Vengeance

Vengeance
Chapter Seven


000

Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter, and am not making any money off this piece of fanfiction. JK Rowling owns all rights to Harry Potter.


000


“Delay in vengeance gives a heavier blow”


John Ford


000


He was quickly becoming a regular at the club. Watching Hermione perform soon became his favorite activity.


Quite disturbing now that he thought about it.


The auditorium was set to flaring torches, tall palms, ferns, and tropical flowers. Their thick scent filled the air, made more potent by the steamy heat that that permeated the room. Being late summer, it was by no means cold outside, but somehow this temperature gave a distinct impression of otherness. The kind of warmth one couldn’t find within the limits of Britain.


The low, rough-hewn tables were made of a dark, fragrant wood and around them were long, thin Japanese Tatami mats. These, surprisingly, were not as uncomfortable as Draco thought they would be. They must be charmed to feel like cushions, Draco thought grumpily, Damn her. Will she ever make a mistake?


There were intimidating Polynesian sculptures of wood and volcanic Basalt scattered around the room. Unlike the art before, these sculptures were not charmed to move. Draco was quite glad about it. Having an eight-foot Tiki god trying to gnaw your head off just didn’t make for good entertainment.


Lounging at a table by himself, Draco sipped on his Firewhiskey and casually observed the occupants of the room. Avery and Macnair at the corner table… Damn, I must say hullo later. I hate talking to those idiots. He turned his head slightly to glance at the other side of the room. Let’s see. Foreign, poor, poor… hmm, must find out that chap’s name later… Parkinson, Crabbe and… Nott!?!


Indeed, Nott was seated at the first table at the very center of the stage. His colleagues were chatting and laughing, but he was just sitting quietly, staring intently at the stage.


Draco felt cold at the sight. What was Nott doing here? This was his place to go. Draco did try to limit his excursions to ‘The White Devil’ to once a week, so as not to arouse too much suspicion about his activities there. But it seemed that it didn’t work. Nott was here anyway, undoubtedly to keep an eye on him.


Draco didn’t know the depth of the plot to take him down, but he sure as hell knew that Nott was a part of it. Theo had always resented him in school, pandering to him reluctantly. A good Slytherin should never show his true emotions, Draco sniffed, At least to his betters anyway.


As soon as Granger told him that Nott was the one setting him up for a fall, he had investigated it using his contacts at court. Sure enough, Nott had been in the king’s company on several occasions and had been known to skillfully mention his name connected to less-than-popular causes.


Yes, Nott was a part of the plot. But was there anyone else?


He didn’t know.


And that bothered him more than he cared to admit.


Turning his attention back to the stage (it would not do to stare) he drummed his fingers on the table as he waited for the show to start. It was a testament to Granger’s skill that the hall was this crowded so early in the evening. As an added bonus, it also made his presence here less conspicuous, as there were many regulars who came early and stayed for the whole show.


The lights suddenly dimmed, signaling the start of the show. The audience hushed in anticipation.


What happened next was like an explosion of sound from the stage. A driving, pounding drumbeat came from nowhere. The lights leapt up, revealing four men with glistening, muscular naked chests pounding furiously on waist high kettle drums.


Draco was a bit surprised. Were those… skirts… those men were wearing?


Still drumming furiously, the men started up a deep chant. From offstage, there was an eerie feminine answer.


Suddenly, the female dancers burst onto the stage, wearing colorful tops that barely covered their breasts and long grass skirts that showed tempting flashes of thigh.


Their outfits were not what were so exciting though.


The dance was.


Their upper bodies still or moving slowly, it was the hips and buttocks that did most of the work. Moving to the drumbeat, their hips and thighs swayed sexily.


Draco had never seen anything like it. Muggles must be more sexually charged than I thought. Their every dance practically screams sex.


The women left the stage to thunderous applause. Draco glanced over to Nott, and noticed him lounging casually on his Tatami mat, not particularly engaging himself in the performance, much like himself.


There were a few more acts – women dancing a slow and seductive dance with beautiful hand movements, a man and a woman juggling fire to the fast pace of the drums, and another woman doing a curious dance with strange objects called ‘poi-poi balls.’ While this was all fascinating, Draco was extremely annoyed.


Where the hell was Granger?


She had always been in one or two of the acts before her final finale. It was extremely odd for her to be breaking habit.


As the show was drawing to a close, Draco was extremely restless. Half watching the women sway to a slow beat, half watching the audience, he saw the strange girl from a few weeks ago carefully pick her way across the room. As she reached his table, she slowed significantly, but did not stop.


Tonya smiled at him slightly, and as she scooted around him, one of the flowers in her hair drifted to the ground.


“Whoops! How did that fall off?”


As she bent to pick it up, her hand alighted on Draco’s, pressing a small object into it and hissed into his ear. “H’s dressing room. After the show.”


Message delivered, she stood up and apologized prettily to Draco. She then, with a casualness that Draco was surprised to see in a green girl, walked up to one of the waiters.


Glancing up at the stage, he noted that the girls had left and the lights were up. He cautiously opened his palm and looked at the object the girl had given him.


It was a pink orchid.


Eyes widening slightly at the soft gift, he wondered at the feelings of need coursing through him.


Why give him anything? Why not just the message?


The questions he had running around in his brain had to be silenced, as the lights grew dim in preparation for the finale.


Draco felt his senses sharpen in anticipation. As he scanned the room, he noticed Nott leaning forward with a hungry look on his face. Mouth thinning, Draco thought of the implications of a power-hungry Theodore Nott interested in ‘Helena.’


Shit. I have a bad feeling about this…


His thoughts were cut off by the sound of a single drum, the harsh beats pulsing slowly, almost gently into the stillness. Draco drew in a deep breath and tried to quell his raging desire. Idiot! Having a raging hard-on and I haven’t even seen her yet.


Grumbling quietly, but eyes still glued to the stage, he thought he saw a woman’s body cloaked in the shadow. Quietly moving to the beat, shades of darkness lovingly cloaked her features.


That had better be Granger.


The torches slowly flared up to a dull glow, enough for Draco to ascertain the bright yellow hair and small, compact body. Draco drew a trembling breath.


She was here.


Smiling seductively, she slowly moved her hips to the beat of the single drummer. She was clad completely in a deep, forest green with flowers into her hair and braided into ropes that encircled her neck, wrists and ankles. She looked like a tropical forest nymph ready to lure some unsuspecting visitor into the jungle, never to be seen again.


As the beat started to escalate, her eyes flashed darkly and her hips moved in an increasingly complex rhythm. It was obvious from the way she moved that she was either much more familiar with this dance than the other girls, or was more skilled, because there was really no comparison.


In a duel between drummer and dancer, the drummer’s fast hands would tap out a complicated rhythm that Hermione would unceasingly follow. Growing faster and faster, her bosom heaved and sweat glistened. Her body moving in perfect counterpoint to the beat, she was a flame that burned – passion incarnate.


Draco was held fast by the vision. This display of sheer athleticism must have been why Granger was not in the earlier acts. Realizing that his face must reflect the savage lust he was feeling, he momentarily jerked his attention away from the dance and schooled his face into a neutral expression. He would not be easily read! And he would not have any vulnerabilities when his enemies attacked.


His forced inattention was a momentary thing. Soon, his eyes were drawn inexorably to the stage and to Hermione. Still engaged in the dance duel with the drummer, face flushed, eyes lit, he was surprised to note that she looked happy. Almost as happy as she had been during those long ago days at Hogwarts.


He would watch them, the disgusting Gryffindors, and wonder how they could stand the constant cheerfulness. Granger was always one of the worst. Always laughing and smiling for no particular reason, her happiness irritated him.


Not that he really noticed her or anything – just a passing observation.


Seeing her look so like her former self made his groin tug with half remembered fantasies on those long, lonely school nights. Often involving Granger, his necktie, and strawberries, he would wank in the secrecy of his bed, giving into urges that he thought were unnatural and dirty.


But he couldn’t stop them.


Hermione was breathing hard, gasping for air as she struggled to keep up with the drummer. Unexpectedly, the pulse of the drums stopped. Jarred, Draco glanced over to the young man and noted him massaging his hands ruefully.


Hermione was still dancing.


To a beat only she heard in her mind, her hips and feet moved at a furious pace. Draco tore his gaze from those luscious curved and slowly razed her with his eyes. When he reached her face, he was surprised to see those burning orbs were locked on him.


An eternity passed.


And she was still dancing.


With a final flourish, eyes still meshed with his, she stopped.


One hand reached to him in supplication, the other gracefully bent over her head, body heaving, she looked at him. For a moment Draco thought he saw something… something different… something…


A man in the back clapped tentatively. Then another joined in. then it was the whole hall, hooting and hollering unlike the refined gentlemen they pretended to be.


Hermione wrenched her gaze away and pasted on a fake smile for her adoring fans.


Draco left the auditorium quietly, closing the door on the screaming mob.


000


Interestingly enough, Draco was in Hermione’s dressing room before she was. Lounging on the sofa, long legs splayed out, fingers toying idly with the pink orchid, he eagerly watched the door for her arrival.


She entered soon after he did, still flushed in that clingy, revealing sarong and tiny top. One of her hands was efficiently working at the knot of that clingy piece of green fabric. The other was steadily working on getting the orchids untangled from her hair, resulting in one arm being thrown over her eyes.


She didn’t see him.


He wasn’t going to enlighten her.


Smirking slightly, Draco settled back to watch the show. This one is much better than the one she put on for everyone else. I certainly hope she doesn’t see me, as this might actually be interesting.


She turned slightly so she was facing the wardrobe, so her back was towards him. He looked at the long, pale expanse of exposed skin and smiled. He did so love a woman’s backside. Granger’s was one of the best he’d seen in awhile. Ever, his mind whispered.


Her horrid personality and less-than-desirable lineage ruined it though.


It was truly a pity.


Flowers finally extracted, she threw them carelessly onto the floor. As she turned her full attention to the sarong, she stepped on the flowers, crushing them and releasing their delicate scent.


Passively, the fragrance diffused to Draco’s sensitive nose and the heady scent went straight to his head, working like a pheromone. His hands slowly balled into fists and his eyes closed briefly as he inhaled. Orchids, jasmine, cinnamon… and something else. God, that’s turning me on.


As she calmly worked on the knot holding her sarong, he was hit by an uncanny feeling of déjà vu. He remembered that day, so long ago, a similar disrobing, and what had almost happened. Now, however, there was none of the sultry, teasing seduction of a striptease. Yet there was something irresistible about the casual way Granger was disrobing.


Finally, the knot slid open, and Hermione just let the cloth flutter down her body until it settled in a puddle at her feet. Draco’s mind went blank. Around her thigh was a standard wand holder. But that wasn’t what was making his lust explode into flames. She was clad in the smallest pair of black lace knickers he had ever seen. Not even attempting to cover her arse, they instead consisted of a tiny patch of lace covering the very top of her buttocks and a tiny black thread strung in between her arse cheeks.


Draco had never seen anything like it. In his lust-dazed mind he noted absently that the wizarding world would never invent something so blatantly sexual, so it had to be a Muggle contraption.


At the moment, Draco was ready to bless Muggles.


As her hand serenely moved up to the clasp of her top, a thin sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead. With the same fluid efficiency, she undid her clasp and let the top float to the ground to join the flowers and sarong.


Please take off the knickers, Please take off the knickers…


As if responding to his mental entreaty, Hermione gently hooked her thumbs around the straps around her hips and efficiently pulled the microscopic scrap of cloth down her long, long legs.


She was naked.


This wasn’t a fantasy, wasn’t a dream, wasn’t an apparition, she was actually naked in front of him.


Draco was a boy when he was last in this position. But now he was a man, a man who knew what he wanted. Dirty blood or no dirty blood, his body craved hers. And he would have her. But he wouldn’t do it the way he did before, expecting this wild, passionate creature to trust him enough to give herself to him instantaneously.


He would seduce her.


If he was right, she hadn’t had the full focus of a man who wanted her. She had been involved with The Rebellion since Hogwarts. Perhaps wizards had tried to seduce ‘Helena,’ but that undoubtedly would have failed. The entertainer was not her true personality – the know-it-all was. He wouldn’t callously proposition her body, he would seduce her mind, enchant it, and then he would have her.


She casually slipped her wand out of the sheath strapped to her thigh and banished the errant clothing to the hamper in the washroom. Bending over slightly to unstrap the holster, her toned arse was prominently displayed.


Draco couldn’t take it anymore.


He silently rose from his seat, and arrogantly glided to Hermione. She finally unstrapped the holster, and with a triumphant murmur, stuck her wand behind her ear to re-strap it onto her left forearm.


How convenient.


Drawing close - so close - to Hermione’s warm body, Draco could feel her heat on his skin. God, he hadn’t even touched her yet, and he was already as hard as a diamond! He took a silent, deep breath, praying for control. This would work. It had to.


Even though he wasn’t touching her, her body straightened slightly, tensing instinctually from his presence. Steadying his shaking hands, he slowly caressed the crease of her buttocks with his right hand. Feeling her stiffen in shock, he kept his touch light, gentle. She started to turn around, but he grabbed her arm to hold her in place. She stilled suddenly, and he could tell that her active brain was plotting furiously.


Pressing close to her back, he could feel her soft, soft body against his, and he closed his eyes momentarily as a wave of feral lust swept through him with devastating force. Focus, damn it, focus. Thinking of his future goals and not his immediate gain fortified his resolve to slowly seduce her rather than throwing her on the sofa and sliding into her over and over…


He slowly bent his head to her ear, and raspily breathed into her ear, “Relax Granger. It’s me.”


If it was possible, she stiffened even more.


Draco smirked.


“Hush now,” He softly whispered, “You wouldn’t want anyone to know I was in here, would you?”


Draco could almost trace her thoughts by her body language. She was still stiff, but was preoccupied. To scream or not to scream?


Before she could decide, he lowered his hot mouth to suckle on the sensitive patch of skin underneath her ear.


Her breath caught.


Draco’s grin grew triumphant.


She wants me…


The beast in him cried out to take her, to dominate her, to cover her in desire so thick she would never be able to escape. The practical Slytherin in him, however, urged caution. She desired him, yes, but he had to be careful lest he scare her away forever. And she would run forever.


Gently, so gently, he traced his tongue along the sleek muscles of her neck, then mapped out the shell of her ear. His hand rested lightly on her hip, and he stroked the fine skin there. As his hand skimmed up the length of her belly to cup the underside of her full breast, he could feel her relax against him.


Yes.


Vigorously suckling her neck, his avid gaze looked at her exposed breasts. He must have given an audible groan, for she suddenly stiffened. Tearing herself from his hold, which had become lax as he gave into his passion, Hermione snatched her purple robe from the open wardrobe. Quickly pulling it on, Draco caught a quick glimpse of aroused nipples and flushed flesh before it was blocked from his gaze. Pulling his eyes upwards with an effort, he looked into Hermione’s burning orbs.


Clutching the kimono tightly to her throat with one hand, her wand trained steadily on him with another, Hermione’s eyes glittered dangerously. “What the hell do you want?”


“Do you really want an answer to that question?”


Hermione gave him a wan smile that didn’t really reach her eyes. “I suppose not. But I do know that you should have said something! Tell me why I shouldn’t hex your balls off right now, or so help me, I will actually lose my temper this time.”


Draco gave his most charming smile, which he thought was pretty good under the circumstances. His body was on fire, he was being threatened with extreme pain, and a good length of Hermione’s thigh was exposed to his ravenous eyes. He took a deep breath and said, “You sent me a message, remember? I was just following your orders.”


Hermione slowly lowered her wand, but did not speak.


“What about ‘Constant Vigilance’ and all that rubbish?” Draco actually started to get angry. Thinking about all of the possibilities for danger channeled his aggressive, unfulfilled lust to a more convenient target. Hermione.


“Don’t you protect yourself, you stupid girl? I could have been anyone. Doesn’t your little rebellion teach you to set a simple ward?”


“Shut the fuck up Malfoy. You have no fucking clue who I am or what I have done.”


“Don’t tell me to shut it, you bloody cow! You have no idea what it was like living in Voldemort’s court, sucking up like a sycophantic little bitch just to stay alive.”


They stared at each other for an indeterminate amount of time. Cold gray and smoldering brown met and locked. Brown suddenly shuttered, doors locked tight on her inner thoughts.


Hermione took in a tight breath, “Well. I suppose now we can agree the both of us have changed. Neither of us are what we were. So let’s get over it, shall we?”


Draco relaxed slightly and said, “That’s complete rubbish – we won’t be able to forget the past. Too much there.” He bared his teeth in a feral facsimile of a smile, “But we can build upon the relationship we have and make something more.”


“Good. Enough.”


She stood up suddenly, and smoothly walked to her vanity. Taking her wand out of her sleeve, she waved it over one of the lacquered drawers on her left. Drawing it open carefully, she fished out something small that Draco couldn’t quite see. Gliding up to him slowly, she suddenly grabbed his hand, opened his palm, and placed a small object into it. She then dropped his hand like it was poisonous.


Draco opened his hand and looked at the object. It was a small, plain ring. He raised one eyebrow quizzically in her direction.


Hermione’s smile was cold as she explained, “It is a ring of protection. Twist it three times around your finger and I will be able to locate you anywhere. Transfigure it into something more appropriate if you like.”


Looking at the thing, Draco almost wanted to chuck it into the Thames. He was in deep now, too deep to get out. He had to join the fucking Rebellion. Gods, isn’t this rich. A Malfoy joining the doomed Potter fanclub. Not that I have much choice, though. Voldemort is definitely going to kill me. Fuck. Damned if I don’t damned if I do…


“You will not be privy to pertinent information just yet, but know that you are in grave danger from Nott and Voldemort.”


“What? Hell, no! I am going to be privy to any information that will keep me alive.”


“Excuse me, if I don’t trust you just yet.”


“If you know something that pertains to the saving of my life, you will tell me Granger.”


“You’ll find out.”


Draco glared at her, “Damn right I will find out, from you!” He sighed and ran a shaking hand through his long platinum hair, “Granger… Please. It’s the only life I have.”


Hermione searched his face steadily for a long time. He could see her mind slowly coming to a decision. Taking a few short breaths, her teeth worried on her plump lower lip. “I shouldn’t tell you this… but Voldemort is going to call you to court in a few days. And he will probably kill you.”


Draco couldn’t breathe. It was one thing to suspect that someone was going to kill you in the hazy future and quite another to know that your murder was coldly penciled into the calendar like a charity buffet. He sat down heavily onto the lounge chair, thoughts swirling.


“Malfoy… are you alright?”


Draco looked up into unfathomable dark eyes, “Yes, of course. Always am after knowing the date of my own homicide.”


Hermione huffed indignantly and crossed her arms, “No need to get testy. I told you didn’t I?”


“Yes. Yes, you did,” Draco got up and started for the door. He had a lot to think about. Turning back slightly, he took in her slight form and beautiful, striking face. Emotionally drawn from suppressed desire and fear, he blurted out the first thought he had floating in his mind in a very un-Slytherin manner.


“Thank you.”


Hermione’s eyes widened in shock, then softened almost imperceptibly.


Draco turned back to the door, and turned the knob.


The door shut on a whispered “You’re welcome.”


000


A/N: Apparently, all of you think my story is fine as is. As a reward, here is a chapter only a few weeks after the last one! I actually have this story all plotted out now, so I will be able to update faster. Thanks to my beta Emily, who gave me some much needed criticism on this chapter. As it was written on my vacation, it wasn’t my best stuff, let me tell you. Thank you for all of your continued support.