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Eighth Year was coming to a close faster than Hermione could have imagined. She had painstakingly collected every last book she’d checked out from the library (and there were many), hugged them goodbye, and levitated them in a neat stack beside her as she made her way out of the common room and into the halls of her soon-to-be-former home.
Madam Pince had threatened to keep her for a ninth year if she didn’t return the volumes by the end of the day, and Hermione would admit to no one that she had spent half the night magically photocopying notes from the texts. When would she ever have access to this amount of magical knowledge again?
As she rounded the corner, Malfoy’s foot, and then leg, and then chest appeared, and she realized too late that the collision was inevitable. They both fell to the ground, the carefully stacked books scattering.
Hermione sat stunned on her bum with her hands behind her to break her fall and looked at the Head Boy, her mouth agape. “Malfoy!”
The blond brushed invisible dirt from his arms as he peered at her with one raised eyebrow and a bored expression. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Granger. The books will survive. I, on the other hand—”
“You prat.” She finally knelt up, gathering her wits as she realized those very knickers were frighteningly close to being on display in her current position, and began collecting the books into her arms while surreptitiously checking them for damage.
She heard a chuckle overhead.
She looked up to find Malfoy standing again, watching her with an amused expression she’d never seen on his lips.
“What?”
He shook his head and crouched down, handing her the item that had landed near his right foot.
Hermione’s face went scarlet. It was a copy of Witch Weekly with “Ways to Please your Witch or Wizard” written in bold on the title page. She snatched it back and shoved the magazine inside her robes.
“Didn’t know Pince was such a supporter of pleasure.”
“It’s from Ginny, it was just a joke,” Hermione tried to dismiss it. She hadn’t meant for that particular reading material to make its way into her library returns. She had been planning to peruse it by the lake that afternoon, to try to figure out what she didn’t know before she left school and the safety of a good excuse to avoid dating, forever.
“I don’t know, Granger,” he said as he looked at her, his soft voice carrying a hint of mirth that she was quite sure he had never directed at her before. “Seems like an awfully academic way to discover what pleasure is. Not something your little trio explored?”
Hermione felt her ears grow hot and avoided his eyes. “You’re mistaken, Malfoy, I was simply looking through it for—”
“Spare me if you’re about to say research. I don’t need to know how bad Weasley is in bed.”
Hermione ignored him. “I told you, it was just a joke. Ginny thought I needed a bit of light reading. Anyway, Ron and I are not together and we never have been. In case you hadn’t noticed, he didn’t even come back this year.”
That part did hurt Hermione a bit. She had hoped to see if there was more for them after their hurried kiss, but Ron had decided to stay in Ottery-St.-Catchpole and help Molly until she was back on her feet. And then he’d gone straight to Diagon to work in the shop with George. It was actually quite sweet of him, Hermione thought, when she thought about it at all.
Malfoy shook the magazine at her again, interrupting her thoughts, and she grabbed it back. “Pity,” he said. “He’s missing out on all the latest wizard-pleasing tips I’m sure you’ve collected in that bushy head of yours.”
Hermione opened her mouth to retort, but something stopped her. The words were almost an insult on the surface, but Malfoy’s smirk was playful. Even…flirtatious? She quickly mentally tallied the number of times he’d said something to her that wasn’t outright cruel. She realized she couldn’t remember the last time he’d made a jeer or other rude remark towards her; he’d been downright cordial, truly nearly silent, the entire year they’d served as Head Boy and Girl.
“What do you want, Malfoy?” she asked, looking up at him with narrowed eyes. She refused to be caught unawares if he was out to embarrass her.
He chuckled and stood, brushing his palms on his robes before rolling up his sleeves, his arms facing inwards the whole time.
Hermione tried to avert her eyes. She had caught glimpses of his arms—and torso—and ankles—throughout the year that they’d shared the Head Dorms, but she’d never seen him act so casually around her before. Never seen him push his sleeves up where anyone could see…it. She’d only ever seen his Dark Mark in Harry’s pensieve memories after the war.
She saw him catch her looking in that direction and quickly looked away.
“What do I want?” he asked, a bit more frostily. “I just want you to get your books back before you trip over someone else, Granger. They might think you’re looking to practice these new tips and tricks. Might get the wrong idea.”
Hermione looked up at him from the ground as he was now towering over her. She set down the books she’d collected in her arms and stood, levitating the pile instead. She was a witch, after all. She squared her shoulders and raised her chin, not willing to concede how flustered the Slytherin had made her. “Well thank you for your concern, Malfoy. I wouldn’t want to give anyone the wrong impression.”
The corner of his lip pulled up and his playful expression returned. Hermione’s heart rate increased. “No, we couldn’t have that, could we?” He stuck his hands in his pockets and stepped around her, continuing his original course.
Hermione watched him go with a feeling she didn’t quite understand. She wanted to call him back, to continue whatever this strange interaction had been, but she didn’t have an excuse to make him stay. So she settled for, “Don’t forget! We have to be half an hour early for the Leavers’ Ball. To help set up.”
“Can’t forget anything with you as a roommate, Granger,” he called, not looking back at her. “The notes taped to every available surface would jog even Lockhart’s memory.”
She couldn’t see it to be sure, but it sounded like he was smiling.
As he rounded the next corner and disappeared from sight, Hermione blushed furiously. Draco Malfoy had been just on the other side of the door for an entire year and had never spoken so easily to her before. Their joint living arrangements had gone more smoothly than she’d anticipated, to be honest. They each had kept to their own rooms, using the common room sparingly when the other was around. When they had been in the same space, they had been polite, avoided small talk, and only once had they studied at the same table at the same time when preparing for their Charms NEWT.
So why was he suddenly…flirting with her?
Hermione shook her head. She must have been mistaken.
* * *
Looking in the mirror, Hermione wondered if she would ever successfully construct her hair into something semi-presentable in less than two hours.
It seemed unlikely, but there was nothing to be done for it. And after all, it was her Leavers’ Ball. She had worked hard and deserved to spend time on herself for a night. Her dress had a cheeky diamond cutout over her abdomen and long puffed sleeves. She smiled at her reflection. With half a jar’s worth of Sleekeazy’s on her head creating soft waves in her hair, and her wand tucked into her thigh holster, she opened the bathroom door and headed out into the common room.
Grabbing her purse from the table, she turned towards the entrance to the dorms and froze.
Draco Malfoy was staring at her, and he looked damn good.
“Hello,” she said meekly.
There was no reply. He continued to stare, his lips slightly parted as he drank her in.
She shifted on her feet anxiously. “Shall we go down?”
His eyebrows rose into his hair.
“To the ball,” she clarified.
He looked her up and down again and grinned. “You’re wearing my house colors.”
Hermione’s cheeks flushed. “It’s just a green dress, Malfoy.”
“There’s nothing just about it.”
“Shall we?” she repeated, hoping to dodge any more awkward compliments. In the span of one day, he had thrown her so off balance she was scurrying to get out of her own dorm room lest he see the sweat collecting on the back of her neck.
Where had this come from? He hadn’t looked at her twice all year, and suddenly he was…what, hitting on her? Right before the Leavers’ Ball? He’d had an entire school year to approach her if he’d wanted to. To befriend her. To make amends. To…whatever this was. They had had one uncomfortable conversation early in September filled with awkward apologies and stilted explanations in which they had agreed to an amicable truce—it would have been hard to live and work together all year if they hadn’t tried to move past their animosity. But...interest? That was a step too far to believe.
Wasn’t it?
“After you,” he said, stepping aside in his smart tux and gesturing with one arm toward the Heads Dorm’s portrait hole even as she barrelled towards it inelegantly.
She did not look at him as she hurried out into the hallway and down the stairs, but she heard his footsteps shortly behind her.
Entering the Great Hall, she found the Headmistress levitating the few final decorations for the event.
“Ah, Hermione!” she said, on familiar terms with her now-former student. “You look lovely, my dear.”
Hermione smiled at the woman she’d come to see as a friend. “Thank you. I’m terribly nervous to be leaving to be honest, but excited to celebrate tonight.”
“As you should be, lass. This is just the beginning of the rest of your life. Enjoy it. Merlin knows, you’ve more than earned it.” She looked over Hermione’s shoulder. “Ah, Mr. Malfoy. We are dapper this evening as well.”
Hermione blushed furiously, her old professor witnessing it in real time, her face blessedly turned away from the tall blond behind her.
“I couldn’t let the Head Girl represent the end of an era alone this evening. Who would she dance with?”
Hermione watched as McGonagall’s eyes went wide. She could almost see the wheels turning. She jumped in quickly.
“I’m sure there are plenty of people who will be dressed their best this evening. How can we be of help?” She implored Minerva to redirect them somewhere. Anywhere.
The smallest smile crept onto the older woman’s face. “There is a gazebo outside that could use some roses and fairy lights. It’s dark out though, so you’d best both go take a look at it.”
Hermione felt the color drain from her face. A flimsy excuse if she’d ever heard one. Was Minerva in on it? Was everyone aware of this new fascination Draco seemed to have with her?
Had Hermione been that oblivious? No, it had to be new. Minerva would have asked her about it long ago.
“Of course, Headmistress,” Draco replied affably. He stepped to Hermione’s side and held his arm out, daring her to take it.
Well, Hermione Jean Granger certainly would not back down from a challenge. If Draco Malfoy wanted to play the gentleman all evening, then she would act the part of the lady.
She took his arm and allowed him to lead her outside.
It really was dark out, but she didn’t get an ‘O’ in Charms for nothing. Pulling her wand from its holster, she Conjured fairy lights to dance above their heads and lead the path to the gazebo. Once there, she began decorating with several candles and more lights, adding glowing tiles along the pathway.
She turned to watch as Draco Conjured beautiful trellises of roses along the white beams, his wand an elegant instrument held out in front of him. He masterfully decorated the gaps with baby’s breath and a few rarer flowers she didn’t recognize.
He must have felt her watching him because he looked up, caught her eye, and smiled.
“You’re good at that,” she said truthfully.
He looked back over his design. “My mother has a way with flowers. She taught me.”
“That’s a lovely skill to have.”
“Was that a compliment, Granger?”
Hermione blushed as his gaze turned back to her but did not look away.
She settled for, “Maybe.”
“Careful. Someone might think you can actually stand me.”
“I never said I couldn’t stand you…in the last year at least.”
The corner of his mouth pulled up and he ran his hand along the vines, picking a rose and holding it out to her.
“You look lovely tonight, Granger.” He gazed at her earnestly, and she felt as if he were seeing her for the first time. Or perhaps just the first time she’d noticed him looking.
Her honey eyes followed his blond fringe down from his forehead, falling just shy of his eyebrow. Silvery grey eyes never leaving hers as he opened up his inner world to her through them, looking at her without the wall he usually hid behind. It was as if she were looking at him through a lens, or a closed window. Though still at a distance, for now, there was a clarity, transparency, depth there she never would have imagined seeing staring back at her.
“So do you.”
Her mouth went dry and she was sure her heartbeat was audible. The air held a palpable tension as they leaned slightly forward, frozen in their connected glance. A million thoughts raced through her mind and she couldn’t be sure if it was her adrenaline, her hormones, or the scent of lilacs in the air, but she just couldn’t stand not knowing anymore.
“Why are you doing this, Malfoy?” It was whispered, and if her voice broke on his name, it was half in fear of rejection, half fear of embarrassment, her heart fully rocking out of her chest.
He didn’t break eye contact with her. “Because I have watched you all year and I can’t imagine leaving now without taking a chance. You are infuriatingly beautiful, and annoyingly brighter than me—in everything except potions. You’re stubbornly single-minded when you have something you’re focused on. Unapologetically protective of the people you love. And I find all of it utterly and unrelentingly captivating.”
Looking back years later, Hermione would wonder why her nervous system responded as it did. Why her brain chose that moment to be silent. Breath did not exist in her body. She could not process the words fast enough to conjure a proper response.
All that came out was, “Oh.”
She watched as his face fell just a fraction, the rejection hidden behind what she assumed were layers of quickly Occluded thoughts. And then he smirked, more like the old Malfoy instead of the new one.
“It’s fine. I just thought you deserved to know.”
He turned to head back inside but she grabbed his left sleeve. “Draco, wait.”
He looked down at where she was holding him, stilled by her hand and his name. He hardly seemed to be breathing himself.
“You just caught me by surprise. You’ve barely spoken to me the entire year we’ve lived together.”
“I already made your other years here harder. I didn’t really feel I had the right to interfere with this one.”
She swallowed. “Well, it’s just that…we’re sort of friends now aren’t we?”
He raised one brow and it disappeared under the messy blond hair falling across his forehead. “Are we?”
Hermione squirmed, still uncertain of how much she would embarrass herself by admitting what she wanted. “We could be.”
Draco watched her intently, his eyes glued to her mouth. And then he shook his head. “I don’t want to be your friend, Granger.”
Her own excitement fell from her face and she let go of his arm; she was less practiced at hiding her emotions and was sure the worst conclusion was written all over her features.
“Of course. Because of my blood.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head and leaning down to grasp her lightly by the forearms with a pleading expression. Hermione was taken aback by the contact, but it wasn’t threatening at all. It felt…desperate, like there was something he needed her to see. “Please. I’m…that’s not who I am anymore. I don’t care about your blood, and I’m sorry I ever did.” She barely breathed as his confession poured out from him. “I don’t think we should be friends because I don’t think it would be honest of me to pretend that being your friend is all I want. It’s better if we just let things go and you’ll never have to see me again after tonight.”
Hermione’s breathing quickened and she felt the hot rush of blood to her face. She didn’t want to lose him entirely. Whomever this man was in front of her was different from the person she’d known for nearly a decade and she wanted to know more. “I don’t want that. I just need a second.”
He froze in surprise, then nodded minutely, his eyes following her as long as he could as she circled him. She took in every facet of his appearance, wondering how much had really changed in his soul.
He was the same height, but he seemed to stand taller. Same blond hair but it wasn’t slicked back so severely. Same arms that filled out his well-fitted suit, but the shoulders didn’t round in an aggressive, daunting manner. Everything about him was softer. He looked…safer. Gentler. Like amity.
Like reading a book on the couch in front of the fireplace, or making tea in the common room. Like home.
He shifted and coughed. She came to a stop in front of him and looked into his face. It was clear he was becoming uncomfortable with the exercise. “What are you looking for?” he asked.
“I’m just looking at everything that’s different.”
“Are you finding anything to your satisfaction?” His voice belied his frayed nerves, caught between wanting to escape her scrutiny and not wanting to shut her out.
“Yes.”
His head snapped up and grey eyes locked on hers. “Really?”
She nodded, reiterating. “Yes. You’ve changed, Malfoy. You can see it in your eyes. And in everything else. I just wasn’t paying attention before.”
He swallowed hard. “I thought you deserved to be left alone,” he explained. “But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to never see you again without at least taking the chance that maybe… Even though I know you deserve more than a former Death Eater with a Marked arm and a litany of things to apologize for.”
She stepped forward, thinking of the truce they’d made earlier that year over a bottle of Firewhisky (his) and tears (hers). It was the only time they’d ever stepped outside their careful, casual avoidance of anything serious.
“You’ve already apologized. And I’m too tired to hold onto it all. Aren’t you tired, Malfoy? I can’t live in that war forever. I don’t want people to see me as one third of the Golden Trio forever. I don’t want to just be Harry’s best friend. I don’t want to have to always be the brightest—”
“Even though you are,” he grinned.
“Yes,” she answered, smiling. “But I’d really just like to be Hermione. So can we start over?”
She held her hand out in front of her and he stared down at it, eyes widening with disbelief.
“Hello. I’m Hermione Granger.”
He slowly took her hand, shaking it, eyes on hers. “Draco Malfoy.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Draco.”
He couldn’t stop the pull of his lips as his face broke out in a beaming smile. “Pleasure’s all mine, really.”
They let go and Hermione clasped her hands behind her back, rocking on her heels flirtatiously as she slowly stepped towards him. “You know,” she said coyly. “I know we’ve just met, but I’ve heard there’s a Leavers’ Ball tradition that is supposed to bring you good luck.”
“You don’t strike me as the type to believe in luck,” he replied.
She shrugged. “Can’t hurt, can it?”
“What’s this tradition?”
“Well…” and she took another step forward so that she was undeniably in his space. “I heard that if you do something really daring at the ball, the next phase of your life will be wildly successful.”
He smirked, not unkindly. “Sounds rather ambiguous.”
“I suppose it is. But seeing as I’ve done nothing particularly daring this year at all, maybe we could satisfy the requirement with something like…a kiss between new acquaintances?”
“A kiss?”
“It would take an awful lot of courage, don’t you think? To kiss a handsome stranger you just met under some fairy lights.”
His eyes went round as saucers before he reigned in his expression. He tried to swallow, his mouth suddenly dry. “Really?” A whisper.
She held onto his lapels gently and nodded, raising herself on her toes. She leaned in, stopping centimeters from his mouth, holding his gaze. Her lips parted and she waited what felt like both a second and a lifetime for him to make a decision.
She spoke in a quiet, teasing voice. “Your move, Malfoy.”
With a slight tug on his lips, he raised his hand to brush a stray curl from her face, his fingers following the path under her hair until his hand was embedded in it. Cupping the back of her head, he tilted her towards him and softly molded his lips to hers.
His mouth tasted like peppermint and chocolate. His other hand came up to hold her face as her arms fitted behind his neck, pulling him in, deepening the kiss. It was dizzying. Electrifying.
His mouth trailed along her jaw, the flush in her face increasing as his tongue found the spot beneath her ear. She ran her thumbs down his lapels until they reached where his shirt met his trousers and then rubbed small circles just above his hip bones. He moaned with his head next to hers.
“Is this one of those tips and tricks you read about?”
Hermione laughed. She’d nearly forgotten his teasing of her earlier in the day given the events of the last twenty minutes. It seemed so long ago that she had bumped into him in the corridor, another lifetime ago that she had never tasted his lips on hers.
“Are you asking to see what I can do, Malfoy?”
She felt him swallow next to her. “I’ll take anything you want to show me, Granger.” His voice was gravelly, seductive. No one had ever spoken to her that way. Everything inside of her tightened; she felt like an over-coiled spring ready to go from potential to kinetic.
But it was too fast. She knew it was too fast, even if she did want to prove she knew a thing or two about how to please a wizard. This wasn’t who she was; she wasn’t Ginny. She didn’t know how to be sexy first and ask questions later, no matter how much she coveted that particular skill. Her palms were sweating, and she needed to slow things down. And they had an obligation to help with the ball. “Well, you’ll have to wait a little longer,” she breathed, trying to hide her nerves in a tempting murmur. “The Head Girl and Boy’s presence at the ball is in fact mandatory.”
Draco groaned but kissed her on the cheek and leaned back smiling. “Considering that I never in a million years thought I’d get this far, I think I can be patient.”
She swallowed, the pure desire in his eyes catching her off guard. She liked this Draco. The one who she was starting to puzzle together piece by piece as the bricks walling off his thoughts disintegrated one by one, leaving a more complete and beautiful picture on display. “Later, then,” she decided.
He nodded, the grin on his face doing terrible things to her resolve. “Later, then.”
* * *
Hermione spent the next two hours finding Draco across the room. The two couldn’t help watching each other. As she answered questions from professors about what was next for her, she watched him by the punch bowl. As he brushed off cajoling from Theo and Blaise to dance, he watched her talking to Ginny. Her eyes traced the lines of his shoulders, to the crook of his elbows, down to his hands slipped in his pockets. His eyes lingered a bit too long on the cutout in the center of her dress, making her blush.
Hermione was glad that she had returned for eighth year, that she had taken the night to spend with friends celebrating the conclusion of their education. She felt full and content, watching her peers smile and laugh. But every time she caught his gaze, her heart picked up speed and she wanted to make a quick exit from the party to pull him into an alcove and taste peppermint on his tongue again.
When Minerva cornered her to drop heavy hints about returning in a few years to teach, Hermione lost track of where he was. The conversation was nice, but Hermione was suspicious of how much the older witch brought up her fellow Head student. Suddenly Minerva seemed intent to tell Hermione all the ways Draco had changed over the last year, the work he did to clean up the castle, the study sessions he held for first and second year Slytherins who were struggling, the applications to potions apprenticeships that she was happy to write him recommendations for.
“Excuse me, dear,” Minerva said suddenly, looking over the young witch’s shoulder. “But I think my assistance is needed outside.”
Hermione’s brows drew together, confused, as the headmistress turned on the spot and walked away. Hermione watched her go, perplexed at the sudden—
“Is it later yet?”
The voice beside her ear startled her into a small jump. The adrenaline bloomed into excitement as she recognized its owner.
She turned to see Draco’s blond hair falling over his forehead as he leaned forward, narrowing the gap between them. Anyone looking would have to be oblivious to miss the connection and electricity flowing between their magic across the small space separating their bodies.
A wave of flattered embarrassment rushed through her, the anticipation of being alone sending image after image through her self-conscious mind. She smiled sheepishly.
“Yes,” she said bravely. “Do you want to go back to our common room?” Familiar territory. Somewhere to be without the scrutiny of other people. No questions to answer when this was fresh and new. Just a place to be alone together.
He inclined his head and she led the way towards the entrance of the Great Hall.
They were silent all the way up the stairs and back to their shared common room. Her head was spinning. Draco had fancied her all year, but she was hardly a few hours into realizing there was something there. Would he expect…something…right away? She had alluded to it earlier. And she did want to explore…everything. Her body wholeheartedly agreed every time she traced the outline of him and unconsciously bit her lip.
But she hardly knew him. Not really.
As they climbed through the portrait hole—she appreciated the homage to her house—she suddenly felt more nervous than she ever had for any exam, any class, any battle. Because now she was alone with Draco and her desire, and the ability to actually act on it. What if she was bad at it?
“Something on your mind, Granger?”
Breaking through her reverie, Draco watched her, the gears spinning plain as day on her face.
She laughed nervously. “I guess I’m just realizing we don’t know a lot about each other. Not really. And I feel a little less daring here than I did in the gazebo,” she confessed with an apologetic smile.
“What would you like to know?”
The question pulled her up short. She blinked a few times. “I don’t know. Everything, I suppose.”
One side of his mouth pulled up in a smile. “Well, we might not fit that all into one night, but we can try.”
She laughed, more easily this time. “Okay, tell me one thing to start.”
“The first thing that comes to mind is that I’m sorry I didn’t get to dance with you at the ball.”
Hermione searched his face for a trace of humor, but there was none. It warmed her heart. She pulled her wand out and a moment later soft music hummed from the vintage vinyl player in the corner.
He bit his cheek and held one hand out in front of him. It occurred to Hermione in that moment that save for their trip to the gazebo earlier, and the time she had slapped him, she had never actually touched Malfoy.
She put her hand in his.
Music filled the space around them as he swallowed and pulled her towards him, resting his hand on her waist. Hermione had the strongest inclination to lean her head on his shoulder, but instead she stared up into the face that seemed just as nervous as she was as they began moving.
“I wanted to be a figure skater.”
His eyebrows rose at the non sequitur. “What?”
“When I was a kid. I had begged Mum for lessons, and Dad took me to get my first pair of skates fitted.”
He pulled his lips in, trying and failing to hold back a smile. “Were you any good?”
“No.” Her own smile spread across her face. “I broke my arm the first week. Absolutely no grace on the ice.”
“Which arm?”
She took her left hand from where it rested on his shoulder and held up her arm to show him the faint scar that ran along her ulna. The scar had made her self-conscious as a young teenage girl, but it was nothing compared to the ones the war had left her with.
With his left hand still holding her right in perfect ballroom form, his other hand came up to her arm, taking it tentatively before him as he examined it. His brows drew together as he took in the faint white line, and then to Hermione’s shock, brought her arm to his lips and placed a soft kiss atop the old injury.
She gasped. It was so…gentle. Caring. Healing.
Nervousness filled his eyes as they met hers and he bit his lip nervously.
A wild thought occurred to her.
“Can I…” she started, trailing off as she lost her nerve, staring at her feet.
“Yes?”
She took a steadying breath and looked up into his face. “Can I see yours?” He pulled in a quick, quiet breath, clearly not anticipating the direction of her question. “It’s fine. We don’t have to. I just—I wanted—” She stumbled, not sure how to explain. Their feet had stopped moving as well, their clasped hands falling by their sides, still connected.
To her surprise he took his hand from hers and removed his suit jacket. He slowly began rolling up his left sleeve.
The faded grey mark was nothing like Hermione expected. She thought she would feel some fear from it, that it would hold the same power it once had when Voldemort was still seeking to destroy everyone like her. But it didn’t. It was just a cluster of lines, less distinct than it once was. It was just skin, etched with the sins of his father, imbued with his own mistakes.
But it wasn’t him. It wasn’t Draco. Somehow even without the knowledge of living with him for a year, in the course of the evening she knew that. It wasn’t a part of who he was anymore.
It was just a scar.
Keeping her eyes on his, she slowly took his arm in her hands and raised it to her lips, gently pressing them into the inked skin.
His mouth fell open and his breaths came faster, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. He blinked them back furiously, closing and opening his mouth as he searched for words. It came out as a whisper. “What are you doing, Granger?”
In answer she pressed her lips to it more firmly before releasing his arm and stepping into his space, placing her hands on either side of his face. Slowly, so he could stop her if he wanted to, she raised herself on tiptoe and leaned in, applying the same pressure to his lips. It took a few seconds before his shock wore off enough to kiss her back, but when he did it was passionate and devoted and needy. He kissed her like she was his absolution, like she had saved a dying man and given him a chance to live.
His hands pressed into her shoulder blades and Hermione’s heart raced, the hard lines of his body pressing against her chest. She was getting dizzy with the lack of oxygen and it was making it hard to think. What did she want from him? What was she ready for?
He seemed to read her mind—though no actual Legilimency was applied—because he eased the kiss and relaxed his grasp on her.
“Sorry,” he said with an apologetic smile. “Slower. I know. You just…overwhelm me sometimes. In a good way.”
She giggled. “Don’t worry, you’re not alone in that. Today has been entirely unexpected. I still can hardly believe this isn’t some prank.” And she knew it wasn’t. There was no mistaking the Draco Malfoy of her youth for this one.
“Do you want to sit?” he asked, gesturing towards the couch.
“Sure.” Still in just his white shirt and black trousers, he sat on one end of the sofa, pressed into the arm. She chose the center, and tucked her feet up under her, her hand not far from his. “I wonder if the house elves would bring us any snacks.”
He looked at her with amusement. “Hermione Granger actually asking something of a house elf?”
Her cheeks flooded with embarrassment. “Yes, well, I still think they should be paid, but I got quite the scolding from them a few years ago. Apparently my thinking that they weren’t magical or strong enough to be free of wizards if they so chose was insulting.”
“Maybe just a bit.”
“But Dobby wasn’t!” she protested, and then brought her hand to her mouth. She had forgotten for a moment whom he had belonged to.
Draco looked down, smiling sadly. “I know. My family wasn’t good to him, but he stayed for me. I’m not saying you’re wrong though. I do think house elves should be freed and then choose if they want to bind themselves to wizarding families, preferably with a contract they can break.”
“Exactly!” she interjected.
“But the house elves at Hogwarts are not bound to a family. They’re bound to the school. So you really couldn’t have chosen a worse audience for your campaign.” He smiled teasingly.
She flopped back on the couch dramatically. “I’m aware. They were so cross they stopped letting me have tea in fifth year.”
His brows rose in amusement. “Is that why you drink coffee?”
She sat back up. “You noticed that I drink coffee?”
Pink tinged his cheeks. “I’ve noticed, yeah.”
Butterflies stole her words and she played with the hem of her dress.
“Shall we see if they’ll bring us some biscuits and tea?” he asked, nudging her fingers with his.
She beamed. “Why not?”
* * *
Hermione and Draco sat on the couch for the next two hours, discussing anything and everything about their upbringings. He told her about the white peacocks his family insisted on having around the property, and how he’d started flying lessons before he could properly walk, and how once his mother had snuck him out to muggle London to ride a horse at a fair after he had seen one on their travels.
Over biscuits and tea (for him) and coffee (for her; elves never forget), she told him how her parents rarely let her have sweets growing up (he gasped in horror), and how she had always been a teacher’s pet even in muggle primary school, and how she once thought she would like a brother but having Harry and Ron to look after were quite enough thank you.
When it got late enough, she asked him if he’d like to see her room. He’d never been in there after all. He followed her into the small dorm.
“Will you lie with me?” she asked.
He nodded wordlessly and started slowly unbuttoning his shirt at the same time that she realized she needed help getting out of her dress.
“Would you…?” She turned and pulled her hair over her shoulder, revealing the clasp at the back of her neck and the magically disguised zipper that ran the length of her torso without creating a seam.
She had turned away in part so he couldn’t see how much his presence was affecting her. She felt his hands gently brush a few strands of fine hair from her nape and then rest against her back as he unclasped the neckline and slowly pulled the zipper down. She had gone without a bra for the event and knew he had an unobstructed view of her naked back.
Her throat went dry.
“Would you mind turning around for a minute?” she asked quietly.
“Of course.”
She peeked over her shoulder to make sure he really was turned the other way and then stepped out of her dress, pulling on a t-shirt and sleeping pants from her drawer. It wasn’t the most attractive outfit, but she hadn’t exactly planned on having company tonight either and she wasn’t ready to get into bed with him naked.
“Okay.”
He turned back around and took her in, grinning as he caught on. “Just a minute,” he said, heading back out into the common room.
Confused, she followed him to the door of her room and watched as he crossed the shared space to his own bedroom, closing the door behind him.
Had she scared him off? Was he reconsidering? Did he think she was a prude?
She sat on her bed chewing at her nails when he knocked. “Come in.”
Relief flooded through her as he stepped into the room wearing grey sweatpants and an old quidditch t-shirt. He read her easily. “Just thought we’d be a bit more comfortable like this.”
“Thank you.” She beamed at him.
He sat next to her on the bed and looked at her seriously. “I meant it, Granger. Anything you want but only what you want. I’m not here just to try to get in your knickers.” Hermione blushed. “I just want to be near you.”
It was exactly what she needed to hear.
She knelt up on the bed and kissed him soundly. He reciprocated with ease and let her explore his mouth. Finally, she pulled back, and together they got under the covers facing each other.
They laid like that, continuing their conversation from the living room but wrapped up in her tiny bed. He barely fit in it with her, his legs easily reaching the bottom, so she scooted closer to him. Their faces were hardly a foot apart as they lay on their hands and shared secrets about their time at Hogwarts, the things they feared, the things they wanted. What they learned most was that they were not so different after all.
Family was everything to them, given or found. They both valued academic pursuits and intellectual achievements. And they’d both feared dying while still being seen as something they were not.
By four in the morning, they had exhausted their energy and the supply of topics they could concentrate on. Draco switched to staring at her silently, running the back of his finger down her cheek, catching a curl, looping it around behind her ear and starting over.
Hermione closed her eyes and hummed under his touch. In the span of one day she had gone from thinking she had an amicable but distant truce with Draco Malfoy, one in which they’d likely only see each other in the future at work events and the like, to feeling more comforted under his touch than she ever had elsewhere.
Feeling serene and sleepy, Hermione inched closer to him until her hand rested on his chest and her forehead against his chin. She felt him inhale quickly, but she breathed out a relaxed sigh and soon his hand found her back as he held her to him. Legs tangled, they fell asleep.
* * *
Soft light crept above the edges of the mountains and filtered in through the curtains, daybreak following behind at a languid pace. She figured they’d been asleep perhaps only a few hours.
Hermione watched Draco sleep, the lines of his face relaxed. His lips were slightly parted and she desperately wanted to fit them against her own. Their fingers were interlaced, her leg thrown mostly over his hip. She couldn’t believe that she had almost missed knowing him entirely. One more day—today—and they would be heading to their respective homes and separate lives.
Her heart clenched. Would they still do that? It certainly didn’t seem so now. Not now that everything was in the open. Not now that they felt like this.
It was still so new, but curiosity and desire were winning out over Hermione’s rational brain, the part that told her to take things slowly. What good would that do when she wanted him like this?
“Draco,” she whispered. He didn’t stir. She inched up until her lips were brushing against his and said against his mouth, “Draco, wake up.”
He groaned this time, squeezing his eyes shut as he simultaneously pulled her body closer to his. He responded to the gentle pressure against his lips, kissing her deeply. Hermione almost forgot the reason she woke him up in the first place. Gathering all her strength she pulled back from him. “Draco we need to talk.”
His eyes shot open, panic lacing through them.
Hermione quickly said, “No no, it’s not bad. I was just, I was wondering…”
“Yes?” His voice was gravelly with sleep and morning time.
“Will I see you after this? I mean, I think that’s what you want, right? But, if you don’t, if you think your parents won’t allow it, can you tell me now? Because…because I want…” she faltered. Her hand traced the lines of his chest, trying to convey her need for him. “I…want…you. But I don’t want to leave here and have that be the end of it.”
He looked at her with a serious expression and brushed the curls from her eyes.
“Hermione,” he said, and she shivered at her given name, “how many ways do you want me to tell you that I’m in love with you?”
She gasped. Interest, desire, lust, connection, maybe even a crush. But love?
“I have no desire to leave here and have it be the last I see of you. I want you, too.” He laughed. “I want so much with you. And I still can’t believe you’re in my arms right now. I’d be an idiot to let that go.”
Hermione’s heart soared and the smile that broke across her face had no chance of being contained. “Okay. Okay, me too.” She giggled and pulled herself against his body, kissing him deeply as her hips started to find purchase against his.
His hands slid up her back as he drank her in, his lips worshipping hers. She breathed in his scent, pressing her chest closer to his. She couldn’t get close enough, she needed—she needed—
“Off,” she said against his mouth, tugging his shirt up along his back.
He pulled away to rip the shirt off, keeping his mouth on hers except for the split second needed to undress. And then he was rolling her onto her back, his hands sliding up under the hem of her shirt, resting on her hips as he looked at her for permission.
She nodded and he slid his hands purposefully up the sides of her ribs, pulling her up so she could slip the shirt over her head.
She never had put a bra on after the dance.
He stared down at her body in rapture. A flush crept up her skin; she wasn’t used to being looked at so intensely. Not used to being what made someone else’s mouth go dry; she saw him lick his lips to wet them before lowering his mouth slowly to her stomach, eyes on hers, always seeking an answer.
She nodded again, hardly breathing, and he placed the softest kiss on her abdomen. His lips there…they felt different. Hot. Firm. Her pulse raced, chest rising and falling rapidly as he kissed a line up the column of her body. Between her breasts, thumbs teasing the undersides. She never felt like this touching herself.
“Please, Draco,” she heard herself beg.
“I want to make you feel good,” he said in a low voice. “I want, fuck, Hermione—”
“I know,” she agreed. “Me too. Just…”
He kissed again at the center of her chest, trailing up to her collarbone. “Slowly,” he said in answer. “We have all the time in the world.”
But Hermione wasn’t sure she wanted him to go that slowly. Her skin was on fire and she needed his cool hands to soothe the burn. He continued his path up her neck to the spot just behind her ear and Hermione felt her eyes roll back in her head. How did he already know the map to her body so perfectly?
Moments later his mouth was on hers again as his fingers ghosted the sides of her breasts. She pulled back just an inch to mumble, “More.”
One side of his smile pulled up as he raised an eyebrow. “Oh you want more, love? You want to feel my fingers a little closer to…” they trailed over the globes, inwards, up, “the center?”
She gasped as he took her nipples between each finger and thumb and pulled. It should have felt…what? What did she think this would be like? It should have felt reckless, too soon, too much, but…it just felt perfect. His hands molded perfectly to the shape of her breasts and he squeezed them as he held his weight on his elbows, still kissing her, still exploring her mouth with his tongue. His face was bliss, and Hermione felt a jolt that went straight to her core.
She used her shoulder to gesture that she wanted them to roll over and he pulled her on top of him as they switched positions. That was better. It was too hot underneath him. She couldn’t think with his hands and skin and mouth on her, everywhere. The cool air hit her skin and her nipples pebbled; she heard and felt him groan underneath her.
And then she was flat against him again, her skin pressed to his, hands tangled in his blond hair, his hands on her back, and she shivered as the thought occurred to her that if very few things had gone differently the day before, she may never have had this moment with him. Might never have known how perfectly his palms rested against her skin, how when they were kissing her core rested perfectly along his length.
“Divesto,” she whispered, and the rest of their clothes were gone.
He pulled back in surprise to catch her cheeky grin. “Wandless, Granger? Even I can’t do that.”
“Well you did say I was brighter than you,” she teased, kissing along the side of his mouth.
“In everything except potions.”
“And this was charms.”
He laughed and they were both suddenly aware of what that sensation did to their bodies. They froze, looking into each other’s eyes, her warm center sliding along him.
He rolled them onto their sides, still connected, and pulled one of her legs over his hip.
“What do you want, Hermione?”
What did she want? The girl who had known that she wanted to be the best, the smartest, the cleverest witch she could be. She had wanted to stand by her friends and make a better world and fight for good. She had wanted to complete her studies and get a prestigious internship and go on to change the magical world. But what did she want right then, with Draco lying pressed against her skin almost as close as two people could possibly be? The answer was quite simple, really.
“You.”
In all her life, Hermione Granger never thought she’d look into the unguarded eyes of Draco Malfoy and see adoration, fear, excitement, and…there was something else. There was trust, though she’d given him no specific reason to trust her, and she didn’t feel she’d earned anything yet. But it was there all the same. And there was something else. Something she almost didn’t recognize, for never having seen it directed at her before.
There was love.
And as he slid the head of himself inside her, taking her ever so gently for the first time, she thought that this was better than any tips or tricks she could have gleaned from a gossip column. Surely ink on paper could not possibly have captured the feeling she was overwhelmed by when he was fully inside her, when they were connected in the deepest parts of her. It could not have captured the way it felt when he reached a sensitive spot she was unaware of, sending her body into waves of fractured, prismal light. The way it felt to watch him come undone from the mere sensation of her and the whispered words, “Please, Draco, I want you.”
The way they clung to each other after with racing hearts, mingled breath, their eyes open…and just knew.
As much as Hermione loved books, she couldn’t hope to capture this moment in writing, could never have understood it so perfectly had she only read about it. There was nothing that could ever be said in print to encompass the full spectrum of emotion and change they both experienced looking into one another’s eyes afterwards as they lay facing each other, slick with sweat and breathing more slowly. No; words would never suffice.
Their magic had crackled and sung and twisted together and she felt a tug deep in her soul that felt right. As she smiled at him and found his answering grin matched hers, she marveled at the new dawn. He’d loved her for a year, and she’d loved him for a day, but it was no matter. Time was irrelevant when magical beings lived so long. They had all the time in the world. Whatever their lives had in store, she felt sure they would meet it together.
There was nothing for it but to live it.