The Seduction Game

Disclaimer: All of the Harry Potter characters and the Harry Potter universe belongs to J.K. Rowling/Warnerbros. I am making no money.

Ah, another chapter - it\'s been a while, sorry \'bout that. Thanks to all the reviewers, keep it coming! :)

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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: FATHER AND SON


Hermione awoke to a strange whooshing sound coming from Severus’s office. It was followed by a crash, and then the unmistakable trickling of something liquid pouring onto a stone floor.

Hermione groaned. Glancing to her left, she could see Severus was still fast asleep. Not wanting to wake him (he looked so peaceful), she climbed out of bed, picked Severus’s discarded shirt off the floor and put it on before staggering her way into the office to find the source of the noises.

To her surprise, there was no one there.

The trickling sound was easy enough to locate – on Severus’s desk, she spotted a broken vial which silvery grey contents was rhythmically dripping from the edge of the desk and down onto the cold stone floor. Reaching for her wand on the desk – which she had abandoned there last night – Hermione muttered a quick, “Evanesco” to get rid of the substance. She had no idea what it was, but suspected it couldn’t be all that dangerous seeing as how Severus had left it so unguarded on the edge of his desk.

Glancing around the office, it actually took her a few seconds to realize exactly what had happened. But at last, she spotted the piecf paf parchment that lay on the floor next to the desk. Picking them up, she realized one of them was a written note and the other one a newspapers clipping – and they were both covered with dusts of coal.

Looking up at the hearth, Hermione finally put the pieces of the puzzle together and realized that someone had Flooed these papers to Severus, and that the parchs sis simply had knocked the glass vial on his desk over in at their dramatic, whooshing entrance.

Hermione couldn’t help herself; she dared a look at the newspaper clipping and note in her hands. The clipping was from today’s edition of The Daily Prophet, whereas the note clearly bore Dumbledore’s elegant handwriting:


Severus.

I thought you and your visitor would find this ever so slightly interesting.

--

She hadn’t been there when he’d awoken, but he could hear her move around in his office.

What on earth was she doing there?

Seconds later, however, she came back into the bedroom, wearing nothing but his black shirt. He found he really enjoyed the sight – his woman, wearing nothing but his shirt...

“Hi there,” she said as she looked up from whatever it was she was holding (Severus really hadn’t paid much attention to that) and sawwas was awake.

“Morning,” he muttered, stifling a yawn and sitting up. “What is that?” He indicated to the papers she was looking at.

“Floo from Albus,” she replied, climbing back into bed, a frown now evident on her face. “You’d better take a look.”

She handed him the parchments, and he quickly scanned through the first one – a note from Albus. The second, a newspaper clipping, was what really caught his interest. He read it through with care, then dared a look at Hermione.

None of them spoke for a moment.

“Well,” sighed Hermione at last, ruffling a hand through her rather unruly hair, “at least he’s safe, right? Though I must say I don’t feel altogether that reassured...”

“Nor me,” agreed Severus, his eyes scanning the clipping again. “Anonymous friend? Now what is the meaning of that, I wonder...”

“ideaidea as to who it could be?” asked Hermione. “You knew him better than I.”

“None,” replied Severus. “But it all sounds rather strange. Listen to this,” he said, quoting the article, “‘hopefully we will be able to work out his new life together’... It sounds as though they might as well be announcing their engagement.”

Hermione laughed a bit. “Perhaps it’s an old female admirer?”

“Doubt it. He had very few.”

“Well, in any case, that’s not the phrase coming from this ‘friend’ which concerns me the most,” said Hermione, leaning in closer to read over his shoulder, “‘already he’s trying to get back into learning about magic and his life as it was prior to the unfortunate attack.’ What does that mean?”

“Good point,” nodded Severus, frowning. “I should really like to know who this ‘friend’ is...”

“Well, you work on that,” smirked Hermione, “I have a boss who’s going to kill me. Have you checked the time? I should have been at the office almost two hours ago.”

“I thought you told him you would be coming in late?” said Severus, turning to look at her.

“I did,” she smiled, “but there’s limits to how late I can be. You just enjoy your holiday while it lasts, Severus. The kids’ll be back in no time, you know.”

Severus groaned – yes, there was that. He had a few things to do of his own, actually... But he was reluctant to let Hermione go.

Before he could continue his thoughts, however, she’d leaned in and kissed him gently on the lips.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?”

“Nothing. Everything. I don’t know.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

She smiled and climbed out of bed, gathering her clothes in a pile and then taking his shirt off again.

“I believe this belongs to you?” she said, holding it up to him.

Her laughter rang through the bedroom as she noticed Severus wasn’t looking at the shirt at all.

--

Draco was reluctantly making his way out of Quality Quidditch Supplies (he’d loved to stay there longer, but he knew if he’d done so he would have purchased more stuff than he could actually afford, and he couldn’t have that) when he heard a most unnerving, familiar voice call his name.

“Draco! Draco!”

He whipped around, staring up and down Diagon Alley for the source of the call. It couldn’t be... It just couldn’t be...

It was.

“Draco,” said a man looking very much like an older version of himself who was making his determined way over from the Apothecary to where Draco was standing as though frozen.

“Draco,” said the man for a fourth time as he reached the boy in question. His face and appearance was still the same, but the expression seemed to have changed slightly. For a start, Lucius Malfoy no longer glared with the outmost hatred at his son – he almost looked happy.

“F-Father?” stuttered Draco, he couldn’t help himself.

“Don’t look so surprised, boy, one would think it was you who’d had his memory altered,” smirked his Father.

“But – but –” Draco really couldn’t think of anything to say. His Father had never, not once since Draco had announced he wouldn’t be providing the Malfoy family with an heir, willingly engaged himself in conversation with his son.

Yet here he was, in broad daylight, approaching Draco with a smile on his face, even now offering to shake his hand in greeting.

Well, thought Draco as he reluctantly took Lucius’s hand, whoever took care of Father has really outdone himself. This was nothing short of amazing.

“How d’you – how d’you know I’m – well, that I’m me?” asked Draco with interest. That was an important fact – after all, how could his Father know who his son was, or even that he had a son? Of course this mystery guardian had given him a bit of information, surely, but still...

“I may be Obliviated, but I’m not a complete fool,” said Lucius.

“You here on your own?” asked Draco.

“No, my guardian brought me,” replied his Father. “He is trying to introduce me to as much of the world as possibly, naturally. And I am refilling and refreshing my memory with speed, Draco.”

Haven’t reached the part where I’m gay yet then, have you? thought Draco bitterly.

“My guardian showed me a family photograph yesterday,” Lucius went on, “and as I saw you leave Quality Quidditch Supplies just now I recognized you at once. Tell me, how is your Mother?”

“She’s dead,” replied Draco coldly.

“Ah – I am so sorry to hear that,” said his Father. He didn’t look it.

“Well, listen,” said Draco, pulling out his pocket watch without actually checking the time, “I’m in a bit of a hurry, so –”

“Of course,” said Lucius, “of course, I didn’t mean to take up any of your time, naturally. I expect you have a boyfriend or something of the sort waiting for you. Well – we’ll keep in touch, Draco.”

“Yeah,” said Draco absently, hurrying to get moving and away from his very weird behaving Father. Boyfriend, indeed. So apparently this anonymous guardian had managed to explain about Draco’s homosexuality after all – which caused for even more suspicion.

The simple fact that Lucius even acknowledged the fact that he had a son when said son was gay was reason for suspicion.

Draco was walking fast now, hurrying to get through The Leaky Cauldron and out back into Muggle London. He was looking for a telephone box.

--

Hermione had a large office, all things considered, but it still felt unbelievably small on Saturdays, due to all the people who were crammed inside it.

Hermione’s desk job at the Ministry didn’t just consist of filling out forms and filing paper work – three hours a day, she was in charge of the applicators for the Apparation Test Center, where witches and wizards came to take their Apparation Tests. On week days, it wasn’t such a hectic period, but on Saturdays all hell was loose.

It seemed Saturday was the most appropriate day for everyone to be taking their Apparation Tests, seeing as how both school and work could be avoided more easily. It was still holiday, but busy nevertheless.

Sadly, this caused a lot of stress and work for Hermione.

Currently there were four witches and four wizards in her office, five of which were sitting on chairs by the wall eagerly awaiting their Test. The other three were standing queued in front of Hermione’s desk, receiving instructions and applications for their Tests.

It was three very long hours of a Saturday afternoon.

“Just fill in your name there,” Hermione instructed a very nervous-looking young wizard, pointing to a form in his trembling fingers, “and the rest of your personal information there – have you got any serious diseases, permanent damages or lose limbs?”

The wizard shook his head violently.

“Alright, just finish the form and take a seat there,” finished Hermione, indicating to the chairs by the wall. “I’ll call your name when your time’s up.”

As the nervous wizard retreated to the wall, practically falling into a chair, Hermione quickly scribbled a note to the Apparation Tester with the boy’s name and number, put it inside one of the many paper aeroplanes that lay in a drawer at her desk and then flicked her wand to have it fly off from her office.

“Hello there,” said Hermione, looking up at the next person in her queue, a witch. “Here for your Apparation Test? I’ll need your name and confirmation from the watchwitch or -wizard so I know you’ve had your wand for registration...”

“Granger!”

Hermione’s head snapped up to her office door, which had flung open. None other than Draco Malfoy was making his merry waer ter to her desk.

“I need to talk to you,” he declared, leaning over her desk next to the witch handing over a slip that confirmed her wand had been registered.

“Do you mind, Malfoy,” snapped Hermione, “I’m kind of busy here. Thank you,” she addressed the witch, “fill out this form, please. Any serious diseases, permanent damages or lose limbs?”

The witch shook her head and took the form, taking a seat in one of the chairs.

“This is important, you know,” Malfoy insisted.

“Well, it’s just going to have to wait,” said Hermione, snatching a paper aeroplane that had just flown in through her office door. She suspected she knew what Malfoy’d come to talk about – it could only be one thing, really: Lucius. Probably he was just going to tell her about the Prophet article, and she knew about that already.

“Miss Boot,” said Hermione, reading off the parchment that’d followed the aeroplane, “the Center’s ready for your Test now. Just second door to your left,” she instructed, pointing a girl from the row of chairs out a door on the left hand side of her office.

“Your name, please,” said Hermione, forcing herself to calm down, as she finally got to address the last person waiting in her queue. Malfoy hung around, impatiently waiting for her to finish with the last witch. When at last the queue that had taken up her office most of the afternoon was gone, and all that was left of it was witches and wizards sitting inirs irs awaiting their Tests, Malfoy leaned over Hermione’s desk again to get her attention.

“What?” she snapped, exhaustion getting the better of her.

“I’ve got some news for you and Snape,” he said.

“I know about the article, thank you.”
#822#8220;What article? Listen, I ran into Father just now –”

“You what?” Hermione’s gaze jumped back up at Malfoy, but her voice lowered considerably. “What do you mean, ran into him?”

“He was with this guardian of his in Diagon Alley,” said Malfoy, “and he – well – he made contact.”

“Did you see the guardian?” asked Hermione at once.

“Nah, he wasn’t there,” replied Malfoy impatiently. “You’re missing the point, Granger! My Father made contact with me! Don’t you see? He hasn’t spoken to me in three years, and then boom! – thanks to this Obliviation we’re suddenly the happy Father and son again!”

“What are you on about?” groaned Hermione.

“Listen to what I’m telling you, girl, Father was nice to me! Treating me like a son!”

“Keep your voice down,” snapped Hermione. “Okay, so he was nice to you. And you’ve got a problem with that because...?”

“Because he’s not supposed to be nice to me!” snapped Malfoy back in a loud whisper. “I failed to be the son who’d produce him an heir, right? He disowned me and everything, and now he’s suddenly the idealist Father? Don’t you see what’s wrong with that?”

“Perhaps the Obliviation’s just made him a better person,” suggested Hermione. “Have you considered that?”
Malfoy snorted, averting his eyes from Hermione to scan her office. Slowly, he returned his attention to her, sneering.

“It’s just not a very likely outcome,” he said. “Obliviated or not, he’s still my Father, and I know my Father – he’d never behave nicely to me, knowing I’m gay!”

“He’s Obliviated,” said Hermione. “He doesn’t know you’re gay!”

“Surprise, Mudblood,” snarled Draco, “he does! He told me! Said he didn’t want to hold me up because I probably had a boyfriend waiting for me...”

Hermione bit back a nasty return on the Mudblood-comment and said instead, “Look, maybe he is reformed, then. According to the people at St Mungo’s that wasn’t unlikely.”

“It is unlikely,” snapped Malfoy, straightening himself up to full height. “My Father never changes, Granger. Remember that.”

“Oh, I’ll remember that,” said Hermione, sighing. Honestly, this boy’s sense for the dramatic...

Another paper aeroplane landed on Hermione’s desk.

“Are you quite finished?” she asked Malfoy, pulling out a piece of parchment from the aeroplane. “I’m busy.”

Malfoy scowled, and after muttering, “Just let your boyfriend know, alright?” he vanished from her office.

And although Hermione didn’t care much about what Malfoy had told her, she couldn’t help but thinking again – what if he had reformed? Malfoy’d been right; the old Lucius would never have addressed his son, knowing he was gay and wouldn’t produce an heir...

Had Lucius Malfoy’s Obliviation, and his newly appointed guardian, given the man a completely new life?


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A/N: There we are... Reviews, I\'d love some!!