Disclaimer: If I were JKR, I would definitely not have titled my seventh book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows or something equally vague, cryptic, and confusing!

A/N: New Year’s Resolution? Write more! . . . Um, this hasn’t much to do with the mystery plot as it does with the other interesting part of the story – namely, Draco and Hermione and just what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks is going on there. . . and um, this chapter is about as close to racy as I’m willing to get. So that should mean something to you.

A thousand thank yous to my fabulous beta Ronnie! I heart you.

The Missing Keeper

The moon was coming through the blinds, casting soft zebra patterns across the floor, when I heard the latch on the door click and watched the door ease open. It must have been somewhere between too late and too early, depending on what side of bed you were on, and my comfortable position from the couch gave me an unimpeded view of the witch as she closed the door softly and moved toward her desk, un-tucking her shirt from her skirt as she progressed.

The lights remained off, the moon’s faint glow the only thing keeping my presence from being noticed – for the time being anyway. And I was having a good time, watching her . . . as she slowly began unbuttoning her blouse. I nearly stirred at my fortune but held my ground. There was no rush.

She slipped the blouse from her shoulders and it silently cascaded to the floor. She stretched her arms fully to the ceiling as if some hidden force was pulling her upwards, inhaling as she did so, only to exhale sadly as her arms fell to her sides as if dismissed from heaven. If I were Heaven, I would never reject her. But if I were Heaven, then there’d be a lot of people in trouble.

Massaging her neck, she stepped out of one heel, then the other, and discarded them near the door.

She sighed and stood in silence, eyes closed, breathing deeply through parted lips. Blindly, she removed the pins from her hair and shook her curls free, letting them bounce upon her bare shoulders, gracing the curve of her chest.

Her hands traveled to her zipper and it was only when her skirt was halfway removed from her hips that I realized the delicate position I was in. No that was a lie – I realized that years ago – but that didn’t mean I wasn’t about four inches away from having my tongue hexed out.

I flicked on a lamp and Granger froze, half bent with her skirt hanging precariously off the curve of her backside. Oh, to be the skirt upon such a precipice.

“Now is the part where I tell you you’re not alone.”

Her back straightened sharply and, still holding on to her skirt, she turned to me with such cold anger etched on her face that I was certain I was soon to be on the receiving end of a spectacular scolding and possible hexing. I rose from the couch and stood in front of her, preparing for the worst.

Imagine my surprise when her expression dropped, along with her skirt, to one of complete neutrality. She stood before me now wearing only a white satin bra and matching panties, the color of which shone brightly in the moonlight. And by stood, I actually meant that she was walking towards me with a predatory glint to her eye that sent shivers down my spine.

She was less than six inches from me and I was expecting something very exciting when, to my disappointment, she reached around me and plucked up my makeshift pillow from the couch. Sniffing at me haughtily and clutching the pillow to her chest, she said: “I’m not going to ask you how you got in –”

“You don’t have to ask, I’ll tell you. The door.”

“- but the least you could do is turn around.”

She was trying to be tough but I could sense the uneasiness and the little bit of hurt in her voice.

“It’s not as if I haven’t seen –” The pillow glanced off my shoulder.

“Please.” It wasn’t so much a request as an order.

I obliged, if only for the vulnerability I saw in her. I heard a series of shuffling sounds and a few mumblings of things about me I’m sure I was not supposed to hear but did. Something about being an inconsiderate, uncouth, peeping-tom. I’m fairly certain I’ve never peeped before.

Eventually I turned without permission and observed her sitting behind her desk, fully dressed (unfortunately) in linen pajamas, staring at me and massaging her neck once more.

“You can’t just barge in here whenever you –”

“What’s wrong with your neck?” I asked, but I’d already started crossing the span of her office.

“What? . . . Nothing. Don’t change the subject. You can’t break into my office whenever you feel like it, Malfoy. There’s a thing called privacy and you severely imposed on . . . What are you doing? Stop it! Don’t touch me – don’t . . . ohh . . .” She moaned softly under my finger tips as I began massaging the intense knot under her skin. She squirmed beneath my hands as I rubbed harder and she gasped in pain but growled, “harder, to the left!” between clenched teeth. She sighed in relief as I worked through the knot and began a search of her back and shoulders for any more.

I found a few more and worked my way through them as well. I wondered how she could be so tense when she spends her days in the company of elves – then retracted my thought. Anyone who spends as much time as she does in the presence of squeaky, whiny, annoying elves, discussing retirement options is bound to suffer tense muscles, if not insanity. At least I would.

Her soft moans came to a stop and I finished with the last knot. Unable to remove my hands from her body, I ran them along her lower back, then her waist, and up her arms to her neck.

“Stop,” she said, but I ignored it, running my fingers through her hair and relishing the feel of her curls against my skin. I gently massaged her head, turning already tangled curls into unruly ones, and I marveled at how easily my palms could crush her fragile head between them. I marveled even more at her trust.

“Stop,” she said again, with more force. I rubbed my fingers against her temple and she was silenced again, for a moment at least. I leaned over and breathed her in deeply, something sweet and clean and unmistakably her.

Before I realized it, I was thrown back and my head hit against the wall. I saw stars and other lights flash in front of my eyes and the vision of an incensed brunette fuming at me. I knew the former would pass but not the latter, sadly.

“I said ‘stop!’ I don’t want you touching me,” she said but the words didn’t make it above the ringing I heard in my head. I raised my hand to where it hurt, withdrew it as I felt a stinging pain, and registered that there was blood on my hand. Oh yeah.

She gasped and rushed to my aid, prodding her angry fingers over my head until she discovered the source, only as a result of me growling with pain as she non-so-gently stuck a finger in the wound. I knew she did it on purpose and I growled to let her know of my disproval. She helped lead me to the sofa where she could get a better angle. I got a better angle too, as my nose was pressed into her soft chest and I was given an unhindered view of what’s down her shirt. I forgave her immediately.

I vaguely noticed her pull out her wand and utter a healing spell; the wound closed, but the pain did not recede. It is well known that Hermione Granger is one of the best emergency trained Healers of my acquaintance. The fact that I was still feeling pain was no coincidence.

“I didn’t do this to you,” she said, leaning back on her heels. I thought I heard a trace of disappointment in her words and I scoffed at her. She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. “Who did?”

“Head . . . pain . . . still hurts,” I grumbled, lamenting the loss of my previously excellent view.

“I’m not going to heal the pain until you tell me where you’ve been.” She crossed her arms and sat back even further. I closed my eyes and growled into the vinyl of the couch. The ringing had stopped but the stars still blinded me, even beneath my eyelids. The throbbing soon began and I felt the back of my head heat up as my pulse sent more blood toward the inner wound.

“Draco.”

“I ran into a fist,” I said. “Twice.”

“Whose fist?”

“Good question. I’d like to know that answer myself.”

“Where were you? What were you doing?” she said with increasing impatience.

“Saving the world, what else?”

She sighed irritably and got up from the floor. “You know, this is exactly the cavalier attitude of yours I hate. Your total lack of respect for yourself and your body is why I can’t be with you. I am sick and tired of finding you crumpled up in your office, or mine, with black eyes and bloody gashes all over. Where are you going to draw the line? What have you to atone for? And for what price – your life? When is enough enough? When you’re dead? Well that’s too late for me. I won’t sit around and watch you kill yourself.”

A few tears dropped from her eyes when she finished and she looked around, as if grasping for an escape. She tended to do this when she cried – run, as if tears were the most embarrassing thing in the world. But that’s not true – waking up unconscious, unsure of where you are or why you’re there, having no idea how much time passed, because you got blindsided by a thug (or two), when you should’ve known better is.

The door closed softly behind her and I half expected it to swing open again with her and her second wind. It didn’t happen.

I pried myself off the sofa and hobbled toward the door – I swayed a bit and I realized I was more than a little dizzy, but I got there, opened it, and found her just down the hall, sitting against the wall outside my office, with her wand lying beside her, crying.

My body followed the wall down until I was sitting beside her and I pulled her into my arms; she cried and I felt worse with every tear that fell. Mostly because I knew I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t stop. And she cried all the more because she knew it too.

“You don’t have to do this,” she sniffed.

Yes I do.

“I know.”

“Please stop.” She looked at me with big, wet eyes that were tired of having this conversation with me.

No.

“Let me finish this one. Last case, I promise.” I lied.

She smiled wanly and her eyes dropped to her lap. It’s what she wanted to hear but she didn’t believe it. She’s too smart for my tricks.

She picked up her wand, touched my head and muttered a spell that relieved the pain – at least the one in my head. I stood and offered her my hand. She accepted it and I picked her up into my arms, whispered an unlocking charm at my door, carried her into my office, mutely charmed out the bed from the couch in the reception, and laid her down on it.

We stared at each other for a few moments, intimating a thousand things between the crinkles in the corner of her eyes and the furrow in my brow. She didn’t blink once when her fingers began slow but deft work of her pajama top buttons.

She didn’t smile either as I pulled my shirt up over my head, uncovering ugly scars from past battles. I turned from her and rubbed my hand over my chest, feeling the raised bumps of the old wounds, aware that the fire in Hermione’s eyes were burning new ones into my back as I stepped out of my trousers.

I then turned back to her slowly. She was laying there in the soft light, her top opened and framing her smooth torso, the swells of her breasts rising with every breath, and I wanted so much more to stand there, watch her, and preserve that image forever.

I frowned to myself as I turned out the lights and I wondered why this time, like every other time, I couldn’t tell her the truth.

Then I saw the smile that ghosted her lips when I lay down beside her and saw the fire inside her eyes that reduced me to ash so easily. I would gladly walk through the flames for her. And that’s when I remembered.