Chapter 1: The Interview
Chapter Text
Hermione Granger was a woman in perpetual motion. She could be coerced to sit still only briefly: in order to interview a subject, while enjoying a scalding cup of Lapsang Souchong tea and a scone, when she was particularly riveted by a book. Harry could occasionally talk her into a movie night, get her to relax into the very comfortable and expensive sofa that presided over her sitting room but rarely experienced much sitting at all.
It wasn’t so much of a conscious choice as a practicality, a necessity, one Hermione saw as fundamental to both how she wanted to live her life and who she was as a person. There was just so much to do, and if Hermione didn’t do it, there was a very good chance no one else would, and that simply couldn’t be allowed. Plus, slowing down allowed space for her brain to speed up. That usually led nowhere good, as her brain’s resting pace already hovered somewhere around a thousand kilometres a minute.
And all of that motion, somehow, had brought her here: to the narrow cobblestone street corner across from Lair Investments, her hands twisting in the soft fabric of her jumper sleeves and her heart pounding as she tried to force her legs to unlock and carry her to the enormous chrome doors just across the street. She was so close! How strange, the way her feet seemed to be rooted to the pavement. New capacity for stillness unlocked, apparently, and at the most obnoxious possible time.
Speaking of her feet: why on earth had she worn her new purple shoes for this particular (excruciating) appointment? They were cute, sure, with a moderate heel and rounded toes and a strap across the top, the leather buttery soft and gorgeously dyed. Ginny had talked her into buying them on a whim, though it wasn’t a hard sell once Hermione saw the way they made her arse look in the shop mirror.
Hermione had apparently chosen to wear them this morning while in some kind of fugue state, and while she knew her arse was looking particularly pert thanks to their lift, the bastards were pinching. Another reason to abstain from any further movement. Normally she broke shoes in for a minimum of ten days before leaving her flat in them. More clear evidence that she was having some sort of stress-induced episode.
“It’s the only way, Hermione. Think of the readership, Hermione. No one else will be as fair as you will, Hermione,” she snarled under her breath, her voice a disconcertingly accurate mockery of Pansy Parkinson’s. Not a skill she’d intended to hone in her lifetime, but alas, many things seemed not to be going as Hermione had intended.
Six slow, very deep breaths later, Hermione managed to unstick her traitorous shoes from the pavement. A slither of some unfamiliar, unsettling feeling rolled down her spine as she crossed the road, but she only straightened her back and lifted her chin in defiance.
Hermione didn’t like to put much stock in premonitions, no matter how much she trusted her instincts. She had never once been overmatched by a Malfoy, and that wasn't going to change today.
***
Lair Industries, or LI as it was known colloquially, was conceived, owned, funded, and operated by one Draco Malfoy. To the best of Hermione’s understanding, Malfoy had turned the remainder of his enormous inheritance after considerable reparations into this: a hybrid consulting firm and financial institution. LI invested widely in new businesses for the wizarding world in the aftermath of the war – including many started by former classmates – and advised their growth and outreach. Despite initial skepticism and a heavy dose of public outrage, Malfoy had kept his head down and his focus unwavering. He’d convinced such an interesting variety of people to work for him, and had invested the LI fund money in such unexpectedly noble pursuits, that the tide of public opinion had shifted slowly but steadily over the last four years. LI had grown, and grown, and grown.
Fresh off of the war and with an honorary Hogwarts degree in hand, Hermione had given herself time to herself to find a comfortable home and get a handle on what she thought of, blandly, as her personal issues. Harry had gone straight to the DMLE, surprising no one; Ron won an internship with the Department of Magical Games and Sports, where everyone had been surprised to find him working smoothly with Katie Bell and Draco Malfoy, the other two department interns.
Ron, with great bluster and annoyance, had been forced to get over his well-earned aversion to Malfoy for two unavoidable reasons. First was a sincere apology from Malfoy himself. The astonishing and far more potent second reason was that Ron had fallen madly in love with Pansy Parkinson. Although, when she was feeling particularly unkind, Hermione rather thought the astonishing part was that Pansy loved him ardently right back.
Hermione found herself dragged to several rather awkward pub nights, one involving a harrowingly intense apology from Malfoy to Hermione directly, alone at the corner of the sticky hallway heading towards the loos at the Leaky. It was an evening she still couldn’t believe had happened and preferred not to think about for too long, not least because being so close to Malfoy that night had made her strangely hot and flustered and prone to opening her mouth and letting absolute drivel fall out in response to his measured, thoughtful speech.
Between evenings of friendly drinking with their newly combined social crew and the surprise of Harry blushingly, giddily beginning to date Malfoy’s best friend, Theodore Nott, Hermione found herself in an utterly strange new social world, one that involved a fair bit more serpentine energy than she had ever anticipated. She wasn’t particularly sure she welcomed it, but she was so tired of fighting childish battles. If her friends could move on, she refused to be left behind.
After their disorienting conversation at the Leaky, Hermione had found herself haunted by thoughts of Malfoy for weeks. Why had he felt compelled to seek her out? Could one person really change so much as to sincerely mean the apology he’d given her, given their history? She had the creeping feeling that in most essential ways, Malfoy had been as much a victim of his circumstances as she had. As Harry had.
It was alarming, the amount of real estate in her brain that the man suddenly took up. Mortifying, actually, and so Hermione kept it to herself. She spent her lunch breaks wondering what he ate for his lunch as she read the same four sentences of Wild and Wonderful: Winged Wonders over and over; her evenings pondering if Malfoy went on many dates with eligible witches as she reheated Indian takeout to eat while standing over her sink. She told herself this was strictly out of scientific curiosity, and wouldn’t have admitted it out loud to anyone on pain of death. She certainly did not think about how it would feel to ride his face. She also definitely didn’t obsess about what his cock might look like. That would’ve been insane.
Unfortunately – though perhaps, predictably – the next time Hermione saw Malfoy, which happened to be at a raucous dinner party of Pansy’s, she found herself absolutely unable to speak normally to him, or even to meet his eyes for longer than a moment at a time. It made her feel...well, she wasn’t sure what it made her feel. The fact that it made her feel at all was the issue. Malfoy must’ve sensed something weird going on with her, because after a few friendly attempts at casual conversation, he mostly left her alone. She kept imagining she could feel his eyes on her, but every time she glanced his way he appeared to be deep in a rather animated conversation with Luna Lovegood and Parvati Patil.
Hermione had enough sense in her to feel vaguely bad about putting him off, but mostly she felt an immense sort of relief. Let him think she had some sort of social disease and spare her the future humiliation of awkward interactions while she tried desperately not to think about licking his collarbones.
By the end of the evening, having spent three hours and forty-one minutes stumbling her way through every conversation she had as she very carefully ignored Malfoy whilst simultaneously tracking his every movement, Hermione tumbled through her floo into her cozy living room and was forced to admit to herself that she had a crush.
A stupid, all-consuming, infuriating crush.
She decided she would simply never acknowledge the thought again. No point in ever chasing that particular rabbit down that particular hole. She couldn’t imagine what horrors might lie below ground. Sure, the thought of his arse made her crazy, but the thought of holding his hand in public made her crazier. That was the part that necessitated burying this forever.
In fact, only one person in the world knew that Hermione had even a smidge of these so-called feelings for Draco Malfoy. After the formation of their business had been magically ratified, all the paperwork signed and filed, Pansy and Hermione had gotten extraordinarily drunk together. Things had gotten a bit out of hand, and Hermione may have spilled her most closely-kept secret to her friend-turned-business partner, who also happened to be one of Draco’s closest confidants.
She might have been absolutely wasted, but Hermione was not so far gone that she didn’t immediately swear Pansy to secrecy, backed up by some powerful spellwork. The only leak she was interested in was the news they could break in the pages of their next edition.
Besides - it wasn’t as though Hermione hadn’t spent plenty of time exploring other options, which she had every intention to continue doing. When burying her feelings for Draco wasn't enough, she’d thrown herself into all manner of romantic and sexual pursuits. She wasn’t loud about it, but Hermione loved sex, loved how powerful and desirable it could make her feel once she had let go of frankly hilarious notion of marrying Ronald Weasley for love and started to explore her own desires.
She’d had a short - though very hot and heavy - fling with Viktor, which somehow felt like coming full circle on her teenage years. His quidditch schedule was punishing, however, and they’d ended things amicably when he’d taken a position with the Brazilian team for a two year stint. After that Hermione had dated Hannah Abbott for nearly eight months, and though she’d thought their breakup was a mutual decision, Hannah still tended to flit out of rooms that Hermione had just entered. She felt a bit bad about that one, largely because she missed laughing with Hannah over whatever their idiotic friends were getting into.
She’d gone through a string of one night stands in the Muggle world in a sort of data-driven, scientifically organized experimentation of her own sexuality and what she liked, and she’d discovered, to her initial mortification, that she was a bit of a size queen – both when it came to cocks, and the way she liked feeling dwarfed when she was being well fucked. Even with women she liked to hand over the reigns, let them do their best to consume her.
All that to say, Hermione was doing perfectly fine. Her crush on Malfoy was an inconvenience that existed only in her brain, where he dogged her thoroughly whenever she was playing with herself in the bath or daydreaming whilst watering her window boxes or even just folding her laundry. No one else would ever know this, though, Hermione was certain of that. Not even Pansy got those details out of her.
Now, Hermione and Pansy were nearly a year into a new business venture together: a monthly magazine they’d dubbed only Review. They’d debated adding a “The” to the front at some length; Pansy’s insistence on dropping it for the culture had eventually won out.
A mix of hard-hitting journalism, hilarious guest columns, engaging literary reviews, and glossy photo spreads accompanying fascinating personal profiles, Review had gotten off the ground thanks in part to a large chunk of Pansy’s personal inheritance, as Hermione had fought hard against taking money from LI. Malfoy had offered it as a start-up loan with incredibly generous terms, and she had, politely, refused to accept. Pansy had found her objections ridiculous, and frankly they probably were, but in this strange new partnership they had where Pansy – another astonishment – respected Hermione, she dropped the subject reasonably quickly and assisted Hermione with fundraising on their own terms instead.
And then Pansy, diabolical Pansy, editor-in-chief Pansy, unbearably smug Pansy, had insisted that Hermione interview Malfoy for the June spread, their one year anniversary edition, in which they were featuring several of their peers and the pursuits they’d chased in the aftermath of the war. Bright new horizons, and all that. Hermione begrudgingly agreed that Draco’s transformation of himself and of their generation’s opportunities in recent years was exactly the kind of thing Review existed to spotlight. Even if they would inevitably receive backlash for the feature; even if it set her teeth on edge to think about dedicating multiple pages of their spread to Malfoy. Not because he didn’t deserve it, but because she would have to look at his face so, so many times.
When Pansy pointed out she personally was too close to Malfoy to interview him, and that Dennis Creevey wouldn’t feel comfortable sitting down with Malfoy and they couldn't ask him to, and that Hermione could offer a unique entry point that would convince some of the more skeptical readers that it was straightforward, honest journalism rather than a sloppy attempt to rehab a former Death Eater – Hermione found she couldn’t say no.
***
Draco Malfoy’s office was an extension of his home, which is to say made almost entirely of glass and chrome, with rich leather accents and low, flattering lighting. Everything gleamed. Hermione had the sense, as she was shown through the high-ceilinged hallways by an extraordinarily dapper young assistant named Finneas, that this whole endeavour was aptly named: it appeared to be Malfoy’s lair, through and through.
An accurate instinct, it turned out, once the door to his office had swung open to reveal Malfoy himself, tall and upsettingly broad and giving off the distinct impression of a dragon overseeing his hoard.
Anything of actual use, like parchment or quills or books, appeared to be hidden away in a series of secret compartments in Malfoy’s enormous mahogany desk, which stood out as a beautiful, radiant, once-living thing in a sea of glinting metal. As the door swung open ahead of their approach, Hermione could see several such compartments disappearing seamlessly back into the surface of the desk, taking an inkwell and what looked to be a small black notebook with them. If she wasn’t mistaken, the whole apparatus was an ingenious and beautiful mix of Muggle carpentry and magical mechanisms. Fascinating. Under any other circumstances she would've burned to investigate further. As it was, she had to stay focused, or risk losing her composure entirely.
Malfoy stood to usher both of them in, nodding to Hermione briefly in acknowledgement of her presence. “Thanks, Finn,” he said, his voice deep and sincere. It had been that way for years now, but hearing it still surprised Hermione. It was a far cry from the high-pitched sneer of their childhoods. She gritted her teeth against the way it made the fine hairs at the nape of her neck stand at attention. Were her nipples suddenly hard? Circe. Get a bloody hold of yourself, witch.
“Could you collect my usual from Partridge’s? Order yourself whatever you want.” Malfoy handed a heavy looking coin purse to Finn, who took it with a grin and a nod, shutting the enormous glass door behind him on its silent hinges as he headed off to collect their lunch.
“Granger,” Malfoy murmured, finally turning his full attention to Hermione and gesturing to where she could sit down. His voice came from closer than she’d expected, and the surprise proximity made her shiver as he brushed past her back to his desk. She loathed feeling out of control, and Malfoy’s very presence was a threat to her sanity. She would not be undone by this.
The whole firm was spread out on the ninth and final floor of a new building at the end of Diagon Alley. It had been built during the post-war restoration of Diagon, and it was about as close to a skyscraper as the wizarding world had. All of the offices around the edges on the ninth floor of the building boasted wide sets of windows that, when not charmed to show a magically perfect weather event, looked out over a warren of London alleyways. From Hermione’s seat in one of the imposing but annoyingly comfortable leather chairs across from Draco’s desk, she could make out a small corner slice of a distant, verdant park.
“So,” Hermione said as she tried to avoid sinking too deeply into the leather chair and Malfoy’s unerring gaze at the same time, “thanks for agreeing to this interview. I’ll be taking notes by hand, as well as recording our conversation. Pansy is setting up the photoshoot separately, likely sometime in the middle of next week.” Malfoy nodded, almost imperceptibly, but she could feel the weight of his attention as she talked.
She crossed her legs, a motion which Malfoy’s eyes tracked, and then immediately uncrossed them.
He was looking at the purple shoes. Bollocks. She knew they’d been a mistake.
Hermione’s blood felt strangely thick in her veins. She fought the urge to fidget, instead holding up a small recorder in her left hand, a Muggle device that she found invaluable in her line of work. There was no wizarding equivalent that allowed her to review the nuance of a subject’s response or tone of voice as she worked through the writing of a piece. She gripped it harder than strictly necessary as Malfoy coolly surveyed the technology, trying to mask the unexpected tremble in her fingers.
She set the device on the edge of Malfoy’s desk, clicking a small button on its side to begin recording. She looked up to find him still gazing at it with an indiscernible expression on his face. The plastic looked cheap and strange on the polished expanse of his desk, the spokes inside whirling dizzily like an unchained bike wheel.
“No one else will listen to it,” she added hastily, attempting to assuage Malfoy’s hesitance. There was always the possibility that he simply didn’t want to be in the presence of a Muggle machine, but she was determined to grit her teeth and give him the benefit of the doubt, especially given her hunch about the origins of his desk. “It will be recorded just for me. Er, for the profile.”
“Just for you?” Malfoy echoed. He leaned back in his elegant, high-backed chair and surveyed Hermione, his eyes giving nothing away as they roved across her face. “Alright, Granger. Where would you like to begin?”
Then, between one breath and the next, the world exploded.
Chapter 2: The Relocation
Chapter Text
Hermione was quite certain that the stress and lasting trauma of fighting a war at nineteen years old had permanently altered parts of her brain, one of those being her amygdala. It was responsible for sending her distress signals, but unfortunately it now interpreted doors slamming, raised voices, corridors that were a little too quiet, and a whole laundry list of perfectly natural things as sources of distress and potential danger.
Usually, this meant she was a bit jumpier than she would’ve liked – adding to her general nonstop movement – or that her brain was sometimes half absent from a conversation as she compulsively catalogued her ways out of any given room or situation. It also meant that she didn’t so much as shower without her wand. It lived in her sleeve, or on her shower caddy, always ready for instant deployment against a sputtering candle or creaking floorboard.
As the glass windows shivered for a sliver of a second before they imploded inward, the sense of something horribly, absolutely wrong brushed across the back of Hermione’s neck and slid through her bones. Her wand was in her hand and casting a powerful shield before her thinking brain had even caught up with the sensation.
As she cast the spell, it was Malfoy’s voice she heard shouting Protego.
Their shields met in midair, fusing together at the edges into a dome of safety that encapsulated Hermione and Malfoy, both of them somehow on their feet, the gorgeous mahogany desk between them. The tape recorder was still whirring, suddenly too loud in the strange, distended silence of their protected bubble as the debris from the external wall of Malfoy’s office settled around them. The air was shimmering with smoke and glass dust.
They stared at each other for a short eternity, both of their chests heaving. Hermione’s body slowly began to process her surroundings, and the trembles started wracking her in earnest shortly after. She could barely keep ahold of her wand, though the shield stayed surprisingly strong around them.
Her wand slippery in her sweaty hand, Hermione turned in several frantic circles, scanning for further danger. The air was too thick with dust and debris to properly assess anything. She could barely make out people on the street below starting to emerge from the surrounding buildings to see what the noise had been. She wanted to get both herself and Malfoy out of there, but her instincts were screaming that there could be more perils waiting for them around every nearby corner. She didn’t know the building. She didn’t know the extent of the damage. She certainly was too shaken to risk apparating. She felt frozen to the spot for the second time in one day; an awful sort of record.
“Sit,” Draco suggested from his place across the desk, though it sounded more like an order. Hermione just stared at him. She wasn’t sure what was supposed to come next, but sitting didn’t seem to be the thing.
Malfoy looked pale and hollowed out himself, but he made his way through the debris to Hermione’s side of the desk, his pupils blown wide. There was a fine layer of plaster across his dark suit jacket, and a small scrape on his cheek had blood welling darkly in it. He pressed something invisible on the left side of his desk and produced an unexpected half of a chocolate bar from the compartment that slid open. He broke off a piece to offer to Hermione before chewing two squares himself. She could see his pulse pounding in the pale skin of his throat.
Hermione ate the chocolate after a second of consideration, and felt it work its way through her until she was just calm enough to focus on producing a patronus to send word to Harry. She said, her voice surprisingly strong, “I’m at Lair Investments. There’s been an explosion in the office. Malfoy and I are okay, but I don’t know about anybody else.” Her thoughts jumped to the dapper young assistant, Finneas. She hoped he was far down the street already, fetching Malfoy’s lunch. Thank goodness they’d scheduled this interview for a Sunday afternoon, and the rest of the office was largely deserted.
Hermione gathered herself to send a second patronus to Pansy as Malfoy leaned against his desk and surveyed the wreckage. His broad shoulders were still visibly tense, though he ate another piece of chocolate with a forced sort of casualty.
“Interview interrupted,” Hermione said, scrambling for the right words. “There’s been...an explosion of some kind at LI. We’re both fine, don’t come. I'm sure it’s not safe, and the Aurors are still on their way. I’ll update you when I can. Seriously, do not come down here. Don’t let Ron come either.”
The second otter slipped through the gaping hole in the side of the building, gamboling away to find Pansy in the silvery wake of the first.
***
Harry finally left Hermione’s flat around 2:30 a.m., though she could tell he would’ve rather spent the whole night near her. He'd come straight from a task force meeting at the Ministry and had been hovering since. She remembered the feeling of needing to keep him in her sight when things were at their worst as teenagers, and couldn’t blame him one bit. She was, however, desperate for a hot bath and a large glass of cabernet and the quiet of her apartment. Sleep seemed rather beside the point. She wondered how Malfoy was doing.
After handing her tape recorder over to Harry – she’d promised Draco no one would hear it, but there was no actual interview content on the tape for Harry to hear – and assuring him she’d rather not listen back to the sound of the windows exploding with him, she unsubtly ushered her best friend out her front door. It required physically pushing his shoulders past the door frame and into the hallway outside before Harry realized what she was doing, looking worried and bashful in equal measure. He foisted one more hug on her before finally heading back out into the dimly-lit hallway, his stride tired but still purposeful.
There were two Aurors posted outside of the building, and another two directly outside her flat, which gave Hermione at the very least a convincing facsimile of safety. Her shoulders finally began to relax down her back, the sensation a balm after carrying what felt like enough tension in them to hoist a suspension bridge.
There was also the fact that, though she wasn’t sure why, Hermione felt a strange, urgent concern that she hadn’t been the intended target of that afternoon’s attack. Didn’t mean whoever did it wouldn’t have been delighted by her demise, but it offered her a small, possibly foolish comfort for the time being.
It wasn’t particularly sensible - Hermione was as viable a victim as anyone might be. Her name and role in the war, position as Harry Potter’s closest friend, and very visible Muggleborn status made her a constant person of interest and a political figure whether she wanted to be or not. Still, her gut feeling was strong, and Hermione found herself significantly more interested in such instinctual premonitions than she had been that morning.
After a bath as hot as she could bear, Hermione finally fell asleep, and with surprising ease. Her body dropped into unconsciousness like it was in free fall. She didn’t even have enough time to be relieved before she was out cold. And then the nightmares hit. The world, shivering and exploding inwards like everything was made out of glass. The sound of implosion, deep within her eardrums. And through it all, the sensation that someone was there with her, trying to keep her safe; also in danger, but just out of her reach.
She woke with her mouth dry and disgusting around 5:00 am, and decided that going back to sleep was futile. She was more tired after the frantic dreams than she had been before going to sleep. It seemed a losing proposition all in all, so instead she gathered her book and a steaming pot of tea and made her way to the window seat to read. It only took her a moment of her skin growing clammy and her heart beginning to race to realize that, at least for the time being, she was going to have to avoid setting herself too close to any windows.
All of the adrenaline had cleared out of Hermione’s system while she slept, leaving her feeling wrung out and vulnerable. She mentally scanned her body as she found herself trying to get comfortable in the nest of her bed to read, and was pleased that despite the deep ache in her muscles and a few small cuts from the glass, she seemed to be in one piece. She wondered, once again, how Malfoy was holding up.
It took a moment for Hermione to realize that there were people moving in the front hall, the sound of which sent her adrenaline surging once again. A tremor of fear rippled through her and her wand was clutched in her shaking hand before the synapses had finished firing in her brain, and then she realized she could make out Harry’s voice heading towards her door. Three deep breaths, and she managed to lower her arm. Her heart was racing uncomfortably hard in her chest.
Someone rapped three times on Hermione’s bedroom door, and she gasped a little at the sound. Immediately annoyed with herself, she tied up her riot of hair into something resembling a bun and said, “yes?" Her voice only wavered slightly.
“It’s me,” came Harry’s voice. “Can I come in?”
Hermione rose and went to open the door herself in answer. She wasn’t an invalid, and she wouldn’t act like one. “Hi, Harry,” she said, smiling a little at the worn face of her best friend on the other side. “Long time no see.”
Harry scratched at the back of his head as he surveyed her, eyes worried. “Did you get any sleep?”
“Loads,” Hermione said cheerfully. “Think I managed a whole uninterrupted half hour.”
Harry laughed, a humorless little sound, and held out a steaming cup in his free hand. It appeared, based on the flimsiness of the cup alone, to be from Hermione’s favorite tiny coffee shop at the end of her street. She caught the whiff of a latte, groaning in appreciation as she took it from him. The warmth and smell made her feel a smidge more like a human being in an operable human body. The rest of her still felt like some sort of primordial sludge.
“Thanks, Harry,” she murmured, before taking a bracing sip of the hot beverage and letting it sooth her from the inside. “Did you get any sleep?”
Harry only squinted in response, which made Hermione laugh. Though she was secretly not thrilled by the profession Harry had chosen for himself after their terror-filled adolescences, she was suddenly, overwhelmingly glad that he was here with her and able to help her deal with whatever was coming next.
What was coming next? It occurred to her that he probably wasn’t just here to check on her, and she moved back towards the safe cocoon of her bedroom, haphazardly smoothing her sheets down with the hand not occupied with coffee so that Harry could perch on the bed next to her.
Hermione took a fortifying sip of hot latte before turning to meet Harry’s eyes. He was watching her almost warily, and she braced for whatever news he was avoiding delivering.
“Just tell me, Harry,” she said. “Did you figure out who was behind the attack?”
“Not exactly,” Harry said, and then had the grace to look slightly abashed when Hermione narrowed her eyes at his non-answer. “No,” he amended. “But we have some idea of...where to start, at least. For your own safety, I can’t tell you yet.”
Hermione stayed quiet. She didn’t like this one bit, but she also wasn’t going to take that out on Harry, despite the suddenly burning urge to stomp her foot in extremely childish frustration.
She had never liked this part of the Harry-Auror dynamic, where instead of being intimately involved in the dangers he faced, Hermione had to make uneasy peace with being on the other side of the metaphorical knowledge line. Not that she didn’t try her hardest to step over it, many times, to Harry’s exasperation.
Harry was just doing his job, and doing it well, even if she was exhausted and hungry for answers. She wouldn’t make this any more difficult for him.
At least not just yet.
“We’re launching a full investigation, but it’s...tricky.” Harry scratched anxiously at the back of his messy hair, a definitive tell that he was about to deliver some news that he knew Hermione wouldn’t like. The porcupine spines around her heart were already bristling in furious anticipation.
“Out with it, Harry,” she said after a long beat. “Just tell me whatever it is that has you looking like you folded down the corners in one of my books.”
He winced, but met Hermione’s eyes, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “How did you –” he caught himself. “What an odd analogy,” he said, “as I would...never treat one of your books like that.” He swallowed hard. Hermione raised her eyebrows at him, though she could feel the smirk on her face, which broadened as Harry’s shoulders visibly slid a few centimeters down his spine. “I know you won’t like this, Hermione. It’s just...for a few different reasons, including your immediate safety, I’m here to take you into protective custody.”
“I – what?” Of all the things Hermione had been expecting, this genuinely was not one of them. Foolish of her, not to have seen this possibility coming. “Harry, I can’t just step out of my life. I have a job, and deadlines, and – and –” she took a deep breath to continue, but the look on Harry’s face stopped her.
“This is serious, Hermione. You know I wouldn’t be here asking this of you if we didn’t believe that it was necessary.”
“We?”
“Me, Padma, Robards, everyone briefed on the case so far.”
“You said you were asking, but you’re not actually.”
“No, I suppose I’m not.” Harry did indeed look serious, and even if he tended towards the overprotective, she believed him that he wouldn’t have pushed for this if it weren’t absolutely necessary.
Hermione let out a long sigh, already resigning herself to whatever unpleasantness this would bring. “Alright. I don’t like it, but I do understand. For a few days. You’re going to have to deal with telling Parks yourself, though.” Harry visibly blanched at the thought, which gave Hermione a tiny, unfair pang of satisfaction. “Where am I going, and when?”
“You know Pansy…cares about you. She’ll understand.” Harry sounded more like he was convincing himself of the fact. Hermione, on the other hand, found herself in full agreement. Pansy did care about her. Strange times she found herself in.
“The important thing is that we’ve gotten you a fully state-of-the-art warded, off-the-grid safe house on the coast,” Harry said. “I haven’t been, but Padma conducted the final setup about an hour ago and assured me you’d like it. Lots of bookshelves and big windows.”
“Sounds lovely,” Hermione said. It did, despite the massive inconvenience, and the fact that big windows were no longer an enticing incentive. She could handle a day or two of forced vacation without losing her mind. Probably. “So the only remaining question is why you still look like I’m about to hex you cross-eyed.”
“Look,” Harry said. Hermione would’ve found the nervous way he kept shifting his weight almost amusing, were they in any other situation. “Speaking of things that I wouldn’t ask of you if it weren’t vitally important to how we want to proceed with this investigation…” he trailed off, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose in a familiar gesture.
After a long moment, he opened his eyes. “The house has two bedrooms,” he said, as if that explained anything. Hermione just watched him, her pulse suddenly racing. Her subconscious was making a panicked sort of squawking parrot noise, having figured out something essential that her sleepless brain hadn’t yet come to grips with.
“Hermione,” Harry said. “Malfoy is going to the safe house, too.”
Hermione’s first instinct was laughter. It burst out of her before she’d actually processed the implications of Harry’s words, leaving her gasping for air with the intensity of its trajectory.
A bolt of panic raced down Hermione’s spine, and she knew that Harry could see it flashing across her face as he watched her react to his bombshell.
Fuck. Stuck in a house with Malfoy. The part where he had to think (for good reason) that she had some sort of antisocial disease was bad enough, but to be quite literally trapped with the object of her very-deeply buried desires? She had worked so hard to put those traitorous thoughts and feelings high, high on a shelf in the dustiest corner of her brain, but even her ironclad will would be hard-pressed to survive while locked in a house somewhere with Malfoy.
Circe. Hermione didn’t like feeling victimized, but this day seemed bound and determined to ignore that.
“Sorry,” she said, collecting herself after the brief explosion of mirth and subsequent panic. “But Harry, what the bloody hell do you mean Malfoy is going to the safe house? That sounds like we’re going to be – to be living together in total isolation while you conduct this investigation.”
If Harry had looked uncomfortable before, his face now was nearly enough to start Hermione laughing all over again. She worried if she started, she might never stop, and pressed two fingers to her temple the way her mother used to when she had a migraine coming on.
“The thing is –” Harry said. “Bollocks.” Nothing about his manner was instilling Hermione with confidence.
“The thing is, yes, you are going to be living with Malfoy in total isolation while we conduct this investigation. Blimey, Hermione, I’m sorry. It’s – complicated, but actually the best possible option for both of your safety. If you really hate the idea, I can try and get one of you moved, but not for a few days at least. It was difficult enough to get this spot secured on such short notice.”
Hermione wanted to shake her best friend, wanted to explain that if he were going to snatch her from her life, this was the cruelest way possible. So much for forced vacation – this was a forced tour through Dante’s greatest hits. She could also see in Harry’s face that he hadn’t made this decision by himself, nor did he feel he had any other options.
“Frankly,” she said at last, “I don’t imagine I’m the hard one to convince.”
“We already told Malfoy,” Harry said, weariness evident in his voice. “The tosser made his displeasure clear, but he actually agreed rather quickly. Honestly don’t know what his problem is. One aspect of this decision was that – well, the Auror department wasn’t thrilled about the cost they’d incur by putting together the highest available protective custody for the two of you separately, particularly for Malfoy. Given his personal history, the only way I could get him into protection equal to yours was, well…this.” He was speaking fast, his words coming out in a tangle. “They didn’t think I’d go through with it for your sake, and were ready to leave him to his own devices, but I figured you’d at least been friendly enough recently, and quite honestly I didn’t think you’d stand for him being left vulnerable while we whisked you away to the coast. Padma backed me up.”
Hermione felt a deep pang as Harry finished his breathless explanation. She didn’t blame the Aurors for thinking Harry would never willingly put her and Malfoy away together like this, and she’d made enough of a stink to prove their point precisely. Her heart squeezed up tight, knowing that Harry had believed she’d still rather suffer through this forced quarantine together than leave Malfoy vulnerable. He’d gotten that right. It was Malfoy’s business where they’d been attacked, after all; it was possible Hermione was just collateral damage.
Also, it pissed her off that the powers that be at the Ministry would’ve left him at risk like that, after a violent attempt on his life. What bastards, after all Malfoy had done to prove himself and make amends in recent years. She could feel her annoyance melting in the face of her anger.
Harry had known all of this, too, and was watching her like he could see the wheels turning in her head exactly how he’d hoped they would. He was deviously clever when he wanted to be. Unfortunately, Hermione loved him for it.
She reached out for Harry’s hand, holding it a bit harder than was strictly necessary. “You’d better solve this one fast, Potter,” she said, but the bite was gone from her voice.
Harry’s face tightened. “It would be my top priority even if you weren’t going into protection under these circumstances. Believe me, Hermione.” She did.
“I suppose I’d better pack.”
“Oh, yes, that was the other thing I was supposed to tell you. We’ve an untraceable portkey leaving from your sitting room in -” he checked his watch - “seven minutes. Bloody hell, sorry. Wasn’t supposed to take so long explaining.”
“Seven minutes? Seven minutes!” Hermione yelped, jumping to her feet. “I need clothes, and my toothbrush, and - oh, Merlin, where is Crookshanks?”
Chapter 3: The Flatmate
Chapter Text
Six minutes and twenty-two seconds later, a harried Hermione found herself standing in her sitting room with a deceptively small bag slung over her shoulder, stuffed full of miscellaneous clothing, several half finished books, cat treats, a few bits and bobs from the fridge that she hadn’t wanted to leave to spoil, several bottles of wine, a mashup of products grabbed out of the bathroom cupboard and shower caddy by the handful, several more books (just in case), a vibrator, a spare silk pillowcase for her hair (priorities firmly intact, thanks), her medicinal potions pack, and the framed photo of her parents from her bedside table.
Crookshanks, loudly making his displeasure known, had allowed himself to be corralled into his cat carrier, which was now clutched tightly in Hermione’s left hand along with a bag of his favorite canned food and his favorite toys. He hadn’t fought her too hard, but Hermione knew from the piteous tone of his cries that she would be answering for her crimes later. She couldn’t blame the creature, and was frankly relieved he was coming with her on whatever this hellish adventure would be.
Here went absolutely nothing.
“Ready?” Harry said, holding out the slightly cleaner side of a raggedy New Balance sneaker to Hermione. She met his eyes as she took hold, ignoring the other two Aurors stationed at either entrance to her living room. She ignored the impulse to look around the space she was leaving, too.
“Does it matter?” Hermione asked quietly. She held Harry’s gaze for the last 3, 2, 1, only closing her eyes tightly as the world began spinning out of focus around her.
Travel by portkey was slightly less violating and disorienting than apparating in Hermione’s opinion, but she had to breathe deeply for several moments upon impact with her eyes still closed to avoid retching on the spot. The briny smell of the sea in springtime fortified her, and she finally felt her body unclench as she slowly opened her eyes.
They’d landed in a small garden, ringed by a neat, whitewashed fence. The sun was still rising, but the light was strong enough to make out their surroundings. Roses climbed across the wooden fence slats and up across several intricate trellises at the corners of the yard, wending their thorny way towards the house, though it was too early for them to be in full bloom yet. The house, a picturesque two-story with windows everywhere Hermione looked, stood sturdy and surrounded by bursting spring growth. She noted sea aster, spring squill, fennel, evening primrose…
“Hermione,” came Harry’s voice, snapping her out of her plant surveillance. “I can already see the potions experiments unfolding behind your eyes. Can we head inside before I lose you to the garden?” He laughed as she hesitated, her eyes drawn to a clump of wood sage that looked exactly right for harvest.
Right. Inside the house. Where Malfoy would be.
Her and Malfoy, locked together in a house.
The reality of the situation and what she was going to have to endure slammed into Hermione with a tangible weight. Harry must’ve seen its impact somehow, because his face softened, and he placed a heavy, reassuring hand on her shoulder.
“It’s going to be alright,” he murmured. “We’re going to figure out what the hell happened, and you won’t have to stay here for long. Plus, Malfoy’s not such a git these days. He’ll be fine.”
Unfortunately, that was exactly the issue. Better Harry think she was dreading his company for the standard reasons, though. Hermione intended to keep a lid firmly on this particular can of nightmare worms.
“What if I told you there’s a functioning potions lab inside?”
Her eyes snapped to Harry’s, and he smiled crookedly at her. “Well,” she said, squaring her shoulders under the weight of her absurdly overstuffed bag. “You have my attention now.”
From the outside, the house looked like any other English seaside property, though it had clearly received a fresh whitewash recently and the shutters and front door were painted a vibrant, lovely blue. Vaguely Greek feeling, if it weren’t for the undeniable English-ness of...everything around it.
Harry gestured with his wand as they approached, a complex runic motion, and the door swung open to allow them passage inside.
The light struck Hermione first. Despite the basic architecture and unassuming outside, the space had been designed with an eye towards maximizing light. The back of the house, which faced both the sea and the sloping dunes a few hundred metres away to the left, was made up almost entirely of windows. Just walking through the front door was like stumbling upon a massive and astonishing painting of the sea. It was breathtaking enough that all that glass didn’t immediately make Hermione nervous, despite her fears.
As they pushed through the front hall and into the main living area – kitchen off to one side, sofas arranged thoughtfully to look out at the view – Hermione felt nearly giddy.
As far as a safe house went, she hadn’t quite imagined that this might actually feel so much like a vacation. She was immensely grateful to Harry and Padma for finding somewhere so lovely for her forced quarantine. Hermione made a note on her very crowded mental to-do list to send Padma a bottle of the Markovic Estates cabernet she favored, once they were through this whole mess.
“Hello,” said a low voice from the kitchen, and Hermione whirled, nearly dropping Crookshanks’ carrier as she spun.
Right. Malfoy was here. For a brief, blissful moment, Hermione had actually forgotten. She could feel the immediate impact of his presence in the infuriating, traitorous blush rising across her chest and settling in her cheeks. Malfoy’s eyes on her face traced the path of the heat, his expression giving nothing away.
“Hello, flatmate,” she said, her voice catching in her throat. Malfoy raised his eyebrows, an amused glint in his eye. Hermione found she still wasn’t used to being confronted with anything but Malfoy’s disdain. Her pulse fluttered. Embarrassing.
The moment of silence after her words stretched out like taffy. Harry, at last, cleared his throat. “Glad to see the conversation will be effortless here. Should we all - sit down and talk things through?”
“Yes,” Hermione said, finally divesting herself of her bag and releasing Crookshanks to explore the house. He stepped from his carrier with one delicate paw and glanced between the three people with open disdain before slinking around a corner beyond which Hermione couldn’t see him. She trusted he would be safe here. “But I would kill a bloke for some tea first.”
“Suppose I’d better get on that, then,” Malfoy said, startling her again as he moved towards a green-varnished kettle sitting on the stove. “Don’t fancy being the bloke you off for want of a hot beverage.” He must’ve noticed Hermione’s raw shock at watching a Malfoy move to make her tea, and she didn’t miss the way he smirked to himself as he set about the task. At this rate, she was never going to stop blushing. Was it too late to just be murdered for real?
Hermione wanted to explore the rest of the house, partially to see how close together the bedrooms were. Not for any particular reason. As long as there were no walls being shared, she’d be just fine. Totally, completely fine.
What an utterly strange day this was.
Instead of wandering off, she settled herself on one of the plush, comfortable sofas looking out at the sea. Harry noticed her gaze as he came to sit next to her. “Not bad,” he murmured quietly. “Padma picked the best spot we had available. Just a shame you won’t be able to go out to the beach.”
“Why -” Hermione started, but fell silent immediately as she realized the implications of Harry’s words. “Right,” she corrected herself. “We can’t be seen here. We’re in protective custody.”
Draco made a quiet, derisive noise from the kitchen. “Funny how we were the ones attacked, and yet we’re also the ones being locked up.”
“Cool it, Malfoy,” Harry said, though the words lacked any real heat. “This isn’t exactly Azkaban.” He swept a pointed hand around the light-filled room and towards the horizon visible out the enormous windows. "And we're doing it for your safety." Right. Right. This was by no means a simple vacation.
“It’s not like you can’t go outside at all, but the wards only extend as far as the fence surrounding the house. In fact, once that tea is ready, I have some ground rules to go over with you both before I get back to the office.” He ran a hand over his tired face, and Hermione was suddenly flush with gratitude for him. Sure, it was simply not ideal to be locked in a house with Draco Malfoy, but at least she could go and take a nap after this. Harry had to go back to work and try to figure out who had almost killed his best friend and old school rival, intentionally or not. From the way Harry'd been acting and her current circumstance, Hermione assumed the Aurors knew it had been intentional and targeted.
“By the way,” Harry said, turning his body on the sofa so he could speak directly to Malfoy. “Theo knows you’re safe. I couldn’t tell him anything beyond that, obviously, but he knows as much. I’m sorry you won’t be able to contact him.”
Even from across the living room, Hermione could see something soften in Malfoy’s face. His jaw clenched briefly, then he blew out a slow breath. “Thanks, Potter,” he said, sounding gruff.
Theo - Harry’s funny, kind, and very lanky boyfriend - also happened to be Malfoy’s closest friend, something Hermione had never quite understood. Their personalities seemed wildly different, including everything from their philosophies to the ways they each moved through the world. Watching Malfoy’s real time gratitude, however, gave Hermione a sense of how deep their bond went. What did Theo see in Malfoy? She’d like to see whatever it was for herself.
No. That was a crazy thought. She didn’t need to see anything more of Malfoy, soft parts or no. The idea alone felt like playing a game she couldn’t possibly win. She was in over her head as it was.
“Right, so,” Harry said, pulling a small piece of parchment from his left pocket and unfolding it with clumsy fingers. “I'll just get started now, shall I? First off, you can’t go beyond the fence perimeter. Both because we can’t keep you safe out there, but also because it will trigger emergency protocols on our end. I strongly suggest you not do that unless things are – unless you’re having an actual emergency.
The floo is keyed to work only through Grimmauld Place,” Harry continued, “but I have the power to turn the connection on and off from my end. It’s like a parental override, unfortunately for you both. All it means is that I and the Aurors who know you’re here can use it to call in to you, or even come through when needed, but it’s not safe for you to try and come through the other way. It will likely be a dead end.”
Hermione wrinkled her nose at the unpleasant thought. The reality that she was really going to be trapped here for some unknown period of time was setting in, making her head swim. Or maybe that was the lack of sleep. And food. When had she last eaten?
“I hate to be redundant, Potter, but it feels a bit as if you’re describing a hostage setup, here.” Malfoy’s voice, interrupting the runaway train of her thoughts, came closer than Hermione expected. She jumped a bit, blushing and settling herself as he eyed her and set her cup of tea down on the coffee table. A little pot of cream and a bowl of sugar landed themselves next to her cup.
Hermione found herself touched by this gesture, an uncomfortable sensation in its own right. She hadn’t ever considered Malfoy to be particularly thoughtful before, but he was playing the part well now. Preparing tea for her in the immediate aftermath of him also helping to save her life. Huh. If an observer didn’t know their history, they might even think Hermione and Malfoy were friends.
Thank goodness the observer knew their history, quite well.
“I know it’s not ideal,” Harry was saying, and Hermione shook herself out of her own echoing brain. “But it’s necessary for now. We just want to keep you safe. Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee one or both of you wouldn’t be targeted if we left you alone, or that another attack wouldn't be potentially devastating for wizard civilians and Muggles alike. It was sheer luck there weren’t more than a few minor injuries yesterday, yourselves included.”
“How will you track the culprits down, then?” Hermione asked. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to use us as lures?”
Both of the men in the room shot her surprised scowls at this thought, though Hermione imagined they were for very different reasons.
“No,” Harry said gruffly. “I’m not generally in the industry of intentionally putting those I’m meant to protect in the direct path of further harm.” He ran a hand over his face, like the very idea of this was too much for him to take.
Hermione understood. She felt bad for causing the expression on Harry’s face, but she wasn’t used to being treated like a precious, fragile creature. “I know, Harry,” she said softly, placing her hand on his knee and squeezing for a brief moment. From his armchair perch, Malfoy’s eyes tracked the motion. Hermione could feel him shift, strangely aware of his attention. “I only meant...if you really think whoever did this might strike again, it seems us both disappearing will only tip our hand and send them off to wait until we’re back.”
“It’s a good point,” Harry said, “and one we thought of already - we’re leaving Auror crews outside of both of your flats for the time being, so anyone watching thinks you’re being protected separately and in your own spaces. It might help us narrow down the target. And if we really feel it’s necessary to the investigation, we can have you be seen out and about on occasion.”
“Polyjuice?” Malfoy asked, his voice full of disdain. Harry nodded in his direction and Hermione thought she caught a flicker of something like worry in Malfoy’s eyes. He only straightened his shoulders and said, “well, I’d like to be asked before it comes to that.”
Harry watched him for a heartbeat before nodding. “Understood.” When Malfoy didn’t relax, he added, “we really are concerned with keeping you safe. I’m not interested in violating you any further than necessary by keeping you here.”
Another beat of silence, during which Hermione felt her own teeth clench. The way Harry and Malfoy were communicating now was a far cry from the petty, childish insults of their pasts, but all of this hesitation and grudging politeness was almost more exhausting to witness.
“Thank you,” Malfoy said at last, and Hermione had to keep the surprise at his sincerity from showing on her face. His eyes slid over to hers anyway, and she managed a small smile. It seemed Malfoy was full of surprises these days.
“Look,” Harry said after a brief nod of acknowledgement. His wristwatch was shaking and emitting a jaunty melody, which Hermione knew meant he was needed elsewhere. Probably to figure out exactly who had nearly murdered his best friend.
“I’ve got to get back to the office and confirm we got you both relocated with no issue. We’ll be back regularly to check on you. The kitchen is fully stocked, and we’ve got it charmed to refill as needed. If you have any special requests, keep a list for us, and we’ll get them to you as soon as we can. Do not send a patronus unless there is an absolute emergency.” He directed that last part to Hermione, and she wondered idly if that was because it only applied to her. "Actually," he continued, "no contacting anyone outside of this house except Padma and me, period. I'm sorry to ask that of you, but any contact is a liability."
“Yes, understood,” Hermione said, slowly. “Though, surely with all of you on the case, we won’t be here too long.”
“I hope that’s true,” Harry said. From the corner of her eye, Hermione saw Malfoy’s small, skeptical sneer. A much more familiar sight. It nearly calmed her down to see it.
“What about medical needs, Potter?” he asked dryly. “Or book needs?” He tilted his head towards Hermione again, though it didn’t carry the weight of an insult.
Harry eyed him for a moment. “We can get you anything you need, especially to keep healthy. Didn’t you speak to Padma about this when you arrived?”
“I did,” Malfoy said. The lines around his mouth were tight. “I simply don’t like leaving my health up to chance, and wanted to ensure it won’t be neglected while we’re being...held here. I should be fine. Just want to ensure I can get extra potions ingredients if I should need them.”
“Believe me,” Harry said, a strange intensity in his voice, “we would be loath to leave either of you at preventable risk. It’s our responsibility to keep you safe here, in every sense of the word.”
Malfoy didn’t look relieved, exactly, but his shoulders did lower a bit. Hermione wondered if he really felt that the Aurors would neglect to care for his well-being in these circumstances. She couldn’t fully blame him for the uncertainty. There were still plenty of people who believed Malfoy’s name made him unworthy of care, kindness, or a voice in society at all, proven by the reluctance to secure him a safe house on his own. Even Harry’s grudging respect and politeness didn’t override public opinion, though it certainly helped. Malfoy had clearly grown in many ways since their days at Hogwarts, and it was a shame more people couldn't see it themselves. He'd done so much important work, he actually smiled these days, and his body was –
No. She was not allowed to have that thought. A lobotomy might be best at this point.
Harry stood from the sofa, raising his arms above his head in a brief stretch. Hermione winced at the sound of his back cracking in multiple places.
“Thanks, Harry,” she said softly, rising to her feet next to him. “I know you’re doing everything you can.”
He gave her a soft familiar smile, tugging her into a hug. Hermione allowed herself to sink into the comfort of his touch for a moment, before the floo flashed a warning across the living room, and Padma’s head came through.
“Hi, everyone,” she said, cheerfully. Hermione pulled away from Harry and waved. “Glad you’re settling in. Harry, we’re about to do a briefing for Murray, and I need you here with me to give the latest.”
“Got it,” Harry said, striding toward the fireplace. “Remember, we’re closing the floo behind us when I leave. Don’t try to follow. If there’s an issue –” he dug into his pants and pulled out two flashing galleons, flicking one across the room to Hermione and Malfoy both, “– use these. Hermione can explain.” She grinned, realizing Harry had fallen back on the days of Protean charms and Dumbledore’s Army. Funny to think that could still be useful now. Well, perhaps funny was a relative term.
“Thanks,” she said again quietly. “Please be safe.”
Harry nodded shortly, then raised his hand in Malfoy’s direction. Malfoy nodded back, worrying the gold coin between his long fingers.
“Good luck,” Harry said. He tossed a handful of floo powder into the grate, stepped into the flames, and disappeared.
Chapter 4: The Safe House
Chapter Text
The quiet that followed Harry’s absence was somehow the loudest thing Hermione had ever heard. She sat back down on the couch, sipped her (expertly brewed) tea, watched the waves in the distance, and avoided Malfoy’s eyes until she felt minorly fortified.
She felt her Nokia buzz in one pocket and pulled it out hastily. She’d grabbed the mobile in her packing haze that morning, less because it would have any use in an emergency and more because it would keep her connected to Pansy. That had been before Harry strictly forbade contact. She should’ve known. Whatever. At least she could play Snake.
It had taken Pansy a surprisingly short time to adapt to using a Muggle mobile, though she still pretended great disdain for the entire concept of technology. It was mostly to piss Hermione off, which unfortunately seemed to be at the forefront of Pansy’s love languages.
She stared at the text from Pansy, likely sent during her daily morning workout at the current unholy hour, and wished she’d been able to read it and respond before Harry had explicitly warned her off of it.
You alive, Granger? I wanted to come by the flat last night, but Ron talked me out of it. Something about how “the Aurors wouldn’t like it.” Bastard. I’ll show him what the Aurors wouldn’t like. Absolute shite. Can’t believe I was the one who sent you into all this.
It was about as close to an apology as she would ever get out of Pansy, who didn’t actually owe her an apology, anyway. She’d had no way to know that Hermione would be caught up in an attack, even if she’d had some motivations of her own for getting Hermione to handle this particular interview. Hermione knew she had to feel terrible, based on the swearing alone. Pansy had a sailor’s vocabulary, but usually texted in a hilariously prim way that didn’t mimic her speech at all.
Across the room, Malfoy shifted in his armchair, and Hermione finally let her gaze drift to his face without the screen of her phone as a buffer. A handsome face, she had to admit, and not for the first time. She didn’t usually have enough time in his presence to allow herself any thoughts along those lines, but it was unavoidable in the early morning quiet of this seaside house: he had grown into a very good looking man. What a nightmare.
The Malfoy genes were strong in him, but Hermione was somewhat relieved to notice the mix of his mother in his grown face, the slight softening and broadening of the planes of his face that kept him from being his father’s clone.
He was watching the waves break in the distance, but after a few long moments of Hermione’s scrutiny, he turned and caught her at it. Her cheeks colored a bit, but she manage to smile at him, disarmed by the strangeness of the situation.
“I suppose the good news is that you’ll have plenty of time to complete my interview,” Malfoy said. “I won’t be able to escape you badgering me for answers if you so choose.” His voice was dry, like he knew for a fact that she wasn’t above a little badgering. Hell, she’d been preparing herself for a thorough badgering when his office had exploded.
“I suppose you’re right,” she mused. “Though I have a feeling it won’t be published in next month’s edition of the magazine. Oh, bollocks,” she added before she could catch herself. Malfoy’s eyes widened with what looked like delight at the curse. “The magazine,” she said, her mind spinning out in a million directions at once. She hadn’t even owled Pansy after the accident yesterday, and now she couldn’t text her back. If they were covering it up, she wouldn’t know what had happened to Hermione, except that she was supposedly being kept in her flat by the Aurors. Pansy would have to put out the May edition by herself next week, with no final input from Hermione, and depending how long this went she might have to deal with the bulk of preparation for the anniversary edition, too. She’d probably use this as an excuse to do a Hottest Wizarding Bachelors piece like she’d been begging Hermione for months – why hadn’t she thought about this before leaving her flat, or last night even –
“Granger,” Malfoy said, pulling her back from the chasm of her thoughts. “There’s not much you can do about it now. You heard Potter, we’re under a strict gag order here. If you reach out to Pansy, you could very well be putting her at risk, too.”
Hermione knew he was right, but her hands were already clammy. She flattened them against her legs to stop from twisting her fingers together and took several deep breaths, the way she’d learned to manage her panic attacks in the aftermath of the war. She hadn’t had one in a while, but after yesterday, the thought of getting behind on work alone…
“Look,” Malfoy said, once again managing to pull her back from some invisible brink. The skin of his neck was faintly pink, as though from exertion, despite his calm form in the armchair. “Potter told Theo the basics, right? Surely, he’ll let Pansy know, if he hasn’t already. The investigation won’t work if the Aurors have to deal with frantic missing persons reports.”
A very, very good point. Harry had told her he’d tell Pansy - she'd told him he would, actually - but the memory of that conversation was already hazy from stress and lack of sleep. Hermione felt the muscles in her shoulders relax, just enough that she thought she could avoid spasming later. She always hated that part.
Crookshanks meandered in from the left, ostensibly having done a thorough examination of their new accommodations. He didn’t look too perturbed, which Hermione took as a good sign. “I suppose I’ll go find a bedroom,” she said, rising to her feet and stretching her sore arms out in front of her. “I’m desperate for a nap.” She’d like another bath, too, but she would be useless without a bit of sleep for her addled brain.
Malfoy nodded. “I already set my things in one of the rooms upstairs,” he said, pausing to avert his gaze out the window. “I don’t feel particularly strongly about it, however, so let me know if you feel the urge to swap.”
Hermione stared at him for a moment. He appeared to be sincere, though he was clearly avoiding looking at her. Huh. “Thank you,” she said, because there was nothing else to say, and turned to go explore the rest of the house.
***
The large downstairs of the house appeared to be essentially what met the eye: an enormous sitting room overlooking a gorgeous view, with everything oriented around keeping it visible at all times. The kitchen was off to the right hand side, and though Hermione hadn’t explored it yet, it appeared well stocked and quite practical.
A large bathroom sat off to the left near the front entryway, and beside it were a set of wooden stairs leading up to the second floor. Crookshanks led the way, his tail straight up behind him like a flag. Hermione took in the details of the house as they went: the inlaid woodwork, the soft runner carpets down the hallways, the unusually high ceilings. Upstairs appeared to be made up of two bedrooms and an office, each boasting wide windows and tasteful furniture. At least they all had lovely curtains, as well, so she could hide the windows if the need arose.
Draco had chosen one of the two rooms already, evident by the corner of luggage she could see through the slice of open door. Hermione ignored the burning desire to push it the rest of the way open and take stock of all Draco's things. No need. She wasn't going to beg him to switch no matter what his room looked like compared to hers, so she had no reason to look. She brushed past to the last door, which was standing open for her. She inhaled deeply as she surveyed her new domain, appreciating that it was just as bright and beautiful as the rest of the house. Her plans to avoid sharing a wall had been dashed completely, but short of sleeping on the sofa, there wasn't much she could do about that.
At least both rooms had their own bathrooms - nothing huge, but enough to fit a shower and tub combination.
“Just a lose-lose situation for me today, huh Crooks,” Hermione said blearily, setting her heavy bag down on the plush chair in one corner of the room. It was angled just right to sit with a cup of hot tea and a book and watch the weather rolling in over the sea, which Hermione planned to do as soon as possible. Maybe slowing down could have some as yet undiscovered perks. She turned to find her cat already curled up and watching her coolly from the assortment of pillows at the head of the bed. It wasn't Hermione's room, after all; it was his.
She laughed, opening her bag to begin unpacking whatever she’d thrown together in a panic a mere hour ago. Books to the bedside table, clothes to the wardrobe, cat food to the door to go back downstairs with her next time she left. Extra potions went into the bathroom, alongside her toothbrush and shampoo and the fancy conditioner she still shelled out for on occasional trips to Marks & Spencer.
The bunch of bananas, on the other hand? The jar of nutella and half head of lettuce? Why on earth had she grabbed those? Also for downstairs, she supposed. And Scrabble, too. Had she really thought she’d be playing Muggle board games with a brooding Draco Malfoy? Clear evidence her brain could not be trusted on a dearth of sleep like it once could. At least the exploding snap pack she’d brought made marginally more sense.
Suddenly entirely out of energy, Hermione laid down on her bed with the book she’d begun yesterday morning, before any of this had happened. It felt like a short lifetime ago. The bed was astonishingly comfortable, something she felt immense gratitude for. She’d have to remember to thank Padma for finding this place the next time she saw her.
With Crookshanks’ warmth next to her and the weight of exhaustion blanketing her body, Hermione made it nine words into the chapter before she was asleep.
When she woke, disoriented, it took her several long and panicky moments to remember where she was. The enormous window in her bedroom looked out over very strange weather: a sort of vibrant grey sky with gusts of wind keeping the droplets of rain suspended and whirling in the wrong directions. She watched the waves breaking in the distance for a few moments as she catalogued her surroundings, noting that she had fallen asleep with the door still mostly open. She wondered if Draco had seen her drooling on the pillow.
Hermione cast a wandless Tempus, surprised to discover it just past noon. She’d gotten a solid few hours of sleep in, having drifted off only a bit past 6:00 in the morning. So much had happened in the last day that time felt strangely unreal, elastic.
Crookshanks yawned ferociously next to her, then stretched out one inquiring paw to rest gently on Hermione’s cheek. “Hungry?” she asked, and then laughed as her own stomach grumbled loudly in agreement. She wasn’t actually sure the last time she’d eaten anything real. Possibly...lunch, the day before? She'd been too nervous about the interview to have much of a meal. “Time to go see what’s on offer in the kitchen, I suppose,” she murmured, smoothing a hand down the long hair along Crooks’ back. One of his fangs rested cutely on his lower lip, and Hermione couldn’t resist the urge to kiss him on the head at the sight. He tolerated it, though barely, and she knew better than to push the creature.
The faint strains of piano drifted up from downstairs, something Hermione vaguely recognized, but couldn’t name. She wondered what kind of sound system Draco Malfoy knew how to use, immediately curious. Just then, the song hit a snag and paused, and as she heard the same few notes several times in a row, her mouth dropped open.
Unless she was going absolutely barmy, Malfoy was playing the piano.
This, she had to see for herself. She wondered if she could fit this surprising tidbit into his profile for Review. It made perfect sense that an aristocratic child would be taught piano, but somehow the image of a small Draco Malfoy tickling the ivories seemed too absurd to Hermione to be possible.
The house wasn’t cold, but it did have the affliction of any English seaside house in spring, taking on a vague chill edge of the outside air. Hermione thought about making a fire in the grate downstairs, and shivered in delight. She hadn’t lived anywhere with a functioning fireplace in a long time. Hers now was just a prop for the floo, as her building didn’t have a chimney system.
For now, she pulled her softest knit sweater out of the dresser where she’d hastily sent it while unpacking, relishing the warmth it brought. In fact, she was nearly too warm. She’d remembered her house slippers, too, and slid her stockinged feet into them. She caught a glimpse of herself in the full length mirror on the back of the bathroom door and realized she rather resembled a young granny. At least she was comfortable. Malfoy would just have to deal with the lack of eye candy. She wasn’t here to seduce him. She didn't think she could if she tried.
Downstairs, she stood transfixed in the short space in front of the staircase that hid her from the open living room and kitchen. Malfoy was playing all out now, something melancholy that echoed and ached in the space behind Hermione’s sternum.
She had the strangest urge to walk over to Malfoy where he sat facing the sea, run her hands through his hair. She gripped the bannister tightly enough that the impulse mostly passed, leaving behind a filmy trace of compulsion that she could almost feel along her skin.
Crookshanks, the sneak, shot across the living room as Malfoy was in the final throes of what Hermione was fairly certain was a Beethoven sonata. The streak of orange fur distracted him, and his head snapped up as he realized Hermione was awake and behind him in quick succession. He didn’t look at her, but she watched him straighten his shoulders like he was bracing for something.
When had he gotten so broad? She’d spent so much time over the last few years desperately avoiding looking at him too hard or for too long, and now she was being repeatedly walloped over the head by his every contour.
Hermione had wondered more than once if living together like this, however briefly, might serve as a sort of exposure therapy. Clear her head, reset the unfathomable sort of attraction she felt towards this man against her will (and likely against his).
Instead, it seemed only to be making her cravings significantly worse. When had her mouth gone dry? She was turning into an Austen heroine, swooning over the look of Malfoy’s knuckles, the tendons of his neck. Mortifying.
“Sleep well?” he asked, without turning his head.
“Yes, thanks,” she answered, still reeling from the music, from the sight of Malfoy first thing upon waking in strange surroundings. “I didn’t know you could play piano.”
Malfoy did turn to look at her now, his eyes glinting with something she didn’t know how to name. “Why would you?” he asked, no real heat behind it. A fair point. “Something tells me you’d find the guitar playing even more of a surprise.”
Indeed, Hermione couldn’t stop her mouth from dropping open at this new revelation. Malfoy actually laughed. “I’m certain you have many questions for me, of which I might be inclined to answer a few. I thought you might like something to eat, first.”
As if on cue, Hermione’s stomach protested loudly. She could feel the usual hot flush creep across her chest and up her neck. She didn’t know if it was the betrayal of her body or Malfoy’s strangeness that was throwing her off more. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was being kind to her.
“Sorry,” she said after a too-long beat. “Yes, yes, I’d love to eat. Blimey, I don’t even know what the last thing I put in me was besides tea. Thank you, Malfoy.” Another beat. “Sorry, this is just so - isn’t this just so incredibly weird?”
One side of Malfoy’s mouth quirked up in a sort of smile Hermione had never seen before. Something squeezed inside of her at the sight.
God, this was going to be even worse than she’d thought.
“Absolutely bloody bizarre,” he agreed. He unfolded himself from the piano bench, and Hermione was seized by another wave of shock at his size. How had she missed that in his office yesterday?
***
The evening and next day passed in a peaceful sort of haze, marked by the whistling of the kettle and spag bol and several rounds of beans on toast. Hermione and Malfoy orbited each other with small, surprisingly easy conversation, when they happened to be in the same space. She found him an unexpectedly good flatmate, in the sense that he was very quiet and cleaned up after himself. More annoyingly, he was prone to disappearing just when her urge to ask him questions was at its strongest. She had a nagging feeling that he was avoiding her for some reason, even as a quiet voice inside of her grew more adamant about seeking him out. It had been quite some time since she was this curious about someone or something, and the feeling made her strangely hungry.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise that they both liked reading in front of the enormous windows of the sitting room, despite recent traumatic events, and after Hermione finished two Muggle novels she’d been saving for “when she had time” over the course of that evening and the next morning, Malfoy asked with an embarrassed edge to his voice to borrow them. Hermione bit her tongue and handed them over with only a small comment about being curious to know what he thought of them when he finished.
As they sat through the golden light of the afternoon, the windows open to capture the sound of the sea and the gusts of the breeze, Hermione kept feeling Malfoy’s eyes on her. His attention was like a physical weight on her skin, making her shiver far more than the edge of chill in the air. Every time she looked up at him, however, his eyes were firmly on his book, or out the window, or on his teacup. Anywhere but on Hermione.
It made her feel a bit mad. She felt Malfoy’s gaze once more and snapped her head towards him, determined to catch him out, but – he was only checking the time on his elegant wristwatch. She watched him fiddle a bit with the winder, and then – oh, Circe – he had the gall to meet her eyes at last and look at her as though she were the one who’d been staring at him.
Although, unfortunately, Hermione realized with a pang that may have been exactly what was happening. She’d imagined Draco looking at her entirely. She felt an embarrassed heat climb her chest, and quickly busied herself back in the safety of printed ink on a page.
As the afternoon waned, Hermione felt herself growing restless. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent an entire day doing nothing of much value. In fact, possibly the last time she’d done that had been never.
She felt trapped, itchy from the constant awareness of her proximity to Malfoy. She wondered if she was running a fever, and decided she’d take her temperature before bed, just to be sure. In the meantime, it suddenly occurred to her that there was an entire garden outside, waiting to be perused. She’d forgotten in the strangeness of the last two days, but now the welcome escape of outside beckoned to her, and made her feel slightly less imprisoned to know she could simply walk to the front door and open it.
So, she did exactly that. She could feel Malfoy’s eyes on her back as she walked outside and pulled the door firmly shut behind her, without looking at him. He could enjoy the view of her arse, for all she cared. Fuck it. She rather hoped he did.
Chapter Text
The air outside was crisp, carrying the broad scent of the sea as it brushed across her flushed cheeks and cooled the back of her neck. She hadn’t realized she’d been sweating. Making her way to a rotund shed in the corner of the garden, which looked like it had seen several generations of wear and possibly some gnome squatters, she bravely brushed past spiderwebs and wrinkled her nose at the dust to examine the wares inside. She emerged, triumphant, with a trowel, a spade, and a pair of gloves rapidly approaching disintegration. On second thought, she left those behind. It would be good to feel the dirt with her fingers.
Weeding always made Hermione think of her father. He had loved to spend long afternoons tending to his garden beds, watering and clearing little invaders – both plant and insect – and tending to the soft, robust products of his early spring planting. He would hum Joni Mitchell to himself as he went, only pausing to ask Hermione to fetch him a tool or to admonish her for nearly pulling up a radish instead of a thorny weed.
Hermione made her way around the just-growing beds along the front of the house, weeding and thinking about her father and finding herself humming Ladies of the Canyon.
Trina takes her paints and her threads, and she weaves a pattern all her own, Hermione sang, relishing the cool dirt under her fingers and the smell of the sea in the crisp spring air. She felt light, powerful, finally balanced back on her own two feet after several very strange, very long days. The inaction of the last twenty-four hours had started to wear on her.
Annie bakes her cakes and her breads, and she gathers flowers for her home, for her home she gathers flowers...
Inspired by the lyrics, Hermione bent to pick a few of the early blooms, and as the sun finally started sinking below the horizon on the far side of the house, she gathered the bouquet into her muddy hands and headed back inside. She finally felt cooled off and a bit more centered inside her own body, grateful for a few moments to herself. She realized with a start that Malfoy had opened several of the windows at some point, and could absolutely hear her off-key singing. One more item for the mortification list.
She hoped Harry would hurry up with the investigation so she could hire whomever had attempted to kill them to complete the job.
Malfoy was making himself a cuppa in the kitchen when she walked back in, and without a word, he set a second cup out for her, eyeing the bundle of blooms as he did so. She smiled at him, oddly charmed by the gesture, and grateful for the fact he wasn’t going to comment on her inability to carry a melody, then immediately felt embarrassed at how simple to please she was. She turned her back to trim the stems and arrange them in a lovely vase she found in the corner of one cabinet, making herself deliberately place each flower until she felt Malfoy move out back out into the sitting room. Despite the persistent chill, her cheeks were burning again.
They each disappeared into their rooms early after eating. Hermione could hear Malfoy moving around in his room next to hers, and found the noises oddly comforting. It was nice, not to be alone.
***
Harry and Padma came back together the following afternoon, tumbling through the floo in quick succession and looking around the house like they were somewhat surprised to find it still standing. Draco watched them both with wary eyes from the kitchen, where he’d been cleaning up a pan of roast potatoes Hermione had made for dinner, alongside the surprisingly delicious quail Malfoy had prepared. Apparently, the Auror budget didn’t skimp when it came to provisions for protected witnesses. It was the least they could do, given that Hermione and Draco hadn’t had any updates on the investigation for days.
Malfoy, cooking. Malfoy, doing the dishes. Absurd, but somehow real. Padma and Harry seemed just as surprised by the sight, but clearly thought better than to comment on it.
“You’re both still alive,” was Harry’s opening line, a note of genuine surprise in his voice. Padma smacked him in the shoulder hard enough to make him wince.
“Yes,” Malfoy said dryly. “Granger only threatened to hex me if I creased her book spines once. We’ve really broken new ground here.”
Hermione ignored him. “Come on, sit down,” she said, “I’ll put the kettle on. Do you have updates for us?” She smiled at Padma, who was still looking warily between her and Malfoy.
“Nothing definitive, unfortunately.” Harry looked exhausted. “We have some questions for both of you, though, now that the initial dust has settled. So to speak.”
Padma already had a quill hovering in midair over her department-issued notepad. Her kind eyes turned to Hermione first. “I’m going to ask the same questions of both of you. Take your time in thinking about the answers. Hermione, have you noticed anything strange the last few days? Weeks even? Anything in your routine out of the ordinary?”
Hermione thought back over the last stretch of her life. Honestly, she couldn’t think of anything out of place, aside from Pansy’s insistence that Hermione handle the Malfoy interview herself. Despite Malfoy apologizing to her long ago, Hermione had felt like it was tempting fate for her to be the person asking Malfoy questions. Their tentative peace didn’t need testing. Indeed, look what had happened when they were together.
She shook her head after another long moment. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” she said. “I went shopping in Muggle London for the first time in a while, as I was craving a Milka bar and can’t get those in Diagon Alley. But I do that with some regularity, anyway. I haven’t interviewed a subject myself in a few months, so I suppose that was a bit different, too. But neither of those things seem particularly important in light of what happened at Malfoy’s office.”
“Good for us to know, anyway,” Padma assured her. “You’d be surprised what can be important in certain cases. Same question to you, Malfoy.”
Hermione expected a similar answer to hers – nothing too strange to report – but was taken aback by his response.
“Well, aside from the anonymous letters,” – hang on, what? – “everything seemed somewhat standard. Last week we had to reset all the floo wards and permissions at Lair Investments after the security team reported what seemed to be an attempt to breach it. We’ve dealt with this before, though it’s been a long time. Given my name and reputation, I have taken my employees’ safety quite seriously from the jump.”
Neither Padma nor Harry seemed startled by these revelations, and their faces indicated they already knew what Malfoy meant by anonymous letters. Hermione hated being the only one left in the dark, but she bit her tongue. If only someone could appreciate how much effort it took her to do that.
Malfoy glanced her way, his gaze dropping to her teeth sunk into her bottom lip. She could’ve sworn he knew how hard she was working to keep herself from bursting out with questions; maybe someone did appreciate the effort, after all. It helped that she’d have plenty of time to interrogate him later.
“As suspected,” Harry murmured, exchanging a look with Padma. “This aligns with our suspicions that you, whether directly or obliquely, were the target here, Malfoy.”
“Surprise,” Malfoy said, sounding supremely unsurprised.
“That means you were either caught up by accident, or an ancillary opportunity someone saw and seized, Hermione,” said Padma, reaching for the table to take a long drink of tea.
“Malfoy,” Harry said, “is there someone who can give us access to the Lair Industries internal security from the ground up? I’d like to check for details on the defense breaches, or frankly anything else that might give us a lead.”
Malfoy nodded, a weary look crossing his face for a brief moment. “Have Theo put you in touch with Malia Thorne,” he suggested. Hermione only vaguely recognized the name. “She’s my chief of security. She was a Ravenclaw, a few years behind us. She’s young, but has an incredible knack for the job. She’ll be able to handle whatever you need.”
Padma had been taking notes as he spoke, looking pleased. “We don’t have answers yet, and I’m sorry for that,” she murmured. “I do hope you both know that the department is on it around the clock – and we’re confident we will have this handled and both of you out of here soon.”
“What a shame,” Draco said. “I haven’t had a vacation in years.” That surprised a laugh out of Padma.
“Thank you,” Hermione said, softly. “I just hope no one else gets hurt in the process.”
“We’ll be back within two days to check on you,” Padma said, rising to her feet as Harry swigged the last dregs of his tea.
“One thing,” Draco said, halting both Aurors in place. “The medication issue.”
“Ah, yes,” Padma said, exchanging a glance with Harry. “Harry mentioned, but I didn’t realize it was so urgent. You have an immediate need?”
“I’ve had to raise the dosage of my daily medication,” Draco said. “The sea air has heightened my...allergies. If you can just get the ingredients I requested here –” he handed her a piece of parchment Hermione would have eaten a shoe to be able to read “– I can continue working in the lab downstairs.”
Hermione had completely forgotten about the potions lab. How had she forgotten about the potions lab? She was so tired of her brain not working at full capacity.
Right. So. This wasn’t just a charming seaside house, after all. Wizards had built the place. It made her appreciate the architecture even more; she tended to feel that wizarding interior design left something significant to be desired.
Malfoy had already started using the lab? What was he concocting down there? Merlin, she just wanted to know things.
“Understood,” Harry said. He looked serious. It took everything in Hermione not to turn this into an interrogation of everyone else in the room. She’d get something out of Malfoy in good time, though he seemed determined to keep his secrets from her. Maybe this explained why he’d been largely avoiding her at inconvenient moments. Or, maybe, he just found her obnoxious. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
***
The sun had broken out from behind the grey wash of clouds by the time Harry and Padma left, but it was still too chilly to comfortably read in the garden, despite the fact that Hermione seemed constantly overheated and unable to regulate her temperature in the last few days. She took a fresh cup of tea out with her to warm her hands, and stood on the back porch just enjoying the smell of the sea. Draco had disappeared into the potions lab on short order, perhaps sensing his pending inquisition, but he had his peace for now. She wasn’t so rude as to press him about his medical conditions point blank, but she was nearly positive that the man downstairs did not have allergies.
The old CD stereo system tucked in a cabinet in the sitting room turned on when Hermione discovered it some time later as the last of the sun slipped from the horizon, and the enormous selection of CDs made her grin. Clearly, whomever had lived here previously had included a teenager, based on the vast majority of options - but Hermione settled on Norah Jones at last. She had never been a great teen, Muggle or witch, and she finally didn’t care one bit. Not like Draco would know she was passing over Christina Aguilera, though now that she thought about it she sort of wanted to see him listen to Ain’t No Other Man for the first time. The riffs might kill him on the spot.
The kitchen was stocked enough that Hermione decided she could make little lemon tarts, her very favorite. She lost herself in the process, swaying to the music and licking droplets of fresh squeezed lemon as they trailed down her wrists, the paper cut on her middle finger stinging fiercely.
At some point, the smell must’ve lured Malfoy from the basement. Hermione had her eyes closed, dancing in circles to a slow jam while the tarts finished baking, and when she opened them, Malfoy had one hip leaned against the kitchen island, watching her.
“Hungry?” she asked, choosing to forge straight through her mortification. The unrecognizable expression on Malfoy’s face softened into an uninhibited smile that made Hermione's knees go wobbly.
“Smells bloody unreal,” he said. “I’m starving. Didn’t know you could bake, Granger.”
“Didn’t know you could smile like that,” she whipped back, an instinctual tease in her voice, and was instantly mortified. Of all things to come out of her mouth. But Malfoy’s grin only grew wider, until he was laughing at her. And not at her joke, either, but clearly at her own astonishment with herself for making it. Actually laughing at her, no self consciousness in his gaze. She snapped her eyes down to the oven, where the tops of the tarts appeared to be just barely, perfectly set.
Hermione couldn’t shake the feeling of Malfoy’s eyes on her back as she busied herself taking the tarts out of the oven.
She knew she needed to tread carefully if she wanted to get anything out of him regarding whatever he was up to in the lab downstairs. She could do that.
“If I remember correctly,” she said, now facing the pile of dishes in the sink rather than Malfoy’s handsome face directly, “you’re quite good at chess, no?” She knew he had been decent as a child, but she was thinking more of the strange alliance that had sprung up between him and Ron of all people after their stint at the Department of Magical Games and Sports together, which involved them silently pounding expensive whiskies and playing long, intense, very well matched rounds of wizarding chess together.
“You flatter me, Granger,” he said. “Although, yes, I’m a cracking chess player. Use it to strike fear in the hearts of my enemies.”
“So childish to still refer to Ron as your enemy after all this time,” she said in a prissy tone. Malfoy’s eye roll made her smile and drop the voice. “Well, would you like to attempt to destroy me over some tea and lemon tarts, then?” she asked. “We’re having dessert for dinner, apparently.” She was pleased to hear her voice sounded about as unstrained as it ever could.
“Attempt?” Malfoy raised one imperious brow and the sight of it sent something skittering across the tender back of Hermione’s neck. “I know you’re a master of many things, Granger,” he said, “but as far as I’m aware, chess has never been one of them.” There was a resonant tone in his voice that was caressing Hermione’s skin, distracting her to the point of delaying any snappy comeback she might’ve had to his words. The way he was watching her felt intense, heavy. Palpable in her body.
After a long beat, she collected herself enough to manage a weak smile. “I prefer it when you underestimate me, Draco.”
The look on his face told her that he was just as surprised by the sound of his name rolling off her tongue as she had been. Where on earth had that come from? Even in the depths of her crush-propelled fantasies, she’d only ever called him Malfoy.
Hermione gathered herself, and when she glanced up next, his face had gone blank again. “I’ll go set up the board,” he murmured, and then moved back into the open sitting room, summoning what appeared to be his own chess set from his room upstairs. He caught it one-handed as it flew around the corner, and Hermione found her eyes catching on the broad stretch of his back once more as he flexed and bent to begin setting up. She forced herself to look away, focusing on casting a cooling spell over the tartlets so they could be eaten shortly. She’d never excelled at using magic to bake, far preferring the Muggle way of getting her hands dirty, but she wasn’t above using charms on the rest of the process.
Malfoy was indeed devastatingly good at chess. Hermione held her own for a while, even taking out one of his knights in a move that clearly took Malfoy by surprise, but by the middle of the game she could feel him steadily closing in on her. The way he studied her as she was trying to figure out her next move only made her feel flustered and hot all over. She considered knocking her king down herself and forfeiting, but the fierce voice inside of her would never allow that. Malfoy would have to win this the old fashioned way.
Just when things seemed their most dire for her chances, Hermione switched up her tactics. “Would you like any wine?” she asked. Malfoy looked startled by the question, but shook his head hesitantly.
“I think it might...interfere with my medication.” Ah, yes, Hermione had almost forgotten.
“You know that, or you just think that?” she pushed, sensing an opening. She had seen Draco nursing a whiskey enough times to feel confident in her skepticism. “I was under the impression most medicinal potions are brewed not to interfere with any other stimulants or depressants in your system. Then again, potions was the only subject you outdid me in, so what do I know.” There. That was some irresistible bait.
Malfoy was quiet for a moment, so Hermione busied herself going into the kitchen, lazily using her wand to pop the cork out of a bottle of cabernet that she had thrown into her bag during the frantic sweep of her flat before departing. It wasn’t the only bottle that had made it in, but it was one she’d been most looking forward to drinking, and one she thought Malfoy would be least likely to turn his nose up at.
Sure enough, he appeared behind her in the kitchen – still quiet – but he picked up the bottle to examine it and Hermione smirked to herself at the raise of his eyebrows. She knew it was a nice bottle, a vintage she’d been given by an interviewee after a particularly lovely afternoon of conversation for a spread in the first edition of Review.
“I suppose I’ll have a glass,” he said at last, setting the bottle down and turning to lean his long frame against the kitchen sink. “You’re right about medicinal potions, though you already knew that.” Hermione stared back at him. Yes, she had.
“I was hesitant because the brew I'm taking now is one of my own creation,” Malfoy said, lowly. “It’s based on an existing recipe, but I haven’t really tested it against alcohol when I’m dosed with it. It’s a more recent development, but not so different from the original that I think it'll be an issue. I tend to be cautious, but – I’ll have the wine.”
“Very practical,” Hermione managed, then bit her lip to contain the string of questions she was once again desperate to throw at him. She carefully poured out a healthy glass for each of them, and didn’t speak again until handing one of them to Malfoy. “I’m glad you’re taking the risk this time, though. I think you’ll enjoy it.” His long, well-formed fingers took the stem of the glass from her hand, brushing over two of her knuckles as they passed. Hermione pretended she didn't notice.
A few sips of the wine – which was, indeed, delicious – made Hermione’s limbs feel loose, her shoulders relaxing back to their pre-attack state of only moderately clenched, which was an improvement. It turned out that edging towards drunk made her a rather better chess player, much to Malfoy’s dismay. She was making moves far outside her usual oeuvre, and it appeared Malfoy was having to readjust his strategy to keep her from gaining an edge on him.
“Maybe the wine is interfering with your allergy medication after all,” she said, smiling beatifically as Malfoy’s eyes narrowed in her direction. “The tide seems to have turned.”
“Just for that,” Malfoy said, “I’m going full merciless mode.”
Hermione scoffed. Draco proceeded to put her in checkmate in three smooth, frustratingly beautiful moves.
“Bloody hell,” Hermione said in the silent aftermath of the carnage Malfoy left in his wake. “I suppose I goaded you into that.” She leaned back against the sofa and swirled her refilled wine glass around before taking a swig.
“Nah,” Malfoy said. “You just sped up the inevitable.” A corner of his mouth curled up and Hermione’s stomach dropped at the sight. He was still leaning forward, perched on the ottoman he’d pulled up to the other side of the coffee table. His gaze was warm.
Hermione didn’t exactly mean to ask, but she was comfortable and the wine had softened her tongue. “What do you think happened on Sunday?” she asked. “Who attacked us?”
Notes:
if you're bearing with me here this far, thank you! trying to edit and post as fast as i can. the good stuff is coming in just a few more chapters...
Chapter 6: The Movie
Chapter Text
Malfoy's gaze bored into her for a moment before he wiped his expression clean and calm. “I’ve already told Potter and Patil my hunch,” he said. “But it’s not the first time I’ve been harassed recently. I think it was meant for me, but whoever did it would’ve been delighted you got caught up in it.” Ah, so, it was something blood supremacy related then. The thought didn't surprise Hermione, but it did exhaust her. Malfoy ran a big hand over his face, hiding his expression from Hermione for a moment. This all seemed to be costing him something, but she wasn’t sure what.
“Someone has been coming after you?” she asked, her brain catching on that fact, remembering the anonymous letters he'd spoken of. “Have you been attacked like this before?”
“No.” Malfoy’s voice was definitive. “Only threatening letters, mostly. Several poor attempts over the years to breach both my personal vaults and the LI vaults, too. There was a dark artifact delivered to Malfoy Manor, I assume partially to harm me and partially to get the Aurors on my back, but the person who sent it didn’t realize I haven’t lived there in ages. I only maintain it for appearances and…to hold the family heirlooms I don’t want or know how to deal with.”
It came out in a bit of a rush, and Malfoy kept looking away from her gaze like he was worried it would burn him. Hermione was going to be up until 3:00 am unpacking this all.
“That’s...actually quite a lot,” she said. “I’m surprised the DMLE hasn’t been able to track this person down, given all the leads. Did they not take you seriously?”
“It took me several incidents to begin reporting,” he said, “though frankly, no, it didn’t seem worrying enough. Potter wanted to look into it personally, actually, but Robards held him back, especially as I didn’t push for it.” He paused, the muscles flexing in his jaw, and then dropped his head. “Honestly, it felt like penance to bear it by myself.”
When he looked up at Hermione again, she found herself holding her breath, though she didn’t know why. “Most of the threats have made reference to me...supporting Muggleborns in recent years,” he said, his voice heavy. “The endowments I and LI have both made into education, war reparations...it was enough to piss off some pathetic creature out there who would rather die than see any change happen. I am not so far removed from that mindset that it doesn’t feel like it’s my responsibility to bear the price of my new public stance. It is, quite literally, the bare minimum I could do.”
Hermione didn’t know what to say to that, because there were six thousand simultaneous things she wanted to say to that, so she reached for the wine bottle and refilled her glass, tilting it toward Malfoy in offering. He nodded, but stopped her after only a short pour. He gave a lazy flick of his wand and the chess pieces began putting themselves away, then unfolded himself from the ottoman he was perched on so that he could stretch out beside Hermione on the couch. He left a healthy swath of space between them, but his proximity still made her heart pound.
“I just don’t know,” he finally began again, “if whoever was sending me letters would escalate to...well, to whatever happened on Sunday. It wouldn't surprise me to know multiple people out there shared the same sentiments.”
Hermione nodded, savoring a sip of the lush wine as she considered. Her thoughts were starting to feel fuzzy around the edges. “Well,” she offered, rather more frankly than she would’ve had alcohol not blunted her tongue, “people have done far worse than bombing a mostly empty office building over those same grievances.”
Malfoy ran a hand over his face. “I know.”
“For that matter, if you hadn’t been so determined to weather this harassment alone, you might’ve stopped all of this before we ever got to this point, with other people at risk.”
One of Draco’s eyes popped open between his spread fingers. “Now, now, Granger,” he murmured, his voice velvety. “That sounds a suspicious amount like victim blaming.”
He was only teasing her – she could tell he was only teasing her – but it made her skin prickle all the same. She could feel the heat creeping up her throat as she glared back at him.
“Well,” she huffed. “Well!” Malfoy looked suspiciously like he was trying not to laugh. “I hope you told Harry and Padma everything, at least.”
“I gave them the details,” he said, easily. It didn’t escape Hermione even through the pleasant blurry edges of her brain that his answer was a bit of an artful dodge. Perhaps it was time to shake things up a bit. New strategy, once again.
“Have you ever watched a movie?” she asked, rolling her head along the back of the couch towards Malfoy.
He shook his head, looking sheepish. “Never had the chance,” he admitted. “I think I...sort of understand the concept, but I haven’t had access to many of those - screens.” He gestured vaguely towards the sizeable television to the left of the living room, which had so far sat untouched during their stay.
“Would you like to watch one with me?” she asked. “Whoever stocked this house had interesting taste, but there are a few good ones to choose from.” She got up and made her way over to the bookshelf housing a collection of DVDs. Hermione herself had been raised on VHS tapes, but she was familiar enough that she thought she could figure the system out. She certainly wasn’t going to struggle with Muggle technology in front of Draco Malfoy. Now that she thought about it, strange that someone had lived here who both watched films and brewed potions. She’d have to remember to ask Harry about it later.
“I would,” Malfoy’s voice came, closer behind her than Hermione had been expecting. She managed to keep from jumping at the sound of it, but her heart rate was suddenly slamming against her wrists in response to his proximity.
“Here,” Hermione said, sidling away so she could collect herself. “You look through all of these –” she pointed to the shelves of DVDs “- and choose whatever looks most interesting to you. I’ll get it set up, but I’m going to open another bottle of wine first.”
In the kitchen, Hermione gripped the counter and steadied herself. She certainly wasn’t a heavy drinker under usual circumstances, but she felt like this wine was hitting her differently than she was used to. Maybe it was just the unusual company. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself in front of Malfoy, but she also wasn’t ready to stop drinking. She took a deep breath and uncorked the second bottle the Muggle way. She forgot how much more satisfying it was like that.
When she made her way back around the island that separated the kitchen from the living room, Malfoy was mid stretch, his arms above his head and going a shockingly long way into the air. Hermione tore her eyes away from the gorgeous, pale expanse of him, the skin of her neck alarmingly warm. She looked around desperately for something else to focus on.
Ah, good. He’d made a movie selection.
She almost laughed when she realized which he’d chosen. “Is this your idea of irony?” she asked, unable to stop the smile unfurling across her face. Malfoy, who had finally stopped stretching, thank god, grinned back at her.
“I just thought it would give us some familiar ground to start with.”
Hermione smirked, put the wine down, and picked up 10 Things I Hate About You. One of her favorites from recent years, though she genuinely wasn’t sure what Malfoy would think of it. Maybe he’d find the whole thing confusing. Maybe he’d fall in love with Heath Ledger, like any sane person.
It wasn’t until they were 20 minutes into the film, once Malfoy had gotten out most of his burning questions (things like Are those real people? Alive people? And, in a vaguely troubled tone, Do all Muggles like to show off their belly buttons? Is it a form of communication?) that Hermione remembered, at its core, this movie was a romance. Fantastic. Irony be damned.
Nonetheless, she was lulled into the rhythms of the movie, the wine making her pleasantly sleepy. She laid her head down at one end of the sofa, stretching her legs out a bit towards Malfoy. She thought he might shoot her a look for encroaching on his space, but he only moved a pillow out of her way so her feet would have room. She wiggled her toes happily in her fuzzy blue socks.
By the end of the film, Hermione was doing her best just to keep watching the screen instead of Malfoy. He was totally engrossed, having paused only once for a bathroom break and to get a sleeve of biscuits from the kitchen for a snack.
Hermione figured her fascination came down to the fact that she’d simply never seen Malfoy experience so many different emotions. She knew he was a talented Occlumens, but it was different to realize how carefully constructed and fully encompassing the mask he wore nearly all the time must be. Sitting in the flickering light from the TV, she could actually see everything he was feeling - the concern, the worry, the triumph, the pleased, soft look on his face when everything started falling into place.
“So?” She asked, as the credits rolled up the screen.
“I...enjoyed it,” Malfoy said cautiously, sounding like he was still processing the experience.
“You don’t look certain,” Hermione noted.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Malfoy said. “I still don’t understand how a thing like that is made. But it was...quite fun. Is Muggle school really like that?”
Hermione laughed. “Well, I’m the wrong person to ask, really, but my understanding is - sort of? I think the actors - the people playing those characters in the story - are older and better looking than most students, though maybe it’s different in America. I know parties like that do happen sometimes, but I don’t think it’s the regular teenage experience.”
“I suppose we were a bit too busy dealing with a homicidal maniac to really party very hard,” Malfoy said thoughtfully. “A bit of firewhisky in the common room after winning a Quidditch match doesn’t seem to compare to all that.” He gestured vaguely to the still glowing screen.
Hermione grinned at him from across the couch. “Can you imagine a bunch of drunk teenagers regularly roaming Hogwarts? Falling off of staircases and making grand romantic declarations? Filch would’ve had an aneurysm.”
Then they were both laughing, and Hermione felt the glow of it spreading through her entire body. Far preferable to descending into the sadness that often accompanied thinking about all of the fun, normal, sweet things that had been lost during their teenage years.
She opened her eyes, wiping at the moisture in the corners, and found Malfoy was watching her. He held her gaze for a moment before looking away, and Hermione had the sense that he’d had to force himself to do so. She knew exactly what that was like. She wished, suddenly and urgently, that she knew what he was thinking. Reckless with wine and the remnants of laughter, Hermione boldly wiggled her sock-covered toes one more time, just enough to press against Malfoy’s thigh. He jumped at the contact, turning back to look at her in surprise.
“Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “Just wondering what you’re thinking over there.”
Malfoy looked at her silently for another moment before shaking his head, like he was trying to dislodge whatever thought was chasing him inside of it. “Mostly thinking that it’s bedtime for me, unfortunately. Thanks for showing me that film.”
He rose to his feet, stretching his arms above his head again. Hermione swallowed hard but didn’t stop herself from staring at the lean lines of his body, the trim of his waist visible between his jumper and the black jeans he was wearing.
“It was my pleasure to introduce you to the world of cinema,” she said, and found she meant it. “Depending on how long we’re here together, there are plenty more to watch,” she added, gesturing to the collection of DVDs lining one mahogany bookshelf.
“Thanks,” Malfoy said, fixing the hem of his jumper as he headed for the stairs. He stopped, one hand on the bannister, to turn and look back at her. “Sleep well, Granger.”
“You too, Malfoy. Hope your allergies don’t bother you.” She meant it genuinely, but something tightened around Malfoy’s eyes at the mention, and he nodded rather curtly before turning back to head upstairs. Damn it. She never knew when to stop pushing.
In her room, Hermione cracked the window open, letting the cool sea breeze sneak through, bringing a cool dampness with it. She loved that smell. She felt unusually warm, likely thanks to the wine and strange conversation, and welcomed the relief of the sea air.
Laying back on her enormous bed, the sounds of the waves crashing distantly, Hermione found herself fixated on the way Malfoy’s face had shifted while he watched the film, the broad set of his shoulders – unnecessarily broad, what the fuck was that about – the way his thighs flexed under his dark jeans…
Ah, shite. When had she even noticed his thighs? This place was a nightmare.
The room had cooled significantly, but Hermione could still feel the flush in her cheeks and across her chest. Thinking about Malfoy wasn’t helping. Fumbling for the drawer in her bedside table, which required a bit of force to open thanks to the wood warping over time, she yanked it open impatiently and nearly tipped the whole thing over in her eagerness. Mortifying, even without an audience. She needed to get a bloody grip.
Her vibrator, her trusty companion, lay inside. Was it insane to think it was taunting her? Hermione had given herself over to insanity plenty of times before.
It occurred to her, as she positioned the vibrator just where she liked it for a quick orgasm – over her underwear, just to the right of her clit – and slid her free hand up to roll over her nipples, that she was already quite wet. It also occurred to her that Malfoy was sleeping next door. The thought should’ve shriveled her up, a grape timelapsing into a raisin, but instead she shivered, her nipples pebbling and her breath coming hard.
Frankly, if he heard, he would deserve it. She hadn’t asked to be cataloguing the movement of his thigh muscles, but here she fucking was. It was his fault for having them in the first place.
With that thought in mind, it took less than two minutes for the vibrator and her traitorous brain to get her off, spectacularly so. She did it once more in quick succession thinking about Draco’s fine silvery hair between her legs, coming so hard her left calf cramped up viciously. Hermione only had energy to massage the knot out and deposit her trusty sidekick on the bedside table before she unceremoniously dropped off into a deep, sated sleep.
***
Hermione woke, bleary eyed and head pounding, sometime in the wee hours of the morning. She cast a Tempus and peered at it until the numbers swam into focus. 3:49 AM. An unholy time of day for anything other than being deeply asleep.
Her mouth was dry, but somehow tasted like a fertile compost bin. She’d brushed thoroughly before bed, ever her parents’ child, but her body had clearly betrayed her while she slept. The cup she’d filled up and chugged before bed was tragically empty.
Remembering she was a witch, Hermione cast an Aguamenti twice into the cup, draining the results after each and feeling minorly more human as a result. She went to her small bathroom to brush her teeth again, feeling real relief at the clean sensation. She headed back to her bed in the dark, her eyes adjusting until she could make out imperfections in the lumber of the ceiling above her as she lay down and tried valiantly to go back to sleep. She pictured Malfoy next door, dead to the world. She wondered if he snored, but found the idea totally incongruous with the man.
Twenty minutes later, she gave up on going back to sleep without some assistance. Clearly, water wasn’t going to do it alone. Her head hurt too much to read. She wondered if there was a Pepperup potion anywhere in the house she could nab if sleep was going to remain elusive. She'd exhausted her supply on their first day in the house.
Suddenly, she bolted upright in the bed, remembering there was an entire potions laboratory downstairs that she still hadn’t even seen yet. The events of the evening had distracted her once again. Malfoy had clearly been spending plenty of time down there, and apparently she’d been so thoroughly delighted by having uninterrupted quiet time to work through her stack of to-reads that she had yet to follow him down there and interrogate him. Now that the thought had occurred to her, Hermione’s curiosity was finally too powerful to ignore.
Chapter 7: The Lab
Chapter Text
The stairs down to the basement were musty and dark, quite unlike the rest of the house; before Hermione could cast a charm of her own, she set foot on the first step and soft lights lit the space out of nowhere. She could sense immediately that the magic was Malfoy’s. She’d never felt anything quite like it before.
She made her way down the narrow stairs, grateful for the light and soft warmth, and pushed open the door at the bottom. It gave into the pressure of her hand with a quiet click.
The laboratory was much bigger than Hermione had expected, taking up the whole open basement underneath the house. The only interruptions to the space were several weight-bearing columns leading up through the ceiling and supporting the house above. Tall tables stood parallel to one another, adorned with an impressive variety of cauldrons and heating stations. The walls were lined with jars of supplies, each lit from above with a tiny, glowing light that made it feel bizarrely like an avant-garde gallery in downtown London.
Moving slowly, Hermione began working her way around the perimeter of the room, reading labels and assessing quality. Her mind was whirring, wondering how fast she could get back down here in the morning to do some experimentation. She was done letting Malfoy hog this to himself, damn it. She still wanted a Pepperup, but the curiosity for her surroundings and her mounting excitement was already making her head feel more clear.
She had just pulled a jar of unicorn hair off the wall, stunned by their shine and abundance given the rarity of the ingredient, when a noise in the doorway made her whirl and almost drop the protective glass.
“Malfoy,” she said, her free hand flying to her chest where her heart was galloping through the sudden adrenaline rush. Malfoy’s face gave nothing away, but Hermione still felt like a naughty child caught sneaking sugar cubes from the jar. Silly, as she had as much right to be down here as he did.
Malfoy didn’t say anything, his pale eyes scanning the room and the jar in Hermione’s hand as though looking for evidence of a specific crime. She straightened her spine, lifted her chin a bit.
“Sorry if I woke you,” she offered at last, uncomfortable in the silence. “Just came down here looking for some Pepperup.”
Malfoy’s shoulders relaxed a centimeter, and Hermione wondered what he'd thought she was doing.
“You didn’t wake me, exactly,” he said at last, his voice gruff with sleep. The gravel in it sent a shiver through Hermione, and she worked hard to keep her body still. “The light charm in the stairway is dual purpose,” he said. “My wand vibrates when someone triggers it.”
Hermione had so many questions to ask him, but she couldn’t think past her immediate curiosity. “I’ve never heard of a spell that does that,” she said, eyes wide. “Did you –”
Malfoy cut her off with a nod. “It’s of my own creation,” he said. “I like to have some sense of – extra control over my surroundings.” He watched her, his pupils enormous in the low light. “I didn’t mean it as a way to spy on your movements. It’s only habit.”
She could appreciate that. She knew that Malfoy had reason to be cautious of his safety and space. He’d made enormous strides in the last years, but there were always going to be those people who would be thrilled to see him suffer - which had been clear even before a blatant attempt on his life.
“Still didn’t stop you from coming down to see what I’m doing,” she said, but she grinned at him as she spoke.
Malfoy opened his mouth, then hesitated. She saw his gaze cut over to a large cauldron on the bench furthest from where she stood, which was hovering over a low, controlled flame. “Ah,” she said. “Your mysterious potionwork.”
She moved towards the cauldron, waiting for Malfoy to stop her, but he only looked resigned. Good thing, too. They'd been dancing around this for long enough that Hermione wasn't above making a little scene if he got in her way. “May I?” she asked, gesturing toward the wooden cover over the cauldron’s mouth. He nodded, once, short and sharp.
The potion was an opaque, pearlescent color, swirling hypnotically as it bubbled. It smelled like - Hermione couldn’t put her finger on it, but the scent was strangely alluring, and reminded her of a potion she had brewed before. Something earthy and floral all at once, with notes of…
“Malfoy,” she said, her voice coming out in a whisper. “Is this what I think it is?”
He watched her, his face blank. It made him look strangely vulnerable to Hermione. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, this is personal. You don’t have to tell me.” She could feel her brain making rapid-fire connections, trying desperately to ignore the inevitable conclusion. The basement felt too close, too hot all at once. She put the lid back on, avoiding Malfoy’s eyes.
She didn’t move away from the table, aware suddenly that Malfoy stood between her and the exit. She wasn’t afraid of him - she wasn’t – but she had no idea what to do next. She was struggling not to jump to conclusions, unused to holding back from theorizing. She rubbed both hands over her face, afraid of what her expressions might be giving away.
Malfoy sighed in the doorway, and when she peeked at him, his shoulders dropped in resignation. His face was no longer blank, instead visibly showing whatever internal fight he was going through. Knowing his ironclad control, he was either letting her see it on purpose, or struggling so much it shone through. Both options were unsettling.
“I would have told you before now,” he said, “but it’s – it’s complicated. Can we go upstairs? I need a strong brew if we’re going to do this.”
Hermione had no idea what this was, but if it involved answers, she would follow Malfoy’s lead. “Okay,” she agreed softly, and moved back across the basement towards him. He broadcasted tension in every line of his body, but his impeccable manners still made him hold the door open for her and usher her through. She was excruciatingly aware of his presence behind her on the stairs.
She moved mechanically through the kitchen preparing tea, doing it the step-by-step Muggle way as a sort of soothing ritual. She tried to keep her mind blank, not lose herself in the spiral she was standing on the precipice of before Malfoy had a chance to explain himself.
He was sitting on one sofa, posture absurdly straight, his head turned to stare out into the very earliest tendrils of morning light stretching over the sea. Rather than joining him, Hermione set the mug and sugar bowl on the table next to Malfoy’s right knee and settled herself in the armchair nearby. She was tilted towards him this way, but there was space between them, and she could tuck her feet up into the chair with her. A voice inside of her was screaming that something, everything, was about to change.
Malfoy turned his pale gaze to Hermione, his head still barely moving, and she found she was holding her breath.
“I can practically hear you trying not to think too hard, Granger,” he said, a distinct note of teasing in his voice despite the rigidity in everything else about him. “Do you want to go ahead and take a guess? Posit a theory?” The glint in his eye held both an invitation and a challenge, like he wanted her to see what was happening and figure it out for herself. Like he knew she could. She liked being looked at like this, despite the precarious nature of the moment.
Hermione let out a long, slow stream of air, flexing the fingers of her right hand as she finally let her brain race through the observations it had accumulated downstairs in the lab.
“I think,” she began, turning away from Draco to face the safety of the unceasing sea outside, “that whatever you’re brewing downstairs is like a...a modified wolfsbane potion.” Her voice had dropped nearly to a whisper by the end of the sentence.
There was a long, quiet pause from the sofa. “Anything else?” Malfoy asked.
It all came out in a tumble. “Well – the smell was wrong for a typical wolfsbane potion. I assume the modifications are your own, and I would guess they involve - dittany? Strange, as it’s often used to treat bites…” She was already lost in her hypotheses, and missed the way the skin tightened around Malfoy’s eyes as he listened to her. He didn’t interrupt. “But aside from the dittany - which, I’d love to know how you incorporated that with the wolfsbane itself without negating the effects of either - I think the sheen I saw in the brew was from moonstone. Usually used for draught of peace, or love potions. What I can’t see yet is why you’ve incorporated these modifications, and I don’t know why you’re taking the potion if you aren’t…” her voice trailed off and she could feel the blood rising hotly in her cheeks as she met Malfoy’s piercing gaze once again.
He watched her for a long moment, a muscle twitching in his jaw as he clenched it. His hands were pressed together tightly between his knees, but he slowly pulled them apart and placed them carefully on top of his thighs instead.
“None of us walked away from the war unscathed,” he said at last. “I know I’m not telling you anything you’re not excruciatingly aware of.” Hermione nodded, and Malfoy smiled wryly.
“I was fucked up long before the final battle,” Malfoy started again. “But that night - well. At one point in the thick of things, upstairs in the third floor corridor, I stopped Karkaroff from killing Susan Bones. He didn’t see me, but Greyback did.” He spit the name out, his mouth contorting around the syllables.
Hermione felt an involuntary shudder roll through her, though she tried to keep her body still where she was curled in the chair. She felt cold for the first time in days.
Malfoy glanced at her face, then away again, his shoulders hunched near his ears as he looked down at his feet, steeling himself.
“I’m not...fully…a werewolf,” he said at last. “I don’t turn, though that doesn’t mean my body hasn’t shifted in other ways since.” Hermione eyed his shoulders, remembering how surprised she’d been time and time again by their breadth.
“Never fully turning means I never had to register, though. Greyback wasn’t transformed when he attacked me, and he was distracted by an explosion in the corridor before he could set into me any further. I believe I only got a miniscule bit of the venom. He probably would’ve just killed me, otherwise.” Hermione clenched her hands into fists against the thought, her nails biting into her palms. “But I do have a strange combination of compulsions and, ah, side effects now - not just the lupine fondness for meat that often accompanies a partial bite.” He laughed, an unsettling, raw sound. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say more, before clenching it shut again. Hermione watched his jaw flex as he warred with himself. He was liable to crack a tooth before they made it through this conversation.
After a long moment, Hermione realized he wasn’t going to say anything else. She had the sense he’d already told her more than he’d ever intended to.
“Thank you for telling me,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry.”
Draco’s head snapped to her, his eyes narrowed. “You’re sorry?” His laugh had a bitter edge to it. “You’re sorry. You –” he swallowed, “you have nothing to ever apologize to me for.”
Hermione felt like she was floating inside of her body, a strange sensation roiling in her gut as she watched Malfoy speak. She couldn’t shake the impulse to offer him comfort, to get up and be close to him. She wasn’t sure if he’d let her, and instead clenched her body to keep from unfolding from the chair and going to him.
“Do you have to take the potion constantly?” she asked.
“No,” Malfoy replied after a small hesitation. “Not all the time. I don’t usually present my symptoms. But if there’s any chance of them being...set off, I tend to dose myself and keep extra on hand.”
Hermione’s mind was racing. “You told Padma and Harry that you were worried about running out of your ‘allergy’ treatment. You said you were increasing the dosage. Is something in the house setting you off? Padma could have found us somewhere else…” her voice trailed off weakly as she realized Malfoy was watching her intently as she spoke.
“It’s not this particular house that is the issue, no,” he said, his voice soft. Hermione had to stop herself from squirming in the chair once again. “Unfortunately, this would’ve been difficult anywhere we went. The potions lab actually made this the most appealing possible place, as I can brew for myself. My recipe only takes a few days, unlike Wolfsbane. I know you're a smart witch, Hermione. You know what I'm saying.”
Anywhere we went. We.
“It’s me, isn’t it? Whatever your symptoms are, I set them off?” Neither of them breathed for a long moment. Hermione stared at Malfoy’s knee in the silence. She hadn't expected this revelation to make her feel sick, but the thought of Draco having to medicate himself to be around her...
“Yes,” Malfoy said at last. “Yes.” Hermione’s body felt wrong all over. “I told Potter and Patil that it might be safer to house us apart from each other. For several reasons, they told me no. Some shite about department resources and them trusting me.” He spat the word out like it was an insult.
“I don’t understand,” Hermione said. It came out as nearly a whisper.
Malfoy laughed, a low, bitter sound. “I don’t fully, either. I have a basic handle on it after several years of living with this and extensive research, plus the luck of finding excerpts of an ancestral diary that prepared me a fair bit for how my symptoms might proceed, but it’s rather...uncharted territory, on the whole.”
“It’s that rare?” Hermione asked. Her face was burning hot. “Whatever is happening to you, you’re having to navigate it...alone? You just know that I have something to do with it.”
Hermione couldn’t interpret the way he was looking at her. She didn’t stop herself from pressing the backs of her fingers to the flush of her cheeks as he stared and gave her a crisp, tiny nod. She had a sudden memory of Malfoy, two days earlier, saying the sea air has heightened my...allergies.
“You told Harry and Padma that your allergies were getting worse out here,” she said, perking up slightly with the theory in hand. “Is that what it feels like? Are you allergic to me?”
Malfoy made a strange, low sound in the back of his throat and briefly dropped his head into his hands. Hermione watched his long fingers flex and pull at the roots of his hair for only a moment before he steeled himself and met her gaze again.
“No. I don’t want you to misunderstand this. I’m not allergic to you. It’s only - a handy metaphor. To Potter and Patil, it’s just a euphemism for my symptoms.”
Hermione had so many questions, but she most wanted to know how she played into this, and what she meant to Malfoy in this new context. Well, new for her. She was strangely relieved to find him so adamant that she wasn’t his allergan, like a cat’s shed hair or some deadly legume. But was she making him ill? She found herself desperate to know how he thought about her given this new information. And maybe how he felt about the way that he thought about her. Circe.
“If it’s not an allergy, then what is it?”
Malfoy’s eyes slid to the windows, where the very earliest dawn light had begun to coalesce as they talked.
“What is it, Draco?” she asked again, and at the sound of his name, she swore she saw him shiver.
Hermione moved to untuck herself from the seat, suddenly desperate to be closer to him, to drag the last of his secret out. She was hungry to know. As she unfolded one leg, Draco’s head snapped towards her. “Wait,” he said, nearly a growl. The sound froze her in place.
“It’s - it’ll be safer for both of us if you don’t come any closer.”
“I’m not afraid of you.” She meant it.
“I’m sure that’s true,” Draco said. “But you probably should be. I can’t...risk anything until you have the full picture.” His head was back in his hands.
“Then give it to me,” Hermione said. “Please. We’ve come this far.” When Draco didn’t respond, she did move. Vague, ominous warnings be damned. She was up out of her chair and moving towards him like something was physically pulling her along.
Instead of sitting next to him, the impulse led her to kneel in front of him, determined to get him to look at her. His head was hanging low, forearms balanced on his knees as he held himself perfectly still in front of her. “Draco,” she tried again, reaching one hand out towards him.
“Don’t,” he said, nearly a whisper. Hermione’s hand froze centimeters from his black jeans. She could see the muscles in his powerful thighs jumping as he worked to keep himself still. God, those thighs.
“Do you not want me to touch you?” she asked softly. She wasn’t ready to back off, but she also wasn’t interested in intentionally violating his boundaries. Draco looked at her, finally, and the lines in his face and the intensity of his gaze were genuinely anguished. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to answer.
“You won’t hurt me,” Hermione said, surprisingly confident.
Still kneeling in front of him, Hermione watched as Draco reached out with one hand and rested his fingertips so, so gently against her cheek. The touch was faint, but it burned through her. Draco looked at his fingers and a small shiver trembled through him before he dropped his hand back to his lap.
“Not all harm is physical,” he said, voice rough. “You don’t know that I won’t.”
“Fine,” she replied, because despite all of her basest instincts, she wasn’t going to turn this into a fight. “I don’t know that. But I do believe it.”
She reached forward and deliberately placed both hands on Draco’s knees. His body was rigid, but he didn’t move to push her away.
“I can’t run,” she said, smiling a little. “However bad you think it is, I’ll have to stay here with you and deal with it.” She’d meant it as a joke, hoping to loosen him up a little, but it had the opposite effect. He still didn’t move or speak. Hermione could feel herself growing frustrated and fought to keep her voice even.
“Look, Draco,” she said. “It's clear that whatever you have going on, it’s something you never wanted me to find out. But I know something is up now, and I know it has to do with me. Don’t I deserve to know the rest, if it might affect me too? Or if there’s a way I can at least make this easier for you?” She sounded a little desperate to her own ears, but she wasn’t above begging him to tell her if that’s what it came to. She'd rather hide in her room for however long they were here than know her presence was a burden to him.
Draco’s lip curled. “Fucking Pansy,” he said, almost a snarl. Hermione jolted in surprise. Whatever she had been expecting out of him, this was not it.
“What does Parks have to do with this?”
Draco sneered again at the sound of the nickname, his lip curling in a way she hadn’t seen in a long time.
“Parks,” he spat, “stuck her nose where it didn’t belong. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Pansy. Well, at least you wouldn’t be. We wouldn’t be here together if not for her pushing you into that interview. I never wanted it to get to this point.”
Hermione almost laughed in relief. “She had no idea, Draco. I’m sorry it’s been tough to be holed up here with me, but you can’t convince me Pansy knew anything –”
“She might not have known about the attack, but I promise you, she had her own motives for getting us to…” Draco trailed off, seeming to realize how much he was giving away and biting his tongue.
“I see,” Hermione said, though she still didn’t, really.
As she knelt there, her palms burning again the fabric of Draco’s jeans, Hermione was seized with a wild surge of confidence, one that rushed through her and left her brain far behind in the dust.
“Draco,” she said, smoothing her thumb over the denim. “What would you say if I asked to kiss you?”
Draco’s head snapped up to meet her gaze. She watched, heart beating wildly, as his pupils dilated until his eyes were almost unrecognizable, the silver as slender as a new moon around the edges. She tilted her head, clearly waiting for an answer and not willing to back off now.
“I would say –” Draco had to pause to clear his throat, wiping a hand over his mouth. There were twin spots of color rising high on his cheeks, but Hermione could sense him actively gaining control back over his body and mind. “I would say that kissing me would be a terrible idea.” His voice came out with a rumble.
“Surely not,” Hermione said, feeling brave and cheeky and strangely warm. “I’ve seen you photographed kissing several people in the last few years, and all of them have survived.”
Draco made a noise halfway between frustration and mirth. “You are impossible, Granger.” He shook his head. “You aren’t going to drop this, are you?” She smiled serenely back at him, and he let out what might have been a laugh, had it sounded slightly less tortured. “God, you are infuriating. It wasn’t a bad idea for them to kiss me, Granger. But it would be for you.”
Hermione tilted her head, her mind racing as she tried to slot all the pieces of information he had let slip together in her brain. She had the itchy sensation that she was still missing something, that he was telling her everything but the most important parts and expecting her to come up with the answers on her own. She wondered if she could force his hand. She still felt hot all over and washed through with this strange, impenetrable confidence.
Reaching one hand up, Hermione ran her fingertips over the tendons of Draco’s neck: up across his jaw, still clenched, until she could cup his cheek in her palm. Rising up on her knees, between the spread of his legs, Hermione held him steady until there were scant centimeters between the tips of their noses.
Draco was unnaturally still, every line of his body honed by control. She couldn’t even feel his breath on her face, the way she was certain he could feel hers as she struggled to keep herself steady.
Hermione’s thumb smoothed across the thin, soft skin just under Draco’s left eye, watching as his eyelashes fluttered almost imperceptibly. Now that she could feel the warmth of his body under her hands and around her torso where she knelt, she was nearly possessed with the urge to keep going. Despite the tightly wound man in front of her, there wasn’t a lick of fear in her, just a burning drive to press forward.
“Last chance to stop me,” she murmured.
Chapter Text
Draco stared as she got closer, closer, closer –
Her mouth was a hairsbreadth from Draco’s when she felt his hands come down heavy on her shoulders, not hurting her, though the weight and intensity of sensation froze her in place.
“I don’t want to say no,” Draco said, his voice barely a breath. “But I can’t - I don’t think you know what you want. There are factors at play here you aren’t aware of yet - that I don’t even know the full extent of.” His fingers flexed against the skin over her shoulder blades, searing her even as his words pushed her back. “We can’t - I can’t fully touch you until I know I won’t have to stop.” Neither of them pointed out the fact that he was already touching her, the skin of his palms burning into her.
Hermione’s lower lip dropped slightly as she sucked in a breath at his words. She couldn’t focus on anything except the way Draco’s mouth was moving, barely processing the words coming out of them.
Her body was soft and pliable as Draco pushed her, gently, sitting her back on her heels and putting a modicum of space between them.
“I won’t go back to pretending this isn’t happening,” Hermione gathered herself enough to say. “You can tell me everything you know later, once we both get a little sleep, and then – let me help you research anything you don’t. I’m not asking. If we’re stuck here together, I’m not letting you hide from me. And then, when you don’t have an excuse anymore, I will expect you to touch me in all the ways you are holding yourself back from doing.” Now that she knew he wanted her, she didn’t like the idea of waiting one bit, and she certainly didn’t like being withheld from. She was so close to answers, to Draco. If this was what was needed from her…
Draco’s pupils were fathomless pools, blown wide by their proximity and Hermione’s words. She could still sense his superhuman control in action – literally superhuman, she realized – but mostly felt excited and shivery at the thought he was having to work so hard to keep himself in check because of her. If she was supposed to be scared, she was failing miserably. Mostly, she was filled with a pounding forward momentum. Later, she would find a way to drag the rest of the story out of Draco. Maybe there would be some juicy research to be done, too.
He nodded at her once, sharp and curt, still making eye contact. She was satisfied with that, enough to ease herself up from her knees, though her body protested the space between them in a new way. A prickly, cold sort of buzz rumbled through her as she forced herself to back up towards the kitchen.
The sun was nearly up by now, luminous light beginning to paint the waves in streaks of peach. She watched them roll in for a moment, transfixed, before turning to make herself a hot cup of tea. It felt silly to be going back to bed right now, but she was suddenly exhausted, and she did want to be fortified for whatever the rest of the conversation brought later today.
Hermione lay in bed, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling, for nearly another hour after she tucked herself in, long after Crookshanks had begun twitching with good dreams. Her blood felt like it was fizzing through her veins, and she kept wondering if Draco was also lying awake, one wall away from her. She was certain that he was, and nearly got up and one point to go knock on his door before wrestling herself back into submission. She pulled the lush comforter tightly around herself and forced her eyes to close. With one final adjustment - flicking her wand to open the window nearest her bed just a crack - the smell of the beach and the distant lullaby of waves lulled her into a deep but restless sleep.
***
Hermione startled awake, disoriented, strands of her hair stuck to her sweaty cheeks. She normally slept like a stone, but it was clear from the state of her sheets that she’d been tossing and turning like a small tempest.
There was a sudden burst of voices from downstairs, and Hermione realized that’s what had dragged her from sleep. Two of the people had to be Harry and Padma – if anyone else had found them, she had bigger problems coming up the stairs – but the only voice she could hear clearly was Draco’s. It was uncannily sharp and resonant in her ears, even through the floorboards and closed door. He wasn’t speaking often, but his words stood out to her each time he did.
Rolling to one side, Hermione was preparing to heave herself out of bed when she heard a creak on the stairs, indicating someone had finally grown impatient without her presence. She swung her feet to the floor and grabbed an errant hair clip from the bedside table to get her wild curls up and out of her face before a short, efficient knock sounded on the door.
“Just a minute,” she said, twisting to get the kinks out of her spine and wiping sleep from her eyes, wrinkling her nose as she felt the little crusty bits along her lash line. Having a human body was an endlessly humbling experience.
She slid her slippers on and wrapped her sweater tight around her – she’d fallen asleep in it, no wonder she’d slept so hot – and pulled the door open, ready to greet Harry and a new day.
It was not Harry.
“Draco,” she said, softly and involuntarily, his name out of her mouth before the rest of her had caught up. Her body felt suddenly...online, like every nerve was suddenly awake and ready.
Draco surveyed her with his steady gaze, sweeping over her pink cheeks and wild hair and tiny sleep shorts and the way her sweater was wrapped tightly around her body. He licked his lips, and Hermione felt a thrill run down her spine.
“Sorry to wake you,” Draco said after a long moment. “Patil and Potter are here.”
“No no,” Hermione said, waving one hand and feeling her neck flush the longer Draco stared at her. “I had to get up sometime soon, anyway. Somebody kept me up late last night.” She stepped out of the doorway and into Draco’s space, pulling the door shut behind her. She watched him brace himself as she came close, but he didn’t step away. Both of them took a deep breath, in sync, before Hermione pushed past him and started for the stairs.
Three steps down, she risked a glance over her shoulder; Draco was still in the position she’d left him, jaw clenched, staring at her closed bedroom door. The sneaking thought that she was capable of affecting him far more than she’d realized before last night made Hermione feel strangely buoyant as she floated down the rest of the staircase.
“Hi Padma,” Hermione said, stepping into the living room and finding Padma there sipping a steaming mug of tea.
“‘Lo, Hermione,” Padma said back. Her smile was warm, but Hermione didn’t miss her incredibly observant eyes cataloguing Hermione’s late waking hour and general sense of disarray. She probably had drool dried across her face, a thought that made her interaction with Draco upstairs significantly less charming and more mortifying.
“What time is it?” Hermione asked. “Sorry I was still upstairs. Couldn’t sleep last night and was making up for it this morning.”
“Half eleven.” Padma raised her eyebrows, only the slightest hint of insinuation in her smile, but it made Hermione blush regardless. She wasn’t sure where the cool confidence with which she’d been pushing Draco last night had disappeared to. She could use it now.
“We know a little something about not getting sleep,” Harry piped up from the kitchen. He had at least two days of stubble on his cheeks, which Hermione knew was proof of his words. Shaving was the first thing off of Harry’s list when he was slammed with a case.
“For a good cause, I hope,” Hermione said, moving to fix her own tea. “Any...any news for us?”
“Sort of,” Harry said with an odd grimace. “Turns out round the clock work and Padma’s keen eye caught us an unexpected lead. We’re planning a take down, but it’s going to require some convoluted set up, and we have some...feedback from a source that let us know it wouldn’t be wise to share names with you just yet.”
“It’s not like we have anyone to tell,” came Draco’s voice from the bottom of the stairs, impressively even drier than usual.
Hermione had a feeling from the uncomfortable glint in Harry’s eye and the way he rubbed the back of his head that his unnamed source was, in actual fact, Theo. Which also meant that whatever the reason for not telling them had something to do with Draco in particular. More mysteries for her to unravel. She was getting all around fed up with mysteries.
“Speak for yourself,” Hermione said. “I was planning to take an advert out in the Prophet.”
“Is putting one in your own publication not good enough for you?”
“I don’t trust Pansy not to make horrific editorial decisions on my behalf.”
Harry and Padma’s heads were swinging back and forth between the two of them, riveted by the surprise tennis match. Padma turned to look at her partner with a grin. “You owe me ten galleons, Potter.” Her face was absolutely gleeful. Harry sighed, rubbing a hand once more over his stubble. “Don’t you dare back out on me now,” Padma said, advancing across the room as though Draco and Hermione were no longer there. “You were so confident, too.”
Silently, Harry dug into the pocket of his trousers and hauled out a handful of change, from which Padma happily plucked out her winnings. Hermione glanced over at Draco, who appeared to be just as in the dark as she was.
Harry looked up and caught Hermione’s eye, and if anything he looked even more embarrassed. “I bet Padma that you’d have hexed Malfoy into next week by this point in your...stay together,” he explained. “I was indeed confident that he’d do something to set you off, and –”
“And that I wouldn’t be able to help myself? Like an absolute child?” Hermione wasn’t nearly as indignant about the whole thing as she sounded, but she couldn’t help it with Harry looking as shamefaced as he did.
“It’s not like you’d ever, say, haul off and hit me,” Draco said behind her, deadpan.
“Not like you’d ever deserve it,” Hermione snapped back without turning around.
Harry turned to Padma, his hands spread in a helpless, see why I thought that? kind of gesture. Hermione had to bite the inside of her mouth to keep from grinning. “Professional, Auror Potter,” she sniffed. A fraught beat passed before Hermione grinned at her best friend, letting him off the hook despite her genuine annoyance at the bet.
She was still hyper-aware of Draco behind her. She needed to sit down.
“So if you can’t tell us your suspicions yet, why are you here?” Hermione asked Padma, going to perch on the overstuffed blue armchair she loved so dearly. Draco was now leaning up against the wall by the bookcase of DVDs, the long lines of his body more inviting than Hermione could stand.
“Well,” Padma said with a sigh, “first, it’s a duty of care we owe you. But second, we needed to see if either of you recognize this.”
She produced a small wooden box from her pocket, which looked simple enough on the surface, but Hermione could feel the protective charms radiating from it. Sure enough, Padma tapped her wand to the surface once, twice, three times before it sprang open, revealing its insides.
The item within the box was small, surrounded by stasis spells keeping it from doing...something. Hermione couldn’t tell exactly what with the protective layers of magic, but she was certain it wasn’t good.
Malfoy drew closer next to her, and they both peered down at the object. It looked to Hermione almost like a misshapen lump of metal, one that had recently been hit with a welding torch from the way it seemed to pulse and glow with a strange firelight. She frowned, glancing sideways at Draco. His eyes were narrowed, but she still couldn’t read his face.
“I assume,” he said, “this was the explosive?”
Harry looked surprised at the guess, but Padma just looked rather pleased, like she had anticipated exactly this. “Indeed,” she said. “Excellent eye, Malfoy.”
“Did you recognize it, then?” Harry asked, drawing closer to where the three of them still had their heads bent over the glowing lump of something. Hermione could hear the carefully neutral tone he used, more to cover his excitement over the potential lead than anything to do with Malfoy himself.
“Not precisely,” Draco said, meeting Harry’s eyes calmly. “But I have seen research on something...theoretically similar. I’m sure it will shock you to know that several members of my family have had an interest in magical explosives over the years.”
Harry let out a surprised little laugh, and the corner of Padma’s mouth curled at the statement. Malfoy glanced sideways at Hermione, and she grinned at him. It was strangely fun to watch him banter with people like this. Despite seeing him around and with her friends over the last several years, Hermione had somehow missed the fact that the man had an actual sense of humor, even if it was rather dark.
“I’m sure that’s true,” Padma said. “Do you think that was a shared interest amongst the company your family kept, too?”
“What a polite way to phrase that, Patil. Frankly, I have no idea, though I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it. The company you speak of often seemed to share their worst ideas and impulses with one another. That said, I believe I have only ever seen reference to this particular sort of thing in a few old Malfoy family diaries.”
“Diaries?” Harry sounded disbelieving.
“Diaries,” Malfoy confirmed. “The Manor library had a section entirely filled with old family diaries, journals, manuscripts, that sort of thing. Though any one of them could potentially maim an unsuspecting person reading them, were they not of Malfoy blood. Nasty sort of artifacts, with far too many secrets in them to leave lying about unprotected.”
Hermione couldn’t help the inquiring noise that came out of her at the mention of Malfoy family secrets bound up in those diaries. She could only imagine how fascinating and horrific they would be. Padma and Harry looked equally intrigued, though Harry visibly tamped down on whatever snarky response was trying to claw its way from his mouth. Draco smiled serenely at Hermione, like he knew exactly how much each of them wanted to ask prying follow up questions.
She would ask those questions later. He couldn’t escape her for long.
“Well,” Harry said after a long moment, his voice suddenly sounding a bit chagrined, “we still have much of the Malfoy library contents in a holding unit at Ministry Seizures and Storage. If you can direct us where to look there, or at the Manor if needed, it would be very helpful. The explosive has been baffling us since we found it. Whoever set it off didn’t seem concerned that we might pick it up, indicating they thought we wouldn’t know what it was even if we did.”
Malfoy’s jaw clenched, and then he released a slow breath and nodded, looking past Harry and out the wide windows towards the sea. He would help them. Hermione had the urge to reach out and touch his shoulder, but tucked her fingers into her hand instead, squeezing her fist. No need to give Harry and Padma anything else to bet over.
“Well,” he said, “it’s not as though you need my permission to go through the Malfoy artifacts that the Ministry has in their possession now, but for whatever it’s worth, do be careful. The diaries should be disguised among the herbology books, which I do believe the Ministry seized.” His voice was carefully neutral.
Harry only nodded in response, but Hermione could tell he was pleased with Draco’s acquiescence.
“For what it’s worth, nothing I read ever indicated a successful creation – it was entirely theoretical.”
“Maybe you didn’t read far enough,” Padma suggested, her voice without malice. Malfoy gave her a small smile.
“Maybe I didn’t,” he said. “Ancestral journals, explosives aside, were not my favorite reading material as a boy.”
“Can we consult you if we need input on getting past protective spells or in translating the diaries?” Harry asked, rising to his feet and grabbing his scarf from the back of the sofa. “The curse-breakers should be able to handle it, but just in case.” It was still quite chilly out, despite spring’s creeping fingers and the blossoms coming on outside. Hermione felt completely detached from the rest of the world as she watched Harry prepare to re-enter it.
“Not sure I really have a choice in the matter,” Malfoy said dryly, “but yes, you can consult me. We’re always delighted to have company, Hermione and I.”
He looked across the space between the two of them, his gaze meeting Hermione’s unwaveringly, and she shivered under the weight of it. It would’ve been unthinkable, once. “Once” being approximately four days ago. But she found herself unable to do anything but nod dumbly back at Draco and hope her blush wasn’t too obvious.
Harry was a good Auror, but she was still rather confident he wouldn’t notice. Padma, on the other hand…
“Looks like we should be off,” Padma said, her canny glance sliding meaningfully between Hermione and Malfoy. She didn’t miss a beat, that one, and Hermione knew she would be hearing about this at some later point. She couldn't be bothered to care right now.
Notes:
i'm sorry. i'm sorry! posting the next chapter immediately so i'm not leaving you with this.
Chapter Text
Hermione saw Padma and Harry off through the floo, and when she turned back to the room, she found herself alone. A flash of annoyance shot through her, straightening her spine. She was certain Draco was using this distraction as a last ditch chance to avoid her, as much as that was possible when locked in a house with one other person.
Perhaps he was counting on her being too polite to go after him, but the joke was on him. Hermione really wasn’t very polite at all. Especially when she was nosing out a good case, a secret, a piece of information that she could tell was going to change everything. Plus, she really bloody wanted to kiss him.
Without thinking too hard about it, Hermione found herself heading for the cellar stairs, following a strong instinct as to Malfoy’s whereabouts. She could sort of feel his proximity to her, had a strange tingle in the back of her brain that was awake to his location. Her cheeks felt hot.
In the 20 seconds it took her to steel her resolve and cross to the cellar stairs, Harry and Padma faded so precipitously to the background of her mind that Hermione would have been hard pressed to recall the color of either of their shirts.
Draco had evaded her well, but she was tired of this game. She wanted to know. He was baiting her with the very thing that Hermione absolutely couldn’t let rest.
Malfoy didn’t turn from the cauldron he was tending to when Hermione pushed the laboratory door open on its silent hinges, but she could tell from the set of his shoulders that he was exactly as aware of her approach as she’d been of where to find him.
Hermione leaned her hip up against the table he was working at, her body angled towards Malfoy, though she left a foot or two between them. A buffer. The racing of her heart was nearly all excitement, but she wasn’t dumb enough not to be nervous about this, too.
Malfoy didn’t look at her. Hermione felt her patience wearing thin, the overeager part of her roiling just below the surface. It took everything in her not to stomp her foot.
“Am I going to have to drag this out of you?” She asked at last. “You know perfectly well how obnoxious I can be when I want to.”
Malfoy had the gall to smirk down at his mystery potion, but he was still refusing to meet her eyes. “Don’t threaten me with a good time,” he said, and Hermione grew even more irritated by the deflection.
“Is that it? Is that what you’re into? You want to make me chase you for it?” Draco’s jaw clenched, and Hermione barreled forward recklessly. At least this was getting a reaction. She just didn’t know if it was the right kind. “You could’ve just said that’s what you get off on, Draco. It would’ve saved us both a lot of time.”
Her words sat in the silence between them like a small, powerful explosive. She’d somehow sanded off all the edges they’d been dancing on and left the raw innuendo of it all sitting there for both of them to touch or to destroy.
Hermione was not good at being still. She was not particularly adept at patience, for that matter. But damn it, she was going to stay here and make him answer her.
She closed the space between them before she’d made any sort of conscious decision toward movement, her lizard brain spurring her on. Was this stupid? It was certainly reckless, and wild, and thrilling, and yes, probably incredibly stupid.
“Draco,” she said. She didn’t touch him, but her voice had the same effect on him as if she’d taken his chin in her fingers and turned it to her, a sunflower swiveling towards the light.
“This is your chance,” Hermione breathed. “I am going to kiss you. You can either tell me what you’re keeping from me now, clear your conscience once and for all. Or you can keep it buried. But I am going to kiss you.”
She watched in fascination as Malfoy battled with himself, each flitting emotion clear across the angles and planes of his face. She was aware he wasn’t hiding any of it from her, and she followed each with a growing hunger.
One thing was clear: he wanted the kiss. He maybe wanted to eat her alive, based on the crackling energy in the air. But the thing he hadn’t told her yet was torturing him, and she could feel it winning.
“Please,” he said after an anguished moment, though it took him another long beat to follow the thought with anything else. “Please come upstairs with me. I can’t….touch you, until I tell you.”
Hermione shivered involuntarily at the confirmation of his desire and the heated anguish in his words. Draco tracked the movement with dark eyes, tracing over her face and shoulders with all the force and weight as if it were a physical touch. She licked her lips, and Malfoy actually groaned, a low and feral sound. “Please,” he said again, and Hermione realized he was rooted in place, frozen, holding himself back from something. She had the sudden and urgent understanding that he was barely restraining himself in some huge way.
She couldn’t tell if she was more excited to finally have the mystery solved, or to have Malfoy snap and finally touch her. Christ – was she getting wet? No, fuck, she was already wet; she could feel it in the dampness of her knickers. Embarrassing. He hadn’t laid a finger on her yet.
She was going to have to calm herself down so she could pay attention to whatever he had to tell her. She was not about to let this moment slip through her fingers, not when Draco finally seemed ready. If hearing what he had to say was the admission price of getting him to kiss her, to know what he tasted and felt like, she was ready to pay it.
Hermione had never before wanted a person over knowledge. The sensation was terrifying, and thrilling, and somehow rather raw.
Malfoy was still watching her with a strained, hungry gaze, and Hermione realized he wasn’t going to move until she did. Tilting her chin up, feeling brave, she nodded at him. “Let’s go upstairs, then,” she agreed. Draco visibly relaxed, just enough to make the pinched look around his eyes disappear. Hermione turned and led him up the stairs, conscious of his presence just a few steps behind her. She hoped her arse looked nice.
“Your place or mine?” she asked at the top of the staircase. Both of their closed doors loomed ahead of her, and she felt suddenly cowed by the intimacy of being behind one of them with Draco. She wanted it desperately, and wanted to run from it just as much.
Draco moved past her wordlessly, pushing open the door to the room he’d been staying in, and Hermione realized she hadn’t fully seen it before. It was a mirror image of her own, with a set of enormous windows and a small bathroom on the opposite wall to the one they shared. The only significant differences were the overstuffed floral loveseat next to the bureau and the smell of Draco’s cologne in the air. At least, she assumed it was his cologne. She couldn’t identify the scent, but it made her mouth water.
“Please, sit,” Draco said. His jaw was tight as he gestured at the loveseat. As the other options were to remain standing in the middle of the room or perch on Malfoy’s bed, she did as he requested without comment. Her pulse was thrumming in her throat.
Malfoy stood, gripping one of the gleaming wooden posters at the corner of the bed frame. He met Hermione’s eyes, glanced down at her mouth, and tore his gaze away from her entirely. She wondered if he was going to be able to make himself speak at all.
“I already know the worst of it, Draco,” Hermione said softly. Something in her longed to put him at ease. His eyes flashed as his head snapped up, and she couldn’t tell whether it was in reaction to what she’d said, or the use of his first name. She still hadn’t said it out loud many times.
He laughed bitterly. “You have no idea, Granger.”
“Then tell me, Malfoy. We’ve gotten this far already, and I’m not going to let this go. You know as well as anyone just how obnoxiously stubborn I can be.”
Draco breathed in and out three times, his broad chest expanding and collapsing as Hermione watched him. Finally, he spoke. His voice was low, and rough, and whatever Hermione had been expecting, it wasn’t this.
“What do you know about werewolf mates?”
***
In truth, Hermione knew rather little. She’d read about magical creature mates before, of course – the concept applied not just to werewolves, but also to merpeople and veela – but the whole idea of it had seemed far-fetched and strange, something she would certainly never have to deal with herself. It was a biological process that had nothing to do with her own anatomy, nor, had she thought, of anyone she knew. She’d skimmed the available research on creatures fated together, their lives and wellbeing bound to one another by a kind of strange and ancient magic that wasn’t reproducible by any spell or potion. Her brain scrambled to compile the bits of knowledge she’d filed away somewhere.
Malfoy watched her face intently as Hermione cataloged her thoughts, and she realized after several long, silent moments that he was still waiting for a response. She tucked a stray curl behind her ear and blew out a breath.
“Werewolf mates are understood to be both a biological and magical phenomenon, occurring in several other magical creatures with slight variations. If a werewolf makes it to their eighteenth birthday, or are of age when they’re bitten, they will usually find themselves drawn powerfully and inescapably to one person, werewolf, or other creature, though cross-creature mates are vanishingly rare. Werewolves are driven to find and protect their mate, a drive that can be ruinously strong, even more intense than the need to eat.
Full werewolves, when lucky enough to find their mate, seal the magical bond with a bite, fitting for their species. There is some speculation that there are antibodies in the saliva of werewolves that “mark” their mates after a bite, signaling to others that they have been bonded and, rather primitively, claimed. After a bite, werewolves and their mates can often sense each other's emotions, and may find separation painful. Not much is understood about how the magic of the bond works, and needless to say even less about the science, due to stigma against both the creatures themselves and Muggle science.”
She paused for a breath, but Malfoy’s gaze urged her onward.
“Those who do not find their mate often end up wasting away and may even die far sooner than their fellow werewolves. Though the bond is poorly understood, it is generally agreed that it binds mates together in practical and emotional ways, including securing their welfare to each other. Werewolves are extremely protective and possessive of their mates, and there are several recorded incidents of accident and death when someone has accidentally gotten in the way of or threatened a mate. These incidents have only exacerbated the werewolves’ dangerous reputations amongst wizards and witches.”
Hermione paused her monologue to take another deep breath, her cheeks flushing as she realized she’d been practically reciting a textbook entry like they were back in Professor McGonagall’s classroom. Malfoy was watching her intently, his body still tense but his eyes soft.
“I suppose I don’t know anything about...how it works when someone has been bitten but not fully turned.” It wasn’t a question, but she paused afterward, looking to Draco with a silent plea for him to fill in the rest. They’d come up here for him to explain things to her, not for Hermione to show off her recall. Not that she minded the chance.
“Largely the same way, it seems,” Draco finally said, “though most of the impulses are milder.” He was looking at his socks, now, avoiding eye contact. The socks were blue argyle, which somehow surprised Hermione. She’d never paid attention to them before. It seemed a rather...creative choice for Malfoy.
The way he was avoiding her eyes, the words he said, the explanation she’d given – it was catching up to her all at once as they both stared at his socks.
Hermione half rose off the love seat, the connections firing in her brain propelling her into motion, though there was nowhere to go. “Draco,” she said, and her voice was jagged with all the questions she couldn’t ask. She sank back down to sit.
Malfoy looked at her again, and Hermione could swear she felt it. She felt the weight of his eyes. She felt the tension shimmering between them in the air so palpably, she didn’t understand how she hadn’t noticed it there before.
“Do you….do you think it’s me?” she asked at last, barely loud enough to be heard. Draco’s face contorted into a bitter, ironic sort of smile, confirming he’d heard it. Hermione didn’t like the expression one bit.
“I wish it was that nebulous,” Malfoy said through his teeth. “Unfortunately, I don’t think anything. I know it. I have spent four years avoiding being in the same place as you for too long, on the off chance I can’t control myself. Four years medicating these impulses and desires into submission, just to go about my daily life in spaces you might occupy, too. Just to manage not to think about you for more than ten minutes at a time.”
Despite the insanity and intensity of what he was saying, Draco’s words were sending strange, euphoric shudders down Hermione’s spine. She felt...disbelief, mostly, but also a thrill from deep in her belly.
“You’ve never told me.”
Draco laughed, flatly. “No, Granger, I haven’t. Can you imagine how that might’ve gone? Me cornering you near the loo at the Leaky, telling you I can’t live without you? Hell, I came near enough that night I apologized. Kissing you and triggering a biological response in you that will bind you to me forever, whether you had any real interest in me or not? Chaining you to your childhood bully?”
“Is that how it works?” she asked, honing in on the practical parts of what he’d said and ignoring the rest. “That if you kiss me, it’ll trigger something in me, too?”
“It’s not like I have a lot of primary sources on how this works,” Draco said, sighing deeply, “but from my personal research, yes. And then, it won’t matter how you thought or felt about me before. You’ll be trapped with me, and it’ll feel real to you. I can’t be responsible for that. I can’t know that I...feel the way that I do, and that you’ve been coerced into the same feeling by magic. Hell, it might be affecting you already, and that’s why you wanted to kiss me downstairs.”
“You raise an interesting point,” Hermione said, her heart thumping. “Do you have any idea how I thought or felt about you before we were locked in this house together?”
Draco tilted his head to one side and considered the question. Hermione could feel her heartbeat in her throat. She was hot all over, her adrenaline racing too hard given she was still sitting on the loveseat, hands clasped in front of her. Malfoy looked so tall from this perspective, his shoulders wide and his forearms flexing as he clenched his fingers against his palms.
“I suppose I don’t,” he said, “beyond the fact that I was your childhood tormentor and we have never really been...friends, as adults. Even though I have become friendly with Potter, and others.” Others was a very funny way to refer to the multiple Weasleys with whom Draco regularly spent time these days.
“That’s all true,” Hermione said. “But you’re missing some key information. Namely, that part of the reason we haven’t been friends is because I was avoiding you, too.”
Draco’s face, which he’d been holding remarkably blank, fell. Hermione couldn’t help laughing a little hysterically. This was all so unbelievably strange.
“I was avoiding you because I had a massive, insufferable crush on you, and I couldn’t handle being in the same place as you or it would do me in. Frankly, I was fairly certain you would laugh me out of the room if you ever found out.”
That was clearly not what Draco had been expecting. His mouth fell open, just enough that Hermione could see a glistening sliver of his tongue, and she shivered. It was nice to be surprising him, for a change.
“You can’t mean that,” he said, an almost frantic edge to his voice. “Maybe I – maybe the magic has been working on you already. Maybe I already crossed a line and –”
Hermione stood, closing the gulf of space between her body and Draco’s. She didn’t touch him, but he reacted to the movement as if she had. Everything in him flexed, relaxed, flexed again. She could tell he was struggling to regulate his breathing.
“Remember how angry you were with Pansy for pushing us both into the interview?” Malfoy looked startled at the change in trajectory, but he nodded. Hermione steeled herself. “Well, honestly, I could’ve strangled her over the same thing. She’s the only person in the world who had some sense of how I’ve felt about you for the last few years, and she’s been scheming her little snakey schemes to get us in the same place at the same time with no distractions as long as she’s known about it. I made her swear under some very serious charms that she wouldn’t ever mention it to you.”
Draco laughed, a choked sort of sound. “I did the same,” he said. He was watching Hermione’s mouth again. She licked her lips, nervous, and Draco swallowed audibly.
“I’m not pretending this isn’t serious,” Hermione said. “I’m not pretending I don’t have some real qualms about soul-binding magic,” her eyelashes fluttered as she took a deep breath. “I just don’t think I’m strong enough not to see this through. I’ve wanted you for too long.”
“I would be more concerned if you didn’t have qualms. But you are bloody strong enough,” Draco said, a surprising bite to the words. “You are. You don’t need me.”
Hermione couldn’t help it. She grinned, an enormous smile breaking out across her face. “Draco,” she said, “are you really trying to talk me out of this?”
“Yes,” he said instantly. Then: “No. Circe. I don’t know. You deserve better than to be magically bound to me with no say in the matter for the rest of your life.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, his eyes falling shut for just a moment as he did so.
Hermione scoffed, quietly. “For someone so convinced of my strength, you seem oddly certain that I regularly just let things happen to me that I don’t want to happen.”
Draco, to her surprise, growled a little. The sound hit her somewhere deep in her belly, made her already heated skin pulse a little hotter. “You are being deliberately obtuse, witch. I don’t even know the full extent of what might happen to us if we set this in motion. We might...it might be painful to be apart from each other. I might turn into a possessive, hulking presence in your life whom you only want to escape from. You might even…” his voice dropped to a low rumble, “...you might experience heats.”
Hermione, who only had the faintest familiarity with the concept, felt a shiver run through her entire body as Draco almost spat the word. It seemed hard to believe her body temperature could rise any more than it already was, but perhaps it was an indication that the metaphorical “this” Draco had alluded to was already in motion.
But! Cried a small voice at the back of Hermione’s brain; the voice of reason, and fear, and immense practicality. But!
But what? Hermione thought, surprisingly calm. The little voice stayed silent after that, though Hermione knew what it was and why it was there. This was absurd, and crazy, and a little unhinged, and possibly dangerous. She found the thought of all those adjectives only made her want it more. Movement. Momentum. Forward into the next adventure. A shiver of anticipation down her spine.
Plus, she desperately wanted to taste Malfoy.
Hermione wasn’t one to believe in fate, but she had an unshakeable sensation that she was currently plowing face-first into hers.
Leaning as far into the warmth of Malfoy’s body as she could without actually stepping forward and touching him, Hermione took a deep breath. “I started dreaming about you the night after you apologized to me in the Leaky. The only reprimand I’ve ever gotten at work was when I missed a paperwork deadline because I was so distracted thinking about the way you’d touched my shoulder when saying goodbye at Pansy’s dinner party the evening before. Here, in this house, I’ve already gotten myself off three times, just from knowing you were on the other side of the wall.”
Draco’s mouth dropped open the slightest bit, and Hermione could hear his sharp intake of breath at her admission. His nostrils flared, and he flexed his fists at his sides.
Hermione was too hot all over to even feel her blush anymore.
“Are you certain?” Draco asked. His voice was barely louder than a whisper, but it filled the air between them with both his wild want and his hesitancy.
“I’m not certain of anything,” Hermione said, because it was the truth, and she wasn’t interested in lying to him. “Except that walking away from this right now isn’t an option for either of us. But the fact that you are giving me the chance to anyway makes me feel...honestly, it makes me feel safe. I think I am safe with you, and that’s all I really care about.”
She could tell her words pleased him, though he still looked troubled and wary. A very handsome troubled and wary.
“We are quarantined together right now, but we won’t be forever, assuming Potter and his lot do their jobs. There’s a whole world out there who will care very deeply if you do tie yourself to me. The explosion may have been just a taste of what’s waiting out there if we push this.”
“I don’t care,” Hermione said, as surprised by the conviction in her voice as Draco looked. “I don’t care. The whole world doesn’t get a say in my life. You are a grown man who has worked tirelessly on making amends for your childhood wherever possible. You’re going to keep doing that, because you believe it’s important.” She was equally surprised how much she believed this. She felt indignant at the reality that anyone didn’t. They had been kids. She wasn’t the same person she’d been when the people meant to protect her and Harry and the rest of them had instead thrust them into the middle of a decades-old war, and neither was Draco.
“Had we not ended up at the center of a potential attempt on your life, I would be getting ready to publish you on the front cover of my magazine, alongside an interview about all you’ve done for the wizarding world. Harry Potter himself has dinner with you at least once every few months. No one else gets to decide what I do or whom I associate myself with. You should’ve known better, Draco. Bringing up the rest of the world only makes me want to show you off to them. Circe.”
She was nearly panting by the time she spit out the last word.
Draco smiled. The sight of it hit Hermione right in the chest. It was a small smile, the fine lines around his eyes still tight, but it was real.
He reached out with one hand, so slowly that Hermione could’ve stopped him had she been idiotic enough to want such a thing. Instead, she held herself still, so still, watching Draco’s face and meeting his eyes as he ran the knuckles of his first two fingers gently down the side of her cheek.
It was like her body was suddenly made of live wires, the electricity sparking through her blood and crackling across her skin from the feel of Draco’s hand against her face. She gasped, a tiny intake of air.
“This isn’t something to take lightly,” he murmured, his face serious even as he watched her closely, his hand still on her. “There are biological changes I’ve dealt with. When two werewolves are mates, there are – particularities. Significant changes, sometimes. I’ve only been able to find a bit of material on the subject, but my understanding is that some of those changes might be induced in you, even though you’re entirely human. The curse of being my mate.” He looked faintly embarrassed, perhaps at the admission he had researched what might happen to her should they ever get to this point.
“There’s reading out there on the subject?” Hermione asked. Draco nodded.
“Only a bit. I got lucky that the Malfoy collection has some unusual texts.”
“Well, so long as I can read those later, I’ve decided I don’t care,” Hermione said, and found she meant it. She wasn’t going to back off from this now. She wasn’t sure she could. Regardless of whatever changes it was going to evoke in her. She felt very strongly that whatever Malfoy was referring to, he would never walk her into harm's way.
“There’s no undoing this,” he murmured.
“Good,” Hermione said, and before Draco could blink, she surged up onto her toes and kissed him.
Notes:
we did it, kids. slowest burn i've ever written, but if you made it this far, everything is fully on fire.
Chapter 10: The Inevitable
Chapter Text
The kiss was like nothing Hermione had ever felt before. Her mouth met Draco’s and her blood surged through her, a wildfire racing down every nerve and through her belly. Magic, came a hazy thought, swimming through the live currents lighting up every synapse in her brain.
Her hands went off on an adventure of their own, the left sliding around Draco’s body and up underneath his jumper, greedy for the feel of his skin under the pulsing tips of her fingers. The right found itself entwined in the soft hairs at the back of his neck. Draco didn’t hesitate to return the touch, his broad hands sweeping over her hair, across her collarbones, ghosting along the sides of her breasts and then hauling her into the solid heat of him. His tongue flicked against her mouth and Hermione’s lips parted so easily for him, desperate to have any piece of him he would give her. Her heartbeat was pounding a frantic rhythm in her ears.
Before Hermione even registered that they were on the move, Draco had her pressed up against the door to his bathroom. Her toes were barely making contact with the ground, her body suspended between the wood and the hard planes of Malfoy’s body.
She wriggled experimentally, and Draco groaned into her mouth and reached down to haul Hermione’s legs up around his waist, pinning her back into the door once she was situated and tilting her head just-so, giving himself better access to run his tongue along her gums, flick it over the tops of her teeth, bite gently at the sensitive junction of her throat and jaw. Hermione had never been so aware of that particular part of her body before, but now it throbbed with a hot intensity, and the feel of Draco’s teeth ghosting over it made her suddenly aware of how maddeningly wet she was.
Not to mention, the new angle put her in direct contact with his cock, the dimensions of which seemed logistically impossible as she squirmed against him, hard and insistent behind the zip on his expensive trousers.
“Draco,” Hermione gasped, burying her face in his neck as he bucked into her, the pressure too much and not nearly enough. She was trying to communicate a much bigger sentiment – something along the lines of you smell so bloody good, fuck, I can’t believe how big your cock feels, what is happening to me, I’m so hot – and Draco seemed to understand all of it.
“Yes,” he agreed, kissing over her eyebrow, reaching up to tangle her hair in his fist and pull it off the back of her neck. It cooled her down for one blessed second before Hermione was squirming in his arms again, her clit rubbing against him through their absurdly-too-many layers of clothes. She was mortified by how wet she was, wanting to hide her face against him, but Draco wasn’t letting her shy away from him. Every time she tried, he was back at her mouth, devouring her whole.
“I’ve been hard around you for years,” Draco growled in her ear. “Like a bloody pervert who couldn’t control himself. Just the smell of you. The sight of a curl against your cheekbone.”
Hermione whimpered at the thought. “I could never tell,” she gasped out, writhing as Draco licked up her throat, sucked on her earlobe. “You hid it so well.”
“I have become rather adept at masking glamours,” he said, and tugged on Hermione’s hair until her head tilted back and bared her flushed face to him, mouth open.
“That seems like an understatement,” Hermione gasped out before she could stop herself. Trapped against him, all of their clothes still on, she was only beginning to understand that Draco Malfoy had an enormous cock. Draco smirked at her, his fingers flexed against her hair and her side as she writhed.
“Cheeky,” he said. “I’m sure I’ve no idea what you’re referring to.” He bucked his hips again, making it clear he knew exactly what she meant, and lowered his head to trail wet kisses along her collarbones. The hand not still tangled in her curls was teasing her nipple through her jumper with the pads of his fingers.
“All those beautiful women weren’t enough to keep you sated?” Hermione asked, breathless, before she could think to stop herself. Now that she was in his arms, surrounded by him and his scent, it was an inopportune time to be having flashes of Malfoy on the front page of the Prophet with gorgeous, long-legged beauties on his arm.
Draco's hand drifted down Hermione’s side to grasp at her thigh, the lush skin of her legs welcoming the squeeze of his fingers. She was so very wet, more so than she could ever remember being in her life. If Draco didn’t get her out of her jeans soon, she was going to be mortified by the damp spot.
“There were no beautiful women,” Draco said as his fingers gripped at her. He still had her head controlled by his grasp on her hair, and he used the leverage to look her in the eye as he said this, quelling her instinctual response. “They weren’t even distractions." He added, before Hermione could scoff. "They were attempts at distractions. I tried, in the beginning, but starting several years ago I never even took them home. My hot dates ended with me, alone in my bedroom, thinking of you with my cock in my hand.”
Hermione, to her horror, mewled. It was a choked, high-pitched sound, her blood rushing in her ears as she was assaulted by the thought of Malfoy, his long fingers and broad palms stroking himself with Hermione’s name on his lips. She wanted to see that.
“I want to see that,” she gasped out, and Malfoy chuckled darkly and kissed her hard, letting her lower lip slip through the gauntlet of his teeth in a way that made her legs tighten hard against his hips.
“Someday, I’ll show you,” he assured her. Before she could pout at the implied time and distance between this moment and whenever someday might be, he added, “But today, the only person I want to be touching is you. The next time I come, it’s going to be inside of you.”
He said it as a fact, not a question, and Hermione couldn’t stand how hot it was. She wanted that, urgently. She couldn’t believe that while she’d been out exploring her sexuality with a good handful of their peers, Draco’d been biding his time and pining for her. It was enough to give a girl a complex.
Draco pulled away from the door, though not away from her; his hands suddenly under her arse and fingers taut against her as he spun them both towards the bed. His bed. The bed Hermione had imagined him sleeping in for the last few nights, painfully close to her while still impossibly far away.
He laid her down, parallel to the carefully fluffed pillows – Hermione was oddly thrilled by the idea of him making his bed after getting up in the morning – and leaned over her until he was pressed fully against her, his face buried in her neck.
“You’ve always smelled impossibly good to me,” he murmured, pulling his face away from where he was biting her shoulder to look her in the eyes and kiss her hungrily. “But now I can smell all of you, and it’s intoxicating. I can’t think straight.”
“All of me?”
His eyes were dark. “All of you. For instance, I haven’t even gotten you out of your kit, yet I know exactly how wet you are.”
She shivered, violently. It should’ve sounded crude, but it only made her gush again. She wasn’t going to be able to deal with the state her knickers were in if she thought any harder about it.
Draco’s body was hard and hot on top of hers, but Hermione was suddenly conscious of the fact that the scorching feeling intensifying inside of her was due to more than just being ridiculously turned on. As a matter of fact, she’d been feeling too warm for days, despite her temperature appearing to stay the same whenever she checked it. Hadn't Draco mentioned something about...heats?
“Draco,” she murmured. “Is one of those possible biological changes you mentioned earlier...being incredibly warm? My whole body feels like it’s overheating, though the rest of me feels entirely fine. It’s quite curious, actually, and not really like a fever at all –” her rambling question was cut off when Draco raised his head from where he’d returned to kissing her neck, dislodging Hermione’s hand from its place in the soft hair at the back of his scalp. His face had gone pale.
“It is a symptom,” he said, pressing the back of his hand to her forehead and grimacing a little. “But it’s usually a symptom of an omega.” He looked away suddenly, not meeting her eyes, then glanced back at her raised brow. She waited him out, her curiosity burning almost as intensely as her body.
“There are several biological ways a werewolf can present,” he said, rolling off of her and speaking to the ceiling, though their shoulders were still pressed together. Looking down the length of their bodies, Hermione could see he was still desperately hard.
“Betas are the standard. They can mate with anyone, and they...their bodies function much as any human being’s, aside from the physical enhancements. Then there are alphas, who tend to grow rather large in all aspects, and can really only properly mate with omegas. There are...other things that happen while mating, specifically with omegas. Omegas tend to the submissive side when it comes to the presence of alphas. I struggle with this part, quite honestly. Something to do with pheromones and the drive to reproduce.” He cleared his throat a bit awkwardly and turned his molten eyes on hers, serious. He reached over to run one knuckle across her cheekbone.
She couldn’t help the way her eyes fluttered closed at the touch.
“You know I don’t turn,” Draco said. “But I tend toward alpha in most other things. I’ve never slept with an omega; I have only ever come into contact with a few when I wasn’t on my suppressants, and I despised how out of control it made me feel. Omegas...they have a near compulsion to submit to alphas, from what I understand, particularly when they go into heat. It’s like a...gods, I would so much rather just show you a book on all this.” He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes.
Hermione couldn’t help but laugh, rolling up onto one elbow so she could move his hands out of the way and kiss Draco soundly. She’d never heard him speak so much at once as he had today, and as bizarre as the entire situation was, she found herself enormously grateful he was doing so. She pulled back, ready to let him off the hook a bit.
“I suppose this ‘heat’ has something to do with my strange non-fever fever and how embarrassingly wet I am, then?”
“Yes,” Draco said, “though for the record, I find the whole concept of that incredibly hot. But – you weren’t bitten. I've been worried you'd present symptoms, but it didn't occur to me they could be that advanced, this early. I knew my suppressants didn’t work as well with you once I realized you were my mate, and that too much time near you would likely eventually push me into rut – the alpha answer to a heat. It all really just boils down to the imperative to bear children.”
Hermione never thought she’d see the day that Draco Malfoy full-out blushed. She didn’t even know where to begin thinking about a biological drive to create a child with Malfoy, except that it made something deep in her belly rear its feral head. She was going to roll right on past that for now.
“That’s it, though, Draco,” she said softly. “If I’m your mate, this has to go both ways. Now that we’ve opened this connection, I have to meet you where you are. The magic knows that, I imagine.”
If she didn’t know better, she might’ve thought Draco was about to cry. Instead he surged up, rolling her onto her back and kissing her so deeply and thoroughly that she writhed beneath him. She managed to get her legs up and around Draco’s hips, nearly sobbing with relief at the insane press of his cock against her clit through their trousers. The fire was raging in her once again, and she was desperate to be out of her clothing.
“I’m still on my suppressants, obviously,” Draco said in between gentle nips to Hermione's shoulder where her jumper had been tugged to one side enough to grant him access. “Though I don’t think that’ll make much difference now. Aside from keeping me from a full rut, I hope.”
Hermione rolled her hips against Draco’s, barely holding back a whimper as he licked a long stripe up her neck and slid his tongue into her mouth. “I want a full rut,” she heard herself saying against his lips, and he laughed disbelievingly.
“You don’t even know what that is, Hermione. Depending on how your body reacted, we might be up here for days. Fucking.” This time, Hermione did whimper. Her hands, running over the muscled planes of Draco’s body through his expensive jumper, curled into fists around the fabric. Draco stopped her before she could protest again with a soft kiss to her plush lower lip. “You may want that, pet, and I want to give it to you. Believe me. But I know you don’t want Potter to come and find you like this.”
It was indeed a sobering thought. Hermione met Draco’s eyes and pouted a bit, but she didn’t disagree.
“Fine, we’ll wait for that until the investigation is closed and you can safely stop taking your potion,” she said. “As long as you’re still going to fuck me, now?” She would no longer be negotiating on this front.
Draco sucked in a breath, clenched his jaw twice, the muscles shifting in his beautiful face as he worked for control. “I’m still going to fuck you now,” he agreed, sliding his left hand underneath Hermione’s jumper and making her bare skin sing. “Can’t believe this is real. Can’t believe you’re real,” he added, then slid down her body to kiss the skin revealed above her waistband.
Draco’s mouth was everywhere across her soft, sensitive belly, licking and kissing and murmuring sweet nothings against her that made Hermione squirm and blush. Never going to stop touching you, can't wait to make you come for me, want to feel you clenching around me, you perfect creature, he murmured, driving her mad as his breath ghosted over her. She could feel her curls beginning to stick to her neck and forehead as her skin dampened from sweat.
“Off,” she finally managed, trying to give Draco some direction as she pushed uselessly at the sides of her denims. Misunderstanding her, Draco pulled his body back a few inches, pausing when Hermione whimpered. “My clothes,” she clarified. “Don’t you dare stop touching me.”
Draco grinned down at her, something canine and feral in the curl of his mouth. The sight of it burned through Hermione, and she raised her hips impatiently to help him in the pursuit of peeling the material off of her.
As Draco pulled her trousers and knickers off of her legs – currently soft and glowing from her obsessive moisturizing routine – she easily heeded the pressure of his hands and let her knees fall open. The cool air of the room was a shock to her newly exposed cunt, but all she could bring herself to do was open her hips even further under Draco’s gaze and rock into it. She felt exposed, vulnerable in an exhilarating way.
Draco licked his lips. His eyes burned into her, over her belly where her jumper was pushed up, down her legs, back up to where she was actually dripping onto his duvet. He pressed his palm hard against the placket of his trousers, trying to keep himself in check. Hermione wanted him to feel as out of control as she currently did.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked, surprised to hear the whine in her voice. “Please, Draco,” she tried again. He watched her from the side of the bed where he’d moved to half-kneel, half-stand for leverage as he undressed her, his eyes molten.
“I can’t believe you’re really here, in my bed,” he said, voice thick.
Hermione reached a hand up toward him, resting it on the thin, soft cashmere of his jumper. The material felt buttery and expensive under her fingertips. She flexed them against him, feeling the muscles of his stomach ripple beneath her touch. She wanted to feel his bare skin. Needed to.
“I’m not going anywhere, Draco,” she said. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t.” She grinned ruefully at him.
“Please touch me,” she tried again, when that didn't seem to work. “It doesn’t matter how this first time goes. You can't scare me off. I am going to want you again and again.”
She had no idea what she was talking about – her brain was no longer vetting things before they left her mouth – but the inferno inside of her body told her her instincts were absolutely correct. She was never going to get enough of him.
Before she could even inhale fully, Draco had moved. It was hard to process: one blink and his mouth was once again dragging across the soft expense of her belly. Hermione could only register through the increasing fog in her brain that he perhaps had a few side-effects from the bite she had yet to discover. That, or time was moving very strangely for her in this particular moment.
Her thighs were wet enough to feel cool in the air of Draco’s room, making her shiver through the strange heat still mounting inside of her. Draco was inhaling deeply through his nose as he licked his way across her skin, pausing to breathe as he adjusted himself until he was knelt on the floor between her spread legs and face-to-face with her cunt.
“Divine,” Draco said. “I want to eat you alive.”
There was an edge to his voice, a real hunger for her that unlocked something primal and wild that had been harbored within her ribcage, waiting for a chance to escape. She wondered how long it had been living in there, dormant, ready to transform her from the inside.
“Draco,” Hermione said. “I need you.” Her voice came out in a rasp.
Between her thighs, Draco breathed deeply once more, made a low noise in the back of his throat that vibrated right through the middle of her, and leaned in to lick Hermione open.
His mouth made her feel insane – hot, consuming, everywhere at once as his strong hands held her legs widely apart for his easy access to where she was dripping onto his sheets. She could feel her pulse in her cunt as Draco’s tongue teased her, dipped inside of her, rolled flat and hard over her swollen clit. He teased her mercilessly, backing off entirely before lathing the flat of his tongue from her pussy to her clit and sinking one long finger into her.
Hermione couldn’t speak for a few heavy moments, the feel of Draco all around her and the pressure of his fingertips and tongue rendering her speechless below him. She squirmed, bucking her hips against him and gasping loudly enough that it made him look up from her pussy and grin at her, his chin glistening a little with her slick. He was giving her just enough to drive her mad and nothing more, the bastard. She worked for leverage, trying to get him to fuck her with his fingers, but he only lazily pressed against a soft spot inside of her that made her want to turn inside out. One finger turned into two as he used the very tip of his tongue to play a horrible, wonderful game of avoid-the-clit, making her writhe as she tried to get him where she needed him. Hermione could hear her choked little noises and the slick sounds of Draco's fingers in her as if from a long way away, her blood pounding in her ears.
“Malfoy,” she bit out, relieved to hear her voice forming an actual word, though it required immense effort to collect her brain cells. “You can torture me later. Please. Please, I need you to be inside of me. Please.” Her voice, embarrassingly, broke on a sob.
Draco was above her in an instant, his arms bracketing her head and gathering her hair away from her face. He blew along her hairline, cooling her down enough that she could breathe again, and then he kissed her, so incredibly softly.
“Yes,” he said in between kisses. “Yes, darling. I’m sorry to make you wait. I just need you to be ready for me.”
Hermione sighed, shivering with delight as Draco sat back, licked once more over the swell of her clit, and then straightened up to peel his jumper off. “You’ve been waiting longer than I have, though not by much,” she murmured. Draco paused in unzipping his flies to look at her intently; she grinned at him, absently sliding one hand under her jumper to play with her hardened nipples as she did so. She felt emboldened by the intensity of Draco’s gaze on her.
“You heard me,” she said. “I’ve been waiting a long time, too. There may be a biological imperative at play here - a magical one at that - but I wasn’t kidding when I said I’ve been nursing an impossible crush on you for years, Draco. I’ve been ready for you. And I am now, too.” She licked her lips, awed by the sight of his torso: wide shoulders, muscles flexing in his abdomen as he moved, his skin looking soft and smooth and pale in the cool light of the day.
Draco’s jaw tensed and released twice as he studied her face. It was like he had heard her earlier, but hadn’t really believed her until now. Something in his face shifted, some sort of renewed confidence and vim rearing inside of him. If she could only get a little of him inside of her. She genuinely thought she might be going mad.
“I know I’m still managing to string sentences together,” she said, panting a little, “but, Draco, I…” she trailed off. This time she didn’t have it in her to beg coherently. She hoped her overheating body and the way her hair was sticking to every sweaty part of her it could reach was signal enough of how badly she needed some relief.
Draco snapped to attention at once, his broad, lithe body moving in a positively wolfish manner as he efficiently divested himself of his trousers and pants and surveyed her with hunger.
Had she been more coherent, Hermione would have embarrassed herself at the sight of his cock.
Or perhaps Draco would like that sort of thing.
It was a gorgeous sight to behold: long and thick, almost dauntingly so, and jutting up from his body so it bobbed as he moved back to the bed to get Hermione out of her jumper and bra. He swore under his breath and she was revealed to him fully, bending down to lathe his tongue over both of her nipples and run his warm fingers over the slats of her ribcage. She couldn’t even swear back at him, her cunt gushing once more at his nearness and the bloody smell of him. She could wait to get personally acquainted with his gorgeous cock later.
Hovering over her, Draco met her gaze. “If you’re ready, I don’t think I can wait any longer.”
“Don’t you dare wait,” Hermione said, surprised by the sound of her own voice, the vehemence and rasp in it. “I need you, now. I needed you years ago.”
That was all it took to snap the last of Draco’s carefully held control. He leaned down to run his canines across the junction of her shoulder, his teeth nipping at her gently. He was breathing deeply as he arranged himself so his cock was pressing insistently against her. She was so wet that he could've slipped right in – she found herself suddenly grateful for the help from her body – but he was also big and hard enough that he was going to have to work for it to fit.
Draco maneuvered her legs deftly, spreading them around himself and pushing her knees up towards her shoulders, until her cunt was angled just right against him, her body open and inviting. Hermione found herself floating, waiting, trembling in space on the edge of an abyss. Her brain was empty of anything but the single minded need to chase this pleasure.
Above her, Draco leaned forward and deftly cut through the fog in her brain by cradling her face in his broad, hot palms and kissing her gently. It quieted, for just a moment, the racing of her blood, the desperation of her heart and her body.
And then, his mouth still on her, Draco thrust his hips forward with enough force that the blunt, fat head of his cock slipped inside of her body. Hermione gasped against him, choking out a moan, and Draco ate the noise, slowly easing himself in further and then sliding back out a bit.
She was so wet that she was certain he could’ve pushed and sunk into her in one go, but his control and care were admirable nonetheless. He was stretching her, an impossible feeling, but whatever was happening it was clear that her body was not going to protest being on the receiving end. This was exactly what she had been clamoring for, and fuck if it didn’t feel incomprehensibly better than she could have imagined to have the hot, insistent length of him inside of her. She wanted to keep him there forever, as he groaned lowly and slid in fully at last. The expanse of muscle above his cock slid against her swollen clit and she gushed around him again, biting her lip hard as Draco was finally, finally seated fully inside of her.
“You can take your time later," she gritted out, tilting her hips the few centimeters of leverage his body allowed and encouraging him to go wild. No need to pretend she wasn’t desperate to be properly fucked. No need to pretend she wasn’t desperate for him to fuck her.
As Draco pulled back and sank the full length of himself inside of her once more, he let out a sound somewhere between a growl and a moan, hot and full of feeling. It made the hair on the back of Hermione’s neck stand to attention, every cell in her body tuned into him, an electric frisson passing between their bodies.
“I’ve dreamed about this,” Draco said in between kisses and hot swipes of his tongue and teeth across her sensitive nipples. “Dreamed about how it would feel to get my cock in you at last. Used to wake up leaking with your name on my tongue. None of it compared to this. You’re unreal. Perfect.” He thrust into her, the fat head of him so deep she could feel a twinge in her belly, making her cry out for him, her voice thin. Draco snarled. “Fucking made for me.”
She couldn’t fight him on that front. Everything inside of her, from her pulsing blood to her crackling magic was singing, screaming, howling that this was right. That this was where she belonged. That Draco inside of her was making her whole and healed, knitting wounds she hadn’t even seen were there before.
The noises the two of them were making in the cool air of Draco’s room were flat out obscene. Every thrust drew a tiny moan from Hermione, little slips of sound that she couldn’t keep contained. The slick, wet slap of Draco’s cock branding her with every stroke felt as unholy as it sounded, a live wire every time he seated himself fully inside of her. The stretch of her thighs burned pleasantly, the position keeping her at the mercy of Draco's carefully controlled thrusts. He turned his head to kiss her knee, press his face against her damp skin.
“I can’t get over the fucking smell of you,” he gritted out, returning to lick between her breasts and use his teeth on her sensitive nipples. Hermione hissed as she tangled her fingers in the soft hair above Draco’s nape and tugged. “The suppressants keep me sane, but they have never kept me from smelling you. I wish I could bottle it.”
“Has it always been like this?” Hermione asked between gasps.
“Always,” Draco confirmed, “though it’s grown more intense over time. This, though –” he thrust deep inside of her, holding himself still and sucking in a breath through his nose “– this is insane. You smell even better, now that you’re turned on, and…” he trailed off.
Hermione tilted her hips into him, trailed her nails over the flushed skin of Draco’s back, and cried out as the angle changed. “And what?” she pressed, desperate for him to keep talking. The sound of his voice alone was making her dizzy.
Draco buried his face in her neck, breathing deep and groaning. “And,” he said, “now that I can smell myself on you. In you.”
Hermione’s first orgasm took her completely by surprise. It surged through her, making her cry out as her body convulsed in pleasure. Her vision blurred for a moment as she clung to Draco’s back to keep the atoms of her body together, gasping for air. Draco was still, except for minute movements of his hips. The motion felt amplified inside of her as she gushed around his cock, urging the waves of electricity to keep their slow and insistent roll through her. She could feel it in her pussy, in her nipples, in her wrists, in her throat. Draco’s teeth on her shoulder grounded her through it, his well-practiced self control tangible in the tense lines of his body all around her.
The sensations had barely passed when Hermione could feel them rising in her again, making her moan lowly in anticipation. Clearly, something enormous was happening inside of her body too, some sort of magical, alchemical reaction to opening this bond with Draco. The blood and sinew and very soul inside of her felt relieved, overjoyed to have been awoken like this at last.
Hermione had never been afraid to tell a partner what she needed – harder, slower, a little to the left with your finger, yes, right there, stay there, don’t move an inch – but even with instructions, penetration had never been a surefire way to get her off, if it ever had. The way her body was reacting to Draco inside of her felt like a gift from the universe, a portal to another dimension of feeling that she would’ve never even known existed without this. She wanted to chase the feeling, lean into it, flay herself open, eat him alive. She couldn’t get enough.
Draco’s cock had become the center of her universe, the narrow point of light that connected her to everything else and nothing but him at the same time. His voice, the increasingly potent smell of him – crisp, piney, unnamable – raged through her senses, and when he slipped his hand down to roll her swollen clit between the hot pads of his fingers she had to cry out at the intensity of it all. Draco swallowed her noises, thrusting in and holding himself inside of her as he worked her torturously slowly. His fingers slid easily against her through the mess of her slick.
Hermione, who had always been a great fan of lubricant, found herself grateful for this strange side effect.
“Draco,” she gasped, without meaning to, her body forcing her forward through rush after rush. He looked at her, and Hermione held his gaze and made a wounded sound as she came around the hard thrust of his cock again. Her body spasmed, making Draco groan and squeeze his fingers against the back of her neck where he held her. His other hand, fingers still playing her dangerously, sped up against the hot, slick skin of her clit, and Hermione rode the swell of orgasm straight through and into another one.
"Hermione Granger shouldn't belong to anyone," Draco said, watching his cock work into her with a crazed gleam in his eyes, "but fuck, darling, you are mine."
Hermione didn't deny him. She was vaguely aware of the sound of herself panting, breath coming hard and fast as her body exploded into sensation. She wanted Draco to climb inside of her entirely, to feel what he was making her feel as she came in long, luxurious waves of pleasure. Her back bowed off the bed, pressing her against Draco's chest as she spasmed around him and groaned.
Contrary to any of Hermione’s previous experiences, the powerful orgasms rolling through her were not making her feel cooled down or satiated one bit. Instead, they seemed to be building on each other, intensifying the need and desperation she felt on a cellular level.
Hermione’s favorite fantasy about Draco in the years past had also been one that made her feel rather ashamed. It was also the thing guaranteed to get her off fastest at her own hand. Now, Draco inside of her, her fingers tangled in his hair and running across the rippling muscles of his back, she felt it rushing to the surface again. She could indulge in it, now. All she wanted, all she could think about, all she needed, was for Draco to come inside of her.
She must’ve said as much out loud, because Draco stilled above her, his body rippling as he worked to control himself. “Bloody hell,” he growled. “You can’t just say things like that to me.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” Hermione snapped back, angling her hips and squirming underneath the hot weight of Draco’s body, trying to get the delicious pressure back.
“No, I imagine I can’t,” he murmured, biting lightly on Hermione’s earlobe and making her tremble. “It’s infuriating and wonderful and incredibly sexy, as is everything about you.”
Hermione preened at the compliment. The way Draco said infuriating made it sound like the opposite.
“But I can’t come in you now,” he said, sounding pained. “I shouldn't.”
Hermione whimpered, something animal and base in her rearing its head at the thought of him withholding from her. “I’m on Muggle and magical birth control,” she whined, swallowing the last word as Draco’s fingers moved to slide over her clit again, soothing and inflaming her all at once.
Draco kissed her, hard, then pulled back to meet her eyes as his cock kept a steady, slow roll within her, driving Hermione mad. “It’s not that,” he said, “though good to know. I just think it might be too much for you today. Because –” his voice dropped an octave as he choked the words out, “– because it’s my first time with you, and I think I’m going to – it’s just that – alphas knot.”
Hermione, who had no idea what Draco was talking about, felt desire rush through her at the unknown phrase. Her cunt spasmed around him, once more on the brink of orgasm.
“I don’t know what that means and I don’t care,” she breathed out. "You said the next time you came, it would be inside of me." Draco actually laughed, and kissed her, surprisingly tender for the runaway-train feeling of the moment around them.
“You might care more when I’m locked inside of you,” he said, sounding regretful. His hips bucked like he couldn’t hold them back.
Hermione, suddenly feral, clenched hard around Draco and hissed out a breath. “That is all I want,” she panted. “That’s all I want, Draco. Please, please, please don’t stop.”
This seemed to be enough to finally snap the last fraying threads of Draco’s self control. Hermione had no sense for how long they had been at it, but she was still caged beneath him in a mind-numbingly satisfying way, and as Draco picked up the pace with his hips, she could feel him somehow...swelling inside of her. The sensation was making her crazy: both too much for her to possibly bear, and the exact thing she had been desperate for this whole time. "Later," Draco said, "later I am going to fuck you every way I can think of, make you come until you can't any more, taste every inch of you..."
Another orgasm took her by surprise, rolling through her as the base of Draco’s cock kept growing. Hermione had lost track of how many times she'd come. The way Draco was swelling made it harder for him to pop back inside of her with every push. Hermione, afraid he would get stuck outside of her, wrapped her arms and legs around Draco’s body and held him tightly to her as she throbbed around him, mewling incoherently. Draco groaned and bit down on the tender junction of her shoulder as his cock grew, their bodies inextricably entwined.
Hermione felt as painfully aware of her heart as her cunt. Her eyes were wide open and watching Draco as he cried out, a low noise that resonated through her entire body, and began coming inside of her.
It was nearly too much sensation to process at once. Draco’s body surrounding hers, the hot pulse of his come, the completely overwhelming sensation of his cock, swollen and locked inside of her. What had he called it? His knot. He was knotted inside of her.
Hermione already knew she was going to need this for the rest of her life, as scary as that felt.
One of Draco’s hands found its way down through the humid space between their bodies and back to Hermione’s clit, touching her so slowly and carefully that by the time her orgasms hit, one after the other with Draco’s cock still pulsing inside of her, her sight went fuzzy and her hearing disappeared entirely, a faint ringing sound all that remained of the world beyond the white-hot explosion of bliss and the all-consuming sensation of being finally, fully satiated.
It took several long moments for Hermione’s senses to return to her, the outrageous temperature of her body slowly cooling back to normal and leaving her trembling and covered in goosebumps and embarrassingly aware of her own sweat and slick on both of their skin. Draco seemed completely unconcerned with any of that, busy trying to gently maneuver the two of them so that he wasn’t crushing her beneath him, still conjoined around his cock.
He eventually settled to rolling completely, bringing her on top of him and making her gasp at the change in angle. She didn’t think she could come again, but the way she could feel Draco inside of her with every minute shift of her body tiredly but persistently suggested otherwise.
If she wasn’t crazy, she thought her belly looked a little rounded, her body pumped full of Draco’s come. She could still feel him twitching inside of her, filling her up.
Circe, she had to stop thinking like that or they would be right back where they started. She pressed her hand below her belly button just once, feeling the slight pressure of Draco’s cock, and quickly withdrew it as they both shuddered. She suddenly couldn’t meet Draco’s eyes.
His hands gentle, Draco smoothed his long fingers up Hermione’s arms, down over the damp expanse of her back. Under other circumstances, it would have felt a bit manky to have someone touching the cooling sweat coating her skin, but Draco was clearly undeterred, and sweat was frankly the least of the bodily fluids they had to worry about. His touch was intoxicating, too; not in the way fucking him had been, but somehow deeper and infinitely soothing.
Her head cradled against his neck, his touch consistent and warm, his cock still pulsing inside of her, Hermione felt the siren song of sleep hauling her forward. Later, she had more questions. Later, she had research to do. Later…
Chapter 11: The Exploration
Chapter Text
When Hermione woke, she was surprised to find herself in a room that was both hers, and not. It took her a disorienting moment to remember this was Draco’s room; a near mirror of her own, but full of his smell, his things.
It was still light out, though the kind of syrupy golden light that told Hermione it was late afternoon and she’d slept far longer than she’d planned. She was also considerably less sticky than when she’d fallen asleep, though she was still conscious of the slick between her legs, delighted and mortified by the realization that some of it was Draco’s come.
There was a washcloth draped over the edge of the bedside table, and Hermione blushed at the thought of Draco cleaning her up, running the cloth over her body and through the mess they’d made of her together. It was such an intimate thought that it made her shiver, more so than the memory of Draco’s cock inside of her could. She was glad he’d left her a bit messy, just to remember what they’d done.
She wondered where he was. She wanted to see his face.
As if she’d summoned him, the door swung open and a tea tray levitated in, followed in short order by Draco himself.
Draco’s eyes dragged up and over her body until he met her gaze and smirked, clearly delighted by the sight of her still stretched out in his bed. “You’re awake,” he noted, voice low and delicious.
She was still naked, the sheets twined around her like the muse for an oil painting, keeping her just warm enough to have slept comfortably. Draco flicked his wand, setting the tray down on the bureau, then brought Hermione a steaming cup. He perched next to her carefully, offering the hot tea up to her until she wriggled enough to prop herself up against the cushions and drink.
“I’m awake,” she agreed after a fortifying sip. “What time is it?”
“Nearly half five,” Draco informed her, glancing toward the smear of sunset developing over the horizon through his window. “You had a good kip.”
“Thanks for cleaning me up,” Hermione said, feeling shy. She wanted to keep ahold of this new, strangely tender thread between them. She hadn’t been prepared for him to...take care of her like this, fetching perfect cups of tea and making her comfortable for sleep. After fucking her senseless, it was a surprisingly sweet turn of events.
The faintest stain of pink stole its way across Draco’s cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Hermione, delighted by the sight, couldn’t stop herself from grinning at him, though she hid most of it behind the rim of the teacup.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, reaching up to smooth a curl off of her forehead, his fingers lingering just a few heartbeats too long.
Hermione considered for a long moment. Her body was a conflicting mass of so many feelings – mostly hormones and a bone-deep contentment – that it was hard to tell what else was going on in there. Hunger did seem to be distantly available. She nodded her head back and forth in a hands-free gesture of, sort of.
“I’m feeding you anyway,” Draco said, making to get up and off the bed. Only Hermione’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. “Your body has been through a lot,” he said, his face serious, as though worried she would contradict him. “I need to keep you healthy.”
Hermione leaned over just far enough to set her cup down, then tugged on Draco until he got the message and laid back down next to her. “I will place a dinner order shortly,” she said, tucking her finger in the open collar of Draco’s soft shirt, “I promise. But please just come kiss me for a few minutes. You have several years to make up to me.”
Draco was on her so fast she barely had time to inhale. He started slowly but intensely, his tongue sweeping across her gums, nipping gently at the plush of her lower lip, one hand holding her head easily in place for him and the other sliding the sheets off of her body so he could caress her skin. She shivered, both from the sudden cool air and the sensation of Draco’s fingertips leaving trails behind them as he skated over her ribs, up between the valley of her breasts, across each of her nipples. The last motion made Hermione press close to him; she wanted more. She wanted a follow through on the promise inherent in the way he was clearly holding himself back.
“Not to be greedy,” Hermione said, pulling her head back to stare at Draco and taking the moment to catch her breath, “but do you have any objections to the idea of fucking me again?”
Draco’s tongue flicked out to the corner of his mouth as his eyes roamed over her face. She was on the verge of taking it back, the moment stretching nearly too long for comfort, when Draco smiled, a dangerous edge to it.
“Greedy, indeed,” he said, but it sounded like praise. “Your greed is encouraged, Hermione. Here, and in anything else you want.” He grabbed the sheets still halfway draped across her body and whipped them to the side, ignoring them as they billowed out off the side of the bed, making Hermione laugh.
Suddenly, he was between her legs, his hands spreading across the lush underside of her thighs and pressing her in half, her cunt exposed to him completely. She realized, as he held her open and contemplated her, that she had gone from sleepy to dripping wet in a matter of moments, on top of the mess they’d made of her before she slept. Draco leaned in close and sucked in a breath, his pupils shifting as she watched him smell her.
No time to be embarrassed; it was unbelievably hot. And then Draco’s talented tongue was sliding up and around her clit and Hermione’s head emptied of any and every coherent thought.
His hands were grasped tight around Hermione’s thighs, spreading her open around his face, and the exquisite torture of his tongue’s slow slide made her vision go blurry. She desperately needed his attention on her clit, but couldn’t complain when he dipped down instead to plunge the slick muscle as far into her cunt as he could. She tightened around him involuntarily and heard herself moan low and languidly from a great distance.
Draco teased her for a while, sometimes applying direct pressure to the tip of her clit with the point of his tongue in a way that was almost unbearable, so intense as to back her away from the ledge of insanity and bring her sight back to clarity for a few brief seconds, until he would press the muscle flat and lathe it from her arsehole to her clit in languorous, delirious-making strokes.
Hermione’s orgasm arrived fully formed, rushing around and through her like the break of an enormous wave, stealing her breath away with it. She floated, happy to drown in the surf as her body trembled. It wasn’t until she heard Draco saying her name from far away that she drifted aimlessly back to shore, her body still seizing with aftershocks. Draco was stroking his big warm hands all over her, his face shining with her slick. It was...horrifying? Intensely erotic? Hermione couldn’t decide and frankly didn’t care.
She grinned at him, her limbs feeling loose and her heart still beating erratically. “Incredible work, Mr. Malfoy.” The faint points of pink on Draco’s cheeks were a reward in and of themselves.
“If you’re really not dying of hunger,” Draco said, raking his eyes down her body and waiting for her to interrupt him, “I am indeed going to fuck you again.”
A lance of arousal shot through Hermione. Her libido seemed to have gained a new elasticity and an endless well to pull from, as on the heels of an enormous orgasm Hermione already felt like she hadn’t come at all, and was desperate for the next build and release.
“I’m not dying of hunger,” she said, “but I’d rather die of hunger than turn you down, anyway.”
She shrieked a bit as Draco grabbed her and dragged her bodily to him, hauling her up onto her knees and devouring her with a kiss. He was still fully clothed, running his hands over every inch of her skin that he could reach, and Hermione practically mewled as he held her still, close enough to feel his radiating body heat but not close enough to rub against him the way she wanted to. Needed to. “You’ll learn that I tend to take your health rather seriously,” he murmured into her ear. “But I trust you to be honest with me. Please be honest with me.”
Whatever she was expecting from him, it was not this tender sort of declaration, which felt far more revealing than anything they’d said to each other so far. “I understand, Draco,” she said, holding her body as close to his as possible and kissing the thin skin over his pulse. “And I will be honest with you, if you’re honest with me in return. This has to be a two-way street.” She bit his earlobe, lightly, and he growled and hauled her up to his face.
He had nothing more to say in return, it seemed, but he nodded once to her, seriously.
Before Hermione could process where he was headed, Draco had them at the end of the bed, Hermione in his lap facing away from him. Her eyes were closed as he moved her hair over one shoulder and slid his hot tongue over the sensitive spot at the back of her neck. She was vaguely aware of Draco shrugging his flies open beneath her, but was so distracted by his other hand fondling her already swollen clit that she didn’t take in the full scene until Draco hissed look into her ear.
Her head snapped up, her eyes blinking open slowly. Hermione realized he’d positioned them so that the gilded mirror hanging against the closet door was immediately in front of them, framing them both like some sort of erotic work of art. It was almost too much to bear.
Draco, fully clothed, his hands everywhere at once, was a perfect canvas behind her, highlighting the lush planes and curves of her naked body. She was spread open before both of them, her skin red and flushed, her hair wild. Her cunt was visibly dripping against Draco’s black trousers as his long fingers expertly toyed with her clit and pressed against her where she dripped. Her breasts heaved as she gasped in several short breaths, trying to regain her balance and a general grasp of the English language.
“Have you ever seen yourself like this?” Draco asked, his breath hot against her ear. Hermione raked her eyes over her body again in the mirror, her arousal radiating from her skin like a visible aura of magic. She shook her head, meeting Draco’s gaze in their reflections and wanting him to see into her, see all of her.
“What a shame,” he murmured. “I’ve never seen anything more exquisite. You should know how absolutely delicious you are.”
His words slid into Hermione’s blood, intensifying her need for him until she had to tilt her head back against his shoulder, take a break from the visual feast laid out in front of her.
Draco allowed it for a long moment, his palms soothing over her breasts and making her nipples furl into hard, sensitive knots. He reached between her legs, avoiding touching her in a way that was nearly as intense as the actual feel of his fingers, and she realized he was arranging his flies and cock so he could fuck her again.
“Eyes forward, sweetheart,” he said finally, kissing her temple and shifting his shoulder forward to physically encourage her to sit back up. “I want you to see this.”
Her head was up off of his shoulder and her eyes open again before the request had fully registered. She found she liked him asking things of her. She liked doing them for him.
“Look at your body,” Draco said lowly, kissing the sensitive place at the top of her spine and running his palms over her breasts, across her belly to emphasize his point. “Strong. Gorgeous. Powerful. Can’t believe I get to touch you.”
He moved his hands over her hips, down across the soft skin of her thighs where he pulled her legs wider, sinking his fingers against her flesh as he did so. She hoped they’d leave a mark. “Look at your cunt,” he whispered, biting her earlobe and using his fingers to gently spread her open, though he avoided her clit much to her consternation.
Hermione looked. She looked at herself dripping onto Draco’s expensive trousers and whimpered.
“Look at how badly you need it,” Draco said, tracing the point of his tongue along the fault line of sensation running below her ear and out across her shoulder. “Look at how desperate you are for me. Better than in my wildest imaginings.”
Hermione didn’t have the words to explain how all of her most embarrassing, raunchy fantasies of Draco paled in comparison to the ways he was touching her. Had already touched her.
“Can I have you?” was all she could choke out, her hips writhing against Draco’s lap futilely where he still held her open for both of them to see. “Please?”
The muscles in Draco’s jaw ticked as he struggled to control himself. Hermione wasn’t above feeling a little smug about the fact that she could make him react that way. At least she knew she wasn’t alone in her desperation, even if hers was both literally and figuratively far more naked.
Without answering her, Draco shifted, using one of his hands to lift her leg out of the way so that his cock could spring free. It was intensely erotic, the sight of it: Draco was leaking precome from the tip, and Hermione could appreciate now in the mirror how absurdly thick and long his cock was. It jutted up obscenely between her legs, almost making them appear as one being. She couldn’t believe that had been knotted inside of her earlier. She needed it again, now.
Draco used both of his hands now to adjust her, holding her over his lap just enough to give them some maneuvering room. “Help me, darling,” he said, and Hermione used her own hands to push Draco’s cock backwards until it was aligned with her cunt. In the mirror, she watched Draco’s eyes flutter closed in a slow blink at the feel of her hands and, she had to assume, the heat radiating from her body on the swollen head of his cock.
And then she was sinking down onto him, her body trembling as it opened up and accepted him inside. The slow slide was torturous, and the girth of him meant Hermione could feel every ridge, every pulse of his cock as they were joined. The sight of it in the mirror, of Draco disappearing into her cunt inch by inch, made Hermione burn, her blood rushing through her in a thunderous tide.
Almost too easily, Draco lifted her back up a bit and dropped her back down, fucking her with just a few centimeters of his cock. It was all she needed to feel the unholy and inescapable rise of her own bliss. It ate at her, demanding more, making her ripple and clench around Draco. They both groaned.
Over her shoulder in the mirror, Hermione watched Draco bite his lip, watched the flutter of his eyelashes against his pale cheek as he fought the sensations overtaking him. He caught her gaze after forcing them back open and smiled lasciviously, bringing one hand up to turn her chin to look right at him over her shoulder, no mirror softening the intensity of it. “Feels like I’m going to knot you already,” he said, kissing her with bite to it. “Your pussy is made to drive me insane.”
“Do it,” Hermione said back, the words pressed right up against Draco’s mouth. “Do it. I can’t stop thinking about it. You’ve ruined me already.”
Draco’s pupils grew as she stared at him, his pulse thrumming in his throat. “Good,” he choked out, apparently unable to say anything else. His mouth opened and closed twice more as he stroked his hips into her, and Hermione desperately wanted to know what he was thinking, but the push of his cockhead deep inside of her was too distracting for her to think about it for long.
Draco gestured with his chin, directing Hermione to turn back around and resume watching in the mirror. He slid one hand under the heavy weight of her breasts, down across the soft skin of her belly so slowly it made her shiver, then spread her open again so he could tease around her clit. Every few passes, his fingers made direct contact, and Hermione let out tiny choked noises at the intensity of the sensation. She could feel the orgasm roiling in her belly, growing so intense that her breath was struggling out of her lungs as she fought to get oxygen, her body only focused on the coming explosion. Draco’s eyes were flashing in the mirror, his gaze roving everywhere at once, expression hungry.
Draco’s fingers and hot words in her ear and breath against the sensitive skin of her neck made Hermione come twice in rapid succession, so hard that all she could hear for long moments afterward was the rushing of her pulse in her ears, a mimic of the sea crashing distantly in the evening light outside their windows.
Draco held her weight easily, still murmuring sweet nothings, his cock flexing inside of her with each latent pulse of her cunt around him. The aftershocks were intense, and he was clearly not above dragging them and her into oblivion.
“I meant what I said,” she managed at last, her voice coming out raspy. “I want you to knot me.”
Draco, to his credit, didn’t question her. Maybe he couldn’t. He just met her gaze in the mirror, gathered her hair off of one shoulder, and maintained eye contact as he bit the long stretch of muscle there. He’d done that many times since they started, seeming drawn to that stretch of her body, and every time he did she felt it shoot through the core of her.
“Like this, right here?” he asked, after soothing the bite with his tongue. The whole episode made something alive and wild break free in Hermione’s belly, but she nodded back at him after a brief intake of breath. “Remember we’ll have to stay like this for a while.”
“Good,” Hermione said, and then pushed her hips back against Draco’s pelvis behind her as hard as she could.
Her body shuddered weakly as Draco popped the beginning of his knot inside of her, his hips moving only minutely now so that she could feel every tiny tug and swell at the base of his cock. Draco rolled her nipples between his fingers, hard, sliding one hand up to briefly press around her throat, though it was gone too fast for her to tell him how much she liked it. She would have to remember to come back to that later.
Instead, he migrated back to her swollen clit, visibly engorged in the mirror in front of them, and parted his first two fingers around it. He slid them downward painfully slowly, his cock still swelling inside of her, and when the junction of them ran over the most sensitive part of her, she was coming again, whimpering lowly, Draco supporting her weight until she heard him grunt and felt him start spurting inside of her.
It was all so intense – the hugeness of him inside of her meant she couldn’t avoid feeling every move he made – and her orgasm felt like it was milking the come from him. The heat of it was reflected in the splatter of red flush across her breasts. Draco braced one hand against her back to keep her upright, her hips unconsciously still riding him as the last of her orgasm slid away, and flopped back onto the bed, his breath coming in heaving gasps.
Several long, slow minutes later, they’d maneuvered back to lay on the bed fully together, Draco surrounding Hermione with his body. His hands were restless over her skin, smoothing across every part of her they could access. She wasn’t sleepy this time around, but the feel of his fingers lulled her into an almost dream-like state, her pulse slowing down as much as it could with his cock still insistent inside of her. She could get used to this.
Chapter 12: The Sandwich
Notes:
sorry for the unexpected delay in posting; things kind of exploded in my life this week. getting back on track and working on the last chapters now. thank you for being here!
Chapter Text
Long minutes later, Draco was able to slip from her body, and Hermione couldn’t help but blush at the feel of him dripping out of her. It was delicious and mortifying and erotic and confusing and she had to bury her face in the pillows for a moment to compose herself. Draco dipped a hand down between her legs, holding his come against and inside of her as he cradled her gently.
“Well,” she said after gathering herself together and rolling over to meet Draco’s surprisingly tender gaze, “I’m ready for you to feed me now.”
Draco smiled at her, a little devious and a little salacious, and the sight of it made her stomach squirm. “Sorry,” he murmured, watching her mouth and sounding not sorry at all. “You distract me. Don’t know how to turn my filthy thoughts off now that I’ve leaned into them completely.”
Hermione raised one eyebrow, sensing an opening. “What, you’re thinking about feeding me your cock? Next time.” To her satisfaction, Draco’s mouth actually dropped open. He made a pained little sound and licked his lips.
“If you insist,” he said hoarsely. Then, “but really, you must be hungry now. What sounds good? We’ve pasta, and a few bits of veg, or ham and cheese…” His eyes lit up. “Do you like croque monsieurs?”
Hermione couldn’t help the laugh that came out of her. “You posh git,” she said. “You too good for a ham and cheese toastie? Got to make it French and fancy?”
“It’s called having taste, Granger,” Draco said, matching the snark in her tone perfectly and punctuating it with a lightning quick kiss to the thin, sensitive skin right below her ear. “Please accept my apologies. I shouldn't have expected you to appreciate my refined palate.”
Hermione adjusted herself until she was lying looking up at Draco, still on his side where they’d been spooned together. She was distracted for a moment by the lines of his abdomen, the scars glistening just slightly paler than the rest of him. The warmth of him comforted her, the places their skin touched buzzing slightly. He was so edible, and so stupidly hot. It hurt her brain to have it all laid out in front of her like this, now that she wasn’t solely blinded by lust and need.
“What’ll it be, darling?” Draco asked, his voice softer again. It dropped right into Hermione’s stomach and soothed her in a way she wouldn’t have believed possible only a few hours ago.
“I’ll take a croque monsieur,” she said with a grin, making sure her accent was as obnoxious as possible.
Malfoy was not above a pained grimace at the butchered syllables, though if Hermione wasn’t mistaken, it was meant to hide his smile. “Coming right up,” he said, hauling himself out of bed and into his clothes. He stopped by the door, turning to Hermione with narrowed eyes. “I hope you don’t think I’m going to do this without company,” he said, eyeing her up and down and jerking his head out of the doorway.
“I’ve not got a stitch of clothing on,” Hermione said, as though that fact were not glaringly obvious. “And I’m all sticky.”
“Merlin help me, why do I find that hot,” Malfoy said, running his long fingers over his face in distress. “You’ve broken me, Granger. I used to be able to keep myself under control.”
Hermione couldn’t help grinning at him, uninterested in apology. Malfoy was the reason she was sticky and sweaty – and frankly, quite sore in a few spots – in the first place, and unfortunately, it was rather hot to think about.
“Fine,” Malfoy sighed. “Bath first. But I’m coming with you.”
“You won’t find me complaining,” Hermione said, swinging her legs over the edge of Draco’s bed and wincing as at least nine different muscles she hadn’t known existed yesterday twinged uncomfortably. Malfoy must’ve seen it in her face, because he was on her before she could blink, hands rubbing carefully over her waist and legs as he surveyed her. He was crouched down on his toes in front of her, his gaze sweeping over her assessingly. Hermione would have laughed if he didn’t look so serious, and if she wasn’t briefly distracted by the ways his thighs flexed as he kept himself balanced before her.
“I’m alright, Draco,” she said. His eyes widened slightly as she spoke, and he visibly shook himself a bit out of whatever protective instinct had propelled him forward. He seemed as surprised by his rapid movement as she had been; now the slight flush in his cheeks was back as he let her go. He cleared his throat, suddenly bashful enough to avoid her eyes as he rose back to his full height over her.
In some ways, it was deeply comforting to Hermione that Draco was clearly still surprised by elements of their new circumstances, just as she was. Made her feel less at a disadvantage on the whole.
“Where are you going?” she asked as Draco made for the door once more. “I thought you were coming with me.”
“I am,” he said. “But the tub in my room has a faulty seal around the drain. You’ll fare better in your own bathroom, I’m afraid.”
Hermione felt ridiculous, stark naked as she followed Draco to her own room. She felt rather powerful, too, like her body contained secrets she was just beginning to understand.
Draco ran her a bath, conjuring a delicious-smelling bubble substance from the tip of his wand that he smugly refused to teach Hermione the spell for. She allowed it, only because she was certain she’d find a way to drag it out of him later. A very pleasurable way, hopefully. Power, indeed.
“Are you trying to keep me interested by withholding tasty little tidbits of knowledge from me?” she asked, standing naked with her hands on her hips.
Draco looked understandably amused as he surveyed her stance. “Is it working?”
Hermione scowled at him, but she stepped into the bath anyway, biting her lip at the intensity of the heat around her toes and calves. Draco watched her get settled, eyes dark, then turned as if he was going to head downstairs. He hesitated at the door back into Hermione’s room, his eyes flitting towards her and away several times. Hermione couldn’t tell if he was debating something with himself, or fighting a specific urge, but she let him work through it while the hot water soothed her joints. The bubble bath formula Draco used had to have some additional magic in it. She could feel her tight muscles relaxing with every deep breath she took, more than just hot water should’ve allowed.
After a long, long moment, Draco did leave, pulling the door shut decisively behind him. Hermione felt a twinge in her belly, a low level longing that kicked up the moment there was hardwood between them. Circe. Over the course of an afternoon and some incredibly hot sex, everything really had changed. She had changed. It would probably take a long while to account exactly how much and in what ways.
The prospect was frankly thrilling, but also too overwhelming to think about directly, so Hermione tilted her head back against the rim of the tub, inhaled deeply, and let the steam cradle her.
Hermione sat in the hot, soapy water with her eyes closed for as long as she could stand – about four and a half minutes – before she started to feel overheated and useless. She’d always been a bit more of a shower kind of girl, truth be told, but given the way her muscles had begun to relax from the heat and Draco’s magic bubbles, she wasn’t complaining. She ran cool water through the tap to rebalance her own temperature, running palmfuls over her face so it felt clean and soft and chilled compared to the rest of her body.
There was a robe waiting for her once she managed to haul herself up and out of the tub. Hermione actually groaned a little as she put it on, the impossibly soft fabric sliding across her skin like a caress. She bit her lip and snuggled down into it for a long moment, standing in front of the mirror and examining herself in what she imagined had to be Draco’s bathrobe. The ends nearly pooled around her feet, but no way was Hermione taking it off and trading this luxury for her own coral terry cloth monstrosity.
She didn’t look any different as she examined herself. Her eyes were more sparkly than usual, maybe. The way damp strands of curls were stuck to her temple and the nape of her neck made her look rather statuesque, a Greek goddess dripping wet in a seaside bathroom. She’d never felt quite so...present in her body. Nothing like getting fucked into self-actualization.
A vigorous toweling off and several expertly cast spells later, Hermione felt relatively put back together. Her skin was soft and glowing from the bubbles, and her hair had been magicked back into its usual controlled explosion, pulled back into a functional bun. She was ready for whatever delicious smells were drifting up the stairs and under the crack of the door, making her suddenly and startlingly aware of how little sustenance she’d had today. Sustenance of the edible kind, at least.
Despite the promise of melty cheese luring her down the stairs, Hermione paused for a moment in the doorway, digging her bare toes into the carpet. She felt strangely reluctant to leave the cocoon of the upstairs, despite her insistent hunger and desire to find her warmest pair of socks for her cold toes.
It felt vulnerable, like leaving a delicious bubble. She wasn’t sure how it would feel to look Draco in the eyes downstairs. Malfoy. Malfoy. It was Malfoy down there, and she quite frankly didn’t know what the bloody hell to do with that reality.
Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy had fucked her, and blown her mind ways she didn’t know it could be blown, and knotted her . She was...bound to him in some essential way now.
It was entirely too much to begin processing; Hermione was surprised to find the thought only sent a lance of heat and amazement through her body. No panic, no fear. She’d always been hungry when it came to sex, but the way her body reacted to Draco was was something else entirely. She licked her lips, realizing with a shiver of shock that at least half of the smell driving her crazy from downstairs was just...Draco. The food, sure, but underneath it all, her nose was leading her to him.
She dressed in a flash, wriggling her toes happily in her ugliest and coziest socks. She felt clean and as calm as she could with her heart racing and her brain constantly flicking back to the entirely consuming feel of having Draco’s cock inside of her earlier. All of the embarrassing things she’d said flashed through her brain on a blinding marquee, but Hermione just found herself wanting them all even more intensely. She had meant it, that she wanted him to keep doing this to her forever. Whether it was the magic or her insane crush talking, she’d stepped over a threshold into something she didn’t fully understand and was no longer willing to live without.
God, she was going to drive Draco crazy. She always had. Was he sure about this? There had been a lot of sweet words, and now he was making her food from scratch, by the sounds of things, but...Hermione had always been a lot, if not too much, for most of the people around her. Even for the people who loved her. She desperately wanted to be exactly the right amount for Malfoy.
Hell, Draco Malfoy was a lot, and she wanted to consume him whole.
Damn it, she thought suddenly, paused at the top of the stairs. I am going to have to thank Pansy for this eventually. The meddling brat. Thank god for Pansy, even if she’d accidentally managed to get Hermione and Draco together by inadvertently leading the two of them into a life-threatening situation. She never would’ve ended up locked in a house with Malfoy and getting properly, mind-blowingly fucked without Parks’ sneaky, sneaky ways.
Following her nose, Hermione made her way down the stairs at last, pausing by the enormous sitting room windows to gaze at the last brilliant fingers of sunset holding onto the sky above the sea. The sight of it entranced her, drew her in until she accidentally bumped her nose against the cold glass, jerking her head back in surprise. She heard Draco laugh behind her, closed her eyes and shook her head. Imagine she could keep from embarrassing herself for more than eighteen minutes at a time.
“You didn’t see that,” Hermione said, her eyes tracking Draco’s reflection in the glass as he came up behind her.
“Delighted to report that I very much did,” he said dryly, drawing close, though it didn’t escape Hermione that he didn’t touch her. She could almost feel him holding himself back, the uncertainty that had set it while they’d been briefly apart, had stepped out of the bubble of safety upstairs. She wouldn’t stand for that.
Meeting Draco’s eyes in the window, she deliberately took a step back, leaning until her body was supported by his. He was still for a long moment, until all at once his arms came up around her and he buried his face in her neck, taking a long but quiet inhale. She smiled at her reflection, shivering with content at the feel of him.
“Smells good,” she murmured.
“Yes, you do.”
“I’m suddenly desperately hungry.”
“That’s how I feel about you, you little siren. Desperately hungry,” Draco said, but his voice had flipped into something resembling playful, and he was stepping away to lead her to the food. On cue, her stomach rumbled menacingly, and Malfoy picked up his pace, practically dragging her the last few steps to the warmth of the kitchen.
After Hermione had worked her way embarrassingly fast through the first third of her – unfortunately excellent – sandwich, she paused to take a breath and realized Draco was watching her from across the counter where she sat perched on one barstool. His eyes were inscrutable behind his own toasted bread and dripping cheese, but he seemed...pleased. She grinned at him, loosened up by the food in her belly and glowing under the weight of his eyes on her.
“Cliche, maybe, and small-minded, certainly, but I am astonished to report you really can cook,” Hermione said, dabbing cheese grease from the corners of her mouth. One tiny corner of Malfoy’s mouth quirked up.
“It’s only a croque monsieur,” Draco said, making Hermione unsuccessfully attempt to suppress a smirk at his flawless accent. “I spent several summers in France as a child,” he added, half defensively, half by way of explanation. “My mother had some health issues when I was still young. My father’s mother took me in for several months at a time at the family estate in southwest France, near Sarlat. I’m afraid it mostly made me more of an insufferable little brat to be ferried off to another enormous, cold estate with distant cousins who couldn’t stand me, but the one thing grand-mère was hands-on about was food. I spent a fair amount of time in the kitchen one-on-one with her. Makes for a good party trick.”
Hermione felt herself mentally filing away every new tidbit this anecdote revealed about Draco. She wanted to come back to each piece, examine it in the light, but she would save them for later.
“Do you whip out the gruyere at every party you go to, then?”
“I find carrying a good block of cheese adds to my general air of mystery,” Draco said, straight faced, and Hermione was nearly knocked over by the realization, once again, that he was joking with her. Knowing he had a sense of humor underneath all those sharp lines was rather devastating.
They were silent for another long moment as Hermione finished the first half of her sandwich and started into the second, the soft sounds of piano surrounding them in the golden light of the kitchen. Draco was watching her without trying to be too obvious about watching her, but Hermione found she didn’t mind a bit. She felt settled under his attention, and wasn’t above using the tip of her tongue to chase a drip of cheese, hearing his breath catch across the counter as she did so.
“You don’t seem full of regret yet,” he said at last, deceptively casual. “Either you are a phenomenal actor, or still being stuck in this house with me is permanently affecting your brain.”
“Third option, you arse,” Hermione said without missing a beat. “I’ve been into you for years, and you just made me come harder than I ever have in my life, several times. Not to mention us setting some as-yet uncertain bond into motion, which for the record is something I chose to say yes to. I don’t have space for regret around all the thoughts about what it feels like to have your cock inside of me.” She could feel her chest flushing as she spoke. She watched Draco’s eyes widen as her pulse raced, but her voice didn’t waiver. She wasn’t fucking around, here. Whatever was going on, Hermione had already opted in with every part of her. Enthusiastically.
Didn’t mean she wasn’t itching to do a full-scale research project, but the point stood nonetheless.
“Point taken,” Draco said slowly, like he was regulating himself.
“Good.” She said primly.
“For the record, I haven’t stopped thinking about what it feels like to have my cock inside of you, either.”
“Also good.” This time, there was the slightest wobble in her voice. Her thighs flexed against the barstool under the lip of the counter, Draco’s words slipping underneath her skin. His hawklike gaze didn’t miss any of it.
“Keep eating,” Draco said after a long moment, the eye contact and heat between them making time spread out slow and thick as molasses. Robotically, Hermione put the sandwich she was holding frozen over her plate back to her mouth, and the taste and feel of it snapped her back to reality.
She squirmed a little in her chair, dropping her eyes from Draco’s as she realized she was, once again, very wet. She squirmed even more remembering he could smell it. Fuck.
Swallowing thickly, Hermione decided she absolutely was not above bartering with Malfoy. “If I eat the rest of this, will you fuck me over the sofa?”
“Not sure I like you having to negotiate finishing my cooking,” Draco said, “but I very much like the idea of fucking you again. Eat up, and if you’re really good, I’ll consider your proposal.”
Hermione felt her eyes narrowing at his tone, at the if you’re really good, but the way her clean knickers were increasingly damp against her belied her response. “I can’t even pretend I don’t like it when you talk to me like that, can I?” she sighed, and Draco gave her a devastating smirk from across the counter. Suddenly the task of finishing the food in front of her before climbing on top of him seemed much more daunting than it should.
Draco watched her considering her food for a moment, his eyes tracking her every motion, and his smile when she finally capitulated and took another bite was positively feral. “Good girl,” he said blithely, making her head whip up towards him, her mouth too full to do anything but glare at him. “Like you said,” he murmured, grinning and raising one eyebrow obnoxiously, “you can’t pretend you didn’t like that. Well, you can, but we both know I know otherwise.”
“What gave it away?” Hermione asked, swallowing another bite. She was nearly finished now, barrelling towards whatever her reward for this would be. She could see it promised in Draco’s eyes. “The smell, or this?” She gestured with the hand not occupied with sandwich toward the red flush that she could feel spread blotchily across her chest, neck and cheeks, the way it always did when she was aroused or embarrassed or angry.
“Please, Granger,” Draco said. He leaned across the counter til he was almost in her face, the sharp planes of his own making her vision swim slightly as he came near. “I’ve known you were into being praised since you used to wave your swotty little arm around in class before Professor Binns could even get the full question out. Insufferable little thing.” He said the last bit like a caress. Hermione shivered. Mortifying.
“What are you into, then?” she asked, aiming to keep her tone casual and overshooting into somewhere north of breathy.
Draco raised his eyebrows, just a millimeter, but the motion felt dangerous regardless. “I’m into… intelligence. Passion. Stubbornness. Conviction. Being called on my bullshit.” He was stalking around the counter towards her. Hermione’s shoulders grew tenser with every step he took. “Curls.” He said, reaching one hand out to tuck a loose tendril behind her ears.
Hermione was never going to stop blushing. “I meant sexually,” she said, forcing herself to meet Draco’s gaze. “But good to know. I can be really, really stubborn.”
Chapter 13: The Deepening
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Draco’s thumb came up, almost in slow motion, and he swiped it slowly across the grease left behind on Hermione’s lower lip from the last bite of her sandwich. She held perfectly still, letting him tease her and waiting to get her answer.
“I’m into what you’re into,” he said after a moment that felt like a short lifetime, his hand still on her face. “I’m into your pleasure. Despite my better instincts, I’m incredibly into the idea that you, and your hot little pussy, are mine.” He paused, searching her eyes, seeming to anticipate pushback. Had this been a purely hypothetical conversation with anyone but Draco Malfoy, Hermione probably would’ve passionately delivered a diatribe about women not belonging to anyone. But…
Well. She and the pussy in question both seemed to like that a lot. She only lifted her chin, a hard breath escaping her lungs as she did so. “Go on.”
Draco kissed her, silvery and quick, his lips on hers and back again before she could register it and hold him to her. Hermione’s body was on fire just from that brief contact. The sweetness of it made something in her ache, primal and intense. Then he was talking again. “I’m very into the idea of getting my mouth all over you. I’d like to eat you out for hours. I already know you taste as good as you smell, but I want to take my time with you.”
The fresh knickers that Hermione had changed into earlier were effectively useless now.
“I’d like to blindfold you, tease you until you cry, make you come more times in a row than you think you’re capable of. I want to take you out to see your friends at a pub and have you sit squirming on my cock under the table while you talk to them about work and Pansy driving you mad and whatever drivel you have to to take your mind off the feeling of me in your sweet cunt.”
Bloody hell, he was getting specific now. Maybe asking for this had been a mistake. Draco had moved closer without her realizing, too, and had turned Hermione away from the counter on her barstool until he was caging her in with his body, his hands braced on either side of her and their faces a few scant breaths apart. She was nearly panting.
“I want to take a floo call with my most infuriating clients while my cock is in your mouth under my desk.” He said. “I want to come home to you every day and watch the – the telly, or whatever you call it, while my hand cups your pussy for hours. Nothing more than that. I want to know how you’d start dripping on my fingers with no more provocation than my touch.”
This all sounded so nice, and so mind-meltingly hot. Unfortunate that Hermione was going to die from pure lust and hunger before they got to do any of it. Her brain couldn’t process past the imagery of her squirming and dripping on his elegant hands to even begin to deal with the “come home to you every day” bit.
Draco was watching her closely, though there were spots of color on his beautiful face that told her at least he wasn’t completely unaffected by all of this. “Am I scaring you?” he asked, voice uncertain.
Hermione reached up to touch his face, gently, slide the tip of her thumb over the plush of his lips and down over his aristocratic chin. “Not a bit,” she said, and she meant it. “I want everything you’ve said, and more. You know, I’ve done a fair bit of experimenting in bed –” she didn’t miss the dark flash in Draco’s gaze – “but I always felt like there was more to be had. Something missing. Someone, maybe.” That seemed to soften him. “I want you to show me how good I can feel, Draco.”
His mouth was back on hers before the sound of his name was fully formed, and he delved deep straightaway, cradling Hermione’s head in his palms and taking everything he needed from her. Giving her everything in return, too. She opened to him easily, didn’t for a moment fight the surging tide of arousal and thrill and wonder that seemed determined to sweep her out to sea.
“Come here,” Draco said, letting go of her reluctantly and heading towards one sofa. It had fallen fully dark at last, and the smattering of stars over the dark wash of the ocean glittered against the inky sky. Hermione felt nearly docile, maybe for the first time ever in her life, as she followed the sound of Draco’s voice around the front of the sofa. He’d arranged himself angled towards her in the far corner, propped against several pillows. Hermione hesitated, unsure of where she was meant to sit. Draco didn’t leave her hanging for long, grabbing her hand and tugging her to him until he could maneuver her down and between the inviting spread of his legs.
She tried to relax back against him as Draco ran gentle hands up and down her thighs, but her blood was singing and every one of her senses was on high alert to the presence behind her.
Draco nearly lulled her into a trance over the next few minutes, just stroking her softly over her leggings and jumper and up underneath the hem to skate across the bare skin of her belly wherever he could reach. She felt molten in his lap, finally relaxing further and further into the solid warmth of him.
“Unless you stop me,” he murmured into her ear at last, gently nipping at her earlobe as he did so, “I am going to vanish these leggings.”
Hermione considered for a moment. “They’re my favorites,” she said, “but yes.” The left leg had developed a small hole near the knee anyway, and she’d been meaning to get –
Her thoughts cut off as Draco growled a little, pleased with her response. And then his hands were on her suddenly bare legs, and Hermione bit her lip hard as her whole body shivered in pleasure.
Gently but so, so firmly, Draco used his strong hands to open Hermione’s thighs to him, groaning low in his throat at the sight of her. She was still in her jumper and thong, and he’d seen her in far less than this by now, but something about what was still hidden despite the way she was splayed out against him felt deeply erotic. Thrilling, too. This was different from what they’d done so far.
Draco palmed her over the lace of her underwear, his hand warm against her. He didn’t exactly make contact with her clit, more a light pressure all over, but she could feel herself getting worked up and had to fight the urge to squirm for more contact.
“That’s a good girl,” Draco said, apparently noticing her efforts to regulate her breathing. She liked pleasing him. Fuck, they weren’t doing anything and she was ready to combust.
Draco nipped her earlobe as one hand slid up under her jumper to tease around the soft skin of her breasts, the other still stroking gently over her pussy. The lace made her all the more sensitive, but he was touching her so softly, all she could do was remind herself to inhale on a regular basis.
“Draco,” she said, after what felt like an interminable eon of light petting. She could feel how wet the knickers were now, hot against her. At the sound of his name Draco laughed lowly, his hand drifting down so his middle two fingers could press against the soaked cloth hiding her cunt from him. The heel of his palm ground against her clit. She gasped.
“I hope you know how unbearably sexy you are,” Draco said against her neck. Hermione was too far gone to protest. His fingers were tracing against her labia, his palm just barely touching her clit now through the lace. She held back a whimper. “I thought fucking you twice would take the edge off, but I had to come down here and take an extra dose of suppressant, and I still want to bury my face in this gorgeous pussy of yours until I pass out.”
This time, Hermione did squirm. Draco allowed it, though he used the hand on her cunt to hold her more tightly to him and the other moved to pinch her left nipple, hard.
“I want – that too,” Hermione managed to pant. “I want everything from you. I want to come again. I want to taste your cock –”
The hand under her jumper had moved to cover her mouth before Hermione could blink.
“Merlin, Granger, you can’t say shit like that or I’ll be coming in my trousers like a bloody third year.” Hermione was acutely aware of his cock throbbing against her back as he spoke; it only made her hotter.
“I’ll stop talking if you touch me,” she said, as though she had any bargaining power at all. The sound was muffled against Draco’s hand, but she knew he’d heard it. To his credit, he did her the favor of not pointing out the very obvious fact that he was already touching her, instead taking his hand away from her mouth and applying a pointer finger suddenly and directly to the swollen nub of her clit through the lace.
“Fuck.” Hermione couldn’t help the word slipping out, though she bit down hard on her lip in the next second, afraid Draco would stop touching her this way if she kept talking.
“I know you can do it,” Draco murmured, his spare hand now holding one trembling thigh open as he circled her clit with just shy of enough pressure to get her anywhere. “Keep quiet for me, darling, and I promise I will make it worth your effort. Merlin, the smell of you is making me crazy. Look at your body, stretched out for me. So turned on and I’ve barely done a thing to you.”
Between one breath and the next, Draco pulled his hand away and then lightly slapped Hermione’s clit.
It took everything in her not to cry out, not to sob Draco’s name. Her body was instantly several degrees hotter, her hips coming away from Draco’s as she chased his hand and the bolt of pleasure it had sent through her. No one had ever done that to Hermione before, and the sweet, unholy buzz of the sensation made her come unglued. “You liked that,” Draco said. It wasn’t a question. “I’m going to do it again. Squeeze my wrist if it’s too much.” He waited until Hermione nodded before he slapped against her clit once more, quick as a fish.
She was full on panting now. Draco drummed his fingertips softly against her pussy for a few long, disconcerting seconds, then lightly slapped her again from just an inch away, over and over and over until Hermione could feel her pussy squeezing and contracting around nothing. She’d never felt so desperate before in her life, so wanton, so unbelievably turned on.
It went on like this for so long she lost complete track of time and space: Draco alternating between gentle pets, pressing his palm against her and his fingers just barely into her lace-covered cunt, and slaps against her swollen clit as he growled filthy things in her ear, until Hermione was nearly sobbing with arousal and the need to come. How could anything be so intense when she wasn’t even undressed? She wanted Draco to take her apart completely, ruin her completely, consume her completely.
“My perfect little thing,” Draco said at long last, “so fucking good for me. Taking whatever I give you.” He was taking a break from the torture, rubbing his hands all over her skin and settling her back down into her body. “So wet you’ve dripped onto my trousers. Messy, delectable girl.”
Hermione didn’t want to talk until she’d gotten her promised reward, but she wasn’t above twisting her body around enough that she could capture Draco’s mouth and shut up his filthy, delicious words for a long moment. His tongue slid easily against hers, eating her little whimpers as Draco’s fingers pinched her nipples just to the threshold of pain. He released them, only to slowly start disentangling Hermione from his lap, moving to stand them both up off of the couch. Hermione whimpered again, confronted by the possibility that Draco wasn’t going to let her come now.
“Hush, pet,” Draco murmured, pulling her into him until she could feel the hard press of his cock against her stomach through her jumper. She arched against him instinctively. “I don’t think it’s possible for me to leave you hanging, sweetheart. Just taking my time with your body, testing how far I can push us both before I have to get my cock into you.”
He hoisted her up, Hermione easily wrapping her legs around his waist and gasping as his cock now settled against her hot, aching pussy. She could feel it jerk against her through both of their clothes – fuck, it was hot that he was still fully dressed – and was satisfied to know she wasn’t the only one completely riled up by Malfoy’s teasing.
Draco pressed against her arse with one hand so she writhed against him, taking her mouth in a filthy, slow kiss as he did so. Hermione didn’t realize they were on the move until Draco set her down, turning her around where she stood. He stripped her jumper and thong off and pressed against her back so she’d bend forward in one smooth motion. She realized he was arranging her over the arm of the couch and nearly wept with relief, using it to brace herself as she was put on display for him. Surely this meant he’d be inside of her soon.
Draco kicked between her legs so she’d spread them more widely, and then he was on his knees, licking up the back of her thighs. “You’ve been so good, darling,” he pulled away to say. “You can talk now. You’ve earned your reward.” With that, he leaned forward and plunged his tongue into her pussy.
“Bastard,” Hermione gasped out. Draco laughed against her cunt, and Hermione cursed again. “Draco,” she tried. “Draco, I want –” she broke off as his tongue slid back and upwards, lathing gently over her arsehole. “Oh, oh, oh,” she said, trembling. She’d never felt anything like that before, and it was splitting her brain open. The tip of Draco’s tongue was doing something to her that made Hermione want to die from pleasure alone. It was so strange, and so good, and then he was back on her clit and she actually did wail a bit.
“I keep thinking I can’t want you any more than I already do,” Draco said, his breath coming hard and fast, “but you take everything I give you so beautifully. The list of things I want to do to you keeps multiplying.” His mouth was no longer on her, but he’d slipped two fingers into her soaking cunt at last and Hermione was unashamedly fucking back on them as he spoke to her.
“Tell me,” she said, and then “fuck,” because Draco somehow managed to get a pinky on her clit and his thumb gently pressing against her arsehole as he fucked her with the fingers already in her pussy.
He laughed again, and the sound made Hermione even hotter. Everything Draco did made her hotter.
“Sure, darling. I’ll tell you a few of my fantasies now, and then you’re going to come all over my fingers. Just tell me before you do. Okay?”
“Okay,” Hermione gritted back. Now that she knew an orgasm was on the horizon, her whole body felt lit up with anticipation and electricity.
“Now that I know you like this, I want to take my time playing with you here,” Draco said, the finger at her arsehole just gently breaching her. “And if you like that too, I want to plug you up. I want to take you to a five star dinner with a plug in your arse and play with your sweet pussy under the table until you beg me to come. I want to take you home and fuck you with the plug still in, then knot you and stuff you full.” Hermione reacted so violently to his words that he paused for a moment, which was the last thing she wanted. “You okay, darling?” he sounded so genuinely concerned, it made her feel crazy.
“Do not stop,” Hermione bit out, her voice rough and leaving no room for argument.
“That’s right, sweetheart. That’s right. You love this. You love what my words do to you. You want me to stuff you full. It’s all I think about sometimes. My dreams have been haunted by thoughts of knotting you, filling you up with my come and then staying in you and doing it over and over again for hours, until I can feel how full up you are here.”
His hand snuck around to press gently at her belly, right above her pussy, the unspoken implications and conversational tone of his voice making her shiver and writhe.
“I know it’s too much,” Draco says. “I shouldn’t say things like this to you, lest I scare you off completely. I never imagined I could have you at all, and now that – now, I can’t hold myself back. I want to possess you, fuck you so thoroughly you’ll be mine through and through. I don’t think I can apologize for that.”
Hermione slurred out something that sounded like mmmmrrrrngh in reply.
“I had a dream once,” Draco said, his fingers working her faster, more deliberately. “I had a dream that you were pregnant.” The with my child part was left unsaid, but the way Hermione spasmed around him at his words meant she heard it anyway. “You were perfect. Glowing. Insatiable. In this dream, you woke me up in the night because your breasts were tender and leaking.” He was drawing his words out slowly, sounding almost embarrassed. Hermione actually gushed a little around his fingers.
“You asked me to clean you up,” he said, sounding choked. “So I licked it all up. Everything. It was dripping down to your round belly, and when I thumbed your nipples more would come out. I couldn’t get enough. We didn’t fuck in the dream, but when I woke up, I had come everywhere and my cock was knotted. That’s not supposed to happen without a mate, without sex, but just a dream about you was enough –”
He stopped talking as Hermione, panicked, said “I’m going to come, I’m going to come, Draco,” and exploded around his fingers.
***
She came to cocooned in blankets, blinking around in surprise to find she was in her own bed. She sat up, an immense relief settling in her when she saw Draco sitting in the armchair by the windows.
“I thought you might want to be in your own space,” Draco said, looking wary. “I’m sorry, Hermione. I pushed too far.”
Hermione blinked at him again, not processing fully. “How long was I out?” she asked.
“Six minutes and fourteen seconds,” Draco said, without looking at his watch.
“Impressive,” Hermione said. “Are you going to stay over there like an idiot for the rest of the night if I don’t tell you that what you did to me downstairs was the hottest experience of my life, and I have never come that hard, ever?”
He was still watching her closely, but his shoulders relaxed a bit.
“Seriously, Draco. I know it’s a lot, and we’re going to have to figure all of this out, but I am in this. I am in this with you. You are not something that’s happening to me, even though I know you feel like it. Hell, I had dream fantasies about you for years before now. Some that I would really, really like to make reality. I’d love to tell you all about them sometime, when I’m feeling as brave and filthy as you just were with me. Now, though? I’m still feeling a little odd from coming that hard and would like you to – would you please just come here and touch me?”
He was next to her before she could even draw a breath. Apparently that had all been the right thing to say. His hands were soft as he ran them over her, but he was making eye contact with her, looking at her and seeing her in a way that made Hermione feel flayed open and protected at once.
“You didn’t come,” Hermione said, allowing Draco’s ministrations to soothe her and reaching down to palm his still semi-hard cock in his trousers. Draco intercepted her hand, his touch gentle as he held her wrist.
“That was about you,” he said simply. “I don’t want to come again until you’re ready to have me inside of you. Not right now, I can see you’re about to protest. Just rest with me for a minute, and then we’ll –”
He was cut off by the noise of the floo downstairs, and they both stared at each other for half a second, thinking about the mere minutes of difference that meant whomever was downstairs had not discovered them with Draco’s fingers buried in her cunt.
Then they were both scrambling as Harry and Padma’s voices came floating up the stairs, calling for them both. “Let me,” Draco whispered as Hermione scrambled for fresh clothes from the bureau. He slipped out of the room, and she could hear him greeting the two Aurors downstairs in short order, his voice deceptively casual.
“I think Granger’s in the bath, but surely she heard you come in,” he said, and Hermione breathed a sigh of relief as she slowed down a bit. It was a good lie, and one that would allow her a little more time to make it look like she hadn’t just been coaxed into an orgasm so good that she blacked out.
She put herself back together, realizing as she splashed water on her face that it hadn’t even been a full day between Auror visits. Had something happened? Was someone else hurt? Suddenly, she was rushing again, throwing her hair up and nearly flying down the wooden staircase in her socks. The three people waiting for her in the sitting room all looked up at once, and Hermione realized she was holding her breath.
“What happened?”
Notes:
we are backsliding into filth here, folks. hope you're enjoying the ride. just a few chapters left!
Chapter 14: The Homegoing
Chapter Text
“Malfoy, what can you tell us about your French cousins?” Padma asked. She was sitting ramrod straight as always, her words careful and clear. Beside her on the larger couch, Harry’s body language seemed deceptively casual in contrast. Hermione had considered joining Draco on the other sofa, but she didn’t trust her body not to embarrass her in front of her friends. Trusty armchair it was.
Draco’s face was completely blank for a moment, before his brow furrowed slightly. Hermione wanted to kiss the nearly invisible wrinkle on his forehead, but she was also waiting intently for the answer. Draco had mentioned having cousins once, rather abstractly while talking about his grandmother, but she knew nothing more than that.
“My French cousins are no longer alive,” he said after a long moment. “They were quite a bit older than me and both passed in a sort of freak potions accident when I was in my first year or two at Hogwarts.” He considered a moment longer. “Are you referring to Esmée?” Padma nodded, sitting forward urgently, though she didn’t speak again. “I don’t know her well at all. We met once when I was a very small child and she was…nine? Ten? She’s not actually my first cousin,” he clarified. “She was my father’s cousin’s child, born after his wife died. He never married her mother, and Esmée was therefore never formally accepted into the family lineage.”
“She was illegitimate?” Harry was on high alert, now.
Draco pushed his hair back slowly, trying to follow the threads the Aurors were weaving. “I don’t like that term,” he said slowly, “but yes. I don’t remember precisely, but I believe she petitioned my father to be added to our legal documents some years after her own father passed, once she was of age herself. He and my mother were discussing it during the Christmas break of our second year. If I remember correctly, they declined.”
He looked carefully at Padma and Harry. “She’s connected to this?”
“Intimately, it seems.” Padma said. Hermione’s head was spinning as the vast implications of this conversation began setting in. “We weren’t exactly sure why at first, but once we were onto her trail and based on the threatening letters you’d received previously, we had a hunch that her motivation had to do with your – shall we say, betrayal of some Malfoy family values. Our contacts in France had her on their blood supremacist radar; she organized a few local meetings that never went very far during the war.”
“And it pissed her off that I’ve since walked away from all of that, relatively unscathed and with the Malfoy inheritance.” Draco’s voice was dull, empty of any resonance.
“That’s one way to put it,” Harry agreed. “She made the enormous mistake earlier this week of attempting to get a coded note through to your father in Azkaban, perhaps after there was no news of your demise in the aftermath of the attack. She wasn’t stupid enough to incriminate herself directly in the note, but its existence alone was enough to put us on her track. We called in a favor to the French force earlier today based on that letter, combined with your indications this morning that someone related to the Malfoys most likely created that explosive.” Hermione was barely breathing in her chair, frozen as she listened.
“It all happened unexpectedly quickly this afternoon, thanks to some fast cursebreaking work on the diaries you gave us access to – just one more confirmation that someone related to the Malfoys was responsible here – and the fact that Esmée had already been on the radar in Paris prior to today.” Draco’s face was stony as he listened to Harry lay out the day’s events, his emotions locked down.
“It all collectively gave us the clearance we needed. Only an hour or so ago, they were able to locate and search a flat she’d been squatting in, in a suburb just south of Paris.” Padma added. “She fled, though she didn’t make it far before they apprehended her and took her into custody. Evidence in the flat indicates she’s been tracking your movements and Lair Industries' investments for weeks, maybe months. She seemed to take it very personally that she was the only one left upholding the traditional Malfoy values, with your mother off the grid entirely and you taking a strong stance toward reparations. It looks like she's lived hard, and she felt owed the contents of the Malfoy vaults she’s always been denied. If she couldn’t have it, she certainly couldn’t stand to let you be the inheritor of it all.”
“Wait,” Hermione said, finally unable to keep from interjecting. The nothingness on Draco’s face was scaring her, and there was so much information to process all at once. “She’s been in France this whole time? Without resources of her own?” Padma confirmed with a quick nod. “Then how on earth did she plant an unrecognizable explosive in Diagon Alley? How has she been tracking Draco?” Her fists were clenched in her lap, an unexpected fury rising in her at the thought of the danger Draco had been in for who knows how long. Once again, targeted by his own blood.
“The flat held evidence that she’d been conducting a long distance romance of sorts with a much younger man she met whilst he was on holiday from work in Biarritz last summer,” Harry said after a loaded moment, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he spoke. “Someone who had access to and was able to attempt to mess with your investments in recent weeks, however clumsily. Ring any bells, Malfoy?”
Draco put his hands over his face and held perfectly still for a long moment. Hermione suspected he was struggling to keep himself Occluded as the implications of what Harry said settled over him. When he looked up again, it was directly at Hermione. His face wasn’t blank like she’d expected, instead almost frightening with raw emotion.
His voice was rough when he spoke, barely controlled fury encaged in it.
“Finneas.”
***
Padma and Harry told them to take their time packing, though it was quite late by the time they both left. Now that the perpetrators had been taken into custody and all reasonable measures taken to ensure there was no one else involved still at large, they could collect their things and simply step outside of the house’s protective boundary to Apparate themselves home.
Home.
What a strange concept.
Hermione had been waiting to get back home from the first moment they’d been locked up together; waiting to return to her safe haven and her ordered life. Now the idea of returning to her flat by herself made her want to sob, even as Crookshanks was winding his way warmly through her legs as she stood over her bed, packing her clothes away in her bag. Had it truly been only four nights in this house? It seemed impossible.
Hermione could hear Draco moving around his room next door, but more potently, she could feel him. She was leaving him to his own devices for a bit, not because she wasn’t desperate to talk to him, but because he clearly needed some space to breathe and process. The betrayal of the young assistant – whom Hermione understood he’d brought on as a protegee and grown to like as something approaching a friend – seemed to hit him harder than his sort-of-cousin’s actions. She couldn’t tell if Draco was more upset over that or furious with himself for overlooking the way someone so close to him could exploit their access. She understood it, but she hadn’t liked the look in his eyes or the set of his shoulders when he’d disappeared to pack.
She wasn’t going to leave without talking to him. She’d wait him out as long as it took. This thing between them might have been born in this house, but she was determined it wouldn’t end here. She had no idea what that meant, or what life would look like from this moment forward, but she was going to ask Draco to figure it out with her.
She was sitting next to her belongings on one plush sofa, Crooks purring next to her as she sipped a hot tea that she’d added a fortifying splash of whiskey to, when Draco finally emerged. His trunk preceded him down the stairs in midair, followed by the palpable tension still radiating from him.
He sank down next to her silently, eyeing the second cup on the coffee table.
“That’s a toddy for you,” Hermione said softly, indicating the tea with her chin. Neither of them were looking at each other, but just having Draco’s presence beside her was soothing. He wasn’t running from her. She could see their slightly distorted reflections in the dark expanse of the windows in front of them, leaning just so slightly towards one another.
“Thanks, Granger,” Draco said, making her surname sound more like darling or sweetheart as it rolled off of his tongue. He took a long sip, an appreciative grumble in the back of his throat as the whiskey hit.
“I have to say that I’m gravely sorry,” he said, turning to look at her at last and holding up one hand to stop her instinctive protest. “Just listen. You don’t have to say anything back. Esmée intended to kill me, that much seems very clear. But given that Finneas –” he spit the name “– handled my scheduling, the timing of the attack was not a coincidence. They wanted to take you out with me. Can you imagine the optics?” His voice dropped to an angry, rumbling pitch that made Hermione’s stomach clench.
It was true, unfortunately. It would’ve been a horrifying victory for the last gasps of a dying supremacy movement. But it hadn’t happened that way. She was safe, Draco was safe. They were sitting here together, right now.
“I still don’t think you should be apologizing to me for that, but I understand. I do.”
“Well then,” he said, “That’s all I can ask for. And now: what do we do next?”
Hermione smiled at him, just a little. It boded well that he was asking, that he wanted her input on how things might go after they left the cocoon of this house by the sea. That there was a we.
“I don’t know, exactly,” she said. “It feels like everything has changed. I don’t know how to just…go back to my flat, reenter my life like these few days haven’t turned my life upside down.” It was true; the thought of her empty apartment made her heart seize uncomfortably in her chest.
“What do you want right now?” Draco asked.
“I want to go grocery shopping,” Hermione said, because it was the first thing she could think of. “I want to hug Pansy, and take a hot shower in my own bathroom. I want to read all the books you have about werewolves and mates and whatever else I need to know. I want you to stop taking suppressants and come over to my flat and figure out what comes next for us together with no barriers.”
The hope on Draco’s face almost hurt to see. She reached her free hand out to touch his cheek, brush her thumb over his barely parted lips. “Don’t be so surprised,” she said. “I’m not someone to say things or make decisions lightly. You should know that I wouldn’t have started this if I wasn’t ready to see it through.”
“You don’t know what might happen,” Draco said. “I just need you to be sure. If you feel obligated to me, or like you have to…” he trailed off, shaking his head like he could physically dislodge whatever worries were haunting him. “I trust you,” he managed at last. “I am not stupid enough to actually believe you would deign to placate me out of some sort of misplaced honor, but I’m still having a hard time trusting that we can do this out there.” He gestured vaguely to the world beyond the dark windows.
“I know what you mean,” Hermione said, and she did. This thing between them had been born into a protective bubble, but it couldn’t stay here. There would be friends to tell and the media to field and Pansy’s smugness to weather and so many logistics to figure out. “But Draco, we are doing this together now. I don’t know what might happen, but I know I want you. In every way.”
Draco leaned forward over their steaming mugs and kissed her soundly. Hermione broke them off lest she be any more tempted to beg him to fuck her against the front door before they left. She still felt she’d been cheated out of his orgasm earlier.
“How about this,” she offered, her mind spinning as she assessed the options ahead of them. “I’ll Apparate us to my flat, so you know where it is. And then you can go home, take care of business, whatever you need. Let’s give ourselves a day. We can see how we’re both feeling after that, and if you’re ready then, you can come over to mine.”
“If I stop suppressants,” Draco said, “we may both need time off work. I do need to catch up on business, see the state of the office, and apologize to the rest of my employees for putting them at risk. That said, now that it’s no longer a crime scene, I imagine it’ll take some time before we can work from there again - the repairs and safety tests and the like won't be fast. A perk of being the boss is that I can arrange to take a bit of personal time every now and again, though I’ve never had a reason to before. Maybe I’ll give everyone a paid week off.” She could see the gears turning in his head as the logistics started unfolding in front of him, the realities of what he was returning to churning through his mind.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Hermione said. “Just…know I’ll be ready to see you when you’re ready to see me.”
“I’ll be counting on it,” he said, all gravel. “And when I do see you next, I’m not going to stop touching you for days.”
Hermione had to remind herself to breathe, pulling away from Draco and realizing with a start she’d been nearly in his lap, apparently unable to resist the lure of him. “Well, good,” she managed, primly. “Good. That’s good.”
Draco laughed, a warm, delighted sound.
“I suppose we can’t drag this out forever,” he said, looking a bit wistfully around the beautiful open sitting room one more time. “I will miss the sea,” he said, and Hermione heard everything else he wasn’t saying out loud. She felt exactly the same.
Outside, the waves crashed hard against the shore, sending foamy goodbyes sluicing through the air under the light of the moon. Hermione downed the rest of her toddy, slipped her hand into Draco’s, and squeezed.
***
Hermione landed them both in the kitchen of her flat, kissed Draco once before he Apparated on to his own home, and immediately put herself to bed. It had been an inordinately long day, and she was pleased to be buried among her own pillows once again. Plus, sleeping meant she couldn’t spend too much time thinking about…well. Thinking about anything at all.
She woke early, though not as early as she would have on a standard workday. Her body clearly needed the rest. She slipped into comfortable clothes and walked to the tiny grocers down the street to get her favorites, fresh tomatoes and cheese and green grapes and fatty salmon and every snack she laid eyes on. She swung by the wine shop to replenish her cabernet collection; it felt good to be out and about in the world again, though she felt rather like her place in it had changed. Really, only she had.
It took an hour and forty-nine minutes back in her own flat for Hermione to start feeling unsettled, and another hour after that for her to accept that what she was feeling was Draco’s absence. It sat around her heart, squeezing gently. It wasn’t painful, exactly, but it was something to bear nonetheless, and she couldn’t help physically rubbing over her chest at times as she tidied the flat and put her things away. She couldn’t soothe the ache away. She wondered if Draco was feeling the same.
She dug her forgotten mobile from the bottom of her bag and turned it on to text Pansy back for the first time in days, unsure where to even begin explaining this strange fever dream of a week to her friend. Pansy had to have been rather out of her mind wondering what was going on, but Hermione trusted Harry had at least filled her in the basics. Ron was also surprisingly good at calming Pansy down, balancing out her laserlike energy into something a bit more tolerably intense.
In the end, as she wandered into the kitchen to make a snack of her fresh groceries, Hermione just went with a simple hey Parks, and set her phone down to dig in the fridge. She’d barely taken the cheese from its drawer when her phone started buzzing, the vibration so insistent it nearly walked itself off the edge of the kitchen counter. Hermione caught it just before successful launch, fumbling to hit the Talk button when she saw Pansy’s name flashing across the screen.
“You bitch,” was the first thing out of Pansy’s mouth.
Hermione laughed, a full-bellied, delighted sound. “I missed you too, Parks,” she said, and really meant it.
“You bitch,” Pansy said again. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“I am, I promise,” Hermione said. “The Aurors did their jobs and Draco and I are both fine.”
There was silence on the line. Hermione wasn’t sure what she’d said, but –
“Draco’s fine, huh?” Pansy said after a loaded beat. Hermione had never heard her sound more smug, which was honestly impressive.
She’d walked herself right into this one.
“Yes, Draco is,” she repeated, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “And you can call me a bitch, but I’m not the one who accidentally got him and I locked in a bloody house together.”
“I felt like absolute shite about that until exactly thirteen seconds ago,” Pansy said, and Hermione accepted the fact that she wasn’t going to be able to walk this back. Pansy knew too much already, knew her too well. And Hermione didn’t particularly want to hide anything; she just didn’t know exactly what there was to say.
“You’re going to have to tell me everything eventually,” Pansy said, which was, unfortunately, true. “You don’t have to do it right now, but you will. Soon.”
“Yes, I will,” Hermione acknowledged. “I’m just…still figuring everything out, Parks.” She wanted to ask if Pansy knew the extent of Draco’s circumstances, but just in case the answer was no, she couldn’t mention it now. “Can we go out to dinner tonight?”
“Bad news,” Pansy said, sounding murderous. “Molly is home alone this week and came down with a horrible case of Spattergroit. Arthur is on a work trip until Tuesday, and begged Ron to come look after the house and keep her fed. Ronald then thought it appropriate to drag me along with him.” She sniffed. She was altogether doing an excellent impersonation of someone entirely put out, but Hermione knew she would follow Ron into a Muggle dump in high heels if she had to. “I had to push the May edition off for another week for multiple reasons, so don’t worry about catching up on work until after the weekend. I should be back in London on Tuesday.”
“So no working together until Tuesday,” Hermione said thoughtfully, “and no catch-up dinner for the two of us, either. I suppose that means you’ll just have to wait a few more days to hear what happened.” She tried not to sound too gleeful.
Pansy actually growled into the phone. “I am not known for my patience, Granger.” Hermione had to laugh at that. She was under no illusions to the contrary.
“Nor am I, Parkinson. Just get Molly well soon and come home so I can absolutely blow your mind.”
“I’m hanging up,” Pansy said, and then she did exactly that.
Hermione felt warm and full up inside, in the way only Pansy’s specific brand of officiousness could do. She would be ready to tell Pansy everything soon; now that she was home again, alone, with no plans, no work to immediately see to, and this tender ache around her heart…
Hermione didn’t have an owl herself, but there was an Owlry only four or five blocks from her apartment where she could rent one if needed. She was just considering how desperate it would seem if she reached out to Draco so soon when there was a familiar sort of scritching sound against her kitchen window. She turned away from the kettle she’d put on while contemplating her next moves and was greeted by the sight of an elegant, enormous, rather terrifying eagle owl perched precariously on the eave outside her kitchen.
Throwing open the sash, Hermione felt her heart lodged somewhere behind her tonsils as she fumbled to get the window open wide enough for the bird to step through. She hadn’t seen this owl before, but she knew it had to belong to Draco. Everything about the creature screamed it.
The owl imperiously held out one leg, allowing Hermione to untie the small note held there. She offered up a jar of treats from her counter, and the bird spent several long moments sorting through them with an enormous talon until he found one that suited. He slow blinked his thanks, then ruffled his feathers and arranged himself carefully on the back of one of her kitchen chairs, clearly settling in to wait for a response.
Hermione unrolled the thick parchment with trembling hands.
I know I said I have work to attend to, but I’ve taken care of the essentials for now. Say the word and I’ll come to you, if that’s what you want. Today, tomorrow, next week. I am at your disposal, Hermione.
The sight of Draco’s spiky, elegant handwriting had her inexplicably fighting back tears. God. She did want him to come to her. She didn’t like being alone in her flat, like the last week had never happened, like she hadn’t been fundamentally changed from the inside out in the matter of a few days.
Hands shaking, under the appraising glare of a beautiful owl, Hermione carefully tore the blank space from the bottom of the parchment off, feeling a pang of guilt as she did so for marring the lovely paper. She grabbed a pen from the cup full of them on her kitchen table – she’d stopped using quills nearly as soon as she’d left Hogwarts – and scrawled a hasty note back to Draco. No need to say anything but exactly what she wanted.
Please come.
Chapter 15: The Completion
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
A scant but endless thirteen minutes passed between when Hermione sent Draco’s owl back to him and the crack indicating his arrival in her sitting room. She felt almost nauseous for a moment, scared and thrilled and full of anticipation for something completely unanticipatable.
“Hi,” she said softly, leaning against the door to the hallway from her sitting room. Draco was faced away from her where he’d landed, but he spun on his heels at the sound of her voice.
“Hello.”
They stared at each other as Draco slowly stalked towards her, a predatory glint in his eyes. He came to a stop a handsbreadth away from her, the smell and warmth of him putting Hermione’s body on full alert. She could feel the strange fever growing in her already, but the ache in her chest eased up immediately. She tilted her head back enough to maintain Draco’s steady eye contact. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m glad you want me here,” Draco murmured, finally reaching out to touch her, holding her face in both of his hands. “Did you do what you needed to do?”
“Sort of,” Hermione said, breathing hard against the way her body was reacting to Draco’s presence. “Pansy’s at the Burrow for the weekend and put work things on hold until Tuesday, anyway. Did you?”
“I gave everyone a week off, myself included. The building is only now being repaired and my clients are loyal enough they don’t mind the break in service. Investments are holding strong, despite the vague news of an issue at the office; they’re actually performing better this week than last, so no one is beating my door down yet. Once the news breaks, things might change, but Potter did mention they wouldn’t be making official statements until interviews and the rest of the investigation are fully concluded. Likely early next week. I’ll figure out how to deal with the PR once the Aurors are ready to go public.”
“So…”
“So.”
If Hermione’s math was right, that meant they had the better part of several full days together before the rest of the world intruded again. She wasn’t going to waste any time.
“When was the last time you took a suppressant dose?” she asked.
“Yesterday evening before I made you come all over my fingers.”
It took everything in Hermione not to shut her eyes against the vivid memories his words evoked, the feeling of being spread bare and at his mercy.
“I have food here,” she said, her brain racing ahead to make sure nothing would get in their way. She didn’t know exactly what was coming next, but she knew that she wanted it badly. “Or we can order takeaway. Is there anything else we need before you –”
Draco cut her off with a kiss, deep and searching and raw. She moaned against him, her mouth open, her nipples hard underneath her soft tee as Draco sucked gently on her tongue, nipped her bottom lip hard.
“I thought you might want to do some reading first,” he pulled away enough to pant.
Hermione grinned at him. “I’ve always found hands-on learning to be the most impactful kind,” she murmured back, and shrieked as Draco hoisted her up into his arms.
***
Hermione felt vaguely embarrassed of her room at first, worried of what Draco might think. “Everything in here feels like you,” was all he said after a brief surveillance, and any lingering worry dissolved as he set her reverently on her bed below him.
“I’m not exactly sure how this will go,” Draco murmured, kissing his way down her throat. “But once we start, we’re likely not going to be able to stop for…a while.” He raised her t-shirt above her breasts, swallowing hard when he saw she was bare underneath.
“That’s okay,” Hermione said. “I’ve got nowhere else to be.” Her mouth dropped open as Draco took one of her nipples gently between his teeth, his tongue hot and wet against the tip of it.
“Apologies in advance if I go a bit…animalistic on you,” he said quietly, pulling away from her body to look at her intently. “I’ve never fully let myself go before, certainly never with my mate.”
“I want all of it, Draco,” Hermione said, “I am your mate. I am for you, and you are for me. I want to know what that means. I want to see you fully let go.”
Draco buried his face for several long, quiet seconds against the soft bare skin below Hermione’s ribcage. She breathed, feeling him against her and running one hand through his hair as he collected himself. When he raised his head again, his eyes had shifted to fathomless eclipses, his pupils nearly taking over the silver entirely.
He took her mouth; there was no other word for it. Hermione groaned into him as he ate the noises and kissed her hungrily and ground his cock against her. Her legs parted for him easily as he pressed himself against her, and the way she could feel him flexing against her every time she flicked her tongue over his gums was enough to have her already soaking wet against him. Draco was pressed against her hard, not giving her an inch of relief as her clit slid against his straining cock.
“We have time later for everything else, Draco,” Hermione managed to pull back and say. “I want you inside of me. No –” she cut herself off, sucking in a little breath as Draco leaned down to bite one nipple, “– I need you.”
It was true. Something inside of Hermione felt frantic, wild with need.
The rawness in her voice, the words she used, all of it seemed to be the trigger Draco needed. He stripped her joggers off and barely got his flies open before he was back on her, his hot body pressed against hers and the insistent head of his cock pressing hard at the lace still covering her pussy. The fabric slid against her, soaked through, making her hiss at the additional friction.
“Sorry,” Draco said, sounding anything but, before he tore cleanly through the lace at her left hip in one motion. Hermione would’ve laughed had she not been busy trying to spread herself even wider to him.
Draco moved back just enough to shove the ruined knickers out of his way, before easily slipping his two middle fingers inside of her. Hermione’s mouth opened in a silent, agonized moan. It was so good, and so entirely not what she needed. “Please,” she said, the only thing that made any sense.
Draco pulled his hand away, only enough to spread the slick from her body around his cock. He fisted it twice, slowly, then used his grip to slide the fat head of him over her swollen clit. His eyes flew to her face, Hermione’s mouth opening and closing as she struggled to make words come out of it, to beg Draco to take her the way she needed. “Sweetheart,” he said, achingly tender, and leaned forward to kiss the single tear escaping down Hermione’s cheek as he finally, finally slid his cock inside of her.
By the time he was fully seated deep inside of her, her legs trembling and breasts heaving as she struggled to breathe, Hermione was crying. She could feel the tears sliding into her hairline as Draco cradled her face between his big palms and rocked himself as deep into her as he could. His movements were tiny, but felt enormously amplified to Hermione, keeping her riveted to his gaze as he murmured to her how perfect she was, how wet she was around his cock, how he couldn’t wait to feel her come. He seemed unalarmed by her tears, only using his thumbs to swipe them away and kissing the rest, licking his lips to taste the salt of her and then kissing her so she could do the same.
As she sensed her first orgasm approaching, the tears were slowing and Hermione felt like she was being constructed anew, built fresh from the inside out and branded by Draco’s cock. Another version of her might’ve been ashamed by this, but she wasn’t that person. She was this girl, here, desperate to have the lasting mark of this connection clear in every part of her body.
Draco leaned forward and rested his forehead against Hermione’s, drawing his hips back and fucking her deliberately with long, firm strokes. “I can feel you’re close, Granger,” he said softly into the intimate space between them. “I want you to come a few times before I knot you.” He shifted his weight easily onto one forearm and was somehow able to get his other hand between them enough that he could press two fingertips hard against the slippery, sensitive spot immediately above her clit. He pulsed them against her as he kept murmuring, the sound of his voice alone nearly enough to do her in.
“I want to feel you squeezing my cock, so hard it seems impossible I can ever get my knot in you. I want you dripping wet for me when I come in you. I’m going to eat it out of you later, before I fuck you again.”
That did it. Hermione narrowly avoided biting her tongue as everything in her clenched, rippling and tightening in ecstasy around the unceasing presence of Draco inside of her. She didn’t make a single noise, too strangled by sensation and too overwhelmed by the hugeness of it all.
“Fuck,” Draco swore, lifting his body enough that he could pull back a bit and squeeze a few fingers around the base of his cock. The feeling of them brushing against her as she clenched, still coming, set her off again, her back bowing off the bed beneath them.
It took several long moments for Hermione to come back to her body and brain, Draco kissing across her face and rocking gently into her again. “Once more before I knot you,” he managed to say. Hermione wanted to fight him, didn’t know what he was holding out for, but she was too hot and too worked up to protest. She just nodded, reaching up to wipe the last of her tears away.
“Sweet girl,” Draco said, watching her face intently. He picked the pace up again, reaching down to adjust both of her legs to rest over his shoulders. The angle was insane; she felt completely split open, at his mercy.
“Does that feel good?” Draco crooned. Hermione whimpered and shut her eyes tightly as Draco adjusted himself to a full kneel on the bed, pulling her hips up and into his lap so he could keep fucking her deeply. The sight of his body stretched out in front of her was a visual feast too intense to bear, and she kept her eyes squeezed shut as he thumbed slow circles around her clit again.
“Draco,” she sobbed, and then she was coming again, the waves rolling through her powerfully. This time, she could feel Draco beginning to swell inside of her, the pressure making her breath catch in her throat.
“Look at me, darling,” he said, then swore darkly. Hermione couldn’t even think about denying the request, her eyes flying open to find Draco now intently watching the place they were joined. His grip on her hips was hard enough to leave marks, which she was savagely grateful for.
He leaned over her again, groaning, meeting her eyes without hesitation. He pulled his hips back just enough that both of them could feel intimately the way he was locked in her. With a full body shudder, Draco let go. Hermione could feel the heat of him coming inside her, pressing one hand over her belly until the pressure of him inside her cunt was almost unbearable from all angles.
It was entirely too intense, but the moment meant that the raging heat inside of Hermione eased up significantly, until she could suck in full lungfuls of breath once again.
Draco buried his face in Hermione’s neck as he fucked her in tiny, liesurely strokes. “Your pussy is perfect,” he whispered between kisses to the sensitive skin of her throat. “Makes me crazy. All I think about is being inside of you, feeling you gush around me.” Hermione made a low, satisfied sound, all she could manage in return. “We’re going to stay right here until my knot goes down, and then I’m going to fuck you again with my come still in you. I’m going to fuck you full until both of us are dripping out of you.”
Hermione could have died on the spot. “Yes, you are,” she was finally able to say, unable to stop her pussy from rippling around Draco’s cock again.
“On second thought,” Draco murmured, “I’m not positive my knot is going to go down at all.”
***
It did, in the end, though not before Draco fucked her through two more orgasms, his cock still twitching inside of her. It felt different somehow from the feeling when he’d knotted her in the seaside house, the way satisfaction came and slipped right through her fingers again, leaving her desperate and able to take more and more and more.
Once he was able to slip out, Draco was on his knees beside the bed before Hermione could process the feeling of being wholly empty again, and his mouth was on her insistently. He licked flat and precise over her pussy, up around her clit with the point of his tongue, down until he could press hot and wet against her arsehole. She made incoherent noises as he worked the tip of his tongue into her, almost mewling.
And then he was over her again, telling her how delicious she was, flipping her over onto her belly. He slid a pillow under her hips and pushed his cock back into her, fucking her hard and fast while he toyed entirely too gently with her clit with one hand.
“More, please,” she managed to bite out against the sheets, and Draco didn’t deny her. He fucked her her steadily and intensely, and then pulsed what felt like the pads of two fingers against her slick arsehole over and over and over as Hermione writhed underneath him.
“You think you’re full now,” Draco said, a dangerous edge to his voice, “but I can’t wait to fuck you while you’re stuffed up here, too.” His fingers pressed a little further into her, and Hermione yelped as she shattered, Draco leaning forward to bite softly at her shoulder as his knot swelled up all at once, sealing them together.
Hermione felt borderline delirious afterward, but Draco soothed her easily, rolling them until they were spooning. He was able to reach her legs, tucked up as they were, and softly massaged her sore, still twitching muscles. Hermione’s libido might have been magically altered, but her very human body was still learning how to withstand being fucked within an inch of her life, even with some special abilities smoothing things along.
They took a shower together, the water cooler than the scalding Hermione usually preferred as both of them were acutely feeling the internal fever that seemed to accompany their complete surrender to each other. Hermione frankly couldn’t wait to do a little research, compare her experiences to the texts out there. Maybe she could even add to the literature at some point…
They ate a mini charcuterie plate while they could both think straight, three kinds of cheese and the fresh grapes and lavender honey and a dry salami. Hermione thought she was fine until she started full body trembling at the kitchen table. Almost possessed, she got to her knees in front of Draco’s chair, taking him out of the briefs he’d thrown on after their shower using both of her hands to get a good grip. He’d been hard since they’d began, but the satisfaction of his eyelids fluttering shut as Hermione licked across the fat head of him and took him into her mouth was immense.
She ran her tongue flat along as much of him as she could take at one time, determined eventually she’d be able to do more. Her hands gently tugged on his balls as she circled the tip of him with the point of her tongue, and he groaned as his cock flexed hard in her mouth. Under the hand still working him, she could feel him starting to swell again, and Draco, nearly panicked, pulled her off completely.
“Another day, you bloody believe I will come in your sweet mouth,” he said, “but not today. Today, I’m coming in that hot little pussy of yours and nowhere else.”
He hauled her easily off her knees, pushing the remains of their snack aside as he laid her open for him on the table, slipping two fingers easily into her empty pussy. “So wet, so fucking ready for me,” Draco said, and then fucked her right there, made her come twice before he was pulsing in her again.
“Will you run screaming if I tell you how unbearably hot I find it to fill you up with my come?” he asked seriously, gazing down at her from where he was propped on one elbow, his other hand teasing absently across her breasts.
“Draco,” Hermione said, laughing breathlessly as she tried to push her sweaty hair from her face. “I have gotten myself off to the thought of you fucking me bare more times than I care to admit. There’s a reason I come so hard when you’re locked in me like this, filling me up.”
Draco kissed her hard.
“Anyway,” she added, “there’s probably more of a conversation to be had about the inevitable conclusion of these biological imperatives we’ve alluded to, but right now? This –” she put her hand low on her abdomen once again, both of them looking down at the slight swell of her belly “– is incredibly hot for both of us. No screaming here, except from pleasure.”
***
The days bled into one another from there. Draco carried her back to the cocoon of her bedroom still clenching around his cock, fucked her in her window seat before his knot went down again. He spread her open for him and ate her out thoroughly, until Hermione had to beg him for a break, her body exhausted despite the deep craving to continue.
They napped for a long few hours, waking up in the dark where Draco held her from behind, slipped his cock into her, and rocked her slowly, so slowly to orgasm. She fell asleep again with him still in her, dozed until her body and the soft thrusts of Draco’s cock woke her up as he slowly knotted inside her, murmuring secrets and sweetness against the nape of her neck.
After a long bath and sex against the bathroom sink and a brunch spread at a time totally inopportune for brunch – no such thing, Hermione protested adamantly – Draco charmed the window to the street in Hermione’s sitting room so that they could see out into the golden hour traffic but no one else could see in, then pressed her up against it and fucked her as he told her how lucky he was, how the people wandering by in their lives had no idea that the Golden Girl was upstairs, desperate for his cock, so fucking filthy and delicious. Hermione came to the sound of Draco telling her, over and over, that she was meant for him.
At this point, Hermione’s fever seemed to give her slightly longer periods of relief after being properly knotted, and they were able to watch most of the first half of a film without their hands on each other. Partway through The Italian Job, Draco pulled Hermione into his lap, seating her on his cock and refusing to let her move more than a squirm until the credits rolled. He rolled her nipples in his long fingers, touched her pussy everywhere except where she needed him. By the end, Hermione could barely see through the lust, Draco’s lap embarrassingly wet from the slick dripping out of her.
“You are so good for me,” Draco said. “So bloody good. It’s time for you to come.” His words were nearly enough, but Hermione was perversely glad they didn’t do it entirely when Draco lifted her legs, putting her feet on the sofa on either side of his knees, and gently slapped her clit once more. He did it over and over, the direct contact almost too intense to get Hermione off, until he flexed his cock inside of her. The way the fat head of him rubbed against her from the inside, combined with one more sweet slap against her pussy had her coming so hard Draco had to wrap his arms around her to keep her upright against him. He took her to bed after that, tenderly using a damp cloth to wipe her down and cradling him against her as she slipped off into sleep.
By the time the Monday morning Prophet was delivered via Hermione’s floo, she was completely astonished to discover how much time had gone by. She’d slept, eaten, been taken care of in every way; she’d had Draco’s tongue and fingers and cock pressed against every part of her. She felt sated, and known, and hungry, and exhausted, and absolutely bloody thrilled about it.
“How are you doing?” Draco asked, coming in from the kitchen as Hermione scanned the day’s headlines. Nothing yet about the attack, though she knew their time was running out on that front. Reality was just around the corner, and she would have to face it at some point. May as well face it fully and satisfyingly fucked.
“Never better,” she said with a grin.
“Fever worn off?” he said. “I think I wasn’t hard for about 20 minutes this morning, after I fucked you awake.”
Amazing that after days, his matter of fact tone about wonderfully filthy things still sent a thrill deep through her.
“Mostly,” Hermione said. “I think there’s just one more thing I need.”
“Anything,” Draco said, though Hermione wasn’t sure he’d mean that when he heard her request.
“I want you to fuck me one more time,” she said. Draco was already smirking, but she wasn’t done. “I want you to fuck me on my knees, and when you come, I want you to bite me.”
Draco stiffened immediately. “Hermione, I…” he seemed at a loss for words, his face full of yearning but also – was that fear?
“Do you not want to?” she asked, because the thought hadn’t occurred to her, and now she was embarrassed.
Draco almost choked as he tried to scoff and respond with words all at once. “Fuck, of course I want to. But it’s so soon. You’re – you have only just joined me in this, and we don’t even know if I need the bite…”
He trailed off once again as Hermione stalked across the room to him and put her hand on his face, thumb on his chin. “Open your mouth,” she said, and slowly, Draco did.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice them?” she asked. Fascinated, turned on, rather unable to help herself, she moved her thumb until she could press against Draco’s incisors, which had grown longer and sharper at some point during the first time he’d fucked her on Friday. She shivered at the contact. Draco was holding himself perfectly still.
“I know you don’t want to hurt me,” Hermione said. “I know you don’t want to trap me. You aren’t. I am choosing this, fully and enthusiastically. You have to trust me on that front. I want you to know it for sure, that I am in this with you.”
Draco, astonishingly, appeared to be on the verge of tears. He said nothing, only pulled Hermione to him and held her so tightly she was struggling to breathe for an entirely different reason.
He picked her up easily, kissing her with each step as he led them back to the safe nest of her bedroom. She slid to the ground from his arms and climbed eagerly up on the bed, the last of the fever in her making her all too eager to rest her face against the sheets, present her arse to him for the taking. Draco knelt behind her, kneading her tight lower back and the muscles of her arse and occasionally dragging his fingers through the mess of her.
He didn’t fuck her gently, and she didn’t want him to. It was somehow tender all the same.
“Granger.” Draco said her name like a prayer, a salve. He reached an arm under her to haul her up against him until they were both kneeling, his body holding her up entirely.
“Do it, Draco,” Hermione breathed, reaching up to hold her hair up and out of his way.
Draco’s spare hand moved to her clit, soft and sure, the other holding her up across her breasts. He kissed the junction of her neck and shoulder once, twice, and then – and then –
As the fat knot of his cock popped inside of her, Draco pressed his fingers hard against Hermione’s clit and bit her.
The rush of it was insane; physical and magical, radiating through Hermione with a palpable electricity. She shuddered at the hugeness of it, her powerful orgasm almost an afterthought to the intensity of the rightness within her, the deep and wide awareness of Draco’s entire being, the certainty that this was exactly where she belonged. That he was for her.
Draco was trembling just as hard behind her. He sat back hard on his knees, until Hermione was in his lap, still coming around him in weak pulses. Her vision and hearing had gone slightly, but there was nothing she needed to see or hear. She could feel Draco inside of her, feel his heartbeat through her chest, feel his tongue softly licking at the tiny droplets of blood his teeth had drawn.
Neither of them spoke until Draco had come down enough to slip fully from her. It was a pleasant silence, full up of things that there weren’t particularly any words for. Hermione finally felt completely satiated, the strange heat that had awoken in her body content to lie dormant once more. She would be happy to see it again whenever it came.
Draco opted for a few easy cleansing spells for both of them, snuggling back into Hermione’s myriad pillows and bringing her with him to lay against his broad, warm chest.
“Everyone is going to lose their minds,” she said after a long, easy quiet.
Draco laughed, the sound tripping happily out of him. “And you do mean everyone,” he said, stroking one hand down Hermione’s sore back.
She sighed contentedly. “You’re mine now, and there’s nothing any of them can do about it.” She reached up to feel the place Draco had bit her, deliciously tender under her fingers.
“I thought calling you mine would be the best thing I could ever hope to do,” Draco murmured against her hair. “Turns out belonging to you is leagues better.”
Hermione found she wholeheartedly agreed.
Notes:
and there she is!! my first a/b/o, first true slow burn and first major chaptered fic complete. i have really loved writing the two of them in this world. thank you so much for coming along with me.
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