Minding the Shop

"Sadly, being in the Order of the Phoenix is not a paid position, Mother," Hermione reiterated to her mother as to why she was still running the bookstore when she had "another job." She turned to look at her husband Ron who was still rather amazed at the concept of cellular phone technology. In its own way it was like magic, really. Why couldn't Muggles believe in real magic? He looked like he was going to ask about "satatalites" again so she turned back around to give her summation to her mother.

"So no, I'm sorry that we will not be able to make it home for Christmas. The war is all but won, but we'll still need to be available on rather short notice and by means that wizards are able to contact us by. But I am certain that we will make it next year. OK? Great. Love you too, mum," she said quietly as a new customer entered the shop. "Goodbye," she said and then clicked the red phone icon to close the call and she slid the device into the desk.

She nodded politely to the customer who headed immediately to the fiction section. "That was a close one," Ron commented about the wizard who had just come in as she put away the phone. Godric's Hollow was fairly liberal but Muggle technology still seemed to put some people on edge. The Weasleys were not wealthy by a far stretch of the imagination. Ron's family had never had much in excess of what they needed and Hermione's family's money was in Muggle money, which converted rather unfavorably to Galleons.

Still they had managed to scrape together enough money to buy out the booksellers already there that were looking to retire in the hills of Spain. And so it was that their post-Hogwarts years were spent selling books by day and fighting for the Order at night or on weekends as they could spare it.

Hermione smiled a little at her idealism that after Voldemort was dead that the war would be over. Not so, there were several to try to claim the leadership after that and it became a rather tangled hydra of politicking and spies. The Death Eaters had never quite recovered from the loss of their most powerful and feared leader, however, and so the threat had diminished with each successive leader.

Mostly Hermione helped with code breaking and Ron, well, he made sure everyone was amused anyways. She stood and looked out the window, the nights were starting earlier now and there was a fine mist of snow that painted everything in a fine patina of nearly glowing white. Maybe it was her imagination, but snow in the wizarding world just seemed brighter, less sullied.

She stepped to the side away from the many moving, begging point of sale items for impulse buys to make room for the wizard who had made a selection of a few books. She glanced down at the titles, which included mostly preteen fare. She remembered "Adalia Faith: Witch Sleuth" fondly from her Hogwart's years. It was rare that she read anything other than textbooks since she had felt so madly compelled to prove herself worthy of being picked out of a Muggle life. When she did read them, they were sweeter than Chocolate Frogs, a lovely confection of words that could take her out of even this new magical world and into another of mystery and intrigue. Now she had more of the intrigue than she could stand.

Ron took the man's money and returned his change and bundled the books up in a bag and handed it to the stranger who thanked him. "Happy Christmas!" Ron said, which prompted Hermione to stop her reminiscing long enough to repeat the phrase. The wizard nodded and headed out the door. The streets looked fairly empty with the impending storm.

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to close now," Hermione said after consulting the clock. Half an hour wasn't really worth waiting around for when there was a storm on its way. "I'll set up the security," she said definitively. "You count down the register."

Ron simply nodded at the division of duties and pulled his wand, "Resolutus X." The register then started clicking and clanking, resolving itself of what the profits were and setting the money out in a little bag along with a parchment receipt for their records.

Hermione stood in the middle of the store and said, "Mesmerus Literatus Animatus Securitus." The spell had been her idea and it took a while of working on it to find how to make it work correctly. She was extraordinarily proud of it. What it did was to enchant all of the book covers in the store with their wiggling illustrations or photographs that were already rather captivating, to actually mesmerize those who looked upon them for too long. Of course, Ron and Hermione knew better than to stand there staring at their books, they saw them day in and day out. They didn't dawdle in the store, however, not wanting to get stung by their own security.

What Hermione liked best about the system is that it left the intruder there, lost in their own thoughts about the book, completely unaware of things changing around them. So all they had to do was to come in, spot the intruder, disarm them (which wasn't hard to do since they wouldn't go far from the book cover and scarcely noticed their presence) and leg lock them in place till the authorities could arrive.

It was completely humane, and no one got hurt.

**

Draco Malfoy had not kept up with his classmates at all. In fact, he had been pretty well on the run since Voldemort's death. The Manor was long since seized and even most of the Black fortune was forfeit unless he went in to get it, which meant exposing his whereabouts, which were sadly, no where particularly permanent. He'd had to remain on the run since he'd killed a few members of the Order, including Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas.

He was a murderer on the run, and he needed some cash. He was low on food, Godric's Hollow wasn't known for its support of Death Eaters and in fact he had no friends here. Even buying food here was a risk, but he was skilled in glamours or at least skilled enough to not be recognized during peak hours at a grocer's. His stomach grumbled as he shivered and approached the bookstore. It was innocuous enough and at least it might be warm. He thought he might sleep a few hours, take what was left in the register and be out before dawn.

Draco was a little surprised that the door was so easy to open, at least by his standards. There again, this was hardly Gringott's. Booksellers didn't likely have the high level of pillaging that Honeyduke's might. He fondly remembered breaking into that store with the now fallen Crabbe and Goyle. Not because they didn't have money, simply for the sheer impish joy of doing what they shouldn't. As he recalled they were never caught, or if they were, his father had paid it off and kept it quiet. It didn't really matter then and certainly didn't matter now.

By now he had become a fair expert at breaking and entering. Four years on the run will teach you a lot of things, but sadly it did not teach him to be wary of hidden traps in bookstores. He shuffled in with his backpack that had a couple of changes of clothing and a sleeping bag. It was all he truly owned in the world now. His eyes skimmed the books and looked up to see the sections clearly delineated for his ease of pilfer.

He smirked a bit. "Romance" He'd certainly not had much of that in his life of late. Maybe he'd never really experienced love. Not really. At Hogwarts he'd always thought he'd have time to sort through the girls, choose one to marry. Then he'd been disgraced and many of the birds had flown away then. Not that it mattered, he was soon enough fully engaged as a Death Eater and simply didn't have time or the inclination to put anyone he might be with in that sort of danger. He wasn't a virgin by a long shot, but romance? Never.

He headed over to the section with his bag and unrolled it. It wouldn't hurt to do a bit of reading before getting a couple of hours respite and then he'd clean the register and on to the next town. Looking at the myriad of titles, his eyes finally fixed on "Vixen the Veela." He snorted, that was rather a stupid title, even by bodice ripper standards. Still, he stared at it. Like the Veela themselves, the cover seemed to be drawing him in. He wondered what the book might be about. Well, Veela, obviously.

He pictured the Veela he'd seen at the World Cup and remembered how supposedly they were related in some distant way to them. He couldn't recall the precise story he was told about it right now. Presently he could feel the strange preternatural touches of a Veela next to him. Her body was smooth and soft and seemed to be touching him all at once and also not at all.

He closed his eyes as he felt his heavy coat falling off of his shoulders; the fur cap with the flaps was untied and cast aside. In reality he was doing this to himself, but in his mind the enchanting Veela was sliding her hands over him, across his chest and down his back, peeling off his layers of sweaters and the dirty button down shirt till finally the sodden t-shirt.

The beautiful woman with the long silvery hair enticed him with her peculiar sensual dance in front of his eyes. He reached out to touch the glowing flesh and she smiled at him before kneeling down. Her long, pale hands unbuckled his trousers and slid them along with several pairs of long underwear down his legs and he kicked them off. Her beautiful face seemed to radiate pleasure at his erection that stood out before her pale features. First she nuzzled it a bit with her nose as her lips trailed small kisses up and down the shaft. Her tongue would press out from between her glowing lips now and then to leave small traces of saliva on his engorged length that made him shiver not only from the pleasure of it, but also from the chill of the air blowing over his heated organ.

Then her tongue came fully out of her mouth and traced under his shaft and then cupped it. She took her time with teasing him, running her tongue lovingly over the head of his cock and then gliding her tongue over him gently. He wasn't sure how long this was going on for and he didn't much care. It just felt so exquisite to be gently handled and to have someone other than himself doing it.

Draco's eyes closed and his head lolled back. He felt like the whole room was radiating with her light as finally she engulfed him completely. He could feel her head bobbing on him as she relaxed her throat so that he could feel her silken warmth engulfing him. "Oooh... yes... Merlin, yes... like that..." he moaned to the beautiful creature.

Hermione, however, did not see a Veela in her bookstore that morning. The light that Draco thought was from this magical creature was, in fact, daylight. All she saw was an angular chapped and ruddy faced blonde man standing stark naked in the middle of her store stroking himself wildly. Her lips parted for a moment as she tried to think of something to say, but then it clicked in to her that this person was likely mesmerized and had no clue as to her presence.

She leaned down and rifled through the clothing for a moment till she found the man's wand and then stood up to peer at his peculiarly familiar face. Had she not been so consumed in trying to place this face or disarming the wizard, she might have realized that she had a limited amount of time to end the spell before things got messy. As it was she had just come to realize that this was the dreaded Draco Malfoy when she felt something warm and wet on her hand.

"Eww! Oh... just... ew!" she squealed a bit squeamishly. She turned around and saw that some of the books had experienced the same fate as she just had and shuddered in disgust. Had he been standing here all night jerking off? It would seem so. Her nose wrinkled and her face screwed up as she headed to the bathroom to try to wash it off of her. She'd had no idea that someone might get trapped in the Romance section and have this happen. She really needed to revisit this security system plan.

Looking up in the mirror, Hermione contemplated her awkward reunion with Draco Malfoy and wondered what it was she should do with him. Should she wake him now and cackle at his discomfort or should she wait for Ministry Officials to come and get him? A very small bit of her conscience thought perhaps she should take pity on the boy, he would be headed for the Dementor's Kiss for certain for killing on behalf of the Death Eaters. But two of those wizards had been friends and housemates of hers. While she disagreed vehemently with the Kiss-penalty, she really couldn't just let him go.

She walked back out to where Draco was standing, still pleasuring himself. Her brows furrowed for a moment. She walked over to the register and pulled out a piece of parchment and wrote a quick note to the Ministry and walked to the owlry next door. She watched the bird take flight sadly, but it had to be done.

While it was tempting to allow the Ministry to come in to see this scene, she instead opted to end it. "Finite Incantatem," she said clearly and with a swish of her wand, the books were no longer mesmerizing and Draco Malfoy's head slowly moved up and he blinked a few times and looked around.

First he seemed to notice that there was no Veela in the room with him. Then it occurred to him that his hand was stroking his own member. He shivered a bit and realized that it was cold and that he was, in fact, naked. Finally he registered through the sound of quiet snickering that he was not alone. He whirled around and saw none other than Hermione Granger.

Unlike him, she hadn't changed much over the years. But there again, being on the run wasn't like being in a day spa. She'd gained a bit of weight whereas he appeared gaunt, his face was ruddy and chapped from the cold although the rest of his body was as fish-belly pale as ever. "Enjoying the show, you filthy little Mudblood?" he growled at her.

"Nice to see you too, Malfoy. Stupefy," she said calmly while flicking her wand.

Well, she'd tried to play it nicely with him, anyways.

**

Hermione smiled and shook Kingsley's hand after they'd had a hearty giggle about Malfoy's state of capture. Ron had already been into the store and then gone back out to brag to the other merchants about their brave capture of the dangerous murderer Draco Malfoy.

Tonks' current choice of nose wrinkled a bit and she said, "Looks like he stained the bottom couple of shelves of Romance novels."

Hermione sighed a little and nodded. "Nothing for it, though. Going to have to throw them out."

The currently orange-haired Auror winked and said, "I don't know, I bet you could probably sell them as collectors items on Wiz-bay."

It was Hermione's turn to wrinkle her nose and in reply to the idea of auctioning semen-stained Romance novels simply said, "Ew."

"I'm sure you'll be up for an Order of Merlin for this," Kingsley assured her.

Hermione snorted as Tonks pulled her wand and cast "Mobilicorpus" on Malfoy's erect and now magically clothed body to take back to the Ministry.

"Oh, that's not necessary, really," she said with a modest blush. "I didn't do anything at all. I was just minding the shop."