Chapter 3
-H-
That night saw Hermione tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep and too prideful to seek a draught to calm her nerves. She just could not get what she saw out of her overactive mind, no matter how hard she tried.
After her earlier nap (which, to be fair, likely contributed to her current insomnia), Hermione had washed off her journey and decided to go looking for that drink Charlie mentioned earlier. If there was a pub down here, she imagined that's where she'd find him.
A few wrong turns and gruffly given directions later, she came upon the Horntail, a cave whittled into the wall of the cavern that reminded Hermione vaguely of some sort of prehistoric mall food court restaurant.
It seemed lively enough, not too boisterous to scare her away, but not too quiet that she'd feel ogled or out of place. But as she headed towards the bar in the back, her vision blurred as she spotted the red and blond heads of her new coworkers.
Hunched over their drinks. Talking close together. Intimately. Almost like they were real friends.
'Or more,' a nagging thought at the back of Hermione's head whispered. She knew Charlie could charm the pants off anything with a consciousness and a pulse, but he would never go after Malfoy. He had to know better than that.
She blushed fiercely, her overprotective nature surprising her with its fervency. Was she a bit jealous? Perhaps. Charlie's broad muscled back and arms made for sinfully delightful hugs, and getting wrapped up in one of them today for the first time in a long time sent tingles down her spine. She'd always known he was rather fit, and they'd gotten closer in the years after the war. And even though she knows it's just his personality, his flirting never ceased to make her redden her cheeks and lose track of her thoughts.
But Charlie is a wild, carefree young dragon tamer, and he probably wouldn't appreciate the idea of someone being possessive over him.
In the moment, though, she was so overcome she almost marched right over to give them a piece of her mind. But instead, she cast a notice-me-not charm and watched them for a few minutes, from a distance. Charlie laughed at something Malfoy said, and shoved his shoulder. She'd never known Malfoy to be funny. Snarky, maybe. And never so casual. She even thought she may have seen him smile...perish the thought.
After a while, it became too much, and she retreated to her quarters before they even knew she was there.
So now, here Hermione was. Tossing and turning in bed, checking her wand for the time every few minutes, thinking about how on earth she was supposed to face them the next day.
Suddenly, she recalled her muggle ingenuity and scrambled out of bed towards her trunk. "Thank the gods, I'm brilliant," she muttered to herself. Pulling out a small purple bottle, she unscrewed the safety cap and popped two of the melatonin gummies she'd had the foresight to pack.
She settled back into bed, a bit more sure-footed. She was smart. She was resourceful. And she would make it through.
-D-
Draco groaned in pain as the automatically charmed candles on the walls flickered to life, signaling that outside it was, in fact, daytime. A nifty bit of spellwork, and very practical, but not the best for the small hangover he was now nursing from that second firewhiskey. He wondered when he became such a lightweight.
He filled his bedside carafe with a quick aguamenti and chugged the water down his parched throat. He needed to be on top of his game to face his first day working with his old nemesis.
Perhaps nemesis was a strong word. More so than the boys of the famed Golden Trio, he'd always begrudgingly respected Granger, at least for her intellect and ability, though he'd never have admitted so at the time. But she'd been so bloody annoying about it. Always in the library whenever he wanted to study away from his hapless goons, always raising her hand before the answer had finished formulating in his mind, it was infuriating.
Of course, having a muggleborn be the top of their class had infuriated his father to no end, and he was constantly on Draco's arse to best her in at least one subject. At least, back when there weren't more pressing duties demanding his attention. Duties that were sometimes life and death.
Never one to dwell on wartime memories too long, Draco dressed and went through an internal checklist of his objectives for the day: check in on the injured Chinese Fireball, make a few fresh batches of burn paste, make more progress on the stupid manuscript translations, and avoid Granger, if it was even remotely possible.
-H-
Surprisingly, Hermione found herself waking on the right side of the bed. Feeling refreshed, she decided to review some of the notes she had taken prior to her arrival, regarding her priorities and interests of study. Today, she really hoped to get a tour of as much of the reserve as possible, as well as a review of all open research projects assigned to their team. Hermione was so excited to be more than a quill-pusher, actually out in the field making revolutionary discoveries, that she all but forgot who she'd be working with.
A knock on her door startled her out of her reverie, so she threw on some pants and went to see who it was.
"Good morning, sunshine! Looking lovely as ever!" Charlie gave her a nice peck on the cheek, and she found herself grinning ear to ear.
"Good morning! Looking forward to the tour I was promised."
"Ah, yes, of course! So much to do, so much to see. But let's get some nourishment in you first. Can't have you passing out on the job, the ministry'd have my hide! Why don't you meet me in the main concourse by the stairs in about 15 minutes, and we'll get some breakfast? How's that?"
"Breakfast would be absolutely divine, Charlie. I'm starving."
"Well then, I'll leave you to finish getting ready, and see you in a few minutes."
Charlie winked, and Hermione rolled her eyes before closing the door.
-D-
Sometimes Draco felt a bit silly enjoying a hot cup of tea in the heat of summer, but the rush of caffeine made it so worthwhile. He exited the breakfast tent with his cuppa and a slice of toast, and caught a delightful whiff of fresh air and sunshine. The air got so stale in the cavern, he honestly tried to spend as little time down there as he could.
As he was heading to their research tent, a flash of red and a cloud of brown caught the corner of his eye. Sure enough, Charlie was escorting the Golden girl to the breakfast tent. They were laughing about something, touching each other so casually and affectionately, that for some reason, Draco began to grow irritated at their familiarity. Charlie was Draco's only close friend, if you could call it that, on the reservation. And the first person to really vouch for him and give him a chance here. Granger's presence was sure to interfere, and it surprised him how strongly he suddenly felt about it.
As he observed them from afar, he took note of their appearance. Granger's mane was out in full force today, curly and frizzy and approximately the diameter of a small house. She wore a breezy linen shirt in a robin's egg blue, and a pair of khaki shorts that Draco thought were almost shockingly immodest. The weather was balmy, yes, but he spent very little time around muggles and forgot that this was considered a standard way to dress in the warmer months. He noticed some other wizards taking note, eyeballing her from her chunky work boots to her molten chocolate eyes.
He briefly recalled Pansy harping on how annoyingly lovely Granger looked on Victor Krum's arm at the Yule ball, and how frustrated she'd gotten that some of the Slytherin boys kept sneaking looks at her. He'd agreed that she cleaned up alright, and the feminine accouterment were surprisingly flattering, but he never thought of her as quite so...womanly, per se.
But now he couldn't stop staring at her legs. She'd either really filled out, or had been hiding some major curves under her robes all these years. Finally tearing his gaze from her milky, soft-looking thighs, he looked over at Charlie.
Who was now looking right back at him. With a shit-eating grin.
Draco bristled before striding into the research tent, refusing to look behind him and give Charlie the satisfaction. He only hoped he had something else funny or scandalous to tell him, and that look had nothing to do with noticing where Draco's eye-line had been directed.
Standing in front of his dreaded, beloved drafting table once again, he stared at the runic diagram on the 53rd page of the manuscript. Perhaps, under a pseudonym, he could write to one of his old Hogwarts professors for advice, because some of these runes were in a language that Draco feared was lost to time. But he refused to give up. He'd scoured all of the resources at his disposal, and if the information existed anywhere in the world, it was somewhere in these pages. And he would not rest until he figured it out.
Draco Malfoy would be the first wizard, ever, to witness and document the reproduction of dragons.