Chapter Text
Everything was practically dripping in gold when she walked in.
Ironically enough, the only thing not in gold for the Ministry’s Golden Year event was their resident Golden Girl.
She stood in the center of the room, a vibrant red in a sea of gold.
The red number was just outside of what he would have expected—what he would have thought was outside her comfort level. It was on the other side of too much: too tight, too low, too revealing, and yet she wore it like a second skin.
Fit her like it, too.
So when she engaged him in conversation, the golden champagne in her glass dancing animatedly as she gestured, he was too busy taking surreptitious glances at her plentiful bosom than listening.
Her… subject … was definitely arousing, and he was quite enraptured by her vigor . If not the content of the message.
So when the letter arrived the next morning by owl, he blinked stupidly at it.
Mr. Malfoy,
It was quite a pleasure to find you also greatly concerned over the health and well-being of the Occamy’s natural habitat!
The actual fuck?
Additionally, it was quite generous of you to offer your assistance.
Oh good, just a few hundred thousand galleons and all will be well.
The extended stay in the Punjab Provence —the one I mentioned at great length to you about— should offer us the answers we need in regards to the sharp decline in the Occamy’s birthing rate.
Um… what?
I am aware that your life must be ridiculously full, but based off our discussion and your generous offer of help, I’m certain that your access to the Lepra temple region along with your extensive knowledge of ancient runes will be indispensable in solving this issue!
Help? Access holds no concern for him. If she wants the whole acreage, it’s hers—if she waives the request for personal help.
But active engagement? He’ll pass, thank you.
My owl, Gemini, will await your response.
Sincerely,
Hermione Granger
The Barred Owl before him cocked its head to the side, and he’d be damned if it wasn’t the best impression of his smirk he’d yet to see.
In the end, Granger won.
This should have come as no surprise to anyone, especially Draco Malfoy, and yet.
“She knew ! How did she know?” Draco’s pacing was set to wearing a path through the rug. Blaise and Theo shared a knowing look.
“At least one of us does.” Blaise drawls.
Theo cast his head over the armrest of the couch he was artfully sprawled upon. “I think it’s still about Granger and a forced expedition.”
“Still?” He sighs before swallowing back a healthy portion of his scotch. “This is too good of a scotch to be downing so freely.”
“Indeed. The things that blond prat forces us to do.”
A muttered ‘and she has the audacity’ drifts into their conversation, and they both simultaneously sigh. Theo takes a swig before again turning back to Blaise. Draco continues on, oblivious to their asides.
“A thought, my friend?”
Blaise tips his glass, and Theo continues.
“All this is sexual tension, yes?”
“We’ve long since established that his rants in regards to a ‘ ratty-haired, bucktoothed, incoming stormcloud of a swot ’ are foreplay for him, Theo”
“Yes, true. But I think this might just become the breaking point.”
Blaise raises a dark brow. “Continue.”
“Forced proximity, adventurous environment, tropical climates… it sounds like something out of an old biddie’s bodice ripper novel.”
“It does, indeed.”
“And yet, we know that Granger will not be a swooning virginal maiden.”
Blaise hides his bark of laughter with a cough. The blond git stops, glaring, before his friend waves him on, voice strained due to the containment of his laugh. Content to believe his friends both still engaged with his ranting, the posh wanker restarts his pontification with a proclamation over Granger’s ‘ flagrant manipulation of a hot blooded male. ’
Theo drops his head back again to look at his less irritating friend.
“So seduction on Granger’s part is highly unlikely. Though, I daresay her move with that red number the other night might hint at some cognizance. We can’t be reliant on that chance, however.”
“What is it that you are proposing?”
“Are you familiar with Muggle entertainment?”
“Mildly.”
“It is quite a common cliché for a swashbuckling, well dressed, adventurous man to sweep a beautiful, intelligent woman off her feet in such a location.”
“Interesting. This would make for an interesting study on muggle behavior, however, I fail to see how this directly relates to our dear blond prat.”
“While we cannot ethically affect Granger, I do think a good wardrobe may be key to opening her eyes to our dearest blond friend…”
For a long moment, Blaise watches their mutual friend, his usually artfully styled blond hair mussed by his own hands, fingers clenching and unclenching around his glass of scotch, eyes wild, cheeks pink from exertion.
Blaise rolls his eyes. “He really is a great bloody idiot, isn’t he?”
“Indeed.” There’s a touch of humor in Theo’s tone.
“If it was any other woman than Granger…”
“He’d have shagged her long ago. But if it was anyone other than Granger, he wouldn’t be this invested.”
“Precisely.” Blaise sighs. “Very well.”
Theo claps his hands once, rolling upright, a cheerful expression on his face.
“Well, Draco, my boy, we have much to do in preparation for your long, arduous trip!”
He stops, mid-step. “We do?”
Draco Malfoy would easily admit to being a competitive person. Why lie, when the truth was more interesting, after all?
And even if he was a humble person (which he isn’t), he couldn’t lie (which he would), and he’s fairly proficient at one-up-man-ship. There aren’t many who have more than he, are quicker than he, or smarter than he.
But when it came to Granger, it was no competition.
Where he was knowledgeable, she was proficient. Where he was quick, she was skilled. And where he was prepared—
“Ah, Malfoy, you finally arrived.”
—she was already there.
His head is still spinning from the international portkey, fighting to keep his lunch where it was naturally supposed to remain, when she stalks up to him. Gone is the sly, purring, minx of a creature.
She looks rather like she fought off a nest of pixies, and just… embraced the look. Some section or design of her hair is arranged in a way that her wand is sticking out at a drunken angle from the nest it’s embedded into. Her clothes are solidly muggle: broken in but fitted khaki pants, an over big shirt draped over her thin shoulders. The canvas boots she wore made an impressive stomping noise as she neared.
“Are you sick? How are you sick from a portkey?”
Lips already pressed tight from nausea press tighter from annoyance.
“There is quite a bit of spinning, Granger.”
“You used to be a seeker!”
A platinum brow raises in defiance. “I still am a seeker.”
“Against who? First Years?”
“I’ll have you know that I am the reigning champion seeker on the company team.”
“And the opposing team’s seeker is, what? Seventy-five?”
Sixty-five, but he’s not about to give her the ammunition. Instead, he deflects. “The nausea is not vertigo, but an inability to predict. I control my broom, I control my spin. Portkeys are unpredictable and wild.”
Granger rolls her eyes. “Next time you can fly back the muggle way and see how that does for you.”
It doesn’t take long to settle her in, surprisingly. He quickly recognizes the sense of security he’s acquired is a false one, when she pronounces her plans to begin their trek into the dank forests bright and early in the morning.
He protests, citing that both of their arrivals were days in advance, and thus they were free to spend a few days enjoying the compound his family owned, but had never actually visited. She had merely laughed in return.
“As if you aren’t ready for me to leave already.” She offers up a keen smile. “We both know that the few times we’ve crossed paths over the years, it’s been cordial at best.”
Bitterness tries to escape in words from his lips, but he swallows it down, trying not to consider what they would have translated to.
She continues.
“So it’s just better for us to get started, finish up this new project I’ve roped you into, and then head back to London and our respective lives.”
He chases the bitterness with sweet wine.
Over the top of his glass, he studies her.
Granger isn’t as composed as she was during the Gala, but it appears that she’s at least taken some attempt to clean up her appearance. Her wild hair is mostly contained in a thick plait draped over her shoulder almost artfully, her clothes pressed and simple, a muggle style, and loose enough for the environment that India’s oppressive heat is held at bay. He’s had to cast cooling charms repeatedly over the past few hours just to stave off heat stroke.
But it’s a surprising sensation to find himself at ease with her across the long expanse of a table. The first time she had roped him into one of the little escapades of hers, the first meal had been stilted, awkward, and, especially after his stuttering attempt at an apology for past deeds, tense.
So a half dozen or so of these small asides later, and he finds himself nearly comforted with her presence.
He swallows yet another sweet sip, then clears his throat.
“So what precisely are you dragging me along for?”
Her expression turns devilish. “I knew you hadn’t been listening to me that night.”
“You were rather distracting.”
“Which was the point, now, wasn’t it?”
Draco tilts his head in contemplation. “Why would you need to distract anyone? Let alone me?”
“Come now, Malfoy.” She gives him a look. “‘You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar’. I figured out a while back that pleading my case intellectually and passionately has its limits. There’s plenty of ways to get things done. And one’s… assets are just another tool with which to utilize.”
His lips purse. “No need to be crude.”
She scoffs out a laugh. “And there was no need to stare, and yet you did.”
“You merely… surprised me, is all. That’s practically Slytherin.”
“Well,” her face sours, and she pauses to place down her cutlery gently, and the ease is gone, “after our last escapade, where you made it abundantly clear about your feelings on my projects, I needed to find a different way to approach you. At least now we both know it isn’t the physicality that’s so repulsive to you.”
He hasn’t eaten a bite since they began speaking and yet he can swear there is something lodged in his throat. His jaw tightens and loosens in waves, as if willing him to speak, to clear the air, but his lips refuse to part. She takes his silence precisely how his pride wants her to.
“Don’t worry.” She places her napkin over her half-eaten plate, a storm in her eyes, steel in her spine. “If this matter was any less important than it is, I would have found someone else. Your knowledge of ancient runes is the only reason you’re here. I’ll be more thorough in my search for someone else, next time.” There’s no gentleness, no ease left in her posture as she abruptly stands, the chair scraping across the floor behind her. “This will be the last time you’ll be forced to deal with my presence.”
Granger’s nearly out the door when she pauses on the threshold, and a small part of him hopes, thrills. She crushes it with a hard look.
“I leave at dusk. If you need to primp for the journey, I’d suggest starting now—we all know the hours it takes to get that perfect coiff.”
The sky is just beginning to purple when he arrives, his pack precisely arranged over his shoulder, clothes tailor fit to his frame.
Of course, Granger is already dressed, ready and tapping a foot aggressively.
“Oh good, Malfoy, I was wondering when y— what the hell are you wearing?”
He’s not certain if her comment is born of approval or disdain.
“Are you wearing white?”
Disdain, it is.
“Ah, congratulations, Granger, you’ve mastered the basic colors! Indeed, this is white—“ He points to his finely pressed button up, sleeves artfully rolled to elbows. “— and this is a more esoteric one,” He points to his tweed jacket. “Tan.”
Her laugh is caustic, and she snags a canvas hat from a nearby pile of expedition tools. With a glint in her eye, she drops it on his perfectly coiffed hair, and he scowls after her.
“There, Doctor Jones. Now your face won’t melt off like those sods with the ark.”
Ripping the offending hat from his head, he barely has the time to stop himself from reaching up to check his hair. If Granger had seen it, he’d never hear the end of it. Fortunately enough for him, she is too busy running a critical eye over his clothing.
“Please tell me you have something other than white and—“ she pointedly stares at his khaki colored trousers with amusement, “—tweed for this in that pack of yours?”
He raises his head, refusing to kowtow. This will, in fact, be the last time he ever listens to Theo and Blaise. “Ye of little faith.”
She nearly stumbles at his quote. “Did you just quote… the Gospels?”
Draco shrugs, unsure of where Theo had gotten the quote. He allows the gesture to intimate anything she wants it to mean. Her brow raises in response, and he’s not quite sure if it’s a good thing or not, but she doesn’t continue.
“I guess we’ll find out what’s in that pack while on the trail, hmm?” She turns back to the slowly brightening sky. “You ready, Malfoy?”
“I, unlike you, Granger, have plenty of faith.” He gives her a pointed look. “In you, that is.”
WIth an exaggerated bow, he swings an arm out over the forest. “Lead the way, Fearless Leader.”