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Hermione quickly cast a shielding charm as the ghost before her shrieked and dove into a large bowl of chocolate cake batter. The sticky mixture splattered on the bench, the floors, cooker, and cabinetry--everywhere but on the diminutive witch. Gazing at the mess surrounding her, Hermione heard a gasp from behind her. Without taking her eyes off the mixing bowl, she addressed the middle-aged witch in whose kitchen she was standing.
"Mrs. Abernathy, please return to the parlour."
"But my poor Lydia--"
Hermione interrupted the older witch. "Is throwing a temper tantrum worthy of a toddler. What triggered this?"
"It's her deathday coming up. I was going to make her a special meal." Mrs. Abernathy sighed. "I know she can't eat, but I remember the Fat Friar saying once, when I was a girl at Hogwarts, that he could almost taste food when it was spoiled."
Hermione vaguely remembered Harry's description of Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party and shuddered.
"How . . . thoughtful."
"A nice dinner is the least she can do," a youthful voice screeched from the mixing bowl on the bench. "She caused my death, after all!"
Pain radiated from behind Hermione's right eye. "Lydia, I read the reports, and the inquiry ruled that your death was an accident. Had you not snuck away to meet your friend on a pitched roof on a rainy day, you would not be a ghost today."
The only thing your mother had to do with your unfortunate death was give birth to you, Hermione thought as she rubbed at her right temple.
"You take that back!" The bowl clattered on the work surface, splattering batter as it hopped toward Hermione.
Raising her wand, she cast a sticking charm on the bench. With the bowl immobilised, Hermione spoke.
"Lydia, not only are you wasting perfectly nice chocolate cake batter, and making a mess of your mother's kitchen, you are also desperately close to," she paused to make sure that the ghost was actually listening, "sharing the loo at Hogwarts with Moaning Myrtle."
And let's not forget, you're giving me a terrible headache, Hermione added silently. Honestly, the headaches her ex-husband induced were never this bad.
"You wouldn't!"
"Not my baby!"
Hermione pursed her lips and fought the urge to roll her eyes.
As she was about to speak further, a silvery walrus appeared between her and the cake bowl.
"Ms. Granger, your presence is required immediately at a crup breeding facility one mile north of Lichfield in Staffordshire." The walrus cocked its head at Hermione. "You will be assisting Theodore Nott from the Beast Division there. Make haste."
Hermione gaped at the vanishing Patronus. Once the final wisps disappeared, she cleared her throat and gathered her thoughts.
What kind of trouble can a ghoul possibly get into at a crup facility?
"Right. Well I'd best be going. Good day, Mrs. Abernathy. Lydia, I'll hold you to your promise."
Turning on her heel, Hermione Disapparated with a pop.
~*~*~
When Hermione arrived, a short wall of flame burst less than a metre before her. Staggering back, she quickly cast a flame repelling charm on herself, thankful that she'd tamed her hair into a bun that morning. The next moment the fire all but disappeared, and she had a moment to glance around.
A short way off, there was a small crup puppy whining, eyes wide.
"Oh no, poor thing," Hermione said, as she approached it. "Are you injured?"
"Watch out!"
A hand grasped her arm and a man pulled her body into his. He sidestepped them to safety as another burst of flame shot from the puppy's mouth.
"What in Merlin's name is going on here?" Hermione demanded, pulling her arm free before taking a couple of steps away from him.
"Granger, is that you?"
"Nott, I presume," she replied. "I thought I was being called to consult on a ghoul, or something. Why did a puppy shoot flames at me just now?"
Nott ran a hand through his dark, wavy hair, drawing her attention to the burns on his hand.
"Welcome to Lane's Crups," Nott said wryly, "home to the infamous new dragon-crup hybrid, according to an ad that ran in The Rogue's Bargaineer this morning."
"You've got to be kidding me." Hermione blinked at him a few times, processing the absurdity of what he'd said. The Rogue's Bargaineer was a printed cesspool of adverts for anything straddling the fine line of legality that the discerning witch or wizard of ill repute could possibly want.
I shouldn't be surprised that Edvicia Lane would blatantly publicise her illegal activities, Hermione mused. After all, she used to sell unaltered crups to Muggles on the regular.
He thrust his blistering left hand closer to her face as he dragged her body into his, dodging the path of another shot of fire. "I wish I was only joking."
"But Edvicia Lane had her crup breeding license revoked last year after--"
"After stealing six dragon semen samples from the Welsh reserve," Nott interrupted her. "We thought we'd repossessed the lot of it, but that obviously was not the case. And despite having no license, she carried on as per normal," he shrugged, seeming to have forgotten he was still holding her. "The MLE are already looking for her."
"Stop manhandling me." Hermione wrested herself from his grasp again. "Why am I here?"
"Then stop almost getting fried to a crisp by the miniature fire-breathing fluff ball," Nott retorted, this time pushing her forward as he shielded her from another blast.
"As to why you're here . . ." he trailed off watching her put out the fire that had caught on the bottom edge of his robes. "Well, there are two reasons. I am the only one in my division not out on our current top priority assignment."
Hermione looked at him during the pause. His nose scrunched up briefly, disgusted at something before smoothing into a mask of calm professionalism.
"And you are the only one, aside from our dragon keepers at the reserves, who has any experience with drago--"
Hermione cut him off by pulling him from another spurt of flames.
"Thanks."
Hermione cast a flame retardant spell on his robes before speaking again. "So, no one in Beast Division has been around a dragon off-reserve but me. How many little fire-breathers are there?"
The crup puppy sneezed, blasting flames between the colleagues. They reeled apart but when the flames died down, Hermione rushed back to his side.
"Not sure." Nott shrugged. "No humans were in the area to ask when I arrived."
"Well, at least there is nothing flammable in this area," Hermione said as she pointed her wand towards the puppy. Sparing a glance at Nott, she took charge. "We need rocks. summon as many as you can discreetly. We will make a pen, and then see how many there are after."
Turning her attention back to the fuzzy flamethrower, she began levitating nearby rocks to outline the pen. Distracted, the pup began toddling after the rocks as they floated in the air.
"Wish I'd have thought to distract you sooner," she murmured. The pup was a wobbly walker. Every few steps he would trip over his own feet, which looked too big to belong to such a little creature.
As she watched the little crup toddling around, her mind drifted back to Nott. It had been a while since she'd been handled by a man... not since the divorce really. Sure she'd been on dates--lot of first dates. Nothing physical though.
And those moments when she and Nott had been dodging the fire had been physical. Much like a rumba, with forceful motions, joining and separating . . .
Get a grip, Granger, she chastised herself. Focus on the job.
She'd nearly exhausted the rock supply in her immediate vicinity, which only yielded enough to make a small enclosure one metre long by two metres wide. The puppy had curled up in the pen after the she finished laying the foundation for the second side.
The sound of rocks settling nearby, drew her attention from her task. After making sure the rock she was levitating was settled in place, Hermione dropped her wand hand to her side and turned.
"How did you get it to fall asleep?" Nott stared at her, his jaw slack.
Hermione smirked. "He played himself out by chasing the rocks I was levitating."
"Please tell me it really wasn't that easy."
Hermione laughed. "It was."
Nott glared at her before pointing his wand at the pile of rocks he'd brought with him. "How high were the flames?"
Hermione tilted her head as she considered the question. "Higher than a metre, but not as tall as me. If we build the walls up to one and a half metres, we should be fine."
He nodded and continued moving rocks in silence.
Hermione took advantage of the calm to catch her breath. Glancing over at Nott, she felt a twinge of envy. He'd been on-site longer than she, yet showed no signs of fatigue or stress. Even the burns he showed her earlier seemed to not affect his concentration. Each rock he placed on the growing wall was set silently so as to not wake the pup.
Remembering the burn on Nott's hand, she reached into a pocket in her robes and retrieved a first aid kit. She pulled two small containers out before walking over to her colleague.
"I have wound-cleaning potion and burn-healing paste," she told him, handing him a vial of purple fluid and a ceramic pot. "Go clean your burns. I can move rocks for a while. And don't be alarmed if the potion smokes--it's normal."
~*~*~
Theo looked at the containers the commanding, yet petite, witch handed him, wondering just where she kept them.
Things were in chaos when Granger arrived, he acknowledged, but I bloody well would have noticed glass jars smashing into me when I was pulling her away from the flames earlier. Maybe?
"Those burns aren't going to heal themselves, you know."
Startled, Theo looked up to find her staring at him, brow quirked.
"Burns? Oh, right," he said. "I almost forgot I had these." He took a few steps to a nearby boulder. After sitting down, he placed the vial and pot side by side then pulled a clean handkerchief from his robes.
Theo uncorked the wound-cleaning potion first and poured some of the purple fluid on his left hand. The stinging that the potion created as it cleaned his burnt skin made him hiss. As the sensation wore off, he replaced the vial's cap and reached for the ceramic pot.
He removed the lid and found a brush, coated in orange goo, attached to the inside. Shaking his head, he stared blankly at the unusual lid-brush combination before he dabbed some of the paste on his burnt skin. After using his handkerchief to bandage his wounds, Theo glanced at the witch who'd been sent to help him, wondering if the jar and lid were her own design.
She always was a clever one. He recalled her from Hogwarts, though she seemed to not recognise him. They'd been in the same year, but with him being sorted into Slytherin and her into Gryffindor, they never bothered to get to know each other.
Had anyone asked him about Granger, even earlier that morning, he wouldn't have had much he could say. He remembered how eagerly she gave answers in class at Hogwarts, but hadn't seen much of her since they completed their repeated Seventh Year after the war.
Even working in the same department at the Ministry, they rarely saw each other. Spirit Division was considered something of an oddity, and rarely worked with the other divisions.
It's strange Vickers doesn't have her working in either Beast or Beings, he thought as he watched her settle a rock carefully.
The wall, which had been at his hip height when she sent him to clean his burns, was now more than halfway up Granger's torso. As she looked over the wall, the rocks pressed into her robes, hinting at her feminine figure.
Surprised at the turn his thoughts were taking, Theo looked away from the tantalising sight. Remembering the reason he'd taken a break from wall building in the first place, he gathered the first aid potions she'd told him to use and stood up.
Remember you still have a job to do, he reminded himself as he approached her. Keep it professional.
"That should be a good height for the wall," he said, holding the potions out to her. "Thanks for letting me use these, by the way."
Granger took the vial and pot from him, slipping them back into her inside pocket. "I hope they helped."
"They certainly did," he confirmed.
She opened her mouth to speak when her brow furrowed. She looked around before facing him. "Do you smell something burning?"
Theo sniffed the air. "Faintly. If we are lucky, we can contain it before it becomes a conflagration."
"Barn first? It's a stone structure but the roof is thatch."
Theo nodded. "It likely has wooden supports. Let's go." He set off at a jog, Granger close behind. Once he reached the barn door, he stopped and laid his hand on it, checking its temperature.
"Well," she huffed. "Is it safe to open?"
"Seems to be. Stand back." He tried the latch and the door swung on its hinges. The interior was dark but for a crackling orange fire in what appeared to be a few very old horse stalls near the opposite side of the building.
Behind him, Granger muttered something, and a few balls of blue flame shot by him and into the barn, illuminating the structure.
"Granger, are you sure you should be sending flames into a barn that's already on fire?"
She breezed past him unconcerned. "They are contained in glass orbs, Nott," she explained. "Bluebell flames are one of my specialties."
"Bluebell flames don't generally come with containers."
Granger rolled her eyes. "Of course they don't. I added them. In any case, we should deal with the fire before it spreads."
Theo nodded before they advanced toward the horse stalls. As they drew near, Theo could hear whimpering.
"Granger," he shouted. "Gather or fire?"
"I'll gather them," she told him, pointing to the corner opposite the fire. "I think I hear them over there."
Theo cast a bubble head charm on himself before rushing to the flames.
"Aguamenti maxima!" A powerful jet of water surged from his wand toward the base of the fire. The intense heat of the dragon fire vapourised the water, adding billowing clouds of steam to the sooty smoke.
What a mess.
Theo lost track of time as he stared at the shrinking wall of flame. His eyes grew heavy.
"Damn that Edvicia Lane. And Rhodri Jenkins, too," Theo added for good measure, muttering as he tried to keep himself awake and on task.
"I think the fire's out, Nott. Who's Rhodri Jenkins?"
Theo jumped. Looking at the waterlogged mess before him, he lowered his wand. "Wha-- Oh, Granger. Jenkins was the dragon keeper Lane seduced to gain access to the dragon semen samples."
Granger studied him for a moment and he wondered what it was she was looking for. After a few seconds she nodded and said, "In that case, I agree. Damn him, too."
"What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were corralling the crups." He leaned against the side of a horse stall and hoped she wouldn't notice how tired he was.
"Well, I found five, and got four them in the pen," she told him.
"But?"
"One presented something of a problem."
"Don't mince words, Granger. What sort of problem?"
"It flies. Not very high, but high enough to escape the pen."
Theo groaned. "Fuck sakes! I am exhausted. Why does it have to be able to fly?"
"Genetic mutation," Hermione offered with a shrug.
"Helpful."
Granger tilted her head, and Theo had the feeling again that he was being assessed. He stood up straight and rubbed the back of his neck.
"I have an idea, Nott," she told him, stepping into his personal space. "When we're done with this, and have sent the pups to the reserve, I'll buy you a drink."
Theo stared down at her, surprised by the bold move. "A drink?" He reached up and brushed a stray curly lock from her face, tucking it behind her ear. She started at his touch, and he smirked. "Why don't you let me buy you dinner instead?"
She nibbled her lower lip and glanced up at him. "Let's see how drinks go first."
Before he could respond, she was walking away. She paused by the door and looked over her shoulder at him. "First though, we need to finish things here. Why don't you send Jenkins a patronus while I get started out here?"
Theo thought he detected a faint smirk on her face before she turned and left the barn. Once she was gone and he had a moment to consider her suggestion, he determined that she was absolutely brilliant.
Since Jenkins was the weak link that started this chain of events in motion, it was fitting that he take over care of the crups at the reserve. Theo grinned for a moment, revelling in the justice of Granger's idea.
Once he sent his Patronus on its way to Wales, Theo started for the barnyard. Granger's sassy smirk flashed in his mind, and he decided he wasn't so tired after all. In fact, he was quite looking forward to the coming evening.
The end.