To All The Grills I've Loved Before

She had checked the Ministry records before but had no luck. She could find nothing on where the vampire she knew only as Hunter lived. He had clearly given the Ministry officials a false name, if they had any record of him at all, but that would not dissuade her. Over her last several visits, despite somehow never remembering the intoxicating vampire’s address upon leaving, she had managed to retain a few key details that she hoped would help her narrow down his location. She just needed access to the records in the Magical Creatures Department. Again. This time, Dora was searching by location instead of by name, which might have been more difficult for any other witch, but Dora was quite versed in performing cataloging spells with a bloke between her thighs. A fair third of her flings in her Hogwarts days had been in the library, a place most would rarely expect to find her yet she felt very much at home among the books. The tall shelves stacked with reference materials had reminded her of visiting her father’s office when she was little, a welcomed memory that struck her in the public libraries or even a few bookshop to this day.

This time, however, Dora was not an innocent teen pressed up against a bookshelf trying to muffle herself so as not to get caught by the school librarian. She was on her back under a desk, purring into Mikhail’s ear as her wand hand carefully drew a file from the cabinets and floated it over onto the man’s desk above her. She whispered words of satisfaction as he came and she feigned a mutual arrival just to get on with things. She had more important matters at hand than fooling around with some low-level intern, but Mikhail was a means to an end that she’d already grown quite familiar with. “Can you hand me my shoes?” she asked, gesturing toward her heels that had “accidentally” been thrown across the room. Mikhail turned to search for her shoes and Dora quickly stuffed the entire file in the waistband of her skirt, pulling her top down over it so that he wouldn’t catch her. Instead of heading for the atrium as she normally would have from anywhere else in the massive building, Dora sneaked away into a storage cupboard and began searching the contents of the file until she had found what she was looking for.

Thomas Bellamy. That was definitely a false name, she thought with a little smirk. How clever must Hunter have thought himself when dealing with whatever idiot had completed this registration, giving such an obviously fake name to hide his true identity. An identity he so willingly shared with Dora. Her cheeks flushed with emotion at the thought, but her mouth was dry and muscles ached for him. She found the street name and departed as quickly as she could, but not before banishing the file back to its cabinet without a trace.

The street looked vaguely familiar but without a proper address Dora was left to wander up the pavement, studying anything that might jog her memory and lead her to him. She passed several row houses and then a park, but none of it seemed familiar. There was a little flower shop and more houses, then a church caught her eye. The stained glass seemed to dance in such a way that Dora couldn’t look away from it, and when her heart began to thud loudly in her chest, she knew she had found him. Despite her excitement, and her insistence that she just needed a little bite to get her through the rest of the day, Hunter seemed displeased with her. Dora was not as familiar with playing hard to get as most witches were, so she was shocked by his initial refusal and his rough treatment of her but eventually she got her way and by the time she arrived at Leo Zabini’s manor, Dora was feeling euphoric.

The door opened upon her arrival and she stepped inside, her memories of the man’s home from a year prior having clearly shrunk the place in her mind. She was lost within seconds, asking the pictures for directions, but followed the sounds of music and frivolity until the sun blinded her as she stepped out into the back garden. Shielding her eyes, Dora scanned the faces around the barbecue and then the pool, turning a smile toward the nearest familiar face.