AUTHOR'S NOTES:
This was my second of two 2018 Dramione-Duet Fic Exchange Fest entries (dramione-duet . livejournal . com) entry. The fest is long over and reveals are out, so now I can post this for you here. This fanfic is finished. It is multi-chaptered.
My partner for the fest was: articcat621
My partner's prompts for the fest were: Masks, Secrets, Rescue, Closets, Pirates, War A/U, Order Member!Draco, Banter/Fighting, Passing Notes; Use of secondary characters (Death Eaters) in creative ways, "Aren't we quite the pair?"
To Articcat621: I wrote three different stories, tackling your prompts in different ways. This one was my favourite. I hope you liked it, too!
To the Mod, Ningloreth: Thank you for once more for all your hard work in running this fest! XOXO!
DISCLAIMER: "Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. This fanfiction was written entirely for fun, not for profit, and no copyright infringement is intended.
TIMELINE: Timeline is Halloween, 2002 (compliant until the end of OOTP, after that entirely A/U).
MAIN CHARACTERS FEATURED (alphabetical order, last name): Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy
SECONDARY CHARACTERS FEATURED (alphabetical order, last name): Severus Snape, Yaxley
SUMMARY: "Masks aren't only for the ballroom. Sometimes they're for a person's protection, too. You know that as well as I do, don't you, Granger?"
RATING: PG-15 (T+)
WARNINGS: Sexual tension, references to blood supremacy, off-screen reference to sexual snogging sessions, HEA.
HIDE & SEEK
(alternatively, 'The Chameleon')
By: RZZMG
Even wearing a mask, with her hair cut boyishly short, and wearing a Mediaeval page's costume that flattened her chest into one smooth plane, Draco recognised Hermione Granger from a hundred paces as she lingered along the back wall, trying to blend into the background like some kind of wallflower...with an added Notice-Me-Not spell on for good measure.
It was a lucky thing, really, that the Malfoy crest ring he wore on his right hand was layered with centuries of intricate and useful spells, one of which allowed him to see through glamour enchantments. Otherwise, he might have remained clueless as to her presence...at least by sight.
There were some in this room, however, that didn't require such a sense to know she was here. They could 'see' through the chameleon routine with their other senses:
Greyback would smell her.
Nagini would taste her air.
Sanguini would hear her heartbeat.
And there were others, new half-breed creatures that had come in from the east, characters that the old guard of Death Eaters did not like having in their midst. Their monstrous hearing, sense of smell, even the fact that some of them had eyes that registered heat patterns, rather than visible light, would give her away to them.
Most likely, Granger hadn't accounted for any such things when she'd decided to trip on into the party tonight, not understanding the character of Voldemort's preferred company.
He had to get her out of there, stat.
~.~.~
She'd been told by Snape to expect a certain level of extravagance, to prepare herself for decadence in the midst of a wizarding world that was otherwise starving its common people out. Seeing such excess in person, however, Hermione could begin to understand the justification by 18th century French peasants for la Terreur.
Champagne flowed like water in tall, crystal glasses with gold rims, top shelf harder liquor was served at a bar on the other end of the ginormous, well-lit room, and there were tables all around the edges of the dance floor filled to the brim with mouth-watering appetizers of the rarest delicacies on the planet—poached Scotch quail eggs, Beluga caviar served in edible silver leaf, white truffle sauces and creams, Densuke black watermelon...
The lavishness and waste were astounding.
Voldemort encouraged such diversions, apparently, wanting to present the face of prosperity to other countries, his propaganda machine hard at work to assure his reign was politically accepted by the rest of the world. Meanwhile the rebellion and those caught up in the middle of it were scrounging for their meals and trading their souls for an international portkey on the black market.
The real suffering was hidden behind a parade of colourful and ever-shifting skins.
Despite her disgust, the truth was a masquerade had been the perfect cover. It would be doubtful anyone would recognize her behind a mask, with her breasts bound, looking like a boy. Tonight, she was as much a chameleon as any of these Aristos, and although she'd mourned the loss of her long, curly hair, in this case being metamorphic would make her mission that much easier to complete.
Now if only she could locate her target...
Where was that two-headed snake, Draco Malfoy?
~.~.~
Setting his empty Firewhisky tumbler on a passing waiter's tray, Draco headed towards Granger in a lazy, roundabout manner so as to not give himself away, stopping on occasion to shake a hand or kiss the backs of some hanger-on's knuckles in greeting, making small talk with people he despised.
Just a little while longer, he thought.
Snape said Potter was close to finding the Dark Lord's last horcrux...
He glanced over at Granger again, who was simply standing against the back wall, watching the action at the door. She seemed to be searching for someone.
What was she thinking coming here tonight? The Dark Lord's El número tres on his 'Most Wanted' list had come to a Death Eater's Samhain Revel, for what? What was the grand plan? Why jeopardize herself and the Order's secrets this way? Had Moody sent her into the viper's den to scope out the enemy with a fresh set of eyes, or was she here for a more nefarious purpose than intelligence gathering? Knowing Mad-Eye, it could be either...and it wasn't beneath him to use someone as innocent as Granger to further his purposes, no matter the cost to her.
And she'd go right along with it, thinking she was being a good martyr for the cause.
As he came up on her from her blindside, he had to purposefully stop and appear to be fiddling with his costume for tonight's masquerade to avoid detection from Yaxley, who was eyeing him from across the room. The head of M.L.E. didn't trust Draco, never had. No surprise there, though, as Yaxley had always hated Lucius, who he'd viewed as his greatest rival for Narcissa Black's hand. When he'd lost that competition thirty years earlier, Yaxley had made it his life's work to spite Lucius at every turn, and of late, that wrath had come to include him too, the only son and heir of his greatest foe. Fortunately, Draco knew how to blend in to avoid detection. He knew how to play a false face and present a good mask, and thus far, it didn't seem as if Yaxley had anything concrete on him.
Or so it seemed.
The Dark Lord's head of enforcement didn't get the job by being sloppy and tipping his hand, though. He was, as Moody always instructed, constantly vigilant and suspicious of everyone. It was fair to say, in fact, that Yaxley had been the guiding force behind Umbridge and her Ministry of Propaganda...and for the suspicious disappearances of those she fingered as enemies of the state.
The man was a spider in a room full of mosquitoes and flies.
It took all of Draco's skills to throw off the scent of his betrayal.
Conjuring a small hand-held mirror, he preened before it, acting like the dandy son of a pure-blood aristocrat. Yaxley, like most everyone else in their circle, knew Lucius to be vain about his looks and dress, and Draco had slyly used that preconceived prejudice about the sire to reinforce the notion that the apple didn't fall from that tree. He played with his hair now, made sure the long fringe lay just right over one side of his face, even played with plumping his lips as he stared into the mirror.
He pretended to be in love with himself.
From the top of his vision, he watched as Yaxley made a face in disgust and turned away, buying the act.
Mission accomplished, Draco vanished the mirror with a wandless, non-verbal spell, and then took a moment longer to glance around the room to make sure no one else was watching him. When he was satisfied he was ignored by the majority of the fancy-dressed, gaily animated mob, he moved in on his target.
~.~.~
If Draco was here, he should have been relatively easy to spot, right?
Again, wrong.
There were dozens of blondes in the room, half of them male, all of them arrogantly strutting around like they owned the world. It was like stumbling upon the annual gathering of das Herrenvolk.
As she glanced around she realised that she didn't fit in here...didn't want to. This laughing, heartless crowd of vain social-shifters were all psychopaths, capable of any and all manner of evil just to satisfy some need within them that could never be filled, no matter how much suffering they inflicted on others. They were all empty people without even honour to cling to, betrayal their weapon of choice, narcissism their only friend.
So why did Severus insist Draco didn't belong here?
From what she remembered of him from their school days together, he was the perfect delegate for this bunch. The rich, handsome, arrogant son of a politically powerful pure-blood lineage that stretched back to the days of William the Conqueror was a shoo-in for membership. He'd certainly been well-conditioned to hate her for no other reason than for her Muggle roots, and he'd most definitely enjoyed acting upon that prejudice all through their educational career.
Well, except for that one time...
No, she wasn't going to go there again. It had been nothing more than the result of a poorly-considered, alcohol-inspired contest and merely his way of throwing her off her game, of toying with her like a cat would a mouse.
One amazing snog session in a cupboard on a drunken dare did not amount to Malfoy being one of the good guys.
So, what did she care that he was an inch away from being arrested by Yaxley and put on trial for crimes against his dark master? Knowing him, he'd probably done something far too ambitious and underhanded, and had been caught at it. Thus, he deserved what was coming for him. True, she'd never heard of him in conjunction with attacking Muggles, Snatching Muggle-borns, or killing anyone, but that hadn't meant he was innocent. It was possible he served Voldemort's goals in a more administrative way, as his father did.
She should go, forget this whole bloody plan, tell Snape that she was sorry, but...
Her conscience wouldn't let her do that. She'd made a promise to do her best, and she and the Order owed Snape more than it could ever repay. If not for his spying for their cause, for the intel he delivered at great risk to himself, the resistance would never have succeeded in destroying six horcruxes and in saving the lives of so many people. With their lesser numbers and few resources, they'd most likely have been finished off by now otherwise.
So, here she was, sent into imminent danger, all to pull a rotten ferret out of the fire, all because her former teacher and friend had asked her to save his godson... And, okay, because she couldn't forget that one time in the cupboard with Malfoy, no matter how often she'd tried with others over the years.
The things a woman would do for her friends...and for amazing orgasms.
TO BE CONTINUED...