Immoral In Devotion Skies

CHAPTER FOUR: Rising Dawn

For a time, I thought my faith, it must be hiding
Searching through the sky, hoping to find a way
A way, to get me through the day
Don't know where I belong, is this where I should stay?

Mandy Moore "Top of the World"

I am not the same person I was three significant years ago. I changed a great deal after the War; experiences were pounded, thrown and tossed too rapidly at me to handle. Thus, I changed. I had confidence, something I still possess more than my peers as I carry it high on my shoulders, except my heart no longer tolerates it as capably. It struggles, strains and grasps onto anything nearby to try and regain itself.

*

Hermione sighed with frustration as she rattled through the numerous texts strewn across her desk. Where is it? I can't find it anywhere! Hermione clenched her fists and slammed them on the table. Damn it! Slamming her fists onto the table, however, had resulted in some of her papers having fallen to the carpeted floor. She squinted her eyes at a familiar document. Realising what it was, Hermione grabbed the file triumphantly. It was a report on one of her patients. She had spent the last few weeks working on it and had finished it on Saturday night. It was due in today but unfortunately the early hours of the morning had left her memory foggy as she couldn't recall where she had exactly last placed it on her desk.

Having found her manuscript, Hermione set out to pick up the fallen pieces of paper and tidy up her desk. She had been so busy in the last few weeks working on the report, her desk had become a mess and the table was stained with marks from the bottom of coffee cups. She would need to go and get a cloth and wiped the tarnishes off. Hermione disliked mess, being a perfectionist; nevertheless, once in a while her work got the better of her.

A knock sounded on her office table. Hermione looked up from the floor. "Come in."

The last person she had been expecting popped his head round the door and said, "Is it a bad time?"

Hermione gawped at him. What was he doing here? "Malfoy."

Draco laughed. "I thought we were on first name basis' now, Hermione. My name is Draco."

"Erm - yes. Sorry... Hi," Hermione flustered awkwardly. "What you are doing here?"

"Well, I came here to ask you if you would like to come to my mansion tonight for dinner. I learnt how to cook from my house elves and I'm not too bad now. Though...I can see I came at a wrong time. Do you want me to come back later?"

Hermione blushed and stared down at the floor so Draco couldn't see the redness creeping up her face. He's asking me to dinner? At his house? "How did you get in here? There's a secretary outside who tends to let me know that there is someone to see me rather than letting them go straight through. They know I'm very busy."

Draco peered at her desk. "I can see that." He drawled, "Well...using my handsome charms" - Hermione snorted at this remark - "I persuaded the lovely secretary outside to let me in. It didn't take much. After I told her I was your boyfriend, she smiled at with such glee that she practically ushered me inside." Draco grinned.

However, Hermione stared at him, horrified. "You did not!" she exclaimed.

"I did indeed. It seems our Hermione has not had a boyfriend in a while judging by the look on your colleagues faces," Draco said smugly.

"That is none of your business!" Hermione growled.

"You know I'm the one you desire. You want to be known as my girlfriend." Draco's eyes glittered for a moment.

"Sod off, Malfoy!" Hermione glared at him.

"Such juvenile language from a woman of twenty-one! I'm disappointed in you. Haven't I already told you to call me, Draco?" Draco said gleefully. He enjoyed winding Hermione up, though he did it playfully rather than harshly.

"I have work to do...Draco!" Hermione hissed.

"I will leave you to be as long as you answer my question: Would you like to have dinner at my mansion tonight?" Draco raked his eyes over Hermione who was kneeling on the floor with her papers grasped in her hand tightly. "You're creasing your work," he added.

"We met one another again yesterday and you're already inviting me to your house for dinner? You're not a fast mover at all, are you?" Hermione said sarcastically.

"I live in a mansion not a house, and I never said it was a date. I am merely inviting you over for dinner as an ex-Hogwarts' student. No crime in that, is there? I have to say, I quite enjoyed your company yesterday and I am purely asking you if you would like to repeat it tonight."

Hermione grumbled under her breath, "Fine. I don't know where you live though."

"If I didn't know better, it would seem as if I was forcing you to come tonight. I'll pick you up from work tonight. What time do you finish?"

Hermione stood up from the floor, papers in her hand, and rubbed her knees with her other hand to get rid of the carpet marks that had been printed there. "After I give in this report and finish off my other work, I should be able to finish early at 4 o'clock. Nonetheless, I would like to go home and relax, since I haven't done so in a while. Therefore, pick me up from my house at 6 o'clock. Do you remember where my house is?"

"26 Silbury Avenue?"

Hermione nodded, and walked back to her desk and placed the creased sheets on the table. She realised Draco was still standing there watching her. She raised an eyebrow. "Well?"

Draco smiled at her and walked to the door. Just before he left, he said, "I live in Wiltshire for your information." He then went out the door.

*

Hermione quickly brushed some powder over her face and applied some pink coral lip-gloss to her pouting lips whilst staring in the mirror. Draco was arriving in five minutes, and she had just managed to set her hair in presentable ringlets. The spell she had learnt from one of her colleagues hadn't worked on her hair too well at the beginning; she had spent the last twenty minutes attempting to style her hair with the spell but it did not seem to work on very thick and curly hair. Eventually, she managed to curl her hair section-by-section to form ringlets, although the spell had stated it would instantly curl the whole of your hair in ringlets. Hermione had also fallen asleep in the bath for at least half an hour. The last two weeks at work had been havoc and she had been working overtime nearly every day, which meant that she had not a goodnight's sleep in a while. Hermione hurriedly stuffed her powder and lip-gloss in her bag, as well as a packet of tissues and other miscellaneous items she thought she might need.

The doorbell rang, and Hermione rushed downstairs and grabbed her jet-black coat, which lay on the kitchen table. She opened the front door and there stood Draco in a velvet, dark-green and silver-trimmed cloak which covered the clothes he was wearing underneath.

Hermione smiled at him as she struggled to put her coat on; she had decided to wear a coat because they would be walking through Muggle London and did not want to draw any attention to herself. However, Draco had obviously not thought of that.

Finally Hermione managed to pull her coat on with help from Draco; she whipped her wand out of her handbag and cast a spell to seal the house from any intruders. She stepped over the threshold, closed the front door, and greeted the darkening sky.

"How are we going to get to your Mansion?" Hermione asked whilst staring at Draco's profile. She admired the way his pale blond glimmered in the light and how Draco had to regularly brush a few strands of hair away from his eyes. Hermione predicted he was approximately six feet in height and his cloak emphasised this. She felt small at her height of five foot four inches in comparison to Draco's staggering height.

Draco had noticed Hermione's gaze and he used this to his advantage to make a remark. "I know you think I'm handsome and all, and by all means carry on enjoying the view, I know I'm enjoying all this attention!" Draco grinned.

Hermione scowled at him. "I'm afraid that's all in your head. Do you have a needle? I want to see whether your head would explode if I pricked you with one!" She smiled innocently at him.

Draco rolled his eyes. "We better hurry up. I still have to get back to finish off cooking. The house-elves are tending the food at the moment."

"House-elves?"

"Yes. A short creature with large bat-like ears and enormous eyes?" Draco said sarcastically.

"I know what house-elves are, thank you very much!" Hermione replied scornfully. "You said you lived with your house-elves but you didn't say they actually worked for you."

Draco sighed. "What do you think they are for? To play with?"

Hermione glared at him. "When I was in my fourth year at Hogwarts, I developed a campaign called S. P. E. W. which stands for The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. I believed that house-elves should get a decent wage, have weekends" - Draco laughed loudly - "sick leaves and pensions. However, after the War, it seemed trivial to worry about house-elves when witches and wizards were dying. Nevertheless, it does not mean I agree with house-elves working as slaves for their masters."

Draco stared at Hermione. "You're a bit heavy on this topic, aren't you? Yes, I live with my house-elves but I don't give them accommodation and food for free. They still work for me but I do not slave-drive them, as you say, like my parents use to. They more or less help me and teach me how to run the house. I do most of the cooking now for myself. They don't like what I eat so they cook for themselves. I tidy my room more often and if they have finished their tasks for the day, I don't set them more. I just tell them to go and do whatever they want, and I know they won't run off. Not only because they are bound to the family but because they like me. One of them has looked after me since I was a baby - she was basically my nanny," he added.

Hermione beamed at him. "That is wonderful! When you told me that your house-elves worked in your household, I thought you'd be slave-driving them like you did to Dobby."

Draco looked puzzled for a second then it dawned on him. "The house-elf that my father was tricked into setting free in our second year?"

Hermione giggled. "Yes, by Harry. They both developed a fondness for one another. Dobby always felt he owed something to Harry for setting him free. He enjoyed his freedom but I later realised that he was one of the few who did." She was dealing with Harry's death. She had been fine in the past year, crying only rarely but seeing Draco had been a shock and had brought back all the memories of Hogwarts when Harry was still alive.

Draco rolled his eyes more to himself than at Hermione's comment. He could not believe that he was walking along a Muggle street with a Muggle-born talking about the rights of house-elves and Wonder Boy. This is going to be one long night!

Hermione carried on chatting away but Draco's thoughts were elsewhere; he was totally oblivious that Hermione had asked him a question until she poked him hard on the arm.

He scowled at her and murmured, "What was that for?"

Hermione screwed up her mouth as she gave Draco a withering stare. "Where are we going?"

"To my mansion?" Draco stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Hermione sighed. "I know that! When are we going to actually arrive there?"

Draco didn't reply as he searched for an empty space away from all Muggle eyes so they could Apparate to his Mansion. He saw an alleyway ahead of him and turned down it with Hermione at his heels, grumbling and moaning. They went as far as they could go in the alleyway, away from the sight of anyone who would walk by. Draco grabbed Hermione's hand and Apparated the both of them.