The Mystery Wife

It took, all in all, about three hours to get the whole mess sorted out and the right people arrested. Their attackers turned out to have been Rodolphus Lestrange, husband of the late Bellatrix Lestrange; Rabastan, his younger brother; and of all people, Dolores Umbridge, once High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, now a high-ranking Ministry official.

She screeched and protested that she'd been under Imperius the whole time, that she was being unjustly accused, that she had no memory of how she got to Hogsmeade that night or what she'd done once she got there. Under the influence of her beloved Veritaserum, however, she and the Lestranges told an entirely different and much more interesting story, of corruption in the Ministry, of highly placed officials like herself who'd been suborned by Pius Thicknesse, while he was in power. Of Death Eaters still at large who were in regular if careful contact with those officials and each other, the organization not nearly as broken as everyone had wanted to believe.

Nor was it leaderless. After several unsuccessful attempts to resurrect the Dark Lord, the surviving Death Eaters had rallied around Ophidius Mulciber.

Not Lucius Malfoy, as Draco was quick to point out.

Lucius, they apparently regarded as a traitor, and the vehemence with which they declared it, coupled with the ever-heroic Potter's insistence that Lucius had reformed, was finally enough to obtain him a full pardon.

Draco had felt the warmth of Sevanna at his shoulder through most of the proceedings, but when his parents had come up in the interrogation, Sevanna had left rather suddenly. Draco really, seriously wished he could have done the same; it was late, he was tired and still more than a little drunk, and he had his Transfigurations NEWTs in the morning, Merlin help him. As it was, he and Potter weren't given a carriage ride back to the front doors of Hogwarts until somewhere in the vicinity of three in the morning.

He gave Potter the promised hangover cure and sent him staggering back to the Gryffindor dormitories, and he dithered in the hallway for a long moment, trying to decide whether to go straight to bed himself, or look up Sevanna, go belly up in front of her and let her kick him until it wasn't fun anymore. He'd fucked up; he supposed the least he could do was be man enough to admit it.

Draco sighed, and set off for the Headmaster's quarters. If the punishment were severe enough, maybe he could pass out midway through, and get some rest before the NEWTs tomorrow that way.

No, she'd probably just shout at him. Or worse, be sarcastic at him.

Always supposing that she'd speak to him at all.

At that thought, the bottom dropped out of his stomach. If he'd had anything left in there, he'd have thrown up. He ran down the corridors until he got to the winding stair, and came to a sharp halt in front of the gargoyle.

"Dumbledore," he mumbled, not sure the doors were going to open for him at all, this time. But they swung wide without even the briefest pause, and he stepped inside and onto the moving spiral staircase, feeling as if he were going to his doom.

He reached the top, and peered into the office. There was no one there but the portraits, many of whom were blinking down at him curiously in spite of the lateness of the hour.

"Young Master Malfoy," Phineas Black nodded graciously.

Draco bowed his head to the portrait, wishing he looked more respectable than he probably did at the moment.

"Headmaster Black," he replied. He looked around the room once more. Still no Severus Snape, neither male nor female, corporeal nor incorporeal. He bit his lip. "Have... have you seen Headmaster Snape recently?"

Black frowned at him as if trying to decide whether or not he should answer that. "He has not been seen since earlier this evening," he finally admitted grudgingly.

Draco scrubbed at his face with both hands. He-- she-- whatever-- was probably out there right now, cleaning up the last of the mess Draco and Potter had made between them. Probably Obliviating the three Death Eaters, so there would be no awkward curiosity about a relative of Severus Snape's who cast magic exactly the same way he did, and spent her time protecting Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy with it...

"Could I wait here for him to come back? I think I'd rather get this over with as fast as possible," Draco sighed.

"Don't you have NEWTs in the morning, young man?"

Well, at least this time it had been 'young man,' not 'boy.' 'Boy' was really starting to grate on him. He wasn't a boy, it had been some considerable time since he'd been one even by Wizarding standards, and he'd seen and done things in his eighteen years that had not left him innocent or unspoiled.

"Yes," Draco admitted. He looked around desperately. "What if I napped on the sofa until he gets back? I'll be as safe here as I'd be in the dormitory. Safer."

Black's portrait glanced across at Dumbledore's. "I see no reason why you should not, then," he said.

"Why, Phineas, how positively forbearing of you," Dumbledore smiled beatifically. The lights dimmed themselves obligingly, and Draco flopped down on the sofa and was instantly unconscious.

It didn't feel as if even fifteen minutes had passed when he found himself being gently shaken awake by a tiny, delicate hand.

"Draco?" Sevanna's voice was thin and exhausted, a shadow of its usual rich beauty. Draco's eyes cracked open hazily, and he forced them to focus.

She looked every bit as bad as she sounded. Blood had covered half her face from a head wound, her clothes were in tatters, and her hands were shaking. If she was still standing, and she was, it was clearly by stubbornness alone.

That, at least, she had in spades.

"Buggering hell!" Draco yelped in alarm, sitting up sharply. He abandoned the lion's share of the sofa and caught her hand, tugging her insistently down onto it. 'Are you alright?' was too fatuous to be endured; he strangled the words before they could escape.

Do something useful, damn it. For once.

"Where are your healing potions?" he asked instead.

"In the medicine chest in the bathroom, the large green bottle," she said, peeling herself off the sofa again. 'Peeling' was, unfortunately, just the word for it, as she left a positive pool of blood and sweat and Merlin knew what else behind as she rose. "Scourgify that, will you?" she asked, making her way gingerly to the Headmaster's quarters.

The portraits were mouthing advice at Draco, most of it along the lines of 'Go pick her up and carry her.'

Draco's eyes widened. 'Are you barmy?' he mouthed back. He looked wildly after Sevanna, then looked at the mess on the sofa. His brows crinkled in a sudden scowl.

"Sod the sofa," he heard himself say, quite sharply, distinctly, and in severe exasperation, and caught up with her before she'd gone more than five steps.

Apparently, he was barmy, too.

She yelped as he lifted her, and she turned and scowled up at him. "You appear to be making a habit of this."

"Shouldn't have suggested it that first time, should you?" Draco drawled with a faint, wry quirk to his mouth, carrying her carefully into the bedroom. "I found out how light you are. Don't worry, you can hex me for it later."

Sevanna sighed and nodded, letting her head flop against his chest. "Your parents and the Manor are fine," she said. "Bathroom, not bedroom. I need to wash up. And you need to get downstairs to breakfast."

"I'll get the house elves to bring me tea and toast," Draco scoffed. He changed course and walked a little slower, shifting her closer, telling himself firmly that it was so he wouldn't jostle her. "As if I could eat anything else right now. Of course, they attacked the Manor-- or were going to. You didn't look like this when you left. Who?"

"About a dozen of the remaining Death Eaters. Lucius and Narcissa look like quite the badasses at the moment, as do you and Potter. I must say, for a ghost, I am rather pleased."

A wave of her wand started a bath in the enormous black marble bathtub. If the Prefects' bath was gorgeous, and it was, it didn't hold a candle to the Headmaster's decadent Roman confection, which sported its own small waterfall.

Sevanna stashed her wand again, and her fingers fumbled at the remaining buttons of her black silk blouse with uncharacteristic clumsiness.

Draco closed his eyes tightly for a long moment. "I," he muttered under his breath, "am amply punished."

He opened them again when he thought he was under control, looked quickly around the room for portraits, then sighed, settled her on the rim of the tub and brushed her hands away from her ruined blouse. "Sit down and let me. You've done enough for one evening-- I'd rather you not actually become a ghost, thanks. Especially since it would be my fault."

Her black eyes focused on his with difficulty, a little bleary, a little wary. But she made no move to stop him, lodged no protest. "This was not exactly how I planned this moment," she murmured, her head lolling forward, her upper body pitching along with it so that Draco had to catch her to keep her from falling.

"Whoa," he found himself saying, as if she were a flighty thestral. He sank to his knees in front of her, letting her rest her head against his collarbone. It wasn't comfortable by any stretch, but just at the moment, he wasn't complaining.

And then her words hit him like the Hogwarts Express.

She'd planned a moment where he'd be undressing her? And/or putting her into a bath?

She was half-naked and thoroughly out of it. Pick the safer option.

Especially because he was going to have to peel her out of the tight black pants next, and they weren't nearly shredded enough to make that anything but an exercise in self-torture. Pale skin winked at him through the rents in the dark cloth, its smooth perfection marred with bruises and burns.

Draco really thought he would have given years of his life, for the ability to kiss those marks away.

No. Bleary and injured and incapable of even standing up on her own, for Merlin's sake...

"You planned for me to put you into a bath?" he quipped breathlessly. "Sounds lazy."

"I like baths," she said dryly, her voice muffled by his shoulder, her breath warm on his skin. Even soaked in blood and sweat, her hair smelled of spices. The last button on her blouse came undone in Draco's fingers, and he peeled it away gently, trying to summon the usual images of Argus Filch having it off with Madam Pince, to keep himself from being unduly interested in the proceedings.

It wasn't working.

He threw Peeves in on top of them, and strangely, even that wasn't distracting him from the fact that he was slowly undressing Sevanna.

Unhooking her bra, and drawing the straps down gently over her shoulders.

Not looking not looking not looking definitely not touching... Argus Filch and Hagrid Argus Filch and Hagrid on a cold day...

She shivered against him as her bra fell to the floor, her breathing as unsteady as his.

He eased her boots off next, one at a time, and then her torn and bloodstained trousers, while Hagrid, Argus Filch, Irma Pince and the Giant Squid all had a mad, thoroughly unsexy orgy in his head. It was the only thing keeping him sane, as all that soft pale flesh was finally bared to his gaze.

Not gazing. So not gazing.

Not even glancing.

Well, okay, glancing. A little.

He eased her into the water as if she were made of spun glass. A wave of her hand sent the green glass bottle of healing potion to sprinkling itself liberally into the bathwater. "Thank you," she murmured, letting her head loll back against the edge of the tub for the moment. "Now, go firecall your parents and reassure yourself they're alright, and then go eat something before your exams. I'll undoubtedly spend the next hour of life here in the tub. And stop staring at my breasts."

Draco blinked. He hadn't been staring, exactly. It was just that the pink tips of them were jutting rather proudly out of the water, and they were impossible to ignore.

He turned a scalding shade of peuce, but some devil prompted him to say, in as dignified a tone as he could manage when he had no air, "Admiring is not the same thing as staring, thank you. And I hardly see how I could be expected not to do that."

And then, in the finest traditions of Slytherin House, having made at least an attempt at the last word, Draco fled.