joy.
“Nargles are thieves and tricksters. And they shape-shift. They can be anything, just like you said.”
“They haven’t stolen from me,” Draco cried indignantly, “Or even tried to trick me!”
“You’re a nargle-whisperer,” she repeated, “They wouldn’t. Nargles were thought to be wiped out three hundred years ago. They form colonies in rocky caverns like this one. Every pocket of them was found and killed.”
Draco sucked in a harsh breath, head jerking up in horror.
“The word ‘Nargle’ was made taboo, never spoken, never written down. All documents on nargles were destroyed. But that was so long ago that everyone who knew about the taboo is dead. There is no one left to enforce it and most people think nargles are a mythical creature.”
“But these guys survived? No wonder they hide from everyone. But I don’t understand. Why kill them?”
“For the very reason you stated, they can become anything they’ve ever seen or that you can imagine. Large, small, heavy, light, wood, metal, water, fire, a sword in your hand,” and as Draco thought it several nargles vanished and a long gleaming blade appeared in his grasp, “Wings on your back,” with another flash white wings sprang from Draco’s shoulders and flapped, taking him into the air.
“Whoa!”
“A 599 GTO V12 berlinetta Ferrari.”
Draco yelled as he dropped into the leather driver’s seat of a purring, blood red vehicle. He grabbed the black steering wheel in something of a panic, having never driven a car before.
“Okay! I get it!” he yelled.
“With heat-seeking missiles on it.”
“What. The. Fuck!” Draco yelled as the strange Muggle vehicle sprouted strange Muggle weapons from its front. They beeped, whirred and pointed themselves at Luna.
“And a coffee maker.”
*Ding* said the car and a cup of steaming coffee pushed itself out of the glove compartment.
Draco squealed in alarm.
“Your panic is only making them more aggressive in their attempt to protect you.” Luna stated calmly, sidestepping as the cup of coffee catapulted itself at her. The missiles followed her movement. “Take a deep breath and relax.”
Draco closed his eyes and forced himself to think of the strange Muggle craft going away and leaving him alone.
The nargles fluttered and dispersed around him and left him standing on his own two feet. He took another breath and looked at Luna as the nargles clicked and chirped at him soothingly.
“They can take any form. But only for you, only for a nargle-whisperer. Those are simple forms. They can become amazingly complex things. More complex than a house or car. And that’s what happened. They became weapons of war.”
Draco shuddered, gathering the tiny nargles to himself, instinctively trying to protect them.
A sudden commotion echoed mutedly from upstairs.
“DRACO!” a muffled voice shouted, followed by a crash and then silence.
Draco frowned up at the stairway tensely as the nargles crawling on him started scurrying about in fear, whimpering in tiny voices.
“Nargles, take Loony and hide. I’ve gotta go see what that is.”
One of the nargles flashed into its large form, grasped Luna around the waist and flew into the darkness, all of the other nargles following like a swarm of bees after its queen.
Draco slipped up the stairs quietly and threw open the large door, wand pointed.
He stared at the sight that met him, of his friends rolling around on the floor in pain and Hermione Granger standing over them.
“What are you doing here, Mudblood?”
Hermione didn’t even recognize the sneering girl at Malfoy’s front door. She knew she’d been a Slytherin at Hogwarts but that’s all Hermione remembered.
She’d gone up the drive and knocked like a civilized person and this was what she got?
One day, she told herself, people would treat her with the respect she deserved. The respect that came from being highly educated, highly competent, highly successful, and more than a little dangerous. She was a freaking war hero. Couldn’t people get past the whole ‘Mudblood’ thing?
She held her temper.
“I’d like to speak with Draco Malfoy, please.”
The girl’s sneer curled even more, and she leaned against the doorpost sullenly. Her eyes swept Hermione up and down once, “I doubt he wants to speak to you.”
“I don’t care. His mother sent me and I have business with him.”
To her surprise, the girl’s eyes widened and the door—which hadn’t been open very much in the first place—closed a bit more.
“If Draco’s mother wants to talk to him, she can call on him herself.” The girl declared in a high, tremulous way, “Filthy Mudblood.”
Normally at this point, Hermione would have simply walked away, but with Harry’s life debt at stake. . . .
The girl screamed as Hermione blasted the door open. She slammed heavily into a wall then flung herself away from Hermione and ran, shrieking like a loon, into the house, shouting about Narcissa and Draco and assassins.
Heaving a sigh of annoyance, Hermione strode in, waiting patiently as the sound of running steps approached her. Three men slowed to a stop as they saw her. Hermione recognized Goyle. Ew. The other was obviously Nott, but she had no idea who the third was.
“What are you doing here, Mudblood?” Goyle snapped, wand aimed at her.
That question. Again.
Patience, Hermione. Patience.
“Where is Draco Malfoy?” she asked calmly.
“What do you want with Draco?” the man she didn’t recognize asked gruffly, suspiciously.
Hermione blinked at him, there was something weirdly familiar about him, “His mother sent me to speak with him. I’d like to get this over with please.”
“We’ll never tell you!” Nott yelled, “Stupe—AAGH!”
Hermione knocked him off his feet and onto the coffee table with a flick of her wand.
What followed was beyond pathetic. The three of them barely used higher than fourth-year spells on her. They shouted them at the top of their lungs and their wand movements were exaggerated and clumsy.
It physically hurt her to watch it.
Ow.
No, that was the dish the girl Slytherin, who was hiding over in the corner, had thrown at her.
This was exactly what was wrong with the Magical world.
These idiots had graduated from Hogwarts five years ago, but their spell-work had not improved. If anything it had gotten worse. It was like they hadn’t learned a thing, let alone practiced, since they left school. They weren’t stupid—well, maybe Goyle was—and Nott there had a decent amount of power. But look at them! The girl wasn’t even trying to use her wand anymore! Probably knew nothing but cosmetic charms.
Why did people waste themselves like this? Couldn’t they spend even a handful of minutes a day improving their spell-work? Reading something educational?
This was all going to change once Hermione was in charge.
Waste like this wasn’t going to be allowed to happen anymore. All Witches and Wizards were going to be trained to their utmost competence.
Whether they liked it or not.
“DRACO!” Goyle screamed as Hermione flipped him through the air and into the wall.
A moment of quiet and then a door suddenly appeared in the wall to her right and Hermione held very still, narrowing her eyes as Draco Malfoy stepped out.
He blinked at her, at his friends, “Granger?” he asked in disbelief, “What’s going on?”
“I came to speak to you.” She said, watching his wand hand, “They weren’t going to let me in.”
To her astonishment, he grinned hugely, “You wanted to see me so bad that you did all this?” He spread his arms for a hug, “Awww. Come here.”
“Draco, your mom sent her!” The girl Slytherin choked out.
Draco’s eyes went wide, his body went rigid. He stared down at his friends, then slowly up at her. He gulped visibly.
“N-now Granger, y-you’re not a-a hired assassin on t-top of everything else, are you?”
“What? No! Are you crazy?”
He slumped, sighing in relief, “Oh good, because STUPEFY!”
Hermione lunged out of the way, raising the coffee table to block his next attack but he was already running back towards the door he’d first come through.
“You idiot!” she shouted, lunging forward and catching the door before he could slam it shut, jamming her wand through and causing him to yelp and let go. “What is wrong with you?” she yelled as he pounded down a set of dank stairs and disappeared into darkness.
Hermione turned to glare at the Slytherins. She quickly disarmed them and tied them up with a few slashes of her wand.
“You lot better stay put.” She snarled. “Got it?”
They nodded at her, terrified.
Finally. Some respect.
Hermione headed down the stairs after Malfoy.
“Malfoy!” she hollered, “I don’t know what your problem is but I just came to talk! Your mother thinks you might be having some sort of reaction to something in the house. I’m beginning to think you’re just fucking nuts. Malfoy?”
She reached the bottom of the dimly lit stairwell and peered into the cavernous room. All was quiet and dark. She didn’t remember seeing this room during the walkthrough.
“Stupe--!”
Hermione whirled, “Expelliarmus!”
She watched the spell light up the room and connect solidly with Malfoy. She saw his surprised face, his wand fly out of his hand and he toppled backwards. Hermione’s eyes widened in horror as she realized there was nothing behind him. No floor.
She pointed her wand. “Acc—AGH!”
She flew off her feet as something small and furious attacked her.
“You has killed Lord Malfoy!” screamed Ginger hysterically. “Bad Bad Lady!”
Icy, gross-smelling water splashed over Hermione in a tidal wave as Ginger gave her the mop-water again.
“Idiot!” Hermione coughed, sputtering and scrambling off the ground, “I could have caught him!” she staggered to the edge of the rock landing, shivering and dripping wet. She cleaned and dried herself with a quick swish of her wand then cried, “Lumos Maxima!”
There was nothing below her but darkness.
With a sobbing wail, Ginger disappeared and Hermione realized she was in deep trouble.
“Holy shit. I killed Draco Malfoy.”
Her brain was already jibbering, WhatdoIdo? WhatdoIdo?
Something else deep inside her, the primal, instinctive part of her soul, felt a profound stillness, as though some long-awaited destiny had finally been fulfilled.
But that wasn’t right. She’d always put her money on Ron being the one to snap and kill Malfoy.
Oh Merlin, I’m so going to prison!
She pulled out her cell phone and hit speed dial.
“Wizard television sucks.” Dan proclaimed in his deep voice, flicking idly through the channels of Hermione’s large flat screen.
“Wait! Here! Leave it! No! Right here! Ahhh.” Ron screeched, twitching continuously as Dan flipped past every Quidditch game he saw.
“Hermione’s late.” Mrs. Granger sighed.
Dan frowned, “My chicken salad is going to waste.” He glanced over at Harry, who was practically melted into the cushions a few seats over, “You alright there, Waldo?”
The crazy kid had disappeared for a while and they’d finally found him stuffed in a cramped little cupboard.
Harry flushed a little, “Yes, I’m better. And it’s Harry.”
“You look like a Waldo to me.” He grunted.
“Hey, I didn’t even realize it,” Ron said through a mouthful of popcorn, “You know about the Wizarding World, huh?”
Dan gave him a long withering look, “I’ve spent some time around magic.”
His phone rang.
“That’s Hermione now.” He tossed the remote at Ron, who made noises of jubilation, “Hello?”
“Uncle Dan! Uncle Dan!” the rest was undecipherable blubbering.
Dan immediately stood up, strode into the kitchen and shut the door, “Hermione Jean, calm down right now! What is it?”
“I killed Draco Malfoy!”
Dan froze for just a second, “Alright.” He said quickly and calmly, “Did anyone see you?”
“Yes. That House Elf saw me! She’s going to tell!”
“How messy is the body?”
“I-I don’t know. He went down a hole. I can’t even see the bottom. There are people upstairs! I can’t let them find him! I’ve got to hide the body!”
“Okay. Don’t you worry, darling. Uncle Dan knows what to do. You hang tight for just a few minutes and I’ll be there. Now where are you?”
He wrote down the address quickly, grimacing at how far away the place actually was, and started mentally making a list of things they were going to need: gloves, plastic garbage bags, shovels, a chain saw.
The door to the kitchen burst open and the red head was standing there gasping.
“Is that Hermione on the phone?” he practically shouted.
“What’s it to you?” Dan asked, eyes narrowing.
“I just got a call from my boss, Kingsley, that Draco Malfoy kidnapped a girl, Luna Lovegood, and that Hermione went and offed Malfoy!”
They could make it look like self-defense then if they had to. Good.
Dan slowly stalked towards Ron, “You going to go arrest my baby?”
“Hellll no!” Ron barked, not even the least intimidated, “You don’t understand! I’ve been waiting for this since I was eleven years old!” He did a little dance in place, “I knew if I waited long enough that one day—one day, I would get to hide Draco Malfoy’s body with my two best friends.”
“Sir, really,” Said Waldo from the doorway, “He has been waiting for this forever. I can’t even say I’m surprised. Surprised it took this long, maybe.”
Dan hesitated a moment then nodded tightly. It would be much easier to get there using their magic hoodoo then it would in Gordon’s truck. He put the phone back to his ear, “You hear that, darlin’? Your Uncle Dan and your friends will be there in just a few minutes.”
“There’s probably going to be some kind of fight.” The Waldo kid said, “You probably should leave it to us.”
“You boys ever hide a body?” He asked the two aggressively and was a little surprised when they didn’t flinch.
They looked at each other questioningly instead. “Erm?” the red head said.
“You know, Ron, I think that might actually be something we haven’t done before. Weird.”
Ron snapped his fingers, “No. No. Crabbe and Goyle, remember? Second year.”
“Yeah, but they weren’t dead.”
“Then Uncle Dan is coming with you boys.” Dan snapped.
“You know,” Lucius sat in a cozy armchair with a martini in his hand, a fez on his head, and not a scrap of clothing on, “I’m beginning to think we might have seriously failed at this whole parenting business.”
“These things take time, Lucius.” Narcissa insisted, eyes on her needlepoint, “He’s just getting his wings. Let him flounder a bit and then I’m certain he’ll bloom.”
“Maybe we should have insisted he finish Hogwarts or—or placed him in an internship somewhere.” Lucius grimaced at the idea.
“Don’t be silly.” Narcissa murmured, “No one knows what they want to be at his age.”
There was silence.
“Why are you bemoaning the point anyway?” She asked tartly, “It’s not as if there’s anything to be done about it now. It’s not as though we’ll ever be responsible for some poor creature’s upbringing ever again.”
They stared at each other.
“Never again.” Lucius agreed and toasted her with his martini.
A loud crack caused Narcissa to jump and yelp. A strange House Elf appeared in the middle of the room, wringing her ears and staggering about, wailing the whole time.
“Young Master Malfoy is being killed! He is being killed by the Bad Bad Lady!” and then it was gone just as quickly.
Lucius glanced over at the family tapestry as Narcissa rose to her feet, looking to Lucius in alarm.
“Well, tapestry says he’s peachy.” Lucius confirmed. “In fact, the tapestry says . . . holy shit, Draco, keep it in your pants!”
Narcissa banished her needlepoint and summoned her shoes, “Come, Lucius. We should deal with this ourselves.”
Lucius gave her a pleading look, “May I get dressed?”
Narcissa pursed her lips and thought about it, “Alright, but only because we’re leaving the house.”
Hermione knelt on the edge of the cliff, holding her wand down into the chasm, tears slipping down her face. She couldn’t see anything except inky blackness and her mind was such a wreck that she couldn’t think of any useful spells.
She knew thousands of spells. She knew several that would float her down, that would create staircases out of the rocks, that would summon steps for her to walk on.
She couldn’t think of a single one.
“I’m sorry, Draco! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it!” she cried into the darkness.
She could summon his body, but she was terrified that he was alive and injured and that the jarring would kill him. She was terrified that he was dead and that if she went down into the chasm, that she would have to see his broken, lifeless corpse.
“Oh Draco, I’m sor-rry!” she sobbed.
“Hermione. . . .”
Hermione’s head snapped up and she gasped in astonishment.
It was Draco . . . only he was . . . He was an angel.
White wings sprouted from his back and were beating silently in the still air. He was smiling at her gently, forgivingly. At peace.
She stood up clumsily, reached for him.
“Draco! I’m sorry! I tried to summon you, but the Elf . . . the Elf knocked me down and then you were gone!” she started to sob again.
“It’s okay, Hermione.”
“It’s not! You didn’t deserve to die! Well, maybe you did a little. But I didn’t mean to be the one to do it.”
“It didn’t hurt.”
She gave a little sniffle. That helped some. At least it had been quick.
“Before I go, will you do something for me?”
She nodded and he smiled serenely, descending gracefully to stand before her.
“May I have a kiss?” he whispered.
She stared at him with wide, wet eyes and did nothing when he leaned down and chastely touched his lips to hers. Her brain immediately jammed.
Oh. Oh dear. This wasn’t exactly a situation she had prepared for while organizing her world takeover. The only person she’d ever kissed was Ron and he wasn’t exactly Mr. Smooth. Not that he was a bad kisser, just completely unrestrained. The kind of guy you couldn’t kiss in public ever because it got messy pretty quick.
This didn’t feel like that kind of kiss, but maybe he was waiting for her to do something. What was she supposed to do? Would he be offended if she grabbed his face, bit his lips and shoved her tongue in his mouth? This was his last kiss before he went to heaven (or hell), what if she screwed it up? Maybe she should have studied for this. . . .
Malfoy pulled back a little, “Stop. Thinking.” He ordered and kissed her again.
Oh.
Okay.
He slid his arms around her and tilted his head just a little and Hermione’s brain melted. He smelled good, and his mouth was warm, coaxing just a little for her to part her lips. His robes were damp and cold. He was entirely too solid, entirely too real and he tasted—he tasted like butterbeer.
She ripped her face away, “You Jackass!” she hollered, “You’re not an angel!” And of course he wasn’t an angel! Stupid! If he really had died, he would have appeared to her with horns and a tail.
“You have to be the only person on the planet who would mistake me for one.” He laughed at her, proving her point.
But it wasn’t a mean laugh so she didn’t move away when he leaned down again and gave her a few quick, feather-light kisses. “Part payment.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She murmured, “I just came to talk. Your mother thought you were having hallucinations or something.”
“She didn’t send you to kill me?” Draco asked in disbelief.
“No! Why would she do that?” Hermione sputtered, completely baffled.
“I thought maybe you were an assassin as well as . . . whatever else you are. At this point, I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“No, look—okay, I deserve that. Maybe I am sort of taking over the Wizarding world. I just hadn’t thought about it in those terms. I really don’t want to hurt anyone or start a war or something. I just want everyone to be the best that they can be.”
“Against their will?”
There was a nasty gleam in her eyes, “If I have to.”
He stared at her, “That is so horrifying and sexy at the same time.”
He leaned down to kiss her again but she pushed him away, “Wait, what is this place?”
“It’s uh . . . .”
A feminine scream interrupted them, the sound far away and echoing from the depths of the chasm.
“What was that?” Hermione hurried to the ledge.
“LUNA!” Draco shouted. “LUNA, WHAT’S WRONG?”
“Draaaco Malfoy! Heeelp!” came Luna’s voice faintly from the darkness.
“What in the world?” Hermione gasped.
Draco shouted in surprise as the cave suddenly rocked and the nargles screamed in his head. Two large nargles appeared in front of them and grabbed him and Hermione as the cave shuddered and the walls cracked.
“What’s going on?” Draco tried to ask the nargles, “What’s happening?” But all of their little voices were too jumbled and upset to make sense of.
Hermione was screaming beside him as the nargles plunged them down and down into the darkness.
They came to a stop in midair just above another much smaller platform of rock. Luna Lovegood was over on a rocky outcropping to their right, being held captive by another nargle.
“Luna!” Hermione gasped.
“Nargles, what are you doing?” Draco yelled, struggling.
They babbled at him in fear and confusion, making him flinch at the cacophony in his head.
“Well, well, well,” said a nasty, unfamiliar voice hoarsely, “A nargle-whisperer! Isn’t this my lucky day.”
“Who’s there?” Draco shouted.
“Lumos.” Draco and Hermione’s wands flared by themselves and Draco could see, directly across from them, a haggard-looking man with amazingly long black hair and beard flowing all around him as though the hairs were wires growing into the cavern floors and wall. The man seemed to be trapped half-in and half-out of a large, twisting, obsidian rock.
Not rock, Draco realized. Nargles. The nargles had transformed into rock and were trying to restrain the man.
“Ah ha!” the wizard crowed in triumph, “I can use my magic again! I shall be free in no time! And it’s all thanks to you, my lad.”
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Draco demanded.
“Malfoy,” Hermione said quietly, “I think that might be your Dark Lord. The one whose house you live in.”
“What? Really?” he looked skeptical.
“Yes! I am he!” Cried the Wizard, pleased that they knew him, “I am He-Who-Can’t-Be-Talked-About! Also known as That-One-Guy. Not That-One-Guy from Ireland. I am the British That-One-Guy.”
“What are you doing here?” Draco asked again. “You’ve been missing since the 1970’s.”
The man frowned, looking a bit startled. He probably didn’t even know what year it was. But he was a Dark Lord, so he was more than happy to begin monologuing, “Back at the height of my power, I found this pocket of nargles and attempted to find an artificial way of controlling them. I had limited success until one day they turned on me and used their own bodies to form this rock prison from which I could not escape. But only days ago, handfuls of them began to leave my prison for short periods of time. More and more of them began leaving, I assume to investigate you. Their divided attention formed a weakness in my prison, which I have exploited to gain freedom. In a matter of hours, I will be completely free and you, nargle-whisperer, will help me use the nargles to bring the Wizarding World to its knees!”
“NEVER!” Draco bellowed, “The nargles have been hurt and abused by Wizards enough! I won’t let you enslave and exploit them! They’re my friends and I won’t let you hurt them! Not while there’s breath in my body!”
Hermione was staring at Draco with an odd expression of wonder on her face.
The evil Wizard laughed, “You can do nothing boy! They are weak from containing me! Between my power and your voice, they have no choice but to listen to me! And you will do what I say or I will kill your little girlfriends, but not before playing with them a little first. I haven’t had a woman in ages.”
The black, shiny rock holding the wizard began to shift and crack and, with an insane cry, the Dark Lord burst one skinny arm free. The rocks bounced against the ground and became little nargles that scurried away weakly.
Draco struggled violently against the nargle holding him. He gave an angry mental command as harshly as he could and the nargle squeaked, recoiling and dropping him. Draco landed in a crouch, grabbed his wand and leapt over the gulf separating himself from the evil wizard.
The Dark Lord grinned and snarled a spell and Draco’s own wand flipped around and blasted him full in the face. Flying back with a scream, Draco barely heard Hermione and Luna shout his name. Instead of slamming into the rock face or plunging down into the icy water beneath him, Draco was quickly caught by the nargles who hefted him into the air, chattering in panic in his head, refusing to let him go again lest he get hurt.
Draco struggled uselessly. There was nothing he could do. This wizard could use other people’s wands without even touching them and even if Draco set the nargles on him, other nargles would protect the man. Dividing the nargle’s attention between himself and the evil wizard only weakened the nargles further.
“Stupid boy.” The Wizard laughed and began calling spells for his own amusement. Draco screamed as his wand leapt into the air and began casting pain and torture spells on him. To his horror, he saw the same thing happening to Hermione and Luna.
“It’s no use boy,” the Dark Lord sneered, after what seemed to Draco, an eternity of pain. Draco hung weakly in the nargle’s grasp, face swollen and bleeding and still struggling because Hermione was crying, “My powers have only grown and with these nargles as my guards, no Witch or Wizard can hope to defy me.”
“And what about me, asshole?” a deep voice boomed and a huge man dropped down onto the rock platform in front of the evil Wizard, having repelled down on a rope.
“Who the fuck—?” started the Wizard.
“Uncle Dan!” squealed Hermione but her cry was cut off in a flinch as she watched her Uncle’s meaty fists meet the trapped Wizard’s face with a wet, crunchy sound.
“Malfoy! Hermione!”
Ron and Harry were there, zipping about on their brooms.
The nargles became confused, babbling unhappily in Draco’s head and Draco yelled as he and Hermione were unceremoniously dropped.
Ron grabbed Hermione and zipped upwards. Harry shoved his broom at Luna, “Grab Malfoy and go up! Dan and I are going to use Hermione’s portkey to the house.”
Luna nodded quickly, flying over to grab Draco, who didn’t even think about protesting.
Harry used his wand to give himself a boost over from Luna’s ledge to the ledge where Dan was pulverizing the Dark Lord guy’s face.
“Alright, are you ready?” Harry asked.
“Almost,” Dan grunted, and hit the guy a few more times. “And here I was almost afraid I wouldn’t get to kill anyone.”
“Uh, yeah.” Harry agreed nervously.
Dan reached into his pocket and pulled out a hand grenade. Grinning madly, he pulled the pin with his teeth and stuffed it into the Dark Lord’s broken mouth.
With a yell, Harry latched onto Dan and grabbed the portkey.
Hermione and the others stood at the top of the ledge, looking down into blackness. She squealed at the flash bang beneath them and Draco grabbed her arm, pulling her back from the edge. The wall cracked, rock began tumbling down and nargles exploded into the air all around them.
“Come on! Everyone upstairs!” Ron yelled, grabbing onto Luna, and they all ran for the door as the cavern shook around them.
Panting, the small group burst into the living room of Draco’s house, a little bruised, a little dirty, a little exhilarated.
“Are Potter and that one guy okay?” Draco asked.
“They had a portkey.” Ron shrugged, “And nothing can kill Harry, so I know he’s fine.”
Hermione nodded emphatically. “Uncle Dan’s a survivor.”
“What about your, uh, nargle friends?” Ron asked uncomfortably.
Draco smiled at the happy tickle of his jubilant friends in his head, “They’re fine. They can change their form to strong metal or even go intangible. An explosion like that isn’t going to hurt them.”
“Nargles, Draco!” Hermione burst out, “Nargles! Real live nargles! This is an amazing discovery! I can’t wait to study them--.”
“No!” Draco cut her off, grabbing her hands, “No, please don’t tell anyone about them. The Wizarding world nearly wiped them out once. They hunted them down and murdered them all. I can’t stand the thought of what will happen if people find out about them again. I don’t want to obliviate you, Hermione, but I will to protect them.”
“Oohh,” Hermione breathed, cheeks flushed and eyes dilated, “That is so sweet.”
She leaned forward and Draco kissed her tenderly.
“Aww.” Sighed Luna, “Nargles are creatures of love.”
Ron made a horrified face. “I thought you killed him,” he whimpered, feeling betrayed, “I came here hoping to hide his body and now you’re making-out with him?”
“Go away, Weasley.” Draco murmured warningly, as Hermione slid her arms around him.
“WHAT IS THIS!” Lucius Malfoy’s voice bellowed furiously.
Draco jerked upright at the sight of his father storming into the room, looking apoplectic. His worried mother followed behind him along with Mansy and the others. Draco wondered if they’d been unable to get through the iron door without him. They must have been searching the house for an alternate way in.
“I will not allow this!” Lucius roared, “You dropped out of Hogwarts! You don’t have a job! You’ve been blowing your trust fund! I have graciously ignored all of it! But this, this stain I will not ignore! I will not ignore her!”
“You got a problem with my niece, asshole?” Uncle Dan snarled, storming into the room with Harry at his heels. The portkey had landed them in front of the house.
Lucius Malfoy turned to look at Dan in utter, dumbfounded surprise and then Draco saw a strange transformation come over his father. His father’s lower lip wobbled, his eyes went large and liquid.
“Nngh,” Lucius choked, face white as a sheet.
Uncle Dan’s thunderous face became even more dark and threatening.
“N-Navy Seal?” Lucius whispered breathily, “I-is that you?”
Uncle Dan groaned in disgust, rolled his eyes and opened his arms. With a whoop, Lucius threw himself at Dan and hugged him hard, a crying Narcissa not far behind him. Dan put his arms around both of them looking horribly putout but, underneath that, vaguely pleased.
“Oh, dear Seal,” sobbed Narcissa, “I thought I would never see you again.”
“My friend!” Cried Lucius, “How I have missed you!”
“Well, you don’t act like it, saying those things about my niece.” Dan said gruffly.
Lucius started, “Your niece?” He pulled away to stare at Hermione, “This little witchlet is a member of your pack? I-I am honored! Daughter!” He cried and Hermione yelped as she was enveloped in a hug.
“Draco, help!” Hermione hissed, trying not to flash back to the nude body she’d seen earlier that day.
“Yeah, yeah, honored. Great. Approval. Okay, thanks dad.” Draco pried Hermione out of Lucius’ grasp as his dad kissed both her cheeks with noisy smacks.
Draco glanced over at his friends and put an arm around Hermione as his father went back to carrying on about his Navy Seal. “Any of you got something to say?”
“Um, Miss Hermione.” Tracey, trembling oddly and looking terrified of Hermione squeaked, “Um, an owl brought this for you just now.”
Frowning a little at Tracey’s behavior, Hermione grasped the heavy parchment envelope and gaped at the return address. With nimble fingers she slipped it open and quickly read the enclosed note.
“Oh dear,” she leaned back against Draco for support.
“What is it, Hermione?” Harry asked.
“I-I’ve just received an invitation to attend the Academia Sinistro.”
Silence all around her.
“Whhaaaat?” and that had to be the oddest sound Hermione had ever heard Lucius Malfoy make.
Hermione handed the invitation over to Harry who scanned it quickly before Ron grabbed it from him to have a look. Goyle, Nott and that other guy Hermione still didn’t recognize, scooted in close, “They say . . . they say they’re impressed with what I’ve accomplished so far and that a Dark Lord degree would open some of the more stubborn doors in my way. How could. . . . Am I really . . . Is what I’m doing really. . . a little evil?”
“Erm,” started Harry, nervously.
“Hell yeah.” Ron said bluntly. “I’ve been waiting in terror for the day when you decide I need more schooling to round out my education and send me to adult classes against my will.”
“And the day you decide I’m going to be Minister of Magic.” Harry added, causing her to blush and mumble.
“So, a bit of a wakeup call?” Draco prompted, giving her a squeeze, “Maybe you’ll rethink things now, huh?”
“What? No!” Hermione looked at him like he was crazy.
The others started in surprise.
“I mean, how could I pass this up? It’s a fabulous opportunity! And what an honor! I’d be the first Muggleborn ever invited. What better way to prove myself to the Magical world then to be the very first Muggleborn Dark Lady. It’s a statistical fact that men outnumber women in the Dark Lording department by a huge margin and Purebloods outnumber those with Muggle blood even more. I think it would be a huge forward step for our society to have a Muggleborn Dark Lady.”
Ron looked at Harry in panic. Harry looked at Draco, begging him to do something. Draco looked around frantically for inspiration and then his eyes landed on the bruise on Nott’s forehead and he grinned slowly, wickedly.
“Her-mi-o-ne.” He sing-songed.
His voice cut off her rambling and she looked at him in surprise. He grinned toothily.
“I’m pressing charges.”
Epilogue:
Hermione Granger received three months in a low-security prison cell in Azkaban for breaking and entering, assault, and attempted murder. Harry and Ron were absolutely no help, even after Dan pulled his bowie knife and started trying to stab people.
The trial was kept very quiet so as not to alert her time-traveling self to her current predicament, but the fact that so very few people were involved, and that they were all her so-called ‘friends’, attributed to her light sentencing. Hermione realized belatedly that the assholes in the Department of Mysteries had known about the trial and had spent weeks keeping her time-traveling past-self-in-the-future busy. The jackasses even had the gall to pop champagne bottles at her sentencing.
Luckily for Hermione, she herself had seen to the renovation and modernization of Azkaban ages ago. Dementors were no longer used as guards and every prisoner had a bed, toilet and controlled temperatures in their cells.
Harry and Ron came to visit her often, though she didn’t speak to them for the first month and the second month was spent hurling expletives at them. Sometimes they brought her parents to visit. Her mom and dad acted as though she were on a vacation holiday and not incarcerated for heinous crimes. When no one was around, her mother grasped her hands through the bars and whispered that she knew this was only a temporary setback and that one day her baby would make them rue the day they messed with the rightful ruler of the world.
Lucius and Narcissa dropped by once in awhile, both of them looking absurdly proud of her. Uncle Dan tried twice to break her out. Hermione had a weird suspicion that he was actually staying in Malfoy Manor.
Draco came every day.
Sometimes he brought her lunch from Rosalda’s. Sometimes he read his very badly written poetry to her. Sometimes he tried to get her to ‘hone her visualization skills’ by imagining the two of them on their honeymoon.
Hermione reminded him coolly that they hadn’t even been on a second date yet.
He grinned slyly, “So you admit it was a first date.”
When Hermione’s prison time was finally up, she felt oddly calm and refreshed.
The earth was still in tact. No one had died because she had missed work. Her evil plans were sort of ruined when her whereabouts had finally come to light to the general public. Yeah, her invitation to the Academia Sinistro was still standing but she was an attempted-murderess and so had been kicked off the Board of Governors. She was no longer allowed to teach at Hogwarts and Kingsley had scaled back the number of committees she was allowed to be on, and she was no longer allowed to be in charge of any of them.
If she wanted to take over the Wizarding world now, she’d have to do it by force. Not exactly something she had the stomach for.
Her house was cool and sweet smelling, though she hadn’t been there in three months. Someone had aired it out and a bouquet of flowers was waiting for her on her kitchen table along with two tickets to some fancy show or other.
Hermione sighed and reached under the hidden groove at the bottom of her dresser to find the long golden chain of her Time-Turner.
She studied it with a little smile and then began turning it back.
So they’d made her cool her heels in Azkaban for three months. Didn’t they realize she could just take those months back? She had lots of things to do after all.
Like make a phone call.
To tell herself to go meet Draco Malfoy to look at houses.
THE END
Author Notes: Pyjamas The Terror---Harry James Potter. I forgot who first showed me this anagram but I am in love with it. Humorous fic. Not so good at those in longer form. I keep trying to go all serious-like. And then ‘light-hearted’ became slightly crack-y.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
ferretbush_post is the account the mods use to post the gifts. It has not created any of the gifts.
Author: Gravidy
Rating: PG
Recipient: Ayla Pascal
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any recognizable characters or creatures.
Warning(s): Language
Author’s Note: Recipient asked for humorous or quirky.
Summary: Hermione Granger is exploring a plethora of career options, such as lawyer, psychologist, and Supreme Dictator for Life. She’s going to make the Wizarding world a better place, whether they like it or not. Post DH, EWE, humor
Hermione really hated Malfoy manor.
It was big, it was pretentious, the driveway went on FOREVER and the stupid albino peacocks were giving her looks.
“Don’t even start with me!” she shouted at one particularly shifty-looking one that had started to follow her. It fluffed itself and stalked away.
She knocked at the huge, ginormous front door and then waited for more of forever for someone to answer.
The door finally opened a crack and a harried Narcissa Malfoy peeked out at her, “Are you alone?”
“Yes. Now what do you want? I have things to do.”
Narcissa frowned, opening the door a little wider and shooting glances about before stepping back to let Hermione in.
“What I require from you,” the woman began as she shut the massive door, “—is absolute secrecy. You must not speak to anyone about this. It could ruin the Malfoy name.”
Hermione hesitated but then decided she didn’t care about whatever stupid mess the Malfoys were in and pulled out her wand to swear secrecy.
“You sold Draco that house, didn’t you?” Narcissa asked.
Hermione blinked, “Yes, erm, yesterday?” She hadn’t given it another thought, despite Draco text messaging her about ten times a day.
“Three days ago.” The woman snapped.
Oops.
“Tell me truthfully, was there any sort of a curse on that house?”
Hermione’s heart lurched and she stood still for a moment but then she thought back and realized that no, there hadn’t actually been a curse on that particular home. At least her files had said nothing about a curse. She hadn’t cared at the time—despite her original plans to sell him a cursed home—because she was so excited about finishing the sale.
“No. There was no curse, as far as I know. But it did belong to a Dark Lord.”
Narcissa made a noise too lady-like to be a groan, “Then perhaps it is not simply Draco.”
“What do you mean?”
“My son has been calling me nonstop these past seventy-two hours to tell me in explicit detail how incredibly magnificent his house is.”
“Well, that’s great right?”
“He has become increasingly excited, insisting that there are strange creatures in his house that speak to him inside his head.”
Hermione cringed, “Yeee, that’s not so good.”
“He came here about an hour ago and tried to show me one of these creatures but I saw nothing and he became more and more agitated over the matter. The things he said were absolute lunacy. I feared—I feared that my son might be experiencing some sort of breakdown. He has always had an active imagination, but this is over the top even for him. I attempted to subdue him but he ran away from me. I need someone, someone with a strong psychology background to go have a look at him and I need them to keep utterly silent on the matter.”
Hermione frowned, “I’m a licensed psychologist in both the Muggle and Magical worlds.”
“Well, that makes matters easier. You will go diagnose Draco immediately. If he has suffered a breakdown, you will bring him here as quickly and quietly and as discreetly as possible. No one must find out about this.”
“Okay, but I can’t tonight. I have company.”
“I don’t care.” Narcissa said coldly, “You will take care of this matter promptly.”
Hermione opened her mouth to argue but was cut off by a voice booming loudly, singing in a silky baritone, “BOOOORRRRN FREEEEEE. . . .”
Hermione didn’t understand what she was seeing at first.
She had to blink spots from her eyes, blinded first by the paleness of Draco’s father’s torso as he came waltzing down the main staircase in nothing but his birthday suit, and then blinded by her brain’s own refusal to accept what her eyes were seeing.
Lucius didn’t even pause. Still singing, albeit more quietly, he about-faced in one quick step, giving Hermione an eyeful of his proudly muscled ass, and waltzed right back up the stairs, back ramrod straight but otherwise not seeming to hurry.
Frigid blue-eyes filled Hermione’s vision. Hermione blinked and found Narcissa’s face very close to hers.
“You looking at my man?” Narcissa snarled.
“Uh, no!” Hermione turned her face to the side, studying the walls, “I didn’t see anything. I didn’t see anybody.”
Narcissa’s eyes narrowed at her warily, “He has a fantastic ass, doesn’t he?”
Hermione caught herself just in time, teeth clicking together before she could agree and quickly revised her answer, “Who?”
Narcissa glared at her, “Hmph. Go diagnose Draco.”
And Hermione was so flustered that she went.
Luna Lovegood woke up that morning knowing it was going to be a fabulous and exciting day for magic. After eating a quick breakfast she put on her prettiest robes and her most rugged hiking boots. A moment’s pause and she added some noodle hair clips, a homemade necklace of dried apples with faces carved into them and a really pretty ring she’d gotten for a single coin at a Muggle convenience store.
With that, Luna went to sit on her front porch, ignoring the curious looks her father tossed at her whenever he passed the front window.
She didn’t have long to wait.
Draco Malfoy appeared at her gates, stumbling wildly, with his hair askew and his face smudged with dirt. His face brightened excitedly when he saw her.
“Hey! Loony!” he flung the little garden gate open, ran up to grab her arm and started dragging her back down the path, “Come with me!”
“Hello, Draco Malfoy!” Luna sang, “Am I going to spend time in your basement again?”
Draco beamed, “How did you guess?”
“HEY!” Xenophilius burst out the door, “Kidnapper! Come back here with my daughter!”
“Sorry! I’ll have her back soon!” Draco hollered cheerfully and they vanished.
“You have got to see this, Loony.” Draco babbled as their feet crunched on the sand and gravel walkway. “No one else will listen. Maybe you’ll know what’s going on.”
“Your house is very nice!” Luna stated, charmed, “It has a very happy feel to it.”
Draco grinned, “Does it? I think so too.”
Mansy, Goyle, Tracey, Pucey and Nott were waiting for them inside.
“Draco, you’ve got to be kidding me,” moaned Mansy with a look of disgust at Luna, who was staring straight back at her, obviously very impressed.
“Hello, Draco Malfoy’s friends.” Luna sang, not quite remembering any of their names. It wasn’t like they had ever spoken to her at Hogwarts, or like she was ever locked in their basements. “Your Vlimsum pathways are looking extremely aligned today, good sir.” She said to Mansy in a tone that suggested that this was a very great compliment.
Mansy just gave Draco a look.
“What?” he asked coolly, chin thrust in the air, “I bet she’ll believe me.”
“I’m sure she will. She’ll believe anything!”
“She knows about things like this.” Draco argued hotly.
“Right. We’re staying up here.” Mansy flung himself into one of the sofa chairs and picked up the Daily Prophet, blocking Draco from view.
Draco sneered, “You guys do that. And keep watch. My parents could attack at any moment.”
Mansy lowered the Prophet slightly, troubled, “Your parents aren’t out to kill you, Draco.” But he sounded uncertain.
“I’ve already told you,” Draco said tightly, “I went home and mother just attacked me out of nowhere! Millicent was right, they’re out to kill me and replace me with a new heir. So you guys keep watch.”
The lot of them exchanged looks and nodded reluctantly.
Draco nodded decisively and dragged Luna to the nearest wall. Immediately, a heavy iron door appeared.
“Oooooh.” Said Luna, reaching out and touching the contorting faces. They gummed at her fingers fiercely but didn’t seem to bite.
Draco grinned, “I think that’s some of them.”
“Hmm?”
Draco swung the door open and Luna followed him down the dank steps without hesitation.
“My house is awesome!” Draco started loudly, “I started noticing it right away. Things I wanted came to me. Doorways and hallways moved to wherever I needed them. Furniture created itself right before my eyes when I wanted to sit down. But that’s not anything too fantastic, you know. Just great charm work or something. Only it’s not!”
They reached the bottom landing and the platform rumbled beneath them as torches sprang up from the ground and lights appeared high, very high, above them in the ceiling, illuminating the small rocky platform they were on.
“Everything kept itself clean, but I didn’t notice because I’m used to House Elves.” He turned on Luna, and said, in a voice full of wonder, “Did you know that breakfast doesn’t make itself?”
Luna nodded sagely.
“I didn’t. Almost starved trying to figure out where breakfast was. Laundry doesn’t do itself either. It was just bizarre to realize. But I don’t have any House Elves here. My parents were only going to let me borrow the manor Elves and I haven’t asked them for any yet. And none of my friend’s Elves stayed. I don’t think I would have even noticed that something strange was going on if I couldn’t hear them in my head.” He turned around, peering through the dim caverns, “Come on guys. Come out. I want her to see you.” He glanced at Luna, “They’re very shy.”
Luna squinted through the darkness eagerly.
Three sets of very large, very bright eyes appeared over the chasm in front of them and then vanished just as quickly.
“Oh come on, guys! She’s not going to hurt you.” Draco cajoled.
A moment later the eyes reappeared and then three very large creatures slowly became visible, floating in the air.
They were nearly the exact color of the rocks around them. Whether they were furry or smooth-skinned, Luna couldn’t really tell. They had six, long legs and even longer bodies, with swishing lizard-like tails and tapered feet. Their muzzles were squashed, any features hidden by the almost helmeted appearance of their horned head plate.
Luna gasped and the creatures promptly popped into tiny versions of themselves and whipped through the air to hide in Draco’s robes and hair.
“Nargles!” Luna breathed, hands over her mouth in wonder.
“Is that what they are?” Draco asked with a laugh, reaching up to poke the little beings in his hair. One of them grasped his finger.
Luna nodded frantically.
“I knew you’d know what they are! I’m brilliant!” he gave himself a satisfied nod, “They’re amazing. They shape-shift, they’re all different sizes. They’re everywhere in this house! That’s what I meant when I told you that the door might be them. I think they might even BE this house, that they might have built it themselves. But they won’t show themselves to anyone else and no one else can hear them like I can!”
He held out his arms and more nargles appeared from the air, from the walls, flying about, some of them traipsing over his arms like little tiny horses.
“You’re a nargle-whisperer!” Luna realized in amazement, moved almost to tears.
“Nargles.” Draco repeated. “Why haven’t I ever heard of them?”
Luna’s face became serious, “You know how a lot of Wizards feel about Magical Creatures. They’re jealous of them. They’re afraid of them.”
Draco nodded, sobering. “But these guys are great! They’re so sweet!” he nuzzled one of them and it let out a tiny cry of joy.
“Nargles are thieves and tricksters. And they shape-shift. They can be anything, just like you said.”
“They haven’t stolen from me,” Draco cried indignantly, “Or even tried to trick me!”
“You’re a nargle-whisperer,” she repeated, “They wouldn’t. Nargles were thought to be wiped out three hundred years ago. They form colonies in rocky caverns like this one. Every pocket of them was found and killed.”
Draco sucked in a harsh breath, head jerking up in horror.
“The word ‘Nargle’ was made taboo, never spoken, never written down. All documents on nargles were destroyed. But that was so long ago that everyone who knew about the taboo is dead. There is no one left to enforce it and most people think nargles are a mythical creature.”
“But these guys survived? No wonder they hide from everyone. But I don’t understand. Why kill them?”
“For the very reason you stated, they can become anything they’ve ever seen or that you can imagine. Large, small, heavy, light, wood, metal, water, fire, a sword in your hand,” and as Draco thought it several nargles vanished and a long gleaming blade appeared in his grasp, “Wings on your back,” with another flash white wings sprang from Draco’s shoulders and flapped, taking him into the air.
“Whoa!”
“A 599 GTO V12 berlinetta Ferrari.”
Draco yelled as he dropped into the leather driver’s seat of a purring, blood red vehicle. He grabbed the black steering wheel in something of a panic, having never driven a car before.
“Okay! I get it!” he yelled.
“With heat-seeking missiles on it.”
“What. The. Fuck!” Draco yelled as the strange Muggle vehicle sprouted strange Muggle weapons from its front. They beeped, whirred and pointed themselves at Luna.
“And a coffee maker.”
*Ding* said the car and a cup of steaming coffee pushed itself out of the glove compartment.
Draco squealed in alarm.
“Your panic is only making them more aggressive in their attempt to protect you.” Luna stated calmly, sidestepping as the cup of coffee catapulted itself at her. The missiles followed her movement. “Take a deep breath and relax.”
Draco closed his eyes and forced himself to think of the strange Muggle craft going away and leaving him alone.
The nargles fluttered and dispersed around him and left him standing on his own two feet. He took another breath and looked at Luna as the nargles clicked and chirped at him soothingly.
“They can take any form. But only for you, only for a nargle-whisperer. Those are simple forms. They can become amazingly complex things. More complex than a house or car. And that’s what happened. They became weapons of war.”
Draco shuddered, gathering the tiny nargles to himself, instinctively trying to protect them.
A sudden commotion echoed mutedly from upstairs.
“DRACO!” a muffled voice shouted, followed by a crash and then silence.
Draco frowned up at the stairway tensely as the nargles crawling on him started scurrying about in fear, whimpering in tiny voices.
“Nargles, take Loony and hide. I’ve gotta go see what that is.”
One of the nargles flashed into its large form, grasped Luna around the waist and flew into the darkness, all of the other nargles following like a swarm of bees after its queen.
Draco slipped up the stairs quietly and threw open the large door, wand pointed.
He stared at the sight that met him, of his friends rolling around on the floor in pain and Hermione Granger standing over them.
“What are you doing here, Mudblood?”
Hermione didn’t even recognize the sneering girl at Malfoy’s front door. She knew she’d been a Slytherin at Hogwarts but that’s all Hermione remembered.
She’d gone up the drive and knocked like a civilized person and this was what she got?
One day, she told herself, people would treat her with the respect she deserved. The respect that came from being highly educated, highly competent, highly successful, and more than a little dangerous. She was a freaking war hero. Couldn’t people get past the whole ‘Mudblood’ thing?
She held her temper.
“I’d like to speak with Draco Malfoy, please.”
The girl’s sneer curled even more, and she leaned against the doorpost sullenly. Her eyes swept Hermione up and down once, “I doubt he wants to speak to you.”
“I don’t care. His mother sent me and I have business with him.”
To her surprise, the girl’s eyes widened and the door—which hadn’t been open very much in the first place—closed a bit more.
“If Draco’s mother wants to talk to him, she can call on him herself.” The girl declared in a high, tremulous way, “Filthy Mudblood.”
Normally at this point, Hermione would have simply walked away, but with Harry’s life debt at stake. . . .
The girl screamed as Hermione blasted the door open. She slammed heavily into a wall then flung herself away from Hermione and ran, shrieking like a loon, into the house, shouting about Narcissa and Draco and assassins.
Heaving a sigh of annoyance, Hermione strode in, waiting patiently as the sound of running steps approached her. Three men slowed to a stop as they saw her. Hermione recognized Goyle. Ew. The other was obviously Nott, but she had no idea who the third was.
“What are you doing here, Mudblood?” Goyle snapped, wand aimed at her.
That question. Again.
Patience, Hermione. Patience.
“Where is Draco Malfoy?” she asked calmly.
“What do you want with Draco?” the man she didn’t recognize asked gruffly, suspiciously.
Hermione blinked at him, there was something weirdly familiar about him, “His mother sent me to speak with him. I’d like to get this over with please.”
“We’ll never tell you!” Nott yelled, “Stupe—AAGH!”
Hermione knocked him off his feet and onto the coffee table with a flick of her wand.
What followed was beyond pathetic. The three of them barely used higher than fourth-year spells on her. They shouted them at the top of their lungs and their wand movements were exaggerated and clumsy.
It physically hurt her to watch it.
Ow.
No, that was the dish the girl Slytherin, who was hiding over in the corner, had thrown at her.
This was exactly what was wrong with the Magical world.
These idiots had graduated from Hogwarts five years ago, but their spell-work had not improved. If anything it had gotten worse. It was like they hadn’t learned a thing, let alone practiced, since they left school. They weren’t stupid—well, maybe Goyle was—and Nott there had a decent amount of power. But look at them! The girl wasn’t even trying to use her wand anymore! Probably knew nothing but cosmetic charms.
Why did people waste themselves like this? Couldn’t they spend even a handful of minutes a day improving their spell-work? Reading something educational?
This was all going to change once Hermione was in charge.
Waste like this wasn’t going to be allowed to happen anymore. All Witches and Wizards were going to be trained to their utmost competence.
Whether they liked it or not.
“DRACO!” Goyle screamed as Hermione flipped him through the air and into the wall.
A moment of quiet and then a door suddenly appeared in the wall to her right and Hermione held very still, narrowing her eyes as Draco Malfoy stepped out.
He blinked at her, at his friends, “Granger?” he asked in disbelief, “What’s going on?”
“I came to speak to you.” She said, watching his wand hand, “They weren’t going to let me in.”
To her astonishment, he grinned hugely, “You wanted to see me so bad that you did all this?” He spread his arms for a hug, “Awww. Come here.”
“Draco, your mom sent her!” The girl Slytherin choked out.
Draco’s eyes went wide, his body went rigid. He stared down at his friends, then slowly up at her. He gulped visibly.
“N-now Granger, y-you’re not a-a hired assassin on t-top of everything else, are you?”
“What? No! Are you crazy?”
He slumped, sighing in relief, “Oh good, because STUPEFY!”
Hermione lunged out of the way, raising the coffee table to block his next attack but he was already running back towards the door he’d first come through.
“You idiot!” she shouted, lunging forward and catching the door before he could slam it shut, jamming her wand through and causing him to yelp and let go. “What is wrong with you?” she yelled as he pounded down a set of dank stairs and disappeared into darkness.
Hermione turned to glare at the Slytherins. She quickly disarmed them and tied them up with a few slashes of her wand.
“You lot better stay put.” She snarled. “Got it?”
They nodded at her, terrified.
Finally. Some respect.
Hermione headed down the stairs after Malfoy.
“Malfoy!” she hollered, “I don’t know what your problem is but I just came to talk! Your mother thinks you might be having some sort of reaction to something in the house. I’m beginning to think you’re just fucking nuts. Malfoy?”
She reached the bottom of the dimly lit stairwell and peered into the cavernous room. All was quiet and dark. She didn’t remember seeing this room during the walkthrough.
“Stupe--!”
Hermione whirled, “Expelliarmus!”
She watched the spell light up the room and connect solidly with Malfoy. She saw his surprised face, his wand fly out of his hand and he toppled backwards. Hermione’s eyes widened in horror as she realized there was nothing behind him. No floor.
She pointed her wand. “Acc—AGH!”
She flew off her feet as something small and furious attacked her.
“You has killed Lord Malfoy!” screamed Ginger hysterically. “Bad Bad Lady!”
Icy, gross-smelling water splashed over Hermione in a tidal wave as Ginger gave her the mop-water again.
“Idiot!” Hermione coughed, sputtering and scrambling off the ground, “I could have caught him!” she staggered to the edge of the rock landing, shivering and dripping wet. She cleaned and dried herself with a quick swish of her wand then cried, “Lumos Maxima!”
There was nothing below her but darkness.
With a sobbing wail, Ginger disappeared and Hermione realized she was in deep trouble.
“Holy shit. I killed Draco Malfoy.”
Her brain was already jibbering, WhatdoIdo? WhatdoIdo?
Something else deep inside her, the primal, instinctive part of her soul, felt a profound stillness, as though some long-awaited destiny had finally been fulfilled.
But that wasn’t right. She’d always put her money on Ron being the one to snap and kill Malfoy.
Oh Merlin, I’m so going to prison!
She pulled out her cell phone and hit speed dial.
“Wizard television sucks.” Dan proclaimed in his deep voice, flicking idly through the channels of Hermione’s large flat screen.
“Wait! Here! Leave it! No! Right here! Ahhh.” Ron screeched, twitching continuously as Dan flipped past every Quidditch game he saw.
“Hermione’s late.” Mrs. Granger sighed.
Dan frowned, “My chicken salad is going to waste.” He glanced over at Harry, who was practically melted into the cushions a few seats over, “You alright there, Waldo?”
The crazy kid had disappeared for a while and they’d finally found him stuffed in a cramped little cupboard.
Harry flushed a little, “Yes, I’m better. And it’s Harry.”
“You look like a Waldo to me.” He grunted.
“Hey, I didn’t even realize it,” Ron said through a mouthful of popcorn, “You know about the Wizarding World, huh?”
Dan gave him a long withering look, “I’ve spent some time around magic.”
His phone rang.
“That’s Hermione now.” He tossed the remote at Ron, who made noises of jubilation, “Hello?”
“Uncle Dan! Uncle Dan!” the rest was undecipherable blubbering.
Dan immediately stood up, strode into the kitchen and shut the door, “Hermione Jean, calm down right now! What is it?”
“I killed Draco Malfoy!”
Dan froze for just a second, “Alright.” He said quickly and calmly, “Did anyone see you?”
“Yes. That House Elf saw me! She’s going to tell!”
“How messy is the body?”
“I-I don’t know. He went down a hole. I can’t even see the bottom. There are people upstairs! I can’t let them find him! I’ve got to hide the body!”
“Okay. Don’t you worry, darling. Uncle Dan knows what to do. You hang tight for just a few minutes and I’ll be there. Now where are you?”
He wrote down the address quickly, grimacing at how far away the place actually was, and started mentally making a list of things they were going to need: gloves, plastic garbage bags, shovels, a chain saw.
The door to the kitchen burst open and the red head was standing there gasping.
“Is that Hermione on the phone?” he practically shouted.
“What’s it to you?” Dan asked, eyes narrowing.
“I just got a call from my boss, Kingsley, that Draco Malfoy kidnapped a girl, Luna Lovegood, and that Hermione went and offed Malfoy!”
They could make it look like self-defense then if they had to. Good.
Dan slowly stalked towards Ron, “You going to go arrest my baby?”
“Hellll no!” Ron barked, not even the least intimidated, “You don’t understand! I’ve been waiting for this since I was eleven years old!” He did a little dance in place, “I knew if I waited long enough that one day—one day, I would get to hide Draco Malfoy’s body with my two best friends.”
“Sir, really,” Said Waldo from the doorway, “He has been waiting for this forever. I can’t even say I’m surprised. Surprised it took this long, maybe.”
Dan hesitated a moment then nodded tightly. It would be much easier to get there using their magic hoodoo then it would in Gordon’s truck. He put the phone back to his ear, “You hear that, darlin’? Your Uncle Dan and your friends will be there in just a few minutes.”
“There’s probably going to be some kind of fight.” The Waldo kid said, “You probably should leave it to us.”
“You boys ever hide a body?” He asked the two aggressively and was a little surprised when they didn’t flinch.
They looked at each other questioningly instead. “Erm?” the red head said.
“You know, Ron, I think that might actually be something we haven’t done before. Weird.”
Ron snapped his fingers, “No. No. Crabbe and Goyle, remember? Second year.”
“Yeah, but they weren’t dead.”
“Then Uncle Dan is coming with you boys.” Dan snapped.
“You know,” Lucius sat in a cozy armchair with a martini in his hand, a fez on his head, and not a scrap of clothing on, “I’m beginning to think we might have seriously failed at this whole parenting business.”
“These things take time, Lucius.” Narcissa insisted, eyes on her needlepoint, “He’s just getting his wings. Let him flounder a bit and then I’m certain he’ll bloom.”
“Maybe we should have insisted he finish Hogwarts or—or placed him in an internship somewhere.” Lucius grimaced at the idea.
“Don’t be silly.” Narcissa murmured, “No one knows what they want to be at his age.”
There was silence.
“Why are you bemoaning the point anyway?” She asked tartly, “It’s not as if there’s anything to be done about it now. It’s not as though we’ll ever be responsible for some poor creature’s upbringing ever again.”
They stared at each other.
“Never again.” Lucius agreed and toasted her with his martini.
A loud crack caused Narcissa to jump and yelp. A strange House Elf appeared in the middle of the room, wringing her ears and staggering about, wailing the whole time.
“Young Master Malfoy is being killed! He is being killed by the Bad Bad Lady!” and then it was gone just as quickly.
Lucius glanced over at the family tapestry as Narcissa rose to her feet, looking to Lucius in alarm.
“Well, tapestry says he’s peachy.” Lucius confirmed. “In fact, the tapestry says . . . holy shit, Draco, keep it in your pants!”
Narcissa banished her needlepoint and summoned her shoes, “Come, Lucius. We should deal with this ourselves.”
Lucius gave her a pleading look, “May I get dressed?”
Narcissa pursed her lips and thought about it, “Alright, but only because we’re leaving the house.”
Hermione knelt on the edge of the cliff, holding her wand down into the chasm, tears slipping down her face. She couldn’t see anything except inky blackness and her mind was such a wreck that she couldn’t think of any useful spells.
She knew thousands of spells. She knew several that would float her down, that would create staircases out of the rocks, that would summon steps for her to walk on.
She couldn’t think of a single one.
“I’m sorry, Draco! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it!” she cried into the darkness.
She could summon his body, but she was terrified that he was alive and injured and that the jarring would kill him. She was terrified that he was dead and that if she went down into the chasm, that she would have to see his broken, lifeless corpse.
“Oh Draco, I’m sor-rry!” she sobbed.
“Hermione. . . .”
Hermione’s head snapped up and she gasped in astonishment.
It was Draco . . . only he was . . . He was an angel.
White wings sprouted from his back and were beating silently in the still air. He was smiling at her gently, forgivingly. At peace.
She stood up clumsily, reached for him.
“Draco! I’m sorry! I tried to summon you, but the Elf . . . the Elf knocked me down and then you were gone!” she started to sob again.
“It’s okay, Hermione.”
“It’s not! You didn’t deserve to die! Well, maybe you did a little. But I didn’t mean to be the one to do it.”
“It didn’t hurt.”
She gave a little sniffle. That helped some. At least it had been quick.
“Before I go, will you do something for me?”
She nodded and he smiled serenely, descending gracefully to stand before her.
“May I have a kiss?” he whispered.
She stared at him with wide, wet eyes and did nothing when he leaned down and chastely touched his lips to hers. Her brain immediately jammed.
Oh. Oh dear. This wasn’t exactly a situation she had prepared for while organizing her world takeover. The only person she’d ever kissed was Ron and he wasn’t exactly Mr. Smooth. Not that he was a bad kisser, just completely unrestrained. The kind of guy you couldn’t kiss in public ever because it got messy pretty quick.
This didn’t feel like that kind of kiss, but maybe he was waiting for her to do something. What was she supposed to do? Would he be offended if she grabbed his face, bit his lips and shoved her tongue in his mouth? This was his last kiss before he went to heaven (or hell), what if she screwed it up? Maybe she should have studied for this. . . .
Malfoy pulled back a little, “Stop. Thinking.” He ordered and kissed her again.
Oh.
Okay.
He slid his arms around her and tilted his head just a little and Hermione’s brain melted. He smelled good, and his mouth was warm, coaxing just a little for her to part her lips. His robes were damp and cold. He was entirely too solid, entirely too real and he tasted—he tasted like butterbeer.
She ripped her face away, “You Jackass!” she hollered, “You’re not an angel!” And of course he wasn’t an angel! Stupid! If he really had died, he would have appeared to her with horns and a tail.
“You have to be the only person on the planet who would mistake me for one.” He laughed at her, proving her point.
But it wasn’t a mean laugh so she didn’t move away when he leaned down again and gave her a few quick, feather-light kisses. “Part payment.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She murmured, “I just came to talk. Your mother thought you were having hallucinations or something.”
“She didn’t send you to kill me?” Draco asked in disbelief.
“No! Why would she do that?” Hermione sputtered, completely baffled.
“I thought maybe you were an assassin as well as . . . whatever else you are. At this point, I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“No, look—okay, I deserve that. Maybe I am sort of taking over the Wizarding world. I just hadn’t thought about it in those terms. I really don’t want to hurt anyone or start a war or something. I just want everyone to be the best that they can be.”
“Against their will?”
There was a nasty gleam in her eyes, “If I have to.”
He stared at her, “That is so horrifying and sexy at the same time.”
He leaned down to kiss her again but she pushed him away, “Wait, what is this place?”
“It’s uh . . . .”
A feminine scream interrupted them, the sound far away and echoing from the depths of the chasm.
“What was that?” Hermione hurried to the ledge.
“LUNA!” Draco shouted. “LUNA, WHAT’S WRONG?”
“Draaaco Malfoy! Heeelp!” came Luna’s voice faintly from the darkness.
“What in the world?” Hermione gasped.
Draco shouted in surprise as the cave suddenly rocked and the nargles screamed in his head. Two large nargles appeared in front of them and grabbed him and Hermione as the cave shuddered and the walls cracked.
“What’s going on?” Draco tried to ask the nargles, “What’s happening?” But all of their little voices were too jumbled and upset to make sense of.
Hermione was screaming beside him as the nargles plunged them down and down into the darkness.
They came to a stop in midair just above another much smaller platform of rock. Luna Lovegood was over on a rocky outcropping to their right, being held captive by another nargle.
“Luna!” Hermione gasped.
“Nargles, what are you doing?” Draco yelled, struggling.
They babbled at him in fear and confusion, making him flinch at the cacophony in his head.
“Well, well, well,” said a nasty, unfamiliar voice hoarsely, “A nargle-whisperer! Isn’t this my lucky day.”
“Who’s there?” Draco shouted.
“Lumos.” Draco and Hermione’s wands flared by themselves and Draco could see, directly across from them, a haggard-looking man with amazingly long black hair and beard flowing all around him as though the hairs were wires growing into the cavern floors and wall. The man seemed to be trapped half-in and half-out of a large, twisting, obsidian rock.
Not rock, Draco realized. Nargles. The nargles had transformed into rock and were trying to restrain the man.
“Ah ha!” the wizard crowed in triumph, “I can use my magic again! I shall be free in no time! And it’s all thanks to you, my lad.”
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Draco demanded.
“Malfoy,” Hermione said quietly, “I think that might be your Dark Lord. The one whose house you live in.”
“What? Really?” he looked skeptical.
“Yes! I am he!” Cried the Wizard, pleased that they knew him, “I am He-Who-Can’t-Be-Talked-About! Also known as That-One-Guy. Not That-One-Guy from Ireland. I am the British That-One-Guy.”
“What are you doing here?” Draco asked again. “You’ve been missing since the 1970’s.”
The man frowned, looking a bit startled. He probably didn’t even know what year it was. But he was a Dark Lord, so he was more than happy to begin monologuing, “Back at the height of my power, I found this pocket of nargles and attempted to find an artificial way of controlling them. I had limited success until one day they turned on me and used their own bodies to form this rock prison from which I could not escape. But only days ago, handfuls of them began to leave my prison for short periods of time. More and more of them began leaving, I assume to investigate you. Their divided attention formed a weakness in my prison, which I have exploited to gain freedom. In a matter of hours, I will be completely free and you, nargle-whisperer, will help me use the nargles to bring the Wizarding World to its knees!”
“NEVER!” Draco bellowed, “The nargles have been hurt and abused by Wizards enough! I won’t let you enslave and exploit them! They’re my friends and I won’t let you hurt them! Not while there’s breath in my body!”
Hermione was staring at Draco with an odd expression of wonder on her face.
The evil Wizard laughed, “You can do nothing boy! They are weak from containing me! Between my power and your voice, they have no choice but to listen to me! And you will do what I say or I will kill your little girlfriends, but not before playing with them a little first. I haven’t had a woman in ages.”
The black, shiny rock holding the wizard began to shift and crack and, with an insane cry, the Dark Lord burst one skinny arm free. The rocks bounced against the ground and became little nargles that scurried away weakly.
Draco struggled violently against the nargle holding him. He gave an angry mental command as harshly as he could and the nargle squeaked, recoiling and dropping him. Draco landed in a crouch, grabbed his wand and leapt over the gulf separating himself from the evil wizard.
The Dark Lord grinned and snarled a spell and Draco’s own wand flipped around and blasted him full in the face. Flying back with a scream, Draco barely heard Hermione and Luna shout his name. Instead of slamming into the rock face or plunging down into the icy water beneath him, Draco was quickly caught by the nargles who hefted him into the air, chattering in panic in his head, refusing to let him go again lest he get hurt.
Draco struggled uselessly. There was nothing he could do. This wizard could use other people’s wands without even touching them and even if Draco set the nargles on him, other nargles would protect the man. Dividing the nargle’s attention between himself and the evil wizard only weakened the nargles further.
“Stupid boy.” The Wizard laughed and began calling spells for his own amusement. Draco screamed as his wand leapt into the air and began casting pain and torture spells on him. To his horror, he saw the same thing happening to Hermione and Luna.
“It’s no use boy,” the Dark Lord sneered, after what seemed to Draco, an eternity of pain. Draco hung weakly in the nargle’s grasp, face swollen and bleeding and still struggling because Hermione was crying, “My powers have only grown and with these nargles as my guards, no Witch or Wizard can hope to defy me.”
“And what about me, asshole?” a deep voice boomed and a huge man dropped down onto the rock platform in front of the evil Wizard, having repelled down on a rope.
“Who the fuck—?” started the Wizard.
“Uncle Dan!” squealed Hermione but her cry was cut off in a flinch as she watched her Uncle’s meaty fists meet the trapped Wizard’s face with a wet, crunchy sound.
“Malfoy! Hermione!”
Ron and Harry were there, zipping about on their brooms.
The nargles became confused, babbling unhappily in Draco’s head and Draco yelled as he and Hermione were unceremoniously dropped.
Ron grabbed Hermione and zipped upwards. Harry shoved his broom at Luna, “Grab Malfoy and go up! Dan and I are going to use Hermione’s portkey to the house.”
Luna nodded quickly, flying over to grab Draco, who didn’t even think about protesting.
Harry used his wand to give himself a boost over from Luna’s ledge to the ledge where Dan was pulverizing the Dark Lord guy’s face.
“Alright, are you ready?” Harry asked.
“Almost,” Dan grunted, and hit the guy a few more times. “And here I was almost afraid I wouldn’t get to kill anyone.”
“Uh, yeah.” Harry agreed nervously.
Dan reached into his pocket and pulled out a hand grenade. Grinning madly, he pulled the pin with his teeth and stuffed it into the Dark Lord’s broken mouth.
With a yell, Harry latched onto Dan and grabbed the portkey.
Hermione and the others stood at the top of the ledge, looking down into blackness. She squealed at the flash bang beneath them and Draco grabbed her arm, pulling her back from the edge. The wall cracked, rock began tumbling down and nargles exploded into the air all around them.
“Come on! Everyone upstairs!” Ron yelled, grabbing onto Luna, and they all ran for the door as the cavern shook around them.
Panting, the small group burst into the living room of Draco’s house, a little bruised, a little dirty, a little exhilarated.
“Are Potter and that one guy okay?” Draco asked.
“They had a portkey.” Ron shrugged, “And nothing can kill Harry, so I know he’s fine.”
Hermione nodded emphatically. “Uncle Dan’s a survivor.”
“What about your, uh, nargle friends?” Ron asked uncomfortably.
Draco smiled at the happy tickle of his jubilant friends in his head, “They’re fine. They can change their form to strong metal or even go intangible. An explosion like that isn’t going to hurt them.”
“Nargles, Draco!” Hermione burst out, “Nargles! Real live nargles! This is an amazing discovery! I can’t wait to study them--.”
“No!” Draco cut her off, grabbing her hands, “No, please don’t tell anyone about them. The Wizarding world nearly wiped them out once. They hunted them down and murdered them all. I can’t stand the thought of what will happen if people find out about them again. I don’t want to obliviate you, Hermione, but I will to protect them.”
“Oohh,” Hermione breathed, cheeks flushed and eyes dilated, “That is so sweet.”
She leaned forward and Draco kissed her tenderly.
“Aww.” Sighed Luna, “Nargles are creatures of love.”
Ron made a horrified face. “I thought you killed him,” he whimpered, feeling betrayed, “I came here hoping to hide his body and now you’re making-out with him?”
“Go away, Weasley.” Draco murmured warningly, as Hermione slid her arms around him.
“WHAT IS THIS!” Lucius Malfoy’s voice bellowed furiously.
Draco jerked upright at the sight of his father storming into the room, looking apoplectic. His worried mother followed behind him along with Mansy and the others. Draco wondered if they’d been unable to get through the iron door without him. They must have been searching the house for an alternate way in.
“I will not allow this!” Lucius roared, “You dropped out of Hogwarts! You don’t have a job! You’ve been blowing your trust fund! I have graciously ignored all of it! But this, this stain I will not ignore! I will not ignore her!”
“You got a problem with my niece, asshole?” Uncle Dan snarled, storming into the room with Harry at his heels. The portkey had landed them in front of the house.
Lucius Malfoy turned to look at Dan in utter, dumbfounded surprise and then Draco saw a strange transformation come over his father. His father’s lower lip wobbled, his eyes went large and liquid.
“Nngh,” Lucius choked, face white as a sheet.
Uncle Dan’s thunderous face became even more dark and threatening.
“N-Navy Seal?” Lucius whispered breathily, “I-is that you?”
Uncle Dan groaned in disgust, rolled his eyes and opened his arms. With a whoop, Lucius threw himself at Dan and hugged him hard, a crying Narcissa not far behind him. Dan put his arms around both of them looking horribly putout but, underneath that, vaguely pleased.
“Oh, dear Seal,” sobbed Narcissa, “I thought I would never see you again.”
“My friend!” Cried Lucius, “How I have missed you!”
“Well, you don’t act like it, saying those things about my niece.” Dan said gruffly.
Lucius started, “Your niece?” He pulled away to stare at Hermione, “This little witchlet is a member of your pack? I-I am honored! Daughter!” He cried and Hermione yelped as she was enveloped in a hug.
“Draco, help!” Hermione hissed, trying not to flash back to the nude body she’d seen earlier that day.
“Yeah, yeah, honored. Great. Approval. Okay, thanks dad.” Draco pried Hermione out of Lucius’ grasp as his dad kissed both her cheeks with noisy smacks.
Draco glanced over at his friends and put an arm around Hermione as his father went back to carrying on about his Navy Seal. “Any of you got something to say?”
“Um, Miss Hermione.” Tracey, trembling oddly and looking terrified of Hermione squeaked, “Um, an owl brought this for you just now.”
Frowning a little at Tracey’s behavior, Hermione grasped the heavy parchment envelope and gaped at the return address. With nimble fingers she slipped it open and quickly read the enclosed note.
“Oh dear,” she leaned back against Draco for support.
“What is it, Hermione?” Harry asked.
“I-I’ve just received an invitation to attend the Academia Sinistro.”
Silence all around her.
“Whhaaaat?” and that had to be the oddest sound Hermione had ever heard Lucius Malfoy make.
Hermione handed the invitation over to Harry who scanned it quickly before Ron grabbed it from him to have a look. Goyle, Nott and that other guy Hermione still didn’t recognize, scooted in close, “They say . . . they say they’re impressed with what I’ve accomplished so far and that a Dark Lord degree would open some of the more stubborn doors in my way. How could. . . . Am I really . . . Is what I’m doing really. . . a little evil?”
“Erm,” started Harry, nervously.
“Hell yeah.” Ron said bluntly. “I’ve been waiting in terror for the day when you decide I need more schooling to round out my education and send me to adult classes against my will.”
“And the day you decide I’m going to be Minister of Magic.” Harry added, causing her to blush and mumble.
“So, a bit of a wakeup call?” Draco prompted, giving her a squeeze, “Maybe you’ll rethink things now, huh?”
“What? No!” Hermione looked at him like he was crazy.
The others started in surprise.
“I mean, how could I pass this up? It’s a fabulous opportunity! And what an honor! I’d be the first Muggleborn ever invited. What better way to prove myself to the Magical world then to be the very first Muggleborn Dark Lady. It’s a statistical fact that men outnumber women in the Dark Lording department by a huge margin and Purebloods outnumber those with Muggle blood even more. I think it would be a huge forward step for our society to have a Muggleborn Dark Lady.”
Ron looked at Harry in panic. Harry looked at Draco, begging him to do something. Draco looked around frantically for inspiration and then his eyes landed on the bruise on Nott’s forehead and he grinned slowly, wickedly.
“Her-mi-o-ne.” He sing-songed.
His voice cut off her rambling and she looked at him in surprise. He grinned toothily.
“I’m pressing charges.”
Epilogue:
Hermione Granger received three months in a low-security prison cell in Azkaban for breaking and entering, assault, and attempted murder. Harry and Ron were absolutely no help, even after Dan pulled his bowie knife and started trying to stab people.
The trial was kept very quiet so as not to alert her time-traveling self to her current predicament, but the fact that so very few people were involved, and that they were all her so-called ‘friends’, attributed to her light sentencing. Hermione realized belatedly that the assholes in the Department of Mysteries had known about the trial and had spent weeks keeping her time-traveling past-self-in-the-future busy. The jackasses even had the gall to pop champagne bottles at her sentencing.
Luckily for Hermione, she herself had seen to the renovation and modernization of Azkaban ages ago. Dementors were no longer used as guards and every prisoner had a bed, toilet and controlled temperatures in their cells.
Harry and Ron came to visit her often, though she didn’t speak to them for the first month and the second month was spent hurling expletives at them. Sometimes they brought her parents to visit. Her mom and dad acted as though she were on a vacation holiday and not incarcerated for heinous crimes. When no one was around, her mother grasped her hands through the bars and whispered that she knew this was only a temporary setback and that one day her baby would make them rue the day they messed with the rightful ruler of the world.
Lucius and Narcissa dropped by once in awhile, both of them looking absurdly proud of her. Uncle Dan tried twice to break her out. Hermione had a weird suspicion that he was actually staying in Malfoy Manor.
Draco came every day.
Sometimes he brought her lunch from Rosalda’s. Sometimes he read his very badly written poetry to her. Sometimes he tried to get her to ‘hone her visualization skills’ by imagining the two of them on their honeymoon.
Hermione reminded him coolly that they hadn’t even been on a second date yet.
He grinned slyly, “So you admit it was a first date.”
When Hermione’s prison time was finally up, she felt oddly calm and refreshed.
The earth was still in tact. No one had died because she had missed work. Her evil plans were sort of ruined when her whereabouts had finally come to light to the general public. Yeah, her invitation to the Academia Sinistro was still standing but she was an attempted-murderess and so had been kicked off the Board of Governors. She was no longer allowed to teach at Hogwarts and Kingsley had scaled back the number of committees she was allowed to be on, and she was no longer allowed to be in charge of any of them.
If she wanted to take over the Wizarding world now, she’d have to do it by force. Not exactly something she had the stomach for.
Her house was cool and sweet smelling, though she hadn’t been there in three months. Someone had aired it out and a bouquet of flowers was waiting for her on her kitchen table along with two tickets to some fancy show or other.
Hermione sighed and reached under the hidden groove at the bottom of her dresser to find the long golden chain of her Time-Turner.
She studied it with a little smile and then began turning it back.
So they’d made her cool her heels in Azkaban for three months. Didn’t they realize she could just take those months back? She had lots of things to do after all.
Like make a phone call.
To tell herself to go meet Draco Malfoy to look at houses.
THE END
Author Notes: Pyjamas The Terror---Harry James Potter. I forgot who first showed me this anagram but I am in love with it. Humorous fic. Not so good at those in longer form. I keep trying to go all serious-like. And then ‘light-hearted’ became slightly crack-y.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
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