Chapter Text
Day One
Hermione arrived at the conference in a flurry of loose papers, hastily done up buttons, and wild hair.
Davis and Yvonne had already arrived, but she had wanted to adjust one last variable with potion #13, and had predictably lost track of time comparing her results.
She didn’t want to be at this conference, anyway. Hermione would be much more valuable to Pierson and Watkirk back in her lab conducting important experiments—not listening to boring, underdeveloped and badly thought out lectures by uninspiring potioneers.
And yet here she was, because as much as she raged against the decisions made by her superiors, doing what they asked of her was literally written into her contract. And this had been the best lab so far, for her to pursue her work.
Harried, she strode through the atrium of… whatever hotel was hosting the annual Broderick’s Convention, and towards the main conference hall. Hermione was rarely in the business of remembering details that she deemed inconsequential to her day to day life.
Signing in, she picked up her name badge and secured it to her jumper with a quick silent sticking charm, and headed to Lecture Hall one.
Thankfully the opening lecture hadn’t started yet, but it was only a few minutes away and the hall was packed already.
She spied a few empty chairs close to Yvonne’s shockingly pink hair, but they were in the middle of the hall and Hermione didn’t quite fancy the ordeal of shuffling past a bunch of men who would stare at her arse, and make leering jokes about how she could sit on their lap if she liked.
Unfortunately that left her with the far back row that only housed a few bored looking guests.
Sighing, she picked her way up the steps and slid into a seat.
As she unpacked her parchment and her Muggle pen (as soon as she’d left Hogwarts, Hermione had immediately switched back to Biros and pencils, as quills and ink were far too precarious for the work she wanted to do), she mentally listed a few spells she could cast to help her hear the speaker better, in case they couldn’t be bothered to cast a sonorous charm.
She was so focused inside her own head that she didn’t notice the dragon hide shoes that entered her periphery, or hear the first request for her to move.
“For Salazar’s sake, Granger. Am I to stand here for the whole weekend?”
The icy tone snapped Hermione out of her pondering and she glanced up into the face of none other than Draco Malfoy.
She felt the sneer warp her face before her brain caught up. “What are you doing here?”
Malfoy rolled his eyes and then pushed past her anyway, knocking against her legs and causing the parchment and pen on her knee to fall to the floor. “As I am a potioneer, and this is a potions conference, I’m sure the ‘Brightest Witch of Her Age’ can put two and two together.”
The way he said her much-loathed honourific was mocking and cruel, his voice cold. So he was his usual self today then, Hermione thought.
Her rocky relationship with Draco from Hogwarts—dark wizard collusion notwithstanding—had become even more antagonistic following a particularly unpleasant run in a few years ago.
They had unknowingly been placed on a panel together, and had disagreed on many fronts, including, but not limited to, the best course of action for simmering settings in sleeping potions, the use of unicorn powders in healing droughts, and whether it was unethical to use wandless magic when it came to collaborative projects.
Safe to say, whatever hatred they had for each other only intensified from that point forward.
To the point that, when they both put forward papers for the annual potions prize, it had been an ugly media race, and Hermione had never quite gotten over Malfoy’s ultimate win. She was trying to not be bitter, but when a paper talking about snail’s mucus was deemed ‘more innovative’ than her discussion of using muggle petroleum as a substitute for dragon scales in skin strengthening solutions, it was hard to remain level headed.
Although the media frenzy had died down as they’d grown older, and the image of pitting the Redeemed Malfoy against the Golden Girl had lost its novelty, the personal rivalry between them hadn’t abated.
They both had a fondness of sending the other howlers whenever either of them had an article published in Potions Mastery Weekly.
And of course, they enjoyed tormenting each other immensely during Broderick’s annual Potions Convention. One of them would unfailingly end up signing up to all events the other had, and vice versa. Malfoy often had a few cutting things to say about her attempts at incorporating muggle chemistry into her potions work. Not that he was the only one. Hermione’s foray into muggle chemistry had been criticised and debated over and over again. Not that it had stopped her from trying to make potions more accessible, less expensive, and a whole lot less time consuming for the average witch or wizard to make themselves.
So Hermione really shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d found her in the hall, or that he was being prickly as usual.
She elected to ignore him as he settled down next to her. But then he must’ve seen a glimpse of her notes on her lap and said, “Still trying to shoehorn muggle science into your work, Granger? I would’ve thought losing the Rosary Award would’ve been enough to dissuade you.” So maybe she might have let her foot kick out, just a touch too far, as she crossed her legs and knocked Malfoy’s inkwell out of its holder and all over his notes and lap.
She feigned an apologetic face, as she patronisingly reminded him that he was more than welcome to borrow one of her pens, sweetly telling him that that’s what made muggle ‘science’ so useful, “No silly accidental spillages when the ink is all contained.”
His responding glare was so icy; so over-exaggerated, she could hardly hold in her smirk as she struggled to keep on her faux expression of concern.
“I’m trying to listen to the lecture, actually,” he spat, and turned his attention to the stage in front of them.
Hermione raised an eyebrow, and snorted. “Why? It’s the same nonsense as last year. Trunklehorn’s lecture isn’t until two anyway and that’s the only interesting topic on the roster today. But I guess you must be so excited for the lectures on snail mucus. Maybe you can write yet another piece on all its properties, and you can add it to the hundred other copies that say exactly the same thing.”
“So why did you bother coming? You could’ve only turned up for that if it’s all you care about.”
He wasn’t wrong. But there was always a chance that the other lectures would surprise her. And besides, he’d never let her live it down if she cherry-picked lectures. Hermione knew that as fact. Because she would never let him live it down if he did the same.
So even though she was sure that most of the lectures this weekend would end up being redundant—why use flobberworm skin in a Sweet-Swallow Tincture, when tangerine peel is just as effective, half the cost, and makes it taste 10x better—Hermione was loathe to allow Malfoy to lord anything else over her.
***
The opening lecturer walked onto the stage before Draco was given the chance to lob a response back to her, and he had to make do with seething in silence as he syphoned the ink off of his trousers and parchment.
Draco hadn’t necessarily walked in and sought out Granger, per se. He’d been late because Perkins, his good for nothing assistant, had fucked up the measurements for one of his extended brews and he’d needed to redo it all. It wasn’t as if he’d been putting off going to the conference, although he was finding them less and less useful, but he’d be damned before he let Granger go to more than him. He’d stop going when she did. She wasn’t going to outshine him as the best potioneer in Britain. He’d worked ten times harder than she had to get where he was, and no Golden Girl was going to ruin that for him.
He didn’t hear a single thing that the opening lecturer said, but he was pretty sure neither did Granger. She was making notes, but he would bet all his galleons that she wasn’t actually listening.
Instead his mind wandered to his current set of brews, and he began mentally adding and subtracting ingredients, trying to see what would work to make it transportable without costing too much.
It took Draco a few disorientating moments to realise the lecture had finished and people were getting up to move to their respective new lecture halls.
There was a ten minute gap where people could go get refreshments, mingle, or in Draco’s case, find a relatively secluded spot and try to remember his old potion calculations from his seventh year final report, because he was sure that it was going to be the thing that would fix his issue.
Granger strode away from him without a backward glance and he saw her reunite with her colleagues. He hated the lot of them. The pink haired witch always looked completely unprofessional, and the other man gave off an unsavoury aura.
Draco left her to it, and found a secluded spot where he could leaf through his notes and try to get started on his research paper that was due in just under two months. He was just glad Granger wasn’t around to ‘accidentally’ spill any more ink on him.
***
After the initial lecture Hermione met back up with Davis and Yvonne in the hotel lobby. Davis only flicked his gaze up at her and then returned to his notes. Yvonne rolled her eyes at his downturned head and gave her a quick grin and a one-armed hug. “How was potion #13 behaving?”
Hermione blew out a frustrated breath, and frowned at her. Yvonne chuckled. “Still blowing out pink bubbles?”
Hermione nodded. “Are you sure you didn’t accidentally drop one of your hairs in?”
Yvonne gasped, and brought her hand up to her chest. “You dare accuse me of such baseless sabotage? The dishonour!”
Hermione giggled. Yvonne cracked a grin back at her.
Yvonne was a few years Hermione’s junior, and had studied at Ilvermony, despite being British herself. Her parents had moved out there just before Yvonne’s 10th birthday, because of the looming war. She was chaotic, very fond of pranks, and often drove Hermione up the wall. But she was a first rate Potioneer, and Hermione’s favourite colleague.
Davis, on the other hand, had been in Percy’s year at Hogwarts, and was seemingly just as uptight as Percy had been. He was disdainful of everything and everyone other than himself, and his own work. Davis thought Hermione had only gotten her position at the company because of her connection to Harry, and he reminded her of that opinion every chance he got.
He also had an unfortunate habit of staring at her chest instead of her face.
As much as Hermione hated Draco, it was nothing compared to how she felt about Davis. At least Malfoy had the skills to back up his taunts and his jibes. Davis was just a second rate potioneer with an inferiority complex. Hermione loathed him.
But he was her direct superior, so she had to put up with him the best she could.
She and Yvonne left Davis to stare at his notes and went to go pick up some coffee, and Hermione was content to let Yvonne chatter aimlessly away about some witch that she was seeing. She was listening, but not fully. Half her brain was hearing about how the woman hadn’t taken her shoes off when they entered Yvonne’ flat, and she didn’t use a coaster on the coffee table, but she was very talented with her tongue. The other half was trying to sift through her mental catalogue of ingredients, and potion formulas, trying to work out what she could do to sort out her wistfulness potion.
The callout for the next series of lectures sounded through the atrium and the mingling groups all began to disperse into the lecture theatres.
Unsurprisingly, Draco and Hermione were both signed up for the same one. This time, Draco had gotten a seat before Hermione had entered, and he gave her a mocking salute when he caught her eye. She glared at him and stomped down a few rows, and elected to ignore him for the duration of the talk.
As expected, it had been a waste of her time, and she lost interest seven minutes into the talk. Hermione cast her favourite writing charm on her pencil, and returned inside her mind, and continued her perusal of various different options for potion #13. She’d managed to whittle it down to six possible options by the end of the talk and she was itching for the weekend to be over so she could floo back to the lab and try them out.
I wonder if anyone would notice if I slipped out now and tried one of them before the 2 o'clock lecture? She mused as she repacked her bag.
Almost as if he had heard her train of thought, Draco sidled up to her as they exited the room.
“So what did you think about Doherty’s method on slug entail extractment?”
Hermione stiffened. She blinked at him, and then she saw his lips begin to curve into that awful smirk of his. She raised her chin. “Not the method I would use, personally,” she said loftily.
The smirk continued to carve its way across his face. Hermione sighed.
“Doherty didn’t mention anything about slugs in that lecture,” he said smugly. “Looks like someone isn’t paying attention.” His last few words came out in a kind of sing-song tone.
Hermione curled her lip. “Whatever,” she said dismissively.. “It was a complete waste of time anyway. I stopped listening when he messed up the unit of measurement for unicorn tears.”
Draco’s smirk wouldn’t leave his stupid face. He just hummed and sauntered away. She flipped off his retreating back and hurried to her next lecture.
The rest of the morning passed in mind numbing boredom. By lunchtime Hermione had exhausted all her mind formulas, and she’d resorted to trying to list all the Goblin rebellions between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
But after lunch was the two o clock panel headed by Alfred Trunklehorn. His work on lizard skin over the last decade had completely transformed the way the industry treated amphibian resources. Not only was he a first rate Master, he was a fantastic speaker and his lectures were always entertaining. It was one of the only reasons she let herself be sent to these conferences.
Trunklehorn was her Viktor Krum, and it was at times like these that she understood the fanaticism of quidditch supporters. If they felt like this when they saw their favourite team, then she really couldn’t begrudge them.
She skipped lunch, with the intention of getting to the hall early, grabbing a good seat, and then scarfing down the salad she’d bought with her. But when she entered the hall, it turned out Hermione wasn’t the only one who’d had the same idea. The hall was over half full, and all the good seats were gone. Sulkily, she found a series of empty chairs and threw herself down into one.
“Someone stole your favourite seat, Granger?” A silky voice came from above her. She whirled around, and there, in the row directly behind her, sat Draco Malfoy.
Hermione swore, a filthy combination that she’d picked up from Ginny, and Malfoy raised his eyebrow. He almost looked impressed.
“Are you stalking me this weekend?” she asked, as she slammed down her salad onto her lap. She felt flustered, and out of sorts again.
“Merlin, you’re touchy this afternoon. Think you need to relieve some stress, Granger. Is Montgomery around? I’m sure he'd be happy for you to kiss his arse, and maybe then you’d relax a fraction.”
If Hermione was a character in the cartoons that she used to watch as a child, then steam would be pouring out of her ears. Her entire body was frozen in place, each muscle rigid with the tension of not turning around and hexing Malfoy into oblivion. She forced herself to suck a breath in through her teeth, then push it out again, before repeating the process.
The blood was rushing in her head which was beneficial because it meant that she could focus on that, rather than whatever hateful speech Malfoy was still spewing out.
Jessup Montgomery had been a lecturer at the first conference that Malfoy and Hermione had attended. They’d been working at different potion companies then, and were both still fairly new to the field. Hermione had been a great fan of Montgomery’s work, and had been so excited to meet him. She had wanted to tell him how his paper on memory potions had been instrumental in helping her parents regain their memories. As she’d hurried down to the stage she’d tripped over a chair and fallen down the stairs into a crumpled heap right at his feet.
Malfoy had never let her forget it.
“We’re not still touchy about that, are we?” His voice cut through her rushing thoughts, and she thought it came much closer than it had before. She closed her eyes, and hoped she’d imagined it. “I’m sure Montgomery found it flattering that you wanted to show him your knickers, but you can’t blame the man for wanting a bit of space from you after that.”
No, his voice had definitely come closer. Hermione opened her eyes and slowly turned to her left, and sure enough, there sat Draco Malfoy, one leg thrown roguishly over the other, his right arm hanging over the back of his chair, fingertips grazing just above her shoulder.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she asked.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m waiting for the lecture to start, what are you doing?”
“No,” she said through gritted teeth. “What are you doing sitting next to me? You were sitting over there?” She jabbed a finger behind her.
Draco’s grin stretched wider. “I thought we could compare notes. And by compare I mean you could write them, and I could just copy them.”
Hermione groaned and pressed her fists into her forehead. “You are the most insufferable person I have ever had the displeasure of knowing,” she muttered through her forearms.
“I know,” he replied in a sing-song voice. She lifted her head to glare at him.
Before they could trade any more insults, the lecturer walked on stage and the crowd burst into applause. After a few minutes had passed Trunklehorn lifted up his hand and the whole theatre went silent at once. Even Malfoy straightened himself up, and despite his taunts, he withdrew his own quill (this time it was an anti-leaking, refilling one, Hermione noted) and was poised to start his own notes.
Trunklehorn was a potion God. Hermione already knew that, and yet she was still bowled over by his lecture. The way he talked about his research and how he interwove practical examples with such vibrancy and skill. Hermione eventually stopped talking direct notes, cast her favourite note taking spell and just decided to watch him with no distractions. She leant forward on her knees, chin resting on her palm.
Trunklehorn was halfway through a speech on the uses of snake fangs when she felt her spine tingle, and a little thought began to bloom in the back of her mind. Hermione felt Draco stiffen next to her, but she didn’t take her eyes off Trunklehorn as she began pulling forwards various mental images of her research notes. One eye on her notepad, and one on Trunklehorn, a slow dawning sunrise of understanding crept through her.
Draco inhaled sharply and from the corner of her eye she saw his hand speed up as he began furiously scratching notes onto his parchment. There were lots of underlining and emphasis, exclamation points, and aggressive circling of points.
“See, that’s what is so versatile about snake fangs; they provide you with the elasticity to the potion, as well as the magical depth. The layers of venom and antibodies that reside within the marrow of the fang are unmatched in potion making—I can’t emphasise this enough, it’s such an underused ingredient,” Trunklehorn was saying.
Hermione’s brain was going a mile a minute: mentally adding and subtracting, brewing and calculating.
It was a snake fang she needed for her potion.
The lecture began wrapping up, and she and Draco immediately jumped to their feet, ramming papers into briefcases and slinging jackets on only one arm. Hermione would have pushed Draco out of the way if he hadn’t already been striding down the aisle and out of the doors. She rushed out after him and ran towards where she could see Yvonne chatting with a boy from the hotel staff.
“Hermione!” Yvonne smiled at her as she reached them. “How was Trunklehorn? I couldn’t find a seat but figured you’d’ve made notes for me—”
“Snake fang!” Hermione burst out, her excitement cutting Yvonne off mid sentence.
“I’m sorry?”
“That’s what I’m missing! But I don’t know which snake fang in particular. I need to get back to the lab, so you need to take this,” she shoved her magicked pencil into Yvonne’s hand, “and take some notes for me. Please. I’ll only be gone an hour, I just need to get this written down into the method before I forget any details.”
Yvonne studied the pencil as she held it between her fingertips as if it was a foreign object. “But how do I use this?”
“You literally hold it the same way you do a quill, you just put the tip—no not that end, the pointy end, there we go. Put the tip onto the parchment and it should just make shorthand notes of the lecture points.”
And with that hasty instruction, Hermione dashed away towards the floo entrance and back to her lab.
***
Draco had run out of the hall and had headed straight to the floo fireplaces. He usually did not sign up for any of the lectures immediately after Trunklehorn’s because he always wanted an hour to debrief what he’d heard, but then he’d seen Granger’s name on the sign up sheet and then his hands had been tied. So he’d have to settle for trusting his useless assistant. Throwing the powder into the fire, he stuck his head in and called for Grantham and Kelpie, laboratory seven.
“Perkins,” he snapped as soon as the boy’s head appeared in the flames. “Get a quill and a spare piece of parchment, yes right now, of course I mean immediately. Right, now pay attention, you need to get this right. I need you to immediately begin researching different types of snake fang and how they relate to growth development. Narrow down the types that cross reference with what we’ve got on file—are you writing all this down? I don’t want you trusting your memory, you know it's not very good. Ok, good. So I need you to cross reference those queries with our experiments on beetle eyes, and see if they would be compatible with batches 43 through to 68. I want all of that done by the end of the weekend. I expect to see a report on the findings on my desk by 9am sharp on Monday, am I clear? I'll try and swing by after this lecture for a few hours, I'll check up on your progress then.”
Perkins looked as white as a sheet as he stammered back an affirmative. Draco didn’t wait around to give him any false platitudes. Perkins was an idiot, but he was the best assistant Draco had had so far, and he hadn’t screwed up big time yet. If the boy knew what was good for him he’d treat this with the utmost importance. Rising to his feet Draco brushed off the soot from his shoulders, regathered his notes and bag and hurried to the lecture hall. Hopefully Granger wasn’t sitting in the middle of the hall again and he could slip himself next to her.
She’d found the lecture just as interesting as he had, he would bet. He didn’t know what she’d gotten from it in particular, but he was pretty certain he’d heard her yell out ‘snake fang’ to that pink haired colleague of hers. She better not be working on anything similar to what he was. This was his project and he wasn’t going to share any of the glory of his findings with that insufferable know-it-all. He’d make sure he made that crystal clear to her during the next lecture.
But when he skidded into the room, his eyes immediately darting around for that ridiculous bushy hair of hers, he came up empty.
What? Where is she? Oh my Merlin, she’s skipped it.
At first indignation swelled within him. He’d elected to give this important research to his barely more than competent assistant and now she’d decided to skip it? But then the reality of it settled into him.
Hermione Granger had skipped a lecture she was supposed to be at. Oh, the ammunition this was going to give him. He settled into a seat next to some boring old man, and interlaced his fingers behind his head. It didn’t matter how boring this lecture was. Draco was there, and Granger was not. She’d skipped and he hadn’t. She’d broken the rules and Draco had the power to remind her of that for the rest of his life.
Time didn’t pass quickly no matter how giddy this revelation had made Draco. The lecturer was so dull, and his subject matter even duller, but Draco passed the time by trying to work out some potion calculations from memory.
He also doodled a cartoon Granger being impaled on those silly pencils of hers. And one where she fell down the stairs again. One where Granger was riding a hippogriff and then falling off it. So the time passed tolerably.
When it finished, he was the first one out the door and decided to lean against the information desk, so that he was directly opposite the floo fireplaces. He cocked his hip and folded his arms.
Granger popped through the grate in a flurry of wild hair, papers, and… an expression of savage joy. Draco blinked. She caught sight of him and pulled up short.
Her responding grimace was vindicating.
He pushed off the side of the desk and sauntered towards her.
“Well someone deemed themselves too important to sit through valuable information that our employers have sent us to digest. Had a standing appointment with your hairdresser? Because if so you should really fire them. They’re awful at their job.”
Hermione gaped at him. “What kind of insult is that?” He blinked. “You can do better than that, Malfoy, come on now.”
That… That wasn’t how she was supposed to react. He tried to recover. “You missed out on an excellent presentation. Very informative. Full of complex, helpful new formulas.” He gave her his best condescending smile.
Granger just raised her eyebrows. “Ah yes,” she replied in an almost equally condescending tone. “Gorrell’s lecture on flobberworms was definitely something I’m going to regret not hearing about for the rest of my academic career. If only I’d had the forethought to ask you to take notes!” She gave him a fake smile and began walking towards the next lecture hall.
“I wouldn’t have made them for you anyway Granger. You don’t learn by copying other people’s work.”
It was at that point that the Pink haired woman came up to them and handed Granger a notebook and that weird pencil of hers. “God, that was the most boring lecture I have ever sat through. Why did you sign up to that? Anyway, here are your notes. That’s some nifty bit of magic you put on that thing.” The girl smiled at Hermione, and flicked her eyes up at Draco. She gave him a smile too, which he did not return.
She rolled her eyes and walked away.
“So you didn’t need my notes at all then,” he said drily. “It still counts as cheating because they weren’t your notes.” He knew he sounded petulant but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“Actually,” she sing-songed, pulling open the theatre door. “This pencil is charmed with a spell of my own creation—similar to what Skeeter used on her quick quotes quill. It’s charmed to listen to a lecture and it writes down information that I think would be useful, in my way of writing notes. So actually, they are my own notes. Yvonne didn’t write anything. Which would’ve been good because her note taking skills leave a lot to be desired.”
They’d taken their seat by now, both of them just automatically sitting next to each other. Draco worked his jaw a few times. “You’re annoying,” was what he ended up settling with.
She snorted. “So are you. Now, will you shut up?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Why are you in such a good mood?”
Granger just shrugged. “Made a breakthrough.”
The lecturers walked on stage before Draco had a chance to ask any more questions.
He didn’t listen to a single word of the lecture, his mind still firmly back in his lab, and on what kind of discoveries Perkins was making.
Afterwards, Draco hurried straight to the floo, and headed back to his lab, where thankfully Perkins was waiting with the perquisite information for him.
“Oh, so you are capable of doing your job? Wonderful. Remember this day the next time you fuck up a simple transfusion.”
Perkins, to his credit, didn’t even bat an eye. He just promptly pointed at the results and then returned to his work station.
Draco worked until it was time to return to the conference. The biggest irritant of the whole weekend, was that it was policy for each attending member to stay at the hotel, and all companies had long standing reservations with them. All Draco wanted to do was stay at the lab until his eyes wouldn't stay open, and then Apparate back to his flat for a few hours sleep, coming back to check on his brews, before heading off for the second day. Alas, if his bosses found out he'd not gone back to the hotel, he'd be in a world of trouble and he didn't want to jeopardise his funding. Not when he was just on the cusp of a breakthrough.
So Draco reluctantly left his potions and returned to the conference.
***
Hermione had spent the last few hours in her lab labouring over potion #13, and had reluctantly returned to the hotel. She was irritated and desperate for Monday to roll around so she could begin dedicating as much time as she wanted to working on utilising snake fang in her newest batch. This weekend felt like nothing more than a frustrating distraction and a colossal waste of time.
Speaking of colossal wastes of time, her irritation grew as she saw Malfoy make his way to the reception desk and the wall of room keys next to it.
"Malfoy," she said stiffly.
"Granger."
They both waved their wands at the wall, but only one key lit up. They both reached for it, before glaring at each other.
“That’s my key.”
“No, I think you’ll find it's my key.”
They stared down at each other for a few seconds. Malfoy had the audacity to raise his eyebrow at her. Hermione curled her lip at him and performed the spell again.
The key glowed green.
The smirk she gave him as she reached for the key was nothing short of savage. But he tapped his wand against her knuckles, a sharp pain shot up her arm . Before she could react, he waved his wand, performing the locator spell again.
The same key glowed green.
Slow understanding crept up Hermione's spine and she closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose as determination settled over her shoulders.
Malfoy turned to her in horror, his mouth falling open slightly. She ignored him and marched towards the front desk.
The receptionist had witnessed the whole ordeal and was already rifling through pages, panic evident in the stiff line of her posture.
“There seems to be a mistake,” spat Malfoy in his most haughty Heir-Of-The-Manor tone. “For some reason this woman’s spell is highlighting my room key. Rectify this immediately.”
“I beg your pardon, it is you who is trying to commandeer my room key.”
They both turned expectantly to the receptionist who was currently looking at the magicked spreadsheet in front of her with a pale expression.
She cleared her throat and then glanced quickly at both of them before softly saying, “I'm afraid there’s been an error on our end.”
“What kind of error?” Malfoy said through gritted teeth.
The receptionist chuckled nervously. “Well, I'm afraid you’ve both been booked into the same room.”
The pair of them went deathly still.
“Then put her in a new room,” spat Malfoy after a second, drawing himself up to his fullest height.
Before Hermione could retort, the receptionist winced and said in a slight rush, “I’m afraid there are no more available rooms. They’ve all been booked up for the conference.”
They both blinked at her for a beat; two beats; three.
She didn’t turn around to look at him, but she knew Malfoy had frozen.
Eventually, he regained something of his speaking abilities and ground out, “What does that mean, exactly?”
The receptionist had the wherewithal to grimace slightly. “It means you can either share the room, or go to another hotel.”
Malfoy swore. Hermione echoed the sentiment. The nearest wizarding hotel was in another county, and was also three times more expensive.
Malfoy had the audacity to turn expectantly at her. He didn’t even have to say anything, she could read his face easily enough.
“I am not going to another hotel,” she said haughtily. “You can go.”
“I will do no such thing. Why should I go? This was my room.”
He clenched his jaw. She pursed her lips.
The receptionist glanced between them. “So you’ll share the room?” she asked hesitantly.
The two stared at each other for another weighted second, both waiting for the other to back out. His expression was still expectant. Hermione ground her teeth.
He really expects me to back out, doesn’t he? Entitled bastard.
The receptionist cleared her throat.
Hermione turned, and gave the receptionist her best fake smile. “We’ll share.” She could feel Malfoy’s stare hot against her cheek. She turned to him, eyebrows raised. “Right, Malfoy? We’re adults. We can share a room, surely?”
Hermione watched as several furious expressions flitted across Malfoy’s face before he gave her a close-lipped smile. Turning back to the receptionist, he said, “Of course. It’ll be no trouble.”
The trip up to the room was stony at best. They both refused to acknowledge each other, and stood as far apart as they could while in the lift, stoically not looking at each other.
When they reached their door, there was an awkward shuffle as they both attempted to unlock it.
Huffing, Hermione threw her hands up in the air. “For Merlin’s sake, you do it then.”
Malfoy waved his wand and then let them both into the room.
It was tiny.
There was barely enough room for a double bed—that only seemed to just fit that criteria— a floor to ceiling wardrobe, and a narrow table near the window that held the hotel bar bowl (one could write down their preferred snack on a piece of parchment and drop it in, and it would then appear. They were outrageously expensive). There was a small bathroom directly to the left as they walked in. No bath, just a shower.
The bathroom didn’t look too small, but there was definitely not enough room for two people to keep the necessary distance between them that they were going to need.
They both stopped just over the threshold, eyes drinking everything in.
“Fuck,” whispered Malfoy.
“Fuck,” echoed Hermione.
“I’m going to transfigure the bed,” Draco said after a few long, awkward seconds had passed, and strode purposefully towards it. Hermione dropped her bag on the floor, folded her arms and watched.
He waved his wand purposefully, and confidently uttered Separatum.
Nothing happened. He frowned and tried again.
Still nothing. He growled in frustration and did it again, words pushing through gritted teeth.
Nothing.
Hermione scoffed. “It’s Sep-AH-ratum, not Separ-AH-tum,” she said.
He shot a glare at her. “I know how to enunciate it, Granger. I’m not an imbecile.”
Hermione rolled her eyes, and withdrew her own wand.
“Sure,” she said. “Just, let me have a go.”
“Have at it, Granger,” Malfoy said and leant against the wall with his arms crossed.
She cast the spell and waited.
Nothing happened. She did it again. No change. She hissed, and then cast a diagnostic charm.
“They’ve put a fucking anti-transfiguration spell on it.”
“No shit.”
Hermione closed her eyes, and counted to three. Her patience ran thin around Malfoy at the best of times, but right now it was hanging on by a hair’s breadth.
“Right. Well.” Hermione looked around the room, her eyes unable to focus on the bed for too long. “I’ll just… sleep on the floor. I’m sure I can transfigure my briefcase into a mattress, or something.”
“You will do no such thing,” Malfoy said immediately. “I’ll sleep on the floor.” He looked just as appalled at the idea of her on the floor, as he did pained at the consideration that he should do so instead.
“Oh no. You don’t get to try and one up me by pretending to be gallant,” she snapped back immediately.
She could nearly hear his teeth grinding from across the room. “What do you suggest then?”
Hermione glanced at the bed, then back to Malfoy, and back to the bed again. She sucked on her teeth and then squared her shoulders. “We’ll just have to share.”
“Fine.”
“Great.”
They both glanced at the bed.
“I’m going to shower,” Hermione said stiffly and marched into the bathroom.
She took a much longer shower than usual. As she washed her face, she hoped, for the first time ever, that magic didn’t render hot water pipes useless, because she would have loved the pleasure of using up all the hot water.
Instead she settled on spending over an hour and exhausting every possible beauty activity she could think of. Eventually, however, Hermione had to admit defeat and she slid on her pyjamas. She opened the door to head back to the bedroom and came face to face with Malfoy’s shoulder.
His hand was raised as if he was about to knock on the door and his face was lined with hostility.
“Salazar, you took long enough, didn't you?”
Hermione smiled blandly at him and slipped past. He slammed the door closed behind him.
That left Hermione to survey the bed again. It was big enough for the two of them, but only just. There was no way for either of them to forget that the other was there. If either of them shifted, even a fraction, it would be felt immediately by the other.
There wasn’t even room to fit a pillow between them.
She glanced at the floor. Despite her words earlier there wasn’t enough room anywhere for either of them to even attempt to sleep comfortably.
Hermione pressed the palm of her hands into her eyes. How did this happen? How did I end up in this situation with Draco fucking Malfoy? she thought.
The shower shut off, and Hermione decided to just get into bed. Maybe she could make it look like she was already asleep. Dropping her bag off in the corner she chose the right hand side, and slid under the duvet. The mattress was somehow both soft, and too hard, and her pillow was lumpy. She sighed and dropped her head back, and draped her arm over her eyes.
The bathroom door opened and she heard Malfoy step back out into the room. His bag hit the floor, and then there was a suspicious silence. She cracked an eye open, lifting her arm a bit to see what he was doing. He was staring at the bed with a complicated expression. Horror lined his eyes, and his posture was stiff and unyielding, but there was… something else swimming in his eyes. Hermione didn’t have the best angle to get a good look, and before she could think to shift, he shook himself out of his reverie and stalked to the other side of the bed.
She immediately shut her eyes again, and pressed her arm more firmly onto her face. Like she was a child, and if she couldn’t see him, he couldn’t be there; and they weren’t about to share a bed. This wasn’t happening.
She felt his weight buckle the mattress to her left.
This was most definitely happening.
Hermione rolled onto her side, locking the duvet in under her armpits. She felt a sharp tug and a quiet curse word slipping through the darkness.
***
Draco was aware of everything. He felt every inhale and noticed every shift of Granger’s body next to him. He couldn’t blink the image of her in her pyjamas out of his head. She’d looked so… distracting. It was infuriating.
He pulled at the duvet, trying to get it to cover him but he was met with resistance.
He tugged again.
The resistance persisted.
“Granger.” His voice sounded harsh, and gravelly. “Stop hogging the fucking duvet.”
“I’m not.”
“Well, why is half of my body open to the elements?”
He felt the mattress dip slightly as she shrugged. “Maybe because you’re freakishly tall?”
He pulled again, hard and finally it gave and he managed to get his legs covered. Unfortunately, the strength he’d used to pull the duvet has caused Granger to turn with it. Her hair was fanning over her pillow and onto his.
It smelt like orange and bergamot. He shoved it away.
“Please stay on your side of the bed.”
“Stop taking up all the space, then,” she retorted.
Why couldn’t she have gone to the other hotel? Why didn’t he? He wasn’t going to sleep at all at this rate.
Something brushed up against his leg, and his whole body stiffened, a zap of energy ricochetting through him. The sensations disappeared almost as soon as he felt it, but he heard her breathing stutter.
“Why are your legs on my side of the bed?” She hissed, but there was a kind of breathlessness to her voice that counteracted any venom she might have had.
“They're not, you just kicked me. Try to stay still and we won’t have a problem.”
Granger didn't reply but he heard her huff and turn over. The mattress dipped. Draco sucked in a breath.
He was too hot. His skin felt sweaty, and tight. The air was too close. His blood was thrumming an incessant beat beneath his skin, and all he could focus on was the feeling of her body next to him and the sound of her breathing, and the way all the hair on his arms rose when he felt her shift. It was excruciating, distracting, and not conducive to sleep.
Draco huffed and turned over onto his own side, his back to hers.