Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Closer	By : katatonic Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 10356 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or the characters you've grown to know and love. I make no money/profit from writing.

Chapter List
- 8
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Hermione rushed forward to embrace Rebecca.
“Where on earth have you been? Are you alright? Do you need to see the nurse?” Hermione assaulted the girl with questions. Draco pulled off his shirt and transfigured it into a cloak to cover the nude girl.
“We should alert the Aurors, Hermione,” he called to her.
Hermione’s otter Patronus swirled in the air around Draco before floating into the castle.
“I’m okay, Professor Granger,” Rebecca reassured her and Hermione pulled the cloak tight around her.
Harry and his Aurors came running out of the castle and whisked the girl away. When they reached the castle doors, Harry shouted at Hermione and Draco over his shoulder.
“Come to the Headmistress’s office in ten minutes!”
An unsettling calm fell upon the grounds as the chaos died away.
“Did you…” Hermione began, then cleared her throat. “Did you see what she did?”
He nodded.
Hermione shivered and Draco pulled her into a hug. He tried very hard not to think of her breasts pushed against his bare skin and what they were doing before Rebecca showed up… but then Hermione placed a sweet kiss on his chest and her soft breath tickled his skin.
“Hermione,” he whispered in a strangled voice. She hummed and nuzzled against the warm muscles jumping under her lips. “As much as I want to finish what we started, Rebecca needs you. Believe me, I want to tell Potter to sod off, but-”
“I know,” she sighed softly and headed back for the castle. Draco stared at the spot Rebecca transformed for a moment then caught up with her.
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A motley crew sat around a large table in the Headmistress’s office. On one side of the table were the disgruntled Aurors, along with the concerned pair of Harry and Ron. Rebecca and McGonagall sat at the head. Hermione, Draco, Luna and Dean Thomas, who was the current head of Gryffindor House and the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, sat on the side opposite of the team of Aurors.
Hermione needed to distract herself from the nervous energy coursing through her bones. She looked to the men on either side of her and suddenly felt very small. Draco was at least six feet tall and Dean was only a hair shorter. When she hugged Draco earlier, the top of her head didn’t even come to his chin. He had a faint trace of stubble along his jaw and Hermione decided she liked it. He was already quite masculine, with his tall and muscular build, but the stubble made him look like he had just come in from taming dragons. Draco must have sensed her eyes on him, because he looked at her from the corner of his eyes. She flushed and looked down. He chuckled quietly and placed his hand on her knee.
“Alright, everyone,” Harry’s gathered the room’s attention. “I think we’re all on pins and needles here, so Rebecca, why don’t you tell us what happened?”
“During the full moon, Professor Malfoy and I went out to the forest to help Professor Granger and Neville- er, Professor Longbottom.” She blushed. “She must have caught my scent that night. The next night after dinner, I was walking by the Black Lake and a woman came up to me. She told me to follow her and I had to obey. I mean, I knew I shouldn’t but I had to. She took me to a beautiful little cottage and told me to sleep. I fell asleep right away, which was weird because it was still early. The next day she performed some kind of spell that turned me into my wolf-self and then she turned into a wolf too! We explored the forest and, Professor Granger, it was amazing!” She turned to face Hermione. “The smells and sounds- and I could see everything! That night she showed me how to change at will. Her magic was different than mine- it was raw and a bit terrifying to be honest. Once I mastered the change, she told me to go and my feet were moving before I even thought about it. That’s when I saw- er, you two.” She nodded toward Hermione and Draco.
The table fell deep into thought while Rebecca shifted in her seat.
“Can I go?” she asked. “I’d really like a bath.”
Harry nodded and sent her to Gryffindor Tower with an Auror.
“Harry,” Luna said, “Rebecca said she was only gone for a night and day in a cottage, but it was nearly five days in a shack. It also sounded like this woman used some kind of Imperius curse.”
“I’d like to go to the library, if that’s alright with everyone,” Hermione excused herself. Harry waved her off and signaled for Draco to follow.
Once outside the Headmistress’s office, she turned to Draco with wide, excited eyes.
“We have a lot of research to do.”
He sighed and followed her to her favorite spot in Hogwarts.
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Draco pushed open the library doors and took a seat at the closest table. Hermione grabbed his arm to drag him away.
“No, not that one.”
“Why?” he asked, thoroughly confused why one table would be any better than another.
“Draco!”
“Hermione!” he mocked.
“We- that- Draco, we can’t study here. We had sex on this table!”
“Oh. How do you remember which table it was? Seems like an odd thing to remember.”
“How can you not remember?!” In addition to being completely flabbergasted, she was now teetering on the edge of annoyance.
“I was a little preoccupied!” he defended. “But now that you mention it, this table does seem worldlier than the others.”
“You’re impossible,” she muttered and pulled him to his feet. “Back there,” she pointed toward the Restricted Section.
Once Hermione was comfortably surrounded by old tomes, she looked up at Draco. He was intently reading a book on animal transfiguration.
“Did you hear Rebecca call Neville by his first name?” she interrupted his train of thought.
“Mmm,” he hummed in agreement and continued to study the text in front of him.
“Isn’t that strange?”
Draco closed the book slowly, careful to mark his place.
“Neville doesn’t like to be called ‘Professor.’ He says he likes to keep his classes casual and unintimidating. Something to do with Snape, I think. We only discussed it briefly.”
“How often do you talk to Neville?”
“We fish.”
“You fish? Isn’t that a little plebian for a Malfoy?”
Draco tapped his index fingernail on the desk and took a deep breath. He fought the urge to throw his book at her.
“Longbottom and I have gone fishing in the Black Lake every weekend since the beginning of school.” Hermione’s jaw dropped and the book she was holding clattered down on the table. “Now, we have research to do, remember? You’re favorite thing in the entire world? Shouldn’t we get back to it?”
“Alright…” she answered slowly, unsure how to process this revelation.
After a few more minutes of silent reading, Draco spoke up.
“According to this,” he waved the small, red book in his hand, “kitsune have the ability to transform their appearance as well as the perception of others. That explains the cottage Rebecca saw instead of the hovel we found.”
Hermione jotted it down and they continued on.
Another hour had passed when Hermione did a little jig in her seat.
“Kitsune can manipulate time!” she exclaimed as she wrote it down in her notes.
Harry and Ron found them only a few minutes later. They had sandwiches and a large goblet of pumpkin juice.
“Oh, bless you!” Hermione greeted and began to pile a plate high with food. She chewed happily while Draco explained their progress to the boys.
“As much as I appreciate the endless list of facts…” Ron started. Hermione snorted into her juice. “…I thought we were dealing with a hyper-intelligent werewolf. Now you’re telling me it really is a kitsune?”
“Technically, kitsune just means ‘fox’ in Japanese. It’s the folklore that surrounds the fox that produces such tales,” Hermione answered while Harry adjusted his glasses in preparation for a lecture. “So really, any animal with the proper threshold of intelligence and personality could acquire these traits. The characteristics of mischievousness and slyness are just that: characteristics- specifically of a fox. What I’m most fascinated by is the magic. This wolf-woman, whoever she is, learned extraordinary magic for never attending an educational institution.”
“But it makes sense, doesn’t it?” Draco posed to Hermione. “All these magical abilities are evolutionary. She’s simply adapted her magic to fit her needs. We see this type of behavior in magical children all the time. Little Johnny can’t reach the cookie on the table so he grows another foot or shrinks the table.”
“Little Harry can’t get rid of his annoying Aunt so he blows her up,” Ron provided.
“Sure?” Draco dragged out.
“What we need to do is separate out the folklore from the truth,” Hermione adopted her professor voice. “Harry, take notes.” She tossed her parchment at him. “Foxes are naturally sly and known tricksters, but wolves aren’t. I don’t think our woman is either; she didn’t play any tricks on Rebecca. She used her magic to keep her safe and happy. Rebecca thought she was only gone for a single day, so she wasn’t terribly worried or starving and she thought she was safe from the forest in a proper cottage. Ron, go find a book on wolves, will you? Characteristics and the like?”
Ron scrambled over to the section Hermione was pointing at.
Draco observed in awe at the perfected coordination between the three of them. No wonder they managed to get into so much trouble… and bring down the darkest wizard of all time, he thought. He observed Hermione in what he could only describe as ‘the zone.’ She was hunched over a book, hair frizzing at her temples, fingers scratching absentmindedly at the tabletop. She really was a little swot, he reflected with a crooked smile. Just when the thought crossed his mind, she looked up and gave him a saucy wink. He laughed and readjusted his assessment to “sexy little swot.”
Ron returned and tossed a book on the table with a thud, causing dust to waft through the air. Harry picked it up and began reading.
“Alright, someone copy this down,” he said and looked pointedly at Draco, who was now leaning back on his chair. “Wolves are social… they make emotional relationships with their pack….” His finger skimmed down the page. “They have an aversion to aggression…extremely intelligent… yada yada yada… form intense bonds with their packs…huh,” he paused. “Wolves find it incredibly difficult to survive without a pack.”
“She had no pack,” Hermione gasped. “That’s what she wants. That’s why she bit Rebecca. It isn’t in a wolf’s nature to be aggressive.”
“Tell that to Fenrir Greyback,” Ron bit out.
“Greyback was a werewolf, Ronald. We keep calling our wolf a woman, but she isn’t. Not really, anyways. She’s a wolf, first and foremost. She can only appear as a human because of her magic.”
“Hermione,” Harry blurted out. “If she wants a pack, why would she only infect Rebecca?”
“She wouldn’t,” Draco answered. “She’s not finished.”
The foursome launched themselves from the table and began the long trek to the Headmistress’s office. When they finally reached their destination, they skidded to a halt. In front of the staircase stood McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, who had been Minister of Magic since the war ended, and Dean Thomas. Dean was wringing his hands while Kingsley paced back and forth, listening to McGonagall.
“Oh, good, one less patronus to send,” McGonagall said when she noticed their presence. “Make your way to the Hospital Wing. We found another student. Luna is with her now, along with Ginny Potter and Padma Patil.”
“Ginny?” Harry asked.
“She’s one of the most talented Healers at St. Mungo’s, is she not, Mr. Potter?” McGonagall replied in a clipped voice. “Now off you go.”
Dean joined the four as they turned to head toward the infirmary.
“They called in a Healer,” Hermione spoke softly.
“And a curse-breaker,” Dean informed them. “Padma is one of the best curse-breakers in the entire history of the Ministry.”
“What’s her specialty?” Draco asked.
“The Imperius,” Harry answered and scratched the scar on his forehead.
- 8
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- 10
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Closer