The Tragedy of Chemistry (DM/HG)

A Proposal

"How was the rest of your weekend? Your mother doing okay?" Nott was already lurking in the hallways Monday morning when he came in. He ignored him and greeted Louise behind the front desk before disappearing into his office.

'Are we good?'

He still scolded himself for having asked Granger such stupid question before she had left his loft on Saturday after he had fucked her brains out. She had looked at him almost bewildered at the question. He had felt like an absolute idiot ever since.

"I see, so Granger turned you down?" Nott leaned against the door frame, not even trying to keep his voice down.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Draco's eyes shot up to look at his friend for the first time today when his stomach dropped at his words. Nott was wearing a smug grin on his stupid face.

"Alright, we can keep pretending if you'd like. Although I find it insulting for you to think I wouldn't know what's going on here..." He stretched his arm out in front of him to look at his fingernails from several different angles.

Draco rolled his eyes and dropped onto his office chair, opening the first floating parchment next to his quill. They were already lined up all the way to the window. He wrinkled his nose in disapproval at the first one, which was opening an imaginary can of flubber worms for the protocol he had to approve for Cynthia Cawthorne in his lab.

He knew Nott well enough that he was an observant little shithead. A major disadvantage to be friends with other Slytherin's if one wanted to keep something a secret. However, Draco knew how to play this game all too well.

"Am I actually paying you for standing in doorways these days?" His eyes never left the parchment in front of him, his quill already began to mark the obvious mistakes in the report in front of him without his doing.

'What do you mean?'
Granger had asked with a squint of her chocolate-colored eyes.

'We don't have to have the talk again we've had last week, right? About what all of this is.'

To lessen the strength of his intend, he had tugged some of her bushy hair behind her ear and had stroked the soft skin covering her cheekbone. She had looked confused but had nodded in agreement.

"All wands at the ready on the license renewal for the Beautification Potion," Nott was a smooth talker, recognizing that his nosiness wouldn't get him very far today.

"You don't look very busy," Draco commented dryly, "You can take over my lunch appointment with Wafford. Now if you'd excuse me."

This time his eyes darted to Nott who tensed slightly at the challenge. Instead of protesting, he nodded, smiled, and turned around to leave Draco alone. He pushed the parchment in front of him away and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.

Granger was messing with his head. Her blind agreement to what he had said had come so easily, that it had thrown him off. He wanted her to be okay with his, so why the fuck was it nagging at the back of his brain? The thoughts of it scratched with long claws along the sensitive organ to drive him crazy.

He had spent all day Saturday and Sunday at the manor to have his mother keep him busy with tasks around the house. With moderate success, considering he had earned himself several daggering stares from her house elf when he had made a mess in the rose garden with his wand.

And here he was, not being able to name what was bothering him so much.

He buried himself in work, meeting after meeting before he enjoyed a silent lunch break in his office. Alone.