Disclaimer: The plot and characters of Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling; this story is just for fun, not for sale or profit.

A/n: This story is AU, and a response to the 'Weekly Attack of the Plot Bunnies' prompt from the Fanficton Writers' Club on Facebook. Guidelines are listed at the end. Please enjoy!

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Spy Games

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Professor Dumbledore had asked for a volunteer. It had to be a young woman, he'd said. It had to be tonight. She had instantly raised her hand. The headmaster agreed quickly enough, but he wouldn't quite meet her eyes afterward.

Her assignment: infiltration of enemy territory to extract an agent carrying information. Dangerous, but not difficult. Just wear a lily in her hair and wait, they had told her; her contact would know what to do. It seemed an odd choice; lilies weren't in season.

But these were the games spies played. And tonight, heart racing with excitement, she would play too.

They transfigured her gown, applied cosmetics to her face, did something miraculous to her hair, and when they placed the silvery half mask across her eyes, she hadn't even recognized herself in the mirror.

But he had recognized her the instant he saw her.

He moved through the perfumed air of the ballroom towards her, seeming to part the twirling couples with the sheer dark force of his presence as he approached. His eyes flashed with fire from behind the silver half mask that all the revelers wore in common at the Malfoy Manor masquerade. An outside observer might have mistaken it for hunger, but she had known him long enough to recognize his anger when she saw it. He knew her. And he was furious.

Wordlessly he swept her onto the polished marble mirror of the dance floor, her luxuriant finery flaring around her legs, spinning her into his body and leading her into a waltz that carried them back out into the sea of dancing purebloods. He bent his head slightly towards hers in an oddly intimate posture as they moved together.

"There are eyes on us," he murmured into the space between them, and brought his hand up between them to trace the line of her collar bone with the back of one finger. "So pretend to be interested in my advances as though your life depends on it. Because it very likely does."

She might have been shocked. She might have recoiled. She might have faltered.

But these were the games spies played.

The finery of the aristocracy blurred into a rainbow of ruby, emerald, sapphire, silver, ebony and pearl, gilded with gold filigree and lit by chandeliers dripping with diamonds dangling from the soaring vault of the far off ceiling. The sheer opulence of their setting, of their dress, of the music and wine and company, was overwhelming.

It made it easy to forget. And to remember.

Tonight, she wasn't plain, bookish Hermione Granger. And this wasn't the spiteful Professor that had, for seven years of her life, taken such obvious pleasure in cutting her down to size on a daily basis.

Tonight she was a mysterious belle in an elegant gown, drifting gracefully amongst her enemies in disguise. Tonight, she was being swept off of her feet by a dark, enigmatic stranger.

Tonight she was a spy, playing a part in a game of intrigue that she barely grasped.

So she leaned into his embrace, letting him turn her unhurriedly through the crowd, unable to keep from breathing deep the almost intoxicating scent of his cologne as her heart pounded to drown out the music. It was illicit. Dangerous. And for that, exhilarating. It lent her the courage to tilt her head back and look up at him from beneath her lashes.

He was watching her with unreadable eyes, wary, guarded, but, however reluctantly, captivated Something in them made her mouth run dry, and quite without meaning to, her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. Her breath caught at the way his eyes narrowed, his pupils dilating minutely.

They weren't black, his eyes. This close, she could see that they were instead a dark, dark brown that faded into the black of his pupils, giving the impression of tunnels winding down into untold depths, through which one could fall, never to find their way out again.

She blinked, suddenly flustered, and flicked her eyes back down to the relative safety of the buttons of his frock coat, a blush heavy on her cheeks, understanding the strange knowing in his eyes.

These were the games spies played. Her heart skipped as his hand flexed against her waist.

He was a veteran, drawing her into his strategy. She would do her best to follow wherever he might lead.

A gasp tore itself free of her chest as he abruptly gave a sharp turn at the edge of the crowd and pushed her backwards into a shadowed alcove between two pillars. Her back struck the cold wall.

He claimed her lips in a bruising kiss.

Stars exploded, throwing her to the back of her own mind, leaving her a helpless observer from within her own senses. The shattered light of the chandeliers seemed glance off of the ornate, ostentatious opulence of the dancers to spin along the strains of music and the smell of his cologne, permeating her whole world as her heart fluttered like a trapped bird inside her chest. His hand came up her back to thread in the hair at the base of her neck. She shivered, confused and excited as her thoughts thickened to molasses. His lips left her and in her duress, she tried to follow them. His hand in her hair held her back, dislodging the lily they had positioned there as part of her coiffure. He carelessly brushed it away, and it tumbled, unheeded, to the ground.

"Prof…ngh!"

His hand tightened mercilessly, silencing her, as he dipped his head to run his mouth along the line of her neck. The tension between the enticing friction and the sharp pain dragged her brutally back into reality.

This was a spy game, and she had to play it.

"If you believe we are safe, you're a greater fool than I ever imagined," he breathed against her skin, sending sparks up her spine to skitter along her skin. His lips found her ear, and she whimpered helplessly as he nipped at the lobe. "They're watching. Convince them."

Gathering her thoughts was like picking up fistfuls of broken glass with her bare hands. She shoved the alluring sensations aside as best she could, and arched her back as her head fell to one side in offering.

"I was sent for you," she whispered, running her hands up his chest with a daring that left her breathless as he dipped his head to press a lingering kiss to the juncture of her neck and shoulder. A sigh shuddered out of her as she felt his palm trail up the outside of her thigh to splay against her hip, digging into the fabric of her robes to dimple the curve of her flesh. "Do you have it?"

His hand inched higher as he raised his head, leaning his forehead against hers, his hair falling in a curtain around his face as his fingers skated the underside of her breast.

"I have what I came for," he murmured.

Hard to tell from this angle, but she could swear his pupils had dilated even further, so that now, yes, his eyes were nearly true black, as though all the shadows in him had risen to the surface and were reaching for her.

Was that a part of the game? His thumb ghosted over the tight peak of her breast through her gown, pulling a whimper from her, and she had to wonder if he was just that good, or if she wasn't any good at all, because try as she might, she wasn't sure she was pretending anymore.

"The old man has used this tactic before," he whispered, bathing her blush with warm breath, "but I never thought he would send…" His breath left him in a heavy sigh that was hard not to mistake for ardor and she felt his lips on her again, her neck, her jaw… "It will be over soon," he promised wistfully, and then pulled her tight against his body and kissed her again.

Perhaps she wasn't supposed to open her mouth, or slide her tongue teasingly along his? Too late, then to remedy that, and the small sound he made, half surprise, half something else entirely, drove a spike of shameless want straight through her. The diamond lights twinkled, and the music laughed at her helplessness and ballroom danced across the dancers, and lightning danced in her blood as his hands danced over her body. Her arms wrapped around him pulling him closer without her permission, and closer still, but not nearly close enough, that suddenly, inexplicably, didn't seem possible…

There was a quiet clearing of a small throat near their knees. The man who had formerly been her Professor – but who was now a creature she'd never encountered before – pulled mercilessly away from her to turn towards the noise. Hermione was intensely grateful for the support of the pillar at her back.

"What!" he barked down at the house elf in its pristine white tea towel. The elf cringed at the sharp tone.

"Pardon, sir, a thousand pardons, miss. The Master is sending his compliments, his sincerest pleasure that sir and miss is enjoying the festivities, and is asking us to invite you to take your entertainment to a quieter location. If sir and miss is needing a room…"

"That won't be necessary," Professor Snape said in a clipped tone. His normally mellifluous voice sounded a shade raspy. He turned to her, and she flattered herself with the delusion that the smolder in them wasn't entirely for the benefit of their audience. "I can provide my own rooms for… entertaining… Give Lucius my best," he snapped at the elf. "Tell him not to call until tomorrow afternoon."

Without waiting for a reply, he folded her hand possessively over his arm and whisked her back out into the dazzling brilliance of the aristocrats' masque, between the couples who were watching them with dark eyes and twittering knowingly behind their hands.

His hand curled over hers, and she could still smell his cologne – on her skin now, instead of his. Flicking her eyes up at him, she found him watching her with those dark, mysterious tunnels, so dark and unreadable, full of secrets and revealing none. The secrets that he'd come here to steal from the Death Eaters. The secret that the girl on his arm had secrets of her own. Secrets like the fire in his eyes that wasn't entirely anger right now; that he couldn't pretend was entirely pretending.

And secrets that caged that fire and fed it back – back into the game.

Her lashes fluttered and she straightening her shoulders and leaned into him like a young woman swept off of her feet by a dark, enigmatic stranger, pulling the opulence of the room around her like a glittering raiment of what they expected her to be. Exactly what she was supposed to be.

In the aching hollow carved low in her abdomen, she gathered it to herself and remembered. These were the games spies played.

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End

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A/n: Just a quick little bit of fun!

Writing prompt guidelines:
-200-500 words (If you go beyond 500, that's great... but no pressure!)
-The phrase/term/word has to be used at some point in your drabble (but not in the title).
-Any Fandom, any pairing (although, pairing not necessary).
-Theme: OPULENCE

Anyone who has ever read my writing knows I am physically, mentally and spiritually incapable of staying under a word limit; the muse won't stand for it, so it's always going to come out longer than I planned!

Thanks for reading! Reviews are always appreciated!