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Narcissa Malfoy raised a glass to the crowd to salute them.
"From our family to yours, please enjoy the celebration tonight. Dance, eat, drink, and be merry, here at the turning of the New Year! May it be a year of second chances, of joy, and of prosperity for us all!"
At her side, her pale, wraith-like husband did likewise, although it was clear from the man's thin-lipped smile that he did so only out of polite politicking and not from any real sentiment. No one returned his toast.
That was fine, Draco thought, as wizarding Britain had moved on from Lucius Malfoy, anyway; he was little more than an insignificant footnote in their history now. When Voldemort had fallen, he had lost all his former power, and a dozen years later, his reputation was still in shreds, most likely never to recover. It was his wife and his son who had repaired the family's prominence in society with their tireless rebuilding efforts and charitable undertakings, and it was for the two of them, not the Malfoy patriarch, that this crowd had deigned to gather at the family's Wiltshire manor tonight to ring in 2010.
As far as Draco was concerned, Lucius and his hurt pride could get fucked. His irrelevance was of his own doing, and this passive, collective snub by the wizarding community was the penance he would have to pay for the rest of his life for the things he'd done.
Just as Draco had had to atone.
Was still atoning.
Wine glasses clinked together as Narcissa finished her speech and murmurs of, 'Hear, hear!' passed many of the mouths of the Ministry's most famous and brightest members as they saluted her back in kind. Draco also tipped his glass her way in silent praise for having pulled off the last, and most magnificent event of this year's season, and for a brief second, their eyes met across the room. That bizarre maternal sixth-sense she'd honed over the years seemed to once more unerringly pointed her to precisely where he was at the precise moment he had intended to act in an inappropriate manner.
'Do not become too inebriated,' she warned him with a single look that spoke of a tongue-lashing later, if he dared disobey.
Age didn't matter when it came to being on the receiving end of Narcissa Malfoy's displeasure. The war had considerably hardened her.
His lips curled with amusement and he nodded, agreeing to her unspoken request.
'Yes, Mother, I will endeavour not to embarrass you too much.'
With that, she daintily took another sip of wine and then passed her half-full glass off to a hovering server, turning her attention to the Minister and his partner instead, completely ignoring both her rapscallion of a son and her ostracized husband the same as everyone else.
Taking cue from the hostess' movements, the band hired for the evening's activities immediately resumed its winter-themed jazz and swing repertoire on the slightly elevated stage across the room. As the music started up once more, the large mass of guests broke up into couples who turned to the dance floor or into smaller groups that stood in conversational circles around the room, especially near the bar.
Now it was just a waiting game for the midnight hour to arrive while indulging in free top-shelf alcoholic offerings and dozens of exotic-flavoured hors d'oeuvres circulating through the crowd on three-hundred year old serving platters cast in solid gold.
Feeling his hosting duties were now officially over, and leaving the rest in his mother's capable hands, Draco broke off his conversation with Pansy, Theo, Greg, and Blaise with the excuse of needing some fresh air and made his way out into the long hallway towards the front of the house. In his hand, he carried a bottle of the finest Champagne in the world, freshly cracked open by a house-elf for him, personally, and partook a generous swig of it as he pushed through the double French doors of the front balcony and stepped outside.
The warming spell around the manor — cast so couples could roam the estate if they wished without fear of catching cold — made the night air almost as balmy as the overcrowded party room inside the house. It was almost suffocating, in truth, so he loosened his formal jacket and the black bowtie at his throat. As he did so, he noted that where the invisible line of the spell terminated was close to the front gate; cold snow lay half a meter thick over the hedge rows and beyond. However, within the confines of the magical barrier, green, lush grass dotted with crimson poinsettia shrubs and dark green holly bushes dominated, encouraged and spelled into life by his mother's magical botanical expertise. The fountain had been turned on for this occasion as well, although the albino peacocks were safely nestled away in the aviary in the rear of the estate because they tended to frighten unsuspecting people with their shrill cries.
Well, that and they had a nasty habit of ingesting the poisonous holly berries and ending up in a shallow grave in the back field, beyond the property's wall.
Stupid birds.
And speaking of things 'dead'...
His ex-wife was here with her new beau, Sanguini.
Or would the man be called her 'Sire' now, technically, since he'd been the one to turn Astoria - completely consensual, of course - into his Vampire bride? Rather, what was the correct term for a lover who had spared you a gruesome death (due to some nasty ancestral blood curse) by murdering you with your permission, only to resurrect you as a member of the Undead using a piece of his own lifeforce? Your saviour? Your god? Figuring that out could certainly put a whole new spin on nicknames in the bedroom, he thought with some amusement. Whatever Sanguini was to Astoria, he was most definitely smitten, though, and it was obvious she felt likewise for the Vampire. The pair were positively flush with love for each other, flashing a matching set of smiling fangs as they'd moved around the dancefloor tonight to a tune only they could hear together.
If he was to be completely honest, seeing how happy Sanguini had made Tori had made Draco feel a bit wistful, really.
Oh, he wasn't longing to win Astoria back, as their marriage had never been a love match, but a marriage of convenience between two ancient families seeking to create new relevance in a world that no longer valued them. And he certainly wasn't jealous of Tori's happiness, either. On the contrary, he was most pleased for his ex. She'd been literally doomed to die a horrid death, and despite dumping millions of galleons into Healers and Hags and Hex-Witches over the course of their marriage, desperate to find a way around her fate, they'd been unable to undo the curse. Rather than taking the dramatic way out with a lethal dose of some poison or jumping from a building, though, Tori had decided she'd wanted to live, even if it meant dying to fulfill the curse. Hence, seeking out Sanguini.
Clever chit, she'd figured out how to beat the spell through a technicality.
Still, tonight as he'd watched her practically sparkle in her lover's embrace, he'd realized what an amazing woman she was, and how he'd never truly appreciated her, too caught up in feelings for a witch in his past. Feelings that had never properly found closure. And even as he'd mentally congratulated Sanguini on his delight and Tori on her joyous contentment, he still found himself contemplating what might have been if he'd just been a little more courageous at the age of seventeen.
If he'd stopped his aunt that day, killed the demented Bellatrix and every Snatcher in that Sitting Room, helped Potter and Weasley get her to safety, would Hermione Granger have married him instead?
He took another swig of the Champagne.
Did it matter? He hadn't saved her. She hadn't loved him. There was no undoing the past, and twelve years was a long time to hold a torch for someone who had married someone else and hadn't bothered to look him up once during those long years to rekindle their do-over year's friendship.
So, why couldn't he let her go?
He glanced down upon the ground level below to spy various Ministry guests and Heads of State taking advantage of the comfortable outdoors, wondering again at his life…
He'd be thirty in a few months, and had achieved more than he'd expected by this age—certainly more than anyone else from his old school days, much to his parent's satisfaction. Over the last twelve years, he'd become an unparalleled, successful business man who was both respected and feared in the board room. He'd traveled the world, brokering everything from a few thousand galleon pittance deals to multi-million galleon mergers, financing both small and large wizarding venture capitals—everything from curse-breaking expeditions in Antarctica to herb and spice trading between Old World Europe and the Orient, and staying in hotels from Buenos Aires to Vancouver, from Beijing to Rome. Discovering new avenues of wealth came naturally to him, and as such he'd earned a reputation for being able to effectively navigate risk to generate huge profits for his clients...and himself.
Insofar as public works and charity were concerned, he'd been called upon annually for the last four years by the Ministry's Auror Training Program—by Potter himself—to teach Occlumency and wandless, non-verbal defence magic. He'd also engaged in a number of important wizarding causes, acting as a patron of the arts, in medicine, education, Quidditch, and a particularly small, but vocal House-elf rights group.
Consequently, he'd earned the admiration of the wizarding community as a whole, and since his divorce, had even been named the 'Most Eligible Wizard of the Year' by Witch Weekly's society pages. All of that combined had helped pave the way for his family's reputation to finally be restored, and now the name 'Malfoy' was synonymous with 'respectability' once again.
And yet, there were unfortunate repercussions of such hard-won financial and social success, too: Astoria had left him, and there had been no attempt to enter into a long-term relationship search, just a series of paid one-offs with professionals to take the edge off. Being jokingly labeled by Blaise, Greg, and Theo as 'the guy who couldn't get shagged by an honest girl to save his life' was starting to eat at him, frankly.
The fact was Draco was mentally exhausted and lonely.
...And there really was only one witch he wanted to help him find solutions to both problems, but she hadn't come tonight. Or at least, he hadn't seen her name on the guest list, nor her face in the crowd below.
That meant something, didn't it?
Maybe it was time to face the fact that-
"It's almost a new year, Malfoy. A new decade, in fact. Time to throw out the old and ring in the bold! No scowling allowed!"
His heart pounding out a rapid tattoo under his ribs, Draco turned, recognizing the voice of the witch who had dared intrude upon his privacy. It hadn't changed all that much since their Eighth year do-over.
His breath caught as their eyes met.
A lady now of thirty rather than a girl of nineteen, Hermione Granger was still the most magnificent woman he'd ever laid eyes on.
Without an invitation, bold to her very toes, she sidled up to him at the balcony, resting her weight on the stone railing as she looked out over the view with him. Her red, fairy-dusted dress sparkled in the moonlight from shoulder to ankle.
It took him two starts and stops to finally talk.
"I didn't see you on the guest list."
Mentally, he kicked himself for opening up their first conversation in over seven years with a criticism.
Would it change her mind, cause her to turn on her heel and head back inside?
"I'm here as an official guest of a guest, actually," she said instead.
"You're someone's date then?" he inquired politely. Inside he felt disappointment rip through his chest.
"In a manner of speaking," she explained, seemingly oblivious to his pain. "See, your mum invited the Head of the Auror Office in London to attend tonight's gala--along with most of the Department head staff for Magical Law Enforcement."
Ah, so Potter was here; Draco hadn't seen him yet. But then, there were well over three hundred guests at tonight's soiree, thanks to his mother's over exuberance.
Granger continued her explanation in a mock, tragic voice, placing one hand dramatically over her heart for effect. "Sadly for him, his wife didn't want to go to yet another… How did she phrase it? 'Another stuffed-shirt event.'" She grinned. "Well, that of course, was positively fortuitous for me, because I really wanted to to gate-crash your party tonight. Harry was more than happy not to come alone into the snake's den, too." She finished with a purely wicked smirk. "Of course, when I greeted your mother earlier and Harry explained about the 'obvious mistake' in regards to my invitation never arriving, she was quite apologetic about the mistake and promised I'd be at the top of the guest list next year."
Draco laughed from his gut just imagining his mother's discomfort over being bested by the one Muggle-born she'd always held at arm's length, despite having a grudging respect for her.
"So, you're enjoying yourself toying with my mother, but have you tempted fate with my father yet?"
If there was one thing he knew about Hermione Granger, it was that Lucius Malfoy had never intimidated her, even on his best day. She'd stared him down when she'd been twelve in Flourish & Blotts, and in the Department of Mysteries at sixteen, and she'd refused to acknowledge him on graduation afternoon at the end of Eighth year when she'd come over to Draco to big him goodbye. The man had been persona non grata to her then, and most likely would have continued to be all these years later, the same as everyone else in their society. Still, it would be fun to hear of her finally putting the old man in his place.
The feral flash of her teeth said it all, and Draco felt his respect for her rise another notch.
"Your father thought it wiser to keep his mouth closed than to bait me. It seems one can teach old dogs new tricks."
He chuckled, wishing he'd been there to see Lucius biting his tongue in half and choking on it.
"Had enough of the hobnobbing, I take it? Needed the air?" he asked, wanting to hold her to him in conversation longer.
This was the most they'd spoken since Eighth year, honestly.
Her slim shoulders rose with a shrug.
"I saw you come up here," she admitted.
A gentle blush rose in her cheeks.
Draco's heart skipped a beat or two in his chest as he mulled over how to approach that statement without scaring her off. There were, after all, twelve years worth of questions he wanted to ask her.
She indicated the bottle in his hand.
"Care to share, or are you drinking alone?"
A better offering he couldn't have hoped for.
Fuck it, he was going for it. Life was too short, and a new year was fast approaching.
"How about we do both? I know a good place to hide."
He held his hand out to her to take, indicating they should return inside together, using their special code from back during their Eighth year that they'd invented to tell the other when they wanted to snog.
Granger glanced at his outstretched offering for a second, biting her lip in consideration.
At first, he thought he'd come on too strong, but then a familiar resolve entered her dark gaze and she stretched out her hand to placed it in his. Her fingers were cold. He warmed them with his own as he led her back inside...and then away from the party, towards the manor's private suites.
As he'd done often during that second term during their do-over year, he led her to a private place where they could talk (or do other things) without worry of being caught out or eavesdropped upon.
Back then, he'd known all the hidden nooks and shadowy spaces around Hogwarts where they could be alone and she'd loved adventuring into them with him, discovering all of the castle's secrets that were purposefully withheld from Hogwarts, a History. Now, he was showing her the manor's secrets, as he slipped her down back hallways and up servant stairs into the wing historically forbidden to guests.
They were halfway to his bedroom when he felt her tug on his arm to halt him.
"Wait, I need to tell Harry where I've gone."
With a flick of her wand, she summoned a fully-corporeal Patronus and gave it instructions. It bounded off towards the ballroom, where it would wait for a moment when Potter was alone to relay its message.
"Still an otter, I see."
"Otters are Mustelids," she told him with a gentle smile, her blush intensifying once more upon the apples of her cheeks. "Just like ferrets."
Wait, was she saying...
Draco's Patronus, which Granger had helped him to reveal during their Eighth year, after months of practice, had been a wispy white ferret.
Two Patronuses only matched up if he owners of them were soul mates, according to folklore.
His shock must have been quite the silly sight, because Granger giggled at his dumb expression, then politely reached out and using two fingertips, closed his mouth by tilting his jaw back into its proper position.
She gave his hands a gentle squeeze. Just the feel of her warmth intimately touching him jolted him back into action. He quickly led her to a side exit, down a long, empty hallway, turned left down another corridor, then took a flight of stairs up, and finally entered the East Wing of the Manor House. As they walked, neither said a word, the tension between them was too palatable. He reached for his wand inside his jacket inside pocket and waved it as he approached his bedroom door; it opened automatically and then shut quietly behind them when they entered. He waved the fireplace into life, and led her over to the couch that was situated right in front of it.
Lounging back on the plush sofa, he stared hotly at her as she took a seat about half a meter away, turning her body towards him. He'd waited so long for this… This time, they were going to play this game through to its conclusion. No stopping at a simple pull of lips and a few naughty touches under clothes.
Tonight would be a night neither one of them would ever forget, and not just because it was he start of a new year.
Hermione's eyes darted around the room, taking in the details. "It's very… House colors for you in here," she stated. "Was this something you added after you were sorted into Slytherin, or was this always the palette for your interior design?"
"I don't think there was ever an expectation that I wouldn't be sorted into Slytherin," he explained, confused by her opening move. It was a stall, clearly. Was she nervous? True, it had been twelve years and there was a lot to unpack here, but her patronus hadn't changed...and neither had his. That meant something, right? "It's always been green and black for me."
"That makes sense. I'd never liked such bold, jewel-toned colors until Hogwarts, though. My room as a child was sunny yellow with pale blue trim, softer colors."
"Not fiery enough for you," he commented quickly, assuredly. "You're Gryffindor, through and through."
Now she looked at him, gave him the full weight of her dark stare.
"Perhaps I've changed. It's been a long time, Draco."
Hearing her use his given name again made his blood pound in his ears.
"You're still an otter, Hermione," he reminded her, and using his wand, summoned his own Patronus for her to see it swimming around in the air, playfully showing off for her. "Some hearts never change."
She grew misty-eyed at the revelation and quickly swiped a finger under both eyes. She looked a bit shaken.
Banishing the ferret with another wave of his wand, he decided to pull back a bit, give her some breathing space. He really was coming on strong, his feelings for her magnified simply by her presence after such a long absence, but perhaps she wasn't yet in the same space as him.
"However," he teased, taking another pull from the Champagne bottle, which he hadn't relinquished yet, "I actually think you'd look gorgeous in green and black, Granger."
The not-so-subtle innuendo did not escape her. This time, her flush traveled down her throat.
She reached for the bottle of Champagne in his hand, grabbed it, and quickly took a drink.
"Now, now," he chided her. "No drinking until we've decided upon a game." He took the alcoholic beverage back from her with a 'tsk' and held it hostage. "How about it?"
She paused. "What do you suggest?"
Draco had been contemplating the perfect game all the way up to his suite, trying to determine one she'd be willing to play that would also get them both some answers about what had actually happened that June back in their younger days and what had driven them apart. And where they'd been these past twelve years.
Maybe even where they wanted things to go next.
"'Truth or Dare'?" he challenged her. "We take turns asking each other a single question. You can either answer it truly, or don't answer it and take a sip of Champagne. The game ends when the bottle's empty."
She eyed the bottle, which was now only half-full, weighing her odds.
"The dares are just to drink, not to require each other to do something more...risque?"
Did she sound disappointed?
Now that surprised him.
"If you want to go streaking through the halls, then by all means, Granger, but I'm content to let it sit at an actual drinking game...this time."
"Alright then," she hesitantly agreed. "Who goes first?"
"Since I'm holding the bottle..."
He raised it and waved it in the air between them, indicating he was first up.
She nodded in agreement and they were off.
He leaned back against the couch and thought up a safe first question.
"Where did you go after Hogwarts?"
Hermione seemed to withdraw, as if the question had somehow hit a nerve.
"I...I spent that next year in Australia with my parents. You remember they opted to remain there after I'd returned their memories to them."
Draco nodded. He recalled how devastated she'd been when she'd finally revealed that tale to him, and then how elated she'd been when she'd returned from Easter holiday in Australia and the experiment to reverse the Memory Charm on her parents, which she and he had researched together, had actually worked.
"I needed to make it up to them, what I had done. I'd taken their livelihood away from them when I'd sold their practice in London and shipped them half-way around the world, and although they were enjoying the retirement I'd forced early on them, they'd also missed dentistry and helping patients. So, I established them with the Australian government as certified dentists and helped them set-up a new office in Melbourne. Then, I went back to school at the University of Melbourne, and I studied BioMedicine. At the same time, I interned at a local wizarding hospital nearby. I eventually graduated Muggle university and passed an apprenticeship at the hospital to become a full-fledged Healer."
"What brought you back to England?" he asked, amazed at how much she'd accomplished, but realizing that this was Hermione Granger, and she was nothing if not driven to succeed at any endeavour she tried.
"Ron was hurt while helping to capture Yaxley-"
"Ah, yes, I remember reading about it in the paper. Lost an eye."
She nodded. "I was able to Portkey in to St. Mungo's in time to help save three of the five fingers on his right hand that had been severed as well, but eyes are so much more complex."
"So that's how you reconnected."
He knew she'd married Ronald Weasley and that he'd died a few years back, but not the circumstances.
"Yes, but...he never really recovered from having to leave the Auror force due to his injuries. His wand hand shook too much because he'd refused physical therapy after the surgery and he had trouble gripping his wand properly with the loss of his thumb and middle fingers on that hand. He suffered terrible migraines from the head trauma he'd suffered and his vision was disabled on one whole side as well. He... It was too difficult for him."
There were now real tears in her sorrow-filled eyes.
"He took his own life."
Draco was floored to hear this.
"I'm so sorry, Granger. I never knew."
She waved him off, swiped at her eyes again. Her make-up must have been glamoured on, as it didn't smudge.
"No one did. We all decided to keep it a private matter, for family only. Harry knows as well, obviously, since he's married to Ginny."
He reached out and put a hand over hers in an unspoken offering to provide her whatever comfort she would allow.
But Granger was made of strong stuff, and although she made it clear with a tender squeeze of his hand that she appreciated his caring concern, her expression said she could bear this burden on top of all the others she had carried throughout her life.
Still, he would help her, if she asked. He'd carry every hurt she held, if she wanted.
"Thank you," she simply said.
An awkward silence ensued.
"Do you...want to call it a night?" he asked, giving her the out, using their familiar code again from their youth. "I can walk you back home."
"No," she reassured him with a tremulous smile. "It's been too long, Draco. We should talk."
"I'd like that," he confessed, "but only if you're sure."
One more wipe across her eyes, and a sniffle, and she'd once more packed away her past, at least for the time being. "It's my turn. Same question for you."
"Where did I go after Hogwarts? Well..."
He told her of his corporate conquests, his travels around the globe, his achievements on his quest to salvage the Malfoy name for posterity. He told her of his marriage to Astoria Greengrass, and about Tori's familial blood curse and the final solution his ex-wife had devised.
"The divorce papers arrived soon after she'd come back to life," he finished with a shrug. "I signed them and...that was that."
"That must have sent the Ministry into quite a tizzy, trying to determine the legal precedence for a Vampire to divorce their living husband?"
"Funny enough, there is already a case on the books which they used to apply to our situation," he told her. "It wasn't that difficult to get the divorced processed, thanks to that."
"I'm sure Sanguini standing over her helped fast-track the paperwork, too."
Draco laughed at her insinuation.
"He is creepy."
"Very."
"I'm creepy. I invited you up to my rooms without so much as a, 'Hello, Granger, how have you been?'"
"I fell for that creepy charisma you ooze and followed you up here without so much as a, "Hello, Malfoy, I've missed you so', so what does that say about me?" she wondered aloud, her lips tilted with a teasing smile.
"You've missed me, have you?"
She rolled her eyes.
"Whose turn was it?"
"I've lost track."
"Then I'll declare it mine," he said, taking advantage. "Why did you kiss me goodbye that last day? Why not stay and try to make it work?"
She lost her smile once more.
"That's two questions."
"Technically, it's one with two parts."
They hovered on that precipice of truth, the answer to the last dozen years hovering in the air between them like an uncaught Snitch.
"Before I answer, I...I need to know something from you."
To get to the heart of the tormenting riddle of his life, Draco would promise her anything right then.
"Alright."
"Was Astoria's blood curse the reason you agreed to the betrothal contract with her, or...or did you have feelings for her then?"
He frowned.
"Betrothal contract? Then? There was no such thing. I only started dating her three years after you were gone and it was clear you weren't coming back."
Hermione's eyes had gone wide and her expression drained of blood, leaving her as grey-faced as Astoria.
"You...you weren't betrothed to her in Eighth year?"
Draco's Slytherin instincts were going off in his head. Someone had done or said something to make Hermione believe he'd been engaged to Astoria while courting her.
"No. Where did you hear that?"
"A...a note. It came by owl, the morning of graduation. You confessed to being engaged to Astoria through a betrothal contract since childhood. You said..." Here, she stopped, seeming to need to gather her anger as the memories were relived in her head. "You offered me to become your mistress."
There it was: the reason.
A lie.
For the second time that night, Draco's jaw hit the floor.
"I..." He ground his teeth together, beginning a list of probable suspects in his head. "Granger, listen to me: there was no betrothal contract with Astoria or anyone else then. I was courting you. I wanted you. I would never have asked you to be anything less than my wife."
"Oh, my god," she sobbed, and slapped her hands over her eyes as she wept through her confession. "It was a trick and I...I just believed it! I never even asked you! I never gave you the chance to... I'm such a fool!"
He set the bottle of Champagne aside on a nearby side table and closed the distance between them to take her into his arms. She clung to him, weeping into his woolen jacket, her voice partially muffled, but clear enough.
"You hadn't trusted me," he sighed. "Not that I blame you. I spent years tormenting you and your friends, I helped start the war and then sat back and nearly watched you die at my aunt's hands and did nothing. I was always a coward, taking the sneaky way out. It was asking too much of you to set all that history aside in too short a time and to give me your full trust." He pressed a small kiss to the side of her head. "But I promise you, Granger, I was not betrothed to anyone at that time. Someone sent you that note to hurt you, break us apart. I suspect my father. He'd always had a spy in my House to watch over me."
"It worked," she admitted around a sniffle. "I'm so sorry, Draco."
"Me, too. You were chased out of England by that lie."
They sat like that for a long time in silence, the muted roar of the party downstairs really taking off as they neared the midnight hour. His witch's tears finally quieted down, until she lay limp within his arms, emotionally wrung out.
"Truth or Dare?" she whispered.
"Truth," he opted, having had enough of misunderstandings between them.
"Do you think we could get a second chance? It is a new year, after all."
Without replying, he leaned back, picked up his wand from the side table, and summoned his Patronus again. The white ferret curled around Hermione's neck, nuzzling her.
She rubbed her cheek and hands over it, cradling it to her, as if she could capture his heart in the doing.
What she didn't know was she already owned his soul.
She always had.
"I…ran away from you," she told him with renewed tears beading her long lashes, "but I never really got over you, Draco. That's why I wheedled Harry into taking me as his guest tonight; I told him it was because I wanted to tweak your mother's nose for intentionally not inviting me, but really, I wanted to see you again. Something in my heart said this was our year, finally, and I...I just followed that instinct. Am I wrong? Is it too late?"
He reached for her and his ferret disappeared, sensing its job was done.
"I don't want to talk anymore about what went wrong. We can do that after. For now, it's all the past and a new year is here. A second chance, and I want to kick it off right - you, naked, under me, letting me convince you to trust me fully. Do you want that, too?"
She firmly nodded, swiping her cheeks clean.
He licked his lips, and she mimicked him, and that was what undid him.
Grabbing the back of her neck, he pulled her to him just as his mouth dropped to hers. Their Champagne-drunk lips met.
The world according to Draco Malfoy dropped out from underneath him, leaving him floating within Hermione Granger's space.
It was the same feeling as that year: the same giddy, flipping motion in his abdomen, the same pounding pulse in his veins, the same heady, nebulous feeling of free-falling. He kissed her with everything he had, all of the years of pent-up longing and frustration unwinding, curling around them, dragging them both under the uncontrolled wave of his feelings.
She met him with an equal passion.
In silent agreement, they moved from the sofa and stepped the distance between it and his bed without breaking their connection. She giggled as the backs of her calves met his mattress, and he couldn't help the smug curling of his lips at having achieved the impossible in actually getting her to this point.
"Slow," she requested.
"Anything you want," he promised.
Gently, he pulled the pins out of her chignon and let all those luxurious, dark curls he'd dreamed about touching for years run through his fingers. He stroked them, untangled them with tenderness, stuck his nose into them and inhaled their spicy fairy-apple scent. "I confess I have always adored your hair, my Granger," he whispered as he nuzzled behind her ear and at the pulse of her throat. "It's always driven me fair mad."
Her nails slid along his skull, leaving kisses of electric shocks down his spine.
"Just my hair?"
He could hear the teasing smile in her voice.
"All of you," he admitted, pulling her into his arms and capturing her lips once more, trying not to grin too much at her provocation. "You are the most exasperating woman I have ever known."
"Good," she purred and proceeded to prove it to him all over again by stripping him of his dress robes before he'd even gotten her dress off her, just in case that fact needed reminding.
She cupped him in her warm palm and stroked, and Draco nearly spilled into her hand, so expert was her touch.
"I thought you said you wanted to go slowly," he reminded her.
"No, I said I wanted you to go slowly when it's my turn for some attention." Her brown eyes sparkled with mischief. "Right now, though, it's your turn, since it was my misunderstanding that kept us from this for so long. Allow me to make it up to you."
She dropped to her knees before him and took him into her mouth in one glorious, wet slide.
Draco's knees nearly buckled and he had to grab onto the sleigh bed's footboard not to embarrass himself. The moan that left his throat was positively filthy, filled with both relief and ecstasy.
"Make it up to me," he grunted as she swallowed him into her throat. "By all means."
She did, and as he looked down at her in her sparkling red dress with her ruby-red lips wrapped around his straining flesh he thrust gently, despite her mounting hunger. Brought to the edge faster than he'd anticipated, he finally let go and flew, spilling into her mouth without regret. She took all of him down into her with a hum of contentment, continuing to massage him with her tongue and lips even after the last of his seed was given.
"Your turn," he panted, dragging her to her feet and turning her to unzip her robes.
Draco was a man of his word. He went slowly, torturing them both as he divested her of every scrap of clothing. The iridescent fabric of her dress shimmered as it was dropped to his carpet, the bra beneath gently unhooked and tossed negligently aside. He teased her firm brown nipples and learned each sensitive spot from neck to toes with his hands and mouth. The silky slide of her panties as he pulled them from her hips and down her shapely legs had his sex rising once more to the occasion, and the scent of her arousal between her legs left him dizzy and throbbing with want. He kissed and suckled all that tempting, golden and pink flesh as he moved to the floor to kneel at her feet, worshipping her as his new goddess.
Her taste was divine, the sounds she made as he lapped at her sweetness made him greedy for more. Bent over his bed, he licked his fill until her thighs shook and her spine bowed and she cried out his name.
They lay together in the middle of his bed and rested, despite his renewed arousal. He held her to his heart, closed his eyes and tried to match the beats so they were in sync. She was quiet, her soft hair and slowing breaths tickling him wherever they touched.
The party downstairs was really becoming rowdy, with the sounds of breaking glass and raucous laughter, and Draco guessed they were nearing the midnight hour.
"Can I stay?" she asked at long last, disturbing the stalemate.
He smiled and kissed the top of her head, pulling her up his body until they were eye to eye.
"Forever, if you want."
The little crease in the centre of her forehead relaxed and she seemed quite relieved to hear his news.
"Oh. Good."
With that, she slid her whole body atop him and pressed her slick heat against his semi-relaxed length.
It immediately perked up...especially when she began rubbing her moist heat over him a few times.
Sensing the moment of change was upon them both, she sat up and atop his hips, careful not to put too much weight on his ready erection. From the angle, Draco thought her a fetching imp, her hair spread out around her shoulders and draping over a nipple to hide it, while the other was on full display. Her dark eyes glimmered with the dozen twinkling lights from the various candelabra scattered around his room. A flush rose up her chest and filled her cheeks as she contemplated wicked thoughts.
She was more beautiful than any fantasy he'd ever had of her.
"I want you," he admitted, sliding his hands over her waist and up her body to cup her breasts. He teased the little nubs with his thumbs making her shudder. "I always have."
A softening in her expression told him that she finally understood what he had never been able to understand or express prior to tonight. Her lips turned with a tender smile.
Nothing more needed to be said. They both understood what came next...and they were both more than ready for it.
Hermione raised to her knees and he slotted himself into her body. Slowly, she lowered herself onto him. They came together, fitting like two long, lost pieces coming home. They moved together, shared breath, hearts shattering and reforming, until at last they met at the edge and held hands as they leapt over it. It was lovely. It was transcendent.
After, they lay in blissful repletion, resting before the need arose in them once more...as it would many times that night, and many nights in the future.
Below, the clock struck midnight and the manor's ballroom erupted with great, rowdy cheers and burst with warm, earnest song.
Draco tucked Hermione into his side and held her close, closing his eyes, for the first time unworried about dreaming. The love of his life was finally all his, here and now, at the turning of the New Year.
~.~.~.~.~
The next morning, Lucius Malfoy was found slumped over the desk in his study, quite dead.
The pale, white peacock of a man had apparently committed suicide by ingesting an ornamental holiday phytotoxin known to be a leading cause of death in birds.
Astoria Greengrass-Sanguini stood over the body of her former father-in-law and smiled, her dainty fangs poking into her bottom lip and drawing fresh blood, which she sucked upon with happy excess.
Next to her stood Narcissa Malfoy, and in the woman's hand was a glass of freshly-poured Champagne.
"Well, thank goodness that's over," the Vampiress exclaimed, casting a Cleansing charm on her hands to remove the evidence of holly berry juice from her fingers. "Twelve years was too long to pine over someone. Now maybe Draco will finally be free to find the happiness he deserves."
"Oh, I think it's safe to say we all will, my dear," Narcissa said, and raised her glass in toast to her deceased husband. "To a new year of second chances, of joy, and of prosperity for us all!"
~FIN~