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Chapter Text

December 1996

Growing up in the Muggle world, Hermione Granger might not have understood magic in the way she knows it now—the way she feels it coursing through her bones, flowing within the world around her. But she’d always been drawn to the magic of a new book, the enchantment of a love story.

Hermione prides herself on her logical nature, but rationality has not prevented her from yearning for the impossibility of magic. And reason certainly does not make her immune to heartbreak.

So, in every chance encounter, every casual touch, every moment of prolonged eye contact, she searches for evidence of something more, something magical. A love story of her own. And when the magic fades, when she’s drowning in her emotions, Hermione pours them out. She writes a love letter. Not to send. Just for herself. They remind her that words, themselves, are magic. They can wound just as they can heal.

Her letters—which would soon travel with her through Horcrux hunts and dragon rides and battles, currently stashed away in the trunk at the foot of her Hogwarts bed—are among her most secret possessions. There are four in total: Draco Malfoy, up until he called her a Mudblood in Second Year—who’s always, unfortunately, been quite fit, in spite of his atrocious personality and his pureblood tosh. Viktor Krum from Fourth Year, of course. Dean Thomas, after that one Gryffindor common room party in Fifth Year. The all-too-brief appeal of Cormac McLaggen earlier this year, before she’d actually spoken to him. 

Well, five, now, she thinks as she seals this one, pausing to swipe the stray tears from her eyes. Now, finally added to her collection, is Ron Weasley, from… well, most of the years, but especially this year. Until Lavender, that is.

Now, the magic of these words, her words—I liked you first and By all rights, you were mine and I wish, just once, you’d choose me—will be carefully tucked away, along with those inconvenient, illogical feelings. Balance will be restored.

She takes a deep breath, opens her trunk, and lets go.

September 1998

The forbidden kiss. We knew that it was wrong, that he was betrothed to another. But if this wasn't what he wanted, then why did he come to the field of desire? It was fated that we should meet like this—

“Another bodice-ripper, you little pervert?” 

Hermione startles at the sudden presence of noise in the library, looking up to find Ginny smirking in the open seat across from her, legs propped on the table and crossed at the ankles.

She hides the book under her copy of Advanced Potion-Making. “I enjoy them for the plot, if you must know.”

“Sure you do. You’ll find no judgement from me. You should see the things Harry writes—”

“Oh, Merlin.” Hermione covers her face, peeking at Ginny through the gaps in her hands. “How many times must I ask you not to tell me these things?”

She recognises the tap of dragonhide Oxfords on stone before she registers Draco Malfoy swiftly approaching their table. 

“Can I talk to you?” he hisses quietly at Hermione, towering over her, and she raises her brows at him.

“Me?”

“Clearly.”

“Ferret, I was just about to tell Hermione—”

He refuses to break his searing gaze from Hermione. “Ginevra, I need to talk to Granger. Alone.”

“Always a pleasure, Malfoy. If you need me”—Ginny says breezily to Hermione as she drops her feet to the ground, stands, and grabs her bag from the table—“I’ll be in the Hospital Wing, with a ‘migraine,’ perusing that calendar of shirtless Aurors we all know Pomfrey keeps stashed in her office.” She sends Malfoy a lascivious wink before waltzing off.

Hermione turns back to Malfoy expectantly, gesturing to the vacated seat.

“Look, I wanted to say…” he pauses as he sits down, rubbing the back of his neck and now looking at anything but her face. “I appreciate it. But… this cannot happen.”

“What are you on about, Malfoy?”

His cheeks are turning crimson at this point. “Really, I think it’s… charming that you think I have ‘grey specks in my eyes,’ and…”

She freezes. What. In. The. Ever. Loving. Fuck. 

Hermione feels faint. There is only one place she’s ever read—nay, ever written—those words. She looks down at Malfoy’s hand, his family’s infamous signet ring tapping against a folded piece of worn parchment.

“Oh my god.”

“It’s not a blood status thing, I swear it. It’s just that Pansy…” He’s still rambling, but her mind is piecing together this most unfortunate chain of events and their implications. If Malfoy found his letter, then that means there’s a chance…

“Oh. My. God.” 

Because Ron has entered the library, looking around the room with a wild expression on his face. In his hands is a familiar folded letter with Ron Weasley written in none other than Hermione’s swooping script.

“Nonononononono,” she’s mumbling, with no mind to how absolutely unhinged she appears in this moment.

She abruptly stands and looks around wildly, with all the grace of a caged animal. Malfoy finally shuts up, watching her with what she imagines is a combination of apprehension and fear. 

Hermione has made plenty of decisions in her life that one might perceive as rash, including catching a professor on fire, trapping a middle-aged woman as a beetle in a jar, luring her headmistress on an impromptu journey toward an horde of angry centaurs in the Forbidden Forest, and taking Cormac McLaggen of all of the wizards in Hogwarts as her Slug Club date. But in this moment, her eyes tracking his lips as they part to speak, she makes perhaps the most impulsive decision of her life.

She leans her entire body over the table, yanks Draco Malfoy’s emerald Slytherin tie forward, and pulls his lips to meet hers.

They’re softer than she’d imagined, and if Hermione didn’t know better, she’d think he was kissing her back. In another world, with another man, she thinks, this might actually be quite a good kiss. 

The end of his tie is still loosely clasped in her hand when she pulls away. Malfoy, blinking rapidly at her, is frozen in place. 

“Granger, what the f—” 

She glances up and catches Ron’s stunned expression, his movements completely halted as he takes in the scene in front of him.

“Thank you!” she whispers to Malfoy as she drops his tie, wordlessly summoning her books and the letter in his hand into her arms and sprinting toward the nearest exit.

“Hermione!” Ron calls out from the other end of the library, followed swiftly by Madame Pince’s “MISTER WEASLEY!”, but she doesn’t look back.

Hermione hides away in a stall in the Prefects' bathroom, remembering a tad too late that a troll attacked her the last time she did this. Her own words blur on the parchment in front of her.

Dear Draco,

First of all I refuse to call you Malfoy. You think you’re so cool going by your surname. Just so you know, Malfoy sounds like the name of an old wizard with a long white beard. 

You think EVERYONE loves you, Draco. That’s what I hate about you. Because, except for Ron and Harry, everyone does love you. Including me. I did. Not anymore.

Here are all your worst qualities:

You say cruel things and never apologise. You just assume everyone else will find you charming. And if they don’t, who cares, right? Wrong! You do care. You care a lot about what people think of you.

You’re so good at everything. Too good. You could’ve given other boys at Hogwarts a chance to be good, but you never did.

You believe everything your father says, including that my blood is dirty, even though my blood is the same as yours and I’m a better witch than you are a wizard.

You still made me like you, even though you know Ron and Harry hate you, even though I know you’ll never like me back.

Even though you don’t deserve it, fine, here are all the things I like(d) about you:

One time in Potions, nobody wanted to be partners with Theodore Nott because he was quiet and awkward, and you volunteered like it was no big deal. Suddenly everyone thought Theodore was cool.

You are quite funny, even though I won’t ever admit it to you.

You make your friends feel very special. Because that’s your talent, right? You’re good at making people feel special when you want to.

Up close, your face isn’t so much handsome as beautiful. How many beautiful boys have you ever seen? For me it was just one. You. I think it’s a lot to do with your eyes. You have beautiful grey specks in your eyes. Unfairly beautiful.

Do you know what it’s like to like someone so much you can’t stand it and know that they’ll never feel the same way? Probably not. People like you don’t have to suffer through those kinds of things.

But now, I know for sure that I am over you. I’m proud to say I am the only witch in this school who has been immunised to the charms of Draco Malfoy. All because I had a really bad dose of you. Now I never have to worry about catching you again. Maybe YOU’RE the one with the bad blood.

Hermione Jean Granger

The door slowly creaks open. “Hermione, you in there?”

She rests her head in her hands, thinking she’d probably prefer another troll at this point. “Yes.”

“I didn’t mean to follow you,” Dean Thomas says softly. “I just saw you run in here and wanted to make sure you were okay. And uh, I…”—the soft rustle of paper sliding on marble, and a folded note marked Dean Thomas now rests directly in front of her—“thought you might want that back. It seemed quite personal.”

“Dean,” Hermione pleads as she opens the stall and holds up the incriminating letter—Dear Dean, I’ve never met a boy with manners as good as yours…—between them. “Know that I wrote this years ago.”

“Fifth Year, right? The common room party?” He gives her a soft smile, and she remembers why she was so inclined to write this letter in the first place. “I had a great time that night, too.” He pauses, choosing his next words carefully. “I feel like I ought to tell you, though… you know I’m gay, right?”

I did not, she thinks.

“Yes, of course, Dean!” She nods frantically. “Yes. I did. I did.”

“I’m just— it’s, Seamus and I, we’re still figuring things out, but there’s always been something there, you know? I’m not out out, but my parents know, so…” his voice trails off, a sheepish smile filling his face.

“Oh, Dean,” she sighs, reaching out to grab his hand. “I’m just chuffed for you two, really, and I’m terribly sorry about”—she waves the letter around frantically—“all of this. This was really for myself, you know, a diary of sorts, and it’s all quite mortifying.”

He squeezes her hand back. “Hermione. Please, don’t. We know better than most how precious love is. How quickly it can be taken from us. There is nothing wrong with sharing it.” Hermione laughs, because if she doesn’t, she might cry.

Sharing it. The words stick in her brain. Time stops, turns over, speeds up, almost as if she were using a Time Turner again, as she realises what exactly this means. That every single one of her letters might have been shared.

Oh, bugger.

The last time she sprinted up several flights of Hogwarts’ stairs at this speed, Hermione was fighting off Death Eaters while attempting to kill a cursed Maledictus with nothing but a Basilisk fang—so, perspective, she reminds herself.

The slaps of her black Mary Janes against stone echo around the corridor. She rounds a corner and skids to a stop outside the rooms she shares with Lavender in the Eighth Year dormitories—McGonagall’s gift (read: bribe) transformed within the Room of Requirement for the small group of students who returned after the Battle of Hogwarts, now perched across from the owlery on the seventh floor of the castle. It would be fairly idyllic on the whole, actually, if it weren’t for some owl species’ bloodcurdling midnight shrieks.

Hermione shoves open the door without a glance around her and collapses onto her knees at the foot of her bed. Her trunk sits open, Crookshanks settled comfortably atop the open lid and warily eyeing her frenetic movements.

She stares at the empty space on top of her favourite copy of Hogwarts: A History, where five letters once sat. 

“Ummmmm… Hermione?”

She slowly looks up at Lavender, perched lightly on Hermione’s bed, the silver webbing of scars down her neck from Fenrir Greyback’s attack—cursed wounds—covered with a pink silk scarf. While the two had been thrust into the same social group since Sixth Year due to Lavender’s and Ron’s long-term relationship, it was Hermione’s killing of Greyback in retaliation for his attack, and her constant presence at Lavender’s side during the gruelling recovery process this summer, that solidified their friendship. 

Hermione used to think that she simply wasn’t the type of girl whom other girls liked. Now, she realises, even the Brightest Witch of Her Age can be unbelievably stupid. Lavender and Ginny—they’d taught her the meaning of sorority. Of sisterhood.

As she stares at her roommate, still kneeling, words escape her. An incredulous “they’re… gone” slips out.

“What’s gone?”

“They’re gone,” Hermione repeats, slightly more hysterical, gesturing wildly at her trunk.

Lavender gasps, her hands dramatically lifting to cover her mouth. “They’re gone?”

“They’re gone.” She nods emphatically as she slowly stands, her voice rising an octave higher than usual. “I just don’t understand how…” She trails off, narrowing her eyes at Lavender. Her roommate. The only human alive who knew these letters existed, thanks to a smidge too much firewhiskey in the Eighth Year common room after the Start-of-Term Feast.

“Did you send them?” she asks, hands moving to her hips.

Lavender pouts, crossing her arms. “For Merlin’s sake, Hermione—you fight over a stupid boy one time, and you’re forever labelled a Brutus?! I’d never do that to you.” She pauses. “Well, not now, at least.”

Hermione continues to eye her warily. “How do you even know that reference?”

“O.W.L. in Muggle Studies, babes. Plus!” Lavender exclaims, holding up a finger. “Why would I want my ex-lover to receive a love letter from my best friend?”

“That’s actually quite a logical… wait, what? What do you mean, ex? And why do you insist on referring to him in that way?”

Lavender sighs, dropping backward onto Hermione’s bed. “I broke up with him this morning,” she mumbles, staring up at the dark wood panelling of the four-poster bed as she twirls a lock of hair in one finger.

“You WHAT?” Hermione crawls onto the edge of her bed, nudging Lavender with the back of her hand. “Why? And, how on earth could you not tell me?!”

“I didn’t want you to talk me out of it.” She rolls over onto her stomach, looking up at Hermione. “I just—I needed to do it. It’s our final year—really, we have so much freedom this year that it’s essentially a trial run at what life will look like after Hogwarts, except then Ron will be at the shop with George. And I needed to know.”

Hermione scrunches her eyebrows. “Know what?”

“If he was really choosing me all along, or if I’ve only ever been the consolation prize for you.”

“Oh, Lav,” she sighs. “You know he—”

Lavender’s small tawny owl flies through the room’s open window, dropping an envelope directly between the two girls before landing on her trunk with a small hoot beside Crookshanks. They both glance down to find one letter, returned to sender, addressed to Cormac McLaggen. 

Hermione sighs. “Oh, thank the fucking gods.”

The last time she’d looked out at this view, Hermione was preparing to leave everything she’d ever known behind—to Obliviate her parents’ memories of her and depart Hogwarts to hunt Horcruxes with Harry and Ron. Her feet dangle precariously off the ledge of the Astronomy Tower, the memory threatening to overwhelm her. 

Her separation from Harry, who declined McGonagall’s offer to begin Auror training, feels like living with a phantom limb. She still finds herself seeking him out in every room, wanting to ask his opinion amid every predicament. She’s lived for him for so long that she’s no longer certain what it even means to live for herself.

“Alright, Granger?”

“What are you doing here?”

Malfoy approaches her slowly, as if not wanting to startle a wild animal. “Actually, I stopped at your rooms earlier and Brown said you might be here. I just… Look, I just want to be super clear. I’m flattered, I am, but Pansy and I just broke up, so…”

“Are you trying to break up with me right now, Malfoy?”

“Yeah, well.” He rubs his neck, grimacing. “It didn’t really seem like it took the first time.”

“Draco Malfoy, I am not trying to date you.”

“See, your mouth is saying something, but then your mouth said…”—he gives her a meaningful look—“something completely different.”

“I don’t actually like you, you git. I just needed someone else not to think I like him.”

“Who?”

“Hm?”

“Go on, at least tell me who this mystery bloke is, or else I’m going to go on believing you’ve been concocting some scheme to slip Amortentia into my pumpkin juice.”

“Mmm…” She pretends to mull over his request. “No.”

“Excellent. Shall I just tell the rest of the school that you wrote me a love letter?” He turns dramatically, sweeping his robe out behind him.

“Fine, Malfoy. It’s Ronald.”

Malfoy scoffs, turning back to her. He lowers himself to the ground beside her, his thigh nearly touching hers as he leans back on his wrists and studies her. “The Weasel? For Merlin’s sake, it’s not even Potter? At least he’s reasonably worthy of you.”

“Oh, shush,” she says, uncertain whether to feel offended or flattered. “Anyway, Ron also got a letter, so you can imagine how complicated it’ll become if he thinks I’m in love with him.”

“Hold up.” He holds up one hand, having the audacity to look legitimately outraged. “I’m not the only one who got a love letter?”

“Well, I wrote five letters, so you’re not special.”

“Who else?” he growls, and something swoops low in Hermione’s stomach.

She rolls her eyes. “If I tell you, will you please leave me alone?”

“Perhaps.”

She sighs, feeling his gaze on her as she looks out at the Black Lake. “Viktor Krum, Dean Thomas, Cormac McLaggen,” she says, growing progressively closer to mumbling by the end.

Malfoy snorts. “I’ll give you Krum and Thomas, Granger, but McLaggen? I thought you were the sharp one of the Golden Trio.” He stands, offering her an outstretched hand to help her up. He’s surprisingly warm, and as his thumb grazes her wrist, she finds herself unwilling to let go.

“You’ll find no argument here.” Hermione drops his hand after a moment, clearing her throat. “And then you, back before I realised our epic romance would be thwarted by Voldemort’s quest for Muggle domination and some casually inherited bigotry.” 

She sees him wince out of the corner of her eye and feels just the slightest pang of remorse, nudging him lightly with her shoulder as they begin walking. “And, naturally, before I knew what an absolute prat you are.”

He doesn’t laugh, but rather looks at her quite seriously. “Granger, do you want me to get on my knees?”

“Your…” She stumbles for a moment as her eyes snap to his, her cheeks warming at the implication.

“I told you this summer, I’ll apologise every day—I’ll beg for your forgiveness—if that’s what you need.”

“Oh.” She shakes her head, more to clear it of that image than to respond to his question. “No. Malfoy. I meant what I said the last four times we’ve had this conversation: You’re forgiven.”

“Yes, but in Muggle Studies today—”

“In Muggle Studies?”

“I told you this, Granger. McGonagall’s allowed me to take an accelerated O.W.L. plus N.E.W.T. course of study this term. Anyway, today—”

“I thought you were taking the piss, Malfoy. That’s an incredible amount of work. I don’t know if that’s quite touching or just unbelievably stupid.”

“Well, your abundant faith in me aside, today we learned that Muggles propose marriage to one another on bended knee as a signifier of respect and devotion, representing mediaeval deference to Muggle royalty.”

“And you are… proposing marriage, Malfoy?”

“Merlin, no. This isn’t coming out right.” He runs his hand through his hair. “I just mean to say, I’d get on my knees if you wanted me to. As a sign of respect to you.”

She flushes. “Malfoy, you’re truly forgiven. I mean it.”

Desperate for a change in conversation topic, she looks around, surprised to find they’ve made their way to the Eighth Year common room. “I’ve so much Arithmancy work to do. Are we… okay?”

Malfoy clears his throat. “Uhh… yes. Fine, thanks.”

“Look,” she takes a deep breath, unsure which alternate universe she’s landed in where this is something she needs to state, out loud, to Draco Malfoy. “I’m sorry for kissing you.”

“It could have been worse, Granger.” He smirks at her. 

Her hand rests on the doorknob to her rooms, but neither of them move, the silence stretching between them. She’s reminded, quite unfortunately, of what awaits her once Malfoy opens his mouth again.

“So, what are you going to say to the Weasel?”

She sighs. “I guess I’m going to have to tell the truth.”

“Yeah, but, you know… What is the truth? How do you feel about him?”

“It’s not really your problem, Malfoy,” she snaps, finally pulling open the door and shutting it in his face.

The knock on her door that evening jolts Hermione from the rake’s attempt to ruin the fair maiden for all other men (with some rather intriguing uses of his tongue, she thinks). Crookshanks leaps off of her with a yowl as she gets out of bed and pads to the door, cracking it open.

She snakes her head through the small opening, darting her eyes around both corners to check for Ron’s presence before widening the gap for her unexpected visitor.

“Malfoy.”

“I thought you refuse to call me Malfoy,” he deadpans, perfectly mimicking Hermione’s swottiest intonation. 

“Hardy har har. I realised Draco”—she accentuates the ‘ay’—“was even more unbearably prattish.”

He does a double-take, eyes travelling down her body and back up. “Ace pyjamas, Granger.”

She looks down at Crookshanks’ disembodied head emblazoned across her jumper and trousers. “It’s Crooksie.” She points behind her, and Draco leans to look around her.

“No fucking way,” he laughs, approaching Crookshanks. “Isn’t this your little monster from Third Year? How is that thing possibly alive? It looked ready to pop its clogs, as they say, when you bought it.”

“He is half-Kneazle, actually. Quite a remarkable species. Capable of problem-solving without teaching or assistance! And he’s an excellent judge of character.”

Malfoy and Crookshanks eye each other warily. 

“I see,” Malfoy says cautiously after a moment. “Well, then.” 

He slowly approaches Crookshanks, nestled like a king atop Hermione’s trunk, and drops into a deep, aristocratic bow. “A pleasure, Mr. Crookshanks. I’m Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.” He inclines his head to Hermione and winks, the hint of a smirk tugging at his lips.

Crooks purrs contentedly, eyes on Hermione, and she mouths traitor.

“You should see him with Won-Won,” she says offhandedly to Draco. “They’ve grown quite fond of one another—it’s actually a tad unsettling. I’m not sure I trust them together.”

“Won. Won,” he repeats slowly.

The two of them stare at each other for a moment before bursting into laughter.

“Lavender’s— owl— she— got—” Hermione wheezes through a valiant first attempt at explaining. 

She pauses and dabs at her eyes before trying again. “When Lavender and Ron first started dating in Sixth Year, she called him”—she giggles—“Won-Won just to drive him mad. We all thought she was completely barking, and she knew it, but she stuck with it. Her owl died in the— well, it died, and when she found a new one in Hogsmeade a few weeks ago, she came straight into our rooms and told me his name, completely straight-faced.” 

Draco laughs again, and the sound is what Hermione imagines Amortentia tastes like. Addictive. Seductive.

After a moment, silence envelops the room as they grin at one another like complete twits. Hermione, not entirely sure why this conversation is occurring in the first place and yet, for whatever reason, not wanting this moment to end, waits patiently.

“What if—” Malfoy begins, twisting his signet ring with the forefinger and thumb of his other hand. “What if you didn’t tell him?”

“What?”

“What if we let people think we were actually together? Just for a little while. Not just the Weasel. Everybody.”

Hermione cannot prevent the high-pitched squeak that escapes her. “Have you lost the plot, Malfoy? Why would you possibly want that?”

“For starters—thanks to my own complete stupidity, I’m aware—the Malfoy name is in desperate need of public redemption, and what better to help rehabilitate it than a star-crossed romance with the Golden Girl herself? Plus, Pansy might hate it, which always makes a decision especially appealing.”

“Oh, I see. So you want to use me as your pawn?”

“Ah, well, see—technically, you used me as your pawn first. I’m merely seeking… mutual satisfaction, Granger.” The corner of his lip curves up.

Hermione hates, with every fibre of her being, how that phrase sounds so disgustingly attractive coming from Malfoy’s mouth right now. She bites her lip, wondering whether she’s imagining the way his eyes appear to dart to her mouth and back up. He slowly stands, swiping a tuft of Kneazle fur off his shoulder as he makes his way to the door.

“Just think about it, Granger.” Crookshanks lets out a high-pitched mewl that sounds curiously like endorsement if a Kneazle could express such sentiment.

“Don’t hold your breath.”

She closes the door behind him and leans against it, hitting the back of her head slightly harder than she anticipated against the cool wood.

Hermione hears Ron’s muffled voice behind her and turns to her side, pressing her ear up against the door and cursing the scheming ancient magic of this castle for allowing these two to cross paths now of all times.

“Were you just…? With Hermione?” 

“Looks like it,” Malfoy responds.

“How long have you two…?”

“Not long.” She doesn’t need to see Ron’s face to picture his expression as Malfoy has the audacity to whistle as he walks away from the wreckage of that conversation.

Hermione groans, taking several steps forward to drop onto her bed and scream into the nearest pillow.

The Slytherin Quidditch team is just finishing practice when she finally makes her decision days later. She adjusts her jumper and strides out to the pitch, watching his teammates chat to one another as they dismount. 

“Malfoy!”

He pauses midway through wiping the sweat from his brow with his elbow, the edges of his fitted black shirt slightly lifted to reveal a pale stretch of taut muscle. It angers her sometimes—how obscenely fit he is. How her body betrays her to respond to him. She clenches her thighs where she stands, ignoring the hot, shameful burst of desire coursing through her.

He drops the broom he holds in his other hand and walks toward her. “Granger?” 

She pauses, her gaze slowly lifting from his body to his eyes. “Let’s do this.”

He lifts his brows, glancing briefly around them before offering her a classic Malfoy smirk.

Without missing a beat, he closes the remaining steps between them and winds his arms around her, one snaking around her back and the other reaching up to grip the back of her neck. This kiss is nothing like their first in the library. His is searing. Devastating. Unrestrained. Her body is on fire everywhere he touches her. 

He slowly releases her, and her traitorous heart hammers wildly against her ribcage. She feels his hand shake as he runs it along her cheek, his eyes searching hers.

Hermione clears her throat, breaking the spell between them. “I’d best be on my way. To, umm, Transfiguration.” She takes two steps, realises she’s headed in the wrong direction, and course-corrects. “Yes. That’s right. Transfiguration. Have a nice day.”

Despite feeling like she’s been hit with a particularly effective Jelly-Legs Curse, her feet decidedly cannot take her away fast enough from… all of that.

“As you were,” Malfoy calls out to the small crowd of gaping Slytherins behind her.

“We must have a contract, so we’re on the same page about the rules.”

Draco stares incredulously at her from across what one could say is now ‘their’ table in the library.

“You have rules? You really know how to kill the fun in any given situation, Granger.”

“Well,” she scoffs, “it’s important to know where you stand on certain issues.”

“Granger,” he says, his expression immediately serious. “I do not hold those beliefs any longer, about you or any other Muggleborns—”

“Malfoy,” she interrupts, reaching across the table to lightly place a hand on his wrist. He pauses, looking up at her. “We’ve covered this. I wouldn’t have even considered this if I suspected otherwise. That’s not what I meant.”

His cheeks flush. “What issues, then?”

“For example…” She pauses, taking on her haughtiest tone. “When the time comes, I should be the one to break your heart, not the other way around. It will make you more sympathetic and it won’t leave me humiliated.”

“Fair enough.”

“And,” she continues. “I don’t want you to kiss me anymore.”

“Are you mad? Who is going to believe we are in a relationship if I’m not allowed to kiss you?”

“Listen, Malfoy. I refuse to deal with a repeat of the absolute rubbish Rita Skeeter put me through in Fourth Year. This would be— well, you can imagine how this would be if they thought we were…”

“Thought we were what, Granger?” If Rita Skeeter were here right now, she’d probably say Malfoy’s eyes were twinkling or glistening or some rubbish.

“Oh, you know. I’ve heard all the stories about the Prince of Slytherin, but I’m not like that.”

“Who says I’m like that?”

“Everybody. Everybody says that.”

“That doesn’t make it true. You should know that better than most.”

Hermione feels properly chastened, a feeling she utterly despises. “Well. It’s just— I’ve not had many relationships. I just don’t want all of my firsts to be fake.”

“But you kissed me first.”

“This is non-negotiable, Malfoy.”

Malfoy rolls his eyes. “Fine. We must figure out something, then. The snakes are going to be suspicious if I’m not allowed to touch you.”

“You have a point. How about this: You can kiss my cheek.”

“Fair, but not convincing enough.”

“You can… touch me, then.”

He snaps his attention to her, eyes wide. “Touch… you?”

“You know,” she says, fidgeting with her jumper. “Hold my hand. Put your arm around me. Rest your hand on my knee when we sit together. Things… couples do.”

“Yes. Uh. Of course. That’ll do it.”

She looks down, busying herself with adding more text to the parchment. “Okay, one more rule. We can never tell anyone that this relationship is fake, because it would be absolutely mortifying for the both of us.”

“Naturally, Granger. We would be a modern-day Grenouille and Crapaud.”

“Sorry?”

“You’ve never read Malecrit’s Hélas, Je Me Suis Transfiguré Les Pieds? Come off it. It’s bloody awful, mind you, but you can’t not read it. Add that to your little list.”

“Fine. I break your heart. No snitching. Malecrit book club. Anything else?”

His expression softens. “I could… I could write you notes”—he says, almost nervously—“every day.”

Hermione’s breath hitches. “You’d… do that?”

“Sure.” 

Her mind attempts to process what this means, what he might be saying to her, how she feels about it—

“Pansy was always on me to write her notes,” he interrupts, and she can almost hear the record-scratch sound effect her father used to attempt. “I never did, so if I start sending them to you, she’ll be completely narked, it’ll be good.”

Hermione coughs. “How… romantic.”

“Also, you’ll have to come with me to Slytherin’s Quidditch post-game parties.”

“Well, you have to be my Potions partner this term. And study with me in the library.”

“Okay.” Malfoy steals the parchment, pointing the quill at her before adding one last item and his signature to the paper. “But you’re going with me to the Yule Ball.”

She mulls over this proposal. “That’s… three months away from now. Do you earnestly believe we will still be doing this then?”

“Let’s call it a contingency.”

Hermione is certain that by the time the Yule Ball arrives, she and Malfoy will be ancient history, and that is the only reason that she leans down, adding her signature with a flourish to the magically binding contract. 

“Okay, Malfoy. Deal.”

Chapter Text

October 1998

“You ready?” The vision of Malfoy perched on Hermione’s bed, Crookshanks rubbing up against his chest, is becoming disconcertingly routine. His hair is just slightly dishevelled, his sleeves rolled up to his elbow as he leans back on his hands, and Hermione thinks she might finally understand why all those Regency-era women needed so many fainting couches.

“Almost,” she replies, returning to study her face in the mirror as she attempts to wrangle her hair into submission.

“Granger,” he chides. “You look smart. It’s breakfast. And you, old chap”—her gaze drifts back, sufficiently distracted, as he looks down at Crookshanks and rubs the sensitive spot behind his ear—“carry on.”

He stands and catches Hermione staring. “What?”

“Nothing,” she mumbles, smoothing out her skirt and turning toward the door. “Shall we?”

Her bravado falters by the time they reach the entrance to the Great Hall. She hesitates, glancing sidelong at Malfoy.

“Ready for our grand debut?” He grins at her, holding open his hand. “Last chance to back out, Granger.”

Hermione takes in a deep breath and nods. “Never.” She grips his hand in hers, sending him a wry smile. “I’m a Gryffindor. I’m a bloody war hero. I can be Draco Malfoy’s girlfriend.”

In spite of the rumours surrounding their Quidditch pitch kiss having spread like Fiendfyre over the past week, the everyday breakfast clamour comes to a standstill as they walk, hand in hand, down the aisle.

Hermione has never been invisible—certainly not by Harry’s side—but she’s always known what people said when she walked by: Bossy. Know-it-all. Swot. She’s never been envied for anything she possesses except her intelligence. Never been desired.

She finds she quite likes the change. 

What Hermione has dubbed Malfoy’s autumn apology tour—aided by Harry’s and Hermione’s testimonies at his Wizengamot trial and McGonagall’s impassioned plea on his behalf to returning Gryffindors—has dulled most, though certainly not all, students’ hostility for his past choices. 

But Hermione sees the looks she’s getting now, has heard how other girls talk about him in the toilets this term, and personal feelings about Malfoy aside, she knows it is quite literally impossible to ignore the simple fact that Malfoy is the fittest wizard at Hogwarts. And now, in their eyes, her very real boyfriend.

“This is for you.” Draco hands her a note emblazoned with Hermione Granger in—of course—flawless calligraphy, his hand grazing hers for just a moment longer than necessary. He leans forward, tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and whispers, “Good girl.”

She shivers, a frisson of sensation vibrating through her body. She blames those damn romance novels.

“See you in Ancient Runes?” She can only nod in response as he smirks at her. He pulls his hand away and nonverbally Transfigures the parchment in her hand into a perfectly folded paper crane before sauntering away to the Slytherin table.

She looks down to find the note opening on its own.

You look pretty today, Granger. I like you in red. I’d like you even better in green. — D.M.

Hermione knows she looks utterly ridiculous, standing there in the middle of the Great Hall smiling at a slip of parchment, but she finds she can’t be arsed to care.

A small, albeit remarkably strong, hand grips her by the arm and drags her out into the empty corridor.

“This Malfoy thing is barmy,” Ginny exclaims, crossing her arms as she surveys her friend. “What the fuck, Hermione? Who knew you had a secret boner for the Slytherin Prince?”

She shakes her head, willing herself to remember that they’re talking about Draco sodding Malfoy, the boy she once watched literally cry from a measly Hippogriff scratch. “Trust me, Ginny. I’m just as shocked as you are.”

“Did Harry freak?”

“Actually… I’ve been avoiding his owls, so he doesn’t… know yet.”

In her mind, Hermione has envisioned how this conversation will go: Hello, Harry; how’s Auror training? Did I mention that I’ve a fake boyfriend? No? Yes, well, it’s Draco Malfoy. Yes, the very same. Your former enemy, you know? The one we narrowly kept out of Azkaban. How did this come about? Well, you see, I needed Ron not to believe I’m still in love with him. Yes, our best friend Ron. 

Ginny cackles. “Well, this will be bloody brilliant.” Her face turns serious. “Just promise me one thing, Hermione.”

“Of course. Anything, Gin.”

“You must, for the sake of our friendship, let me be there when you tell him.”

“What? ” 

She yanks open the door to find Malfoy leaning against the frame, one foot crossed over the other, perfectly coiffed and stupidly handsome. He takes her in—hair mussed in a bun at the crown of her head, wand haphazardly stuck through it, Advanced Rune Translation in hand.

“Hello to you, too. Did you not read my note? Party in the Slytherin common room tonight.”

“Oh. No. I’m not going to that. I’m in the midst of a particularly perplexing Elder Futhark translation and—”

“Yeah, Granger, you are. One, Pansy is going to be there, and two, parties are in the contract. A deal’s a deal.”

Fuck.

“Malfoy. You cannot be serious.”

“I think you know I am perfectly serious.”

“I’ve N.E.W.T.s to study for. I…”

“Yes, Granger, we know you’ll live to out-swot us all another day. Off we go.” One flick of his wand, and Hermione’s hair is down, falling in thick waves over her shoulders. Her white blouse is slightly tighter and what was her plaid skirt—and is now apparently her maroon skirt—is drastically shorter than it was a moment ago. She rolls her eyes and stomps out of the room past him.

Hermione is still desperately seeking a way out of this situation as the door to the Slytherin common room reveals itself to them upon their approach to the dungeons. “I don’t know, Malfoy. Lavender and Ginny are in Hogsmeade tonight, and I don’t even—”

“No,” he holds a finger up against her mouth, quieting her. “No. I’ll hear no more of it, Granger. It’s in the contract.”

She sighs, reaching up to pull her hair back into a messy bun with a spare scrunchie.

“What are you doing? Give me this.” He wrestles the scrunchie out of her hand and wraps it around his wrist.

“What? No. Give me that back.” 

Hermione scrambles for it as he holds it behind his back, reaching both of her arms around his (incredibly firm) waist to no avail.

“I’m keeping it!” he cries, laughing. “I like your hair down.”

She freezes, realising her entire body is pressed up against his, and slowly disentangles herself from him. “You like my hair down? Just two years ago, you called it, and I quote, ‘a lovely nest for a flock of Fwoopers.’”

“Well, as we’ve covered, I was a complete git, so let’s assume I was wrong about everything.” Draco tugs lightly at a lock of her hair, looking almost mesmerised by it. 

His eyes meet hers. “You look— lovely, Granger. Truly.” He murmurs the password to the dungeons before she can get another word in, grabbing her hand and dragging her in behind him. “Let’s go.”

If Hermione had to describe the diametric opposite of the warmth and comfort of Gryffindors’ accommodations, it would be the room before her as she steps off the last of the winding stairs down to the dungeon. The Slytherin common room is an architectural feat—sunken deep into the Black Lake, the only light streaming in reflected through rippling water. Where Hermione grew up with sunlight and shades of red, here she finds muted tones and sleek green velvet. She’s reminded, feeling a chill down her spine at the memory, of the Chamber of Secrets.

And yet, there is an elegance to it—the darkness is intimate, almost inviting. 

The room is filled with most of the school’s Seventh and Eighth Years. As Malfoy turns to find them drinks, Hermione finds herself commandeered by none other than Pansy Parkinson, holding court toward the centre of the room with Daphne Greengrass.

“Take a seat, Granger,” she calls out from a pair of loveseats beside a large hearth, employing a tone that makes it impossible for Hermione to decipher whether this is an invitation or a command. She makes her way over without a second glance at Malfoy, her heeled boots—she must remember to hex Malfoy later for these—clacking awkwardly against the stone flooring. 

“Parkinson, Greengrass,” she says primly, taking a seat opposite them. Pansy looks flawless as ever, her cropped black hair almost severe against her alabaster skin, her slinky, serpentine green dress hugging her curves. 

“Alright, Granger?” Daphne—clad in a surprisingly Muggle-like black cashmere sweater and gold silk skirt—asks politely, offering a small smile. She leans forward upon Hermione's polite nod. “Can I ask… what exactly is going on between you and Draco?”

“What do you want to know?” She watches Pansy roll her eyes and look out at the crowd around them, narrowing her gaze where Neville Longbottom chats to Luna Lovegood.

Daphne lets out a pleasant laugh. “Everything, if I’m being honest. I’m just—surprised, is all. If you’d told me a year ago that Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy would be shagging…” She smirks wickedly.

Hermione chokes on air, scrambling to come up with a suitable answer. “We, uh—”

Pansy snorts. “Don’t bother, Daph. Clearly, they haven’t done anything.”

“And how would you know that?” Hermione doesn’t even know why she still lets Pansy incense her; it’s obviously her intention this evening. While she no longer sees Pansy as an evil twat, she knows every word carefully curated from the Slytherin witch’s mouth has some secret, ulterior meaning. And the assumption that Hermione wouldn’t— or that Draco wouldn’t deign to— well, simply put, it makes her see red.

“Because I know Draco,” Pansy retorts. “And I know you, Granger.”

Hermione smirks back at her. “How nice that both of us now know Draco so well.” 

Without even looking, she knows the soft touch of a hand on the back of her neck is his. The cold metal of his signet ring against her bare skin contrasts with the warmth of his fingers, and a flush rises up her neck at the contact.

“For you, love,” he drawls, handing her a glass as he sits beside her, arm draping possessively across the loveseat behind her. “Pans. Daph.”

“Draco.” Pansy intones, and Malfoy shoots her a warning glare. If Hermione didn’t know better, she’d think the two were communicating using Legilimency, and she feels a pang of jealousy at the realisation of how intimately they understand one another.

She takes a small sip from her glass, thankful for anything that will make these interactions less excruciating, and the taste surprises her. “What is this? It’s… quite sweet.”

Draco looks down and chuckles, exchanging the drink in her hand with the glass of Ogden’s in his. “Sorry, Granger. Pumpkin juice. Someone has to keep their wits about them tonight.” He shrugs, his lips quirking into an embarrassed grin.

“Do my eyes deceive me?” Blaise Zabini, hopping over the back of the loveseat to take a seat between Pansy and Daphne, cries in mock bewilderment. “Hermione Granger, the Golden Girl herself, finally braving the snake pit?” He leans backward and drapes both arms along the back of the couch, the very picture of sin.

Theodore Nott trudges behind him, one hand in his trouser pocket and the other cradling a drink. He gives Hermione a small smile, shadows from the fire dancing along his face as he leans casually against the stone hearth.

She looks back at Blaise, levelling him with a smirk worthy of a Malfoy. “Well, once you’ve ridden a dragon, a few snakes seem like child’s play, don’t you think?”

“Touché, Granger!” He points his half-empty glass at Malfoy. “You keep her, mate.”

“I plan on it,” Malfoy says simply, taking another sip of pumpkin juice, and Pansy and Hermione both raise their eyebrows at him. 

Before Pansy can get a word in, Blaise darts his gaze between Theo and Daphne. “Daphne, darling, Theodore here was just saying the most interesting things about your exquisite, and conveniently single”—he adds an exaggerated wink—“sister.”

Daphne gasps dramatically, looking absolutely chuffed. “Theo! Really? Does Astoria know?”

“You are such a fucking wanker, Zabini,” Theo groans, rubbing his hand over his face sheepishly.

The group of Slytherins properly distracted by the turn in conversation, Malfoy turns to Hermione, giving her a searching look before leaning in.

“I heard you earlier, you know,” he whispers in her ear, his breath hot against her neck. 

“Hmm?” she asks, suddenly and acutely aware that if she were to turn her head any closer, her lips would meet his.

“You called me Draco.”

“Well, it is your name.”

“I quite like it. Hearing you say my name.”

Her mind races at those words. 

“Oi, lovebirds,” Blaise calls out, interrupting her train of thought. Malfoy pulls away and gives him an exasperated look. “Up for a game of Exploding Snap? Slytherin rules: a shot for every explosion.”

Despite her best efforts, Hermione finds herself charmed by Malfoy’s group of friends. Even Pansy, despite her obvious distaste for Hermione’s presence at Malfoy’s side, adjusts unenthusiastically to their new dynamic and appears increasingly distracted as the evening progresses.

Hermione swirls the remaining firewhisky in her nearly-empty glass while seeking respite in one of the darker corners of the room, grinning to herself as she wonders what Harry would say if he were here. She’d searched anxiously for Ron’s unmistakeable hair in the crowd throughout the night, though she assumed a smaller gathering must be taking place in the Gryffindor common room as well.

Dean Thomas joins her in the corner, leaning against the wall beside her with a Butterbeer in hand.

“Dean!” she exclaims at what is certainly a perfectly sober volume, reaching out a hand to grip his upper arm. “I’m so pleased you’re here. I’m surprised you aren’t with Seamus— and, you know, Ron and the others tonight.”

“Well, you know, Longbottom wanted me to come, and I didn’t want to force the poor bloke to go alone.”

She follows his eyeline to Neville, deep in conversation with a dark-haired witch across the room. She leans to her side to glimpse whom he's staring at so intently but gives up when her view remains blocked. “Neville? Why did he want to come, anyway?”

“He said some codswallop about inter-House unity, letting bygones be bygones and such. Unexpectedly stirring, actually. Anyway, here we are.” He raises his goblet.

“Here we are,” she repeats, lightly tapping her glass against his before downing the last sip.

“So, you and Malfoy?”

“It’s.” She ponders how to answer this question. “A long story. Well—you know. Those letters…”

“Malfoy was one of them, really? I mean, he apologised to me too, and I’ve seen him shirtless and… yeah, I get it. But still didn’t see that one coming, Hermione.”

“I certainly didn’t either,” she answers honestly. “But he’s… well, he’s different than I thought.”

“Guess those letters worked, though.” Dean winks at her. Before she can retort, he continues. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“What secret?” Malfoy’s arm snakes protectively around her hip, and Hermione watches Dean’s lip quirk up knowingly as he follows the motion. 

“Oh, nothing,” Hermione says hastily, leaning into his warmth. She sends Dean one brief, wide-eyed look. “I was just telling Dean about a charm I developed to more effectively translate those runes I was working on earlier. If you just—”

“Yes, Hermione, we get it,” Dean interjects, apparently amused by this entire situation. “Hiya, Malfoy.”

“Thomas.” He nods in greeting. “Granger, you up for one final stop on the way back up?”

As Malfoy steers her toward the door to the dungeons, she turns and mouths a quick thank you to Dean, who laughs and raises his drink in response.

“How did you even find this entrance?”

The portrait of a bowl of fruit—one Hermione has passed by dozens of times over the past eight years without a second thought—transforms before her eyes, what was previously a pear now appearing as a large green doorknob.

Draco swings the door open and gestures her forward. She gazes wildly around the dim-lit, empty room, the largest cauldron she’s ever seen stirring itself ahead of her. 

“There might have been a particularly… keen Hufflepuff witch a few years ago. Apparently, it’s a well-kept Hufflepuff secret. But she knew I had a weakness for pumpkin juice, and the elves keep the kitchens well-stocked, so the secret came into my possession as well.”

He summons two glasses of pumpkin juice and two mince pies to the nearest of the rectangular wooden tables in front of them. Instead of circling the table to sit across from her, Malfoy straddles the bench on her left side, his knees brushing lightly against her hip.

“You did great tonight, Granger. The snakes loved you. Pansy was nearly as miffed as I anticipated.”

“Yes, well.” She busies herself with the tart in front of her. “I had a surprisingly nice time. I just hope she doesn’t poison my tea at breakfast.”

“I’ll speak with her.” 

Hermione purses her lips, refusing to engage with that feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“What, Granger.”

“Hm?”

“You do this whole thing—you have this whole… swotty face scenario going on,” he says, gesturing in her direction.

“I’ve not the foggiest what you mean.”

“You’ve never lacked opinions, Granger.”

“That’s just because no one else is ever willing to be honest with you, Malfoy.”

“Be honest with me, then.” He leans forward, his face close enough now that she can feel his breath against her skin. “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why not just run off into the sunset with the Weasel? Or, better yet, the Chosen Wanker?”

“First of all, Harry is with Ginny. And, until recently, Ron was with Lavender. And second of all, it’s really none of your business. Why is everyone so obsessed with my relationship status? Perhaps I simply don’t want to run off into the sunset with anybody.”

“I’d actually believe you, but you forget, I’ve read one of those letters of yours. And I’ve seen those books you stash underneath our potions assignments. You’re hiding quite the romantic underneath that incomparable brain of yours.”

“Well. It’s not as if I’ve been bursting at the seams with potential suitors. I’m not one of your pureblood princesses, Malfoy. Nobody sees me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like… desirable.” She tosses her hands up, feeling the blush stain her cheeks. “Sexy.”

“Lies. I know that those are lies, because I know for a fact that every single wizard in this gods-damned school, and probably a few witches, fantasised about shagging you after the Yule Ball in Fourth Year.”

Mouth slightly ajar, she turns her face toward his. “Keeping tabs on me, Malfoy?”

“Trust me, Granger, I would have loved not to have noticed you that night. Pansy was ready to Avada me.”

Hermione isn’t ready to admit—to Draco, and certainly not to herself—what feelings his words evoke in her. She hides a smile behind her hand, her right elbow resting on the table in front of them. 

“So, what is it really? Let’s hear it, Granger.”

“I…” She’s never voiced this before, isn’t entirely sure she knows what’s going to come out of her mouth, but there’s something so disarming about Draco Malfoy when his attention is solely on you. “Love? I love to read about it, but— when it’s real—”

“What, it’s scary?”

She shrugs, embarrassed at how childish it sounds.

“But… you’re a Gryffindor. You set Snape on fire, and yes, don’t look at me like that, we all heard the rumours. You rode a fucking dragon—your little innuendo tonight, by the way, was”—he shakes his head—“unbelievably sexy—but I digress. You’ve saved the entire wizarding world, Granger. You aren’t afraid of anything.”

She gives him an incredulous look. “Is that seriously what you think?”

He nods, his confusion obvious.

“Malfoy, I’m terrified of so many things. Certainly everything you just said. I just… did it anyway.”

“But why would love be scary?”

“Because the more people you let into your life, Malfoy, the more you can lose.”

He nods slowly. “Like your parents, right?”

She inhales sharply, willing that awful lump suddenly lodged in her throat to disappear. “Well, yes, actually.” 

They watch one another, entirely unguarded for just a moment. She blinks away tears.

“I, uh,” he pauses, collecting himself. “I know it’s not the same. But I would’ve done anything for my father. Did do just about anything for him. I believed every word he told me. I ruined my life for him, took the fucking Dark Mark for him, took on Voldemort’s assignment for him, just to lose him. Just for him to die two months into his Azkaban sentence.”

“I’m sorry, Malfoy—”

“Don’t.” He holds up a hand to stop her. “Don’t do that. Do not ever apologise to me, Granger. Please. Neither my parents nor I deserve an ounce of your sympathy or compassion. I only… I just felt like you’d understand.”

“I do, actually.” Some instinctual urge compels her to reach out for that hand, to link her fingers through his.

They sit in comfortable silence, Malfoy’s thumb tracing the lines of hers. He finally lets go, slapping his hands against his thighs as he stands. “Shall we, then?”

By the time they’ve returned to their dormitories, she can tell he’s distracted. “Out with it, Malfoy. I know you’ve something on your mind.”

“It’s just funny,” he says, glancing sideways at her. “You say you’re afraid of relationships, but you don’t seem to be afraid to be with me.” She cannot entirely discern whether it’s intended as a statement or a question.

She pauses at her door, furrowing her brow. “Well, there’s no reason to be.”

“Yeah?” He grins, giving her a long look before continuing. “Why’s that?”

“Because we’re just pretending.”

The smile fades, and Hermione can’t quite place the emotion that crosses his face before he schools his expression. “Right. Of course. Granger, ladies and gentlemen, you can count on her to be honest, always.”

He places his hands in his pockets and turns toward his own rooms.

“Wait, Malfoy,” she calls after him. “Are we—”

“We’re fine, Granger,” he calls out without turning his head. “Thank you for coming to the party tonight.”

She lies awake that evening, a rare, niggling feeling in the back of her mind that she gave him the wrong answer.

Chapter Text

November 1998

The Slytherin table in the Great Hall, to most Slytherins’ chagrin, is now an explosion of colour: red, blue, green, yellow. Hermione’s defection, of sorts, had set off an unanticipated chain of events. 

Her choice to join Draco for meals—and, if she was being entirely honest with herself, to avoid interactions with Ron—instigated the same for Lavender and, when she could be bothered to eat at Hogwarts instead of apparating (against at least fifteen school regulations) into London to see Harry, Ginny. Lavender brought Parvati Patil, who brought her sister Padma, who was dating Terry Boot, who brought Anthony Goldstein, who brought Ernie Macmillan, who everyone knew was in love with Luna Lovegood (except perhaps Luna herself). Luna brought Neville, who brought Hannah Abbott, who brought her girlfriend Susan Bones—and so on, until the First through Seventh Year Slytherins began eyeing the group contemptuously, as the House members themselves no longer all fit across their stretch of benches and had to slowly integrate elsewhere.

Lavender’s addition to the Slytherin table led to one more development: her immediate friendship with Daphne Greengrass, a phenomenon that should not have remotely surprised Hermione but introduced the complication that Hermione was now—she shudders to think it—friends, at least by association, with Pansy Parkinson.

The entire experience had forced a series of reorientations in Hermione’s mind. She was practical enough not to believe the bollocks about a witch or wizard being entirely Light or Dark, nor did she harbour any delusions that one Hogwarts House alone would house all of the unequivocally evil or prejudiced students. Bravery, loyalty, and intellect, Hermione reasoned, can be just as dangerous as ambition.

But she was also cynical enough—having just experienced a war in which the ultimate aim was to subjugate or outright eradicate anyone like her or her parents—not to immediately trust any friendly advances from those with familial or other connections to Death Eaters. Fortunately, many of the ideologues of their age group had either perished in the Battle of Hogwarts, were imprisoned in Azkaban, or “mutually” agreed (upon McGonagall’s insistence) that Hogwarts was not the right environment for their journey of personal growth.

What she found in this omnium gatherum, convened only by virtue of Hermione and Malfoy’s ruse, was a group of people forever linked by collective trauma. Some were forced to reckon with learned prejudice, others with their roles as terrified bystanders, but all of whom were capable of Light in a setting, finally, of peace and safety.

These experiences had begun to prove, against Hermione’s own hypotheses, the power, the magic, of human connection. She only wished that Harry—the reason they could all sit here and eat breakfast and live without fear—was also here to witness it.

Hermione’s ruminations are interrupted as Blaise pushes his way into the space on her right side, her body shoved several centimetres to the left into Malfoy’s frame. Malfoy’s arm instinctually flies out to catch Hermione before she falls backward, cradling her into his body in a way that is… not unpleasant.  

Fake dating Malfoy had, overall, gotten easier and easier. It had begun to feel like second nature; when before she searched for Harry or Ron in every room, she now immediately seeks out a pair of grey eyes. Of course, Hermione has had to grow accustomed to a daily routine in which Malfoy regularly places his hands and lips on her body when they’re in public, which has of course been a hardship and definitely has not rewired her brain and probably permanently altered the scents of her Amortentia.

And the notes—don’t even get her started on the notes. Every day, his stupid paper cranes, in his stupid perfect script. They’re chipping away at pieces of her heart that she would very much prefer to remain intact, thank you very much. She’s just stopped reading the contents at this point to save herself the displeasure of feeling… things toward Draco Malfoy that are not either borderline-friendly camaraderie or complete exasperation, though she chooses not to dwell on the fact that every single one is currently saved in the space in her trunk where her letters used to sit.

“Listen, Granger, I was thinking—” Blaise’s silky voice begins.

“Please don’t do that,” Theo mutters from across the table.

“I was thinking about the Yule Ball.”

Hermione nearly chokes on her tea. “Are you on something, Blaise?”

“I’m onto a diabolical plot, Granger. I’m not asking you. I don’t have a death wish,” he pauses, winking at Malfoy. “But if we meld our brilliant minds together—”

Pansy mutters a brief Silencio and continues on with the story she had been telling Daphne and Lavender, Blaise’s brows furrowing as his mouth moves without sound. Neville snorts juice out of his nose from down the table. Malfoy’s hand dips slightly lower on Hermione’s back, and for a few minutes, she loses all ability to function like a rational human being.

One thing hasn’t gotten easier. In her distraction, Hermione looks past Theo to the Gryffindor table, finding Ron watching her with a sad expression. She takes him in, just for a moment, before breaking eye contact and rejoining the conversation.

She swings open her door at the first knock, expecting Draco, to find Ron standing in front of her instead, hands in his pockets. She glances around the corridor, relieved that Lavender is still in the North Tower for Divination.

“Ronald! Hi, uh, hello.”

“Can we please talk now?”

She slowly opens the door, bracing herself as he stalks into her rooms. He begins to pace, and she can feel his agitation filling the empty space between them.

“It’s been weeks, Hermione. Months, really. Were we just never going to speak again?”

“Of course not, Ron. I just—” She wrings her hands. “I didn’t know what to say.”

“I can’t believe you’re dating the fucking Ferret.”

She knows—she knows what he means, would even have thought it herself only months ago, but his outrage makes her feel a surge of protective rage. “Why?! Is it so unbelievable that he could care for me?”

“Yes, Hermione—it actually is. He almost let you die on his drawing room floor only months ago! He called you a Mudblood for years!”

“You know he’s apologised for that, Ronald. To me, to you, to Harry, and he answered all of the Wizengamot’s questions under Veritaserum. He’s trying to right his wrongs. We chose to forgive him. We chose to move forward. All of us.”

“But— you’re like, this good, innocent girl, and he’s a complete arse! Even if he’s apologised, even if he’s changed… I just.” He throws his hands up. “I don’t get it.”

Of course this is the sum of her character to Ron: Good. Innocent. “You know you make me sound really boring, right, Ron? I’m not that innocent.”

He scoffs. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she bites back. “Well, great. If we’ve concluded this conversation…” She turns away from him.

“No, shit,” Ron says, running his hands through his hair. “I— wait.”

She turns back around, dreading what comes next.

“Look, did you mean what you wrote in that letter to me?”

“I don’t know. Okay? It was a long time ago.”

“Well, not for me, yeah?” The frustration seeps into his voice. “This is new for me, so I’m… I’m trying to understand here.”

“There’s nothing to understand. Look. You— Ronald, it was a mistake. You were never supposed to see it. It wasn’t for you—I mean, clearly it was technically for you, but it was really for me, not for—"

“But I did see it, Hermione,” he interjects. “So what am I supposed to do?”

“Not tell Harry?” she implores, trying but failing not to sound on the verge of hysteria.

“I’ve not even heard from Harry in weeks,” Ron cries. “You don’t have to”—his voice weakens as he stares down at the ground, and Hermione is struck by a swift, horrible wave of guilt as she comprehends how terribly lonely he must be—“worry about that.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, tears welling in her eyes. “I…” 

“That’s it?” He throws his arms up. “I lose Lavender, you’re dating Malfoy, and we can’t even be friends anymore?”

“Oh, Ron.” She lightly touches his shoulder. “No. Of course we’ll always be friends. I just… I don’t know how to be friends with you like this. We can’t just go back to how it was before you and Lavender were dating. We definitely can’t go back to how it was when you and Lavender were dating.”

“If I had known I would lose both of you like this, I wouldn’t—”

“Stop,” Hermione interjects. “Don’t finish that sentence. I know you don’t mean it.”

“I just—”

She walks past him and pulls open her door, indicating the end of this conversation. “Lavender will be back soon, and I know you both want space at the moment. Can we just… not do this right now?”

“You can’t just ignore me, Hermione!”

“Just— I know. I really don’t mean to hurt you, Ron. Just give me a bit more time to process all of this. Please.”

Ron lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Of course. Yeah. You know where to find me, then.”

Hermione closes her eyes and rests her forehead against the door as she slowly shuts it behind him.

“Why did I agree to this? I can’t— I am running quite hot, aren’t I? Perhaps I’ve come down with a fever?”

Lavender tuts softly, finishing the last of her charms on Hermione’s hair. “You agreed to this because it’s your boyfriend’s mother and you have absolutely no choice in the matter.”

She groans, inwardly pushing away an unspoken set of rebuttals that this wasn’t in the contract so really I never agreed to this, and what does it mean exactly that I am following through with it anyway, and should it be concerning that I want to impress her, and do I want to impress her because she’s utterly terrifying or because I’ve fallen—

Ginny looks up from perusing Hermione’s current romance novel, humming in agreement. “Hermione, you are probably the most famous witch in the world right now. You can handle Narcissa Malfoy. Plus, just use a few of these moves”—she waves Hermione’s book around in the air—“on the Ferret and you’ll have him forgetting his own name, let alone his mother.”

“Ginny!”

Lavender giggles, reaching her hand out. “Ooooh, let me see! I knew there was something absolutely naughty in those! But Hermione always says she reads these—”

“—for the plot,” both of her former best friends mimic at the same time.

Hermione scoffs, attempting to hide the flush on her face. “Focus, if you please. You are both pureblood witches. Ginny, you’re Sacred Twenty-Eight, for Merlin’s sake. Surely you have some advice on how to… comport oneself in high society at afternoon tea?”

The two exchange looks before dissolving into laughter. Lavender’s squeals echo around their rooms. 

“Ginevra, of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the Ancient and Noble House of Weasley, how doth a lady comport oneself with the forebears of one’s lover?” Ginny barks, in between cackles, in perfect imitation of Hermione’s intonations.

“He’s not my lover," Hermione chides. "Although I must say—”

“This is a conversation I would very much like to continue, but alas, I’ve come to collect Granger,” a voice drawls from behind her. 

Malfoy smirks wickedly when Hermione freezes and turns to make eye contact with him, and she dies a little inside as she finds him leaning against the open doorway in an all-black Muggle suit with Crookshanks (the absolute little traitor) already comfortably nestled in one arm. 

His eyes move up and down Hermione's body as she slowly stands and wordlessly casts one last ironing charm on her long-sleeved maroon midi crêpe dress, tossing her wand in her bag as she approaches him unsteadily in suede stiletto pumps. 

He doesn’t look away from her as he holds out his arm, offering a cursory, “Ginevra. Lavender.”

Hermione takes one last, wide-eyed look behind her on her way out. Lavender sits cross-legged on Hermione’s bed, still poring over her romance novel. Ginny, helpful as always, makes a completely obscene gesture behind Malfoy’s back representing a sexual act Hermione will never admit she’s thought about increasingly often lately.

As helpful as Harry and Ron, those two. She rolls her eyes, though she can't help the smile that tugs at her lips.

It would have been so much easier to leave family out of this, Hermione thinks as she examines the gaudy pink accoutrement covering Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shoppe.

She promised herself at 13 years old that she would never again allow herself to be unnerved by a Malfoy. 

But sitting opposite a Narcissa Malfoy clad in luxurious forest-green dress robes—on one hand, the matriarch of a family representing two pureblood dynasties and the very picture of elitist privilege, and on the other, the only witch alive to have refused a Dark Mark and outright betrayed Voldemort himself—is a lesson in contradictions. 

Narcissa had sought Hermione out to apologise for her past behaviour after Harry had testified at her trial, and the Malfoys, in the wake of Lucius’s death, had offered Hogwarts a generous donation in Hermione’s name to fund Muggleborn education and support in reparations for the trauma she’d endured in their manor, but the idea of any real relationship with her was… uncomfortable, at minimum.

In spite of that, the three had so far engaged in pleasant, albeit stilted, conversation while occupying a table by the window—the pleasant heat of Malfoy’s body beside her, one hand lightly caressing her back, overwhelming Hermione even more than their present company.

“You are an only child like Draco, are you not, Miss Granger?”

“Yes, it’s just me. I’ve spent enough time with the Weasleys over the years to appreciate the quiet that came with being raised without siblings.” She grimaces at the faux pas of mentioning the family as she recalls Lucius and Arthur’s absolute disdain for one another, not to mention their fistfight in Flourish & Blotts on her parents’ behalf, but Narcissa doesn’t bat an eye.

“Your mother must adore having a girl. As you know, I would do anything for Draco, but”—she chuckles lightly, wrinkling her nose—“raising boys can be such a nuisance.”

Hermione feels the hand on her back stiffen as Malfoy glances worriedly over at Hermione before giving Narcissa a scathing look. “Mother, I told you. About Hermione’s parents.”

Narcissa pales, her posture even stiffer than usual. She lightly sets down her teacup and saucer, gently resting her palms on the table in front of them. “Of course. I’m terribly sorry, Miss Granger. I know you must think the worst of me, given our history, but I’ve just— my memory isn’t quite what it used to be.” Malfoy stares intently down at his tea.

None of them say it aloud, but Hermione reads between the lines. The pain from the Cruciatus Curse, if exposed for a prolonged period, may cause permanent physical and/or mental injury, including but not limited to memory loss, she’d read in The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts after learning of the condition of Neville Longbottom’s parents in Fourth Year.

She forces a smile on her face, taking a sip of tea before responding. “Actually, she did love having a girl. Although, I’m sure she’d say I could be an absolute nuisance as well. They were— well, they are healers, of a sort, and my mother had to stop bringing me into their practice with her because I took it upon myself to diagnose all of their patients based on my own readings.”

Narcissa offers her a small, appreciative smile, lightly reaching out to pat Hermione’s hand in what she knows is quite an uncharacteristic gesture of physical affection before asking after Hermione’s post-Hogwarts plans.

She glances to her side at Malfoy, whose hand has resumed its (incredibly distracting) ministrations along her lower back. He studies her face, and she catches flickers of emotion on his. Embarrassment. Gratitude. Admiration. And something she can’t quite place, but that looks a bit like hope.

“Granger,” Draco calls out softly. Hermione stills, turning around to see him leaning against her doorway again, his eyes cast down to the maroon patterned rug beneath him.

“I’m terribly sorry for what my mother said to you today.” He finally meets her gaze.

“No, it’s okay,” she murmurs. “Honestly, you know— it’s nice, talking about them like it’s normal. Like it’s not always some tragedy.”

Malfoy nods.

She perches herself on top of her desk, slowly kicking off her stilettos as he walks to her side. “Is it odd not having your dad around?”

“A bit.” He sighs, watching Crookshanks wind happily in circles around his shoes. “Sometimes I walk past his portrait outside my parents’— my mother’s rooms and realise he’s there, or some sliver of the man I knew as my father is there, and I really miss him. But then I think about everything he put me through, put my mother through—and the fucking lies he taught me, all for… what? And I just— I get so mad that I’m glad he’s gone.”

“You don’t mean that,” Hermione says softly, knowingly. She thinks back to the way Draco stared up at his father years ago at the Quidditch World Cup, like he hung the moon. “You can be angry at someone and still miss them. Desperately.”

He looks thoughtfully at her. “I bet you really miss your parents.”

“Every day. But you know, it’s… complicated.” She pauses. “Imagine finding out, well into adulthood, that magic—this mystical concept you’ve only read about in storybooks—is real, but your only child can wield it and you cannot, and she’ll need to be taken from you quite suddenly to immerse herself in this new world where you cannot even follow her. You won’t experience any of her first days at school or chat to her about crushes or bullies or even comprehend what she’s learning.”

Hermione sighs. “I’ve felt so… separated from my parents since becoming a part of the wizarding world that sometimes it feels like I lost them twice: once when I turned eleven, and again when I Obliviated them. And now, I’ll be reading a book, or having a conversation, and I’m thinking about my family, and I think of Harry and Ron and Ginny. Of the Weasleys. Like, just for a moment, I’ve forgotten I have—had—a family of my own. And it only happens for just a second, but I feel terribly guilty about it.” An awkward, sharp laugh escapes her. “I’ve never told anyone that before, actually.”

He shifts nearer. “I’d never thought about it in that way. What it truly means to experience magic as a Muggleborn. The loss it necessitates. It sounds… incredibly lonely.”

The ache that rises within her as he speaks is a familiar one. Not simply lust, but a deep, unsettling twinge of desire—for him to hold her. Touch her. Want her.

She nods slowly, searching his face as it nears hers. “You know, it’s actually quite nice. Talking to you. You’re a surprisingly good listener for a foul, loathsome, evil little cockroach.”

She feels the expelled breath from his chuckle against the side of her neck, and she realises in that moment how very close they’ve gotten—two planets circling one another’s orbit. His hand would graze her inner thigh if he reached out. If he took another step forward, her thighs would bracket his hips. His lips could capture hers if he just leaned down— 

His voice cuts through her racing thoughts. “I like talking to you, too, Granger.” 

He leans down to pick up Crookshanks and steps away, but Hermione is lost in what would’ve could’ve should’ve just happened.

Sometimes, just for a moment, she lets herself pretend this isn’t fake.

Chapter Text

December 1998

“Tell me again why we can’t be doing this in the library?” Hermione asks, using her wand to flip through two books in the air beside her as she balances her quill and parchment precariously on top of her crossed legs. 

The Room of Requirement had taken the so-called need for a space representing Hogwarts unity almost too seriously. The common room’s ceilings were enchanted, like the Great Hall, to create the illusion of an open sky, with enchanted lanterns scattered around the room. The room was adorned with a rich tapestry of hues, subtly integrating softened shades of each house’s colours into the room’s architecture. Bookshelves covered nearly every wall in the space, filled with a combination of Ravenclaw’s books and Hufflepuff’s plants and natural decor. Gryffindor’s warm, inviting style was reflected in the many cosy seating options clustering throughout the space and in front of several roaring fireplaces.

Slytherin’s influence was evident upon a closer look around the room, revealing several cleverly concealed passages and secret nooks—which, naturally, had already been well-abused by a group of randy, barely supervised young adults.

The alcove they’d taken up, wrapped inconspicuously behind one of the Eighth Year common room’s bookshelves and containing two deep-set tufted chaises beside a jaw-dropping view of the rest of the castle, had little in the way of useful surfaces—for her current purposes, at least. “These are very obviously intended for, let’s say, private liaisons and not for study sessions.”

“Oh, Hermione.” Ginny, sitting opposite her beside Lavender, shakes her head. “I simply want to uncover what the snakes use these secret little rooms for and leverage it ruthlessly against them.”

Lavender giggles, her eyes wide. “Merlin, and I thought Hermione was terrifying.” 

Hermione rolls her eyes. “Fine, but I want no commentary, then. We will finish this DADA project in blissful silence.”

“Oooookay, Madame Pince,” Ginny salutes her. “But can I first say—”

“Blissful. Silence.” Hermione punctuates each word, looking between the two of them.

Unfortunately, the silence lasts for only a moment before two voices float into the room from around the corner.

“Draco, please.”

Lavender looks back and forth at Hermione and Ginny, mouthing Malfoy?

Ginny nods emphatically, beginning to mouth What the fu— before she’s interrupted by Pansy. All three girls whip their heads to the entryway as if expecting the two to materialise in front of them, but their voices continue to simply carry in from just outside the room.

“You’re constantly with Granger, Draco. People are talking— outside of these walls, you know.”

“We should Silence the room,” Hermione whispers a bit desperately. “This sounds private.”

“Are you insane, Hermione?” Ginny hisses. “That’s your boyfriend. And they’re talking about you.”

“I know,” Malfoy’s voice replies. “But Pans, we can’t keep this going forever.”

Hermione isn’t certain whether the moment of silence that follows is more awkward in this room or outside of it. She squirms uncomfortably in her seat, looking anywhere but in the direction of Draco’s voice.

“Well, are you taking her to the Yule Ball?” Pansy snaps. “Because you know how that will look.”

“I know that, but I thought the whole point—”

“—is to continue with the preparations for our betrothal, per our plan.”

Draco scoffs. “So, what—you want me to take you to the Yule Ball?”

“That’s besides the point, Draco, and you know that.” The way she says his given name, the familiarity, the intimacy —it makes Hermione’s fists clench. “I just need my parents to remain satisfied with our betrothal so they leave me alone, and for that to happen, I need you to do your part.” She pauses. “You owe me this.”

“I know.” He sighs. “I’m taking her, Pansy. But… I’ll bear this in mind.”

The stomp of her heeled boots across the common room, and Draco’s ensuing groan of frustration, ring out around the concealed room. 

After a moment, Lavender and Ginny turn to Hermione, both rendered speechless.

“I think we know what they use these rooms for now,” Lavender eventually murmurs with a grimace. “Though I’d imagine this was not the type of leverage Ginny had anticipated.”

“Well,” Hermione says primly, pretending she’s reading the books in front of her so she doesn’t have to admit her stomach has turned and her hands are shaking. “At least we can finally do this work in silence, then.”

“Dude,” Ginny cries out after another awkward moment of silence. “Is Pansy betrothed to your wizard?”

“...I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to hear about things with Malfoy. But I guess I needed… well, I needed you and Harry. I feel like the more… accustomed to him I get, the more it’ll hurt when he’s inevitably betrothed to Pansy or some new pureblood witch, and I’m so angry at myself because I should’ve seen this coming.”

“Nah, I’m good.” Ron says roughly from beside her, eyes unmoving from his shoes as he leans against an alcove in the reception hall. “But I don’t know what to tell you, Hermione. That sucks. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure you are, Ronald.” She nudges his shoulder with hers.

“No, truly.” He finally looks up, his hand closing lightly around her wrist. “I hate that little ferret, and I’ll never think he deserves you—but you’re my best friend, Hermione. I want you to be happy. Even if it’s with him.”

She smiles up at him. “I’ve missed you, Ron.”

“Missed you too, Mione.”

“You know how I despise that nickname, Won-Won.” They grin at one another, and Hermione feels the first, beautiful hint of normalcy in months. Of a world where she and Ron can simply love one another in the way that only two people who’ve survived so much together can.

“Granger.”

Ron rolls his eyes, dropping her hand and pushing himself off the wall. “Want me to wait?” He gestures behind himself at a visibly agitated Malfoy, watching them with his arms crossed.

“You’d better not.” She offers Ron a quick smile before dropping it, walking past Malfoy without a second glance.

“See you later, Mione,” Ron calls.

“What do you think people are going to say when they see my girlfriend cozying up next to the Weasel?” Malfoy paces alongside her.

“What do you think people are going to say when they hear you are still considering a betrothal to Pansy Parkinson?” She’s let more anger seep into her voice than she’d planned and sees him miss a step out of the corner of her eye.

“So you’re spying on me now, Granger?”

“Not intentionally.” She takes a sharp left down a random corridor, no clear destination in mind.

“Okay,” Malfoy concedes, running to catch up to her. “So I might have left out that minor detail. So what? You don’t even let me kiss you.”

They’ve reached the end of the hallway, and Hermione realises she’s now trapped herself in this conversation. Her eyes snap back to Malfoy’s as she processes his final words.

“Let you— but— that was part of the contract!" She hesitates. "Why? Do you want to kiss me?”

For every slow step he takes toward her, she takes one back, until she feels the cold stone wall against her fingertips. 

“Do you want me to kiss you?” he asks, his gaze flickering to her lips.

Desperately, she thinks. But not when you’ll just end up with someone else.

“Look, Malfoy,” she rushes out. “I don’t think either one of us thought this was going to go on for this long, but we’ve gotten what we wanted, haven’t we? Ron and I will be fine. You seem to be betrothed to Pansy, just as you’d apparently wanted. I think we need to call it.”

He scoffs, taking a swift step back. “I cannot believe you’re trying to break up with me just before the Yule Ball. That’s in the contract.”

“Only if we are still together.”

“We are still together! You’re just pulling away because you’re scared.”

Hermione recoils as if it was a physical blow. “What would I possibly be scared of?”

Malfoy simply shrugs, gesturing around them like this answer should be completely obvious. “You tell me, Granger.”

They stare at each other, having reached an impasse. Hermione opens her mouth to speak just as a dozen Fourth Years file out of a classroom and into the hallway, filling the corridor with sound.

How do you tell your very fake boyfriend that you can’t possibly go to the ball with him because your feelings are very real? she asks herself. 

You can’t, the small, impulsive voice inside her she often imagines to be Harry responds. So you pivot.

“I’ll go if Ginny and Harry go.”

“Fuck,” he says, then, “Alright.”

“So why, exactly, is your little ferret harassing me about the Yule Ball? You know I have no interest in school functions this year.”

Ginny plops onto the plush caramel-toned couch in the Eighth Year common room, tucking her heeled combat boot-clad legs underneath her as she raises her eyebrows at Hermione. In classic Ginny fashion, her uniform skirt has ridden up in a haphazardly sexy manner Hermione could not even attempt to emulate, revealing more than a hint of her faux thigh-high stockings and attracting the attention of essentially every wizard within eyeshot.

Hermione drops her book into her lap and looks up at Ginny.

“Yes, I do know, and that is why I told him I would only go if you would.” She grins triumphantly, feeling particularly pleased with this incredibly logical plan. "Knowing that you wouldn’t."

Her grin fades the longer Ginny stares open-mouthed at Hermione with a level of indignation she hasn’t seen on her friend’s face since the time Ginny hit Zacharias Smith with a Bat-Bogey Hex. 

“Wait.” Ginny holds one hand up. “But you have to go. Why don’t you want to go?”

She instantly recognises her predicament: Her best friend has absolutely no idea how far in over her head she is, how utterly besotted she is with her very fake Yule Ball date, and she can’t even bring herself to simply tell the truth at this point. 

“I just— you know how absurd these events can be, and they’re not really my thing, really, and the last Yule Ball went completely tits-up for me, did it not?”

“And what exactly is Malfoy supposed to do? He’ll have to ask fucking Parkinson and then they’ll get betrothed and pop out unbearably haughty but absurdly attractive babies.”

Hermione lets out a long sigh, picking her book back up and pretending to resume her reading to avoid Ginny’s scrutiny. “Then all will be as it should. I’m tired of pretending that—” She quickly closes her mouth. “That the sole heir of the noble Malfoy and Black houses isn’t going to end up with some pureblood princess.”

“Hermione, with all due respect, absolutely fucking not. You are the one who convinced me so thoroughly of how much he’s changed this year—so I have to give it to him, I wouldn’t put it past the smarmy git to rebuke all that pureblood rubbish.” She puts a hand on Hermione’s knee, her expression resolute. “You get Malfoy. I’ll make sure of it.”

This was not the reaction Hermione had anticipated when she concocted this plot. She gapes at Ginny, her mouth opening and closing but no words coming out.

“I’ll admit, I actually quite like Parkinson,” Ginny muses. “She’s a snarky little bitch, and it’s somehow exceptionally frustrating and disturbingly hot. But I’ll eat a box of Puking Pastilles before I let her steal your man.”

“He’s not my— Well. Carry on.”

“Harry and I will be there.”

“You haven’t even spoken to Harry about this. You know he’s incredibly busy with training, Gin. I’m sure he’s better things to do than attend another silly Hogwarts ball.”

“Oh, Harry Potter will come.” She states this with such certainty that Hermione has absolutely no interest in asking what leverage Ginny plans to utilise. 

“I just…" She covers her face with both hands. "Oh, I don’t know, Gin.”

“Listen, Hermione,” Ginny says, and Hermione peeks through her fingers at her. “You’ve given so much of yourself to Harry and Ron for so long. To our whole world, really. And it’s been nice to see you finally do something for yourself. I’ve never seen you so happy. He makes you happy.”

“She’s right,” a voice murmurs from behind them.

Ron walks up and takes the loveseat beside them, elbows resting on his lap as he leans toward Hermione. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t eavesdropping. Intentionally.” He grimaces. “But, I mean, look at you this year. Hermione Granger, going to actual parties, single-handedly creating inter-House unity without even trying, scheming with Slytherins—and you’re still top of our class. Still destined for greatness. You’ve made room for so much more in your life without sacrificing all the things that make you… you, you know?”

Hermione and Ginny are both stunned into silence.

“Well, that was actually quite sweet,” Ginny says to Hermione with wide eyes, turning to narrow her gaze at Ron. “Who are you and what have you done with my brother?” She moves her hand toward her wand.

He hops entirely onto the loveseat as if he’s seen a horde of spiders approaching. “NOT another fucking Bat-Bogey Hex, Gin, I swear to Merlin!”

“Is there anything I can possibly do to convince you to come tonight? This would be infinitely more bearable with you there.”

“To get absolutely smashed with you on whatever concoction Zabini is pouring into the punch bowls, you mean?” Lavender looks up from her fastidious efforts charming Hermione’s hair into submission and grins at her in the mirror for a moment. Her lips slowly slide into a pout as she returns her focus to her wand work, Hermione’s curls nearly all tucked into a shockingly elegant chignon at the base of her neck. “I know. But no.”

“Is it because—” Hermione begins to ask, but Lavender has obviously been waiting for this moment to arise in the conversation and requires no further prodding.

“Ron’s asked Padma, who’s just broken up with Terry, and Parvati swears it’s entirely friendly, that he said it was to make up for his real cock-up in Fourth Year.” Hermione lets out one swift, hard laugh before seeing Lavender’s face in the mirror and pretending to clear her throat. “But in my mind, this was fated and he’ll see her standing at the top of the staircase all—well-read and sophisticated and witty—really, she’s quite like you, so just his type, then—not to mention, that hair! those lips!—and he’ll just fall madly in love and she’ll find him completely disarming and this will be their utterly hilarious story they tell at every Winter Solstice from now until the end of time!”

Lavender’s hand movements have become increasingly theatrical as she rambles, and she ends with a massive sweep of her arms—wand still in hand—that forces Hermione to duck to avoid contact. Hermione slowly peeks back up, her head tucked between both arms.

“So… perhaps someone’s been spiralling?”

“Oh, tosh, like you can talk, Hermione. I don’t know what you aren’t telling me about Draco, and I know you think Divination is a load of rubbish despite actually living out a bloody Prophecy, but I’ve seen your tea leaves and I know you better than nearly anyone in this world and you are not fooling me. I’d say we’ve both spiralled into bloody Acid Pops at this point.”

Hermione huffs in outrage, though she concedes the point. “But Lav,” she says gently, “you broke up with Ron. What did you think he’d do?”

“I know, I know,” Lavender says. “To be perfectly honest, I simply thought he’d have a go at you, but I didn’t expect Draco fucking Malfoy to swoop in and sweep you off your Mary Janes first.”

“And you would’ve been perfectly fine with that—him with your best friend?”

“Of course not—you know how emotional I am—but who am I to stand in the way of Fate? Besides, I love you both. I’d place your happiness over mine every time.”

Willing the tears gathering in her eyes to subside, Hermione is taken, not for the first time, by the absurdity of the notion that she could ever have dismissed Lavender Brown as silly or weak. Lavender, whose Defence Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. scores rivalled Hermione’s, who survived a werewolf attack and covered her scars in pink silk, whose Gryffindor courage revealed itself in vulnerability and open affection and unwavering support, even at her own detriment.

“Anyway,” Lavender clears her throat, continuing. “I’m headed to Daphne’s rooms in a few to read those saucy books of yours that I’ve been on about to her. I think she’ll like that one—you know, with the viscount and the bookish yet busty governess?”

Hermione refuses to comment on that portrayal. 

“Daphne, really?” she muses. “I don’t know whether I’m more surprised that she’s uninterested in the Yule Ball or that Pansy would allow her to miss it.”

“Well,” Lavender says, her voice lowering in a way that immediately tells a woman to prepare for gossip. “She might have indicated that she’d grown rather tired of waiting for one Mr. Zabini to make a move, so by the time he finally asked, she’d told him she was far too tied up”—she waggles her eyebrows—“with me.”

“She what?”

Something between a giggle and a high-pitched squeal comes out of Lavender's mouth. “Apparently, I’m in a fake relationship! With a Slytherin, no less. Can you imagine?”

“The mind… struggles to fathom,” Hermione bites out.

Chapter Text

Examining her reflection in the mirror for the fifteenth time, Hermione wonders what Malfoy is doing. Whom he’s doing it with. Whether Pansy is the one straightening his dress robes, running her hands along his chest. Why her stomach turns so abruptly at that image.

He’d mentioned getting ready for the Yule Ball together earlier that morning, but Hermione had spent the days since she’d overheard his conversation with Pansy evading opportunities for prolonged alone time—really, for the sake of her own sanity. 

Unlike Harry, who had always believed wholeheartedly in sprinting headfirst toward any and all danger, Hermione had long proposed the far more pragmatic approach of taking calculated risks. Spending one more minute alone with Draco Malfoy was… well, it was a risk she was currently unwilling to take. Was this veering into avoidance at this point? Who’s to say.

“I’m— actually, well, I thought perhaps you might want to get ready with the snakes,” she’d replied to him. “And I was hoping to get some time alone with Harry. We could meet you at the Ball instead?”

“Seriously?” Malfoy had chided. “Come on, Granger. You know he’s just here to have it off with Ginevra in some dark, abandoned broom closet.”

“Well, all the more reason to proceed as planned. I never see Harry anymore, you know, and best to force some quality time before they skive off.” She’d swallowed, forcing her voice to remain neutral, unaffected. “Plus, then you can spend the day with Pansy, right?”

He’d opened his mouth as if to argue and then shook his head, stuffing his hands in his pockets and staring hard at the ground. “Right.”

“Alright, Hermione?”

Lavender’s voice startles her from her thoughts. She shakes the memory off and turns from the mirror, feeling acutely and uncomfortably that each interaction with Malfoy lately is an examination she continues to fail.

“Gin, was this a mistake?” She knows her pacing is a bit manic at this point, her silver stiletto pumps traversing the same small stretch of rug beside her bed over and over.

Crookshanks eyes her with what Hermione perceives to be a particularly judgemental look, meowing to Won-Won as if a half-Kneazle and an owl were actually capable of verbal communication. Perhaps they are, she thinks, pausing mid-step. If—

“Ugh, tell me about it,” Ginny sighs, oblivious to Hermione’s state of distress as she yanks a slinky, glittering burgundy gown up her absurdly Quidditch-toned body, its swooping neckline and lace-up back leaving exceptionally little to the imagination. “I cannot believe I let you convince me to spend an evening with McGonagall and 100 of our least favourite people.”

The moment a knock sounds at the door, Hermione has yanked it open and thrown her arms around their guest before he’s even opened his mouth. “Harry,” she breathes, and the warmth of his embrace feels like home.

“Hi, Hermione,” he murmurs, chuckling lightly. “I’ve missed you, too.”

She reluctantly pulls away to scan him, a response that had nearly become muscle memory since the day Voldemort returned in Little Hangleton. Old habits, she thinks.

“Harry, gods!” She takes him in, now seeing a man where a boy once stood. These intensive months of Auror training had brought out more in Harry than the absurd amount of muscle that has filled out his once-slender body. He looks… at ease, she thinks. He looks like he is, at last, secure in his place in this world. 

“You look so good, so healthy and happy—” She pauses, choking up. Being able to see Harry again, to touch him, might always remind her of how close they’d come to a world without him in it. 

“Training has really done wonders, don’t you think?” Ginny calls out from Hermione’s bed. “He can throw me around like a sack of Wizarding Wheat Self-Charmed Flour now.”

“Lovely, Gin.” Harry flushes, running a hand through his hair. “Hermione, you do, too. You’re stunning, truly.”

“Thanks, Harry.” She beams at her best friend, lightly placing a hand atop the lattice work at the bodice of her off-shoulder metallic silk plissé dress.

Hermione did not expect to ever, ever say thank Merlin for Blaise Zabini, but this is now the world in which she lives. In classic Slytherin quid pro quo for helping Zabini develop a particularly complicated signature brew with which to spike the Yule Ball’s punch bowls without detection, his mother had Owled her this Art Deco-inspired gown from Italy, perfectly blending wizard and Muggle conventions with dramatic cape sleeves dusting her upper arms and sweeping the floor.

And, of course, there was the colour.

“I never thought I’d see the day Hermione Granger wore Slytherin green,” Harry continues, a grin filling his face. “Apparently, dating Draco Malfoy becomes you.”

She stills. “I— about that, Harry…”

“Hermione,” he laughs. “Just breathe. He’s still a poncy little git, but if you’re happy, I’m happy, truly. I’ll only slag him off to Ron.” His smile widens at Hermione’s comically affronted expression. “Besides, Ginny threatened to hex my bollocks off if I ruined tonight for you.”

He reaches out and squeezes her hand before moving past her to greet Ginny, his eyes travelling down her body as she lounges on her back on Hermione’s bed, propped up on her elbows. 

“Why, hello, Mr. Potter,” Ginny croons as he stalks toward her.

“I am the luckiest bloody wizard in Britain,” Harry murmurs. He stops as his hips hit Ginny’s knees, leaning fully over her to plant his arms on either side of her and kiss her like a man starved.

“Please, not on my bed, you two!” Hermione groans. Harry pulls away and looks back toward Hermione, grinning sheepishly at her before taking his place beside Ginny on the bed to chat to Lavender.

Watching her friends, Hermione is content to soak in the utter normalcy of this moment, reminiscent of evenings spent lounging in the warmth of the Gryffindor common room. She feels a pang of remorse at the fact that Ron isn’t here with them to spare Lavender the awkwardness, but they’ve agreed they’ll meet him and Padma at the feast shortly. Them… and Malfoy. She feels even worse thinking about Malfoy’s conspicuous absence here, but—

She forces herself to cut off that train of thought. 

It’ll only make it that much harder when the pretending is over, she thinks. Best not let anyone get too attached. Especially Crooksie. She looks over at her poor boy, looking simply beside himself in his favourite spot atop her trunk and refusing to even acknowledge the humans within petting distance. 

“Shall we get on with it, then?” Ginny stands and pulls the bunched-up fabric of her dress downward, indelicately reaching each hand into her décolleté to enhance her cleavage. 

“Please, contain your excitement, Gin.” Lavender rolls her eyes. “You can always take off that fuck-me dress and join Daph and me in pyjamas for ladies’ night instead.”

“I have a few alternative proposals for the fuck-me dress,” Harry volunteers from the bed, his eyes on Ginny’s arse. She looks behind her at Harry and winks lasciviously before traipsing toward the door.

He slowly stands to follow but pauses beside Hermione.

“Hermione,” Harry begins, a look of distress crossing his face. “Before we go…”

She raises her eyebrows at his tone, closing the distance between them and gripping his elbow. “What is it, Harry?”

“We need to talk about your sexual health.”

Her initial disbelieving laugh dies quite suddenly at his unchanged expression.

“No.” Hermione rapidly shakes her head. “No, please, for the love of Merlin, no. Harry— despite the fact that you are my very best friend in the world, you are not actually my sibling. And you are certainly not my father.”

“I know, but I know lads. And I especially know Malfoy. And, listen. I know you’re smart enough not to do things just because he may want you to.”

“Okay.” Hermione closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, thanking Morgana herself that Harry has not been at Hogwarts all term if this is his response to her dating. “Let’s make this end. Please.”

“It’s your decision, naturally. I just want you to be safe.” He reaches into his dress robes and brandishes not one, not two, but three boxes of Muggle condoms that he—to Hermione’s horror—hands to her.

“HARRY,” Hermione shrieks. “Why are you giving me these?!”

“You have so much ahead of you, Hermione! Pulling out is not protection.”

“Ohhhhh my God.” She feels a bit frantic at this point. Even when they lived together in a fucking tent, unmistakeably and distressingly aware they all needed to have a wank from time to time (Hermione included, though she felt certain Harry and Ron were fairly oblivious to those needs), they’d successfully avoided any and all discussion of sex. “Okay, lovely to catch up, Harry. Surely you need to return to Auror training? Or be… literally anywhere but here?”

Ginny and Lavender are physically shaking with laughter, Ginny’s eyes streaming with tears as she doubles over, one hand still on the doorknob.

“Just taking the mickey, Hermione,” Harry laughs, finally breaking his deadpan tone. “Thought you deserved a bit of fuckery for keeping me in the dark about your life for months.” He gives her a crooked smile, though she can sense a hint of legitimate hurt in his voice.

“Oh, you absolute prat!” Harry flinches as Hermione swats at his head. “I’m only slightly scarred for life.”

“Merlin, I knew this would be good,” Ginny chokes out through guffaws.

“I’m leaving,” Hermione huffs, stilettos clacking against wood as she blows past Ginny and yanks open the door.

“Don’t forget to have fun!” Lavender calls out after Hermione.

“Yes, well, lucky I have plenty of these”—she turns around and shakes the box of condoms in their all-too-amused faces before tossing them into her charmed bag and stomping out of the room—“for that, specifically.”

Hermione is taken back to another moment she stood anxiously at the top of this very staircase. She’d known then, somehow, that it would be a moment that changed how others saw her—that she was not just a brain, but a girl. 

And yet, she was still just a child then. Lonely and hungry and desperate for recognition. Attention. Belonging. Now, she realises, she feels like a woman. She feels—well, to some extent, like she imagines Harry does. At ease. Like she, too, is finding her place in this world.

She will no longer hide behind columns, worrying what the world will think of her. 

The silk of her cape sleeves glides softly against the stone ground as she descends the staircase, feeling the chill of winter air against her bare shoulders. She keeps her gaze trained on the steps, careful not to trip over the train of her gown, only to look up at the final step—to see Draco Malfoy’s eyes locked on her at the bottom as if he’d watched her the entire way down, his hand extended toward her.

In place of the all-white dress robe ensemble she’d seen on Malfoy four years ago, he now wears all black, the silver of his signet ring and the platinum of his hair contrasting starkly against his clothing in ways that make Hermione’s breath catch. Her eyes travel slowly down his body and back up to meet his gaze. 

She lightly sets her palm in his, feeling a small tremor in his hands and looking up at him in surprise.

“You look… gods.” Malfoy pauses, his gaze still unmoving from her face as he places his other hand in his robe pocket. “Really lovely, Granger.”

As they move inside to take their seats—Harry and Ginny on one side, Theo and Astoria Greengrass on the other—a small crane drops into her lap and unfolds in her hands:

Green undeniably suits you. — D.M.

She flushes and fights back the smile curving her lips, feeling Malfoy’s eyes on her at her side.

The feast passes quickly, though the effects of Zabini’s signature brew—really, her signature brew, though Merlin knows how he got away with swapping it out with pumpkin juice in the kitchens that afternoon—take hold of the student body a bit too speedily.

It would have been irresponsible, Hermione tells herself as she finishes the last of her mince pie, holding in a grin as she looks around the room, to have left Blaise to his own devices. Her involvement in this plot, spending the past several weeks obsessing over Zygmunt Budge’s Book of Potions to calculate the exact necessary ratio of Ashwinder eggs, rose petals, and pearl dust, had simply been a civic duty. 

Of course, Hermione would never allow for nonconsensual consumption, so word had spread that those interested could order the pumpkin juice for something a bit more—as Zabini put it—“bewitching.” She was rather unsurprised that nearly every student in the room was drinking a goblet of pinkish-orange, bubbling liquid, their expressions ranging from intrigued to mortified as they sniffed their drinks.

Unfortunately, what she’d not predicted were its effects on her. The potion merely added just a hint of scent and flavouring resembling one’s Amortentia, and perhaps just slightly heightened one’s existing sense of attraction—more of an awareness, really, nothing harmful. 

But apparently, Hermione had not anticipated the shift in her Amortentia scent (what she’d always known to be freshly mown grass, new parchment, and spearmint instead now suspiciously resembles Quidditch pitch grass, new parchment, and mince pie), nor had she calculated that such heightened awareness of Draco Malfoy in dress robes at her side, his hand placed loosely on her thigh, might actually drive her completely barking mad and permanently ruin her for all other wizards.

Thus, she resolves to avoid all future physical contact with Malfoy for the evening and possibly for the rest of time. She chats to Ron and Padma, wanders the perimeter of the ballroom, sits with Neville—who, to her shock, has attended the ball sans date despite an obscene number of witches’ efforts to the contrary… really, anything to avoid her date and her nearly irrepressible, completely illogical feelings.

Naturally, all of her carefully laid plans are foiled within the hour by Pansy bloody Parkinson.

She stills, pausing her conversation with Neville, at the sound of his voice behind her. “Care to dance, Granger?”

Hermione looks wide-eyed around her, desperately seeking any reason to decline but finding no aid from Neville, who offers her a friendly shrug in adieu and turns toward Pansy at his other side with a slow smile. Hermione prepares for the worst and twists her head to the left, seeing Malfoy’s extended hand mere centimetres from her shoulder.

“Alright there, Granger?” Pansy croons. “I’d be simply delighted to take your place with Draco if you’d rather not embarrass yourself.” Hermione turns back to see Pansy wink at Malfoy, and she thinks she might actually let slip her first use of accidental wandless magic since she was eleven just to wipe that look off Pansy’s face.

Absolutely fucking not, she thinks, summoning her inner Ginny and looking Pansy directly in the eye as she finally speaks.

“A dance sounds lovely, Draco,” she says as she stands, ignoring Malfoy’s extended hand and instead turning on her heel to stomp, as elegantly as one can in stilettos, toward the dance floor. He follows behind her, chuckling.

“You should know something about me,” Malfoy says quite seriously as he reaches her side.

“And what is that?” she asks, stopping in front of him on the dance floor and placing her hands swottily on her hips.

He takes one step into her, his chest only centimetres away, and slips an arm around her waist. At the shock of the contact and the warmth of his palm against her lower back, she freezes, both arms going slack as she finds herself unable to do anything but watch him. 

His other hand reaches out and lingers, the cool metal of his signet ring tracing its way down the inside of her forearm before, finally, he interlaces his fingers with hers and lifts both into closed position.

He leans forward, just enough for his lips to ghost along the curve of her ear. “I am an excellent dancer,” he murmurs, and she knows she cannot hide the shiver it sends down her spine, the sharp intake of breath it invokes.

She resists a smile, refusing to give in, though she recognises within minutes that he’s in fact undersold his skills. She recalls standing in this very spot with Viktor Krum, feeling quite enraptured by his attention but still resisting his domineering attempts to lead her in a dance, and she wonders why this now feels so… right. Something resembling the natural balance of magic, a give and take. Like she simply fits in Draco Malfoy’s arms.

“You know,” he says softly as he draws her back in from a spin, his hand lightly tracing the curve of her back. “The last time I watched you at a ball like this four years ago, you were simply the forbidden fruit—the one thing my father always told me I could never have. Should never want.”

She flushes at his words before she’s even truly processed their meaning.

“You watched me,” she repeats. It comes out as a statement, though she intended it as a question.

“I’ve always watched you, Granger.” His lips quirk up, but not quite into a smile.

She misses a step in surprise and quickly corrects herself. Slowly, she lifts her gaze to meet his eyes, her brows furrowed. 

“Even then, I knew you were… more,” he murmurs. “More of a witch than I’d ever be a wizard. More intelligent than I felt you had any right to be. More beautiful than I’d ever want to admit. And I envied you as fervently as I desired you.”

“And now?” A question, and a challenge.

“Now… Well, nothing’s changed, really, except that I have.” He pauses as his lips, so unbearably close to hers, curve into a genuine smile. She would not, could not stop what is coming if a resurrected Voldemort himself walked through those doors. “And I don’t think I can go one more minute without—”

“Her-mo-ninny?”

They both abruptly pause, their heads snapping to the side to see none other than Viktor Krum standing before them, clad in Durmstrang red dress robes and the closest thing her surly Bulgarian ex has to a smile.

“Viktor!” she exclaims after a moment, her expression probably a combination of bewildered and more than a little bit manic. “Um. I’m. What are you… doing here?”

“Precisely my question,” Malfoy mumbles at her side.

“You don’t mind if I steal your wizard for a jiffy, do you, Granger?” Pansy appears at the worst possible moment as if summoned by the Devil himself, Malfoy’s wrist suddenly in her vice grip as she draws him away from the dance floor. “I’m sure you and Krum would fancy a chat, reminisce about the good old days of that whole”—she waves one hand carelessly behind her—“death-trap tournament and such.”

Hermione remains frozen as she attempts to recover from the whiplash of the moment, her eyes darting between the wizard now in front of her and the one she wanted to be dancing with, the one she had been dancing with just a minute earlier, the one she’d been fairly certain was finally about to—

Malfoy takes one wide-eyed look back at Hermione as he allows Pansy to steer him away, mumbling what sounds suspiciously like “Doesn’t even fucking go here” on his way past Krum.

Viktor politely holds out one hand, the other tucked behind his back as he sweeps into a short bow. “Vould you like to dance, Her-mo-ninny? For ze sake of old times?”

She nods distractedly, attempting to distance her body from his as he (once again, a tad too aggressively) leads her into a waltz.

She spends the entire dance in halfhearted, stilted conversation, her attention flickering to the doorway Malfoy and Pansy had exited through every few seconds until Viktor gracefully takes his leave from the dance, asking politely if he could have a private word with her while he visits with Madame Hooch in the coming day.

“Tomorrow I vould love to, how you say, get caught up?” Viktor says as they walk away from the dance floor, Hermione’s hand tucked in his arm. “And I vos hoping to discuss something you—”

“Yes, of course,” she cuts him off distractedly, already disentangling herself and turning toward the ballroom’s exit. “Really just… lovely to see you, Viktor!” she calls out without another glance backward.

“Malfoy,” she says in surprise, stumbling upon him leaning against a wall as soon as she rounds the corner of the corridor. “What are you still doing out here?”

“Oh, just… waiting on Pansy, you know,” he sighs. 

“Is everything…” she trails off, not sure how to finish that sentence. 

“Fine. She just needed me.” Hermione clamps down a vicious surge of jealousy at the reminder that as Pansy's soon-to-be-betrothed, Malfoy is in fact the one she can go to with her needs.

She doesn’t realise she hasn’t replied until he breaks the silence. “How’s Krum.”

“Oh,” she says, having already forgotten about Viktor's presence. “He’s well. Apparently, Miner— Headmistress McGonagall invited him, Harry, and Fleur to return this year for, quote unquote, ‘old times’ sake.’” She rolls her eyes. “Fleur is home with Victoire and declined, but Viktor agreed to come when he heard Harry would be here as well. He’s with the Montrose Magpies now, you know, and apparently Madame Hooch is hoping he’ll agree to take her position at Hogwarts when she retires.”

Malfoy's response comes out more like a series of grunts than fully-formed words, and Hermione pretends to cough to hide the laugh that escapes her.

“Listen, I just—” he begins. “I’ve been trying—” He lets out a groan and drags a hand over his mouth, looking around the empty corridor for a moment.

“Draco?” she says softly, almost hesitantly. It’s the first time she can recall using his given name without wielding it facetiously against Pansy, and it strikes her how much she enjoys hearing the vowels form in her mouth.

His eyes lift to hers, surprise lighting his gaze, and for a moment he does nothing but watch her from across the hall.

“Fuck it,” he says, and he takes three strides forward, gripping Hermione’s face with both hands and pulling her mouth to his.

Time stills for a moment. Even as he kisses her without hesitation, he cradles her face gently, like he's seeking permission. Until she melts into him, her hands automatically reaching for his robes to draw him closer, and he tilts his head to—

A throat clears behind Malfoy, and Hermione jumps away from him to see Pansy tapping her black stilettos against the stone floor, her face a bit more flushed than usual.

Malfoy doesn’t even bother looking behind him. His eyes are wide and unmoving from Hermione’s face. “Granger,” he breathes.

“What was that—” she begins.

“Let’s go, Draco,” Pansy calls out.

“Fuck,” he whispers to himself.

“You’re… going? Now? With her?”

“Listen, it’s not what you think,” he rushes out, his voice imploring. “Please just trust me. Meet me in the Prefects’ bathroom later? Not”—he drags one hand along the back of his neck—“like that, but there are parties in Slytherin and Gryffindor and the Eighth Year common rooms, so it’ll be more private.”

She fails to bite back the sting of Pansy always being his first choice. He’s only with you to spite her, remember?  

“I think I’ll catch up with Viktor, actually,” she muses bitterly. “He was quite interested in reminiscing about old times together.”

She knows from the look on his face that she shouldn’t have said it, that she’s crossed a line they’ve carefully drawn and avoided, but she refuses to take it back. She stands alone in the hallway long after he and Pansy have rounded the corner behind her.

Blaise Zabini holds court over the Seventh and Eighth Years lingering in the reception hall, all waiting out the younger crowd’s exodus from the ball to truly begin the night’s debaucheries. Malfoy stands quietly at his side, smirking at his friend’s theatrics.

“They said, ‘Mr. Zabini, please be mindful of curfew.’ ‘Mr. Zabini, please ensure students sleep in their own dormitories.” He pauses and grins wickedly. “As Head Boy, I say, overruled—carpe noctem, slags!”

Hermione rolls her eyes before glancing over at Ginny, who has returned from the toilets appearing only slightly dishevelled. She glances over at Harry, also conveniently returning from the same direction and subtly buttoning his vest back up. 

“That”—Hermione gestures toward Zabini—“is a wizard who should never be given real power.”

“Perhaps, but tonight, we reap the benefits of his anarchism.” Ginny grins. “You coming?”

“See you in the dungeons, Draco?” Pansy calls out with a smirk on her way out of the Great Hall. “I know you’ve been slumming it in the lion’s den of late, but you know the rules: Last to the bar takes a body shot.”

Impeccable timing, as always, Hermione thinks, and it takes every morsel of will power in her body not to roll her eyes. 

She watches Malfoy stiffen and glance sidelong at her, gauging a reaction she refuses to let show. He turns away and sighs lightly, giving Pansy a tight nod. “How could I forget, Pans.”

“Go get your wizard,” Ginny hisses at Hermione’s side.

“You cannot be serious, Gin,” she replies. “I’m not going to that party. And I’m certainly not going to beg for his attention. Not after— never mind. Just, no.”

“If you aren’t going to the party, I hesitate to even ask what you are planning on doing this evening.”

“I…” She steels herself, knowing how she’ll sound saying this, and also knowing that even the vague notion of Draco Malfoy licking Ogden’s off of Pansy Parkinson’s body makes her understand the dark allure of an Unforgivable Curse. “I’ve one of my favourite Muggle romance films from home.”

“Ohhhh, Merlin, Hermione.” Ginny gives her a horrified look. “This is a major backslide for you. Dean”—she grabs his arm as he walks by with Neville, looping her arm around his neck and turning them both to face Hermione—“can you please convince Hermione to join us for the Slytherin party?”

Dean lets out a short laugh. “Right. You think I’m going to that party? Zabini planned it, and I have absolutely no idea what he has up his gorgeous but terrifying sleeve. I genuinely believe that man might be more dangerous than Voldemort.”

“What?” Ginny looks disbelievingly between the two of them.

“I have Leonardo DiCaprio’s Romeo + Juliet and might have… borrowed… the VHS from the Muggle Studies classroom?” Hermione offers, ignoring Ginny’s protests.

“You don’t say?” He slowly disentangles Ginny’s arm from his body and slides gracefully to Hermione’s side.

“I knew you two should have been Ravenclaws, you absolute nutters,” Ginny huffs. 

“Purebloods,” Dean whispers to Hermione, shaking his head. “She doesn’t understand. She hasn’t seen Leo.”

“Potter!” Ginny ignores them to call out to Harry, chatting animatedly to Ron and Padma down the corridor. “Pip pip! I’ve a mind to see what these ‘body shots’ are about.”

“Soooo… you’ve both truly been faking it this entire time?” Dean asks, his expression morphing from confused to mildly impressed. “Damn, Hermione.”

Hermione has absolutely no idea why she’d chosen to entrust Dean Thomas of all people and not any of her closest friends with this secret. She blames Blaise’s devilish concoction. The feel of Malfoy’s hand on her back, his lips on hers. The unyielding pressure she feels in her chest at the prospect of whatever might evolve between him and Pansy as she sits here, pretending to watch this sodding film.

But that’s the thing about secrets. Hermione knows this better than most: Sometimes the things we guard most closely are the most impossible to share with those who know us best. It’s why she never, not once, spoke to Harry about her theories about his relationship to Horcruxes. It’s why she erased every memory her parents ever held of her and didn’t tell a soul until it was too late to undo it. It’s why she wrote letters to boys that she hid away in her trunk instead of sending a single one.

“Yes,” she sighs, so relieved to finally be able to confess it. “And you have to swear not to tell anyone, Dean. It’s just… I’m so confused. I needed to talk to someone.” 

“Look,” Dean says, standing up to click the pause button on the VHS and running his hand over his face before sitting back down. “Was Malfoy probably the last person I thought you’d end up with? Sure. But I don’t care how it started—I just know he’s mad for you. I see the way he looks at you.”

Crookshanks mewls in Hermione’s lap. She snorts, rolling her eyes. “And tell me, how does he look at me?”

“Like you’re a sexy little game of Wizard’s Chess,” he replies, giving her a wry grin. “He can’t figure you out, but he’s having a grand time trying.”

“Oh, he’s just a Slytherin. You know how they are. Must be the cleverest in the room.”

Hermione sighs. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He’s done all of this for Pansy, and I’ve—” She lets out a harsh laugh and stares up at her ceiling. “Gods, it’s so unbearably stupid of me, but I’ve just become yet another witch who’s fallen for the Slytherin Prince. It’s humiliating!”

Dean shifts to fully face her. “You know I’m not here to advocate on Draco Malfoy’s behalf. But let’s look at the facts, Hermione. This entire ruse was his idea. You came up with the only rules that ever kept him from making a move—rules he apparently couldn’t help but break tonight, as confusing as that may be. You’re the only one who keeps trying to break up with him, and you are currently watching a romance film with a gay man while he’s probably still waiting for you in the Prefect’s Bathroom.” She knows deep down that he’s probably right, knows Malfoy wouldn’t have asked her unless he’d planned to follow through; but she also knows there’s a non-zero chance that she’s too late, or that Pansy is now in there with him.

“I’d say if anyone’s stupidly fallen for someone, it’s not you.” He gives her a knowing look and faux-whispers, “It’s Malfoy.”

She begins to respond, but hesitates. “You really think he’s…?”

“Merlin’s beard, Hermione, of course he is. I thought you always said you were exceptionally perceptive.”

She stands up and paces once. Twice. Clicks the play button and watches Romeo open the doors to the church where Juliet’s body lies. Sits back down and finally allows her mind to race.

One minute passes. Then another. Hermione knows she and Dean are both aware that she’s not paying any attention to the film at this point, but he graciously allows her to come to that conclusion on her own.

She stands again abruptly, her body taking action before her brain can out-logic her to death. 

Dean grins over at her. “Don’t suppose you mind if I stay and finish the film without you, then?” 

Chapter Text

Had Hermione properly thought through this plan? 

Not even slightly. 

She hadn’t even considered the fact that she’s still wearing her Crookshanks-shaped slippers and a ridiculous tartan dressing robe—not to mention, absurdly little underneath it—as she slowly pushes open the unlocked door to the Prefects’ Bathroom and prays to all the founders that this is, in fact, a risk worth taking.

Among the nightmarish scenarios running through her mind at this moment, she hasn’t decided whether she’d rather catch him in the bath with Pansy or have been entirely wrong about his intentions and find herself in an empty room.

And yet somehow, against every cell in Hermione’s brain that attempts to convince her otherwise, Draco Malfoy never disappoints.

He sits alone in the water against the nearest pillar, lost in thought and looking so forlorn that guilt slams into her with the force of the Hogwarts Express. He doesn’t even bother looking up, though he stills at the sound of her voice.

“Thought you’d still be at the Slytherin party.” Her voice echoes around the cavernous room.

“Surprised the other Prefects didn’t beat you to it,” she tries again. “The room, I mean.” More silence.

“So now you’re, what, ignoring me?” She knows she sounds petty, and maybe she is, but the only thing that frustrates Hermione more than Draco provoking her is, apparently, him not provoking her.

Draco huffs, refusing to look at her. “Oh, I’m the one ignoring you? That’s a right laugh, Granger.”

She turns and locks the door behind her, her peripheral vision catching his eyes snapping to her at the sound. By the time she’s taken in a breath and spun back toward him, he’s averted his gaze again, watching an array of colours pour out of the many taps surrounding him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier,” she murmurs to fill the silence, slowly approaching the sunken bath. “Or to the Slytherin party.”

“Mmm,” he hums, a sort of non-response.

“And I’m sorry about Viktor.” She stops at the edge of the bath, kicking off her absurd slippers. She lowers herself to the ground along the edge of the white marble flooring and, as demurely as one can in a dressing gown, tucks her legs to one side. “I wasn’t with him. I just said it because I was upset and confused.”

Something close to a growl escapes his mouth, and he reaches up with one hand to rub his jaw. She watches a droplet of water snake down toward his mouth, and even though she knows she couldn’t touch him from where she sits if she’d tried, it takes everything in her not to reach out anyway. 

“I hadn’t realised the two of you remained in touch,” he murmurs.

“We hadn’t.” The words rush out. “We aren’t. He’d received my bloody letter from Fourth Year. That’s all.”

He slowly nods, but says nothing in reply.

Both of their eyes track her bare legs as she draws them forward, dipping her ankles into the water in front of her. She presses on. “But shouldn’t you be thanking me, since you spent the evening with the witch you actually wanted? You could be here with Pansy right now.”

A ghost of his infamous sneer briefly crosses his face. He slowly shakes his head and pulls his arms out of the water, draping both along the ledge behind him. Hermione feels lightheaded. 

Her eyes track up his chest, taking in the faded white outlines of his Sectumsempra scars, and along his toned arms, the muscles of his biceps flexed in a way that makes her nearly dizzy with want. Down to a faded, distorted scar where his Dark Mark once existed, altered with Voldemort’s death and yet never fully erased. She’d appreciated most that Draco hadn’t sought to hide these parts of himself from her or anyone else this term, had never glamoured the mistakes of his youth away. That he’d recognised atonement requires acknowledgement as much as repentance.

He finally looks up at her, and she knows from the way his sneer has transformed into a smirk that she’s been caught watching him. That he knows he has her right where he wants her.

“You know, for such a fucking swot, you can be so dense sometimes, Granger.”

“Excuse me?” she huffs.

His smirk shifts into something more serious, more vulnerable. Almost pleading. He says nothing for a moment, just searches her face as if her expression will answer a question he hasn’t yet asked.

“You know you’re the one I want, Hermione,” he finally says in a low tone, nearly a whisper. “You have to know.”

She sucks in a breath, looking behind her for just a moment at the door she’d locked before meeting his gaze again.

Hermione nods, almost imperceptibly, at herself, knowing she’s crossing a line from which she cannot return as she pulls at the ties of her Gryffindor-red dressing gown.

Despite the warmth of the bubbling water lapping at her feet, Hermione feels a chill sweep down her back as the thick cotton material pools on the marble floor around her hips. Draco’s brows lift in surprise, his gaze darkening as it moves down her body and takes in the thin white silk chemise she’d worn underneath, her nipples hardening at his attention.

She begins to smirk at the way he seems entirely unable to look away from her chest, her hips, the space at the apex of her thighs, but the longer he watches her, the less humorous she finds it. He watches, rapt, as she presses her thighs together, and she realises his fists are clenched so tight the knuckles have gone white.

It’s the thrill of his desire—the heady, staggering rush of power it ignites in her—that has her slipping forward into the water, white silk floating around her. 

She slowly approaches him, halting only one step from his knees.

Hermione almost baulks at the rare sight of Draco blushing. She follows the path of his gaze downward, realising how tightly the soaked, nearly sheer fabric now clings to her breasts. How much of her is revealed to him at this moment.

Where she expects to feel embarrassment course through her body, perhaps shyness, she only finds boldness. Hunger. 

“I’ll have you know,” he drawls, the flex of his arms the only tell that his self-control is hanging by a thread. “I didn’t beat them to it.”

“Hmm?”

“This room. I bribed every other Prefect to bugger off tonight on the off chance you’d come.”

“You’re quite good.”

“At many things.”

She flushes at his words. “Well,” she murmurs. “There is nothing more attractive than competence.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” he says earnestly, and that last remaining cord of control snaps.

Draco grabs her by her hips and pulls her closer, his hands slowly travelling down her sides. She shivers, the heat of the water and the glide of his fingers down her body a heady combination. He slowly pulls her thighs apart to bracket his hips at the moment her body moves into his, and she finds herself straddling him against the ledge of the tub.

Hermione’s arms instinctively reach out to grab his shoulders for balance and, lacking any semblance of will power now that she’s finally touching him like this, she traces her fingers up to the sides of his neck. Draco’s hands slowly travel up to wrap delicately around the backs of her upper thighs, pulling her forward until only a millimetre of space remains between them.

He pauses as he looks at her with an open, nervous expression, and his eyes dart down to her mouth.

“There’s no one quite like you, Granger.”

Her smile barely graces her face before his lips are on hers, one hand gripping the back of her thigh as the other slides around her waist to close the rest of the space between their bodies.

If anyone had asked, Hermione would have said she’d already experienced the full range of possibilities for what kissing Draco Malfoy could be like. Their first: soft, tentative. The second and third: fierce, ravenous. 

This… This is something entirely new. It feels like reverence. It feels like damnation.

He pauses and pulls away just enough to scan her face, looking at Hermione like he’s afraid she might run.

“What?” she whispers, her thumb lightly caressing his cheekbone.

He smiles softly as he shakes his head, whispers, “Nothing,” and kisses her again, harder.

And for the first time, Hermione truly lets go. Holding herself back from Draco has been so exhausting, and as his tongue sweeps inside her mouth, she finds she can no longer do anything but give in.

Her hands reach up and run through silky, platinum-coloured hair, a groan escaping his mouth as she grasps it hard. 

“Merlin, Granger, I cannot tell you how much I’ve thought about this,” he murmurs, one hand making its way up the curve of her back to grip the back of her neck.

“Me too,” she pants, angling her head to kiss him more deeply. 

Heat courses through her, burning out of control. The dull ache in her core has crescendoed into a persistent throb, and Hermione is desperate for relief. She chases the feeling, rolling her hips against Draco, and feels him hard against her. Draco moans into her mouth at the contact, and she grinds her body against him again, again, again. He pulls away from her to watch her ride him, both of their mouths falling open at each point of contact, and the coil of tension in her is close to snapping. Gods, she thinks, if she keeps going, she might—

Hermione feels Draco’s hands reach down to grip her arse only seconds before he lifts her, water dripping off of both of their bodies as he perches her gently along the ledge of the bath, only his legs remaining in the water. She can see just the tip of his cock poking out of the top of his soaked black boxer briefs, and she isn’t certain whether it’s the change in temperature in the room or the view itself that makes her lightheaded.

She keeps her legs wrapped around his hips, unwilling to sacrifice a centimetre of their proximity.

He leans forward again, but instead of kissing her, his mouth moves to the side, his teeth pulling the bottom of her earlobe into his mouth. She sucks in a breath, and he chuckles, the sound reverberating against her.

“I told you once before that I’d get on my knees for you,” he whispers in her ear, his lips slowly making their way down her neck. Her eyes flutter closed at the scrape of his teeth, the warmth of his tongue on her.

His hands glide painstakingly up her waist and along the sides of her breasts, and she shivers at the contact. “You refused me then.” He pulls his mouth from her neck, his eyes meeting hers as he smirks wickedly. “Will you refuse me now?”

Her mouth goes dry. She can do nothing but lightly shake her head.

Deft fingers travel inward, lightly circling her nipples through the thin fabric. “I’m going to need you to use that gorgeous, swotty mouth of yours.”

“I—” She arches into his touch. “Please, Malfoy.”

He groans loudly. “Hearing you beg for me, Granger—I think that might be my bloody kink.”

Hermione’s laughter in response cuts off when she sees his smirk. He nods behind her as he says, “Lie back for me.”

She loosens the grip of her legs around his waist and slowly falls back onto her elbows, her teeth worrying at her lower lip as she watches Draco watch her. 

She’s never done this before—has never even been offered this. With Viktor, she’d allowed a few over-the-blouse gropes here or there. With McLaggen, she’d faked an orgasm when it became clear he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with his fingers inside of her. But she wasn’t naive—she’d been reading smutty romance since she was sixteen, for Merlin’s sake, and Hermione Granger was nothing if not thorough in her research. 

For a moment, he simply stares at her, unmoving.

“This”—he runs a hand along the edge of her sheer chemise, still clinging to her body like a second skin, and then rubs a hand over his mouth—“might actually fucking kill me.”

“Imagine if I’d bought it in green.”

He lets out a low chuckle, pushing the silk slightly higher up her body and slowly running his hands down the tops of her thighs, pausing at her knees to pull them further apart. “I thought I’d wanted you in green, but now… now I fucking love you in white.”

Hermione breathes in sharply as he presses a kiss to the inside of her knee, watching his lips move slowly up her leg, drowning in a heady combination of anxiety and anticipation.

He glances up at her face with a serious expression. “Grang— Hermione.”

“Yes?”

“You trust me, right?”

“I—” She pauses, considering his words for a moment. “Well, yes, I suppose I do.”

One side of his mouth quirks up. “Then relax.” He places a palm on her stomach and eases her backward. “Trust me, please. Let me make this good for you.”

She rests her head against the cool marble, losing herself in the sounds of running water and the feel of his hands on her thighs, and spreads her legs even wider for him.

“Good girl,” he croons, his breath hot against her core, and her cunt clenches around nothing at his words. 

In one swift motion, he yanks her arse to the edge of the bath, draws her legs up over his shoulders, and holds her in place with his arms looped around her thighs.

A small, strangled noise escapes her as he licks up her cunt, pausing at the top to circle her clit. “Oh, gods,” she whimpers as his tongue explores her, his palms at her inner thighs pressing her open, and his satisfied grunt in response vibrates against her.

Her thighs begin to tremble as he sucks on her clit, his tongue flicking torturously against her. He pulls away from her for a moment and replaces his tongue with his fingers, slowly circling her until she can no longer tell if the wetness gathering underneath her and onto the cool tile is from her soaked dress or her dripping cunt.

Draco must have the same thought, because he says in a low voice, “Fuck, Granger. You’re so wet for me.”

He slowly slides two fingers down and slips one, then two, inside of her. She closes her eyes at the relief of finally being filled, the ache dulling as another sensation takes its place.

“I’m— oh, gods, Malfoy, I’m so close—”

He leans back down, fluttering his tongue against her clit as his fingers curl in and up again, and again, and again, and she can feel herself clenching around his fingers as she finds her release.

“Merlin, I can feel you,” he says as he pulls his mouth from her, looking awestruck up at her.

She can only nod as she watches him pull his fingers out of her and bring them into his mouth, sucking them both clean and groaning at the taste. It’s the filthiest, hottest thing she’s ever witnessed in her life, and she wonders for a moment if she’s actually just in the midst of a particularly lifelike dream based directly on one of her smutty romance novels.

She continues watching in silence as Draco subtly adjusts himself in his boxer briefs, lightly pumping his cock once before withdrawing his hand.

“May I…?” she asks nervously, gesturing downward.

“Are you sure?” He watches her with wide eyes. “I don’t expect—”

“I want to.”

She slides toward him and eases her weak legs back into the warm water, pressing her body against Draco’s as she grips his hips to switch places with him. Slowly, her thumbs hook around the waistband of his briefs, drawing them downward into the water as her fingers lightly glide along the length of his rigid cock.

Her hands travel along the hard expanse of his chest as she lightly shoves him into a seated position in the exact spot where he just licked her cunt. And then it’s her turn to stare. 

Draco looks… debauched. Body glistening with water, wet hair plastered to his forehead, eyes a bit wild, this is the first time she’s ever witnessed him in a state other than artless perfection, and she finds she prefers this—knowing she’s done this to him. Her eyes travel along his scars and linger when she reaches those—she swallows hard—spread Quidditch thighs, and his very hard—

Of fucking course he has a perfect cock.

She takes one small step forward, then another, delicately placing her hands on Draco’s knees as she kneels onto the bath’s top step, a hint of lace dragging along the water’s edge. She’s touched a cock before, but she’s never put one in her mouth, and she’s always been a curious learner.

She circles two wet hands around his shaft, running them slowly up and down and twisting slightly. Draco leans back on his hands, groaning as his eyes roll back and he tilts his head to the ceiling.

Hermione leans forward and wets her lips before licking straight up the base of his shaft to his throbbing head. It’s salty, and smells of the floral-scented water pouring out of the bath’s taps, and she wants more, more, more.

She circles her tongue around his head as she takes him in, sliding lower until she feels him hit the back of her throat.

“Fuck, Hermione.” The way he murmurs her name, his breath ragged, feels dirtier than any obscenity.

She wants to hear it again. 

She looks up to see him watching her take him in again, knuckles clenched and white on the ground behind him. She brings one hand back to his shaft as she works him with her mouth, her head bobbing with the movements.

He lifts his hips once, thrusting deeper into her mouth, and she can feel her moan in response reverberate around him.

“Oh gods, oh gods, okay,” Draco rushes out, loosely gripping her face and pulling his cock from her mouth. His chest heaves as he takes in the sight before him; she can only imagine how she looks, just as debauched for him as he is for her. 

“Was I doing it wrong?” she asks, worrying her lip.

“No, no, that was brilliant,” he murmurs, thumb idly stroking her cheek as he stares at her swollen lips. “I just— I wasn’t certain I could last much longer.”

She works up the courage to say the words that have been rattling around her mind since she slipped out of her robe and into the water. “I… Draco, I want you.”

“If it’s not apparent,” he says as he leans forward, gesturing toward his erection before he reaches for her hips, “the feeling is assuredly mutual.”

“No,” she corrects him. She takes a deep breath before lifting one leg out of the water, bracketing her knee on the marble floor beside his thigh as she pulls the other leg over him, sinking to straddle him along the edge of the bath. Her eyes roll back for a moment as she feels the heat of him—feels all of him—against her core as she slides over his cock.

Her hands lift to his cheeks. “I want you.” She pauses, biting her cheek. “But… I’ve, well, never done this.”

He nods slowly, processing. “Are you certain?” He sounds a bit incredulous, as if this is an outcome he couldn’t possibly have fathomed until this very moment. “We don’t have to do anything you aren’t ready for.”

She leans toward him briefly, whispering against his lips, “I’m certain. I want it to be with you.” She pulls back, nervous energy threatening to consume her in spite of her conviction. “Harry’d die if he knew this was happening, he gave me condoms tonight and made a whole kerfuffle of it and now I’m thinking I should’ve brought them—” 

She pauses her babbling at his look of pure confusion.

“What in Merlin’s beard does Potter have to do with this?”

“Oh, never mind,” she says hastily. “I can cast the Contraception Charm.” She mutters the spell beneath her breath, her cheeks heating at its implications.

“Wandlessly?” He raises a brow at her. “Impressive, Granger.”

He draws her back in, kissing her until both of them are slightly breathless. Just as her hands begin to wander downward, he pauses to still her, his hands lightly gripping her wrists.

“I, uh,” Draco says hesitantly. “I’ve only had one… partner before—and, if I’m being perfectly honest, I’m afraid I’ll bollocks this up.”

Hermione laughs lightly. “Malfoy, you just made me come so hard I literally saw stars. I think we’ll be fine.”

“I just… I want this to be good for you,” he nearly whispers. “So badly.”

“Then show me,” she says, and she lifts her hips. 

His eyes light up, his lip quirking into something close to a grin at the challenge. Their eyes remain trained on one another’s, unblinking, as he reaches down and pulls his cock up, aligning it to skim her entrance. 

She pauses for a moment—recognising that despite her constant mockery of the patriarchal rubbish that is female chastity, she will be changed after this—before she slowly lowers her hips and takes him in, inch by inch.

He shuts his eyes as soon as she’s fully seated and lets out a low groan, leaning forward to rest his forehead against hers.

She’d expected the moment of discomfort, the slight twinge of pain, but she’d never known to expect the sense of fullness, nor the uniquely pure power of having Draco Malfoy at her mercy beneath her. It feels like its own kind of magic.

“Breathe,” he whispers in her ear, one hand tangled in her hair, and she lets out the breath she’d been holding. She sits for a moment, adjusting to the feeling of Draco inside of her, before slowly beginning to move, rolling her hips against him.

Within minutes, the feeling she’d chased earlier returns unexpectedly, amplified as his cock—far more intensely than his fingers—hits that spot, the mixture of pleasure and soreness nearly overwhelming. Draco slides the thin straps of her chemise down and lowers his face to her chest, running his tongue in tight circles around her tits. A shiver racks her entire body as his teeth graze one hardened nipple and he draws it into his mouth, sucking as his tongue flicks against it.

Hermione lets out a low moan and moves one hand up to the back of his head, latching his mouth to her as she moves. 

“That’s it, Granger,” he says after a moment as he pulls away, hands returning to her hips and gripping the fabric of her gown in his hands as he stares hungrily at her. His gaze moves from her exposed chest to her face. “Ride me, just like that.”

His fists clench tighter as he helps her along, driving his cock into her more deeply with each thrust. Her hands clasp his shoulders, her nails leaving marks along his collarbone.

Hermione feels a bead of sweat drip down her spine, feels her legs start to shake, but she can’t stop her relentless pace, can’t look away from his face, not when she’s so, so, so—

“I don’t know if I’ve— a chance of lasting— with you—” he chokes out. “Fuck, Hermione, you’re just so—”

She doesn’t see the orgasm coming as it rips through her, her mouth falling open at the shock of the pleasure. He guides her through it, dragging her hips forward and backward against him when her movements stutter. He tilts his hips up to rut into her in sharp movements, and she’d scream if she could find her voice. 

“Draco,” she breathes, and he shudders, burying his face in the crook of her neck as that one word pushes him over the edge.

He falls backward after a moment, drawing her on top of him, one hand lightly stroking her back as they both catch their breaths, the rush of falling water from the bath taps the only other sound permeating the silence in the room. 

“Gods,” he murmurs softly, as if he intended it more for himself than for Hermione. He runs his lips along the base of her neck.

”I know,” she says. “I didn’t know…”

”Me neither.”

"Is it always so...?" She trails off.

His lips still. "No," he says after a moment.

They lie there for minutes, Draco’s hands skating underneath the thin silk of her chemise to rest along her back. She sighs at the warmth of his palms against her.

The sudden stomps of footsteps disrupt their peace, drunken laughter filtering in underneath the door to their right, and they both pop up on instinct. Hermione withdraws one leg from around Draco’s waist and perches on her knees beside him, ready to move at the first sign that someone might attempt to enter the room. She’s surprised to feel his cum slowly leaking out of her, and she sucks in a sharp breath at the sensation, her hand reaching downward on instinct. 

He glances back to her in concern, and his eyes widen as he sees where her attention’s been drawn, comprehension dawning. She does not entirely understand the look that crosses his face, but her first guess is something close to possessive. He lifts one hand and slides it along her thigh, raising one brow at her in question.

She nods once, and his fingers reach forward to just barely graze her cunt, slipping through her folds with a gentle touch. His lips quirk up as he slowly pulls his hand away, the pads of his fingers glistening. 

He doesn’t say it, but he doesn’t need to: Mine, his expression tells her.

Later that evening—after they’ve cleaned themselves up and dressed; after he’s walked her back to their dormitories and snogged her senseless against the door to her rooms, one hand sliding up her dressing gown to circle her clit until she’s shaking against him again; after she considers inviting him in but instead kisses him goodnight; after she’s taken quick, silent steps past a snoring Lavender into her own bed, blushing at a knowing (and, dare she say, pleased?) look from Crookshanks—she revisits that expression in her mind until she drifts off to sleep and dreams of a pair of grey eyes on hers.

Hermione watches steam rise from her tea, perched perilously atop the tufted chaise beside her favourite window in one of the Eighth Year common room alcoves, and replays the night before in her mind. 

She wouldn’t call herself a morning person, but she’d woken early feeling exceptionally… reinvigorated, let’s say. She’d felt reasonably confident that the morning after the Yule Ball would be the ideal moment to sneak out of her rooms and snag her favourite spot in the castle in peace. There was truly no better feeling than curling up with a good book in complete isolation.

Of course, now that she was here, she’d spent the past seventy minutes doing nothing but fantasising about Draco’s lips, his hands, his co—

“—and I swear to Morgana, I literally heard him say, ‘Put your hands on the headboard.’” Hermione rolls her eyes at the sound of Tracey Davis’s high-pitched voice. “My knickers were soaked, and I couldn’t even see him!”

Delightful, she thinks, though a not-insubstantial portion of her brain now begins to imagine Draco saying those very words to her. Despite her soreness, her core clenches at the thought, a blush rising to her cheeks even alone in this room.

“You’d think for someone so gods-damned secretive, she’d Silence the fucking bed,” another voice grumbles outside. “They went all fucking night. I didn’t even see them leave in the morning.”

“Oh, don’t be such a bint, Millicent,” Daphne Greengrass’s airy voice chides. “You’re both only jealous because you’re gagging for Malfoy’s cock.”

…What? Hermione’s stomach lurches as comprehension dawns on her.

Millicent screeches, and the unexpected sound of her swatting at Daphne’s arm makes Hermione flinch. “More like Malfoy’s Manor.” 

“Ugh, speak for yourself—I’d happily let him break me in half,” Tracey says. “Death Eater or not, he is so fucking fit. And now that I know he’ll shag Muggleborns, I certainly have a chance.”

“Tracey!” Millicent cries in faux-outrage.

“Are you certain? ” Daphne asks. "About Pansy, I mean?"

Tracey cackles. “Who else would it have possibly been?!”

“I just…” Daphne trails off for a moment. “I swear, I’d have bet every Galleon in my parents’ vaults that Pansy wasn’t even with him. I mean, with her disappearing acts lately—you know, she didn’t even mind that I bailed on the ball?!—not to mention the way Draco’s been looking at Granger lately… Ohhh.” Daphne sighs as if she’s just remembered something awful. “Poor Hermione. You don’t think she doesn’t know, do you?”

“She and Malfoy looked plenty cosy to me at the ball,” Tracey replies in a hushed tone, the group’s steps receding from Hermione’s corner as they move toward the dormitory stairs. “And the Prophet this morning…”

Hermione wills herself to take deep breaths in, out, in, out. 

Well, that didn’t work.  

She decides to try good old-fashioned rage, throwing her mug against the window and watching without even a hint of remorse as tea splatters against what was a perfectly lovely view, shards of ceramic littering the floor around her. She Vanishes the remnants before gathering her belongings and rushing out.

Reeling, she picks up her pace as she traverses the castle, no clear destination in sight, her gaze unfocused in front of her. She finds herself entering the last place she’d actually wanted to end up. Hermione scans the bustling Great Hall for a pair of grey eyes and she lets out one long, relieved sigh when her search comes up empty. 

Neville waves her over to what was formerly the Slytherin table, but she joins Lavender at Gryffindor’s instead, hoping her best friend can keep her from spiralling long enough to finish a scone.

Mid-squat onto the bench, an uncomfortable, nagging sense of foreboding seizes her, and she finally notices the entire table—no, the entire room—has quieted upon her arrival. She looks up to see at least a dozen pairs of eyes trained on her.

“Hermione, I’m so sorry,” Lavender whispers at her side as quickly as she can, discreetly covering up her warning as she pours Hermione a cup of tea. “They arrived earlier. I had no time to warn you.”

Hermione’s brows furrow as she scans the table for some indication of what she’s missing. Her eyes land on the morning’s edition of the Daily Prophet, copies scattered across the Great Hall:

HEARTACHE AT HOGWARTS?

Heart racing, she scans the story, pausing at the first mention of her own name.

… As this author has previously reported, Miss Granger, the femme fatale of the famous “Golden Trio,” has always had a taste for famous wizards. At a mere fourteen, she broke the heart of Harry Potter himself when she seduced his Triwizard Tournament competitor, Bulgarian Quidditch star Viktor Krum—now rumoured to be in consideration for Hogwarts’ head coaching position.

It appears her sights are now set on Britain’s most eligible and notorious pureblood: Draco Malfoy, reformed Death Eater and sole heir to the sizable inheritances of the two most Ancient and Noble Houses among the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Sources say the two were seen in a “scandalous” embrace at Hogwarts’ first Yule Ball since the Triwizard Tournament, though the desirable Mr. Malfoy was later seen visiting the rooms of the stunningly pretty pureblood Miss Pansy Parkinson. Sources close to Miss Parkinson’s family have indicated a pending betrothal for the two longtime loves. This author does wonder whether Miss Granger’s ambitions have perhaps aimed too high—and whom she might have her sights set on next.

No word yet on how poor Mr. Potter or Mr. Krum, allegedly both present at Hogwarts to win back their young love, have taken this news…

Hermione drops the paper as if scalded. Her eyes sting, and she clenches her fists until blood rushes to the surface of her palms.

So much had changed, and yet somehow this was all Hermione ever amounted to in this world. She’d been a child the last time Rita Skeeter had written words like these. Had rolled her eyes and laughed at Ron’s jokes and told herself and everyone else it was frivolous rubbish, and then she’d pulled the curtains closed in the girls’ dormitory and cried until she had no more tears left in her. Even seeking revenge later that year against Skeeter—for which she’s certainly paying the price now—had not healed the scars her words had left behind.

Without a word, she jumps up from the table, refusing to acknowledge Lavender’s naked expression of pity, and storms out of the Great Hall—barrelling, of course, directly into Draco Malfoy in the corridor.

Draco smiles shyly at her, his hands lightly caressing her shoulders. “Steady there, Granger.”

She jerks away from his touch, and his smile morphs into a concerned frown. “What’s wrong?”

“Am I a complete joke to you, Draco? Think you’d just shag the famous Muggleborn to repair that reputation of yours before settling down with your perfect, pureblood wife?”

“What?" He lets out a harsh laugh. "What are you on about?”

“Did you go to Pansy’s room after you left me last night?”

Draco pauses, as if slowly piecing together her reaction. “Yes,” he hedges, “but—”

She sucks in a breath, praying to all the founders that she doesn’t cry outside the Great Hall as the rest of the student body happily eats breakfast, having a right laugh at what an absolute fool Hermione Granger has made of herself this time. “Excellent. I hope you two are happy together.”

“Granger— Hermione. You don’t understand.”

“No, I understand completely.” She’s almost trembling with fury, and she hates the way her voice shakes with it. “This”—she gestures wildly between their two bodies—“is over, in every possible way.”

“Hermione, can we just talk about this? For Merlin’s sake, let me explain.”

“Come after me, and I swear I’ll curse your bollocks right off.”

She walks away just before the tears start falling.

The knock Hermione has been dreading comes that evening.

“We need to talk,” Draco says as soon as she opens her door.

Hermione glances backward, catching Lavender and Ginny’s curious gazes, before stepping outside. The two had found her curled up with Crookshanks that morning and joined her in bed all day, offering their shoulders to cry on and concocting increasingly unhinged schemes to destroy Rita Skeeter, her quote-unquote “sources” at Hogwarts (which, let’s be honest, everyone knew was Romilda Vane, the ruthless current intern at the Prophet), and the entire institution of the Daily Prophet. Ginny had already Owled her father to officially report Skeeter as an unregistered Animagus.

“Not here,” she grits out, shutting the door most of the way behind her and nudging her way past him into the corridor without a second glance.

She takes several steps as she attempts to compose herself and then spins around. “What do you want.”

He flinches at the cool detachment in her tone. “Just so you know, nothing happened between Pansy and me last night.”

“What happened was that you went to her rooms in the first place.”

“Look,” Draco pleads, running a hand through his hair. “Pansy and I… we’ve been through so much together. The way she helped me through the past few years—” His voice cracks, and he pauses. “I owe her so much. Our history doesn’t just disappear. And she’s needed me to help her with something, but it’s not like that.”

Hermione looks away from him. “I’m just so tired of being second best, or fake best. I don’t know—” She throws her hands up, starting to turn back toward her door.

Draco reaches out, his hand wrapping around her wrist. They both look down at it, and he quickly lets go. “No, you do not understand, Hermione. Last night was—“

She cuts him off, cold as ice. “Last night was a mistake.”

He closes his eyes, lips pursed, and lets out a long breath before he reopens them. “A mistake?”

“I mean, what happened last night might not be significant to you, but it is to me.”

“Who says it’s not significant to me?!”

“Malfoy—”

He scoffs, throwing his hands in the air. “Oh, we’re back to Malfoy now? Brilliant.”

“Please just leave.”

“Can we just go inside and talk?”

“She asked you to leave, mate,” Ron snaps, sauntering up from behind Hermione.

“Ronald, I’m fine,” she snaps. “Go back to your rooms.”

“No, it’s alright,” Ron replies, crossing his arms beside her as he stares down Draco.

“Are you serious right now?” Draco asks, looking between the two of them.

Hermione glances between Draco and Ron. She crosses her arms defensively, remaining silent.

Draco scoffs, that once-familiar sneer she’d at one point assumed was his only expression returning to his face. “This isn’t about Pansy and me, or even last night. It’s about you and Weasley. Are you kidding me? This is the reason you broke up with me. You’re still in love with him?” He throws an arm out in Ron’s direction.

“If Hermione broke up with you,” Ron interjects, “it’s probably because she’s come to the life-altering revelation that she’s too good for you!”

“Like I don’t fucking know that, Weasel?!”

“Oh.” A wide-eyed Lavender, standing in the now-open threshold of their room, pales. “You’re still in love with him?”

“No, Lavender—” Hermione pleads.

“Lav—” Ron starts, but Lavender has already closed the door to their rooms behind her. 

“Her-mo-ninny?”

Viktor Krum stands in the hallway, holding a bouquet of flowers and—of fucking course—her letter from the end of Fourth Year in hand.

“Fucking Merlin,” she and Draco say simultaneously. Ron, never one for subtlety, stares open-mouthed at his childhood idol.

She clears her throat. “I mean, hello, Viktor.”

What she’d perceived to be innocuous moments from the night before flash before her eyes. Victor’s smile upon seeing her. “I vos hoping to discuss something you—”

How could you have been so stupid? She’d have pieced this together immediately if she hadn’t been so bloody distracted by Draco Malfoy and his stupid notes and his stupid looks and his stupid touch. Somehow, she’d gotten so caught up in some fantasy that she’d forgotten all about the letters that had put her in this position in the first place.

She steals a glance at Malfoy, his fists clenched at his sides as he glares at Viktor.

“Malfoy, go,” Hermione pleads. “Please.”

“Gods— Fuck,” he runs his face over his hands. He gives her a desperate look before pulling out one last paper crane, reaching out to grab her hand and placing it on her palm. “You were never second best, Hermione.”

She crushes the parchment in her hand as he walks away.

Chapter Text

A crumpled paper crane glides, wounded, to the floor and rests at Hermione’s feet. She closes her eyes, steeling herself, before she reopens them and whips around toward Ron.

“You, I’ll deal with later,” she hisses.

He still stares longingly at the door Lavender closed on him, entirely oblivious to Hermione’s rage. 

“Ronald.”

Ron snaps to attention, his face reddening. He scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. “I know, I bungled it a bit. But you know that fucking ferret makes me completely mad, and after everything that’s happened? I don’t know how you—”

“Not. Helpful,” she grits out. She tilts her head just slightly toward Viktor, and Ron’s eyes widen in understanding.

“I’ll— I’ve somewhere to be. That’s not here, that is,” Ron stammers. He turns back toward Viktor. “Always a pleasure, Krum, big fan, ‘ve been hoping the Cannons’ll finally pick you up, we bloody need…” He trails off at the tap-tap-tap of Hermione’s foot against the stone floor.

With a slight nod, Viktor crosses his arms and stares at Ron, unimpressed.

“I’ll just bugger off, then,” Ron mumbles before shuffling off, and Hermione is left to face her ex-boyfriend alone.

“Her-mo-ninny, you look… just like I remember,” Viktor says as their eyes meet again. He looks surprisingly unaffected by the absolute chaos he’s witnessed, dressed the most casually she’s ever seen him in a grey knit sweater and black trousers. “It vos my pleasure to dance vith you again last night.”

“Victor, I’m terribly sorry—” she begins sheepishly, but pauses as he holds up one hand.

“I am… not man of vords,” Viktor begins, pointing both hands toward himself. “I am physical being. But, I receive letter”—he holds up the parchment she knows begins with I know the exact day it all started and ends with If you’ve already moved on, Viktor, know this: Once upon a time in England, a girl loved you—“months ago zat has made me hope for somezing more again. I vould like to know vot it feels like to be loved by you.”

Viktor approaches slowly, his face wearing the same perpetually serious expression Hermione remembers so well from Fourth Year. He reaches for her hand and lifts it lightly, bowing to kiss her knuckle before letting go and taking one step backward. 

“But, I fear I ‘ave come at bad time.” He pauses and lifts one brow meaningfully. “Perhaps too late.”

Even four years later, Hermione sees just how easy it would be to fall again, how pleasant and uncomplicated a relationship with Viktor could be. She hates, with an intensity that surprises her, the fact that Draco Malfoy has made pleasant and uncomplicated sound like dull and not enough.

Viktor lets out a long, defeated sigh at what he must see in her expression, and Hermione’s heart tugs at the sound. “Did I even have chance?” he asks.

Hermione pauses, giving it the consideration Viktor deserves. “I think… I could fall in love with you so easily, Viktor. I was halfway there even as a teenager. Of all the boys I wrote letters to, you’re probably the one I’d have picked.”

His throat bobs. “But.”

“But,” she concedes, sighing. “I’m in— there’s someone else. I can’t help it. He was my first letter.” Hermione’s voice cracks and she clears her throat. She moves a hand to her heart, the rest coming out in nearly a whisper. “He got here first and he… he just won’t leave.”

“I see,” he says softly, and she knows he truly does—she can see the pity in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Viktor. I didn’t mean for you to receive that letter now and I—well, I wish I’d sent it years ago. I believe we had our chance, and… I think our time has passed.”

He nods once, straightening. “Vell, I hope zat one day it may be our time again,” he says. “And I vill be here if it does. If it does not—I vish you happiness, Her-mo-ninny.”

She throws her arms around him, catching him by surprise and throwing him a bit off-balance. He awkwardly pats her back with one hand. “Thank you, Viktor,” she whispers in his ear. “I wish the same for you.”

Pulling away, a thought occurs to her. She gazes up at him curiously. “What will you do? About the Hogwarts offer, I mean?”

“I vill accept once Montrose contract is up. I ‘ave fond memories of zis place, in spite of everything zat happened in ze tournament.” The corner of Viktor’s mouth lifts, the first hint of amusement Hermione might have ever seen from him. “And I hate ze cold. I much prefer Scotland.”

It takes everything in her being not to laugh at the idea of escaping the cold in the Scottish highlands, but she simply nods, a small smile curving her lips.

And when the sight of Viktor Krum walking away from her—looking back just once before turning the corner—fills Hermione with a sense of relief, she knows she’s made the right choice.

Hermione pauses with her hand on the doorknob to her and Lavender’s rooms, taking a minute to compose herself before dealing with the continued onslaught of conversations she anticipates facing tonight. 

How did everything get so unbelievably complicated? She thinks back to a time just three months ago when her letters were safely hidden from the world, and she wishes more than anything that she’d just said no when Draco fucking Malfoy stood in this very spot and asked her to pretend to be his.

She can tell the moment she enters the room that Lavender has (rather unsuccessfully) attempted to hide the evidence of her tears from the past several minutes. She pops up from her bed, eyes still red and puffy, at the sound of the door opening, and Hermione watches her best friend deflate just the slightest bit at the realisation that it’s her and not Ron at the door.

Lavender eyes Hermione with the closest thing to a look of wariness that she’s seen on the girl since their Sixth Year.

“I’m so sorry it took me a bit,” Hermione rushes out before Lavender opens her mouth. “I’m sure you saw it—”

“—was a bit of a clusterfuck?” Lavender finishes, the ghost of a smirk on her sombre face. “Yes, I saw the many wizards vying for your affection, Hermione.”

“You know I don’t feel that way about Ron anymore. It was just Malfoy being so— he’s just so— he—” Hermione fumes as she stomps toward Lavender’s bed and sits beside her. She looks helplessly at Lavender.

“I know. I believe you, of course I do, but hearing what they both said out there… I thought maybe this whole time, you were with Draco just to make Ron jealous, and maybe I was right that you two were meant to end up together.”

“Lav.” Hermione grasps both of Lavender’s hands in her own, eyes brimming with tears. “How could you think I would do that to you? You are the closest thing I have to a sister.” She pulls one hand away to swipe at a stray tear. “Don’t tell Ginny.”

Lavender lets out a choked laugh, sniffling before she speaks again. “But you didn’t trust me enough to tell me whatever’s been going on with Malfoy.” 

The dam breaks. Hermione rests her head in her hands and begins to cry in earnest. She feels Lavender’s arms wrap around her. “Oh, Hermione,” she says gently.

And when the tears finally recede, she tells Lavender everything. 

One of her favourite things about Lavender has always been that she is the most active of listeners. She offers nods and gasps and Mhmms and Oh my gods at the exact right moments, and Hermione realises as her best friend validates her every thought and emotion over the past several months that she’s made a terrible mistake not being more honest earlier.

At some point, Hermione realises she’s stood and begun to pace relentlessly in front of Lavender. “It just… it all felt so real to me that I forgot it was fake all along. I feel so pathetic.”

“It’s not pathetic to feel something real, Hermione,” Lavender says gently. “It means you tried. It means you let someone in. That’s brave.”

She knows that truth in her heart, but for now, she wants nothing more than to not feel anything at all.

Hermione walks toward her bed and stares at her stupid trunk, the bane of her existence, which housed her stupid letters and now these stupid notes she can’t even bring herself to read. She might not have the emotional wherewithal to Incendio them at the moment, but she also knows she can’t bear to keep them. 

She tosses them into the bin instead.

“When you lose someone and it still hurts…” Lavender says in a small, quiet voice, coming up from behind Hermione to wrap her in another hug. “That's when you know the love was real.”

She turns around, searching Lavender’s face. “Does it still hurt for you, Lav?”

“So much,” she whispers back, eyes filling with tears.

“Will you tell him?” Hermione thinks back to Ron’s stricken expression earlier that evening as Lavender closed the door on him.

“I don’t know,” Lavender says, wiping her eyes and shaking her head as if to rid herself of all sadness. “But enough about Ronald Weasley. Let’s partake in our favourite fictional men tonight, shall we?”

It took two days of pitying herself and avoiding the whispers from the dormitories for Hermione to decide she had no choice but to face the world again if she ever wanted another decent cup of tea.

“Honestly, Hermione, I’ve hardly heard anything about it all,” Dean whispers reassuringly as they round the corner to the entrance hall.

“Mmm,” Ginny, steady at Hermione’s other side, says as she looks around them. Unlike Lavender, Ginny had not taken news of Hermione’s secrets especially well—but if there was one thing Hermione could count on in this life, it was Ginny’s unequivocal loyalty. “The Ravenclaw Quidditch team’s Wit-Sharpening Potion scandal knocked it out of the pitch, if you will.”

“I’d wondered how they kept finding the Snitch so quickly…” Dean muses.

“Right,” Hermione nods, mostly to herself as she shoves open the door to the Great Hall. “Good news, then. Officially back to life as an utterly normal, boring swot.”

And yet, their entrance is met with complete, resounding silence, and Hermione knows as both friends reach out to grab her arms in solidarity that there was absolutely no chance even a school this fucking obsessed with Quidditch would forget the weekend’s drama.

She clenches her fists, digging her nails into her palms to keep from letting a single tear slip out unexpectedly. You can do this, Hermione, she promises herself. You’ve faced a troll. A dragon. Bellatrix Lestrange. You can face this.

Her thoughts are interrupted by the appalling screech of wood against stone. Hermione’s attention snaps to the Slytherin table at the sound of gasps and whispers, where she sees—

Draco Malfoy, standing atop the Slytherin table. Two younger Slytherins groan as his dragonhide boots kick their apparently full teacups into their laps, but Draco’s eyes are only on her.

“Alright, then,” he calls out in a sharp voice, and the room falls back into awkward silence. “Not that it’s anyone’s business, but nothing untoward happened at or after the Yule Ball. Pansy Parkinson and I are not betrothed, nor will we ever be. And Rita Skeeter is a fucking dodgy, vindictive, lying cow.” 

Ginny guffaws, and Hermione nudges her sharply.

“If I hear anybody say a single word to or about Granger that isn’t ‘thank you for saving the entire fucking world,’ you will wish they’d locked me away in Azkaban last summer. Understood?”

Draco leaps smoothly from the table to the ground in a manner even Hermione will admit is mildly Herculean and departs the Slytherin table without a second look. She prepares herself to face him again, but he doesn’t even pause in her presence—just nods to her with a haunted look and passes by. 

The three of them turn to watch him leave, Ginny slow-clapping as he prowls past. “Bravo, ferret,” she calls out.

Malfoy stills at the comment and abruptly turns around, his beseeching grey eyes piercing Hermione’s. “I am so fucking sorry about everything, Hermione.”

He doesn’t wait for her to respond before turning back on his heel and storming out.

As the slam of the doors echo across the silence in the Great Hall, Hermione lets out a long breath and turns back toward the Slytherin table. 

Pansy Parkinson is already watching her, lips curved into the barest hint of a smirk—but, perhaps for the first time ever, not an antagonistic one. She tilts her head just once at Hermione, a knowing look in her eyes, before resuming her conversation with Daphne.

Hermione puzzles over the interaction for days.

It doesn’t help that Draco Malfoy is nowhere to be found. Not that Hermione wants to find him—of course she doesn’t, she’d just prefer to be aware of his general location, thank you—but it’s as if he’s disappeared without a trace. He’s gone from their three shared courses, meals in the Great Hall, their usual spots in the library. 

“You’re moping,” Ginny finally says one morning, perched on Lavender’s bed.

“Am not!” she cries, pouring as much offence as she can into two small words. She looks down at the end of her bed, where even Crookshanks sends her a witheringly judgemental look.

“You are, but I have a surprise for you for the weekend.” Ginny stands and stretches, reaching out a finger before Hermione retorts. “Just… twenty more seconds.”

They sit in awkward silence.

“Maybe—” Hermione interjects, but she freezes at the turn of the doorknob.

“Hiya, Hermione,” Harry calls out, an awkward smile on his face as he steps through the door.

“Harry!” She leaps up and glances down at her Crookshanks-themed pyjamas before lifting her shoulders in a light shrug and stepping forward to embrace him.

But in the wake of the pleasantries, their conversation grows stilted. Hermione feels nearly suffocated by the tension in the room. 

They’d not spoken since the aftermath of the Yule Ball, and though Harry had missed the worst of it, he’d certainly seen the Prophet article. And, from the way he looks at her now, she suddenly feels quite certain that he knows of everything else from Ginny.

“I’ve a…” Ginny begins, then stops with a casual wave of her hand. “Oh, sod it all, we all know I’ll just make something up so you two can sort”—she gestures between them—“whatever needs sorting here.” She pauses to kiss both Harry and Hermione on their cheeks before sauntering out the open door.

Harry sits down on Hermione’s bed and pats the space beside him for her to join. She stares down at her hands as she sits, nervous about what she’ll find when she finally looks Harry in the eyes. 

“Have you tired of our friendship, Hermione?”

This is not what she anticipated.

She glances up at him in shock. “What? Gods, no, Harry. You’re one of the most important people in my life. I could never tire of you.”

He avoids her gaze, his eyes trained on the ground. “You’ve not answered most of my Floo calls or Owls all term. What am I supposed to think?”

She chews on her cheek as she finds the right words. “I was lying to every single person in my life, Harry, and I knew I just… couldn’t lie to you.”

“I thought…” Harry trails off and gives her a sheepish look. “This sounds so childish, but I— I guess I thought you no longer needed me. I suppose you never truly did.”

“Harry, really?” She lets out a sharp laugh. “Look at what’s happened while you’ve been gone. I wound up in a fake relationship with your former nemesis. I found myself yet again the object of Rita Skeeter’s ire. I befriended Slytherins, Harry. Slytherins. Plural.” 

Her throat constricts, and she swallows once before continuing. “Don’t you dare tell me I don’t need you, Harry Potter. I can’t conceive of a world you’re not in. I might’ve learned how to live without you, but it is perhaps the only piece of knowledge I will ever refuse to put to use.”

At the sound of a sniffle, she turns abruptly to Harry and finds him hastily wiping a tear from his cheek. He gives her a wry smile, shrugging, and Hermione throws her arms around his neck. 

“I need you, too, Hermione,” Harry whispers into her hair. “Always.”

“Well, isn’t this bloody adorable.”

Harry and Hermione pull apart to find Ron leaning against the doorway, arms crossed and a wide grin on his face.

“Ronald!” she exclaims. “How long have you been there?”

“Not long,” Ron mumbles, shuffling over to stand before them. He looks down at the ground and back up at them guiltily. “Alright, long.”

“Ohhhhh, come here, you two.” She pulls Harry up with her and yanks them both into a hug, squeezing tight and blinking away more tears.

“Okay, we’ll make a pact,” she says seriously as she pulls away, her gaze flitting between the two. “No more secrets between— what is that stupid name the Prophet uses for us now? The ‘Golden trio’?”

“I never had any bloody secrets,” Harry mutters.

“Harry,” she chides, “you literally left us without a word to go and die several months ago.”

Ron snorts. “She has a point, mate.”

“Fair play,” Harry says, placing his hand in Hermione’s. “Deal, then.”

They both turn to Ron, still standing with his hands in his pockets. Hermione raises her brow. “Ihaveasecrettoo,” he finally rushes out.

Hermione exchanges a look with Harry before turning back to Ron. Her hands move unconsciously to her hips as they stand in silence.

Ron shifts on his feet, glancing nervously around them. He takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out.

“I know who sent your letters, Hermione.”

Harry gasps dramatically. Hermione stares open-mouthed at Ron for a moment, letting his words sink in.

“It was you?!” she screeches. “You are going to wish I would just AVADA YOU WHEN I AM DONE WITH YOU, RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY.”

She lunges, and even Harry’s Quidditch-honed reflexes aren’t enough to constrain her rage. 

“Hermione, Merlin, you know he doesn’t stand a chance against you!” Harry yells after a minute of watching her throw every wandless curse she knows in Ron’s direction.

She finally loses steam, hands dropping to her knees as her breath comes out in heaving pants.

“Merlin’s saggy tits, let me explain!” Ron yells, continuing to hop across and behind pieces of furniture. “It wasn’t me… necessarily!”

“Necessarily.” She scoffs, her next word coming out in a shriek as she picks up a pillow and tosses it at Ron’s face. “Necessarily?!”

“Bloody hell, Hermione. Just, look.” He moves to the other side of Lavender’s bed and plops down, resting his elbows on his knees and letting his head hang.

Taken aback by his dejection, she sits opposite him on her own bed, sending an icy look his way until he glances back up at her and resumes speaking.

“You know how I tried to find you in the library, that morning—”

She lets out a brittle laugh, hating that she could still feel Draco’s silk tie in her hand, the feel of her lips against his. “Oh, I know.”

“I’d been here”—he gestures to the bed he sits on—“just before… Lav had broken up with me, you know, and she ran out crying afterward, for Merlin’s sake, left me alone in her bloody room, and I’m sitting here thinking, Ron, mate, get your shit together, and I stood up and I just…”

She raises her eyebrows and glances at Harry to find a matching expression on his face.

“Well, I stood up to leave—I was going mental at that point, mind you—and I… kicked your trunk,” Ron admits. “It was unlocked, and it opened right up, and I just— I saw my name, right there, on an envelope on the top.”

He stands up and starts pacing. “And I was curious, alright?! So I pulled it out, and I stood there and read your letter, and I… well, I didn’t know what to think, I was so bloody confused. I never— it’d just never occurred to me that you might’ve felt that way, is all.”

Harry breaks the awkward silence that follows, murmuring, “Would love to get to the end of this, mate.”

“I’m getting there. So I’ve sat again, my head’s a mess, I’ve left the trunk wide open, and… I swear to Merlin and Morgana and the whole bloody Cannons squad that your little devil of a Kneazle fucking leapt into that thing”—he points at the space in the trunk where Hermione knows her letters once sat—“and grabbed the other letters with his tiny, scary teeth. And then he stared at me like he knew exactly what he was doing and he made this bloody meow and Lav’s stupid new owl flew right on over and continued out that bloody open window with the letters. And they were gone, just like that.”

The silence in the wake of that announcement is deafening. Hermione looks down at the miniature editions of Crookshanks strewn across her outfit and then over at the cat himself—her wide-eyed, absurdly innocent-looking creature lying beside her. She resumes staring at Ron, mouth ajar, for what could be seconds or minutes before she and Harry break into wild, unconstrained, disbelieving laughter. 

Harry literally falls off the bed, he’s laughing so hard, which makes Hermione laugh even harder, until both of them are wiping tears from their eyes and attempting to catch their breath and Ron is looking increasingly sullen, his arms now crossed over his chest. 

“See, this is exactly why I didn’t tell you the truth! I knew you’d never believe me and I’d get blamed for all of it because I sound absolutely barking mad but I swear it happened. That thing has always had it out for me, I bloody told you.”

And Hermione is about to agree, she’d never believe him —until Crookshanks himself hops gracefully off of Hermione’s bed and pads quietly over to Ron, leaping up into his lap and… purring contentedly? Crookshanks glances over at Hermione and offers one brief, perfunctory, absolutely guilty little mewl.

“Crooksie?” she asks, bewildered, her pitch at least three octaves higher than usual. 

And then she pieces it together.

“He is half-Kneazle, actually. Quite a remarkable species.”

His obsession with lying on that bloody trunk. 

“Capable of problem-solving without teaching or assistance!”

His immediate, unsettling camaraderie with Draco.

“And he’s an excellent judge of character.”

Well, at least he has to live with the knowledge that he was wrong about that one, Hermione tries to reassure herself, but those words feel forced even in—especially in—the privacy of her mind.

“Hermione, before you murder our best friend, or your cat, can I just ask one question?” Harry asks quietly, placing his hand on her shoulder.

She turns her attention from Ron and Crookshanks, rolling her eyes, but nods for him to continue.

“If you truly didn’t want those letters to ever be sent… why did you keep them? For Merlin’s sake, why did you address them?”

“It’s not like I handed them to a bloody owl.”

Harry sighs, rubbing at his forehead with one hand. “Can you possibly admit that some part of you wanted something real? Something more than a few letters hidden in a trunk?”

She freezes, mulling over his words. “Possibly,” she admits in a low voice.

“Then perhaps you could consider… forgiving them? Their hearts were in the right place.”

“Harry, give us a moment.” Hermione’s voice is commanding, and both boys blanch at her tone. Ron carefully picks up Crookshanks and deposits him on the bed before taking cover behind Lavender’s bed again.

“But—”

“Now, Harry.”

He stares worriedly at Hermione and then behind her, and she turns just as Ron pauses frantically waving and ducks back behind the bed. As Harry continues out the door, she sits back down on her bed, gesturing for Ron to return to Lavender’s.

He slowly stands and places his hands in his pockets, giving her a sheepish look as he meanders back around.

“I’m not sorry I didn’t tell you about my feelings, because I’d never have done anything to interfere with what you and Lavender had, but I am terribly sorry you found out the way you did,” Hermione begins. “And I feel that I owe you a better explanation.” 

“Oh,” Ron says, brows raised.

“It’s like— it’s like flying. I can imagine myself doing it and it’s fine, and then I get on a broomstick and I completely freeze up, and then I don’t know what to do at all.”

“Uh. Sorry?”

“Let me start over,” she says, taking a deep breath. Ron sits patiently, letting her find the right words.

“You were the first boy I ever truly liked. Everyone else, the other letters… they were born out of fantasy. Some idea of them I’d concocted in my head. Yours was based on actually, deeply knowing you. I didn’t quite realise how I felt about you until you started dating Lavender. And then I wrote that letter.”

She bites her lower lip. “But over time, that feeling just faded away, and I just… missed my best friend. And it wasn’t love.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me that, Hermione? I know I can be a bit of a tosser, but I feel like I’d have understood.”

“Well, I couldn’t.” She hesitates and takes a deep breath before continuing. “I didn’t know until… Draco.”

His eyes widen, a flicker of understanding, before he nods. “Right. Draco.” 

“It was real in a different way. And I’m really sorry.”

“There’s no reason to be sorry,” he says, moving to sit beside her. He wraps one arm around her shoulders as she leans her weight into his side. “I know where you’re coming from. It’s kind of how it felt with Lavender for me. Minus the fake relationship, of course.”

Hermione laughs, lightly shoving his shoulder. She pauses before asking her next question. “Did you stop loving her? After it ended?”

“I’ll admit, your letter fucking confused me,” he says, moving his elbows to his knees. “I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel about it. I’ve always loved you, but did that mean I was in love with you? And it’s not that I hadn’t considered it before. Trust me, I had, but it just… never felt quite right. And then Lavender happened, and I understood why.”

He lets out a deep breath, scrubbing his face with both hands. “So to answer your question, no. Not for a second. She— well, you’ve always been better with words than me, Hermione. She felt so… real to me. Still does.”

A small sound has Hermione glancing past Ron at the open doorway, at the girl she’d once believed to be her rival, at the woman who’d become her best friend. Lavender’s eyes are filled with tears as she stands at the entrance, hands clasped over her mouth.

Ron furrows his brow as he twists his head, following Hermione’s gaze. Until he sees her. 

“Oh,” he breathes, and Hermione never knew one word could be filled with so much longing. “Lavender.”

“Do you mean that? What you said?” Lavender asks quietly, her gaze unmoving from Ron’s. He nods slowly in response, wringing his hands.

She looks down at the ground, one tear lazily tracing its way down her cheek and dropping onto the rug. “I’ve been such a fool,” she says, finally lifting her eyes again.

They both take a tentative step forward, then another, until Lavender finally closes the distance between them, wrapping her arms around Ron’s neck and drawing his face down to hers. Hermione feels the uncanny sensation of déjà vu, of watching this exact display of affection unfold in the middle of the Gryffindor common room and thinking she felt her heart truly break for the first time. 

She knows now how absurdly wrong she was. It took losing Draco Malfoy—no, she corrects herself, realising she never had him at all—to finally understand that a breaking heart feels like a slow, steady exsanguination, not a quick knife to the chest.

Hermione begins to take slow, silent steps toward the door, finding swift vengeance against Crookshanks as she ignores his pathetic little mewls and leaves him to bear witness to Ron and Lavender’s reconciliation.

“Gods, I knew— immediately— breaking up with you— terrible mistake— didn’t want to admit it—” Lavender says between kisses.

“Heard you were with Daphne Greengrass— wanted to bloody die— how could I compete with her—”

“Ronald, you know Daphne isn’t my type!” Lavender squeals, pulling away to slap him lightly on the arm. “Astoria, on the other hand…” She waggles her eyebrows.

“You are an absolutely infuriating witch,” Ron says, looking at her like a man starved.

“But you love it?” Lavender asks in a breathy voice.

“And I love it,” he corrects. He leans in again, his arms circling Lavender’s waist, and Hermione smiles softly to herself before closing the door behind her.

Hermione doesn’t need Ginny or Lavender to tell her: She knows she’s moping again. At least now she’s moping productively.  

Her life might be a mess, but she’d realised could at least embrace one of the few things in life she had actual control over. So, she decided to rid herself of anything that remotely reminded her of Draco Malfoy and thus Transfigured her back into a wallowing pit of despair.

“I found five of her bodice-rippers in the bin this morning,” Lavender mock-whispers in the Great Hall that morning. 

Ginny looks horrified. “It must be so much worse than we feared.”

And, they are right, Hermione thinks, though she’d refuse to admit it. It is so much worse. In part because Hermione is now surrounded by the afterglow of young love—Harry and Ginny, Ron and Lavender, Theo and Astoria. Merlin, even Dean and Seamus had finally gone public with their relationship. 

And in part because… well.

If anyone ever asked, Lavender would say she belongs to herself. Ginny would say she belongs to no one. And Hermione thinks that for a long time, she would have said that she belongs to her friends—to Harry and Ron and Lavender and Ginny and even Dean. But now that she’s had an unfortunate amount of time alone with her thoughts, Hermione has realised that all she’s ever truly wanted is to belong to someone. To truly be somebody’s, and to have them be hers.

She’d not realised when exactly those desires had taken the shape of Draco Malfoy, but she doesn’t know how to undo it.

And now, Hermione can’t just write a letter, pour it out, and logic these feelings away.

This realisation hits her mid-bite, and she knows as her knife accidentally drops from her hand and clatters to her plate how horribly she’s hidden her distress.

“If you miss him, why don’t you just tell him?” Lavender finally asks, her hand moving in soothing strokes along Hermione’s arm.

“Oh.” Hermione shakes her head. “I can’t.”

“Why in Merlin’s beard not?” Ron asks midway through shovelling two scones into his mouth at once.

“Because,” she begins in her swottiest tone, pausing and softening when she realises how much vulnerability this statement requires. “If it wasn’t real, I didn’t lose anyone. But, if I say that it was real, and he still doesn’t choose me…”

“Then at least you’ll know,” Ginny says quietly. “You have to tell people how you feel. You can’t just keep writing letters to rid yourself of every emotion you experience, Hermione.”

“You’re a gods-damned Gryffindor,” Ron cries through a mouthful of food.

“Well said, as usual, Ronald,” Hermione sighs. “I don’t know. I’m just tired of writing love letters. It would be nice to be the one receiving them, you know?”

Lavender scoffs, leaning down to scrounge around in her bag. She returns holding out a clear pouch holding dozens of perfectly folded paper cranes, Granger emblazoned across each in the same flawless script. “Did you ever even bother reading any of these? You’ve been receiving love letters for months, you beautiful, oblivious moron.”

“You kept these?” She stares wide-eyed at her roommate.

Lavender shrugs. “Figured you might want them one day.”

Hermione accepts and opens the pouch with trembling hands. Draco’s favourite enchantments remain on several of the birds, and they float lightly around Hermione, waiting to unfold until her fingers make contact:

I love having a swotty girlfriend. — D.M.

I thought I was partial to green, but now I think I like you in every colour. — D.M.

Blaise told me what you two developed. Your brilliant mind in equal parts terrifies me and turns me on. — D.M.

One of these days, you’re going to write me a note, and then we’ll really be in trouble. — D.M.

She slowly opens the most crumpled of the bunch—what she knows to be the final note he wrote her, the one she’d tossed aside in anger.

I need you to know: Last night was everything, Hermione. You are everything. — Draco

Hermione sucks in a sharp breath, heart racing, and her eyes lift to scan the hall for any trace of platinum blonde. Still missing.

She draws a piece of parchment and a quill from her bag and begins to write.

Hermione takes in a deep breath, summoning every ounce of courage and determination she used to destroy a Horcrux. 

“MALFOY!” she screams as she strides across the Quidditch pitch toward him, letter in hand. A gust of wind knocks her Gryffindor scarf into her face, and she tosses it over her shoulder.

Draco slowly turns around, his posture the picture of resignation as he regards her. She catches herself as one boot-clad foot slips in the snow, her conviction not quite as strong now that she’s staring into his eyes. In the middle of a Quidditch pitch. In the middle of winter. In public.

“Granger.” He eyes her warily, his voice strained.

“I have to tell you something.”

Draco approaches her the way one does a Hippogriff. “Okay.”

“I— well, I finally read Hélas, Je Me Suis Transfiguré Les Pieds. Per our contract.”

“Really?” His lips slowly curve up before he chuckles lightly, and Hermione thinks if she could trap the essence of that sound, she could likely brew it into her new personal Amortentia. “That’s brilliant. What did you think?”

“Oh, it was terrible. Just absolute rubbish.”

“Right as always, Granger.”

“Mhmm,” she nods while glancing around, realising she’s made a terrible mistake and desperately seeking any exit strategy. “Well, cheers.” She turns, grasping the letter tighter in her hand.

“Hermione.” She pauses at the sound of her name leaving his mouth, her left foot barely skimming the turf as she turns back to face him. “What’s in your hand?”

“Oh. Um. Nothing.” She takes one subtle step back as he moves forward, his Seeker reflexes in action as he rips the parchment from her. 

The grin on his face falters as he stares down at it, his throat bobbing as he swallows. He glances up at her before returning his gaze to the letter in his hands.

“If you want me to read that, Granger, you need to give it to me. I won’t take this from you.” He looks at her like he’s ready to get on his knees and beg for it.

Hermione grabs the letter back and stares at it. She looks up to see the unveiled hope in Draco’s expression and makes her decision. She slowly unfolds it, her eyes on him the entire time. 

The paper shakes in her hand.

“Dear Draco,” she begins, nearly missing the way he fights a smile as she gazes back down at her letter. “I need you to know—”

She pauses. Shakes her head. “Oh, sod it all,” she mutters, and casts a quick Incendio.

As flecks of burning paper surround them, she looks up at him. “I need you to know that I care about you, Draco Malfoy. Deeply. In spite of everything. I’m not pretending anymore. I’m not sure I ever really was.”

He’s silent, his expression inscrutable, and Hermione wonders if it might be more enjoyable to simply Incendio herself along with that letter.

“Well, that’s all I’ve come to say, so I’m off, then.” She begins to turn, but one gloved hand wraps around her upper arm.

“Don’t I get to say something?”

She slowly turns back around, nodding hesitantly.

“I need you to know… it wasn’t me in Pansy’s rooms that night, not in the way you think,” he begins. “I did drop by, for appearance’s sake. I’m certain you know as well as I do what absolute gossips Davis and Bulstrode are, and Pansy needed them not to question it. But I swear I didn’t stay. Nothing happened.”

“But they heard you— I heard them talk about you—”

“It was Longbottom!” he exclaimed. “They’ve been sneaking around all term, but Pansy’s parents will be fucking furious when they find out. He’s Sacred Twenty-Eight in genealogy but not ideology. We’ve only maintained the prospect of a betrothal to delay their suspicions. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but it wasn’t my secret to share.”

Her brows furrow as she thinks back to the conversation she’d played over and over again in her mind: “I didn’t even see them leave in the morning.”

“Wait— But— Neville?” 

“Makes sense, doesn’t it? Why he’s always faffing about when Pansy’s nearby? Why he attends every Slytherin party and refused to take a date to the Yule Ball?”

“But… oh my gods, the Yule Ball? What were you doing in the hall, then?” She recalls Pansy’s unusually dishevelled appearance, and horrified, she realises the answer to her question before he even opens his mouth. 

Draco laughs, giving her a wicked smirk. “I think you know exactly what I was doing—or should I say, guarding.” His smirk fades. “But that’s not what really matters here, is it?”

“No, it isn’t.” In spite of her best efforts, her face crumples. “Because it didn’t really matter whether you were Pansy’s, it mattered that you weren’t really mine,” she cries, swiping furiously at her cheeks.

“I am yours,” he says, clenching his jaw. “It was always real for me. That’s what I wanted to say. What matters is”—he pauses, swallowing hard as his eyes search hers—“what matters is that I’m in love with you, Hermione.”

She blinks once, twice. “You’re in love with me?”

The smile that fills Draco’s face is blinding, wider than the first time she watched him catch a Snitch. She can’t help it; she feels herself smiling back. He nods, taking a determined step into her—

“Wait.” 

He pauses as the word leaves her mouth, his brow furrowing as she holds a hand up to his chest, keeping him in place. She can feel his heart beating wildly against his chest. 

“How do we do this?” she asks.

“What do you mean?”

She drops her hand. “What do we put into a contract for a real relationship?”

Draco smirks. “Once a swot, always a swot.” He lightly pushes her hair behind her ear, his thumb caressing her cheek. “Nothing, Hermione. You’ve got to trust.”

The only thing she can do is nod, and his hand moves from her face.

“Only one condition left in our contract, then.”

She blanches. “Sorry?”

“You still going to break my heart, Granger?”

“Oh my gods, you prat, I said I’d do it for your benefit.”

He grins, but as they stare at each other, it fades into an expression Hermione knows matches her own. Aching, unmitigated want.

“You can break my heart,” he says earnestly, palms open at his sides in supplication. “Do whatever you want with it.”

Hermione’s hands reach out and delicately wrap around one of his, pulling it toward her and placing it against her heart.

“Draco,” she says quietly. “I love—”

He takes one last step forward, and her response is swallowed by his kiss.

Hermione Granger had always fantasised about falling in love in a field, but she’d certainly never thought it would be the kind where you play Quidditch.

She blocks out the sounds of his cheering teammates, wraps her arms around his neck, and gives in.

And all those love stories were right: It’s magic.

The End