Hello, all! This here is my newest story (for now, anyway), and it will be quite different from Malfoy Gets a Puppy. That was obviously a very light, humourous story. This is intended to be a bit more serious. Please leave me reviews, because I really have no idea whether or not anyone is interested in this. I'd love to know, but no flames!

Story: Rediscovery

Pairings: Hermione/Draco, Lupin/Tonks, Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hannah.

HALF-BLOOD PRINCE SPOILERS!

Plot: Post HBP. Lupin and Tonks go missing, leaving their baby daughter in the care of her only other relative – Draco Malfoy. Hermione Granger, now an auror, is in charge of the case to find Lupin and Tonks and is also in charge of keeping an eye on Malfoy. Slowly, she finds herself drawn to him...

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot and anything else you don't recognize. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, of course!

Chapter 1 – A Bad Day for Malfoy

Draco Malfoy was not having a good day.

And it was only 7 A.M. in the morning.

He had woken from a restless night of sleep, despite the fact that his large, antique, luxurious Malfoy bed was comfortable enough to send an insomniac into blissful rest. He tripped over himself in his exhaustion on the way down to the kitchen, landing most ungracefully in a heap on the floor at the foot of the stairs. What was worse was that two house elves had been standing there; one was completely squashed by Draco while the other squeaked in horror, then proceeded to physically punish himself, believing himself responsible for Draco's shocking, bow-like position before him. Draco was equally shocked to find himself in such a position before the elf, but the elf ran off before he could punish him.

"Bloody elf," Draco muttered as he moodily stabbed his breakfast with a fork. Life sucked. Lucius was dead, killed by Neville Longbottom, for Merlin's sake, five years ago during the final battle with Voldemort in Draco's seventh year. His mother was in St. Mungo's – and here Draco felt his heart clench with pain, anger, and helplessness – because her own sister had tortured her into insanity when she did not reveal the whearabouts of Lucius. Draco could not understand why his mother had even bothered to stand up for the cowardly bastard. The hypocritical bastard who served a half-blood while going on and on about the importance of pure blood ancestry, and of Malfoys serving no one but themselves.

At that moment, there was a very loud knock on the door.

Draco ignored it, leaving the house elf to deal with it. Just as he was about to take a hearty bite into his gourmet muffin, one of the house elves – Squeaky, was it? - popped up. Great, thought Draco. I can't even eat.

"What is it?" he glowered.

"S-s-sir, there is someone at the door who is wanting to see you, sir!" Squeaky squeaked. Hence the name "Squeaky."

"Tell them to go away or wait," Draco said irritably. "It's too early in the morning to be seeing anyone."

"B-b-but sir, it's... it's one of them..."

Draco put down his muffin abruptly. One of them, was it? He really wasn't having a good day.

"I'll see to it," Draco grumbled. "You, on the other hand... make sure no one else is lurking about on the grounds." With that Draco left his breakfast to sit all by itself and headed towards the impressive entrace hall, where the door stood open. Sunlight poured directly in through the door, silhouetting the guest; it was a dramatic sight, especially when one saw one of Draco's other house elves cowering in the corner. Looking down his nose in contempt at Freaky, he stepped warily towards the door.

"And who might be interrupting me at such a time as this?" he growled unpleasantly, while shifting slightly so that he'd be able to whip out his wand at the slightest notice.

The guest suddenly, without warning, stepped into the house and, turning, shut the front door behind them. Draco was on the self-invited guest in half a second, pressing his body against their back and pinning them to the door while wrapping his left arm around their neck.

The guest was a woman. She was tense but made no sound.

"An auror," Draco spat, close to her right ear. "You stupid meddlers just keep coming back, don't you? You all just insist on searching my house over and over for dark objects. No, not even that... you're all just searching for anything that will tell you more about my father."

He paused, then spoke again.

"Well, guess what. Tell your friggin department to get their hairy asses out of my business, out of my life, and to leave me alone before I-"

"Malfoy, just shut up for a minute!" the woman gasped.

Draco loosened his grip in complete surprise. Her voice was familiar. And she... she dared speak to him on so personal a level? Did she know him then? On a more personal level, and not just as that son of the deatheater who everyone feared?

Draco slowly turned the woman around so that he was pinning her back, not her front, to the door now. It took him two seconds before he recognized her.

Hermione Granger.

He suppressed the instinct to jump back from the Mudblood in disgust – no way was he giving her the chance to reach for her wand.

"Granger," he hissed instead, eyeing her face with intense dislike. The expression on her face mirrored his own. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

It had, indeed, been a while. Last time he'd seen her, she and the then-secret Order of the Phoenix had been inside this very house, mediwizards and witches tending to him, grievously injured after dashing off to rescue his mother from Voldemort. His mother couldn't be healed by a couple of mediwizards and witches. Draco vaguely remembered screaming in rage at everyone and everything, remembered seeing Granger and Potter and Weasley huddled near the fireplace, murmuring, before he passed out. That was five years ago.

Granger still had the bushy hair. Some things never changed.

But she was an auror now.

"Unhand me, Malfoy," she said in an icy voice, her eyes flashing dangerously. "Or I will be forced to use my auror training against you, and you know my prowess with a wand."

Draco sneered. "You come waltzing into my home like you own it and expect me to just let you sit down to tea? You expect me to unhand you so that you can stupefy me and search my house? You know I'm not that stupid."

She was silent for a moment, before she spoke.

"Point taken. I swear on my mother's blood that I will not attempt to harm you in any way. Now let me go."

Draco was a pretty good occlumens, and could tell she wasn't lying. With a growl he stepped back, but never let his eyes leave her. "Explain why you're here, then," he said coldly.

"Your cousin, Nymphadora Tonks, and her husband, Lupin, have gone missing," Hermione said in a clipped tone, her eyes watching his face for reaction. Draco showed none.

"So what?" he said.

Hermione wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"She's your family, for Merlin's sake, Malfoy! In fact... you're the only family she's got right now."

Draco wasn't sure where this was going, but it didn't sound good.

"As you know... Tonks and Lupin had a child a year ago. A baby girl. While her parents have gone missing, the child has not. And you -" and here she hesitated before going on - "as the only living blood relative of either Tonks or Lupin – well, the child is to go into your care until they are found again."

Draco stared at her stonily. Hermione suddenly looked a bit uncertain.

"You will take care of her, won't you?"

Draco continued to stare at her stonily. In stony silence. Perhaps he looked stoned, too.

Hermione sighed. "Right, well... If you don't take care of her – if anything happens to her – you can be charged with child neglect. So you're taking care of her whether or not you like it. Or just... why don't you just hire a nanny or something?"

Draco finally opened his mouth.

"Where is the child?"

The coldness of his tone frightened Hermion. She didn't think it a good idea to hand over the child of two of her close co workers (and her heart clenched as she thought of them missing, maybe even dead) to the son of a former death eater. Said son never chose a side to fight on, so although he likely was not dark, he was not light, either.

"The child, Granger. Or are Mudbloods deaf, too?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes in anger, reaching for her wand without thinking about it.

"Going to break that oath on your mother's blood so fast, are you?" Draco smirked nastily.

"The child is currently in the care of Mr and Mrs Weasley," Hermione said, ignoring Draco's comment and pretending she'd never reached for her wand. Draco opened his mouth to cut in, but Hermione beat him to it. "If you're going to ask why the child can't just stay with them, it's because of legal issues. According to wizard law, children under seventeen are sent to live with their closest living relative if no parents or previously appointed guardians are available, or if the parents or guardians have not left instructions on where the child should be left while they are absent. So Cassie is staying with you, Malfoy."

"Cassie?" Draco asked, sneering. "What kind of name is that?"

Granger sniffed at him, irritably, forcefully reminding Malfoy of bygone Hogwarts days. "Her full name is Cassiopeia, after her great-grandmother."

Draco rolled his eyes.

"So if I don't take in my... second cousin, I will be-"

"Fined or possibly jailed," Hermione said. "Believe me, we'd much rather have Cassie in our care -" and by our it was obvious that she meant the goody-two-shoes Golden Trio and their supporters - "but the law is the law."

Draco said nothing. Hermione decided to try and interpret his silence this time, and decided to believe his silence meant he'd comply.

"Right. So I'll be dropping by again in a day or two to bring Cassie. Don't you try to run off to some summer cottage to hide out, now, Malfoy. We'll be keeping an eye on this house."

Draco growled in outrage. "Do I not have any privacy anymore?" he all but yelled, but Hermione had already opened the door and was walking down the path to the gates. Draco swore in frustration at how his day was turning out, then slammed the door shut. Freaky the elf looked on balefully from the corner.

Well? What did you think? Hit that review button right now and tell me! Reviewers are awesome.

G'nite, folks.