Six Months Later
More and more these days, Draco was having what he called Blink Moments.
They usually came during odd, unassuming times. Pouring a cup of tea. Getting to his feet to go help Hermione find the book she needed from their library. Moaning about the layer of orange fur that refused to disappear from his black clothing for long. High-fiving Ginny after a particularly
good play on the pitch. Bickering with Ignoma about how much he really needed to eat (three meals a day seemed excessive, especially given how much food she always made).
And out of nowhere, it would hit him. He would blink, look around, resist the urge to pinch himself. Because this couldn't possibly be his life. His life was supposed to be cold and formal, where power and excellence and pure blood were what mattered. His lip was supposed to be curled
into a permanent sneer, his nose stuck in a scrunched, disgusted position. He was supposed tc attend parties. stuffy affairs hosted by rich wankers who only cared about his family's prestige. not Draco himself. He was supposed to have a wife he sort of hated and children whom he punished with pain and loneliness and cutting disappointment
These Blink Moments, they weren't from surprise, not exactly. Draco had been present the whole time, conscious and forward-thinking. He could hardly be surprised that the choices he'd made, which were always in an effort to create a good life for himself, had actually resulted in a good life.
But still, he sometimes had these brief, out-of-body experiences. Because his younger self, the boy who had thought his only option in life was to become exactly like his father, was still inside him, and was often stunned to see the man he had become
Take today, for instance, as he stepped into the lift at the Ministry, smiled as he pressed the button for Level Four, and took a deep, steadying breath, clutching the handle of his briefcase.
Today shouldn't be happening. Sixteen-year-old Draco wouldn't have been able to conceive of a day like this one. And even though Draco had been preparing for it for a very long time, had been working and studying and building today brick by brick, he was still amazed it had actually come.
The young Draco in his mind was afraid. Afraid that it wasn't real, that he would wake up one day and everything would be gone, and his life would return to the way it was supposed to be. That perhaps, if he blinked, it would all disappear. So to test it, he would do just that. Blink, and wait for
realitv to crush him.
Draco blinked. Nothing happened.
The doors to the lift opened, and he made his way down the familiar corridor to Hermione's office Schooling his features into something less foolishly giddy, Draco knocked on her door.
"Yes?" came her muffled response.
Instead of speaking, he pointed his wand at the floor, silently conjuring a few varieties of her
favorite flowers to grow through the gap under the door. There was a smile in her voice when she
next spoke.
"Come in, Draco."
Pushing the door open and stepping over the flowers, he entered her office.
Draco wondered if the sight of her, nearly obscured by the tall stacks of parchment on her desk. brows furrowed as her eyes whizzed back and forth over whatever she was reading, would ever get old. He doubted it. Draco had never considered himself to be a particularly patient person, but waiting for her to look up from her work wasn't difficult for him. Watching her was never boring.
Unabashedly, he stared at her, taking note of her prim, pressed blouse and the ink stains on her fingers. Her hair had apparently begun to bother her, as she'd piled it into a frizzy knot on top of her head, wand stuck through the middle to hold it in place. A few naughty coils had escaped their prison, however, falling over her face and bouncing a little when she moved her head. Draco repressed the urge to reach over and tangle his fingers in them.
He always visited her on his Ministry days, no matter how busy either of them were. Sometimes, he would simply sit here while she worked, soaking up her presence as a special midday treat.
Others, he would get her attention by pointing his wand at the door, letting the soft click of the lock sliding into place announce his intentions. Adorably, she always acted annoyed when he did this, claiming she was far too busy to take a break. Then he would smile at her and call her bluff by saying something depraved and shocking, bringing out that lovely blush on her cheeks. And then she would cast a silencing charm on the door before clearing off her desk.
That poor desk had been through a lot in recent months.
Before he could lock the door today, however, she spoke.
"Your timing is terrible, I'm afraid." She gathered up the pages she had been reading, rolling them into a thick scroll as she finally looked at him. "I have a meeting with Harry in a minute. We're going over my plans for the SOCKS provision."
"Ah yes. That's right. I forgot," Draco lied.
Hermione nodded absently, looking into a little mirror on her wall as she removed her wand from her bun, grimacing as the frizzy mass of hair plopped down around her shoulders. Draco fought a smile. She could try to hide how anxious she was about this meeting, but her hair would alwavs give her away, as if it were somehow in sync with her emotions. Desperately trving to smooth it down, she met his eyes in the mirror.
"Why do you look so pleased with yourself?" she questioned. "You usually only get that look after we...erm..." she trailed off, flushing a bit. The temptation to finish her sentence in the filthiest possible way was strong, but he resisted. He didn't want to further fray her nerves.
"Oh, it's nothing," he said. "My work has been going well, that's all."
He hid his delight as she looked at him with burning curiosity. With visible effort, she pursed her lips and nodded. She knew he couldn't speak about his work. The Department of Mvsteries was extremely careful about the release of their findings. Ongoing experiments were kept completely locked down, and even when their knowledge was ready to be put to use, it was only shared with the specific people who needed it. Poor, endlessly curious Hermione often struggled not to pry into Draco's work--which of course, he found deeply entertaining.
"Why don't I walk you to your meeting? Say hello to Potter before I leave?" he suggested.
Hermione shrugged, giving up on her hair and going to pick up a few rolls of parchment from her desk.
"I'm sure that would be fine," she said, and he trailed after her to the lift. "Ignoma should be meeting us there as well, by the way. We needed an S.P.E.W. representative besides me."
"Excellent."
Potter was the only one there when they arrived, standing at the head of the large table in the main meeting room of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He was busy arranging some notes when Hermione greeted him cheerfully, making him look up.
"Harry, look who's here!" she said.
Potter's bespectacled face stared blankly at Draco as he entered the room.
"Potter. Thought I'd pop by and say hello, since I'm here," Draco said with a wink.
Potter blinked.
"Er." Potter said thickly, scrambling to figure out what Draco was up to.
Draco had never come to visit him at work before. Their Quidditch games, which had evolved into a weekly occurrence since that first one they'd arranged months ago, were usually the only times Potter ever saw him. And even then, Draco was really more friends with Ginny.
Before Potter could give him away, several others walked into the meeting room. Draco didn't know them all. He spotted a few Aurors. a representative he thought might be from the press secretary's office, and John from the Department of Mysteries. He exchanged a nod with John when he walked by. Hermione didn't notice, as she was busy staring at the doorway as someone she wasn't expecting to see walked in.
"Ms. Granger!" Tillo exclaimed, beaming up at her as he extended a hand to shake. She took it, taking in the sight of his red robes with pride.
Privately, Draco thought Hermione shouldn't have been all that surprised to see Tillo here.
Considering the fact that the meeting was about the implementation of measures to prevent elf trafficking, it only made sense that he would be. He was, after all, the first elf in history to be hired.
Potter had been truly impressed by Tillo's heroics in the Anobeith Forest. He'd championed Tillo's Auror training himself, often likening him to Dobby, much to Tillo's amazement. Not many people knew about the elf's new position, as Potter preferred it that way. Draco imagined it would be extremely useful to have a small spy who could easily slip past anti-apparition wards on the Auror team, and obviously it was much better if no dark wizards knew they needed to set up special defenses to keep out elves. Draco and Hermione only knew about it because Ignoma had told them directly. She was extremely proud of her fiancé. Draco knew.
Ignoma herself walked in then as well, casually flashing her diamond ring as she waved hello to Hermione and Draco before choosing a seat next to Tillo. They both transfigured their chairs to raise them up higher before they sat, and although they were still much shorter than everyone else in the room, they were at least able to see over the table.
As funny as Hermione's surprise at seeing Tillo was, her shock when Draco chose a seat near the front of the room, laying his briefcase flat on the table as he sat, was so palpable that it almost made Draco double over with laughter right there in front of everyone. She looked to Potter, who didn't seem at all surprised that Draco had seated himself at their meeting, and her puzzlement deepened.
"Alright, I think that's everyone," Potter announced, pointing his wand at the door to close it, muttering a few protective enchantments to prevent eavesdropping. Startled, Hermione took the last available seat, nearly all the way across the room from Draco's spot.
"Okay, we're here to discuss the various preventive measures we plan to implement to stop elf-trafficking, a problem which has been steadily worsening over the past few months, as I'm sure you all know," Potter said. In the middle of the table, an enchanted quill noted everything he said.
"I've got Hermione Granger here from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures; she'll be briefing us all on a few pieces of proposed legislation. But first, Draco Malfoy from the Department of Mysteries has a short presentation for us all." Draco nodded to the table, repressing an amused snort at Hermione's expression of pure
dumbfoundment.
Potter seated himself, turning to face Draco with interest.
"Hello, everyone," Draco said as he stood. "I'm here to tell you about a little project I've been working on."
He had to avoid Hermione's eyes entirely now. He would break into hysterics if he saw her reaction to this news. Instead, he looked at everyone else, particularly Ignoma, who was beaming at him from her place beside Tillo.
"As we all know, the SOCKS Act was instrumental in freeing elves from enslavement, but the problem with freeing elves is that once an elf has been released from their Master's Bond, another bond may take its place. Since we all want elves to have the freedom they deserve, this vulnerability has been an obstacle." Most everyone in the group frowned and nodded at this, their attention unwavering. "As it happens, I started this project before SOCKS was passed. I'll admit I didn't anticipate that Ms. Granger would be so rapidly successful with her initiative to change minds. So I took on the project of creating an alternative solution, which I think can help us in our current predicament."
He opened his briefcase, which took a few seconds as the locking mechanism was a rather fussy invention of John's, meant to keep out unauthorized eyes. From inside, Draco plucked a tiny vial of purple liquid, holding it up for everyone to see.
"My goal, initially, was to create a way for elves to break their own Master's Bonds. An alternative to receiving clothes, if you will. However, when the issue of elf trafficking became a problem earlier this year, I decided to shift my focus to more preventive measures. And, a few months ago, I had a breakthrough." Draco couldn't hold back his smile any longer. "I'm happy to announce that I've successfully developed a serum to make elves impervious to the magic of the Master's Bond."
This pronouncement caused several pairs of eyes to widen.
He couldn't resist any longer. Draco's eyes found Hermione. She was staring at him with a dropped jaw, wide-eyed and speechless. His lips twitched.
"One dose can free an elf forever even if they are already bonded to a master. It can be ingested or injected, and it's fairly cost-effective to produce," Draco went on. "I won't go into great detail about the magic of it, but I'm confident that the effects are permanent. It's perfectly safe as well;
I've been able to test it on quite a few volunteers. Isn't that right, Ignoma?"
"Mr. Malfoy's serum works perfectly!" Ignoma announced happily.
Hermione looked at the elf as if she had never seen her before. Ignoma winked at her. Draco knew she'd been dying to tell Hermione ever since Ignoma had joined his team of test subjects.
"Now, obviously, there will be some issues in distributing it," Draco conceded. "Not every elf will want to take it. And there will likely be some elves whose employers- or traffickers--will keep them from accessing it. Additionally, even though it's permanent, that will take time to prove beyond doubt. So, Granger's legislative measures are still crucial to the safety of the elf population at large. Any questions?"
"How do you plan to disperse it?" asked the woman from the press secretary's office.
"I was hoping for S.P.E.W.'s help with that, actually," Draco said. "Not all of the logistics have been sorted out yet, but I was thinking we could start by setting up a distribution area, perhaps in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade, where elves can visit to get a dose."
"How long have you been working on this, exactly?" Hermione asked suddenly.
Their shared gaze was a bit too intense for a formal meeting like this, but it couldn't be helped. He met her eyes steadily as he responded, "It's taken me a while to identify how the magic of the bond works. In total it was about...four years or so."
He watched as his words clicked together in her mind.
It had been a year since they'd met by chance in a muggle pub. She had been totally unaware that the Draco she'd seen that day, the one who'd bought her a drink and offered her an apology, had not only been anonymously contributing funds to her cause, but had also been working on developing his own method of freeing elves.
Back then, he'd told himself it was for Ignoma, or Dobby, or simply because he wanted to spend his time being useful to the world, improving it instead of keeping it stagnant with the traditions he'd been raised to uphold. All of that was still true, technically.
But now, as he watched a tear pearl in the corner of Hermione's eye, he couldn't lie to himself any longer
It was for her. All of it. Everything he did, really, had been done with her name echoing quietly in the back of his mind. The only thing that hadn't gone according to plan was that he'd never meant for her to know. He'd intended to stay anonymous, to have someone else announce this formula
She was never supposed to know, because then she might think that he cared about her.
At the time, that would have been mortifying. They barely knew each other last year. The fact that he had dreamed about her and read every news article about her and thought about writing to her and even told his mind healer about her, well... Draco would have died before admitting it out loud back then, but he'd obviously nursed a fascination with her long before they had gone to that pub.
A secret admirer, he'd called himself when he'd filled her office with flowers. Too early to call it a crush, but far, far too late to keep himself away from her.
It seemed no one else had questions. Draco yielded his time, snapping his briefcase shut as he took his seat.
Hermione looked extremely frazzled as she stood to speak then. She cleared her throat as she used her wand to make copies of the report she'd drawn up, passing them around the table without meeting his eyes. Draco would have to apologize to her tonight. His surprise had made her emotional, breaking her focus on the presentation she'd been so excited to give.
Her work was brilliant, as usual. Most of it was very buttoned up, the kind of thing a politician would propose. Sale restrictions on an essential ingredient of the Master's Bond potion, mandatory hours off work each week to allow elves to have community meetings and check in with one another. That bit, the community aspect of elfish life, seemed to be Hermione's main point. Even if humans refused to care enough about elves to keep them safe, elves would always care about each other.
Draco was intrigued and almost alarmed at her deviousness when she proposed a counterintelligence initiative as well. While the other measures she'd spoken of today would be heavily publicized, this last one would have to be kept quiet. Hermione had come up with alternative instructions for brewing the Master's Bond potion, ones that looked very similar to the original, but with a few minor tweaks which when followed- would render the potion useless. She'd planned to get help from the Auror office in tracking down every book containing the Master's Bond instructions, from libraries to bookshops even inside individual wizarding homes, and use her altered instructions as a template to change the text in the books. That way, anyone who tried to follow the steps to perform a Master's Bond on a free elf would fail.
The fact that she, Hermione Granger, was proposing a plan to permanently alter books, her most beloved and sacred items on earth, told Draco exactly how serious she was.
Tillo immediately and enthusiastically volunteered to help with that project, claiming that he would easily be able to slip into people's homes and find their book collections. When Potter agreed, a discussion about the logistics and legality of the operation commenced, and Hermione quietly reseated herselt, eyes once more on Draco.
Heat simmered under his skin. Unbeknownst to the rest of the room, an entire, wordless conversation passed between the two of them. She was clearly burning with questions, so he began preparing answers.
Then someone asked Hermione for her input on something, diverting her attention. That was alright. He knew that look of hers. Their conversation was not over.
***
Hermione's patience burst the moment they apparated out of the Ministry atrium together.
"I can't believe you did that! And kept it from me! Why couldn't you tell me? I would've_-wait, where are we?"
She stopped short, taking in their surroundings. They were in a dark, deserted alleyway, the sounds of muggle nightlife in London floating to them from around the corner. Draco shrugged off his robes, revealing the dark, muggle-acceptable clothing he was wearing underneath. Hermione's stiff blouse and skirt were a bit stutty for the occasion, but no one would know she was a witch. After vanishing his robes, Draco took her hand and led her towards the street.
"We're celebrating. And I want a drink," he said simply.
"You want a drink?" she echoed, alarmed.
He'd been doing very well with his sobriety recently. There had been one or two small slips, but nothing devastating, and he'd managed to keep it mostly in hand. He shot her a cryptic smile as he led her up the street. waiting for her to realize where the were
It took her a second or two, but he saw the moment it registered.
"Why are we here?" she asked.
They were standing in front of a little pub, not too crowded with people, considering it was a
Tuesday night.
Draco shrugged in answer, leading her inside.
Truthfully, he'd been planning this for weeks. It was exactly one year ago today that he'd come here looking for a drink and bumped into her. An anniversary of sorts, he supposed. He didn't know if she felt the same way, but today was important to him and he wanted to mark the occasion.
He ordered a martini for her and water for himself from the bar, then led her to a table in the back corner. The sense of dela vu was strong.
"Alright," he said as he sat across from her. "We're amongst witnesses. Go ahead and lay into me." Hermione seemed to have lost her steam, however. She considered him, watching his face over the rim of her glass, a little smile playing across her lips. Maybe she was reminiscing as well.
"What I don't understand is why you couldn't tell me. Surely they would have allowed me to consult on the project, if you'd asked," she said.
Draco peered into his own glass, swirling the ice around slowly as he thought.
"I probably could have asked," he admitted. "But I would have needed a strong case to get them to agree. They're secretive for a reason.'
That was true enough, and easier, he supposed, than confessing that the whole thing had been a gift for her from the beginning. For many reasons, that was much more difficult to say.
"How did you manage it?" she asked, leaning forward, eyes sparkling with questions. "Is it structured like an antidote, or more like a shield?"
He loved her like this. Alight with curiosity. Clever and passionate and excited- a bit like her otter Patronus. He couldn't stop himself from leaning forward and kissing her over the table. Softly. briefly. Just a taste, enough to tide over his need for her while they spoke. She blinked rapidly as he withdrew, stunned. Smiling, Draco covertly cast a silencing charm over their table, and finally began to answer her questions.
Now that she was allowed to know about his serum, she wanted to understand every piece of the puzzle, no matter how intricate or complex. Her fascination with his answers warmed his insides, a pleasant burn to replace the alcohol he wasn't drinking. By the time their drinks were gone, Hermione had begun asking him questions so specific and detailed that he could no longer answer them without consulting his research materials.
He asked her if she wanted to walk with him. She smiled and took his hand, and their feet carried them down the street, away from the crowd of muggles and onto a quiet, familiar lane.
Draco blinked.
The last time they were here together, he was an alcoholic on the verge of relapse and she was running from her boyfriend after a row. Put like that, it didn't sound so magical. It didn't sound like fate.
On principle, Draco didn't believe in fate. True prophecies were rare, and only about special people
like Potter. Draco wasn't important enough to have a fate. His future depended wholly upon his choices. Believing that was far better than standing around and waiting for life to happen to him.
Still, he couldn't deny it. Sitting here with Hermione felt sort of like fate. Perhaps the stars had aligned in just the right way to make Draco forget to take his addiction tonic, and make Weasley want to accuse Hermione of unfaithfulness, leading them both to this pub.
Weasley hadn't bothered them since she'd altered his memory, at least, not to Draco's knowledge-and he would know. Hermione spoke of him sometimes, usually when Draco noticed something off about her expression and gently prodded her to spill her thoughts. It was difficult for her, he knew, trying to consolidate her memories of the happy times she'd had with Weasley with the ever-growing realization that he had also been abusive.
That had been a hard pill for her to swallow, the word "abuse." Draco had used it to describe Weasley's treatment of her several times, but it often made Hermione uncomfortable. She'd told him so after the first time, the day he'd used that word when speaking to Potter. For a long time, she'd insisted it wasn't that bad, that they had only disagreed too much, and that she had made plenty of mistakes as well, but eventually, the truth caught up to her. She now understood that in their situation, "abuse" didn't have to mean that she was blameless or helpless, and it didn't necessarily mean that Weasley was some sort of evil mastermind who was out to get her. Even Draco could see that Weasley hadn't been trying to hurt her. It was simply that he didn't care if she got hurt, so long as he got what he wanted. Even if his intent hadn't always been malicious, the way Weasley had treated her still wasn't right.
She kept having little moments, particularly when Draco would treat her with what he felt was nothing more than common courtesy, when she would find herself surprised at how kind and patient he was with her. Then Draco would insist that he was neither a particularly kind nor patient person, even when it came to her, and she would go silent, having to ask herself why she felt so taken aback by the way he treated her. And it always came down to Weasley.
Draco had wanted to kill him several times, especially when Hermione cried into his shoulder at night, or stared at their bedroom ceiling, locked in a state of confusion or despair, wearing the expression Draco had come to associate with the times she was thinking about Weasley, but he knew that killing him would only make it worse for her. She didn't want him dead. What she wanted was to be free of him, of the way he had taken over her perception of herself.
Instead of killing Weasley, Draco had made other decisions.
"So," Hermione said as they walked, her tone hesitant. "Four years?"
Ah. He'd been waiting for her to bring this up. His stomach leaped nervously.
"Give or take," he said evasively. Her eyes were on him, trying to make out his expression in the orange light of the streetlamps.
"I wonder if Ignoma knows you love her so much," Hermione said.
Draco fought a smile. Was she too afraid to ask outright? Wouldn't that be rich, coming from the
woman who'd bravely rescued him from a thousand Dementors?
"I love you.' Draco said simply.
It wasn't the words themselves that caused the slight catch in her breath. He'd said them before, many times. No, she'd caught the deeper implication. Maybe he was imagining it, but the air around them seemed to stiffen a bit.
"You didn't do it for me," Hermione said, her voice a bit more high-pitched than usual, betraying
her uncertainty.
"Are you sure about that?" Draco said with a mocking glance at her.
She stopped walking then, her hand tugging his to halt him as well. The expression of wary uncertainty on her face was priceless. She searched his eyes for answers.
"I don't understand," she said. "Four years ago? That was long before... everything."
Draco could have burst out laughing at her blatant confusion. She was so smart in every subject except when it came to Draco. Selfishly, vainly, he liked that. He was the only thing in the world about which Hermione Granger was stupid. It made him feel special.
"You read my letter, right? The book report?"
"Yes."
"You might remember then: I implied I had thought of you every day," he hinted.
Surely she didn't really believe he had been talking about a book character? How could she be so blind? It had taken every ounce of courage he'd had to write that little confession, and then send it when she was so angry with him. It was the reason he hadn't pressured her to read the letter
He watched her fit the pieces of the puzzle together, but she was still having trouble trusting the picture.
"You...for me?" she asked, her voice small.
He'd told her, hadn't he?
I've been yours for longer than I care to admit.
Draco had never thought of himself as a "good person." He had abhorred being a Death Eater, but an aversion to torturing and killing innocent people didn't exactly qualify him for sainthood. Hermione, however...she was a good person. She was brave and kind and brilliant and talented and everything that was right with the world wrapped up in a little, curly-headed package. She wasn't wealthy, or socially powerful. She didn't have many connections in the wizarding world beyond her association with Potter, which would only get her so far, and she was a muggle-born, which, no matter how much people insisted they weren't prejudiced about such things, would always set her apart.
The way he saw it, everything she lacked, Draco had in abundance. So he'd decided that if he couldn't be a good person, perhaps he could give those advantages to someone who would use them properly. Someone who would make the world better in ways he couldn't
There had only been one person in his mind when he'd come up with that idea.
So, without her knowledge, he'd let her choose what to do with his life. Her causes became his to promote. Hermione had long ago learned of the money he'd given, but she didn't know he'd dedicated much more than that to her. He'd bolstered her efforts to pass SOCKS, rubbing the right elbows and occasionally bribing politicians here and there. He'd used his status as a weapon, making it clear to others in pureblood circles that the Malfoy family viewed the fall of the Dark Lord as an opportunity to move into the future and let go of old traditions, and that he felt the enslavement of elves had become distasteful and boorish--after which the pushback on SOCKS
had lessened quite a bit. He'd given Ignoma as much time off as she needed, encouraging her to rally other elves and spend her time furthering the efforts of S.P.E.W. , and of course, he'd used his own talents for potion-making to gain access to the alchemy lab in the Department of Mysteries where he'd worked for years on the serum.
Draco had dedicated his life to her, long before he loved her, long before he'd gone to that pub last year. And he wasn't done. Whatever she wanted, whatever good she wanted to see in the world, he was going to make it happen. Because Hermione was a Good Person, and he belonged to her.
Simple as that.
Hermione blinked, and he wondered if it was because she was having a moment too. He turned to face her more fully, trying to come up with a way to explain himself to her.
"I do love Ignoma, of course I do. And I really do believe elves should be free," Draco said honestly. "But....well....I've already said it. I thought about you every day."
Apprehension shadowed her face.
"Draco. Did...did you arrange it all?" she asked. He was about to answer yes when she clarified,
"Did you find me at that pub last year on purpose? Was it all some sort of plan-"
"No," he said firmly. "No, darling. I didn't follow you to the pub. I had no idea you would be there. In fact. I had no intention of telling you what I was doing at all. I was just...."
Draco trailed off, suddenly agitated. How could he possibly explain himself now?
Hermione's hand squeezed his, prompting him to look at her again. He couldn't read what she was thinking.
"You're saying that you supported me beyond the donations? Before we reconnected?" she asked, and he could have fainted with relief at the sight of her smile. She was accepting it.
Words were dangerous, so he answered her with a Kiss, and she responded in kind, pressing herself into him, freely offering all the love and gratitude and goodness he didn't deserve but desperately wanted.
When she withdrew, her eyes were as wide and bright as moons.
Draco blinked. Hermione was still there.