Head over heels

Brand new chapter!!

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Draco hung his head in his hands. This action seems familiar, he thought. Oh right, Potters wedding. He was so damn tired. The investigation took all morning and they hadn’t come up with any leads, except that there was no magic involved and that Granger was clever to alert the authorities so quickly, or else the entire building would have burned down.

Draco shuddered, he didn’t want to think of what would have happened to Granger if she didn’t alert the aurors in time. Luckily she was a clever girl.

And of course his parents, what a mess he was in. Thank Merlin that his father understood. Hopefully Lucius could make his wife understand.

He glanced at the clock. Granger was late, it was already five past twelve. This didn’t feel right: Granger was so bloody punctual.

And then she walked through the door. Draco swallowed and stood up.
“Morning Granger,” he said while extending his hand. Granger glanced at his hand and back at his face.

“Oh come on, we’re past those formalities,” she said as she sat down in the chair opposite his desk.

“Right,” Draco mumbled and sat down as well.

“Have you found anything?” she asked immediately. From the look of things, Granger was a wreck. Her hair didn’t look any better than it did last night and there were bags under her eyes. Her large eyes were fixed on him.

Draco cringed, he was the one who had to inform her that they didn’t have any leads.

“Nothing at all. The only leads we have so far are that there wasn’t any magic involved. They used Molotov cocktails. The aurors couldn’t find a trace of the culprit. I’m sorry Granger but without witnesses we can’t do anything here.”

Her bottom lip began to tremble. Oh Merlin please don’t, Draco thought. He hated crying women, especially a crying Granger.

“There must be something! They can’t just find nothing, no one is that good of a criminal! It can’t be! Bloody hell...” she ranted.

“What about insurance? I can’t finance this all on my own,” she said. Draco was confused. Granger never seemed to be the type of girl to give up and cry over things. She would demand that the entire world help her, no matter what the cost.

Draco sighed. “No Granger, I asked around but there’s no one who can help you.”

He did ask around. Keith said there was a fat chance any company would help them.

“No one who can? You mean no one who wants to,” she huffed.

“Look, I’m sorry but there’s nothing we can do about that. I have to ask you some questions for the investigation. Answer truthfully okay?” he asked while shuffling through a stack of papers. He found the one he needed and grabber a quill.

“Any enemies? Someone who would love to you see dead?” he asked.

Granger shook her head.

“I don’t think so,” she said while biting her bottom lip, “Only death eaters who didn’t like my attribution to the war. But most of them got caught so. And I don’t think they’ll resort to this kind of petty violence, they’d slit my throat or something like that.”

Draco wrote it down.

“Can’t you think of anyone, anyone at all, who made some sort of threat against you in the last few weeks?”

Granger seemed to think for a moment, her eyes glazing over.

“No not really. No one who would be able to do this anyway.”

“Anything you did lately that you normally didn’t do? I mean, anything that could indicate someone would want to hurt you? ” Mandatory questions were very boring, but they had to be asked.

Granger bit her lip again.

“Not really no...”

“Did you make anyone mad in last few months?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did you receive any hate mail or hateful comments?”

“Not sure, but I think not.”

Draco sighed, this was going to be another looong day.

*******

After Granger left she had looked at him with those puppy dog eyes and asked him to try his best to fix this. How could he not give in to that? He cursed himself for his weakness. He conferred with Keith about what to do.

“If anything happens to that girl again, I want her to get security. We have to do our bloody damn best here, that girl’s a war hero. Need to keep the image of the aurors going,” he had said.

Draco agreed. Nothing could happen to Granger, though he couldn’t care less about the aurors image. His imagine wasn’t of outstanding quality anyway.

Keith ordered Draco to go home and let it rest for now. The aurors were still investigating and doing research on Granger. There would be a lot of people who would love to see her gone, after her fighting in the war. She had fought so bravely in a fight that wasn’t even hers to fight, it was bloody Potters war. Again he thought of the rumours he had heard. Granger and Potter, it was disgusting to think about it. When should it have happened? Draco didn’t know a lot about what happened to Granger, Potter and Weasley in the war. Only heard what Voldemort wanted to tell.

After the war, the people praised their bravery, but no one really talked about what it was that they did in the year they were on the run. No newspapers published the story. Potter asked the media to keep out of their adventures and surprisingly they did.

Draco sighed and grabbed his coat. He couldn’t do anything for now. Better head home. He said his goodbye’s and walked towards the exit of the auror department.

Sally O’Brien, the receptionist waved at him.

He thought she might have a crush on him, she always waved at him and smiled. She was one of the people that didn’t dislike him.

He waved back.

She was a rather pretty girl, blondish hair, spectacles on her nose. She smiled shyly as Draco left the building.

Why couldn’t Granger look at him like that?

“Man, she has the hots for you.”

Merlin no, not Weasley. Not now.

“You know, I’ve been wondering. You see, you are a Slytherin, I am a Gryffindor. Catch my drift?” Weasley said as he fell in stride beside Draco.

“No I don’t, do enlighten me,” he replied drily.

“I mean, how are we supposed to find out if one of us has sex. It’s not like I can trust you with that,” Weasley said with a saucy grin. Draco groaned.

“Weasley, if you say you didn’t, I believe you.”

“But Malfoy, if you say you didn’t, I don’t believe you. So I was thinking of an oath, unbreakable seems a bit ...overdone. So how about a contract. Hermione taught me this one, it’s actually a clever little bugger, but it should do the trick!”

Weasley dragged him into the Leaky Cauldron and sat down in a booth in the back.

“Oi Tom, you happen to have a piece of parchment and a quill for me?” Weasley shouted to the bartender. Being the war hero that he was, he got served as quickly as possible of course.

“Thanks Tom!” Weasley said as he began to write. “Okay let’s see. You, me, the bet,” he mumbled to himself as he wrote everything down. “Okay tadaa!”

He made some complex wand movements and grinned when the paper turned a sparkly purple, then returned to normal.

“Just write your name down,” he said as he gave Draco the quill.

“Not so fast, what did you put in here?” Draco didn’t trust Weasley at all.

“Not much, just a spell that would activate these two little thingies here,” he said while fished two-...

“Honestly mate, you can’t be serious,” Draco said, his eyes wide open and locked on the two objects Weasley placed on the table. Two battered, old, teddy bears sat on the table, complete with silly grins on their faces.

“I am completely serious. Take this one with you,” Weasley said as he handed Draco one of the battered bears. It looked at Draco with beady eyes. Their silent staring match was interrupted by Weasley.

“But..,. what does it do?” Draco asked, eyeing the fluffy brown creature with an obvious distaste.

“It will making this awful sound when one of us breaks the bargain and loses! George wouldn’t tell me what it was, but hey, it shouldn’t be too awful,” Weasley said giddy. It was obvious that Weasley really thought he was going to win. No chance in Hell, Draco thought.

“Okay, so when you finally give in and decide to screw your loopy girlfriend, it will make ...noise... r-r-right...,” Draco finally had proof: Weasley was bonkers.

*******

When Draco came home another unpleasant surprise was waiting for him. A red envelope was hovering outside his window. Was it that time again? Every few months Draco received a red howler, screaming and hissing obscenities at him. Draco had no idea who it was from, he couldn’t think of anyone who would send him such a bloody thing. He never paid much attention to it; after all who wouldn’t want him dead?

Draco swallowed, took off his coat and let it in. Immediately it exploded into noise.

“Filthy motherfucker, how dare you come close to her. You’re nothing more than a filthy blood traitor, you fucking cunt,” it hissed, “I hate you, I wish you would die. Do us all a favour and release us from your presence and just die already!”

Then it burst into flames. Draco stared at the ashes for a long time, then went straight to bed without cleaning up the mess it left behind.

******