Hermione took a deep breath and steeled herself. Despite the intensity of her feelings for Draco, they still had many long-buried issues to overcome, and this was a logical place to begin. He deserved to know why things hadn't worked with Ron. He deserved the reassurance that she wasn't going anywhere, that right here, right now, in his arms she felt more content than she had in years.
Hermione spoke until her voice went hoarse.
Harry and Ginny's wedding marked the beginning of the end.
Hermione had been a model maid of honor the entirety of the engagement, and the morning of the wedding was no different. She helped Molly get ready, made sure Ginny ate some breakfast, repaired a stray thread on the veil, tugged a squirming Victoire into her flower girl dress, ensured her own hair and makeup weren't a total disaster, poked her head into the groom's room to check he wasn't a nervous wreck (he was, but Ron handled it), refilled Arthur's whisky glass, straightened Ron's bow tie, and when she returned to the bride to find her standing nervously in front of the mirror looking radiant yet anxious, she assuaged Ginny's fears that Harry would of course melt at the sight of her coming down the aisle.
"You really think so, Hermione?" The normally boisterously confident redhead trembled as she asked the question. Oh, Ginny. Here stood the girl who could outfly all of her brothers, who charged into the Battle of Hogwarts even though she'd been underage, who helped Neville organize a revolution under the Carrows' disgusting noses. Nothing and no one scared Ginevra Weasley, except the great Harry Potter.
Hermione wanted to roll her eyes, but instead, squeezed the bride's shoulders and said she'd bet 5 Galleons that Harry would be reduced to tears.
Easiest money she'd ever made.
They were married on September 1st in the backyard of the Burrow because Harry is nothing if not sentimental. His favorite day of the year at his favorite place. When Hermione reached the end of the aisle in her lovely dusty pink gown, she almost let a few tears slip. She wanted to run into Harry's arms and burst into tears and sob over and over how he truly deserved a perfect day like today. Instead, she shot him a tremulous smile and mouthed "love you." He nodded shakily and returned the sentiment and of course cried when Ginny reached the end of the aisle. Across the way, Ron caught Hermione's eye and he playfully grimaced. Hermione hid a giggle in her bouquet.
Then the vows began and swept her joyful emotions aside to make way for something altogether strange.
Hermione watched two people she loved pledge themselves to each other for all eternity; in this life and the next and all the lives beyond. But people get married every day. They listen to the officiant and mindlessly repeat back the words, and perhaps most of them understand what they're signing up for (sickness and health, richer or poorer, blah, blah, blah, let's get to the reception) but honestly they're just traditional words to echo to give some weight to the occasion.
Not for Harry and Ginny.
Never in her life did Hermione see and hear two people pledge themselves so fervently, so earnestly to one another. She wanted to look away. It felt too intimate, too pure for all these people to witness as Harry and Ginny recited oaths to be bound to one another for life. Every syllable the couple uttered imbued with a burning love so fierce and bright that Hermione felt unworthy to stand in the presence of such honest and raw passion.
The joy that she felt for her dearest friends gave way to a stab of misery so sharp that she almost staggered. The flowers in her hand suddenly felt as if they weighed two tons. The tears streaming down her face no longer the happy variety, but of a painful, twisted grief. Pulling her eyes from the blissful couple, her gaze landed beyond Harry and on to Ron. He too no longer paid the marrying couple any mind. His mouth, usually pulled into a lopsided grin at family events, fixed in a confused frown. When his blue eyes met hers, Hermione knew in her aching heart that they had both arrived at the same devastating conclusion.
The awful pronouncement was posed some time later as a question by Ron. As they swayed lightly on the dance floor together, their gaze drifted over to the happy newlyweds. Harry and Ginny only had blissful eyes for one another, faces shining with unreserved ardor.
"Do you think that will ever be us?" Ron asked quietly.
No.
"Ron I—"
But she might as well have screamed her initial thought.
"Shh, Hermione. It's all right."
He gathered her closer to his chest so she could hide her face as her tears fell. She loved Ron so much and felt loved by him in return. She felt beautiful in his eyes, and in the early days of their relationship, the compliment fell off his tongue at least once a day.
But the thought of standing at an altar and consenting to a life-bond and really, truly meaning it with all her being? She couldn't picture it. They weren't Harry and Ginny and they never would be. They could not be the all-consuming, driven to the brink of madness with passion, type of love that each deserved to find.
Ron and Hermione's romantic relationship bloomed in war time, borne in fire and blood. When the dust from the Battle of Hogwarts had settled, there'd been no question of them going their separate ways. They were a unit now. Hermione witnessed with pride as Ron became the paragon of steadfast strength that his family so desperately needed in the trying months of grieving following the war.
When Arthur threw himself into helping rebuild the Ministry, Ron spent time with Molly to make sure she didn't collapse in on herself from losing Fred. When Ginny needed to exorcise her rage and pain, he went flying with her and organized pick-up quidditch with Harry and their siblings. When Percy still felt awkward and guilty around the family, Ron invited him into every conversation, made his new girlfriend feel welcome, and hugged him every chance he got. When George relied too much on firewhisky and Dreamless Sleep Potion, Ron took over the joke shop and solicited the help of Lee Jordan and Angelina to keep both the business and his brother afloat. When Charlie returned to Romania and Bill and Fleur returned their focus to their growing family at Shell Cottage, Ron stepped up his help around the Burrow so his parents never felt alone. When Hermione needed to travel to Australia to restore her parents' memories and bring them home, he supported her the entire trip and didn't complain once. He held her hand when her parents became angry and distraught when they finally remembered what their only daughter had done to them.
For someone whom Hermione once accused of having the emotional range of a teaspoon, Ron Weasley had certainly proved her wrong and then some.
But when you've given so much of yourself to everyone around you, what's left for you? When Harry announced he would be entering the Auror program, she saw the brief glint of regret in Ron's eyes. It had always been him, Harry, and Hermione, side by side, defeating darkness. But Ron just couldn't do it anymore. George needed him. His family needed him. Ron threw himself into Weasleys Wizard Wheezes and never looked back.
Before Hermione and Ron knew it, a few years had gone by. If anyone asked, they were happy together. Young and in love. Would they be getting married soon? What was the hold up? Harry and Ginny were engaged, so shouldn't you two not be far behind?
We have time, Ron and Hermione told each other. We have all the time in the world. For now, let's take care of each other, yeah?
But soon, that's all it became. Grief and recovery. Holding one another just to get through another sleepless night. Fights that used to end in passionate makeup sex now ended with sighs and long silences. The question of an engagement and marriage always punted to some other time in the future. Perhaps that blasé attitude about commitment should have clued at least one of them in, but it became easier to stay in the comfort of the familiar and expected. It was slowly killing them both.
Ron had spent so much time and energy healing everyone around him that he neglected to let himself heal. He couldn't find the words to articulate his own pain. Hermione realized one day that she leaned so much on Ron that even she remained blind to his anguish. They eventually had long, tear-filled discussions about the war and guilt, about what they lost, about how far they'd come, and the love between them morphed into a different sort of love. They became affectionate flat mates. There was still laughter and joy, but the days where Hermione came home from work and felt a gaping maw in her chest increased in frequency. So too did the days where Ron came home with a harrowing emptiness in his blue eyes that Hermione tried desperately to chase away.
With all their time and effort built into propping each other up just to make it through another day, things like romance, sex, and dating fell by the wayside. What were they to each other anymore? Who were they to themselves?
And so when confronted with the blinding strength of the love bond between Harry and Ginny, the veil was lifted.
When they returned home to their flat that evening after the wedding, they made love for the last time. Hermione cried when it was over and Ron held her close until morning. When the daylight began creeping through the blinds, Ron kissed her on the forehead and said, "I'll go to George's, you can keep the flat."
But Hermione insisted he stay here, since it sat down the street from the joke shop. Eventually they agreed that Ron would move in with George for the week, giving Hermione time to move to her own flat with her things, and then Ron could move back. Alone.
They agreed not to tell anyone except George until Harry and Ginny returned from their honeymoon. When the news broke, the Weasleys were devastated, to say the least. Hermione heard from Ginny that, in an astounding surprise turn from expected behavior, Molly sent Ron a very lengthy Howler about daring to end his relationship with Hermione.
She stayed away from the Burrow for all of one week before Molly and Arthur showed up on her doorstep. "You're our daughter too, whether you date Ron or not," they insisted and all three of them cried into their tea.
Things were awkward at first, but Ron and Hermione had so many years of friendship built into their lives that soon enough, they were able to hug again without blushing furiously.
Ron, bless him, even asked her permission to date another witch about three months after their breakup. Hermione laughed and said of course, but also went home that evening and drank an entire bottle of wine by herself. Certainly not because she still loved Ron, no, Hermione felt as if everyone around her had moved on when she had yet to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. Would another man ever appreciate or love her the way Ron once had? What was she even doing anymore? She had no boyfriend, an entry-level job in the government, and a stilted relationship with her parents.
Two weeks later, she ran into Viktor Krum at Neville and Hannah's wedding. Two months after that, she took an international portkey to Bulgaria to attend one of his matches, which led to her first sexual experience with someone not named "Ron Weasley."
Dating Viktor felt exciting at first. The Daily Prophet and the international press absolutely adored them as a couple. Viktor was attentive and completely besotted with her, and gave a huge boost to Hermione's confidence with his rather ravenous appetite in bed. Hermione tried to attend as many matches as she could, but with her career at the Ministry finally ramping up, international travel became more tiresome. She tried, really she did, to enjoy quidditch matches. She respected Viktor's passion and his chosen career, but being a quidditch girlfriend could be beyond exhausting if one had no love for the sport. Given his level of fame and her level of notoriety, there were far too many eyes on her when she could attend matches, meaning Hermione had to act the part of supportive fan for far too many hours. She would have killed to bring a book or even some work to do during the long, drawn out games, but knew that would be disrespectful to Viktor and probably set off a flurry of negative articles in the press.
Hermione grit her teeth and tried to pay attention, and it helped for a while to become acquainted with the other players' spouses and families. But this presented her with a new realization: the life of a quidditch player's spouse was not for her. It involved far too much travel, long matches, endless press inquiries, and Hermione knew it would exhaust her to keep up the charade of dutiful quidditch wife. Her career had taken off too, and she had less time to devote to games, after-parties, and charity galas. She received her own fair share of these types of requests by being a war heroine in her home country.
A lack of common interests: the final nail in the coffin of her relationship with Viktor Krum. Hermione had once described Viktor to Harry as "more of a physical being." They certainly connected in the bedroom, but trying to have a meaningful conversation posed more of a challenge than it should. Viktor, bless him, tried his best to keep up with Hermione when she would monologue passionately about new laws and regulations, but ultimately had little to contribute to their discussions. And Hermione, for her part, just couldn't muster the sort of unbridled enthusiasm Viktor deserved for his career achievements.
They parted ways officially after 9 months, and Hermione once again found herself alone after a rather amicable breakup.
Dating after Hermione had been tough for Ron, at first. No shortage of women wanted to date him, of course, but when he quickly discovered their superficial reasons for doing so (his war hero status, his fame, his proximity to Harry, etc.) it left him rather depressed.
Then Luna reintroduced him to Padma Patil. They broke the ice on their first date by reliving their disastrous Yule Ball experience and had each other in stitches over their past immature behavior at school.
The first time Ron brought Padma to Sunday dinner at the Burrow was more than a little tense. Molly barely acknowledged the poor girl and made quite a show of fawning over Hermione. It took the Weasley matriarch much longer than anyone else to let go of the idea of Ron and Hermione as a couple. But Padma, made of stronger stuff, had politely brought homemade samosas to share with everyone. All declared them fantastic, even if Molly refused to try them.
Hermione went out of her way to make Padma feel welcome. She had always liked the girl at school (far better than her gossipy and less serious twin, Parvati, anyway) and could immediately see why she worked so well for Ron. She tempered his personality in a way Hermione never could.
Padma appreciated Ron without idolizing him. She was intelligent like Hermione, but without Hermione's complex of needing every person in her life to know just how intelligent. Padma was patient with Ron where Hermione would have gotten snippy. She kept Ron in line without resorting to nagging or mothering. Padma laughed easily at Ron's jokes and didn't make him feel inadequate by her mere presence. She became the balance Ron needed.
George of all people finally convinced Molly that Padma made a good match for her youngest son. Still floundering after the loss of Fred, the normally boisterous redhead more often than not existed in a fog of depression. With Ron helping out at the shop, things had improved somewhat, but Lee and Angelina were still having a devil of a time getting through to him.
During her third-ever visit to the Burrow, Padma plopped down next to George where he sat silently in the corner of the living room, keeping himself to the edge of his family and friends. Hermione watched curiously as the dark-haired girl spoke quietly for a few minutes to George, and it seemed he reluctantly began replying. An hour later, they still carried on their private discussion, but more people in the room had begun to notice. Finally, just as everyone in the room got tired of casting surreptitious glances at the odd pair, George shocked everyone by grabbing Padma in a fierce hug. Wiping his eyes, he stood and loudly addressed Ron. "Ron, if you don't keep this one, you're fired from the shop."
The shocked silence left in his wake only broke by Molly asked if Padma wouldn't mind sharing her mum's recipe for the delicious samosas.
Hermione asked Ron once what Padma had said to George to shake him out of his rut. "She just told me 'it's a twin thing. You wouldn't understand. I just had to level with him, twin to twin.'"
With Ron safely in love and off the market, this unfortunately left Hermione's surrogate family with a renewed desire to match her with any available wizard. The next year of Hermione's love life sped by in a string of awful one-time-only dates. Seamus Finnegan (seriously, what the hell Ginny?), Terry Boot (homosexual and just as confused as Hermione as to why they'd been set up), Ernie Macmillan (Hermione almost hexed the pompous git before drinks were poured), Justin Finch-Fletchley (no spark, plus they worked together and that would be too weird for Hermione), and others so boring they didn't even deserve a mention. By the time Angelina suggested Oliver Wood (dear Merlin, did these people seriously think she could stand to be with another famous quidditch player?) she felt thoroughly out of options and almost resigned herself to spinsterhood. Besides, she didn't need a man to lead a fulfilling life! But, well... regular sex was nice. And not being the third, fifth, seventh, or 15th wheel since every single one of her friends had all paired off would also be nice on occasion.
In a rare moment of honesty, Hermione confided in her mother about the absolute dearth of romantic prospects in the wizarding world. When her mother positively ignited in excitement and suggested introducing her to a longtime patient's son, Hermione decided to just go with it.
Daniel turned out to be very handsome, very educated, and very Muggle. At first, dating a Muggle man felt like a rebellious capitulation of wizarding society's expectations on her; thrilling, in a way, to date a completely ordinary man. One who came without the baggage of surviving a war, or an unfortunate perception of her from their Hogwarts' days, or would put her on a pedestal based on her status as a heroine. Plus, the Daily Prophet couldn't follow her in the Muggle world, and magical press laws prohibited them from publishing pictures of Daniel in non-magical settings.
Daniel, a solicitor at his father's firm, grew up in a similarly upper class environment as Hermione. Indeed, if Hermione had never been a witch, they probably would have attended the same posh schools, competed for the same school prizes, belonged to the same clubs, and perhaps even attended Cambridge or Oxford together. Alas, Hermione was quite thoroughly a witch, a core part of her life that became much too hard to suppress.
Magic to Hermione felt as natural as breathing, but lying required far too much effort on her part. She'd had to uphold the pretense that she'd attended a remote school in Scotland for gifted children and that she now worked as a consultant to the government on animal rights. The amount of tidying up she had to do before hosting him at her flat was more stressful than it needed to be. Introducing him to Harry and Ginny went fine (thank Merlin for Harry being raised by Muggles in this one instance) but meeting Ron and Padma made her palms sweat something awful.
Several long months in and Hermione reached the end of her rope, fed up with hiding her true nature. Daniel, no slouch in the intelligence department, definitely sensed something hesitant about Hermione, something amiss when she discussed her personal life, or her work life, or even her friends. Their relationship eventually reached the point where Hermione realized she'd be wasting both her time and his by carrying on. She didn't love Daniel and didn't think she ever could. She certainly didn't love him enough to want to divulge the secret of her double life and go through the cumbersome process of introducing him to the magical world. Hermione looked up the laws once out of curiosity and was promptly horrified at all the red tape. At any rate, it gave her a brand new appreciation for married couples consisting of a magical and non-magical spouse.
Daniel didn't even seem surprised when Hermione broke off what had become a rather stagnant relationship anyway. Her parents on the other hand, seemed extremely disappointed and Hermione had an inkling as to why. Perhaps if this relationship panned out they would finally succeed in dragging a bit of their daughter back into the Muggle world.
Hermione swore off Muggle men after that. Almost.
Cameron, her next romantic entanglement, was an exception. A silly fling, a flirtation at a Muggle club Ginny dragged her to that turned into Hermione's first and only no-strings-attached-let's-just-shag partnership. They slept together (at his place, always his place) a handful of times over a few months, met up for drinks occasionally, but the second Cameron met someone he wanted to seriously date she once again found herself with a friendly ex.
Her relationship, or lack thereof, with Cameron fizzled out several months before she'd laid eyes on Draco at the coffee shop.
"Which means I've not done this, meaning a serious relationship, for quite some time. It appears I'm still in possession of some old insecurities," she confessed and laughed weakly.
She felt Draco sigh against her hair and she indulged in her urge to cling tighter to his body, burying her nose in the side of his neck. Merlin, but the man smelled so good.
"Well," Draco drawled. "Turnabout is fair play."
-------------------------------
He wasn't proud of it, but Draco lost his virginity to Pansy Parkinson in his Fifth Year. Oh what a splendid year that had been in the life of young Draco Malfoy. Yes, the Dark Lord had returned, but as a distant and alluring concept to Draco. His father resided in the thick of it once more, holding closed door meetings in his study and popping in and out of the Ministry. This time, he assured Draco, this time their side would be victorious and the Malfoy family honored above all.
The Dark Lord's work was already being done for him by the moronic Minister for Magic. Installing Dolores Umbridge at Hogwarts to keep old Dumbledore in check was a true masterstroke of idiocy on the part of the Ministry. He hardly had a kind thought to spare on that odious and batty woman, but that didn't keep Draco from joining her Inquisitorial Squad. Finally, a position of power that allowed him to lord over Potter and his stupid friends.
Riding the high of being promoted to such a prestigious group, he accepted Pansy's coy offer to "celebrate together" in her dorm room. She'd made sure to kick all her bunk mates out (no doubt after smugly informing them exactly why she needed privacy) and dragged Draco to her bed.
The whole ordeal probably lasted no longer than a few minutes and Pansy whispered to Draco that she loved him. He did not return the sentiment. The pair continued their pathetic attempts at shagging the rest of the year, and Draco felt like the king of the castle. Pansy was available whenever he wanted, always eager to please, and even if he had to endure her declaration of love every single time, she never complained about his (again, likely pitiful) performance.
But then Potter and his merry band of rag-tag children just had to go and thwart the Dark Lord's mission in the Department of Mysteries. A mission his father had been chosen to lead. When Lucius not only failed spectacularly to secure the prophecy, but got himself and others captured and imprisoned, and on top of that cock-up, alerted the entire Ministry to the Dark Lord's return... Draco knew the time for childish games had ended.
Thus began Draco's period of celibacy, lasting until after the war. Indeed, it's a little difficult to maintain an erection after you've had a Dark Mark branded onto you, then informed that not only are you required to take your father's place amongst the ranks, but you will be given the wonderful opportunity to prove your worth. This opportunity involves you somehow murdering one of the greatest wizards to ever exist, lest you'd like to witness the torture and slow, painful death of your mother. Oh, and you'd probably be killed too, but only after. Not exactly the sort of stable emotional state that would allow for one to want to shag or even wank.
As their Sixth Year progressed, it took some time for Pansy to get the message. He rebuffed her advances over and over while she tried to coo in his ear that she could make him feel better, she knew just what he needed, what he liked. Draco snapped one day and snarled that she was nothing more than a convenient hole for his cock and he had far more important things to do than her. She took the hint to bugger off, but primly replied that he would not be allowed to speak to her in such a way once they were married.
Poor, stupid, naïve Pansy. She really thought Draco would marry her after the war.
Thinking back on his behavior immediately following his trial made Draco cringe. Lost and messed up didn't even being to cover it. But Pansy, almost as much of a pariah as him in those days, had stuck by him. Perhaps the pull of nostalgia for better days at Hogwarts when he'd been a carefree, bigoted, arsehole made him put up with her irksome presence for as long as he did.
She didn't complain about his potion addiction. She ignored it. A potion-addicted boyfriend didn't play well in the fantasy life she'd crafted in her own mind, so Pansy pretended that "Draco's little problem" did not exist. Instead she complained about the changing world around them. About Muggleborns and blood traitors. About how unfairly purebloods like Draco and Pansy were being treated.
Draco was tired. So fucking tired. The mind healer quack the Wizengamot obligated him to see put difficult ideas in his head. Dangerous ideas, his father would say. Ideas that made him question every single decision he'd based his entire existence on. But the potions helped, for a bit anyway.
Pansy became fucking relentless after a while. Did he even care about her reputation? He did not. Didn't he want to get engaged? Get married? Sire heirs? He did not. Not with her, especially. Even Millicent Bulstrode had found a husband, didn't Draco care how that made Pansy feel? He did not.
When it all came to a head one day, Draco used every cruel word in his arsenal to reduce Pansy to sniveling tears as she Flooed away and threatened to never return. Good fucking riddance.
Except she did return, only once, not three months later. She stepped through his Floo in a silk robe that she promptly dropped to the floor. Draco took one look at her nude form, sneered, and all but shoved her back into the fireplace with a quip about how a bride needed her beauty rest the night before her wedding. Pansy married her middle-aged Bulgarian husband the next day and Draco drank an entire bottle of single malt scotch to celebrate escaping her clutches once and for all.
His next two forays into the dating pool came as a favor to his mother. The Greengrass sisters, you remember them, don't you Draco?
He's fairly sure he dated Daphne first. She had dark hair and didn't speak much. Their courtship, for lack of a better term, consisted almost solely in the public eye. They attended galas, operas, charity functions and the like on each other's arms; Draco drunk or close to it for every single event. He'd kicked the potion habit by now and found alcohol to be a decent replacement to chase demons away. They'd fumbled around his bedroom a time or two (he did get consent, but probably struck out on making her come) but she never slept over because that would be indecent for an unmarried couple. When he started standing her up to indulge in becoming too wasted to leave his home, she broke off their courtship via owl.
Astoria, he's almost certain, was next to be courted. She had light hair and also spoke softly. She would have made the perfect pureblood bride. Draco once again went through the paces of parading about high society with a beautiful witch on his arm while adequately sloshed. Rinse and repeat the exact same mistakes he'd made with her sister. She also dumped him via owl. He deserved it. He didn't care.
Narcissa cared. She cared a whole lot that her only child threw away most chances at marrying a respectable (read: pureblood) woman to secure the continuation of the Malfoy line.
Draco's next romantic encounter occurred abroad, in France. For the life of him, he could not remember whose wedding he had been mandated to attend with his mother, probably because he was pissed for the entire thing.
He spent the reception partaking in the best champagne that Galleons could buy before catching the eye of a leggy brunette. Draco took her back to his suite and the conversation between them consisted of an affirmation that she would like to fuck him and then a contraceptive charm. She'd gone before he woke the next morning.
A year or so later, Draco found himself back in France at another stuffy and elaborate pureblood matrimonial affair, around the time he decided to cut back on alcohol as a coping mechanism, which meant the ceremony and reception felt three times as long. It also meant that he had to endure, while sober, his mother's waspish comments about all the eligible young witches he could be wooing if he just applied himself. Figuring he'd behaved enough to at least have one drink, he stalked over to the bar to indulge in some whisky. Before he could reach his destination, a stunning French witch boldly asked him to dance.
The woman, Camille, was self-assured, a capable dance partner (purebloods did love a good waltz), and to Draco's surprise, a good conversationalist. When Draco asked why she'd approached him, she replied that she knew a thing or two about familial obligations and he looked like he needed rescuing. She herself was engaged to a man she'd met just twice, with the nuptials planned to occur in a matter of weeks.
She invited Draco to her suite. "But you're engaged," he'd sputtered and Camille shrugged. "Engaged, oui. Dead, non."
One of the most humbling moments of his life followed. Camille did not appreciate Draco's attempt to bed her sans foreplay and was most vocal about this.
"Mais non, but you are too beautiful to be a bad lover!"
Stunned into mortified silence, Draco listened as the witch ticked off all the ways he failed at pleasing his sexual partner. "Eet eez not fair to your future wife, I will show you," she asserted, bossily. And show him she did. With an almost clinical efficiency, she took him through all the ways women liked to be caressed, what signals to read from his partner's reactions, how to prime both her body and his during foreplay for more satisfying (and multiple) orgasms, what positions allowed for deeper thrusting angles, and most crucially, how to give and receive oral sex. She did not shy away from correcting his technique ("Non, not like zat! Gently swirl ze tongue... Yes, yes! Mon Dieu, zat is better...") and giving pointers for improvement, both a humiliating blow to Draco's ego and a thoroughly needed educational experience. Hardly the demure, pampered debutante like all the other women he'd previously known, and Merlin help her intended spouse.
They did not leave Camille's suite for the entire weekend, pausing between sexual encounters only to order room service and bathe. At the end of his time with her, almost every part of Draco's body ached. She sent him on his way with a kiss to each cheek and a cheery, "Bonne chance, mon cher! You will invite me to your wedding someday, oui?"
An embarrassing amount of time elapsed before Hermione re-entered his life and he finally got to put Camille's lessons to any use.
"Well," Hermione said after Draco finished. "You wouldn't happen to know Camille's surname would you?"
"No. Do I even want to know why you're asking?" he asked warily.
"Shame. I think I need to send that woman the world's most extravagant gift basket."
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Draco didn't usually stay over during the work week, in accordance with one of Hermione's little rules for dating; that they keep separated most week day evenings so as not to lose focus on their respective careers.
Personally, Hermione stuck to this rule because she'd become a tad worried she spent too much time with Draco already. True, things were going so well between them, but a tiny voice inside her kept warning her that this had become too serious, too soon.
It took one fateful kiss from Draco to effectively kill off that tiny voice of doubt.
He had stayed the night, despite it being a Thursday, since by the time they'd finished regaling one another with their romantic pasts, the clock read well past one in the morning. Already naked and in bed, they'd succumbed to sleep easily.
Rushing about before work the next morning, Hermione had just banished their breakfast plates to the sink when Draco yelled out from the bathroom. "Oi, Granger! I'm using your toothbrush!"
"Fine!" she called back and walked through to her closet to get dressed.
"How is it—that you only have—the Muggle toothpaste? Honestly Granger—I thought I—had finally convinced you—to switch to—the wizarding stuff," he loudly whined in between shoving her toothbrush around in his mouth.
"My parents are dentists and that is their recommendation! That brand of spearmint toothpaste is backed by research studies showing its efficacy in removing plaque and preventing tooth decay. If you don't like it, feel free to Floo home and use your own!" She fired back and finished buttoning her blouse.
Draco appeared in the doorway of her walk-in closet with a smirk. "I'm only teasing, you daft little thing, don't have kittens." He cupped her face and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.
The tiny voice of doubt met its death in that moment.
Hermione gasped and wrenched herself away from Draco.
"What's wrong?"
"It's nothing it's just—" she reached up and grabbed his face to pull him in for a deeper kiss. No mistaking it this time. "You taste really good," she finished lamely and turned away.
Amortentia.
For years, Hermione assumed she had her personal Amortentia components on lock. When she'd correctly identified the potion for Slughorn in her very first Potions class of their Sixth Year, the smells wafting over from the cauldron were easily recognizable. Well, at least two of the three.
New parchment jumped out first. But of course, that smell to Hermione meant the start of a new school year, or an essay she excitedly wanted to tackle for class. The next scent, freshly mowed grass, transported her to childhood summers where she'd run about the garden while her parents' did yard work. Those simple summer days with her family felt like they would stretch on forever as a child.
At the time, the third scent of spearmint toothpaste had slightly confused her. Perhaps because her parents were dentists and she'd grown up with the scent it meant more to her? But no, it smelled more specific than that. A few times she thought she smelled it on Ron, but it didn't register strongly enough. Perhaps her memory of the potion had dulled over time, she reasoned.
After breaking things off with Ron, she hadn't given Amortentia a second thought until this moment. The scent memory washed over her in such a powerful wave, overwhelming not only her nostrils but almost every sensory nerve in her body to the point of slight dizziness. Her third and final component of Amortentia did not simply smell of a Muggle spearmint toothpaste.
No, specifically the way Draco Malfoy tasted while kissing her after using Muggle spearmint toothpaste rounded out her Amortentia cauldron.
The surreal nature of this revelation slammed into her: for someone like Draco, indoctrinated to hate her, to want to eradicate someone like her, to use a Muggleborn's toothbrush covered in Muggle toothpaste without a second thought. The enormous significance of such an insignificant act would probably be lost on him, but to Hermione it felt like the earth moved.
As they walked together to the coffee shop, Hermione twined their fingers together. "All right?" Draco asked, a bit puzzled. They didn't hold hands in public often.
"Quite," she responded with a sly smile.
She loved Draco. Merlin help her, she'd been hiding from the fact for a while now, but she loved Draco.
Perhaps one day he'd feel ready to calmly commit to the confession he'd once yelled in her face, and when that day came, she felt more than ready to return the sentiments.
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A/N: Thanks for reading! Find me on tumblr: @heyjude19-writing.