Hermione was standing by the entrance to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, biting anxiously at the skin around her thumb.
Since taking over as deputy head of the department she'd been involved with- and played a key role in the resolution of- the many various crises that emerged throughout each week. She was, however, not an Auror. She did not work on cases, she merely ensured that they were worked on. She did not make arrests, she merely ensured that the reports were filled and filed. She kept the department in line, she kept the Aurors in line, she kept the paperwork orderly, and the case notes accessible.
Except for today, when Harry and Ron had burst through her office door without even knocking, squabbling about whose theory made the most sense. The Thornsgill case, which had plagued them for nearly three months now, was finally coming to a head. All they needed to do was find him- the finding, however, was proving to be a real problem.
They'd come to her, much like they had back at school, to seek her input. She'd burst from the chair with such vivacity that she'd spilt her coffee all over her lap. Thirty minutes, two summoned books, and three boxes of case notes emptied all over the floor later, she'd narrowed their field down to the ribbon lake of Windermere, where they suspected he was hiding his cluster of illegal fighting Pygmy Krakens. She'd not even managed to begin formulating a plan before they thanked her and ran out of the room, and now she was here, waiting on their safe return, gnawing at her thumb.
Her heart was beating hard, her foot tapping against the tiled floor. It wasn't any more dangerous than the other arrests they had been on over the years, in fact, she could name at least five off the top of her head that were significantly more life-threatening than this. But she hadn't been involved with those ones, she'd not been the one to give them the answer that sent them flying out the door.
When they were younger, at school, and during the war, her answers would lead all three of them into danger. Where one went, the other two followed. That was their way, that was how they operated, up until the exact moment they didn't. Once the war ended and life began, they had paired off and continued their brush with danger here in the DMLE, while Hermione had settled herself in the floors below. Even now that they shared an office floor, her days were distinctly separate. She could easily bury her head in paperwork and forget that each time she waved them off, she risked losing them forever.
She couldn't handle losing anyone else right now.
It was not the time to think about it, and she really did try not to, but it had been a week since that night she'd spent in Malfoy's sheets- under his body- and he'd barely said a word to her since. Two owls, both to apologise for his busy schedule, and not a single face-to-face conversation. His floo had been closed all week, and he'd told her it was only because he'd been away with work, but the seed of doubt grew larger every day that it remained closed.
We're us , he'd said, but she'd failed to adequately ascertain what exactly they were.
What she really needed, more than anything else in the world, was the company and comfort of her two oldest friends. And so, she paced the entrance again, summoning a cup of lukewarm coffee from a nearby desk, not even bothering to ask who it belonged to before she drank it in one go. It had been two hours since they left, and she'd barely managed to sit down for thirty minutes.
When the sound of those familiar voices finally reached her ear, it was like someone removing their boot from her chest.
"Hermione!" Harry called, his grin wide and unabashed, his clothes completely drenched in swampy water. "You were bloody right!"
Ron was beside him, equally soaked and hobbling with a slight limp; the pain of it not strong enough to keep his oversized smile from taking over his freckled face. "He was hiding at the bottom of that fucking lake, just like you said, the git caught the back of my knee but- oft!"
She launched at them both, one arm around each of their waists, her face pressed between their soppy jackets as she sobbed with pure, unrestrained relief. It took them each a moment, but then the arms of her friends curled around her, pressing her closer. Their heads bent down to rest against hers, all three of them connected again.
She could almost feel it, the piece of her heart that mended with their returned embrace.
"You complete idiots," she cried, holding them tighter.
"Love you too," they murmured in unison.
They stood there for a few minutes more, in a world only for them, holding each other as tightly as they could. They weren't Aurors and Deputy Heads, they weren't strained friends, they weren't cautious exes. They were just Harry, Ron, and Hermione- together, as they should be.
#
"Open yours first."
"Why?"
"Because," she said, waving the envelope in his face. "That way I'll know what chance I have of beating you."
He raised an arched brow. "Are we competing?"
"Of course, we are." She pushed the envelope into his chin, jabbing him repeatedly until he snatched it from her hands with a smirk.
"Has anyone ever told you that you are profoundly irritating?" he chuckled.
"Many people, many times."
Malfoy shook his head with a small, hardly-there smile playing on the edges of his mouth, but he did not push back again. She watched, nearly vibrating with anticipation, as he slowly peeled open the envelope and pulled out the letter. His eyes scanned the page; not giving anything away.
"Well?" She asked impatiently, but he just brought the paper closer to his face, obscuring himself from her view.
She tapped her fingers in a staccato rhythm, nibbling on her lower lip as she waited. He didn't move for another minute, nor did he lower the paper from his face- she was just about going mad.
"Malfoy." She tried, but no response. "Oh, for Godric's sake!"
She jumped up, darting around to stand next to his shoulder and tugging at his arm until it lowered, revealing his gleaming smile. She pinched his bicep and he yelped, letting out a loud guffaw as she snatched the paper from his grip and held it up to read.
Malfoy had received almost exclusively 'Outstanding' achievements for his N.E.W.T exams, just as she'd expected. Her eyes lingered on the Advanced Potions score- 96%, almost perfect.
"You do have a brain after all," she mused, ignoring his gasp of false affront. "These scores are incredible."
"Why thank you, Granger," he plucked the page from her hands, his eyebrows raised. "I think it's your turn."
She snorted. "No way, not after seeing those."
"Is the brightest witch of her age scared of a measly 96%?" He asked, voice dropping into a softer version of that tone of mockery he'd used in previous years.
Her eyes narrowed. "No. I just don't want to open them yet."
"Bollox."
"Call it what you like," she shrugged, turning to collect her envelope from the table. "I'll just open it later when- hey!"
He dove for it, holding it out of her reach as he tore it open. She poked him in the ribs, but even that didn't stop him. By the time she remembered that she had a perfectly good wand to use against him, he'd already read it, and there was no point.
"Oh god," she groaned, dropping her face into her hands. "Don't tell me what it says."
He laughed. "Ever?"
"Ever. I don't want to know. I'll live my life in blissful ignorance."
"Granger," he started, gripping her wrist, fingertips resting on her hammering pulse as he pried her hands away. When she relented, finally peering up from her palms, she found him standing right before her; a look of reverence on his face that momentarily made her forget what she'd even been hiding from. "You did it."
"I did?" She gasped, grabbing the paper from his hands and checking for herself.
Sure enough, there on the page, every subject passed with 'Outstanding' achievements. Her eyes lingered on Advanced Potions- a solid 97%. Her mouth parted slightly, total shock and utter, overwhelming relief flooding her veins. The war had not taken her mind from her, after all.
Her eyes snapped back to Malfoy, who should have been sneering and coming up with any excuse he could for her to have finally beaten him at his best subject, but he did neither of those things. Instead, he just held out his hand, as he would after a hard-fought game of quidditch. She placed her hand in his, shaking it firmly.
"Nicely done, Granger."
"And you, Malfoy."
He didn't drop her hand right away, and she didn't pull back either, both of them choosing to linger in the moment for just a few seconds more. And she couldn't stop the grin from forming on her face, because signing up for this additional year had proved worthwhile; she'd found what she needed.
Not what she'd expected, but certainly what she needed.
Hermione sat upright in bed, pushing the curls from her eyes as she let her head drop forward. The dreams were relentless; every night that Malfoy had kept his distance, she'd dreamt of him, of them - whether it be moments from that year they'd spent huddled in the school library together, or the night they'd spent huddled under the sheets. The absence of him was haunting, the silence he offered echoing through the glacial cracks in her heart. It was inescapable and completely unbearable.
Sleep would not greet her again; she knew this much. And so, she pushed herself out of bed and trudged down towards the kitchen, waving her wand and wordlessly setting the kettle on to boil. She made her cup slowly, taking time to let the teabag soak instead of pushing it against the wall of the mug with a spoon, anything to keep her mind occupied for another minute. But tea was no complicated drink to make, and she was holding a perfectly ready cup between her palms in no time at all.
She sipped at it as she meandered into the living room, heading straight for the bookshelves, her eyes catching on the photograph that sat framed on the central shelf; Harry, Ron, and herself at the burrow, back in the summer before fourth year, merely hours before they took a portkey to the disastrous world cup. They were in the garden, Ron speaking animatedly in the middle, Harry and herself laughing with unfiltered glee. It was her second favourite photograph in the world. She reached for it, twisting the frame until it faced the wall, revealing the muggle photograph that took the number one spot.
Malfoy, bundled into a jacket, standing on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower, the wind blowing his hair into his eyes.
The ache in her chest grows heavier with every passing second that she stares at it, taped to the back of the frame. She could never bring herself to hide it away in the box where she kept all the letters he'd sent that year before they'd stopped so unceremoniously. For so long- too long- this image of Malfoy had been the only remaining piece of him she'd had.
She hoped that it would not become so again.
Her tea went cold, her eyes grew heavy, and she curled up on the sofa, staring at the fireplace that did not roar to life, no matter how desperately she wished that it would.
#
"State your name."
"Hermione Granger."
"State your purpose."
"To visit Draco Malfoy."
She stared up at the twisted face in the iron gates, waiting as it seemed to deliberate. "Mr Malfoy is not on the premises."
"Like hell, he isn't," she muttered, kicking at the gravel.
It had been five days without a single word from Malfoy; his floo closed, her notes unanswered, and she was borderline furious - with him, with herself, with the entire situation. It should never have happened, they should never have risked their friendship on a night of fun, even if it had been so, so much more than that. But this...this was ridiculous. She would not let him cut her off again, not without looking her in the eye and telling her explicitly.
She whipped out her wand, aiming it at the iron face. Alohomora wouldn't work; this was an ancient gate, probably warded with every preventative charm ever produced. It was a miracle that she'd not been instantly flattened for raising her wand at it in the first place. She let out a loud sound of frustration and shoved her wand back into her pocket.
If she couldn't magic her way in, she'd do it the muggle way.
"Just you wait," she muttered, rolling up the bottoms of her jeans. "When I get in there, I'm going to strangle you."
She launched herself at the gate, grunting and spitting as she heaved herself up to the first horizontal rung. She hooked her foot over it, careful not to impale herself on the sharp iron ridges, and wrapped her arms around the gates until she was practically hugging them.
Gods, she was horrendously out of shape.
After taking a moment to gather her breath she went again, pulling and pushing herself up to the next rung, arms shaking from the effort. She pressed her head to the metal as she held on as tightly as she could. She did not look down; the humiliation of seeing how close to the ground she still was would be too much to endure. She half expected the horrible face to reanimate just to laugh at her.
There was a bigger gap to the third rung, and intricate iron petals to contend with first. She looked up at them, stretching one arm out as high as she could to get a sense of reach. There was no way she could push herself high enough to clear the petals, and they were too sharp to use as leverage. Maybe if she jumped, as insane as it sounded, it wasn't that far if-
A loud pop had Hermione clinging to the gate for dear life.
"Miss Hermione Granger!" Chippy's distraught voice called from below. "You mustn't be climbing the gate! It is too high; injury is too likely!"
"Yes, thank you Chippy, I'm already feeling some regret about my decision." Her foot slipped and she let out a sharp hiss. "Tell Malfoy to stop being a coward and let me in."
"Mr Malfoy is not here, otherwise Chippy would have brought Miss Hermione Granger straight to him as requested!"
"He's genuinely not here?"
"Not since this morning for tea with Mistress Malfoy!"
She could have laughed. He wasn't even here, and yet he'd still managed to drive her to the point of madness. "Chippy, I think I need some help getting down."
"Chippy will catch Miss Hermione Granger!"
She barked out a startled laugh. "You cannot catch me, Chippy! You are tiny!"
There was a pause, followed by a furious little whine. "Chippy is the tallest of her brothers and sisters!"
"I'm sorry, you are very tall," she groaned, foot slipping again. "I'm just a little bit taller."
This was fruitless. Her arms were weakened to the point of exhaustion, her foot kept slipping, and her sense of self-respect was rapidly burning to ash. She tried to re-centre her balance on the gate, nearly falling in the process.
"I really need help." She clung to the metal, trying to slow her breathing.
"Chippy will catch Miss-"
"You will not!" she snapped, just as her shoe twisted between the bars, locking in place. "Sorry. I just...oh, bloody hell - I'm-I'm stuck. I need to just-let me just-"
"Chippy will catch Miss Hermione-"
"Oh my god, I'm going to die," she pulled at her shoe, sweaty hands hardly holding onto the gate. "And then I'm going to kill him."
It all happened quite quickly, in the end.
She yanked her shoe out of the gate, and in doing so managed to rip herself clear from the tenuous grasp she'd been keeping. She fell backwards, not having time to consider how much damage the fall was due to cause- not even having time to open her mouth and scream-- before the world was twisting, morphing, changing.
Her back hit the ground, but not nearly as violently as she'd been expecting. She blinked up to find the startled face of the house elf; who was tugging on each ear so that they flattered against her round head, her distraught eyes filled with tears.
"Miss Hermione Granger must listen to Chippy!"
She pushed herself into a seated position, taking in the surroundings; they were no longer in front of the imposing and impossibly difficult-to-scale iron gates of the manor. The space was full of flowers, the walls and ceilings made of stained glass, the smell of sweet vanilla carrying on a gentle breeze.
For a fleeting moment, she wondered if she'd actually fallen to her death.
"Miss Granger, what a surprise." A clear and pleasant voice came from the far side of the glass room, and Hermione whirled to find Narcissa Malfoy...kneeling beside a flowerbed, wearing dungarees, her hands covered in soil.
"Oh!" she shot to her feet- Chippy immediately darting to steady her when she wobbled- and dusted off her shirt. "I'm so sorry. I was looking for Malfoy, I didn't mean to-"
"He's not here, I'm afraid." Narcissa smiled warmly at her, it was so like her son's smile, his real one, that she found it unnerving. "Would you like some tea?"
"I don't think I should..." she began, eyes darting around the room, a tightness closing around her chest. "I'm not sure where...I don't think I've been here before."
Narcissa stood slowly, wiping the soil from her hands across her front without a care in the world, not at all what Hermione would usually expect from the prim and proper sacred twenty-eight matriarch of the Malfoy family. She took a step back, her breathing turning shallow.
"Miss Granger, you are in the greenhouse, in the garden," Narcissa said carefully, as though speaking to a wild animal. "The drawing room, in fact, the whole west wing, is all closed off."
"I see," she sighed, tightness easing slightly.
"Chippy, would you mind getting some tea?" Narcissa asked the elf sweetly, not at all a demand. The elf nodded eagerly before snapping her fingers and disappearing, leaving Hermione to fend for herself. "Let's sit outside."
She wasn't sure refusal was an option, so she stumbled along behind the strangely dressed witch and took her place at a quaint garden table, shielded from the afternoon sun by a delicate umbrella. Chippy appeared moments later, pouring tea for them both, and even a cup for herself, before disappearing again.
"I'm really sorry for intruding, and for scaling the gate. I thought Malfoy was purposefully avoiding me." She winced, rubbing at her still-stinging palms.
Narcissa stopped sipping her tea, eyebrows shooting up. "You scaled the gate?"
"Tried to," she clarified, holding up her blistered palms. "Unsuccessfully."
Narcissa kept her eyes locked onto her while she resumed sipping her tea, and Hermione considered jumping up and sprinting. She turned to her own mug, sipping in silence, only the birds above and the leaves rustling in the trees offering solace. Eventually, Narcissa mercifully places her mug back on the saucer and speaks.
"Draco told me of your promotion. Congratulations."
She blinks in return, trying to make sense of the woman before her. "Thank you. I'm enjoying it a lot, though I'm glad we were able to pass the Diricawl vote first, as I'm sure you are."
Narcissa's half smile was wicked and beautiful and vanished as swiftly as it appeared. "Yes, a very thoughtful venture."
Hermione cleared her throat. "If he's not actually here I should get going, I don't want to take up your time, and I've got..." she winced at her lap, coming up blank. "Will you see him tonight?"
"I'm not sure, he's been around a lot more frequently this week," she hummed, and Hermione gritted her teeth; at least he hadn't run off to Montpellier yet. "If not tonight, I'll likely see him in the morning."
"Can you give him a message from me?" She asked, hopeful, and Narcissa's returning nod filled her with a sense of sharp relief. "Just ask him to let me know that he's alright. And that I'm sorry. And...well, he knows the rest."
She stood then, before she could lose her resolve and burst into childish tears in front of a woman who had seen more than enough of her tears for one lifetime. She offered a tight smile before turning on her heel and starting for the side of the garden, hoping to find Chippy lurking nearby, but it was the dulcet tones of Narcissa that stopped her in her tracks.
"His final year at Hogwarts was mandatory, did you know?" she asked, and Hermione turned to face her slowly. She nodded once, and Narcissa sighed. "I was so worried about him going back, after everything we'd done...and how he was, back then."
Hermione knew exactly what she meant; images of Malfoy pushing an egg around his plate without ever once taking a bite of it flashed in her mind.
"I put my son on the train that year while he was half-asleep, and I was sure that when he returned, he would be entirely unconscious," her brows pulled together for a passing second, so subtly that it might have gone unnoticed, had Hermione not become finely attuned to the slightest changes in the faces of Malfoys. "And yet, when he got home that summer, it was the most awake I'd seen him in years. He was laughing, lively, he started seeing his friends again, he spent his evenings writing letters and his mornings sitting by the window and waiting for the owl."
Her heart, though broken and aching, swelled.
"I think..." Narcissa began, her pale eyes softening. "I think I have you to thank for that."
Hermione shook her head. "You have nothing to thank me for."
She did not wait for Narcissa to say anything more before she walked away, calling for Chippy the second she rounded the corner. The little elf appeared in an instant, her hand held out to take her outside of the Manor's grounds, waving her goodbye with a small hand and an expression of exaggerated joy.
Hermione walked for half an hour before she found the will to apparate- too consumed with the confirmation that Malfoy had indeed been avoiding her, and the waves of devastation that confirmation came with, each one dragging her under a little more than the last.
#
Two weeks.
He'd written once, only to inform her that he was too busy with work to visit the library with her, which she knew to be a complete and utter lie- she'd asked Blaise. Pansy and Theo had barely heard from him either, although he'd at least kept them somewhat informed of his whereabouts.
She'd been trying the floo every evening, only to find it locked each time.
Last week she'd been gutted at the prospect of him pulling away from her again, just like he had all those years ago. This week, she was seething. Fury boiled under her skin like a rash, and she wanted to scratch and scratch until it bled.
How dare he do this again?
It had hurt then, after their year together in the castle, but it had been different; they were kids then, setting off on their own lives, barely recovered from a war that had all but gutted them both. They had found comfort in each other that year, and once the year was over, they had to apply those lessons to the real world, separately.
Now though...now they were so much more than that. He'd been back in her life for as long as he'd been gone from it, and the bond they had formed since their reunion was far stronger than their initial serendipitous connection. Or so she'd thought.
We're us, he'd said.
Perhaps her understanding of 'us' had been different to his, because the 'us' she knew would never do this. They would talk, they might even fight, they would never go silent. It wasn't fair. It wasn't kind. It was cruel, and she thought he'd left cruelty behind.
She slammed her wine glass down, ignoring the way it rattled dangerously, and wiped the corners of her mouth. She marched to the fireplace, well aware that flooing to the house of the man with whom she was very upset, after drinking a whole bottle of wine to herself, was not her finest idea. She was sure to be safe though, as her tries thus far had all been bitterly unsuccessful.
Except, when she threw down the power and called out for Malfoy's home, that's exactly where she ended up.
She stumbled out of his fireplace, her heart pounding in her ears. The room looked exactly as it had every other time she had been there; clean, nicely furnished, nothing overly showy but notably comfortable. It might have felt better to see it in a state of disarray, to know that he'd been suffering too.
She set off into the house, storming her way down hallways and into rooms, none of which seemed to house the man she was looking for. He had to be here- he wouldn't leave his floo open while he was out.
It wasn't until she reached the bottom of the stairs and heard the recognisable sound of running water that she realised what was happening. He was in the shower. She had to go. She couldn't sneak up on him while he was in the shower, and she certainly couldn't maintain her anger if he walked out of there-
The water stopped. Her breath stopped. The world stopped.
She was rooted to the spot, unable to move, no matter how much she wanted to avoid meeting him like this. All she could do was stare at the bathroom door at the top of the stairs and wait for it to open.
And then it did.
Malfoy stepped out; a towel hung low on his waist- his bare waist- and another in his hand, drying the back of his hair. He stopped short at the sight of her, his eyes bulging.
"Granger?" he asked, letting the towel in his hand drop to the floor.
Well, there was no avoiding her now. She marched up the stairs, making a point to keep her eyes on his startled face and not an inch lower, her momentary hesitancy replaced by bubbling rage.
"You're doing it again," she whispered, her voice a low and menacing hiss. "You are cutting me off again."
He swallowed, looking like he might make a bolt for it, but she stood in his way, essentially backing him into the bathroom. "I've been busy with work-"
"Liar." She stepped closer again, finally able to see the gleaming shades of silver and blue in his wide eyes. "Do you think I haven't spoken to Blaise? He said you've barely been at work all week."
He had the cognition to at least look a little bit ashamed. "What else did he say?"
"Nothing." She huffed; Blaise had stayed true to his nature by being a man of very few words, even when she'd begged.
"Granger, I-"
"You what?" she interjected, taking another step closer, her voice cracking. "You are running away!"
"You ran away!" he barked, seeming to surprise himself.
She reared back, brows pulling together. "I don't understand..."
He ran a hand down his face, collecting droplets of water with his palm and flicking them to the tiled floor below. It was an effort in restraint, not admiring the way they clung to his skin, or inhaling the sweet citrus scent of his shower gel.
"You regret it." He stated, nodding to himself once, as though it were a fact and not the most preposterous thing she had ever heard.
"Did I tell you that?" she asked quietly, biting back tears.
"You may as well have."
"I don't bloody regret it!" She takes a step back, finally, her hand coming to clutch her throat in a futile attempt to smother the emotion that was rising there. "It's just...it all happened in the heat of the moment, didn't it? It wasn't us; it was some primped version of us- we'd been drinking and flirting and...and I had that stupid dress on-"
"You-" he stopped to gather himself, thumbs pressing into his eyes. "You think it was the fucking dress?"
"It doesn't matter anyway!" she insisted on a shaky breath. "You said that our friendship was important to you, that I was important to you!"
His chest was heaving when he took a step closer to her, and her eyes betrayed her, dropping down to land on his chest. His skin glistened in the most wickedly inviting way; she wanted to run her tongue across it, to taste him one more time, to wrap her arms around his waist and pull herself flush against him. Her gaze lifted slowly, travelling the line of his neck, the bob of his throat, the pulse of his jaw, until it landed back on his eyes. He looked nearly wild.
"It is," he whispered, looking at her mouth. "You are."
"Then nothing has to change," she replied, clenching her hands into fists to stop herself from reaching for him.
The tug of his lips was subtle and sad, and she heard her heart crack in response. "But it did."
She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think. She wanted to push him, or scream at him, or kiss him. She wanted to take a long step back and get away from his overwhelming proximity, she wanted him to take another step closer. She wanted him to capture her jaw in his hand and bring her lips to his. She wanted to rip that towel off from his waist, drop to her knees, and take him into her mouth. She wanted him to whisper words of want into her skin, to press her down with the weight of him, to slip his hands under her shirt and touch her until she was trembling.
But mostly, she just wanted to understand.
"Malfoy, I-"
"We need to spend some time apart."
His words were cutting, gliding through her like a hot knife in butter, she didn't even know she'd been severed until entire seconds had passed. There was no possible way she could have stopped the tears that pooled in her eyes, nor the ones that escaped down her cheeks. His eyes softened at the sight of them, but his mouth did not.
"You-what?" She choked, hands coming to clasp her stomach as though trying to hold in her guts.
She opened her mouth to try again, to no avail; speech had well and truly been ripped from her.
He bit the insides of his cheeks, looking about as miserable as she felt. "I'm sorry. I just need you to leave, please."
It wasn't even painful. It was just numbing. Entirely, wholly numbing. She could have held her hand over flames and not noticed.
"So that's it?" she whispered, voice cracking. "I've lost you?"
His steely exterior broke then, his eyes began to shine, his head shaking rapidly as he took another step and gathered her useless, numb hands in his own. He held them tightly, fingers resting on her wrists, looking for the pulse she was almost sure wasn't there to find.
"Never, Granger, never." He said firmly, his eyes darting across her face, not missing a single freckle. "I just need...time."
Time.
She'd given him time before. All of it, every second she had spare. She'd waited for him to return for years, and when he finally did, she'd let him back in without much of a fight. And yet it was one selfish spur-of-the-moment lapse in foresight, and now he wanted more time.
Time away from her.
We're us , he'd said, and she supposed that it fit, after all, this was exactly what they had always done- wait for each other.
And so, she pulled her hands from his. She didn't say another word- she wasn't even sure that she could. All she could do was stay standing as she slowly turned from his distraught expression, half-hoping he would reach for her again, that he would say he hadn't meant it, that he didn't want her to go, and half-hoping that he wouldn't. There was no getting the cork back in the bottle, not now, not after what they had done.
She stumbled down the stairs, feeling the full weight of his stare on her back as she went. The second her face was hidden from him she let the tears fall, silently, but relentlessly. She could barely speak when she stepped into the fireplace, her call for home a broken and desperate plea. By some miracle, it was enough to get her there, and she fell out of the fireplace and landed on the plush of her living room rug.
This was so different to how it had felt when Ron had left; he had taken with him a piece of her life, but Malfoy had taken a piece of herself.
How long would he need? Another week? A month? Six months? Two more bloody years?
The sob that tore from her throat was violent and clamorous, and they didn't stop from there. She curled in on herself, trying to close that gap in her chest that only seemed to expand. Her cries rocked her body, her shoulders slumped and shaking, her nose running, her vision lost. With one hand she braced herself against the floor and stayed there.
She wasn't sure how long she spent on the floor that night, but by the time she managed to drag herself to the sofa the night sky had turned a dawning blue, and with it came the liminal sense of lack. There was an instinctual need to place blame, to assign ownership of this raw feeling that ate her from the inside out, but she knew the truth of it; if blame were to be placed, it would land squarely on her shoulders.
She'd been so naive, so delusional, to think that they could ever go back to the way they were before. Not after something that intimate, that vulnerable, that shared. She didn't want to regret it, and she couldn't- not fully. But she wished, in that very moment, for the time turner she'd worn around her neck in third year.
When the birds began to sing outside of her window and the owl tapped on the glass panel, a newspaper in its beak, she finally managed to push herself to her feet. She took the paper, pulled the blinds closed, and then stumbled into the kitchen, where she swiftly summoned the recently purchased and untouched carton of eggs and dropped them into the bin.
#
Friday nights at The Alchemist , a returned tradition between old friends; an opportunity to get together and regale each other with tales of their working week. It was less easy to enthral these days, seeing as they all worked in the same department. Hermione knew exactly what the two of them had been working on, she'd filed the reports for them.
Tonight, Harry was ranting for a considerable amount of time about his current case; a series of muggle abductions by seemingly magical means. Ronald had desperately wanted to be assigned to the case, and were he not now working three out of five days at the joke shop instead of the DMLE he likely would have gotten the first pick. Instead, it went to Harry, who was now lamenting about the lack of progress in the investigation and begging Ron to go over his notes during his next office day.
They both looked well; cheeks flushed with colour and the mild buzz of alcohol, eyes crinkled with laughter, hair swept by the winds. She, however, was miserable. There was no hiding it, no matter how hard she tried. She tried to listen, she tried to chip in, but nothing could lower this fog from her mind.
"Another round?" Harry asked, eyeing Ron's empty glass and the barely touched pouring of wine in Hermione's.
She grabbed it and took a quick gulp, nodding eagerly. "Yes, please."
Harry's eyes narrowed on her, and she held her breath, waiting for the barrage of questions that he was sure to ask, for the lies she would have to tell just to keep him from worrying. But he slid his eyes to the chair beside her, occupied by Ron, and whatever he saw there gave him pause. His head dipped, as if in acceptance, and then he was off towards the bar.
"Hermione..."
"Ronald." She turned and smiled sweetly at him.
Her relationship with Ron made significant strides over the last couple of weeks, the air of awkward tension that had once enveloped them seemed to have disappeared, leaving behind only clarity. Or perhaps she'd just been too preoccupied with an entirely separate tension that she'd just stopped noticing. Either way, she was unendingly glad to have her friend back.
Ron tapped his fingers against his thighs. "There is something I need to tell you..."
"What is it?" She sprang forward in her chair, leaning in close to inspect his face in detail; he didn't look injured, there weren't any cuts or bruises, she didn't think he'd lost weight, his appetite was still enormous and unceasing, his energy levels seemed-
"Gods, Hermione, don't look at me like that, I feel like a bug under one of those spyglasses you have." He reared back, waving her off.
"A microscope."
"Sure, yeah, whatever." He was shaking his head.
She settled back in her chair, satisfied that he was not about to drop dead. "What is it, then?"
He winced, scrunching up his nose and taking a deep breath before he managed to speak again. "I went on a date."
Her eyes widened, her grip on her glass loosened, but that was all. She waited for it to sting, for the cavity in her heart to tear open wider. This is supposed to hurt, she thinks, watching his guilty expression. It's supposed to, but it doesn't.
The slow but sure smile on her face had his shoulders sagging with relief. "Was she nice?"
"She was," he answered, looking wistful. "She made me laugh."
"So, you've got a girlfriend?"
"Steady on, we've only been for a drink," he huffed, placing his elbows on the table in a far more relaxed posture. "We'll see. Anyway, I wanted to tell you because...well, I want you to know that I'm okay. I'm moving on. And I'm glad we can be friends...it's easier than I thought it would be."
She nodded. "It is."
"And I want you to know that it's okay to do the same."
His words, though perfectly innocent, made her stomach twist with nausea. There was only one face that came to mind when she thought about what 'moving on' might look like for her, and that image brought her to the verge of tears.
"Are you going to tell me what is happening with you?" he asked, hand reaching out to rest on her shoulder. She shook her head, knowing that it was entirely unconvincing even before he confirmed it. "It's Malfoy, isn't it?"
Her eyes dropped to her hands, sitting clasped in her lap, and she bartered with her tear ducts to just give it a rest for one night.
It had been a month.
One whole month since she'd burst through the flames into his home and found him in a towel. One whole month since she'd felt him reach in between her ribs and pluck out her heart. One whole month of 'time'.
She'd not written to him; he'd not written to her. She'd seen Blaise only once and Theo only twice- Pansy, however, was still a frequent visitor. None of them spoke about Malfoy, none of them answered her questions, none of them could make her feel any better.
"Hermione?" Ron prodded, and she sniffed loudly.
"Do you really want to talk about Malfoy?" she asked through a half-hearted laugh.
"Not really." He scrubbed at the stubble on his chin, his eyes bright and apologetic. "But I will if you need to."
This. This was the friend she'd missed; the boy who would indulge her, even when he hated it, just because he knew it made her happy. It had been many things over the years, books, homework, educational structures, legislation...and now Malfoy.
"Thank you, but it's okay."
"Is it?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. "I mean... are you? You look like you've been hit with the confundus charm, several times."
She sighed, running her fingers through her curls. "I don't know. I think-I think I got it wrong."
"Unlikely."
She snorted. "I mean it."
"Well," he shrugged, looking up to where Harry was now heading back towards them, two beers and a glass of wine floating beside him. "You're Hermione, you'll figure it out eventually."
She lets those words permeate the air as Harry settles back at the table, immediately diving into a story about a confrontation he witnessed between two of the Harpies' star players when he went to visit Ginny at her training camp earlier in the week. She listens this time, not just passively, and when they both round to her with expectant smiles, she takes a deep breath and tells them about her week- sparing no details.
#
Hermione wanted to be in the comfort of her own home, in the comfort of her own pyjamas, enjoying the comfort of her own books, and considering the comfort that could be found in the fresh list of rescued cats Blaise had sent that morning- he was relentless.
But she couldn't enjoy any of those things, not tonight, because Pansy and Theo had arrived unannounced in her fireplace and dragged her out to a wine bar, not hearing a word of her many protests.
And so, she was nursing her third glass of pinot grigio and watching the two of them discuss the possibilities of their immense fortunes.
"I'm going to buy a cabin in Alaska," Theo announced after his fourth glass. "Picture it- we can all go there in the winter, enjoy some proper festivities, ride a moose...or whatever people do there."
"My arse does look particularly good in that Prada snowsuit, and I haven't had nearly enough opportunity to wear it." Pansy sighed, swirling the wine in her glass. "But I thought you were buying the vineyard in Puglia?"
Theo waved her off. "That was merely to appease Blaise. He'll never come to the cabin if we don't bribe him with the reward of an Italian summer."
"Where is Blaise?" Hermione finally cut in, and they both looked up to her with startled expressions, as though they had not expected her to talk at all. "Is he coming out tonight?"
"He said he was working, but it's probably an excuse," Pansy tutted. "Although, he has been stretched thin since- well, he's been needed more than usual."
"Since what?" Hermione pressed, already knowing the answer.
The look Pansy shot her was pointed at best and exasperated at worst. "As you are aware, his business partner has been sulking."
"Is he-" she stopped herself, shaking her head. She didn't want to ask them how he was again, not now, not here, where the answer could gut her entirely. "Never mind."
She returned her attention to her glass of wine, watching it swirl at the base, trying to refocus her mind on thoughts of a snowy cabin in the Alaskan mountains, of mulled wine and roaring fires and Theo's novelty slippers.
But it was no use. Because she could not separate Malfoy from the equation. Because he would be there, and if he'd had enough 'time' by then, she might be there too. She could see it as clearly as a vision; Malfoy in a winter coat, his cheeks red from the chill, his breath turning to ice that would dance through the air as he spoke. Theo would set off fireworks, and Malfoy would remove the mittens from his hands in favour of holding hers while they watched. He'd make wassail and fill the wooden structure with scents of cider and citrus, and then he'd join her by the fire, where the glow of the flames would bring him to life.
And she'd love him, in every way she could, and in every way she shouldn't.
Theo let out a loud groan and slumped forward, his forehead hitting the table with a resounding thud that ripped Hermione from her daydream. He rolled his head back and forth along the tabletop, before turning to peer up at Pansy, a look of grim determination on his face.
"I'm tired of this, aren't you?" He asked.
Pansy checked her nails. "Exhausted."
"Shall we just-"
"Gods, yes."
Hermione's eyes darted between the pair of them, her frown deepening. "What are you talking about?"
Theo sighed and sat upright, fixing her with a stare that he wielded like a weapon, pinning her to her seat. "You and Draco tiptoeing around each other like a pair of idiots."
Hermione opened her mouth to retort, but Pansy was faster, her tone as sharp and cutting as the tips of her nails. "I thought this would be resolved once you fucked each other, but it's only gotten worse."
"What?" Hermione squeaked, her grip tightening on the stem of her wine glass. "How do you know-"
"Please," Pansy scoffed, raising her glass to her lips. "Don't insult me."
This was beginning to feel like somewhat of an interrogation, and she considered the possibility that this was the very thing they had dragged her out for in the first place.
"What did he tell you?" She whispered, the need to hide crawling up her spine like a shiver.
Theo barked out a laugh. "Sweet fuck all, but he didn't need to. It's been painfully obvious from the start."
"Obvious?" She echoed, breathless.
"Obvious."
"But he-I- I didn't," she squeezed her eyes closed, trying desperately to collect her scrambled thoughts. "I'm very confused."
Theo turned to Pansy. "I thought she was supposed to be smart?" He asked, and then rounded his gaze back to her. "I thought you were supposed to be smart!"
"So did I..." she mumbled, bringing her fingers to her temples, and rubbing in slow circles.
Pansy clicked her fingers in front of Hermione's face, impatient. "We've been trying to make you see sense for so long, it's grown incredibly tiresome, Blaise won't even discuss it anymore."
"But Malfoy doesn't even date-"
"Doesn't date anyone?" Pansy cut in, brows hiking into her fringe. "Have you ever considered why that might be?"
Her head was pounding. She was going to topple over, or be sick, or cry, or possibly all three. "And you've been trying to...what, exactly? Set us up?"
"Relentlessly," Theo nods. "Since I spotted you at The Alchemist that night and dragged you to the table."
"I take full credit for the dress." Pansy threw her a disconcerting wink. "I knew it would work."
"You cannot honestly believe that we all conveniently got the shits at the same time, can you?" Theo was laughing now, the sound of it grating on her ears like a siren. "It's been a full-time occupation...I think. I've never actually had one of those."
"Did he know what you were doing?" she whispered, and her tone sobered them instantly.
Theo reached across the table and put his hand on hers. "No, but he's been trying in his own way. The only truly oblivious one here is you."
"In his own way..." she repeated under her breath, and then a question called from the recesses of her mind, an innocuous thought that could have earth-shattering consequences. "Does Narcissa even like the Diricawl?"
The pair of them shook their heads, but it was Pansy who spoke. "Feathers irritate her skin."
It felt like she'd been smacked over the head. "Then why-"
"Think, " Theo said.
It couldn't be. But it was, wasn't it?
All those hours spent in that office, all the lunches shared, the overtime spent planning and organising, all the times he'd seemed perfectly content to just sit back in his chair and listen to her ramble about the potential outcome of the vote. She'd mistaken his input to be ambivalent when all along it had been perfectly unequivocal; his interest had indeed been vested.
He'd done it for himself, because he wanted something he didn't know how to ask for. He'd used it as a means of refastening their bond, a foot in the door, a reason for her to seek him out the way she had before. It was an act of generosity, to be sure, but it was rooted in selfish desire. It wasn't ever about the Diricawl, it was about him... it was about her.
"It was for me?" She asked, her voice as small as a mouse, barely audible over the chatter of the bar, but they caught it all the same.
Theo's returning smile was sincere, unfettered, and laced with tremendous relief. "It's always for you, Golden Girl."
She clamps a hand over her mouth to hold back the agonised sound that rises in her throat; she had been wrong, she shouldn't have left, she should have pushed, she should have asked. It all swirls within her, regret, fear, desperation...and reassurance. Because she had not been alone in these feelings, not at all. She'd not imagined the lingering stares or the gentle touches. She'd not imagined the look in his eye as he'd closed in on her space, nor the shudder of his hands as he held her face, nor the hitch in his breath when he'd kissed her.
They'd both been running from these growing feelings for so long, finding excuses and reasons not to acknowledge them, convincing themselves that they would dissipate if they just elected to ignore them. But they couldn't, not for all their trying, and they'd tangled together in a dizzying display of carnal thirst.
That's why he'd told her to leave; not because he wanted her to, but because he didn't .
Her thoughts must have been written all over her face, for when Theo spoke again, he did so gently, like she was on the verge of shattering. "You don't see the way he changes when you are there, Hermione. It's like watching a balloon inflate."
"So," she started, her voice cracking. "You are telling me that-"
"I'm not telling you anything." Theo whipped around to look at Pansy. "In fact, I haven't said a word about this, have I, Pans?"
The witch shook her head, noncommittal. "I don't recall hearing you say anything, no."
Hermione pushed herself up from the table, deciding that if Theo could purchase a cabin in Alaska and a vineyard in Italy, he could also afford to cover her share of the bill, especially after reshaping the foundations of her very core.
"I need to go," she stated, collecting her bag.
"Thank god for that," Pansy smirked. "Do fuck his brains out, won't you? He might become tolerable again."
"Let's not go that far..." Theo chuckled, but she didn't stop to join in their amusement.
She just ducked her head under the strap of her bag, collected her wand, and darted for the door as though carried by the wind itself. Her heart thundered in her ears as she sprinted for the apparition point, the cold air burned her face, and the first few drops of English weather wet her hair. She didn't have a coat on, she left it in the bar, and she didn't care.
Because if she was not hiding anymore, then neither could he.
#
She was half-drowned by the time she arrived at the front door of his Wiltshire home. She could have gone straight to hers and tried his floo, but she did not want to risk this rush of courage with the disheartening realisation that she was still disconnected from his network. So, she'd disapparated from right outside of the bar and re-emerged at the end of his street. And now she was here, standing at his door, fist raised to knock.
There was no more time to waste, so she hammered her knuckles against the wood and waited.
She wondered, briefly, if Malfoy would ever have had anyone knock on his front door before; he'd grown up in a manor with a- apparently unscalable- iron gate, and then he'd lived in a dormitory accessed with a password, only to move into the heart of wizarding Wiltshire, where visitors appeared by fireplace.
Perhaps that's why it took him so long to answer the door, leaving her out there to get drenched under the torrential rain, her usually wild curls now flattened to her shoulders. It wasn't until she heard approaching footsteps that she remembered the existence of warming charms, swiftly waving one over herself; the last thing she needed was to appear shaky and nervous, even if she was.
The door swung open, revealing a confused-looking Malfoy. "Granger?"
"Please let me in before I drown?" she asked, gesturing to the state of herself.
He looked completely stunned, and for a second, she expected him to close the door in her face, but she knew he wouldn't- that wasn't who he was, not with her. He shook his head as if to clear it and stepped aside, inviting her in. She hopped past him, not even bothering to dry herself off, before she marched into the lounge and aimed her wand at the fireplace, lighting it. The heat was instant and inviting, bolstering her for what was to come.
"Granger..." he said again, stepping into the room.
She turned to face him, prepared to just start talking and not stop until he put his mouth on hers and stopped her himself. But something caught her eye as she moved; a stack of parchment on his coffee table, laid out neatly beside a box filled with even more of them, the handwriting immediately familiar- her own.
"You kept them?" she whispered, pointing to the pile.
Malfoy shoved his hands into his pockets, chin dipping to his chest. "Of course. I've only just read the last couple."
"You didn't read them at the time?" She asked, and he shook his head. "Why not?"
"Because I-uh-" he winced, letting out a frustrated exhale. "What are you doing here?"
"I want to organise a charity match for the Stockport Soaring Serpents," she said, standing just an inch taller, chin raised. "It could provide them with a bit more exposure, and maybe we can involve some of the Harpies if we arrange it for the off-season. We'll find a suitable cause and raise some money; it'll appease your annual charitable requirement."
The look of pure and utter confusion on his face brought a smile to her own. "What are you-why would you do that?"
She shrugged. "They are my father's favourite team."
His head tilted, eyes narrowing. "Your muggle father likes quidditch?"
"Almost as fervently as your mother likes the Diricawl," she said, and his face fell. "I wouldn't invest my time and money into something I didn't care about, just to spend time with you again. That would be completely insane, wouldn't it?"
It took him a minute to find his voice again, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he took in her words. She resisted the urge to close the space between them, opting instead to just watch him, keeping her expression neutral.
"Utterly," he finally said.
"Tell me why you stopped writing." She demanded, still sodden, still standing by the fire.
"Hermione." Her name on his lips was a plea, a prayer, filled with everything he'd never been able to say but always wanted to. It met her ears like a kiss. "I think you know why."
She stepped forward then, the iron gate finally scaled. "Say it."
"What do you want me to say?" he asked, shaking his head. "That I'm in love with you? That I have been for years? Certainly since that night under the yew tree, probably long before that. You sat on that bench and woke me up. Every day with you that year was like breathing fresh air for the first time."
His hands were shaking, his voice cracking, but he persisted. Finally, he persisted.
"But you were with Weasley. You were always going to be with Weasley. And I couldn't stand it. When the opportunity to work the merger in Montpellier came up, I jumped at it, thinking that the distance might help. But it didn't, I just missed you." His eyes met hers, sucking the air out of the room like a vacuum. "All day, every day, waiting by the window for your owl. Every time I ate breakfast, or read a good book, or saw something funny or confusing or interesting, I thought of you. It was constant."
He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at it gently. She wanted to touch him more than she'd ever wanted anything, but he wasn't done, and she needed to know it all.
"Blaise was there when your letter arrived, when you asked to fire call, and he saw it all written on my face- which is your bloody fault, by the way, you convinced me to stop the occluding- so, we spoke about it. I realised I was never going to be able to do it...to be the friend you wanted, the friend you deserved." He took another step closer, and she felt her lip wobble. "I couldn't watch you marry him. I couldn't sit there in attendance and pretend to be happy about it. It was selfish, loving you the way that I did. So, I tried to cut you out of me entirely, but it just left me hollow."
They stood facing each other for a quiet moment, their ragged breaths the only sound besides the crackling fire. And then he reached into his pocket and withdrew his wand, waving it in her direction, drying her in an instant.
"It was misery without you, Hermione. Every minute of it. And then father got sick, and I returned home, and I thought...I don't know, I thought I could just stay away," he smiled sadly, as if laughing at his own foolishness. "And then you were there, beautiful and real and fucking furious with me. Every reason I ever had to push you away disappeared in an instant. I needed you, I need you, and so I would have done it. I would have watched you marry him. I would have been there, and I would have been happy for you. Because I realise now, that's what love is- it's selfish and it's selfless."
Tears were glistening in his eyes, just as they were in hers, but it wasn't enough to stop them, not anymore.
"But things changed, you changed, and sometimes you'd look at me and I'd wonder...I'd wonder if you felt it too. I see you blush whenever you catch me watching you and, merlin, the thing's it does to me...the thoughts it puts in my head...but timing was always an issue. You were grieving your relationship, what was I supposed to do?"
He reached out his hand, and she took it.
"I was scared to lose this again, whatever it is that we have. I didn't want to spill my guts and ruin it all, because I've already tried living without you, Hermione, and it's fucking pointless. But then that night...it turned me inside out. Getting to touch you, kiss you, hold you the way I'd only dreamed of. I wanted to tell you everything that morning, but you left. You didn't want anything to change between us, and I would have changed it in a heartbeat. So, I thought some time would help..."
"Did it?" she choked.
His returning look was agony. "Of course it didn't."
She nodded, eyes dropping to their interlocked palms, and suddenly nothing had ever seemed as simple, as easy, as what she said next. "I lied."
His eye twitched. "What?"
"When I said I didn't want anything to change, I lied."
"Why?" His question was desperate, and he stepped closer again, bringing them chest to chest.
She smiled. "I think you know why."
"Say it."
"Because I was scared. Because I assumed. Because, Draco, I love you too. With every bone in my body." She whispers the admission, and that cavity in her chest seals tight. His head drops, his shoulders heaving, and she twists their joined hands so that his fingers rest on her pulse. "Can you feel that? It's steady, isn't it? This isn't some adrenaline spike or a moment of madness, this is a relief. I love you."
His arms snake around her waist as he crushes her to him, his face buried in her neck, his body curved around hers like they'd been made to fit together. She held him tightly, relishing every inhale that brought them closer.
"I shouldn't have stopped writing." His voice was a muffled cry into her skin.
"I should have stayed for breakfast," she replied into his shoulder, hands clutching at his back. "No more hiding."
He pulled back, hands coming to bracket her face in with such palpable tenderness. "No more hiding."
It should have been their first kiss.
His lips touched hers with reverence, and she melted under his touch. It poured between them; the longing, the waiting, the wanting, the love. She returns the kiss with fervour, hands trailing up his arms and running through his hair, pulling him as close as it was possible for him to get.
His hands find purchase on her waist, holding her steady as they collide like comets that have been orbiting each other for too long. Her breaths grow frantic, her touch follows suit, and he meets her there. His palms find her thighs and lift her, wrapping her legs around his waist. She moans into his ear as he presses himself against her, and she can hear his teeth clenching.
"Fuck, Hermione," he groans, spinning and pinning her against a wall of books, freeing his hands to roam her body. One hand on her arse, gripping and rolling, the other snatching her wrists and pinning them above her head. When his fingers landed on her pulse, his smile turned devilish- she knew he could feel it racing. "That's better."
"Draco-"
He cuts her off with another searing kiss, his tongue plunging between her parted lips and meeting her own, tasting and allowing her to taste in return. It was consuming, the wanting, it drove her entirely out of her mind until all she could do was feel.
His attention moved to her jaw, nipping and kissing along the line of it before dipping to her throat, where a grumbling groan was brewing. She wriggled against him, trying to relieve the ache with any sort of friction, and his breath hitched.
"I don't want to fuck you on the bookshelf," he mumbled between kisses, hips rolling against hers. "I want to do this properly."
"Then take me to bed," she begged, pressing her lips to his ear.
They were moving in an instant, his touch unrelenting as they stumbled to his bedroom, not unlike the night they had shared only a handful of weeks ago, and yet entirely unlike it. This was not a moment of weakness; this was a moment of strength. This was what they would spend the rest of their lives doing.
She'd hardly stepped over the threshold of his room before he was pulling off her t-shirt, muttering that blessedly clever spell that shed her of her bra, and she was doing the same. There was no care in the removal of their clothes, no consideration for preserving the fabric, it didn't matter.
As soon as he was free from his briefs, she began lowering to her knees, but hands on her arms tugged her back to her feet, and his eyes found hers- bluer than she'd ever noticed them being before. There was something exposed in them, something vulnerable.
"Not tonight," he said, brushing the pad of his thumb over her lips. "We've got all the time in the world. Tonight, I just want to love you."
"I know you love me," she argued. "You don't have to prove it."
His grin had her heart swelling to the point of pain; beautiful, glistening, and all for her. He caught her chin in his hand and brought her mouth to his, kissing her languidly, as if they really did have all the time in the world.
As he pushed her down onto the mattress and settled his weight between her legs, she let out a contented sigh; it all felt so right. "Next time, then."
"Next time," he agreed, bending to run his tongue along her collarbone as his hands slipped between her legs, trailing along her inner thigh until he reached his target. At the first brush of his fingertips over her clit, she gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders. "Oh- fuck, Hermione. That's- god - you are perfect."
Too soon he was done, sitting up to collect his wand from his abandoned trousers, handing it to her with a hungry look in his eyes. She laughed happily as she took it from him and cast the contraceptive charm, and she felt his length twitch against her leg.
"Please, Draco, I need you-"
"Say that again."
She reached for him, pulling him down to her again. "What?"
"Say my name again." It was a demand, but it wasn't born from entitlement; it was a raw supplication, and she felt her stomach twist with need.
"Please, Draco."
"Shit," he hissed, sinking into her with a single thrust, pressing his lips to hers again. His moans were low and rumbling, and she felt them in every nerve, in every cell. "You feel so fucking good."
She felt fucking good.
He began to move, slowly and steadily, every thrust growing more powerful, and she wrapped her limbs around him. There would be many nights, and many occasions, for them to live out every fantasy they had ever had. But tonight was different, she could feel it as much as he could- tonight was about mourning the years they'd wasted without each other, solidifying the foundations they'd built. Tonight was the first sentence of a book they would write together.
He took her slowly, whispering words of his affections into every inch of her skin, and she said it all in return. His hand slipped between them and found her clit, beginning those rhythmic circles that she knew would send her hurtling over the edge.
The pressure in her abdomen built, her walls clenching around him, eliciting a satisfied groan from the back of his throat. She cupped her hand over her mouth, biting down on the fleshy mound of her palm, and he instantly stopped his beautiful effort to pull her hand away and pin it above her head. His eyes blazed into hers, wide and wild and filled with venereal energy.
"No more hiding," he whispered. "I want to hear you."
The love she felt for him in that moment was so inordinate that she could have cried, were the waves of pleasure not too consuming. She nodded, and he let go of her wrist to resume his perfectly applied pressure on her clit, watching her with burning intent as she moaned his name.
"Louder."
She obliged. He met her moans with thrusts, intensity increasing every time she clenched down onto him. He hissed her name like an incantation, and she felt like magic itself.
"God, fuck," he gasped, pressing his forehead to hers. "Hermione, I'm-I'm so close-I can't-"
It was all she needed, the sound of his unrestrained pleasure had her completely undone. She opened her mouth on a silent cry and arched into him, her vision blurring, her hands grasping for any inch of him she could reach. He loved her relentlessly, burying himself in her deeply as he found his own release, full-body shudders enveloping them both.
It was bliss, unlike she'd ever known before.
He held her for a long time, longer than he needed to, long enough for their sweat to dry and her mind to come back into her body. When he finally let go of her, it was only to make a quick dash to the bathroom, returning with a warm and dampened towel, which he used to gently clean her up- it would have been easier and quicker to use magic, but the intimacy offered by this small act of servitude filled her with a feeling so strong that she couldn't even voice it.
So she pulled him back into bed, twisting in his arms so they were face to face- nose to nose- and she kissed him again, savouring the delicate way his fingers traced her cheekbones.
"You are staying?" he asked against her lips.
"I am."
"And in the morning-"
"You'll make eggs."
"Sunny-side-up?"
"Obviously."
She smiled into the next kiss, and the one after that, and every single one they shared until they fell back against the pillows, wrung out and wonderful. She looked at him, he looked at her, and she heard it; as soft as a caress, as clear as a song - I know you, I see through you, I see the love that lives within you...it lives within me too.
#
To know and to be known.
There were a great many things that captivated Hermione Granger throughout her hectic life, but nothing, and no one, held her attention as much as Draco Malfoy.
They were together; as often as possible, for as long as possible. She moved in with him after merely two months of dating, waving goodbye to the flat that had served as her first and only independent home and never looking back. Draco didn't even need to make room for her in the house; she just fit.
Their lives were filled and fulfilling. Hermione saw her friends often; every Friday at The Alchemist and frequent dinners with the Potters to taste whatever dish had taken over Harry's life- and kitchen- that month. Ron would join, as would his girlfriend, and they would laugh until their stomachs hurt. She accompanied Draco for nights out with Pansy, Theo, and Blaise whenever she had the energy, and when she didn't, she would curl up on their sofa with a good book and enjoy some blissful downtime.
Most evenings, that's where they ended up. Legs tangled on the sofa, reading, or talking, or pressing themselves together in a frenzy. Every night she would retire to their oversized bed, she would climb in from the left- her side- and crawl into his waiting arms.
Every morning, Draco cooked breakfast.
For their first anniversary, he took her to Paris. They ate overpriced bouillabaisse and coq au vin in restaurants that he'd reserved tables at in the months prior. They'd bickered for twenty minutes over splitting the bill; her eventual win could only be put down to the way she'd run her foot up the side of his leg under the table, igniting that impatient fire in his eyes. He'd pre-paid for their next three meals, just to make a point.
They climbed the Eiffel Tower together and had their picture taken the muggle way.
Her parents loved him and his irritatingly pristine smile, she wasn't sure if they'd forgiven him easily for all the stories she'd told them in the early years of their schooling, or if those memories were just some of the many that had never been recovered. Either way, seeing them embrace him made her feel a sense of serenity that she'd not expected.
They spent Christmas morning with her parents, the afternoon with Narcissa in the greenhouse of the manor, and the evening bundled around the too-small table at the burrow, plying themselves with eggnog. New Year's Eve was spent in Theo's new Alaskan cabin, drinking mulled wine under the winter stars. He found her in the pantry near midnight and kissed her, not stopping until she was panting beneath his hands, her arms around his neck.
He proposed over breakfast the following spring, spelling out the question with crudely cut pieces of toast, a delicate topaz ring sat in a velvet box beside the plate. She'd not been able to respond, her emotions choking her. But it didn't matter...he knew.
After a special request from Hermione to McGonagall- who never would have denied her anything- they returned to the castle, this time with all their family and friends, and married beneath the ancient yew tree. They wrote their own vows, and Malfoy could hardly get through them without sobbing. He joked about the effects the tree seemed to have on him, nobody got it except for her, just as he'd intended.
They slowly danced in the corridors where their story had truly begun. And when the party fizzled and the guests retired, Draco and Hermione had curled up by the roaring fire in the room of their bed and breakfast, naked and tangled, until the birds sang from the windowsill.
A year later, the Stockport Soaring Serpents won the junior league, and Draco invested a bigger stake in the team, becoming a part owner. Every day he returned from work with a gleam of thrill in his eyes, excited to tell her all about his day, and she would put down her paperwork and listen with a smile.
Pansy Parkinson burst through the floo one Sunday morning and informed them she'd married an American wizard that they had never heard of, let alone met. She moved in with him the following weekend, but the distance had no impact on the frequency of her unplanned visits.
With Draco allocating significantly more of his time to the Stockport Soaring Serpents, Blaise was offered a promotion; equal partnership in the Malfoy estate and all that comes with it. Not needing the extra galleons, he purchased the cat sanctuary with his additional earnings.
Only four months later, Hermione and Draco adopted a tabby called Basil. Practice , she'd told him when he'd begun to protest, to see if we can keep something small alive. Within three weeks, Basil had taken to sleeping on Draco's chest.
When Ginny fell pregnant, Hermione had waited for the usual thoughts of confusion to arise, but all she felt was a sense of understanding. She'd shared a look with Draco, and he'd smiled in return, knowing exactly what she was asking. They put in a valiant effort to expand their family, but it was a long, long time before they reaped the fruits of their labour.
She told him over breakfast, and he'd wept with joy into his open hands. They let the food go cold.
Harry was her first pick for a godparent, and Theo was his. The two men mutually agreed to spend more time together, just in case they ever needed to co-parent, and their groups slowly began to merge. It took a while for Ron to warm up to the presence of so many Slytherins, but he got there in the end.
Scorpius was born in the autumn, he had the blonde hair and silver eyes of his father, but the stubborn curiosity of his mother. Draco found his stride as a father, and though it took her a little longer to slip into the role of motherhood, she's most at peace when with her little family.
Raising a child was a challenge she never could have prepared for, not if she'd read all the books in the world- and she'd tried to, she really had. Life becomes crazy, sometimes they fight, but they never, ever hide from it. Whether it takes minutes, hours, or days...they remain together, and they talk it out. Even in the thick of it, love persists.
When Scorpius turns four, Hermione becomes a senior minister. Her workload skyrockets, but the support of her family and friends makes it feel manageable. Work days are occupied with organising political campaigns and voting on various legislation, and some days she longs for the little box room buried in the back of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. But never for long.
Bertha retires and then rejoins a year later. Harry is promoted to Head of the DMLE. Ronald starts working full-time at the joke shop with George. He marries Sarah Adler, a muggleborn witch from Belgium, in a quaint ceremony in the gardens of the Burrow. She, Draco, and Charlie Weasley snuck into Arthur's shed and raided his selection of Lagavulin, returning to the party notably unsteadier than they'd left it. Draco held her up as they attempted to dance, his quiet laugh ringing in her ear like wind chimes.
She loved him more than she did yesterday, but not as much as she would tomorrow.
Time passes, they age, Scorpius grows. After a long day, she will return home to a life she knows, and a man who knows her. He will be in the kitchen, feeding Scorpius something that Hermione would likely disapprove of. He will greet her at the entryway with a lingering kiss and a smile that still makes her stomach flip after all these years. She knows that when they put Scorpius to bed, they will do so together, each perched on either side of him as they read his favourite book- he will demand they do voices for every character, and they will oblige.
She knows that on particularly difficult days, Draco will run her a bath and fill it with muscle relaxants. He will sit on the tiles beside the tub while she soaks and listen to her read aloud from a book he doesn't care about. Eventually, he will reach in and trail his fingers up her thigh, that look in his eye turning predatory. He'll climb into the tub, or she'll climb out, and they'll climb each other. Sometimes there on the floor, sometimes against the wall, often in the comfort of their bed, where he'd whisper devotion into her ear.
She knows that they will keep loving and learning every version of each other. She knows that they will wake up in the morning, lingering just a minute too long in the comfort of their embrace, before he will groan and roll out of bed. He'll head downstairs while she heads to rouse Scorpius, enjoying those first precious, sleepy moments of the day.
When they are ready, they will head down to the kitchen, where she knows Draco will be waiting with three servings of breakfast- yolks perfectly golden and served sunny-side-up.
THE END.