Once Upon a Time in Mexico

Sex and candy

Hangin' round, downtown by myself,

And I had so much time,

To sit and think about myself

He disliked self-analysis, it made him that much more morose. He disliked a lot of things in his life come to think of it; most of his childhood and teenage hood he has been taught to dislike things and people. Mostly people, he acknowledged, as he poured himself another shot of tequila. This time he disliked a place because it allowed him to engage in self-analysis and he detested the results of that activity since no one likes to face bad things about themselves. He swirled the tequila around in his glass and downed it with a grimace, he certainly did not come to Mexico to drink tequila, no matter how good it was in making him pass out. He did not want to extend a week of alcoholic overindulgence any more then he had to.

And there she was

Like double-cherry pie

Yeah there she was

Like disco superfly

His evening was about to get worse he thought when he made out the features of the female figure walking towards him. She probably thrived on self-analysis; possibly did it weekly just to double-check that she has done nothing remotely evil and remained a fine upstanding citizen. He sighed and poured another shot of tequila, he really started to hate Mexico. He was about to consume it when she reached her destination at his table.

'One person I last expected to find in a Muggle hotel in the middle of nowhere in Mexico is a Malfoy. I think you just topped my list of surprises for the year.'

'Life is full of surprises Granger. I did not expect to find you in a hotel known in the underworld as a smuggler's heaven on the border of Mexico either. So there, you topped my list of surprises for the year too.' He felt this was a worthy reply.

'Touché! How's the tequila, still the best in the region?'

He almost dropped the bottle at her words; he examined the woman in front of him more closely. She has changed: her voice no longer held that annoying grating quality; if she stood still long enough she still resembled the goody-two-shoes he remembered from his past but the lines of her figure have matured, her face did not hold the same look of an aspiring schoolteacher and her hair did not command the same attention as before.

What did surprise was the face that seemed to portray an evidence of a harsher life; her figure hinted at physical beauty that was displayed in a far franker manner he would have expected of her and barely tamed chestnut waves framed her face emphasising her eyes in which sharp intellect was tinged with weariness. Yet, she seemed completely at ease with acknowledging who she was speaking with and displayed no other emotion except curiosity. She also was enquiring how good was the tequila displaying the knowledge of the spirit and the country it was produced in.

He took an empty shot glass from the middle of the table, poured some quantity of the liquid inside it and offered the glass to her. 'See for yourself.'

She accepted it, emptying the glass in one gulp and biting down on the lemon slice she has taken from the plate provided by the waiters on every table.

'Not bad, Dominic has provided an excellent batch as usual.'

He tried not to stare. Granger and hard alcohol in the same sentence had about as much sense as an American White House session held in Mecca, basically, none whatsoever. Wordlessly he offered her the bottle, which she accepted. Only then he spoke. 'All right. Who are you and what have you done to Hermione Granger?'

This elicited a throaty chuckle from a stranger now sitting opposite him. Granger, he thought, should neither be that relaxed stopping short of looking frivolous nor should she present an aura that clearly emanated that here was a woman not to be crossed. She looked completely the opposite of the dour middle-class Englishwoman she promised to become ten odd years ago.

'You did not answer my question. What on Earth, are you doing drinking tequila in a place that's being used to close deals between gun-smugglers, all Muggles, dressed as one? I also thought that Malfoys only drank wine.'

'Wine is overrated, ' he quipped taking the last slice from the plate of lemons on his table. 'It's a Muggle matter I am helping to resolve and let's just leave at that, shall we?'

She gave a non-committal shrug. 'As long as it does not invite Auror attention, I'm pretty happy.'

He tried to close his jaw for several seconds unsuccessfully, before he laughed. ' If I were to bet that Hermione Granger was hiding from Aurors ten years ago I would have been richer then all the purebloods combined.'

'It is not that kind of trouble Malfoy.' She sounded cross. He privately noted that winding her up was probably still an easy task.

She continued as her temper subsided. 'Mexican Ministry laws are somewhat antiquated regarding cursed items. I simply do not feel like spending the night explaining why a three hundred year old item is no longer cursed. They feel that antique magical objects should be kept in pristine condition cursed or not. I feel that people who unknowingly come into contact with such objects should not die. As far as I am concerned, this is just a difference in opinion.'

'You are a curse-breaker? I would have thought you'd be doing research for the Ministry and making them proud. Not practicing one of the most dangerous occupations in the wizarding world.' Despite himself, he felt impressed.

'Why? Just because I followed the rules of a boarding school when I was a girl? I'm not in school anymore; there are no professors to dictate my choice in profession or anything else for that matter.'

'I won't argue that. I think that none of us what we once were.'

He cringed silently at the pomposity of his last statement as she once again looked with those dangerously penetrating eyes of hers. Probably trying to ascertain how much of the old Malfoy still lingered. He believed there was little remaining however sometimes even that was too much. He changed the topic to escape the momentary silence.

'More tequila?'

She accepted the bottle he offered and pouring the remains of the drink waved to a nearby waiter for more bottles and slices of lemon. The young man approached with the required ingredients of conversation; at least in this place they were an essential part of any discourse. She proceeded by ordering food in fluent Spanish, at least he hoped it was mince and vegetables; his understanding of Spanish was rudimentary. The food was brought in later, she was here before he realised since she ordered the best dishes of the kitchen. Their meal was consumed in silence but slowly they started to ask each other questions, nothing serious, but after a while, they warmed to more interesting topics and actually enjoyed each other's opinions. In the end, he blamed the rain that started pounding on the windows of the restaurant.

Who's that lounging in my chair

Who's that casting devious stares

In my direction

It was certainly the rain and tequila because there was no other explanation for her leaning over and grazing his lips with her teeth as she stole a slice of lemon from his mouth. He later surmised that the incessant pounding of the rain against the windows dulled his prudence as he pulled her into his lap, took the lemon slice out of her mouth and slipped his tongue inside still tasting the tequila on her mouth. Obviously, the pounding of the rain affected her judgement too as she brought her leg over so she could straddle his lap, leaned in to him and returned his kiss with fingers buried in his hair.

He did not have a clear recollection of how they got upstairs only that he groaned when she left his lap but she pulled him to her feet to kiss her and all he could be thankful for is an automated action of grabbing the unfinished tequila bottle from the table as he followed her towards the stairs. Until he found himself in his room, hastily removing her top while she undid his belt, he could not recollect the hazy pleasurable scramble from the first floor of the restaurant to the rented room on the second floor and he really did not mind.

And there she was

In double platform suede

Yeah there she was

Like disco lemonade

Women had curves; those curves attract men. It is a simple enough axiom. He never imagined that caressing hers would make him struggle for control. He never considered the possibility that breathing in her scent as he nuzzled her neck would send the pheromones to be engraved directly into his brain or that all of his intense physical training that sculpted his muscles would be for nought when he felt her wriggling under him. He also never imagined his naked body covering hers, or that it would send her screaming over the sensory edge taking him with her.

This time self-analysis was useful when he explored her body after that first urgent tryst, marvelling that any woman who knew what he was, would scream her pleasure to the heavens at his touches. This newfound knowledge was stored safely in the back of his brain as she trekked up and down his body with her hands and mouth. Her face possessing the fascinated intense look he thought she only reserved for "Hogwarts: A History", but that book, that girl, was in another lifetime and this woman's body was in this one and on top of him, and he could not remember when last he had so little self-hate.

I smell sex and candy here

Much later into the night, drenched in each other's sweat, her leg draped lazily over his torso, using his shoulder as a pillow, he lay awake thanking Merlin that Matau was sick with fever and this assignment, of ensuring that the guns were delivered to those whose interests lay in the same direction as his superiors' fell to him. He must have dozed off since he awoke from the sensation of her body leaving his side, he protested by placing a possessive arm over her chest but that was gently yet firmly removed. He could still feel her presence nearby so he judged it safe to open his eyes. He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at an object in her hands.

'Candy? I thought you did not like eating sugar, damage to the teeth and all that.'

'I was hungry, and this is the only food you have in this room. I did not think you'd mind.' She sounded a bit defensive.

He raised his hand in a placating gesture as not to offend her. 'I don't. I still find it hard to believe to find you here, and being a curse breaker who's eating chocolate in my hotel room. About curse breaking, how did you become one? I think it would not be for the lack of offers.'

She stopped unwrapping the gold foil from the chocolate and regarded him with the earlier confident weary glint in her eye. 'How did you become a soldier of the French Foreign Legion? I think it would not be for the lack of offers.'

He tried to hide his astonishment at this statement, Hermione Granger was not only dangerous, but also has far better access to information he'd thought possible. He raised his finger as if to admonish her words. 'I asked first.'

She gave a resigned sign as she explained. 'I...was THE Hermione Granger, part of the Dream Team that defeated Voldermort, best friends with Harry Potter himself. I no longer had to prove anything to anyone, but I could no longer be useful, seemed to everyone that I spent it fighting Voldermort. I've become a figurehead instead of a person who had something to offer. This was one of the better options. Voldermort for all the danger he represented was a mainly European occurrence. I do curse breaking these days almost exclusively on the American continent and the Caribbean.'

Judging by the slight tinge of bitterness the speech possessed it was not easy being a hero in a post-Voldermort world just as it was not easy being an outcast, judged only by the erroneous fact that his money managed to save him from being branded a Death Eater. He stopped himself from reaching for a thin scar on his left arm just to check that the mark was gone. This was why he joined the largest Muggle mercenary army in the world ten years ago. However, all he said was. 'A somewhat similar situation here.'

She nodded sagely indicating that this topic was explored as much as they both would allow it. Popping another Ferrerro Rocher into her mouth, she almost purred her next sentence. 'How did you manage to get these chocolates here? They are definitely not sold in a souvenir shop.'

He could not resist a trademark smirk. 'A Malfoy, my dear, or a good mercenary for that matter always knows all the good candy stores, especially in a middle of nowhere in Mexico.'

He drawled the sentence out, getting up from the bed and snatching the rest of the chocolate in her hand that she was about to pop into her mouth. She huffed in indignation, and then smiled a wicked grin as she put the box further away from him and wrapped her legs around his hips to prevent him reaching for them. He mentally added another note that sometimes getting between a woman and her chocolates could be quite pleasurable. Afterwards, any higher brain functions shut down to give way to his senses.

They managed maybe a few hours of sleep after that, and then got woken up by the maid's knock. The blissful influence of last night's rain and tequila dissipated leaving two very polite if somewhat uncomfortable people inside a hotel room on a sunny Mexican Thursday morning. He kissed her hand in a gentleman's manner and she handed him his jacket, absently brushing some lint from its sleeves. Graciously uttering a goodbye, she walked out of his life with the same ease that she walked into it, interrupting his rather glum musings.

He went downstairs and ordered himself an English breakfast; or rather what he hoped was an English breakfast. Making himself more comfortable, he assessed his situation as one of more work and les of self-analysis. Just the way one Draco Malfoy liked it, or rather, one lieutenant John Drake of the French Foreign Legion. He tried to locate his lighter in his jacket when his fingers brushed across a piece of paper in one of the outer pockets, taking it out he read the number of a mobile phone with a British dialling code. Trying to fight a grin that was about to transform his face, he carefully placed it into the inner pocket. He did not want to know what he did right to be left with this information, because John Drake also hated self-analysis.

I smell sex and candy here

Who's that lounging in my chair,

Who's that casting devious stares

In my direction.

Mama this surely is a dream

Yeah mama this must be my dream.