skoosiepants (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skoosiepants) wrote2005-11-04 03:49 pm
skoosiepants) wrote2005-11-04 03:49 pm
Entry tags:
new fic: The Entirely Wrong Way
Title: The Entirely Wrong Way (1/2)
Rating: PG-13 (I seriously thought it would be more, but alas, no go)
Pairings/characters: Hermione/Blaise, Draco/Ron, a few spatterings of others. Various persons pop up here and there.
Summary: The Honorable Hermione Granger always seemed to get into the most horrendous scrapes. A Pirate!AU with Captain Draco Malfoy at the helm of The Tidy Squall, and Mr. Blaise Zabini at his side.
The Long List of Important Story Notes and Warnings!!!!
I hate research. You're lucky I even bothered with a few details in this *grins winningly*
~ "Old coat" is an old sailor, not a misspelling of "old coot" - just to clarify.
~ The Abacos Islands are a string of largely uninhabited islands in the Carribean, however I doubt they were called Abacos when this story takes place - I'm not even going to bother to pin down a date, but 16 or 17 hundreds thereabout - but I don't care. I'm calling them Abacos. Blue Cay is completely fictional.
~ Good King Wenceslas was written far after this adventure as well, but I liked the idea of Hermione's father singing that particular ditty, so I left it in.
~ The ages of everyone are mixed up for the purpose of some accuracy to the time period. And I use the phrase "some accuracy" quite loosely. Draco and Blaise are early 30's, Hermione, Hannah and Ron are barely 17 or so, and everyone else it doesn't much matter. You can just imagine for them.
~ I purposely abuse the word "aye" because I love it so. Also, I take full advantage of the "Pirates" poke from PotC - which I shan't explain but you'll be able to pick up on it, I'm sure.
~ Some of you may hate me for my characterization of Harry in this. I apologize in advance.
Lastly!! This turned out incredibly fluffy, everyone is OOC, my language is much more verbose - I think it's my inner romance novelist coming out - because, oh yes. This has Harlequin stamped all over it. I wrote this entirely for my own amusement. Hopefully some of you will enjoy it as well.
And it's open-ended, nothing quite completely wrapped up, because I might possibly write in this world again :)
The Entirely Wrong Way
A Pirate Adventure
“Are you sure about this, Hermione?” Lady Hannah asked, arm hooked through hers and eyes wide as she stared up at the pub’s plaque swinging slightly from a breeze off the water. It was worn, sea salt slowly eating away at the open-mouthed fish painted just below the moniker The Laughing Marlin, the words far too fancily written for such a seedy looking place.
And it irritated Hermione beyond measure that they had a bloody sea bass on the sign, but she just huffed and jerked Hannah forward. “Perfectly sure,” she said briskly, then stepped inside the dim tavern before she could change her mind.
Conversation didn’t exactly stop, but their presence was noted with a hitch of silence, a stutter that merely preceded a hefty amount of leers, slurs and a few rough barks of laughter before melting back into the encompassing din of several discussions being played out at once. Beady eyes were still focused on the novelty of two well-turned-out women gracing their midst, though, and Hermione assumed it was only her dour expression that kept the animals from lurching forward with grubby paws.
Hannah was practically plastered to her back, and Hermione clutched her skirts in an effort to avoid them touching any of the beasts as they made their way towards the bar. It was rank and humid inside, smoke mixing with hops and sticky liqueurs and Hermione wrinkled her nose, disdain evident in every movement of her body. The flash of her ankle as she dodged propriety and stepped over a pair of outstretched, booted feet, proved too much for one drunken sot, but he only managed to snake an arm around Hannah in his grab for Hermione, swinging the girl back against him with a hearty laugh and a barely comprehensible, “Lookee here, mates.”
The petite blonde let out an alarmed squeal, and Hermione spun about, amber eyes lit with ire. “Unhand her, you lummox,” she snapped, catching one of Hannah’s hands to keep her close, smacking the flat of her clutch sharply across the sailor’s meaty bicep.
A deep chuckle vibrated the air behind her, and she twisted and tilted her head up to glare at a tall, dark-haired man sporting what could only be described as a wickedly amused grin.
“Such language, Madam,” he said half-mockingly.
She narrowed her eyes even more, mere slits expressing her intense displeasure. Her temper was hanging on ragged threads, and she wasn’t known to be prudent in that respect in any case. The Honorable Hermione Granger did just as she bloody well pleased, no matter the repercussions, despite any efforts by her dear parents to keep her in line.
“Kindly mind your own business,” she hissed, and Hannah squeaked a distressed, “Hermione,” fingers clutching hers in a near death grip as the large, barrel-chested ape tried to drag her further away.
With a growl, Hermione hitched her skirts even higher - much to the delight of all present, if their cheers were any indication – and stepped forward with every intention of hurling herself in the bloke’s path, but a firm hand came down on her shoulder, effectively pinning her in place.
“Perhaps I can be of assistance?” the same dark-haired man asked, then without waiting for Hermione’s scathing retort about inappropriate touching – really, the nerve of these men – he gave Hannah’s captor a loose, deceptively benevolent smile.
“Now, Mitchell, you do remember what happened the last time you manhandled something that wasn’t yours, don’t you?” The man’s voice was a low rumble, and the tavern fell eerily silent as Mitchell gave him a half-confused, half-wrathful scowl.
“Piss off, Zabini,” he slurred.
Hermione started and stared at the man with new eyes, a small flutter of apprehension in her belly. That was Zabini? Infamous first mate of The Tidy Squall? He was taller than she’d expected. And neater, honestly. Weren’t pirates supposed to be, well… rough-edged and sordid? The man in front of her was nearly a gentleman, coat tailored perfectly along his broad shoulders, the white of his open-necked shirt crisp in the dirt-yellow light of the pub.
There was a flash of white-gold, and suddenly a man was striding up to stand beside Zabini, cruel gray eyes cutting from her to Hannah to Zabini again. “What the devil is going on, Blaise,” he growled, color high on his sharply curved cheeks.
“Mitchell here was just about to let Miss…?” He gazed expectantly at Hannah.
“Abbott,” she managed breathily, and Hermione thanked god she hadn’t thought to toss out her title. Lord knew what would happen then, but ransoming wasn’t necessarily unheard of.
Zabini’s grin was surprisingly gentle. “Yes, Mitchell was just about to let Miss Abbott go about her business, weren’t you Mitchell?”
The blond newcomer tilted his head haughtily and cracked his knuckles, and Mitchell released Hannah with an awkward stumble backwards, visible fear shading his eyes.
Hannah immediately tangled her arms about Hermione’s waist, and the brunette could feel the tremors threatening to shake apart her body. She patted her friend’s hands and gave her a reassuring smile, then turned her attention to the two men still watching them with blatant interest, Zabini’s curiosity tinged with amusement, the blond’s with palpable annoyance.
“Thank you,” Hermione said, not ungraciously. Not particularly gracious, either, but her nerves were rattled, her temper simmering, and any fight she’d been spoiling for had been neatly eclipsed by the two slim sailors. Not that she held any illusions that she could’ve gotten Hannah back without their interference. Impulsive, she might be, but she wasn’t stupid.
Zabini arched a brow. “At your service,” he said sardonically, sketching a bow, and the blond curled his lip up in a sneer.
“You’re too chivalric by half, Blaise. What in holy hell are we going to do with these two bints now?”
“Not your taste, eh Malfoy?” a voice taunted from back by the bar, and the blond man sent the heckler a rude gesture that left Hermione blushing.
Then she straightened up, ears pricked, and blinked at the man. Malfoy. Captain Draco Malfoy. How simple was that? Hermione almost smiled. “Captain Malfoy,” she said, tone very nearly jovial, “exactly the man I was looking for.”
He eyed her warily, and Zabini’s brows peaked over his nose. “Really,” Malfoy drawled.
“We have a proposition for you,” she went on, taking a deep breath to fortify herself before plunging on. Both men were staring at her as if she’d grown another head. Honestly, she knew she wasn’t the most conventional young lady, but she wasn’t that odd. “We’d like to hire you and your crew to ferret out a missing person.”
“Hire us to…” Zabini drifted off, shooting a conspiratorial look towards Malfoy, and Hermione got the distinct impression that he was laughing at her.
Although she really couldn’t see why. They were pirates. They would, presumably, perform certain acts for money. Specifically, acts of piracy and various other fruitful ventures worthy of the high seas.
The tip of Zabini’s tongue slicked his bottom lip, blue eyes dancing, and he asked, “Why us?”
“Actually, we know a man on your ship,” Hannah piped in.
“Do you?” Malfoy asked blandly, one hand on a lean hip. Malfoy looked every inch a gentleman, same as Zabini, fine wool threading his coat and the breeches stretched tight around his lean thighs. And they both looked completely at ease in the rough and tumble seaside tavern, despite their aura of stature above the common man.
Hermione huffed. “An Ernest Macmillan.” Youngest son of her mother’s dearest friend. He didn’t write often, but she’d received a letter just months before stating he’d signed on as a seaman aboard The Tidy Squall, the vessel of the notorious buccaneer Draco Malfoy, and that she wasn’t to worry; he knew exactly what he was doing. He made an odd pirate, Hermione thought, as he’d always been a jolly boy, full of smiles and more energy then her father’s prized wolfhounds.
The men shared an unreadable glance. “I’m afraid you were mistaken,” Zabini said smoothly, and Hermione gave an impatient oath under her breath and snapped, “Does it matter?”
Malfoy’s gray eyes were at once bored and banked with irritation, clearly nearing the end of his semi-polite veneer.
“Look,” Hannah said, spine finally gaining the steel Hermione had seen so often when she dealt with her pompously overbearing stepfather, “we’ve a boy aboard the Clamoring Sea Hag, and we want him back.”
“A boy,” Zabini echoed slowly.
“My stable boy,” Hannah clarified, and Hermione visibly winced.
Oh, that didn’t sound peculiar at all, she thought with a mental roll of her eyes, then she sent Hannah a withering glare.
“Your…” Zabini looked as if he would’ve laughed if he hadn’t been so obviously stunned by her admission. “You want us to retrieve your stable boy?”
Hermione bristled at the man’s derisive tone. Ron was more than just a stable boy. He was a friend. Hannah’s closest friend since childhood - barring Hermione, of course - and since Hermione’s family estate rested directly down the road, lands touching, she’d grown up almost as familiar with the redheaded lad as Hannah.
Lady Hannah sniffed. “He hates the water. He can’t swim. And he gets seasick.” She sounded small and pitiful, and Hermione explained further, “He isn’t recalcitrant. He was stolen.”
Zabini opened his mouth, closed it again, cocked his head to the side and blinked at them, then opened his mouth once more, but Malfoy cut off whatever he was going to say with a single raised finger.
“Blaise,” he said, “a moment.”
***
Keeping one eye on the young ladies, Blaise stepped after Draco and watched as the blond captain blew out a puff of breath.
“They’re insane, aren’t they?”
“I’m intrigued.”
“A pretty wrist gets you intrigued, Blaise. Doe eyes are your greatest weakness. We aren’t doing it,” he said with finality.
Blaise gave him a winning grin.
“You’re an atrocious pirate,” Draco complained. “I’ve never come across a worse pirate than you. You realize you wouldn’t be anywhere without me, don’t you?”
Blaise’s grin widened.
“And if we do agree to do this, they,” he jabbed a finger at the women, “are not to step foot on my ship. I’ll not have—”
“You can’t say anything about them being high-maintenance, Draco.” His brows rose pointedly.
“Bugger it.” Draco pressed two fingers to his forehead. If Blaise was a horrible pirate, Draco was just as bad a captain. Worse even, letting the cheeky bastard run rampant over him as well as the Squall. He was infinitely thankful he had such a loyal, well-paid crew, or his reputation as a cutthroat, ruthless scallywag would be in tatters. Blaise only had to bat his pretty black lashes and Draco’d roll over like a trained dog. It was beyond pathetic.
“You’re going to be responsible for them,” he said ominously, then stalked back over to the girls and snarled, “We’ll leave within the hour. I hope you brought your bags with you, because you won’t be going home first.”
“Oh excellent, thank—wait, no. We’re not going with you,” Hermione started to protest.
“But you are,” Zabini countered.
“We’re not.”
A curl fell across Zabini’s right eye as he leant down close to her face, breath warm and slightly yeasty from ale. “Are,” he whispered wickedly.
Hermione’s jaw clenched, hands pressed huffily against her hips. “You can’t dictate what we do or do not do.”
“I beg to differ.”
“That’s kidnapping,” she pointed out shrilly, wagging a finger under his nose.
Malfoy winced. “Pirates,” he said dryly, then muttered under his breath, “bloody soft pirates. Flint would’ve had both our heads for this.”
Ignoring his captain, Blaise lightly shackled the top of Hermione’s arm with a hand. “Come along, now. No sense wasting your breath arguing. Rest assured you’ll have fine accommodations aboard the Squall.”
Hannah gave Hermione a panicky, wide-eyed look and hissed, “I told you this was a bad idea.”
“No, you didn’t,” Hermione snapped back crisply, highly annoyed with the whole muddled mess, tugging ineffectually at Zabini’s grasp as he herded them out of the tavern.
“Well, I meant to tell you.” She latched onto Hermione’s other arm, worrying her bottom lip.
Hermione slanted her a glower. “You’re not helping, Hannah.”
“What will we do? What about our parents? Your mother’s going to scour the city and find nothing because you didn’t want anyone to know where we were going, not even Lavender, and we tell Lavender everything, and now we’re going to board a pirate ship and be ravished because not even your mum—” Viscountess Granger was a formidable, often awe-inspiring lady, “—would guess what you’ve gotten us into now. This trumps everything, even that time we were stuck at the bottom of MacDougal’s well for nearly two days.”
“We were five,” Hermione grumbled. When Hannah was nervous, she rambled.
Blaise, who’d been half-listening to the women as he led them down the docks, quipped with amusement, “You were stuck in a well?”
“I was a precocious child,” she murmured defensively.
Captain Malfoy snorted from behind them, and Hermione resisted the urge to turn her head and stick her tongue out at him. She was seventeen, a grown lady. And grown ladies didn’t resort to childish gestures, no matter how satisfying they felt.
Forced into a small boat, the low wooden benches wet from sea spray, Hannah threaded her fingers together and stared out into the dark water. “Is she hidden then?” she babbled slightly. “You’re not going to drown us, are you? What do you—?”
The Tidy Squall loomed ahead of them, a black hulk in the clear, starlit night, rolling on her moorings with the high tide. Hannah swallowed the rest of her running diatribe, mouth slacked open in wonder. She’d never been that close to a pirate ship before. Though she supposed it wasn’t much different than her stepfather’s schooner, sleek and sharp-bowed for speed. Except it had a bit of a sinister air surrounding it, a rumble of voices slurring Sweet Anna-Mae drifting down towards them as they rowed into its shadow.
With minimal prompting from Zabini, Hermione and Hannah made their way slowly up the rope ladder and onto the deck. A few scattering of lanterns were lit along the edge of the stern, and a loud whoop echoed over the wooden planks before Hermione’s eyes properly adjusted to the light. Arms banded about her and lifted her clear off her feet, and she gave an unladylike yelp before recognizing the exuberant, “’Mione!”
Only one person ever used that horrid nickname from her childhood.
“Ernest, put me down,” she said sternly, wriggling in his hold. “Have you lost all your manners?”
“Pirates don’t have manners,” he said happily, but dropped her back onto the deck after one last breathtaking squeeze, grinning beatifically down at her when she spun around to glare at him.
His smile was infectious, though, and she never could be angry with the boy. He was far too adorable, with his floppy blond hair and wide, dimple-edged mouth.
“I take it you know these ladies, Mac?” Malfoy drawled, climbing over the rail with Zabini not far behind.
“Know them? ‘Mione and I were practically married at birth!” They honestly were, too, good faith betrothal and all. What a sticky situation that had turned out to be. Since they’d been thrown together often as playmates growing up, they had aged with a familial bond of near-siblings between them. Any sort of marital union would’ve felt nothing short of incest, and so Ernest had hied himself off to his grandfather’s first love: the sea.
“Mac?” Hannah puzzled.
He pressed a finger to the side of his nose, then stage-whispered, “I’m sailing under a false name.”
Zabini knocked a fist into his shoulder. “You’re too good-natured to be a born pirate, Mac. You haven’t a mean bone in your body.”
“No need to,” Ernest grinned. “Not with the captain around.”
“Watch your mouth, boy, or you’ll find yourself in the brig for a week,” Malfoy growled.
“Aye, sir,” Ernest replied smartly, smile still wide on his face.
Malfoy rolled his eyes. “It’s a wonder I have any reputation left at all with you fops spreading good cheer at every port,” he muttered.
“Why are ye even here?” Ernest bounced his gaze between the women. “It can’t be just to see me. Is it—” He cocked his head at Zabini. “We haven’t taken to ransoming young ladies now, have we?”
“Your status is showing, Mac,” Blaise chastened. The Squall’s crew had been notably leery of Mac’s highborn speech when he’d first signed on, and it’d taken considerable effort on the blond boy’s part to fit in with the ruffians.
“Ron’s been stolen,” Hannah offered, mood buoyed by Ernest’s presence.
It still sounded completely ridiculous, and Draco still thought the young ladies were walking the edge of irreparable insanity, but Mac seemed to understand exactly what was going on, nodding with a solemn air the boy hardly ever donned.
“How’d he manage that?” Ernest asked, scratching the back of his neck.
Hermione opened her mouth to reply when a gruff voice cut in, “Here now. What’s all this?”
A blunt-tipped cane poked her in the side and she turned to glare at a short, wizened old man with misshapen eyes and a ratty-crowned hat drooping over his gray head. “Excuse me,” she said stiffly.
“Women’s bad luck on a ship,” he said, poking her again. “Better toss ‘em over.”
Zabini chuckled. “You say, Moody? Well, then. S’pose Millie should go with ‘em.”
“Millie ain’t girlfolk, boy,” he groused, one eye steady and mean on Hermione, the other rattling lazily up towards the night sky. But he wandered off, gait hitching, a stream of grumbles running under his breath.
“Don’t mind Mad-eye,” Ernest said, and then Zabini gave him a pointed look.
“Shouldn’t you be guarding the hold?” he asked.
Ernest shrugged. “Can guard it here just as well as below,” Zabini’s eyes narrowed to warning slits, “but I might as well bid ye g’night now. Mornin’?” He cocked his head at Hannah and Hermione, looking just as eagerly puppyish as he always had.
“I don’t believe we have a choice in the matter,” Hermione stated, slanting Zabini a sharp, accusing glare that he shrugged off unrepentantly. Bloody pirate.
***
True to Zabini’s words, the accommodations for Hannah and Hermione were fine. Adequate, if not quite up to the standards they were used to.
Captain Malfoy was an oddly fastidious pirate, and even though the women weren’t allowed on deck very often, and most definitely never without an escort – and even though Zabini had the most disarmingly smarmy grin when he put some thought behind it - it was easy to forget that they were even on a pirate ship. Until, of course, they met up with the Clamoring Sea Hag.
It took five days to reach the pirate isle of Los Muertos, and three more to catch up with the Hag, which was on a steady course towards the Bahamian tropics. Hermione clung to the narrow bunk as the ship rocked with canon blast, and Hannah was panting, back against the door, one hand gripping the handle and lock.
“This was such a bad idea,” she groaned.
“This wasn’t my idea,” Hermione protested at the implication that the situation on board was her fault. “I couldn’t have known—”
“Pirates,” Hannah interrupted meaningfully.
“Well,” Hermione would have slumped on the mattress if she didn’t think she’d flop right off onto the floor, “yes.”
Up on deck, Blaise stood at the railing and grinned viciously towards the smaller schooner just ahead of them.
“My ship’ll be battered for a couple of wenches,” Draco groused from beside him, cutlass unsheathed and angled to catch the high afternoon light.
“And the bounty,” Blaise pointed out, then went on with relish, “and the fight.”
“Ah, yes.” There was something to be said about brutality after all. Draco had always been fond of spilling deserved blood. Pulling alongside the Hag, shouts and gunfire echoing around them, he lifted his sword, slicing a humorless grin at Blaise. “Ready?”
Blaise’s answering smirk was almost as spare. “As ever.”
In the ensuing fight to board the Hag, only Crabbe, the quartermaster, was seriously wounded, and Draco was in relatively good spirits when he had Captain Pucey - a disreputable seaman, even by piratical standards – at sword-point against the mainmast, tip of his cutlass just barely biting into the skin at the hollow of the man’s throat.
Pucey spat onto the planks by Draco’s boots, and the blond fought the urge to lean into the cut, widen it to a slit. “Pucey,” he started with faux amiability, “you’ve a boy aboard.”
“A boy?” Pucey growled.
“A boy. A stable lad you picked up in Torquay, aye?”
“I don—”
“Think,” Draco’s bicep flexed minutely, twitching the curved sword, “very carefully.”
Pucey grit his teeth against the sting. “The brig. Whelp’s more trouble than he’s worth. I’ll be glad to be—” He gargled his own blood as Draco sliced the cutlass across his skin, ear to ear, and then swiped the flat of the blade on the now dead man’s breeches.
“You were a disgrace to piracy, anyway,” Draco said conversationally, then glanced around at his men. They’d made their fair shares of messes, sweat and blood mixing with their normal, everyday grime, and they gave the captain sated smiles when he scanned the deck, eyes narrowed. Blaise was crouched over an injured Millie, but a slight shake of his head let Draco know she wasn’t seriously hurt.
“Zabini,” he ordered, “take the helm.”
Without question, the rest of the men started heaving dead and dying bodies into the ocean, and Draco strode towards the hold, dropping down into the dark with his sword brandished and ears alert.
The whimpers and growls sounded much like a wounded and spitting-angry animal, and Draco snapped, “Boy?” as non-threateningly as he could. He thought he showed admirable restraint, since his first instinct was to demand whoever was down there to step forward into the small square of light shining down from the open hatch.
There was a scramble of something softly heavy on the wooden planks, and then utter, tense silence, broken only every few seconds by an uneven hitch of breath.
“Boy? Come on out now, you’re safe.” Draco rolled his eyes. The mere idea of anyone beyond his crew feeling safe in his presence – and even that was a stretch - was an affront to his ruthless reputation on the main. Quickly shooting a look towards the opening above him, he hoped to god no one was listening in on this drivel. “There’s no need to hide, I assure you,” he went on evenly, moving further into the hold, the deep shadows taking shape as his vision acclimated to the dusky darkness. “You’ll only try my limited patience and goodwill.”
Draco took an involuntary step backwards as a hulking figure rose in the dark, a flash of pale skin and a rattle-creak of metal before whoever it was folded back into blackness again. The captain let out an irritated huff of breath, then climbed halfway back up the ladder and snarled at Davies to find him a lantern. The stable boy was being annoyingly uncooperative.
Dim, golden light finally in hand, Draco could see that the hold was split in half, with two small, barred cells blocked off close to the hatch, the rest of the room stacked with crates of various sizes.
And blue, blue eyes were glaring at him, dirt-red fringe swept limply across a grimy forehead, ragged breeches baring pale, upraised knees as the boy – boy? Even curled into himself as he was the bloke was notably large, long-limbed and broad – pressed against the far corner of the brig.
Draco palmed his pistol, ignoring the pained wince on the boy’s face, the visible flinch, and twirled it so the heavy handle met the cell’s lock with a satisfying clang, the rusty metal giving way with relative ease. The door swung slowly outward with a grating rasp. “Ah, now, t’would put me in a far better mood if you’d forgo any struggle and followed me.” He arched a brow at the boy, who pinched his lips together and hissed, “Pirate,” in a low, parched voice.
“Yes, well. If you were hoping for a denial, boy, you shall be sorely disappointed. And if you were hoping to insult me,” Draco’s grin was sharp and toothy, “you’d be better off accusing me of mercy.”
The blue eyes blinked, glazing over with what Draco recognized as a mixture of resignation and fear, and he slapped the flat of his cutlass along his thigh.
“Up. Now.”
“All right, Captain?” Blaise called down at him. “We’re keeping steady, but I’d rather get off this floating piece of trash before she sinks.”
Draco tipped his head back and glowered up at Blaise’s smiling face. “Have Goyle check the crates down here for anything valuable. I don’t relish being aboard any longer than we have to be. The men itching for a fire, do you think?”
“Oh, aye.” Blaise grinned wider.
“Right. You,” he turned back to the redhead, still slumped dejectedly in the corner, “want to burn, do you?” He stalked into the cell and bent down to curl a tanned hand around his bicep, yanking the boy to his feet, eyes traveling up his chest, the deep v left open to the air from a torn brown shirt, lingering around his dirt streaked throat and the pinked curve just under his jaw. No matter his age, Draco concluded that he certainly wasn’t a boy.
The situation might prove far more interesting than he’d previously thought.
***
“Do you hear anything?” Hannah asked, wringing her hands, pacing the small space in front of the door.
Hermione, sprawled out on the bunk, barely lifted her head to blink at her. “Hear what?” They’d been hearing gunfire and swearing and blasts and shouts for the better part of an hour. It was blessedly silent for once.
“Nothing. It’s entirely too quiet, don’t you think?”
Rolling onto her side, Hermione pushed her hair back off her face and sighed into the musty blankets covering the mattress. “I just hope they found Ron.”
The smell of fire rising above mere expelled gunpowder caught Hermione’s nose, and she straightened up, twitching with apprehension.
“What do you think of that?” Hannah demanded, eyes wide.
“I think we need to make our way topside,” Hermione rejoined with a determined nod of her head.
A dark-haired, gangly youth with a wide mouth and three-fourths of his left leg missing was standing guard just outside their door. He’d introduced himself as “Boot, miss,” six days prior, and hadn’t yet left their side whenever they set foot out of their cabin. On orders, he’d assured them, from Mr. Zabini.
“Mr. Boot,” Hermione said firmly, “can you say what’s going on above?”
He straightened from his slouch against the wall, crude crutch jammed under his arm. “They be burnin’ the Hag, miss.”
“But… why?”
“Ain’t a trustworthy hull. Not ‘nough for the cap’n to set a piece o’ th’crew aboard, I’ll warrant. And no use driftin’ ‘er when fire makes a prettier sight.”
Hermione nodded. “I do believe I understood what you’ve said,” she returned with slight wonderment couched in her voice. She imagined a fire of that magnitude would be pretty in the purple-pink twilight, nothing but dark navy sea surrounding them. She glanced over her shoulder. “Did you ever suspect I was bloodthirsty, Hannah?” she asked idly, and Hannah wisely kept silent about that.
She didn’t have enough fingers to count on, so many were the times she’d seen Hermione close to killing someone with her eyes, her cutting tongue. Of course, that sort of bloodletting and the kind that pirates practiced were drastically different. Though she couldn’t help thinking that if it came down to it, Hermione wouldn’t think twice about taking a life. It was at once an unsettling and comforting thought.
“Can we go up then?” Hannah asked, curling her fingers over Hermione’s arm. “Was Ron aboard?”
“You’ll have to wait for the cap—”
“Oh, nonsense.” Hermione pushed past him, the boy too stunned to grab for her. “If they’re burning the Hag, then I can’t see any danger in being on deck.”
Hannah grimaced an apology to young Boot, hoping he wouldn’t be chastised too harshly for letting them slip by him, and then hesitantly followed Hermione up the passageway.
It wasn’t twilight yet, but the sight of the Clamoring Sea Hag folding into ashes and embers, collapsing, hissing smoke, into the cold sea, was certainly interesting. Hermione found herself striding to the rail, eyes locked on the deteriorating vessel, the scent of wood smoke mixing with sea salt high on the air, the sawing creak of the Squall beneath her feet oddly soothing.
“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected Boot to successfully keep you at bay,” a voice drawled, and Hermione glanced over her shoulder at a thankfully amused Blaise Zabini. “You’re the sort what needs a heavy guard.”
“Did you find him?” she asked crisply.
“Not quite a boy, is he? Larger than most.”
Something tight inside her loosened and she sagged back against the railing. “Thank god,” she breathed, then tumbled out, “Where is he? We’ll be heading home now, yes?”
“The good captain’s taking care of your boy, and no. Not quite yet.”
Hermione stared at him with wide, I-must-not-be-hearing-you-correctly eyes. “What?”
“We’re sailing on to the Abacos.” His voice tipped deliberately louder. “Nott’s got a sweetheart there he hasn’t seen in years.”
“Sod off, Zabini,” a mean-looking pirate – though that was rather redundant, considering most of the crew looked disgruntled and cruel – said as he passed by behind him, bow-legged with the pitch of the ship and picking idly at his nails with a wicked sharp dirk.
“You realize you won’t get paid ‘til we’re in England again,” Hermione pointed out.
“Ah, but see,” he lifted a finger, touching the tip of her nose softly, “we’ve already received our payment, haven’t we?”
Hermione blinked at him. “You can’t mean us.”
“Quick-witted. Unlike many, I appreciate that trait in a woman.”
“But. You can’t. My parents won’t just… give me up!”
“Providing they have any idea where you’ve disappeared to,” he murmured, faint grin stretching his lips. “Let me guess; you aren’t a commoner.” He cocked his head to the side. “Eldest daughter of a portly baron, aye?”
“Only,” Hermione snapped. “And he’s a Viscount.”
“Oh yes. Viscount, of course.” He nodded. “Should’ve known by your ostentatious name.”
“My name is not ostentatious,” she protested, horrified.
But he just ignored her, rubbing a thoughtful hand across his jaw. “And little Hannah Abbott. You’ve called her ‘Lady’ upon occasion. Earl?”
Hermione’s scowl was mutinous. “Why bother helping us with Ron if you weren’t planning on ever letting us go?”
“But we made a deal, Madam, didn’t we?” She opened her mouth to retort, but he cut her off with a proprietary hand on her waist, sliding his wide palm around to the small of her back. “Though if that explanation doesn’t suit you,” he went on amiably, “then think of it this way. You had something stolen from you, which now, by proxy, belongs to us. And the captain doesn’t take kindly to thieves not of his own bidding, and likes damage to his property even less.”
“Ron isn’t property,” she ground out indignantly, trying to lean away from his touch but succeeding only in bringing their chests closer together.
“You quibble about the smallest things, my dear. What you think doesn’t hold the least bit of consequence anymore.”
Hermione’s jaw clenched and she snarled through her teeth, “It doesn’t, does it?”
“Not ‘til we get bored of you, at any rate. So far, you’ve proved highly amusing to the entire crew. With the exception of Mad-eye, I suppose, but Moody rarely finds anything beyond his own nose satisfactory.”
“Do you think you’re charming?” she spat.
“Charming?” His brows rose. “Certainly not the word I would’ve used, love. Makes me wonder about the sort of company you’ve kept.”
The nerve of the man. “I haven’t kept any company at all.”
He leered at her. “All the more fun for me then.”
Hermione was surprisingly more irate than fearful, and she was quite aware that her glare was ineffectual, the heat of it leaving no marks at all as it rolled off Zabini’s weathered skin. “You’re despicable,” she groused.
“Now you’ve got the idea.”
***
Hannah was wavering between something that felt like fluttering excitement and debilitating fear. Blocking her way at the top of the stairs was a large, angry-looking, looming man who didn’t seem to be wearing much of a shirt.
Flushed bright red, Hannah cleared her throat and gave him a weak, “Pardon me?”
The man’s scowl didn’t lighten, and he crossed his thick arms over his chest, slick muscles bulging.
“Could I possibly… get past you?” she tried again, hands clasped demurely in front of her. She certainly did not want to brush that errant lock of brown hair off his forehead, even though she couldn’t see how it would be comfortable for the man, tickling his surprisingly long eyelashes as it was.
She was rewarded with a grunt and a slight, barely perceptible shifting of his stance, but he seemed no more inclined to let her have her way.
Trying another tactic entirely, feeling a bit bold like Hermione, she rolled her wrist and inquired airily, “You could accompany me on deck, couldn’t you?”
And just like that, she was strolling about in the late afternoon sunshine with a brutish pirate beside her, still resolutely silent but not nearly as menacing as before. She found it oddly exhilarating.
Later, back down in their cabin, Hermione tapped her fingers on the foot of the bunk and said, “You realize they’re going to try and keep us.”
Hannah recognized the stubborn determination in her friend’s voice. “What are we going to do, then?”
“The Abacos islands. We’ll sneak ashore and book passage home.”
She seemed so sure. Hermione always seemed sure, though, even if she had no idea what she was doing. Hannah figured that was why they periodically got into such horrendous scrapes.
“It’ll simply be a matter of getting Ron,” Hermione went on, “out of Captain Malfoy’s grip.”
Part Two
Rating: PG-13 (I seriously thought it would be more, but alas, no go)
Pairings/characters: Hermione/Blaise, Draco/Ron, a few spatterings of others. Various persons pop up here and there.
Summary: The Honorable Hermione Granger always seemed to get into the most horrendous scrapes. A Pirate!AU with Captain Draco Malfoy at the helm of The Tidy Squall, and Mr. Blaise Zabini at his side.
The Long List of Important Story Notes and Warnings!!!!
I hate research. You're lucky I even bothered with a few details in this *grins winningly*
~ "Old coat" is an old sailor, not a misspelling of "old coot" - just to clarify.
~ The Abacos Islands are a string of largely uninhabited islands in the Carribean, however I doubt they were called Abacos when this story takes place - I'm not even going to bother to pin down a date, but 16 or 17 hundreds thereabout - but I don't care. I'm calling them Abacos. Blue Cay is completely fictional.
~ Good King Wenceslas was written far after this adventure as well, but I liked the idea of Hermione's father singing that particular ditty, so I left it in.
~ The ages of everyone are mixed up for the purpose of some accuracy to the time period. And I use the phrase "some accuracy" quite loosely. Draco and Blaise are early 30's, Hermione, Hannah and Ron are barely 17 or so, and everyone else it doesn't much matter. You can just imagine for them.
~ I purposely abuse the word "aye" because I love it so. Also, I take full advantage of the "Pirates" poke from PotC - which I shan't explain but you'll be able to pick up on it, I'm sure.
~ Some of you may hate me for my characterization of Harry in this. I apologize in advance.
Lastly!! This turned out incredibly fluffy, everyone is OOC, my language is much more verbose - I think it's my inner romance novelist coming out - because, oh yes. This has Harlequin stamped all over it. I wrote this entirely for my own amusement. Hopefully some of you will enjoy it as well.
And it's open-ended, nothing quite completely wrapped up, because I might possibly write in this world again :)
A Pirate Adventure
“Are you sure about this, Hermione?” Lady Hannah asked, arm hooked through hers and eyes wide as she stared up at the pub’s plaque swinging slightly from a breeze off the water. It was worn, sea salt slowly eating away at the open-mouthed fish painted just below the moniker The Laughing Marlin, the words far too fancily written for such a seedy looking place.
And it irritated Hermione beyond measure that they had a bloody sea bass on the sign, but she just huffed and jerked Hannah forward. “Perfectly sure,” she said briskly, then stepped inside the dim tavern before she could change her mind.
Conversation didn’t exactly stop, but their presence was noted with a hitch of silence, a stutter that merely preceded a hefty amount of leers, slurs and a few rough barks of laughter before melting back into the encompassing din of several discussions being played out at once. Beady eyes were still focused on the novelty of two well-turned-out women gracing their midst, though, and Hermione assumed it was only her dour expression that kept the animals from lurching forward with grubby paws.
Hannah was practically plastered to her back, and Hermione clutched her skirts in an effort to avoid them touching any of the beasts as they made their way towards the bar. It was rank and humid inside, smoke mixing with hops and sticky liqueurs and Hermione wrinkled her nose, disdain evident in every movement of her body. The flash of her ankle as she dodged propriety and stepped over a pair of outstretched, booted feet, proved too much for one drunken sot, but he only managed to snake an arm around Hannah in his grab for Hermione, swinging the girl back against him with a hearty laugh and a barely comprehensible, “Lookee here, mates.”
The petite blonde let out an alarmed squeal, and Hermione spun about, amber eyes lit with ire. “Unhand her, you lummox,” she snapped, catching one of Hannah’s hands to keep her close, smacking the flat of her clutch sharply across the sailor’s meaty bicep.
A deep chuckle vibrated the air behind her, and she twisted and tilted her head up to glare at a tall, dark-haired man sporting what could only be described as a wickedly amused grin.
“Such language, Madam,” he said half-mockingly.
She narrowed her eyes even more, mere slits expressing her intense displeasure. Her temper was hanging on ragged threads, and she wasn’t known to be prudent in that respect in any case. The Honorable Hermione Granger did just as she bloody well pleased, no matter the repercussions, despite any efforts by her dear parents to keep her in line.
“Kindly mind your own business,” she hissed, and Hannah squeaked a distressed, “Hermione,” fingers clutching hers in a near death grip as the large, barrel-chested ape tried to drag her further away.
With a growl, Hermione hitched her skirts even higher - much to the delight of all present, if their cheers were any indication – and stepped forward with every intention of hurling herself in the bloke’s path, but a firm hand came down on her shoulder, effectively pinning her in place.
“Perhaps I can be of assistance?” the same dark-haired man asked, then without waiting for Hermione’s scathing retort about inappropriate touching – really, the nerve of these men – he gave Hannah’s captor a loose, deceptively benevolent smile.
“Now, Mitchell, you do remember what happened the last time you manhandled something that wasn’t yours, don’t you?” The man’s voice was a low rumble, and the tavern fell eerily silent as Mitchell gave him a half-confused, half-wrathful scowl.
“Piss off, Zabini,” he slurred.
Hermione started and stared at the man with new eyes, a small flutter of apprehension in her belly. That was Zabini? Infamous first mate of The Tidy Squall? He was taller than she’d expected. And neater, honestly. Weren’t pirates supposed to be, well… rough-edged and sordid? The man in front of her was nearly a gentleman, coat tailored perfectly along his broad shoulders, the white of his open-necked shirt crisp in the dirt-yellow light of the pub.
There was a flash of white-gold, and suddenly a man was striding up to stand beside Zabini, cruel gray eyes cutting from her to Hannah to Zabini again. “What the devil is going on, Blaise,” he growled, color high on his sharply curved cheeks.
“Mitchell here was just about to let Miss…?” He gazed expectantly at Hannah.
“Abbott,” she managed breathily, and Hermione thanked god she hadn’t thought to toss out her title. Lord knew what would happen then, but ransoming wasn’t necessarily unheard of.
Zabini’s grin was surprisingly gentle. “Yes, Mitchell was just about to let Miss Abbott go about her business, weren’t you Mitchell?”
The blond newcomer tilted his head haughtily and cracked his knuckles, and Mitchell released Hannah with an awkward stumble backwards, visible fear shading his eyes.
Hannah immediately tangled her arms about Hermione’s waist, and the brunette could feel the tremors threatening to shake apart her body. She patted her friend’s hands and gave her a reassuring smile, then turned her attention to the two men still watching them with blatant interest, Zabini’s curiosity tinged with amusement, the blond’s with palpable annoyance.
“Thank you,” Hermione said, not ungraciously. Not particularly gracious, either, but her nerves were rattled, her temper simmering, and any fight she’d been spoiling for had been neatly eclipsed by the two slim sailors. Not that she held any illusions that she could’ve gotten Hannah back without their interference. Impulsive, she might be, but she wasn’t stupid.
Zabini arched a brow. “At your service,” he said sardonically, sketching a bow, and the blond curled his lip up in a sneer.
“You’re too chivalric by half, Blaise. What in holy hell are we going to do with these two bints now?”
“Not your taste, eh Malfoy?” a voice taunted from back by the bar, and the blond man sent the heckler a rude gesture that left Hermione blushing.
Then she straightened up, ears pricked, and blinked at the man. Malfoy. Captain Draco Malfoy. How simple was that? Hermione almost smiled. “Captain Malfoy,” she said, tone very nearly jovial, “exactly the man I was looking for.”
He eyed her warily, and Zabini’s brows peaked over his nose. “Really,” Malfoy drawled.
“We have a proposition for you,” she went on, taking a deep breath to fortify herself before plunging on. Both men were staring at her as if she’d grown another head. Honestly, she knew she wasn’t the most conventional young lady, but she wasn’t that odd. “We’d like to hire you and your crew to ferret out a missing person.”
“Hire us to…” Zabini drifted off, shooting a conspiratorial look towards Malfoy, and Hermione got the distinct impression that he was laughing at her.
Although she really couldn’t see why. They were pirates. They would, presumably, perform certain acts for money. Specifically, acts of piracy and various other fruitful ventures worthy of the high seas.
The tip of Zabini’s tongue slicked his bottom lip, blue eyes dancing, and he asked, “Why us?”
“Actually, we know a man on your ship,” Hannah piped in.
“Do you?” Malfoy asked blandly, one hand on a lean hip. Malfoy looked every inch a gentleman, same as Zabini, fine wool threading his coat and the breeches stretched tight around his lean thighs. And they both looked completely at ease in the rough and tumble seaside tavern, despite their aura of stature above the common man.
Hermione huffed. “An Ernest Macmillan.” Youngest son of her mother’s dearest friend. He didn’t write often, but she’d received a letter just months before stating he’d signed on as a seaman aboard The Tidy Squall, the vessel of the notorious buccaneer Draco Malfoy, and that she wasn’t to worry; he knew exactly what he was doing. He made an odd pirate, Hermione thought, as he’d always been a jolly boy, full of smiles and more energy then her father’s prized wolfhounds.
The men shared an unreadable glance. “I’m afraid you were mistaken,” Zabini said smoothly, and Hermione gave an impatient oath under her breath and snapped, “Does it matter?”
Malfoy’s gray eyes were at once bored and banked with irritation, clearly nearing the end of his semi-polite veneer.
“Look,” Hannah said, spine finally gaining the steel Hermione had seen so often when she dealt with her pompously overbearing stepfather, “we’ve a boy aboard the Clamoring Sea Hag, and we want him back.”
“A boy,” Zabini echoed slowly.
“My stable boy,” Hannah clarified, and Hermione visibly winced.
Oh, that didn’t sound peculiar at all, she thought with a mental roll of her eyes, then she sent Hannah a withering glare.
“Your…” Zabini looked as if he would’ve laughed if he hadn’t been so obviously stunned by her admission. “You want us to retrieve your stable boy?”
Hermione bristled at the man’s derisive tone. Ron was more than just a stable boy. He was a friend. Hannah’s closest friend since childhood - barring Hermione, of course - and since Hermione’s family estate rested directly down the road, lands touching, she’d grown up almost as familiar with the redheaded lad as Hannah.
Lady Hannah sniffed. “He hates the water. He can’t swim. And he gets seasick.” She sounded small and pitiful, and Hermione explained further, “He isn’t recalcitrant. He was stolen.”
Zabini opened his mouth, closed it again, cocked his head to the side and blinked at them, then opened his mouth once more, but Malfoy cut off whatever he was going to say with a single raised finger.
“Blaise,” he said, “a moment.”
Keeping one eye on the young ladies, Blaise stepped after Draco and watched as the blond captain blew out a puff of breath.
“They’re insane, aren’t they?”
“I’m intrigued.”
“A pretty wrist gets you intrigued, Blaise. Doe eyes are your greatest weakness. We aren’t doing it,” he said with finality.
Blaise gave him a winning grin.
“You’re an atrocious pirate,” Draco complained. “I’ve never come across a worse pirate than you. You realize you wouldn’t be anywhere without me, don’t you?”
Blaise’s grin widened.
“And if we do agree to do this, they,” he jabbed a finger at the women, “are not to step foot on my ship. I’ll not have—”
“You can’t say anything about them being high-maintenance, Draco.” His brows rose pointedly.
“Bugger it.” Draco pressed two fingers to his forehead. If Blaise was a horrible pirate, Draco was just as bad a captain. Worse even, letting the cheeky bastard run rampant over him as well as the Squall. He was infinitely thankful he had such a loyal, well-paid crew, or his reputation as a cutthroat, ruthless scallywag would be in tatters. Blaise only had to bat his pretty black lashes and Draco’d roll over like a trained dog. It was beyond pathetic.
“You’re going to be responsible for them,” he said ominously, then stalked back over to the girls and snarled, “We’ll leave within the hour. I hope you brought your bags with you, because you won’t be going home first.”
“Oh excellent, thank—wait, no. We’re not going with you,” Hermione started to protest.
“But you are,” Zabini countered.
“We’re not.”
A curl fell across Zabini’s right eye as he leant down close to her face, breath warm and slightly yeasty from ale. “Are,” he whispered wickedly.
Hermione’s jaw clenched, hands pressed huffily against her hips. “You can’t dictate what we do or do not do.”
“I beg to differ.”
“That’s kidnapping,” she pointed out shrilly, wagging a finger under his nose.
Malfoy winced. “Pirates,” he said dryly, then muttered under his breath, “bloody soft pirates. Flint would’ve had both our heads for this.”
Ignoring his captain, Blaise lightly shackled the top of Hermione’s arm with a hand. “Come along, now. No sense wasting your breath arguing. Rest assured you’ll have fine accommodations aboard the Squall.”
Hannah gave Hermione a panicky, wide-eyed look and hissed, “I told you this was a bad idea.”
“No, you didn’t,” Hermione snapped back crisply, highly annoyed with the whole muddled mess, tugging ineffectually at Zabini’s grasp as he herded them out of the tavern.
“Well, I meant to tell you.” She latched onto Hermione’s other arm, worrying her bottom lip.
Hermione slanted her a glower. “You’re not helping, Hannah.”
“What will we do? What about our parents? Your mother’s going to scour the city and find nothing because you didn’t want anyone to know where we were going, not even Lavender, and we tell Lavender everything, and now we’re going to board a pirate ship and be ravished because not even your mum—” Viscountess Granger was a formidable, often awe-inspiring lady, “—would guess what you’ve gotten us into now. This trumps everything, even that time we were stuck at the bottom of MacDougal’s well for nearly two days.”
“We were five,” Hermione grumbled. When Hannah was nervous, she rambled.
Blaise, who’d been half-listening to the women as he led them down the docks, quipped with amusement, “You were stuck in a well?”
“I was a precocious child,” she murmured defensively.
Captain Malfoy snorted from behind them, and Hermione resisted the urge to turn her head and stick her tongue out at him. She was seventeen, a grown lady. And grown ladies didn’t resort to childish gestures, no matter how satisfying they felt.
Forced into a small boat, the low wooden benches wet from sea spray, Hannah threaded her fingers together and stared out into the dark water. “Is she hidden then?” she babbled slightly. “You’re not going to drown us, are you? What do you—?”
The Tidy Squall loomed ahead of them, a black hulk in the clear, starlit night, rolling on her moorings with the high tide. Hannah swallowed the rest of her running diatribe, mouth slacked open in wonder. She’d never been that close to a pirate ship before. Though she supposed it wasn’t much different than her stepfather’s schooner, sleek and sharp-bowed for speed. Except it had a bit of a sinister air surrounding it, a rumble of voices slurring Sweet Anna-Mae drifting down towards them as they rowed into its shadow.
With minimal prompting from Zabini, Hermione and Hannah made their way slowly up the rope ladder and onto the deck. A few scattering of lanterns were lit along the edge of the stern, and a loud whoop echoed over the wooden planks before Hermione’s eyes properly adjusted to the light. Arms banded about her and lifted her clear off her feet, and she gave an unladylike yelp before recognizing the exuberant, “’Mione!”
Only one person ever used that horrid nickname from her childhood.
“Ernest, put me down,” she said sternly, wriggling in his hold. “Have you lost all your manners?”
“Pirates don’t have manners,” he said happily, but dropped her back onto the deck after one last breathtaking squeeze, grinning beatifically down at her when she spun around to glare at him.
His smile was infectious, though, and she never could be angry with the boy. He was far too adorable, with his floppy blond hair and wide, dimple-edged mouth.
“I take it you know these ladies, Mac?” Malfoy drawled, climbing over the rail with Zabini not far behind.
“Know them? ‘Mione and I were practically married at birth!” They honestly were, too, good faith betrothal and all. What a sticky situation that had turned out to be. Since they’d been thrown together often as playmates growing up, they had aged with a familial bond of near-siblings between them. Any sort of marital union would’ve felt nothing short of incest, and so Ernest had hied himself off to his grandfather’s first love: the sea.
“Mac?” Hannah puzzled.
He pressed a finger to the side of his nose, then stage-whispered, “I’m sailing under a false name.”
Zabini knocked a fist into his shoulder. “You’re too good-natured to be a born pirate, Mac. You haven’t a mean bone in your body.”
“No need to,” Ernest grinned. “Not with the captain around.”
“Watch your mouth, boy, or you’ll find yourself in the brig for a week,” Malfoy growled.
“Aye, sir,” Ernest replied smartly, smile still wide on his face.
Malfoy rolled his eyes. “It’s a wonder I have any reputation left at all with you fops spreading good cheer at every port,” he muttered.
“Why are ye even here?” Ernest bounced his gaze between the women. “It can’t be just to see me. Is it—” He cocked his head at Zabini. “We haven’t taken to ransoming young ladies now, have we?”
“Your status is showing, Mac,” Blaise chastened. The Squall’s crew had been notably leery of Mac’s highborn speech when he’d first signed on, and it’d taken considerable effort on the blond boy’s part to fit in with the ruffians.
“Ron’s been stolen,” Hannah offered, mood buoyed by Ernest’s presence.
It still sounded completely ridiculous, and Draco still thought the young ladies were walking the edge of irreparable insanity, but Mac seemed to understand exactly what was going on, nodding with a solemn air the boy hardly ever donned.
“How’d he manage that?” Ernest asked, scratching the back of his neck.
Hermione opened her mouth to reply when a gruff voice cut in, “Here now. What’s all this?”
A blunt-tipped cane poked her in the side and she turned to glare at a short, wizened old man with misshapen eyes and a ratty-crowned hat drooping over his gray head. “Excuse me,” she said stiffly.
“Women’s bad luck on a ship,” he said, poking her again. “Better toss ‘em over.”
Zabini chuckled. “You say, Moody? Well, then. S’pose Millie should go with ‘em.”
“Millie ain’t girlfolk, boy,” he groused, one eye steady and mean on Hermione, the other rattling lazily up towards the night sky. But he wandered off, gait hitching, a stream of grumbles running under his breath.
“Don’t mind Mad-eye,” Ernest said, and then Zabini gave him a pointed look.
“Shouldn’t you be guarding the hold?” he asked.
Ernest shrugged. “Can guard it here just as well as below,” Zabini’s eyes narrowed to warning slits, “but I might as well bid ye g’night now. Mornin’?” He cocked his head at Hannah and Hermione, looking just as eagerly puppyish as he always had.
“I don’t believe we have a choice in the matter,” Hermione stated, slanting Zabini a sharp, accusing glare that he shrugged off unrepentantly. Bloody pirate.
True to Zabini’s words, the accommodations for Hannah and Hermione were fine. Adequate, if not quite up to the standards they were used to.
Captain Malfoy was an oddly fastidious pirate, and even though the women weren’t allowed on deck very often, and most definitely never without an escort – and even though Zabini had the most disarmingly smarmy grin when he put some thought behind it - it was easy to forget that they were even on a pirate ship. Until, of course, they met up with the Clamoring Sea Hag.
It took five days to reach the pirate isle of Los Muertos, and three more to catch up with the Hag, which was on a steady course towards the Bahamian tropics. Hermione clung to the narrow bunk as the ship rocked with canon blast, and Hannah was panting, back against the door, one hand gripping the handle and lock.
“This was such a bad idea,” she groaned.
“This wasn’t my idea,” Hermione protested at the implication that the situation on board was her fault. “I couldn’t have known—”
“Pirates,” Hannah interrupted meaningfully.
“Well,” Hermione would have slumped on the mattress if she didn’t think she’d flop right off onto the floor, “yes.”
Up on deck, Blaise stood at the railing and grinned viciously towards the smaller schooner just ahead of them.
“My ship’ll be battered for a couple of wenches,” Draco groused from beside him, cutlass unsheathed and angled to catch the high afternoon light.
“And the bounty,” Blaise pointed out, then went on with relish, “and the fight.”
“Ah, yes.” There was something to be said about brutality after all. Draco had always been fond of spilling deserved blood. Pulling alongside the Hag, shouts and gunfire echoing around them, he lifted his sword, slicing a humorless grin at Blaise. “Ready?”
Blaise’s answering smirk was almost as spare. “As ever.”
In the ensuing fight to board the Hag, only Crabbe, the quartermaster, was seriously wounded, and Draco was in relatively good spirits when he had Captain Pucey - a disreputable seaman, even by piratical standards – at sword-point against the mainmast, tip of his cutlass just barely biting into the skin at the hollow of the man’s throat.
Pucey spat onto the planks by Draco’s boots, and the blond fought the urge to lean into the cut, widen it to a slit. “Pucey,” he started with faux amiability, “you’ve a boy aboard.”
“A boy?” Pucey growled.
“A boy. A stable lad you picked up in Torquay, aye?”
“I don—”
“Think,” Draco’s bicep flexed minutely, twitching the curved sword, “very carefully.”
Pucey grit his teeth against the sting. “The brig. Whelp’s more trouble than he’s worth. I’ll be glad to be—” He gargled his own blood as Draco sliced the cutlass across his skin, ear to ear, and then swiped the flat of the blade on the now dead man’s breeches.
“You were a disgrace to piracy, anyway,” Draco said conversationally, then glanced around at his men. They’d made their fair shares of messes, sweat and blood mixing with their normal, everyday grime, and they gave the captain sated smiles when he scanned the deck, eyes narrowed. Blaise was crouched over an injured Millie, but a slight shake of his head let Draco know she wasn’t seriously hurt.
“Zabini,” he ordered, “take the helm.”
Without question, the rest of the men started heaving dead and dying bodies into the ocean, and Draco strode towards the hold, dropping down into the dark with his sword brandished and ears alert.
The whimpers and growls sounded much like a wounded and spitting-angry animal, and Draco snapped, “Boy?” as non-threateningly as he could. He thought he showed admirable restraint, since his first instinct was to demand whoever was down there to step forward into the small square of light shining down from the open hatch.
There was a scramble of something softly heavy on the wooden planks, and then utter, tense silence, broken only every few seconds by an uneven hitch of breath.
“Boy? Come on out now, you’re safe.” Draco rolled his eyes. The mere idea of anyone beyond his crew feeling safe in his presence – and even that was a stretch - was an affront to his ruthless reputation on the main. Quickly shooting a look towards the opening above him, he hoped to god no one was listening in on this drivel. “There’s no need to hide, I assure you,” he went on evenly, moving further into the hold, the deep shadows taking shape as his vision acclimated to the dusky darkness. “You’ll only try my limited patience and goodwill.”
Draco took an involuntary step backwards as a hulking figure rose in the dark, a flash of pale skin and a rattle-creak of metal before whoever it was folded back into blackness again. The captain let out an irritated huff of breath, then climbed halfway back up the ladder and snarled at Davies to find him a lantern. The stable boy was being annoyingly uncooperative.
Dim, golden light finally in hand, Draco could see that the hold was split in half, with two small, barred cells blocked off close to the hatch, the rest of the room stacked with crates of various sizes.
And blue, blue eyes were glaring at him, dirt-red fringe swept limply across a grimy forehead, ragged breeches baring pale, upraised knees as the boy – boy? Even curled into himself as he was the bloke was notably large, long-limbed and broad – pressed against the far corner of the brig.
Draco palmed his pistol, ignoring the pained wince on the boy’s face, the visible flinch, and twirled it so the heavy handle met the cell’s lock with a satisfying clang, the rusty metal giving way with relative ease. The door swung slowly outward with a grating rasp. “Ah, now, t’would put me in a far better mood if you’d forgo any struggle and followed me.” He arched a brow at the boy, who pinched his lips together and hissed, “Pirate,” in a low, parched voice.
“Yes, well. If you were hoping for a denial, boy, you shall be sorely disappointed. And if you were hoping to insult me,” Draco’s grin was sharp and toothy, “you’d be better off accusing me of mercy.”
The blue eyes blinked, glazing over with what Draco recognized as a mixture of resignation and fear, and he slapped the flat of his cutlass along his thigh.
“Up. Now.”
“All right, Captain?” Blaise called down at him. “We’re keeping steady, but I’d rather get off this floating piece of trash before she sinks.”
Draco tipped his head back and glowered up at Blaise’s smiling face. “Have Goyle check the crates down here for anything valuable. I don’t relish being aboard any longer than we have to be. The men itching for a fire, do you think?”
“Oh, aye.” Blaise grinned wider.
“Right. You,” he turned back to the redhead, still slumped dejectedly in the corner, “want to burn, do you?” He stalked into the cell and bent down to curl a tanned hand around his bicep, yanking the boy to his feet, eyes traveling up his chest, the deep v left open to the air from a torn brown shirt, lingering around his dirt streaked throat and the pinked curve just under his jaw. No matter his age, Draco concluded that he certainly wasn’t a boy.
The situation might prove far more interesting than he’d previously thought.
“Do you hear anything?” Hannah asked, wringing her hands, pacing the small space in front of the door.
Hermione, sprawled out on the bunk, barely lifted her head to blink at her. “Hear what?” They’d been hearing gunfire and swearing and blasts and shouts for the better part of an hour. It was blessedly silent for once.
“Nothing. It’s entirely too quiet, don’t you think?”
Rolling onto her side, Hermione pushed her hair back off her face and sighed into the musty blankets covering the mattress. “I just hope they found Ron.”
The smell of fire rising above mere expelled gunpowder caught Hermione’s nose, and she straightened up, twitching with apprehension.
“What do you think of that?” Hannah demanded, eyes wide.
“I think we need to make our way topside,” Hermione rejoined with a determined nod of her head.
A dark-haired, gangly youth with a wide mouth and three-fourths of his left leg missing was standing guard just outside their door. He’d introduced himself as “Boot, miss,” six days prior, and hadn’t yet left their side whenever they set foot out of their cabin. On orders, he’d assured them, from Mr. Zabini.
“Mr. Boot,” Hermione said firmly, “can you say what’s going on above?”
He straightened from his slouch against the wall, crude crutch jammed under his arm. “They be burnin’ the Hag, miss.”
“But… why?”
“Ain’t a trustworthy hull. Not ‘nough for the cap’n to set a piece o’ th’crew aboard, I’ll warrant. And no use driftin’ ‘er when fire makes a prettier sight.”
Hermione nodded. “I do believe I understood what you’ve said,” she returned with slight wonderment couched in her voice. She imagined a fire of that magnitude would be pretty in the purple-pink twilight, nothing but dark navy sea surrounding them. She glanced over her shoulder. “Did you ever suspect I was bloodthirsty, Hannah?” she asked idly, and Hannah wisely kept silent about that.
She didn’t have enough fingers to count on, so many were the times she’d seen Hermione close to killing someone with her eyes, her cutting tongue. Of course, that sort of bloodletting and the kind that pirates practiced were drastically different. Though she couldn’t help thinking that if it came down to it, Hermione wouldn’t think twice about taking a life. It was at once an unsettling and comforting thought.
“Can we go up then?” Hannah asked, curling her fingers over Hermione’s arm. “Was Ron aboard?”
“You’ll have to wait for the cap—”
“Oh, nonsense.” Hermione pushed past him, the boy too stunned to grab for her. “If they’re burning the Hag, then I can’t see any danger in being on deck.”
Hannah grimaced an apology to young Boot, hoping he wouldn’t be chastised too harshly for letting them slip by him, and then hesitantly followed Hermione up the passageway.
It wasn’t twilight yet, but the sight of the Clamoring Sea Hag folding into ashes and embers, collapsing, hissing smoke, into the cold sea, was certainly interesting. Hermione found herself striding to the rail, eyes locked on the deteriorating vessel, the scent of wood smoke mixing with sea salt high on the air, the sawing creak of the Squall beneath her feet oddly soothing.
“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected Boot to successfully keep you at bay,” a voice drawled, and Hermione glanced over her shoulder at a thankfully amused Blaise Zabini. “You’re the sort what needs a heavy guard.”
“Did you find him?” she asked crisply.
“Not quite a boy, is he? Larger than most.”
Something tight inside her loosened and she sagged back against the railing. “Thank god,” she breathed, then tumbled out, “Where is he? We’ll be heading home now, yes?”
“The good captain’s taking care of your boy, and no. Not quite yet.”
Hermione stared at him with wide, I-must-not-be-hearing-you-correctly eyes. “What?”
“We’re sailing on to the Abacos.” His voice tipped deliberately louder. “Nott’s got a sweetheart there he hasn’t seen in years.”
“Sod off, Zabini,” a mean-looking pirate – though that was rather redundant, considering most of the crew looked disgruntled and cruel – said as he passed by behind him, bow-legged with the pitch of the ship and picking idly at his nails with a wicked sharp dirk.
“You realize you won’t get paid ‘til we’re in England again,” Hermione pointed out.
“Ah, but see,” he lifted a finger, touching the tip of her nose softly, “we’ve already received our payment, haven’t we?”
Hermione blinked at him. “You can’t mean us.”
“Quick-witted. Unlike many, I appreciate that trait in a woman.”
“But. You can’t. My parents won’t just… give me up!”
“Providing they have any idea where you’ve disappeared to,” he murmured, faint grin stretching his lips. “Let me guess; you aren’t a commoner.” He cocked his head to the side. “Eldest daughter of a portly baron, aye?”
“Only,” Hermione snapped. “And he’s a Viscount.”
“Oh yes. Viscount, of course.” He nodded. “Should’ve known by your ostentatious name.”
“My name is not ostentatious,” she protested, horrified.
But he just ignored her, rubbing a thoughtful hand across his jaw. “And little Hannah Abbott. You’ve called her ‘Lady’ upon occasion. Earl?”
Hermione’s scowl was mutinous. “Why bother helping us with Ron if you weren’t planning on ever letting us go?”
“But we made a deal, Madam, didn’t we?” She opened her mouth to retort, but he cut her off with a proprietary hand on her waist, sliding his wide palm around to the small of her back. “Though if that explanation doesn’t suit you,” he went on amiably, “then think of it this way. You had something stolen from you, which now, by proxy, belongs to us. And the captain doesn’t take kindly to thieves not of his own bidding, and likes damage to his property even less.”
“Ron isn’t property,” she ground out indignantly, trying to lean away from his touch but succeeding only in bringing their chests closer together.
“You quibble about the smallest things, my dear. What you think doesn’t hold the least bit of consequence anymore.”
Hermione’s jaw clenched and she snarled through her teeth, “It doesn’t, does it?”
“Not ‘til we get bored of you, at any rate. So far, you’ve proved highly amusing to the entire crew. With the exception of Mad-eye, I suppose, but Moody rarely finds anything beyond his own nose satisfactory.”
“Do you think you’re charming?” she spat.
“Charming?” His brows rose. “Certainly not the word I would’ve used, love. Makes me wonder about the sort of company you’ve kept.”
The nerve of the man. “I haven’t kept any company at all.”
He leered at her. “All the more fun for me then.”
Hermione was surprisingly more irate than fearful, and she was quite aware that her glare was ineffectual, the heat of it leaving no marks at all as it rolled off Zabini’s weathered skin. “You’re despicable,” she groused.
“Now you’ve got the idea.”
Hannah was wavering between something that felt like fluttering excitement and debilitating fear. Blocking her way at the top of the stairs was a large, angry-looking, looming man who didn’t seem to be wearing much of a shirt.
Flushed bright red, Hannah cleared her throat and gave him a weak, “Pardon me?”
The man’s scowl didn’t lighten, and he crossed his thick arms over his chest, slick muscles bulging.
“Could I possibly… get past you?” she tried again, hands clasped demurely in front of her. She certainly did not want to brush that errant lock of brown hair off his forehead, even though she couldn’t see how it would be comfortable for the man, tickling his surprisingly long eyelashes as it was.
She was rewarded with a grunt and a slight, barely perceptible shifting of his stance, but he seemed no more inclined to let her have her way.
Trying another tactic entirely, feeling a bit bold like Hermione, she rolled her wrist and inquired airily, “You could accompany me on deck, couldn’t you?”
And just like that, she was strolling about in the late afternoon sunshine with a brutish pirate beside her, still resolutely silent but not nearly as menacing as before. She found it oddly exhilarating.
Later, back down in their cabin, Hermione tapped her fingers on the foot of the bunk and said, “You realize they’re going to try and keep us.”
Hannah recognized the stubborn determination in her friend’s voice. “What are we going to do, then?”
“The Abacos islands. We’ll sneak ashore and book passage home.”
She seemed so sure. Hermione always seemed sure, though, even if she had no idea what she was doing. Hannah figured that was why they periodically got into such horrendous scrapes.
“It’ll simply be a matter of getting Ron,” Hermione went on, “out of Captain Malfoy’s grip.”
Part Two