Chapter Text
When Hermione accidentally knocked over her inkpot, she did something that was completely uncharacteristic of her. She swore. The words coming from her lips were neither very loud nor very inventive, but they were heartfelt. Every single syllable pronounced with such loving care that one could have been led to think that something far worse than a soggy piece of parchment and a stained desk was behind it.
One might have been right.
"Now, now, Granger," Something Far Worse said, strolling into Hermione's office like he owned the place. "That didn't sound very ladylike."
Hermione grabbed her quill so hard it began bending dangerously. She didn't need this. Not today. Not ever. "What can I help you with, Malfoy?" she asked as civilly as she possibly could.
"You seem... tense," he said, walking behind her, making her tense even further and unconsciously edge away from him.
"I have an important meeting soon, so I don't really have time for your games. Could you make it quick?"
She knew he was narrowing his eyes at her. Somehow, she'd come to know him far better than she'd ever wanted since she'd transferred to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement about a year ago. He had, for obvious reasons, a vested interest in any pure-blood favouring laws she might want to rewrite, but he'd also proved to be a powerful ally—as long as he wasn't too affected by the changes she made.
Obviously, it was only a matter of time before she had to pull the rug out from under him and he'd be turning all his means and connections against her in defence—and she had a feeling he had started the war between them early, using dirty tricks to put the odds in his own favour.
She shouldn't have been surprised.
"Make it quick?" he slowly said, as if tasting the words, walking back around to the front of the desk and placing his hands on it, carefully avoiding the ink stain. "All right, I'll make it quick. What happened last night?"
Hermione swallowed hard. Right to the point. "Nothing. Nothing happened last night."
"You call that nothing?"
She looked him directly in the eyes. "It was nothing, Malfoy. Forget it." She knew it wouldn't work. She knew she couldn't postpone this. But she wanted to halt whatever he was trying to do to her so badly that she had to try. She wasn't like him. She couldn't take her interests to this whole new personal level, and she didn't know how to deal with the fact that he could.
"Nothing?" he repeated once more. "It's funny... it didn't seem like nothing when we were snogging on this very desk of yours."
"It was... a thing of the moment. We were both overworked and tired, and you know that when you're tired enough it kind of qualifies as drunk and—"
"Granger!"
She jumped from the sharpness in his voice. "What?"
"Stop it."
She sunk into herself a little. He was right. She was blabbering and making up excuses. She merely wasn't ready for this to happen. She wasn't certain she'd ever be. Merlin, when he'd kissed her last night, the thought that he might have an agenda had never even crossed her mind... she'd been too busy making a fool of herself by responding. It was only when she'd been home in her bed that his motives had dawned on her, and looking at him now, she knew she had to be right about them. Why else would this be happening?
He stood to lose a lot—his whole way of life—from some of the proposals she was already working on. He probably thought he could seduce her into giving them up. That, or at the very least discredit her. It wasn't that she was overly concerned that he could achieve either of those goals, but after how she'd found her body reacting to him last night, she was afraid of what else she might lose before this war was over.
"You look tired," he said, straightening up. "Did nothing make you lose sleep?"
Hermione exhaled. What was she supposed to say to that? She had lost sleep last night. She'd probably gone through every emotion in the book to boot, so she was currently exhausted. "Just... don't, Malfoy," she muttered.
He looked at her. Merely looked. The silence stretched and it was beginning to really get to her when—fortunately—there was a knock on her open door.
"Am I interrupting anything?" Harry asked.
Hermione couldn't quite squelch her relieved sigh, and judging by the way Malfoy's eyes narrowed, he'd noticed. "No, come on in, Harry. Malfoy was just leaving." She looked away, unwilling to risk provoking him to rebel.
Malfoy merely snorted and left, bumping too forcefully into Harry's shoulder as he passed him.
Harry barely spared the other wizard a second look. "Are you all right?" he asked.
Hermione almost gave into the urge to shake her head, but at the very last minute changed it to a nod. "Yeah... certainly," she lied through her teeth. There was nothing Harry could do about it anyway, and she didn't really fancy him knowing about what had happened the night before. "So, what brings you here?"
Harry shrugged, looking slightly abashed. "I was simply wondering if you'd like to go out for dinner tonight?"
"Dinner?" She was still distracted from what had just happened, so she was barely paying attention.
"Yes. Tonight. With me."
She forced herself to smile and be mentally present. "Of course. Where did you have in mind?"
"Oh. Um, there's this new restaurant... it's supposedly good."
"And supposedly extremely expensive," Hermione pointed out. There was only one new restaurant in wizarding London, after all. "Are we celebrating something?"
Harry shrugged again and shook his head. "I simply... fancy a nice dinner."
"All right. If you can get in. I hear tables need to be booked months in advance."
At that he flashed her a grin. "What kind of wizarding establishment in their right mind would turn me away?"
At that moment, he reminded her so much of Malfoy that it gave her pause, but before she could comment on it, he'd gone, leaving her to her work and her pool of fast-drying ink.
* * *
Harry wiped his hands on his trousers. Then he wiped them again. In spite of his nervousness, his palms weren't particularly sweaty, but he didn't know what else to do with them. Absent-mindedly, he ran one hand through his hair, but then he swore at himself and frantically tried to undo the damage. Hermione liked his hair neat. As neat as it could be, at least. She found his windblown, carefree Quidditch hairdo to be silly and possibly endearing, but neither charming nor very handsome.
He wanted to look charming and handsome tonight.
This whole thing had been a long time coming. Hermione had no idea, of course. He hadn't known how to tell her. This wasn't like it had been with Ginny. Then, it had all hit him after seeing her with someone else, and in the end it had all been solved with something as simple as a kiss. This time... his feelings had slowly crept up on him until one day they had stared him in the face with the full force of more than a decade's friendship, and he was afraid to simply kiss her in case it would ruin something extremely precious to him.
That was what tonight was all about. He needed to tell her about how he felt. He had to have this whole embarrassing conversation that laid him completely bare to her. It was the only way.
He ran his hand through his hair again, forgetting all about looking neat. Where was she? Wasn't she supposed to be here by now?
Finally, he spotted her as she entered the restaurant. She truly was a sight for sore eyes. He should invite her to posh restaurants more often, really, simply to get a chance to have her that made up and all to himself. The dress she wore shimmered as she moved and clung to her every curve. The neckline dipped low, and the golden fabric was occasionally broken in strategically alluring places by something flesh-coloured that teased the onlookers to think that if they stared long and hard enough, maybe they’d catch a glimpse of something more.
He resolved to keep his eyes on her face.
She reached the table and smiled at him. "I hope I didn't make you wait too long."
"N-no, not at all," he squeaked, before clearing his throat. He was being rather pathetic, wasn't he? This was Hermione, one of his best mates in the world and someone he'd certainly had his share of meals with over the years. "I was early," he weakly added.
Ugh. He was still feeling rather awkward, and he didn't think it would get any better soon.
She sat down, apparently not noticing anything amiss, and they got around to ordering without Harry's tongue completely tying itself in knots. Fortunately, Hermione had some funny stories from work that easily filled the time until their food arrived. Harry really wasn't interested in eating, though, so he merely poked it with a fork and possibly had more wine than he should.
"Is something the matter?" Hermione finally said. "You seem... twitchy."
Harry grimaced. Lovely. Just the adjective he wanted her to associate him with tonight. He pre-emptively cleared his throat to be on the safe side this time. "Actually... I... had something I wanted to talk to you about."
"All right, I'm listening."
She made it sound like what he had to say should be simple to get out.
"See, the thing is, I, uh, um... I suppose what I really wanted to say is that... You know how we're... Perhaps I should start again." He frowned. He'd been so much smoother in front of his mirror.
She chuckled. "I really can't wait to hear what it is that has you all tongue-tied tonight, Harry," she teased, raising her wine glass to her soft-looking, red, perfect lips.
"I'm in love with you," he blurted out.
Smooth, Harry. Really smooth. All that practice certainly came to fruition there.
He'd had this whole speech planned about their history, their friendship, the affection between them... something that should've made her more amenable to the idea of maybe trying out for a little more with him. Just to see if it could happen.
As it was, he was trapped watching her hand still, wine forgotten, and her eyes widen with disbelief. He knew what was coming next. On top of such an inelegant admission, she'd probably want to let him down gently, and then they'd be awkward around each other for a very long time, possibly forever.
"Hear me out," he rushed on, not completely certain what he was about to say. "I didn't mean that to come out quite that bluntly. I'm sorry. And you have to know that I would never, ever do anything to compromise our friendship or make you uncomfortable. Um, more uncomfortable... I mean, if you don't want anything to do with it, I'll never mention it again. I promise. You're too important to me. As a friend."
She swallowed and slowly put down her glass, her eyes still wide with the shock. "I know," she said in all but a whisper.
"Good... good," he muttered, not knowing where to go from there. "It's simply... lately... I've looked at you and... I've found that I want more than our friendship permits."
She raised a sardonic eyebrow at that.
"N-not like that!" he stammered, flushing as he realised how that must've sounded. "I just... I want to take you out."
"You just did," she pointed out, apparently still unsure what to think.
"I did," he conceded, "but... I want more. I want to be with you, Hermione."
"This... is a lot," she murmured, fidgeting a bit and biting her lip.
He held up his hands. "I know. I know. And... I know you don't quite feel the same way about me." Yet, hopefully. "I'm not even asking you to agree to be with me right away."
"Then what are you asking?" Her voice was quiet, but her gaze was steady. She might have been shocked, but she seemed determined to deal with it. Whether that was a good thing remained to be seen.
"Go out with me," he said, feeling his heart in his throat in a way he hadn't since he'd been a teenager. "See if you can find a spark with me. If you can't, then... then at least we tried."
"I don't want our friendship to be compromised."
"I'd die before I'd let that happen," he swore, definitely meaning it. He could live with only part of her in his life, but if she weren't in his life at all, he'd barely call it surviving.
"All right," she agreed. "I'll go out with you. See what happens."
He heard the slight hesitation but knew it was only natural for her to be cautious. "You won't regret it," he said.
She smiled again; that beautiful, sweet smile of hers. "Why would I?" she teased. "After all, you can get us reservations anywhere with only a few hours' notice."
* * *
Hermione signed the last piece of parchment and sat back with a satisfied smile on her lips. There was nothing better than an empty in-tray. Granted, tomorrow there’d be all the more pieces of parchment to make up for it, seeing as how any work she ever did only ever bred more work, but for now she felt accomplished.
Emotional turmoil tended to bring out the workaholic in her, and today she was probably the last person still in the Ministry offices.
It was a really difficult situation Harry had put her in the night before. She’d already all but lost one of her best friends due to a romantic entanglement gone sour, and she wasn’t too keen on losing another.
Yet... Harry had been wrong about something. He’d said she didn’t have feelings for him. That was blatantly untrue, although she was quite relieved that he'd never picked up on that. She’d had this silly little crush on him for quite a while now. She’d merely enjoyed the flutter she got whenever he was around and otherwise ignored it as best she could, because she hadn’t wanted to risk it.
But now Harry had taken the chance, so how could she not agree? It could be worth it. It wouldn't necessarily have to go the way of her relationship with Ron.
She should go home. Sitting at work, thinking about her love life, wasn’t really the most productive of things to do. Besides, Harry had gone on a work trip this morning and wouldn’t be back for a whole week anyway. He’d admitted it wasn't the best timing, but it couldn't really be helped. Trips like that simply popped up from time to time in his line of work.
“Why are you still here?”
Hermione flinched at the sound of Malfoy’s voice. “Why would you look for me only to ask me why I’m here?” she countered.
He snorted and waltzed in. “I wasn’t looking for you. I was leaving and saw you were still here.”
“And that stopped you from leaving—why?”
She saw a hint of an annoyed frown before he smirked and approached her desk. “I thought maybe you were waiting for me to drop by.” Before she could comment on the ridiculousness of that statement, he added, “Or maybe you were waiting for Potter.”
“Why would I be waiting for Harry?” Too late, she realised that she’d been tricked into not questioning why she’d be waiting for Malfoy, and adding anything now would simply draw more attention to it. Annoying git. She got up and went to get a glass of water from the sideboard to distract her hands from their budding plans to strangle him.
His smirk widened, but fortunately turning her back to him meant she didn’t have to keep seeing it. “I saw you dressed to impress last night. I have to say, I was certainly impressed. Can’t speak for Potter, though. He seemed remarkably able to keep yapping.”
Hermione felt her face heat up. That dress had been a silly spur of the moment thing. She’d never had an occasion to wear anything that sexy and she’d figured it wouldn’t do any harm, but it hadn’t seemed to do any good either. For all his talk of fancying her, Harry hadn’t even once looked below her face.
“I didn’t even notice you were at the restaurant,” she said, forcing her voice to sound unbothered. She ended up also sounding a little smug, since she was telling the truth.
“Oh, but I very much noticed you. I think everyone noticed you wearing that dress. And I had a prime view of that bare back of yours all night. I kept wishing that one of your straps would slide down or that you would move in a way that would loosen the fabric a little bit, so I could peek inside...”
Her blush deepened, and she refused to turn around. “You must’ve been a delightful dinner partner.”
“Who says I wasn’t alone?”
She couldn’t help the short laugh. “You? Dine out on your own? I expect you’d rather starve.”
She finally turned to face him, only to find that he’d moved quite close to her, and turning around had been a really bad idea. She edged as casually as she could around him and over to peruse a bookcase on the other side of the room. She knew that her avoidance was obvious, especially since she'd forgotten her water, but she hardly even cared at this point.
“Touché,” he murmured, turning with her but otherwise not moving. “I can’t say how I was, really. Don’t know what I had to eat either. But I think I ate. There was a bill to be paid at the end of the night. Then again, I know I had too much to drink, so...”
“Was there a point, Malfoy?” She couldn’t listen to this. She attempted to stare him down.
“Why would you waste a dress like that on Potter?”
She looked away. She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes whilst he was doing this. She wished he’d stop. “I didn’t consider it wasted.”
“If you’d gone out with me dressed like that, I would’ve fed you in bed, not sat at a restaurant for hours.”
“But I didn’t go out with you!” The sharpness in her voice was fully intentional, but she still had to fight back a flinch. She could never tell when Malfoy was serious and when he was merely playing around. She didn’t want to be rude to him, but he was crossing far too many lines.
“I’m very aware of that. Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t recall you ever asking me out.”
“I don’t recall you ever acknowledging my advances long enough for me to ask.”
Oh, dear God. This was entirely too much. “I don’t recall you ever advancing in a way that deserved to be acknowledged.”
In a flash he’d crossed the distance between them and was crowding her against the bookcase, making her very uncomfortable on several levels. She opened her mouth to sharply rebuff him again, but something about the expression on his face stopped her. He was angry. Very angry. She didn’t think he would hurt her, but she still didn’t feel like fuelling the fire.
“What would deserve to be acknowledged, then?” he hissed. “Should I pretend not to want you like Potter constantly does? Is that the way? Forget it. I’m finished with hypocrisy. When you kissed me, I’d hoped you were too.”
“I didn’t kiss you.”
“Could’ve fooled me. Didn’t notice you as much as hesitating.”
“And all the hesitation since hasn’t been a clue?” she shot back.
The look on his face was as stunned as if she’d slapped him, and then his eyes chilled until there was nothing but ice left. He stepped back. “Forget it. Obviously I thought you'd be different.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Granger. You meant to.”
“You cornered me!”
He shrugged. “Yeah. Whatever. Here’s the thing, though; you get off on the fact that I want you. You get off on the little hints. I don’t actually mind feeding your ego, but whenever it gets a tad too real and I might actually act on it, you get scared and you lash out, making it seem as though I’m stalking poor little innocent you against your will, when you've actually been encouraging it all along.”
“I don’t want—”
“Dragon dung! You could’ve told me anytime that you had no interest in what I was doing, but you never did. And when we—when I kissed you—you responded far more enthusiastically than I ever thought you would. We would’ve shagged right there on your desk if we hadn’t been interrupted, and you know it.”
“It’s not... it’s nothing.” She didn’t like him, after all. All she liked were his lips and his hands, and the way it felt when he pushed his hips between her thighs... Oh, Merlin, that had felt entirely too good. She couldn't seem to forget it, no matter how hard she tried.
Focus. He's trying to use you.
“What do you honestly think I want?” he asked, sounding no less aggressive than before. “It’s nothing but good old-fashioned lust. Sex. Absolutely nothing else. It’s me wanting to grab you and shag you on the spot whenever I see you, especially when I see you wearing all but nothing at a fancy restaurant. Do you think I particularly want to want you? It’s a damn nuisance that interferes with my work. I wouldn’t even be here now if I didn’t know you felt the same way, even if you’re trying to lie your way out of it.”
“It has to stop,” she whispered. It really did have to stop and she didn’t know of any better way to make it stop than to ignore it. She couldn’t live her life constantly afraid of this sexual energy between them erupting again. She really had almost slept with him only a couple of days ago and she was far too physically aware of him. Whether he really felt like that as well, though... she still wasn't certain. He could very well have been using her physical attraction to him to weaken her and use as a weapon against her in this political war of theirs.
“I only know one way to make it stop.” He stepped closer to her, and there was no doubt what he meant. He really did intend to take it to that level, didn't he?
“Be serious.”
“I am.”
She shook her head. “We can’t simply... do that.”
“Why not?”
She swallowed. Because you couldn’t control fire and it would consume everything in its path, killing her in the process? Although it was a rather dramatic metaphor, it was a bit too uncomfortably close to the truth. He could destroy her self-confidence, her career, her budding relationship with Harry. “I don’t want to.”
“See, now you’re lying again. That’s quickly becoming a nasty habit of yours, Granger.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” He stepped even closer, but this time it made her uncomfortable for a whole host of other reasons. “Do you have a boyfriend, then?”
She hesitated. She supposed she didn’t. She and Harry had agreed to not fully commit to anything but a tentative testing of the waters. Still, they weren’t not together. She didn’t feel like explaining any of this to Malfoy at the moment, though. “No...”
“Is it because it’s me and we have an unpleasant history?”
“There really are too many reasons to count.” She looked away. What else could she say?
“Yet you can’t provide me with a single one.”
She did seem to have problems with that, but not because she couldn’t think of any. They would simply be too easy for him to either shrug off or lie his way past. It would be a waste of energy. “I’m not used to this, Malfoy. It’s been a really long time since... uh, I mean, I don’t usually—” she vaguely attempted.
His eyes heated at the admission. “It’ll be even better, then.”
“No... don’t talk about this like it’s going to happen.”
“When are you going to get it?” he murmured against her ear, making her shiver in response. When had he moved this close to her? “It’ll happen. It’s only a question of when. And I can wait if I have to. I’ve waited this long, haven’t I?”
“It’s only been a few days.”
“I’ve waited much longer than that, Granger, and you know it. You’ve felt it.”
She knew. She knew far too well. She wasn't completely certain when she'd started losing her breath around him, but she knew he'd noticed immediately and had been watching her, waiting for his chance to pounce. This had to go away. How could she ever have a relationship with anyone if this didn’t go away? “It has to stop...”
“Then stop it. You know there’s only one way,” he whispered, and then he kissed her.